00:00:34.200I'm Tom Bevan, co-host of Real Clear Politics on the Megyn Kelly channel.
00:00:37.640It's Wednesday, October 7th, 2026, and this is your AM update.
00:00:42.440Anytime you hear that there's some disease that infected someone in a lab anywhere in
00:00:46.220the world, you're going to be concerned about it.
00:00:48.040New questions surrounding Russia's mysterious plague scare as U.S. officials press Moscow
00:00:52.180for answers about what happened inside a Siberian research lab.
00:00:55.560President Trump approving a firing squad for the Fort Hood killer, setting up the U.S. military's first execution in 65 years.
00:01:03.080There's not enough teachers. The places in high schools are diminishing. They are not repairing the high schools. The conditions are really bad.
00:01:10.420France rocked by its biggest student protests in decades. Hundreds of thousands in the streets, schools set on fire, thousands arrested, and growing questions over whether the far left is hijacking the unrest.
00:01:21.220and NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens hit with a federal defamation lawsuit related to Nolan
00:01:26.760Wells. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.
00:01:34.640We are less than a month out and the midterms are coming at us like a freight train.
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00:02:40.600A new and still unconfirmed report raising more questions about the possible plague scare in
00:02:45.300russia as local media claiming a second person has died in the irkutsk region the daily mail
00:02:50.840report citing russian media saying the unidentified person died at an irkutsk district hospital
00:02:56.060after allegedly contracting plague a claim russian authorities have not confirmed it comes four days
00:03:02.280after 28 year old researcher daria shipilova died after working at siberia's anti-plague institute
00:03:08.440russian officials insisting her death was caused by pneumonia of unknown origin and that no plague
00:03:13.880has been detected. Still, nearly 200 people who may have come into contact with Shepelova
00:03:18.700have reportedly been placed under medical observation or quarantine, even as Moscow
00:03:23.340maintains there is no confirmed plague cases. At the same time, some Russian news organizations
00:03:28.640reporting about the suspected outbreak has been disappearing. Independent Russian outlet The
00:03:33.480Insider, reporting federal network REN-TV, deleted all five of its posts about plague in the region,
00:03:39.920while Commersant removed both a Telegram post and an online article
00:03:43.620referring to U.S. concerns about a possible outbreak.
00:03:47.020CNN, meanwhile, reporting on new disease control measures at a maternity hospital in the region.
00:03:52.320A 29-year-old woman telling the outlet she was forced to switch hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant
00:03:56.840after new quarantine restrictions prevented her husband from being with her during labor.
00:04:01.700She says staff checked her temperature, examined her tongue, required a mask and hand sanitizer,
00:04:06.760and gave her a questionnaire titled, quote,
00:04:09.500Checklist for Suspected Highly Dangerous Infectious Disease Plague.
00:04:13.880Now, international pressure mounts on Russia to explain exactly what happened at that laboratory.
00:04:18.900Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking Tuesday during a press event in Iceland.
00:04:23.200Anytime you hear that there's some disease that infected someone in a lab anywhere in the world,
00:04:27.260you're going to be concerned about it, especially given recent events not so long ago.
00:04:31.500That said, it would be irresponsible for me here to sit and speculate
00:04:35.020because we just don't have all the information yet.
00:05:04.360Investigative journalist Annie Jacobson, author of Biological War, A Scenario, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, telling PBS NewsHour on Monday the institute has a history extending well beyond ordinary public health research.
00:05:17.640This is an anti-plague institute, so they're supposed to be studying medical countermeasures to plague, like vaccines, antibiotics.
00:05:25.840But this particular institute, we know from Soviet defector scientists, was used for biological weapons engineering during their illegal program.
00:05:35.980We also know the State Department believes that that illegal biological weapons program has continued.
00:05:42.580And so what they're really worried about is what is going on.
00:05:45.620I mean, look, the facility has six-foot-high fences around it.
00:05:50.460It's got concertina wire on top of that.
00:05:54.920The idea that this worker broke a test tube and suddenly contracted pneumonic plague, which is inhalation plague, that does not entirely add up for somebody like me.
00:06:08.980What I would be most concerned about is that their kind of one idea is that they could be milling the pathogen, making it aerosolized.
00:06:17.380That gets you right into the world of biological weapons engineering.
00:06:22.340Pneumonic plague infects the lungs and spreads through respiratory droplets.
00:06:26.420The World Health Organization warning the disease can become deadly quickly without treatment.
00:06:31.040That naturally is raising questions about how easily it can spread compared with COVID.
