Trump defends Amy Acton’s estranged mother, who stayed with her husband charged with raping her daughter, and touts Vivek Ramaswamy’s ‘well coordinated’ attack ad

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• Trump attacks Ohio governor over call for Ramaswamy to drop ‘deeply troubling’ ad

Reporting from Anchorage, Alaska

Mary Peltola’s campaign to represent Alaska in the US Senate has taken her to parts of the massive state’s interior that are inaccessible by road and on the frontlines of the cost-of-living crisis she hopes will make her the first Democrat to win the seat in nearly two decades.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for New Hampshire to fully ban the use of student IDs for voting during the midterm elections.

"Who wouldn't use such an Ad?" President Trump wrote. "I would, it's called, 'hitting pay dirt.'"

Birdbuddy’s latest feeders offer free AI bird-species detection at the lowest prices ever. Here’s what you get.

NSW supreme court judge otherwise dismisses case brought by film’s co-producers and awards Wilson almost $400,000 after star countersued

Australian A-lister Rebel Wilson has secured a major court victory after co-producers of her debut film accused her of sabotage, lying and breaching contracts.

The Pitch Perfect star directed, co-produced and starred in The Deb, a musical comedy that became the battleground for multiple legal battles in Australia and the US.

Earlier this year, I needed to learn PowerShell scripting for one Windows-related project, and I have tried it out a few more times on Mac. It has quickly become one of my favorite tools for automation and scripting—taking on jobs that I would have otherwise tried to do with Node.js, Shortcuts, macOS Automator, or heaven forbid, Bash scripts.

I get it now. PowerShell is great, even if you don’t use it as your shell, and even if you’re on Mac or Linux.

↫ Corbin Davenport

I don’t use the shell often enough on any of my main machines to have much of an idea about the strenghths and weaknesses of PowerShell compared to more traditional shells, but this is definitely not the first time I’ve heard a lot of praise for it from people otherwise knee-deep in the UNIX and traditional shell world.

There really must be something to this, and since PowerShell is also available on Linux and macOS, it’s pretty straightforward to give it a go without having to deal with Windows.

Violent storms overnight knocked over utility poles and trees and carried thunder and heavy winds through state

Yet more severe weather struck Thursday in the US south-west as the Four Corners region surveyed blown-away roofs, trees knocked on to homes and power lines downed from overnight tornadoes that injured one person.

The injuries weren’t life-threatening but rare for an area better known for scalding heat. But this fall has been unusually soggy in the south-west with El Niño conditions that have sent one tropical system after another in from the Pacific, causing the Grand Canyon and surrounding deserts to rage with floods.

A series of judgments and settlements don’t seem to be slowing Meta’s provocative privacy practices.

Caricom commission chair Hilary Beckles wants king to ensure Commonwealth becomes a ‘moral institution committed to human justice’

The head of the Caribbean’s reparations commission has appealed to King Charles III as a “human brother” whose family he said had benefited from slavery to support reparations talks at next month’s Commonwealth leaders meeting in the Caribbean.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Antigua and Barbuda next month, professor Hilary Beckles urged the king to use his influence to advance slavery reparations talks between Britain and the Caribbean.

It was the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years, China's national broadcaster CCTV said.

CQC research finds long delays are making conditions harder to treat and highlights regional disparities in care

Thousands of children in England are experiencing some of the sharpest rises in waiting times for healthcare in the history of the NHS, a report has revealed.

While some adult waiting times have improved, children and young people are being “hit hardest” amid soaring demand and falling numbers of staff, according to the annual state of care report by the Care Quality Commission.

(The Center Square) – The long-awaited opening of the so-called people mover system at Los Angeles International Airport has been pushed back once again, adding to a trail of budget overruns, legal disputes and growing frustration over taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects…

Google is funding one of the nation's largest "virtual power plants," paying homes and businesses indirectly to reduce electricity consumption during periods of peak demand so more grid capacity can be available for data centers. Under its expanded deal with Voltus, the program could provide up to 1,070 megawatts in the Mid-Atlantic PJM grid -- roughly the output of a large nuclear reactor. The New York Times reports: That electricity won't come from new power plants. Instead, Voltus will sign up homes and businesses and give them financial incentives to curb their usage when local power demand is high or the grid is strained. Many of these reductions could occur automatically, such as through smart thermostats that dial back air-conditioning during peak summer hours or batteries that can provide temporary on-site power. Each of these tweaks frees up only a small amount of power on its own. But by aggregating them across thousands of businesses and homes, Voltus says it can reliably provide lots of extra capacity when it's most needed, and do so within a few years. While tech companies will likely ultimately need to build traditional power plants if they want to keep building large data centers, this approach could be a faster, cheaper and less-polluting option in the interim. "We really see virtual power plants as a critical short-term solution," said Ellen Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google. "It's a way to invest in our communities, really double down on our clean energy ambition, but also meet capacity at speed and scale."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Carbon-X can analyze DNA sequences while running on your laptop at home.

Earlier this year, Garmin closed its Connect API developer program because it was being flooded with “AI”-generated applications to the point it couldn’t handle them anymore. What made it worse was that half of the applications were never actually used, not even once. It also didn’t help that Garmin treated every single application to the program the same way, whether it was from a hobbyist just wanting access to their own data, to a massive corporation developing a popular service used by god knows how many people.

Today, the company has relaunched the program, and it’s been considerably overhauled. While hobbyist use of the API is going to be free – which is way better than it was before – once you hit a thousand users, you’re going to have to start paying.

Still, Garmin’s shift here towards charging for API access will set a dangerous precedent for the industry. Especially for a company that bills itself as a (or the?) premium sports hardware provider. On the flip side, there’s simply no ignoring the flood of mostly AI apps that take up resources at Garmin and elsewhere to support. Heck, my inbox is flooded with these apps daily requesting reviews. It sounds like when Garmin shut off access to the API last spring, they were seeing inbound API requests at a daily scale that they’d previously only seen over a period of weeks. Simply put, there’s no good answer.

↫ Ray Maker at DC Rainmaker

The excesses of the easy availability of “AI” code generation impacts the entire industry. At least one good thing has come out of this: hobbyists can now access the Connect API developer program much easier than before.

joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: Microsoft says it mistakenly flagged a bug causing Always On VPN connection issues as fixed in the October 2026 Windows 11 cumulative updates. Always On VPN replaced the legacy DirectAccess technology and supports domain-joined, non-domain-joined, and Microsoft Entra ID-joined devices running Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server. It runs in the background and establishes secure tunnels back to the user's corporate network whenever their device connects to the internet. Microsoft first acknowledged the issue in a service alert sent to IT administrators in late September, saying it was triggered on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and later after installing the September 2026 security updates when the initial Always On VPN connection failed (e.g., when using automatic protocol selection with IKEv2 and SSTP). "When automatic protocol selection or protocol fallback was configured, affected VPN connections could remain stuck in a Connecting state or fail to connect after an initial connection attempt failed," it said. "In some cases, subsequent connection attempts could display the error, 'The specified port is already in use.'" After releasing the October 2026 Patch Tuesday Windows 11 cumulative updates, Microsoft marked the bug as resolved, but in a Tuesday update it said the issues weren't actually addressed and that a fix would ship later. "This disclosure was mistakenly updated to Resolved status on October 13, 2026. We have returned its status to Mitigated," it said in a service alert sent to IT admins. "A resolution for this issue is planned to be included in an update to be released in the coming weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion." While Microsoft continues working on a permanent solution, it shared a temporary fix that requires affected customers to choose one of two VPN tunneling protocols to work around the issue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you’ve ever written C (or c++) on a mac, you’ll know that the so-called gcc is just clang in disguise. Most people (fairly) assume that this is just an alias, but this is not true! It’s a binary! Now, what is this binary? I naively assumed that it would just be shelling out to clang but it turns out the answer is more interesting than that.

↫ juliethefoxcoon

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

Growing usage of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss is reshaping how consumers shop for food and clothes, according to consulting firm EY-Parthenon.

• 41-year-old set on ‘dream to be able to race in Africa’

• Rwanda to host despite criticism of human rights record

Lewis Hamilton has said he hopes to remain racing in Formula One until he can take part in the African Grand Prix which is set to take place in Rwanda in the 2030s. The seven-time world champion believes it is right that F1 is to hold a race there despite criticism of the country’s human rights record.

Last week F1 confirmed Rwanda was to host the African Grand Prix having concluded a 10-year agreement for the meeting on a purpose-built circuit, with the first race set for the early 2030s. It is lined up to be held on a circuit in Bugesera, 25 miles south of the capital, Kigali, which has yet to be constructed and marks a return to the African continent for the first time since it last held a race at Kyalami, South Africa in 1993.

Unlike traditional OSs that separate user applications from the kernel, a unikernel bundles everything into a single, isolated image that runs directly on a hypervisor (like KVM, BHyve, or OpenVMM). Because it removes unnecessary drivers and background services, a unikernel is extremely small, fast to boot, and efficient with resources.

Here, we will learn how to develop and deploy unikernels built using the OCaml language and the Solo5 unikernel. These are the two fundamental components that will then enable us to develop our own applications in the form of unikernels, which we can subsequently deploy using Albatross.

↫ Unikernels in OCaml

Some light reading for the weekend.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Assessed property values are the foundational piece of how property taxes are assessed for homeowners and commercial property owners. After values were reset for the first time in 40 years, many New Castle County property owners decried the impact that the new values had on their property.

New Castle County intends to reassess every property in northern Delaware a year earlier than previously planned after a recent audit of dozens of commercial properties found more errors.

County Executive Marcus Henry made the announcement Thursday in a statement sent out alongside the audit report.

Completed by real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, the report examined 50 commercial properties throughout the county whose assessments went down more than the median, or  were lower than a recent sale. 

It describes how investigators found a variety of discrepancies, including misstated building sizes, inaccurate property classifications, and even erroneous room counts for hotels and apartment buildings. One shopping center was found to have been classified as an office building.

Those errors have largely been attributed to the fact that New Castle County’s property data contains errors after decades without a reassessment, according to David Del Grande, the county’s chief finance officer. Assessors from Tyler Technologies, the contractor hired by the county to complete the court-mandated reassessment, only did exterior assessments of properties and relied upon data from the county for interior features.

Those errors were compounded by the fact that only about 1% of commercial property owners responded to surveys about their properties that would have added necessary building details and information about the income it produced, Del Grande added. The county also pointed to years of missing permitting data from municipalities, including the city of Wilmington.

Further adding to the issues that plagued the reassessment was that New Castle County was in the midst of switching its digital software to record the appraisal information while Tyler Technologies was doing its reassessment, Del Grande said.

“It could have been data that was in the wrong field coming from the old system to the new system. It could have been data overridden by Tyler in the new system. It could be a variety of things,” he told Spotlight Delaware.

The findings of the Cushman & Wakefield report only compound the questions raised early this year, when the county separately corrected a handful of enormous assessment errors related to an Amazon fulfillment center near Newport, and to apartments and a parking garage in downtown Wilmington.

Despite these issues, both the report and Del Grande denied that it was indicative of broader issues with the integrity of the overall reassessment in New Castle County, but rather an expected growing pain with resetting decades of inaction.

The discovered issues have convinced county leaders to move ahead more quickly with the next reassessment though. Under the new state law, reassessment must occur every five years, but this expedited review would occur after just four.

“We want to make sure that the public is confident with the numbers that we have as their assessed values as being as being fully accurate to the best that they can be,” Del Grande said.

A tortured reassessment process

The recent findings, as well as the county’s decision to push forward the next reassessment, mark the latest in two years of acrimony that followed New Castle County’s first-in-a-generation property reassessment.  

The results of the reassessment initially sparked outrage from many homeowners whose property tax bills spiked, while some businesses saw their tax liabilities go down. Lawmakers responded in 2025 by enacting several pieces of legislation, including one bill that allowed New Castle County and its area school districts to charge a different tax rate for business and residential properties. 

That resulted in a lawsuit by landlords that was ultimately struck down by the Delaware Supreme Court late last year.

Thousands of property owners filed appeals of their assessments in 2025, of which about 200 commercial properties have yet to be resolved, Del Grande said. This year, another 1,600 appeals were filed, including a mix of residential and commercial property.

Concerns around the accuracy of business property valuations prompted state lawmakers to authorize the inquiry of New Castle County business properties that ended with Thursday’s report.

“From the beginning, we wanted an independent review because we needed to know where improvements were necessary,” Henry said in a statement.  

What’s next?

Next, county officials will develop and then advertise a new request for contractors to submit bids to conduct the next property reassessment.

County officials are targeting July 2028 as their date for completing the base property assessments – one year earlier than previously planned. 

Those assessments would then appear on 2029 tax bills, according to the county.  

According to Del Grande, the next reassessment will again be completed by a third-party vendor, and that nothing in the latest audit findings would preclude Tyler Technologies from being included among the bidders considered by the county.

New Castle County has hired 10 employees in its assessment office and has funding to hire 10 more, but they are tasked with reviewing the more than 1,000 property appeals now expected to be filed on an annual basis.

If completed on time, the earlier reassessment would be completed ahead of the 2028 elections, when Henry could be on the ballot, if he seeks re-election.

Editor-In-Chief Jacob Owens contributed to this story.

The post New Castle County to expedite next reassessment by year after discovering errors appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Datacenter and chip costs fueled sharp decrease in AI sector although non-AI stocks still had a strong showing

The latest shudder for stocks in the AI industry pulled markets lower worldwide on Thursday, while oil prices hit their highest levels since May on worries about the war with Iran.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2% for its worst day since July, while the Nasdaq composite tumbled 2.6%. The weakness for tech stocks was so overwhelming that it masked strength for the rest of the US market, in which the majority of stocks actually rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 11 points, or less than 0.1%.

A social media video purporting to show a former student accusing Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico of sexual misconduct is the latest example of how Russian groups are generating false information to influence U.S. elections, researchers say.

As of Oct. 22, X had suspended the account that originally posted the baseless claim, but other accounts have since shared it. NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, reported that X said the account was created in September with Romania as the signup country. 

Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis issued an emailed statement to PolitiFact about the video.

“The most powerful people in the world know they can’t beat James Talarico with the truth, so they’re slandering him with AI deepfakes, foreign bots, and conspiracy theories to protect their broken, corrupt political system,” Ennis said.

What we know about the video’s origin

Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor and head of its Media Forensic Hub, said the video is the work of Storm-1516, a Russian propaganda campaign he said made a similar baseless attack on Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz in 2024 when Walz ran for vice president. In 2024, the group used a paid actor from West Africa to attack Walz, Linvill said.

Linvill said this video was generated to look like a real man who has an account on another platform. The video shows a man claiming to have been a former student of Talarico at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, where Talarico taught Language Arts before his political career as a state representative.

Graphika, a social media analytics company, said in a blog post that the X account that originally shared the video “very likely” impersonated a Facebook user by the same name. That person lives in Texas and was a former student of Talarico. The man has praised Talarico on his Facebook page on several occasions, as recently as February, Graphika noted.

Fact-checkers at Lead Stories spoke with that man and he said the video is not of him, and denied accusing Talarico of misconduct. PolitiFact reached out to him via Facebook, but he didn’t immediately respond. PolitiFact’s review of the man’s Facebook page found no video of him accusing Talarico.

NewsGuard reported that the videos had many signs of AI generation, such as unnatural eye movements and stagnant facial expressions, and that an AI detection tool showed a 98% likelihood of being a deepfake. A deepfake is a machine generated image or video that changes faces, bodies or voices, making people appear to do and say things that they never did or said. 

Graphika said social media accounts known to amplify Storm-1516 content and several accounts from U.S. conservatives shared the video. It said a prominent Storm-1516 amplifier, SGAnon, originally shared the video, then deleted it, writing on X that an analysis showed it was “artificially generated.”

The Russian disinformation playbook

Linvill said Storm-1516 typically uses the same influencers to spread false narratives into political conversations.

“If you examine the recent content of the influencers who first shared this narrative you can easily identify other Storm-1516 lies,” Linvill said. “We believe they are paid to do this. In the same way marketing companies pay influencers to share products, the Russians pay influencers to share lies.”

The New York Times recently reported that Russia and other foreign governments have stepped up efforts to influence U.S. elections, mostly targeting Democrats.

Linvill co-wrote a recent report about Storm-1516 and its work targeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and found such campaigns often are not aimed at changing people’s behavior or opinions, but seek to shape public discourse.

He said the study’s findings apply to this baseless Talarico narrative.

“By entrenching people in this view of Talarico, the Russians likely hope to exacerbate extreme partisanship and also encourage people to get off the couch and vote for Ken Paxton,” Linvill said. “People who already like Talarico are going to dismiss this claim as the obvious fake it is, but they aren’t the audience.”

We rate the claim that this video shows Talarico’s former student accusing him of misconduct Pants on Fire! 

(The Center Square) – A plurality of Americans don’t want to see their community move in the direction of the Democratic Socialist agenda, according to a new poll from The Center Square.

(The Center Square) – A new bill introduced by one of California’s congressional representatives aims to make the wealthiest Americans pay taxes on loans they take out against their assets.

PM pledges commitment to address climate crisis, saying in Guardian article that his ‘determination is unwavering’

• Andy Burnham: We will make the net-zero transition work for Britain

Andy Burnham has said he will not “abandon the responsibility” of fighting the climate crisis after the government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, pledging to block new North Sea licences and keep Britain on track for net zero by 2050.

The comments are the prime minister’s most forthright yet on net zero, after many MPs have privately cast doubt on the authenticity of his commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

Aisha Zaman, 27, charged with two firearms offences after incident in city centre on Sunday

A 27-year-old woman has been charged after a police officer was shot while attending an incident in Nottingham.

Aisha Zaman, from the Hyson Green area of the city, has been charged with possession of a prohibited firearm and possession of that firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence.

PM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft

The UK government is to create an AI Cobra unit to spot wildfires after this year’s record-breaking summer saw devastating blazes across the country.

The country experienced its hottest-ever summer this year, with prolonged dry periods and extreme heat fuelling wildfires that triggered an emergency alert to mobile phones in England and Wales. Figures released on 8 October showed a clear upward trend in the number of fires recorded each year.

Conservative super PAC TV ads are telling some Florida voters that U.S.  Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., repeatedly violated a law aimed at curbing insider trading in Congress.

“Over 20 years in Congress, Kathy Castor worked the system, repeatedly violating a law aimed at stopping members of Congress from insider trading,” said one ad from Club for Growth Action, a super PAC that supports Republican candidates. The ad said she made over 200 stock trades worth up to $2.6 million, and she’s now worth up to $31 million “thanks to two decades of shady trading.”

Castor, who entered Congress in 2007, is running for reelection against Republican former state Rep. Mike Beltran in the 14th Congressional District, which Republicans redrew in 2026 to capture more right-leaning voters. As a super PAC, Club for Growth Action can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to campaign for federal candidates.

With Americans widely opposed to members of Congress trading stocks, the topic has become a major talking point leading up to the midterms. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC seeking to elect Republicans to the U.S. House, also released ads saying Castor “broke the law” that aims to stop insider trading.

The misleading claim hinges on a 2021 filing appearing to show that Castor disclosed stock purchases after a required 45-day period. But the ad neglected a subsequent filing that corrected that record, reflecting that she made timely disclosures of those stocks.

We also found that Castor filed two reports in 2017 that reflected late disclosures. A late disclosure is not evidence of insider trading.

Castor corrected date errors

Club for Growth Action’s ad cited August 2021 articles from Business Insider and the nonprofit Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, or FACT, which said Castor failed to disclose stock purchases worth up to $45,000 on time. The foundation asked the Office of Congressional Ethics for an investigation into Castor and two other lawmakers. We did not find public information on whether it acted on the complaint.

The 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or the STOCK Act, requires members of Congress to report certain stock transactions within 45 days of making them or 30 days after being notified of the trades.

For a couple of days in 2021, it appeared that Castor delayed reporting on stock transactions from the year before, which would violate the law. But this was corrected. 

According to the original filing, Castor disclosed three purchases of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock in 2020 — on June 18, June 25 and July 15 — about a year later, on June 27, 2021. 

Transactions are reported in ranges, and each of Castor’s three purchases were worth $1,001 to $15,000, putting the total at $3,003 to $45,000.

But the Business Insider and FACT stories didn’t mention that Castor submitted another filing two days later, amending the dates of those purchases from 2020 to 2021. That means she disclosed them within the 45-day window.

R. Blake Chisam, former staff director and chief counsel of the House Committee on Ethics, said the filings showed a typo, not a failure to disclose a transaction. He said the filings don’t support the “much more serious insinuation that the underlying trades were improper.”

The incident doesn’t show “evidence of misuse of confidential information,” he said.

Dan Schwager, who also previously served as the committee’s chief counsel and staff director, said such mistakes aren’t typically considered violations so much as human error. “Many, many, many people on both sides of the aisle have to file amendments to their financial disclosures every year to fix mistakes or things they missed in their paperwork,” Schwager said.

PolitiFact evaluated the 36 periodic transaction reports — disclosing 78 transactions — Castor filed since the STOCK Act passed. We found that Castor filed two reports in 2017 that showed late disclosures of three stock trades she made in 2016; the rest were filed on time, or amended.

A Castor campaign spokesperson attributed late filings to administrative oversight, and said the House Ethics Committee did not fine or penalize Castor.

In a statement to PolitiFact, Castor spokesperson Jay Rhoden highlighted Castor’s efforts to restrict congressional trading, voting in favor of the Stop Insider Trading Act in July, which the House passed 232-198. Castor was one of around a dozen Democrats who voted for the bill, which prohibits congressional members, their spouses and dependent children from buying stocks, and requires them to file public notice before selling stocks. 

Castor’s stock trades are not proof of wrongdoing

Castor purchased Berkshire Hathaway stock multiple other times during 2021. According to OpenSecrets data from 2018, she’s among dozens of Congressional members from both parties who have invested in Berkshire Hathaway. The holding company, previously led by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has dozens of subsidiaries across various sectors, including insurance, utilities and transportation. It owns the car insurance company Geico and the freight railroad company BNSF Railway.

“Berkshire is a diversified, widely held company associated with long-term investing,” Chisam said. “Buying Berkshire is the height of conventional.” 

Club for Growth Action’s ad gives no other examples of Castor violating the STOCK Act. A National Republican Congressional Committee post cited an Oct. 8 Townhall article that said Castor sold stock before the World Health Organization named COVID-19 a global pandemic. We contacted the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Conduct (formerly the Office of Congressional Ethics) to ask about any past or present violations but did not hear back. Castor has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Club for Growth Action did not respond to PolitiFact’s questions about how it determined that Castor made “over 200 stock trades worth up to $2.6 million.” Although it cited personal financial disclosures from 2014 to 2025, it’s difficult to identify which trades the ad referred to during that time period.

The ad does appear to accurately say her net worth is now up to $31 million. Castor’s 2025 financial disclosure showed her and her spouse’s assets totaling $7.9 million to $31.9 million, and no liabilities. But there’s a caveat.

“The net-worth estimate should also be treated cautiously,” Chisam said. “Adding the maximum value in every range may produce an eye-catching number, but it does not establish actual net worth. The actual figure could be — and, in my experience, likely is — substantially lower.”

Our ruling

Club for Growth Action said Castor “repeatedly” violated “a law aimed at stopping members of Congress from insider trading.” 

The ad cited as evidence a financial disclosure that had a typo in the year, making the disclosure seem delayed. Castor amended the report days later to correct the year, showing that she disclosed the stock purchases in time.

Castor also filed two reports in 2017 that showed she did not make timely disclosures of three stock trades from 2016. Based on her periodic transaction reports, the rest of her stock trades were disclosed on time, or were amended.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression about Castor and accusations of insider trading. We rate this claim Mostly False.

Musk’s investment into the new media empire comes after Paramount’s $111bn merger with Warner Bros Discovery

Elon Musk has reportedly invested approximately $1bn in Skydance, the new media empire led by David Ellison.

The deal comes alongside fresh equity infusions from existing investors, including board member Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow. Semafor first reported the news.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s hyper specificity toward business owners and professionals.

Actors in the mix to play 007 in Denis Villeneuve’s installment include Callum Turner and Jack Lowden

The search for the next James Bond may finally be nearing its end: according to reports, a very select group of actors will screen-test to become the next British agent 007 this weekend.

According to the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, citing several sources, a group of actors reportedly including Callum Turner and Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden, will appear in front of cameras as the secret agent this weekend in London.

(The Center Square) – America's first national park in six years has the potential to transform a sleepy corner of the Grand Canyon State.

Advocates for student loan borrowers said the move will benefit workers who dedicate themselves to public service.

(The Center Square) – Voters in Iowa will decide on a constitutional amendment that could make it harder for the state legislature to raise the income tax rate.

The giant vegetable was so enormous it overflowed the biggest wheelbarrow.

(National Trust via SWNS)

The Browser Company is shutting down its Arc browser on December 22 and encouraging users to migrate to Dia, its newer AI-powered browser for Apple Silicon Macs and Windows 11 PCs. Thurrott reports: In the message explaining why it was sunsetting Arc, The Browser Company explained that maintaining two separate browsers was difficult to justify, especially from a security perspective. "Dia was built from the ground up to meet today's security standards, so that's where our engineering and security teams will focus moving forward," the company wrote. The retirement of Arc will be gradual: While nothing changes for existing Arc users, it's no longer possible to create new Arc accounts as of today. On November 23, tab sync, Browse for Me, and other AI features will be disabled on the iOS and Android versions of Arc. Lastly, the desktop version of Arc will stop working on December 22, and Arc accounts will be deactivated.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(The Center Square) – Nine of the ten “most free” states in the United States are led by Republicans, according to a new report released by the Cato Institute. By contrast, seven of the ten least free states are run…

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte and her supporters have blasted a message about her opponent using billboards, an airplane-towed banner and even an inflatable rat stationed at the state capitol.

“Cinde Warmington was a Purdue Pharma lobbyist,” one of Ayotte’s ads says, sharing a clip of Warmington’s 2024 Democratic primary rival, Joyce Craig, speaking in a debate. “She said that OxyContin was a miracle drug.”

Warmington’s history with the company that created OxyContin, a pain drug that became linked to addiction and overdoses, is well documented.

Warmington has said she was a junior lawyer assigned to take Purdue Pharma as a client more than 20 years ago. She did not have a full understanding of the company’s actions in promoting the use of OxyContin, she said, until they were revealed in subsequent litigation. She said in a recent interview that she has “regret” for that work.

But a transcript of her 2002 testimony against state legislation to tighten rules for prescribing opioids such as OxyContin shows that, even at that early juncture, Warmington faced questions about the drug’s addictiveness.

The rise and fall of OxyContin 

In the mid 1990s, Purdue Pharma began selling OxyContin, a slow-release pill based on the pain reliever oxycodone. Purdue Pharma funded more than 20,000 educational programs on managing pain and gave money to professional associations to increase the medication’s use.

From 1991 to 2011, OxyContin prescriptions tripled. At the same time, opioid-related deaths nearly tripled, too. Distribution peaked in 2012 with over 255 million prescriptions.

Drugmakers, including Purdue Pharma, faced a barrage of lawsuits for creating and fueling the first wave of the opioid epidemic. In 2020, Purdue Pharma agreed to plead guilty to three federal criminal charges and said it would pay more than $8 billion for treatment programs and shutter the company. The Sackler family, which controlled Purdue Pharma when it was making OxyContin, was also made to pay under a settlement announced in 2025.

Warmington’s role with Purdue Pharma

During the period when Purdue was making and promoting OxyContin, Warmington worked as an attorney for the law firm Shaheen & Gordon. State records show she was a registered lobbyist for Purdue Pharma as of Dec. 4, 2001, about two years after her law school graduation. She also held a master’s in business administration. 

On April 9, 2002, Warmington testified before the New Hampshire state Senate on behalf of Purdue Pharma. The company was opposing a bill that would require doctors to try at least three other medications before prescribing OxyContin or an equivalent.

During the hearing, Democratic state Sen. Sylvia Larsen asked Warmington, “Would you not consider OxyContin, a well-known drug, to have a high potential for misuse or abuse? … Wouldn’t you agree that it should be monitored for its adherence to clinical protocol?”

Warmington said she would defer to a physician on the details of potential addiction, but she acknowledged, “To say that Oxycontin has been abused — it certainly has been in the press — I think that we can all say that it is a drug of abuse, as are all narcotics. It is not the most abused narcotic in the state of New Hampshire, but it is a drug of abuse. It is attractive to abusers, and it is an issue that is of great concern to Purdue Pharmaceuticals.”

Warmington went on to refer to “a drug that has truly been a medical breakthrough for patients who need it. Restricting access to all of those patients as a means of preventing abuse is inappropriate.”

Later in the hearing, Warmington used the words cited in Ayotte’s ad. She said the proposed legislation “fundamentally changes the available options for physicians. OxyContin is a miracle drug for many patients, and that’s why it has been so popular, that’s why it is used so much because it has very few side effects and it is able to address patient’s pain.”

What has Warmington said about her work for Purdue Pharma?

When Warmington was running for the Democratic Party’s 2024 gubernatorial nomination, the eventual winner — former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig — criticized Warmington’s past work for the company. 

In response to the accusations resurfacing in her latest campaign, Warmington released a direct-to-camera video, in which she said her father “struggled with addiction most of his adult life, and a lot of people in my family have struggled with addiction over the years. … I went into healthcare because I wanted to help people.”

In 2001, she said, “I was assigned a case by a partner to represent Purdue Pharma” and saw her role as “fighting for patients to get access to the healthcare that their doctors thought that they needed. What I did not know at the time was that Purdue Pharma was engaged in this massive criminal fraud, something that would be exposed only over years of litigation. … To be clear, if I had known in 2001 what we all later learned, I would never, ever have done this work.” She said her work for Purdue Pharma ended in 2002.

Although the full story of Purdue Pharma’s actions in marketing OxyContin would only come to light years later after litigation, journalists and federal officials had been raising alarms about the drug’s widespread abuse and the company’s skyrocketing sales for at least two years by the time Warmington faced that question at the April 2002 hearing. 

In August 2001, a U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee held a hearing during which lawmakers questioned Purdue Pharma executives about the drug’s potential for abuse. That same year, The New York Times ran an article headlined, “Sales of Painkiller Grew Rapidly, But Success Brought a High Cost.” Two other articles detailed how the federal government was asking Purdue Pharma to limit its marketing and distribution of the drug and how Purdue Pharma chose not to use safeguards to prevent OxyContin abuse.

In an Oct. 19 interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, Warmington said, “I certainly regret having anything to do with this work, knowing what we all know now.” 

Warmington’s campaign has also highlighted her work for the state’s executive council, an elected branch of government, to secure funding for addiction treatment. She has criticized Ayotte’s decision as then-New Hampshire attorney general not to join a 2007 lawsuit by 26 state attorneys general against Purdue Pharma. She also has noted that an Ayotte-led political action committee received campaign donations from members of the Sackler family — which owned Purdue Pharma when it was promoting OxyContin — as late as 2016.

Our ruling

Ayotte’s ad said, “Cinde Warmington was a Purdue Pharma lobbyist. She said that OxyContin was a miracle drug.”

A state document from 2001 confirms that Warmington was an outside lobbyist for Purdue Pharma. The company settled a lawsuit in 2020 over allegations that the drugmaker’s practices made addiction and overdose deaths more likely.

