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Australian law enforcement charged a man Tuesday after a car ramming attack on an Australian Parliament member left her with critical injuries and caused a wave of outrage and shock across the country.
Independent lawmaker Helen Haines, 65, was standing at the rear of her car outside her office when the man drove his car into her, then reversed the car and hit her again, witnesses told Australia’s ABC.
Haines is hospitalized in critical but stable condition, the Victoria police said Tuesday. Local news outlets ABC and CBC reported that one of her legs has been amputated.
A 43-year-old man is in police custody, after being initially restrained by a bystander, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. He has been charged with dangerous driving causing serious injury, intentionally causing serious injury and causing harm to a Commonwealth public official.
“Police will allege the incident was targeted,” said the Victoria police.
Australia’s national police said it has “regularly” and “publicly” raised concerns about growing threats against federal parliamentarians and high-office holders, noting that there were 1,067 such reports made in 2025-26.
In a statement published by Australian news outlets, the father and stepmother of the suspect claimed that Haines “has been our friend for more than 20 years and what happened to her yesterday is devastating and unfathomable.”
Bob Seale, the onetime chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, filed a Federal Election Commission complaint Tuesday against David Flippo, a Republican congressional candidate in Nevada who has come under scrutiny for his personal finances and campaign finance reports.
The complaint, shared first with The Washington Post, pulls from reporting by several outlets, including Mother Jones, which reported that a “major donor” listed on Flippo’s FEC report said they had not donated anything to his campaign, and the Nevada Independent, which reported on the Republican candidate’s failure to file a personal financial disclosure document and raised questions about how he was self-financing his campaign.
“This allegation raises serious concerns about the accuracy of the reports that Respondents filed with the Commission,” Seale writes in the complaint, calling for an investigation.
Seale, a Republican who served two terms as Nevada treasurer in the 1990s and ran for the seat Flippo is seeking in 1996, compares Flippo to Republican former congressman George Santos. Santos was expelled from the House in 2023 after being accused of financial misconduct and telling myriad lies about his background. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison, but President Donald Trump commuted his sentence.
“I find it offensive that he thinks he can get away with it,” Seale told The Post, adding that he is still a registered Republican but will “likely” vote for Flippo’s opponent, Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson.
A spokesperson for the Flippo campaign attacked The Washington Post for reporting on Seale’s letter and pointed to the chair of the Washoe County Republican Party requesting an FBI investigation into Benitez-Thompson.
Additional Coverage
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday are set to announce an initiative to offer cash rewards for tipsters who help uncover allegations of fraud in government programs.
The president and vice president will appear in the Oval Office with conservative YouTube personality Nick Shirley, whose video series from Minnesota late last year led to fraud investigations of day care centers there that receive federal money. Shirley, who posted videos showing empty buildings that purported to be active day care centers, will be presented with a check for $10,000, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the program ahead of the announcement.
A woman featured in one of Shirley’s videos pleaded guilty in July to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The videos were praised and amplified by Vance, Elon Musk and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Existing federal programs allow whistleblowers in some cases to receive money when fraud is proved in court. The new Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program will award up to $30,000 for a tip that “leads to a successful conviction for fraud or a significant federal enforcement action,” the White House said in a statement.
The Justice Department will administer the program, which will start with $25 million. Vance has been tasked with heading the administration’s anti-fraud efforts, which he has touted as a top issue on the campaign trail this year.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Monday it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that closes multiple federal investigations and ensures the school can receive federal funding.
It is the latest of several universities to reach deals with the Trump administration, which moved aggressively to force schools to comply with its ideals for higher education by launching investigations, halting federal research funding and other means.
The agreement closes 19 federal inquiries at UNC related to compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs receiving federal funding.
UNC was a defendant in the landmark 2023 Supreme Court case that banned race-conscious admissions, and the agreement requires the university to abide by the Trump administration’s interpretation of the ruling. While some have interpreted the ruling as allowing schools to use race-neutral alternatives such as family income to try to achieve a diverse class, the Trump administration has called the use of such proxies illegal.
