Today in our short news:
A co-pilot attacks the captain with the cockpit’s emergency axe on a FlyDubai flight to Israel. 182 people narrowly escape disaster, even though Oman had previously barred the man from flying over concerns about extremist views.
Donald Trump keeps claiming that America’s factories are coming back. In Springfield, Ohio, nearly 1,400 workers are losing their jobs, including people who voted for him three times and have now had enough of his promises.
The Bundesbank now suddenly expects Germany to grow by around 1 percent in 2026, twice as much as it projected back in June. A significant part of that upswing, however, is being paid for with new debt, while high energy prices and inflation continue to weigh on businesses and households.
Donald Trump is turning political access into a business. The 185 biggest holders of his cryptocurrency get to have dinner with him, the 29 biggest buyers get an additional reception, and the top 4 receive an 18-karat Trump gold watch.
And Benny Johnson is getting his own words thrown back at him in court. The Trump-aligned commentator called peaceful ICE protesters “left-wing terrorists,” even though they were later released without charges. After that came online calls for torture and killing.
The man with the axe in the cockpit: How a grounded pilot ended up at the controls of a FlyDubai jet
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on Friday, October 2, 2026, with FlyDubai Captain Smit Machchhar. The footage comes from Modi’s YouTube channel. After the attack in the cockpit, Machchhar had been badly wounded and still managed to open the cockpit door. That allowed others on board to intervene and prevent the flight with 182 people from spiraling out of control.
There were 182 people on board when a routine flight to Israel turned into a fight for the aircraft within minutes. According to the United Arab Emirates, co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami attacked the captain with the cockpit’s emergency axe and then tried to take control of the plane. The aircraft dropped so violently that authorities now believe it came close to crashing. Passengers and others on board eventually overpowered the co-pilot. The badly wounded captain somehow found enough strength to unlock the cockpit door. Only then were others able to get inside, take the attacker down and stabilize the aircraft. The flight ended with an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
The man’s background makes the whole thing even harder to explain. Hamam al-Hammami is an Omani citizen, was born in the United Arab Emirates, and his mother is Syrian. According to several people familiar with the investigation, Oman had already barred him from flying because of concerns that he had developed extremist views. He was then reportedly moved into an administrative position at Oman Air. FlyDubai later hired him as a pilot. How thoroughly his background was checked at that point remains unclear. That is a question FlyDubai is likely to be dealing with for a long time. A man whom a national airline had stopped allowing to fly for security reasons suddenly ended up back in the cockpit of a passenger jet.
There is another problem. Israel has agreements with foreign airlines under which pilots from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel are not supposed to fly into the country. Oman and Israel do not have formal diplomatic relations. How al-Hammami was nevertheless assigned to this flight is therefore one of the questions investigators need to answer. Security agencies from 4 regional countries are working on the case, with support from the United States and other Western governments. Investigators are looking into whether the co-pilot acted alone or had links to extremist groups.
His Instagram account remained active until the day of the flight and was then deleted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of “Islamist radicalization,” but so far provided no evidence. Senior Emirati adviser Anwar Gargash, meanwhile, has already called the attack a “dangerous terrorist act.” Both pilots have since been taken to the United Arab Emirates, which is leading the investigation. The captain survived with serious injuries. The fact that the other 182 people survived as well came down to a few minutes in which a wounded man still managed to open the door and others on board did not wait for somebody else to act.
Trump promises the return of factories, while 1,400 workers in Ohio lose their jobs
Three days before Donald Trump is set to appear in the Dayton area, nearly 1,400 people have lost their jobs. On Wednesday, everyday life at the former Navistar plant in Springfield came to an abrupt halt for them, at least for now. Kyle Bos, 30, later sat with co-workers drinking tea out of beer mugs, with two daughters at home and a third child due soon. At the grocery store, he says, a handful of items now costs him what a full cart used to. Bos voted for Trump three times. This time he plans to go door to door for Democrats. “Something has to change politically in this country.” Things, he said, had just kept getting worse and worse. The layoffs are so large that, on paper, they wipe out roughly an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton area. On Saturday, Trump will show up just a few miles away and explain why the economy is supposedly doing better than many people are actually experiencing.
