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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fell short of securing a parliamentary majority with his religious and nationalist allies in national elections Tuesday, initial exit polls showed, setting the stage for a period of coalition negotiations that could threaten his political future and clear the way for him to be tried on corruption charges. Initial results posted by Israel's three major stations showed challenger Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White party tied or with a slight lead over Netanyahu's Likud. While the results do not guarantee that Gantz will be the next prime minister, they signaled that Netanyahu, who has led the country for over 10 years, could have trouble holding on to the job.

Known for acting on impulse, President Donald Trump has adopted an uncharacteristically go-slow approach over whether to hold Iran responsible for attacks on Saudi oil facilities, showing little enthusiasm for confrontation as he seeks re-election next year. After state-owned Saudi Aramco's plants were struck on Saturday, Trump did not wait long to fire off a tweet that the United States was "locked and loaded" to respond, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran. Instead, he wants to wait and see the results of investigations into what happened and is sending Pompeo to consult counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sworn in two Republicans who won special elections in North Carolina last week. One is conservative Dan Bishop. As a state legislator, he wrote North Carolina's 2016 law restricting which public bathrooms transgender people may use.

Aaron Thomas, 31, and Megan Mondanaro, 35, were arrested in Florida after they had sex in the back of a patrol car, according to police.

The sale was by far the federal government's largest offering of geothermal energy leases by acreage in recent years, with 142 parcels on 384,369.6 acres available for auction. According to energy marketplace EnergyNet, which conducted the online sale, 37 parcels representing 102,402.85 acres received bids for a total of $426,900. The sale, overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, was part of the Trump administration's "energy dominance" agenda to open up more federal land to all forms of energy production.

A Republican congressman in California said Tuesday he won't run for re-election next year, making him the 18th GOP incumbent to bow out of the U.S. House of Representatives now that the party is in the minority. U.S. Rep. Paul Cook announced he will instead run for a seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in 2020. California has 53 U.S. House seats, the most of any state.

Only eight candidates garnered more than 1 percent in the poll.

(Bloomberg) -- Israel’s election do-over looked set to produce a dramatic deadlock, exit polls showed, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor former military chief Benny Gantz winning enough votes to easily form a government.The lack of a decisive victory would be a stunning setback for Israel’s longest-serving leader, who gambled on a revote to strengthen his political hand -- and possibly keep himself out of jail -- after a poor result in April. It may thrust Israel into further political turmoil and drag out policy paralysis at a time when diplomatic and regional security challenges are mounting.Netanyahu’s nationalist Likud and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White are running neck and neck, the exit polls indicated. They also show a close race between competing blocs aligned with the two big parties, with neither securing a majority of 61 of parliament’s 120 seats.While the exit surveys suggest the legally embattled Netanyahu, popularly known as Bibi, may lose his grip on power, it’s too early to say Gantz won.“The results here are less good for him than in April; and in April he didn’t make a government,” Simon Davies, a pollster and political consultant for Number 10 Strategies, said of Netanyahu. “Whichever way you look at it -- if the exit polls are right -- Bibi is not in a great position. Bibi is a consummate politician, though, and you’d never put it past him to get out of any situation.”The exit polls position former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a onetime Netanyahu ally, to become this election’s kingmaker. Liberman’s objection to military draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men led to the collapse of coalition talks after the April 9 election, propelling Netanyahu to engineer a revote rather than let a rival try to put together a government.In other worrisome news for Netanyahu, the Joint List of Arab parties is poised to become parliament’s third-largest faction, increasing its representation and eating into the bloc allied with the prime minister.The Central Elections Committee said it won’t begin publishing meaningful results for hours. After a near-final tally is released on Thursday, President Reuven Rivlin will consult with the various parties to see who they recommend be tapped to form the next government.Gamble BackfiredWith his political survival at stake, Netanyahu launched a nasty campaign in which he appealed to his nationalist base by making pledges dear to their hearts, such as vowing to annex West Bank territory claimed by Palestinians, and painting the liberal left and non-Zionist, Israeli Arab leaders as bogeymen. That continued on voting day, when he convened what was billed as an emergency party meeting amid reports of high turnout in Arab and leftist areas of the country.“Voters of the right, have you lost your minds?” Netanyahu said on Twitter. “Go out now and vote Likud in order to stop a left-wing government with the Arab parties.”The prime minister entered the race badly weakened by what he says are baseless graft allegations cooked up by left-wing opponents. Before coalition talks collapsed in May, he was promoting new legislation that would grant him immunity from prosecution as long as he’s in office.In early October, he’s scheduled to plead his case before Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit, who will then decide whether to go ahead with planned bribery and fraud charges. Netanyahu is accused of accepting about $200,000 in gifts from wealthy friends and trying to win sympathetic press coverage by shaping rules to benefit media moguls.The political uncertainty dovetails with renewed confrontations with Iran and its proxies in Syria, Lebanon and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and serious questions over the fate of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan. Israel’s political paralysis has already held up its presentation.U.S. President Donald Trump has been one of Netanyahu’s most fervent allies. In the run-up to the April election, he presented Netanyahu with political gifts that included moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, withholding funds from the Palestinians, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and declaring that Israel had sovereignty over disputed land in the Golan Heights. That still wasn’t enough to help Netanyahu over the top this time.Political newcomer Gantz ran a clean-hands campaign that while lackluster, resonated with voters desperate for an alternative to Israel’s longest-serving leader.Exit polls show a surge in support for Liberman, whose tough stand against sweeping military draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men resonated among voters on both left and right in a country where the military draft is compulsory and many resent the concession. After the exit polls were revealed on Tuesday, he repeated his call for a national unity government that would include his party, Blue and White and Likud, while freezing out the ultra-Orthodox.Blue and White has said it won’t join a coalition with Netanyahu, so such a secular, broad-based coalition plan might not come to pass unless Likud pushes the prime minister out.“Assuming the numbers are correct, we are witnessing quite a dramatic outcome for a first time after a decade. There is a very high likelihood that Mr. Netanyahu will not serve as prime minister of Israel,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute research center.“It looks like Mr. Netanyahu’s path to 61 is blocked, while Mr. Gantz has greater options,” Plesner said. “We might also see change within the Likud, where a new chairman of the Likud might be able to form a new unity government with Blue and White.”Netanyahu has led Israel for a total of 13 years in which he scored unprecedented diplomatic achievements for his country, including the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, while seeing prospects for peacemaking with the Palestinians retreat.He also dismantled much of the socialist legacy of the country’s founders, with the broad economy and trade links flourishing even as a large income inequality gap makes it difficult for many to make ends meet.(Updates with Arab party eating into Netanyahu bloc in seventh paragraph.)\--With assistance from Yaacov Benmeleh.To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Teibel in Jerusalem at ateibel@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Benjamin HarveyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Members of Congress hailed Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg as a "superpower" for her work to spark a worldwide, youth-driven push to fight climate change. Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey said the 16-year-old Thunberg and other young activists bring "moral clarity" to the fight against global warming. Thunberg was not impressed.

