Here is what happened today, Tuesday, October 13, 2026 — the day’s top stories from around the world, Washington, the immigration courts, corporate America, and Wall Street.
INTERNATIONAL
Pope Leo XIV diagnosed with lung cancer after surgery
Pope Leo XIV had surgery on Tuesday at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. Doctors removed the lower lobe of his right lung after finding a small nodule during a routine checkup. Tissue tests during the operation confirmed lung adenocarcinoma, a common form of lung cancer.
The Vatican said the 90-minute surgery went as planned, with no complications. The 71-year-old pope woke up normally and returned to his room on the hospital’s tenth floor. He is expected to stay about a week. All his public events are canceled through October 20.
The pope told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that doctors had spotted the nodule early and that it was well-contained. This is the first major health issue of his papacy. He was elected in May 2025 and is the first pope born in the United States. An 11-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru starting November 6 is still on his calendar.
Worst attacks yet on ships near the Strait of Hormuz
Ships around the Strait of Hormuz are taking their worst pounding of the Iran war. Twenty-four ships were struck in the past two weeks, and at least six were hit on Sunday alone — the heaviest single day of fire since the war began on February 28, according to UK Maritime Trade Operations data.
Oil exports through the strait have dropped to less than half the pre-war flow. Only seven tankers crossed on Tuesday, the lowest number since July 23. Flows had nearly recovered to pre-war levels under US military escorts late last month, but the renewed attacks are pushing them back down.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has warned that ships turning off their transponders to sneak through will be treated as oil smugglers and targeted. The Institute for the Study of War says Iran appears to be improving its anti-ship missile capabilities, and the strikes could get worse.
POLITICS
White House ousts ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle
The White House asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as US ambassador to Greece on Tuesday. New press secretary Katie Zacharia made the announcement at her first briefing. President Trump said later: “I didn’t like what I read.”
Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., had faced a string of misconduct reports from The Wall Street Journal. The reports said she asked Trump donor Eric Deters to pay off a $100,000 American Express bill, offered access to senior administration officials, accepted lavish gifts, and brought a lobbyist for a Greek construction company into official meetings. Her lawyers deny the allegations.
In a long post on X, Guilfoyle called the ambassadorship “the honour of a lifetime” and said she intends to “vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”
Trump raises global tariff to 15% after Supreme Court defeat
President Trump announced he will raise the worldwide tariff to 15%, the maximum allowed under a different trade law, after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday that his signature tariffs were illegal.
Trump called the ruling “ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American.” He had first set a 10% rate after the ruling, then bumped it to the full 15% the law allows. The new tariffs run under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits temporary tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days without Congress.
The administration says it will spend the coming months setting new, legally permitted tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the 15% rate may be temporary while the White House studies other tariff tools.
IMMIGRATION
Federal agents raid Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in immigration fraud probe
Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a court-authorized search warrant Monday morning at the Washington-area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota. The Justice Department confirmed the search is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.
Sources say the probe centers on Omar’s immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child. Investigators are looking at possible false statements and fraud in those documents. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Tuesday her office is also reviewing Omar’s financial disclosure reports. A federal judge signed the warrant, which Pirro said shows probable cause.
Omar, who was born in Somalia and denies any wrongdoing, called the raid “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” Trump said Monday he had nothing to do with the search. House Democratic leaders condemned it as a “rogue abuse of power.” Separately, Rep. Delia Ramirez introduced a bill to abolish the Department of Homeland Security, citing the Omar raid and last week’s ICE shooting in the Bronx. (That bill detail is single-sourced.)
Trump-appointed immigration judges deny asylum more often
A Bloomberg Law analysis finds that immigration judges installed permanently since President Trump returned to office denied 49% of the asylum applications before them, compared with 41% among judges who were already on the bench. The figures cover October 2025 through August 2026, spanning more than 313,000 resolved asylum petitions.
The overall asylum grant rate has fallen to a record low of 3%, down from 17% in the first month of Trump’s second term. For the new appointees, the grant rate was even lower: 2%. Nearly half of the new judges come from military backgrounds and most have little immigration experience.
The administration has added nearly 400 temporary and permanent judges since last October, replacing roughly 200 who left or were fired. About 700 judges now serve, working through a backlog of roughly 3 million cases. (This analysis is single-sourced to Bloomberg Law.)
