Economy stats

Maine Morning Star -  The sheer size of investment in data centers is drawing concern as it surpasses all other historical booms and crowds out other more job-creating ventures.  Until now, no industry had driven the U.S. economy with such force since the railroad expansion of the late 1800s, when titans battled one another to lay the transcontinental tracks that would connect America from coast to coast.Railroads in the 19th century consumed about $173 billion in today’s dollars and created more  than 2% of the nation’s annual economic output (GDP) over 20 years. 

Today’s data center buildout will dwarf that amount, with $10 trillion in investment, and now have almost twice the economic impact — nearly 4% of GDP. That’s according to a report created by a Columbia Business School professor, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

States are starting to feel left out of the windfall, many having granted tax exemptions before the boom. 

Wallet Hub - Consumers feel over 5% less confident about their financial outlook this month than they did one year ago, according to the latest WalletHub Economic Index. The WalletHub Economic Index is based on a monthly survey that evaluates economic prospects based on 10 components of consumer sentiment. These components revolve around how people feel about their finances, purchasing plans and employment opportunities.

Key Stats

• Decreasing debt-reduction confidence: The share of consumers who expect to have less debt after the next six months decreased by almost 13% in October 2026 compared to last year. At the same time, this is the lowest index value recorded since December 2020.
   
• Credit score insecurity: The share of consumers who expect their credit score to increase in the next six months is over 8% lower in October 2026 compared to last year, registering the lowest level since December 2020.
   
• Large purchases are not a priority: In October 2026, consumers’ likelihood of making a large purchase in the next six months is over 6% lower than it was last year.
   
• Decreasing interest in auto purchases: The share of consumers who expect to buy a car in the next six months is almost 5% lower in October 2026 compared to last year.
   
• Real estate popularity decline: Home-buying interest among consumers decreased by over 4% in October 2026 compared to last year.
  
  The complete WalletHub Economic Index results

Record number of women running for state legislatures

Maine Morning Star -   A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats.   Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle.

Buying elections

TNR Blue Book - According to new calculations from Bloomberg News, Elon Musk is spending $3.6 million a day on politics. And according to Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, Musk has spent $759 million on politics in the last two years, while George Soros has spent $624 million—in his entire life.

Donald Trump

Alternet America - House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 50-page report Monday that included testimony from 11 women who say Trump raped or sexually assaulted them in connection to Jeffrey Epstein….

The report identifies patterns of behavior shared by Trump and Epstein, including promises of university admissions used to control victims and follow-up contact made months after alleged assaults. Five of the women described Trump and Epstein as competitive in their pursuits, with Epstein reportedly punishing victims when Trump initiated sexual contact with them.

… Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking member, accused the DOJ of a cover-up, saying, “These women have spoken to investigators and, in some cases, testified under oath, yet Trump’s Justice Department has shut down investigations, deliberately withheld evidence and, through Todd Blanche, prevented Ghislaine Maxwell from discussing a survivor whose account implicated Trump.”

Time - In a statement, the White House denies the allegations and says that President Trump has been “fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.”

A report released Monday by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee examining President Donald Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein included new details from a woman who alleged Trump raped her in 1993. 

Beatrice Keul, a model and former Miss Switzerland finalist, alleged to Judiciary Committee staff that she was raped by Trump in a Plaza Hotel suite in Manhattan when she was 24. Keul said that while attending the American Dream Pageant, which had a partnership with Trump, she met with Trump at a press luncheon at the event. Trump, according to Keul, promised to arrange her visa in the U.S. and ensure her acceptance into New York University through his friend Paolo Zampolli, a close Trump ally who was, until earlier this month, part of his Administration. At the same event, she also spent at least 10 minutes talking to Epstein, who she said claimed to have organized “many parties with Don.”

Later that day, Keul alleges, a representative of Trump invited her to a hotel suite where Trump “grabbed Keul from behind and forcibly raped her,” causing “bleeding and bruising on multiple parts of her body,” the report says. Following the incident, Keul alleges Trump made her promise she would keep quiet and repeated his promise for visa and college admission. TIME has been unable to independently verify details of Keul’s account.