00:06:35.300Jacobson explaining the difference and why a modified pathogen could behave differently.
00:06:39.820COVID was airborne. It was aerosolized.
00:06:42.820You could catch it in the air if you were in the room with someone that had COVID.
00:06:47.580Pneumonic plague, again, Mother Nature's variant, that is pneumonic plague in the wild,
00:06:53.240is what's called droplet transmissible.
00:06:56.060So excuse the graphics here, but you have to actually like kind of spit on someone or,
00:07:02.660And you would also have to be very sick to be doing that, which would make the likelihood
00:07:08.260of your close proximity without some kind of PPE unusual.
00:07:13.580But if genetic modifications are going on, all bets are off as to how transmissible it could potentially be.
00:07:22.500For now, the World Health Organization saying there's no sign of a wider outbreak.
00:07:27.380Russia telling the WHO no plague cases have been confirmed, while none of Shepelova's identified contacts have developed symptoms, according to Reuters.
00:07:36.020The WHO assessing the risk as, quote, moderate to low in the region and, quote, low elsewhere in Russia and, quote, very low for Europe.
00:07:44.640Russian authorities saying about 60 percent of Shepelova's contacts have been tested so far, finding two cases of COVID and two rhinovirus infections, but no plague.
00:07:53.780The CDC, meanwhile, saying it is closely monitoring the situation, but sees no broader threat to the United States at this time.
00:08:00.180President Trump approving death by firing squad for the former Army psychiatrist who
00:08:06.400murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, setting the stage for what would be
00:08:11.320the U.S. military's first execution in 65 years.
00:08:15.160Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommending the firing squad for former Army Major Nadal
00:08:19.860Hassan, President Trump now giving his approval.
00:08:23.260Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announcing the decision Monday, saying the Secretary
00:08:27.260of the Army will set the time and place of the execution.
00:08:30.180Parnell writing, quote, Judgment Day for Hassan has finally come.
00:08:34.920Hassan opening fire inside Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center on November 5,
00:08:40.0002009, targeting soldiers preparing for deployment overseas. Witnesses saying Hassan shattered Alu
00:08:46.260Akbar before beginning the attack, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Hassan then
00:08:52.220following fleeing soldiers outside, where civilian Fort Hood police officers Kimberly Munley and
00:08:57.260Mark Todd confronted him. Munley wounded during an exchange of gunfire, Todd shooting Hassan and
00:09:03.120bringing the rampage to an end. Investigators later testifying that Hassan still had 177
00:09:08.860unfired rounds in his weapons and extra magazines when he was captured, along with a second handgun
00:09:14.620he never used. Hassan left paralyzed from the waist down when he was subdued, now using a wheelchair.
00:09:20.900The army psychiatrist had been preparing for his own deployment to Afghanistan later that month.
00:09:25.860Hassan later acknowledging in court that he carried out the attack,
00:09:28.560saying he believed he had been on the wrong side of a war against Islam
00:09:32.100and wanted to protect Taliban fighters from the U.S. military.
00:09:35.840A military panel convicting Hassan in August 2013 on 13 counts of premeditated murder
00:09:41.080and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, then unanimously sentencing him to death.
00:09:46.960His case spending more than a decade moving through the military appeals process,
00:09:50.980the Supreme Court declining last year to hear his challenge to the conviction.
00:09:54.820Under military law, however, a death sentence cannot be carried out until it's personally approved by the President.
00:10:00.140That approval now coming from President Trump, beginning a process the military has not completed since the Kennedy administration.
00:10:06.300The last U.S. service member executed by the military was Army Private John Bennett,
00:10:11.540hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on April 13, 1961, after being convicted of rape and attempted murder.
00:10:18.200The military's last known execution by firing squad going back even further, to November
00:10:22.7801945, when an execution was carried out by what military records described as, quote,
00:10:29.340Firing squads also remaining exceedingly rare outside the military.
00:10:33.460South Carolina carrying out three firing squad executions last year, the first anywhere in
00:10:37.960the United States since Utah used the method in 2010.
00:10:41.820Hassan can still pursue a federal habeas challenge and seek a stay of execution.
00:10:47.520Coming up, France's student unrest spiraling, thousands arrested, schools damaged, and questions growing over the far left's role in the protests.
00:10:56.140And NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens facing a federal defamation lawsuit after publicly calling for the arrest of three young men already cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the Nolan Wells case.
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00:12:57.320France now dealing with its biggest student protest movement in decades.