As a lobbyist for the company, Warmington testified in New Hampshire’s legislature against a prescription-regulation bill that Purdue Pharma opposed. During a 2002 hearing about the legislation, Warmington defended the drug’s use, saying, “OxyContin is a miracle drug for many patients.”

Warmington has said she would not have represented Purdue Pharma had she known about company actions on OxyContin that came to light in subsequent litigation. But by the time of her testimony, lawmakers in a congressional hearing and journalists in New York Times investigations had raised questions about the role the company was playing in a growing number of overdose deaths linked to OxyContin.

We rate the statement True.

Investors are fretting over the massive debt AI companies are relying on to finance data center and chip spending, Wall Street analysts say.

Trust this genuine FTC warning. And maybe just don’t answer your phone.

Actor also had roles in M*A*S*H, A River Runs Through It and Picket Fences in career spanning 60 years

Tom Skerritt, the actor known for roles in Alien and Top Gun, has died at the age of 93.

His publicist confirmed to Variety that he died from natural causes.

The lodging platform is updating its policies around what hosts can require of guests.

If you struggle with doomscrolling when you should be sleeping, this new Brick could help.

With four Democrats and four Republicans receiving support, Delaware’s leading business organization offers a reminder that a candidate’s record and willingness to work across party lines can matter more than political affiliation.

WILMINGTON, Del. — At a time when national politics increasingly encourages voters to choose sides, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce is offering a reminder of an older First State tradition: Judge the person, not just the party.

The Chamber announced endorsements Thursday, Oct. 22, of eight candidates in the Nov. 3 general election — four Democrats and four Republicans.

The selections reflect a longstanding Delaware political culture in which personal relationships, individual records and a willingness to work together have often mattered more than party loyalty.

Known as the Delaware Way, that tradition has come under increasing pressure as national political divisions influence state and local elections.

But the Chamber’s endorsements suggest that, at least within Delaware’s business community, there remains value in evaluating candidates individually.

Eight candidates, two parties

The Chamber endorsed the following candidates:

In its announcement, the Chamber said the candidates have demonstrated a willingness to engage with employers and consider how government decisions affect jobs, economic growth and Delaware’s competitiveness.

The organization said its endorsement process considers voting records, past engagement with the business community and positions on issues affecting employers and employees.

That approach does not require candidates to agree on every issue. It places greater emphasis on their records and willingness to consider different perspectives.

A reminder of the Delaware Way

Delaware’s small size has historically encouraged a political culture different from the increasingly partisan environment in Washington.

Republicans and Democrats frequently worked together, and voters were often familiar with candidates as neighbors, business owners, community volunteers or local officials.

Former Republican Gov. Mike Castle defended that tradition in 2012, arguing that Delaware’s size made cooperation essential to competing with larger states for jobs and economic opportunities.  Castle described bipartisan cooperation as central to Delaware’s past success.

But that tradition has become more complicated.

Critics argue that the Delaware Way can also protect established political relationships and discourage challenges to those in power. Gov. Matt Meyer campaigned in 2024 as an outsider willing to challenge that political culture.

The Chamber’s endorsements suggest another way of looking at the tradition: Cooperation across party lines does not necessarily mean protecting the political establishment. It can also mean evaluating individual candidates on their willingness to listen, compromise and be accountable for their decisions.

Business interests cross party lines

For Delaware employers, many of the issues facing state government are not easily divided into Republican and Democratic priorities.

Energy costs, taxes, workforce development, education, regulations and government spending affect businesses regardless of their owners’ political affiliations.

The Chamber has consistently advocated policies intended to improve Delaware’s economic competitiveness while working with lawmakers from both parties.

Its bipartisan approach is not new. In 2024, the organization endorsed 14 General Assembly candidates in the general election, including Democrats and Republicans.

This year’s smaller list of eight endorsements suggests a selective approach, although the Chamber has not publicly explained why it endorsed fewer candidates.

The choices also raise questions about what constitutes a business-friendly candidate in a state where Democrats control the governor’s office and both legislative chambers.

For the Chamber, maintaining relationships with members of both parties may be as important as supporting candidates who agree with every position on its legislative agenda.

A different question for voters

The Chamber’s announcement comes as voters begin early voting ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

Its endorsements are not evidence that Delaware voters are abandoning party loyalty. Nor do they establish that the Delaware Way is returning.

But they provide a timely example of an organization evaluating candidates through a different lens.

Rather than asking only whether a candidate is a Republican or Democrat, the Chamber’s approach focuses attention on other questions: Has the candidate listened to constituents and employers? What does the candidate’s record demonstrate? And is the candidate willing to consider solutions that cross party lines?

In an election season dominated by national political divisions, the endorsements offer a reminder of a tradition that has long shaped Delaware politics.

In a state small enough for voters to know many of their elected officials personally, party labels may tell only part of the story.

Whether more Delaware voters embrace that approach in 2026 remains to be seen.

TO GO: Chamber endorsements and the Nov. 3 election

• What’s new: The Delaware State Chamber of Commerce endorsed eight candidates Oct. 22 — four Democrats and four Republicans.

• How candidates were selected: The Chamber cites voting records, engagement with the business community and positions affecting employers and employees.

• Historical context: The Chamber has supported candidates from both parties in previous election cycles.

• Election Day: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.

• Learn more: Delaware State Chamber of Commerce | Delaware Department of Elections

Becky Drury says she was hit by gunfire before she could intervene in attack that killed four, including three children

A teacher wounded in last week’s shooting at a Bend, Oregon, elementary school shared her account of the incident, and how she was shot before she could intervene and “[pretended] to be dead”.

Becky Drury was seriously wounded at Silver Rail elementary when Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student at the school armed with a shotgun, broke in and headed toward a special education classroom. He shot six people, killing Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer.

Republican Mike DeWine said ad featuring estranged mother of Democrat Amy Acton was ‘wrong’

Donald Trump issued a swift rebuke against Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, who on Thursday said gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was “wrong” to release an ad critical of his Democratic rival Amy Acton that featured her estranged mother.

DeWine had implored Ramaswamy to take the ad down, but hours later, Trump urged Ramaswamy to keep airing it and accused the Republican governor of disloyalty.

President Trump said Iran was trying to drive up oil prices before the midterms by lying about ships hitting mines or being struck by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz.

Tom Skerritt died of natural causes, his family said in a statement.

Moderna shares plunged as much as 25% after partial clinical trial data leaked for its personalized cancer vaccine developed with Merck, despite the full results showing promising outcomes for melanoma patients. Analysts attribute the selloff largely to inflated investor expectations rather than disappointing clinical results. CNBC reports: The personalized vaccine, known as intismeran autogene, paired with Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda reduced the risk of recurrence or death in certain melanoma patients by 42% compared with Keytruda alone. The data also showed the shot along with Keytruda reduced the risk of cancer spreading to distant parts of the body or death by 38%, compared with just the immunotherapy. The companies say about 82% of patients who received the personalized cancer vaccine alongside Keytruda were alive without their melanoma returning at two years, compared with 70% of those who received Keytruda alone. [...] Investors see the targeted vaccine as a possible breakthrough treatment, with the potential to be used in other forms of cancer in the future. It could also offer Moderna a critical additional commercial product in its pipeline, following vaccines for Covid-19, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus. "We assert this relative reduction in recurrence/death is clinically meaningful," said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman. "Such a reaction likely reflects inflated expectations into the full data release, rather than a true indictment on the efficacy of the combo therapy." UBS analysts said "this is overall a strong data set" and gives more confidence in upcoming studies of the vaccine in kidney and bladder cancers. They added the stock reaction may be due more to massive expectations than disappointing data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

‘Political candidates’ once reflexive support for Israel has increasingly become a liability’

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most prominent pro-Israel lobby group in the US, announced on Wednesday that it would stop endorsing candidates or make direct contributions to them, its many critics were quick to hail the development as Aipac’s admission of how toxic its brand had become.

The announcement marked a significant reversal that underscored just how profoundly US public opinion of Israel has shifted over the latest war in Gaza, and how political candidates’ once reflexive support for Israel has increasingly become a liability.

Mortgage rates eased downward a little this week, but they're still firmly north of 7%.The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slid eight basis points to 7.26% APR in the week ending Oct. 22, according to rates provided to…

Photo taken by Delaware LIVE. Graphics added by on 10/22 using AI.

Federal spending, health care costs and foreign policy highlight differences as Delaware voters begin casting ballots.

By George D. Rotsch, Delaware LIVE News

WILMINGTON, Del. — Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Coons and Republican challenger Dr. Mike Katz presented different approaches to controlling federal spending, reducing health care costs and addressing America’s foreign policy challenges Thursday during a U.S. Senate candidate forum at the Hotel du Pont.

The hourlong discussion, hosted by the Rotary Club of Wilmington and moderated by Jake Owens of Spotlight Delaware, gave voters an opportunity to compare the candidates as early voting began for the Nov. 3 general election.

Coons emphasized his 16 years in the Senate, bipartisan legislative experience and willingness to challenge President Donald Trump’s policies. He said his campaign is focused on three priorities, in this order: opportunity, security and justice. Coons described opportunity as helping Americans build better lives, security as protecting families and their futures, and justice as addressing political divisions and abuses of power.

Katz, a physician, former state senator and business executive, argued that after 16 years of Coons representing Delaware in Washington, it is time for a change. He characterized the election as a performance review of the incumbent and a job interview for the challenger, calling for new leadership focused on financial responsibility, government efficiency and solutions to longstanding problems.

While both candidates promised to work across party lines, their differences were evident in how they would address some of the nation’s most pressing challenges.

Photo: The Gold Ballroom at the Hotel duPont, the stie of the Candidate Forum on Thursday October 22,2026.

Federal spending and debt

With the national debt approaching $40 trillion, both candidates acknowledged that federal spending and borrowing have become serious problems.

Coons said Republicans and Democrats share responsibility for growing deficits. He advocated increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and highly profitable corporations while providing relief to working families.

Katz argued that Washington cannot continue increasing taxes without addressing the underlying cost of government.

He called for restructuring federal operations, eliminating waste, establishing balanced budgets and developing a plan to reduce the national debt.

Moderator Owens challenged both candidates to identify specific budget decisions they would make, including which constituencies they would be willing to disappoint.

Neither presented a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan identifying specific spending cuts and revenue increases.

Social Security and health care

The candidates also offered different approaches to preserving Social Security and controlling health care costs.

Coons supported raising the income cap subject to Social Security payroll taxes and working through a bipartisan process to consider additional changes necessary to strengthen the program.

Katz said Social Security represents a commitment to Americans who have contributed throughout their working lives. He advocated reviewing how the program operates before considering changes to benefits or retirement requirements.

On health care, Coons defended the Affordable Care Act as a means of expanding access to insurance and preventive treatment.

He argued that improving access to primary care could reduce expensive emergency treatment and improve long-term outcomes.

Katz, drawing on four decades in medicine and health care management, said the system requires more fundamental reform.

He argued that government subsidies and insurance changes primarily determine who pays rising medical bills without adequately addressing why care costs so much.

Katz acknowledged beneficial provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but described the overall law as a failed approach to controlling health care costs.

Neither candidate provided a detailed legislative plan showing how his proposals would reduce costs for Delaware patients and employers.

Tariffs, energy and family expenses

The cost of living was another area of disagreement.

Coons criticized the Trump administration’s broad tariffs, arguing they increase prices for consumers and businesses, particularly those importing construction materials or exporting products to Canada.

He pointed to Delaware industries, including chemicals, agriculture and port operations, as examples of businesses affected by international trade policies.

Katz described tariffs as a legitimate economic tool when used selectively to protect American workers and businesses from unfair foreign competition.

He said tariffs should have clearly defined objectives, measurable results and congressional oversight.

Both recognized the importance of maintaining American competitiveness, but Coons placed greater emphasis on removing trade barriers while Katz focused on targeting unfair trade practices.

Iran war divides candidates

Foreign policy produced some of the forum’s clearest differences.

Coons strongly criticized the administration’s war with Iran, arguing that inadequate planning and insufficient consultation with Congress and American allies contributed to higher gasoline prices and instability in the Middle East.

He called for ending the conflict and restoring shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Katz said preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons remains essential to American and international security.

He criticized decades of foreign policy decisions, including the 2015 nuclear agreement supported by Coons, which Katz argued failed to resolve Iran’s long-term nuclear threat.

Both expressed concern about presidential military actions without sufficient congressional involvement, although they emphasized different responsibilities and policy failures.

On Ukraine, Coons strongly defended continued support for the country against Russia’s invasion. Katz criticized failures of American and international leadership but did not outline a detailed alternative strategy for ending the conflict.

Katz questions political process

One of the forum’s more pointed moments came when Katz departed from a question about Ukraine to raise concerns about the conduct of Delaware’s Senate campaign.

He alleged that campaign communications had been hacked, staff members had been threatened and supporters had experienced intimidation.

Katz also criticized the absence of a traditional public debate and what he described as insufficient scrutiny of the incumbent.

The allegations were not substantiated during the forum, and no evidence was presented establishing who might have been responsible.

The campaign has previously criticized Coons for declining other proposed debates, including a student-organized event at the University of Delaware. Thursday’s forum brought both candidates together, although the format did not allow direct exchanges or audience questions.

Bipartisanship and congressional accountability

Despite their disagreements, both candidates supported maintaining the Senate filibuster, which generally requires 60 votes to advance major legislation.

Katz said the rule protects minority-party interests and discourages either party from imposing sweeping changes without broader support.

Coons also defended the filibuster while expressing openness to certain reforms, particularly involving voting rights.

Asked when they would oppose their own parties, Katz pledged to evaluate legislation based on Delaware’s interests rather than party loyalty.

Coons cited examples of bipartisan legislation he had worked on with Republican colleagues, arguing that his record demonstrates an ability to deliver results even when party leaders disagree.

The discussion also touched on artificial intelligence, immigration and U.S. military assistance to Israel.

Both candidates supported responsible AI development, although Katz emphasized innovation and competitiveness while Coons stressed safeguards and the potential impacts of data centers on communities.

On immigration, Katz emphasized stronger border enforcement and legal immigration reform. Coons called for border security combined with greater accountability for federal immigration enforcement and legal pathways for qualifying immigrants.

Different approaches, shared challenges

Throughout the forum, Katz returned to his central argument that longstanding federal problems require changes in management, priorities and accountability.

Coons pointed to his relationships in Congress and legislative experience as reasons he could continue delivering results for Delaware.

Both identified rising costs, federal debt and political division as major concerns. Their disagreement centered largely on whether those problems are better addressed through changes to existing federal policies or more extensive restructuring of government programs.

The forum also left questions about specific spending reductions, long-term Social Security financing and measurable health care savings.

With early voting underway, Delaware voters now have a clearer comparison of the candidates’ priorities — and the decisions each would face in Washington.

TO GO: Delaware U.S. Senate election

• Candidates: U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D) and Dr. Mike Katz (R)
• Forum: Thursday, Oct. 22, Hotel du Pont, Wilmington
• Host: Rotary Club of Wilmington
• Moderator: Jake Owens, Spotlight Delaware
• Early voting: Oct. 22-Nov. 1, on designated voting days
• Election Day: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026
• Voting information: Delaware Department of Elections

In at least 18 cases, the Justice Department supported dismissals without first asking the federal court overseeing the case to determine if the school had ended discriminatory practices.

AI was used to uncover a security weakness that affects most of the world's websites, researchers said. Here's what internet users should know.

In the ad, which first circulated on social media Monday night, Democrat Amy Acton's estranged mother called her a liar.

A police officer shoved a woman to the ground and arrested her after a protest against datacenters at a Utah county commission meeting. A statement from the Utah county sheriff's office said that the woman refused to leave the meeting and struck the officer in the groin before being arrested

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the ban applies to classified and unclassified information and includes prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Longtime audio giant Bose announced on Wednesday that it's acquiring Skullcandy, the lifestyle brand known for its bass-heavy headphones. Skullcandy will remain a separate company within Bose's Premium Consumer Audio business and will still be based in Park City, Utah. The acquisition isn't out of left field. Bose has lent its audio expertise to Skullcandy over the past year under its Sound by Bose licensing program. Skullcandy designs the headphones and then works with Bose on the audio front. The relationship began with the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC earbuds in 2025 and more recently, with the Crusher 1080 ANC headphones in July. [...] This is hardly Bose's first audio acquisition (though it may be the most mainstream). Bose acquired McIntosh Group, owners of luxury audio brands McIntosh Laboratory and Sonus Faber, back in 2024. But Bose seems to be after Skullcandy's connection to its community. "What does the brand stand for? Does it have meaning for consumers? Is it relevant to a group of consumers that, frankly, we otherwise aren't reaching?" Bose CEO Lila Snyder tells WIRED. "If you think about McIntosh, Sonus Faber, and Skullcandy, they all fit into that realm. Skullcandy gives us access to a customer base that we think we're largely missing with the Bose brand." That's why Bose has no plans to relocate Skullcandy from Park City, Utah, which Snyder says is the epicenter of board sports culture. "We want to make sure we're right at the heart of it, as they always have been," she says. Skullcandy products are also affordable, especially compared to other Bose products and Bose-owned brands, which lets Bose compete at both ends of the market.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New account from Pike’s lawyer suggests team was racked by doubts even before pentobarbital began to flow

The Tennessee execution team tasked with setting an intravenous line in the arms of the death row prisoner Christa Pike through which she could be injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital repeatedly warned that her vein might be “blowing”, before they went ahead with the procedure, her lawyer has revealed.

Members of the intravenous (IV) team used up to 10 needles as they sought to establish a line through which Pike could be killed with a massive dose of the sedative. About 20 minutes into the attempt, they began discussing among themselves whether the prisoner’s vein “might be blowing”.

California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii health officials ask CDC ‘prioritizing emerging technologies’ to reconsider

California and Washington asked the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in May to validate a new way to test for measles – but after waiting two months, the CDC denied the request, citing “other competing priorities”, according to a letter from the West Coast Health Alliance to the CDC director, Erica Schwartz.

The letter, signed by health officials in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, asks Schwartz to reconsider and validate a rapid, high-volume measles test in preparation for major outbreaks. The alliance also asked the CDC to create protocols to test for other high-priority pathogens to prepare for future outbreaks.

‘The word ‘justified’ has haunted me since Monday,’’ the child’s maternal grandmother says

Since the Mississippi attorney general, Lynn Fitch, announced on Monday that the police shooting of Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old baby, “was justified”, footage of the shooting has been made public. It was first reported by Darkhorse Press, a Mississippi outlet.

On Thursday, attorneys Ben Crump and Van Turner, who are representing the Wiley family, held a press conference at the Senatobia Church of Christ, in Senatobia, Mississippi. The press conference came shortly after members of the family were able to view footage of the shooting.

Be Ready campaign aims to prepare UK for impact of climate crisis, technological dependency and threats by hostile state

Every Briton is being urged to stock up to nine litres of bottled water and three days’ worth of food in new government guidance designed to ensure that households can survive a weather, cyber or other serious emergency.

The Be Ready campaign is aimed at persuading people to stock up with supplies to last 72 hours, amid growing official concern about the impact of the climate crisis, technological dependency and hostile state threats.

Customers on T-Mobile One accounts from 2017 through 2019 could get a free 5G phone, credit toward a more expensive 5G phone or their last month’s payment and $25 gift card.

Miatta Fahnbulleh says reference to ‘awkward’ interview was meant to be lighthearted and self-deprecating

The energy secretary has been forced to clarify that she backs Shabana Mahmood’s migration policy, after earlier joking that she had not been able to “lie” about supporting a key element of the changes.

Miatta Fahnbulleh made the original remarks to a journalists’ event in Westminster, referring to an “awkward” Sky News interview in which she repeatedly refused to say she was in favour of plans to make foreign workers wait 15 years to get permanent residency.

Washington, DC — Several people pardoned by President Donald Trump for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are now seeking financial compensation from the federal government, including individuals convicted of assaulting police officers.

The claims argue that the prosecutions, convictions and imprisonment stemming from the Capitol attack caused financial and personal harm. Some of the plaintiffs are seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Trump issued sweeping clemency after returning to office, pardoning or commuting the sentences of nearly all Jan. 6 defendants, including people convicted of violent offenses against law enforcement.

The new compensation claims go beyond asking for criminal records to be cleared. They seek taxpayer-funded damages for actions taken by federal prosecutors, investigators and prison officials during cases that had previously resulted in guilty pleas or convictions.

Critics argue the demands effectively seek to turn presidential pardons into financial rewards for people who participated in an attack that injured police officers and disrupted the certification of the 2020 election.

A presidential pardon eliminates or reduces criminal consequences, but it does not establish that the prosecution was unlawful or that the person was wrongfully convicted.

Whether the claims succeed will depend on courts determining whether the plaintiffs can overcome legal protections that generally shield the federal government and its officials from damages arising from lawful prosecutions.

Sources:

• Bloomberg – MBFC Rating

The post Trump-Pardoned Capitol Rioters Now Want Taxpayer Compensation From U.S. appeared first on News Facts Network.

Salt Lake City, UT — The Justice Department will deploy federal election monitors to Utah for the Nov. 3 midterms, part of a nationwide Trump administration effort expected to place roughly 1,000 monitors across all 50 states. Washington Examiner

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said Utah officials were notified of the deployment and emphasized that federal monitors will be required to follow state laws governing poll watchers.

According to Henderson, monitors must identify themselves to election workers, remain separate from voters, avoid conversations with people casting ballots and refrain from interfering with election operations. They also will not carry weapons or wear badges or other insignia visible to voters.

The Justice Department says the monitors are intended to observe compliance with federal voting laws rather than intervene in the process. DOJ has long deployed attorneys and other personnel to monitor elections, including during Democratic and Republican administrations. Department of Justice

What is unusual this year is the planned scale. The Trump administration has said it intends to send about 1,000 monitors nationwide, describing it as potentially historic for a Republican administration. Washington Examiner

The expanded federal presence comes amid heightened tensions over election administration, including recent disputes involving voter rolls, alleged noncitizen voting and federal agents appearing near polling locations.

Utah officials said the monitors will be subject to the same restrictions designed to protect ballot secrecy and prevent interference with voters.

Sources:

• Washington Examiner – MBFC Rating

The post DOJ to Send Federal Election Monitors to Utah for Midterms appeared first on News Facts Network.

Stage show based on late singer reportedly set to feature her best-loved songs with involvement from her father Mitch

A musical based on Amy Winehouse is in development for London’s West End.

The project is still in early stages with Catherine Schreiber, a Tony award-winning producer (Cabaret, Rent), attached to the project, according to Variety. Casting is reported to currently be under way.

(The Center Square) – Republican Tom Tiffany said that he plans to both cut taxes and return the state’s more than $3 billion surplus to taxpayers through tax cuts and also increase funding for transportation in a way that will…

Harrisburg, Pa. — Legislation sponsored by Sens. Devlin Robinson (R-37), Vincent Hughes (D-7) and Steve Santarsiero (D-10) addressing student cellphone use during school is almost law.

BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman likens the recently discovered PHP security vulnerabilities to an unexploded bomb, writing, "The PHP story feels like the cyber equivalent of an unexploded bomb -- I have never seen such a dramatic, public and global response to a cyber event that hasn't happened yet." Although no successful attacks have been confirmed, the AI-assisted discovery of long-hidden flaws has triggered a worldwide security scramble, with websites taken offline as a precaution and administrators racing to deploy patches before attackers can exploit the vulnerabilities. From the report: The weaknesses found in the PHP programming language, which is used by millions of websites, had been quietly resting there for years and are not easy to exploit. One cyber security researcher told me he'd been up all night trying to do it as an experiment, but it was proving very difficult. [...] It was supposed to be kept quiet until everyone had a chance to fix their sites -- but the news was leaked. From that point the clock started ticking. As I write this, there are no reports that anyone or anything has succeeded in using the flaws to attack a site. "There's a real dilemma," said Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University. "How do you alert people they need to be ready, and then that a patch is urgently required, whilst not alerting attackers? Basically you're telling everyone about the problem at the same time and hoping the defenders aren't awake enough to act as soon as the patch is out." But we do know from large web companies like Cloudflare and Palo Alto Networks that millions of attempts have been made. We probably won't know for a while whether it has worked for any criminals, because the companies affected might not be aware yet either. As far as we know the unexploded bomb remains intact for now, and for some experts this is a success. "We've seen how a team of people supported by the large AI company have used AI to find the problem, work for months together to solve it and get everybody ready to be safe and secure," Gina Neff, Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University, told the Today Program on BBC Radio 4. "We have enormous capability to handle these risks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

People near south Wales river were told to keep windows and doors shut after thousands of litres of kerosene from a GE Aerospace site got into the water

Oily slicks of kerosene still appeared to be leaking into the River Taff this week, several days after a breach of thousands of litres was spotted by members of the public.

The breach into the Welsh river was identified last Friday, after people reported strong chemical odours emanating from it. Natural Resources Wales (NRW) officers arrived on site soon afterwards to identify the source of the pollution and were assisted by the south Wales fire and rescue service, which placed absorbent mats and booms to contain as much kerosene as possible.

A federal judge said President Trump must sit for a deposition with lawyers for the BBC by Dec. 11 as part of his ongoing defamation lawsuit.

The October 8 shooting of Oscar Belgal by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in front of his 5-year-old son in Manhattan forced into the open a question that had been on many New Yorkers’ minds: What would the New York Police Department do when ICE broke the “rule of law” in the city, and how would Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the person who has the power to hire and fire the NYPD commissioner, respond? 

Shortly after the shooting, Mamdani addressed the incident with an appropriate amount of outrage, declaring ICE “rotten to its core,” and calling for the department to be abolished. His frustration was visible, but he was much less expressive when it came to his appraisal of the city’s response to the situation. He had nothing substantive to discuss with respect to his police department’s involvement, despite NYPD officers arriving on the scene only to find unidentified ICE agents holding guns, wearing plain clothes and disguises and masks, in apparent violation of federal laws requiring identification. (A recently passed New York state law prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks and other face coverings was temporarily blocked by a judge.) NYPD officers applied first aid and transported Belgal to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen hospital.

According to many eyewitness accounts and widely circulated video, members of the NYPD appeared to assist ICE agents by forcefully helping with crowd control — at one point, an NYPD officer shoved congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, whom Mamdani personally stumped for, to the ground. Later, NYPD cleared a path for federal agents to whisk Belgal away from the hospital to a federal detention facility downtown. 

Related

ICE Shooting in NYC Inflames Mamdani’s Policing Problem

After the shooting, the Democratic Socialists of America, several legislators, and Avila Chevalier all called on Mamdani to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and demanded the mayor uphold his campaign pledge to disband the NYPD’s infamous Strategic Response Group. Mamdani repeatedly refused to fire Tisch but said he was reviewing the 24-hour period around the shooting. When asked directly about Avila Chevalier being thrown to the ground, the mayor called it unacceptable, saying, “That is not something I will look to justify.” He reminded New Yorkers to be patient with efforts to reform the NYPD, ordered a review of the department’s use-of-force policies, and added funding for the inspector general’s office. But once again, he stood by his commissioner, citing “her record of uprooting corruption from the upper echelons of the NYPD while lowering crime across our city.”

Noticeably absent from any of Mamdani’s public remarks about the NYPD or Tisch was any public acknowledgment of the NYPD officers in relation to ICE agents during the Belgal incident.

Federal and city law enforcement occupy similar spaces but never really interact with each other. Mamdani made no mention of the ways in which the actions of federal agents put pressure on the NYPD as mediators — the primary function of police — to liaise in moments of conflict.

The NYPD typically relishes this role, which is why the department consumes so much of New York’s budget and shuns any attempts to redirect funds to other services that might reduce the need for police mediation to begin with. ICE forces local police to make choices in policy and in practice about how to deal with violent (often illegal) immigration operations.

If the NYPD believes itself to be the thin blue line, on which side of order and chaos do New York’s force and Mamdani believe these federal outside agitators to be?

This omission — or evasion, depending on how you look at it — of this predicament is strange considering Mamdani’s willingness to speak with moral clarity about even the most contentious issues and confront them head-on. It’s also bizarre considering his penchant for weaving shared experiences together and for putting the lived experiences of New Yorkers front and center.

On the campaign trail, one of Mamdani’s most alluring traits was his ability to speak to the actual problems of everyday residents. It wasn’t just because he possessed once-in-a-generation oratory skills; candidate Zohran achieved this because, as a proud democratic socialist, there was an analysis — an explanation of the material conditions of life — baked into his politics. His rhetoric seemed in line with, or at least not alienated from (see: establishment Democrats), how fast reality was moving and how it was impacting the lives of everyday New Yorkers.

When it comes to ICE, however, Mayor Mamdani’s rhetoric and policies haven’t always aligned, which has opened him up to questions about the kind of mayor he really is. On one hand, he has shown that he will speak out against Trump’s fascist and inhumane immigration efforts. On the other hand, Mamdani hasn’t moved with the same level of force as his words. Many have pointed out that Mamdani seems to be engaging in realpolitik in an effort to get his extensive progressive agenda passed. It’s certainly not easy to bring the machine of the New York government up to speed while also being transparent about the ways in which he is moving the needle. But that’s exactly what he was elected to do.

Had Mamdani got into office and done nothing different than previous mayors — or even been exceptionally corrupt, pro-cop, and willing to help the Trump administration like predecessor Eric Adams — he might have been able to avoid his current moment of reckoning. But his administration’s genuine efforts on immigration set into motion a future where the NYPD and ICE would come into conflict.

One of Mamdani’s first moves as mayor was to take stock of how the city’s many agencies were upholding existing sanctuary city laws. In February 2026, he signed Executive Order 13, his first major order pertaining to immigration, to create the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and establish baseline guidance, such as explicitly prohibiting ICE and other non-local law enforcement agencies from using city-owned garages and vacant lots. Crucially, EO 13 also required an audit of several agencies, including NYPD, to review their immigration-related policies.

Related

Local Cops Flout Sanctuary Law to Help ICE Deport Immigrants

NYPD already has a problematic history dealing with immigration enforcement. During the Adams administration, there were documented cases where the NYPD assisted or collaborated with immigration enforcement, sometimes in accordance with NYPD policies. A December 2025 report by Jocelyn Strauber, then-commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation, found at least one incident in which “an officer violated local law by providing assistance to federal authorities in connection with enforcement of the federal civil immigration law,” as well as evidence that NYPD did “not fully comply with documentation and reporting requirements concerning requests for assistance with federal civil immigration enforcement.” The report also found that there were numerous examples of NYPD policies and practices that elevated the “risk of improper information sharing or assistance to federal authorities for purposes of civil immigration enforcement.”

The resulting audit, which was released on May 22 by Mamdani’s deputy mayor, built on those findings and recommended NYPD (and other city agencies) update its reporting requirements. But the audit also left a lot of open questions, which numerous legal advocates attested to, about areas in which NYPD protocols and policies keep avenues open to potentially collaborate with ICE. The NYPD was “not being held to a high standard of accountability or scrutiny for collusion,” the audit found, and there were significant “gaps” in documenting potential violations of department policies. The question of what the city and its mayor could do to ensure compliance also remained unanswered.

Sanctuary laws prohibit using city resources for immigration enforcement, and a January 2025 NYPD internal memo specifically barring officers from facilitating street closures to enable immigration enforcement seemed to solidify that directive. But several high-profile incidents involving the NYPD have tested the department’s compliance with sanctuary laws. In October 2025, before Mamdani was elected, during an immigration raid in Chinatown, eyewitnesses and viral videos showed NYPD officers establishing perimeters to create a path for federal law enforcement agents. In another instance in May 2026, ICE reportedly “dragged” a Nigerian immigrant out of a Brooklyn hospital after agents used force in his arrest; NYPD officers brutalized and arrested numerous protesters and cleared debris from the road to enable ICE to escape the crowds and abscond with their target.

