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Oct. 4, 2025, 5:15 AM EDTBy Jeremy Mikula and Melinda YaoThe government shuts down, a celebrity couple calls it quits, and Taylor Swift releases a new album. Test your knowledge of this week’s news, and take last week’s quiz here.#embed-20251003-news-quiz iframe {width: 1px;min-width: 100%}Jeremy MikulaJeremy Mikula is the weekend director of platforms for NBC News.Melinda YaoI am an intern for data graphics team.Nick Duffy, Josh Feldman, Lara Horwitz and Jana Kasperkevic contributed.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

The government shuts down, a celebrity couple calls it quits, and Taylor Swift releases a new album.

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Oct. 4, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Sahil KapurWASHINGTON — The federal government remains shut down, with the Senate struggling to find the 60 votes needed to reopen it and no negotiations taking place between the leaders of the two parties.Republicans control the Senate but need at least eight Democratic caucus members to vote with them to overcome a filibuster and end the shutdown. So far, they have just three: Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine. The rest are holding firm, so far, as the party demands concessions in the form of health care funding in order to win their votes.Federal government shutdown set to stretch into next week02:19With no serious discussions occurring between Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the spotlight turns to rank-and-file senators who could be key to finding a way to break the impasse.The House, meanwhile, has canceled its session for next week, keeping the focus on the Senate.Here are three key Democratic senators to watch.We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now or someone who is feeling the effects of shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.Shaheen is in a unique position for a variety of reasons. She’s a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, which is tasked with writing government funding bills, and she loathes shutdowns. Shaheen was just one of two Democratic caucus members (along with Sen. Angus King, I-Maine) who voted for the last Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown, which passed in March.She’s also the lead author of the Democratic bill to make permanent the Obamacare subsidies that will expire at the end of this year, the party’s central demand in the current standoff. And she’s retiring at the end of this term, freeing her from political pressure.“There are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who think we need to address this,” Shaheen said, of the Obamacare subsidies, citing recent polls that show substantial support for extending them to avoid premium hikes. “I think it’s important, and it’s a message to not only our Republican colleagues, but to the White House.”A source who has spoken to Shaheen said she recognizes the headwinds Democrats face as the minority party and has spoken to colleagues in search of the best possible outcomes on a health care solution. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations among senators. Shaheen is seen by Republicans as someone they can deal with; she’s nobody’s idea of a partisan flamethrower. If there’s a deal to break the logjam, it probably runs through her.Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.Ossoff is the only Democrat running for re-election next year in a state won by President Donald Trump in 2024. The first-term Georgia senator has held his cards close to the vest during the shutdown and has been strategic in his occasional breaks with his party during his Senate career. But in each of the four recent votes on bills to fund the government, he has supported the Democratic plan — which extends Obamacare funding and undoes Medicaid cuts — and opposed the Republican one.Ossoff said his vote is “to keep the government open and to prevent massive increases to Georgians’ health insurance premiums next year.”He faulted Trump for telling Republicans not to negotiate with Democrats, while urging the GOP to “work with us to find a bipartisan path forward and to prevent a massive increase in health insurance premiums for Georgia families.”For now, Trump and Republicans are shouldering more of the blame for the shutdown than Democrats, according to four recent polls. That gives Ossoff some breathing room. But he won’t want to alienate swing voters who may prove crucial to his quest for a second term in an ultra-competitive state.If the public turns on Democrats in the shutdown fight, Ossoff will face immense pressure to flip. If not, it could mean that the GOP strategy of holding out until Democrats feel the heat and cave is failing.Sen. Brian Schatz, D-HawaiiSchatz was one of the 10 key Democrats who voted to drop the filibuster and allow Republicans to pass a six-month government funding bill that prevented a shutdown at the most recent deadline in March. Schatz didn’t vote for the underlying funding bill like Shaheen and King did, but his and other Democrats’ votes to allow Republicans to get around the filibuster provoked a furious response from the liberal base.Schatz is in a unique position as a Schumer deputy who has his finger on the pulse of both the Democratic conference and the party base (including its younger and more online activists). He’s among the limited group of senators who are adept at social media, where much of the debate is taking place. And he’s in pole position to be the next Senate Democratic whip and replace the retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.In the run-up to the current shutdown, Schatz offered “free advice” to Republicans, vowing that “another jam job is not going to work” and that the GOP needs to negotiate with Democrats to achieve a successful product. He made good on that warning.Schatz could be a bellwether for the direction of the caucus and whether a sufficient number of Democrats can accept a bill to reopen the government. If he’s on board, other fence-sitters in the conference may feel more comfortable supporting it.Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

The federal government remains shut down, with the Senate struggling to find the 60 votes needed to reopen it and no negotiations taking place between the leaders of the two.