00:13:02.460Hundreds of thousands taking to the streets Tuesday as demonstrations that began at a single high school outside Paris spread across the country in barely two weeks.
00:13:10.880France's interior ministry estimating 256,000 people joining demonstrations nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris.
00:13:19.120Student organizers claiming the number was even higher at roughly 450,000.
00:13:24.240The unrest reportedly beginning September 17th at a high school in the Paris suburb of Crite.
00:13:30.020Students joining striking teachers demanding more staff and resources.
00:13:34.320The school eventually getting additional workers and ending its strike,
00:13:37.360but similar protests already beginning to erupt at other schools around Paris before spreading nationwide.
00:13:43.080More than 1,200 schools becoming involved at the height of the unrest.
00:13:46.640Students complaining of teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, crumbling buildings,
00:13:50.560and classes cancelled because absent teachers are not being replaced, according to Reuters.
00:13:55.900Here, in translated footage, French students telling Fox News why they are protesting.
00:14:00.640There's not enough teachers. The places in high schools are diminishing.
00:14:05.380They are not repairing the high schools. The conditions are really bad.
00:14:09.600Enough is enough. We can't just sit back and take it anymore.
00:14:13.220And that we truly want to demand certain essential things that are absolutely necessary in a high school.
00:14:19.200We just want more rights and equality, whether in Paris or in rural areas.
00:14:23.620We want everyone to have the same opportunities.
00:14:26.180The demonstration is increasingly spilling far beyond peaceful school protests.
00:14:30.660Trash cans, desks, and barricades set on fire.
00:14:33.780Police confronting groups of protesters with tear gas, batons, and riot control weapons.
00:14:38.480A school partially burned in Nantes, another damaged by fire in Le Havre,
00:14:42.800while protesters outside Marseille High School reportedly forcing firefighters from their truck before setting the vehicle ablaze.
00:14:49.200Reuters reporting approximately 6,100 people arrested since the unrest began, most of them teenagers, while at least 215 young people, 85 school employees, and more than 700 police officers have been injured.
00:15:02.460The explosion of violence fueling questions of whether the student movement is being hijacked by outside political groups.
00:15:08.300Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu accusing France Unbowed, or LFI, of what he called its far-left proxies of helping orchestrate the unrest.
00:15:16.380his office pointing to French intelligence reporting to make the case.
00:15:20.560LFI is the country's main hard-left party,
00:15:22.900led by presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon,
00:15:25.900who has reportedly strong support among young voters.
00:15:28.900LFI denying it orchestrated the protests,
00:15:31.800insisting it supports peaceful demonstrations
00:15:33.740and accusing the government of trying to discredit students
00:15:40.400rejecting the premise that the unrest is fundamentally about France's schools.
00:15:43.880The president writing on True Social yesterday,
00:15:46.380What's happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration.
00:15:50.900This isn't about schools. This is about Islam wanting to take over a once-great country.
00:15:57.280NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens facing a federal defamation lawsuit from three young men who were investigated but never charged in connection with the death of Nolan Wells.
00:16:07.000Wells disappearing during a Fourth of July boat trip to Horn Island in Mississippi, his body found in the water two days later.
00:16:14.620According to the complaint, about 30 friends traveling to Horn Island by boat on that day.
00:16:19.420Wells staying behind, telling his friends he wanted to talk to a girl at the end of the outing.
00:16:23.840Three of the friends in the group, Warren Hudson, Jax Patalo, and Morgan Seymour,
00:16:27.840who are all under the age of 21, later becoming the focus of online accusations surrounding Wells' death.
00:16:33.340The young men say they left Wells' phone on one of the boats, calling authorities once they realized he had not returned.
00:16:39.900All three deny ever touching or tampering with Wells' phone.
00:16:43.380A Jackson County grand jury clearing the three young men and all others of any criminal wrongdoing on September 21st.
00:16:49.600Five days later, Owens posting a link on X to an Instagram video by social media producer Trent Outloud, accusing the three of murder and of deleting messages from Wells' phone.
00:17:00.700Along with the video, Owens writing in all caps, quote, arrest them immediately like yesterday.
00:17:06.200The post containing a picture of the three young men.
00:17:09.140The suit, filed Monday in the Southern District of Mississippi by the fathers of Hudson, Patalo, and Seymour,
00:17:14.480arguing Owens went further than just sharing that video,
00:17:17.420saying his call for immediate arrest was his own independent statement.
00:17:21.080The complaint was filed by the fathers because under Mississippi law, minors are anyone under the age of 21.