Meanwhile. . .

NBC News - Pope Leo XIV announced that he will undergo surgery to remove an early-stage nodule on his lung….. He said that surgery had already been scheduled “for the coming days,” and thanked onlookers for their support.

Los Angeles officials again labeled a Fairfax property an imminent health and safety hazard and hauled away more than seven tons of waste, yet the trash keeps coming back. Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety officials determined the Fairfax District property posed an imminent public safety and health hazard. That finding gave the city legal grounds to act....

Election problems

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just announced that our military’s cyber forces – the U.S. Cyber Command – will work with the Department of Homeland Security to defend our elections from any foreign interference. But Trump has gutted critical election security infrastructure since he entered the White House – including the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that was designed to ensure our elections are free, fair, and safe.

As one expert put it:

“If the administration was serious about assisting state and local election officials, they shouldn’t have dismantled all of the federal government’s election cybersecurity capacity and fired all their experts in early 2025.” - Former DOJ Attorney David Becker

This is the same administration that has pushed countless conspiracy theories about our election system – that Trump won the 2020 election, that our elections are "rigged" against him and MAGA Republicans, and that there's widespread voter fraud.

So with the midterms approaching, voters have every right to ask what this announcement is really about – and whether putting a close Trump ally like Pete Hegseth in charge of "watching" our elections will protect them or put them at risk.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just announced that our military’s cyber forces – the U.S. Cyber Command – will work with the Department of Homeland Security to defend our elections from any foreign interference.

….This is the same administration that has pushed countless conspiracy theories about our election system – that Trump won the 2020 election, that our elections are "rigged" against him and MAGA Republicans, and that there's widespread voter fraud.

So with the midterms approaching, voters have every right to ask what this announcement is really about – and whether putting a close Trump ally like Pete Hegseth in charge of "watching" our elections will protect them or put them at risk.

The problem Democrats aren't dealing with

Washington Post - With everything going their way in the final weeks before an election in which Democrats will almost certainly win control of the House and possibly the Senate, many are beginning to raise the question: What then?

….In past midterm elections, the party out of power has felt the need to brand itself with a concrete set of policy proposals. In 1994, when Republicans regained control of the House for the first time in four decades, they touted a 10-point plan they dubbed their “Contract with America.” It included poll-tested measures such as bills requiring members of Congress to live under laws it applied to the rest of America, adding a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and imposing congressional term limits.

When Democrats took that majority back in 2006, their rallying cry was “Six for 06.″ Their package included raising the minimum wage and allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices.

Though these promises helped shape a governing blueprint for the new House majorities, many died in the Senate.

This year, President Donald Trump’s unpopularity alone may be enough to carry the day for Democrats. “Democrats essentially win this election by making it all about Trump,” said Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow and specialist in Congress at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Donald Trump

Police and venue security escorted disruptive individuals to restore order.

The Guardian - Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel.  The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,” Trump said.

Trump made the comments as Russia launched deadly strikes on civilians in Ukraine, which Zelenskyy said were a “thanks” to Trump for the diesel deal. The Ukrainian president has expressed outrage at the agreement announced by Trump on Friday, which the US president said was needed to reduce diesel prices, and comes ahead of November’s midterm elections in which fuel costs are a key voter issue.

Save Juneteenth

CBCPAC - Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Opal Lee, “the grandmother of Juneteenth,” in 2024. Donald Trump wanted to cancel Juneteenth celebrations forever. He’s trying to erase Black history. Opal Lee fought for decades to have Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday — and this week, we celebrated her 100th birthday. ….That's why we've created a Black History Preservation Panel… Right now, Republicans across the country are trying to ban Black history books from libraries and schools, and totally erase Black history from public school curriculum. 

Bribes or payments?

The Hill -   President Trump is doing everything he can to win favor with a dissatisfied electorate before the midterms — including promising money. Speaking in San Antonio on Wednesday evening, Trump repeated his pledge to send $5,000 to every adult American if the GOP retains its narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.

Skeptics roll their eyes at the proposal, noting that previous Trump promises about checks purportedly garnered from tariff revenue and Department of Government Efficiency savings failed to materialize.

Trump’s promise would also become moot if Democrats merely win a majority in the House. The consensus among political insiders in both parties is that they are highly likely to do so.

