President Donald Trump said Monday night that he will no longer use taxpayer funds to pay for a multimillion-dollar pro-Trump ad blitz ahead of the midterm elections, saying his super PAC will now pay for them. 

While he dismissed criticism of the ads as "a rather standard thing to do," he said he had decided to run them on his own dime rather than that of the U.S. government in a post on his social media platform.

"I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc," Trump wrote, referring to his super PAC.

The move comes after the U.S. government bankrolled a series of ads that aired nationally and heavily featured the president. One of the ads was a direct copy of a spot Trump's campaign ran in 2024.

A White House official confirmed to ABC News Monday night that MAGA Inc. will pay for ads moving forward but defended them as something previous administrations have used.

"Presidential Public service announcements are nothing new. Administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation’s direction," the official said.

Earlier Monday, Vice President JD Vance defended using taxpayer money to run the ads, claiming they are "public service announcements."

"They're not partisan. They're not -- you know, it's not like we're advocating for a particular candidate. We're trying to tell a story, I think, about how great the United States of America is," Vance said.

Trump defended the ads last week at an event in the Oval Office, saying they were "for the spirit of our country" and not a political endorsement for Republican candidates on the ballot this November or for his administration's policies.

"You have to understand; I'm not promoting a candidate. I'm not promoting myself because I'm not running for office. I'm promoting the country," Trump said. 

"Now, if somebody said that that's wrong, I'll gladly pay the money. But these are ads for the country," he said.

Trump has implored Republican voters to "pretend" that he is on the ballot in the November midterm elections to boost voter turnout for GOP congressional candidates.

The federal government has spent at least $2.5 million to air the TV ads, according to an estimate from AdImpact, an advertising agency that analyzes ad spending across television.

A total of $20 million from the Department of Homeland Security's budget had been allocated for the effort.

Ethics watchdogs and several Congressional Democrats -- as well as some Republicans -- have said the ads are inappropriate. Some critics have said the ads could violate federal propaganda law.

Four ads have been aired over the last two weeks. One features Trump in monochrome, slowly walking down a hallway, describing "the final battle" against "the deep state," "the globalists," and "the sick political class that hates our country."

Another ad includes a montage of clips and images of Trump at events and rallies featuring onscreen text about the "largest tax cuts in history."

The latest ad, released last week, focuses on the U.S. war with Iran, now in its eighth month. Audio of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plays in the background as U.S. military footage, including unclassified strikes, is displayed.

The video in the ad appears to be the same as one played during the Republican midterm convention last month. And it played last Wednesday before Hegseth addressed 600 service members in his State of the Force speech at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia.

Mass protests erupted at Cornell University on Monday, with students criticizing officials’ handling of gang-rape allegations, demanding the president’s resignation and painting “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” on an administration building.

Thousands of students and faculty gathered for a demonstration, sparked by the high-profile case of a former student known as Jane Doe, who said in a recent lawsuit that she was plied with drugs and raped at a fraternity house in 2024. The case has prompted international outrage and intense scrutiny of college fraternities and sexual violence on US campuses.

Protesters shouted, “Ban the frats” and held signs saying, “At Cornell, rapists are safer than women” and “Stop rape culture.” Some demonstrators directed their anger at Michael Kotlikoff, Cornell’s president, arguing he had failed to keep students safe and chanting, “Kotlikoff, resign!”

The demonstration took place after some students had smashed a glass door at the entrance of Day Hall, a building that houses the president’s office, and painted messages on the facade at approximately 3am on Monday, the Cornell Daily Sun reported.

The messages in red paint read “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” and “AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED”. The security camera above one of the messages was also painted over.

The students who graffitied the building said in a statement to the student newspaper that they were protesting “the global systems of power that allowed this to happen in the first place”.

Related: Before Cornell turmoil, successive US administrations seesawed in attitudes towards campus assaults

“We wanted to ensure that Day Hall, the center of Cornell’s administrative function, was not able to continue business as usual,” the statement added. The students’ painted message was a reference to arguments that campus officials had treated pro-Palestine protesters more harshly than students accused of sexual misconduct, with four student demonstrators suspended in 2024, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

Kyle Kimball, a Cornell spokesperson, condemned vandalism in a statement on Monday.

“We understand the frustration and strong emotions being expressed across our community. Those concerns deserve to be heard, but damaging property is not the answer,” Kimball said. “We are investigating the vandalism at Day Hall and will address it in accordance with University policy and applicable law.”

The student activists defended their actions in a manifesto obtained by the student publication. “We reject the dogma that would condemn our actions this morning as violent while excusing rape,” they wrote. “Property damage is not violent; condoning rape is.”

The demonstrations escalated as Cornell faces widespread backlash for its handling of Jane Doe’s case, with critics saying the university had been too lenient with the accused men and had failed the victim.

According to lawyers for Jane Doe, who filed a civil lawsuit against the university and her alleged attackers earlier in September, only two members of the Chi Phi fraternity were expelled after the October 2024 incident, in which she said she was repeatedly raped over the course of seven hours. Jane Doe dropped out of Cornell after the incident.

A third fraternity member, who had already graduated, was barred from the Cornell campus, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Two more were reportedly given suspensions and disciplinary probation.

Two other men, the outlet said, were ordered not to contact the sophomore and required to study sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention, and to write “reflection papers”.

The lawsuit claimed that the seven fraternity members allegedly involved in the incident were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell”.

Related: Cornell University to take ‘serious look’ at fraternities after rape allegations

The university has said that claim does not accurately reflect what occurred. The accused men have denied all wrongdoing.

One student protester who addressed the crowd on Monday said: “Too often, we are met with silence, we are met with statements, we are met with procedures, but not enough support. How much does it take for our university to stand with survivors?”

