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What’s So Radical About Angie Nixon? The Florida Democrat says she’s no extremist. She’s just running ‘toward the people and what it is that they need.’ Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon has a simple rebuttal to charges from her general election opponent, Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, that she’s an extremist and a radical, and therefore unfit to be the next U.S. Senator from the state of Florida. At a town hall in Lauderhill, a predominantly Black city in inland Broward County, west of the coastline and its better-known political and cultural centers, she told a story about a woman with breast cancer — a mother who had relied on Medicaid for her treatment and SNAP benefits to feed her children while she was too sick to work. Both programs had been cut after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last July. The woman’s cancer, Nixon said, has since advanced to stage IV. “This is what’s at stake right now in our country,” said Nixon, dressed in a black campaign shirt modeled after a vintage rap tee, with “ANGIE” splashed across a collage of her own image. “It is shameful that in one of the richest countries in the world, we have people who are dying because they don’t have access to quality healthcare.” Nothing about making sure people can see a doctor or paying workers a living wage, she continued, was “radical or extreme.” Among the people listening with just weeks to go before the Nov. 3 election was Michelle Waterford, a former teacher who had moved to South Florida from Boston. Waterford had been an independent before changing her registration so she could participate in Florida’s closed Democratic primary. She and her 21-year-old son, Nate, initially supported Nixon’s primary opponent, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. In June, they attended a candidate forum at a church in nearby Pompano Beach, where they expected to meet Vindman. He never showed up — but Nixon did. “She was everywhere,” Waterford told me. “He was nowhere.” By the end of the event, Waterford and several friends who had arrived supporting Vindman had switched to Nixon. Her reasons were not especially ideological. She liked Nixon’s positions on teachers’ wages and healthcare. The Waterfords also seemed to relish Nixon’s pugnacity. They parroted a quip they’d heard Nixon deliver at the Pompano Beach event when asked about her alleged support for abolishing the police. Nixon replied, “Why would I want to abolish the police? I want to put Ashley Moody in jail.” But more than anything, Michelle responded to the sense that Nixon was present and speaking to the problems she recognized in her own life. In Florida, it had been eight years since Democrats nominated a progressive for governor or U.S. Senate. The last time, in 2018, Andrew Gillum lost the governorship to Republican Ron DeSantis by less than half a percentage point. And until Nixon’s insurgent primary win on August 18, Florida Democrats have largely responded to the state’s rightward lurch by running a series of centrist candidates, including former Republican Charlie Crist against DeSantis in 2022. DeSantis cruised to victory with a near 20-point win. Two years later, in 2024, Donald Trump and Republican Sen. Rick Scott notched double-digit wins in Florida, cementing its shift from a purple battleground into a Republican stronghold. Nixon’s campaign, by contrast, marks a clear departure from that centrist approach, focusing on the affordability crisis, Medicare for All, and the need to get money out of politics. She had joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) two months before the primary, and her win was hailed as the first time a DSA member had captured a major-party nomination for statewide office. The circumstances of that membership remain murky: the organization neither endorsed nor anticipated her victory. When pressed, Nixon balked at the socialist label, describing herself as more of a “social democrat” and distancing herself from several of the group’s positions. But the willingness to confront corporate power remained. As Morgan Harper reported in a column for The Lever, Nixon rebuked Walmart at a Congressional Black Caucus event the company co-sponsored, criticizing it for taking government subsidies and tax breaks while its workers rely on government assistance. According to Nixon’s primary results, her message appeals to voters who have abandoned the Democratic Party in recent years. Nixon’s primary coalition extended into Republican-won territory, including Jacksonville, with particular strength in lower-income, less-college-educated communities. She also “won the rural vote by 20 points and carried 19 of the state’s 22 rural counties.” Overall, she trounced her establishment-backed primary opponent by double digits, despite being outspent more than 16-to-one. Before she took the stage at the Lauderhill town hall, I asked Nixon what she thought voters had been endorsing when they chose her. “They were endorsing someone who wants to put people first,” she said. Voters, she added, were tired of Washington’s “chaos and corruption” and wanted someone focused on putting more money in their pockets and lowering the cost of gas and groceries. She didn’t spare Democrats any blame for what she saw as an economic order shaped during the Obama years and carried forward under both Trump and Biden. “I think there’s some blame to go all around,” she said. “We need to start electing people who come from local communities, have community organizing experience, and have taken on big businesses.” However, Nixon was careful not to frame her primary victory as an ideological triumph. She didn’t invoke socialism or progressivism or suggest voters had endorsed a decisive move to the left. In fact, she rejected the political spectrum altogether. “It’s not about right or left or centrist or progressive. It’s about the [candidate] who’s going to run toward the people and what it is that they need.” Florida Dems Divided For progressive Florida Democrats, Nixon’s primary win is an indictment of a state Democratic Party that responded to Florida’s rightward turn by chasing moderate and suburban voters while neglecting much of its working-class base. Elijah Manley, a progressive organizer who lost this year’s congressional primary for Florida's 20th Congressional District to establishment Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, contrasted Andrew Gillum’s narrow gubernatorial loss in 2018 with the party’s much worse statewide performances in subsequent cycles. “The Florida Democratic Party believes when they lose that going further to the right is the strategy to win,” he told me. “That has proved election cycle after election cycle not to be a winning strategy.” For Manley, Nixon’s victory demonstrated something more specific than a statewide conversion to left politics. “It goes a little bit further than ideology,” he said. “It’s also coalition building.” Nixon traveled constantly, including to places conventional wisdom and strategists might have written off. “She threw out the consultant playbook.” Oliver Larkin — another progressive also-ran, who lost this year’s congressional primary for Florida's 25th Congressional District to establishment Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz — located the failure in what he called the “Chuck Schumer strategy,” referring to Schumer declaring that Democrats could accept losses among working-class voters on the assumption that they could make them up with more affluent suburban moderates. Larkin believes strategists have spent too much energy chasing swing voters while neglecting Black, Latino, and rural communities. Nixon, he said, demonstrated that “you can outorganize organized money” when a candidate’s message matches the economic conditions voters are experiencing. “When the Democratic Party is winning, it’s exciting young people,” Larkin said. “It’s exciting irregular voters.” He argued those voters are not looking for more bipartisanship but believe the institutions of both parties have failed them. He said Florida Democrats needed more voter registration, year-round community organizing, and less fixation on persuading Republican voters. When you start catering to Republicans, he said, it turns into a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Grand theories built around a single primary hold little appeal for Steve Schale, a longtime Florida Democratic strategist who helped run both of Barack Obama’s campaigns in the state. “I think everyone overreads every election way too much,” he told me. Schale didn’t dispute that Nixon assembled an unusual coalition, but he offers a more mundane explanation for much of it. Vindman, Nixon’s primary opponent, was new to Florida, had few deep relationships in the state and, in Schale’s view, ran as though the general election mattered more than the Democratic primary. “She frankly outworked the dude,” he said. Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, diagnoses the party’s recent struggles as a structural issue. When Republicans consolidated power after 2018, she told me, changes to voter-registration rules, voting-rights restoration, and vote-by-mail enrollment made basic organizing more expensive. At the same time, outside investment in Florida Democrats has cratered. Fried pointed to the collapse in presidential spending. In 2020, the Biden presidential campaign spent about $112 million on advertisements in Florida, compared with the Harris campaign spending $539,000 on the state by October of 2024. One oversight she placed closer to home was communication. Before she became chair in 2023, Fried said, the party had little coherent strategy for amplifying elected officials or maintaining a consistent message. It didn’t help that there was no Democratic governor, senator, or meaningful legislative power to speak of that could have commanded sustained news coverage. Fried resisted the idea of a leftward lurch among state Democrats in the wake of Nixon’s victory. “People are looking for fighters,” she said, adding that Nixon’s strength came from years of organizing and an ability to speak directly to the affordability crisis, not from a sudden statewide shift to the left. Reports of tension between Fried and Nixon surfaced almost immediately after Nixon won the primary, particularly around Nixon’s association with DSA. According to Axios, Nixon told Fried in a heated phone call, “You never gave a care about me from the beginning, and now you’re telling me how to run my campaign?” Fried sidestepped the suggestion that ideological concerns had resulted in limited party support, saying that Nixon was folded into the operation after the primary and that the party was fully behind Nixon. “She’s our nominee,” Fried said. Nixon’s progressive allies are circumspect about that support. Manley said national Democrats “have not been putting the resources into the race, and I don’t know how they expect to win Florida without investing in it.” Federal records lend weight to that appraisal. Through August 31, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) had given $62,000 in direct contributions to six other nominees but none to Nixon, while transferring only $29,000 to the Florida Democratic Party, compared with millions to several other state parties. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) recently called it “shameful” that the DSCC was not making an “equitable investment” in candidates like Nixon. Last month, Nixon herself told MS Now that when she asked the DSCC to contribute money to her campaign, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “We will see.” When commentators on the program asked why she thought the DSCC didn’t donate to her campaign, Nixon noted, “I am very vocal about putting working-class families first. I am very vocal about progressive values. I think that may be the main issue.” Nixon added: “Also, folks are a little gun-shy because, unfortunately, Vice President Harris lost as a Black woman. And so people are being very hesitant in terms of funding Black women. Especially in the South.” When asked about the lack of material support from the DSCC, Nixon told The Lever, “We’re thrilled with the support from Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand to host fundraisers and lean in with us.” (And separate from the DSCC, Schumer has contributed to Nixon through his PAC.) Larkin’s criticism was more local. He said state party leadership hadn’t done enough to make the national case for investing in Florida. “There’s a kind of condescension that people feel [that] if you’re not bringing your own massive donor network or national media profile to the table, then we don’t have time for you,” he said. Larkin wants the state party to make a much more aggressive push not just for Nixon, but for congressional, legislative and future presidential races, noting that he harbored some resentment that Nixon had been forced to seek that assistance herself. Economic Populism Is Nothing New In The South Scarcity has never been much of a deterrent for Nixon. She has spent most of her career building a movement without institutional help. She was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, a sprawling consolidated city-county of roughly 1.02 million people and 747 square miles — one of the biggest cities by land area in the continental United States. It is a place large enough to encompass dense urban neighborhoods, postwar suburbs, industrial warrens, wetlands, and semi-rural stretches within the same municipal boundary. The contrasts extend far beyond geography. Tony beach and riverfront enclaves are conveniently insulated from northwest neighborhoods like Moncrief, where Nixon grew up. In Moncrief’s ZIP code, 39 percent of residents live below the poverty line, more than triple the national average. Economic insecurity looms large over Nixon’s campaign. She has described watching her mother work two jobs to support the family, being bused out of her underserved school district, and later losing a cousin to gun violence. After graduating from the University of Florida, she moved into community labor organizing before becoming executive director of Florida for All, a statewide organizing coalition, and winning a Florida House seat in 2020. Afifa Khaliq, president of SEIU Florida Public Services Union, first met Nixon as an organizer in Jacksonville. Nixon later worked with SEIU’s state council on the campaign to raise Florida’s minimum wage and then organized adjunct faculty as the union’s higher-education director, hearing firsthand from workers struggling with healthcare, childcare, and stagnant wages. “When you hear her talking, those sound bites are coming from the workers directly,” Khaliq told me. “She does not need briefings about these experiences. She is a working-class family herself.” Khaliq suggests that Nixon’s politics developed out of an organizer’s habit: find out what people are angry about, ask them to talk about it, and build a movement around the common denominator. The Working Families Party, a labor-backed progressive third party, wants to see more candidates like Nixon — a thousand of them, according to Britney Whaley, its Southeast regional director. This summer, the party launched Southern Made, an ambitious effort to recruit and train 1,000 working-class candidates across 10 southern states by 2030. Announced alongside its endorsement of Nixon, the program seeks to cultivate candidates with her combination of working-class roots, community ties, and a platform centered on healthcare, housing, and wages. Whaley resisted describing the project as an exercise in ideological conversion. “A lot of folks don’t care whether you call yourself progressive or MAGA,” she told me. “What they care about is not being able to afford to live right now.” She argued that imposing the locutions of progressive politics on the South was less effective than addressing the specific conditions people faced. In New York, a transportation campaign may mean lowering subway fares. In the South, where public transit infrastructure is thinner, it may mean helping people get to a job at all. Much of the region has not expanded Medicaid, union density is weak, and Republican legislative supermajorities mean that organizers often count stopping legislation as a significant victory. “It’s not that you’re importing a different politic,” Whaley said. “It has been here in the South.” Among those making the case for a more working-class socialist politics is Eric Blanc, an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. Blanc sees Nixon’s candidacy as an example of why conflating economic populism and ideological identity can be misleading. “You can’t really be a socialist without being an economic populist,” he told me, “but you can be an economic populist without being a socialist.” In Blanc’s telling, Nixon is not necessarily convincing working-class voters to adopt unfamiliar ideas. She is addressing material demands that have gone unmet for decades and connecting them to corporate power. Healthcare that people can afford and wages that keep pace with the cost of living do not require much ideological instruction. “The starting point is almost always people’s day-to-day struggles to get by,” Blanc said. What distinguishes Nixon’s populist rhetoric from populism on the right is that she repeatedly identifies corporations and billionaires as responsible for those conditions. Blanc said political content can matter more than whether the candidate foregrounds the word socialism for voters who do not spend much time thinking about ideological labels. Economic populism is nothing new in the South, Blanc said, calling it “a myth that