Nevertheless, voters can “count on it” that the checks would arrive if the GOP pulled off a double-victory, Trump promised the crowd in San Antonio.

Democrats don’t see the Trump tactic as either serious or effective.

“In some places it might matter, but in most places it won’t,” Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told this column. “In places where Republicans should do well, they’re being clobbered right now. It would take a lot of checks for people to change their minds.”

…A plan is already in motion sending $90 payments to more than 20 million people enrolled in Medicare Part B. In a separate move, almost 1 million people are receiving $500 checks, purportedly because they were overcharged under the terms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

….Announcing the $90 Medicare-related payments in a social media post late last week, Trump wrote that the money was intended “to help pay for [recipients’] Medicare Part B premiums, which we have already reduced by significant amounts.”

He added that the money would come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which he derided as “a pointless ‘Slush Fund.’”

A separate fact sheet from the White House said the fund “has been given $2 billion by Congress for the purposes of making improvements to the Medicare fee-for-service program, but has never before been utilized.”

….The White House has pushed back against questions about the ethics of these actions, or whether they amount to electioneering….Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer during former President George W. Bush’s administration, asserted that the taxpayer-funded Trump-centric TV ads “definitely crossed the line. Those were illegal. Those were propaganda.”

But Painter also characterized the pledge of the $5,000 checks in the event of a GOP midterm victory as “a stupid promise” rather than an illegal one — even as he doubted that the president could get such a windfall authorized by Congress.

And he seemed even more relaxed about the Medicare and ACA-related payments.

 

Things we get wrong about the "united states"

We’ve all picked up "facts" about the fifty states somewhere along the way, but not all of them hold up. Some are half-truths passed around for generations, others are just plain wrong. So, in an attempt to set the record straight once and for all, we’ve gathered some fun truths that clear up the biggest mix-ups about ourstates

Putin Cons Trump Into Making Massive Oil Deal

New Republic - President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. would lift sanctions on the sale of Russian diesel—a move that will help Russian President Vladimir Putin far more than it’ll help Americans.The Treasury Department announced that the U.S. would waive sanctions on Russian diesel sold to the global market until April 2027. In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Russia would “immediately” supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to the American and global marketplace. Russia agreed to supply another 500,000 tons in November and then “1,000,000 tons thereafter,” Trump added.

Ken Paxton

New Republic - Senate candidate Ken Paxton took nearly 1,000 business trips during his tenure as Texas Attorney General, costing taxpayers millions of dollars along the way. Only one in six of them actually had to do with work.

A new report from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune shows that Paxton has taken almost 1,000 trips out of state since 2015, accompanied by Texas police each time at a cost of $3.3 million to his constituents. His security detail alone cost $24,000 a month, while his predecessor Greg Abbott’s cost $7,400 a month. Of those 1,000 trips, research only linked 138 of them to actual business. In fact, Paxton didn’t even record them as such.

Indigenous People's Day

Newsworthy News -  Dozens of colleges are using government-backed grants to host Indigenous Peoples’ Day events on October 12, the same date as Columbus Day, a holiday presidents have called an answer to one of the worst acts of anti-Italian violence in American history.

Columbus Day began in 1892 after the lynching of 11 Italian Americans in New Orleans. White House proclamations under multiple presidents link the holiday to Italian American heritage and past discrimination.

Schools like Boston University and Brown University have renamed or replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

College supporters say the switch honors Native American history rather than targeting Italian Americans. Surveys show most college students back the change, even as some Italian American groups push back.

Zelenskyy furious as Trump announces deal to buy Russian diesel

 The Guardian -  Donald Trump is on a fresh collision course with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies after his stunning agreement to buy Russian diesel upended years of US and western pressure on the Kremlin to end its war against Ukraine.

Zelenskyy reacted furiously to Trump’s announcement of the deal with Vladimir Putin on Friday, calling it “absolutely terrible” and “not fair and not honest”.

The Ukrainian president said “back room deals” with the Russian leader would give Putin more chances on the battlefield. On Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian attack had killed 12 people in the south-east, including three children, and Moscow claimed its troops were advancing in the east.

Supreme Court

POGO -A new term for the Supreme Court started on Monday. On the docket for this term are blockbuster issues: ICE’s mandatory detention policy; the government’s ability to deport people to countries they are not from; and voting rights. It is also possible the court will address prediction market regulations.

