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The U.S. auto safety regulator has deepened a probe into Tesla's driver-assistance system to evaluate its effectiveness ​in identifying degraded road conditions after nine crashes linked ‌to the technology including one that was fatal.

The probe covers roughly 3.2 million vehicles, across multiple models, accounting for nearly all vehicles the company has sold ​in the United States.

The move marks a significant escalation that ​could lead to a recall or other enforcement action ⁠if regulators find a safety defect.

Tesla's ambitions to deploy fully autonomous ​vehicles and robotaxis hinge on the reliability and safety of its ​Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, which remains under regulatory scrutiny.

Many respondents believe the US economy is already in dire straits, the poll found

More than four in 10 Americans believe the country is heading toward a complete economic meltdown within the next decade, according to a new poll.

The survey, released by YouGov on Wednesday, shows Americans are more worried about the economy than potential threats to the democratic system or the prospect of civil war.

42% of respondents said it is very or somewhat likely that there will be “a total economic collapse” in the next 10 years, while a smaller share, 38%, described this outcome as unlikely.

Financial anxiety ran much higher among Democrats, 53% of whom feared an economic breakdown, compared with just 28% of Republicans.

Tulsi Gabbard's congressional testimony came a day after a top deputy, Joe Kent, resigned in protest over the war.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to say if Iran’s nuclear program presented an “imminent threat,” deflecting questions from lawmakers about whether U.S. intelligence backed up White House statements on the rationale for starting the war.

Gabbard’s congressional testimony Wednesday at an annual hearing on worldwide threats came a day after a top deputy, Joe Kent, resigned in protest over the Iran war, saying that the Tehran regime posed no imminent threat and the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign was unnecessary.

Kent and Gabbard, both military veterans, had found political common ground over their opposition to foreign military interventions and “regime change” wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Gabbard has not publicly endorsed the decision to go to war, staying mostly silent on the U.S.-Israeli air campaign that began on Feb. 28.

The patient in Room 373 refuses to leave.

Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare earlier this month sued the patient, saying she has refused to depart her hospital room since being discharged last October. The hospital also has asked a state judge in Tallahassee for an injunction ordering the patient to vacate the hospital room and authorizing the county sheriff’s office to assist if necessary.

The hospital said that resources have been diverted from helping other patients because of her occupation of the room.

The 2026 World Happiness Report found that life satisfaction among those under 25 in some English-speaking countries has fallen sharply over the past decade. Finland was once again the happiest country.

Finland once again showed the world the path to happiness even as heavy social media usage eroded personal well-being among young people across the planet, the World Happiness Report 2026 said on Thursday.

The report, produced by the University of Oxford's Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the United Nations, found life satisfaction among under-25s in countries including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand has fallen sharply over the past decade.

The study is based on surveys of around 100,000 people across 140 countries.

Republicans block resolution to take up the measure, which Democrats vow to bring up ‘again and again and again’

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that aimed to rein in Donald Trump’s power to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization.

The 53-47 vote against taking up the measure fell almost completely along party lines, with no movement from earlier this month when Republicans blocked Democrats’ bid to limit Trump’s war-making power in the days after the joint US-Israeli strikes, known as Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran.

The senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has led several war-powers efforts, was the only Republican to vote in support of the measure, while the senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel, was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote against the resolution.

Admission came during questioning at Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, Kash Patel, FBI director, said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.

Patel’s admission came in response to a question from the senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past.

The national debt surpassed a record $39 trillion on Wednesday, a milestone that comes just weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

The unprecedented figure highlights competing administration priorities, from passing a massive tax law and boosting defense spending and immigration enforcement to chipping away at the debt itself — the latter of which Donald Trump promised to do as both a candidate and as president.

Kent, the former counterterrorism director who resigned this week over concerns about the Iran war, said Wednesday that he and other senior officials with doubts about the airstrikes “were not allowed” to share them with Donald Trump.

Speaking on Tucker Carlson’s show, Kent said the president relied on a small circle of advisers in making his decision to strike Iran. Kent claimed Israel forced Trump’s hand despite what he said was no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S.

“A good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president,” Kent told the prominent conservative commentator. “There wasn’t a robust debate.”

China offered on Wednesday what it said would be energy stability to Taiwan if it agreed to Beijing's ​rule, part of a campaign by China to convince the island of the ‌benefits of "reunification", which it has long rejected.

Governments around the world are scrambling for alternative energy supplies during the Middle East War and severing of shipping lanes through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Taiwan, which had received ​a third of its LNG from Qatar and sources no energy from China, ​has said it has secured alternative supplies for the months ahead, including from ⁠the United States, the island's main international backer.

Finding suggests as many as 155,000 deaths, likely occurring outside of hospitals, not recognized as Covid related

The Covid-19 pandemic’s early death toll was much higher than the official US count, according to a new study that spotlights dramatic disparities in the uncounted deaths.

About 840,000 Covid-19 deaths were reported on death certificates in 2020 and 2021. But a group of researchers – using a form of artificial intelligence – estimate that as many as 155,000 unrecognized additional deaths likely occurred in that time outside of hospitals. That would mean about 16% of Covid-19 deaths went uncounted in those years.

The overall findings, published on Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, were close to estimates from other studies of pandemic deaths during that time. But the authors of the new study tried to determine exactly which deaths were more likely to be missing from the official tallies.

Jerome Powell resists Trump pressure as policymakers weigh energy shock against a weakening US jobs market

The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for the second time this year, a widely expected move amid turmoil in the Middle East and rising energy prices.

Fed officials faced a confluence of issues to consider in their meeting this week: soaring oil and gas prices, fluctuating inflation that still remains above the Fed’s target of 2%, and a weakened job market that unexpectedly saw 92,000 losses last month.

All but one of the 12 voting members of the committee voted to keep rates at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, resisting enormous pressure from Donald Trump to lower borrowing costs at the risk of driving up prices in the long term. Fed governor Stephen Miran, who was appointed by Donald Trump last fall, was the sole dissenter.