Both of these incidents happened under the watch of Tisch, who has insisted again and again that the department follows all sanctuary laws. When asked about the Brooklyn incident, Mamdani insisted NYPD was responding to 911 calls about the protest, not helping ICE. “Our laws leave nothing, no room for interpretation about the fact that our NYPD will not participate in civil immigration enforcement,” he said. NYPD told the Guardian US: “Upon arrival, officers observed numerous individuals acting in a disorderly manner, obstructing vehicular traffic, and blocking emergency entrances and exits at Wyckoff Heights medical center.” 

Related

LAPD Won’t Do Immigration Enforcement — But Will Shoot You With Rubber Bullets for Protesting ICE

When the NYPD arrives at an ICE raid or at a protest against an immigration abduction, what are officers supposed to do? On this point, NYPD and Mamdani have offered little clarity. But October 8 doesn’t pass the smell test for anyone who lives in overpoliced neighborhoods or closely observes the activity of police and their behavior.

NYPD officers were responding to an unrelated call nearby when they heard the report of shots fired. When they arrived, they encountered several men in various forms of attire, including some in construction-style vests, face masks, and at least one carrying a long gun, which officer body camera footage released by the Department confirms. The official account of the NYPD’s interaction offers no mention of ICE. There are no additional insights or explanations of department protocol that might shed light on how officers are supposed to act given the circumstances. Curiously, what those officers thought when they encountered several masked men with guns, and the conversations that took place between the ICE agents and the police, is a mystery, too. All we know is that officers agreed at some point that the NYPD would place Belgal in a vehicle, apply aid, and take him to the hospital. 

Since that evening, Mayor Mamdani has stood firm in his condemnation of ICE and their operations. “We will not normalize ICE’s viciousness,” he said, calling for the agency to be abolished. That’s the least he could say to reassure New Yorkers he understands the stakes they feel in their bones already. The shooting of Oscar Belgal and his subsequent inhumane treatment — his lawyers say Belgal is still in solitary confinement with a bullet in his neck — is a reminder of how normalizing ICE operations in New York City is already well underway. 

Related

Bill de Blasio Promised to Change the NYPD. His Courage Failed Him, and Us.

There have been more lower-profile ICE sightings and kidnappings, which echoes what has been the case in other parts of the country. What Mamdani will do to bring the city’s response into alignment with the needs of New Yorkers in this moment still remains an open question, including clarifying the NYPD’s role in the city’s ongoing fight against the Trump administration’s gestapo tactics.

If this month’s incident offered a lesson for Mamdani, it is that clearly articulating what is right is a full-time job that requires an unwavering willingness to confront reality. It’s not enough to say the thing on one issue — calling a genocide by its name, publicly dragging FIFA for pandering to wealthy elites, or deriding the inhumane practices of slumlords — but not stand on business when it comes to the reality that New Yorkers are seeing on their own streets. 

Sometimes, an actual seismic event can reveal what needs to be done and that there are alternatives that may not have been fully realized before. Hope isn’t lost. There is still time for Mamdani to update his analysis. But in this moment, the mayor must make a choice: renew his commitment to the truth, or be defined by its absence. 

The post Mamdani’s High-Wire Balancing Act Between ICE and NYPD Can’t Last appeared first on The Intercept.

Federal judge says government’s investigation into alleged noncitizen voting in nine states is relying on flawed data

A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to halt investigations in nine states into whether noncitizens are registered to vote.

US district court judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland found the government’s effort was relying on data that is full of errors and that it was leading to intimidation of groups performing voter assistance efforts. She said it should be halted until polls close on election day on 3 November.

• Funds for 2027 will match men’s World Cup in 2026

• Players given better flights and individual hotel rooms

Teams in the 2027’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil will receive the same preparation money from Fifa as those that played at the 2026 men’s tournament, the world’s governing body has announced.

The preparation money for the 32 teams has been more than doubled to $2.5m (£1.86m) each. In 2023, the total preparation money for the tournament was $31m; it will now be $80m.

(The Center Square) - The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a case to determine Congress’ tax authority inside a home, with a particular focus on home distilling.

Different vitamin tablets seen on a person's hand.

Sports fans gathering around during the Los Angeles Dodgers championship celebration in downtown Los Angeles, California, USA.

Tech company previously complied with president’s demand to rename Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America

Donald Trump said Google rejected his request to rename the Atlantic Ocean after himself or America.

Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Wednesday, the president said he had called Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, to ask whether the company could “handle” his proposal.

Government inspections showed overcharges as high as 39% on some items. The discount store giant was the subject of a 2025 investigation by the Guardian

Dollar General, the nation’s largest dollar-store chain, has agreed to a $1.875m deal to settle allegations that it “repeatedly and persistently” overcharged customers across New York state.

The New York attorney general’s office found that Dollar General often charged customers higher prices at checkout than the prices it promised on shelf labels, signs, advertising circulars and its mobile app. The state agency said one check of 114 items across multiple stores revealed overcharges on individual items as high as 26%, 38% and 39%.

Judge threatens to dismiss Trump’s BBC lawsuit unless he cooperates with discovery process and sits for deposition

Donald Trump has been ordered by a US judge to cooperate with the discovery process mandated for his lawsuit against the BBC and to sit for a deposition by 11 December – or else he could be subject to sanctions, including the possible dismissal of the $10bn lawsuit.

The lawsuit stems from a Panorama documentary aired by the BBC that spliced together two comments made nearly an hour apart by Trump during a rally on 6 January 2021, before the US Capitol riot. The BBC has acknowledged that this specific edit was misleading, but Trump has gone on to claim, falsely, that the BBC did not just edit his speech but used AI to insert words into his speech.

With ICE arrests and detentions at their highest levels, immigration remains a key issue for voters less than two weeks before election day.

• From mass raids to quiet crackdown: a timeline of Trump’s strategic ICE pivot

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Cheryl Bath, Wisconsin asks in a callout question: During covid I was surprised to learn how many foreign workers, especially from Mexico, worked in the Wisconsin farm fields. And now, I was more surprised to learn that these workers would also be deported and not allowed to work any longer at these fields even though it was all legal with paperwork. These foreign workers paid into the federal government taxes and social security system which was a plus for U.S. social security. I’ve been wondering how these Wisconsin farms are dealing with the absence of these workers seeing how it is harvesting time right now. Propublica had a article a year or so ago about the effects of this immigration sweep on the workers and the farms but that was still when the workers were still here. I can’t find any follow up or information on this anywhere. I think the farmers really feel left out to deal with this on their own and no one is asking questions. Maybe you can?

Maanvi: Cattle ranchers and dairy farmers have indeed been pushing for immigration reform, not only recently, but for years – because the industry relies so heavily on immigrant labor. In September, the the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Kansas Livestock Association, and Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association issued a joint warning that ICE operations were threatening their industy, and would have “a massive chilling effect on the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the supply chain moving”. I recently spoke with Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, who said that the US cattle herd has shrunk to its lowest numbers in 75 years – and ranchers are struggling to keep up with consumer demand. Farms aren’t able to expand operations without immigrant labor – and Teagarden said that this could mean that US consumers will increasingly be eating imported beef. He also noticed that ICE crackdowns are having a systemic impact on agriculture – it’s not only dairy or cattle industry workers who are impacted, but also farmworkers who grow the feed for cows, and immigrant workers who process the dairy and meat before it gets to grocery stores. Two-thirds of farm workers are non-citizen immigrants. As the administration targets these workers, food producers could struggle to keep up operations, and prices are expected to increase steeply, according to a study by the thinktank Fwd.us.

José: Many people caught up in the Trump administration’s dragnet are workers in the US — they pay taxes and contribute to Social Security, while receiving almost none of the benefits. The process to gain asylum or remain in the US can be long and arduous — oftentimes, as undocumented people go through the process, they will receive work permits, Social Security numbers and, in certain states, driver’s licenses. Now, many people with those legal work permits have been arrested by federal immigration officials and sit in detention centers, waiting for their immigration cases to proceed.

(The Center Square) – Another ISIS-inspired attack has been thwarted in Texas, this time an alleged attempted assassination of a U.S. congressman in north Texas: U.S. Rep. Keith Self.

If it takes more time to review and approve a simple email than it would for me to write it myself, the whole promise of agentic AI falls flat.

• Concacaf approves exceptional hosting arrangement

• Haiti to face US at Nu Stadium on 14 November

• Miami’s Haitian community offers home advantage

Concacaf on Thursday announced it has approved Haiti’s request to relocate their Nations League quarter-final first leg against the United States on 14 November from Kingston, Jamaica, to Miami in an “exceptional hosting arrangement”. Haiti have been unable to play nominal “home” games within their borders since July 2021, with the United Nations estimating that 90% of the capital of Port-au-Prince – including the national stadium – is controlled by violent gangs.

Haiti’s match, the first leg of a home-and-away series against the US, had been booked for Kingston. The Grenadiers played their 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Curaçao, Aruba and Barbados. However, the Nations League format slated Curaçao and Jamaica to host their matches on the same night as Haiti’s, shunting Haiti to Sabina Park, the home of the Jamaica national team until their current venue opened in 1962. Now a cricket ground, Sabina Park hosted two of Haiti’s Nations League qualifiers.

Anthropic has launched Claude Duet, an AI agent aimed at professionals and small businesses that competes with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots. Here's Anthropic's description of what it can do: Each morning, it sends you a short brief on the most important items across your connected apps. Throughout the day, it keeps tabs on those apps and messages you only when something needs your attention. You can also hand it tasks of all shapes -- from simple administrative tasks of scheduling meetings to more complex ones, such as building dashboards with dozens of tools, creating financial or sales forecasts, prototyping, and building web apps. The Verge reports: Claude Duet pulls in memory, skills, and connected apps from Claude, and it has a virtual machine with a browser that it can use for completing work. Before any big step, like sending a payment or deleting something, Claude Duet messages you for approval. Given that Duet may be taking action on sensitive information, it has a new "new dedicated classifier and safety system prompt" that are "designed to reject requests to share the strictest tier of information," such as credit card numbers. Anthropic says Claude Duet is currently an "early version" and that it "still might misread a thread or miscalibrate what's urgent." It's also not "as strong" at personal errands like booking tickets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Russia launched the strikes on Ukraine less than a day after negotiations to end the war, which also involved the United States, ended in St. Petersburg.

Problem in language that underpins 70% of sites has led governments and companies to pull sites offline to patch fault

• Tell us: have you been affected by the PHP code flaw?

• What is PHP, and how bad is the computer language flaw causing website shutdowns globally?

Websites around the world have been hit by millions of attempts to exploit a recently discovered vulnerability in their code, cybersecurity companies have said, as the US warned the flaw could allow attackers to take control of web servers, steal data and disrupt services.

The problem in the PHP programming language, which underpins about 70% of the world’s websites, emerged on Wednesday causing governments and companies to pull their websites off the internet before they could be attacked and so they could patch the fault.

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to lift a lower court injunction that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from building a border wall and related infrastructure in the Big Bend Sector.

Exclusive: Sasan Ghandehari’s partnership with religious foundation raises questions about past dealings with republic criticised by Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage’s newest billionaire donor was in business with a powerful Iranian religious foundation under the authority of the country’s supreme leader, raising questions about his past dealings with the hardline republic.

Hossein Ghandehari, also called Sasan, was little known in the UK until he pledged to give millions to Reform UK this summer and donated £50,000 to Farage to cover the cost of two passes for the Davos World Economic Forum.

• Lendeborg takes issue with appeals for foul calls

• Forward says he had limited exposure to league

Golden State Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg had an extraordinary NBA debut as he jawed with Luka Dončić and admitted he had largely been exposed to the league through highlights before turning professional.

Lendeborg was given the task of guarding the Los Angeles Lakers star for large parts of Wednesday’s game, which Dončić’s team won 127-105.

The new policy prevents hosts from asking guests to strip beds, start a load of laundry and other tasks that "require significant effort or time."

Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative appears to have accidentally disclosed several unpatched Linux kernel vulnerabilities on the public LKML instead of the private security list, including two CVSS 9.0 flaws that could enable remote code execution through SMB Direct and KSMBD. "This seemingly was a mistake with Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman responding to each report asking about their submission to the public mailing list," adds Phoronix. The newly-disclosed vulnerabilities include: ZDI-CAN-33549 as a CVSS 9.0 scored vulnerability for SMB Direct remote code execution vulnerability due to integer underflow. For this one there is a patch in a Git branch of code intended for Linux v7.5 but now presumably will be expedited for getting to mainline. ZDI-CAN-33774 as a KSMBD race condition that can lead to remote code execution. Another CVSS 9.0 rated vulnerability. ZDI-CAN-33367 is a vulneravbility for skbuff skb_zerocopy in the network code that can lead to local privilege escalation. For this one Linux kernel developers received a security report from another source last week over the same issue and a patch is expected to be posted soon. ZDI-CAN-34068 as a VMWGFX VMware graphics driver bug with an out-of-bounds write leading to local privilege escalation. ZDI-CAN-34076 an uninitialized resource in the NVMET code leading to information disclosure. ZDI-CAN-32005 was also posted to the mailing list a day prior for a search-domain TCP query stack buffer overflow leading to local privilege escalation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The post Federal Agents Spotted Near Florida Early Voting Sites, Alarming Election Officials appeared first on News Facts Network.

L. Louise Lucas, a longtime state senator from Virginia, has been arrested in connection with an alleged bribery and racketeering scheme.

Hey everyone,

I’m working on recovering a 4209 XR controller that got bricked after an accidental haptic buzz update prompt (it was powered on the bench through the charger port with no BMS attached). After the update attempt, the app reported corrupted firmware, and Bluetooth recovery/downgrading methods through FFMWheel haven't worked out.

I’ve got the controller fully disassembled on my bench and plan to hook up an ST-Link V2 over SWD to rewrite it.

I’ve been diving into the Rewheel docs (DumpFirmware.md & FlashFirmware.md), so I understand the general process:

Clearing the STM32's Read-Out Protection (RDP) will wipe the entire flash (including the original bootloader and settings data).

The extracted firmware images can't just be flashed raw over ST-Link, so I need to flash a valid bootloader-settings.bin first to restore Bluetooth update capabilities.

The missing piece for me right now is that bootloader/settings.bin image (or a full flash dump) from a working 4209 hardware XR.

A couple of questions for anyone who has done deep hardware recovery on these:

Does anyone have a bootloader/settings dump for a 4209 XR they’d be willing to share? (Strictly for personal use on my own bench—definitely won't be redistributing it).

Any specific gotchas to keep in mind when clearing RDP and flashing over SWD?

Appreciate any insight, tips, or files you guys might have. Thanks!

French president also says he will decide on concrete ‘next steps’ for the next nationwide demonstrations

• Angry lawyers and bewildered defendants: the fallout from fast-tracking French rioting cases

Emmanuel Macron has said “illegitimate” demonstrations will be banned over the coming days as France seeks to get a grip on civil unrest after some of its worst street violence in years erupted on the fringes of cost of living protests at the weekend.

Speaking after a ​meeting with intelligence officials and senior ministers, the French president said on Thursday that demonstrations organised by recognised groups would be allowed to go ahead, although their routes could be changed.

Inquiry follows report by Guardian and partners that aides of Russian oligarch appeared to have falsified paperwork mapping his businesses

Police in Cyprus have opened an investigation into the financial and tax affairs of the former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich following a report by the Guardian and media partners.

In a committee hearing in the Cypriot parliament, a senior official in the island’s police said they were looking into events between 2003 and 2006, with the investigation likely to last several months.

Some 32 government services are offline while work is carried out to address potential cybersecurity issues, a minister has said

• Tell us: have you been affected by the PHP code flaw?

The Office for National Statistics has also published a report on the gender pay gap. It says:

The gender pay gap for full-time employees has continued to decline in the UK. It was 6.8% in April 2026, down from 7.2% in April 2025. This compares with 9.4% a decade ago and 16.4% 25 years ago.

Secondly, I asked Healey whether he sees the banks as making excessive profits, which would be the coherent justification for him to increase the surcharge on bank profits – as he is expected to do in the Budget next week.

He said: “You know the banks are the engine of investment in this country. The banks are doing well at the moment and that is good to see.

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a clinic.

The Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia has been closed since a man died after witnesses say he was ejected from the ride.

Hundreds of people remain evacuated from their homes days after the chemical leak began at a facility in Toledo, Ohio.

Chief executive agrees to remain in California for eight years even if state brings in one-off 5% wealth tax

Meta has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to help him foot a possible California wealth tax targeting billionaires.

The social media company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp revealed on Wednesday night that the arrangement would keep its chief executive living in California, where Meta’s headquarters are located.

The Pentagon’s Active Denial System shoots energy beam that causes ‘sensation of intense heat on surface of skin’

Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, reportedly signed a memo last month permitting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to test a non-lethal “heat ray” for potential use at the US southern border.

The “heat ray”, known as the Active Denial System, is a military-grade weapon that shoots an energy beam causing “a sensation of intense heat on the surface of the skin”, according to a 2009 National Defense University case study on the weapon.

1 in 5 households have cut back on groceries because of energy bills, according to a new Consumer Reports survey.

The Minnesota Democrat told MS NOW's Chris Hayes that her address is now public and she is facing death threats. She said her children visit on and off, and she doesn't want people tracking them.

Charities say ‘tip of iceberg’ figures show government is not fulfilling pledge to halve violence against women and girls

Almost one in 10 adults in England and Wales have experienced domestic abuse in the last year, a survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) found that 9.6% of people aged 16 and over had experienced domestic abuse in the last year – which equates to about 4.7 million people.

The first awarding marked the apex of Gianni Infantino’s hubris. A new version could highlight the good in the world of soccer

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Poor Fifa peace prize. Unloved, unliked, mocked, tainted by association with its first winner. And now demoted, too, after Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, dumped the thing on the global governing body’s “social responsibility committee” to look after. To redeem it, rather than to ditch it, to spare Infantino the embarrassment of acknowledging that his fake prize was really just a fake prize all along.

Here is where we should probably acknowledge that, as fake prizes go, and in the context of what it was intended to accomplish, the first awarding of the Fifa peace prize was an unqualified success. It achieved exactly what it was meant to, made by Infantino to flatter Donald Trump, the man he needed to keep on his side to safeguard the riches to be extracted from the North American market in order to consolidate his power base within Fifa. Trump, the gullible buffoon, was pleased as punch – handed a big, golden bauble and a medal he placed around his own neck – and briefly forgot about the Nobel peace prize he desperately covets.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: US Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.

The sky in the painting matches the 1predawn sky over Van Gogh’s then home in Saint-Remy, France, around July 22, 1889.

Kevin Snow

The PM is heard having a long discussion about crisps in the trailer to the show, which is in aid of Stand Up To Cancer

From ranking his favourite crisps in the pub to complaining about people watching TikToks out loud on the train, Andy Burnham has made efforts to show he has the common touch.

Now he will become the first prime minister to appear on the popular TV show Gogglebox, in a special charity episode on Friday.

The social media personality denies allegations he gave a girl alcohol until she was drunk and sexually assaulted her

The “looksmaxxing” livestreamer Braden Peters, better known by his stage name Clavicular, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he raped a 17-year-old girl at his family’s Massachusetts home.

A social media personality known for promoting extreme devotion to male beauty, Peters, 20, is accused of giving the girl alcohol until she was drunk and then sexually assaulting her when she visited him in Chatham, on Cape Cod, in May 2025.

Federal authorities allege L Louise Lucas, a state senator and vocal Trump critic, led a ‘criminal marijuana enterprise’

Virginia state senator L Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.

An indictment unsealed on Thursday charged Lucas and six other defendants, including several of her relatives, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Lucas surrendered on Thursday, a justice department spokesperson said.

Other prizes at Freedom from Torture event include rare Mary Wollstonecraft book illustrated by William Blake

Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan are among a number of literary stars auctioning off the chance for readers to name characters in their next novels to raise money for survivors of torture.

The auction is part of Freedom from Torture’s 10th anniversary literary festival, which brings together leading authors and survivors for a celebration of storytelling, featuring a poetry competition and live readings at the London Library on 11 November.

Exclusive: Michael Aboud, whose actions in what he believed to be a documentary are likely to come under considerable scrutiny, has expressed anger at the film-maker

• This article contains spoilers for Ali G: Who Iz I?

The chair of the El Paso County Republican Party has said he intends to sue Sacha Baron Cohen over footage of the local politician used in new satircal comedy Ali G: Who Iz I?

In the film, Michael Aboud is shown taking part in a training programme with another Cohen character, ex-Mossad terrorist expert Col Erran Morad, who instructs Aboud and fellow Maga sympathisers in self-defence techniques including the wearing, over clothes, of protective plastic buttocks. He also schools them in how to fire bullets from the middle of these buttocks by the repeated up and down manipulation of a rubber penis.

Who is responsible for the increases? There is no single cause behind Delaware’s rising electric bills. Several organizations, market conditions and government policies influence what customers ultimately pay. Image created on 10/22 using AI.

Delmarva Power seeks $67.8 million more in annual revenue as regulators weigh grid investments, rising energy costs and what Delaware can do to protect consumers.

By George D. Rotsch, Delaware LIVE

WILMINGTON, Del. — Delaware families already paying substantially more for electricity face another potential increase as state regulators consider Delmarva Power’s request for $67.8 million in additional annual revenue.

The proposal would increase the utility’s distribution base rates by 21.7%, although that does not mean customers’ total electric bills would rise by that percentage.

The request comes after a separate increase in electricity supply costs took effect June 1, adding an estimated $14.64 per month, or about $176 annually, to the average residential customer’s bill.

For households struggling with higher prices for food, insurance, housing and other necessities, the latest rate case raises a broader question: Why does electricity keep getting more expensive, and what can Delaware officials do about it?

Electric bills keep climbing

The cost of electricity has increased substantially in recent years, adding pressure to household budgets.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Delaware’s average residential electricity price reached 17.15 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2025. Preliminary monthly data show prices climbing further in 2026.

Unlike groceries or gasoline, electricity is difficult for consumers to avoid. Families can reduce consumption, but heating, cooling, refrigeration and other essential household needs place limits on how much they can cut.

The June increase was particularly significant.

Delmarva’s standard electricity supply rate increased approximately 19%, largely because of higher regional power costs. Changes in renewable-energy compliance charges slightly offset the impact, resulting in an estimated 9% increase in the overall bill for a typical residential customer using 811 kilowatt-hours per month.

The pending distribution-rate case represents a separate cost pressure.

Delmarva implemented temporary higher distribution rates July 9 while the Delaware Public Service Commission reviews its request for a permanent increase. The final decision will determine how much additional revenue the utility can collect, with the interim rates subject to adjustment.

Who is responsible for the increases?

There is no single cause behind Delaware’s rising electric bills. Several organizations, market conditions and government policies influence what customers ultimately pay.

The major cost drivers include:

• PJM Interconnection — Regional electricity costs: PJM manages the wholesale electricity market serving Delaware, 12 other states and Washington, D.C. Rising demand, limited generation capacity and higher prices for ensuring adequate electricity supplies have contributed significantly to recent increases.
• Delmarva Power — Local delivery costs: Delmarva maintains the poles, wires, substations and other equipment delivering electricity to homes and businesses. Its pending rate request would increase revenue collected from customers for distribution services and infrastructure investments.
• Delaware Public Service Commission — Rate oversight: The PSC reviews Delmarva’s proposed distribution rates and determines which expenses are reasonable for customers to pay. The commission does not directly control regional wholesale electricity prices.
• Delaware lawmakers — Renewable-energy requirements: State law requires utilities to obtain 40% of electricity from renewable sources by 2035, including a 10% solar requirement. Renewable-energy credits and other compliance expenses can add costs, although supporters argue the requirements deliver environmental benefits and reduce long-term exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility.
• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — Carbon compliance costs: Delaware participates in this regional emissions-reduction program. Power generators must purchase allowances for certain carbon emissions. Some expenses can be reflected in wholesale electricity prices, while program revenues support energy-efficiency and environmental initiatives.
• Growing electricity demand — Pressure on the regional grid: Data centers, economic development and increasing electrification are expected to place additional demands on the power system. Meeting that demand could require more generation, transmission capacity and local infrastructure.

The distinction matters.

Regional wholesale electricity costs have been a major driver of recent increases, but Delaware regulators and lawmakers have greater control over utility distribution spending, renewable-energy requirements and other state policies.

That leaves Delaware officials with an important responsibility: ensuring the costs they can control are necessary, transparent and affordable for the families and businesses paying the bills.

Delaware’s energy policies also carry costs

The debate over electricity affordability increasingly includes questions about the state’s environmental and renewable-energy policies.

Delaware’s Renewable Portfolio Standard requires utilities to obtain an increasing share of electricity from renewable sources, reaching 40% by 2035.

Supporters say the requirements encourage cleaner energy, diversify supplies and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Critics question whether the mandates are achieving those goals at the lowest possible cost, particularly as regional electricity prices rise.

The state also participates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which requires participating power generators to purchase carbon-emission allowances.

Revenue from those allowances supports energy and environmental programs, but the compliance costs can also influence electricity prices.

Neither program accounts for the entire increase in household bills, and renewable-energy compliance charges actually decreased slightly during Delmarva’s June supply-rate adjustment.

Still, the programs raise a legitimate policy question: Should Delaware review the cost and timing of its energy mandates as consumers face higher electricity bills?

Does Delaware really need more grid investment?

Delmarva’s distribution-rate request centers on the cost of maintaining and upgrading the electrical system.

The company must maintain infrastructure, respond to outages, replace aging equipment and prepare for future electricity demand.

Additional investments can improve reliability, reduce outages and strengthen the system against severe weather.

But those benefits come at a price.

The question for regulators is not simply whether improvements are needed, but whether the proposed spending is justified, appropriately timed and fairly allocated among customers.

The Public Service Commission has authority to examine the utility’s expenses, investment plans and requested financial returns before approving permanent distribution rates.

That oversight becomes increasingly important when customers are already absorbing higher supply and transmission costs that state regulators have less power to control.

What can Delaware do to lower electric bills?

Although Delaware cannot independently control the regional electricity market, policymakers have several opportunities to address affordability.

Push for PJM reforms. Regional leaders, including Gov. Matt Meyer, have called for changes intended to address rising electricity costs. Increasing available generation, reducing delays for new energy projects and improving market rules could help stabilize prices.

Review renewable-energy compliance costs. Lawmakers could examine whether current requirements are delivering their intended benefits at reasonable costs and whether adjustments to compliance mechanisms or timelines are warranted.

Expand energy-efficiency programs. Weatherization, insulation, efficient appliances and other improvements can help consumers reduce electricity consumption without sacrificing reliability.

Scrutinize utility investments. Regulators can require Delmarva to demonstrate that proposed projects are necessary, cost-effective and beneficial to customers before authorizing additional rate revenue.

Improve transparency. Consumers could benefit from clearer information showing exactly how much they pay for electricity supply, capacity, transmission, distribution and state energy-policy requirements.

Target financial assistance. Existing assistance programs and payment arrangements can provide relief to households with limited incomes, including seniors and residents living on fixed incomes.

Some of those actions could reduce long-term costs. Others would provide more immediate relief without necessarily changing the underlying price of electricity.

The question is affordability

The growing cost of electricity is not the result of one utility decision or one government policy.

It reflects multiple pressures, including regional electricity markets, rising demand, infrastructure investments and state energy requirements.

Some expenses are necessary to maintain a reliable electrical system. Others reflect policy choices that can be examined and adjusted.

The challenge for Delaware’s elected officials and regulators is determining whether the benefits justify the costs and whether enough attention is being paid to the financial impact on consumers.

For families watching their electric bills rise, that question is becoming harder to ignore.

The Public Service Commission is accepting written public comments on Delmarva’s pending rate case through Nov. 4.

TO GO BOX

• What: Delmarva Power electric distribution rate case
• Proposed increase: $67.8 million in additional annual revenue, representing 21.7% of existing distribution base rates
• Status: Temporary higher rates took effect July 9. The permanent rate request remains under review.
• Public comment deadline: Nov. 4, 2026
• How to participate: Submit written comments through the state’s DelaFile system at https://delafile.delaware.gov or email psc@delaware.gov. Include Docket No. 25-1555.
• Learn more: Delaware Public Service Commission, https://depsc.delaware.gov
• Consumer assistance: Residents struggling with electric bills can contact Delmarva Power about payment arrangements or the Delaware Division of the Public Advocate for assistance.

England and Wales judges to be able to keep inmates in cells for longer or stop visits if they refuse to face victims’ families in court

Offenders who refuse to face their victims’ families in court for sentencing could be stripped of privileges or kept in cells for weeks under government changes granting wider powers to judges in England and Wales.

The imposition of new prison sanctions, coming into effect next year, builds on existing laws that order offenders to attend sentencing or face a fine or be jailed for a further two years for contempt of court.

Investigations under way to determine whether virus normally found in livestock contributed to man’s death

A man in France has become the first human known to have contracted Shamonda virus, with investigations under way to explore whether it contributed to his death.

Shamonda virus is a type of bunyavirus and is spread by bites from infected midges. According to the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, in animals such as cattle, sheep and goats it can cause diarrhoea, lack of appetite and a decline in milk yield, “as well as abortions and congenital abnormalities in newborn calves, lambs and kids”.

The remains of a downed Soviet fighter plane from World War II were uncovered recently in a remote Hungarian town, officials said.

Hegseth’s aides, who attempted to move Eisenhower globe themselves, dropped it during relocation, army officials say

A priceless pre-second world war globe coveted by the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth for his office in the Pentagon was damaged by his staff in a botched attempt to relocate it, army officials have admitted.

Photographs published by the Washington Post on Thursday show the shattered 30-inch Eisenhower globe, said to have been used by Dwight D Eisenhower, the 34th US president, as he plotted the D-day landings as allied supreme commander.

It’s the last day of the electoral campaign in Serbia today ahead of this Sunday’s closely contested parliamentary election

As we are waiting for Macron, first details of the planned police response to this weekend’s protests are emerging.

Junior interior minister, Jean-Didier Berger, said that the police presence will be “20% higher” than last weekend, with reinforcements from the army, elite police forces and gendarmerie.