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Oct. 4, 2025, 2:01 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 4, 2025, 2:06 AM EDTBy Arata Yamamoto and Jennifer JettTOKYO — Japan’s governing party elected Sanae Takaichi as its new leader on Saturday, setting her up to become the U.S. ally’s first female prime minister.Takaichi defeated Shinjiro Koizumi 185 to 156 in a second-round runoff vote to become leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost uninterrupted since the end of World War II.The leadership race was triggered last month when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he would step down after a year in office. Though Takaichi is likely to succeed him as prime minister of Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy, when parliament votes later this month, it is not guaranteed since the LDP-led coalition lost its majority in both houses in the past year. Takaichi, 64, a conservative nationalist who lists former British leader Margaret Thatcher as one of her role models, was an ally of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving leader.But there are concerns that Takaichi’s nationalistic historical views could cause friction with China, Japan’s top trading partner.Koizumi, 44, the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, would have been Japan’s youngest leader since Hirobumi Ito, who was just a few months younger than Koizumi when he became the country’s first prime minister in 1885.The party voted on five candidates in the first round, with Takaichi securing 183 votes to Koizumi’s 164. Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64, the top spokesperson for the current Japanese government, came third with 134 votes after a recent surge in polls.Votes in the first round were divided evenly between 294 LDP lawmakers and almost 1 million rank-and-file party members who were represented by 295 votes. Lawmakers favored the more moderate Koizumi, while party members preferred Takaichi, who has a passionate hard-line base. In the second round, lawmakers had the same number of votes while rank-and-file party members had 47, representing the 47 prefectures of Japan.Lawmakers in the second round voted 149 to 145 in favor of Takaichi, while party members gave her 36 votes compared with Koizumi’s 11.Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo, and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.Arata YamamotoArata Yamamoto has been an NBC News producer in Tokyo since 1993.Jennifer JettJennifer Jett is the Asia Digital Editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

Japan’s governing party elected Sanae Takaichi as its new leader on Saturday, setting her up to become the U.S. ally’s first female prime minister.

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Oct. 3, 2025, 8:33 PM EDTBy Gary Grumbach and Dareh GregorianA federal judge on Friday ordered a hearing into whether the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia was the result of a “vindictive” prosecution, finding there’s “some evidence” that it was.In his 16-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee noted that the investigation into Abrego was reopened shortly after he successfully challenged to the U.S. Supreme Court what the Trump administration acknowledged was his mistaken deportation to a prison in El Salvador.The investigation also came after numerous administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, repeatedly accused Abrego of being guilty of numerous crimes, and being a “gang member” and a “terrorist.” His lawyers and family members have repeatedly denied the claims.”Actual vindictiveness may be apparent based on the Executive Official Defendants’ and their subordinates’ statements about Abrego from the time he filed his Maryland lawsuit” challenging his deportation “through his arrest in this District,” the judge wrote.In his ruling granting Abrego’s request for a hearing on the vindictive prosecution claims, Crenshaw focused on comments that Bondi’s top deputy, Todd Blanche, made on Fox News the day of his June arrest on human trafficking charges, to which Abrego pleaded not guilty.”Strikingly, during a television interview Deputy Attorney General Blanche revealed that the government started ‘investigating’ Abrego after ‘a judge in Maryland . . . questioned’ the government’s decision, found that it ‘had no right to deport him,’ and ‘accus[ed] [the government] of doing something wrong,’” the judge wrote.“Deputy Attorney General Blanche’s remarkable statements,” Crenshaw wrote, “could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego’s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights to bring suit against the Executive Official Defendants, rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct.”Watch: Kilmar Abrego Garcia reunites with family after release from federal custody01:13The judge, nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, said Abrego’s claims also appear to be supported by the timing of the reopening of the criminal investigation, which had started as the result of a traffic stop in 2022 and was deemed to be closed in March of this year, before Abrego was deported. Abrego was released without charges after the 2022 stop.The investigation was reopened a week after Abrego’s win in the Supreme Court in April.”This timeline suggests that Abrego’s prosecution may stem from retaliation by the DOJ and DHS due to Abrego’s successful challenge of his unlawful deportation in Maryland,” the judge wrote.The judge ordered the government to turn over information and evidence being requested by Abrego and said he’ll hold a hearing after that.”After the parties conduct discovery, ‘[i]t may well be that no fire will be discovered under all the smoke[.]’ Indeed, the Government could produce evidence showing legitimate reasons for its prosecution of Abrego that are unrelated to his case in the District of Maryland,” he wrote.Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.Abrego, a Salvadoran national who, according to his lawyers, entered the U.S. illegally when he was 16 years old to escape gang violence, is trying to get the criminal charges against him dismissed.He also made a bid to reopen his petition for asylum, but an immigration judge rejected the request in a ruling Thursday. He has 30 days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.A different immigration judge had previously ruled in 2019 that he could not be deported to El Salvador, because he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport him to Uganda or Eswatini.Gary GrumbachGary Grumbach is an NBC News legal affairs reporter, based in Washington, D.C.Dareh GregorianDareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.Raquel Coronell Uribe contributed.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw said there’s “some evidence” the prosecution was brought in response to Abrego’s successful challenge of his deportation.