The potential Senate fight

 The Hill -  Senators are bracing for a potential floor fight over accepting the results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) and former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) — and perhaps other battleground contests — if President Trump urges allies to dispute what he might view as unfair or “rigged” results.

Democratic senators generally view Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) as a straight shooter who would be averse to rejecting an election result in an Alaska Senate race certified by the governor and lieutenant governor.

But they aren’t ruling out the possibility that the president will prod his MAGA allies in the Senate to contest the election results if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses by a narrow margin and blames his loss on voter confusion leading to a significant number of votes for his opponent with a similar name, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

If Alaska’s top officials certify Peltola as the winner, and Trump calls on Senate allies to reject that finding, it puts Thune in a tough spot and potentially sets up a messy floor fight.

“Everybody is gaming everything out, and everybody is preparing for everything,” a Senate Democratic aide said of the preparations for potential Republican objections if Peltola narrowly beats the incumbent Republican senator.

Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University and a Senate rules expert, said Trump’s aggressive threat to challenge a Democratic win in Alaska could lead to a nasty Senate floor fight.

“We can’t rule anything out at this stage just given the president’s single-minded persistence that there’s a lot of electoral fraud conducted by Democrats,” she said.

Polls

Alternet - President Donald Trump has suffered an embarrassing defeat to former President Barack Obama in a new national poll exploring masculinity. The Bulwark and Pablo Torre Finds Out released a poll, which found that 59 percent of American adults view Obama as a stronger role model for men, while only 37 percent said the same of Trump.

Trump was right at the bottom of the list when respondents were asked whether he represented a positive example of masculinity. 55 percent said the president was not a strong male role model, leaving him with a negative 18-point net rating.

However, Obama earned a positive 28-point net rating, which is a huge 46-point gap between the rival presidents, which puts the spotlight on how the public feels about Trump’s desire to portray himself as a political strongman.

The results were not split across party lines, as 23 percent who voted for Trump identified Obama as a stronger male role model.

Trump finished last among the politicians, athletes and entertainment figures who were included in the survey.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth performed slightly better than the president, but only 28 percent of respondents considered the Pentagon chief a strong role model for American men, while 39 percent disagreed.

Trump ignores federal judge's golf course ruling

The Hill -  President Trump is insisting his plan to redevelop East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., and renovate the public golf course there will be carried out as scheduled despite an order from a federal judge halting future work at the site.

In a Truth Social post late Monday, the president said “we are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled” on Nov. 15, saying a judge “does not have the Constitutional Right to ‘ask for or receive notices,’ which are time-consuming, unnecessary, expensive, and unconstitutional.”

The president’s post came hours after U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a preliminary injunction requested by a preservationist group and group of local D.C. golfers asking her to stop the Trump administration from cutting trees at the park as part of the redevelopment project.

“We will immediately appeal this decision,” Trump said. “When completed, it is anticipated that this Course, which will be open to the Public, at a reduced rate for those living in Washington, D.C., will be one of the finest anywhere in the World.”

….The plan would also eliminate walking and biking trails currently at East Potomac Park, and questions remain about the feasibility of the project and affordability for golfers.

Major church settlement

Newsworthy News - The Archdiocese of New York agreed to an $800 million settlement with about 1,300 clergy abuse survivors, a scale that forces long-ignored wrongdoing into the open while avoiding bankruptcy.

• About 1,300 survivors approved an $800 million settlement after seven years of litigation.
• Each claimant is set to receive at least $250,000, with higher awards after review.
• The agreement includes releasing Church documents tied to known offenders.
• Final signatures were pending when announced, with paperwork still being completed.

Attorneys for survivors said the Archdiocese of New York will pay $800 million to resolve claims by roughly 1,300 people who reported sexual abuse by clergy and lay workers. Reporters noted this as one of the largest payouts by a Catholic diocese in the country. The size signals how many people came forward and how serious the claims are. The settlement aims to deliver money faster, without sending the Archdiocese into bankruptcy and a longer court process.

Donald Trump

The Guardian -  Donald Trump’s policies have been a disaster for the nation’s farmers, so much so that a near electoral miracle may soon happen: Kansas, one of the deepest red, most rural states, may elect its first Democratic senator in nearly a century.