And a professor, according to the AP, said to applause: “Rape should not be inevitable.”

Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins county district attorney, who is also under fire for his office’s handling of the original allegations, announced last week he was reopening the case. Van Houten said Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time of the alleged assault, presented allegations in her lawsuit that were “dramatically different” from the statement she gave to police two years ago. Jane Doe’s attorney has pushed back on those claims and accused the DA of failing to do a thorough investigation after the incident.

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, said on Thursday she was appointing Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged gang rape at Cornell University.

Kotlikoff, the university president under fire, addressed the case in a video message on Saturday, saying the school would take steps to prevent a similar situation in the ⁠future. That included “a serious look at the role of fraternities and sororities in campus life”, Kotlikoff said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell announced. “He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” he continued. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

If Hasan’s execution is indeed carried out by a firing squad, it would mark the first such case for the service since Jan. 31, 1945, when Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik was executed by a U.S. Army firing squad in France for desertion during World War II.

The last death sentence carried out by the U.S. military was in 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging at the gallows in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after he was convicted of raping and attempting to kill a young girl.

Hasan, who was born in northern Virginia, walked into a Fort Hood readiness processing center on Nov. 5, 2009, and opened fire using a semi-automatic handgun.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier.

Former Army Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, a two-time combat veteran, was shot four times in the attack and spent nearly a year recovering in various hospitals.

“He looked me straight in the eyes as he pointed the gun at me, and a split second later, I’m on the floor with a hole in my head,” he told the Killeen Daily Herald in 2023.

At his court-martial, Hasan, now 56, admitted to the shooting, and in 2013 said he carried out the attack in support of the Taliban.

At the time, Hasan requested a delay in court proceedings so he could ready a new legal strategy that would show he acted “in defense of others.”

Asked by presiding Judge Col. Tara Osborn who he was defending, Hasan replied, “The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban.”

Hasan was convicted by a military jury in August 2013, which recommended he be sentenced to death.

He was subsequently transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he has been incarcerated on death row.

Jonathan Lehrfeld contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an Oct. 5 interview that "there’s no clear path forward" for legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent.

Thune's comments, made to Politico, come days after President Donald Trump appeared to give out Sen. Tom Cotton's phone number amid the senator's objections to the bill.

"The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues," Thune told Politico. "It’s something we’re having conversations about, but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet."

When to set your clocks back. The 2026 daylight saving time start, end

In July, the House of Representatives voted to allow states to enact year-round daylight saving time, but the bill has stalled in the Senate. Cotton emerged as one of the leaders of the opposition to the Sunshine Protection Act.

During an October 2025 Senate floor speech, Cotton pointed to when daylight saving was briefly made permanent by Congress in 1974 and said that "millions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness."

He said that returning to permanent daylight saving would "again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans" and "push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunshine that’s essential for our safety and well-being."  

While Cotton drew the president's ire, Thune told Politico that opposition among Senate Republicans extended beyond Cotton.

Daylight saving time's future in limbo. See when it ends in 2026

Sen. Roger Wicker raised concerns similar to those of Cotton's in remarks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Oct. 5, according to Politico. He said he was mindful of "safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours."

Thune has opposed previous attempts to make daylight saving time permanent, Politico reported. "Your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything," he said, according to the news outlet.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thune says no 'path forward' for permanent daylight saving time bill

LONDON/WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said on Monday that a threat linked to Iran had prompted the removal of American B-1 bombers from a British airbase.

The planes had been stationed at RAF Fairford, the preferred European base for US bombers, and had recently been used in US strikes on Iran. Last week, five British ‌men were arrested near the base — which Iran's Revolutionary Guards previously said was a legitimate target — on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

"We had an idea that there might be a threat, and why ‌would I leave them there? It costs very little money to move them," Trump told reporters on Monday. "So we had a threat, and if we're going to be threatened, we just move them, and that sort of alleviates that. And we actually know the people ​that made the threat."

When asked if they were linked to Iran, Trump responded: "They would be linked to Iran."

Earlier on Monday, Vice President JD Vance said the US moved the bombers out of an abundance of caution.

"We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are, you know, they're trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engaged in acts of terrorism against the United States (and others), so we are being extremely cautious, and that's all I'd say about that," Vance told reporters.

However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was no direct link between the sudden removal of the bombers and the suspected Iranian plot. He said the Pentagon is "constantly reallocating resources where ‌they need to be."

A NATO military source had said on Monday: "It is still ⁠believed that Iran poses an acute threat to US assets in the UK."

While much about the incident remains unexplained, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said any plot was likely backed by Iran.

Iran has said accusations that it was involved in any plot are baseless, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X: "I can confirm Iran's belief that releasing supposed ⁠terrorists working for foreign states really says it all. You're barking up the wrong tree."

KEY AIR BASE FOR US STRIKES

Rubio said on Monday the US had confidence in the security of all its bases.

Fairford, located 90 miles (145 km) west of London, is one of the most important European bases for the US, being one of only a few suitable for heavy bombers such as the B-1 aircraft. It has played a key role in previous US campaigns in the Middle East, although its ​bombers ​are not stationed there permanently.

During the current conflict, the US had permission to use Fairford only to strike Iranian missile sites ​that were attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, or so-called defensive strikes. London had ‌refused permission for the US to use British bases for offensive strikes on Iran.

That approach has strained ties between the US and Britain, typically one of Washington's closest allies.

A Pentagon official confirmed on Sunday that all US bombers that had been deployed to Fairford had headed to their home stations in the US.

The Pentagon said the US bomber force remained ready to deliver precision global strike capabilities "anywhere, anytime".

The New York Times, citing two US officials, said the US had rushed over the weekend to move the bombers after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot. It said some of the planes had left while aerial refuelling aircraft were still being scrambled.