The historic copper beech tree has been standing since the 19th century.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Google is facing a backlash from some staff members over the company's deployment of its AI technology for military use. The BBC has spoken to several tech workers who have either recently resigned from Google's AI company, Google DeepMind, or are in the process of leaving, over concerns with the tech firm's military contracts. Sofia Liguori, a London-based research engineer, is one of them. She resigned from Google DeepMind this week and spoke about her concerns exclusively with the BBC, despite her contract restricting her from doing so. "Realizing my company is pushing more and more for AI systems in military operations makes me feel ashamed to work at Google," Liguori said, speaking in a personal capacity. [...] After working for the company for three years, Liguori said she decided to resign over Google's increasing work with the US and Israeli militaries. "I don't agree with this direction and this has led me to lose faith in my company being true to its stated ethical values," she said. Those values, according to Google's AI Principles, include implementing AI with "human oversight" and aligning the technology with "international law and human rights." But former and current staff at the company, and experts the BBC spoke to, said they were concerned about the level of human oversight at critical moments. The tech workers said they are particularly worried about the AI military deals signed this year, because they greatly increase the scope of what the Pentagon can use the technology for. Andreas Kirsch, an AI researcher, also resigned from Google DeepMind earlier this month over his concerns. Kirsch told the BBC that he believes "Google's governance and oversight are not sufficient or meaningful enough to deploy AI safely and responsibly in military and classified settings" or "to develop artificial superintelligence safely in the future." "Google seems to have no right to control or veto how the Pentagon uses its AI and also seems to have limited visibility into how it's being deployed," he added. [...] Employees at Google have told the BBC that staff are scared to speak out about AI safety and its uses in warfare because their employment contracts prohibit them from publicly criticizing the company. "In principle I'm not allowed to criticize Google for the duration of my life," Sofia Liguori told the BBC. But she decided to do so "because I believe it's important for these things to be known and I also think that talking about facts is not criticizing." Liguori added that at Google "people are scared of retaliation and putting their career at risk. You feel you are being watched, you can't speak." A current employee at Google DeepMind, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told the BBC that "a lot of motivated employees who signed up for [the company's] original mission could leave -- but there's also a pipeline of people at the start of the careers who could fill those positions. It could be a changing of the guard." Another Google DeepMind staff member, who also wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC: "A lot of people have left the company that feel strongly about this [how Google DeepMind has changed its ethics position]." "Some people are putting up a fight, others are thinking: 'it's a big company. What do you expect to change?'", the employee said. In response, a Google spokesperson told the BBC: "We work with public sector organisations worldwide and follow a consistent process for reviewing and entering these contracts, including compliance with our acceptable use policies and AI principles." "We also have dedicated channels for employees to safely raise any concerns -- ranging from business ethics to misconduct -- and have strict workplace policies in place to prevent retaliation of any kind."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

‘Scapegoating non-permanent residents is not going to lower the cost of living,’ Vanesa Ortiz says

When Vanesa Ortiz came to Calgary from Mexico, she found herself in a city gripped by winter. Outside the airport, it was -15C (5F).

“I would come to understand that this was not an extreme cold,” she said. “But in the moment it was terrifying.

A veteran North Korea analyst tells CBS News "a change in the situation" along the DMZ, and a warning from the North, are cause for concern.

Equating to the loss of 5% of its 93,000 global staff, job cuts come as bank announces jump in quarterly profits

Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs as part of wider cost-saving plans that its bosses say are being driven by advances in AI.

The job cuts will mean losing about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff, with executives confirming they had already cut 1,000 workers since the start of the year.

From contrast to color to input lag, I measure and compare home theater and portable projectors using instruments and my own two eyes.

Russia has carried out a massive 'demonstrative' attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff. Strikes on Kyiv killed at least two people and wounded 22, including four children. Twelve regions across the country were bombed. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the strikes proved Russia was not serious about peace

• Russia bombards Kyiv with missiles hours after agreeing to resume talks with Ukraine

There’s no shortage of things to do at The Ritz-Carlton Oahu, Turtle Bay, where you can fill your days with fun activities on Hawaii’s North Shore.

Zuckerberg has agreed to remain in California for eight years as part of a board-approved plan to create new shares he can sell to pay a proposed wealth tax.

Becky Drury, the 54-year-old teacher wounded in the shooting at an Oregon elementary school last week, says she was shot before she had "any chance to act."

Hubbard, a Michigan native, spent four years wrongfully imprisoned in Russia before being released on Wednesday.

This animated map shows the insect’s population exploding in Australia’s eastern states, with the endangered species coming back from the brink

If you live anywhere on the eastern side of Australia, you’ve probably noticed that bogong moths are back in a big way.

While we don’t yet have figures from ecologist-led surveys to compare with previous years, there is a wealth of data on the great moth revival being generated by citizen scientists across the eastern states.

A man's feet on a table while watching a football match on a television.

The Orionid meteor shower peaks this week, the full Hunter’s Moon rises Oct. 26 and Saturn is still at its brightest of the year.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reverse cuts to the food-stamp program as consumers shoulder $22 billion in additional food costs.

Democratic lawmaker says family’s safety is at risk amid death threats and raid making apartment’s address public

• Our reporters answer your questions about ICE, immigration and the midterms

Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar said she plans to move out of her Washington DC apartment after federal agents raided her residence last week as part of a larger immigration investigation.

“I mean obviously, I can’t continue to live there,” Omar told MS Now in an interview that aired on Wednesday. “So we have to figure out where to move to, because our address has been public and with the death threats that I deal with, it’s no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids, like, visiting off and on, having people track them.”

The reigning champions must deal with the absence of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for some time, while fans at Anfield were thrilled by Rio Ngumoha

Paris Saint-Germain beat Barcelona 4-2 on Tuesday, but the reigning champions lost the best player in last season’s tournament, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. This autumn has seen much lobbying for the Ballon d’Or, with the Georgian a popular choice, despite his absence from the World Cup. He is expected to be out for six months, although Rodri’s comeback from serious injury – he was rested by Barcelona on Tuesday until coming off the bench in the 60th minute – shows it can take far longer than that for players to rediscover their highest level.

Fighter jets intercepted a plane that entered restricted airspace over Clemson, South Carolina, on Wednesday, as President Trump spoke at a rally there, military officials said.

The officer says he took possession of the property and renovated it ‘to prevent criminal activity’ and ‘squatting’

A Florida police officer who discovered a man dead during a welfare check stole his house and identity and spent years renovating the property for himself, authorities said.

Brian Louis Sguros, 35, an officer with the Lauderhill police department near Miami, appeared in court Wednesday on charges including criminal use of a deceased person’s identification.

Similar withdrawals from UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain reported as concerns grow about restart of war on Iran after US midterm elections

The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield.

Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. The state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”

The $849 Mori is designed to respond to your environment, knowing when to play and when to stay quiet.

The Audacity is a fearless satire taking on Silicon Valley’s ‘egomaniac weirdos’. Its creator and stars talk ayahuasca ceremonies, mining kids for data – and punching CEOs

Showrunner Jonathan Glatzer wanted the tagline of his latest TV creation to be: “We’re so fucked.” He laughs. “Sadly it got rejected by the network. Hey, maybe I can use it for season two!” The show in question is The Audacity, his darkly comic drama about AI tech titans. Instead, it went with the more PG tagline “Move fast and break people” – a twist on “Move fast and break things”, the Facebook motto coined by Mark Zuckerberg. The Audacity promises to do for tech bros what Succession did for legacy media. Considering Glatzer is a former writer on Succession, that is no empty threat.

This acerbic and all-too-timely Silicon Valley satire follows CEO Duncan Park (played by Billy Magnussen), the obscenely wealthy founder of a data analytics company. He’s a self-proclaimed “inventor of the future” who also happens to be a morally bankrupt man-baby. “Duncan is worth about half a billion,” says Glatzer. “Naturally, that’s not enough. He desperately wants to be a billionaire and ascend to what we call ‘God Mountain’. But he’s no God.”

What started off as a dare became a fully fledged app in less than a day

Critical minerals: The UK’s role in securing resilient supply chains 5 November 2026 — 12:00 TO 13:30 GMT Anonymous (not verified) 22 October 2026 Chatham House and Online

Hear from the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee as it launches its report on how the UK can build resilient critical minerals supply chains, alongside like-minded partners.

Critical minerals have moved from the margins of industrial policy to the centre of economic and national security strategy. As demand accelerates and geopolitical competition intensifies, governments face a shared challenge: how to build supply chains that are resilient, responsible and commercially viable. For the UK, the question is not only how to secure access, but also how to draw on its strengths in finance, markets and international partnerships to help shape the next generation of global supply chains.

This event brings together members of the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, practitioners and policymakers to launch the Committee’s report on critical minerals, unpack their findings, and explore the dilemmas and opportunities facing the UK.

This event discusses:

• Why have critical minerals become central to economic and national security strategy?
• What will be required to meet the needs of both the energy transition and future defence capabilities?
• How can governments build supply chains that are resilient, responsible and commercially viable?
• How can the UK draw on its strengths in finance, markets and international partnerships to shape the next generation of global supply chains?
• What role can like-minded nations play in creating durable mineral ecosystems?
• Where should UK policymakers and industry focus as demand accelerates and competition intensifies?

The discussion will be followed by half an hour of coffee and networking.

John Anderson, a country music Hall of Famer with a distinctive voice, died on Wednesday, his family said. He was 71 years old.

You Can See Everything, a documentary about the disgraced biotech company founder Elizabeth Holmes, has enjoyed a record-breaking opening in the US. It is a testament to how fascinated we remain by the convicted fraudster, but what is behind the enduring appeal? US technology editor Blake Montgomery tells Madeleine Finlay why Holmes continues to fascinate us, and reflects on whether the Theranos scandal has had a permanent impact on Silicon Valley

A federal judge ruled DHS's practice of knocking on doors and asking people about their immigration status — and whether they have voted in recent elections — likely violates the Voting Rights Act.

Here's what to know about Starlink and Starshield, the technologies Ukraine is relying on in the war against Russia.

(The Center Square) – Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers faced off in their final debate Wednesday night, making closing arguments to Michigan voters just 12 days before Election Day.

Apple’s first foldable has a lot going for it, but there may be some compromises you aren’t expecting. See for yourself if the Duo is for you.

New study reveals dramatic population drops in fish, cephalopods and more after the Deepwater Horizon spill

Marine life in the Gulf of Mexico plummeted by about 60% after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and has still not fully recovered, according to a new study.

The April 2010 explosion of an offshore drilling unit 50 miles off the Louisiana coast triggered the largest marine oil spill in history, releasing 134m gallons of oil into the ocean. According to the study published Monday in PNAS, the disaster – which also killed 11 people and injured 17 others – led to the “sudden, severe and persistent declines in the abundance” of marine life for more than a decade.

Lonnie Rouse shuffled into a wood-paneled conference room at the Washington state Capitol in March 2018. It had been nearly a decade since medical experts diagnosed him with a neurological disease they attributed to his exposure to chemicals at work. In the time since, he had acquired a stutter, begun limping and lost several teeth biting into a banana.

For nearly 20 years, Rouse had packaged plutonium and monitored radioactive waste at the Hanford Site, a now-decommissioned Department of Energy nuclear weapons production plant in south-central Washington and one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the country. Tanks full of radioactive sludge exposed him to at least 48 potentially hazardous chemicals. The worksite was so toxic, he said, that the floor once melted the rubber off his boots. 

Rouse was among the thousands of workers responsible for the ongoing environmental cleanup at Hanford, which has been underway since the DOE shut down the last reactor in the late 1980s. Congress has acknowledged, based on voluminous studies, that radiation at DOE sites poses health risks to workers.

Over time, some people at Hanford became so sick they could no longer work. Like Rouse, they filed for workers’ compensation. The DOE consistently challenged their claims and tried to shift the blame onto the workers themselves. 

By the time Rouse took his place behind then-Gov. Jay Inslee, he was desperate. His 2009 workers’ compensation claim had been denied. He had burned through his retirement savings and declared bankruptcy. 

As he watched, the governor signed a bill that was supposed to change his life.

For years, Hanford employees filing workers’ compensation claims had to prove the chemicals they were exposed to on the job made them sick. The new law Inslee signed flipped that burden of proof. Under the law, agencies were instructed to presume that working at Hanford had caused certain cancers, neurological diseases and respiratory illnesses. Now the Department of Energy would have to prove to the state that something other than the job had made the workers sick if it wanted to deny their claims. 

Rouse thought the presumption law would speed up his claim for benefits. State lawmakers and the former governor thought it would force the DOE to take responsibility for the harm Hanford workers were experiencing. 

But despite the law, the DOE continues to fight new and existing claims, Cascade PBS and ProPublica found. We asked the state for claims records going back to the presumption law’s passage in 2018, but the state only provided records going back three and a half years, to 2023. In that period, workers filed 102 new claims for benefits, state data shows. The DOE did not recommend approving a single one. 

The state, which has final say, overruled the DOE and approved 75% of those claims. The DOE appealed all but seven of those approvals.

Cascade PBS and ProPublica spoke to workers, surviving family members, lawyers representing workers and state officials. They all pointed to a pattern: The DOE systematically challenges and then drags out workers’ compensation claims for years with recommended denials and subsequent legal appeals. Along the way, it has spent millions on outside lawyers and expert testimony, including doctor evaluations that point to other causes for workers’ illnesses. 

The DOE has paid out benefits to Hanford workers in some cases, lawyers and families said, but it has done so while still actively appealing the claims. It warns workers that they may have to pay the money back.  

Our reporting found that not even death ends the cycle of appeals. About 152 workers’ claims remain stranded in this legal limbo — approved by the state but still under appeal by the DOE. Half of those workers are dead. The DOE continues to fight to deny their families survivors’ benefits.

“It seems pretty coldhearted, calculated, that they’re trying to save money on the back of sick workers who they made sick,” said Gerry Pollet, one of the Washington state representatives who sponsored the 2018 presumption law, who is also a co-founder of the Hanford cleanup watchdog group Heart of America Northwest. “That’s why we needed a state law.”

After Cascade PBS and ProPublica raised questions about the DOE’s pattern of litigating claims, regulators at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries met twice with DOE staff, state agency spokesperson Carrie McCausland said. But she could not point to any other actions the agency has taken beyond the two meetings.

“Agency staff are concerned and are right now assessing the severity of patterns we’ve seen,” McCausland wrote in an email.

The DOE did not answer detailed questions or respond to the newsrooms’ findings. In a statement, a spokesperson wrote that the DOE is following “all applicable local, state, and federal laws” and “has a long and successful record of accomplishment of protecting human health and the environment.”

The DOE has the right to file multiple appeals against a claim. According to court records, its appeals have sought to overturn claims approved by the state, narrow the period of back wages, or block survivors’ benefits, among other things. In appeals filings, the DOE’s lawyers have argued that factors other than work at Hanford played a role in the workers’ illnesses, including smoking, drinking, obesity or genetics.

In Rouse’s case, the energy department blamed alcoholism and family conflicts. The state agency that handles appeals did not find those arguments persuasive. DOE awarded Rouse most of his back pay in 2024, his lawyer said. Rouse declined to say how much that was, but said he is not touching the money until the legal process concludes.

In the nearly eight years it has been fighting his claim, the DOE has filed more than 20 appeals contesting different aspects of his claim. 

“We were always told that nothing is out here that’s going to harm you — you do what you are supposed to do, and you do what you are trained to do, and you’re going to be fine,” said Rouse, who now receives 24-hour care.

“But that’s not what happens.” 

“Depleted and Disgusted”  

The smell of ammonia serves as a warning, workers say, that the underground tanks holding a mix of radioactive sludge have burped chemical vapors into the air above. From 1998 to 2008, it was Rouse’s job to monitor the toxic waste held in the “tank farms.” The containers together hold more than 50 million gallons of liquid waste. Rouse says he lost count of how many times tanks released toxic vapor that took his breath away, sometimes knocking him to the ground and making him vomit and bleed from his nose. According to a 2014 report funded by the federal government, tank farm workers exposed to chemical vapors commonly reported nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.

The liquid sloshing around in those tanks represented the radioactive byproducts of the Cold War. Hanford produced two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal and fueled the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. 

The end of production in the late 1980s launched a cleanup effort that is expected to continue until at least 2086. As of January 2025, more than 13,000 people were working at Hanford, nearly all of them for private companies contracted by the DOE. It is one of the largest and most expensive efforts to remediate toxic waste in the nation’s history. 

In 2000, Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, which provides medical care and one-time payouts to workers at DOE sites across the country. It was an acknowledgement that the nation’s nuclear weapons workers had been exposed to radioactive substances known to cause cancer. In it, lawmakers referred to a DOE policy “to litigate occupational illness claims, which has deterred workers from filing workers’ compensation claims and has imposed major financial burdens for such employees who have sought compensation.”

But the benefits of the federal program were limited: It capped payouts at $400,000. 

Washington’s workers’ compensation system, by contrast, can provide steady wage replacement or a pension benefit, in some cases, for the rest of an injured employee’s life. It’s a program that can easily surpass the maximum federal benefit. 

The state went further with its 2018 presumption law. Such laws generally protect firefighters who are regularly exposed to smoke, burned plastics and extreme heat. The National Council on Compensation Insurance, the Washington state attorney general and Pollet all said they were unaware of any other state that has extended that protection for radiological workers.

The federal government challenged Washington’s state law later that year in court, arguing it was discriminatory because it only applied to Hanford and the DOE.

Anticipating a Supreme Court decision that ultimately agreed, lawmakers passed an expanded version that covered all workers at “radiological hazardous waste facilities” in the state, including the state’s only functioning nuclear power plant and a French-owned facility that manufactures nuclear fuel rods. Nonetheless, roughly 75% of the 428 claims filed since 2018 have come from the DOE’s Hanford workers, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries. 

Kathleen Kersey spent 10 years at Hanford, during both the production and cleanup stages. Much of her work involved measuring radiation around the site and making sure levels were safe. She says her safety training covered radiation, but not other hazards like chemical vapors burping from the waste tanks.

Kersey struggles to walk, has short-term memory problems and at one point lost vision in her right eye for three months. A doctor diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis, which is a neurological disorder, one of the categories of illnesses the state’s presumption law recognizes as related to chemical exposure at Hanford. In 2019 she filed a claim, which the state approved. 

The DOE has appealed, arguing that something other than her time at Hanford caused her multiple sclerosis.

Kersey is one of the 152 workers still awaiting a resolution on her workers’ compensation claim. The DOE has not paid her any back wages, she said. The DOE declined to comment on her case. 

“I feel depleted and disgusted,” Kersey said of the appeals process. “It makes me feel like I’m worthless. I have no value.” 

“When Does This End?”

State records show that the DOE has filed more than 500 appeals since the presumption law passed in 2018. In 20 cases, as it did with Rouse, the DOE has appealed a single worker’s claim half a dozen times or more.

“We have seen tremendous pushback from DOE on essentially almost every single case that’s been brought,” said Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown. 

Rouse’s wife, Melinda, said she knew something was wrong when he could not remember how to cut an orange. His vision started to blur, he stumbled often, and suddenly he felt irritable all the time. His primary care physician first thought he might have had a brain tumor. The physician referred him to a neurologist who noted cognitive impairment, possibly due to exposure to multiple toxins at the Hanford Site. The neurologist then referred him to a neuropsychologist, who diagnosed him with “toxic encephalopathy” in 2009, saying it was “more likely than not” that chemical exposure damaged his brain, according to court records.

The U.S. Department of Labor agreed too, approving him in 2010 for benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, saying it was “at least as likely as not” that Hanford contributed to his illness. A federal medical consultant even praised the neuropsychologist who assessed Rouse for his “unusually thorough analysis of causation.” 

Rouse refiled his 2009 state workers’ compensation claim under the new law in 2018. Washington state approved it later that year. 

The DOE appealed. It hired a medical toxicologist, who reviewed Rouse’s medical records and testified that he did not have the disease he claimed, and brought in an industrial hygienist, who downplayed the exposure risks at Hanford. The DOE’s toxicologist testified that Rouse’s drinking was “the most significant, what we might term, ‘toxic exposure’ that’s described in the medical record.”

A group of three physicians and an industrial hygienist have collectively earned over $1.7 million testifying against Hanford workers since the presumption law’s passage, according to DOE invoices the newsrooms obtained by a federal records request. One of the DOE’s go-to expert witness doctors earned more than $200,000 from the DOE last year alone. He did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment. 

A single law firm, Wallace, Mann, Capener, Bishop & Debney, handles all of the DOE’s appeals. In addition to the fees paid to expert witnesses, the department paid the firm nearly $10 million between 2018 and 2025. The law firm did not reply to multiple requests for comment. 

In cases where the DOE has appealed the state’s approval of a claim since 2018, the agency that handles appeals has sided with workers nearly 9 times out of 10, according to state data. 

Pollet, the state representative who sponsored the 2018 presumption bill, acknowledged that the law has fallen short of his expectation. 

“This was supposed to have ended a decade ago,” he said about sick Hanford workers still awaiting back wages and medical care. “It’s even worse than it was 10 years ago.”

“I think their actions are not only despicable, but they are criminal,” he said of the DOE. 

The state Department of Labor and Industries said it expected “to engage further with the DOE,” which could include putting the department on an improvement plan and monitoring its progress. 

Another option state regulators have is to revoke the DOE’s ability to accept and pay out claims directly. According to the state Department of Labor and Industries, the contractors that employ Hanford workers on behalf of the DOE would then decide whether to join the state-managed fund or seek state approval to manage claims themselves. Doing so could limit the DOE’s power to appeal, but contractors would still have that right. 

Brown, the state attorney general, said he wants to wait and see how the DOE’s appeals of claims play out in higher courts. He hopes that once the DOE’s losses start stacking up, it will slow the volume of its litigation. 

Attorney Charlynn Hull said she thought the DOE’s approach might soften during the Biden administration. But Hull said she observed no change in the DOE’s behavior. Her firm, Smart Law, represents the majority of Hanford workers’ compensation claimants, including Rouse and Kersey.

One of the hardest things about the DOE’s appeals, Hull said, is the testifying that the children and spouses of dead workers must do. 

“I think that it’s just, it’s tormenting to them, in many ways, to relive how awful that experience was, especially with the cancer-related death,” Hull said. “When does this end?”

Dying While Under Appeal

For Isidoro Mata Jr., it ended with his children draining fluid from his lungs through a tube doctors had surgically inserted into his chest.

Mata demolished buildings at Hanford for nearly 30 years. Court records show he was diagnosed in 2015 with thyroid cancer, one of the illnesses that Washington’s law ties to work at Hanford. Sara Chilcoat, his daughter, said he kept working as long as he could.

State claims managers approved Mata’s claim in 2019. The DOE appealed, arguing that “medical opinion supports denial of this claim as not related to the distinctive conditions of employment.” The appeal did not elaborate further. The state forced the DOE to pay his wages and the cost of his medications, Chilcoat said. But the DOE filed a separate motion to stop his benefits while the appeal was adjudicated. 

In its motion, the DOE argued that it was likely to prevail in its appeal because a doctor who examined Mata in 2019 believed his cancer was unrelated to his work at Hanford, according to court records. The state found the doctor’s examination “lacking in objective findings.” 

“He was fighting for his life while they were trying to do that,” Chilcoat said. “That makes me mad.” 

Mata’s case file notes that he missed three meetings with DOE lawyers in 2020. The state attorney general’s office sent the appeals judge a letter in July explaining that Mata was unable to participate because of his chemotherapy treatments. The DOE, which did not respond to questions about Mata’s case, dropped its appeal in December.

Less than three months later, Mata died.

The post Nuclear Weapons Waste Made Workers Sick. Despite a Law Meant to Help, the DOE Keeps Fighting Their Claims. appeared first on ProPublica.

Datacenters, AI and distaste for the billionaires developing it has soured Americans on big tech

• How will Trump’s mass deportation agenda shape the US midterm elections? Our reporters answer your questions

The campaign ad begins with a clear, idyllic stream that suddenly turns sludge-brown as two concrete datacenters slam on to its banks. Another facility thuds down on a peaceful suburban park, and two more crush-green pastures as an ominous soundtrack to a disaster movie blares.

“They’re coming for our rivers. Our neighborhoods. Our farmland,” a deep-voiced narrator says. “Because Brent Taylor wrote the law allowing datacenters to take over Tennessee.”

Exclusive: British Chambers of Commerce president tells PM to ‘level the playing field’ for struggling high streets

• How Middleton’s revival could be grist to the mill for Britain’s struggling towns

Andy Burnham has been urged by one of his most senior former advisers to tax internet sales at a higher rate than those in physical shops to help “level the playing field” for struggling high streets.

As the prime minister and his chancellor, John Healey, prepare for their first budget next week, Andy Haldane joined calls for them to take action to stop the shutters coming down on growing numbers of shops across the UK.

Alpha Schools says its AI-based instruction and focus on developing "life skills" set students up for success. Some experts say it's too good to be true.

Treasury is revising all the numbers for the midyear budget update as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead

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Jim Chalmers has revealed December’s midyear budget update will project weaker growth and higher unemployment, as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead for the Australian economy.

Two days after a senior Reserve Bank official foreshadowed the potential for another interest rate rise in under two weeks’ time, the treasurer in a speech on Friday morning will say “higher inflation is putting people under pressure, tighter monetary policy is weighing on domestic activity, and we can see that in the softening of the labour market”.

Iran’s IRGC says it hit four vessels in the northern Gulf and three more struck mines near the strait of Hormuz

• Shipping workers: how is the Middle East conflict affecting you?

Oil prices jumped to a five-month high on Thursday after ​attacks in Saudi Arabia and hits to tankers in the strait of Hormuz threatened further disruptions to the world’s crude supply.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose by 3% to hit $112 a barrel for first time since 18 May.

US voters are angry. But on tariffs and war, the midterms won’t bring quick change Expert comment LToremark 22 October 2026

Despite their anger, American voters are unlikely to see much immediate change to the international policies that are driving up costs at home: tariffs and the Iran war.

As the US midterms approach, American voters are angry. They are angry about the economy, about prices and about insecurity. And they have connected their plight at home with the Trump administration’s international policies.

Public opinion directly connects tariffs to high prices.  An August survey found that 75 per cent of Americans worry about being able to afford groceries and goods, while 83 per cent of those worried say tariffs have increased the prices of those goods. And as many as three in four voters say tariffs will influence their vote.

Voters are also angry about the Iran war, which they directly connect to the cost of living. Majorities say that even if Trump ended the war before the midterms, they would not view his party more favourably.

Related work

Why the US midterms are a rare foreign policy election

The last time midterm voters were this angry about international issues was in 2006, as the Iraq war turned sour. But after that election, then-president George W Bush adopted even more aggressive policies in Iraq, the so-called ‘surge’ of 2007. Trump’s public statements suggest that he, too, is likely to be more aggressive on both war and tariffs. His political style explains some of this, but so does the extent to which the executive branch holds power over international policies. 

Democrats have said if they win one or both houses of Congress they will initiate investigations into corruption and the rule of law. But efforts to claw back power will be slow – and even slower to yield results in voters’ wallets.

Changing course on Iran?

On the war with Iran, all the factors that have prevented a deal before the midterm elections will still be in place after 3 November. Voices from the region and the US alike are speculating whether there will be renewed conflict after the midterms and forecasting different ways in which the war could be expanded, from an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities to a more aggressive proxy war waged from Iraq. Meanwhile, Trump has announced that 9,000 additional troops are being sent to the region.

Some members of Congress are already looking at the tools they have to force an end to the war. One such tool is the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires congressional approval for any hostilities lasting longer than 60 days. Such a resolution has already passed the House of Representatives three times, with the support of a few Republicans. Trump has thus far managed to prevent it from being passed by the Senate, most recently only by one vote. It is not much of a stretch to imagine the resolution passing both houses in the next Congress. 

However, previous congressional attempts to use it have been vetoed and ignored by presidents of both parties – including Trump in 2019 (Yemen) and again in 2020 (Iran). Courts have also declined hearing cases brought by members of Congress seeking to enforce the Act, saying they lacked jurisdiction while legislative remedies were available. Passage of a joint resolution will up the political pressure on Trump but nothing more.  

That leaves Congress with its other tool – the power of the purse. When the current Congress returns shortly after the elections for a so-called ‘lame duck’ session before the newly elected Congress is seated in January, it will be asked to vote on the Pentagon’s request for extra money to fund the Iran war. Democrats and a few Republicans have already blocked such funding from being passed once, and a lively public battle is sure to follow. However, while this would not be the first time a Congress has threatened to cut off funding for wars it disapproves of, it has never actually followed through on such threats. 

Sometimes though, the threat and public debate can be enough to have an impact. Congress – even in its current configuration – is unlikely to approve the $1.5 trillion military budget Trump requested before the war with Iran, a 44 per cent increase. As the US military struggles to replace expensive missiles and meet its deterrence commitments elsewhere in the world, pressure will grow to end the war – or at least to dial it back to reduce costs. But that won’t be quick and it won’t be decisive enough to help lower prices, which is what American consumers say they are voting for. 

Doubling down on tariffs

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On tariffs, the prospects appear more straightforward. The US Constitution reserves tariff power to Congress. Congressional majorities opposing the Trump tariffs could, if they wished, repeal them and set tariff levels in law, or explicitly bar the Trump administration from raising tariffs without congressional consent. 

But that is easier said than done. For the last decade, congresses of various partisan compositions have opposed both free trade agreements and tariffs proposed by presidents but have been unable to find trade policy that cross-partisan majorities can support. This is likely to continue. Congressional Democrats have previewed plans for ambitious investigations of corruption allegations in how Trump’s trade deals were negotiated, and how exemptions to tariffs are granted. But they disagree deeply about what ideal tariff levels should be and are sceptical of gaining enough Republican cooperation for broader tariff relief beyond specific sectors, such as school supplies or construction materials.

Meanwhile, far from bending to popular opinion and reducing tariffs, the Trump administration is doubling down. 

It has initiated another round of ‘section 301’ investigations into the EU and 15 other economies, alleging that they systematically overproduce in order to export at unfairly low prices. It has also left the door open to tariff action on semiconductors, critical minerals and commercial aircraft (and parts) under so-called ‘section 232’ allegations that trade conditions are harming US national security. 

Finally, it has launched a request for comment on how the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) impacts US businesses, including ‘whether and what enforcement action may be appropriate to remedy any negative effects’. Those comments are due the week after the midterms and open up a range of options, including a public hearing or a formal investigation. The Trump administration will therefore be able to use the threat or reality of CBAM tariffs next year; either as a negotiating tool or as a next round of tariffs should any of the current measures be overturned in court.

With the midterm results likely to put Trump under pressure to change unpopular policies, explicit voter anger will also put pressure on a new Congress to be more aggressive than in recent years, to use the power it does have over budgets and tariffs. Absent that, voters are likely to find that their vote was like pushing a lever that is not connected to anything. And that is likely to increase frustration even more – upping the chances for surprising results in the 2028 presidential election.  

Each place, selected from longlist of nine, will be given £125,000 to develop bids before winner is announced in new year

Blackpool, Sheffield, Milton Keynes and Wrexham have been shortlisted to be the UK city of culture 2029, an award viewed as a way to boost local economies, foster civic pride and, above all, have some fun.

The four places were chosen from a longlist of nine and each will be given £125,000 to develop their bids before the winner is announced in the new year.

Turnaround initiated by Andy Burnham and led by Steve Coogan could provide blueprint for other neglected areas

• Save high street by taxing online sales at higher rate, Burnham urged

The former England footballer Paul Scholes and the actor Steve Coogan stare out from beside a fish and chip shop in Middleton, near Manchester. Looming over a mural of the pair – and the whole town – is an enormous former cotton mill that powered its economy a century ago.

The deafening looms and spindles of Warwick Mill fell silent decades ago, replaced in recent years by TikTok “urban explorers” who share videos of themselves crawling through its abandoned shell.

Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push

Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone.

After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River.

Why has Egypt’s President Sisi said he will step down in 2030? Expert comment thilton.drupal 22 October 2026

Egyptian president’s surprise announcement comes amid deep economic difficulties and includes a plan for a military-approved succession.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has declared he will step down at the end of his third term in 2030. Speaking during the Egyptian Military Academy graduation on 17 October, he also outlined a military-centric succession process to select the next president and senior officials beyond 2030. 

The statement surprised many observers, and perhaps even state officials. If Sisi follows through on his pledge and leaves peacefully, he’d be the first Egyptian president to leave office without dying, being imprisoned or facing a popular uprising. 