there’s something inherent about the region that makes people averse to socialism.” In the early 20th century, Oklahoma became one of the strongest Socialist Party states in the country, powered heavily by tenant farmers and small agricultural producers. In 1914, Oklahoma’s Socialist gubernatorial candidate won more than 20 percent of the statewide vote, while more than 175 Socialist candidates won local and county offices. Farmers described themselves as workers and translated socialist arguments into the language of Jeffersonian republicanism and evangelical Christianity — political ideas made legible through institutions and traditions already familiar to rural voters. Two decades later, Black and white sharecroppers organized together in the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, founded in Arkansas with Socialist Party roots. At its peak, the organization claimed tens of thousands of members across parts of the South and Southwest. And today its organizing principles echo in the Working Families Party and Nixon campaigns. She Knows Who She’s Talking To The voters I met in Lauderhill hadn’t previously thought of themselves as socialists, or even as notably progressive. One of them, Elizabeth Rodriguez, surveyed the room in a bright, patterned sundress and pale pink lipstick. An artist and single mother who grew up in Cuba and spent a decade in Canada, Rodriguez had never participated in politics before, much less volunteered for a campaign. That morning, she signed up. Affordable housing and childcare were among the issues that had drawn her to Nixon. “The reason I connect with her is because she talks about being a mother and a person that struggles every day,” Rodriguez said. As for Nixon’s identity as a socialist, Rodriguez’s experience in Cuba had made her wary of political systems that promised everything to everyone, and she spoke at length about the danger of concentrating power. But she also allowed that you can make a distinction between social programs and authoritarianism. At any rate, she seemed more concerned about whether Democrats could communicate to people who don’t spend their lives thinking about political terminology. Republicans, she offered, had learned how to communicate in brutally simple language. Democrats often sounded “aristocratic,” which put a wedge between the political class and what she called normal people. “They do need to communicate in simple words, like Angie,” Rodriguez said. “She knows who she’s talking to.” The national political climate is a tailwind in Nixon’s campaign, with the war in Iran driving up energy prices, the cost of everyday goods and services climbing, and Trump’s approval rating bottoming out. And yet defeating Moody remains a formidable undertaking. Republicans enjoy a prodigious registration advantage in Florida, and aside from Nikki Fried’s narrow 2018 victory for agricultural commissioner, Democrats have not won a statewide race there since 2012, when they captured a Senate seat, and Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by less than one percentage point. The state hasn’t elected a Democrat for governor since 1994. Toward the end of her town hall remarks, Nixon asked the audience for money. She said that organized people could beat big money, but they still needed coffers of their own. Then she told the story of one of the smallest contributions her campaign had received, which was also her favorite. “Thirty-three cents,” she said. “That is all that person had to give to me. That person realizes this is not my campaign — this is our campaign.” The audience responded with murmurs of recognition and assent. In her characteristically disarming mode, Nixon had spoken over the course of the afternoon about growing up around domestic violence, the struggles of single parenthood, and families working harder but still falling behind. But as the speech wore on, her tone shifted. Appeals to hardship gave way to attacks on her opponents. The Democratic response to Trumpism is often described as a restoration of law, norms, and competence; democratic institutions in lieu of spectacle and grievance. In Lauderhill, a more tangled outcome was on display. Nixon’s campaign was presenting itself as a rebellion against the political age Trump created while at times speaking in the same idiom that Trump helped normalize: “Governor Ron DeSantis needs to be in prison!” Nixon said from the stump. “Donald Trump needs to be in prison!” The crowd grew louder as Nixon worked through the litany. A “lock them up” chant broke out. In the far corner of the room, I spotted Michelle and Nate Waterford on their feet clapping and pumping their fists. Then Nixon began setting up the joke about defunding the police and locking up Ashley Moody. They already knew the punchline, but were eager to hear it again. https://www.levernews.com/whats-so-radical-about-angie-nixon/?

US jobless claims fell to 194,000 last week, lowest since July WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. unemployment claims fell to 194,000 last week, the fewest in three months and another sign that layoffs remain low and most Americans enjoy extraordinary job security. https://apnews.com/article/employment-layoffs-inflaton-job-cuts-8e962dcdefefa86ebc91ee9c663f1f3b?

👋 Good morning! On Oct. 22, 2001, "Pardon the Interruption" debuted on ESPN. 25 years later, it's still on the air. What began as an experiment has become an institution. Stat du jour: The Wizards season-opening win over the Bucks put them over .500 for the first time since Nov. 28, 2022 — 1,424 days ago. Welcome back, Wiz. In today's edition: World Series preview, Ant makes history, no surgery for Ohtani, Atlanta takes 2-1 Finals lead, NFL power rankings, "The JMU Way," and more. Yahoo Sports AM is written by Kendall Baker and Jeff Tracy. Let's sports...   🚨 ICYMI HEADLINES 🏀 Ant makes history: The Timberwolves blew out the Heat, 131-106, behind a huge night from Anthony Edwards (45 points, 10 rebounds), who joined Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan as the only players in NBA history with multiple 40-point season openers. Full NBA scoreboard. ⚽️ St. Louis wins U.S. Open Cup: St. Louis City SC defeated the Columbus Crew in a dramatic penalty shootout to win the U.S. Open Cup, continuing their magic season and capturing the club's first trophy. ⚾️ No surgery for Ohtani: Though Shohei Ohtani dealt with knee and biceps injuries throughout the season, surgery is "not on the table," said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. He's expected to heal over the offseason, and "I fully expect him to pitch next year." ⚽️ Kane scores again: Bayern Munich and Arsenal played to a 2-2 draw in the headliner of Wednesday's Champions League action as Harry Kane scored in his 10th straight match in the competition, one shy of Cristiano Ronaldo's record. 🏈 QB1 in NYC: The Giants will start J.J. McCarthy at quarterback on Sunday against the Texans after the former first-round pick threw for 243 yards and a touchdown in replacement of Jameis Winston in the fourth quarter last weekend against the Saints.   Catch live games all season with NBA League Pass and follow the stars, rivalries and storylines as they unfold. Plus, get access to alternate broadcasts and nonstop NBA coverage. Blackout rules apply.   ⚾️ WORLD SERIES FALL CLASSIC? MORE LIKE SMALL CLASSIC (Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports) The 2026 World Series is shaping up to be a big celebration of everything, well, small. The Rays and Brewers are two of MLB's model small-market franchises, ranking in the bottom half of the league in both metro-area size and luxury-tax payroll. But they also play small — and that's a big reason they're still standing. Where's the power? Unlike most modern contenders, neither team relies much on the long ball. Milwaukee hit the third-fewest home runs this season, while Tampa Bay hit the ninth-fewest. And even during their most homer-heavy stretches of the regular season or playoffs, neither produced a league-average share of its runs via homers. So how do they score? Both teams ranked among MLB's Top 10 in offensive Wins Above Replacement (WAR) despite their relative lack of power. And while elite pitching and defense have helped carry them this far, their offenses have embraced a decidedly old-school approach: Singles, bunts, speed and situational hitting. Take a look: Both teams ranked among the Top 10 in the following nine traditional "small ball" categories during the regular season: Digging deeper: The Rays and Brewers were particularly good at putting the ball in play and making things happen. Hit parade: Tampa Bay and Milwaukee ranked first and second in both singles and infield hits. Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson led the majors with 61 infield hits — nearly 20 more than anyone else. The bunt is back: The teams combined for 82 sacrifice bunts and 81 more bunt hits. Brewers infielder David Hamilton led MLB in both categories individually. Move 'em over: Both clubs also finished in the Top 10 in contact rate, productive-out rate, advancing runners from second with nobody out, and getting runners home from third with fewer than two outs. Speed kills: In addition to measuring the ability to "manufacture" runs, these stats have a common thread: Speed. Both teams also ranked among MLB's Top 5 in fastest average home-to-first running time, giving them the wheels to turn routine grounders into something a lot more valuable. Bottom line: Sure, a World Series built around singles, bunts and productive outs might sound like something only baseball sickos could love. But throw in a bunch of guys flying around the basepaths, putting constant pressure on the defense, and making every opposing defensive play into an adventure? That sounds like fun to us. This story was written by Neil Paine, who we formally introduced in yesterday's edition.   🏀 WNBA FINALS REESE, DREAM GRAB 2-1 LEAD IN ATLANTA (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) The Dream rolled to a 97-71 blowout win over the Valkyries in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals to take a 2-1 lead in the WNBA Finals in front of a sold-out crowd in Atlanta. The star of the night for the second straight game? Angel Reese. Cassandra Negley, Yahoo Sports: Angel Reese thrives on perceived disrespect. The mere mention of that to her is disrespectful. She turns, her face shutting off, an "I don't care" signaling the end of a one-on-one conversation toward the end of shootaround. But she does care. Or else she wouldn't drop an aside that the goals she wrote down at the beginning of the season were ones "that many people may not think I can do." A shiny new Defensive Player of the Year trophy sat beside her on a black-clothed table. In her first WNBA Finals, Reese and the Dream disrespected themselves. Despite leading late on the road in Game 1, they let a victory slip by in the final minutes. They didn't play their style, and were exposed in the process. It pissed Reese off. That was exactly what she needed. "As soon as she stepped on the court, she was like, I'm going to be the best player on that court tonight," teammate DeWanna Bonner said ahead of Reese's Game 2 performance. She did it again in Game 3. With 21 points and 12 rebounds, the third-year pro became the second player in Finals history with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds in consecutive games. She also became the youngest, at 24 years old, with three straight double-doubles in the Finals. Keep reading: Behind raucous home crowd, Angel Reese, Dream make statement in Game 3   🏈 THE MIGHTY NORTH NFL WEEK 7 POWER RANKINGS (Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports) The undefeated 49ers remain comfortably atop our latest NFL power rankings, but lurking beneath them lie eight teams — comprising two entire divisions — who've gotten off to a historic start. Kings in the North: All eight teams in the AFC and NFC North are ranked inside the top 20, because all eight are currently over .500. How rare is that? Before this year, just three divisions since 2002 entered Week 7 with every team above .500, so pretty rare! AFC North: No. 4 Ravens (4-2), No. 10 Bengals (3-2), No. 16 Steelers (4-2), No. 19 Browns (4-2) NFC North: No. 5 Vikings (5-0), No. 6 Bears (4-2), No. 11 Lions (3-2), No. 14 Packers (4-2) Déjà vu: In 2023, the AFC North became the first division in the Super Bowl era to have every team finish above .500. Last year, the NFC North joined them as the second. Could both of them stay hot and pull off the feat simultaneously this fall?   🏈 7-0 THE JMU WAY JMU WR Chase Pensyl leads the Dukes onto the field prior to their game against Marshall earlier this month. (Lee Coleman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) James Madison, playing tonight at App State, made the CFP last season and is now the only 7-0 team in the country. How did a former all-women's college, tucked amid the rolling hills and blue crest mountains of the Shenandoah Valley, become one of the nation's fastest-ascending Division I athletic programs? Ross Dellenger, Yahoo Sports: The old-timers in Harrisonburg, Virginia, remember where this all started. It wasn't so long ago, in fact. In September of 1972, a 30-year-old man named Challace McMillin recruited 60 men to form the first-ever football team at what was, just five years before, an all-women's university called Madison College. As the story goes, McMillin wandered through class registration lines plucking the most burly of men. Half of them quit before the very first practice. It did nothing to slow then-president Ron Carrier's plans of creating a football program to "change the psychology" of a campus still transitioning to coeducational. Three years later, in 1975, Madison College finished undefeated and won the Virginia College Athletic Association. More than a half-century later, James Madison University's athletic program buzzes with fervor. Almost every fall sport is currently in first place in the Sun Belt; the school won 15 contests against power league programs last academic year; and the football program hasn't had a losing season since 2002. JMU's last two football coaches, Curt Cignetti (Indiana) and Bob Chesney (UCLA), are leading Top-10 ranked Big Ten teams, and its current leader, Billy Napier, has won his first seven games as coach. Last week, more good news arrived: The school accepted membership in the American Conference, just four years after transitioning from FCS to FBS. JMU administrators raised $5 million from donors to fund the Sun Belt exit fee and another $23 million from school-affiliated corporate sponsors to fund the American entrance fee. "If you are asking if I would have predicted 25 years ago or even 15 years ago, this level of success, no," said Charlie King, a now-retired, longtime JMU vice president. Keep reading: Why James Madison keeps winning, no matter who's in charge   📺 VIEWING GUIDE WATCHLIST: THURSDAY, OCT. 22 Maye and Williams after their first matchup in November 2024. (Quinn Harris/Getty Images) 🏈 Patriots at Bears New England and Chicago meet tonight at Soldier Field (8:15pm ET, Prime) in a battle of 4-2 teams led by QBs who went first (Caleb Williams) and third (Drake Maye) in the 2024 NFL Draft. Maye's back: The Patriots' 1-2 start coincided with some horrendous play from Maye, who threw for just 585 yards with 1 TD and 6 INTs. Since then, the Pats are 3-0 and the reigning MVP runner-up has thrown for 878 yards, 10 TDs and just one pick. 🏀 NBA on ESPN Tonight's doubleheader kicks off with LeBron James and the 76ers hosting his old friends from Cleveland (7pm). Then it's off to OKC, where the Thunder host the Nuggets (9:30pm). MVP battle: OKC's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver's Nikola Jokić have finished top two in MVP voting for three consecutive seasons, and they've combined for five wins and 11 top-five finishes since SGA's rookie year (2018-19). More to watch: 🏈 NCAAF: James Madison at App State (7pm, ESPNU) … JMU (7-0) is in the driver's seat for another CFP berth, but App State has a penchant for upsetting the Dukes. 🏒 NHL: Hurricanes at Oilers (9pm, ESPN+) … Connor McDavid (6 G, 20 A) has scored at least one point in every game so far, putting him on pace for an absurd 243 points. 🏐 Women's Volleyball: UCLA at No. 1 Nebraska (7pm, FS1) … The Cornhuskers (19-0) are the nation's only undefeated team. Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city.   🏀 LET'S PLAY NBA TRIVIA (Bart Young/NBAE via Getty Images) Nikola Jokić, who makes his season debut tonight, has rattled off six consecutive top-two MVP finishes, tied for the longest such streak in NBA history. Question: Who are the other two players to accomplish that feat? Hint: Their numbers hang in the TD Garden rafters. Answer at the bottom.   🏀 NBA ON PRIME PERFECT 5 IS LIVE! New game alert! We just launched Perfect 5, a free-to-play game connected to each week's marquee "NBA on Prime" slate, which kicks off tomorrow night with Knicks at Celtics and Rockets at Spurs. How it works: Each player featured in the "Prime" doubleheader has a salary between $1 and $5, and you have a $15 budget to build a five-player roster. Players earn fantasy points in categories like points, rebounds, assists, steals and 3-pointers. The objective: Outscore the competition.   Trivia answer: Bill Russell (1958-63) and Larry Bird (1981-86)

US Supreme Court allows gender-affirming care for trans people in federal prisons WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to implement a rule that would terminate gender-affirming care for transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/21/repub/us-supreme-court-allows-gender-affirming-care-for-trans-people-in-federal-prisons/?

