Susan Collins and Troy Jackson clash over President Donald Trump in their first debate, as voting begins in a key Senate race.
Plus, Christa Pike is awake and speaking after Tennessee’s failed execution, as her lawyers head to court seeking answers.
And more than a quarter-million people join student-led protests across France, as police fire tear gas and make hundreds of arrests.
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Collins, Jackson face off in pivotal Maine Senate race
Trump wasn’t on the debate stage in Maine Tuesday night, but he was at the center of the fight. Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson faced off for the first time, with Jackson going after Collins’ record on the president.
“She stood with Donald Trump whenever he wanted that,” Jackson said. “96% of the time, she votes with him. We’re in a Congress right now that’s totally given up their authority to President Trump. I mean, there are all kinds of laws that he’s not following. And Senator Collins is not forcing him to follow those laws.”
Collins said he was misrepresenting it.
“He has said that I vote with President Trump 95% of the time. He is using a study that looked at only 30% of the votes,” Collins said. “If you look at the study that looked at 90% of the vote, you will find that it drops to 72%. When President Biden was in office, I voted with him 92% of the time. So this is greatly misleading.”
The two also clashed over abortion, with Jackson going after Collins for her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Collins defended that vote and pointed to her own breaks with Trump, including his war with Iran and tariffs on Canada.
They also split sharply on immigration. Jackson wants to abolish ICE, whereas Collins says the agency needs reform.
Voting is already underway in Maine, and the two candidates still have three more televised debates before election day.
Pike wakes after failed execution
Christa Pike’s lawyers said she’s now awake and speaking, nearly a week after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection.
Her lawyers are due in court Wednesday to seek more information from the Tennessee Department of Correction about what went wrong.
The 50-year-old remains in the hospital after the state administered two doses of pentobarbital last Wednesday, but the doses failed to kill her. Her lawyers said she suffered severe damage to both arms and remains handcuffed to her hospital bed. They said her prognosis is still unclear and that they expect, at a minimum, a long recovery.
Wednesday’s hearing centers on an emergency motion filed by Pike’s lawyers asking a judge to order the state to preserve all evidence from the failed execution.
Pike’s survival after receiving the state’s full lethal-injection protocol is believed to be unprecedented.
Student protests sweep France over school funding
France woke up to another day of deep unrest after more than a quarter-million people took to the streets Tuesday, backing a student protest movement that has spread across the country.
Students have blockaded high schools for more than two weeks, demanding more funding, better school conditions and more teachers. On Tuesday, teachers, other public workers and supporters joined them in cities across France.
The French government said 266,000 people marched nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris.
Most of the march has been peaceful, but small groups have clashed with riot police in Paris. During these clashes, officers used tear gas to control crowds. Officers detained nearly 500 people on Tuesday.
The police response is now part of the story.
Thousands have been arrested since the school protests began, most of them minors, and a 15-year-old boy lost a hand Monday in an incident involving a police stun grenade.
The protests put pressure on President Emmanuel Macron as France grapples with a budget crisis, higher fuel prices and a presidential election next spring. Macron can’t run for office again, and the fight over his successor is already underway.
Recent polls have shown far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of her rivals as France heads into what could be another day of protests.
US presses Russia over lab death as WHO seeks answers on second illness
The U.S. is now formally pressing Russia for more information about the mysterious death of a worker at a plague research lab in Siberia.
The State Department has issued a formal diplomatic complaint, asking Russia to be more transparent about what happened, according to ABC News.
The 28-year-old lab worker died last week from what Russian officials have called pneumonia of unknown origin.
Russia said it has detected no plague cases, and testing of people who had contact with her has found no plague or other dangerous infectious diseases.
But the World Health Organization is asking Russia for more details, including reports of a second lab employee with pneumonia of unknown origin.
WHO also wants to know what caused the first worker’s severe pneumonia.