The unprecedented decision will have significant implications for Egypt’s political landscape, the balance of power within the regime and the military’s influence over politics and governance.

Why is Sisi leaving?

Sisi became president in 2014, after the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government. He is currently serving his third term, after winning elections seen as predetermined in 2018 and 2023. A constitutional referendum in 2019, also seen as predetermined, increased the president’s term from four to six years, extending Sisi’s current term to 2030.

Sisi, who is 71, did not give an exact reason for why he would step down in his speech at the military academy. He said that there would be no further amendments to Egypt’s constitution to prolong his rule and declared it ‘a matter that has been completely settled and will not be discussed,’ suggesting a transition of power is inevitable.  

Economic troubles

Two factors likely lie behind this surprise decision. 

First, the debt-financed economic model pursued under Sisi is unsustainable. This system has sustained military dominance and stalled urgent economic reform. The government’s vast borrowing to fund mega projects has created a structural economic crisis. 

In this year’s budget, debt servicing accounts for 63.9 per cent of planned expenditure, a significant increase from 43 per cent in 2014. Interest payments alone, as a share of GDP, exceed the combined allocations for education, healthcare, wages and subsidies combined. Egypt’s external debt rose from $46.1 billion in 2014 (16.4 per cent of GDP) to $164.8 billion (38.9 per cent of GDP) by the end of Q1 2026. 

The Egyptian pound exchange rate has plummeted from 7.14 per dollar in mid-2014 to about 53.8 per dollar in October 2026. Urban inflation has risen from 8.3 per cent in May 2014 to 13.9 per cent in September 2026 and is expected to rise further. 

This increased pressure on ordinary Egyptians has made the last decade one of plummeting living standards. Official data shows the national poverty rate has reached 35.7 per cent in 2023.

Public anger over rising living costs, combined with structural imbalances and rising debt, have made Sisi’s economic policies untenable – even among his allies.

The long-lasting economic crisis is an existential threat to the regime’s stability. Sisi himself may have calculated that Egypt urgently needs a new social contract to avoid economic-driven social unrest that could push him out or plunge the country into perpetual chaos. 

He will likely want to avoid the fate of President Hosni Mubarak, who was forced to leave office amid the January 25 Revolution in 2011. It is also likely that there will be an arrangement to protect Sisi and his family members from potential future prosecutions as a condition of him stepping down. 

Protecting the state 

The second factor relates to Sisi’s vision for his presidency and the state. This is fundamentally shaped by the 2011 uprising, which he has described as ‘the death certificate of the Egyptian state.’ 

Since he was sworn in in 2014, Sisi has repeatedly warned that another popular uprising would threaten the state’s existence. He has portrayed national prosperity as depending on excluding from Egypt’s politics what he frequently calls ‘ahl elshar’ (people of evil), often understood as referring to Islamists. He has also warned of threats to ‘national memory’ on social media. 

Sisi has portrayed it as his – and the military’s – national duty to spare Egypt the chaos engulfing other Arab Spring countries by removing the Muslim Brotherhood from power amid a popular uprising. He has indicated that he considers it his duty to reshape Egypt’s politics to guarantee long-term stability as he sees it.   

In his speech at the military academy, Sisi revealed that he had insisted on incorporating Article 200 into the 2019 constitutional amendments. This article effectively designates the military as the guardian of Egypt’s national, secular identity and the regime. 

Given this, Sisi may therefore feel that departing in 2030 is in line with his aims. The military-trained officials he has designated as his successors would serve as the practical implementers of this vision.

Military-shaped succession

Alongside his plans to step down, Sisi also announced that the armed forces will fund a 30-month military academy course to train potential future leaders. Egyptians will then be able to ‘elect and choose’ from among the graduates.

The course will train select candidates, who must have a PhD and be 40-50 years old, for positions including minister, member of parliament, governor, and potentially even president. Those who have served in government for at least six years will be exempted. 

Sisi’s choice of the military academy is not surprising, since it has long been tasked with promoting a military-centric nationalism and overseeing appointments and promotions in state institutions. This has sometimes sparked resistance, for example from judges in January. 

In effect, the system will replace the electoral process with competence criteria, narrowing the pool of trusted candidates and excluding anyone who is ‘tendentious, a traitor, or a criminal’ from becoming president. 

Future implications

Although this process finally paves the way for civilians to become president, the military will likely retain decisive influence over leadership selection and the state’s strategic direction. The military’s constitutional mandate means its commanders’ views and preferences would continue to shape key state decisions.

Related work

Should Egypt join the Mecca Pact?

In this setup, Sisi will likely retain entrenched loyalties and broader political influence. The changes could establish an informal military guardianship model that sits above the president and government beyond 2030. This might resemble Turkey in the 1990s.

The new government training system might also invite challenges. It seems designed to side-line dissidents, the Muslim Brotherhood and rival generals. But by effectively excluding individuals without a postgraduate degree or those who fail to secure academy approval, it might be deemed unconstitutional and face legal challenges. It could also spark fierce competition among key security branches.

Will Sisi reconsider?

Sisi’s decision to step down might face resistance from key institutions and influential figures in his patronage system, who may try to convince him to reconsider to protect their interests. 

These attempts may intensify if Egypt’s military becomes involved in escalating regional conflicts. Sisi recently sought authorization from parliament to deploy troops to defend Saudi Arabia against Houthi attacks. 

If living conditions worsen and social unrest breaks out, Sisi may conclude that staying in power best guarantees stability for Egypt. 

Potential for civilian rule?

Despite its risks, Sisi’s decision may facilitate a transition towards a less authoritarian government in the long term. It took Egyptians 15 years after the 2011 uprising to hear an Egyptian president pledge an ordinary, peaceful transition of power. 

By declaring he will step down, Sisi could end up kickstarting a tradition in which no single ruler stays in power until death. Civilians might finally be seen as capable rulers. 

This will not happen overnight, of course. It would depend on Sisi keeping his word and social stability holding until 2030. But if this is the case, the military guardianship Sisi is establishing may, in the long term, be seen as a transitional period toward a more stable, more open and freer society. 

Politicians have called for ruthless sentencing, but lawyers blame the politicians for the poverty, and anger, behind their clients’ looting

• Europe live – latest updates

Awa, 18, stood in the dock in the tribunal de Paris, a small, mute and bewildered figure seeming unable to understand, let alone answer, the simplest of questions.

The court was told she had joined young people who looted an Yves Saint Laurent store on Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris’s Left Bank late on Sunday and stripped it bare within minutes.

Fox News and others have toed president’s line – seemingly hoping unrest abroad will make people vote Republican

Donald Trump sought to capitalize on the scenes of unrest in France, telling a crowd in Kansas on Monday that “migrants” and “communists” were responsible, and that the scenes were “what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America”.

As Republicans struggle to convince voters across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, Trump’s allies in the conservative media have followed suit, seemingly hoping that the scenes in France can scare people to the polls.

Airbnb is banning hosts from requiring guests to perform time-consuming checkout chores, including washing dishes, stripping beds, doing laundry, and taking trash off-site. The updated policy applies to reservations booked on or after November 20. The Verge reports: Airbnb is displaying hosts' requests more prominently now in a new "rules and requests" section on listings. You might see an "includes cleaning requests" warning if a host leaves chore requests in their listing after the new policy goes into effect. Hosts aren't allowed to sneak in extra rules in messages to guests or on signs around their property, either. Some hosts pushed back on the house rules restrictions on Airbnb's forums, saying they pose health risks and arguing that guests can simply choose not to stay at listings with overly-strict rules. Airbnb says there can be exceptions to the limits on checkout chores, like asking guests to "dispose of trash in an animal-proof container in bear country."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Polls show US voters are deeply upset by high gas prices and are likely to punish Republicans in the midterms as a result

• How will Trump’s mass deportation agenda shape the US midterm elections? Our reporters answer your questions

With fewer than two weeks until the midterms, US voters are unlikely to see relief on one of this election cycle’s main issues: gas prices.

Airing up her car’s tires at a Speedway in Perrysburg, Ohio, Toledo resident Sharie Smith, 41, says soaring costs are having a direct impact on her life.

Europe’s leaders can no longer trust a word that comes out of Washington. No more slaps on the wrist – we need concrete steps to punish Trump

Historical comparisons are always inexact. No one conflict precisely mirrors another. Yet Donald Trump’s shameless appeasement of Vladimir Putin carries more than a noxious whiff of Neville Chamberlain’s failed attempt in Munich in 1938 to head off war with Nazi Germany. To be fair to the former UK prime minister – and history largely hasn’t been – his peacemaking efforts had the enthusiastic backing of most people in Britain and France who, like him, were desperate to avoid a repeat of the horrors of the first world war. Trump enjoys no equivalent public support for his treachery. Nor does he face the prospect of a US war with Russia. His betrayal of Ukraine is cynically self-interested, globally dangerous and utterly contemptible.

US-Russian talks on agreeing the shoddy terms of a precedent-setting American sell-out of Ukraine are at an advanced stage, after meetings in St Petersburg this week. Trump has zigzagged over the war ever since returning to office. Now, panicked by record-low poll ratings, he seems determined to scapegoat Ukraine and force its de facto capitulation. Recent steps – his shocking decision to fund Putin’s war machine by buying Russian diesel, his waiving of tougher sanctions, his mysterious, lethal interruptions in US satellite and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and his renewed attempt to oust Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – mark Trump out as the skulking Judas, the craven Brutus of the modern age. He makes Chamberlain look like a man of iron principle. All that’s lacking is an umbrella.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

An American company is still supplying Taser weapons linked to prisoner abuse by Israeli forces. Plus, 12 valuable lessons about life and death by hospice workers

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Good morning. An investigation has revealed that Israel is using US-made electroshock weapons on Palestinian detainees. The American company Axon is still supplying the Taser weapons despite evidence they have been used to torture prisoners. The news comes as US volunteers including a lawmaker helping Palestinians harvest olives were detained, and Heidi Levine revealed more details of her violent assault by Israeli settlers.

Human rights groups have condemned allegations of the repeated torture and ill-treatment of detainees held in Israeli detention centres and prisons using electric shock devices, with Amnesty calling for restrictions on exports of such devices. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said the abuse of detainees was strictly prohibited.

Who was detained by Israel near Nahalin in the occupied West Bank? The Israeli military detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general. Soldiers said the area had been declared a closed military zone.

What more has Levine said about the Israeli settler attack on her? The Washington Post photojournalist who was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers on Friday has described how she was saved with the help of local Palestinians. Witnesses said thee attack on her ceased only when young men used slingshots to aim stones at the settlers, forcing them back.

What is the latest development with US diplomats in the Middle East? The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia, as it faces a barrage of near-daily attacks from Yemen’s Houthis. Reports have emerged of similar US withdrawals in UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain amid concerns of a return to conflict with Iran after the midterm elections.

Where has Elon Musk been spending his election campaign money? Elon Musk’s Super Pac has spent more than $500,000 in New York’s highly competitive 17th congressional district race to help Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent, hold his seat. Lawler, a moderate Republican, is fending off a challenge from the Democrat Cait Conley in one of the most-watched races that could determine who controls Congress.

What has happened with letters containing white powder being sent to Congress? Nancy Pelosi’s office received “a suspicious letter” on Wednesday in what appears to be the latest incident of ill-intentioned mailings targeted at US Congress members. The offices of more than three dozen members of Congress across the political spectrum have received envelopes containing white powder in recent days.

What is Trump’s polling as the election looms? Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 36%, the lowest recorded, with most respondents expressing frustration over his handling of the US economy, cost of living and Iran war. The president was heckled at least nine times during a campaign event yesterday, and reacted to a supporter punching a demonstrator by saying: “Man, I loved that.”

Kim Aris says ‘hearing her voice again means more than words can express’ amid loosening of detention restrictions

The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to speak to the detained former democratic leader for the first time in more than five years.

“Today, I was finally able to speak with my mother, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after more than five years. Hearing her voice again means more than words can express,” Kim Aris said in a post on Facebook on Thursday.

Supermarket urges government not to ‘further aggravate’ pressure on costs for businesses in next week’s budget

Sainsbury’s has warned of a “pretty challenging” market in the run-up to Christmas as households are “finding it tough” and food producers face rising costs.

Simon Roberts, the chief executive of the UK’s second biggest supermarket, called on the government not to “further aggravate” pressure on costs for business in this month’s budget. He said it was “important this government does not repeat what we have seen in previous budgets” in raising business rates and employers’ national insurance contributions. “That’s been really hard,” he said.

Thousands of people are training to be poll observers to look out for any interference or ICE presence on election day

Stevie Lyn is angry at what she’s seen in her Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhood over the past year. Since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began conducting raids all across the city, her Latino neighbors on the west side have had to hide in their homes, too scared to grocery shop, work and vote. That’s why she volunteered to become a poll observer.

“I had to take the anger, because it was eating me alive, and direct it towards a constructive activity,” she said.

Andrea Shaw, 23, has said the 18-month-old twins became sick and died after receiving flu shots and routine childhood vaccinations.

The CNN star’s wise advice to ‘be truthful, not neutral’ should be tattooed on our souls

After decades as a renowned international journalist, the CNN star Christiane Amanpour is calling it a career, saying she’ll soon leave the cable network which she joined in 1983.

She will be missed for the courage in war zones and forthright presentation that have made her one of the most famous names in media.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Agency declines to reveal in which state latest measles death occurred as it delays reporting other measles deaths

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added a third measles death to its dashboard on Wednesday, but the agency would not reveal whether the death occurred in Pennsylvania or another state – which is “notable” as the agency delays reporting other measles deaths, experts say.

The CDC cited privacy laws in not sharing the name of the state, but experts say there are no privacy concerns in doing so – and this information is important for the public to have as the outbreak continues accelerating, growing by 8% in one week to 4,410 confirmed cases so far this year, nearly double last year’s count.

Frustration with a sprawling fraud scandal has cut Peggy Flanagan’s poll lead – could ex-NFL reporter Michele Tafoya win a first statewide election for Republicans in 20 years?

As Democrats fight to regain control of the US Senate, hopes are rising in states – from Kansas to Texas – where they have not prevailed in decades. But in Minnesota, where Republicans have not won statewide election since 2006, the contest for an open Senate seat is closer than expected.

Should Peggy Flanagan – the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor – win the election, she will be the first Native American woman to serve in the US Senate. But history has not yet been made. The closely watched Cook Political Report shifted its rating on the race this week from “likely Democrat” to “lean Democrat”.

Democrats believe circumstances have aligned for them to win a slew of competitive elections in the state

Mary Peltola’s campaign to represent Alaska in the US Senate has taken her to parts of the massive state’s interior that are inaccessible by road and on the frontlines of the cost-of-living crisis she hopes will make her the first Democrat to win the seat in nearly two decades.

She has been to towns where paper towels retail for $40, a half gallon of oat milk goes for $21 and the cost of a new freezer can be quadruple what it is in the state’s largest city, Anchorage, simply because it’s so complicated to get there. Along the Arctic Ocean, she’s heard of communities where power bills have climbed to $1,500 a month because they rely on generators for power and the Iran war has pushed the cost of diesel to new heights.

President Trump is set to rally with Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa as he seeks to boost GOP candidates in a political environment that has dimmed for the party — prompting pushback from some candidates, including Hinson.

Why Should Delaware Care?
The race to represent Wilmington’s 3rd House District has been unusually turbulent, with the incumbent facing misdemeanor assault charges, and one challenger calling the police on another. A residency dispute involving Branden Fletcher-Dominguez now adds to the acrimony.

The Delaware Republican Party has challenged a progressive Wilmington Democrat’s eligibility to run for the state legislature — a month and a half after a Democratic operative did the same. 

In response, the candidate, Branden Fletcher-Dominguez, has retained an attorney, who called doubts about his client’s residency “petty,” and said there is clear evidence that Fletcher-Dominguez lives, and has lived, in the district he seeks to represent.

The issue orginated early last month when Molly Magarik, a former state health secretary and longtime aide to now-Mayor John Carney, filed a complaint with state elections officials, suggesting that Fletcher-Dominguez had not lived for a full year at an address listed in election filings — a Hilltop-area house owned by his mother. 

State law requires eligible candidates to live for one year in their district “prior to seeking elective office.” 

The accusation echoed similar ones made two years earlier that led Fletcher-Dominguez’s to withdrawal from the 2024 primary election race.

To support the latest claims, Magarik’s complaint cited recent renovations to the Hilltop home, as well as its listing on a vacant property database, and water meter records that show no usage until June. It also cited the home’s purchase date.

Property records show that Fletcher-Dominguez’s mother, Carla Dominguez, signed the deed for the home on Aug. 27, 2025.

Now, a month after Fletcher Dominguez won the Sept. 15 Democratic Party nomination, the Delaware Republican Party has taken up the issue by pressing the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Elections to investigate and determine whether Fletcher-Dominguez met the statehouse residency requirements.

Fletcher-Dominguez is set to face Republican Shawn Dottery and independent Dexter “Dizzy” Bland in the Nov. 3 General Election to determine the next representative of the 3rd House District, which extends from West Center City to beyond Greenhill Avenue. Fletcher-Dominguez defeated incumbent Rep. Josue Ortega in the September primary.

On Friday, Delaware GOP Chair Gene Truono sent a letter to Attorney General Kathy Jennings and Department of Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence, urging them to investigate the matter. Truono claimed that credible evidence exists that Fletcher-Dominguez did not live in the district. He also asserted that elections officials had “failed to resolve this question.”

When reached for comment, Fletcher-Dominguez referred questions to his attorneys, John Malik and Darrell Baker.

In an interview, Baker dismissed the claims as “petty,” and said Fletcher-Dominguez had lived at a friend’s house around the corner from his listed address while his mother’s home was under renovation. The friend’s house also sits within the 3rd Representative District.

Baker further said he does not plan to file a lawsuit on Fletcher-Dominguez’s behalf, saying there’s no reason to escalate the situation. Instead, the next step is to submit an affidavit to Delaware elections officials, signed by Fletcher-Dominguez’s friend, to say he lived at his home during the renovations.

On Tuesday, officials from the Department of Elections told Spotlight Delaware that their office handed over the original Sept. 11 complaint to the Attorney General’s office, but could not comment further.

“The Department of Elections has submitted the allegations of fraud concerning his residency to the Attorney General for further investigation and potential prosecution,” spokeswoman Cathleen Carter said.

Carter also confirmed that as of Oct. 20, Fletcher-Dominguez remains a qualified candidate on the 2026 General Election ballot. 

Mat Marshall, spokesman for the Attorney General, told Spotlight Delaware that his office could not comment on whether an investigation exists into the matter. 

Déjà vu for district race

The residency complaint comes two years after state investigators probed whether Fletcher-Dominguez truly lived at difference residence within the Third District as he sought a seat in the state legislature,

The probe ultimately led him to withdraw from the 2024 race.

Two years later, Magarik said in the written complaint that she came across information about Fletcher-Dominguez “in the course of [her] professional work for a client.” She did not identify the client, but noted she had shared her findings with the Wilmington Democratic Committee.

Cassandra Marshall, head of the Wilmington Democratic Committee, did not respond to requests for comment. 

Magarik also said in the complaint that she was filing it in her individual capacity, though she noted that she is a former director of the Delaware Democratic Party and a registered Democratic voter. The contact information she listed in the complaint included her email at her public affairs consulting firm, North Node.

The phone number she listed went to her North Node business partner, who declined to comment. Magarik did not respond to requests for comment for this story. 

Last week, the Delaware Republican Party posted the original Sept. 11 complaint to Facebook.

Then on Friday, Truono sent his letter to Jennings and Albence, urging them to investigate the matter. 

“Residency is a state constitutional requirement. It goes to the heart of our representative democracy. The facts here are not difficult to investigate,” Truono’s letter stated. 

Like Truono, Baker also indicates that the facts in the case are clear. But he asserts that they show his client followed the law and that Magarik’s investigation was “sloppy.”

“Anybody standing on the corner would have known that Branden camped out around the corner at a friend’s house while the house [was] being renovated, and that fits within in the code,” he said.

Fletcher-Dominguez has recently received support from a prominent Delaware Democrat. In a statement Wednesday, New Castle County Democratic Party Chair Kat Caudle asserted that state law does not require candidates to own property or live in the same residence throughout a specific period.

She also said election officials should apply the law consistently, arguing that residency challenges should be based on evidence rather than political motivations.

“We ask that the Commissioner distinguish legitimate, evidence-based challenges from frivolous or bad-faith attempts to target young, progressive candidates,” Caudle wrote.

For his part, Baker speculated that Carney could have played a role in the complaint, citing his previous connection to Magarik, and Fletcher-Dominguez’s past questioning of his mayoral administration at public meetings. 

Fletcher-Dominguez, who has been endorsed by the progressive Working Families Party and worked with the HOMES Campaign, has been a vocal opponent to some of Carney’s policies on homelessness and affordable housing.

Asked about the claim, officials from Carney’s office denied any involvement by the mayor.

“The mayor did not encourage nor was he involved in the filing of this complaint,” Caroline Klinger, Carney’s spokesperson, said in a statement to Spotlight Delaware. 

Democrat files residency violation complaint against progressive

In her complaint, Magarik noted that Fletcher-Dominguez’s residence is currently on the city’s vacant property list, with a status date of Feb. 19 of this year. City officials said the list was last updated in March of this year.

In addition, a certificate of occupancy for the home is listed as “under review” and has not yet been issued.

The complaint also cites a March Facebook post in which Fletcher-Dominguez shared a photo of a house under renovation, where he tagged the Hilltop area. In the post, he wrote: “Excited to see things coming together on the house.” 

The post has since been deleted.

Magarik also pointed to Delaware’s election law on residency, which says a location can count as a person’s residence only if they physically live there and intend to stay, either indefinitely or for a set period. The law also says a person cannot establish residency at a place they have not actually lived, even if they own the property.

Magarik further alleges that the water meter registered zero usage from August 2025 to May of this year. Spotlight was not able to confirm that claim with public records.

Fletcher-Dominguez wins amid contentious race 

Four days after the complaint was filed, Fletcher-Dominguez won in the Sept. 15 primary election against his three opponents, including incumbent Ortega, Wilmington City Councilwoman Yolanda McCoy and newcomer LaDonna Graham. 

He finished with 43% of the votes — a result that followed an unusually turbulent campaign that included Ortega facing charges of misdemeanor assault. 

Also, weeks before election day, Graham filed a police report against Fletcher-Dominguez after he placed his campaign sign in her front yard.

In response then, Fletcher-Dominguez, said the property owner had asked him to place a yard sign there. And he claimed he did not know that his political opponent lived at the Hilltop townhouse.

The post Wilmington House candidate Fletcher-Dominguez faces residency complaint appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

In early August, election workers north of Spokane, Washington, went across the street to the post office to check for late mail-in ballots. It was three days after the primary and they were expecting no more than a few dozen.

Instead, their mailbox was brimming with envelopes — more than 500 of them, each a vote that wouldn’t count. The sight was “jarring,” said Auditor Lori Larsen, a Republican who oversees voting in Stevens County.

Across the region, other election officials were getting similar jolts. In the 11 predominately rural counties in eastern Washington, nearly 2,000 ballots came in late, compared to about 600 in 2022, the previous midterm primary.

In recent weeks, concerns about mail-in voting disruptions have focused almost entirely on President Donald Trump’s now-shelved plan to sharply restrict who can vote by mail. 

But a ProPublica data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, not only in Washington, but across the country.

Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once.

The changes often added a day or more to delivery time and, most importantly for ballots, pushed back postmarking, which doesn’t happen until mail reaches the regional centers. 

In this year’s primary, the effects of the cuts were clearest in five states that make detailed data on mail-in ballots available: Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. All have or recently had grace periods allowing ballots to count if they come in after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by the deadline.

In these states, the number of ballots rejected for arriving late soared in counties affected by the service changes compared to 2022, ProPublica’s analysis showed. 

Rejection rates in counties where services were cut doubled or tripled from what they were four years ago, dwarfing any increases in counties where postal pickups remained as they were, our analysis showed. In urban Spokane, for example, the number of ballots rejected for being late actually dropped this year.

Across the five states, the delays have had the most substantial effect in areas that voted for Trump in 2024, ProPublica’s analysis shows. In Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said he sees the service changes directed by Republican appointees leading the Postal Service as a way to undermine mail-in voting. 

“I don’t think they realized how much it was going to affect their voter base,” he said, adding that Washington has “a lot of rural Republican voters.”

Postal Service leaders say such delays are less likely in the Nov. 3 general election because of “extraordinary measures” the agency puts into place for these votes, when there’s typically far more turnout. They have circulated a memo to the nation’s more than 30,000 post offices saying that for the 10 days before the election, managers should separate completed ballots from other first-class mail and deliver those intended for local election offices the day they come in.

At an Oct. 15 news conference, Postal Service leaders emphasized the agency’s longstanding recommendation that voters mail ballots back at least a week before their states’ deadlines, while defending the agency’s ability to fast-track ballots through the system. 

“We work to identify and address issues quickly,” said Amber McReynolds, chair of the Postal Service board of governors, “so ballots can continue to move swiftly from election offices to voters and from voters back to election offices.”

Election consultants, researchers and former Postal Service officials told ProPublica that the guidance for the upcoming vote gave more detailed directions on how to expedite ballots. They said they hoped the agency’s special measures would limit delays, but some said mistakes were likely. 

“I don’t think we can say with any kind of conviction that there will be no ballots rejected,” said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer of the National Association of Election Officials. “It isn’t a question of ‘if,’ but a question of ‘how many.'”

A pilot program instituting the delivery changes in 18 regions before the 2024 election ran into problems. An audit by the Postal Service’s inspector general found that agency staff in these areas sometimes didn’t handle ballots correctly, mainly because instructions weren’t clearly communicated. (A Postal Service spokesperson said “learnings from the pilot” have been applied as the program has expanded.)

After this year’s primary, reports by media outlets noted that mail-in ballot rejection rates were higher than in the past, but ProPublica’s analysis shows these increases were directly connected to Postal Service changes. Research published in September by the Brookings Institution also found this connection, projecting that if the pattern held in the general election, tens of thousands of mail-in ballots could be rejected.

At least seven closely contested congressional districts — including Washington’s 3rd, California’s 22nd and North Carolina’s 11th — are in areas that were affected by service changes in the primary, ProPublica found.

Elena Patel, who conducted the Brookings analysis, said service changes may still imperil mail-in votes in the general election.

“I think there remain risks to ballots,” she said, adding that the Postal Service’s plan for the general election “depends on flawless execution.”

Mail-in voting has become more popular over the last decade, with many states broadening access to it during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans voted this way in 2022 and 2024. Trump himself frequently votes by mail, and in recent weeks has started to encourage his supporters to do so as well, though he has claimed without evidence that the process is rife with fraud.

The Postal Service has mostly ensured the timely delivery of hundreds of millions of ballots, even as mail volume overall has dropped 50% from its high in 2006. 

When Louis DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in spring 2020, he inherited an $81 billion operating deficit and rapidly took steps such as eliminating overtime to reduce costs, under pressure from Trump and others in his administration. (DeJoy did not respond to questions from ProPublica.)

The NAACP sued that August, alleging the measures could affect mail-in votes in that year’s general election. Courts ordered DeJoy to reverse some of the cuts and the Postal Service agreed to implement special procedures to ensure ballots weren’t delayed. The Postal Service has continued following those procedures since. 

Still, DeJoy went forward with a 10-year restructuring plan designed to save the agency billions. It ended evening pickups from some post offices, often in rural areas. Trucks serving these places travel long distances and at times were mostly empty. This part of the plan — called regional transportation optimization, or RTO — was projected to eventually save the Postal Service $4 billion a year.

The agency announced the national rollout of the RTO plan in 2024, but DeJoy agreed to pause it leading up to that year’s November election, leaving only about 4,000 ZIP codes in the pilot project affected by the service changes.

In January 2025, the Postal Regulatory Commission, which oversees the Postal Service, warned that moving forward with the plan would be disruptive to rural communities and might not save as much money as expected. The Postal Service rolled out the reductions anyway, extending the changes to almost 20,000 ZIP codes to date. Officials said they expect the system to be fully implemented within two years.

This January, the agency put out a statement saying the transportation cuts would mean it took longer for mail, including ballots, to be postmarked and delivered. But the Postal Service didn’t specify which voters would be affected by the slowdowns and which wouldn’t.

Though the delay from RTO is often only a day, mail can be delayed longer if it’s deposited in a mailbox after the daily pickup time, or just before Sunday or a holiday.

A Postal Service spokesperson said the agency told election officials that RTO would change schedules and reemphasized the need for voters to get their ballots in the mail at least a week ahead of time. Election officials in Washington said the Postal Service wasn’t direct enough about the fact that the changes would lead to delays in delivering and postmarking ballots.

“What they said was, ‘We are going to change the way we do postmarks,'” said Hobbs, Washington’s secretary of state. “That was it.”

Patel, the Brookings analyst and a former Postal Regulatory Commission employee, said that more direct communication to voters could have helped change their behavior. “That’s the part that I think has not been super transparent about the whole process,” she said.

Many of the areas that saw a spike in late ballots were in Western states, which were the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of expanded mail-in voting.

In 2004, Washington became the second state to start conducting all-mail elections, in which every eligible voter automatically receives a mail-in ballot. Most residents vote by putting their ballots in drop boxes. Still, in 2024, about 33% put them in the mail.

In the 30 mostly rural Washington counties most affected by RTO, the percentage of ballots postmarked late more than tripled compared to the 2022 primary, ProPublica found.

 Is your ZIP code subject to reduced mail service? Use our lookup tool to find out.

In Garfield County, in southeastern Washington, 19 ballots — nearly 1 in 10 cast — had late postmarks this year. In 2022, only a single ballot was postmarked late. In Pend Oreille County, in northeast Washington along the Idaho panhandle, 6% of ballots were rejected for arriving late, compared to 1% in the 2022 primary.

“It was pretty awful telling people we couldn’t count their votes,” said Marianne Nichols, Pend Oreille’s longtime auditor. “They were quite upset because they felt like, ‘Why? This was in the mailbox on election day, the post office picked it up and had it.’ They felt like it should have counted.”

In Stevens County, the percentage of ballots rejected for having a late postmark jumped to 8%, from 1% in 2022.

Steve Hutkins, a retired professor who analyzes the effect of Postal Service changes on Savethepostoffice.com, also found that places in Washington with RTO had more ballot rejections during local elections earlier this year for school board and other measures. The patterns “set off the alarm bells,” he said.

Stuart Holmes, the state’s director of elections, said he reached out to Postal Service officials to find out what had happened, but got few answers and no specifics on delays related to RTO, which were a “total surprise,” he said.

Election officials in California and Oregon also reported thousands more ballots rejected for arriving late during their primaries. Counties affected by RTO, including Kern County, California, had substantially higher rates of ballots rejected for mail-related reasons, ProPublica found.

Kern County’s assistant registrar of voters, Laura Cantu, said election officials are urging rural voters to use drop boxes to cast their ballots in the general election.

The expansion of RTO had a similar effect in North Carolina and Ohio, where the rates of late ballots were about twice as high in counties affected by the restructuring as rates in counties that weren’t. Since 2022, these states have also eliminated grace periods in which ballots postmarked by Election Day could count even if they arrived later. Voters unused to the tighter deadlines also could have contributed to an increase in late ballots.

