President Donald Trump says car companies are thriving due to tariffs and other key policies he's instituted as president. During a rally this week at a General Motors facility in Michigan, the Republican drove the point home repeatedly, saying his tariffs had revived domestic auto production. However, tariffs have cost Michigan businesses billions of dollars and fueled inflation. Michigan, in particular, faces economic challenges given its deep ties to Canada, which Trump has singled out for a new round of import levies. Some auto companies plan to increase U.S. production, but the benefits from those efforts won't be immediate. While Trump's base remains loyal, economic worries are beginning to surface.

It’s been a choppy year for restaurants that lean into lettuce. Lettuce prices rose sharply in the first half of 2026 due to hot weather in Arizona, where about one-third of America’s lettuce is grown. Now, some restaurants are dealing with the fallout from a cyclospora outbreak linked to shredded lettuce that has sickened thousands of Americans. Taco Bell will likely see the biggest sales impact from the outbreak. But market research companies say other salad-focused chains are seeing reduced foot traffic as well. Federal health officials first tied the outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants in multiple states, although health officials say there might be additional causes.

Bullets recovered from two bystanders killed during a shootout at a Seattle festival last weekend do not appear to have come from the gun that a 15-year-old arrested at the scene was firing, police said in court documents filed Wednesday. The King County prosecutor’s office filed charges of first-degree assault with a firearm enhancement as well as unlawful possession of a handgun by someone under 18. In a statement supporting the charges, police said the teen was seen firing an untraceable ghost gun into a crowd, but preliminary testing of bullets recovered from two bystanders killed showed they did not match that weapon. Shell casings found at the scene of Sunday’s shooting indicate four weapons were fired during the shootout.

The U.S. military says it’s launching strikes on Iranian targets in response to Tehran’s attack on American forces a day earlier. U.S. Central Command said the strikes are “a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attack” and that they began on Wednesday evening, in a post on social media. It’s a further escalation after a period of calm, with the U.S. saying it had intercepted strikes from Iran a day earlier and carried out separate strikes alongside Saudi Arabia on Tehran-backed militias in neighboring Iraq. U.S. President Donald Trump had vowed to retaliate after Iran targeted a base in Jordan that hosts U.S. troops.

A man has been convicted of federal terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie. A jury delivered its verdict Wednesday in Buffalo, New York. Jurors found Hadi Matar guilty of all the charges against him, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. The 28-year-old had pleaded not guilty. Matar already is serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the August 2022 attack. Rushdie has faced a decades-old death threat over his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Film producer Jason Cloth, known for financing movies like “Joker” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” has been indicted on wire fraud charges. Prosecutors say he ran a $100 million Ponzi scheme. The indictment was unsealed Tuesday in Chicago. Cloth was arrested in Los Angeles the same day. Prosecutors allege he solicited money from investors for films or video games but used it for other projects. Cloth is charged with seven counts of wire fraud, each carrying up to 20 years in prison. The FBI is asking potential victims to contact their Chicago office. Attorneys representing Cloth in other legal matters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.