Political GuyentistThe school
01 / The schoolBend, Oregon

The teenager who killed three children and a teacher at a Bend, Oregon, elementary school was a former student there, police say, and investigators believe his mother bought the shotgun.

Police say he was a former special-needs student at Silver Rail Elementary who went after a special-education classroom. A father of two Silver Rail students, Kaylub Giamanco, followed him into the building and shot him dead.

October 17, 2026 · Five stories, illustrated

What police and the reporting say now
Killed
Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher, Megan Lambert, 25.
Critically injured
A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher.
The shooter
A 16-year-old former special-needs student at the school, police say. He went after a special-education classroom.
Who stopped him
Kaylub Giamanco, a father of two Silver Rail students, who followed him into the building and shot him dead. Per the police chief, the classroom shooting had already happened and a teacher was wrestling him when Giamanco fired.
The gun
A shotgun. Investigators believe his mother bought it. “If I could have prevented this, I would have,” she said.
The first call
At 12:59 p.m. local time, from a driver who said they had been shot at. The school resource officer, a police officer assigned to schools, covers six to seven schools and was not at Silver Rail that day.

About 150 people, including the FBI, ATF and Oregon State Police, are working the case.

“She loved Silver Rail. This was her dream job.”The family of Megan Lambert, the teacher who was killed
What the law reaches
Oregon’s safe-storage law

It reaches the mother only if the shotgun got to her son because it was left unlocked. Even then the maximum is a $2,000 fine with no jail time.

Prosecutors elsewhere have used homicide law instead.

Michigan
The parents of the 2021 Oxford High School shooter, who bought him the gun, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2024 and are serving 10-year sentences.
Georgia
Colin Gray, who gave his 14-year-old son the rifle used at Apalachee High School in 2024, was convicted of second-degree murder in March and sentenced to 15 years in July, per CNN.

Bend’s is the 36th shooting on K–12 school grounds this year, per a CNN analysis.

The politics
Rep. Janelle Bynum · Democrat · Oregon

“When are we going to practice that same bravery that that bystander had?”

Aidan Johnston, Gun Owners of America

“What did stop the mass murderer and save lives was an armed bystander with good aim.”

Still open: how the 16-year-old came to have the shotgun. Police Chief Mike Krantz says it is still under investigation.

Read the reporting3 sources
The complete story nbcnews.comfoxnews.compbs.org
Volodymyr Zelensky, wearing an earpiece and a dark collared shirt, looks up past the camera, a handwritten sheet at the right edge.
02 / The summitBrussels · Kyiv · Washington

EU leaders’ summit text says they “regret” Trump’s lifting of Russian diesel sanctions, after Trump called Zelensky “not a good guy for us to deal with.”

The written conclusions of the Brussels summit on Friday, Oct. 16, make the objection the bloc’s official line, not one minister’s complaint. Late on Thursday, Oct. 15, Trump told Newsmax that Ukraine’s resumed refinery strikes were a “disgrace.”

Photograph: The Hill

The text also urges other partners to “swiftly step up” support for Ukraine.

What the €6.6 billion is: agreed by member states on Sept. 25, three weeks before the summit

€6.6 billionfrom the European Peace Facility, the EU’s joint military-aid fund, drawn to scale

  • €1 billionbuys new equipment, per EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas
  • €4.7 billionrepays governments for aid already sent, per EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas
  • The restnot broken down in the reporting

The leaders named no new weapons package.

“Really, yes... but it’s a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings.”Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, asked in Brussels if he felt betrayed

Trump also called Zelensky harder to deal with than Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sided with Trump the same day. In Brussels, Zelensky thanked Europe’s “real leaders.” Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, called U.S. limits on Ukraine “a complete mistake, a major mistake.”

The money is older than the quarrel
  1. Spring 2023

    Hungary’s government under Viktor Orbán blocks the €6.6 billion.

  2. Sept. 25

    Member states agree to release it.

  3. Oct. 9

    Trump strikes a deal to bring in Russian diesel and says Ukraine needs “a new president.”

  4. Oct. 11

    Trump announces an immediate refinery-only energy ceasefire. Moscow never confirms it; Ukraine pauses energy strikes for three days.

  5. Oct. 15

    Ukraine hits a Russian refinery, saying Russia never stopped its attacks. Late that day Trump tells Newsmax the resumed strikes are a “disgrace.”

  6. Friday, Oct. 16

    The summit’s conclusions “regret” the U.S. decision and welcome the €6.6 billion. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow reported new refinery strikes that day, per NBC News.

Trump’s Oct. 11 truce follows earlier energy pauses that broke down or never took hold. ACLED, a conflict monitor, recorded energy strikes during the 30-day pause of March 2025. A January 2026 pause lasted nearly three days of the week Trump announced, and Russia never confirmed a September 2026 announcement.

Read the reporting3 sources
The complete story thehill.comthehill.comnbcnews.com
03 / The waiverWashington

Trump waived the Russian energy tariffs and sanctions that the Graham law, which he signed in September, made mandatory.