A US official declined to comment. The British government also declined to comment, although a spokesman for Burnham said the base was safe.

Christoph Bergs, research analyst at defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute, said the redeployment would in the ‌short term reduce US capacity "to quickly surge sorties against Iran, reducing the threat level somewhat".

But he noted that use of Fairford ​was already limited given London's stipulation on defensive strikes. The aircraft could now potentially be sent to either Diego Garcia or bases in ​the Gulf, to reduce the need for more air-to-air refuelling to cover the additional distance, but ​that would depend on capacity availability, negotiations with allies and security, he added.

TRUMP SAID PLOT WAS FOR 'BIG DAMAGE'

In the early hours of September 27, five British men in their 20s ‌were arrested after being seen running into fields from three white vans parked near ​the base. Police said no explosive devices were found ​but a quantity of petrol was present.

The men have since been released on bail. A sixth man, a dual UK-Iranian national arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts four days later, has also been released on bail.

Trump said at the time of the first arrests that the plot had planned "big damage" and that it might have been connected to Iran. Trump later said he would not have released the ​suspects on bail.

A senior NATO military official said the removal of the bombers would ‌have no impact on the alliance: "NATO's defensive agility towards any aggression remains unchanged and unmatched thanks to the unity, strength, and combined capabilities of 32 nations."

The Wall Street Journal first reported ​the removal of the US bombers.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York, Kate Holton and Sarah Young in London, Sabine Siebold in Germany, Jonathan Landay and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; writing ​by Sarah Young and Kate Holton; Editing by Nia Williams, Hugh Lawson, Gareth Jones, Andrew Heavens and Sanjeev Miglani)

Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement. His cause of death was not immediately clear.

“He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me, he was my husband, my best friend, and the man I was honored to walk beside through so many seasons of life and ministry,” she said.

The pair lived near the Missouri entertainment town of Branson and filmed their TV show “The Jim Bakker Show” there since it launched in 2003. Bakker suffered a stroke in 2020.

But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and his first wife Tammy Faye Bakker cultural icons — so much so that they were often skewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” A theatrical movie on their lives, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” was released in September 2021.

At its peak in the mid-1980s, the Bakkers’ ministry included not only the TV show drawing up to 13 million nightly viewers but also the Christian-based Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Bakker got his start as a traveling preacher

Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye. They married in 1961 and dropped out of college to start their own traveling ministry — he preached, she sang and played the accordion as they crossed the country visiting churches and tent revivals.

They caught the attention of televangelist Pat Robertson, and in 1965 launched a children’s show on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. By 1966, he was hosting “The 700 Club,” a Christian talk show.

Bakker left CBN in 1972 and two years later formed the PTL Satellite Network. “The PTL Club” — PTL stands for “Praise the Lord” — became its signature show.

When it hit its heyday in the 1980s, “The PTL Club” was drawing millions of viewers — and bringing in millions of dollars annually from followers.

The show featured chats with guests and Christian entertainers. Bakker offered upbeat sermons and Tammy Faye — charismatic and always wearing her trademark heavy mascara — sang. Most episodes were taped at their sprawling complex just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.

The couple was so famous that they were often parodied by TV comedians for their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s abundant makeup.

Sex scandal and financial crimes damage his empire

In March 1987, their empire began to crack when Bakker admitted to a sexual encounter with church clerk Jessica Hahn. Bakker was forced to resign from his own empire, turning over operations to pastor and broadcaster Jerry Falwell.

Tammy Faye stuck by Bakker, often with tears running down her mascara, even as many saw his downfall as a fitting symbol of the greed and hypocrisy of the 1980s.

Things only got worse.

In 1988, Bakker was indicted for mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy after an investigation of PTL’s finances. He was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, though the sentence was later reduced to eight years.

At a news conference after Bakker was found guilty, Tammy Faye stood in front of the microphones and sang the hymn, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.”

Their marriage crumbled and Tammy Faye divorced Bakker in 1992, just short of their 31st anniversary, while he was still in prison. She later married Roe Messner, a building contractor whose projects included the Heritage USA theme park. Messner was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 1995 and spent about two years in prison.

Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007.

Bakker was released on parole in 1994. He married his second wife, Lori, in 1998. The couple launched “The Jim Bakker Show” on the PTL Satellite Network five years later.

In June 2021, Bakker and his Morningside Church Productions Inc. settled a lawsuit accusing him of falsely claiming the health supplement Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. The settlement called for $156,000 in refunds to people who paid money or gave contributions to obtain the product in the early days of the pandemic.

The lawsuit said Bakker and a guest made the cure claim during 11 episodes in February and March of 2020.

Bakker and Tammy Faye had two children. He and his second wife adopted five children in 2002.

___

Salter, a former Associated Press journalist, was the main author of this obituary.

President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur Monday to attack the Democratic nominee for the Senate in South Carolina as he urged voters to back Republican Sen. Darline Graham.

In a Truth Social post, Trump referred to Democratic candidate Annie Andrews three times as “trannie.” He said Andrews, who is not transgender, is “not for South Carolina.”

“And South Carolina must show, in the upcoming Election, that it is not for her,” Trump added.

Andrews responded by largely ignoring the insult, saying in a statement first shared with NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”

“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”

“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she said.

Graham’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the post by Trump, who often uses insulting nicknames for politicians and officials he dislikes.

Reached for comment on why Trump used the slur, the White House referred NBC News to his social media post.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, blasted Trump’s remarks, calling them “the sad, disgusting, pathetic diatribes of a lame duck president with record-low approvals.”

“So low, in fact, he’s having to campaign in deep red territory in a desperate attempt to shore up support ahead of the midterms,” Ramiro Sarmiento, a spokesperson for the organization, said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned Trump’s words Monday night, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”

“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.

