Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Americans to watch a firing squad kill a man on a Pentagon livestream.
The execution of the Fort Hood shooter is set for 1 p.m. Central on the Thursday after Thanksgiving, the hour he opened fire in 2009. No execution in America has ever been televised, and the last public one was a hanging in Kentucky 90 years ago. Asked whether the condemned man had made any final requests, Hegseth replied, “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.”
Donald Trump went to war with Iran and boasted in his State of the Union that he had stopped it from hanging people. Iran and Afghanistan were the only two countries that held public executions last year. In December, Trump’s Pentagon plans to join them.
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Ottumwa, Iowa, council opens with a Satanic Temple member's "Hail Satan" invocation under its open prayer policy, and a pastor rises to "reverse this curse."
Today’s GovBrief News
US Ambassador to Israel Huckabee’s senior aide blocked an embassy memo criticizing Israel’s settlement approvals before Congress could see it, US officials tell The New York Times.
Source: The Hill
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Trump promises no attacks on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterms as a congressional report counts 81 US military aircraft lost or damaged in the war.
Source: CBS News
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Trump awards Musk, Google co-founder Brin, Nvidia’s Huang and three other tech leaders some of the nation’s highest scientific honors at an innovation summit.
Source: USA Today
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ICE emails discuss loading voter roll data into ELITE, the Palantir-supported tool agents use to pick deportation targets, to investigate voter fraud.
Source: Wired
October 8, 2026
Defense Secretary Hegseth says the public can watch Nidal Hasan’s firing squad execution at 1 p.m. the Thursday after Thanksgiving, matching his Fort Hood attack that killed 13.
Source: NBC News
October 8, 2026
USS Lincoln returns to San Diego after 322 days as Defense Secretary Hegseth tells the crew he twice signed orders extending its Iran war deployment.
Source: KNSD San Diego
October 8, 2026
Justice Department presents evidence against Jan. 6 committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson to a grand jury, weighing a civil rights charge over her testimony about Trump.
Source: The Washington Post
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Federal prosecutors charge captured former Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife with torture conspiracy, alleging electrocution, beatings and simulated drowning of political opponents.
Source: Axios
October 8, 2026
ICE agent fires seven shots into a car with a five-year-old in the back seat, hitting the Manhattan driver in the neck, NYPD says.
Source: WABC New York
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ICE logged 60 encounters with Minneapolis protesters and observers in a secret “Agitator Log” despite its then-director telling Congress “there is no database for protesters.”
Source: USA Today
October 8, 2026
Labor Department bars Microsoft, Adobe and others from sponsoring green cards at the summit where Trump gives Microsoft’s Indian-born CEO a national technology medal.
Source: CNBC
October 8, 2026
Bureau of Prisons scraps its union contract again eight days after a judge ordered it restored, its director allegedly saying “I don’t take directives from the court.”
Source: Federal News Network
October 8, 2026
ICE’s deputy director accuses Pennsylvania Democrat Janelle Stelson without evidence of hiring an immigrant arrested for indecent exposure in her House race against Rep. Perry.
Source: WPMT Harrisburg
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Trump calls anyone who says “artificial intelligence” instead of his “super intelligence” rebrand “the enemy,” just over a week after ordering agencies to use it.
Source: The Independent
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Trump bought up to $5 million in SpaceX debt two days before signing a policy to expand commercial launches, his August disclosure shows.
Source: CNBC
October 8, 2026
Savannah, Georgia, offers low-income households help paying city stormwater fees, open to families of four earning up to $66,000.
Source: WTOC Savannah
October 8, 2026
Arlington County, Virginia, becomes first government to sue over Trump’s 250-foot arch, calling the National Park Service review a pretext for his “marching orders.”
Source: ARLnow
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