After Trump won farm country handily in 2024, many rural voters in Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere have soured on him because the price of diesel fuel, a key input for farming, has soared by nearly 70%, farm bankruptcies have surged and because Trump’s trade wars have significantly reduced agricultural exports.

Rural voters are so upset with Trump that polls show that Republican Senate candidates stand a good chance of losing in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas, even though Trump won those rural states by 13 percentage points or more in 2024. No wonder Trump is hopscotching madly across Kansas, Iowa, and other states in the midterm campaign’s final weeks.

No one is saying that Trump deliberately hurt farmers, but when he plunged the US into the Iran war and his many trade wars, he showed little concern about what those decisions might mean for rural America. It was nearly inevitable that Trump’s moves would batter farmers – by pushing down soybean and other farm exports and by pushing up the price of fuel, fertilizer and farm equipment. Not only that, Trump’s proudest legislative achievement, his “big, beautiful bill”, further hammered farm country with its major cuts to food assistance and its $1tn in Medicaid cuts, which will cause an estimated 1.8 million rural Americans to lose health insurance.

Even the Cato Institute, a Republican-friendly, conservative thinktank, slammed Trump over what he has done to farmers. A Cato commentary stated that while Trump calls this a “golden age” for farmers, the fact is that Trump’s “tariffs are inflicting serious damage” on farmers, increasing their input prices and causing their exports to decline by billions of dollars.

This helps explain why farm bankruptcies have jumped by 85% over two years ago.

Michigan: Trump’s grim closing argument. “I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” Donald Trump said of Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed at a rally yesterday in Port Huron. He said El-Sayed, if elected, “would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to Trump at an El-Sayed rally in Grand Rapids: “Mr. President, instead of slandering Abdul and his family, what are you going to do about the health care crisis in America?”

For his part, El-Sayed offered this: “I get that the president of the United States takes personal offense to my first name, he doesn’t mind as much when it’s a shared name from the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law’s private equity.”

Artificial Intelligence

Newsweek - A University of California, Berkeley professor has stopped grading students' homework for accuracy over concerns that AI is making it harder for educators and teachers to use traditional written assignments to assess students' abilities.

Richard Borcherds, a mathematics professor at UC Berkeley who won the Fields Medal in 1998, now gives students credit for completing their homework on time, rather than assessing whether their answers are correct, according to reports by The Inc.

Borcherds believes there’s "no point" in marking papers that have been generated with AI, telling the California Post: "Grading for correctness just adds a huge incentive for them to use AI for homework instead of doing it themselves, and penalizes students for honesty."

His move comes as universities across the country grapple with the rapid advancement of AI and its impact on education, with some professors turning to oral examinations, in-person assessments and other methods designed to establish what students actually understand and can do.

Artificial Intelligence - Anthropic’s Claude model accessed voter data in the US state of Georgia, the AI company has confirmed, in the latest example of unauthorised behaviour by the technology.

The AI model managed to bypass a paywall to reach data that is publicly available but is typically accessible only after paying a fee. Claude accessed aggregate vote counts as part of a statistics project at Anthropic, which is preparing for a $1.5tn (£1.1tn) flotation.

“Claude did not access the state’s voter registration system, change any voting records, or pull any individual voter records,” Anthropic said.

Anthropic said the AI found a loophole in an old version of the state agency’s website, discovering that it issued a digital entry pass – an “access token” – to visitors. It then requested a token and gained access to the information.

The AI developer said it had since put in place guardrails to prevent similar actions happening again. The incident was first reported by the news website Axios.

Climate change

NY Times - In just a few decades, summers in California will not only be much hotter, but will also stretch for months longer. Floods will become more widespread and extreme. Exposure to wildfire smoke will kill thousands more people every year.

Those are the dire projections of California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment, a report produced by California every few years that analyzes the impacts of changing weather patterns on the nation’s most-populous state.

The future laid out in the report, which was published on Monday, touches on familiar warnings: more wildfires, bigger storms, longer droughts. But it illustrates in unsettling detail just how quickly the climate is being reshaped, and reveals what is likely to be major upheaval to long-established ways of life in California.

According to the report, average temperatures are likely to increase in California by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit by the middle of the century. Current warming in California is unprecedented compared with the past century and estimates for the past millennium, the report shows.