Andrews, a physician, has previously said she does not support gender-affirming surgery for minors or transgender athletes’ participating in women’s sports.

Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, criticized the president for his attack on Andrews, asking voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”

“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.

Graham is running to keep her seat after Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to fill her late brother’s seat after Lindsey Graham died in July.

Graham won the Republican primary in a runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman by nearly 5 percentage points. She has leaned heavily on Trump’s endorsement to make her case to South Carolina.

While South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the race toward Democrats last month, moving it from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Christa Pike, the death row inmate who last week survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her, remained hospitalized on a ventilator Monday, according to her attorney.

He said it was still unclear whether Pike would regain consciousness but urged the state to "take death off the table" by commuting her sentence, renewing an earlier request that the governor denied before her botched lethal injection.

"The least that could happen now is that we at least take death off the table and start looking for what the future could be for her," attorney Steve Ferrell, of the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, told "CBS Mornings."

Ferrell added that he and the rest of Pike's legal team were "certainly willing to discuss that with the governor, with whoever could make that decision."

He told "CBS Mornings" that, although Pike was alive, her condition was considered critical and hospital staff continued to work to clear her body of the lethal drug pentobarbital. Even if she were to wake up, her future would be uncertain, he added.

"It may still be a long time before she's able to participate in the legal process," said Ferrell.

However, in hopes of preventing the possibility of Tennessee trying to execute Pike a second time, which is historically what has happened to inmates who've survived botched execution attempts, he said Pike's legal team would push for the state to commute her death sentence to life in prison.

Pike has been incarcerated, largely in isolation, for three decades. She was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her former classmate, Colleen Slemmer, who was 19 when she was killed. Pike was 18, which made her the youngest person in the country's modern death penalty era to be executed for a crime committed at 18, 19 or 20.

In the aftermath of Pike's botched execution, Tennessee's Department of Correction commissioner stepped down. Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Lee canceled the state's next and last execution scheduled for this year and said he'd ordered "a comprehensive, third-party review" to determine what went wrong; Lee also went on to tell reporters at a briefing that "so far as we know, the Department of Correction followed exactly the protocol as outlined."

Tennessee's execution protocol has come under scrutiny before, and, in 2022, prompted the state to pause executions and investigate its lethal injection procedure. It resumed executions in 2025, carrying out three of them with a new lethal cocktail that consisted of a single drug, pentobarbital, rather than the combination of three it used formerly. But issues returned to Tennessee's death chamber earlier this year, when correctional staff botched the planned execution of Tony Carruthers, also by lethal injection, after failing to establish an IV line.

At least seven U.S. inmates, including Carruthers, have survived failed lethal injections due to issues with their IV. But Pike's survival was unprecedented, an expert told CBS News on Friday, because she had lived after actually receiving lethal drugs. Pike received two doses.

"That fact alone tells us that something went seriously wrong in the execution chamber," said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "It is an unprecedented event in the modern death penalty era."

Because of Tennessee's past mistakes while trying to put inmates to death, and because botched executions have happened increasingly often in other states, too, in recent years, leading to numerous accusations of torture against corrections officials, Pike had said she was "nervous about the process" in the days leading up to her execution date. Her attorneys had shared those concerns as well in their appeals filings, but, as Ferrell said in a statement after Pike's injection failed: "All of this was predicted, and the court did nothing." 

Russia on Monday sought to downplay reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, even as President Donald Trump said Washington was closely monitoring the situation and offered US help.

Reports on Friday that pneumonic plague had killed a 28-year-old woman named Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region, sparked alarm.

"We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.

"We'll help them, we'll help them as much as we can."

The Russian news outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to the regional security services, said the dead woman may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube.

Other media reported a possible link between her death and a lab accident at the facility.

As many as 200 people with whom she may have had contact were under quarantine, the People of Baikal outlet added, without elaborating.

But Russian officials stressed that postmortem tests had not detected the disease.

Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said Monday that a special expert commission inspection in the region had found that "the cause of death was pneumonia of undetermined aetiology". 

He said on Telegram that Russia's consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor had determined, following tests, that "no microorganisms linked to the young woman's professional work were found in her biological samples".

He added that there had been "no new cases of staff from the anti-plague institute seeking medical attention" since the woman's death.

Kobzev said the sanitary-epidemiological situation in Irkutsk was "stable".

"The situation remains under our control and that of the experts."

- 'Rumours and speculations' -

Asked about the situation on Monday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to "rely on Rospotrebnadzor's official statements rather than... rumours and speculations".

Plague is a bacterial disease that can occur in several forms, including pneumonic plague, which is the most contagious type and can be transmitted by respiratory means. Bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas.

Pneumonic plague can be fatal if not treated early, according to the World Health Organization.

The reports will be closely watched in Washington, where memories of the Covid-19 pandemic that started in Trump's first term are still fresh. 

Trump has strongly backed the theory that the disease was due to a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his country was monitoring the Russia situation but saw no "cause for alarm".

"There's very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously, but like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread," Rubio told reporters before taking off for a visit to Iceland.

"So we're watching and monitoring it closely. I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we're doing that."

Experts said the reported response in Russia appeared "proportionate".

"It appears that measures are being implemented to quarantine any potential contacts and prevent any onward transmission," Malick Gibani, clinical associate professor in bacterial vaccinology, Imperial College London, said in a commentary.

dk/pnb

CHICAGO (WGN) — A Chicago woman who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent during Operation Midway Blitz filed a lawsuit against the federal government Monday, calling for more action against the agent who shot her.

Marimar Martinez said the encounter with Border Patrol agents happened in Oct. 2025. She was allegedly heading to church to drop off clothing donations when she noticed immigration officers on her street.

