Hi from CNN, this is Madeleine Thompson with five things you need to know for Thursday, October 24th. Former President Donald Trump said in a radio interview today that if reelected, he would fire Special Counsel Jack Smith, quote, within two seconds. Smith was appointed to oversee two investigations into Trump, one over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and another over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump still faces charges in the latter, but the classified documents case was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge, though Smith is appealing. And in response, Vice President Kamala Harris is leaning into her description of Trump as a fascist. Here she is speaking to reporters today.

Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list or what I will be doing, which is understanding the need to work on lifting up the American people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that his country is, quote, not interested in escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Russia is not interested in an exacerbation of this conflict because strategically we are not winning anything. Quite the contrary. We would only stand to see additional problems crop up.

Putin has long been positioning Russia as a possible neutral mediator in the Middle East, capable of working with both Israel and its regional neighbors. But observers say Putin and his officials are using the conflict to press his argument for a new world order. Without the U.S. at the helm, especially as anger grows across the global South over U.S. support for Israel amid a rising death toll in Gaza.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon announced today that he recommends re sentencing for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents more than three decades ago.

We are going to recommend to the court that the life without the possibility of parole be removed and that they will be sentenced for murder, which because there are two murders involved, that will be 50 years to life. However, because of their age under the law, since they were under 26 years of age at the time that this crimes occurred, they will be eligible for parole immediately.

'A judge will ultimately decide on the brothers case after their attorneys petitioned the court last year to reconsider the conviction and sentence in light of new evidence. At their high profile trials decades ago -- one of the first cases to be televised -- the brothers didn't deny killing their parents, but argued they should not be convicted because they acted in self-defense after enduring a lifetime of abuse by their father. The jurors deadlocked on the charges after the first trial, and in a second trial much of the defense's evidence about sexual abuse was excluded. The brothers were found guilty in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison.

President Joe Biden will issue an apology to the Native American community for the federal government's role in abusive American Indian boarding schools. The White House said the announcement is expected tomorrow during Biden's trip to Gila River Indian Reservation near Pheonix. A 2021 report by the Department of the Interior found that at least 18,000 children were taken from their families between 18, 19 and 1969 and forced to attend more than 400 federal boarding schools aimed at assimilation. The governor of the Gila River Indian community told CNN the acknowledgment will be, quote, so significant to our boarding school survivors and the families. Coming up, Caspian is saying, sea you later.

'So when we talk about global warming's effects on bodies of water, it's usually increasing sea levels or flooding. But the opposite is happening to the Caspian Sea. It's the world's largest lake and roughly the size of the state of Montana. This crucial sea helps regulate the region's arid climate, providing rainfall and moisture to Central Asia. But some experts fear it's reaching the point of no return. Caspian Sea water levels have been falling since the mid-nineties, but the shrinkage has sped up in recent years due to damming over extraction and pollution as well as climate change. One Earth Systems modeler at the University of Bremen in Germany found that levels have dropped by five feet since 2005, and his research predicts declines of up to 59ft by the end of this century. That's a wrap. We'll be back tomorrow at 6 a.m. Eastern.