Federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro opened a review of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s financial disclosures, a day after agents searched her home.
On Tuesday, Oct. 13, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office is also examining the Minnesota Democrat’s financial disclosures. Homeland Security Investigations agents, ICE’s criminal-investigation arm, had searched her Washington home on Monday, Oct. 12, under a court-authorized warrant.
Omar has not been charged with anything.
October 14, 2026 · Seven stories, illustrated
Each disclosure gives a range, not a value, so each range is drawn as a band, on one scale from $0.
2023$15,000–$51,000Drawn wider than its scale so it shows; magnified below
2024$6 million–$30 million
The first $60,000 of the same scale, 500 times larger
2023$15,000–$51,000
2024 starts at $6 million, far off this scale
Omar has not been charged with anything. These are the filings Pirro’s office is reviewing; the ranges are what the disclosures say, not findings.
Agents searched her Washington home. The probe reportedly centers on immigration paperwork her late father filled out when she was a child. It came 22 days before the Nov. 3 midterms.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office is also examining Omar’s financial disclosures.
Neither probe has produced a charge, and the reporting has not shown that the immigration case and the money review are connected.
“I don’t take a position.”Trump, on deporting Omar. He called her “a terrible person” and “a terrible congresswoman” and said the case is up to the Justice Department.
Omar came to the U.S. from Somalia as a 12-year-old refugee in 1995 and became a naturalized citizen in 2000, at 17.
- 01Where it standsA search warrant
A search warrant needs only probable cause. Omar has not been charged with anything.
- 02First, she would have to lose citizenshipA civil suit, or a criminal conviction
Either a civil denaturalization suit in federal court, where the government must prove illegal procurement or willful misrepresentation by clear and convincing evidence, or a criminal conviction for unlawfully obtaining it (8 U.S.C. §1451).
- 03Only thenDeportation
A naturalized citizen cannot be deported unless she first loses citizenship.
Omar called the search “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement” and turned it into a fundraising appeal. Democrats say privately they expect more “October surprises.”
- Approval
- The Public Integrity Section in Washington must approve any warrant covering a member of Congress’s property.
- Timing
- Prosecutors may never time a search, charge or statement to affect an election or a candidate.
- Appearance
- Even the appearance of election timing requires a consultation with the Public Integrity Section first.
The department rejected the claim that its policy bars investigative steps within 60 days of an election. True to the letter: there is no fixed blackout, but its manual bars timing any step to sway an election.
Still open: neither probe has produced a charge, and the reporting has not shown that the immigration case and the money review are connected.
Read the reporting
Twelve senators, six from each party, asked Trump to rescind his deal lifting U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel.
They sent the letter on Tuesday, Oct. 13, calling the deal “a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies.” U.S. diesel futures rose 5% by midday, to their highest in weeks, as doubts mounted that the deal would bring prices down, per NBC News.
Trump promised 300,000 tons of Russian diesel at once and 500,000 tons in November. Analysts put the best case at less than two weeks of U.S. diesel demand.
A year earlier · AAA$3.67
Oct. 12 · AAA$6.27
The rise over the year
Kevin Book’s estimate of pump relief by the end of 2026 · ClearView Energy, per Bloomberg5 to 20 cents
Two AAA readings a year apart and one analyst’s estimate, each drawn from $0 on the same scale. The relief bar really is that small; it is not subtracted from the price. The estimate’s low end is solid and the rest of its range outlined.
- Richard BlumenthalConnecticut · led the letter
- and five other Democrats
- Thom TillisNorth Carolina
- Susan CollinsMaine
- Lisa MurkowskiAlaska
- Mitch McConnellKentucky
- John CornynTexas
- Alan ArmstrongOklahoma
“It’s not a deal with me. It’s a deal for the world. That’s not a USA deal.”Trump, now
Treasury’s own license lets Russian diesel be imported into the U.S. until April 7, 2027.
Ending Importation of Russian Oil ActHouse 414-17 · Senate unanimous
- 01The president certifies that Russia has withdrawn and stopped fighting on terms Ukraine accepts.
- 02He reports to four congressional committees 45 days ahead.
- 03He waits 90 more days.