“For the next 15 to 20 minutes, I followed these Border Patrol agents through my neighborhood, honking my horn, shouting out ‘La Migra,’” Martinez said while testifying on Capitol Hill in Feb.

Martinez said the driver of the Border Patrol vehicle she was following made eye contact with her before swerving into and hitting her truck.

“I drove forward and went around the Border Patrol agent who jumped out of his car and pointed his gun at me. I moved to the far-left lane, striking the curb on the far-left side of Kedzie (Avenue). The next thing I knew, I felt a burning sensation in my arms and legs,” Martinez said. “As I continued trying to drive past the Border Patrol agents, I could hear my back passenger window shatter, and I felt bullets continue to pierce my body.”

The Department of Homeland Security called her a domestic terrorist and charged her with using her vehicle to assault federal agents.

However, the Department of Justice later dropped all charges against her.

While addressing the civil lawsuit outside a downtown Chicago law office Monday, attorneys representing Martinez said they are seeking more transparency and accountability.

“We are here today, exactly one year and one day after the shooting of Marimar by agent Charles Exum. As you all know, there has been absolutely zero progress from the Department of Justice as far as accountability goes,” attorney Chris Parente said. “There’s been no investigation. There’s been no charges.”

The lawsuit alleges that Border Patrol’s account of the shooting contradicts what Martinez says actually happened.

The Department of Homeland Security said that during the immigration crackdown altercation, Martinez tried to ram agents with her vehicle. Martinez maintains that she was driving away from them when one of the agents fired into her vehicle.

“What we’ve done here as a defense team is that we essentially became our own Department of Justice. We have hired our own experts, we have done our own investigation,” Parente said.

Martinez’s attorneys presented new video and photo evidence from the incident, saying it shows the agent was not in harm’s way when he started shooting. Martinez said she and her family saw the material for the first time Sunday.

“It brought a lot of clarity for them. They got a lot of answers on what happened on Oct. 4,” Martinez said.

Martinez said she’s thankful to be alive to share her story and wants to fight for others affected by Operation Midway Blitz.

“I want to spread awareness because what’s happening is not normal. We shouldn’t sit here and normalize what’s happening,” Martinez said.

Martinez and her attorneys have been planning to sue for months.

In Feb., they filed an administrative Federal Tort Claims Act complaint, the first step in the lengthy process of filing a lawsuit against the federal government.

In “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” to be published Tuesday, the North Carolina senator defends his decision at the time to not be “the lone voice in the wilderness” preventing Trump’s nominees from confirmation. But Tillis makes clear he was always skeptical of allegations about Hegseth’s turbulent management style, treatment of women and excessive drinking. Hegseth denied all the allegations.

“I know for a fact that there are others like me,” Tillis writes, “Republicans who agreed to go along with the early demands of the Trump team no matter how ridiculous they were, believing that failing to do so would mean the end of their political career, and who now see that things have gone way too far.”

He writes that he can count at least 30 of his GOP colleagues who have “expressed reservations (to put it mildly) about many of the president’s actions in private. Then, when the reporters showed up with their cameras and microphones, they’d have nothing but nice things to say.”

Tillis, who announced last year that he would not run for reelection in a “breaking point” with the president on his sweeping tax and spending cuts package, is publishing the book in his final months in office. He joins a long list of Republicans who have ratcheted up their public denunciations of Trump once they had less to lose politically.

Still, Tillis mostly deflects full blame from Trump, saying, “my beef is not with him, but the idiots he’s got working for him.” He calls the president “an amazing political talent.”

At the same time, he warns of a slippery slope toward authoritarianism and urges his colleagues to “wake up” and push back on Trump more often, for their own political good. Executive overreach, he says, doesn't work and sooner or later, “comes back to bite the majority party in the ass.”

Tillis also predicts a “bloodbath” for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

“All along, we’ve had multiple chances to get off the path and avoid the giant bronze monster chasing us down,” he writes.

Regrets his votes for Hegseth and Kennedy

The book is filled with cuss words and condemnations. He criticizes Trump’s tariffs, the aggressive immigration raids that Tillis says were an effort to “intentionally sow disorder” and the Iran war, which he initially supported. He said the war can only end with a coalition of willing nations and if Trump gets “Pete Hegseth the hell out of the way.”

Tillis pushed Hegseth’s confirmation vote late into the evening on Jan. 24, 2025, as he weighed his decision, talking to the White House, people who had worked with Hegseth and Hegseth himself. In the end, he said he couldn’t corroborate the worst allegations and would support Hegseth's confirmation. His vote brought the total to 50-50, and Vice President JD Vance broke the tie.

On his vote for Kennedy, Tillis writes that “I guess it’s easy to say now, but I’m the one who has to live with that vote and all the havoc Kennedy’s tenure has caused the country as a result.”

On both votes, he says he didn’t want to be the deciding factor.

“I had no intention of letting my colleagues outsource their courage to me while they pretended to go along with the questionable nomination President Trump had put forward,” he writes.

If you oppose Trump on everything, “you lose all influence,” Tillis says. “If you oppose him and lose, you are in even worse shape.”

He strongly criticizes several of Trump’s other initial picks for the Cabinet in the book, including former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Tillis describes his 'breaking point' over the tax bill

Tillis’s surprise announcement in June 2025 that he wouldn’t be running for reelection came as he escalated criticism against Trump and his “ Big Beautiful Bill ” of tax and spending cuts. Trump attacked Tillis on social media after the senator said he couldn’t support the bill’s cuts to Medicaid. Tillis says he thought to himself, “I’m done.”

“Everyone reaches a breaking point,” he writes.

He texted the president asking him to look for his replacement in the Senate, to which Trump replied “I am! DJT.”

