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US could play role in united Ireland push after Trump’s backing, Irish PM says

October 6, 2026 4:51pm EDT / Fox News

The Irish prime minister pointed to Trump’s recent backing for reunification during a visit to Ireland

By Michael Dorgan Fox News

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin discusses the future of a united Ireland, President Donald Trump’s backing for reunification, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Irish neutrality, Europe’s security and Ireland’s role in an increasingly unstable world.

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NEW YORK — Nearly three decades after the Good Friday Agreement transformed Northern Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said the United States could potentially play a role in a future push for a united Ireland following President Donald Trump’s backing for reunification.

Martin, whose Fianna Fáil party supports Irish unity, said the landmark 1998 agreement – which largely ended 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as “the Troubles” – created a peaceful mechanism for deciding Northern Ireland’s constitutional future, but cautioned that the deep divide between Northern Ireland’s nationalist and unionist communities must first be bridged.

“I believe in unity and my party believes in unity, but we have to work on it,” Martin told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “We have to build reconciliation among the different traditions on the island of Ireland.”

“The U.S. were critical to the success of peace and conflict resolution in Ireland,” Martin added.

IRISH PM REJECTS ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS IN IRELAND AMID DRAMATIC VOTE OVER BOYCOTTING ISRAEL GAME

President Donald Trump listens to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin during their meeting in the Oval Office on March 17, 2026. Martin told Fox News Digital last month that the United States could potentially play a role in a future push for a united Ireland.(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Martin spoke to Fox News Digital during the U.N. General Assembly in New York at what he described as a global “crossroad,” with war raging in Ukraine, conflict across the Middle East and negotiations underway over Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

Throughout the interview, he repeatedly returned to Ireland’s own experience of conflict and peace as a guide to how the country approaches crises abroad, while defending the country’s long-standing policy of military neutrality despite its growing support for Ukraine.

The constitutional question of Irish unity gained renewed attention during Trump’s recent visit to Ireland last month, when the president said he would “love” to see Ireland unified and predicted it would eventually happen.

Asked during the Fox News Digital whether Washington could play a role again if Ireland eventually moves toward reunification, Martin replied: “To a degree maybe, potentially, yeah.”

Martin spoke before the latest confrontation over Garvaghy Road erupted in Portadown, reviving one of Northern Ireland’s most bitter marching disputes and underscoring how potent nationalist-unionist divisions remain.

The Parades Commission last month approved a limited Orange Order march along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road for the first time in 28 years. Residents and supporters blocked the route, while police declined to force the parade through amid fears of serious disorder.

The Orange Order is a Protestant organization whose members generally support Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, while many residents of the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road community, who are predominantly Catholic, favor a united Ireland.

The standoff has since spilled into the courts and Stormont, where parliament meets, as efforts to broker a compromise continue.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, a referendum can be called if it appears a majority in Northern Ireland would support reunification. But Martin said more work is needed to define what a united Ireland would look like and deepen engagement on both sides of the border.

A van burns following the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on May 6, 1981. The image captures unrest during the Troubles, the decades-long conflict that preceded the Good Friday Agreement.(UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

IRISH PM SAYS IRELAND ‘NOT OVERRUN’ BY IMMIGRANTS, LEGAL MIGRATION TIED TO ECONOMIC SUCCESS

UKRAINE AND THE SEARCH FOR PEACE

For Martin, however, the lessons of Northern Ireland’s peace process extend far beyond the island.

“Because of our conflict in Northern Ireland, we feel we can make a contribution to that conflict resolution pathway,” Martin said.

He said Ireland’s experience ending decades of violence now shapes how it approaches Russia’s war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and Europe’s increasingly uncertain security environment.

“We don’t get a sense that Russia is really interested at this particular stage,” Martin said of efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Martin, who had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the previous evening, nevertheless argued that continued channels between Washington and Moscow were important.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, and President Donald Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner, right, and Steve Witkoff, left, meet in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sept. 6, 2026.(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Asked whether a realistic peace settlement would ultimately require Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia, Martin rejected the premise.

“Ukraine can’t cede territory that Russia hasn’t even conquered, despite four years of war,” Martin said.

But he said a ceasefire along existing battle lines could provide a starting point for negotiations.

“If we even could get a ceasefire on existing lines, and then negotiations to start,” Martin said, adding that Kyiv would need protections against renewed Russian aggression. “Ukraine needs security guarantees.”

Martin also pointed to Ukraine’s path toward European Union membership as potentially providing an additional layer of security and said the broader security architecture between Europe and Russia would ultimately have to be addressed in negotiations.

