[Getty Images] The Duchess of Sussex has said she was informed about “disturbing allegations” about her estranged father in 2018.In a statement, Meghan said a letter containing allegations against Thomas Markle was sent to the Metropolitan Police that year and subsequently shared with her.Her comments come after reports that images of child sexual abuse allegedly belonging to her father had been found at his former home in the Philippines.Thomas Markle, who is based in the US, denies possessing any such images.Commenting after the allegations, first reported by The Sun newspaper, the duchess said: “I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.”She said that when she received the letter outlining allegations against her father, she was “given assurance that these were being investigated”.She added she hoped it could be understood why she had kept her distance from her father and did “not allow him to have contact with our children”.This was “to protect them”, Meghan said, adding that she had “trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families”.She described the allegations as “more sickening than one could ever imagine” and said her “sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children”. Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr, alleged to The Sun that he had found child abuse images at his father’s home in the Philippines and reported to the police.The Undersecretary for the Philippines Department of Justice, Nicholas Ty, told the BBC that “the matter is currently being investigated” by an anti-human trafficking and child sexual exploitation task force in Cebu.Philippines Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla separately told the BBC that national police had secured Thomas Markle Snr’s computer to conduct a comprehensive digital forensic examination. Investigators are currently analysing the data to determine the full scope and extent of his alleged criminal activities.The minister said it will take “one week to get the forensic [results]”.The BBC has contacted Thomas Markle Snr and the Metropolitan Police for comment.The allegations about Meghan’s estranged father cast a new light on their complicated family relationships.The statement from the Duchess of Sussex says the sharing of information about her father happened in 2018 – the year in which she married Prince Harry.It is understood that Meghan first learnt about the allegations against her father after the wedding.The claims add a fresh dimension to the questions about why Prince Harry and their two children did not ever seem to have met Meghan’s father – and why relations seemed to be so strained.With such question marks over her estranged father – and he has denied any wrongdoing – it also raises the issue of whether that played a part in the Sussexes’ hurried return to the UK in late summer.The Sussexes’ spokesman has not responded to questions about whether that was a factor in their decision to leave the US, where her father was living.Meghan is the only child of Thomas Markle’s marriage to her mother, Doria Ragland, but he has two other children – Samantha and Thomas Markle Jr – from an earlier marriage.The relationship between Meghan and her father, a former TV lighting director, broke down in the run-up to her wedding in 2018.At the time, Thomas Markle was found to have colluded with photographers, accepting payment to stage photographs of him preparing for the wedding. The resultant fall-out saw him pull out of his daughter’s wedding, citing health problems. Meghan was instead walked down the aisle by King Charles III – then Prince of Wales.In 2025, Thomas Markle moved to the Philippines after a series of strokes. He is reportedly now living in a rehabilitation centre in Florida, where he is learning to walk again, after having a leg amputated during surgery in December 2025.This article originally appeared on BBC at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6x2wpgejjkjo?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D

Elon Musk’s influence over first Tesla (TSLA) and now SpaceX (SPCX) has long been measured in terms of corporate valuations, technological breakthroughs, and personal wealth, where his companies have made him the richest person in the world. Across the last few years, however, the centi-billionaire’s growing portfolio of businesses has pushed him into a new lane entirely.Over the past decade, Elon Musk has become far more than a corporate executive or political power broker. Through his control of companies underpinning global communications, military operations, space access, and artificial intelligence, Musk has acquired a degree of influence over national security, international relations, and the global economy that few private individuals have ever possessed.An artilleryman of the Special Rifle Police Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region sets up Starlink satellite internet system, at a position, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, October 16, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File PhotoReuters / REUTERS”There’s a very real chance that [Musk] is the most powerful civilian, non-governmental actor in history,” Gautam Mukunda, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and managing director of the consultancy Two Rivers Group. Musk “has resources that are vastly larger than those of all but a handful of governments on the planet.”That influence came into sharp focus this month when widely reported restrictions on SpaceX’s satellite communications services disrupted Ukraine’s military operations, exposing just how dependent a sovereign nation’s battlefield capabilities had become on infrastructure supplied by a private-sector company.There are conflicting accounts of who ordered the restrictions in Ukraine, which disrupted battlefield drones and prompted several hours of faltering drone speeds and faulty communications on the front lines of the nation’s conflict with Russia. Musk says the White House controls Ukraine’s access to Starshield, a military-grade version of Starlink funded by the Pentagon, while officials in the Trump administration have said they weren’t involved in the decision.Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities…— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2026 Regardless of responsibility, the incident has highlighted the increasing separation between corporate access to governments and governmental reliance on the private sector, particularly given Musk’s singular control over rocketry and satellite communications.’Extraordinary power’SpaceX is now responsible for roughly 90% of all mass sent into orbit off Earth, Musk said on SpaceX’s recent earnings call. The Pentagon is Starshield’s largest customer, while countries such as the Philippines, Argentina, and Indonesia use Starlink for national communications, including emergency services. “He can turn a country’s communications on or off — that’s an extraordinary power,” Darrell West, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, told Yahoo Finance. “Even governments can’t do that.”To be sure, Musk is far from the only corporate leader to have garnered significant political power.CEOs of the largest banks in the world, like JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’ (GS) David Solomon, have repeatedly spoken with or alongside the US president. Oil and gas majors like ExxonMobil (XOM) under Darren Woods and Chevron (CVX) under Mike Wirth have made deals with war-torn nations such as Libya and Iraq in search of cheap and sizeable fossil fuel deposits.Perhaps most visibly over the last year, Silicon Valley’s largest leaders have become increasingly common sights in Washington, D.C., attending dinners and state summits at the White House and pushing AI legislation in the halls of Congress. When Trump hosted China’s Xi Jinping at the White House in late September, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s (OPAI.PVT) Sam Altman, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos were all in attendance alongside Musk.Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang attend the “A New Golden Age” summit at the US Institute of Peace, renamed The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace by the Trump administration, in Washington, DC, US, October 8, 2026. REUTERS/Evan VucciREUTERS / REUTERSBut Musk’s dominance across several industries critical to national security — including but not limited to space communications, rocketry, and advanced robotics — have placed him in a singular category of corporate-driven geopolitical power.More broadly, the Starlink-Ukraine fallout underscores a broader transformation underway in the global economy: Technologies once controlled, developed, or operated primarily by governments are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporations, giving their executives considerable influence over international affairs.The US government has the capacity for major strategic projects, such as the invention of the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project in the 1940s or the first moon landing in 1969. Yet the state has instead chosen to outsource much of that ability to private corporations that have garnered immense power and reliance, Adam Segal, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Ira A. Lipman Chair in Emerging Technologies and National Security, told Yahoo Finance.China’s President Xi Jinping (L) and US President Donald Trump speak through interpreters as First Lady Melania Trump listens to Tesla CEO Elon Musk during a State Dinner in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 24, 2026. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images”There are probably some national security areas where we want to ensure that NASA can still do this, but I think that’s going to be pretty narrow,” Segal said. He added, “The idea that the Pentagon and the government more broadly is just going to be reliant on commercial tech because it’s going to be the most advanced, that is going to be very hard to put back in the bottle.”Musk’s growing state-adjacent power also comes as geopolitics have begun to play an increasingly visible role in market performance, driving everything from oil prices and global sovereign debt yields to Big Tech equity performance.The war in Iran has disrupted global energy flows and pushed up inflation across developed economies; protests in France have depressed bond prices across the eurozone; Nvidia’s reliance on chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) has thrust increasingly fractious relations between Beijing and Taipei back into the spotlight.CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin stand with U.S. President Donald Trump during the “A New Golden Age” summit at the US Institute of Peace, renamed The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace by the Trump administration, in Washington, DC, US, October 8, 2026. REUTERS/Evan VucciREUTERS / REUTERSThe Ukraine-Russia war, where Musk has been most visibly in focus, has directly contributed to the diesel price crisis facing the US. The disruptions to the Ukrainian military’s use of Starshield come as the White House has offered the Kremlin incentives and concessions that have included allowing the sale of Russian energy products on the open market, breaking with years of US sanctions on Moscow. “2026 has seen economists and strategists forced to accept that geopolitics, rather than being the odd exogenous shock, is a structural backdrop disrupting models and markets,” Rabobank global strategist Michael Every said. “Changing politics can also change markets.”For investors in SpaceX and Tesla, geopolitics — and Musk’s influence over some of the most critical global developments — have become an increasingly large part of the Musk story, at times eclipsing the traditional financial metrics used to judge the performance of a corporate executive.Teams inside SpaceX and Tesla are reportedly pursuing an aggressive timeline to merge the two companies before the 2028 presidential election while friendly faces remain in the White House. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said Thursday that Congress should issue subpoenas to Elon Musk, Starlink/SpaceX, and the Department of Defense over interference in Ukraine.Musk responded publicly to reports of a potential investigation on Wednesday.”Live by the sword, die by the sword,” Musk said on X. “Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets.”Follow Jake Conley on X @byjakeconley or email him at jake.conley@yahooinc.com.Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock pricesRead the latest financial and business news from Yahoo FinanceThis article originally appeared on Yahoo Finance at https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/article/how-elon-musk-went-from-tesla-ceo-to-the-most-powerful-civilian-non-governmental-actor-in-history-100000227.html

