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Anthony Guglielmi's testimony, first reported by The Washington Post, touched on statements he made on behalf of the agency after Hutchinson testified publicly before the House Jan. 6 committee, the sources said. NBC News has asked Guglielmi and the Jan. 6 committee for comment. U.S. Secret ServiceHutchinson said Tony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, told her about the incident. A person close to the Secret Service said after Hutchinson's testimony that the alleged altercation had not occurred and suggested that Engel and the driver would say so under oath. The Jan. 6 committee last held a public hearing in October.

Iran may soon arm Russia with surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missiles, three U.S. and Western government officials said, in what would be significant escalation of Iranian support for President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. If delivered, they would be the first advanced, precision-guided missiles that Iran has provided Russia since the war started. Short-range ballistic missiles have a range of hundreds of miles, and could help Moscow replenish its dwindling stockpile, which have been depleted by Russia’s war in Ukraine. “We remain concerned about the potential for Iran to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles,” White House National Security Council adviser John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday. Ed Ram / Getty ImagesThe Washington Post and CNN reported earlier on indications that Iran may supply ballistic missiles to Russia.

Every election cycle, the NBC News Political Unit produces our Election Book to assist the network’s anchors, correspondents, producers and reporters in the field for Election Night. It contains essential information on almost every race, historical factoids, timelines, past exit polls, political trends and overarching narratives to help explain the current election cycle. It is our election bible, and we are making it available for you to read. You’ll be reading the material that our anchors, correspondents and producers will be relying on come Nov. 8 — and beyond. And you can keep up to date on the latest midterm elections news with the Meet the Press Blog as well as the NBC News midterm live blog.

WASHINGTON — One week from Election Day, the race for Senate control remains neck and neck in an unusually volatile political environment, with small margins carrying high stakes for the future of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda and judicial nominees. Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the battle for the Senate looks like a coin-flip. “Polling for the Senate is still real close in a lot of these states.”The Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote giving Democrats control. The FiveThirtyEight Senate projection is dead even, giving both Republicans and Democrats 50% chances of winning control. A perception that GOP control would threaten democracy is also motivating liberal-leaning voters.

☆ U.S. military inspectors in Ukraine to keep further track of weapons and equipment
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Courtney-Kube-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Courtney Kube | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

American military personnel are now in Ukraine to help keep track of the billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and equipment the United States has sent since the start of the Russian invasion, a senior U.S. defense official and senior U.S. military official said. “There have been several of these inspections,” according to the senior defense official, who declined to give details on the locations of the on-site inspections. The inspections come after Russia and some Republicans in Congress have alleged that weapons and military equipment sent to Ukraine may have ended up on the black market. Pallets of ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine are processed at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Jan. 21. “The Ukrainian government has committed to appropriately safeguarding and accounting for transferred defense equipment,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement last week.

It’s become routine since Russia invaded Ukraine: President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak by phone whenever the U.S. announces a new package of military assistance for Kyiv. Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy he’d just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting. Biden lost his temper, the people familiar with the call said. Biden now faces resistance from some Republicans and Democrats that wasn’t present when Congress approved previous Ukraine funds. “I had an important conversation with U.S. President Biden today,” he said in videotaped remarks.

☆ How George Clooney and Julia Roberts spent their first big paychecks
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

George Clooney and Julia Roberts have been working in Hollywood for over three decades — but the stars of "Ticket to Paradise" and longtime friends can still recall the excitement of receiving their first paychecks like it was yesterday. Roberts, 55, celebrated her first big payday by buying a boombox, she told POPSUGAR during a recent joint interview with Clooney. "Oh, that's great," Clooney said of Roberts' big purchase. "I was living in a closet of my buddy's apartment with his grandmother," he told POPSUGAR. Roberts and Clooney have worked on six films together before: "Ocean's Eleven," "Ocean's Twelve," "Money Monster," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and "August: Osage County."

☆ With a possible surge of Haitian migrants ahead, the Biden admin weighs holding them in a third country or Guantanamo
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julia-Ainsley-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Julia Ainsley | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

For more than 30 years, Guantanamo Bay has had a Migrant Operations Center that houses migrants picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard in the Caribbean. Planning now under consideration would roughly double the capacity at the Migrant Operations Center to 400 beds, according to the document. The Biden administration received bipartisan criticism for its handling of a massive flood of Haitian migrants in September 2021, which led to more than 12,000 massing under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The Biden administration ramped up deportation flights to deal with the influx, but so far those flights have halted since August 2022. A spokesperson for the NSC said, “The United States remains committed to supporting the people of Haiti.

