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ICE Opens 45-Day Sweep Across California, Sources Say
U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement has started a month-and-a-half immigration enforcement operation across California, a sanctuary state, according to sources familiar with the plan. The crackdown, known internally as Operation Safe California, has not been publicly announced. It began several days ago in and around San Diego, which borders Mexico, and is expected to last at least 45 days. ICE leadership has told officers to arrest every illegal immigrant they encounter, whether or not the person has a criminal record. The operation targets both people described as the worst of the worst and noncriminal illegal immigrants. California has limited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The sweep is set to run through the midterm elections.
🏛️ News & Politics
FBI Arrests 18-Year-Old After Alleged Mall of America Attack Plot
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, was arrested at gunpoint Tuesday in Richfield after buying an AK-47-style rifle, four magazines, and about 200 live rounds from an undercover FBI employee, according to a federal complaint. The rifle had been made inoperable. Prosecutors say he planned a shooting at the Mall of America during the Hmong Arts Celebration on Oct. 24 because it would draw “a lot of people,” and told a source, “I can’t wait until I kill kuffar.” He allegedly said the mall was “owned by Jewish” and cited the Bondi Beach attack and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. An investigation that began around December 2024 first tracked talk of joining al-Shabaab in Somalia. By July, he allegedly said he lacked the money and would “do attack here.” Last month he posted a video pledging allegiance to ISIS. He is charged with receiving a firearm knowing it would be used in a federal crime of terrorism.
Trump Signs Law to Name Over-Budget, Overdue Federal Projects
President Trump signed a law Wednesday requiring the administration to publicly name any government project that is $1 billion or more over budget, or five years behind schedule. US Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) sponsored the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act. She said taxpayers deserve disclosure and shouldn't be stuck with hundreds of billions sunk into failed projects. She named five she already counts as boondoggles: F-35 modernization, the Hudson River Tunnel, rebuilding Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, NASA’s Dragonfly spacecraft, and a Veterans Affairs medical center in Palo Alto, California. The VA project is 21 years behind schedule. Ernst worked with US Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and US Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA). Miller-Meeks said Washington has gotten too comfortable wasting taxpayer money. The Transportation Department has already canceled $4 billion in federal money for California high-speed rail, citing overruns and delays.
War Department Picks Lasers and a Microwave to Stop Drone Swarms
The Department of War selected four directed-energy systems for a counter-drone pilot run by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, according to an Oct. 5 statement. The picks are laser weapons from Boeing, Kord, and AeroVironment, and a high-powered microwave from Epirus. Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the task force director, said lasers and microwaves can be used in a layered drone defense and will be tested in an operational environment. Host sites named in May include Fort Huachuca, Fort Bliss, Naval Base Kitsap, Grand Forks Air Force Base, and Whiteman Air Force Base. The pilot is set to run for a year. Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard said in August that U.S. bases lack the sensors and decision speed to stop small-drone swarms. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called drone warfare the biggest battlefield change in generations and ordered the department on Oct. 2 to cut approval times for counter-drone gear from months to weeks or days. He said the United States needs both expensive weapons and mass, cheap drones.
Blue Cross Says AI Coding Added Nearly $1 Billion in Claims
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association says hospitals’ use of artificial intelligence in documentation and coding made inpatient claims look more complex and expensive. Its analysis estimated the shift added $942 million in costs to Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 2024 and 2025, compared with a 2023 baseline. Secondary conditions accounted for $653 million of that, about 70 percent. More than 60 percent of hospital systems began using AI coding tools in the same period, including ambient scribes that listen to patient visits and draft notes. Adding a secondary diagnosis such as anemia or low sodium raised payments by an average of nearly $12,000 per case. Luke Chalker, the association’s senior vice president of product and data science, said sicker patients should mean more treatment, but the data did not show that. The American Hospital Association said patients are older and more complex, and that insurers use automated downcoding and denials. CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said AI’s effect on costs will worsen before it improves.
Biden-Era FBI Tracked Melania and Barron, Logged Susie Wiles’ Calls
Documents released Monday by the White House show the FBI tracked Melania and Barron Trump’s travel and monitored Susie Wiles’ cellphone during special counsel Jack Smith’s classified-documents probe. The secret case was titled Plasmic Echo. A late May 2022 checklist told agents to finalize the former president, first lady, and minor son’s travel, including aircraft type and timeline, so any warrant would be served after they left Mar-a-Lago. The raid came Aug. 8, 2022, and included Trump’s office and both bedrooms. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray sent Attorney General Merrick Garland a May 2022 memo warning that the probe could reach top figures from Trump’s first term and disrupt the election if it became public. Wray still wrote, “Merrick, I recommend you approve.” From February to May 2023, agents logged Wiles’ calls with nearly two dozen lawyers, campaign aides, and journalists. One May 19 entry says Trump’s “vanity number” called her for 16 minutes and 11 seconds. A federal judge threw out the documents case in July 2024, finding Smith unlawfully appointed.
