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Five people were killed Monday, the Syrian government said, after Jordan launched airstrikes in response to a deadly church attack last week.
In a statement, Jordan’s air force said it had targeted “hideouts of terrorist organizations” in southern Syria that it said were connected to the individuals behind the church attack.
The Syrian government disputed the claim, saying the strikes left five dead, including women and children, as well as an elderly man.
The airstrikes came after three men involved in the church attack were captured, Jordan said. At a news conference Monday, the country’s director of public security, Obeidallah Maaytah, said that law enforcement tracked down the individuals involved in that attack and, after a shootout, managed to arrest them and seize their weapons.
The three detainees were identified as Ahmad Sami Hussein, Mish’al Zaidan Muhammad, and his brother Hazza’ Zaidan Muhammad, who authorities said masterminded the attack.
The death toll from the church attack rose to nine over the weekend after two people succumbed to their injuries. Friday’s attack also left dozens wounded.
Footage from the scene of the church attack showed three gunmen opening fire at the entrance of the Hamoud Greek Orthodox church in the Jordanian district of Karak, before storming in. More than a hundred people had gathered earlier in and around the church for a funeral procession.
On Sunday, Jordan’s Queen Rania and Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah attended a funeral held for the victims while Jordan’s King Abdullah II visited the injured in the hospital earlier.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Maaytah referred to the men as “takfiri,” an Arabic word used to describe Sunni extremists such as members of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
When the Federal Reserve announces its next interest rate decision Wednesday, the nation will be six days from Election Day.
That’s awkward timing for a central bank that wants to stay out of politics, and most observers expect the Fed to hold rates steady.
Over the past 32 years, the Fed has met to consider interest rates in the week before an election four times and changed rates at two of them, according to a review of Fed records.
But both came in a crisis. In 2008, six days before Barack Obama won the White House, the Fed cut rates by half a percentage point as the financial system teetered. In 2022, the central bank raised rates by three-quarters of a point six days before the midterm elections, part of its fight against the worst inflation in four decades.
At meetings in 2014 and 2016, both of which came six days before elections, the Fed held steady. Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, officials said the case for raising rates had “continued to strengthen” but waited anyway.
Widen the lens to include meetings that came weeks before Election Day, and the Fed has made additional rate changes. Since 1994, when it began announcing changes the day it made them, the Fed changed rates at its last meeting before the vote in six of 16 election years, including 2008 and 2022. It cut rates three times and raised them three times.
The scariest part of Halloween this year might be the candy prices.
Prices for the “candy and chewing gum” category have spiked 7.7 percent over the past year — more than twice the rate of overall inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Rising prices are especially apparent for candies that include chocolate. Cocoa production was hampered by extreme-weather issues for years, causing prices for the crop to surge.
Cocoa prices have dropped in the last year, but relief is coming too late to help prices for this Halloween, said David Branch, sector manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. And it’s still unclear how those falling prices might affect next year’s Halloween costs — the El Niño weather could disrupt cocoa production.
About 65 percent of confectionery ingredient costs come from cocoa, sugar and corn syrup, according to the BLS. Sugar crops also have faced issues related to extreme weather.
Still, trick-or-treating must persist. The National Retail Federation expects Halloween consumer spending to reach a record $13.5 billion this year.
It’s partly off to a slow start, however. NielsenIQ reports that Halloween candy sales were down 6.7 percent in the four weeks ending Oct. 17, compared with last year.
“People are still buying chocolate, but they’re just buying less of it,” Branch said. “I don’t think people will ever stop buying chocolate.”
A potentially dangerous cyclone is rapidly intensifying in the Bay of Bengal and is expected to strike eastern India as soon as late Tuesday into early Wednesday local time.
The storm, Cyclone Arnab, is growing into what the India Meteorological Department calls a “very severe cyclonic storm,” or roughly the equivalent of a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. It could weaken into a Category 1-equivalent storm before landfall, but still will bring serious wind and surge impacts to an area with a high population density and vulnerable infrastructure.
On Monday night local time, the system was in the middle of the Bay of Bengal, where water temperatures are around 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Weak winds aloft are allowing it to strengthen quickly. It had winds of 90 mph but should continue to rapidly intensify overnight.
The Google DeepMind model suggests it could attain mid-tier Category 3 strength by Tuesday afternoon local time. It could make landfall Tuesday night along India’s eastern coast, south of Visakhapatnam near the Krishna River.