The second round of voting in the race between far-right populist President Jair Bolsonaro and his challenger, Lula, has divided the nation as well as Brazilian nationals living abroad. While Lula beat Bolsonaro by about 4 percentage points, he came shy of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. “Honestly I never thought I would be voting for Lula again — I was quite disappointed in how corrupt his government was,” said Ferrari. Bolsonaro has cast doubt on the 2020 U.S. election results, echoing false claims that there was widespread fraud. "I think that the imperfections on the Bolsonaro side are just unneglectable.”Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

☆ Facing a wave of public anger, Iran’s regime could be in a fight for long-term survival, experts say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Dan De Luce | Dan De Luce Is A Reporter For The Nbc News Investigative Unit. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

From anti-government graffiti to students heckling government officials, to women walking in the street without headscarves to workers putting down their tools, Iran’s regime looks increasingly bewildered by events. “It’s like a war, the Islamic Republic versus the Iranian people,” said the woman from Tehran. She and other Iranians say the helmeted police flooding the streets resemble an occupying force, unsure of their position and unable to trust the local population. The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights and the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Friday more than 250 protesters have been killed in the six weeks since protests began. “We all know that this time we will overthrow the regime,” said the woman in Tehran.

☆ Biden admin has discussed slow-rolling Saudi military aid as payback for oil production cut
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Courtney-Kube-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Courtney Kube | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

The Biden administration has discussed slow-rolling military aid to Saudi Arabia, including shipments of advanced Patriot missiles, to punish the kingdom for leading OPEC’s decision to cut oil production, say two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the discussions. Some military officials support the idea, said the sources, but others want to make sure the military relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is kept separate from any retribution by the administration. OPEC’s move spurred a back and forth between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, with Biden administration officials vowing there would be consequences for the Saudis. “There needs to be a balance between punishing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not making life more difficult or dangerous for the U.S.,” one U.S. official said. One White House official said that while changes to security assistance are under consideration the Biden administration is not in a rush to take action.

There are early signs that this year's flu shot appears to work well at keeping people out of the hospital. A report on Chile's flu season, released Thursday by the CDC, found the vaccine was 49% protective against flu-related hospitalizations. That might seem low, but from 2015 to 2020, flu shot effectiveness in the U.S. ranged from 29% to 48%. It's unclear whether this year's flu shots in the U.S. will be as effective as was found during Chile's flu season. Only about half of the population gets an annual flu shot, typically.

For years, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians around the country have been sounding the alarm about working conditions and understaffing, which they say increases the potential for mistakes in filling customer prescriptions. It invested more than $190 million in pharmacy staff this year, and plans to invest even more in 2023, according to a press release. Its move to no longer evaluate pharmacy workers on “task-based metrics” builds on that investment, the company said. The pandemic — and the issues it presented — prompted a number of state pharmacy boards to take action to improve working conditions. Last year, California passed a bill co-sponsored by its pharmacy board that “prohibited the practice of imposing quotas intended to increase corporate profit margins on the backs of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians,” according to the state board.

House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., will introduce a bill Friday aimed at improving access to abortion services, as well as accurate information on the procedure, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, NBC News has learned. The Abortion Care Awareness Act of 2022 is the latest effort by Democrats to address the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion, which has since spurred multiple states to limit or outright ban the procedure. The bill would direct HHS to set up a national campaign to promote resources on where and how to obtain abortion care, medication abortion, and a patient’s right to travel across state lines to get the procedure. John Nacion / STAR MAX/IPx via AP fileA large coalition of reproductive health groups — including the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and more — will endorse Maloney’s bill. Karen Stone, Planned Parenthood Federation of America vice president of public policy and government relations, echoed the need to expand access to educational resources on reproductive health care.

☆ Comcast tops expectations as it squeezes out a small gain in broadband subscribers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Comcast on Thursday reported third-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, despite seeing revenue slightly decline and continued softness in broadband customer growth. Still, it's a sign that cable broadband providers are facing increased competition from telecom and wireless internet companies. Meanwhile, Comcast's cable unit, which includes pay-TV, mobile and traditional phone services in addition to broadband, saw revenue increase 2.6% to $16.5 billion. The company said broadband revenue jumped 5.7% due to an increase in average rates and the number of its residential broadband customers. Peacock, the company's fledgling streaming service, surpassed 15 million paying customers, an increase of more than 70% year-to-date, the company Thursday.

☆ Biden admin imposes sanctions on Iranian officials over 'brutal' crackdown on protests
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Dan De Luce | Dan De Luce Is A Reporter For The Nbc News Investigative Unit. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on 14 Iranian officials after a violent crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran, vowing to hold the regime accountable for its "brutal suppression" of dissent, officials said Wednesday. The sustained protests, which have spread to universities and some factories and teachers associations, mark an unprecedented challenge to the regime’s authority. But officials still say they remain open to restoring the deal, which imposes limits on Iran’s nuclear program in return for an easing of economic sanctions. The administration views the protests as a moral issue, a question of "right and wrong," the official said. The package of sanctions unveiled Wednesday designated Hossein Modarres Khiabani, the governor of Sistan and Baluchistan province, where U.S. officials say some of the worst violence against protesters has unfolded.