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📢 The Fifth Column Watch
David Brock and the Lawfare Consortium Behind the Bar Complaints
A report released at Wednesday’s Capitol Hill summit traces what its author calls a Lawfare Consortium targeting lawyers who represented President Trump and his allies. Democracy Restored fellow Karin Sweigart counted 181 bar complaints and related filings across 34 jurisdictions in 26 states from 2016 to 2026, targeting 122 lawyers, five firms, and 44 non-lawyers. Ninety-two filings were tied to the 2020 election. The 65 Project accounted for 84 of them. Sweigart’s research ties the network to Media Matters founder David Brock and former Obama ethics official Norm Eisen, and identifies about $16.4 million in funding. Brock, a Hillary Clinton insider, told reporters the aim was not only to file grievances but to “shame them and make them toxic” in their communities and firms. The report begins with a 2017 complaint against Kris Kobach and covers 22 filings so far in 2026, including targets in the current administration. US Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Mike Lee (R-UT), and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, used the summit to call the tactic a way to scare lawyers off conservative clients.
Mamdani Uses Oct. 7 Anniversary to Condemn Israel
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked the third anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by accusing Israel’s government of war crimes, genocide, and apartheid. He called the day “profoundly painful” and said Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. He then wrote that attention should stay on what he called Israel’s “devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza,” claiming more than 74,000 Palestinians killed, including more than 21,000 children. An open letter released last month, signed by more than 6,000 scholars, legal experts, and historians, rejected that charge as a blood libel and said Israel’s conduct, including evacuation warnings, does not meet the legal test. Anti-Defamation League director Jonathan Greenblatt asked why the mayor never used the word “Jews” and said he was weaponizing a day meant to mourn the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, planned a memorial, then a meeting with Palestinian New Yorkers. A flyer opposing him read, “Glory to the martyrs, victory to the resistance.”
HHS Reviews CAIR Grants as Audit Flags Islamist Recipients
The Department of Health & Human Services is reviewing whether the Council on American-Islamic Relations misused federal grants meant for Afghan refugees. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the review June 9. It covers CAIR National and its California and Washington affiliates. The review followed an April 27 letter from US Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and 13 House Republicans urging suspension and debarment. A July Middle East Forum audit identified 14 groups it called Islamist or terror-linked that received $79 million in HHS funds since 2010. From 2022 to 2025, about $68.5 million, 87 percent, was awarded. CAIR chapters received about $42.2 million in Afghan resettlement grants since July 2022, including $40.7 million for CAIR-California. A March 2025 complaint alleged CAIR-California redirected $3.6 million of a $7.2 million grant and omitted it from tax forms. Prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. The FBI cut formal contact in 2009. CAIR denies terror ties. Texas and Florida issued state designations in late 2025. A federal judge blocked Florida’s order in March.
El-Sayed Told a Detroit Audience He Carried Egyptian Citizenship
Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is on video telling a Detroit audience he carries dual citizenship in the United States and Egypt, even as his campaign says he never held it. The remarks, published Monday, came at a 2016 GlobeMed conference while he was the city’s health director. “I carry dual citizenship, and I grew up spending most of my summers in another country where I understood what it meant not to have the right to self-govern,” he said. He was born in Michigan. His parents emigrated from Egypt in 1978. A résumé he posted as an assistant professor at Columbia listed his citizenships as “USA, Egypt.” The page disappeared after the campaign was asked about it. Spokeswoman Roxie Richner said he “is not a dual citizen by any verifiable metric and never has been,” and that a grandfather had pursued Egyptian citizenship for him. She called the résumé an error based on secondhand family stories and said no documentation was found. The campaign did not answer questions about the 2016 video. El-Sayed beat US Rep. Haley Stevens (R-MI) in the August primary and faces US Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) for the seat of retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).
Talarico Calls Islamo-Marxist DSAer Mamdani a Template for Democrats Nationwide
Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico said New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign should be a template for Democrats and that the party should adopt his talking points. He made the remarks Aug. 5, 2025, on the Higher Learning podcast, weeks after Mamdani won the New York Democratic mayoral primary. Mamdani’s platform included rent freezes, city-run grocery stores, free public transit, a $30 minimum wage, and higher taxes. He has said he does not think there should be billionaires. On NewsNation’s The Hill on July 29, 2025, Talarico said Democrats need a “giant tent” that will include Democratic socialists. He has also said radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat and that white skin gives immunity from racism as a virus. He has said God is non-binary and that modern science recognizes more than two biological sexes. A late-September Fox News poll of likely Texas voters showed him ahead of Republican Ken Paxton, 51 percent to 49 percent, within the margin of error.