The fatal shooting of three teens by a Georgia homeowner this week could be a 'stand your ground' case, the Rockdale County Sheriff says.

A secretive sentencing deal penned by then-US Attorney Alex Acosta let Epstein leave jail to work in his private office 12 hours a day.

Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins urged someone to kill a deputy, saying, "The only way you gonna stop him is kill him," an indictment says.

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on 16 companies linked to Colombian businessman Alex Nain Saab Moran, an associate of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The move is the latest US escalation of sanctions targeting the inner circle of Maduro, who is grappling with a political and economic crisis that the United Nations says has left a quarter of Venezuela's 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

The Belgian Air Force intercepted two Russian Tu-160 supersonic, nuclear-capable bombers at close range in Baltic airspace.

Just when you thought it was time to bring home the troops from the great chicken sandwich war between Popeyes and Chick-fil-A, KFC introduces a new sandwich. And it's bold.The new sandwich features the chain's Extra Crispy™ chicken filet between two hot glazed donuts.If stacking food isn't your thing you can also enjoy the components side-by-side. KFC is also introducing a Kentucky Fried Chicken & Donut Basket meal, which includes the option of chicken on the bone or chicken tenders, paired with one donut for $5.49. If that doesn't fill you up, you can add another donut for $7.49.And if your sweet tooth still isn't satisfied, you can buy single donuts for just $1.KFC Donuts BasketImage: KFCSEE ALSO: There's a fast food chicken sandwich war and we have declared the winnerUnfortunately, the new menu item will only appear for a limited time in select locations: Pittsburgh as well as Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia. When asked, the company couldn't provide a date for a nationwide roll-out of the donut sandwich as these locations are being used to determine just how hungry the country is for this daring new combination. If the reception is positive, you can look forward to checking these bad boys out at your local KFC branch.Finally, if you're a real KFC stan and were wondering, the new donut sandwich will not be featured in the highly anticipated Colonel Sander's Dating Sim set to be released September 24. On the other hand, a KFC representative assured us the Mac and Cheese bowls launched August 26 will mostly definitely be in the game. Maybe we can hope for a DLC.