Bloomberg reports the White House saw the penalties as an obstacle to its effort to lower diesel prices before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The law, named for Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, made them mandatory unless the president used its waiver.

The Graham sanctions law, and the clause Trump used

The Graham sanctions lawSigned by Trump in September

  1. PenaltiesTariffs and sanctions on Russian energy, mandatory unless the president uses the waiver.
  2. § 115The waiver: the president certifies in writing to Congress that it serves U.S. national interests. No vote is needed, and it never expires.
  3. § 117Its 30-day vote to block covers only ending the law, not waivers.

Penalties waived by Trump

Separately, an Oct. 9 Treasury license already lets Russian diesel in through April 7, 2027.

U.S. average retail diesel, per the Energy Information Administration
Week of Sept. 21$6.53

the year’s high in EIA’s weekly series

Week of Oct. 12$6.18

a gallon, down from that high

Read the reporting3 sources
The complete story bloomberg.comeia.goveia.gov
Two large tankers sit on blue water, one dominating the foreground and another visible through haze behind it.
04 / The barrelSaudi Arabia · world oil markets

Brent crude touched $110 a barrel for the first time since May 20, after Saudi-led forces intercepted missiles aimed at energy hubs.

Brent, the global oil benchmark, touched $110 on Friday, Oct. 16, and sat near $109.75 late in the afternoon, per The Hill. U.S. crude settled at $101.41, its highest close since Sept. 17, per Reuters.

Photograph: The Hill

Reports so far describe interceptions, not damage.

Brent this year, in the readings the reporting gives
  1. Start of 2026near $61
  2. Feb. 27$72.48

    closing price, the day before the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, per the EIA and Euronews

  3. March 12past $100

    as tankers stopped crossing the Strait of Hormuz

  4. The springnear $120

    its peak, per CNBC

  5. May 20$110

    the last time it got there before Friday

  6. Late Juneabout its pre-war price

    after a ceasefire and the mid-June deal to reopen the strait, The New York Times reported

  7. Friday, Oct. 16$110

    touched, then settled at $109.86, about 52% above the pre-war close and nearly 80% above a year earlier, per Trading Economics

Dated readings only, not a price path: the reporting gives no daily series.

At the pump
$4.33
a gallon, the average for regular gasoline, per AAA
$135 billion
more spent on gasoline and diesel since March 1 than in the same stretch last year, GasBuddy estimates

Diesel prices are in the waiver.

Still open: what, if anything, was lost. Neither Saudi Aramco nor the Saudi energy ministry has published any lost production or export volume.

Read the reporting3 sources
The complete story ft.comthehill.comthehill.com
The words The Department of the Treasury carved in stone above three wooden doors and two bronze seals, with brass handrails running down the granite steps.
05 / The deficitWashington

Treasury reported a $1.99 trillion federal deficit for fiscal 2026, the largest since fiscal 2021, driven by higher spending.

Outlays hit a record $7.40 trillion, up $386 billion, while receipts rose $169 billion to a record $5.40 trillion, per Treasury, which reported the figures on Friday, Oct. 16. Higher spending drove it, per Bloomberg and Reuters.

Photograph: Reuters

The gap is $217 billion more than fiscal 2025’s $1.78 trillion. Fiscal 2026 is the budget year that ended Sept. 30.

What grew from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2026, each column from $0 on one scale
  1. Net interest on the debt+$115B
  2. Social Security+$86B
  3. Medicare+$77B
  4. Medicaid+$55B
  5. Defense+$48B
One scale

Each column is a rise from fiscal 2025, drawn from $0 to scale. The totals are Treasury’s; the five pieces of the spending column are the items CBO names, and the reporting does not itemize the rest, the dashed sliver at its top. The bracket is the difference between the two rises, the $217 billion by which the deficit grew.

It is the biggest yearly gap since fiscal 2021’s $2.77 trillion, when pandemic relief swelled spending, per Reuters. In dollars it is the third-largest deficit on record, behind fiscal 2020 and 2021, per Reuters and CBO. In February, CBO had projected $1.9 trillion.

Why revenue lagged, for two policy reasons
−$70 billion
in corporate taxes, after the 2025 tax law’s bigger investment write-offs, per CBO
$145 billion
in tariff refunds Treasury paid after the Supreme Court struck down much of Trump’s first-year tariffs, Reuters reported
Of each revenue dollar, what net interest took, by CBO’s preliminary figures
Fiscal 202621¢

about 21 cents of each dollar

Fiscal 201911¢

11 cents of each dollar

Measured against the economy the rise is smaller: 6.2% of GDP against 5.8%, and Treasury would not say what GDP estimate it used, Reuters reported. Debt held by the public reached $32.4 trillion, about 100% of GDP, per CBO, which projects it will pass the 1946 record of 106% in 2030, reaching 108%.

Bloomberg reports the result undercuts the administration’s cost-cutting claims and keeps the debt on track for a record.

Read the reporting3 sources
The complete story bloomberg.comreuters.comnytimes.com