Donald Trump

The Hill - President Trump argued Friday that he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize over this year’s Nobel laureate, former International Criminal Court (ICC) judge Navi Pillay. The president, who has long coveted the honor, was gifted the award by last year’s recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

In a late evening Truth Social post after his rally in Syracuse, N.Y., Trump repeated his exaggerated claim that he has “settled eight Wars,” and said he was “about to settle, or win, two more” in Iran and the war between Russia and Ukraine. “The United States of America, represented by me, as your President, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t,” he wrote.

Storms

Newsworthy News - Floodwaters have now touched more than 4 million people across 50 Thai provinces, making this the country’s worst disaster in years.

• Bangkok was declared a disaster zone as rain overwhelmed the city’s drainage system in late September.
• Death tolls climbed through early October, reaching 44 by October 8 as more rain kept falling.
• Officials blame a strengthening low-pressure system combined with the southwest monsoon for the extreme rainfall.

Public military execution sparks bipartisan backlash

Roll Call -  Lawmakers in both parties are blasting the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution of the man convicted of carrying out the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood.

“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, posted on social media Friday morning. 

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, similarly said in a statement that the planned livestream is “disturbing and makes a mockery of our legal system.”

“We are a democratic country and should take the rule of law seriously, not turn it into a spectacle,” Smith said.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that President Donald Trump had approved the execution by firing squad of former Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to death for the shooting that killed 13 people and injured 32 others.

Suppression of pro-Palestine speech

Portside- Columbia, alongside other U.S. universities, systematically suppressed pro-Palestinian speech, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International USA claim in a Sept. 23 report.  The report alleges that Columbia suspended student groups for peaceful protest in an "unlawful" manner that exposed student activists to "excessive force" by calling law enforcement to campus, and was disproportionately harsh in its issuance of suspensions and expulsions against activists. 

The analysis used the university's disciplinary responses, concessions made in negotiations with the federal government, and testimony from student protesters and other university affiliates to substantiate its findings. 

The 322-page document comes after a two-year investigation that covered 80 universities across the country. Columbia is featured as one of the report's six university case studies. 

Health

What healthcare is really costing us

Axios - More than a quarter of Americans say they or their families were saddled with medical debt in 2025, including many with health insurance, according to a new Urban Institute study. The findings are an indicator of just how unaffordable care has become — and how having insurance is no longer a buffer against expensive medical bills.

Medical debt plagues higher proportions of the uninsured. But just 7.9% of Americans went without coverage last year.

• A growing number of Americans with workplace coverage or individual policies are finding they can't afford deductibles, copays or other out-of-network costs.

Medical debt has taken center stage in what's turned into a surprisingly competitive Senate race right in the heart of Trump country.

• Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding medical bills throughout his career as an obstetrician-gynecologist, the New York Times reported last month….

By the numbers: 26.6% of Americans reported they or their family members owed medical debt as of December, the Urban Institute found in a survey of more than 10,000 adults.

• Medical debt was most common among adults 45 to 54, those who are Black, Hispanic, or in racial groups other than white or Asian, and those with incomes 100%–200% of the federal poverty level.
• 17.6% of seniors eligible for Medicare coverage reported that they or a family member owed medical debt.
• More than half of adults with medical debt reported owing $1,000 or more, and 15.5% owed $5,000 or more.
• More than 4 in 10 adults with disabilities had medical debt, as did 42% of those who reported being in fair or poor health….

Affordability challenges are poised to get worse, not better.

• Republicans' cuts to federal Medicaid spending and the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax subsidies are expected to increase the uninsured rate. Other individual market enrollees will face higher premium costs.
• Meanwhile, employers are staring down yet another year of high medical cost growth, much of which will likely get passed on to workers via higher premium or out-of-pocket obligations.
• Concern over medical debt is going viral, with some social media influencers urging their followers to refuse to pay large bills, or to ask for itemized versions and whether they qualify for financial assistance, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Christa Pike

People - Christa Pike is recovering physically after surviving a botched execution in Tennessee, but her attorneys fear she may have suffered permanent cognitive damage. Pike, 50, is now walking with assistance around her hospital room, eating a regular diet and breathing with clear lungs, according to a Thursday, Oct. 8 statement from her attorneys shared with PEOPLE. However, she continues to struggle with memory and concentration, and her attorneys said doctors have warned that it could take months to determine whether she sustained lasting injuries.