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 3, 2025, 11:45 PM EDTBy Didi Martinez, Laura Strickler and Julia AinsleyThe federal government is offering unaccompanied migrant children 14 and older $2,500 to leave the United States of their own volition, or “self-deport” back to their countries, according to a memo sent by the Department of Health and Human Services and obtained by NBC News.The notice was sent Friday afternoon to legal service providers around the country that represent unaccompanied migrant children. Eligible children are those who are from countries other than Mexico and who are currently in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of HHS.“This benefit is intended to support reintegration efforts following departures,” the notice reads. The notice also says that the Department of Homeland Security, which is issuing the stipends, has already identified unaccompanied children in ORR custody who have said they want to file or who will file “for voluntary departure.”Health and Human Services referred all queries to the Department of Homeland Security. The effort to entice minors to self-deport emerged as a rumor on social media Thursday night among immigrant advocates who said they had heard Immigration and Customs Enforcement was labeling the operation “Freaky Friday.” ICE said the name was a made up “ridiculous term” but conceded the agency was offering money to unaccompanied minor children to self deport.Emily Covington, the assistant director of ICE’s Office of Public Affairs, said in a statement that the offer from the federal government was a “strictly voluntary option to return home to their families.”Covington said that the option gives unaccompanied children “a choice and allows them to make an informed decision about their future. Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin.”The move alarmed immigration advocates around the country.Wendy Young with Kids in Need of Defense said in a statement, “Unaccompanied children should never be removed from the United States without a full and fair process to determine if they are eligible for U.S. protection.”“This operation undermines laws that guarantee that process for unaccompanied children, and it runs counter to our nation’s longstanding commitment to protect the most vulnerable among us — children — from violence, trafficking, abuse, persecution, and other grave dangers,” she continued.Roxana Cortés-Mills, who runs the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement in Nebraska, said regardless of the offer, the rumors about it had sowed fear among immigrant communities. She said a rural school district in the state called her office asking, “should we tell parents to pull their kids from school?” She added, “This is the first time in my nine years of working with unaccompanied children that I am hearing this type of offer.” In Houston, Dalia Castillo-Granados, director of Children’s Immigration Law Academy, said offering money to children “raises many concerns given the vulnerable position these children are in.”The Trump administration offer comes amid an overall push to get undocumented immigrants to self-deport, offering adults and their families $1,000 to leave the country under a separate program. Over Labor Day weekend, the administration also tried to deport several unaccompanied children back to their home country of Guatemala but was temporarily blocked from doing so following court proceedings as DHS was loading the children on planes.“We are seeing a lot of patterns and receiving a lot of reports that ICE is using a lot of pressure tactics to encourage people to take deportation. It’s bad enough to use these tactics on adults to encourage them to self deport but it’s a whole new level of concern to try to use it with children,” Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said about Friday’s news. More than 300,000 children entered the U.S. by themselves during the Biden administration before being released to parents, relatives or non-family sponsors across the country. As of August, the federal government had 2,011 unaccompanied minor children in its custody, according to the HHS website. Typically, children who cross the border without a legal parent or guardian are transferred temporarily to HHS custody until they can be matched with a U.S.-based sponsor. Children who immigrate to the United States without parents have special protections under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, unless they are from Mexico or Canada. The Trump administration has sought to thwart those special protections and recently attempted to deport Guatemalan children who were still in the process of seeking asylum. Though they have special protections to ensure they are screened for possible trafficking, unaccompanied children who crossed the border illegally have been previously deported, including under Democratic administrations. But incentivizing children to leave through financial plans has never been done before.Under the Biden administration, unaccompanied minors crossing the border surged to record numbers in 2021, causing backlogs at Health and Human Services as the agency struggled to place them with appropriate sponsors. The Trump administration has said many of those children were placed in unsafe environments where they could be abused or exploited for labor. Didi MartinezDidi Martinez is a producer for NBC News’ national security unit.Laura StricklerLaura Strickler is the senior investigative producer on the national security team where she produces television stories and writes for NBCNews.com.Julia AinsleyI am NBC News’ Senior Homeland Security Correspondent.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