Just Thursday, Trump had declared at a truck plant in Texas that factories were going up all across the country and that manufacturing was coming back. The only real problem, he said, was public relations. In Ohio, that line sounds different. Just 17 percent of Americans approve of how he is handling the cost of living. Trump is now promising $5,000 checks for adults if Republicans hold the House and Senate in November. Bos calls it a bribe and a slap in the face. As if the government thinks people are stupid. In Dayton, the memory of vanished factory jobs runs deep. Since 1990, the region has lost roughly half of the nearly 90,000 factory jobs it had back then. First jobs moved to Mexico, then China’s rise intensified the pressure. That was exactly why Trump appealed to many workers in the first place. Now part of his old voter base is running headlong into prices, war and an economic policy whose promises are not reliably showing up in their wallets.
The government points to new investment. Aircraft manufacturer Electra announced $850 million for Ohio, with projects from Honda, Stellantis and others also in the mix. Over the years, new companies and thousands of jobs have grown around Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. That cannot simply be dismissed. Neither can what happened at the former Navistar plant. Trump’s broad tariffs failed to generate the hoped-for demand there. Former owner International Motors unloaded the facility. The heavily promoted tax break on overtime did little for workers when there was barely any overtime to begin with. Marianne Donnelly, who drove a forklift at the plant, now buys beef, pork and chicken only when it has been marked down and stores it in her freezer. She canceled her newspaper subscriptions and some streaming services. She and others hope to be rehired in 6 to 12 months. Canadian armored vehicle manufacturer Roshel is taking over the plant and says it eventually plans to more than double the workforce. Until then, the workers are outside.
Morgan Hughes already knows what economic insecurity feels like. The job had allowed her to buy a house at 21 and work alongside her father. When her hours were cut, she started driving for a delivery service and got a real estate license. Now she is knocking on doors with JoJo Burkhard and campaigning for Democratic candidates. Burkhard says she barely has to spend much time convincing people right now. Inflation and economic pressure are doing part of the work for her. After one of those canvassing runs, the two sat down at a Chinese restaurant. Burkhard opened a fortune cookie and started to cry. She had not only lost her own job, her boyfriend and her mother had lost theirs too. The little slip of paper said she would find the inner strength to overcome challenges. On Saturday, just a few miles away, a president will explain that America’s factories are coming back. In Springfield, 1,400 people are first waiting for their own jobs to come back.
Germany suddenly growing twice as fast as expected, but the upswing is still being paid for with debt
For three years, Germany’s economy barely moved. Now the Bundesbank is sharply raising its expectations. President Joachim Nagel now believes growth of around 1 percent is possible in 2026, twice as much as projected in June. Back then, the estimate was 0.5 percent. For an economy that has spent years stuck in place, that would certainly be more than a footnote. But the reason is not some sudden German miracle. Demand from abroad is holding up better than expected, while the federal government is also pumping additional money into defense, infrastructure and climate protection. A significant share of that boost is being financed through new debt. Nagel talks about a cyclical upswing, but immediately puts the brakes on the celebration. Long-term growth potential remains weak. Germany is growing again, but its old problems have not disappeared. High energy costs are still hitting industry, and the war against Iran is adding more pressure. The fact that the economy is nevertheless holding up better than expected is now helping the entire eurozone as well. Forecasts are being revised upward, with the currency bloc now expected to grow by around 1 percent or more.