Israel was holding its breath on Tuesday after early election exit polls suggested Benjamin Netanyahu’s centrist rivals had won more seats in parliament, potentially endangering the prime minister’s 13 years in power.  While no final results were available, two out of three early exit polls indicated that Mr Netanyahu’s Likud had fallen slightly behind Blue & White, the centrist coalition led by former army general Benny Gantz. A third poll showed the parties tied. The exit polls, which have been wrong in the the past, suggested that neither Mr Gantz nor Mr Netanyahu had a clear path to forming a majority coalition government, which likely means weeks of post-election negotiations before a final result is clear.  There was no immediate reaction from either Likud or Blue & White and both sides appeared to be waiting for more complete results before making statements on victory or defeat.  But if the results held, it would be a remarkable set back for Mr Netanyahu, who is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and has held power continuously for more than a decade through a string of clear election victories. Letters from Jerusalem RHS One figure who may play a kingmaker role in coalition negotiations is Avigdor Lieberman, Mr Netanyahu’s former defence minister who turned against angrily against his former boss after the last election in April. Despite hailing the political Right, Mr Lieberman refused to join Mr Netanyahu’s coalition and denied the prime minister a majority. Mr Netanyahu then called an unprecedented second election.  The exit polls suggested Mr Lieberman's small secular nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, had improved its standing and could now hold the balance of power in coalition negotiations.   Mr Lieberman has been coy about his intentions but has hinted that he might back Mr Gantz, a secular liberal. Both men have spoken about the need to counter the influence of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and of forcing Mr Netanyahu from office.  Avigdor Lieberman could be a major player in post-election negotiations Credit: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File The first stage of the post-election negotiations will be for Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, to survey party leaders in the divided parliament and assess whether Mr Gantz or Mr Netanyahu has more support. Mr Lieberman’s backing is likely to be crucial as both men try to convince the president they have the best chance of forming a majority government.  The process of trying to cobble together a coalition could take weeks and analysts could not rule out the possibility of a third election if neither side is able to get a majority.  Both Blue and White and Likud won 35 seats in the last election in April. When Mr Netanyahu was unable to form a majority government he called an unprecedented second election to try win an overall majority.  If Mr Netanyahu is unable to cobble together a coalition this time, he faces the possible risk of a mutiny within his own Likud party. Senior Likud figures have so far insisted they will not rise up against their leader. “It will never happen. We are totally against anybody telling the Likud who to vote for,” Nir Barkat, a senior Likud MP, told The Telegraph.  But Blue & White believes Likud officials could eventually overthrow Mr Netanyahu if they believe he has become a drag on the party’s prospects of holding onto power.   The election followed a similar script to the one that preceded it in April, focusing less on policy differences and more on the central question of whether or not Mr Netanyahu should stay in office after 13 years in power.  The prime minister presented himself as an indispensable leader and the only man with the stature and experience on the world stage to guide Israel through the dangerous currents of the Middle East.  His campaign put up massive posters showing him shaking hands with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. “Netanyahu: a different league,” the posters read.  “I don’t like Bibi but he’s the best person for the job,” said Shula Feldman, 39-year-old British-Israeli originally from London. “For me, the issue of security overrides everything.”  Like many Likud voters, Mrs Feldman, said she believed the criminal prosecution against Mr Netanyahu was at least partly motivated by politics. “I don’t think there would be charges if he didn’t have so many enemies,” she said.   Mr Netanyahu also repeated campaign tactics that have worked for him in the past including making increasingly extreme pledges to his Right-wing voter base, inciting against Israel’s Arab minority, and issuing panicked warnings that he was going to lose.  Less than a week before the election, Mr Netanyahu pledged to annex the Jordan Valley into Israel, an unprecedented step that would destroy any lingering hopes of a Two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was widely seen as an effort to energise his voter base.   Facebook suspended a chatbot belonging to Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party after it sent visitors a message warning of  “Arabs who want to destroy us all – women, children and men”.  For his part, Mr Gantz offered himself as a unifying figure who would bring Israel together after years of Mr Netanyahu’s divisive rule. He charged the prime minister with seeking to cling to power only to protect himself from the criminal corruption charges swirling around him.  “The time has come when the majority takes care of everybody and not the minority takes care of one person,” Mr Gantz said, alleging that Mr Netanyahu would rely on the votes of extremists to pass an immunity law that would shield him from prosecution.  Mr Gantz, a liberal, staked out a more aggressively secular position than he did in the last election and promised to challenge the power of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties which Mr Netanyahu has relied on. Mr Gantz said his hope was to form “a secular unity government” led by Blue & White but which also included Likud and the secular nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party.   However, Mr Gantz said that Likud could only join such a unity government if it first ditched Mr Netanyahu as its leader. Senior Likud figures have said so far said they will remain loyal to Mr Netanyahu.  Moshe Mordechai, a 67-year-old driving instructor, said he normally voted Likud but now intended to back Mr Gantz. “It’s time for a change. Gantz impresses me and I have had enough of Bibi,” he said.

A North Carolina sheriff was indicted for obstruction of justice for allegedly plotting to kill one of his deputies.

A US Drug Enforcement Administration agent accused late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez of cooperating with Colombian rebel group FARC to ease the shipment of cocaine into the United States, a Spanish court ruling published Tuesday showed. The accusation was cited in a ruling by Spain's National Court, the country's top criminal court, rejecting a US request to extradite Venezuela's former military intelligence chief, General Hugo Armando Carvajal, on drug trafficking charges. The ruling includes a sworn statement from an agent from a DEA agent that was included as evidence to back the extradition request.

Tyler and Jacob Huffhines ran an operation that cranked out 3,000 to 5,000 counterfeit vaping cartridges each day, authorities say.