“From our perspective, no one has the right to go into another country and take its territory,” Martin said.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin addresses the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 24, 2026. Martin used his address to criticize Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.(Angela Weiss/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

HOW NEUTRAL IS IRELAND?

Ireland’s extensive support for Kyiv, however, raises a more contentious question at home: how far can a militarily neutral country support one side in a war while maintaining that neutrality?

Ireland has committed more than $754 million in humanitarian assistance, military training and other non-lethal support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 while stopping short of providing lethal weapons.

Fox News Digital asked Martin whether that level of support undermined Ireland’s neutrality.

“No, because we don’t give lethal aid, we haven’t given military weaponry, but we have given non-lethal assistance in terms of training and so on like that, and also humanitarian aid to Ukraine,” Martin said.

Ireland has also taken in large numbers of Ukrainians fleeing the war. Martin said more than 120,000 had arrived at one point, with roughly 80,000 remaining in the country at the time of the interview.

“That’s not taking sides, that’s taking a humanitarian response to a war,” Martin said. “And many are contributing, many are working in the economy.”

Ireland’s neutrality has also faced scrutiny over the long-standing use of Shannon Airport by the U.S. military.

NATO’s top military commander, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, described Shannon in August as a “very important logistics hub” for the United States and said withdrawing American military access would probably damage U.S.-Irish relations.

The airport’s role has long drawn protests from Irish neutrality campaigners, who argue that allowing U.S. military personnel and aircraft to transit through a civilian airport undermines the country’s neutral status.

Despite differing approaches to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Martin described the U.S.-Ireland relationship in almost familial terms.

“There’s a very strong bond between Ireland and the United States,” Martin said.

He pointed to the long-standing tradition of Irish leaders visiting the White House on St. Patrick’s Day and the enormous Irish American diaspora, which he estimated at roughly 30 million people.

“It’s just family, there’s kinship ties,” Martin said.

MIDDLE EAST

Martin said Ireland’s peace-process experience also informs its approach to the Middle East, where Dublin has emerged as one of Israel’s strongest European critics.

He condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack and defended Israel’s right to security while arguing that the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza had been “absolutely disproportionate.”

“We believe in a two-state solution,” Martin said. “We believe that Israel, of course, has a right to exist in security and its people need to be guaranteed of security. But likewise, Palestinians should have a right to live in their homeland in a peaceful way.”

Martin said Ireland’s strongly anti-Israel position was shaped partly by its own history and what he described as a “sense of right and justice and fairness.”

WATCH: Irish PM explains Ireland’s position on Israel, rejects antisemitism concerns amid controversial soccer match

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405705524112

TRUMP’S INVESTMENT PUSH HITS EUROPE AS IRISH PM EYES NEXT TARIFF BREAK

EUROPE’S SECURITY

Ireland currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, placing Martin at the center of negotiations as Europe confronts its biggest security challenges in decades.

“There’s a big realization in Europe that we have to do more to provide greater security to Europe, particularly because of the Russian-Ukrainian war,” Martin said.

He pointed particularly to Baltic and Nordic countries, whose governments have increased defense spending amid fears about Russia.

“Many have an existential fear of Russia,” Martin said.

Martin said Europe was also tightening its approach to immigration, echoing comments he made elsewhere in the interview that asylum applications had fallen across Ireland and that governments across the continent were responding to mounting political pressure.

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For Martin, those challenges — from Ukraine and the Middle East to Ireland’s own unfinished constitutional future —ultimately return to the lessons he believes his country learned through decades of conflict and the peace process that followed.

“The world needs to try and turn a page toward a more peaceful sort of coexistence,” Martin said.

WATCH: Irish PM explains how Ireland is responding to Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda

https://www..com/video/6406074725112

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.

GOP Rep. thinks his party could keep control of US House, Senate

2026-10-06 6:44 PM EDT / CNN

By Jake Tapper, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/06/politics/video/elections-voting-gop-congress-house-senate-lead-jake-tapper

GOP Rep. thinks his party could keep control of US House, Senate

The Lead

Rep. Buddy Carter joins The Lead.

1:03 • Source: CNN

Top Dems push WH for transparency on election security

2026-10-06 5:59 PM EDT / CNN

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Unearthed social media posts contradict El-Sayed’s ‘capitalist’ narrative

2026-10-06T18:00:58-04:00 / Fox News

The Democratic Socialists of America’s Detroit chapter has called El-Sayed a ‘comrade’ and praised his climate advocacy

By Leo Briceno, Fox News

Published October 6, 2026 6:00pm EDT | Updated October 6, 2026 6:10pm EDT

El-Sayed explains what he means by getting the money out of politics

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed details his Medicare for All plan while advocating for politicians to not take money from big corporations on ‘The Story.