ON THIS DAY IN 1913:
Henry Ford instituted the first moving assembly line for automobile production, drastically reducing the time it took to build a Model T and revolutionizing modern industrial manufacturing.
🌐 International
Cartel Plot Puts Border Agents on Alert in West Texas
Federal authorities believe a Mexican cartel is looking to kidnap federal law enforcement in western Texas, three Customs and Border Protection employees said Wednesday. Select CBP employees were told a known smuggler planned to bring people from Colombia and Venezuela into the United States to target and kidnap CBP personnel in the El Paso and Presidio areas. An internal alert obtained from Homeland Security sources said the same. CBP said it gathers information on any person or group that poses a threat and vets it for validity. The agency said its methods for protecting personnel are robust and that it does not discuss those methods. Agents and officers have been told to stay on guard.
Markets Now Charge France More to Borrow Than Greece
Financial markets are treating France as riskier than Italy and Greece, once the eurozone’s problem borrowers. France now pays higher interest on long-term debt than either country. Borrowing costs have hit 15-year highs, near 5 percent, against about 3.5 percent for Germany. The gap with German 10-year bonds widened 32 basis points last week to 141, the widest since 2011. Public debt stands at 3.595 trillion euros, about 119 percent of GDP, and is projected to reach 121.7 percent by 2027. Debt service is set to rise by about 28 billion euros in 2027 and is already the state’s largest outlay, ahead of education and defense. Ratings downgrades have pushed French yields past Greece’s in late 2024 and Italy’s last year. Investors now call France the new periphery. Political paralysis, weak growth, and street unrest ahead of next year’s presidential election have left proposed spending cuts with little support. Other EU states have offered limited backing.
Russian Plague Lab That Lost a Researcher Has Long Worked With China
The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, where researcher Daria Shipilova, 28, died of pneumonia of unknown origin, has worked for years with Chinese infectious-disease agencies. Local reports alleged a lab accident involving pneumonic plague. Russian authorities denied any link to her job and said no virus had spread. Director Sergey Balakhonov spoke in August at a China-Russia emergency drill in Fuyuan. China’s People’s Liberation Army Northern Theater Command Disease Control Center took part. The first joint infectious-disease exercise was in Khabarovsk in June. The institute will host Chinese delegates later this month on plague and other dangerous infections. Balakhonov held talks in Beijing in 2017 and spoke in Harbin in 2014. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin called for expanded disease cooperation in 2021 and 2024. On the day Shipilova was hospitalized, Sept. 29, the two sides held a health videoconference. Beijing issued no travel warning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Russia should share more information. President Trump said the United States is willing to help.
French School Unrest Began in Immigrant Districts as the Far Left Joined In
The school revolt that filled French streets Tuesday began in heavy immigrant districts around Paris, then spread as classrooms, budgets, and staff were already strained. Conservative commentator Lisa Boothe said much of the unrest started in those areas because a large influx of new arrivals drains schools and city resources. President Trump wrote that what is happening is “nothing less than out of control mass migration” and “isn’t about schools” but “Islam wanting to take over a once great Country.” Far-left politicians then stepped in. Teachers’ unions, the Confédération Générale du Travail, the Socialist Party, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise joined the students. A radical farmers’ union urged members to bring tractors to the blockades. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the National Assembly that France Unbowed takes an ambiguous stance on violence because chaos is part of its agenda before next year’s presidential election. The Interior Ministry counted about 250,000 marchers. Organizers claimed about 450,000. More than 6,100 people have been arrested since Sept. 28, most of them minors. A 15-year-old in Lens lost a hand after picking up a police grenade.
Three Scientists Win Medicine Nobel for Switching Nerve Cells With Light
Karl Deisseroth of Stanford, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University of Berlin, and Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, announced Oct. 5, for discoveries on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The prize is 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million, split three ways. In the early 2000s Hegemann and Nagel found channelrhodopsin in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Blue light opens the protein and lets charged ions in, creating an electrical impulse. They inserted the gene into kidney cells and frog eggs, making those cells light-sensitive. Deisseroth inserted the DNA into rat neurons, then used a thin optical fiber to trigger cells in live mice, including whisker movement. Researchers now use several colors of light. The method has mapped circuits tied to memory, mood, and disorders including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, and addiction. Some teams are testing it to restore limited sight in retinitis pigmentosa.
