NEW YORK (AP) — For little ghosts, witches, KPop Demon Hunters and superheroes, Halloween is one of the most exciting nights of the year. But it's also one of the busiest for parents as they try to keep track of their trick-or-treaters, give out candy and watch over their homes.
Fortunately, there are some tech tricks out there that can help families stay safe this Halloween, and have a little more fun too.
If your children are outfitted with Apple or Google-branded smart phones or watches or tracking tags, you can use the Find My or Family Link apps to keep tabs on them as they embark on their candy journeys. But don't think of these apps as basic. Because branded peripherals — like Apple Air Tags or Pixel smartwatches — are built to be used with Apple and Google platforms, their tracking platforms can be more reliable than some third-party services.
One trick I discovered last Halloween is that I can set up a geofence with Find My. This gave my kids a little more freedom to navigate a set trick-or-treating area while I struggled to keep up with them. If anyone broke from the pack and left the designated area, I would get a notification. Here's how to set it up:
Go to the Find My app on your iPhone. Scroll and tap on the name of the person or device you want to be notified about. Below notifications, tap “Add,” then “Notify me.” Continue through the menu options until you get to a location option. Choose “New Location” and you will be given the option to set a location radius. Then you will be asked how often you wish to be notified if the tracked individual leaves the area.
Next is a critical step if you wish to set a recurring notification. Unless it's an air tag, your child must give a one-time authorization to the request. They will receive an alert asking for approval when they arrive at or leave the location you chose for the first time.
Google users have a similar geofencing option. First, you need to set up a new Family Location in the Family Link app. Then select your child in the main menu of the app and tap Family Locations, add the place you just created and select how often you'd like to be notified when they enter or exit the area.
If you have a smart doorbell installed on your front door, you can have a little extra fun with visiting trick-or-treaters by adding spooky messages and specialized chimes.
For Ring doorbell users, head to your app and go to Menu-Devices. Select your doorbell. Then tap Smart Responses-Quick Replies-Quick Reply Message. You may need to toggle on Quick Replies if you hadn't before, but you will see a list of Halloween-themed replies. Ours is set to “I'll be right there to eat... I mean greet you!”
For those with Eufy Doorbells, navigate to your app and select your doorbell. A Voice Response list should include selectable Halloween-themed effects and chimes. You can also take advantage of a message recording function in more recent doorbell models to create your own, hopefully scary, response.
Nest and Google home users should be able to use their app to select a Halloween setting under Doorbell Themes (Google was updating Nest in October so your menu may be different from mine).
One unrelated tip for smart doorbell users, you may want to lower your motion sensitivity just for Halloween. If your device isn't hardwired, the extra motion from trick-or-treaters could drain your doorbell's batteries quickly (as I discovered). You can also avoid a flood of notifications if you do so.
Smart phones have flashlights, sure, but they're not the brightest nor are they the best option if you're carrying jackets, candy baskets, water bottles or costume parts. Instead, give yourself or your children more portable lumens so they can see (and be seen) easily in the dark.
There are plenty of options for all budget ranges, but I'm partial to lights that you can clip onto jackets or costumes to keep your hands free.
Halloween decorations are on display at a Sam's Club, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, in Bentonville, Ark. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump says he's strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance — this time over the Iran war.
While Trump's talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting that the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
Asked whether he would reconsider U.S. membership in the alliance after the conflict in the Middle East ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration."
NATO didn't provide immediate comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his government was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said Wednesday.
The U.K. is working on plans that could help assuage Trump, and Starmer said military planners will work on a postwar security plan for the Strait.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait — after the fighting ends.
Iulia-Sabina Joja, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, alluded to Trump's exhortation on Tuesday for allies to “go get your own oil” — in a social media post insisting it wasn't America's job to secure the Strait.
“The Europeans are not keen to go into an active warfare situation, to so-called ‘get’ their energy out of the Strait,” said Joba, a former deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia.
Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war.
As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz. He has called NATO allies “cowards."
Even since his first term, Trump has urged the allies to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the U.S. has done more for them than the other way around.
A U.S. pullout would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to reexamine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose.”
Rubio raised questions with interviewer Sean Hannity about whether NATO has “become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe — but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and they’re going to deny us overflight.”
The criticism from Rubio could raise concerns in the alliance about whether the U.S. under Trump may no longer consider NATO as worth the time, money and personnel that Washington has invested in it.
The very mention of a pullout could weaken the alliance’s deterrence, particularly with Russia: It relies on ensuring that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes NATO will retaliate if he decides to one day expand Moscow's war in Ukraine.
NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.
As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fueling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.
The alliance hasn't intervened or signaled any plan to. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has voiced support for Trump and Washington's role in the alliance — has been focusing mostly on the Russia-Ukraine war since Ukraine borders four NATO countries.
NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the U.K. can't trigger it alone.
The U.S. can’t just simply walk away all that easy.
A Defense Act passed under U.S. President Joe Biden in 2024 prevents an American president from withdrawing from NATO without support of two-thirds of the Senate or under another act by Congress. It is unclear whether the Trump administration, which during his first term claimed broader authority on the matter, would challenge that law.
European leaders have called for the Middle East conflict to stop and want the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington and Israel see as a threat.
The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump's war against Iran has started to turn into action.
Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the war.
Early last month, France agreed to let the U.S. Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.
The government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, long seen as one of the European Union leaders with the best personal ties with Trump, denied permission for U.S. bombers to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily for one mission related to the Middle East.
Franco Pavoncello, a professor of political science at Rome’s John Cabot University, said that decision might cost Meloni a lot of her political capital in Washington.
But he said: “The Italian government could not be seen by the European allies as too submissive to American interests, as it would have very negative repercussions both at home and in the EU.”
U.S. relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump's call for Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark — to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.
Jamey Keaten reported from Geneva. Lorne Cook in Brussels, Giada Zampano in Rome, Sam McNeil in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Matthew Lee in Washington, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