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Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, recently embraced the “capitalist” label and pushed back against being called socialist, but unearthed social media posts contradict that narrative.

Recently unearthed social media posts show the Detroit Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter applauding his views on climate advocacy, going so far as to call him a “comrade” in its efforts.

“Welcome to the team comrade,” the group’s Detroit chapter wrote in a post in 2019 alongside a picture of El-Sayed, then a recent candidate for Michigan governor.

Shortly after El-Sayed endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his presidential bid, the account again praised his support.

MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE ENDORSED BY AOC AND BERNIE SANDERS INSISTS HE’S NOT A SOCIALIST

U.S. Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan Abdul El-Sayed poses for a photo at the Labor Day parade in Detroit, Mich. on Sept. 7, 2026.(JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images)

“Thank you to our friend and ally Abdul El-Sayed for endorsing Bernie Sanders. Our movement is unstoppable,” the group wrote.

Although the DSA has not officially endorsed El-Sayed in his Senate bid or affirmed his platform, the DSA’s local support for him may raise questions of increased overlap between his platform and the DSA’s official stances.

In an interview with The New York Times, El-Sayed described his views on capitalism.

“Capitalism is about leveraging the laws of supply and demand to efficiently allocate capital expenditure to maximize value. When capitalism works, it’s because you have free entry and exit into markets,” El-Sayed said.

“So if you believe in capitalism, you have to believe in government regulation to protect markets. In fact, right now, we have exactly the opposite. You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that you should be taxing billionaires their wealth,” he continued. “In fact, if you are a capitalist, you should believe in that. So, I’m a capitalist who just knows about capitalism. I have a bad habit of reading; I’m so sorry.”

Among other stances, El-Sayed has championed policies like Medicare for All, increasing taxes on the country’s top earners and implementing more stringent penalties on businesses that, in his view, abuse natural resources like water supply and air quality.

In his 2018 campaign for governor, El-Sayed espoused many of the same views, garnering support from the DSA — especially for his platform on climate.

At one point, El-Sayed joined in calls to seize plants owned by General Motors after the company announced it would cut about 14,000 jobs from sites across the country.

GREEN NEW DODGE: EL-SAYED RUNS FROM POLICY AS NEWLY SURFACED DELETED POSTS SHOW YEARS OF SUPPORT

Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks to members of the media ahead of the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2026 nominating convention in Lansing, Mich., on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026.(Sarah Rice/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Today, Abdul El-Sayed signed onto our bold demand to seize abandoned [General Motors] plants and convert them into green, public use. This is the courage and vision we need from our leaders to make the Green New Deal a reality. Thank you, Dr. El-Sayed! Onward!” The group wrote.

El-Sayed was among 140 co-signers for the plan, including figures like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Natasha Fernández-Silber, the co-chair of the Detroit DSA.

“These facilities are not just the ‘property’ of a corporation. They belong to the workers who have contributed their labor, and the taxpayers who have provided enormous tax breaks, public subsidies and bailouts to GM,” the resolution read.

Between 2017 and 2020, the Michigan Democrat spoke at six events held by Democratic Socialists of America chapters, including a 2019 fundraiser where he served as the keynote speaker. Additionally, DSA officials told Politico in July that they were mobilizing resources to help El-Sayed win his Democratic primary election.

“I’m not technically or practically DSA,” El-Sayed told the Wall Street Journal in July.

Socialist organizers, however, have called him “a longtime friend of Detroit DSA.”

“Our annual fundraiser is going to be [fire] this year. Chaired by the one and only Rashida Tlaib, with guest speaker Abdul El-Sayed,” another post reads.

“Our annual Douglas-Debs Dinner is THIS SATURDAY! The one and only Rashida Tlaib will give the keynote, with special guest speaker Abdul El-Sayed. Don’t miss out. Get your tickets today!” another stated.

For its own part, the national platform for the DSA goes well beyond the proposals that El-Sayed has made a part of his Senate bid.

JONATHAN TURLEY: ABDUL EL-SAYED’S WEALTH-TAX FANTASY COULD WRECK THE MICHIGAN ECONOMY

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, speaks at the Michigan Democratic Nominating Convention in Lansing, Mich., on Aug. 29, 2026.(Anadolu via Getty Images)

Among other positions, the group has championed abolishing the U.S. Senate, establishing public ownership of the country’s largest corporations and defunding the Department of Defense — stances that El-Sayed has not voiced support for.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether El-Sayed believes the past support from the Detroit DSA undermines his claims about what he believes about capitalism.