In May 2026, Trump again attacked Tillis, calling him a “QUITTER!” on social media, among other insults.

Tillis ends the book with a profanity-laced text he sent to the president in response.

“I care if you fail and right now we are failing,” Tillis wrote to Trump.

Three members of the Taraia Object expedition, a joint effort among the Indiana-based university, Purdue's Archaeological Legacy Institute and the Purdue Research Foundation, then traveled from Los Angeles to meet others in the 17-person team. Next, they'll travel to Fiji and Kiribati in the South Pacific in search of the Lockheed Electra 10-E flown by Earhart nearly 90 years ago.

On Oct. 7, the entire group will travel to Nikumaroro, a remote Pacific island between Australia and Hawaii, where a popular theory suggests Earhart and Noonan landed after failing to complete their journey to circle the globe at the equator.

LONDON — A British Airways passenger jet flying from London to Chicago descended 28,000 feet in just seven minutes after declaring an emergency due to an unspecified “technical issue,” the airline said Monday.

The Boeing 777 took off at 12:15 p.m. local time (7:15 a.m. ET) but started descending just 30 minutes later while flying over Ireland, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The plane turned around and spent around four hours zigzagging over the Bristol Channel, a waterway to the west of England, before landing back at London Heathrow Airport at 5 p.m. local time (noon ET).

“The aircraft landed safely after our highly-trained pilots returned to Heathrow following a technical issue,” British Airways said in an emailed statement. “Customers disembarked the aircraft normally and our teams are working to get their travel plans back on track as quickly as possible.”

Heathrow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Passengers will likely be put up in hotels by the airline until another flight can be arranged, as stipulated by the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.

Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) came under scrutiny last month after two technical problems in the space of two weeks caused major delays at several U.K. airports and hundreds of flights were canceled.

NATS blamed software issues for the delays.

Britain’s Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander acknowledged the situation had been “deeply frustrating” for passengers.

With 84.5 million passengers last year, Heathrow ranked seventh in the table of the world’s busiest airports, according to data published by Airports Council International.

Travel from Heathrow was severely disrupted in March last year when a massive fire at an electricity substation caused a predawn power outage at the global transport hub.

The closure affected more than 1,300 flights and 200,000 passengers.

After investigating 600 items of evidence related to the substation, the National Energy System Operator ruled out suspicious activity in a report saying a preventable moisture fault caused the fire, leaving almost 70,000 homes without power.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Minnesota is one of the few states in the country where the party is in a position to go on offense and potentially turn a blue seat red. 

In pursuit of that goal, the GOP has put its hopes in Michele Tafoya, a former sports broadcaster and NFL sideline reporter turned politician who polls suggest has a real chance of winning in a state that has been dominated by Democrats in recent election cycles. 

Tafoya is running for the seat currently held by Democrat Tina Smith, who is not pursuing re-election. Instead her opponent will be Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flannagan, a progressive who supports policies like Medicare for All and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Minnesota has been at the center of some of the biggest controversies of President Trump’s second term, particularly his administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Though a majority of Minnesotans disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, Tafoya has steadily chipped away at Flanagan's lead in polls since the primary.

Here’s what you need to know about who she is, what she stands for and how she went from the sidelines to the center of one of the midterms’ most pivotal races.  

Who is Michele Tafoya?

Tafoya was born and raised in Southern California. Her father was an aeronautical engineer, and her mother was a school teacher. She has Hispanic heritage on her father’s side. 

She married her husband, Mark Vandersall, in 2000. They have two children. Tafoya has been open about her struggles with infertility, which included several miscarriages. Her daughter, Oliva, was adopted from Colombia as a nod to her father’s lineage. 

After launching her sports broadcasting career in Los Angeles, she moved to Minnesota in the early 1990s to take a job at the KFAN sports radio station in Minneapolis. Before long, she moved on to a national role with CBS, which proved to be the jumping-off point for a decades-long career that made her one of the country’s most recognizable sports broadcasters. She covered five Super Bowls, the NBA and the Olympics — winning five Emmys for her work along the way. 

Kevin C. Cox via Getty Images

Tafoya’s last broadcast was during Super Bowl LVI in 2022. Her political career began the very next day. Less than 12 hours after the game ended, she announced that she would co-chair the campaign of Republican Kendall Qualls in his bid to become Minnesota governor.

How did she go from NFL sidelines to the campaign trail?

Tafoya has said she always had strong political views, but made a specific effort to keep them out of her work as a broadcaster. 

“I was not as free to be as vocal about world events that I’m concerned about,” she told The Athletic in 2022. “It’s not because I was told to shut up. I want to be very clear about that. But look, if you’re on a show like Sunday Night Football … the last thing they want to do is invite controversy.”

Tafoya was more open about her beliefs outside on social media, where she would regularly promote work from conservative outlets. But she also made statements that broke from the GOP mainstream, including support for efforts to curb climate change. In an interview with Sports Illustrated in 2015, she described herself as a “pro-choice” conservative with “definite libertarian strains.”

After retiring from broadcasting, Tafoya made several appearances as a speaker at Republican political events, including the Conservative Political Action Conference. She was also a guest host on The View, taking on the role of the conservative-leaning voice in contrast to the show’s more liberal regular panelists.

In 2022, Tafoya launched a podcast that frequently touched on political topics and featured Republican politicians as guests. The most recent episode, released in January, includes an interview with former My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who unsuccessfully ran for Minnesota governor this year despite an endorsement from President Trump.

Tafoya formally announced her Senate bid a few weeks later. In August, she comfortably won a crowded Republican primary to set up a head-to-head race against Flanagan in November.  

What does she stand for?

In her pitch to Minnesota voters, Tafoya has leaned into her sports background.