Despite earlier hesitation to campaign, DeSantis hosts event supporting Amendment 3 Gov. Ron DeSantis for more than an hour Wednesday sat at a table with Miami leaders in front of TV cameras and advocated for the proposed constitutional amendment to increase homestead property tax exemptions. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/21/despite-earlier-hesitation-to-campaign-desantis-hosts-event-supporting-amendment-3/? DeSantis’ congressional map was designed to flip 4 seats to the GOP — Will it? Among the four seats Florida Republicans are supposed to flip from the Democrats this year following their mid-cycle redistricting is Florida’s 22nd Congressional District in South Florida. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/21/desantis-congressional-map-was-designed-to-flip-4-seats-to-the-gop-will-it/? ps:Gerrymandering is what it's called!!!!! To avoid becoming roadkill, Florida panthers need critter crossings One of my favorite cartoons, drawn by a Pensacola artist named Jem Sullivan, shows a flock of sad-looking chickens gathered around a casket. The chicken minister delivering the eulogy says, “And though we’ll never know why Dave wanted to cross the road, we can rest assured that he is now, at last, on the Other Side.” https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/22/to-avoid-becoming-roadkill-florida-panthers-need-critter-crossings/? Bear killings skyrocket as garbage, bird feeders draw them into conflict Bears are having a very bad year. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/21/repub/bear-killings-skyrocket-as-garbage-bird-feeders-draw-them-into-conflict/?

👋 Good morning! Happy Hump Day. In today's edition: NBA Opening Day, McDavid is on fire, meet our new hire, World Series payrolls, Big Numbers, college football midseason awards, and more. Yahoo Sports AM is written by Kendall Baker and Jeff Tracy. Let's sports...   🚨 ICYMI HEADLINES 🏒 McDavid makes history: Oilers superstar Connor McDavid notched three more assists in Tuesday's 4-3 (OT) win over the Wild to reach 20 through just nine games, the fewest in NHL history to hit that mark. He's also the sixth player ever with at least 25 points (6 G, 20 A) before his 10th game of the season. 🏀 Gamecocks top poll: For the fifth time in the past seven years, South Carolina will head into the women's college basketball season as the No. 1 team in the nation. UConn, USC, Duke and Michigan rounded out the top five of the preseason AP poll. ⚽️ PSG wins thriller: PSG took down Barcelona, 4-2, in Tuesday's Champions League action, as the two-time reigning champions handed Barça their first loss of the season in an epic match that featured four goals in the final 20 minutes. ⚾️ Record ticket prices: The get-in price for Friday's World Series opener in Milwaukee currently sits at $2,442 (via Gametime), making it by far the most expensive Game 1 ever. The previous record? $1,125 for Cubs-Indians in 2016. 🏈 Union calls for investigation: After the NFL concluded it would not punish the Eagles for how they handled the process of clearing Jalen Hurts to play with a blood clot, the NFLPA has called for a full investigation into the situation.   The new NBA season is here. Get the free NBA App and never miss a beat. See where every game is on, tap straight into the live action and keep up with the latest scores, highlights and alerts for your favorite teams and players all season.   🏀 BACK IN ACTION IN PHOTOS: NBA OPENING DAY (Sarah Stier/Getty Images) New York, New York The Knicks left Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night with shiny new championship rings, but the 76ers walked away with the win, spoiling the banner-raising celebration in the Big Apple with a 106-100 victory. LeBron finally wins debut: For the first time in his 24-year career, LeBron James won his first game with a new team (previously 0-4, including his second stint with the Cavs). He flirted with a triple-double (14-9-7) in 34 minutes, and connected with fellow newcomer Jaylen Brown on an alley-oop. Cade Cunningham put up 22 points and 8 assists in the comeback win. (Brian Sevald/NBAE via Getty Images) Detroit, Michigan The Pistons stormed back from a 22-point third-quarter deficit (and rattled off a 23-0 run in the fourth) to beat the Celtics, 121-113, in the matinee. The dizzying victory marked the largest comeback on the first day of an NBA season in the play-by-play era (since 1997-98). Historic in defeat: Paul George erupted for 38 points, 5 rebounds and 5 steals, setting the record for the most points in a Celtics debut. He also nailed seven threes, bringing his career total to 2,456 and passing Kyle Korver (2,450) for eighth-most all-time. (Ronald Cortes/Getty Images) San Antonio, Texas Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (32 points) and the Thunder beat the Spurs, 116-104, in the nightcap, reminding the league of their championship pedigree in a statement-making opening win. This was a stubborn, veteran group that looked more prepared, more ready for the moment. Yikes, Wemby: The Thunder limited Victor Wembanyama to just 12 points and one made field goal (1-13 FG, 10-12 FT). "I need to go back to playing the basketball I like," said the preseason MVP favorite. "I'm good when I have fun … I was indecisive, overthinking it."   👋 MEET AND GREET WHO'S THE NEW GUY? Greetings, Yahoo Sports AM readers! If you've noticed a new person bombarding you with charts and data lately, allow me to introduce myself — I'm Neil Paine. I used to be the Sports Editor at FiveThirtyEight (RIP), and before that I worked as an analytics consultant for the Atlanta Hawks, wrote a weekly baseball column for The New York Times and worked for the Sports-Reference family of websites at their church-based HQ in Philly. Ever since, I've been running my own Substack while also writing for places like ESPN, NASCAR.com, Sherwood News, The Athletic and The Philadelphia Inquirer. I'm super excited to add Y! Sports AM to that list. The common thread running through it all is trying to understand sports through numbers — tracking historical data, building power ratings and forecast models, and creating cool data visualizations that help tell those stories in new ways. I'm constantly watching games in split-screen on my handy laptop (including Celtics-Pistons as I type this on Tuesday, lol), but my mind is usually wandering toward the larger patterns behind what we're watching, and how we can measure and convey them in ways that reveal something we might otherwise miss. Of course, I try to approach things with a sense of humor as well, leaning into the absurdity of the sports we love. I believe in taking the analysis seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. But above all, I hope to bring a spirit of curiosity that helps us learn more about this endlessly fascinating world of sports. I'm always looking for new questions I want to answer, and if I can get you wondering about some of those same things, I'll consider that a job well-done. So thanks for reading — and I hope I can help you see your favorite games in a slightly different light along the way.   ⚾️ LABOR BATTLE AND THEN THERE WERE TWO Did you hear that the World Series is a matchup of small-payroll teams? If, by some miracle, that narrative has eluded you, consider this your Lloyd Christmas "We landed on the moon!" moment. Uncharted waters: This is the first matchup this century featuring two teams ranked in the bottom half of league payrolls. Whoever claims the title will be the stingiest winner since the 2003 Marlins. You get the idea: We won't belabor a point that has undermined a matchup of each league's best team. The tale of the tape is clear, but what does a battle of baseball's have-nots mean (if anything) for the sport's future at this critical juncture? The game within the game: The timing of a comparatively thrifty World Series matchup could hardly be worse for owners, who have extolled the virtues of a salary cap in creating greater competitive balance. This story was written by Dylan Dittrich, who authors our new sports business newsletter.   💯 STAT SHEET BIG NUMBERS (Yahoo Sports) 🏈 105.6 passer rating Now that he's passed the threshold to qualify (1,500 pass attempts), 49ers QB Brock Purdy owns the highest passer rating in NFL history (105.6), well ahead of Lamar Jackson in second place (102.7). Not bad for the former "Mr. Irrelevant," picked last in the 2022 NFL Draft. MVP race: Purdy (+225 at BetMGM) — who's lighting it up for the undefeated 49ers with a 118.1 passer rating, 15 total TDs and just two interceptions — only slightly trails Bills QB Josh Allen (+190) as the betting favorite to win MVP. Patrick Mahomes (+900), Trevor Lawrence (+1100) and Joe Burrow (+1300) round out the top five. (Taylar Sievert/Yahoo Sports) 🏀 5.44 points Yahoo Sports' Ben Fawkes asked oddsmakers to rank the most important NBA players against the spread (ATS). The prompt: "If a player wasn't on the injury report and then was declared out before the game, how much would the line move?" Nikola Jokić (5.44 points) led the way for the third straight year, though Victor Wembanyama (4.86) is closing the gap. Other notable names: Steph Curry (3.96) is the first name off the list above; LeBron James (1.92) is all the way down in 36th, behind new Sixers teammates Joel Embiid (2.84), Tyrese Maxey (2.70) and Jaylen Brown (2.22); Cam Boozer (1.14), tied for 63rd, leads the way among rookies. (Yahoo Sports) ⚾️ 78 seasons The Guardians' ALCS exit means they've now gone 78 seasons since their last World Series title (1948), the longest active drought in MLB and tied with the NFL's Cardinals for the longest across the "Big Four" leagues. Arizona's drought will, however, pass Cleveland's assuming it doesn't win the Super Bowl this season. Look away, Clevelanders: The Guardians' drought has spanned 17 playoff appearances, breaking a tie with the Braves for the most consecutive trips to the postseason without winning it all. (Yes, 17 appearances in 78 years is pretty sparse, though 16 of them have come since 1995.)   📺 VIEWING GUIDE WATCHLIST: WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21 Angel Reese defends Gabby Williams during Game 2. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) 🏀 WNBA Finals, Game 3 The Dream host the Valkyries tonight (8pm ET, USA) after tying the series at one game apiece. And thanks to a schedule change that moved the game up a day, they'll play at the 17,000-seat State Farm Arena instead of their usual 3,500-seat venue, which is the smallest in the WNBA. Elite company: Dream star Angel Reese erupted for 30 points and 16 rebounds in Game 2, joining Jonquel Jones (2019) and Breanna Stewart (2020) as the only players in league history to drop 30 and 15 in the Finals. ⚽️ U.S. Open Cup Final The Columbus Crew host St. Louis City SC (8pm, CBSSN) in the finale of America's oldest ongoing soccer competition. Columbus seeks its second title (2002), while St. Louis, a 2019 expansion team, seeks its first. Proud history: St. Louis City may have never won the U.S. Open Cup, but teams from St. Louis have won 11 times, second only to New York City (23). Yes, but: The last such win came 38 years ago, by far the city's longest drought in the tournament's 112-year history. Can the Gateway City ascend to the top of the sport again? 🏀 NBA Doubleheader After Tuesday's three-game opening salvo, tonight brings a full 11-game slate, headlined by a doubleheader on ESPN: Timberwolves at Heat (7:30pm) and Warriors at Lakers (10pm). Debuts to watch: Giannis Antetokounmpo's first game in a Heat uniform after spending his first 13 seasons with the Bucks is tonight's main event. But we've also got LaMelo Ball (Timberwolves) and Walker Kessler (Lakers) debuting with new teams. More to watch: ⚽️ Champions League: Bayern Munich vs. Arsenal (3pm, Paramount+) … The reigning German and English champions headline today's nine-game slate. 🏒 NHL: Flyers at Sabres (7:30pm, TNT); Panthers at Senators (7:30pm, ESPN+) … Florida already became the first team in NHL history to have a player record a natural hat trick in three straight games. Can they make it four in a row? 🏀 NCAAM: No. 11 Louisville at No. 17 Kansas (7pm, ESPNU) … Tonight's exhibition features Jayhawks newcomer Tyran Stokes, the top-rated recruit in the freshman class. Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city.   ⚾ LET'S PLAY WORLD SERIES TRIVIA (Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) The Rays are one of five American League teams to make at least three World Series appearances (2008, 2020, 2026) since the year 2000. Question: Can you name the other four? Hint: No AL Central teams. Answer at the bottom.   🏈 COLLEGE FOOTBALL MIDSEASON AWARDS (Dillon Minshall/Yahoo Sports) We are somehow already halfway through the college football season. Our experts offer up their Heisman picks, title predictions, biggest surprises and more.   Trivia answer: Yankees (5x), Astros (4x), Red Sox (4x), Rangers (3x)

Some homosexuals mistakenly assume that being married somehow sanctifies their sexual relationship. Like making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Working on the HIV unit of a major medical center, I met a patient with end stage disease, a death sentence in those days. His lover had died recently. He knew he was next. During a conversation, he said, "I'm gay. If people don't like it, they can go F* themselves." Ironic that a man with a terminal illness had a "healthy" view of life. He didn't need the approval of others to be who he was, no church, no mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam [gay marriage illegal then]. I gave him a copy of Steps to Christ, a book he later spoke highly of. Hope to see him in heaven.