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians who the military said had launched an attack near Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning. At least five other people were injured, some critically. The violence is likely to heighten political tensions and security concerns ahead of Israel’s parliamentary election next week. The army said it had prevented a “terror attack against Israeli civilians” and that the two men, both Palestinians from Hebron, were armed with an M16 rifle and a handgun. It did not elaborate on the target of the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office later said it had instructed security forces to immediately cordon off Hebron and prepare for a full closure of the West Bank starting Friday. Voters go to the polls Tuesday in an election that will help determine whether Netanyahu secures another term as prime minister. The vote comes three years after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Israel’s government has warned of potential attacks by the country’s “enemies” in the lead-up to the election. Netanyahu holds an emergency meeting Following the shooting, Netanyahu held an emergency meeting of his Security Cabinet and officials from top military and security agencies. He said Hamas was “planning a major attack aimed at murdering innocent civilians.” “Our brave soldiers thwarted this attack with courage and determination,” he said, without elaborating on what the planned attack entailed. “I commend them for their actions and wish our wounded a speedy recovery,” he added but did not say if the wounded were soldiers or civilians. Earlier Friday, Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for extremist views, said that the attack shows that Israel needs to restrict the Palestinians’ freedom of movement in the West Bank. “The lives of the residents of Judea and Samaria, of the settlers, the lives of the soldiers, the lives of the police officers, the lives of our fighters are a million times more important than freedom of movement,” he said, using an Israeli reference to the West Bank. Ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that triggered the war, Netanyahu said the Palestinian militant group could attack Israel in a bid to influence the outcome of the elections. He did not provide evidence to back up the claim. Dozens are arrested in West Bank security operations Emergency responders said five people were injured, some critically, and were being evacuated to hospitals in Israel. A statement from the responders said gunfire was still ongoing as they arrived at the scene of the attack near the Yehuda Junction in the morning. Two men in their 20s had gunshot wounds to their lower limbs, and one was unconscious and seriously injured, the responders said. “We arrived at a difficult scene while shooting was still taking place in the area,” said Tzuriel Edri with the response team. An investigation was underway, authorities said. Also Friday, the army said soldiers and Israeli security and intelligence agencies conducted dozens of operations in the West Bank and apprehended dozens of people, including those affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups. It also said it had located weapons, including M16 rifles and submachine guns. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, said a “large quantity of ammunition was found” in a vehicle used by the gunmen. “This ammunition was intended to be used in a larger-scale attack,” he added. Palestinian life is ‘impossible,’ says US congressional candidate Closures of the West Bank are becoming more common. It was the fourth time in the past month that Israel had imposed restrictions across the territory, shutting gates and checkpoints connecting Palestinian villages to major roads. Roads in the territory remain open to Israeli drivers, including settlers, who can still travel through the area but may face delays. U.S Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander, who was in the West Bank on Friday, said the Israeli army’s closure following the attack was an example of Israel enforcing an apartheid system on Palestinians. “It’s part of the effort to take more control, to make Palestinian life impossible,” Lander, who was detained by Israeli forces on Wednesday, said in an interview. Yishai Fleisher, an international spokesperson for Hebron’s Jewish community and a political candidate for the far-right Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, party, said Israel had the right to defend itself from a “hostile majority.” “We are tired of the weapons and the brainwashing and incitement that is next door,” he said.This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/israel-military-says-killed-2-064424157.html

Washington — President Trump on Thursday praised the “very powerful ad” Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running featuring the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, after the ad drew pushback from some Republicans like Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he suggested Ramaswamy keep the ad up, saying the press is “trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it’s so good!” The ad, which first circulated on social media on Monday and is now television, features Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, who called Acton a “liar” and sought to undermine her credibility. Acton’s campaign condemned the ad, and her brother, Philip Stearns, called it a “despicable low.” According to court documents provided by the campaign, Arthur’s now-deceased husband was charged with raping Acton, which she said occurred when she was between 10 and 12 years old. He entered a not guilty plea and left the area while out on bond; the case never went to trial.DeWine on Thursday said he thought the Ramaswamy campaign should take the ad down. “It’s wrong to run this ad,” the Ohio Republican told reporters. “I would urge Ramaswamy’s campaign to take this down.” DeWine did not rescind his endorsement. But Vice President JD Vance and now Mr. Trump are defending the ad and using it to criticize Acton. “Vivek Ramaswamy put up a very powerful Ad about a mother saying that her daughter, Amy Acton, who is running for Governor of Ohio, is a liar, and much worse,” Mr. Trump wrote in his social media post. “The Press, in a concerted and well coordinated attack, is trying to get Vivek Ramaswamy to ‘take down the Ad.’ Frankly, anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in Office, let alone the Office of Governor.”In his post, Mr. Trump did not mention why Acton and her birth mother are estranged, or any of the family’s backstory. Shortly after his post, on the White House South Lawn, reporters told Mr. Trump the backstory — that Acton’s mother stayed married to the man charged with raping her. CBS News senior White House reporter Weijia Jiang asked the president why anyone should listen to what the estranged mother has to say. “Well I know nothing about it,” the president responded. “All I know is the mother said very bad things about Acton, who I guess is running for governor against Vivek. And all I can say is Vivek is great. And I know one thing, if my mother said bad about me, it would be a major news story, that’s for sure. So I don’t know what it is, but I guess the mother said very bad things about the one who’s running for governor. And I think you have to say that seriously.” “I’m defending it because I know that if that ad were about my mother, you would love it, you would love every inch of it,” Mr. Trump added. In his Truth Social post, the president specifically went after DeWine.”Our RINO Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, who I unfortunately helped get elected years ago, when he was losing by 16 points prior to my doing a Rally for him was, as usual, disloyal to the Republican Party,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He strongly suggested that Vivek should, ‘take down the Ad.’ He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing. I suggested, on the other hand, that Vivek should keep it up…”Mr. Trump added he only wishes the “mothers of my opponents would be so brave as to come forward and explain that their son or daughter is a liar, and much worse.” “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad?” Mr. Trump wrote. “I would, it’s called, ‘hitting pay dirt.'”Mr. Trump continued to defend the ad during a rally in Iowa late Thursday. He said he advised Ramaswamy that “you gotta ride with it,” later adding: “Leave it up, and look upstairs and say, ‘Thank you God, very much.'”Vance, too, defended the ad, saying Republicans who have criticized it should “stop whining.” Ohio Republican Sen. John Husted, who is running for reelection, said he “would not have run that ad.” Outgoing Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina called the ad the “most shameful, disgusting, offensive ad this election season.”Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, told a local ABC station he “probably wouldn’t run an ad like that, but every candidate gets to make their own decision.”Acton’s brother said earlier this week it’s “not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point.” “Our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns said. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”This article originally appeared on CBS News at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ramaswamy-ad-amy-acton-mother-trump/

Attorney General Todd Blanche left the door open on whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) would intervene in states’ midterm elections verification processes, telling reporters Thursday there are hypothetical “scenarios” in which it could block the certification of votes. “Yes, of course there’s scenarios that we can all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario for example, right?” he said. “So, I don’t think it’s proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what’s going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what’s happening in the future.” Blanche added the DOJ has no intention “to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process.” “There’s no circumstances that we would ever do that,” he continued. “Of course I’m not going to say that. But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no, not at all.” Blanche said earlier this month the DOJ plans to send 1,000 election monitors to polling places in every state on Election Day. At the time, he told Fox News anchor Shannon Bream the department’s presence would serve to ensure federal law is properly enforced, adding the government has been monitoring elections since the 1960s. During the Fox interview, Blanche went on to accuse Democrats of “fearmongering” by claiming the DOJ is trying to intimidate voters. On Tuesday, Democratic leaders and election groups filed a lawsuit against President Trump and the DOJ, accusing the administration of “threats and intimidation” ahead of Election Day — pointing to its efforts to push states to identify and remove suspected non-U.S. citizens from voter rolls and threats of criminal prosecution against election officials who refuse to comply. DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told The Washington Post on Wednesday that “ensuring that only eligible citizens vote and that every lawful ballot is counted a requirement of federal law.” The lawsuit specifically cites the DOJ’s demand for California officials to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified as noncitizens. It also alleged the administration’s threat to imprison state and local election officials violated the Voting Rights Act. The DOJ sued California last week after giving its officials 48 hours to compare DHS’s list of 20,000 names to the state’s voter rolls. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) slammed the lawsuit, saying the Golden State’s elections “are NOT Donald Trump’s to control.” On Monday, the DOJ announced 28 alleged non-U.S. citizens in California were charged in connection with illegal voting. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said all of the 28 “defendants charged today appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants we provided to California election officials last week.” Trump, who has long held immigration as a central issue over both of his presidencies, has frequently made unsubstantiated claims surrounding noncitizens voting in U.S. elections and alleged the practice plays a role in voter fraud in Democratic states. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.This article originally appeared on The Hill at https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6167033-todd-blanche-doj-election-certification-block/