UNDERNEWS

October 20, 2026

5 hottest midterm battlegrounds

The Hill - Here’s the five biggest battleground states to watch down the home stretch.

Suspicious letters to members of Congress

Roll Call - A wave of suspicious letters mailed to members of Congress is likely to continue, House officials warned Monday, describing a white powder in the envelopes.

So far, “none of the letters received by Congressional offices have been determined to contain hazardous substances,” according to a memo sent to members and staff and obtained by CQ Roll Call.

But more offices may receive similar letters “in the coming days,” House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland wrote in the memo.

At least a few dozen House Democrats have already spoken out about receiving suspicious mailings, according to a review of social media posts and statements from lawmakers.

On Monday morning, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., said his district office in Leesburg was evacuated after receiving a suspicious envelope. “These acts of political intimidation have no place in our country,” he said in a statement.

The FBI confirmed Thursday it was working alongside the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to investigate “a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices.”

Donald Trump

Blue Book - And now, the Trump administration is holding up the transfer of interceptors to Ukraine. Many of the Patriot missiles are held by third-party countries that want to send them to Ukraine, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has to sign off on the transfer and has not so far. The missiles are key to defending against drone attacks. It’s the latest in a series of moves that have put the United States more unambiguously on Russia’s side than ever before. Donald Trump yesterday: "Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine."

Alternet - President Donald Trump continues to show "highly concerning" signs of confusion and "seizure-like episodes" during public events, according to a psychologist who has been tracking his apparent symptoms, and things are not getting better.

Dr. John Paul Garrison is a clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in body language cues, who also produces numerous YouTube videos in which he uses his professional insights to examine the behavior of public figures. Many of his recent videos have concerned Trump, with Garrison suggesting that the president is suffering from unavoidable physical and cognitive decline, based on several recurring symptoms.

In his latest video, Garrison examined some of Trump's recent appearances, pointing out "more highly concerning behaviors" exhibited during them that tie into his "apparent neurological decline." He began with Trump's White House event related to an executive order on women's health, in which he appeared to suffer another of his seizure-like episodes, something that Garrison has noticed in an increasing number of his public addresses.

"I've shown something very similar a couple of times before where we saw activity go from his right arm to his eyes to his mouth to his left arm," Garrison explained. "Now, I've shown a wide variety of... neurological glitches, but this is the one that appears to be most seizure-like."

He added later: "Now, obviously, I have not personally evaluated President Trump, but what we are observing certainly appears like seizure activity. We're seeing it spread from one side of his body to his face to the other side. There are many different reasons that people can experience this kind of neurological dysfunction. A couple of examples being the effects of a stroke or vascular dementia."

California 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.

Agriculture

Axios - The Iran war and the Ukraine-Russia conflict are creating a "multidirectional squeeze on world agriculture" that could spiral into a crisis, a new report finds.

Wars and extreme weather are colliding to threaten global food supplies and drive up prices, especially in vulnerable economies….

The report explores how the El Niño phenomenon could compound the problems of restricted supplies of key fertilizer ingredients, higher fuel costs on the farm and more.
The S&P Global Institute report is an unusually holistic look at the topic.

The analysis comes alongside new warnings about food from the International Monetary Fund.

Its World Economic Outlook last week sees an overall 10% increase in fertilizer prices this year and food costs rising by 5% in 2026 and 2.4% in 2027, though it depends on the region.
"Higher energy and food prices could have severe effects on poverty and food security" and threaten political stability in vulnerable economies, the IMF warned.

Food producers need steady supplies of natural gas and sulfur for fertilizer, diesel for farm machinery and food transport, and open sea lanes for trade, S&P notes.

"Conflict is now testing all of them at once, just as El Niño tests the harvest," states the report from the research and consulting firm.
"The risk is increasing, especially for low-income countries, where food costs amount to about half of household spending," it states…

A few stats via S&P illustrate the overlapping threats.

Middle Eastern prices for exported sulfur, a fertilizer ingredient, reached a record $1,000 per metric ton in July, after starting the year at a historically high $500 per metric ton.
47% of the global sulfur trade normally goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
In Indonesia, industrial use of palm oil, largely for biodiesel, is expected to be roughly five times its 2015-16 level.

