Hollywood embraced the Halloween spirit, and the stars arrived with plenty of unforgettable costume inspiration.

Zendaya turned heads by recreating Halle Berry’s iconic 2002 X-Men premiere look for Halloween 2026. Her costume mirrored the Lanvin Fall 2000 bikini top and coordinating low-rise trousers Berry wore on the red carpet.

The original ensemble was styled by Phillip Bloch, while Zendaya’s longtime stylist, Law Roach, tracked down the vintage-inspired pieces for the festive tribute.

Elsewhere, Heidi Klum kicked off preparations for her legendary Halloween party by illuminating New York City’s Empire State Building on Thursday.

Before guests arrived at the celebration, which she has hosted since 2000, the 53-year-old supermodel offered Instagram followers a cryptic preview of her latest costume.

Klum kept her 12.7 million followers guessing with behind-the-scenes videos showing fake-blood-covered props and members of her makeup crew preparing an elaborate special-effects transformation.

Hailey Bieber embraced the festivities in a striking angel costume, while Paris Hilton celebrated Halloween with her children, son Phoenix, who turns four in January, and daughter London, who turns three in November.

Halloween falls on October 31, and in 2026 the spooky celebration lands on a Saturday, coinciding with the end of daylight saving time.

Once called All Hallows’ Eve, the holiday has evolved into a secular tradition centered on costumes, trick-or-treating and carving jack-o’-lanterns.

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In the days leading up to her star-studded party, Klum has also been revisiting some of her most extravagant Halloween costumes in throwback social media posts.

The German-American model launched her annual Halloween festivities in 2000. The celebrity-filled event was put on hold in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharing a video of simulated blood splashing across a surface on Saturday, Klum captioned the post, “Testing testing 1, 2, 3.”

In a separate image showing what appeared to be organs spread across a table, she wrote, “I love sausages ❤️.”

There was also a snippet of bubbling red juice as Klum wrote, ‘I’m cooking.’

The post was accompanied by the classic Halloween-themed song Monster Mash by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt Kickers. 

Hilton’s post was captioned, ‘A little Halloween magic with my favorite pumpkins. Loved our night raving at @NightOfTheJack!’

Sandra Bullock also appeared on Instagram on Saturday to take a festive trip down memory lane.

The 62-year-old shared old photos featuring her and her two kids, son Louis, 16, and daughter Laila, 13.

One image showed her dressed up as Jessie and her Louis as Buzz Lightyear, and another snapshot featured her and Laila dressed in matching pirate costumes.

There was also footage of the silver screen star dressing up her dogs and staging a photo shoot. 

‘Nothing is off limits in this household. Happy Halloween from us ❤️,’ she captioned the carousel post shared with her 7.2 million followers.

The Hollywood vet also added a photo of herself dressed up in a white suit and headdress during one of her childhood Halloweens. 

Control of the U.S. Senate could remain unresolved for weeks, with the outcome potentially hinging on a painstaking vote count across Alaska’s frozen tundra.

Alaska has roughly 600,000 voters spread across 586,000 square miles. Its distinctive ballot-counting procedures, combined with a legal challenge to the race, could postpone the result for days or even weeks.

The Senate contest between Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola could be decisive in determining which party controls the chamber.

“We will [not] know who is going to win Alaska [until] two weeks after Election Day,” pollster Sean Trende predicted. Trende, a polling analyst at RealClearPolitics and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spoke during an Election Watch briefing organized by the institute on Oct. 20.

“It will be a toss-up until the last ballots come in from the Alaskan bush by two-prop engine, and then put it through like five rounds of ranked-choice voting.”

The potential delay reflects both Alaska’s unusual geography and an election season featuring competitive races in states that have traditionally leaned Republican.

The state’s voting challenges were highlighted by the Bondy family, who traveled 225 miles by dogsled over eight hours to cast their ballots, as shown in the 2016 documentary OneVote.

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In rural Alaska, ballots arrive by plane in a state with 16 times as many aircraft as any other. Ballots postmarked by Election Day must be received within 10 days to be counted, while overseas ballots have a 15-day deadline.

Former Alaska state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, now a candidate for governor in another toss-up race, experienced the wait firsthand after his narrow 2012 victory. His result remained uncertain until overseas ballots arrived from locations including Bahrain and Cambodia.

“There are a lot of rural communities. There’s a lot of military voters and military families here,” said Glenn Wright, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast. “That’s how things come and go. A lot of supplies are coming in in the summertime by boat, by barge, by ferry boat. They’re flying ballots in and out.”

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system could add another layer of delay. Election officials must review ballots and redistribute votes when candidates’ initial first-choice totals are insufficient to advance.

This year, however, the logistical hurdles are only part of the uncertainty.

The Justice Department filed suit this month seeking to invalidate the result if Sullivan loses. The filing cites the presence of a second candidate, retired elementary school teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., on the ballot and alleges that the candidacy was intended to draw votes away.

President Trump has called on Peltola to withdraw from the race after reports alleged that her campaign helped engineer the scheme.