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Having cleared the Democratic primary, El-Sayed will face off against Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers on Nov. 3.

Fox News’ Robert Schmad contributed to this report

Leo Briceno is a politics reporter for the congressional team at Fox News Digital. He was previously a reporter with World Magazine.

Former Cornell fraternity members, dragged into scandal, ask university to clear their names

October 6, 2026 / 4:37 PM EDT / CBS News

By Graham Kates Reporter
Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at KatesG@cbsnews.com or grahamkates@protonmail.com

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A group of former Cornell University students say they are being falsely connected to the alleged 2024 fraternity house rape, and smeared and targeted online, and they want the college to say explicitly that they were not among men accused in the incident.

The former students, members of the Chi Phi fraternity who graduated in 2022 and 2023, say online sleuths have wrongly pegged them for harassment, leading to negative personal and professional consequences.

A lawyer for the group asked the school in a letter on Oct. 3 to clear them and others who graduated prior to the alleged assault.

“We understand that federal privacy law limits what Cornell may say about individual students, and we are not asking Cornell to identify anyone who was in the group chat,” wrote attorney Adam Ford, referring to a Snapchat message thread from the night of the October 2024 incident. “We are asking for the opposite: a public confirmation as to who was not.”

A woman identified as Jane Doe sued Cornell, the fraternity and several men who she says pressured her into taking the drug ketamine and sexually assaulted her. According to the suit, which was filed in September, a fraternity member sent a crude message to a Chi Phi Snapchat group chat suggesting that a woman was available for sex in a room in the frat house, leading to hours of assault.

The local district attorney did not bring criminal charges against anyone at the time. New York Attorney General Letitia James has now been appointed special counsel to investigate the case.

Ford’s letter says none of the men he represents were in the group chat. While all had been previous members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity, they were not students at the time of the alleged assault.

Ford wrote that the men have been harassed in the days since a website devoted to exposing people associated with the rape posted their names under a list of former Chi Phi members. The messages they received, according to Ford, included threats like “I will find you,” “you will never know peace” and “all 57 men of the fraternity deserve public execution.”

The men’s names have been removed from the website following a cease-and-desist letter sent on Oct. 2. A podcaster who indicated in a tweet that they were in the group chat also appears to have deleted the post after receiving a letter from Ford.

“Most of them have had their employers and higher education institutions take

adverse actions against them, including being placed on leave,” Ford wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Brian White, Cornell’s vice president and general counsel. “We believe Cornell is uniquely situated to correct the public record with a clear and unambiguous public statement that members of the Chi Phi fraternity who were not enrolled at Cornell during the fall of 2024 were not on the relevant ‘Chi Phi Actives’ Snapchat group chat.”

A spokesperson for the school did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment.

The men have also asked for individualized private letters “confirming that the University has information proving they were not members of the Chi Phi Actives group chat.”

Christa Pike is conscious and speaking after botched Tennessee execution, attorneys say

2026-10-06 17:34:00-0400 / CBS News

By Faris Tanyos News Editor
Faris Tanyos is a news editor for CBSNews.com, where he writes and edits stories and tracks breaking news. He previously worked as a digital news producer at several local news stations up and down the West Coast.

Read Full Bio

Updated on: October 6, 2026 / 7:23 PM EDT / CBS News

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Christa Pike, a death row inmate who was subject to a failed execution attempt in Tennessee last week, is conscious and speaking from her hospital bed, her attorneys said Tuesday.

Pike survived the state’s Sept. 30 attempt to execute her by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She has been hospitalized since.

In a statement Tuesday, her attorneys said that she was “conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” but noted that “her prognosis remains unclear” and “at a minimum” they “expect a long recovery.”

They also said that “despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed.”

Pike was given two lethal doses of pentobarbital, but according to media witnesses, the execution was canceled when it was determined she had not lost consciousness and still had a heartbeat. One media witness noted that she could be heard loudly snoring about one hour after the procedure had started. She was then taken by ambulance to an area hospital.

One of her attorneys, Steve Ferrell, told “CBS Mornings” on Monday that doctors were working to clear her body of the pentobarbital and that she was on a ventilator.

Pike was convicted in the 1995 murder of a former classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the crime, and 20 when she was sentenced in 1996.

Pike’s execution was allowed to move forward last week after the Supreme Court denied a last-minute effort to halt it. She was set to be the first woman executed in the state in about two centuries.