A global food crisis is by no means certain.

But if wars keep disrupting energy and fertilizer supplies, and weather cuts harvests in key regions, "the elements of such a crisis will be falling into place," S&P warns.

How does Musk get away with spending so much money on a political campaign?

Musk gets away with it because of the complexity and faults in the national campaign spend laws. Here’s a Google description:

Google - Elon Musk is able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns because U.S. campaign finance laws legally permit individuals to make unlimited independent political expenditures, primarily through Super PACs. While direct donations to a candidate's official campaign committee are strictly capped by federal law, billionaires can legally bypass these limits by funding outside groups.

Elon Musk is able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns because U.S. campaign finance laws legally permit individuals to make unlimited independent political expenditures, primarily through Super PACs. While direct donations to a candidate's official campaign committee are strictly capped by federal law, billionaires can legally bypass these limits by funding outside groups.

The legality of Musk’s massive political spending—which has reached an estimated $366 million for the 2026 midterm election cycle alone—stems from landmark legal precedents:

Under U.S. constitutional law, political spending is protected as a form of free speech. The courts rule that every American has the right to spend as much of their own money as they want on independent election communications.
The Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision allowed individuals and corporations to give unlimited sums of money to independent political action committees, commonly known as Super PACs.

The primary legal constraint on Super PACs is that they are technically prohibited from coordinating directly with a candidate’s official campaign. However, in practice, this restriction has major gaps:

Outsourced Campaigns: Candidates routinely rely on Super PACs to handle massive portions of their campaign workload—such as funding door-to-door canvassing, voter turnout operations, and local television or digital ads.

Federal law strictly prohibits companies with government contracts from donating to federal campaigns or Super PACs. However, a major loophole allows the individual executives of those companies (like Musk, whose companies SpaceX and Tesla hold billions in government contracts) to spend personal funds via Super PACs freely.

Even where restrictions exist on paper, critics point out that the federal government lacks the teeth to step in.

Federal Election Commission (FEC), the primary agency tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws, has historically failed to meaningfully intervene in Super PAC coordination.
Legal experts from organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice note that partisan deadlocks and periods without an active quorum leave the FEC functionally unable to police the remaining rules effectively.

Because his donations are routed through independent entities like his own America PAC or established groups like the Senate Leadership Fund, Musk's historic spending spree remains entirely legal under current American law

October 19, 2026

The safest and most hazardous cities

Wallet Hub - To determine where Americans can feel most protected from life’s hazards, including nonphysical forms of danger, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 41 key metrics. The data set covers factors ranging from traffic fatalities and assaults per capita to the unemployment rate and the percentage of the population that is uninsured.

Safest Cities in America		Least Safe Cities in America
1. Juneau, AK		173. St. Louis, MO
2. Warwick, RI		174. Cleveland, OH
3. Overland Park, KS		175. Houston, TX
4. Burlington, VT		176. Jacksonville, FL
5. South Burlington, VT		177. Detroit, MI
6. Virginia Beach, VA		178. Philadelphia, PA
7. Cedar Rapids, IA		179. Memphis, TN
8. Casper, WY		180. Baltimore, MD
9. Boise, ID		181. Baton Rouge, LA
10. Yonkers, NY		182. New Orleans, LA

Safest vs. Least Safe

Pembroke Pines, Florida, has the fewest aggravated assault incidents (per 100,000 residents), which is 51.7 times fewer than in Memphis, Tennessee, the city with the most.
Port St. Lucie, Florida, has the fewest thefts (per 1,000 residents), which is 9.2 times fewer than in Dover, Delaware, the city with the most.
New York City, has the most law-enforcement employees (per 100,000 residents), which is 4.9 times more than in Irvine, California, the city with the fewest.
Plano, Texas, has among the fewest pedestrian fatalities (per 100,000 residents), which is 25.4 times fewer than in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the city with the most.

To read the full report and your city’s rank

Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Donald Trump of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Russia, escalating a week-long row with the US president. Zelenskyy also offered a new proposal to accede to Trump’s request to stop targeting Russian refineries in exchange for deliveries of more Patriot air-defense missiles. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and China’s Xi Jinping next month to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Donald Trump

Alternet - One of the many ways that President Donald Trump has been able to dodge paying his taxes is by using an "environmental easement" for his Trump National Golf Course in Florida. It's saved him $825 million, Forbes reported Monday, "give or take a couple hundred million."