The price could be unpleasant. More government money and a more resilient economy also increase pressure on prices. Inflation is already close to twice the European Central Bank’s 2 percent target and could climb further. That could mean more interest-rate hikes. Loans would become more expensive for businesses and homebuyers alike, while private households might feel the recovery first on their financing bills. Germany is therefore growing faster again than almost anyone expected. But that growth comes with a warning label: debt is financing a substantial part of the government push, energy remains expensive and inflation is far from finished. After three lost years, 1 percent growth is good news. It is still nowhere near an economic breakthrough.
185 buyers, one president: Trump turns political access into a luxury product
If you hold enough of Trump’s own cryptocurrency, you get to have dinner with him on November 22. The 185 biggest holders of $TRUMP get a seat at what is being advertised as the “most exclusive dinner in the world.” The 29 biggest buyers get even closer to the president, and the top 4 also receive an 18-karat Trump gold watch. This is not some bad joke out of a corrupt little country. It is the business model surrounding a sitting U.S. president. The more money involved, the closer you get.
The same thing already happened in 2025. Back then, the 220 biggest holders of the coin were allowed into the dinner, while the top 25 got access to an additional reception. Critics called it a textbook example of pay-for-access. Now the same principle is simply being rolled out again, only wrapped more neatly. The website says nobody will get a private meeting with Trump and that no gifts will be accepted. At the same time, the amount of money someone puts in determines who gets into the room at all and who gets even closer to Trump. Anyone who cannot see the conflict of interest there has to be trying pretty hard not to. The numbers make it even dirtier. Trump and his circle have made enormous sums from cryptocurrency. Investors, meanwhile, are sitting on billions in losses according to Public Citizen. $TRUMP itself shot up to around $70 after launch and is now trading at a fraction of that. Some pay, others cash in. And at the top sits a president whose name is stamped on the coin and whose presence gives the entire spectacle its value.
The White House says Trump does not manage his investments himself. Fine. The political stink is still the same. A president is supposed to make decisions, sign laws and serve the country. Here, access to power becomes a competition with a leaderboard. 185 seats, 29 preferred buyers, 4 gold watches. Democracy as a customer loyalty program.
“Left-wing terrorists”: Benny Johnson turned peaceful ICE protesters into enemies, now they are taking him to court
Kyle Frankovich and Maureen Foody were standing outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, on October 3, 2025. They sang, prayed, held signs and filmed what officers were doing. Then they were arrested, held for around 8 hours and later released without charges. That was still enough for Benny Johnson to brand them “left-wing terrorists” in front of millions of people. The pro-Trump agitator was traveling that day with senior Homeland Security officials, filming people with their hands zip-tied and claiming they had been arrested for attacking police officers and ICE agents. In one post, he even wrote that activists had attacked federal officers “in broad daylight.” That post alone got 1.7 million views. The two people involved say it was a lie. Now they are suing him.
Johnson got footage of arrests, turned it into guilt and sold the result across X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Rumble. Millions saw people lined up against a concrete wall, hands tied, with the word “terrorists” attached to them. In the political internet, that is often all it takes. Frankovich says users then started calling him an Antifa leader and tried to expose his identity. In the comments, people called for detainees to be tortured, shot or killed. The federal immigration agency went one step further and used an image of his tattooed arms and zip-tied hands for a recruitment poster. A man who was never charged with a crime suddenly ended up being used as visual material for government advertising.
Frankovich says he was shaken by Johnson’s posts. He and his partner temporarily stopped going for walks alone, and he locked down his social media accounts. In their joint lawsuit, Foody and Frankovich accuse Johnson of knowing that his claims were false and spreading them anyway. This is no longer just about dirty political rhetoric. It is about how far someone can go when they call people terrorists in front of an audience of millions even though no charges were ever filed against them.
Johnson should know the difference between reporting and making things up. In 2014, he was already fired over multiple instances of plagiarism. This time, something else is before the court: whether political propaganda crossed the line into unlawful defamation. The detainees were released after hours. The videos stayed. The accusation stayed. The death threats stayed. That is exactly how political character assassination works online: the truth takes days, one false word takes seconds.