In the wake of the failed execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said the state’s prison chief, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, will resign. Lee also said that all remaining scheduled executions in the state this year have been canceled amid what he said would be a “third-party review” of the botched execution. Pike’s attorneys have also filed a motion in Davidson County court requesting that all evidence related to the failed execution be preserved.

In that motion, her attorneys also claimed that during the execution, the corrections department team failed to realize that the IV lines had not been correctly placed “or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering” Pike’s body.

Ferrell told “CBS Mornings” that her legal team would like to see her sentence commuted.

“The least that could happen now is that we at least take death off the table and start looking for what the future could be for her,” Ferrell said.

Emily Mae Czachor and Kerry Breen contributed to this report.

Eva Marie Saint, star of “On the Waterfront” and “North by Northwest,” dies at age 102

October 6, 2026 / 5:37 PM EDT / CBS News
By David Morgan

Academy Award-winning actor Eva Marie Saint, who starred in such classics as “On the Waterfront” and “North by Northwest,” but also bucked Hollywood conventions throughout her lengthy career, has died. She was 102.

Her publicist, Jeff Sanderson, said she died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and loved ones.

A regal-looking blonde who ricocheted from playing sultry spies to Southern belles and Superman’s stepmother, Saint made her motion picture debut opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan’s “On the Waterfront” (1954). Saint played Edie Doyle, whose brother was murdered by thugs working for a mob boss running a longshoremen’s union; her character becomes involved with Brando’s pugilistic dockworker Terry Malloy.

Her performance earned Saint one of the film’s eight Academy Awards. (She was only the fourth person to win a best supporting actress Oscar for their film debut.) On the night she received her award, she was visibly pregnant. “I may have the baby right here!” she said. (Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.)

Eva Marie Saint and Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” directed by Elia Kazan. Columbia Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Saint married director-producer Jeffrey Hayden in 1951, and the couple stayed together for 65 years until his death in 2016. They had two children. Saint had made it clear that family was more important to her than her career.

“I had an agent once who wanted me to make many more movies,” she told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” in 2014. “I said, ‘I can’t. I can only do one a year, if that. I have children, young children.’ And he said, ‘Well, I guess you won’t be a superstar.’ And I said, ‘Well, I guess not.’”

And what happened to that agent? “Fired him,” she said.

She kept up her self-imposed limit on films; she also brought her extended family to the set of Otto Preminger’s “Exodus” while filming in Cyprus and Israel. Despite not cranking out movies, Saint followed her Oscar win by appearing in many prestige projects, including “A Hatful of Rain,” “Raintree County,” “All Fall Down,” “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” “Grand Prix,” and the eponymous TV miniseries based on “How the West Was Won.” She also received five Emmy nominations, and won for the 1990 TV movie “People Like Us.” At age 97, she appeared on a podcast series.

But perhaps her most memorable performance was as Eve Kendall, a mysterious blonde who crosses paths with Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill as he runs from murderous spies in the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest.” Little does Thornhill realize that Kendall herself is a secret agent.

Saint said Hitchcock’s direction to her playing a sexy spy was simple: “Three things: Lower your voice. Don’t use your hands. And look directly into Cary Grant’s eyes at all times,” she recalled.

Hitchcock had a reputation for being tough on young female actors, but not Saint. “I found that he was such a wonderful director, gentleman, funny, courteous, but there are other actresses who don’t feel the same way. I don’t even want to hear stories about him,” she said.

Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” MGM/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Though playing a femme fatale was new to her, Saint said she wasn’t surprised upon watching her performance. “No. I don’t think actors are surprised,” she said. “I mean, that’s what we do.”

“Too innocent” looking

Born on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey, Saint grew up in upstate New York, and attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio (where she was “Sweater Queen”). Originally planning to become a teacher, Saint began acting in student productions, and changed her career focus.

Moving to New York City, she trained at the Actors Studio with famed acting coach Lee Strasberg, and was hired for a production of “Mister Roberts” alongside Henry Fonda. But she was let go by director Joshua Logan; she found out it was because she was deemed “too innocent” looking. The actor who took her place was Jocelyn Brando (Marlon’s sister).

Crushed, she was nonetheless determined not to let it dissuade her from pursuing an acting career.

When she was starting out, she told Variety in 2021, Saint and a fellow female actor would talk in a made-up language while riding the subway. “We were so frustrated about not getting jobs, so I suggested that we do something so people would notice us,” she said. “When we’d start gabbing, we’d get a little audience. People would put down their papers and wonder, what language is that?”