“I’m not gonna stay on the sidelines any longer,” she said while standing on a snow-covered football field in her campaign announcement video.

Like other swing-state Republicans across the country, Tafoya has worked to find a balance between supporting Trump and pushing back on some of his most unpopular policies. 

She has supported the president throughout the war with Iran, at one point telling Minnesotans to “take one less trip to Starbucks” to help offset the rising cost of gas. More recently, though, she has joined a growing list of GOP candidates who have called for Trump to end the conflict. 

“No president of either party should have a blank check to wage war without the consent of Congress or the buy-in of the American people. That includes President Donald Trump,” Tafoya told Twin Cities local news KSTP on Saturday. 

Tafoya added that she would be “inclined to vote to end this war” if given the opportunity in the Senate. She has also said she didn’t agree with ICE’s tactics in Minneapolis and described Trump’s tariff policies as “hit or miss."

Her policy views mostly align with mainstream Republican positions. She backs strong immigration enforcement and Trump’s mass deportation campaign, a “tough on crime” approach to public safety, tax cuts, and laws barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. On abortion, she says she agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but personally believes there should be “reasonable access” in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

Tafoya’s own opinions of Trump have evolved as well. In 2022, she published an open letter urging Trump not to run for a second term, describing his previous time in the White House as "absolute mayhem.” She also said on her podcast around the same time that there was much about Trump that she found “difficult to accept.”

But during the 2024 presidential campaign, Tafoya said she was supporting Trump with “more enthusiasm” than before. She also said she felt “sort of agnostic” on the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. She celebrated Trump’s victory later that year, describing it as “morning in America” — a reference to Ronald Reagan’s famous phrase from the 1980s. 

Tafoya has mostly left Trump out of her current campaign ads and speeches, instead focusing her messaging on issues like fraud, affordability and public safety. The president opted not to endorse a candidate in Minnesota’s Republican primary and has yet to throw his support behind Tafoya in the general election.

What are her chances?

Tafoya is one of the few Republicans in major races across the country who is outperforming expectations in the polls. 

In August, Flanagan held an average lead of about seven points, but Tafoya has been closing the gap. More recent surveys suggest the race is essentially up for grabs. Still, a win by Tafoya would likely be considered a significant upset. Two of the most respected non-partisan elections forecasters — The Cook Political Report and The Center for Politics — list Minnesota’s Senate race as a “likely” win for Democrats.

New data released on Monday by the US Department of Energy showed the US energy backstop sitting at 283 million barrels, down from 283.77 million the week prior.

That leaves about two weeks of US oil consumption in the reserve amid widespread worries about global stockpiles, which the head of Saudi Arabia's state producer on Monday called "scarily thin."

Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, added at an Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Monday that releasing stockpiles will buy economies some time but won't fix the imbalances that have developed between supply and demand.

Yet these withdrawals in the US could soon accelerate after the Trump administration unveiled a request for bids from companies to buy up to 40 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR, with the aim of having the companies return those supplies "with additional premium barrels." The solicitation process is ongoing, and it's unclear if companies will agree to those terms.

Brandon Bell via Getty Images

The Trump administration continues to wrestle with high energy prices, less than a month before the midterm elections, and is reportedly preparing an executive order to expand access ‌to tax-exempt diesel, with the president confirming on Monday afternoon, "I'll be helping [farmers] with diesel."

In recent days, G7 countries — including the US — announced a new set of plans to release up to 100 million barrels of emergency fuel, including "a frontloaded substantial diesel release."

A White House official told Yahoo Finance that Trump intends to follow through on a commitment to release a total of 172 million barrels from the SPR, which was announced earlier this year. 

The US energy backstop already sits at the lowest level seen since October of 1982, and a withdrawal of another 40 million barrels would put the reserve at its lowest level since records began being kept earlier in 1982, as the backstop was still coming online under President Ronald Reagan.

For his part, President Trump continues to project confidence that the US reserves will be quickly refilled. He told a crowd in Alabama over the weekend that, because of an energy deal with Venezuela, "we're going to be filling up very shortly our strategic reserves for nothing." 

Experts say that, despite Trump's promises, refilling the reserves will be a complex and far-from-free process that could take years.

Historically low levels

It was back in March that the Trump administration announced the US part of a worldwide release of government oil in response to the war in Iran, with plans to sell 172 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to steady global markets.

But the announcement came amid plenty of signals that the withdrawals could be pared back.

"The releases out of the US strategic petroleum reserve go over about four months," US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a Fox News interview at the time. "But this conflict, I don't think, goes that long."

Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

Wright added that the Trump team had plans in place to "replace these strategic reserves with approximately 200 million barrels within the next year." 

Analysts at Goldman Sachs also cast doubt on the numbers at the time, suggesting all those barrels would be withdrawn only "under longer/much longer disruptions."

Yet seven months later, the administration has maintained a steady pace of withdrawals, and refills have yet to begin.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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An Ohio man who was found guilty of murdering his wife and staging the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken into their home and fatally shot the mother of two was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Caleb Flynn, 40, a former pastor who once appeared as a contestant on "American Idol" in 2013, was found guilty of aggravated murder and multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his wife, 37-year-old Ashley Flynn.

Judge Jeannine Pratt called the former pastor's actions "abhorrent" and "quite honestly impossible to fathom" while handing down the life sentence on Monday.

Caleb Flynn called 911 early on Feb. 16 to report that his wife had been shot by an intruder at their home in Tipp City, north of Dayton. He was arrested three days later. Prosecutors alleged that Caleb Flynn "executed" his wife by shooting her twice in the back of the head in bed so that he could be with his mistress and manipulated the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken in through the garage.

