CEC Gyanesh Kumar gets additional CISF security amid SIR protests; Z+ cover unchanged
CEC Gyanesh Kumar has been provided additional CISF reserve personnel amid protests over the SIR of electoral rolls, while his existing Z+ security cover remains unchanged.
42 ex-judges back CEC Gyanesh Kumar, slams opposition’s protest, calls it ‘campaign without evidence’
In an open letter dated October 7, strongly worded, the former judges expressed “grave” concern over what they described as a sustained attack on the Election Commission (EC), judiciary and statutory bodies.
Delhi Building Collapse: Death toll rises to 5 in New Seemapuri; rescue operations continue
The death toll in the New Seemapuri building collapse rose to five after two more bodies were recovered on the second day. Rescue operations continue.
Massive Fire In Madhya Pradesh: Shops gutted in Bhopal’s new market! Watch video
Fire broke out near Hanuman Temple in Bhopal’s New Market at 2:45 pm Thursday, spreading to 3-4 shops. 8 fire tenders deployed, no casualties reported.
Cancer drugs to get cheaper by up to 70% as govt fixes trade margin at 30%
The cap will cover branded and generic, domestic and imported, patented and non-patented anti-cancer drugs that are not part of the scheduled price-control list.
Letitia James’ underdog rival turns AG’s own playbook against her with scathing 52-count campaign ‘indictment’
The Republican challenging New York Attorney General Letitia James released a mock 52-count indictment Thursday, accusing the Democratic incumbent of neglecting her duties as the state’s top law enforcement official. The 52-count mock indictment accuses James of failing to address mentally ill people living on the streets, repeat offenders, hate crimes and fraud while focusing instead on political battles with President Donald Trump. Rather than tackle these issues, GOP candidate Saritha Komatireddy charges that James has been too focused on sparring with President Donald Trump. The attack comes just hours before James and Komatireddy are set to face off Thursday night in their first televised debate of the general election campaign. Komatireddy is a former federal prosecutor who secured convictions against Islamist terrorists and prosecuted Mexican drug cartel leaders. The indictment-style press release appears to turn James’ own legal playbook against her, with Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor, casting the attorney general as the defendant. CORNELL SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE REVIVES SCRUTINY OF A LITTLE-KNOWN NEW YORK LAW ON INTOXICATED VICTIMS “When a law keeps prosecutors from charging rape, it is the chief law enforcement officer’s job to get it changed,” Komatireddy wrote. “The defendant (James) had eight legislative sessions and a Legislature led by her own party. Beyond one social media post, the People have found no evidence that she made the bill a priority.” James’ campaign has dismissed Komatireddy’s messaging as a simple campaign stunt. “Attorney General Letitia James files real lawsuits in real courts every day to protect New Yorkers’ rights and their wallets,” a James campaign spokeswoman told Fox News Digital. “While Saritha Komatireddy spent today writing this press release, the attorney general announced the arrest and indictment of a Queens pharmacy owner for defrauding Medicaid to the tune of $31 million.” NY AG HOPEFUL BLASTS LETITIA JAMES AS MEDICAID FRAUD RECOVERIES COLLAPSE: ‘SHE’S NOT DOING THE JOB’ A Komatireddy spokeswoman fired back, arguing that such a charge was rich coming from James. “Tish James is one to talk about campaign stunts! Her entire tenure as attorney general has been one long political campaign stunt,” Komatireddy spokeswoman Nicole Kiprilov told Fox News Digital. “While Letitia was busy chasing her next political headline, crime rose 26%, homelessness rose 38%, and New York became the laughingstock of the nation in prosecuting Medicaid fraud — dead last. Those are the real consequences of an Attorney General more interested in political theater than public safety.” TRUMP LAWYERS TARGET WHAT LETITIA JAMES WON’T SAY ABOUT EVIDENCE IN $450M CASE New York is a deep blue state, and Komatireddy’s odds of coming out on top in November are slim. A Siena University poll released last month had James leading Komatireddy 52% to 39%. While James’ lead is commanding, it’s also shrinking, with her advantage over Komatireddy narrowing by five points between August and September in Siena University’s polling. James has pursued a number of high-profile legal actions during her tenure as New York attorney general, including a civil fraud case against Trump and a sexual harassment investigation of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that preceded his resignation.
