Democrats hope for major gains as Americans head to polls

WASHINGTON — Control of Congress hangs in the balance as Americans head to the polls Tuesday to vote in a historic set of midterm elections that will determine how power is divided for the rest of President Donald Trump’s time in office.

A robust turnout appeared possible, after months of polls suggesting voters’ frustration with cost-of-living issues may drive them to the polls. More than 59 million Americans had already cast ballots in early voting, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

The campaign has largely been marked by Democrats’ unexpected traction in red states, resulting in Senate races that have been far more competitive than anticipated. Whether that translates into losses for Republicans could become a nail-biter Tuesday night.

Polling shows Democrats poised to make significant gains in the U.S. House and well-positioned for swing Senate races, but analysts say the Senate majority could go either way. Several gubernatorial seats are also open, and some contests have become unexpectedly close, including in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Florida.

—Los Angeles Times

Plane pieces were falling off prior to fatal Palm Beach crash, NTSB says

MIAMI — Pieces of the Learjet plane were falling off in the sky before it crashed into a Palm Beach County road Sunday afternoon, killing all nine people on board, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Investigators found the majority of the plane’s left elevator broken into three pieces scattered from around 1.3 to 3.8 miles away from the crash site, National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman told reporters during a Tuesday briefing in Palm Beach County.

The elevator controls the up and down pitch of the aircraft and is located in the aircraft’s tail, Chapman said. If people come across items they believe may be part of the airplane, they are urged not to touch it and contact authorities.

The Learjet 60 pilot, Jeffrey Gregory, and co-pilot, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, took off from Austin, Texas, at 10:40 a.m. Sunday on their way to Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Gregory, 55, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, obtained his airline transport pilot’s license in 2021, according to Federal Aviation Administration airmen records. He had several special certifications including one to operate the Bombardier Learjet 60.

—Miami Herald

Staff at Kentucky juvenile jail forced autistic teen to stay in flooded cell, mocked him

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Earlier this year, the staff at one of Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers left an autistic boy inside a flooded cell for a day to punish him and laughed at him, according to documents the Lexington Herald-Leader obtained under the state’s Open Records Act.

The incident happened April 27 at the 43-bed McCracken Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Paducah.

The teen boy in question has the mental capacity of a kindergartner, is “highly triggered” by stress and needs instructions “explained to him step by step, or else he will not understand,” his mental health counselor later told internal investigators for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, according to an investigative report for the incident.

The guards have a hard time dealing with the boy, the counselor said. He gets upset when he is locked in his cell for long stretches for a behavioral violation and sees other youths walking around the juvenile detention center, she added.

—Lexington Herald-Leader

Trump says Israel will stop getting US aid at year's end

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Israel will no longer get U.S. aid after the end of the year, contending that the U.S. ally is a "thriving" country and no longer needs the help. Israel is historically the largest recipient of U.S. military aid.

Trump specifically cited the critiques by Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who on the campaign trail has pushed for ending the aid to Israel and argued taxpayer funds should instead be spent on state and local priorities such as schools, healthcare and infrastructure.

"Why? Because they don’t need it," Trump told the show "Fox & Friends" on Fox News. "Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don't need it? It's a bad talking point. Because they say, why don't we give everyone $4 billion? Israel's our No. 1. We give them more than anybody else."

Trump said that the U.S. has been giving Israel $4 billion a year, "but it gets cut off at the end of the year," adding that he'd already discussed and reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

—The Detroit News