The bombshell expose recalls past reports that Trump was using what's called a "conservation easement," which is an agreement that stops any future development unless it complies with certain strict environmental standards. Typically, the restrictions can be so tight that hardly anything can be built. Keeping the land is a tax write-off. It gives a deduction that reduces taxable income, though it isn't a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax bill. For Trump, that means a golf course can remain a functioning, revenue-generating business while becoming a major tax write-off.

Early voting

Daily Kos - Early voting has begun in half of the country, and there may be warning signs for Republicans in areas they need to win if they have any shot of maintaining their House and Senate majorities.

Across 10 Senate battlegrounds, 53% of early and mail-in votes have been cast by registered Democrats, while only 34% has been cast by registered Republicans, according to data from NBC News. And in none of those 10 battlegrounds, which range from Kansas to Maine, have more votes been cast by Republicans than Democrats.

Trump's Doctor Not Allowed to Leave His Side

Alternet America - Trump’s personal physician must remain within three minutes of him at all times, according to a new report. Trump’s primary physician, Navy captain Sean Barbabella, or a backup colleague, must be within three minutes of the president at all times, according to The Wall Street Journal. …Barbabella’s May 2026 health report said that AI-enhanced electrocardiogram analysis shows Trump’s cardiac age is about 14 years younger than his actual age. The military doctor said Trump was in excellent health and fit for duty, but advised him to reduce his aspirin intake, exercise more and change his diet.

What’s happened to the past?

Sam Smith - In a few weeks I will turn 89 which has led to some pondering about the end of life. One thing that has struck me is that when I pass so will most of what I remember. This is contrary to what many far more prominent figures think, assuming instead that they have not only made history but won’t lose it.

To test this, I recently thought of what I had heard recently about Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. My sum: very little. In fact, the New Deal and Great Society have largely disappeared not only from the daily media but from our memories and actions as well.

This has led me to redefine my past as a series of good or bad events and ideas that will largely fade away. It’s more like a movie we go to, experience strongly, and then move on to other thoughts and matters. The amount of my own past that has disappeared in my mind supports this feeling.

As a journalist I became used to this early. One covered a story and wrote it and then in a few days forgot about it. As a musician, I experienced something similar. While I remembered tunes and played them I soon forgot the gigs where I had done so.

This is not something one can reform but it helps credit one’s thoughts and actions in a more accurate fashion. We are much better at doing things than remembering them. Which helps to explain why important matters – like ending ethnic bias – often don’t last as long as we expect.

So in my remaining time, I will continue to approach life as I have as a journalist: finding new ways to help revive good causes, beliefs, and behavior, partially with the hope that this time it will work better. And we won’t forget about it.

October 18, 2026

Donald Trump

NY Times - President Trump said on Sunday that his administration finalized plans to transform East Potomac Golf Links in Washington into a “world class championship golf course,” saying the municipal course would close within four weeks and that its replacement would be playable in about 15 months.

The announcement set up another frantic legal clash over the site. A federal judge ordered the administration in July to present her with any long-term plans for the course and not to carry out a surprise overhaul as the president had with the East Wing of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

The Interior Department appeared to have done just that earlier this month, taking down hundreds of trees over a holiday weekend and giving the court and a group suing to stop ay changes to the course less than a day to react.

In a post on social media on Sunday morning, Mr. Trump appeared to affirm what a historical-preservation group and two Washington residents had warned of in a federal lawsuit: that the administration might move to seize the existing course before they had a real chance to oppose the plan.

Middle East

The Guardian - Israeli settler militants have attacked European diplomats, a French mayor and the archbishop of Cambrai in Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, injuring three people and damaging a car, in the latest violent attempt to prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives on their own land. Bernard Baudoux, mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was wearing his red, white and blue sash of office and attempting to enter a vehicle with diplomatic plates when he was assaulted and knocked to the ground on Saturday. The masked militant shouted “Vive la France” as he launched the attack, a witness said. Badoux’s wife, and Vincent Dollmann, archbishop of Cambrai, were also threatened by the group of seven men, some armed with clubs….

