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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has banned service members and Defense Department personnel from seeking personal financial gain from nonpublic military information, warning that trades on prediction market platforms put U.S. troops and missions at risk.
In a Tuesday memo to the force reviewed by The Washington Post, Hegseth said that any financial transactions with third-party platforms that leveraged military information — regardless of whether it was classified — could be met with punishment under military and federal law. He named predictive market companies Polymarket and Kalshi, which allow people to place bets on various potential outcomes.
“Our enemies watch movements in these markets. When an American service member, intelligence professional, or other department civilian engages in a financial transaction on a military outcome, they create a signal,” the memo says. “That signal can be aggregated, correlated, and exploited by hostile foreign intelligence services to anticipate our movements, targets, and timing.”
An August report from the nonprofit analyst group Anti-Corruption Data Collective found that more than 150 accounts may have traded on insider military information.
Federal authorities have accused an Army Special Forces soldier of using foreknowledge of the January mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to profit more than $404,000 off Polymarket bets. The soldier pleaded not guilty.
Hegseth’s memo does not indicate whether government contract workers will be held to the same standard. Such personnel can also have access to classified information.
The Atlanta Falcons wanted to celebrate 1966. The internet saw something closer to 1936.
Ahead of Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers, when Atlanta will wear uniforms inspired by its inaugural season, the Falcons updated their social media profile picture Wednesday with a stylized image featuring their original angular falcon logo against vertical red, white, black and gold stripes.
“New PFP ,” the team posted.
New PFP
pic.twitter.com/gBXWISJav4
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) October 21, 2026
It did not take long for social media users to notice what they considered an unfortunate resemblance to Nazi-era German iconography. By Thursday, the image had spread far beyond Falcons fans, spawning an assortment of World War II jokes and nicknames.
“The Bird Reich,” one commenter offered.
One said, “Falcons were up 28-3 at Dunkirk,” referencing the early score of Atlanta’s infamous Super Bowl collapse.
Another joked, “I was not expecting to wake up this morning to see that the Atlanta Falcons are preparing to invade Poland.”
The imagery, however, isn’t nearly as new, or as nefarious, as the Falcons’ post and the internet’s reaction might suggest.
The bird is the franchise’s original logo, introduced when the Falcons began play in 1966, and the stripes mimic those that appeared on Atlanta’s original red helmets.
Still, once the internet saw it, it became difficult to unsee.
Neither the Falcons nor the NFL immediately responded to a request for comment on the post or the reaction.
Paul Biya has been president of Cameroon since 1982. He is serving his eighth term, after reelection last year. At the end of the term, he’ll be 99.
Nearly half the country has known no other president.
But that’s not even the most unusual fact about his authoritarian rule, compared with one that gained a renewed round of attention in recent days: He appears to spend much of his time in Switzerland.
His return to Cameroon this week, as it struggles with widespread unemployment and a secessionist conflict that has been going on for close to a decade, sparked a wave of online criticism from people who felt as through the country was receiving an official visit — from its own president.
“President of Cameroon, the 93-year-old Paul Biya, is expected to visit Cameroon next week!” a viral tongue-in-cheek headline reads.
“The people of Cameroon, I wonder how you feel because how do you tell me that a whole head of state will be visiting you,” user Pr7ation wrote on TikTok.
In 2024, Biya was away for about two months, and this year for almost the same period, from June 7 to Aug. 20, having accumulated other, longer stints in previous years. In total, he was estimated to have spent 4½ years abroad in private visits since he became president, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project — as of 2018. Since then, the figure has only climbed.
In his 2025 campaign, he was largely absent from rallies.
The government has defended the trips, dismissing reports of his failing health. Biya manages to operate the country remotely, the government says, even with the vice presidency vacant.
Cameroon’s government did not respond immediately to a request for comment on his travels.
A subtropical storm named Josephine formed Wednesday afternoon about 300 miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast. But instead of bringing unsettled weather, the offshore storm helped produce cloud-free skies from Maine to Florida.
This tranquil, sun-filled pattern could last through the end of the month for cities such as New York and Boston — forming their longest dry stretch in about two years.
In D.C., it could become the fourth two-week-dry-streak in the past five years, with the last such stretch accompanying frigid weather from late January to mid-February earlier this year.