Saint established herself in the early days of live television as a dramatic actor in plays on “Studio One,” “Goodyear Television Playhouse,” “GE True Theater” and “Philco Television Playhouse.” She starred in the first TV production of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” and repeated her role on Broadway, where she was spotted by Kazan, the “Waterfront” director.

He asked Saint to audition opposite Brando in an improvised scene. Upon entering the room, Brando put on a radio, and the two started dancing. “He did something to flip my skirt, and I was so embarrassed I cried a little bit afterward,” Saint told the Santa Barbara Independent in 2010. “But Kazan saw the chemistry, and he could see that it could work for the movie.”

She said Brando was wonderful to work with.

“What was a little scary about him, which worked for me in the movie, was his perception of people that was so keen,” she said. “He could look at somebody or talk with them and hone into what that person was all about. And he would mention it about people around us. So sometimes I would sit there and think, ‘If he knows that about that person, he must know more about me than I know about myself.’ It made me a little self-conscious, but I used that in the movie. He’d been out in the world and I had been at home protected, so I used that.”

Following “Waterfont,” Saint appeared on TV in a musical version of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” with Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra, and also appeared onstage numerous theater productions.

But Hollywood beckoned, and the Oscar winner starred opposite such actors as Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (“Raintree County”), Paul Newman (“Exodus”), Warren Beatty (“All Fall Down”), James Garner (“36 Hours”), Richard Burton and Taylor (“The Sandpiper”), Yves Montand (“Grand Prix”), Gregory Peck (“The Stalking Moon”), Bob Hope (“That Certain Feeling,” “Cancel My Reservation”), and Tom Hanks (“Nothing in Common”).

Eva Marie Saint attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood. Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Other film credits included “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Don’t Come Knocking” (with Sam Shepard), “Superman Returns” (as Martha Kent), and “Winter’s Tale.”

On TV she appeared in “The Best Little Girl in the World,” “Moonlighting,” the two-hander “Taxi!!” (opposite Martin Sheen), “The Last Days of Patton” (with George C. Scott), “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” “My Antonia,” the 1996 TV miniseries “Titanic,” and “Frasier.”

And in recent years, Saint podcasted. She played Marisa Tomei’s aunt in “The Bus Ride,” a short play streamed on “The Pack Podcast.” She said the feisty character, written by Eugene Pack, was compelling, calling his work “so honest.”

“I’ve lived long enough to know what’s honest and what isn’t, and Eugene’s plays are,” she said. “They’re charming, they’re positive, but they’re not saccharine.”

Saint is survived by her two children, Darrell and Laurette, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren, Sanderson’s statement said.

Trump’s comment about Iran nuking Los Angeles and San Diego was incoherent, not malicious

2026-10-06T21:21:55.210Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/06/politics/trump-iran-california-comments

President Donald Trump says many bizarre and even hateful things. But signaling he would allow Iran to nuke Los Angeles and San Diego is not one of them.

During a rally in Nebraska on Monday night, Trump “weaved” his way right into a controversy that had critics, some in the media and even a GOP congressional candidate accusing him of rhetorically conceding major population centers on the West Coast to America’s sworn enemy. And you could be forgiven for reading the president’s comments that way.

But context and recent history make clear that Trump’s crime was less indifference to the fate of Californians and more his increasingly profound incoherence.

Which, to be clear, is still a major problem for the most powerful man in the world.

First, let’s recap what Trump said.

“They can take out a city,” he said of Iran. “Let them take – let it – let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s – this is a very small price to pay.”

It wouldn’t be totally out of character for this to be another Trumpian verbal excess, given his recent past. This is a president who has repeatedly spoken about withholding disaster aid from states that vote against his party, and he has demonstrated some indifference to blue states. His Energy Department recently admitted in court that it canceled clean energy grants “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.”

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont accused Trump of saying the small price to pay was the “annihilation of two major American cities.” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called it “such a sick, evil thing to say.” Even GOP congressional candidate Jim Desmond, who serves on the San Diego County board of supervisors, said what Trump did was “write off American cities as an acceptable price of war.” Desmond “vehemently” disagreed with it.

But that is pretty clearly not what Trump was trying to say.

For one, immediately before the above quote, he had been talking about other costs of the Iran war — apparently referring to gas prices — being that “small price to pay.”

“And again, remember — with the word — it’s just artificial, it’s a little bit high,” Trump said. “It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.”

(You can see Trump’s full speech here.)