CORPORATE WATCH
Bank of America hit with $1.21 billion fine over money-laundering failures
The US Treasury Department announced Tuesday it is fining Bank of America $1.21 billion for widespread failures to police money laundering — the third-largest penalty in Treasury history.
The government says the country’s second-largest bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious activity, including $1 billion tied to national security risks such as Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance along the southwest border. Treasury said the bank “prioritized its revenues” when building its compliance programs and leaned on outside tips instead of its own controls.
The fine includes a $750 million penalty from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — the largest that regulator has ever issued — following a 2024 cease-and-desist order. Bank of America says it has invested billions in technology and thousands of employees to fight financial crime, and that its third-quarter results, due Wednesday, will carry a $1.2 billion charge cutting net income by about 17 cents a share. Its shares fell about 2% in after-hours trading.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: “Even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law.”
MARKETS
Wall Street slips as earnings season kicks off
US stocks finished lower on Tuesday as the chip selloff weighed on sentiment and big-bank earnings landed with a thud. The Dow fell 0.35% to 51,670, snapping a three-day win streak. The S&P 500 slipped 0.02% to 7,805, and the Nasdaq lost 0.15% to 27,204.
JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup all reported quarterly results — and all four stocks closed lower. Johnson & Johnson dropped about 6% after its medical technology division missed sales targets, and Caterpillar fell more than 3%.
Memory-chip stocks fell for a second straight day on news of a production breakthrough by China’s CXMT. Micron and Sandisk led the slide, and the semiconductor ETF fell for a sixth straight session — its longest losing streak in over a year. On the bright side, the “Magnificent Seven” megacap tech stocks closed with a combined market value above $25 trillion for the first time. Gold slipped 0.21% to $4,181.80, and the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.24%.
BREAKING
FBI smashes North Korean “laptop farm” network in Texas
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that the FBI dismantled a network of “laptop farms” across Texas that helped North Korean IT workers infiltrate American companies to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons program.
Agents searched more than 40 Texas homes between September 21 and 25 and seized about 187 laptops and other devices. Two Americans were arrested — Michael James Bostelle of Pennsylvania and Juan Ceclilio Pena Carrillo of Texas — on wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft charges. Ten China-based operators were also charged.
The scheme worked like this: North Korean workers used fake identities to land remote jobs at US companies. American facilitators received the company-issued laptops, set them up in their homes with remote-access software, and let the operatives log in from North Korea as if they were working in the US. The workers then funneled an estimated 85% to 90% of their pay straight to the North Korean government.
Prosecutors say the operation hit more than 70 US companies, compromised the identities of 25 Americans, and generated at least $3 million for the overseas workers. The Treasury Department estimates more than $800 million reached North Korea in fiscal year 2024 through schemes like this one.
OTHER STATES
Texas: Trump to invoke Defense Production Act for Tyler refinery
Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday in Tyler, Texas, that President Trump will invoke the Defense Production Act to expand the Delek oil refinery there. Vance, campaigning for Senate candidate Ken Paxton, said the move would produce millions of gallons of commercial and military-grade fuel, lower costs for drivers and flyers, and create hundreds of jobs.
The announcement comes as gas prices run high — AAA puts the national average above $4.34 a gallon, with diesel near $6.28 — driven up by the Iran war. Trump also said Tuesday that Russian diesel from a new deal would be “released into the world,” not just to the US. (Single-sourced.)
Florida: Mail resumes in Panhandle after Hurricane Isaias; five dead
US Postal Service operations resumed Tuesday in 60 Panhandle zip codes after a brief shutdown caused by Hurricane Isaias. The storm, the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, made landfall near Destin as a Category 2, with gusts reaching 117 mph.
Five people died in the storm: two in Escambia County, two in Alabama, and one in South Carolina. Santa Rosa County schools stay closed until Monday, October 19. Escambia County schools were closed Tuesday with no reopening date set. Okaloosa and Walton county schools reopen Wednesday, and the University of West Florida remains closed until further notice. (Single-sourced.)
Sources / Fuentes: USA Today, CNN, Fox News, The New York Post, The Times (UK), The Wellington Post, Reuters, Bloomberg Law (single source), Barron’s, The Motley Fool, Investopedia, Investors.com, MarketWatch, Nextgov, Fox 4 News (Dallas), The Washington Examiner (single source), Pensacola News Journal (single source). Single-sourced items are noted in the text.
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