ProPublica didn’t find any association between RTO and higher rates of late ballots in Wisconsin, even though clerks reported delays involving mail-in ballots cast in its state election, held this spring. (Other Postal Service changes may have contributed to the delays.) 

Wisconsin’s data does not distinguish ballots sent by mail from those cast in drop boxes or in person, making it impossible to definitively measure rejection rates just for ballots returned by mail. Election researchers said Wisconsin’s deadline for mail ballots, which must come into election offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day, also probably had an effect. 

“If you know that you don’t have a grace period, it probably affects voter behavior,” said Patel, the Brookings researcher. 

Recent Postal Service audits have found that RTO-related changes had saved the agency about $2.8 billion by the end of fiscal year 2025 — less money than expected — and are slowing down all first-class mail, not just ballots. Residents of rural areas are waiting longer for everything from prescriptions to bills, a report published in September by the Postal Service’s inspector general said.

A Postal Service spokesperson still defended the plan, both for financial reasons and to adjust to the changing marketplace. “These savings are both significant and necessary,” he said.

In the lead-up to Nov. 3, the agency’s plan is to route ballots meant for local election offices to a nearby postal facility or directly to their destination. They shouldn’t go to regional plants, which the Postal Service says should minimize delays.

Larsen, the Stevens County auditor, is encouraging Washington voters to deposit their ballots in drop boxes rather than relying on the mail. Since the primary, she’s increased the number of red, white and blue drop boxes that sit outside government buildings from seven to 12. Near each box, there’s a large sign encouraging people to take selfies when they vote and send the photos to Larsen. 

In prior years, Larsen said, she avoided telling voters how or when to vote, concerned they might regret choices they made if critical information later emerged about the candidates. That’s no longer uppermost in her mind.

“Now we are more concerned that we get your ballot,” she said.

The post Ballot Rejections Soared in Rural Counties After USPS Reduced Mail Service appeared first on ProPublica.

Weekend Spotlight is a round-up of the five best events to check out in Delaware over the coming weekend, curated by Arts + Culture Editor Cannon Taylor. This edition covers Oct. 23-25, 2026. What should be on our radar for future editions? Let us know!

Hilda’s Homecoming

Sea Witch Festival casts a spell on Rehoboth Beach

Friday, Oct. 23 through Sunday, Oct. 25. Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach. All day. General admission: Free. Some events ticketed. 

Hilda the Sea Witch is currently riding her broom to Rehoboth Beach, where she — more specifically, a parade balloon of her wart-ridden, green head — will hover over costumed tourists and locals during her annual festival. 

Despite being named after an 1840s ship that sailed the area, not an actual sorceress, the Sea Witch Festival nonetheless casts a Halloween spell on Rehoboth Beach.

Hilda brings with her a cauldron’s worth of activities: scarecrow and costume contests, mermaid meet and greets, trick or treating, zombie graveyard and haunted house tours, a broom-tossing contest and more. View the full schedule to plan out your weekend. 

Cluck Kent

Geek out at Blue Hen Comic Con 

Saturday, Oct. 24 and Sunday, Oct. 25. Delaware State Fairgrounds. 18500 S. Dupont Highway, Harrington. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tickets: $15 Saturday, $13 Sunday, $21 weekend pass.

Represented by the mascot “Cluck Kent,” a buff, blue chicken in a biker’s leather vest, the Blue Hen Comic Con brings anime voice actors, comic book artists, Power Rangers and cosplayers to the Delaware State Fairgrounds this weekend. 

While Blue Hen Comic Con’s guests certainly aren’t on the same caliber as a major con, true fans know that the true appeal of such an event is found elsewhere. 

Dress up as your favorite characters a week before Halloween and browse fanart by artists who, like Vincent Van Gogh, are utterly unappreciated in their time. Best of all, strike up a conversation with a stranger about their cosplay and make friends through fandom. 

Sleep-Deprived Zombies

Horror movie marathon lasts dusk until dawn

Friday, Oct. 23. Theatre N. 221 W. Tenth St., Wilmington. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25.

Fuel up on Monster Energy and dress up as a monster before the All-Nite Horrorthon, a movie marathon at Theatre N starting at 8 p.m. and, presumably, ending sometime around sunrise. 

The five films being screened are a secret. You won’t know what you’re watching until you’re sitting in the theater, munching on popcorn, and the title card is revealed. It’s bound to be a horror junkie’s wildest dream and a novice’s worst nightmare. 

The true horror of the event, however, won’t be onscreen. It’ll probably hit at 2 p.m. the following day, when you transform into a sleep-deprived zombie. 

Painting in a Cake Factory

“300 Paintings” documents a comedian’s manic episode

Through Nov. 8. 200 Water St., Wilmington. Times vary. Tickets start at $39.

What do you get when a comedian quits his job, rents an abandoned cake factory and paints over 300 paintings over the course of six months? Apparently, a manic episode, as the comedian, Sam Kissajukian, realized after the fact. 

Kissajukian has documented his 2021 experience in the cake factory through “300 Paintings,” an autobiographical play he performs himself. 

The Australian comedian has landed in Delaware through Nov. 8 to perform the play for Delaware Theatre Company, sharing his story about living with bipolar disorder with humor and heart.

Half-Witted Hilarity

A ballet of quixotic misadventures

Saturday, Oct. 24 and Sunday, Oct. 25. The Grand Opera House. 818 N. Market St., Wilmington. Friday 7 p.m., Saturday 2 p.m. Tickets start at $30. 

Character Don Quixote’s hare-brained schemes as a chivalrous knight have been so well-read over the past four centuries that his surname has inspired an adjective describing all things idealistic and impractical — “quixotic.” 

From mistaking windmills for giants to ingesting a healing potion that actually gives him food poisoning, Quixote offers a 17th century equivalent to the half-witted hilarity of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

First State Ballet Theatre will depict one of the knight’s stupid side quests — his meddling in a wedding — through Spanish-inspired dance this weekend. 

The post Weekend Spotlight: Comic con, movie marathons, a Sea Witch and more appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Sussex County residents continue to debate how to lower housing costs, particularly near Delaware’s popular beaches. A new law meant to speed up homebuilding and encourage more low-cost housing is causing backlash, and now, one city is considering pausing large housing developments in response. 

The small beachside city of Lewes is considering a temporary ban on new large housing developments. 

The proposal – the latest response to a new law that limits public hearings for certain building plans – has sparked support from city residents. But a prominent builders association has threatened to sue. 

If implemented and upheld, the moratorium also could serve as a model for other municipalities.  

Earlier this month, the Lewes City Council held a public hearing to gather feedback on the proposed moratorium, which the city’s planning commission said was its response to Senate Bill 23. 

Passed in June as a way to speed up home building and encourage more low-cost housing, SB 23 prohibits public hearings for building plans that do not need a zoning change, known as “by-right developments.” 

Supporters argue it is a logical measure to shorten the approval process and lower building costs, because local governments cannot deny by-right developments. But the law has also sparked outrage across rapidly growing Sussex County from preservationists who say it removes a necessary layer of transparency.

At the Lewes public hearing on Oct. 7, Planning Commission Vice Chair Kevin Keane linked the proposed housing moratorium to Senate Bill 23. He argued that the city’s comprehensive plan does not have enough statutory standards to ensure that developers build in a way that residents want. 

Public hearings fill that gap, he said.

The moratorium would give the town time to adopt new concrete rules with resident feedback as part of its guiding comprehensive plan, he said. 

“We just haven’t had an opportunity to allow for that public input yet,” Keane said.  

If passed, the moratorium would ban developments with more than five homes until Lewes adopts a new comprehensive plan, or until Dec. 31, 2027, whichever comes first. The city council will potentially vote on the proposal at its meeting on Nov. 9.

The city is currently in the process of collecting resident feedback for its next plan, due October 2027.

Lawsuit in response? 

If Lewes passes the moratorium, Home Builders Association of Delaware President Jon Horner said his organization would sue the city. 

At the October hearing, Horner argued that municipalities need to have a valid reason to pass a moratorium, and there are not any large tracts of land left in Lewes that could host a large housing development.

He said the moratorium is also not necessary because the new law only changes the process for reviewing by-right developments, not the outcome. 

“If I come in right now with a major subdivision that is code-compliant, you have to approve it. All Senate Bill 23 does is say you can’t have a public hearing when you do that,” Horner said. 

Similar moratoriums could be adopted more widely if Lewes’ is shown to be legally defensible. Millsboro Town Council earlier this month discussed implementing a moratorium as well. 

Sussex County has also paused reviews of by-right developments, but not with a formal moratorium. 

What do Lewes residents think?

Joe Pika, a Lewes resident and president of the Sussex Preservation Coalition, an advocacy group for smart growth practices in the county, said he supports the moratorium because Senate Bill 23 has left municipalities with many questions. 

“I think every jurisdiction needs to have a delay to figure out how do we measure up against this new process that has been mandated by the state?” Pika said. 

He also said Senate Bill 23 does change the outcome for by-right developments, not just the process. 

Some lawyers interpret the law as barring local governments from imposing conditions on projects, such as requiring developers to build a fence. Prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. Russ Huxtable (D-Lewes), said he disagrees with that interpretation. 

Lewes resident Jim Colbert said he doesn’t mind new development in town, but is worried about protecting farmland and green spaces. He said he doesn’t want to stop all growth, but “there needs to be more long term planning.”

Another Lewes resident, Lee Dunham, said she is totally for the proposed moratorium, calling development in the area “out of hand.” She said she favors affordable housing, but that’s not what’s being built. 

Proponents of Senate Bill 23 argue that any increase in housing supply, even building high-cost homes, leads to lower home prices overall because of supply-and-demand dynamics. 

Another Lewes resident told Spotlight Delaware that he sees two sides of the debate. Local artist Abraxas Hudson said he wants to protect nature, as he paints mostly landscapes, but he also understands and respects property owners’ rights. Plus, new residents help his business.

“Every new home is an opportunity to sell art,” he said.

The post Proposed moratorium in Lewes raises the stakes in SB 23 backlash appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware’s hospitals are powerful and often consolidated entities. For decades, each of the state’s three main hospital systems have remained within their bounds by county line. But as more retirees flock to the state, those boundaries are being disregarded. 

Downstate hospital systems lambasted two proposed ChristianaCare campuses in Georgetown and Camden on Tuesday, following what has been months of controversy that could derail the projects. 

At a public hearing of the Delaware Health Resources Board, a government body responsible for approving large healthcare expansions, leaders from the state’s downstate hospital systems asked regulators to halt the project. The hospital leaders questioned both the merits and legality of the proposed expansions.

The lower counties have long been considered outside of ChristianaCare’s regional grip, but ChristianaCare said it believes the new campuses would bring more emergency care to Kent and Sussex counties, as the state continues to age and faces access shortages. 

Delaware’s downstate hospitals — which included Bayhealth in Dover, TidalHealth in Seaford and Beebe Healthcare in Lewes — challenged ChristianaCare’s reasoning saying the new facilities could make emergency care more expensive for patients. 

In their presentations, hospital leaders also said the projects, dubbed “microhospitals,” lack a regulatory definition under Delaware law and may run afoul of another law signed this summer meant to curb the involvement of for-profit enterprise in nonprofit healthcare.

Delaware’s Health Resources Board did not take any kind of vote on the projects on Tuesday, but will likely consider the projects at another meeting next month. 

What happened during the meeting? 

Tuesday’s meeting was an opportunity for ChristianaCare to defend its proposals from what has been a sustained effort by the other hospitals to shut them down. All the downstate hospitals made it clear they support investment and competition in Kent and Sussex counties, but they did not believe ChristianaCare’s proposals would benefit the healthcare ecosystem at large. 

ChristianaCare opened the public hearing with a presentation, which said its two proposed “microhospitals” would support a healthcare ecosystem in need of more emergency room beds.

The upstate hospital’s proposals would bring eight emergency room beds and eight inpatient beds for each of its locations, but opponents questioned how transfers would work for patients in need of higher levels of care than the microhospitals could offer. 

Vinay Maheshwari, who is ChristianaCare’s physician executive of growth and strategic partnerships, said the hospital hopes to partner with the other regional systems so patients do not have to transfer from a Sussex County microhospital back up to ChristianaCare’s main campuses in Newark or Wilmington. 

“It will take partnership,” Maheshwari said. “We are committed to working through that partnership with all of you, and we hope that you will as well.” 

Bayhealth’s chief operating officer, Kyle Benoit, opposed the proposals, saying the new emergency services would add “exceptionally high costs for a low-volume benefit for the community.”

Benoit also pointed to another attempt by Beebe Healthcare to build a freestanding emergency room similar to ChristianaCare’s proposal, which the board denied in 2019. 

“This is not about protecting our turf,” Benoit said. “It’s about what is the right investment to address the excess and cost challenges that are plaguing our residents of Delaware and really healthcare across the country.”

Delaware’s southern hospital systems also took aim at a lack of regulatory guidance on how ChristianaCare is defining its Camden and Georgetown proposals. 

When ChristianaCare announced the proposals earlier this year, it said it aimed to build two “microhospitals” in Kent and Sussex, a term the other hospitals believe makes them invalid for consideration. 

Steve Leonard, the CEO of TidalHealth, requested the board deny the proposal on the grounds that no definition exists in Delaware code to classify the microhospitals. Without clearer guidance, he said, there may not be adequate protections in place for patients.

Leonard also said the microhospitals would bring an “increased cost” to services in Sussex County. He pointed to recent legislative efforts to bring down the cost of care, and said ChristianaCare has some of the highest rates in the state. 

Maheshwari denied ChristianaCare’s costs are among the highest in the state, instead saying they are comparable to other systems. But Leonard requested the board require ChristianaCare demonstrate how its proposals would bring down costs in the area.

“General statements about neighborhood hospital ER wait times, visit times, they’re just not enough,” Leonard said. 

Downstate arms race

For decades, Delaware’s three major health care systems largely fit into geographic monopolies: ChristianaCare serving New Castle County, Bayhealth serving Kent County and Beebe Healthcare in Sussex County.

But over the last five years, a health care arms race heated up between Bayhealth, Beebe and now TidalHealth, coming up from Salisbury, Maryland. They have all built or broken ground on major projects in locations, such as Lewes, Milton or Millsboro in recent years.

It follows a post-COVID population boom in Sussex County. The region is now designated as a “Medically Underserved Area” by the federal government, with projections showing that the population will increase from 237,000 in 2022 to over 361,000 by 2050. The county is also rapidly graying, as the population growth is largely driven by retirees who will demand more health care needs.

The arrival of ChristianaCare, which to date only had primary care offices in Milford and Rehoboth Beach, will bring needed resources, but also new competition to the crowded market.

In 2019, the board was central in a debate over whether to allow Beebe to build a freestanding emergency room in Georgetown. It ultimately denied that project, saying it was too close to Bayhealth’s Milford campus and Nanticoke Hospital in Seaford.

The board was also expected to be critical of plans by Bayhealth to build its own freestanding emergency room in Milton, which led the Dover-based health system to pull its plans.

Both of those projects, however, predated the population surge that has particularly struck Sussex County after the COVID housing market boom. 

The Health Resources Board did not make any final decision on the fate of ChristianCare’s proposals. The board will meet again next month, where it will likely continue discussions.

The post Delaware hospitals debate downstate ChristianaCare proposals appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Free Trolley Square Celebration Combines Women-Led Music, Local Art, and Autumn-Inspired Experiences

Will the US midterms change Washington’s policy on Israel and Palestine? Expert comment jon.wallace 22 October 2026

Not immediately. But a Democratic victory could set the terms for a new approach by the next president.

Whatever the results, November’s midterm elections will not immediately transform US policy toward Israel and Palestine. In any outcome, the separation of powers means that President Donald Trump will still control American foreign policy. Even a Democrat-controlled Congress could not compel his administration to pursue a fundamentally different approach. 

But the midterms may accelerate a transformation that is already underway in the Democratic Party and among the US electorate, where the political centre of gravity on Israel and Palestine is shifting rapidly. 

If Democrats win a majority in either or both houses, they will gain new congressional tools to act on Israel–Palestine issues. Most importantly, the legislation they put forward would establish the policy baseline from which a future Democratic administration would govern.

The shift

Among dozens of others, Democrats like Abdul El-Sayed, running for the US Senate in Michigan, and Angela Gonzales-Torres, running in the general against another Democrat in California, have drawn considerable attention for their criticism of Israeli government actions – and US support for them. The race in Michigan, which could be decisive for Democratic hopes to retake the senate, looks tight.

But even if progressive candidates don’t do as well as expected in these elections, a shift is underway. Developments in Washington over just the past month illustrate how much has already changed.

On 29 September, 46 of 47 Senate Democrats voted for a resolution led by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders. This would ‘require the Department of State to provide information and assessments related to investigations of the killing of United States citizens by violent Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces in the West Bank’. The resolution did not pass the Republican majority. But the vote was remarkable for its unanimity. Such Democratic unity on a resolution critical of Israel would have been almost unimaginable only a few years ago.

The vote follows a distinct trajectory in Democratic politics. When Senator Bernie Sanders forced the Senate to vote on blocking weapon sales to Israel in November 2024, only 18 Democrat senators supported him. This April, 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted against a sale of bulldozers to Israel. And 36 opposed the sale of 1,000-pound bombs. Now, with the September resolution, virtually the entire Senate Democratic caucus has voted to demand accountability from Israel.

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Then came the House of Representatives. On 1 October, Rep. Joaquin Castro and other members introduced the Stop the Settlements Act. This builds on the Biden administration’s 2024 sanctions on violent Israeli extremists in the West Bank, which saw a major power set up a process to sanction those undermining peace and threatening violence in the West Bank. 

It also builds on the subsequent 2026 sanctions by European countries and Canada against products originating in Israeli settlements. The Act would impose sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for building or expanding Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank or Gaza and prohibit settlement goods from entering the US market. 

These developments point toward an emerging Democratic Party position: one that more actively defends the rights of the Palestinian people and is more willing to seek to compel Israel and the White House to move in that direction. Notably, Barack Obama’s planned 24 October event with El-Sayed on the campaign trail shows a greater willingness by the party’s elite to accommodate criticism of Israeli policies.

That shift matters. Israel and Palestine remain secondary issues for most US voters, compared to the economy, healthcare, education and other domestic concerns. But firm convictions on Israel–Palestine have become important attributes for some candidates in Democratic party politics. And the midterms will, in some ways, be a referendum on how criticism of Israeli policies affects voter intentions – with candidates like El-Sayed calling Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide, a claim the Netanyahu government strenuously denies. 

But one thing looks certain: US views on the Israeli government have become less favourable across age groups and political parties. Even among American Jews, 61 per cent believe Israel is guilty of war crimes and 39 per cent call it genocide, according to a 2025 Washington Post poll. The tide may already have decisively shifted, regardless of whether or not candidates like El-Sayed win their races. 

A Democratic Congress

Democratic takeover of the House and the Senate would make the shift more consequential immediately. Much of Congress’s influence over foreign policy occurs not through dramatic floor votes, but through the accumulation of hearings, letters, reporting requirements, funding restrictions and private pressure on administrations. 

Democratic-controlled committees could hold hearings on settlement expansion in the West Bank and settler violence, scrutinize US arms sales to Israel, demand administration briefings, investigate the treatment of American citizens, mark-up legislation and use appropriations and oversight to press the executive branch. 

House and Senate Democrats should begin laying the groundwork to create an affirmative American Palestine policy. That is, a policy not only defined by a move to restrict Israeli settlement-building and the sale of weapons to Israel, but one that advocates for Palestinian self-determination and an architecture for advancing it. 

Over the decades, Congress has constructed a dense web of laws that restrict American relations with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. A Democratic Congress could therefore begin to map those restrictions and decide how to address them. Which can be addressed administratively? Which need Congressional amendment or repeal? What policy changes will the US seek from the Palestinian leadership? 

This will not be straightforward: Democrats are still debating these policies, and unanimity will not always be possible: there remains a diversity of views and priorities within the party. 

Congress also needs far greater exposure to Palestinian political, economic and civil-society leaders. While many US politicians routinely engage with every dimension of Israeli politics, few have sustained relationships with Palestinians who can explain Palestinian institutions, aspirations and internal debates.

Two time horizons

Were candidates like El-Sayed to lose their races, and were midterms results to be disappointing for the Democrats, it is possible that some in the party might hesitate about the trajectory on Israel and Palestine policy.

But, assuming Democrats gain control of Congress, they could use 2027 and 2028 to constrain, oversee and prepare. A Democratic Congress could press Israel for accountability for violence against Palestinians and Americans, challenge settlement expansion, scrutinize US military assistance, support viable elements of Gaza reconstruction, strengthen Palestinian institutions and begin removing legal obstacles to normal US-Palestinian relations.

These preparations will be significant if a Democrat returns to the White House in 2029. A new administration will be best able to move forward a markedly different policy if significant progress is made in the previous two years.

In this respect, though the midterms will not be the moment US policy toward Israel and Palestine changes, they can set the context for any Democrat running in the presidential primaries – which essentially begin as soon as the new Congress is seated. 

Those who have been advocating for Palestinian rights for decades now see that not only their elected representatives, but the next US president may align with them as well. 

That will not fix anything today for the relatives of the more than 70,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, the millions that continue to suffer in the occupied territories, or Israelis dealing with the aftermath of the Hamas cross-border attacks of 7 October 2023. But it does provide a modicum of hope that there is a pathway to freedom and liberty for all. What we’ll learn from the US midterms is how quickly that change is likely to come.

Washington, DC — Congressional Democrats are demanding an investigation into Elon Musk after reports that he personally ordered restrictions on satellite service used by Ukraine’s military, a decision with potentially life-or-death consequences on the battlefield.

Sen. Adam Schiff called for Musk to testify before Congress under oath, saying either President Donald Trump or Musk has given a misleading account of who was responsible for slowing Ukraine’s access to the Starlink-linked Starshield network.

The restrictions reportedly affected Ukrainian drones, aircraft and helicopters traveling above certain speeds, disrupting military operations during Russia’s continuing invasion.

Musk initially said Starshield is owned and controlled by the U.S. government and that any restrictions ultimately come from the military and president. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Musk personally directed the slowdown after consulting administration officials, creating conflicting accounts about who authorized it.

Sen. Ruben Gallego publicly invited Musk to testify voluntarily, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Congress needs to determine whether a private billionaire was effectively “dictating our foreign policy.”

The scrutiny has become bipartisan. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick also called for witnesses to be brought before Congress under oath, describing the matter as “very, very serious.”

The controversy raises broader questions about allowing a private company and its owner to wield extraordinary influence over military communications used by a U.S. ally during wartime.

Sources:

• The Hill – MBFC Rating

The post Democrats Demand Musk Testify Under Oath Over Ukraine Starlink Slowdown appeared first on News Facts Network.

The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

Nathan Fielder’s conversation-igniting film on the Theranos founder finds its darkest moments in her deceptive, Charlie Kirk-loving fiance Billy Evans

• Secrets, lies and a shock A-list cameo: how You Can See Everything became the film of the year

• ‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes

It’s likely that most audiences going into the surprise documentary smash You Can See Everything are familiar with either its nominal subject (and literal poster gal with an intense stare) Elizabeth Holmes, the tech founder serving a prison sentence for defrauding investors; or the film’s on-camera co-director Nathan Fielder. Holmes, as the movie points out, was all over the media as her company Theranos was hyped to the moon and then spectacularly imploded; she was also played by Amanda Seyfried in the well-regarded Hulu miniseries The Dropout. Fielder, meanwhile, may not have graced as many magazine covers, but is similarly familiar to prestige-TV acolytes from his comedy-reality series Nathan for You and its successor, the more reality-bending series The Rehearsal. A third figure not included in the film’s ad campaign becomes a key part of the film in the second half, and will also be familiar to many viewers.

This should leave Billy Evans as the odd man out. Evans, Elizabeth Holmes’s partner (she has said they’re not legally married, though they did get engaged in 2018, have two children and seem to treat each other as spouses), is a not-particularly-famous guy whose screen time competes with the other three well-known faces in what is essentially a four-character drama. But while Evans isn’t boxed out in terms of screen time or memorability, he does remain the odd man out in the sense that in all the discussion You Can See Everything has prompted about manipulation, shifting sympathies and who can or cannot be trusted, everyone seems to agree on one crucial point: Billy Evans sucks.

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo/Nintendo
Bringing a holiday vibe and a generous selection of sport-themed games, this is exactly what you want from a family video game

When the first Nintendo Switch Sports brought the effortless fun of Wii Sports back into my living room in 2022, I was frankly delighted. My small children discovered the pleasure of waving a controller around in enthusiastic imitation of a tennis player, and the surprising subtlety of virtual bowling, working out how to twist the wrist just right to guarantee a strike. I did not expect this game to become a family fixture for the next several years as my kids got older and climbed up the online ranks in all six of its sports (plus the two that were added as free updates). Switch Sports is so beloved in my household that the release of Switch Sports Resort this week is the most anticipated gaming event of the year. To be fair, my children are a bit young for Grand Theft Auto.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort brings three of the six sports back – tennis, bowling, and volleyball – alongside golf and basketball. Then there are seven entirely new sports: boxing, table tennis, archery, thumb wrestling, skateboarding, jetski, and piloting a little prop plane. They are all intuitive, easy to get the hang of on the first or second attempt – some have more legs than others, in the long run – and all of them, crucially, are a little bit silly. Thumb wrestling in particular is cheerfully absurd, giving your characters gigantic thumbs on hands the size of their heads.

Last year, South Korea took responsibility for enabling the ‘mass export’ of children for sale abroad. Now those uprooted are grappling with false promises of a better life

As international, transracial adoptees in their 30s in the US, Jacquelyn Wells and Lauren White-Gydas have things in common.

They were both born in South Korea to unwed mothers in the 1980s. Both were shipped to the US as newborns to join white families who eagerly welcomed adorable, new daughters. And neither knew many other Asians in the towns where they grew up – Wells in Westford, Massachusetts, and White-Gydas in Salem, Oregon.

MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia University football defensive coordinator Zac Alley has continued trying to find the right players to put in this season.

The civil rights arm of the U.S. Department of Education has dramatically scaled back investigations involving schools and colleges since the second Trump administration began, even as complaints continue to pour in, a ProPublica analysis of newly obtained records found.

The analysis shows how severely the department’s Office for Civil Rights has retracted from its mission, launching an average of about 100 new investigations a month — 1,839 total from Inauguration Day in 2025 through July 2026. The OCR launched an average of 310 new investigations each month in 2024 during the Biden administration, according to data previously obtained by ProPublica.

Under President Donald Trump, the OCR abandoned the public-facing list of schools it was investigating and the reasons for those investigations, including claims of discrimination based on race, sex and disability. ProPublica sued the department to obtain internal case data. The government subsequently provided records of the OCR’s actions in the first 18 months of Trump’s return to power, and we are publishing the data so the public can search the cases.

The decline in investigations is especially dramatic for cases involving sex discrimination. More than 200 new complaints were filed with the office related to schools’ handling of sexual violence — rape, assault and abuse. But the Trump administration launched investigations in only 29 of them, finding fault with a school district only once, according to the newly obtained data. It’s typical for there to be at least 60 sexual violence investigations opened each year.

The department addressed fewer of these cases despite continued concerns about the persistence of the problem — as demonstrated by the intense public scrutiny over how Cornell University addressed a student’s report of a 2024 gang rape.

Beyond that, the OCR launched only two investigations into discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“They’re barely doing anything to protect women and girls, including survivors of sexual violence,” said Shiwali Patel, an attorney who previously worked at the OCR and is now with the National Women’s Law Center. “They just don’t care about women and girls.”

The organization and more than 120 other advocacy, civil rights and education groups sent a letter on Tuesday to Congress’ ranking education committee leaders urging them to hold the OCR accountable for “its failure to enforce civil rights law and protect students from sexual violence.”

With OCR’s online database idle since Trump took office, the only way to know where the agency has launched investigations has been through selective department press releases, when OCR employees provided internal data to reporters or from schools and colleges that acknowledged that their institutions had become targets of the investigations.

The data ProPublica received as a result of our lawsuit can now fill that gap on the more than 1,800 civil rights investigations that the department initiated from Jan. 20, 2025, to July 29 of this year. The database also reflects the 24,000 new complaints logged through May and the nearly 17,000 new and old cases the department closed — almost always by dismissing them. 

The agency is dismissing complaints more frequently than in prior years, the records show. And fewer than 700 cases opened by the administration were resolved with a finding of wrongdoing.

The data does not include investigations that had been opened before Trump retook power but that are pending decisions by OCR — a backlog of more than 10,000 cases.

In response to questions from ProPublica, an Education Department spokesperson blamed the Biden administration for leaving office with 19,000 unresolved cases, which the Trump administration has worked to address.

“Spare us the crocodile tears as the Trump Administration is working to restore OCR to its original purpose: enforcing the law to ensure all students can receive an education free from discrimination,” spokesperson Sabin Sidney wrote.

He added that the administration “treats any form of discrimination on the basis of race or sex as illegal.” And he criticized the prior administration for endorsing policies that allowed transgender girls and women to compete in women’s athletics and use women's restrooms.

The data disclosure comes as the administration is moving forward with efforts to shut down the department and move the OCR under the Department of Justice. Disability rights advocates and others have been critical of the move, while the administration says it will lead to more efficiency and do a better job protecting students’ rights. The majority of cases before the OCR involve students with disabilities, as has been the case historically.

In the early months of Trump’s second term, Education Secretary Linda McMahon fired hundreds of employees and closed seven regional OCR offices, leaving the department severely diminished. Its remaining civil rights workers have described untenable case loads and pressure to dismiss complaints.

The remaining attorneys “are navigating pure chaos,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union that represents OCR staff. “They are being asked to use the tools they have used for their entire careers not for good, not to protect students, but to harm students. You see it in the case dismissals, the cases that target trans students or people of color.”

In examining the new records, ProPublica found the extent to which the agency has shifted its focus, as the OCR places a new emphasis on complaints that men faced discrimination. The agency launched 172 investigations into alleged “discrimination against males,” compared with 104 cases of alleged “discrimination against females” in the period examined.

It also has investigated allegations that campus programs or scholarships excluded men. For example, it investigated a complaint against Skyline College in California that had been filed in 2023 but that President Joe Biden’s administration had not acted on, according to records from the university. The complaint alleged that Skyline discriminated against men by listing scholarships on its website that are exclusively for women and for promoting a program for women.

The civil rights office opened the investigation in mid-April, and two weeks later the community college agreed that it would remove the scholarships from its website and add language that the program was open to all students. A Skyline College spokesperson did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

At the same time, the agency chose to open fewer than 370 new investigations involving racial discrimination, even though about 5,000 complaints were filed.

Of those new investigations, about 11% involved allegations of discrimination against white students. Over the summer, the department announced investigations into five medical schools’ admissions policies.

“They are not allocating their resources to racial discrimination complaints, to sexual assault complaints, to the types of complaints that really often speak to systematic discrimination and problems,” said Johnathan Smith, managing director of education at the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law.

That organization also has sued the Education Department for similar information obtained by ProPublica; the lawsuit is pending.

The post Sexual Assaults on Campus No Longer Scrutinized as Closely Under Trump’s Education Department appeared first on ProPublica.

France’s bond market hit by another bout of selling as country recovers from weekend protests

French borrowing costs continued to rise on Thursday, as investors fret that France’s government is struggling to pass a federal budget after public protests gripped the country.