Meghan Markle reportedly considered speaking publicly after being told about child sex abuse allegations involving her father, Thomas Markle, but was advised against doing so by Metropolitan Police officers assigned to protect the royal family.

The claim follows confirmation from Scotland Yard that the Duchess of Sussex, now 45, received a letter outlining allegations against Thomas Markle, 82, in January 2019. The force has acknowledged that the information was not passed to other law enforcement agencies at the time.

In the seven-page handwritten letter, Roslyn Loveless, Thomas Markle’s first wife, accused the former Hollywood lighting technician of child sex abuse. She also alleged that he frequently travelled to the Philippines and Thailand, claiming that “12-year-olds are legal there.”

Loveless, who died in 2024, sent the letter to the Metropolitan Police. The document was reviewed by the force’s royal protection unit before being forwarded to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s office at Kensington Palace for their “awareness”.

It has since emerged that Meghan wanted to address the allegations publicly. Last week, she described the claims about her father as “troubling and disturbing”.

However, one member of her Royalty and Specialist Protection, or RaSP, team is said to have told her: “Leave it with us, we’ll investigate it.”

The officer reportedly urged Meghan to remain silent while she was facing criticism for ending contact with her father without publicly explaining why. Thomas Markle did not attend Harry and Meghan’s 2018 wedding.

The Metropolitan Police did not investigate the allegations because the alleged incidents were said to have taken place overseas. According to The Times, the force is still trying to identify and locate the officer who allegedly advised Meghan.

Although Harry and Meghan’s protection officers were aware of the serious claims, several senior figures close to the couple at Kensington Palace were reportedly not informed.

Those said to have been unaware included Samantha Cohen, a former assistant to Queen Elizabeth II who served as the Sussexes’ private secretary, and Jason Knauf, then joint communications secretary for Harry and Meghan as well as William and Kate.

One source claimed the couple were “very private” and generally chose not to share personal information widely within their team.

Aides working for King Charles, who was the Prince of Wales at the time, are also believed to have had no knowledge of the letter or its contents.

A Metropolitan Police source said on Saturday that the RaSP officers who reviewed the 2019 letter may not have appreciated the seriousness of the allegations or escalated the matter through the appropriate chain of command.

The source said: “These people are not detectives and have a tendency to be quite linear in their thinking.

“RaSP would only have been interested in what it meant for the security of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Once they had assessed that, they should have considered the wider consequences.”

The force is now facing scrutiny over why it did not share the information with international agencies, including the FBI.

The Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the police watchdog over what it described as a “failure to pass on allegations of serious offending… to relevant overseas authorities at the time”.

The latest development came after police seized child sexual abuse material from an abandoned storage unit belonging to Thomas Markle on Saturday, following information supplied by the Daily Mail.

Sex crimes investigators and forensic experts swooped on the vault near Markle’s former home in Mexico at just after midnight. One agent is said to have recoiled, saying ‘Ay cabron’ – a Spanish expression meaning ‘oh, damn’ – as he examined the material.

The material seized includes magazines showing children being sexually abused and photographs of naked young Asian females.

Our reporters uncovered the hoard last Thursday after travelling to Rosarito, where the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father lived for a decade. Receipts confirmed that he leased the 5ft by 10ft space in 2017.

According to the search warrant, investigators were authorised by a judge to look for ‘evidence consisting of child sexual abuse material’ and ‘the alleged commission of the crime of human trafficking in its aggravated form’. After seizing a computer, thumb drives, VHS tapes and magazines, they sealed the unit with an official notice.

The raid on Baja Storage, a gated storage depot, came after the Daily Mail warned authorities that Unit 22 contained child sex abuse images. Hours earlier, the Mail photographed Markle being pushed between care homes in Lakeland, Florida, in a wheelchair.

Markle, who has had a leg amputated and been diagnosed with a cognitive illness, was accompanied by daughter Samantha and her boyfriend Mark Phillips.

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Our reporters learnt about the container last week. The 82-year-old fell behind on the rent for the storage space two years ago and moved to the Philippines early last year without emptying it.

Baja Storage’s staff knew nothing about the cache and were disgusted by its discovery.

In addition to innocent family mementos, there were strips of 35mm negatives depicting voyeuristic images of kids on a beach and dusty VHS tapes with titles including ‘Boys – Brother and Sister -Russian XX’ and ‘Manila Nites’. The lockup also contained old computers and a paper plate with the words ‘DARK WEB’ scribbled in red ink alongside various URLs.

FBI agents working in Tampa – close to the senior-living residence where Markle is staying in Florida after having his left leg amputated in December – are among those working on the case.

Also involved are southern California-based FBI officials.

According to the warrant obtained by the Daily Mail, Mexican state prosecutors asked Judge Estefany Moreno Gutierrez of the Judicial Branch of Baja California to sign off on a search warrant at a closed court hearing on Friday. At around 4pm on Friday a small group of uniformed officers arrived at the depot and asked to speak to the owner.