The agreement does not require UNC to pay anything to the federal government, as some schools have done, or acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The school agreed to hire a merit and civil rights administrator who will report to federal officials quarterly. The agreement also requires mandatory antisemitism training and quarterly reports on any complaints of discrimination, with the first report looking back to Oct. 7, 2023, when the Israel-Gaza war began.
The Cook Political Report shifted its rating of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race toward Republicans on Tuesday, another sign that a contest Democrats once expected to win comfortably has become increasingly competitive in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Cook moved the race between Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) and Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL broadcaster, from “Likely Democrat” to “Lean Democrat.”
The shift is an unwelcome development for Democrats, who are trying to regain control of the Senate but now face a competitive race in a state that has long been reliably blue in federal elections.
Minnesota has not elected a Republican to the Senate since Norm Coleman in 2002. This seat has been held by Democrats since Al Franken defeated Coleman in 2008, and in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris carried Minnesota by more than four percentage points.
But Tafoya, a longtime television sports reporter making her first run for public office, has kept the race close. Recent polls have shown the contest tightening, with some putting the candidates within the margin of error.
The two met Friday for their only scheduled debate, a contentious hour in which Tafoya sought to hold Flanagan responsible for fraud scandals that have plagued Minnesota state programs, while Flanagan repeatedly challenged Tafoya over her ties to President Donald Trump and her shifting positions on several issues.
The race is for the seat held by Sen. Tina Smith (D), who is not seeking reelection.
Jaime West, a Democratic candidate for a seat on Indiana’s Fayette County Council who went viral for her remarks during a televised candidate forum this month, has an explanation: She had been drinking beforehand.
“I had a beer, mm-hmm … maybe a couple,” West told conservative British television host Piers Morgan on his show Monday. “I was nervous, okay?”
Pressed by Morgan, West admitted that she had actually consumed three beers before the forum but said she was “not that intoxicated.”
“I do know what I’m talking about,” she said.
In the interview that went viral, West said that she would fire all Republicans if she could, accused those who supported President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement of being racist and dumb, and ended the show with a vaguely threatening message: “We have guns, too,” she said, presumably referring to Democrats.
West did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. In 2024, Trump won deeply red Fayette County by more than 55 percentage points.
On Monday, West told Morgan there was nothing she regretted saying at the candidate forum, even if she had been drinking.
“I say it all the time: I’m not friends with [Republicans]. I don’t like them,” she said. “They voted for all of this that’s happening and to our country. We have a constitutional crisis. We have an illegal war going on.”
It’s unclear who counts as a Very Important Person at Washington Dulles International Airport, but whomever they are, they’ll have access to a private terminal that’s separate from the riffraff within a few years.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said Tuesday that Dulles is moving forward with a planned VIP passenger terminal. MWAA, which operates Dulles and Reagan National Airport, said it selected Irish airport management company daa International to develop and operate the facility.
“By introducing this premium service, Dulles is responding to traveler demand, supporting continued growth and joining other leading international airports around the world that offer elevated services for business and leisure travelers alike,” MWAA’s chief revenue officer, Chryssa Westerlund, said in a statement.
In a statement, daa International spokesperson Kevin Cullinane said a VIP passenger “is any commercial airline traveller seeking a more private, personalised and efficient airport journey.”
The facility will feature a VIP entrance and parking, private security screening, and suites, lounges and other amenities that are separate from other airport concourses, MWAA said.
daa International, whose parent company is owned by the Irish government, will develop the 37,000-square-foot terminal over a 30-month period and, once open, will operate the terminal for an initial 20-year term, MWAA said. By comparison, the main terminal at Dulles has about 1.3 million square feet of floor space, according to MWAA.
In July, President Donald Trump unveiled a massive, multibillion-dollar plan to renovate Dulles.
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