The counterclockwise flow of air around the storm is steering dry air southward from Canada, as a high-pressure force field keeps the system offshore.
And although Josephine will remain well offshore, the storm is expected to cause minor to moderate coastal flooding around high tide in parts of the Mid-Atlantic through the end of the week.
By November, a change to the dry pattern could be coming, toward an expected stormier pattern due to enhanced jet stream winds from El Niño.
And from December through February, that stormy pattern is forecast to further accelerate, according to climate data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
Along the East Coast, strong low-pressure systems could be far more frequent than normal this winter, with about 18 forecast compared with a typical nine.
This stormy pattern is forecast to affect the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, but the latter two regions could see the biggest jump in storminess compared to average.
It appears that this dry streak is the calm before the storm.
Senate Democrats intend to probe the Trump administration’s deal to ease sanctions on Russian diesel, in a preview of how the party could use its oversight power if it wins control of Congress in the midterm elections, a Senate Democratic aide said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has asked companies involved in the deal to preserve documents ahead of a possible investigation by the panel, said the aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Democrats’ sensitive plans.
“They should have liability concerns as well as investigative concerns,” the aide said of the companies.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump agreed to waive sanctions on Russian fuel through April and said that Moscow would immediately release 300,000 tons of diesel into the market, followed by larger quantities later on.
The surprise move came weeks ahead of the November midterm elections. Rising gas prices have contributed to voters’ broad dissatisfaction with how Republicans have addressed cost-of-living issues and the war in Iran, which has disrupted energy markets throughout the year.
Experts on the global fuel market have doubted that the deal will substantially lower prices, given the worldwide diesel shortage far outpaces the quantity Russia will supply.
Republicans and Democrats have also objected to the deal and Trump’s wider effort to court Russian President Vladimir Putin, including waiving other sanctions on Russian energy that lawmakers overwhelmingly passed last month.
Congress passed the sanctions on Russian diesel in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The president is only able to waive the ban after reaching a peace agreement in Ukraine and notifying lawmakers.
Under a new Airbnb rule, guests will no longer have to complete a laundry list of housekeeping tasks at the time of checkout.
The policy, which goes into effect for reservations booked on or after Nov. 20, prohibits hosts from assigning guests time-consuming or burdensome chores, such as stripping beds, tossing trash off-property or washing and putting away dishes. They can’t require jobs that a professional cleaner would typically handle, nor can they restrict the use of amenities. (Some exceptions apply.)
“They can’t say they’re providing air-conditioning, but if the guest uses it too much, they’re going tack on a $20 fee,” said Nick Ewen, editor in chief at the Points Guy.
In a statement, the company said the streamlined and standardized protocols should help quell complaints that hosts’ house rules can be “confusing, onerous and hard to manage.” Checkout requests, it noted, will be “reasonable, with no surprises.”
Airbnb guests have been complaining for years about hidden fees and checkout chores. A year ago, for example, a Reddit user shared a multipage checklist that included such persnickety mandates as returning all game pieces to their original places and remotes to their designated holders (failure to do the latter could result in a $25 fine).
During an eight-night rental in Vancouver, Ewen had to embark on a mini-odyssey to recycle his garbage. Confused by the different bins that were stored an elevator ride away in a locked room, he had to message the owners several times for guidance.
In the future, Ewen can just leave his trash by the door.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff faced fierce backlash from lawmakers and Ukraine for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian” after Russia’s release of U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard on Wednesday.
Some Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing Witkoff’s remarks, which he made during talks in St. Petersberg. Russia’s war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
“WTF, Steve?” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) wrote on social media, alongside a picture of the dictionary definition of “humanitarian.” “What an embarrassing and outrageous thing to say.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called Putin “a stone cold killer,” while Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said: “Vladimir Putin is not our friend, and he is certainly no humanitarian.”
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut) criticized “Witkoff’s pathetic fawning.”
The bipartisan backlash comes as Trump seeks successes ahead of the midterms, where Republicans are battling low presidential approval ratings and frustration over inflation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday three waves of ballistic strikes were launched at Kyiv “by Russian ‘humanitarians’ since yesterday evening.” He said the attack came “almost immediately after another round of talks.”
Zelensky said he is grateful to those who “acknowledges the reality.” “The aggressor deserves to be treated accordingly,” he added.
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