“We’re not sure exactly of the long-term effects, but she’s clearly cognitively not quite back to normal and may have a long ways to go,” her attorney Stephen Ferrell told ABC News.

Ferrell said Pike has difficulty maintaining her train of thought during conversations.

Housing Choices for Older Adults: Matching Lifestyle, Health and Finances

Meanwhile. . .

$1.993 trillion - The U.S. budget deficit in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s 12% above the 2025 level in nominal dollars, reaching the highest level since 2021.

The Guardian - The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be livestreamed next month, in a radical departure from the previous norm. Hegseth said: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” Hasan opened fire at a medical processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, on 5 November 2009, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013 and he has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas ever since. The last known case of a military firing squad in the US was in November 1945.

Washington Post - The Defense Department's announcement that it would live-stream the scheduled execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan reverses decades of established practice surrounding the death penalty.

If carried out, it would be the first known time that U.S. authorities have broadcast live video of an execution to the public. It would also be the first public execution in the U.S. in decades, the first U.S. military execution since 1961, and the first military death by firing squad since World War II according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Housing

Katty Kay, BBC - The share of Americans in multigenerational households has more than doubled in the past few decades, according to Pew Research. And multigenerational home purchases hit an all-time high in 2024.

The writer and professor Arthur Brooks — who I interviewed for this newsletter a few months ago — recently spoke about his family's decision to move three generations of relatives into two houses that sit on the same street.

And recently, The New Yorker reported on the growing share of adult siblings who are buying houses together. In 2023, just 4% of Gen Z Americans who owned homes had bought that house with their siblings. One year later, that figure tripled to 12% — and by 2025, it jumped to 22%.

Middle East

The Guardian - Donald Trump has promised not to attack Iran before November’s US midterm elections, outlining a pause on the protracted war he has struggled to end after almost eight months. In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the US president said Washington was “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran”, which he claimed was “in very bad condition, both Economically and Militarily”

Seymour Hersh - I have been reliably told by American and Israeli sources that things are quietly happening in secret talks between Washington and Tehran as the economy in Iran continues to plummet and the only way forward for Iran’s leadership is to obtain a settlement focused on its nuclear program. Talk is cheap, but the current conversations have spurred some anxious Israelis with experience in military and nuclear activities to produce a position paper entitled “What an Air-Tight Nuclear Verification Regime in Iran Should Look Like.”

Judge extends temporary limit on Trump's media ban

The Hill - A federal judge on Thursday briefly extended an order lifting a ban implemented by the White House last month on three new outlets President Trump said should not be allowed to cover him over what he has called “fake news” that puts national security in danger.   U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, is weighing whether to issue a longer-lasting injunction after he handed down a 14-day temporary restraining order last month that required the administration to immediately restore press credentials for reporters from CNN, Politico and MS NOW. 

That order was set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Thursday but Kelly said at the start of the hearing that it would be in effect for “another two business days.” A ruling is expected by Tuesday. 

The decline of hosting at home

The Guardian - In the US, the number of people who regularly host friends or family fell from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026 – a 70% drop over the last 50 years. In the UK, the numbers are not much better: last year, a poll of 2,000 adults found that more than four in 10 British people avoid hosting at home due to the clean-up it requires….

We haven’t always felt this way about having people over. In fact, anthropologist Robin Dunbar, best known for “Dunbar’s number” – a theory that suggests humans can only really maintain about 150 stable social connections at once – believes we would still rather entertain at home given the choice, but circumstances often conspire against it. “One reason is that our social networks may have become more scattered as cities have got larger,” he says. “If we live in smaller villages and towns, it is easy to visit for casual get-togethers. There is a thing called the 30-minute rule: if someone lives more than 30 minutes away, we pretty much stop seeing them regularly. The time/effort required becomes too great.”

Meanwhile . .

Time - Oil tanker captains are being paid the equivalent of $100,000 a month for traversing the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Financial Times. That comes on top of a $50,000 bonus for each trip, as Iran has stepped up its attacks on ships in recent weeks. 