More and more, warm weather will arrive in California earlier in the year and persist later, with summer conditions lasting for 135 days on average by the middle of the century, compared with an average of 90 days between 1981 and 2010, according to the report. That prolonged summer will have widespread impacts, including on fire risk, tourism, agriculture and wildlife.

The warmer conditions will also mean a 40 percent reduction by midcentury in California’s snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which feeds the state’s reservoirs. What once fell as snow will instead fall as rain and immediately become runoff. This will lead to more severe droughts, according to the report.

Many Californians have already lived through the beginnings of these trends. The state this year logged its warmest August on record. And several of the most destructive fires in state history have happened in the last decade, including the wildfires last year in Los Angeles that were among the costliest disasters in U.S. history.

Abby Edwards, senior deputy director for the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, which produced the assessment, said she hoped the report would alert communities and decision makers about where to focus their efforts as the climate continues to change.

Churches

1440 - The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to pay more than $800M to settle decades of sexual abuse claims against clergy and staff, Catholic Church officials announced Friday. The agreement avoids a potential bankruptcy filing by the archdiocese and offers a minimum $250K lump-sum payout to roughly 1,300 plaintiffs (specific cases may seek higher compensation based on the extent of abuse).

Health

New York Times  - An experimental vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna could become the first vaccine of its kind used to treat cancer. Scientists hope it won’t be the last. On Thursday, the drug makers announced that patients with melanoma who received a vaccine tailored to help their immune systems attack their tumors were 42 percent less likely to experience a recurrence of the cancer within two years than those who did not receive the vaccine. The companies have yet to show the treatment can prolong melanoma patients’ overall survival.

Maine Morning Star - The percentage of working-age adults without health insurance has increased in the past two years, largely because many people can no longer afford Obamacare coverage after Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire at the end of last year.

The uninsured rate for adults ages 19-64 rose to 11.2% this year, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to a new analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy and philanthropic nonprofit.

Nearly half of the 7,362 working-age adults who participated in the group’s biennial health insurance survey said they were uninsured, underinsured, or experienced a gap in coverage this year. Half said they delayed or avoided getting medical care because of the cost, compared with 46% in 2022. 

The Guardian -  US vaccine recommendations are in limbo, access to vaccines is suffering, and some of the uncertainty may continue for years following major blows to vaccination by the Trump administration, experts say.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has made sweeping changes to vaccination policy, cutting childhood immunization recommendations by a third and replacing experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with his own handpicked allies.

A judge’s order halted these changes because they were not done correctly, but Kennedy has not nominated any new ACIP members – which means there are no new vaccination recommendations coming from the committee, even as new vaccines are approved.

Israel

MS NOW -   He serves a mostly ceremonial role. But in a matter of days, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will wield significant power as he decides which political party will have the first chance to build a government — a move that could determine the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In an exclusive interview with MS NOW, Herzog said he would not bow to pressure from President Donald Trump to benefit his friend Netanyahu, whom Trump endorsed last week.

“I don’t think the president of the United States or anybody else can intervene in my discretion — the discretion has to be based on certain facts, and we will see what the facts are,” said Herzog. “There will be a lot of pressure, though, regardless.”

Herzog said he has “huge respect” for Trump and welcomes any dialogue, but the decision will be his, and his alone.

Rubio Urges Cubans to Work With CIA

Prime Chronicle - Secretary of State Marco Rubio used his verified X account to call on Cubans to “seize this opportunity” by forming a discreet partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency to create change in Cuba. The post pointed to failed promises, corruption, and privileges for a few as drivers of discontent. The message did not cite a program or channel. It also did not explain what actions were sought or how participants would be protected.

Donald Trump

Newsweek- President Donald Trump has said he does not "give a damn" about potential criticism of his remarks boasting that the United States is making a "fortune" from high oil prices, as American motorists continue to face elevated gasoline costs.

Speaking at a rally in Georgia on Saturday, October 24, Trump said advisers had warned him against highlighting the financial gains associated with rising oil prices, suggesting the comments would invite criticism over the cost of fuel for ordinary Americans.