Hillary Clinton issues endorsement in US midterm elections
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made her first endorsement of a U.S. Senate candidate in the 2026 midterm elections, backing Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. “Minnesota, you have an opportunity to select an extraordinary person and public servant as your next U.S. senator. Please take it!” Clinton wrote in a post on the social media platform Bluesky when sharing a post in which Flanagan touted Clinton’s endorsement. Flanagan declared in her post, “@hillaryclinton.bsky.social has spent five decades fighting for working families, dedicating her career to making the case that every child in this country deserves a fair shot. I’m honored to have Secretary Clinton’s support, and I’ll proudly carry on her fight in the US Senate.” HILLARY CLINTON: ‘I HATE’ TRUMP AND NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENTS BUT LOVE AMERICA AND ISRAEL Clinton, a former first lady and former U.S. senator from New York, was the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate defeated by Republican Donald Trump when he won his first White House contest. “Donald Trump has made it harder for families to afford childcare, groceries, and health care for their kids. His tariffs and war in Iran are driving up prices, and his budget ripped health care and food assistance away from children so billionaires could get another tax cut,” Clinton said in a statement, according to reports. PEGGY FLANAGAN VOWS TO ‘RIP ICE APART’ AFTER TOPPLING MODERATE DEM IN KEY SENATE BATTLE “Peggy Flanagan has spent her career fighting for children and families, from the Children’s Defense Fund to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, and she’s delivered for them,” she noted. “I know she’ll be that same champion in the Senate, and I’m proud to endorse her.” In a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, “Did Hillary Clinton forget that her political party created the ‘affordability’ crisis? President Trump is fixing it by delivering real results: he signed the largest working-class tax cuts in history, drastically cut the cost of prescription drugs, added more than one million private-sector jobs, launched a manufacturing renaissance, and sent 401(k)s to record highs. Democrats pretend to care about ‘affordability’ while supporting socialist candidates whose policies would cost every American household $355,000 over 10 years while adding $49 trillion to the deficit.” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to Fox News Digital, “President Trump is creating good-paying jobs, securing trillions of dollars in investments, and positioning our country to dominate the remainder of the 21st century. Meanwhile, Crooked Hillary Clinton is still whining about her spectacular 2016 election defeat. It’s time for Hillary to move on.’ Flanagan is facing Republican candidate Michele Tafoya in the Minnesota U.S. Senate contest. GOP SENATE HOPEFUL SOUNDS ALARM AFTER ALLEGED MALL OF AMERICA TERROR PLOT THWARTED U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., announced last year that she would not seek re-election in 2026.
GOP accuses Walz allies of burying $52M Medicaid fraud report before election
Minnesota Republicans are accusing Democrats of keeping lawmakers in the dark for months about a state-commissioned Medicaid assessment that flagged more than $52 million in improper payments, arguing the delay denied them a chance to act on the report’s specific findings during the legislative session before the election. “Fraud here has exploded under the Walz administration,” Minnesota Republican Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth told Fox News Digital. “Governor Walz has held no one in his entire administration accountable for the level of fraud. It definitely brings into question what is in that report and why are they hiding it?” The Walz administration hired Optum to conduct a third-party review of Minnesota’s Medicaid program, scrutinizing 14 high-risk services. The report identified more than $52 million in improper payments but cautioned that improper payments do not necessarily constitute “fraud, waste or abuse.” The Department of Human Services released a heavily redacted version to the public in February, prompting calls from Republican lawmakers to make the full version available so they could address the risks raised during the legislative session. “Our election here in Minnesota is 29 days away. We’re just four weeks out, and you really have to wonder why they are refusing to do this,” Demuth, who is the GOP gubernatorial candidate, told Fox News Digital. WALZ ADMINISTRATION IGNORED FRAUD WARNINGS AS BILLIONS VANISHED, HOUSE OVERSIGHT REPORT ALLEGES Minnesota currently has a divided state legislature, with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) holding a slim 34-33 majority in the Senate and a rare 67-67 partisan tie in the House. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced the audit in October 2025, months before allegations of widespread fraud involving members of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora drew national attention. Mounting scrutiny of the Walz administration’s handling of alleged fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs contributed to growing political pressure before Walz ended his re-election campaign in January. WALZ’S ‘EXIT INTERVIEW’ REFLECTING ON HIS TENURE SPARKS LAWMAKER DEBATE ABOUT HIS LEGACY: ‘NEVER SERIOUS’ Republican state Sen. Jordan Rasmusson is also accusing the Walz administration and his Democratic counterparts of seeking to “minimize” the fraud issue in the state. “I think it’s really hard for Democrats, elected Democrats in Minnesota, to admit that we have a fraud problem of this scale, and to take accountability for those failings,” Rasmusson told Fox News Digital. The Department of Human Services said the report was heavily redacted to protect Optum’s trade secrets and prevent the release of sensitive security information that could provide criminals a “roadmap” for committing fraud. Rasmusson introduced an amendment in April to make the full Optum report public, but it failed along party lines. A version of Rasmusson’s provision was later passed in May as part of a broader budget package. MINNESOTA’S ANTI-ICE AID FUND BECOMES LATEST CASUALTY OF STATE’S EMBARRASSING FRAUD PROBLEM Under the law, DHS must provide the initial Optum reports to members of a legislative committee with “jurisdiction over human services policy and finance” following a joint request from the committee’s chair and ranking minority member. Lawmakers may review the report but cannot publicly release protected nonpublic information it contains. Rasmusson said he issued a request for the full report in June. State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL co-chair of the Human Services Finance and Policy Committee, and former GOP House co-Chair Joe Schomacker requested the report in May. The report did not become available to a select group of lawmakers until last week. “I’m grateful that it’s out, but it’s very disappointing we couldn’t have returned to St. Paul to address it,” Republican state Rep. Dawn Gillman told Fox News Digital, noting that lawmakers will have to wait until January to address the report. “The broader takeaway is that the Walz administration could have given us more access to those months ago,” Rasmusson told Fox News Digital. “Legislative Democrats could have joined Republicans and got access to this information months ago during session.” However, state Sen. John Hoffman, who now has access to the report, pushed back on the notion that lawmakers needed full access to enact meaningful changes. “This is a report about vulnerabilities in public programs,” Hoffman said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Why would we release that to the public before we fixed them? We wouldn’t publish a report about which banks don’t lock their doors, either.” EXPLOSIVE SLEEPER ISSUE COULD FUEL MIDTERM SHAKEUPS, TOP REPUBLICAN PREDICTS: ‘YOU’RE GONNA SEE SURPRISES’ “The rest of us got to work passing legislation to ensure high-quality services, continuity of care for people in need and safeguards to protect against fraud,” Hoffman continued. “Having reviewed the report, I can tell you it is already outdated, and the gaps and weaknesses it raises have already been addressed by laws we passed this year.” But Rasmusson, who also has the report, disagreed with Hoffman. “After reviewing the unredacted Optum report, my main takeaway is that it underscores the systemic failures of the Walz administration and Minnesota Democrats to protect Minnesota from fraud,” Rasmusson told Fox News Digital. “Whether it is issues with determining the eligibility of program recipients, determining whether providers are actually providing real services or not, or even some of the basic analytics that would catch fraud, Minnesota is very far behind where it should be in program integrity initiatives,” Rasmusson continued. Fox News Digital reached out to DHS, which confirmed that select lawmakers now had the report. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER “We appreciate legislators’ interest in receiving a copy of the unredacted initial Optum report from February 2026,” Minnesota Department of Human Services Temporary Commissioner John Connolly said in a statement. “In alignment with the law passed by the Legislature last session, the Minnesota Department of Human Services released the Optum reports last week.” Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office for comment.
Hecklers interrupt Trump Texas rally multiple times
President Donald Trump did not let multiple protesters step on his messaging in Texas on Wednesday night; in fact, he used the moments to claim that a Democrat-run city is using America’s own freedom of speech to spread a left-wing agenda against his administration in the midterm elections. “You know, many of these protesters are paid — you know that, right?” Trump told the packed Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. “Because you come in and, you know, they’ll have like this perfect shirt on, made by the best printer money can buy.” “I love where they all have the same exact size, beautiful pink and purple and blue and all different colors. And they’re perfect, made by the same printer, very expensive signs,” he added. TRUMP TOUTS ‘GOLDEN AGE’ AT OHIO RALLY, URGES VOTERS TO DELIVER GOP MIDTERM WINS “They don’t make these signs. These are paid protesters,” Trump claimed. “They’re paid by enemies of our nation. No, I’m telling you, they pay them for this.” Trump pivoted to his supporters who came out to rally with him for Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, some waving cowboy hats. GOP FACES BRUTAL MIDTERM HEADWINDS AS REPUBLICANS PAINT ELECTION AS ‘COMPETITION WITH COMMUNISM’ As the crowd chanted “USA,” drowning out several protesters who interrupted the event multiple times in a Texas city led by a Democrat, Trump added, “If there are any more paid protesters, please raise your hand and get the hell out of here.” Trump is urging his base to turn out as if he is on the ballot in the midterms — because, as