Settlers first attacked a group working on the lower slopes of hills near Taybeh. As well as stealing olives, they kicked, abused and assaulted a Palestinian woman in her 70s and beat a man so badly he needed six stitches for a head injury.

I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down.

Climate

Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth?

Bernard Sanders, The Atlantic - Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth? Or should we be replaced as the dominant species? As absurd as these questions may sound, and as obvious as the answers may seem, the Big Tech oligarchs funding the artificial-intelligence revolution have responded in ways that should alarm all of us.

In Silicon Valley, some of the wealthiest people on Earth believe that they have the power to create a superior species. Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, wrote in 2017 that AI would allow humans to become “the first species ever to design our own descendants.” What this means for humans, however, remains unclear. According to Altman, we will either jump-start digital intelligence “and then fade into an evolutionary tree branch, or we can figure out what a successful merge looks like.” In other words, humans have a choice: face extinction or merge with machines. “I believe the merge has already started,” Altman added, and is “probably our best-case scenario.”

Similarly, Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, has opened up the possibility of rights for AI models. “We don’t know if the models are conscious,” he explained, and added, “But we’re open to the idea that it could be.”

Earlier this month, Elon Musk, the head of SpaceXAI and the richest man on Earth, posted on X, “Propagating super intelligence to the stars is a great success condition for a biological bootloader,” likening humans to the programming that launches a computer’s operating system. Put simply, Musk is saying that humans are merely a step toward digital superintelligence. Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Palantir and a major AI investor, was asked last year if he would prefer that the human race endure. His response? “Uh … Well, I don’t know. I would—I would … There’s so many questions implicit in this,” he stammered, before reluctantly conceding that humans should survive.

Meanwhile....

Netflix Is Cutting 1000 Jobs As Stock Price, Customer Growth Stumble

Did Frank Sinatra really act as a secret liaison between JFK and the mob?

Flying cars

Are flying cars finally here?

Pope Leo's recovery

The Guardian - Pope Leo told a crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that he would “gradually resume” his activities, at his first appearance before the faithful since undergoing an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung.

The Catholic leader, 71, was greeted with applause as he appeared unaided at the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace to deliver his Sunday angelus. It was his first public appearance since making the shock announcement at the previous Sunday’s address that a small nodule had been found on his lung.

Leo was diagnosed with the most common kind of lung cancer – adenocarcinoma – on Tuesday, after doctors removed part of his right lung to extract the tumour.

He thanked those who had prayed for him in recent days, saying that he appreciated the support while adding that the experience had made him feel especially close “to all those who are going through illness or a state of infirmity”.

“Now that this delicate phase has passed … I will gradually resume my activities, always with the help of God and your prayers,” he said.

Leo left Gemelli hospital in Rome on Saturday, where doctors deemed him “fit for discharge” after undergoing blood tests and a chest X-ray that morning.

Doctors said on Wednesday that Leo’s recovery from the operation was progressing normally. They said they were waiting for the results of tests to determine whether the cancer had spread and if more treatment would be needed.

French riots

Axios - Police arrested at least 1,800 people across France after violent groups clashed with officers and looted shops during nationwide demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands of people who denounced rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. Masked groups set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities. In Limoges, in central France, flames engulfed the neo-Renaissance city hall, which was built in the 19th century and survived two world wars. The building's iconic clock tower collapsed.

The changing internet

Axios - The internet is undergoing a foundational shift as websites evolve from human destinations to information hubs for AI agents, Axios' Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn write in an Axios Media Trends Executive briefing. Human discretion, a critical safeguard for establishing trust online, is rapidly disappearing. Bad actors are using AI to create new information sources designed to manipulate LLMs. Without a trust layer to vet information that machines retrieve and analyze, the internet risks becoming a breeding ground for content that's useless to humans. Share this story

Canada

Time - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned that the United States is trying to sow discord as he urged Albertans not to vote for separation in a referendum. “The stakes are high. This referendum comes at the worst possible time. The world has become more dangerous and divided,” Carney said at a rally in Calgary ahead of Monday’s vote, which will see residents decide whether the oil-rich province should take a step toward secession. “There are some outside our borders who are working to break us, so they can own us.”