None of that happened, the senators say
Sen. Thom Tillis and Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who sponsored the law, say the waiver breaks it. Doggett says Trump is “directly violating that law.”
EIA’s weekly survey, a different measure from AAA’s, put U.S. retail diesel at $6.20 a gallon on Oct. 5, 2026, against $3.49 on May 26, 2025. Earlier editions drew diesel prices since 2021 and the deal’s tranches to scale.
Read the reporting
A Saudi-led coalition bombed Houthi-held oil facilities and a fuel depot in Yemen, after a strike on Riyadh’s airport killed at least 13.
Coalition jets struck the sites in payback for the Saturday, Oct. 10 strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid airport. The Houthis are the Iran-backed rebel group that holds much of Yemen. Trump accuses them of pushing up oil prices before the Nov. 3 midterms.
- Saturday, Oct. 10at least 13
killed, including an American, and more than 300 injured.
- Sunday, Oct. 11One more
killed in a second strike.
- The airport tollat least 14
killed in the two strikes. Houthi attacks kept coming.
“I’m not running in the Elections... but I’ll be there after the Elections, and I will never forget!”Trump, on Truth Social, accusing the Houthis of trying to drive up oil prices before the congressional elections on Tuesday, Nov. 3. He is not on the ballot but stays president after the vote.
a day after its highest close since Sept. 15.
settled the same day.
A Houthi official told AFP that if the U.S. joins, “there will be a swift and painful response targeting the US and all its interests in the region.”
- 48 hours
- to report to Congress.
- 60 days
- to end it, absent congressional authorization.
- Not an ally
- Its emergency exception covers attacks on the U.S. or its forces, not an ally.
Biden cited his own constitutional powers to strike the Houthis in January 2024, as did Trump in March 2025.
- 730 Patriot missiles
- Saudi Arabia agreed earlier this year to buy them from the U.S. for $9 billion. Delivered so far: not public
- 12%
- of all U.S. arms exports from 2021 to 2025 went to Saudi Arabia.
Still open: the week’s death toll. CBS counts at least 20 killed in Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia, including one American; NBC counts at least 14.
Read the reporting
Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as ambassador to Greece after the White House asked her to go over an alleged $100,000 credit-card request to a donor.
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia announced on Tuesday, Oct. 13, that Trump had asked Guilfoyle to resign; about two hours later, Guilfoyle confirmed it on X. She called the allegations false and gave no date for leaving. She served less than a year in Athens.
Wall Street Journal reports say she pressed donor Eric Deters to pay a $100,000 American Express bill in exchange for access before her July 2025 confirmation hearing. Deters says he never paid it.
- The allegation · Wall Street Journal reports
- $100,000The American Express bill she allegedly pressed Deters to pay. Deters says he never paid it.
- Deters
- about $300,000What Deters says he paid her over the years.
- Her lawyers
- about $150,000What her lawyers say Deters owed her for speeches and consulting.
“It was a quid pro quo.”Deters, to NBC
Deters’s letterJune 11, 2025
- Back pay
- $50,000
- Her services through confirmation
- $50,000
- The same total as the Amex bill
- $100,000
Her lawyer disputes the messages are authentic
“She wasn’t a member of my family.”Trump, who also said: “We didn’t like what we were reading.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called her “a strong ambassador.” Then Trump and Rubio weighed firing her.
- Nominees too
- Federal bribery law (18 U.S.C. §201) covers nominees as well as officials.
- Even unpaid
- It counts a solicitation for an official act even if nothing is paid, and it carries up to 15 years.
- Not access alone
- Under the Supreme Court’s 2016 McDonnell ruling, arranging access alone is not an “official act.”
Her February 2025 ethics disclosure names neither Deters nor his Freedom Fest event as a source of pay.
Still open: House Oversight Democrats want her messages and financial records by Thursday, Oct. 22. Two people familiar with the probe told NBC News on Oct. 9 that the State Department inspector general, the department’s internal watchdog, is investigating her and the Athens embassy; the watchdog does not confirm investigations, and the department declined to comment.
Read the reporting
Five Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv without the early warning Ukraine normally gets from its partners.
They struck on Monday night, Oct. 12. The Kyiv Independent identified them as S-400s; Ukraine’s Air Force logged them as Iskander-M/S-400 missiles. Trump says intelligence sharing continues.
