Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa discussed her campaign, public school funding and health care in an interview on “Face the Nation” on Oct. 25, 2026. She said her campaign aims to attract voters across party lines and make public schools and children’s health care priorities.
Key Facts
Hinojosa said voters are dissatisfied with both political parties and that her campaign offers a way beyond traditional partisan politics.
She said six or seven polls in the preceding six weeks showed her winning, while all polls placed the race within the margin of error.
Hinojosa said 181 Texas school districts operate on a four-day school week.
She blamed school funding pressures in part on Gov. Greg Abbott withholding funding in 2023 during a dispute over school vouchers.
Hinojosa said a voucher law passed the previous year diverted $1 billion from public schools to private schools.
She said school closures and teacher departures reflect the challenges facing Texas school districts.
Hinojosa said Texas has the highest number of uninsured children of any state and is among the states that have not expanded Medicaid.
She said expanding Medicaid is one possible way to improve children’s access to health care.
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The Justice Department sent California county election officials letters demanding information about roughly 20,000 voters it suspects are noncitizens and asking counties to set aside related ballots. County officials said they were already counting ballots, while California’s attorney general said the federal lists contained errors; a federal appeals court was set to hear arguments over the dispute.
Key Facts
The letters, sent Friday, requested sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, and gave counties 48 hours to respond.
Federal officials warned that they could take legal action against officials who knowingly counted a noncitizen’s vote.
California officials said a list sent to Mendocino County included people who did not live there.
Napa County Registrar John Tuteur said his county would continue its election process; the federal letter named 42 people there.
Amador County’s letter named four people, and clerk-recorder Kim Grady was waiting for guidance from the state.
The Justice Department said it was not asking California to cancel registrations or conduct a voter purge.
The federal government sued California on Oct. 15 to stop the state from counting mail ballots from people it identified as likely noncitizens.
A panel of Ninth Circuit judges was scheduled to hear arguments Sunday on whether California must comply with the federal demands.
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The Oct. 25, 2026, episode of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” features discussion of the latest CBS News polling ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is also scheduled to appear.
Key Facts
The program is dated Oct. 25, 2026.
The U.S. midterm elections are described as less than 10 days away.
Anthony Salvanto, CBS News executive director of elections and surveys, discusses the latest polling.
Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is scheduled to appear.
The article is a preview for an episode of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
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Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci compared Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to the pigs in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” Scaramucci also predicted that Ramaswamy would lose to Democratic candidate Amy Acton.
Key Facts
Scaramucci made the remarks on Sunday.
He posted on the social platform X.
Scaramucci said Ramaswamy had “disgraced himself.”
Ramaswamy is running for governor of Ohio as a Republican.
Acton is Ramaswamy’s Democratic opponent.
Scaramucci predicted Ramaswamy would lose the race.
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States may lose some federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) if they do not reduce their error rates. The article excerpt does not identify which states face cuts or how much funding is at risk.
Key Facts
The funding at risk is federal funding for SNAP.
States must reduce their SNAP error rates to avoid possible cuts.
The article describes the funding at risk as sizable.
The excerpt does not name any states facing cuts.
The excerpt does not give a funding amount or a deadline.
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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said several Southern statewide races could be competitive for Democrats in the November 2026 midterms. He said Democrats erred by failing to invest in the region earlier and predicted a strong election for the party.
Key Facts
Moore named Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina as states where he believes Democratic candidates could compete.
He said Democrats had underinvested in the South, not only during this election cycle but over a longer period.
Moore said he had personally invested in Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa’s campaign.
He described winning and improving health care, reducing child poverty and raising wages as candidates’ main goals.
Moore said he sees an energized and enlarged Democratic base while campaigning in Maryland and elsewhere.
The article said the 2026 midterm election was nine days away as of October 25.
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Former President Barack Obama campaigned in Ohio and Michigan ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, criticizing President Donald Trump and Republican allies over campaign attacks. He defended Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed against personal attacks.
Key Facts
Obama spoke at campaign events in Cleveland and Detroit on Saturday.
Willie James Herndon, 43, faces federal charges over a shooting into a vehicle near Interstate 55 in Missouri on October 11. He is also charged in Missouri with the October 14 killing of 17-year-old Alyssa Wilson, who was shot while driving on Interstate 170.
Key Facts
Wilson was shot in the back while driving on Interstate 170 and died after her car crashed into a concrete median.
Prosecutors say a white SUV seen leaving the October 11 shooting matched the appearance of Herndon’s Buick Enclave.
Police recovered a shell casing at the October 11 scene and are testing it to see whether it came from the weapon used to kill Wilson.
Authorities tracked a vehicle they say was Herndon’s from the October 11 shooting and Wilson’s death to a hotel in Caseyville, Illinois.
Prosecutors say Herndon tried to flee when they approached him at the hotel on October 16.
