Today’s Top Stories from NBC News

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2026

In today’s newsletter: Some Republican candidates are putting distance between themselves and Trump’s tariff policies. Ukraine defies the U.S. president to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries. And a look at Apple’s new HomeView device, which is part iPad, part Apple Watch and part CarPlay.

Here’s what to know today.

▼ The Lead

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Some Republicans in key races break with Trump over tariffs

Sen. Susan Collins and former Rep. Mike Rogers

(Bloomberg; Getty)

In a handful of battleground races, Republican candidates are speaking out against tariffs, President Donald Trump’s marquee economic policy. They’re seeking a middle ground, knowing the cost of living is a top voter concern.

Those voicing such opinions on the campaign trail include Senate candidates Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, former Sen. John Sununu in New Hampshire and former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan. Gubernatorial candidates with doubts over the policy include Rep. John James in Michigan and Pennsylvania state Treasurer Stacy Garrity.

America’s trade war with Canada is a particular concern for Collins and Rogers, who say they’ve spoken to Cabinet officials to get the administration to make a deal or exempt specific items from a list of tariffed goods.

Their Democratic rivals are hitting back, saying the efforts have either not gone far enough or are self-serving in the final weeks of the campaign.

How GOP strategists reacted to the candidates’ split with Trump.

Americans are almost evenly split over which party they think would do a better job of handling the economy, a recent NBC News polling average shows, with 39% preferring Democrats and 38% preferring Republicans. See the poll results here.

Plus, see an overview of this year’s biggest elections in our Countdown to midterms, as well as breakdowns of Trump’s approval rating, important state races and early voting.

More politics news:

Federal agents have seized Rep. Ilhan Omar’s phone and subpoenaed her family members as part of an investigation into potential immigration-related crimes.

For subscribers: Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed spoke about the Iran war, the economy and the issues driving the competitive Michigan Senate race in an exclusive interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas.

For subscribers: Republican groups have pulled millions of dollars in ads from some battleground House races while pouring money into others. Here’s which races took the biggest hits — and why.

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Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily accused the U.S. of the “dangerous” withdrawal of intelligence sharing and restrictions on the Starlink internet services.

Kyiv held off on attacks for three days after Trump’s unilateral “energy ceasefire” announcement, but accused Russia of repeatedly violating the truce with attacks on its power grid. Trump has blamed the Ukrainian campaign for fueling a rise in energy prices, despite the impact of his own war with Iran.

Ukrainian officials and military units accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of throttling Starlink, the technology at the heart of their battlefield communications and drone operations. Kyiv sees this as an attempt to pressure it into concessions by hampering its aerial defense and military operations.

Overnight, Musk said it was “time for Zelenskyy to go.”

At least some functionality of Starshield — the military version of the SpaceX service — had been restored Thursday morning, according to a source in Ukraine’s defense ministry.

In an interview with the Financial Times, published today, Zelenskyy indicated his own patience had been exhausted.

“The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying. Hours later a fire was reported at an oil refinery in the western Ryazan region, Gov. Pavel Malkov said.

More on what Ukraine’s resumption of strikes means for the war.

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Apple’s HomeView is part iPad, part Apple Watch and part CarPlay

Apple introduced HomeView this week — a “FrankenApple creation,” as NBC News chief tech analyst Joanna Stern calls it, that combines elements of the Apple Watch, an iPad and the iPhone’s CarPlay functionality onto a $299 device. It’s the company’s answer to Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub.

Here are the basics: The HomeView has a 7-inch-square Liquid Retina touchscreen that includes a 12-megapixel camera for FaceTime and mirror mode. Widgets can be customized like an Apple Watch. And it can recognize six people, presumably family members.

Notably, users will need to have an iPhone or an iPad to even use the HomeView in the first place. But, Stern writes, “for those of us who have Apple HomeKit gear all over our homes, this new product might just be… a good idea?”

Read Stern’s full analysis here.

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Roller-coaster death exposes lack of federal oversight

Days after a roller-coaster death this week at Six Flags Over Georgia, preliminary findings suggest that 42-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem was “ejected” from the Goliath ride and fell to his death, according to the Cobb County Police Department. The ride remains closed, and nine similar rides have been temporarily shut down across Six Flags’ North American parks.

The incident in Georgia, combined with recent allegations that some people who rode the X2 roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California suffered “catastrophic” brain injuries, shed light on the lack of federal oversight for amusement park rides.

A 1980s court ruling stripped the U.S. Product Safety Commission of its power to oversee rides at “fixed-site parks.” Since then, a disjointed network of state regulations and voluntary industry guidelines has sprouted in its place. While safety standards have been adopted, experts say they’re voluntary, and every state takes different approaches when it comes to compliance.

What to know before riding a roller coaster.

▼ Staff Pick

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Americans’ eating habits are changing. For Chick-fil-A, adapting to them is a tall order.

Chick-fil-A is a company that cherishes its past. The recipe for its signature chicken sandwich hasn’t changed in 60 years. It has been a private, family-owned business from the very beginning.

But Chick-fil-A and the fast-food industry broadly are contending with a changing consumer. People are eating in and consuming less as rising costs squeeze Americans’ budgets and as GLP-1s shrink people’s appetites.

A restaurant industry expert told me you’d expect fast-food spots to benefit from consumers who are cutting back on spending. But that’s not what we’re seeing. Foot traffic at fast-food restaurants from January through September this year is 2% lower than during the same period last year. And yet foot traffic at Chick-fil-A is 5.7% higher.

So what’s Chick-fil-A’s secret sauce? We sat down with CEO Andrew Cathy, dug through the data and spoke with industry experts to find out.

— Kayla Steinberg, business & economy producer

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At least 27 students, most younger than 13, were killed in northwest Pakistan today, along with a teacher, when a school roof collapsed during classes, authorities said.

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, were making their first royal-style public appearance together today since they returned to the U.K. with their two children, visiting three charities on a tour of Nottingham.

A Florida man was arrested in the murder of his ex-fianceé, who vanished in 2011, hours after they were featured on “The People’s Court.”

Advocates are fighting to ensure that two potential witnesses who were handcuffed in the back of an ICE vehicle that struck and injured a Houston man are not deported.

A new formula of sunscreen is available in the U.S. for the first time in 25 years, catching up to Europe and other parts of the world after the FDA approved a key skin-protecting chemical.

Mattel announced a limited edition Barbie modeled after Celine Dion’s iconic 1998 Oscars performance of “My Heart Will Go On.”

For subscribers: A new study offers an answer to the question of how microplastics damage people’s bodies and calls into question a long-held assumption.

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