The India Meteorological Department anticipates the storm could have sustained winds of 75 mph at that point, with gusts probably exceeding 100 to 110 mph near the storm’s core. However, it may weaken a little more quickly given the introduction of easterly shear, or disruptive changing winds with height.
North of the center near Kakinada, the storm could cause about 3 to 5 feet of storm surge, where onshore winds pile water against the coast. Rainfall may total 12 to 20 inches, causing inland flood concerns, as well.
The system should fall apart quickly Wednesday, but heavy rain will still be a concern in eastern India.
This could be the region’s strongest cyclone since Hudhud in 2014.
Three Catholic bishops who met and prayed with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday said they did not intend their visit to be politicized.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob apologized in a statement Sunday and said a video of the meeting, which he and 11 other bishops attended, had been posted by the White House without their consent.
“I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way,” Grob wrote.
In a separate statement, Des Moines Bishop William Joensen said: “I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purposes.”
Catholic Archbishops and Bishops pray with President Trump in the Oval Office
pic.twitter.com/facV5wTGQQ
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) October 22, 2026
Denver Archbishop James Golka told the Denver Catholic magazine he was aware the meeting could be used for political purposes but that it was “never my intention” for it to be seen as an endorsement.
Asked about the meeting, Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said: “There has never been a greater president for Catholic Americans than President Trump, and his strong record proves it.”
Minnesota is the NFL’s last undefeated team.
Yes, the Vikings. The team with the middling offense, a quarterback trying to jump-start his career and a division full of much louder contenders.
But with a 16-10 win over Indianapolis on Sunday — and after losses by both San Francisco and Kansas City — Minnesota is 6-0 and alone atop the league’s unbeaten list.
The 49ers squandered an early 14-3 lead and turned the ball over four times in a 29-20 loss to Atlanta. And in Seattle on Sunday night, the Chiefs struggled to get their usually potent offense moving and fell to the Seahawks, 20-3.
The Vikings, meanwhile, leaned once again on the defensive unit that has become the backbone of this unexpected start. Quarterback Kyler Murray’s 35-yard scramble early in the fourth quarter set up his go-ahead touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson.
Minnesota has been more workmanlike than dazzling. Its offense ranks among the league’s lower-scoring units, but the Vikings’ defense has allowed the fewest points in the NFL — just 74 through six games, or 12.3 per game. Justin Jefferson remains the headliner, but their perfect start has been built around lesser names: veteran edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel and a relentless pass rush; fellow linebacker Blake Cashman, who piled up 12 tackles and two sacks Sunday; and Murray, a free agent signing who has repeatedly delivered the one timely play Minnesota’s modest offense needs.
This is the Vikings’ first 6-0 start since 2009 and only their seventh in franchise history. Before the season, most sportsbooks pegged Minnesota’s win total at 8½ and viewed the Vikings as more likely to miss the playoffs than make them.
Now we are about to find out whether the Vikings are for real.
Their next four games are at Detroit on Sunday, home against Buffalo on a Monday night, at Green Bay and then against San Francisco in Mexico City. It is the stretch that will tell us whether the Vikings are contenders — or merely a feel-good story with a midseason expiration date.
A recent securities filing spotlighted what triggered Mark Zuckerberg’s months-long power battle with board directors at Meta — a fight that sparked not-so-veiled threats from Zuckerberg and led board members to contemplate quitting.
Zuckerberg and Meta officials wanted to create a new type of stock to fund Meta’s titanic bet on artificial intelligence. Board members tasked with negotiating the deal wanted something from Zuckerberg in return.
In June, directors proposed dissolving, under some circumstances, Zuckerberg’s special stock that lets him effectively rule Meta by decree — including from beyond the grave.
As it stands now, Zuckerberg can pick someone to take over his superpowered Meta stock when he dies or if Zuckerberg is fired or becomes disabled. The directors proposed that Zuckerberg relinquish his absolute power over Meta without transferring it under those circumstances. He’d also have to do so if it reached a point where Zuckerberg owns less than half of the Meta stock he held at the time the new type of shares were issued.
Zuckerberg balked at those conditions. His lawyer relayed that Zuckerberg didn’t want to lose power in a “proposal intended to strengthen the company,” the document said.
After that, already thorny negotiations over Meta’s new stock deteriorated into war between Zuckerberg and board members.
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