Carney's statement came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump revisited his ambitions to annex Canada, telling the crowd at a rally in Arizona that the country will “end up being the 51st state, because it's the only way it works.” Carney, who was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, framed the vote as an opportunity for Canadians to “recognize that we're all responsible for each other.”

Ukraine

NBC News - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the U.S. formally siding with Russia’s Vladimir Putin would be a “historic mistake,” but said he still sees President Donald Trump as an ally despite a series of moves that have unsettled his country and its friends on Capitol Hill.

“We want to trust him,” Zelenskyy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” referring to Trump. “I hope that he will change his decisions, because I think that it’s all mistakes, and it will not help us, and it will not help United States.”

October 17, 2026

Measles

Newsweek - The United States could finish 2026 with as many as 6,500 confirmed measles cases, infectious disease experts told Newsweek, as vaccine skepticism fuels outbreaks in under-vaccinated communities and threatens the country's measles-elimination status.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, predicted that the country would end the year with “roughly 6,000 to 6,500 confirmed cases."

“This is a return of the primitive,” Adalja told Newsweek, “a disease we eliminated a quarter-century ago, back by choice.”

The United States had recorded 4,080 confirmed cases this year as of October 8, already 78 percent more than the 2025 total of 2,289 cases. The highly contagious virus was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000 after the measles vaccine was developed decades earlier.

Measles-associated death counts this year differ between federal and state figures. The CDC has reported two deaths nationally, while Pennsylvania has confirmed five measles-associated deaths, including two infants, an 18-year-old and a 40-year-old woman. A sixth death reported by a county coroner remains under state review.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, agrees that the U.S. is on pace to reach 6,000 to 6,500 cases in 2026.

“That’s a reasonable order of magnitude of what we can expect,” Schaffner told Newsweek.

Russia

NBC News - President Donald Trump waived sweeping new sanctions against Russia passed by Congress, arguing in an executive order Friday that the move “is in the national interests of the United States.”

Trump had signed the legislation, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., just last month. The bill took aim at Russia’s largest buyers of oil and gas, allowing the president to impose tariffs on goods from those countries, which may include China and India.

Passed with bipartisan support, the bill was intended to target Russia’s revenue streams as the country continues to wage its war against Ukraine. Suspending the sanctions provides Russia a financial lifeline.

Trump’s decision to put a hold on the sanctions package comes after he announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to release hundreds of thousands of tons of Russian diesel fuel onto the global market as fuel prices soar.

Trump has expressed frustration with Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure and has blamed them for the increase in fuel costs while downplaying the impact of the Iran war on the oil market.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that lifting sanctions was “wrong” and “only helps the Russians.”

NY Times - The White House has broad authority to issue sanctions exemptions or waivers, and the new law requires Mr. Trump to notify Congress only if he opts against imposing the economic restrictions on Russia. Two days before the law is set to take effect, Mr. Trump exercised that power.

Why is Musk allowed to give so much political money?

Google - Elon Musk is legally permitted to spend massive amounts of money on political campaigns and super PACs because U.S. courts view independent political spending as a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment.

Key Legal Reasons

• Constitutional Rights: Landmark Supreme Court rulings (such as Citizens United) established that individuals and corporations can spend unlimited amounts on independent political communication, advertising, and support for candidates, as long as they do not coordinate directly with a candidate's official campaign.

• Super PACs: Musk channels much of his money through political action committees (like America PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund), which are legally allowed to raise and spend unlimited sums from individuals, corporations, and unions for independent election activities.

• Direct Contributions vs. Independent Spending: While direct contributions given straight to a candidate's campaign are legally capped, spending independently to run ads, back PACs, or support political messaging is uncapped.

Meanwhile, , ,

NY Times - Pope Leo XIV was discharged from a Rome hospital on Saturday, four days after surgery to remove a tumor from his right lung. The pope left Gemelli Hospital about 3:30 p.m., roughly three days earlier than the Vatican had originally suggested for when he would return to his residence.

NY Times - How a Teacher and a Dad Stopped the Slaughter in an Oregon School