content=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com%2Fwapo%2FNO2EG3PVGL6CD3BQDOP5M7OVVE.jpg&w=1200″
President Donald Trump on Monday said that New Mexico “should immediately change its name to New America,” repeating his controversial and far-fetched idea.
“We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
While Trump can use executive authority to rename bodies of water and other geographic features, he lacks authority to rename New Mexico or other states. That would probably require action by the state and Congress. The president could instruct government agencies to refer to New Mexico under a new name.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 19, 2026
Trump first said last month that New Mexico should be renamed, part of his second-term campaign to rebrand parts of the United States that share names with foreign countries. Trump previously ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America and that Lake Ontario be renamed Lake America.
New Mexican lawmakers immediately panned Trump’s idea, and a Republican running for Congress in the state has also distanced himself from it.
“It’s not something that’s legislatively possible, so nothing’s going to change,” Greg Cunningham, who is seeking to unseat Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-New Mexico), said in a debate Friday night.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday announced that the state had secured an arrest warrant for former Cuban president Raúl Castro, charging him with conspiracy to commit murder in the fatal downing of two civilian aircraft in 1996.
A federal grand jury in Miami earlier this year indicted Castro — who ran Cuba from 2008 to 2021, after his brother, longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro, stepped down — on murder and conspiracy charges in relation to the same case, alleging that Cuban military forces were acting on Castro’s orders when they shot down the two planes.
The Cuban Embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the matter.
The federal indictment, and now the state charges, would be difficult to act on and remain largely symbolic, but they come as the Trump administration continues to ratchet up pressure against Cuba’s government.
In a news conference, Uthmeier argued that the Florida arrest warrant, in addition to the federal charges, has “real consequences.”
“If you have a Communist sympathizer that ends up back in the White House, they cannot pardon, they cannot commute, they cannot immunize these dictators from our state proceedings,” Uthmeier said. “It matters.”
The downed planes were flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a U.S.-based humanitarian group formed by Cuban exiles in Miami to search for and rescue refugees fleeing the island by sea. The Florida charges accuse the Castro regime of spying on Brothers to the Rescue as well as American government offices as part of the alleged conspiracy.
“Raúl Castro called for the planes to be shot down,” Uthmeier said. “He called for murder.”
Saudi Arabia, which in recent weeks has weathered barrages of attacks by Houthi militants, on Monday announced that it would postpone its flagship investor conference until next year.
The Future Investment Initiative, which typically brings together business companies and leaders from around the world and is billed as “Davos of the Desert,” had been scheduled to begin in Riyadh, the capital, on Oct. 26.
New dates for the forum will be announced “very soon,” according to a statement from Maha al-Saud, chief executive of FII Institute.
“This decision comes from a deep commitment to our partners, members, speakers, and delegates,” said the statement, which did not directly reference Houthi attacks.
The Iran-backed Houthi militia last weekend struck the international airport in Riyadh, killing 13 people, and have since hit the state-owned oil company and various oil infrastructure across the country. The airport in Riyadh, which the Houthis have repeatedly targeted, remained closed as of Monday.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is backing Yemen’s military coalition, which is fighting the Houthi rebels in Yemen, aiming to take back territory the militia group seized along the Red Sea.
The spiraling conflict is now the most volatile front in the regional conflagration set off when the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor the Houthis see an off-ramp, according to officials and analysts, with more escalation likely.
Jon Stewart just extended his contract with Skydance-owned Paramount to continue hosting “The Daily Show” on Mondays through December 2028.
Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic and others will continue to host the show on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
Stewart’s place on the show had been an open question since the 2025 Paramount-Skydance merger, amid speculation that the new David Ellison-owned conglomerate would scrutinize content critical of President Donald Trump and his administration.
The backstory: Days before the federal government approved the $8 billion merger, CBS parent Paramount canceled Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show. CBS said it was for financial reasons, but Colbert had just criticized the company’s settlement with the Trump administration as a “big fat bribe.” Stewart took Paramount to task on air over it and openly speculated on whether “The Daily Show” could be next. “I’m not giving in, I’m not going anywhere, I think,” he said then.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything from them,” he later said on his podcast. “They haven’t called me and said, like, ‘Don’t get too comfortable in that office, Stewart.’”
But there have been signs that the new ownership of Paramount is not trying to rein in comedy that skewers Trump on its channel Comedy Central. Beyond Stewart’s contract extension, “South Park” has remained unrelenting in going after the president and administration.
Earlier this month, Skydance closed a $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. that also faced legal scrutiny and political pressure.
As Interior Department officials were set to testify in court Monday morning, President Donald Trump attacked the judge overseeing the legal battle over East Potomac Park — a popular national park in D.C. that the administration is seeking to turn into a high-end golf course.
“The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?” the president wrote in a social media post at around 6 a.m. Monday.
He also attacked the plaintiffs, who are represented by Democracy Forward: “The random golfer bringing the ridiculous lawsuit has ZERO STANDING!”
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes already had ordered Interior officials to testify about the administration’s plans for the park at a follow-up hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday.
Last Tuesday, after the administration abruptly cut down hundreds of trees, Reyes issued a temporary restraining order barring any further tree removal until Oct. 26.
Reyes also rebuked the government’s lawyers, who told her any plans to renovate the park were only conceptual. Then on Sunday, Trump posted that his administration already had specific plans in the works, attaching a proposed map of the overhauled golf course. He stated the park would be closed for 15 months starting Nov. 15.
Trump’s rhetoric inflames an already fiery legal battle. The Justice Department asked Reyes to recuse herself Friday, accusing the judge of “open hostility” against the administration. She refused to do so in a response Sunday night.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review the constitutionality of a nearly 160-year-old ban on distilling spirits at home.
Scott McNutt of Robbinsville, New Jersey, argues that the ban, which was put in place to thwart tax evasion, is unconstitutional. McNutt owns a still he had previously used to make fuel alcohol and said he wants to “tinker around” with crafting spirits at home.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with McNutt in April, reasoning that the law is counterproductive: Instead of helping the government raise revenue, it reduces the pool of taxable activity by cutting home distillers out of the market.
The government says that, on the contrary, the law channels distilling to locations where it’s harder to evade taxes. Plus, home distillers “can more easily conceal a distilling operation or thwart necessary inspections,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a brief to the court.
The ban was enacted in 1868.
The case, which will probably be argued early next year, is the second related to alcohol that the court will hear this term. The justices will also decide whether the state of Alaska can confiscate a man’s plane because he flew beer into a dry community.
A group of military veterans is calling on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to stop the scheduled execution of a Vietnam veteran.
In a letter sent to DeSantis today, the veterans urge him to spare William Reaves, 77, who is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Reaves was sentenced to death for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County sheriff’s deputy Richard Raczkoski. The 100 signatories represent multiple branches of service.
The veterans say Reaves’s jury never heard evidence of his combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder or how it affected his mental state during the shooting. They urge DeSantis to consider that evidence and grant Reaves clemency.
“Mr. Reaves served when his country called, and volunteered to go farther than his country had asked. When he returned wounded by that service, he did not receive the help he needed,” the letter reads. “Florida should not make that failure final by executing him now.”
The veterans appealed to DeSantis as a fellow veteran, emphasizing the lasting toll of military service.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Reaves would be at least the 235th military veteran executed nationwide in the modern era and the 14th veteran executed under DeSantis.
The post Florida issues arrest warrant for Cuba’s Raúl Castro appeared first on Washington Post.