Trump didn’t initially say he was referring to gas prices, mind you (though he did say that later). But this is precisely how he’s been talking about them for a long time — as a “small price to pay” for preventing a nuclear Iran:

• He said March 8 on Truth Social that “short term oil prices … is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.”
• On March 16, he called high gas prices “a very small thing compared to allowing them to have” nuclear weapons.
• On May 5, he called high gas prices “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon.”
• He even said it in a separate appearance on Monday — an interview with a local Nebraska TV station: “I say it proudly: a relatively small price to pay for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of a lunatic nation.”

Also, three days ago, Trump made a very similar argument to the one he made about Los Angeles and San Diego — except about Mobile, Alabama, during a rally there.

“But remember about the oil: You’re paying a price, but boy, is that a small price than what it would be if these lunatics were allowed to have a nuclear weapon and used it on Mobile, Alabama,” Trump said. “OK, not going to happen.”

At his Nebraska rally, Trump basically took that talking point and made it a whole lot more unintelligible.

He bounced around from talking about Kamala Harris and the election, to wanting total victory in Iran, to talking about gas prices being high (but without actually saying “gas prices”). When he made the comment about Iran nuking Los Angeles and San Diego, he used very unfortunate sentence construction that did sound a lot like he would “let them” — Tehran, that is — nuke the two blue state cities.

And then he returned to the gas prices — but again, in an extremely confusing way.

“But it’s gonna end very soon, and it’ll end one way or the other, and your gas and your gasoline and all of the things —” Trump said, before jumping off on a tangent about Venezuela.

It was so confusing that not only did that GOP congressional candidate seem to interpret it in the worst way; so did many in the crowd. Indeed, the ugliest part of this whole episode is that people actually cheered when Trump floated the destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego. That would seem to say something about the movement Trump has cultivated.

But while he wasn’t advocating that, his phrasing does point to a growing problem.

A president is someone you count on to be authoritative and clear, especially when talking about issues of the utmost importance like nuclear war. But Trump’s rhetoric is often anything but.

Look at any recent interview where a transcript is released. Some of Trump’s responses in his Time magazine interview last week, for example, are virtually impenetrable. (Just do a word search for “unintelligible” if you want some examples.) It often feels like he’s engaging in a lengthy bout of free association.

Trump has long spoken like this, to an extent. And by casting his meandering soliloquies as “the weave,” he’s tried to make it sound intentional, allowing his supporters to believe it’s his secret rhetorical genius.

But the “weave” is getting harder to follow — with potentially harmful consequences, too.

朝鲜就台湾问题警告美国 金正恩承诺支持俄罗斯

2026-10-07 07:10 / 联合早报

10月2日，一架洛克希德·马丁公司生产的F-16V战斗机降落在台东志航空军基地。 （路透社档案照片）

朝中社星期三（10月7日）引述国际问题评论家金明哲的文章，批评美国向台湾出售武器并提供军事支持，指责华盛顿加剧了台湾海峡的紧张局势。

金明哲的评论指出，美国的对台政策正在破坏该地区的和平与稳定。

评论谴责美国售台战斗机在台湾出现一事，并称美国“应当三思：为了台湾的安全，是否准备好与拥有强大国力的中国大陆发生正面冲突，以及是否有能力承担由此产生的后果”。

台湾于2019年订购66架新型F-16V Block 70战斗机，首批两架已于上周运抵台湾。

与此同时，据朝中社周三报道，朝鲜领导人金正恩在致俄罗斯总统普京的生日贺电中，承诺继续支持俄罗斯及其战争行动。

金正恩称，朝鲜将继续在朝俄两国全面战略伙伴关系框架下扩大合作，并坚信俄罗斯为捍卫主权、安全利益和领土完整而进行的“神圣正义之战”终将取得胜利。

贺电未明确提及俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争。据乌克兰和韩国估计，自2024年以来，朝鲜已向俄罗斯在乌克兰的战事派遣了约1.4万至1.5万名士兵。

自普京与金正恩于2024年6月签署共同防御条约以来，朝鲜与俄罗斯的关系已显著加强。

Facing stonewalling from Russia, Trump admin struggles to plan for potential plague fallout

2026-10-06T21:53:16.199Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/06/politics/russia-plague-death-trump

The Trump administration is struggling to get clear answers about the death of a Russian laboratory worker at an institute dedicated to studying the plague, amid days of stonewalling from Russian officials about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the episode.

The death of the technician at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia immediately raised alarms throughout the administration, prompting a race to compile intel and plot for a potential public health response, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

But Russia’s reluctance to share information about the incident has complicated those efforts, leaving officials uncertain what broader risks it could pose — and how exactly to defend the US against them.