Investigators said they found a rifle, ammunition, two license plates and handwritten notes about police vehicles in the hotel room.
Federal prosecutors charged Herndon with being a felon in possession of a firearm; Missouri prosecutors separately charged him with first-degree murder and armed criminal action.
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Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom is seeking to unseat Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, drawing support and campaign spending from national Democrats. Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982, and ABC News rates the race solid Republican.
Key Facts
Colom is a district attorney for four counties along the Mississippi-Alabama border and was previously nominated to become a U.S. district judge.
If elected, Colom would be Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Mississippi is about 36% Black, according to U.S. Census data.
Donald Trump won Mississippi by about 20 points in 2024.
Kamala Harris and Sen. Raphael Warnock campaigned with Colom, and Barack Obama recorded an advertisement for him.
The Senate Majority PAC announced a $1.2 million broadcast and digital ad campaign for Colom.
Colom’s campaign made an advertisement featuring voters criticizing Hyde-Smith’s comment about having many proteins to choose from when addressing higher prices.
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The segment features Golden Orb Weaver spiders at Long Key Natural Area and Nature Center in Davie, Florida. Videographer Charles Schultz filmed the spiders.
Key Facts
The segment is titled “Nature: Spiders in Florida.”
It shows Golden Orb Weaver spiders.
The spiders were filmed at Long Key Natural Area and Nature Center.
The location is in Davie, Florida.
Charles Schultz was the videographer.
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Performance artist Dan Kwong helped restore a baseball field at Manzanar, the California camp where his mother and aunt were incarcerated during World War II. At the field’s reopening, he and other speakers linked the history of Japanese American incarceration to current immigration detention and racial discrimination.
Key Facts
The U.S. government incarcerated about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Manzanar was one of the camps where Japanese Americans were confined during the war.
Kwong, a 71-year-old Los Angeles performance artist, spent years working to restore Manzanar’s baseball field.
Players from Japanese American baseball teams took part in a double-header at the restored field.
Kwong played for the Li’l Tokio Giants, a team he has been part of for 54 years, and in an all-star game.
Kwong said the history of Manzanar should be treated as a call to action, not only as a warning from the past.
Japanese American National Museum chief executive Ann Burroughs said racism and xenophobia linked to the incarceration remain urgent concerns.
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David Sedaris recounts mistakenly believing his friend Cristina was scheduled for a prostate exam, then imagining that she was transgender. Cristina later emailed to clarify that she had meant a colonoscopy. The essay uses the misunderstanding to discuss privacy, assumptions about transgender people, and the fact that trans women can have prostates.
Key Facts
Cristina initially told Sedaris she had a prostate exam scheduled for Tuesday.
Sedaris says he had heard that trans women can have prostate cancer and explained to his boyfriend that transition does not necessarily remove the prostate.
Sedaris assumed Cristina was transgender, but the essay does not say that she identified herself that way.
Cristina emailed Sedaris the next morning to correct her statement: she was scheduled for a colonoscopy, not a prostate exam.
Sedaris says he had thought Cristina’s personal information was hers to share when she chose.
The essay is by David Sedaris and was produced by Amy Wall.
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The newly introduced Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act would create a federal tax incentive for film and television production. The proposal aims to counter the movement of production overseas.
Key Facts
The Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act has been introduced.
The proposal seeks to establish a federal tax incentive.
The incentive would apply to film and television production.
The proposal aims to address production moving overseas.
The article does not state whether the measure has passed or describe the incentive’s details.
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Attorney General Todd Blanche said President Donald Trump believes Alaska’s Senate race is unfair because another candidate on the ballot has the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan. Blanche said the shared name could confuse voters and potentially cost Republicans the seat.
Key Facts
Blanche made the remarks Sunday on CNN.
The race is for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Dan Sullivan.
A candidate with the same name as Sullivan is also on the ballot.
Blanche said the name could confuse voters.
Blanche said the situation could potentially cost Republicans the seat.
Trump views the contest as unfair, according to Blanche.
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A University of Surrey study found that people from some ethnic minority and deprived groups in England were less likely to receive a breast cancer diagnosis through routine screening and more likely to be diagnosed through urgent referrals or emergencies. People with learning disabilities also had longer waits for diagnosis and treatment, the analysis found.
Key Facts
Researchers analyzed data on 86,564 people diagnosed with breast cancer between 2009 and 2019.
People from Black, Asian and mixed backgrounds, and people from deprived backgrounds, were up to 33% less likely to be diagnosed through screening.
These groups were up to 31% more likely to be diagnosed through an urgent suspected cancer referral and up to 37% more likely through an emergency presentation.
People with learning disabilities had an 18% longer time to diagnosis and waited 10% longer for treatment than people without learning disabilities.
The study was conducted by University of Surrey academics and funded by Breast Cancer Now.
Earlier research cited in the article found that one in three people from ethnic minority backgrounds needed three or more GP visits before a cancer diagnosis, compared with one in five people across England.