France’s bond market was hit with another bout of selling, with the difference between French and German 10-year borrowing costs – a metric for the risk premium attached to French debt – rising to its highest level in almost 15 years.

The early standouts have emerged. But even the best teams have flaws that can be exposed by their opponents

Who would have thought the 49ers would be here after a rough old offseason? Head coach Kyle Shanahan’s participation in training camp was limited due to a serious car crash, team owner Jed York’s visit to an Ohio trailer park did not end well, and one player after another endured serious injuries. Despite all this, San Francisco are full of positive vibes. They are top of a tough division and their immense defense, led by the intensity of players such as safety Malik Mustapha and Fred Warner, is complemented by an equally impressive offense.

Barry Posen, a professor at MIT, is one of America's leading experts on international security. He argues that the United States military is breaking down because it has been overused and overextended over the last 30 years, and that the only way to repair it is for Washington to exercise much more restraint.

Monica de Bolle, an expert in Brazilian economic policy, makes an authoritative argument that Brazil’s economic problems will persist no matter the outcome of the country’s presidential election. A Flávio Bolsonaro administration would fare no better than Lula when it comes to reducing debt and delivering growth—and Bolsonaro’s illiberal policies could make the economic picture even worse.

Long waits, rising costs and gaps in primary care are changing where people turn for everyday health needs.

Longtime Slashdot reader destinyland shares a report from CNN: The Pentagon has given the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a military-grade heat ray and develop tactics to potentially use it in operations at the southern US border, according to a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month and obtained by CNN. The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the US military. The energy beam causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with the human skin -- which Pentagon officials have previously compared to feeling a blast of heat when opening a hot oven. Military officials have said the resulting "tingling effect" lasts between 10 and 15 minutes but also generates "an instinctive and irresistible urge to run from the effect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Graybeards like me remember trying to painstakingly type source code from a magazine. This is a very accurate account of what a young computer user in 1986 needed to do to get a new game for the Commodore 64, complete with an immersive emulation.

It’s time to install an app! But here in 1986, we still call them “programs,” not apps. So, you’ll want to set aside some time to get started installing a program.

Exclusive: Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco taskforce urges ministers to offer areas greater benefits from tech infrastructure amid fears of US-style opposition

AI companies have told ministers they have 12 months to head off public opposition to datacentres in the UK or risk US-style protests that could threaten their construction.

Successive dry summers and rising energy bills are increasing public scrutiny of plans for the huge computer warehouses that are used to train and run AI models, says a submission to the Labour government from a group including the AI infrastructure companies Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco.

If Flávio Bolsonaro is elected, Brazil’s ecosystems will face collapse. The ruling class would rather burn the world than share it with the poor

However grim the trajectory might seem, I’ve always believed that sense will ultimately prevail. As the great perils of dismantling the living world become increasingly obvious, even the most rapacious exploiters must come round. Nobody wants to live on a dead planet, do they?

There are – or were – signs that this wasn’t just wishful thinking. Since 2015, mostly thanks to China, the area of the planet being reforested has increased, while thanks in large part to Brazil, the global rate of forest destruction has declined. The area of the Brazilian Amazon forest cleared each year is one-sixth of what it was when records began in 1988. In the past four years, as a result of Brazilian government policy, the deforestation rate has fallen by 71%. If Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is re-elected president on Sunday, the country could reach zero deforestation by 2030. The arc of the moral universe seems to have bent towards justice.

City of Newark customers who receive a printed utility bill have until Dec. 1 to switch to digital billing or pay a $2 monthly fee to continue receiving a paper bill by mail.

Newark will hold its annual Halloween Parade on Sunday.

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and Pastor Adam Hamilton debated tariffs, war and high fuel prices, and also addressed the most controversial issues in each of their campaigns.

San Francisco, CA — A federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from conducting door-to-door and other field operations targeting suspected noncitizen voters in nine states, finding the administration’s effort relies on unreliable data that could intimidate lawful voters.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a preliminary injunction covering California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin through Election Day.

The Trump administration’s “surge initiative” sent armed federal agents to homes to question residents about immigration status and voting history. CBS News reported that hundreds of Homeland Security investigators were reassigned from traditional criminal cases to the voter operation.

Martínez-Olguín found DHS’s lists of suspected illegal voters were “widely known” to contain U.S. citizens and said the operation could create a reasonable fear that lawful voters might be wrongly investigated.

Agents were reportedly expected to complete at least 40 reviews per day, leaving roughly 12 minutes for each case.

The ruling is another setback for the administration’s aggressive campaign around alleged noncitizen voting. Earlier court decisions have also criticized federal voter databases for relying on inaccurate citizenship information and potentially placing eligible Americans at risk.

Documented noncitizen voting remains rare, despite repeated claims from Trump that it is widespread.

The injunction was temporarily stayed until Friday evening to give the administration time to appeal.

Sources:

• CBS News – MBFC Rating

The post Judge Blocks DHS Door-Knocking Campaign Targeting Suspected Noncitizen Voters appeared first on News Facts Network.

You Can See Everything, a documentary about the disgraced biotech company founder Elizabeth Holmes, has enjoyed a record-breaking opening in the US. It is a testament to how fascinated we remain by the convicted fraudster, but what is behind the enduring appeal? US technology editor Blake Montgomery tells Madeleine Finlay why Holmes continues to fascinate us, and reflects on whether the Theranos scandal has had a permanent impact on Silicon Valley

Clip: You Can See Everything, A24

‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes

Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, issues warning after inspecting border fortifications against backdrop of rising tensions

Propaganda loudspeakers aimed at South Korea will be ready to restart within days along the entire border, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has said amid a worsening of ties between the two countries.

The statement, carried by the state news agency KCNA on Thursday, came a day after she said the loudspeakers would be in operation along the whole border from some time in October.

• Title is club’s first-ever since 2023 founding

• St Louis clubs have won 11 Open Cups all-time

• Daniel Edelman nets winner in 5-4 win on penalties

For much of the 20th century, winning the US Open Cup required a team to beat someone from St Louis. The Gateway City was home to many of the nation’s best teams during some ramshackle eras of soccer in the United States, with six different clubs combining for 10 trophy lifts. The most recent came in 1988, when St Louis Busch Seniors beat San Francisco-based Greek-American AC in the last throes of a tournament history dominated by amateur and semi-pro teams. MLS has won every Open Cup but one since starting play in 1996, and St Louis didn’t have an MLS club until 2023.

From the beginning, club figures spoke of their aim to restore the city to soccer prominence. Well, mission accomplished. St Louis City are US Open Cup champions, outlasting the Columbus Crew 5-4 on penalties to end the city’s 38-year wait for a major US soccer title and earn a place in the field for the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup.

Ante el descontento de los votantes por los altos precios de la gasolina, el vicepresidente JD Vance ha intentado culpar al expresidente Joe Biden.

“La razón principal por la que los precios de la gasolina están tan altos es porque cuando Joe Biden era presidente, alrededor del 20% de la capacidad de refinación estadounidense dejó de operar”, dijo Vance durante un foro con votantes organizado por CBS News el 17 de octubre. “Estamos recuperando esa capacidad poco a poco, pero el proceso toma un poco de tiempo. Al haber eliminado tanta capacidad de refinación, nos volvimos más vulnerables a los shocks que hemos visto en la crisis energética en el Oriente Medio”.

La oficina de Vance no respondió a nuestras consultas para este artículo. California ha perdido el 20% de su capacidad de refinación de gasolina, pero a nivel nacional dicha capacidad se ha mantenido relativamente estable.

El 20% “no es una estadística correcta en lo que respecta a la capacidad nacional de refinado”, dijo Patrick De Haan, director de análisis petrolero de GasBuddy, una plataforma que da un seguimiento a los precios de la gasolina en EE.UU.

Además, según explicaron a PolitiFact varios expertos de la industria petrolera, las políticas presidenciales son solo uno de los muchos factores que determinan la capacidad de refinado en el país. De hecho, la causa más evidente de los precios altos actuales de la gasolina es la guerra con Irán, un conflicto iniciado por el presidente Donald Trump, no por Biden.

Los precios se dispararon inmediatamente después del comienzo de la guerra, el 28 de febrero, y se han mantenido altos.

“El factor más grande influenciando los altos precios de la gasolina es el elevado costo del petróleo crudo, provocado por la reducción del tráfico marítimo a través del estrecho de Ormuz y los daños sufridos por las instalaciones de exportación y los oleoductos en Arabia Saudita y otros países del Golfo”, dijo Hugh Daigle, profesor del departamento de ingeniería petrolera y de geosistemas de la Universidad de Texas en Austin.

¿Cómo podrían haber influido las políticas de Biden?

Los expertos en mercados energéticos dijeron que algunas de las políticas de Biden — notablemente los esfuerzos para combatir el cambio climático, que implican una transición de los combustibles fósiles hacia energías más limpias y renovables — probablemente influyeron en la decisión de algunas refinerías de no aprobar la construcción de nuevas plantas ni ampliar las existentes.

En particular, las estrictas políticas medioambientales de California ayudan a explicar por qué dos refinerías cerraron en ese estado. 

La cronología no es tan clara como Vance dio a entender: el cierre de una refinería de Phillips 66 en Los Ángeles se anunció dos semanas antes de que Trump ganará en 2024. Valero anunció el cierre de su refinería en Benicia, California, en abril de 2025, cuando Trump ya era presidente. Ambas instalaciones cerraron durante el segundo mandato de Trump.

¿Cómo funciona la economía del sector de refinación?

Los factores más importantes que determinan la capacidad de refinación en EE.UU. están impulsados ​​por el mercado. Entre ellos se incluyen la demanda actual y prevista de combustible, los acontecimientos tanto en Estados Unidos como a nivel mundial, y la capacidad de refinación en el extranjero.

Cuanta mayor capacidad de refinación exista en el extranjero, menor será la presión para que las compañías petroleras dependan exclusivamente de las refinerías estadounidenses. 

Actualmente, las refinerías de EE.UU. están operando a plena capacidad debido a que 3 millones de barriles diarios han dejado de procesarse en Rusia y Oriente Medio a causa de ataques ucranianos e iraníes. 

Gran parte de la capacidad de refinación en Rusia y Oriente Medio se enfoca en  la producción de diésel. Como resultado, las refinerías estadounidenses han desviado parte de su producción de gasolina hacia el diésel, lo que ha provocado un aumento adicional en los precios de la gasolina para los conductores en EE.UU., dijo Skip York, investigador del Centro de Estudios Energéticos en la Rice University.

¿Cómo se compara la actual capacidad de refinación de EE.UU. con la de la era Biden?

A pesar de las disrupciones causadas por la pandemia de COVID-19, las guerras y diversos factores de mercado, el nivel de utilización de las refinerías en EE.UU. se ha mantenido relativamente estable tanto durante el mandato de Biden como durante el de Trump, según datos de la Administración de Información sobre Energía de Estados Unidos.

Clark Williams-Derry, analista de finanzas energéticas en el Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, calculó cuántas refinerías cesaron sus operaciones durante los dos mandatos de Trump y lo comparó con la cantidad de cierres ocurridos durante el mandato de Biden. 

Él descubrió que la capacidad de refinación pérdida debido a los cierres durante el periodo de Trump fue cuatro veces mayor que la pérdida durante el mandato de Biden.

Nuestro veredicto

Vance dijo, “La razón principal por la que los precios de la gasolina están tan altos es porque cuando Joe Biden era presidente, alrededor del 20% de la capacidad de refinación estadounidense dejó de operar”.

Esa declaración es inexacta en varios aspectos.

California, no Estados Unidos, perdió el 20% de su capacidad de refinación. El panorama nacional se ha mantenido, en gran medida, estable. Las fuerzas del mercado y las realidades globales influyen en la producción de las refinerías más que la política presidencial, y la causa más evidente de los altos precios actuales de la gasolina es la guerra con Irán, la cual Trump inició, no Biden.

Calificamos esta declaración como Falsa.  

Lee más reportes de PolitiFact en Español.

Nota del editor: PolitiFact tradujo esta historia del inglés al español usando un servicio de traducción automática. Los periodistas de PolitiFact con fluidez en ambos idiomas editaron la traducción para mayor claridad y precisión.

• Edwards hits nine threes in 45-point explosion

• Antetokounmpo scores 35 in first game with Heat

• Minnesota rout Miami 131-106 in season opener

Anthony Edwards scored 45 points as he and the Minnesota Timberwolves spoiled Giannis Antetokounmpo’s debut with the Miami Heat in an emphatic 131-106 season-opening win on Wednesday night.

Edwards became just the third player in NBA history to record multiple 40-point games in season openers, joining Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: For the first time, scientists say they have used viruses designed by artificial intelligence to treat a human patient. Researchers announced on Tuesday that they had administered the virus, known as a phage, to a patient suffering from a deadly bacterial infection. Phages attack bacteria, and the hope is that this one will kill the microbes causing the infection. Radical Numerics, the start-up that created the viruses, posted a technical report about them on its website. But the company declined to provide information about the patient or the doctors running the trial, citing confidentiality requirements. [...] In 2025, researchers at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., created an A.I. model called Evo 2, which they trained on millions of DNA sequences, including phage genes. They prompted Evo 2 to make new genomes similar to those in a group of phage species. The A.I. generated 700,000 virus genomes. The team synthesized DNA molecules from 285 genomes and inserted them into bacteria. The researchers found that 16 of the genomes gave rise to viable viruses. Three members of the Evo team, including Dr. Nguyen, left to found Radical Numerics. In June, the company unveiled a new A.I. model, called Omnii, based on some of the same principles as Evo. Omnii can be trained not just on DNA but also on other aspects of biology, such as the structures of proteins and molecules that keep genes turned on or off. The company is now using Omnii to tackle a range of challenges, including designing cancer vaccines and recognizing the risk that a virus may cause a pandemic. Among these efforts is the first trial of A.I.-designed phage therapy. The researchers created variations of a phage called T7. The virus, which only infects E. coli, looks like a microscopic Apollo lunar lander: a ball-shaped protein shell that holds its DNA atop six leglike protrusions. To infect a bacterium, T7 lands on its surface, using its legs to anchor in place. It then injects its DNA into the cell. Omnii generated new viral genes altering the shapes of T7's legs, according to Dr. Nguyen and his colleagues. While some of the new legs were significantly different from natural ones, Omnii's phages could still infect bacteria. Once the researchers were confident their strategy had worked, they partnered with doctors treating a patient with a stubborn E. coli infection. The bacteria had resisted not just antibiotics but all the available phages. The researchers said they had trained Omnii with information about the resistant strain and told it to design T7 phages with legs that could grab onto the bacteria. Once the A.I. generated genomes for new viruses, the scientists said they produced the corresponding DNA molecules and inserted them in bacteria. The bacteria became infected and produced T7 phages that could successfully infect, and kill, other microbes. After running tests to make sure the phages were safe, Radical Numerics presented them to the doctors. The F.D.A. authorized a trial. While the trial was authorized by the FDA, it's worth noting that the research has not yet been peer-reviewed in a scientific journal and there's no guarantee the AI-designed phages will work. However, if it does prove successful, it could help speed phage therapy by cutting down the time it takes to create a new virus tailored to each patient's infection. "We think we can get it done in days," said Dr. Eric Nguyen, the chief executive officer of Radical Numerics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed clashed onstage Wednesday during the second debate in the increasingly bitter Michigan Senate race.

For the first time in many years, Apple is limiting how many phones you can buy.

The creator of Proton Mail now hosts a powerful, professional Flock camera mapping tool on its site.

The legendary studio has been shut down just months after EA was acquired by a private equity consortium.

President was reportedly heckled at least nine times during campaign event for Darline Graham

Multiple protesters were removed from Donald Trump’s rally at South Carolina’s Clemson University on Wednesday, including one who was apparently punched by a rally attender – to the US president’s delight.

“That was great, man. Wow. Man, I loved that. I watched that,” Trump said. “That was incredible. Wow. That was unbelievable. Is everybody OK?

POLICE LOG – October 21, 2026

Dover Police Arrest Two in Fatal Shopping Center Shooting

DOVER, Del. — Dover Police have arrested two men in connection with an October 10 shooting at the Dover Commons shopping center that killed a 22-year-old Philadelphia man and injured another man.

Police said detectives identified a 22-year-old Dover man as one of the suspected shooters. He was arrested October 16 at a residence in the 500 block of Crawford Avenue after police obtained arrest and search warrants. Investigators said they recovered a 9mm handgun, ammunition and clothing and accessories believed to match items worn during the shooting.

A second suspect, an 18-year-old male, was located October 21 at a residence in Snow Hill, Maryland, by members of the U.S. Marshals Service Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force–Salisbury. He was taken into custody without incident and was being held in Maryland pending extradition to Delaware.

Both suspects are charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, four counts of first-degree reckless endangering and carrying a concealed deadly weapon.

The shooting occurred at about 9:19 p.m. October 10 in the Dover Commons parking lot in the 1200 block of North DuPont Highway. Police found two gunshot victims, including Nasir Cox, 22, of Philadelphia. Officers transported both victims to Bayhealth Kent Campus in police vehicles because heavy traffic in the area was expected to delay emergency medical response.

Cox later died from his injuries. The second victim, a 21-year-old man, was reported in stable condition.

The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information, photographs or video from the area is asked to contact the Dover Police Department Criminal Investigations Unit at 302-736-7111.

All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Russia frees Stephen Hubbard after US request while Steve Witkoff praises Putin, wanted by ICC as war criminal, as a ‘humanitarian’

Vladimir Putin ordered the release of an American man from a Russian jail as he met Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday for fresh talks on ending the war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.

Trump had previously asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old former teacher who had spent more than four years in Russian jails on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Author withdrawn from France’s Prix Goncourt last month has repeatedly denied using artificial intelligence to write novel

The publisher of top-selling Haitian Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien, who was removed from France’s most prestigious literary prize list last month, has confirmed the author used artificial intelligence to help write his novel C’était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die).

Orélien has denied allegations that he used AI on his breakthrough novel and, last week, Canadian publisher Les Éditions du Boréal said it was standing by the 38-year-old writer.

How much AI is too much when it comes to finding love on the apps? "It's very subtle," one dating app user said of his AI-enhanced photos.

In an interview with CBS News after Stephen Hubbard was released from Russian custody, his son, Fr. Joseph Coleman, said his father might have made a mistake in staying in Ukraine when the war began.

In this episode of Guardian Australia’s US politics podcast, co-hosts Jonathan Yerushalmy and Reged Ahmad look at how Katie Zacharia broke the record for shortest tenure as White House press secretary. They then look at the pattern of how women in the Trump administration are treated when they’re perceived to have made mistakes – versus how men seem to survive their missteps.

They also look at how the US might be changing course on Russia’s war on Ukraine. Are relations between the US president, Donald Trump, and the Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at their lowest point ever – and what happens if the US decides to take Russian president Vladimir Putin’s side in this war?

Precautionary takedowns come as experts say bad actors could exploit vulnerability in language used by 70% of sites

Websites around the globe have gone dark after a serious vulnerability was found in a computer language used to build much of the world wide web.

Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, French and German sites were among those that governments took down temporarily as they scrambled to patch the critical weakness in PHP, a language used by almost 70% of websites.

A quarter of Meta Muse’s 10 million users are shopping online via the AI agent with an average spend of $200 per purchase, according to Mark Zuckerberg.

Americans are mostly negative on AI and oppose new data centers near them, another poll shows.

A quick-thinking bystander came to the rescue of the students and driver aboard a runaway school bus in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Austin, TX — Texas schools have referred children ages 10 to 13 for prosecution more than 47,000 times since 2014, often for misconduct that previously might have been handled by teachers or principals.

A joint investigation by The New York Times and San Antonio Express-News found the referrals increasingly involved relatively minor behavior, including classroom disruptions, threats, vaping and confrontations with school staff. Few cases involved serious physical harm.

A referral does not necessarily result in criminal charges, but it can mean a child is handcuffed, taken into police custody and processed through the juvenile justice system.

In one case, a 12-year-old girl who refused to go to the principal’s office was arrested and taken to school police headquarters. Body-camera footage reportedly showed officers twisting her arm behind her back until she complied with fingerprinting.

The rise coincides with Texas dramatically expanding police presence in schools following the 2022 Uvalde massacre. The state now has nearly 400 school district police departments and about 11,000 officers trained to work in schools. A separate investigation found officers using Tasers, pepper spray and physical force against students, including young children.

Texas law says school police should not handle routine student discipline, but critics argue the expanding law-enforcement presence has increasingly criminalized behavior better addressed through school discipline or mental-health services.

Sources:

• Reason – MBFC Rating

The post Texas Schools Referred Children as Young as 10 for Prosecution 47,000 Times appeared first on News Facts Network.

The New World screwworm was detected in an elk that was discovered on a game ranch in Pecos County, Texas.

‘That was great, man. Wow. Man, I loved that,’ the president says from podium as multiple protesters interrupt his remarks

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Reporting from Jerusalem

The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.

USDA says screwworm found in elk in Texas, and warns hunters and ranchers to be vigilant to help stop spread

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Wednesday it had ⁠confirmed the ⁠first detection ​of flesh-eating parasite the New World screwworm in US wildlife in an ⁠elk in Pecos county, Texas.

The elk was located on a game ⁠ranch and was reported after being harvested by ​a hunter, the ‌USDA said ‌in a statement.

Jury had found Meta misled consumers after Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign obtained user data without consent

A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25bn on ⁠Wednesday after a jury found the company had misled consumers in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm involved in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users ⁠without their consent.

“Facebook’s wrongdoing – ⁠over the course of ​years and systematically broadcast to the public – goes to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices,” Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order after the verdict.

You’ll need to opt into Chrome’s Enhanced Protection mode to use the new features.

As delivery robots roll through cities like Chicago, they’re fueling fears about unregulated surveillance in public spaces.

The U.S. military has also been quietly reducing its footprint at posts in the Middle East due to regional threats from the Houthis and direct threats from Iran, CBS News has learned.

Musk says ‘there’s a lot of merit’ to potential merger that would require approval of 50% of all Tesla shareholders, but declined to elaborate

Investors were paying close attention to Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday afternoon, after chief executive Elon Musk floated the idea of merging the car company with his rocket and AI company, SpaceX. But they didn’t glean further information after the company announced there would be no questions on the matter.

“With regard to a potential merger with SpaceX, I think I said everything that should be said yesterday,” Musk, the CEO of both companies, said on Tesla’s earnings call. He repeated a phrase he said on Tuesday: “I feel like I’m tap dancing through a minefield.”

Washington, DC — Republican Rep. Nancy Mace delivered one of the harshest conservative condemnations yet of Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad featuring the estranged mother of Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton.

“This ad is going to go down as the most shameful, disgusting, offensive ad this election season,” Mace told CNN. She said Ramaswamy had managed to “limbo under the lowest bar of decency” by attacking a woman who has publicly described being sexually abused by her stepfather as a child.

Acton and her brother have said their mother failed to protect her from the abuse and remained married to the man after he was charged. Acton was removed from her mother’s custody at age 12 and has been estranged from her since.

Ramaswamy’s campaign produced the ad and is spending $4 million to air it despite bipartisan criticism. The spot features Acton’s mother calling her daughter a “liar” and disputing portions of her childhood story.

Mace, who has publicly discussed surviving sexual assault herself, said she previously considered herself a major Ramaswamy supporter but was “stunned” by the campaign’s decision.

She also criticized Vice President JD Vance for defending the ad and warned that the controversy could further damage Republicans with women voters.

Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted and several conservative commentators have also distanced themselves from the advertisement.

Sources:

• The Hill – MBFC Rating

The post Nancy Mace Blasts Ramaswamy’s Acton Ad as ‘Shameful’ and ‘Disgusting’ appeared first on News Facts Network.

Committee cites shortfalls of submarines and warships and says ‘dramatic progress’ needed by end of decade

Britain risks failing to deter future Russian aggression in the high north beyond the UK because of shortfalls in the number and availability of Royal Navy submarines and warships, MPs on the defence select committee have said.

The committee focused on the slow deployment of HMS Dragon to Cyprus this spring, declining numbers of frigates, and reports that all five Astute-class attack submarines were in dock this summer as evidence of a navy under-resourced for the threat.

Some in UK’s security services questioned why Welsh Labour firebrand was of interest

Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the Welsh Labour firebrand who spearheaded the creation of the NHS, was monitored by security services for more than two decades, though his personal file was “remarkably tame”, according to official files released to the public.

Bevan came to MI5’s attention in the 1930s over concerns about his links with known communists, papers released to the National Archives show. Monitoring continued even after he became a minister in the postwar Labour government that created the NHS.

eBay plans to cut about 1,000 jobs, or 9% of its workforce, as CEO Jamie Iannone moves to redirect resources toward the company's fastest-growing businesses. Reuters reports: The company had 12,300 employees at the end of last year. It also let go about 6% of its workforce, or 800 employees, in February as part of efforts to streamline operations. EBay has set itself apart from rivals by pushing into authenticated luxury goods, collectibles and refurbished products, which draw enthusiasts willing to pay more for valuable items. That has helped its shares rise nearly 40% this year, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500's around 12% gain. "Our strategy is working," Iannone said in the memo, adding that "continuing to capture the significant opportunity ahead requires us to make thoughtful choices about where we focus and invest." He said affected staff would be informed in the coming days.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former speaker is latest target of mailings sent to various Congress members in the lead-up to the midterm elections

California representative Nancy Pelosi’s office received “a suspicious letter” on Wednesday in what appears to be the latest incident of ill-intentioned mailings targeted at US Congress members before the midterm elections.

The offices of more than three dozen members of Congress across the political spectrum have received envelopes containing white powder in recent days. One lawmaker’s office said preliminary tests indicated the powder was not hazardous.

The campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running for governor in Ohio, sparked controversy this week with an ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton. In the ad, Acton’s mother calls her a “liar” who is being dishonest about her past. 

But court documents — as well as contemporaneous news articles and statements by Acton’s brother — corroborate key elements of Acton’s account of her difficult childhood. Acton has said she was removed from her mother’s custody at age 12 after her stepfather was charged with raping her. She says she hasn’t seen or spoken to her mother since. 

The 60-second ad has drawn widespread backlash since it first surfaced on social media Oct. 19, including from some Republicans. It was initially unclear who was behind the ad, but Ramaswamy told reporters the next day that his campaign had produced it and plans to spend $4 million airing it. (So far, the ad tracking service AdImpact showed only $2,116 had been spent to air the ad on Oct. 20.)

The race is considered a toss-up, according to the Cook Political Report. 

Acton, who previously served as director of the Ohio Department of Health, has spoken before about the hardships she endured as a child. 

In a 2019 profile by the Youngstown Vindicator, she said her biological parents divorced when she was 3, leaving her and her brother in the custody of her mother. She described cycling through a series of different homes in the following years, including a tent at a campground outside Youngstown one winter. 

By that point, her mother had remarried, according to the profile. Acton told the Vindicator that her stepfather sexually abused her. Acton, who was 12, went to live with her biological father. She said she hasn’t seen or spoken to her mother since a court appearance after her stepfather’s 1978 arrest.

In the ad, Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, accuses her daughter of lying about her childhood, including the extent of their housing insecurity.

“Amy has a serious problem,” Arthur says in the ad. “She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life. My daughter needs help. And she can’t help you if she needs help herself.” 

Though the ad does not refer specifically to the sexual abuse allegations, Arthur has done so in the past. In 2020, she gave an interview to the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue in which she claimed her daughter had “lied” when she accused Donna’s second husband, Cledith Arthur, of rape. 

Court records provided by the Acton campaign show that Cledith Arthur was charged with rape in July 1978 after Acton’s biological father reported that Arthur had sexually abused her. He pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September.

The Youngstown Vindicator reported on the arrest at the time.

The case never went to trial, however, because the Arthurs left town without notifying the authorities, the records show.

After Cledith Arthur failed to appear for a court date in October 1978, a Mahoning County judge issued a warrant for his arrest, writing that “it appears that the Defendant has willfully vacated his last known address and has failed to provide any forwarding address and his present whereabouts are unknown.” 

Another arrest warrant was issued in 1981, and records show the authorities were looking for him as late as 1983.

In the 2020 Operation Rescue interview, Donna Arthur indicates that she and her husband skipped town in order to avoid a trial. “Donna borrowed $10,000 from her father and hired an attorney who recommended that she and [Cledith] move away for awhile until things could calm down and charges could be dropped,” the article said.

The Mahoning County court system’s online records search only goes back to 1989. We reached out to the court clerk’s office for more information on the case, including its ultimate resolution, and haven’t heard back. 

Cledith Arthur died in 2004. He and Donna Arthur had been living in Pennsylvania.

As for Acton’s description of living in a tent at one point, her campaign pointed to a 1982 police report documenting an interview with an Ohio campground manager who said Cledith Arthur had lived there some years earlier. Arrest paperwork from 1978 also lists that campground as Arthur’s address.

The Acton campaign has also released statements by her younger brother, Philip Stearns, in which he backs her account of their childhood.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said in a statement the campaign released Oct. 20. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”

In a response ad the campaign released the same day, Stearns also describes repeated childhood abuse.

“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” he says. “She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that, and that if she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up.” 

We reached out to the Ramaswamy campaign with questions about the ad and haven’t received a response. Ramaswamy defended the ad when speaking to reporters on Oct. 20.

“This is part of a pattern,” he said. “Someone else who appears to know her well who says the same thing, and I do think that is important for voters to take all of that into account.”

The ad has been criticized by some Republicans, including Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, who’s in a close race of his own. Vice President JD Vance defended the ad this week, saying it “calls it out like it is, and calls Amy Acton a liar.”

The Acton campaign has condemned the ad as a “disgusting smear using Dr. Acton’s estranged, abusive mother, who stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.” 

“I won’t normalize somebody who has said my childhood is just something I’m complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse,” Acton told Spectrum News, a local TV outlet.

Update, Oct. 22: President Donald Trump endorsed the ad in an Oct. 22 Truth Social post and urged Ramaswamy to keep running it. “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad?” Trump wrote. “I would, it’s called, ‘hitting pay dirt.’” Trump also criticized the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, for calling on Ramaswamy to take the ad down.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Controversial Ohio Ad Calls Acton a ‘Liar,’ But Records Back Her Account of Childhood appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins campaigned Wednesday with an unusual ally: Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin.

(The Center Square) – Coast Guard crew are monitoring Chinese-flagged vessels in the Arctic as border security efforts remain a Trump administration priority.

Schuylkill Haven, Pa. — U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser and challenger Rachel Wallace traded sharp accusations Tuesday night in their sole scheduled debate.

The Alloop Trio also comes with a personal AI health agent.

AMD has published Linux kernel patches for an official Ryzen overclocking driver that allows users to adjust CPU power and current limits through a firmware interface exposed via sysfs. Phoronix reports: AMD engineer Shyam Sundar S K posted the patches for the AMD Overclocking "AOD" WMI driver as an interface to the platform firmware for managing overclocking and power/current limits of modern Ryzen CPUs. The driver in its initial form allows setting via sysfs a number of CPU tunables including the Package Power Tracking (PPT), Thermal Design Current (TDC), and Electrical Design Current (EDC) limits along with reading their supported range. SMT toggling can also be done via the interface as an alternative to the likes of Linux's "nosmt" option in disabling SMT at the platform level rather than kernel disabling. The current memory clocks can also be read via this AOD driver. The power tunables aren't applied in real-time but go into effect at next reboot. The firmware does support many more commands compared to the few initially wired up and hopefully in time more of these controls will be enabled with this driver.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI, data centers and Flock cameras are key tech policy issues shaping the campaigns, candidates and voters.