- 22:09
- Ukraine’s Air Force logs the target
- 22:10
- The Kyiv alert is issued
- Not released
- U.S. detection logs
- Not released
- Ukrainian relay logs
First count: six missiles of unknown typeRevised: five Iskander-M/S-400 missiles
Neither time measures how long the missiles flew.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine got “no early warning from our partners.” A senior Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent: “The Americans said they just didn’t see (the launch)... That’s a weak excuse.”
Trump said: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end.” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also said sharing continues, and Kyiv Independent sources said the same.
The strikes came after Trump announced an energy ceasefire, a pause in attacks on power plants and the grid, on Sunday, Oct. 11. He gave no terms; Ukraine backed it while asking for details.
weapons Russia has launched at Ukraine since Monday evening, Oct. 12, per NBC News.
- Kyiv, Tuesday, Oct. 13
- A strike on an apartment block also hit the Darnytska CHP-4 heat-and-power plant, killing one person and injuring 13, the BBC reported.
- Kharkiv
- A destroyed apartment building killed four and wounded 41.
- 19 regions
- hit in the two days after Trump announced the ceasefire, per the Washington Examiner.
Still open: whether detection failed or transmission failed. No U.S. detection logs or Ukrainian relay logs have been released.
Read the reporting
Iran targeted 24 ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz in two weeks, its most since the war began, by the Financial Times’ count.
The FT counted tankers and other vessels attacked in the two weeks to Sunday, Oct. 11, from reports by UKMTO, Britain’s shipping-security office, and European security reports. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began Feb. 28.
- 24
- in the two weeks to Sunday, Oct. 11The Financial Times’ count, the worst stretch since the war began
- 13
- in early MarchThe next worst two weeks
- 6
- on Sunday, Oct. 11 aloneUKMTO counted six vessels attacked
- Tanker 1lost power and had to be towed
- Tanker 2caught fire; the fire was put out
- Tanker 3took damage to its steering room and water tanks
- Ocean Molicastruck by U.S. forces, not Iran
All three tanker crews reported safe.
Damage is often light: seven of ten ships attacked in the week to Oct. 9 kept sailing, per UKMTO. Iran’s army also announced it has deployed units east of the strait, in the Arabian Sea and the Sea of Oman, the open water ships enter after leaving the Gulf.
- about 20 million barrels
- of oil a day crossed Hormuz in 2025, before the war (IEA).
- 3.5 to 5.5 million more
- barrels a day could go through pipelines around the strait (IEA estimate).
- 286.6 million barrels
- in the U.S. emergency stockpile in September 2026 (Energy Department).
Still open: the FT has not published a ship-by-ship list, so how many of the 24 were damaged, disabled or lost crew is not yet known.
Read the reporting
Federal prosecutors charged ex-OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan with hiding a recording device in an executive conference room.
Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national at OpenAI since July 2025, allegedly hid an encrypted recorder, wrapped in toilet paper, in a TV’s USB port in a room where OpenAI leaders discuss research, products and government work, per the Justice Department.
The contents were encrypted, and the Justice Department has not said any audio was recovered. OpenAI sees no sign model weights, source code or customer data were taken. Officials call it a national-security case, but the public allegations name no foreign government, buyer or motive, Newsweek notes.
Federal criminal complaintOne count
Wiretap law: using or trying to use a device to intercept private conversations.
Up to five years in prison if convicted.
What the complaint cites
- Security footage of him near the room, which he had no authority to enter.
- Prompts from a chatbot account tied to his spouse on building a hidden recorder, including the planted device’s network ID.
- A second recorder found in his unattended bag on Oct. 5, per the Justice Department.
The wiretap law punishes the attempt, so prosecutors need not prove a usable recording was made.
- About two days before Sept. 30
The device went in.
- Sept. 30
Staff found it. OpenAI says its AI models helped trace it to him; it alerted the FBI and fired him, per the BBC.
- Oct. 5
A second recorder was found in his unattended bag, per the Justice Department.
- Friday, Oct. 9
Arrested.
- Tuesday, Oct. 13
First court appearance.
- Oct. 19
A judge decides whether he stays jailed until trial.
Still open: whether he stays jailed until trial. A judge decides on Oct. 19.