In footage of the rally shared online, Trump claimed the US oil and gas industry was making billions of dollars amid the conflict in the Middle East, presenting higher oil prices as a source of financial gains for the country.

Alternet - President Donald Trump is flooding the Supreme Court with a baker's dozen cases in an unprecedented legal blitz, at least according to a recent report. "The Supreme Court is already confronting President Trump’s agenda this term, but a lot more is still coming," reported The Hill's Zach Schonfeld on Sunday. "The administration is petitioning the justices to take up 13 additional cases, The Hill’s analysis of the court’s docket shows."

He added, "Unlike lower courts, the justices choose which cases they hear. They’re still taking up cases for this term, meaning the battles could be resolved as soon as next year."

Schonfeld continued, "From transgender troops to an asylum ban, from foreign student deportations to horseracing, here’s where the Supreme Court could soon get involved." 

Newsworthy News - CNN anchor Anderson Cooper ran a segment showing President Trump’s repeated public comments about men’s bodies after Trump again praised Ohio official Jon Husted’s physique. The segment included Trump quotes about looking at a man’s buttocks, shoulders, feet, and overall build. Cooper introduced a supercut that stacked these remarks side by side. The clips focused on what Trump said, not on audience reaction. The format made the pattern quick to spot for viewers at home.

My university is proposing to offer shorter degrees. Others should follow suit.

Trump regime

The Guardian  - The number of people who receive food stamps has dropped from 41.6 million in July 2025, before the One Big Beautiful Act took effect, to 36.5 million in June 2026, a 13% decrease, according to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the program. While Donald Trump and other Republicans have said the changes incentivize people to find jobs, elected officials, non-profit leaders and people with food insecurity say the changes simply make it harder for Americans to feed their families. 

Trump Has Found a New Part of the Constitution to Abuse

New Republic -  It’s been a big year for the supremacy clause. The important but rarely newsworthy constitutional provision has found itself at the center of multiple major legal battles. In recent months, the Trump administration has leaned heavily on the clause to make extraordinary—and often dubious—claims about its own powers.

 The clause declares that the Constitution, as well as the federal laws “made in pursuance thereof” and treaties signed under it, “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” It further states that “judges in every state shall be bound thereby.” In other words, the supremacy clause does what its name suggests: It establishes that the Constitution is supreme over state legislatures and state courts, as is Congress when acting within its own spheres of authority.

 The Trump administration has taken a much more aggressive view of the clause, wielding it as a tool to bludgeon Democratic-led state governments into compliance with its own policy agenda or, more accurately, self-serving desires. Naturally, this is not how the Constitution is meant to operate. There are also signs that the administration’s overreach could backfire.

 The clause comes up most often in cases involving federal preemption. In short, when Congress enacts a constitutionally valid law, it narrows the states’ ability to regulate the same thing. A good example is environmental protection. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act limit states’ abilities to regulate some environmental issues while explicitly carving out other cases on which states can act. The Supreme Court has already heard a preemption case about climate litigation this term.

Meanwhile. . . .

Flyover - On this day in 1764, future President John Adams married Abigail Smith. This devoted couple's extensive correspondence throughout their marriage has provided both entertainment and insights into early American life for generations of history enthusiasts. You can read several of the more than 1,100 letters exchanged between them here.

The Congressional Insider - A new analysis projects an 8.2% drop in veteran homelessness in 2026, the steepest decline in a decade   

Health

 Two Maine providers have been accused of Medicaid violations by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Plus: The state is planning a public hearing over if Prime Healthcare Foundation is meeting staffing and care standards in operating Central Maine Healthcare.

11 secret rooms inside the White House you'll never get to tour

India

Time  - The world’s largest democracy, India, is in turmoil. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government raised unfounded speculation about “illegal” Bangladeshi voters, an overhaul of India’s electoral registration system stripped 130 million names from the voter rolls. Youth-led protests broke out across the country in response, and in the capital of Delhi, swarms of paramilitary personnel were deployed, thousands of protesters were detained, and internet access was restricted.