Trump told reporters Tuesday he expects to speak with Vladimir Putin, saying the two have a call scheduled, “very soon.”
When asked what intelligence agencies are saying about the plague incident, Trump said, “So far, we’re in very deep discussions. We’ll be able to report about it probably tomorrow.”
Seventh arrest made in suspected RAF Fairford terror plot
British police have arrested a seventh person in connection with a suspected terror plot targeting a U.S. air base in the U.K.
Police arrested a 22-year-old British man in London on Tuesday on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism. They also searched a home in Westminster but have not released any additional details.
The arrest comes as a U.S. official told the Associated Press that the Trump administration believes Iran was behind the plot, with the goal of killing American troops and destroying U.S. military aircraft.
The U.S. has since pulled all of its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford.
Iran denies any involvement. British police said the investigation is ongoing.
Six of the other men arrested have been released on bail.
Hearn seeks probe into wrongful charges over failing pool liner
In Washington, the former Olympian, falsely accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, now wants the Justice and Interior departments investigated for how they handled his case.
David Hearn’s lawyers sent letters Tuesday to both departments’ inspectors general, accusing government officials of rushing to charge him despite evidence that the pool liner was already failing.
In the letter, they say that “Mr. Hearn was deprived of his liberty, indicted for a crime he did not commit, threatened with incarceration of up to 10 years, and endured the defaming of his name and reputation by high-ranking government officials.”
Hearn spent five hours in jail after police arrested him in June for touching a piece of the pool liner he said was already loose. He spent five hours in jail. In July, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted the three-time Olympian. They claimed he caused more than $1,000 in damage by pulling up part of the pool’s newly installed blue liner.
Hearn pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys argued the government tried to hold him responsible for previously reported problems with its $16 million pool renovation. His attorney called the government’s indictment a “misuse of government power” and was trying to shift responsibility for the damage to “an ordinary American based on a false and politicized narrative.”
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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro later dropped the case after saying the damage came from a contractor’s botched installation, not vandalism.
Hearn’s lawyers now say prosecutors had evidence of problems with the liner before they took the case to a grand jury. The letter also points to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Trump, who publicly criticized Pirro for dropping the case. But last week, a judge dismissed it with prejudice, meaning prosecutors can’t refile it.
In a statement, the Justice Department said, “The office of the inspector general operates independently and makes its own decisions about what to review.”
Kittens get aquarium field trip to boost adoption chances
Two dozen rescue kittens took a field trip to the Sea Life Aquarium at the Mall of America in Minnesota. The Bitty Kitty Brigade, a local rescue group, brought them along to “pass the time while they wait to get adopted.”
For nearly two hours, the cats, with names like Turkey Leg, Lottie Dottie, Bendy Wendy and Mouth Trap, bounced around the aquarium, checking out the fish.
But the field trip has a purpose. The rescue said outings like this help the kittens socialize and get used to new experiences before they’re adopted.
More from Straight Arrow:
When the victim isn’t real, is it legal to possess child sexual abuse images?
Editor’s note: This story contains discussion of child sexual abuse material.
When news broke that a Wisconsin man would not be prosecuted for possessing AI-generated images of sexual abuse, the backlash was swift.
In an “unsettling ruling,” Fox News reported, a federal appeals court in Chicago was being “forced” by decades-old Supreme Court precedent “to protect the in-home possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.”
NBC News reported that AI-generated images of child sexual abuse may be protected by the First Amendment “in some cases.” And the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said the court ruling advanced “the normalization of abuse and explicit images of children.”
But the August ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Steven Anderegg was much narrower than many initial reactions suggested, experts told Straight Arrow. Anderegg — whom federal prosecutors accused in 2024 of using AI to generate “thousands of realistic images of prepubescent minors” — still faces charges that could send him to prison for as much as 30 years.
But experts say his case highlights how artificial intelligence is complicating decades-old Supreme Court precedent about the First Amendment — and the limits of free speech.