Pratt said that after considering the evidence in the case, there is "one clear and obvious conclusion" -- that Caleb Flynn poses the "highest risk" of harm to the public -- and admonished the "layers of deceit, manipulation and cruelty" that he has shown.

"You could have walked away. You could have separated from her and left her here on this earth to be able to be with the people that need her, who loved her, who looked forward to having her in their lives. But instead, through your greed, your selfishness, your lust, and your cruelty, you chose to take Ashley's life, and in doing so, you did far more than take the life of your wife," Pratt said. "On that fateful day in February, the person who should have been protecting their children shattered their lives."

Caleb Flynn addressed the court prior to learning his sentence, crying while reading from prepared remarks that he shakily clutched while in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit.

He repeatedly denied killing his wife, saying, "I have unfortunately lied about a lot of things over the last couple of years. But as I stand here before God, who is my ultimate judge, I am not lying when I say I did not kill my wife."

"I will continue to fight for my innocence as long as the Lord allows me to, since I did not kill my wife," he said.

He apologized to his wife's family and asked for their forgiveness.

"I made vows to Ashley on our wedding day -- I failed those vows, and through my decisions, I have caused you guys an incredible amount of pain," he said. "Through those decisions, I'm sure you have felt betrayal, confusion, anger and so much more."

"I take complete accountability for my words and my decisions," he said. "I am so sorry, I am so sorry, and pray that you can one day forgive me."

Caleb Flynn also addressed members of his family, including his young daughters.

"I don't know if they'll ever be able to hear this, but I want them to hear it regardless -- I love you two," he said, calling them his "greatest joy in his life."

He apologized for not being able to see them grow up and said through tears that he misses them "more than you'll ever know."

The judge said she received over a dozen victim impact statements, and several members of Ashley Flynn's family addressed the court prior to the sentence being handed down, speaking to the impact the murder of their mother has had on his daughters, Alyssa and Ava, and asking for the maximum possible sentence.

In a searing letter read on her behalf, Alyssa said, "You have already caused so much pain to your family and the world. The least you can do is tell everyone you did it and receive your outcome."

"Did you really even think about how much pain you would bring your own two daughters?" the statement continued. "By the way, Ashley Flynn was the best thing that ever happened to you. You had the best life ever, and you decided to throw it away for a girl who was half your age."

In closing, she said her family has "never been stronger" and she doesn't plan to visit him in prison.

Her sister, Ava, asked their father in a statement read on her behalf, "Mommy was the perfect person, the absolute perfect person -- what did she ever do to make you hate her so much?"

"She was my best friend. And then you chose to kill the only mother I ever had. I miss her so much -- so, so, so much. You have no idea," the statement continued, calling on him to "confess and repent" to God.

Caleb Flynn could be seen crying as the statements were read.

He faced up to life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors asked for the maximum possible sentence, arguing in a sentencing memorandum filed ahead of the hearing that he is a "dangerous individual with no regard for human life and has refused to accept accountability or show any remorse."

"It is important to note that Defendant could have lawfully left his marriage. Instead, he chose murder. He planned Ashley's murder for months. This was a planned and calculated execution," Prosecuting Attorney Paul Watkins stated.

In his memo, Watkins said Caleb Flynn's "effort to escape responsibility did not end with the staged scene or the false intruder narrative," but that his two daughters described him instructing them on what to say in their forensic interviews and that their statements "could be the difference between life and death for him."

"Thus, after taking their mother from them, Defendant attempted to use his grieving daughters to reinforce the story he had created to protect himself," Watkins stated.

The defense, meanwhile, said in its memorandum that Flynn continues to maintain his innocence and has no prior criminal history while asking for a sentence that "preserves the possibility of parole and a return to society following his rehabilitation."

The jury deliberated for nearly 2 1/2 hours before reaching a verdict on Sept. 29, finding him guilty of all charges.

During closing arguments, Miami County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Joseph pointed to evidence including the physical scene and a side garage door he said was made to look as if an intruder had damaged it, Caleb Flynn's 911 call, text messages between the defendant and his mistress discussing the end of his marriage and digital records from the night of the shooting, which he argued "leads straight to the defendant."

"The evidence showed that being the victim would allow the defendant to keep his lucrative job working for Ashley's family business, he would benefit from Ashley's life insurance, and he could keep his position as a working worship leader with zero impact to his reputation within the church," Joseph said during closing arguments on Sept. 29 in the Miami County courtroom. "The evidence does not tell the story of an intruder."

Defense attorney Patrick Mulligan argued during his closing that the state's evidence is circumstantial, and that the only thing prosecutors proved was that Caleb Flynn was having an affair.

"Connecting a couple of meaningless dots doesn't solve the case," Mulligan told jurors.

Caleb Flynn did not testify during the trial and the defense called no witnesses.

He denied killing his spouse in an interview with police days after the deadly shooting, according to video shown during the more than weeklong trial.

His former mistress testified for the state during the trial, reading from some of the more than 100,000 messages they exchanged over her two days of testimony.

"If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat," Caleb Flynn said in one message from May 2025, Botner testified.

Following the guilty verdict, Mulligan told reporters that he expected there to be a notice of appeal filed.

When asked what appellate issues they have, he said, "There's a lack of evidence on prior calculation and design."

Watkins thanked the jury "for their dedication to justice in this case."

In a statement read by Watkins, Ashley Flynn's family said they "refuse to let the evil that ended Ashley's life have the final word in her story."

"Ashley loved Jesus with her whole heart. Her faith wasn't simply something she simply spoke about. It was how she lived," the statement said. "She loved people well, found joy beyond her circumstances, prayed boldly for her family, and wanted her life to point people to Jesus."

"Most of all, she loved being a mom," the statement continued. "She prayed over her girls, taught them to love God, and showed them what it looked like to live with faith, kindness, joy, and grace."