The article says young Black women are under-represented in clinical research and face higher rates of aggressive breast cancer, poorer care and mortality.
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President Donald Trump said at a Georgia rally that he did not care about criticism of his remarks that the United States was making a “fortune” from higher oil prices. He said fuel prices would fall, while the national average for regular gasoline was about $4.29 per gallon on October 25, up from $3.06 a year earlier, according to AAA.
Key Facts
Trump said advisers had warned him that boasting about financial gains from higher oil prices could draw criticism while drivers faced higher costs.
Trump said the U.S. was making hundreds of billions of dollars as oil and gas companies supplied oil from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana amid the Middle East conflict.
Trump said he expected gasoline prices to fall.
AAA put the national average price of regular gasoline at about $4.29 per gallon on October 25, down from about $4.49 a month earlier.
The AAA average for regular gasoline was about $1.23 per gallon higher than a year earlier; diesel averaged about $6.35 per gallon.
California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized Trump's remarks in a post on X.
The article reported protests across the country over the Iran war and its effect on gas prices.
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The article describes a wave of politically sensitive Justice Department actions in the weeks before the midterms, including lawsuits over election procedures, searches and criminal charges. The DOJ says it is enforcing the law impartially, while the article notes disputes over its authority and the timing of its actions.
Key Facts
The DOJ sued in Alaska to delay certification of the U.S. Senate results if Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses, pending an investigation into whether votes for another candidate named Dan J. Sullivan affected the outcome.
Alaska's Supreme Court ruled that Dan J. Sullivan Jr. could appear on the ballot, and the state's ranked-choice system lets voters rank both candidates.
Mary Peltola's campaign and national Democrats have sought to join the Alaska lawsuit and oppose delaying certification.
The DOJ sued California over more than 20,000 ballots it says may have been cast by noncitizens and later demanded that counties segregate flagged ballots within 48 hours.
Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home on Oct. 12 and seized her cellphone as part of an investigation into possible immigration fraud; Omar's office or response is not detailed in the article.
A federal indictment accused Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas of helping operate an illegal marijuana enterprise; Lucas denies wrongdoing.
Two former senior FBI officials were charged on Oct. 23 with lying to Congress about their roles in the Hunter Biden investigation.
The DOJ has an unwritten practice of heightened caution before elections, but its written rules prohibit timing investigations or charges to influence elections.
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President Donald Trump said Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit was “empty” while speaking at a rally in Perry, Georgia. Photos and videos showed a packed gym and an overflow audience, and local outlet Michigan Bridge reported that more than 4,300 people attended.
Key Facts
Obama visited Michigan to support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson.
Trump made the “empty” remark at his rally in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday.
Social media photos and videos appeared to show a packed gym at Cass Technical High School, where Obama spoke.
A photo shared online also appeared to show a full overflow auditorium.
Michigan Bridge reported that more than 4,300 people attended Obama’s rally.
Obama described the November midterm elections as a potential “circuit breaker” and a chance to rein in actions by the Trump administration.
The article notes Trump’s past claims about crowd sizes, including his 2017 claim that his inauguration drew about 1.5 million people.
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Composer Missy Mazzoli’s opera “Lincoln in the Bardo,” based on George Saunders’s novel, is debuting at the Metropolitan Opera. The production marks the first time the Met has premiered an opera by a woman, according to the article; Mazzoli says punk music and MTV helped shape her artistic interests.
Key Facts
Mazzoli is 45 and has composed music for opera and other works.
Her parents bought her a piano at a flea market when she was seven, and she began writing music a few years later.
Mazzoli said she played in punk bands and watched MTV for hours as a child.
“Lincoln in the Bardo” tells the story of President Abraham Lincoln grieving the death of his 11-year-old son, Willie.
Mazzoli said the opera’s setting during the Civil War felt relevant because the country was deeply divided.
The Met production includes elaborate costumes, puppetry, special effects and a large horse.
Mazzoli and lyricist Royce Vavrek also premiered “The Galloping Cure,” an opera about the opioid epidemic, that summer.
Mazzoli has an upcoming piano concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.
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Shasta County strongly backed Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, when the Great Depression had left many residents desperate for work. Nearly a century later, the Northern California county has become a stronghold for Donald Trump, whose supporters there have backed him in three presidential elections and include officials who promoted false claims about stolen elections.
Key Facts
Shasta County was founded in 1850 during California’s gold rush.
In 1931, reports described widespread hardship and people struggling to find work in Shasta County and elsewhere in California.
Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Redding, the Shasta County seat, during his 1932 presidential campaign.
More than 72% of Shasta County voters backed Roosevelt in 1932.
About two-thirds of Shasta County voters supported Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
The article describes Shasta County as a center of the election-denial movement.
Some Shasta County officials promoted false claims that elections had been stolen.
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