Axios reports that the Fox News Channel’s lead over MS NOW and CNN has never been wider. Fox averages 1.5 million "total day viewers," while MS NOW has 647,000 and CNN has 500,000. MS NOW has led CNN since 2015.

People - Prince Harry reveals that he experienced a two-week period of depression after moving to Canada with Meghan Markle and their son, Prince Archie, in 201

The elections

The Guardian - Donald Trump suffered a torrid night at a rally in Texas that was rocked by repeated protests. The US president briefly stepped away from the microphone after one protester appeared to approach the stage. At least half a dozen demonstrators interrupted Trump during his remarks in San Antonio, with some led away by police. One was physically assaulted by an older Trump supporter as he tried to leave the arena

The Guardian - An Arizona congressional candidate says she was raped while trying to repair a campaign sign. Bernadette Greene-Placentia says she is sharing her story to fight for victims of sexual assault.

California

 Newsworthy News - California lawmakers sent [Governor] Newsom about 1,160 bills in 2026. He signed roughly 90% of them and vetoed the rest, according to an Orange County Register count citing a veteran Sacramento lobbyist. The governor's office released the signings in waves through the summer and fall, often grouping dozens of bills by topic in a single announcement rather than one giant list.

….On September 29, Newsom signed 21 bills described by his office as protecting immigrant communities from federal immigration enforcement. The package covers detention oversight, enforcement transparency and public records access. The announcement framed the bills as a response to what the governor’s office called “Orwellian” federal tactics, a label that signals the political fight behind the policy.

A separate law, Assembly Bill 282 from Assemblymember Pellerin, makes it a felony to seize ballots, election records or certified voting equipment before results are certified. It also targets officials who order subordinates to interfere with vote counts. Newsom’s office tied the bill to concerns about outside interference in California elections, giving it unusually sharp language for a state statute.

Word

"History shows that nonviolent protest is one of the most powerful tools ordinary people have ever wielded, helping advance social and environmental progress while serving as a cornerstone of democracy. This is why authoritarians, both at home and abroad, are vilifying protestors, suppressing free speech, and cracking down on political dissent. But if enough of us are willing to defend the right to protest, we can build the power to get our country back on the path towards democracy. Because if we lose the right to protest, we stand to lose so much more." – Annie Leonard

Nutritional value of fruits and vegetables is declining

Telegraph, UK - The nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has fallen by up to 50pc since the Sixties because of declining soil quality, according to a new study. The report, from researchers at Deep Science Ventures, found that humans needed to consume twice the number of vegetables to get the same level of minerals such as potassium, magnesium or copper as would have been present in their food 60 years ago.

….The decrease in nutrient and vitamin value is thought to be down to declining soil quality and crops being selectively bred for their ability to grow quickly, rather than there being any focus on their health benefits.  The effect will be particularly acute for the 14pc of Britons who identify as vegetarian or vegan.

Social Security

Shortlysts -  Social Security beneficiaries could receive a 3.5% increase in 2027, according to projections, adding roughly $73 to the average retired worker’s monthly payment. While these are just estimates for the time being, the final adjustment is still awaiting September inflation data scheduled for release on October 14th.

….Higher benefits would increase spending as Social Security draws down its reserves to cover a funding shortfall. Trustees project that the retirement and survivor trust fund will exhaust those reserves in late 2032, potentially forcing benefit cuts of up to 22% unless Congress addresses the gap. Payroll taxes would still fund payments, but would not cover all scheduled benefits.

….A larger Social Security adjustment is a strong indicator that everyday expenses have become harder to cover. Retirees receive more money because prices have risen, meaning much of the projected increase is already spoken for before it reaches their accounts. Someone spending more on fuel, groceries, and utilities may see a bigger check without gaining room in the household budget.

That pressure also reaches the program paying those benefits. Annual adjustments become part of the benefit amount used to calculate future increases, so their cost carries forward. With reserves projected to run out in 2032, higher payments could leave Congress less time to resolve the gap between promised benefits and available revenue.

Inflation can also raise wages and payroll-tax receipts, however, so a larger adjustment alone does not establish how quickly reserves will disappear. The approaching deadline makes any delay consequential, as workers nearing retirement have limited time to replace income they expect from Social Security, while current retirees may have few ways to earn more. Each year without a funding agreement leaves both groups planning around benefits whose full payment depends on congressional action.