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What to know:

• Trump shocked lawmakers when he announced on social media Friday that he struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call. He said Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the American and global market, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.”
  
  

• In a statement protesting the deal, the six senators said the administration failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute. “The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians,” they wrote. The lawmakers also noted that Congress explicitly banned Russia energy imports in 2022. The Republican senators who signed onto the statement are Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah.
  
  

• Energy experts say the Russia deal is unlikely to make a dent in high prices at the pump. Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, noted that the total amount of diesel appears to be less than what the U.S. uses in a day.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Kyiv says Russian strikes on energy facilities continue despite Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’
• WATCH: People in Kyiv question Trump’s motives after deal struck with Putin to get diesel

POLITICS

Judge orders the Trump administration to cancel taxpayer-funded promotional TV ads

President Donald Trump must cancel any remaining television commercials paid for with millions of dollars in taxpayer money to promote his political message, a federal judge ordered Sunday night, even as the administration said the ad campaign was coming to an end. Read more.

What to know:

• U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York sided with a coalition, including the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, that challenged the ads as an illegal misuse of funds. She told the administration to cancel any remaining ads, including any set to air Sunday night, in granting a temporary restraining order. Asked for comment, the White House referred to an Oct. 5 social media post from Trump in which he defended the taxpayer-funded ads as “rather standard” but, amid backlash, said he would pay for them from his political fundraising.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• AP source: Trump, Rubio weigh firing US envoy to Greece after mounting reports of improper conduct
• Feud spills onto South Carolina debate stage as Darline Graham, Annie Andrews snipe in Senate race
• A Spanish-language radio show overflows with voters’ frustration in Pennsylvania battleground
• Potential presidential candidates are positioning themselves during midterms

US NEWS

The fish behind America’s fish sticks is fueling a fight over trawling in Alaska 

Bycatch — marine life caught unintentionally while fishers target something else — makes up 2% of the pollock fishery’s total catch, including: skate, crabs, jellyfish and, among the most consequential, salmon — the fish at the center of a growing political and cultural fight over industrial trawling in Alaska. Read more.

Why this matters:

• Alaska pollock is the second-largest fishery on Earth. It is the fish inside McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and is also turned into fish sticks and imitation crab. At the scale of a fishery that harvests billions of pounds of pollock annually, that can mean hundreds of thousands of salmon. Over the last 10 years, Bering Sea pollock trawlers caught an average of about 18,000 Chinook and 288,000 other salmon a year, nearly all of them chum. Those catches have become especially contentious as salmon runs have collapsed across western Alaska. Trawling and bycatch have become prominent issues in Alaska’s midterm elections with candidates sparring over how aggressively to restrict the industry.