“It’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday. “Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know, but I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate.”

US officials were in touch with the Russian government as early as last Friday, a State Department official said, including contact between the department’s health experts and the Russian Foreign Ministry. And that outreach has continued, an administration official said, as Rubio expressed hope Tuesday that the limited information sharing “will change in the next few hours and days.”

President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House Tuesday afternoon that he had “call scheduled” to speak with Russian leader Vladimir Putin about the issue “very soon.” He added US agencies would have more information to report “probably tomorrow.”

But the US has gotten limited cooperation so far. What little information has come out of Russia has faced deep skepticism, with officials unconvinced that the Kremlin is being fully forthcoming, according to people familiar with the situation.

Still, until the administration knows more through intelligence collection and diplomatic outreach, officials are not taking steps such as putting travel restrictions into place to prevent any potential spread, according to a US official. The US already advises against travel to Russia due to various factors, including the possibility of wrongful detention and the war with Ukraine.

Among the critical questions still outstanding: whether the 28-year-old lab worker who died last week contracted pneumonic plague — a severe but treatable infection — or another, unknown infectious disease. Staff at the Anti-Plague Institute study a range of other dangerous diseases, including cholera, anthrax and brucellosis, according to the institute’s website.

US officials have also sought details on whether the disease was modified in any way, a process called gain of function that could dramatically alter the way the US and other countries might respond.

Rubio and other Trump officials have publicly downplayed the immediate threat to Americans, emphasizing that the administration is closely monitoring the situation and that pneumonic plague is treatable with antibiotics.

But behind the scenes, there is deep unease within the administration over the continued lack of insight, the people familiar with the situation said. Compounding those concerns is the Russian government’s outsized response, including quarantining the hospital where the lab worker was treated, according to the mayor of the Shelekhovsky district. Nearly 200 people are under observation, a regional news outlet reported.

“We don’t know a lot right now about what actually happened,” said one US official. “But one thing most of us feel certain about: The Russians are going to act like the Chinese did with Covid. They won’t be forthcoming.”

Still, Trump on Monday characterized the situation as a “big problem” for Russia, suggesting that the US might need to provide some unspecified level of aid.

In a statement, a State Department spokesperson said that several federal agencies were “closely monitoring the fatal case of suspected pneumonic plague,” but that many of the details surrounding it remained unconfirmed. They reiterated that Americans have long been advised not to travel to Russia for any reason.

“We encourage Russian authorities to share accurate information quickly and openly,” the spokesperson said.

In the days since the lab worker’s death, the National Security Council and State Department officials have led the administration’s push to gather information, piece together what happened and evaluate the potential risks, officials and others familiar with the situation said. Federal health agencies, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, have also been involved in the cross-government effort.

A source familiar with the outreach said Trump officials have also backchanneled with the World Health Organization — the international health body that Trump pulled funding from soon after taking office, but that the government has continued to communicate with in emergency situations.

WHO said Monday that it was in contact with Russian authorities to verify details about the lab worker’s death, though it has so far also received little information.

“If they’re not transparent, if they’re not open to independent accountability, how is it possible to trust the Kremlin is telling us the full and accurate information?” said Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University who has worked closely with WHO. “Clearly, on its face, the lab was conducting extremely high-risk research and using shoddy biosafety measures.”

The Anti-Plague Institute’s relatively remote location in eastern Russia, combined with the pneumonic plague’s limited ability to quickly spread, has given health experts some comfort that any immediate threat can be contained.

Pneumonic plague is a bacterial infection, unlike the highly transmissible coronavirus strain that sparked the 2020 pandemic. And while the plague is fatal if untreated, there are now effective and widely available antibiotics to treat it.

While there is little indication that the incident will touch off another global health crisis, officials and outside experts said it has nevertheless reinforced how difficult it can be to monitor and prepare for potential biological threats.

The Health and Human Services Department may have the medical stockpile necessary to combat conventional pneumonic plague, those officials and experts said. But there’s little certainty whether it could do the same against a modified version — or how long it would take to develop a treatment if needed.

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiology professor and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, said the episode also comes as health response capabilities both in the US and globally have been diminished by funding cuts and the strain of responding to other crises. WHO has proposed slashing its budget following a $600 million shortfall triggered by the US’ exit.

America’s ability to handle a new public health response, meanwhile, “is severely diminished” amid its efforts to combat measles outbreaks, she said.

“We are talking about a very depleted system. God forbid you layer another pathogen onto the already laborious and difficult work of going after measles,” said Nuzzo. “That would be a nightmare.”