The federal government is offering unaccompanied migrant children 14 and older $2,500 to self-deport back to their countries, according to a memo sent by the Department of Health and Human.

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Oct. 3, 2025, 1:44 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 3, 2025, 8:19 PM EDTBy Alicia Victoria LozanoThe Trump administration activated 200 National Guard troops in Portland on Friday as Oregon officials waited for a court ruling on their request to prevent the deployment.Lawyers for the city and state had asked a federal judge to grant a temporary restraining order blocking the mobilization. U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said after a two-hour hearing Friday that she would make a decision by the end of the day or Saturday.But U.S. Northern Command announced hours later, before Immergut issued her ruling, that the troops had been activated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to support and protect federal personnel and property in the Portland area.That includes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, which has drawn protests from opponents of Trump’s immigration policies.In an emailed statement, Gov. Tina Kotek said she “will continue to hold the line on Oregon values” while her office waits for Immergut’s ruling. Kotek did not directly address the mobilization of troops ahead of Immergut’s decision. “I know Oregonians want to know what happens next but right now, we need to be patient,” the statement read in part. “I ask that Oregonians who want to speak out about the recent actions do so peacefully and remain calm.”During Friday’s hearing, lawyers representing the city and state said the president’s plan to deploy the National Guard to Portland was counterproductive and could lead to increased civil unrest. They called Trump’s rhetoric about the protests “hyperbole and political posturing” that does not reflect the reality on the ground. “We ultimately have a perception-versus-reality problem,” said Caroline Turco, senior deputy city attorney. “The perception is that it is World War II out here. The reality is that this is a beautiful city with a sophisticated resource that can handle the situation.”Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton countered that the troops are necessary to defend against “cruel radicals who have laid siege” to Portland’s ICE facility. He said protesters lit incendiary devices and threw rocks at law enforcement officers over the summer. Portland lawyers said the examples were isolated incidents quickly handled by local police and occurred several months before Trump issued the deployment order. Immergut appeared skeptical of Trump’s order throughout the hearing, repeatedly asking federal attorneys why troops were necessary when Portland police appeared to have the situation at hand.Portland responds as Trump eyes city for National Guard deployment01:37Residents opposed to Trump’s order have said the quirky and largely peaceful ongoing protests in the historically liberal city stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric coming out of the White House, which paints Portland as an out-of-control center of crime. The deployment comes as three people were arrested Thursday night and charged with disorderly conduct after a skirmish outside the immigration detention center between Trump protesters and supporters. Conservative influencer Nick Sortor, who does not live in Portland, was among those arrested. After his release, Sortor said in social media post that police were being controlled by “Antifa thugs.”Antifa, an abbreviation for “anti-fascist,” is not an organized group and does not have a leadership structure. Last month, Trump designated it a terrorist organization. Portland Police Chief Bob Day said Friday that Sortor’s arrest was not politically motivated and indicated he did not know who Sortor was before his detainment.“The irony here is we were condemned in 2020 for our approach towards the left, and now we’re being condemned in 2025 for our approach to the right,” Day told reporters, referring to months of unrest that erupted after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police.

- Latest News - October 4, 2025

The Trump administration activated 200 National Guard troops in Portland on Friday as Oregon officials waited for a court ruling on their request to prevent the deployment

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