Black net worth tumbles

MS NOW - A new report by the Federal Reserve Board says that from 2022 to 2025, the median net worth in the United States rose for families of all racial and ethnic groups — except Black people, whose median net worth fell a stunning 25%. During 2019-2022, by contrast, the median net worth for Black families increased by 60%. The median wealth of white families last year was nine times that of Black families. That is the largest gap since 2016.

The median wealth of white families last year was nine times that of Black families. That is the largest gap since 2016.

….Factors in the African American economy’s turnaround are complex and varied. At the macro-level, Trump has convinced much of America, including corporations and colleges, that promoting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts to redress a long legacy of racism is taboo, if not illegal.

Black workers saw his harsh, overzealous firing of federal employees as a community affront because the government, especially in the Post Office decades ago, was a place where Black people could more reliably get jobs, even if at the lower levels, when other employers didn’t hire them.

Donald Trump

Alternet - On Friday, while speaking at a rally in Fort Myers, Florida, President Donald Trump threatened to launch a new war "on our way back from Iran." In Trump's estimation, what the voters want right now is another war -- this time with Cuba. What's more, he appeared to momentarily struggle to remember the name of the government he's currently fighting.

"We have the greatest military equipment in the world. You saw that in Venezuela and you see now in...the national," Trump paused for a moment, then seemed to tell himself to "think of it," before exclaiming, "The Islamic Republic of Iran will tell you that we have the best equipment."

A comment from someone in the audience sent him on a new topic. "He wants to know what about Cuba," said Trump. "Give me a break. Don't worry -- we'll take Cuba on our way back from Iran," he said, making a serpentine motion with his hand. After repeating the motion, he assured the crowd, "We'll do a little stopover. Actually, what we're gonna do with Cuba is we're going to come back from Iran, those beautiful ships will pass Cuba, we'll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast, they'll raise up their hands, and then we're gonna send [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio in to finish up the thing."

Trump regime

POGO -  Reporting from Government Executive revealed an oversight crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General. Some employees allege that staff cuts, an exodus of institutional knowledge, and a chilling environment perpetuated by Inspector General (IG) Cheryl Mason have “watered down” the work of the watchdog office. Mason was a political appointee before becoming an IG, part of an ongoing trend in which this administration replaces independent IGs with people more politically aligned.

Trump's concentration camp

New Republic - On the evening of March 15, 2025, while government lawyers haggled in a D.C. courtroom, three airplanes delivered 238 chained prisoners to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. Better known as CECOT, the center is little more than a twenty-first-century concentration camp, where conditions are tantamount to “torture,” in the words of a Salvadoran jurist. According to Kilmar Ábrego García, a U.S. resident who was sent there for three months in early 2025 as the result of an “administrative error,” inmates are subjected to “severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture.”

A grotesque abuse of human rights, the administration’s illegal deportations to CECOT caused a furor across the country. Despite the outrage, however, most elected officials remained silent. Republican lawmakers, perhaps unsurprisingly, either demurred or supported the president. Then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited the facility, posing in front of a cage brimming with prisoners while sporting a $50,000 watch.

More surprisingly, Democratic congressmen and senators largely stayed mum in the face of administrative evil. “Democrats cannot say a word, apparently,” ex-Republican Bill Kristol seethed on March 31, “without going through some filter of what pollsters have been telling you.” Of the 47 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, only a handful criticized the deportations (and in April, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen visited Ábrego García in El Salvador). In May, a group of centrist senators introduced a milquetoast fact-finding bill—while deportees languished in the prison.

Their fecklessness was, unfortunately, not an anomaly. Despite Democrats’ eagerness to point out the economic missteps of Trump’s second term, the party’s leaders and most prominent figures rarely denounce its worst human rights violations (which have primarily targeted immigrants and trans people, two groups that most Democratic politicians avoid talking about like the plague).

Heat killed 50,000 Europeans

The Guardian - Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths. Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

The “staggering” death toll, modelled using historical relationships between heat and health in 854 cities, was the worst on record, the study found. Hot weather marked by relentless heatwaves killed nearly twice as many people as it did in each of the two next most dangerous years.

Donald Trump

Independent - President Trump has claimed that the CEO of Google talked him out of renaming the Atlantic Ocean.  Trump, who in his second term has shown a penchant for renaming large bodies of water, made the claim at a rally in South Carolina as he tried to drum up support for Senator Darline Graham ahead of the midterm elections.