It’s the first time in 50 years that a federal grant has been given to study a psychedelic drug as a possible treatment. The study, a randomized controlled trial expected to start later this year, will investigate whether psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in “magic mushrooms,” can help people quit smoking tobacco. Hopkins researchers will lead the trial, which will be done in collaboration with researchers at NYU Langone Health and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In a study published in August, researchers found that psilocybin helped drinkers reduce alcohol cravings. Typically in studies using psychedelics, participants receive the drug during a monitored session with a therapist, which can last hours.

☆ Qatar to suspend evacuation flights for U.S.-bound Afghan refugees while it hosts soccer World Cup
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Dan De Luce | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julia-Ainsley-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Qatari officials have said they plan to suspend evacuation flights for Afghan refugees hoping to resettle in the U.S. while the country hosts soccer’s World Cup next month, according to refugee advocates, congressional aides and a source familiar with the Qatari government’s plans. Afghan refugees trying to book flights to Doha have received emails saying it’s not possible to reserve a seat until January, Afghans and advocacy groups said. Flights are continuing to operate at the moment but refugee organizations are worried the planes will soon stop flying out of Kabul. The Biden administration has not released up-to-date numbers on how many Afghans are in the pipeline for special immigrant visas. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. has issued more than 18,000 special immigrant visas to Afghan applicants and their family members from January 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022.

☆ As Ukraine plans its recovery, a climate group has a seat at the table
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Nidhi Sharma | Nidhi Sharma Is An Associate Producer With The Nbc News Climate Unit. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

These are goals that the group says would put Ukraine in a position to no longer be dependent on fossil fuels. In rebuilding, the nation must decide whether it wants to return to fossil fuels, or build a cleaner, greener economy, Ustenko said. For some climate activists, Russia’s war in Ukraine has served as a call to action in a decadeslong climate emergency. Romanko said many nations have failed to do what is necessary: halt the use of all fossil fuels, as quickly as possible. She cited the plans released in March by the International Energy Agency to cut reliance on Russian fossil fuels, and fossil fuels overall, in 10 steps; no government has implemented these strategies, she said.

WASHINGTON — Hope Hicks, who served as a top adviser to former President Donald Trump, is interviewing with the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, a source familiar told NBC News. Hicks served in multiple senior roles in Trump's White House for much of his presidency. She left the White House six days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, on Jan. 12, after serving as a counselor to the president. She had previously served as White House communications director as well as director of strategic communications. Prior to her stints at the White House, Hicks worked for Trump's presidential campaign, the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand.

Ed Fischbach, on his farm in Spink County, S.D., said no to the carbon pipeline on his land. But some energy experts say safety is an issue with carbon capture pipelines — carbon dioxide doesn’t like to stay put, and the fear is that a pipeline could rupture and leak. Asked about the Mississippi leak, Hill of Summit Carbon Solutions characterized the event as tragic but anomalous. Braun says she is afraid the Summit pipeline will disturb sacred land around Whitestone Hill. Both Braun and Locke say they are happy to be forging new ties with farmers and ranchers in opposition to the Summit project.

Among all Cuban Americans polled, 32% gave Biden a positive job approval. His numbers were higher among Cuban American Democrats (73%) and newest arrivals (64%), as well as to a lesser extent older Cuban Americans. “Cuban Americans are willing to put out a carrot for the Cuban government in hopes that it will change," Grenier said. “You have an ambivalence.”Ahead of the midterms, Cuban Americans identified the economy, health care, immigration, and Cuba policy as top issues. The FIU Cuba poll surveyed 1,000 Cuban Americans in Miami Dade County from July 27 to September 11.

Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter died Monday evening after a "sudden cardiac event," his family said. He served as Defense Secretary in the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017. His sudden loss will be felt by all who knew him.”During his time as defense secretary, Carter was behind the campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. He held multiple positions within the Department of Defense, including Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics, in addition to serving as Secretary. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden applaud Ashton Carter after Obama announced his nomination to be the next defense secretary on Dec. 5, 2014.

Since 2013, this is how many people have been killed and injured in school shootings, according to a school shooting tracker that NBC News is making public. The tracker focuses on the segment of school shootings where an active shooter, with intent to harm, injures or kills at least one student or faculty member during school or at a school event. Read the full NBC News criteria for school shootings, including the FBI’s definition of an active shooter, below. The NBC News school shooting tracker includes shootings that meet these criteria:One or more active shooters. Shooting events are recorded and evaluated as new information becomes available, and are added to our published dataset of school shootings when it’s determined an incident meets the NBC News standard for school shootings.

☆ America's cars and trucks are getting bigger, and so are their front blind zones. Children are paying the price.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Headshot_Small.Png | Adiel Kaplan | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +13 min

Front cameras could help prevent these deaths, safety experts say. On Monday, he announced legislation that would make front blind zone safety features mandatory for motor vehicles. After Congress passed a law to improve rear blind zone safety nearly 15 years ago, it took a decade — rulemaking, regulatory delays and a multiyear rollout — before it fully went into effect. Blumenthal’s bill directs regulators to determine what technology, such as cameras or sensors, to require to make front blind zones safer, much like the rear blind zone law did. But she believes the best way to prevent future tragedies is widespread use of blind zone cameras.

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