As the evening wore on, more officers arrived from Mexico’s State Investigation Agency while soldiers from the Mexican National Guard were posted outside. They showed an overnight caretaker the warrant and more than a dozen agents streamed inside at 12.48am. By 3am the raid was over and the convoy of cars drove away.

The discovery of the storage unit marks another extraordinary development in a case that could see him facing ten to 12 years in jail if charged and convicted.

The former lighting director moved to Rosarito in 2011.

Markle relocated again to the Philippines in early 2025, where he is also under investigation after being reported to the police by his own son.

Thomas Markle Jr, 60, had allegedly found ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of child sex images in boxes his dad had shipped to the Far East, according to The Sun newspaper.

Markle has previously described the allegations as ‘sick lies’. On Saturday Samantha Markle’s boyfriend told us: ‘The only statement that you’re going to get is that Thomas Markle doesn’t even have fingerprints on the stuff in the Philippines,’ he said.

‘He didn’t even ever touch it the whole time it was there, he can’t be charged.

‘Markle never had it in Mexico either… The FBI has no jurisdiction in Mexico. This is all bulls***.’

Thomas Markle Sr told the Daily Mail: ‘I had no storage units in Rosarito!’

In a statement last week, Meghan said: ‘I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.

‘In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated.

‘I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children, was for one reason: to protect them.

‘I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families.

‘Although the breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine, my sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children.’ 

The Duchess of Sussex has not commented on the developments in Mexico.

The Daily Mail has approached the Metropolitan Police for a comment.  

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Now, he is seeking a seat on the bench.

A Staten Island civil court candidate is drawing on a remarkable past as an undercover NYPD narcotics officer who posed as a drug user while infiltrating New York City dealing rings in the 1980s.

Glenn Yost told The Post that he made more than 500 drug arrests during his NYPD career, including Staten Island’s first grand jury case involving the sale of crack cocaine.

“I feel like I’ve come full circle in the law – enforcing it for 20 years, teaching it, and practicing it for nearly 20 years,” said Yost, a 63-year-old Republican attorney.

Born in Brooklyn, Yost moved to Staten Island at age 11. He was raised by his single mother, who worked at Sears.

Yost joined the NYPD at 20 and entered the department’s narcotics unit two years later, he said.

Working under an alias, he conducted undercover operations in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island. During one deep-cover assignment, he lived in a Brooklyn apartment equipped with a wiretap and carried false identification and credit cards.

He adopted identities such as “Vinnie,” an aspiring actor who drove a red Eldorado Cadillac and spent summers in the Hamptons, yet frequented squalid crack houses to buy heroin, cocaine and prescription painkiller Percocet.

“Those shooting galleries, if there’s anything you can imagine close to hell, that would be it,” he said.

“It was scary because you didn’t know, you didn’t know who was who. You didn’t know if you were going to get robbed. It smelled horrible. People would go to the bathroom wherever they wanted to.”

He earned dealers’ confidence by showing up repeatedly, effectively becoming a regular customer. A confidential informant also helped strengthen those connections.

“I think ideally what the undercover needs to be is very clever and cunning,” Yost said.

At times, dealers held him at gunpoint and demanded that he sample the drugs to prove he was not a police officer. Yost learned to fake it: He would dip his forefinger into the powder, then bring his middle finger to his mouth. The dealers, he said, “never noticed.”

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When someone ordered him to inject heroin on the spot, “I just pushed them away and started yelling and screaming.”

For protection, he kept a .25 automatic Colt pistol concealed beneath his clothing.

Yost stayed in character so convincingly that one of the criminals he ultimately arrested, “JD [John Doe] Handsome,” formed a close bond with his undercover persona.

“I kind of liked him,” Yost admitted. “He was a good person – other than being a drug dealer … He was thinking of making me the godfather of his kid.”

Yost first met JD Handsome during a failed cocaine purchase, after another dealer grabbed his $20 and ran. Handsome noticed what happened and approached, asking how he could help.

For the next six months, the pair were nearly inseparable, spending long nights together as the undercover operation continued.

When Yost finally arrested his “friend” and the man’s pregnant wife, who was also dealing cocaine, the couple were left stunned.

“If you can imagine the shock on this guy. I mean, I’m his friend,” Yost said. “He was just in complete shock [when they were arrested]. He could not get over the fact that I was a police officer.”

The key to selling his junkie bit was never taking no for an answer, Yost said.

“A heroin addict wants the heroin. If they tell you know ‘no,’ you still hang around and beg until you get what you want,” he said. 

Yost went on to work as a youth outreach officer, co-founding the “No Staten Island Racism” school program before attending New York Law School and retiring from the NYPD at 40. 

While studying for the bar, he taught criminal justice and history at St. John’s University and St. Joseph by the Sea high school on Staten Island. 

He believes his unique background helped him empathize with all walks of life.

“I bring life experience, compassion, patience, and respect to the bench,” said the married father of five. “Compassion comes from observing and being part of people’s suffering.”