“We have a lake, we have a gulf. Now we need a river, and we need an ocean,” he said, referring to executive orders to rename Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico to Lake America and the Gulf of America, respectively.

Trump went on to say that he would consider only two oceans for bearing either his name or America’s. 

Independent -  President Donald Trump on Friday lost his temper with yet another journalist as he said he did not care about Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s history of being raped by her late stepfather and continued to voice support for a widely condemned ad targeting Acton — by using a clip of her estranged mother calling her a “liar.”

 Speaking as he departed the White House for a rally in Florida and a weekend at his Palm Beach home, Trump upbraided a female reporter for NBC News who pressed him about his continued support for GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s decision to run the television spot, which shows Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of being “a liar” and warning the people of Ohio not to vote for her.

“You're a horrible little reporter, aren't you,” Trump said after the journalist informed him of her employer’s identity.

Acton, 60, has said she was raped by her stepfather when she was 12 years old and has not spoken to Arthur since 1978 after the latter refused to believe her and instead sided with her husband, whom she stayed with, even after he was charged, until his death.

NBC News - When voters headed to the polls nearly two years ago, Donald Trump promised them cheaper groceries, gas below $2 a gallon and a wave of new manufacturing jobs. They elected him president — and got the opposite. Instead, prices have kept rising and wages have struggled to keep pace with inflation. While the broader economy has grown at a healthy rate, the gains have disproportionately flowed to the wealthiest households.

….Take cheaper groceries. Prices are up 3.5% from January 2025, when Trump came into office, in part because of tariffs and higher fuel costs following the Iran war.  Speaking of fuel, Trump promised gas for $2 a gallon. But the national average of regular gas is $4.27, according to AAA — the first time gas has ever averaged more than $4 a gallon in October.

Taxes, however, are lower on average, as Trump promised. And while tax law partially achieves his pledge to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, the reality is a little more complicated.

Alternet -  In the wake of President Donald Trump’s rallies on Wednesday, a widely cited psychologist and body language expert warned of a “shocking new symptom” of the commander-in-chief’s increasingly apparent “neurological decline.” According to Dr. John Garrison, Trump displayed a “wide variety of neurological symptoms” suggesting a severe “dysfunction,” and it’s only going to get worse.

“I've been saying for a while now the signs and symptoms of the neurological dysfunction are going to become more obvious,” says Garrison, asserting, “It is more obvious now.”

He plays a clip in which Trump makes an abrupt "eeerp" noise in the middle of speaking. According to Garrison, “There's several possibilities of what this could be. This could be something like I talked about a couple of months ago, like a focal aware seizure or something similar. But one thing we know for sure is that we're seeing motor dysfunction. We're also seeing vocal dysfunction.” Whatever the cause, warns Garrison, it is “a startling and absolutely shocking new symptom.” 

New Republic -  “If you don’t want Communists controlling the Senate, which is between JIIIAAAAT,” Trump slurred. “How about the gentleman from a place called Michigan, he’s in a jihadist. He’s a jihadist!”

Trump was referring to Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim and a Democrat—not a Communist or jihadist.

Later, in a desperate attempt to appeal to normal people, Trump once again pretended he could relate to struggles with landscaping equipment, with some … creative insertions.

“You got to be very smart to turn on a lawnmower. I don’t want you to have to think too much. I’d like you to POWW or BIIING,” Trump said.  

Health

Washington Post - A groundbreaking vaccine reduced the risk of death or recurrence of melanoma by almost half, an encouraging signal for a treatment seeking federal approval that has boosted the fortunes of drugmakers Moderna and Merck and could usher in a new wave of cancer treatments.

The drug, intismeran autogene, which uses messenger RNA (mRNA) to deliver a vaccine tailored to the genetic profile of a patient’s cancer tumor, reduced the risk of recurrence or death from melanoma by 42 percent compared to a standard treatment in a Phase 3 clinical trial, Moderna and Merck announced Thursday.

“It sounds incredibly positive,” Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute, a nonprofit for cancer therapeutic research and development, said of the results. “This looks like yet more evidence of a well-conducted, meaningful study.”