he says, the ability to pass his agenda in Congress is and his backers must help keep Congress in Republican hands. “We will not allow our country, our culture, our history and our heritage to be looted and plundered anymore,” Trump said. “What they did to this country,” Trump continued, pointing back to former President Joe Biden and his 2024 opponent Kamala Harris, “I said the other day, if Kamala won — or if that ideology won, forget about Kamala — if that ideology won, I don’t believe we’d have a country anymore. I don’t believe it. And now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.” REPUBLICAN CAVALRY ARRIVES FOR KEN PAXTON AS BIG-BUCKS TEXAS OFFENSIVE OPENS CASH FLOODGATES The battle for the Texas Senate seat between Paxton and Democrat James Talarico is one of the midterm battlegrounds that could determine Trump’s fate in his final two years in office. “I will not let my legacy of having the highest vote in the history of Texas be tarnished or destroyed by allowing that travesty to happen again,” he continued. “If they get in and do that and remember, like a guy like Talarico, it’s basically one vote. It’s so important — forget about for Texas, it’s still just one vote — it’s a killer in Congress because we have a very close majority. We can’t let that happen. “If they get in, they will open your borders and let the entire world pour into our country like they did before. And we can’t let that happen. We’re not going to let it happen again.” At least a dozen demonstrators interrupted the president, including one who appeared to be close to the stage. Some were led away by police. Trump stepped away from the microphone briefly after one interruption. TRUMP FIRES BACK AFTER PROTESTER INTERRUPTS MYRTLE BEACH RALLY FOR GRAHAM: ‘MOM IS VOTING FOR US’ “You know, I never talk about looks of a person, but those are really bad-looking people,” Trump said about one protester. “You have to say they are bad-looking people. Come on.” “No, he’s going back to home to mom right now,” Trump quipped. “What he doesn’t know is that his mom voted for Trump.” TRUMP-LINKED MAGA INC POURS $10M INTO KEN PAXTON’S TEXAS SENATE RACE AGAINST JAMES TALARICO Trump was in San Antonio for his third trip to Texas in less than a month as Republicans try to stave off Democratic gains in the nation’s most populous red state.
House Republican warns CBDC ‘communist money’ could lead US to ‘dystopian’ future
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, plans to introduce legislation that puts the prospect of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the crosshairs. The lawmaker, who has served in the U.S. House since mid-2016 and is currently seeking re-election, characterized central bank digital currency as “communist money for the digital age,” during an interview with Fox News Digital. “They could just freeze your money. You could program it. Some people call it a feature,” Davidson said. He provided a scenario in which a pickup truck driver pays $10 per gallon for fuel while a hybrid driver could get their fuel for just $2 per gallon. “And people see this as a feature. I think it’s dystopian,” Davidson said, adding, “I definitely want to stop it.” Last month, in a post on X, Davidson wrote, “I’m drafting a bill to regulate Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as counterfeit money. Planning a CBDC? Conspiracy. Designing a CBDC? Same as designing counterfeit plates. Launching CBDC? Counterfeiting. Prison for counterfeiters and their accomplices. No CBDC!” TRUMP TAKES UNUSUAL STEP, LETS BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL BECOME LAW UNSIGNED AMID SAVE PRESSURE CAMPAIGN In another post on X last month, Davidson warned, “CBDC = communist money for the digital age. Programmable money puts the government between you and your money. You will only have access with their permission. This is an existential threat to western civilization.” While a section within the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that became law earlier this year temporarily prohibits the creation of a CBDC, that ban sunsets in a few years — language in the ban notes that “provisions of this section shall cease to be effective on December 31, 2030.” Davidson told Fox News Digital during the interview on Tuesday that “the fundamentals for sound money is some level of fiscal discipline,” adding that “you can’t spend more than you bring in every year.” “I don’t think it has to be gold,” he said, explaining that there needs to be “a disciplined monetary policy” in which “you can’t grow the money supply disproportionate to your economy.” HOUSE REPUBLICAN SUGGESTS SEN DARLINE GRAHAM IS AN ‘ALLY’ FOR THE ‘SWAMP’ “I think we should end this Fed,” Davidson said, adding that he believes there is “a case for a central bank,” while noting, “I don’t know that you could reform the current one without ending it.” Davidson said that he thinks “we should at least audit the Fed.” Asked about President Donald Trump’s proposal to dole out $5,000 to every American adult if the GOP wins both chambers of Congress during the midterms, Davidson indicated that he could get behind the policy if it is paired with spending cuts to cover the cost. GOP FISCAL HAWK SOUNDS ALARM ON ‘OUT OF CONTROL’ FEDERAL SPENDING, SAYING ‘BOTH PARTIES HAVE FAILED US’ Davidson said that “on its face” the proposal is concerning “because $5,000 per person going into the economy would fuel inflation,” but suggested that such a move could be combined with action such as gutting Obamacare, saying that among “the most promising ways to pay for it is a radical shift in healthcare.”