(The Center Square) – U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and others joined the president at a roundtable Wednesday promoting the administration’s work on preventing and responding to cybercrime by transnational criminal organizations preying on Americans.

Más de la mitad de los estadounidenses han sentido una "pérdida de identidad", según un estudio reciente. La encuesta de 2.000 estadounidenses preocupados por su apariencia encontró que el 56% ha vivido una "pérdida de identidad" en algún momento de…

The $1,999 foldable phone is harder to use for left-handed people and those with smaller hands.

Nueve de cada 10 estadounidenses consumen alimentos ultraprocesados sin darse cuenta, según un nuevo estudio. El estudio de 2.000 estadounidenses estima que solo el 16% de su dieta es ultraprocesada, pero los datos del CDC muestran que estos alimentos representan…

Uno de cada tres estadounidenses podría sufrir la "deriva de la jubilación": cuando los ahorros para el retiro se fragmentan y se vuelven más complicados de manejar con cada cambio de empleo. Una encuesta realizada por Empower y Talker Research…

Apes in study more likely to choose treats linked to sound of peers having fun, suggesting emotions influence learning

Orangutans base their food choices on whether others appear to be having a good time, research suggests.

Scientists studying captive orangutans have found that when the great apes heard the sound of their peers laughing before they searched a bowl for a tasty treat, they valued the reward more highly.

(The Center Square) - Federal regulators authorized initial construction Tuesday on a southwest Louisiana gas storage project and related infrastructure that developer Black Bayou Energy Hub LLC says represents a planned $1.6 billion investment.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Oct. 20…

A CBC investigation found that more than 1.5 million Canadian Crime Stoppers tips spanning 25 years were exposed in a breach of the P3 Global Intel tip-management platform. About 850,000 records contained personally identifiable information, including addresses, phone numbers, emails, license plates and some banking details. Longtime Slashdot reader doconnor shares the report: The data was stolen last March by hacktivist collective Internet Yiff Machine. In a manifesto, the group said it wanted to disprove the claim by P3 Global Intel -- the company hired by Crime Stoppers to manage its tips -- that the platform was "anonymous" and "secure." A copy of the hacked data was made available to researchers and journalists, including CBC, by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a U.S. non-profit that archives and publishes hacked and leaked documents it deems to be in the public interest. The report found that more than 4,300 Crime Stoppers tipsters identified themselves by their full name, with hundreds of records containing staff warnings that individuals had "self-identified" or been "exposed," yet their information remained unredacted. The leaked data included sensitive allegations involving murder, terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, with nearly 49,000 tips linked to cases cleared through arrests or criminal charges. Cybersecurity experts criticized the retention of decades-old records... "If a tip is closed, does that need to stay online?" asked cybersecurity expert Ben Coon. "The answer to that, to me, is no." The RCMP was initially told Canadian data was unaffected, then assured that exposed Canadian records contained no personally identifiable information. This appears to contradict the CBC's findings. Furthermore, affected individuals have not been systematically notified because contacting them could further jeopardize their anonymity. "For a system that has been designed to promise anonymity to the users, that has failed categorically," said Prof. Ali Dehghantanha, the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence at the University of Guelph.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(The Center Square) – Two U.S. House committees are jointly subpoenaing the New Jersey State Department, accusing the state of not fully cooperating with an investigation into what it says are the more than 6,000 noncitizens recently found on the…

If something happens, you could be facing a $1,500 repair on top of the foldable’s $2,000 price.

The species has been extinct since 1936 and only a handful of specimens, mostly skins made into rugs, have previously been sold over the years for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A top official at the Justice Department is attempting to disqualify two Minnesota federal judges from a pair of cases related to immigration.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a lawsuit Wednesday against two of Jeffrey Epstein's closest confidants, attorney Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn.

• Defensive end played for Chiefs for eight seasons

• Andy Reid says player’s death ‘makes you sick’

Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have spoken of their sadness after former Kansas City Chief Allen Bailey died at the age of 37.

The defensive end was found dead at his home in Florida on Tuesday by his wife. He is believed to have died from natural causes.

Steve Witkoff lauded Vladimir Putin as "a humanitarian" as Russia freed Stephen Hubbard, an American deemed wrongfully detained by the U.S., after more than 4 years in prison.

The Mississippi attorney general announced the police officer will not be charged in connection with the killing of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley.

Pope Leo XIV will not need any further treatment after having lung cancer surgery, his doctors said in a statement.

A growing share of American families are having to shell out more than $2,000 a month for childcare services, new data shows.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We haven't heard many details about Microsoft's upcoming "Project Helix" gaming hardware since the company announced it in March as a device that will "play your Xbox and PC games." In a new wide-ranging profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, though, Fortune alludes to a dual release strategy for upcoming Microsoft gaming hardware, with "a next-generation handheld device" planned by the end of next year and a 2028 holiday season console release that could cost between $1,200 and $1,800. That future console price range is based on what has "internally been projected" at the company, according to Fortune. But the price for consumers could come down if "Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost," the outlet says, as many console makers have done in the past. While a $1,200 starting price would be historically high for the game console market, even accounting for inflation, it also reflects a new normal: The slowdown in Moore's Law and AI-driven component shortages mean cutting-edge gaming hardware just isn't as cheap as it used to be. This year, the Steam Machine broke the $1,000 starting price, while the 2-year-old technology in the PlayStation 5 Pro is now going for $900, and the 6-year-old Xbox Series X now starts at $750.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A jury found that the social media company had deceived consumers for years about its data privacy policies.

It was identified in Euclid telescope imagery using software designed to detect moving objects.

JD Vance, the vice-president, criticized Republicans who have spoken out against a controversial campaign ad from Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The ad features the mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, calling her daughter a liar. In a Tuesday statement, Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said his sister is estranged from her mother, who had married a man that sexually abused Acton when she was 12. He said his mother, Donna Arthur, remained in the marriage after her husband was arrested and her children were taken away from her

A person with eyeglasses resting her head on a sofa's cushion after a full day's work.

A person wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses with integrated camera technology outdoors.

Great Falls is officially joining the global Ironman circuit hosting the inaugural full-distance IRONMAN Montana Triathlon next year.

• Player fetched firearm after altercation with JC Latham

• Tennessee released defensive tackle on Tuesday

• Robert Saleh calls situation ‘lapse in judgement’

Tennessee Titans coach Robert Saleh confirmed on Wednesday that defensive tackle Jordan Elliott was released after pulling a gun in the parking lot of the team facility but said it was a “terrible lapse in judgment that I recognize as a call for help more than a criminal act”.

The Titans had announced Tuesday that Elliott was released, but said only that it came after his involvement in an unspecified incident at the team’s facility five days earlier.

Two women having a discussion in an office.

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found Facebook liable for deceiving users about privacy during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. State Attorney General Raul Torrez called it "one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history." While Meta plans to appeal the ruling, the funds that are to be collected will go toward state education spending. The Associated Press reports: Jurors in September found Meta liable for over 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws when a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, harvested Facebook user data to generate targeted political ads for the 2016 election. Forty-eight other states settled with Facebook in a nationwide case, but New Mexico chose to take the social media company to court on its own. [...] During the trial, jurors assessed whether Facebook misled users about privacy and content moderation 34 separate times. State prosecutors, though, argued Facebook's statements deceived the entire population of New Mexico and extended beyond social media users. In the end, jurors agreed with this premise and found Facebook liable for 2.1 million violations on certain counts, bringing the total number of violations to over 43 million. Facebook's attorneys have argued in subsequent court filings that the state's consumer protection laws don't apply to people in New Mexico who weren't using the platform at the time. [...] In one of the few wins for the defense, jurors found the state didn't prove that Facebook made false claims about removing harmful content, including misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. The state said the company favored certain accounts and allowed for violent or inaccurate content to proliferate. Attorney Randi McGinn said in her closing argument for the state that Facebook profited off harmful content, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied during his video deposition. Zuckerberg said the company has to carefully balance freedom of speech with content moderation. Attorneys for Facebook said the company has adapted its policies since the state's lawsuit was filed in 2021 and that it removes 99% of content that violates standards.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Incumbent Mike Lawler is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley in state’s 17th congressional district

• US politics live – latest updates

Elon Musk’s Super Pac has spent more than $500,000 in New York’s highly competitive 17th congressional district race to help Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent, hold on to his seat.

Lawler, a moderate Republican, is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley in the Hudson valley. It is among the most-watched races that could determine whether Republicans hold on to their majority in Congress.

By: John Sides

More and more people expect their party to win. That’s a problem.

The post The epidemic of partisan wishful thinking appeared first on Good Authority.

New Mexico lawsuit claims ‘in exchange for furthering Epstein’s criminal project, his associates received generous salaries’

The attorney general of New Mexico on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime attorney, Darren Indyke, and Epstein’s longtime accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of having “facilitated and concealed” Epstein’s crimes, and is seeking to stop them from being paid by Epstein’s estate while the litigation plays out.

The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the district of New Mexico, names Kahn and Indyke as defendants both in their individual capacity, and in their capacity as co-executors of Epstein’s estate. The complaint also names Epstein’s estate, and the 1953 Trust, which holds the estate’s assets.

SEIU Local 1000, representing nurses and teachers, pushing for higher wages, telework and affordable healthcare

Thousands of California state workers walked off the job Wednesday in a sweeping one-day strike as tensions boiled over lapsed contract negotiations with Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration.

SEIU Local 1000, a union that represents roughly 100,000 public employees, has been at an impasse with the state since its contract expired on 30 June.

At 25, Jody Ginter Mihok had a lump in her breast but plenty of reasons to believe it wasn’t cancer. Her age was one of them. image created from photo courtesy of the DBCC and DeerPark Goes Pink using AI on 10/23.

Delaware survivor Jody Ginter Mihok’s experience highlights why younger women shouldn’t dismiss breast changes — and how a Newark fundraising event this Sunday brings survivors and families together.

NEWARK, Del. — At 25, Jody Ginter Mihok had a lump in her breast but plenty of reasons to believe it wasn’t cancer. Her age was one of them.

Before undergoing a biopsy, she had been repeatedly reassured that cancer was unlikely in someone so young.

But in 2006, the diagnosis came: breast cancer.

Twenty years later, after two separate breast cancer diagnoses and becoming a mother, Mihok is sharing her experience as she prepares to participate in the 10th annual Deer Park Goes Pink 5K this Sunday, Oct. 25, in Newark.

The event begins at 9 a.m. at Deer Park Tavern, 108 W. Main St., and includes a 5K run/walk and an untimed 1-mile walk. Registration remains open, and organizers say 100% of proceeds benefit the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition, which supports women and families affected by breast cancer.

Mihok hopes her story will encourage other women to pay attention to changes in their health and motivate Delawareans to join Sunday’s event in support of survivors and their families.

Breast cancer is rising among younger women

Although breast cancer remains far more common in older women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that incidence among women younger than 45 increased an average of 0.7% annually between 2001 and 2022.

More than 27,000 women under 45 were diagnosed with breast cancer nationwide in 2022, according to the CDC.

For Mihok, the statistics reflect something she experienced firsthand: Being young can make breast cancer seem unlikely, even when symptoms are present.

“Being young can sometimes make people assume cancer isn’t a possibility, and that was certainly part of my experience,” she told the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition.

Her diagnosis changed the direction of her life almost immediately.

“I went from being a 25-year-old young adult living her life to having what seemed like daily appointments, testing, surgery, and then six months of chemotherapy,” Mihok said.

Instead of concentrating on her career, relationships and plans for a family, she faced difficult questions about whether she would ever have children.

Cancer threatens plans for motherhood

For younger breast cancer patients, treatment may involve decisions extending well beyond fighting the disease.

Mihok had to consider how surgery would change her body, how cancer might affect relationships and whether chemotherapy would eliminate her chances of having children.

She consulted a fertility specialist but learned that preserving her eggs would involve out-of-pocket expenses and hormone treatments that raised concerns because of her aggressive, hormone-positive breast cancer.

“There were also things I had to think about at 25 that I never expected to face, including my fertility,” she said.

The experience illustrates another challenge facing younger patients: Cancer treatment can affect reproductive options at an age when many women have not yet decided whether to start a family.

Women facing treatment that could affect fertility are encouraged to discuss preservation options with their medical team before treatment begins.

For Mihok, motherhood eventually became a reality.

At 35, she became pregnant without fertility treatment and gave birth to her daughter, Jacey.

But two years later, cancer returned to her life.

A second diagnosis brings a different fear

Mihok was diagnosed with breast cancer again when her daughter was just 2 years old.

According to her account, the second diagnosis was not a recurrence of her original cancer but a new breast cancer.

This time, her greatest concern had changed.

At 25, she had worried that cancer might prevent her from becoming a mother. Now she feared her daughter might grow up without one.

The two diagnoses, occurring at dramatically different stages of her life, gave Mihok a personal understanding of how cancer affects patients and their families long after the initial diagnosis.

Today, her daughter is 10, and Mihok credits her husband, family and friends for providing the support she needed throughout her treatment and recovery.

Support for Delaware’s younger survivors

Mihok participates in the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition’s Young Survivors in Action program, which addresses the concerns of women diagnosed with breast cancer at younger ages.

The program offers education, wellness activities and opportunities to connect with other survivors. Activities focus on physical recovery, emotional well-being and adjusting to life during and after treatment.

Mihok’s experience also reinforces an important distinction between routine cancer screening and evaluating an actual symptom.

The American Cancer Society recommends that women at average risk have the option of beginning annual mammograms at age 40, with annual screening recommended beginning at 45. Women at higher risk may need screening earlier.

But a new breast lump or other concerning change should be evaluated regardless of age. Being too young for routine mammograms does not mean being too young to develop breast cancer.

Turning survival into support for others

For Mihok, Sunday’s Deer Park Goes Pink event represents far more than a race.

It brings together survivors, caregivers, families and supporters while raising money for breast cancer education and survivor services in Delaware.

“I come back every year because this event means something very personal to me,” she said.

“Being surrounded by this community reminds me how many people are willing to stand beside you, whether you are currently going through treatment, a survivor, a caregiver, or someone who has lost a loved one.”

Her message to other women is rooted in the uncertainty she experienced at 25: Pay attention to changes in your health, ask questions and advocate for yourself when something does not seem right.

And while breast cancer changed her life twice, she refuses to let it become the only thing that defines her.

“Cancer became part of my story, but it did not get to define my whole story.”

TO-GO BOX | Join Deer Park Goes Pink this Sunday

Interior of the sarcophagus. Detail of the western part, prior to in situ cleaning of the skeletal remains. (PreConstructArchaeologyLtd via SWNS)

The giant rodents feasted on pumpkins, squash, carrots and bamboo leaves just in time for Halloween.

Bru the six month old capybara inspects a pumpkin as he gets into the spooky spirit for his first Halloween at Edinburgh Zoo. (Katielee Arrowsmith via SWNS)

"According to a recent report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier (paywalled), EA has reportedly decided to shut down BioWare," the studio behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, writes longtime Slashdot reader atari_kid. Quartz reports: Chief Studios Officer Cam Weber and Chief Operating Officer David Tinson wrote that "over the past several months, we've taken a hard look at our business." They said a small BioWare team had been doing early groundwork on a Mass Effect game, but EA chose to drop the effort. That decision means closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace, they wrote. "We do not take this decision lightly," Weber and Tinson said of the BioWare closure, according to Variety. EA will keep investing in Apex Legends and is continuing work on two upcoming launches, Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, the executives said. They added that EA's Respawn and DICE studios will join forces on an upcoming project, in addition to new Battlefield titles. Bloomberg said the project is probably a new installment of the Star Wars: Battlefront franchise.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The scent-sending technology could be used in online shopping, healhcare diagnoses and just for fun.

Jack Ross was filmed allegedly discussing with an undercover reporter violent options to deal with enemies

A former Conservative election candidate has been suspended from the party after he was seemingly filmed discussing the cost of hiring contract killers and offering to “broker” the services of a far-right activist with alleged paramilitary links.

Jack Ross was filmed apparently asking an undercover reporter “What do you want done?” before listing the type of violent options that could be bought.

Relatives recount distress and loneliness their loved ones went through in pandemic as a result of isolation policy

“At the time it felt like a devil’s bargain – it was horrible, but it was what [we thought] we had to do to keep people safe,” says Amy of the “devastating” and “terrifying” restrictions that led to her maternal grandparents being locked down in separate care homes during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eva and Eric had been married for more than 60 years when her dementia and his increased frailty meant they needed separate residential support. When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, however, it in effect cut them off from each other and their granddaughter, to whom they had been especially close after the early death of Amy’s mother.

Vladimir Putin ordered the release of former teacher Stephen Hubbard, who had spent more than four years in Russian jails on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. This came as Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff met with the Russian president in St Petersburg for fresh talks on ending the war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.

• Putin orders release of jailed American as he meets Trump envoy for Ukraine talks

OpenAI is bringing its models to Google Cloud's model garden and Antigravity coding tool, putting its technology on all three major U.S. cloud platforms after Microsoft's exclusive license ended earlier this year. "Google Cloud's longstanding investment in machine learning and AI has made it a destination for AI workloads and the developers and data scientists building them," OpenAI said in a blog post. It continues: [...] The integration will pair OpenAI's frontier models with Google Cloud's built-in access controls, centralized data governance, and high-performance infrastructure to support demanding enterprise workloads. Google Cloud customers will be able to purchase OpenAI frontier models via model garden, transacted through the Google Cloud Marketplace. Enterprises with Google Cloud spend commitments will be able to draw down their GCP commitments for these purchases. Additionally, OpenAI models will soon be available in Google Antigravity and the Gemini Agent, providing enterprise customers with model choice flexibility and the best model for each task. [...] For context, Microsoft previously held exclusive licensing rights to OpenAI's intellectual property, but that arrangement ended less than six months ago as OpenAI began expanding its partnerships with other cloud providers. Just one day after Microsoft's exclusivity ended, Amazon announced plans to host OpenAI's models on its cloud platform in April.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US photojournalist describes ‘protective shield’, vows to return to work in West Bank and criticises Netanyahu comments on incident

The Washington Post photojournalist who was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Friday has described how she was saved with the help of local Palestinians.

Heidi Levine sustained four fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and four puncture wounds when she was knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by a crowd of masked settlers while she and other journalists were covering the olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah.

Steve Witkoff’s flattery of the Russian leader could be just the start of a mendacious stratagem from a US president who says Moscow ‘has been fine on Ukraine’

They say the first casualty of war is truth. For the Trump administration, the road to peace with Russia now encompasses some extraordinary lies.

Steve Witkoff delivered one as he sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday, aiming to close the deal on Russia’s land grab in Ukraine with the White House’s strategy of maximum pressure on Kyiv and saccharine flattery of the Kremlin.

As prices keep rising, more of the president’s supporters are asking what happened to the economic good times he promised

It is no great revelation that Donald Trump is enriching himself as president. He raked in $2.2bn in 2025, with his position and his personal interests frequently overlapping. Yet this week’s poll finding that 34% of Republicans (and 66% of all American voters) think that he is using his position to make himself rich merits attention. Separately, voters in a Fox News poll last week put government corruption at the top of their list of concerns – just ahead of inflation and high prices.

Mr Trump pledged that people would be better off if they voted for him. Billionaires are; not the rest. He promised to lower grocery costs (they have risen) and to cut the price of gasoline to below $2 a gallon. It’s more than double that, thanks to his illegal war on Iran. Tariffs haven’t helped. Incumbents struggle when life feels unaffordable, and polling for the Guardian has shown the disenchantment of key voting groups. The gulf between his own prosperity and the lives of his base now looks less like an inspiration and more like an insult. Cash offers seem unlikely to help much.

Officials say the explosion released an airborne irritant that can cause burning of the eyes, nose, mouth and skin

Officials are investigating a tank explosion in Toledo, Ohio, that released a chemical into the air, causing a mass evacuation in the area.

One person, a first responder, was injured and taken to the hospital, but officials believe the injuries are non-life-threatening. They are also unsure about the cause of the explosion.

Experts tell CBS News geography, interceptor shortages and evolving Houthi tactics are helping the Iranian proxy menace Saudi Arabia, and global energy supplies.

No 10 declines to rule out watering down plans to extend waiting period for indefinite leave to remain as cabinet split widens

Shabana Mahmood has been urged to “read the room” on Labour opposition to her immigration policy, as No 10 declined to rule out watering down her plans to make foreign workers wait 15 years to get permanent residency.

Mahmood, the home secretary, is consulting on plans to increase the period before foreign workers can claim indefinite leave to remain from five to 15 years, backdated to apply to anyone arriving from 2021 onwards.

Decision stands in contrast to recent trans rights actions from court that often sides with Trump administration

The US supreme court went against Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday, refusing to allow the immediate enforcement of sweeping restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender individuals held in prisons and federal facilities.

The decision marks an unusual victory for transgender rights before the nation’s highest court, which has largely sided with the administration and other opponents of transgender rights in several major cases.

Hepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’

The US-backed hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns that drew global backlash was halted, the lead researcher said on Wednesday.

It was “now clear” that the study “will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau”, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, a Danish researcher, wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”

Exclusive: Officials say Miatta Fahnbulleh minded not to give approval in victory for climate campaigners

Miatta Fahnbulleh is minded to reject the giant Rosebank oilfield, sources have told the Guardian, in what would be a blow for the North Sea energy industry and a major victory for climate campaigners.

After approving the smaller Jackdaw gasfield on Wednesday, officials say the energy secretary is leaning towards refusing approval for what would be one of the biggest oilfields in the North Sea.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, meeting with Vladimir Putin in Russia, voiced hope for new trilateral talks involving Ukraine, and Moscow indicated the talks could resume in November.

Government decision is about how much oil and gas is sensible for UK to produce on the way to net zero

• Business live – latest updates

Andy Burnham hit the nail on the (well)head in his first fortnight as prime minister when he said: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is, where does it come from?”

It was a nod towards several awkward energy facts. First, oil and gas provided 75% of the UK’s energy in 2025, government data shows. Second, even with the rollout of domestic renewables for generating electricity, about 43% of overall energy was imported last year.

Wedgewood Polls said project was designed to highlight lack of scrutiny over polling sector by mainstream media

A polling firm has admitted to using fabricated data in surveys that were picked up by national media outlets in the US, claiming the project was a “social experiment” designed to expose the lack of scrutiny over the sector.

Wedgewood Polls released a statement on Tuesday on social media, after the polling and election analysis site FiftyPlusOne reached out for comment on an investigation it had conducted into their surveys and data.

Cameras reportedly set up near site for Trump’s proposed arch, Arlington Memorial Bridge and reflecting pool

The US Park Police are spending $343,000 to lease mobile surveillance cameras from a company that also supplies Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), federal contract records show. The deal comes as Donald Trump has insisted that vandals damaged the reflecting pool, one of Washington’s best-known landmarks – charges that have since been dismissed.

The Department of the Interior, which oversees the Park Police, awarded the lease to the Utah-based company LiveView Technologies (LVT) on 14 September, on a fully obligated government contract that runs through the end of February. The records do not say how many camera trailers are covered.

"PHP disclosed two critical vulnerabilities in their programming language and urged web site operators to immediately apply the fix," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "As a result, government web sites in Europe and elsewhere temporarily went dark on Wednesday as operators worked to protect their systems." The Independent reports: Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Web and cloud security firm Cloudflare, said that attacks were emerging and Cloudflare was updating its firewall rules as a stopgap measure. "We are seeing early attacks emerging and are updating mitigations as new vectors show up. This is a STOPGAP only. Patch as soon as PHP releases the update," he said on X. Officials have said that all PHP versions from PHP 5 onward could be affected, although PHP has not yet disclosed which versions are vulnerable. Special thanks to Slashdot readers Alain Williams and mrspoonsi for sharing this critical PHP security release. For more details, read the official PHP announcement and guidance on what to do next.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jaden J Read was arrested after federal authorities say he posted threats online before president’s Wichita rally

A 24-year-old Kansas man has been arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot Donald Trump.

Authorities arrested Jaden J Read, of Clearwater, Kansas, last Saturday after he allegedly posted threats to kill the US president at his rally in the Wichita area on Monday, according to the justice department.

State lawmaker helped establish program later directed by her husband, highlighting the importance of public disclosure, accountability and financial transparency

By George D. Rotsch, Delaware LIVE

DOVER, Del. — A Delaware lawmaker’s role in helping establish a state-sponsored retirement savings program that later employed her husband raises questions about transparency in government hiring, financial oversight and the safeguards intended to maintain public confidence in state decisions.

State Rep. Krista Griffith, D-, was among the co-sponsors of House Bill 205, the legislation that created Delaware EARNS, a retirement savings program designed to help private-sector workers who lack access to employer-sponsored retirement plans.

The legislation, primarily sponsored by Rep. Larry Lambert, D-Claymont, passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by Gov. John Carney in August 2022.

The law authorized the creation of the program, including a paid leadership position responsible for overseeing its implementation.

Griffith’s husband, Ted Griffith, subsequently became the first director of Delaware EARNS, a position within the Office of the State Treasurer.

There is no evidence presented in the research reviewed by Delaware LIVE that Rep. Griffith improperly influenced her husband’s hiring or that either violated state ethics requirements.

However, the relationship presents a legitimate public-interest question: What hiring, disclosure and oversight procedures were followed, and how can Delawareans independently verify that decisions involving public employment and taxpayer funding were handled appropriately?

A program intended to help Delaware workers

Delaware EARNS was established to address a significant gap in retirement savings opportunities.

State officials estimated that nearly 150,000 Delaware workers lacked access to retirement plans through their employers when the program was authorized.

EARNS allows eligible workers to contribute to individual retirement accounts through payroll deductions, even when their employers do not offer a traditional retirement plan.

Employers facilitate participation, while workers control their own contributions and may opt out.

State Treasurer Colleen Davis championed the legislation as a way to expand retirement security while reducing the administrative burden on small businesses.

The program has reported measurable progress. In April 2026, the Treasurer’s Office announced that EARNS participants had accumulated $10 million in retirement assets.

Those savings belong to participating workers and should not be confused with taxpayer appropriations used to establish and administer the program.

A qualified director, but questions about the process

Ted Griffith came to Delaware EARNS with significant experience in financial services.

According to his official Treasury biography, he is a certified financial planner who spent 16 years at Vanguard, including work as a financial adviser overseeing approximately $100 million in client assets.

He also held responsibilities in marketing and financial communications.

Those credentials are relevant to evaluating his qualifications for leading a retirement savings program.

The separate question is how Delaware selected him for the position.

Publicly available information reviewed for this story identifies Griffith as program director but does not establish the complete recruitment and selection process, including how widely the position was advertised, how many applicants were considered or who made the final hiring decision.

Those details would help determine whether the hiring followed a competitive, documented process consistent with state requirements.

Transparency would also help protect the reputation of a qualified public employee by allowing the process to be judged on facts rather than assumptions about family relationships.

Taxpayer funding adds another accountability issue

The original fiscal analysis for Delaware EARNS projected approximately $1.1 million in government implementation expenses over three fiscal years.

Those estimated costs included funding for a full-time program director as well as other administrative expenses.

Actual spending and appropriations must be distinguished from those initial projections.

The question of public funding is particularly relevant because Rep. Griffith subsequently served on the General Assembly’s Joint Finance Committee, which plays a central role in developing Delaware’s annual operating budget.

A review of legislative and budget records could establish whether Griffith participated in decisions that specifically affected EARNS staffing, compensation or administrative funding after her husband became director.

Such participation would not automatically establish an ethics violation. Legislative budget votes frequently involve departments employing relatives of lawmakers.

The more relevant questions are whether any decisions directly affected a household financial interest, whether state ethics requirements applied and whether appropriate disclosures or other safeguards were observed.

These are questions that can be resolved through legislative records, personnel documentation and applicable ethics guidance.

Outside consultants and financial oversight

The transparency questions extend beyond the hiring of the program director.

During implementation, the Treasurer’s Office selected AKF Consulting Group to help develop and administer EARNS.

According to Treasury records cited in the research report, AKF was the only qualified consultant to submit a proposal in response to the state’s request for proposals.

An evaluation committee reviewed the submission and unanimously recommended the firm.

A procurement process that attracts only one qualified bidder is not necessarily improper. However, it makes documentation of the selection process, contract costs and performance particularly important.

AKF subsequently assisted Delaware in evaluating opportunities to cooperate with other state-sponsored retirement programs.

In December 2023, Delaware joined the Partnership for a Dignified Retirement, an interstate arrangement involving Colorado and Maine.

State officials said the partnership would reduce startup costs, accelerate implementation and provide economies of scale.

The arrangement uses Vestwell, working with BNY Mellon, to provide retirement program administration and related services.

The public-interest questions are whether those projected savings have materialized, what fees Delaware and participating workers are paying, and how the state evaluates the performance of its vendors.

These questions concern the management of public programs and retirement services rather than any demonstrated wrongdoing by the program’s employees or contractors.

Who is responsible for oversight?

Delaware EARNS was initially overseen by a seven-member board responsible for implementation, vendor relationships, investment oversight and administration.

On Jan. 1, 2026, those responsibilities transferred to the Delaware Plans Management Board, which oversees other state-sponsored savings and investment programs.

The board’s publicly posted meeting materials include EARNS business reports, creating opportunities for public review of the program’s activities.

The distinction matters.

Public disclosure requirements are intended not simply to identify wrongdoing after it occurs but also to help prevent conflicts, promote accountability and give residents confidence that government decisions serve the public interest.

Transparency should not require allegations of misconduct

Family relationships involving elected officials and government employees are not inherently improper.

Delaware’s relatively small political and professional community makes such relationships particularly relevant to public confidence.

The challenge for government is to ensure that hiring, contracting and funding decisions are made through established procedures, with appropriate safeguards when personal or family interests may be involved.

In the case of Delaware EARNS, records documenting the director’s selection, applicable ethics guidance and subsequent legislative funding decisions could help resolve questions without relying on speculation.

The same standards should apply regardless of political party, elected office or the perceived merits of a particular government program.

Delaware EARNS was created to provide retirement opportunities for workers who lacked them. Its reported growth offers evidence that the program is serving that purpose.

Public confidence in those accomplishments would be strengthened by clear documentation showing how the program was staffed, funded and managed.

The broader issue is not whether a legislator’s spouse should be disqualified from public employment.

It is whether Delaware’s government provides enough transparency for citizens to know that employment decisions, taxpayer expenditures and public contracts are handled fairly, independently and in the public interest.

TO GO: Delaware EARNS and government transparency

• What is Delaware EARNS? A state-facilitated retirement savings program for workers whose employers do not offer qualifying retirement plans.
• Who created it? House Bill 205, primarily sponsored by Rep. Larry Lambert with bipartisan support, became law in August 2022. Rep. Krista Griffith was a co-sponsor.
• What raises questions? Griffith’s husband, Ted Griffith, subsequently became the program’s first director. His hiring process and any relevant legislative funding decisions warrant examination.
• Has wrongdoing been established? No. The research reviewed does not establish improper hiring, unlawful conduct or an ethics violation.
• What deserves greater transparency? Hiring procedures, compensation, state funding, potential conflicts of interest, vendor contracts and program performance.
• Where can residents learn more? Visit the Delaware Plans Management Board or review House Bill 205

• Tournament coming to the US for the first time

• Rose says tournament is a huge opportunity