October 22, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. Fights between rallygoers and protesters interrupted President Trump at an appearance in South Carolina last night. And doctors said that Pope Leo needs no further treatment for lung cancer. There’s a lot more below. But first, I’m going to turn to Mike Bender, who covers the Trump administration, to tell us about how Title IX keeps changing. At Cornell University this month. Lauren Petracca for The New York Times A shifting standard By Michael C. Bender Cornell has a process for complaints like the one from Jane Doe, the pseudonymous former Cornell student who says seven men raped her at a frat party. All universities do. It’s called a Title IX investigation, and its purpose is to figure out whether and how much to punish the accused. That might surprise people who know Title IX for something else — building up women’s sports in the United States. And now Trump’s vision for the law, too, has expanded beyond athletics and sexual misconduct. His administration is using it to prevent the government from recognizing genders besides men and women. Title IX is just one provision in a 1972 education law. The provision was not the main concern of the lawmakers who passed the bill. President Richard Nixon, who enacted the measure, didn’t even mention Title IX when he signed the law. Yet its enforcement has reshaped education — and also changed drastically based on the politics of the time. A twisting history Richard Nixon on the day he signed Title IX into law. White House Photo Office, via Getty Images The law took years to fully take shape. Origins. Initially, Title IX forced universities to dismantle sex-based admission caps and expand women’s sports. Many credit the strength of U.S. women’s sports today to the pipeline created by this measure, which forced schools to spend the same amount on athletics for men and women. A new view. In 1975, though, an instructor at Cornell, Lin Farley, coined the phrase “sexual harassment” to describe how female students and staff members were being fired, demoted or forced to quit because of unwanted advances from male bosses and co-workers. Soon, federal courts started allowing cases of sexual harassment under Title IX. For the next three decades, Republican and Democratic administrations told schools that Title IX banned sexual harassment. Enforcement. But activists increasingly complained that federal oversight was so lax it jeopardized women’s access to education. So in 2011, the Obama administration told schools they needed a system to file complaints, an official to coordinate Title IX compliance and sexual harassment training programs. It also told schools to judge cases based on a “preponderance of evidence” (more likely than not that sexual harassment had occurred) instead of, say, “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the criminal standard). The Education Department’s top civil rights lawyer, Catherine Lhamon, threatened to strip federal funding from schools that failed to adequately respond to sexual misconduct allegations. University officials told me she threatened to wield a “huge hammer” to enforce compliance. (I asked her about it: “That sounds exactly like me,” Lhamon replied.) Backlash. At the same time, legal scholars, civil liberties groups and faculty associations warned that accused students were being punished without the due process they’d normally receive in the criminal justice system. From 2011 to 2020, students filed more than 700 lawsuits claiming universities had mishandled cases that accused them of sexual misconduct, according to a database maintained by an advocacy group that thought things had gone too far. Reversal. Trump rescinded the guidance from the Obama administration, and his administration also rewrote — and codified — Title IX rules, which made them harder to change. The result was a 554-page addition to the Federal Register that provided more protections for the accused. It replaced administrative reviews with courtroom-style proceedings that required live hearings in which the accused and the accuser could see and hear each other. Lawyers for both sides could present evidence and cross-examine witnesses. A court stopped President Joe Biden from overhauling the rules again. A swinging pendulum The broad language of Title IX has let successive presidents reinterpret its scope — and rewrite enforcement guidelines — with each shift in the cultural landscape, including the #MeToo movement and the aftermath. But college officials say the swinging pendulum of federal enforcement creates confusion on campuses, sowing doubt among students considering whether to report incidents. That won’t change anytime soon. Trump is pulling back the Education Department’s focus away from sexual misconduct. Now it plans to use Title IX to formalize his order that male and female are the only sexes. Read about how schools have tried to manage this chaos in my story. FREE TO READ Zoos South Australia Endangered species: An Australian zoo played matchmaker for two rare southern cassowaries, the world’s deadliest bird. See more of their fluorescent green eggs. Incentives: Trump announced a new $25 million whistle-blower rewards program — and said he would decide who gets the money. How would that work? Lost and found: These photos survived the Holocaust. Then they were left in a library book. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about how dangerous it is to be pregnant in Idaho. THE LATEST NEWS Midterm Elections Young voters are overwhelmingly backing Democrats in the midterms, a new Times/Siena University poll found. Neil Bush, a brother of George W. Bush and son of George H.W. Bush, said he had voted for the Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race. Trump used an antisemitic slur while defending aggressive debt-collecting tactics used by Senator Roger Marshall, the Republican fighting for re-election in Kansas, during his medical career. The economy is a top concern for many voters in the midterms. In the video below, our chief economics correspondent, Ben Casselman, explains. Click to watch. The New York Times Michigan Senate Race AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, generally supports Democrats, but quietly donated to support Mike Rogers, the Republican running against Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a critic of Israel. El-Sayed’s opponents have worked to link his family members to Islamist groups. The Times investigated. Around the World Vladimir Putin and Trump in Alaska last year. Doug Mills/The New York Times Vladimir Putin of Russia appears to be getting closer to restoring relations with the United States without making any compromises on Ukraine. The United States and Israel drew up plans to renew strikes on Iran after the midterms. A.I. “deepfake” political videos are flooding the internet in Brazil. Could they sway the presidential election? Tech Security researchers using OpenAI’s advanced A.I. models unearthed major security flaws in a piece of software used widely across the internet. A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for deceiving users about its data privacy practices. It’s one of the largest penalties ever levied against a tech giant. Mark Zuckerberg pressured Meta’s board to remake the company’s stock structure to shield him from California’s proposed billionaire tax. YOUR A.I. BOP Keith Collins/The New York Times If you were listening to music made by artificial intelligence, would you know? Would you want your streaming service to block it? A Times analysis of nine popular streaming platforms found that listeners don’t always know what they’re getting. QUOTE OF THE DAY John Geddes was a managing editor of The Times from 2003 to 2013 who helped oversee our transition from a print newspaper to a digital entity. He died this week at 74. Read his obituary, which among other things captures what John thought about The Times’s role in journalism, and what we’re all trying to do here. He told one of our editors: “I don’t think there can be a ‘paper of record.’ The term implies an omniscient chronicler of events, an arbiter that perfectly captures the significance and import of a day in our lives.” “I don’t work at that place,” Mr. Geddes continued. “I work at a newspaper that exists in a world where there are constraints of time, resources and knowledge. The wonder of the paper is that knowing the everyday limits to our ambitions doesn’t prevent us from trying to exceed them.” THE MORNING QUIZ This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) A reader recently wrote to our fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, asking for advice. What did he want to know? Does his suit make him look MAGA? Can boomers pull off colorful and mismatched Gen Z styles? Can you wear a baseball cap at a family dinner? Is the half-tuck a good look for men? OPINIONS Trump can hurt Ukraine, but he can’t determine the outcome of the war, a scholar of U.S.-Russia relations says. In Israel’s upcoming elections, Palestinians can shift the country’s politics, a Palestinian researcher says. TODAY’S NUMBER 42 — That is the percentage of seats held by women in Taiwan’s legislature, the highest in Asia. The island has been running one of the world’s longest experiments in political affirmative action. The upshot? Today, few women need quotas to get elected. SPORTS W.N.B.A.: The Atlanta Dream romped the Golden State Valkyries 97-71 to take a 2-1 lead in the finals. N.F.L.: The Tennessee Titans released the defensive tackle Jordan Elliott for having a firearm on team property. RECIPE OF THE DAY Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. Steak au poivre, but make it chicken. This terrific recipe brings the classic French bistro sauce to pan-fried thighs, and the result makes for a lovely weeknight dinner. There’s no Cognac on the ingredient list, but you can use a glug of it right after searing the chicken to deglaze the pan. Indeed, you ought to. Serve with egg noodles, generously buttered. BROOKLYN BORN John Turturro Brian Karlsson for The New York Times John Turturro has his first starring role in a movie in years, playing a career crook in “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.” “To carry the whole thing, that’s a big responsibility,” he told The Times. It’s a great conversation. More on culture Here’s a lovely profile of the rapper Cardi B, a “regula, degula, shmegula girl from the Bronx” with personality to spare. “This — is — my — job,” she told us, tapping her phone with a long, mint green nail. The fall season for the New York City Ballet came to a close this week and Gia Kourlas, our dance critic, counted its highlights. Videos help tell the story. Watch! Late night hosts noted how Trump can’t stop talking about Senator Jon Husted’s rear end. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, Oliver Parini for The New York Times Visit Burlington, Vt., with the rugby powerhouse, podcast star and Vermont native Ilona Maher. She shared her five favorite places there. Listen to Serial’s new podcast about New York City, “METRO with Sarah Koenig.” It mines a city packed with personality to bring you investigations, personal stories, interviews and essays that will make you feel like a local, no matter where you live. The first episode drops today. Check it out here. Age in place. The youthful gerontologists at Wirecutter found the tech that’ll make it easier. Subscribe to New York Times Games. Get Super Duolingo for free. For a limited time, annual Games subscribers can enjoy 6 months of language learning with Super Duolingo. Subscribe now GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were lapidary and rapidly. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson

The algorithm loosens its grip For years, social media algorithms have decided what we see, sometimes sending us down rabbit holes of unwanted or even harmful content. Now, platforms are starting to hand back some control. Instagram initiated the trend by giving users the ability to add or remove topics from their feed recommendations, with YouTube and others following suit. + Read more: Social media platforms are restoring users’ control of their feeds + Analysis: Is social media interfering with your life? Here’s what can help

Now’s a good time to consider your flu shot Flu season is arriving roughly two months early in parts of the US, catching some people off guard before they’ve even thought about getting their annual shot. Behind the early surge is a mutated strain of H1N1 that’s better at evading our immunity. Health officials generally recommend getting vaccinated by the end of October, before flu activity typically picks up in November and December. + Read more: A mutated virus is driving the US into an early flu season + Fall vaccines 2026: What to know about flu, Covid and RSV

The top 10 Senate seats most likely to flip Above are Democratic US Senate candidates Roy Cooper, Sherrod Brown, Mary Peltola, Troy Jackson, and James Talarico. Below are Republican US Senate candidates Michael Whatley, Jon Husted, Dan Sullivan, Susan Collins and Ken Paxton. (AP/Getty/Reuters) Democrats are feeling optimistic about their chances of retaking the Senate this November after a set of encouraging polls, but the path to netting four seats will still be an uphill climb. Republicans are defending several seats in states President Donald Trump won comfortably in 2024, and both parties are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into ads during the final stretch. In North Carolina, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper leads Republican Michael Whatley in polling, while Democrat Sherrod Brown holds a narrow advantage over Republican Sen. Jon Husted in battleground Ohio. And elsewhere on the map, Democrats are seeing more signs of momentum. Michigan, though, is emerging as one of the most contentious races, and polling shows no clear leader between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed, who would become the nation’s first Muslim senator if elected, recently denounced the Muslim Brotherhood while pushing back against Republican accusations questioning his loyalties. + For subscribers: The top 10 Senate seats most likely to flip + Debate recap: Abdul El-Sayed, Mike Rogers clash in bitterly personal debate Wednesday + Plus: What Republicans mean when they ask Abdul El-Sayed to ‘disavow’ the Muslim Brotherhood

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall says the Ukraine war, not the Iran war, has caused high diesel prices TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall said Wednesday that Ukraine’s war with Russia — and not the U.S. war with Iran — was to blame for high diesel prices that have imperiled his party’s control of Congress in the midterm elections. https://apnews.com/article/senate-kansas-marshall-hamilton-diesel-ukraine-iran-b7f291bfc4271dd14b07533ca33129bd? ps:He must be the only one that believes that????? Dems sue Trump, alleging election interference, as DOJ battles with California National Democrats are suing President Donald Trump, accusing his administration of intimidating election officials and asking a federal court to block him from interfering in the midterm elections. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/21/repub/dems-sue-trump-alleging-election-interference-as-doj-battles-with-california/? Trump backs Ramaswamy on ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The backlash over an Ohio campaign advertisement attacking Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, spread beyond the state’s borders Thursday, causing fresh headaches for Republicans with less than two weeks until the midterm elections. https://apnews.com/article/election-2026-ohio-governor-acton-mother-ramaswamy-de2aec0076776539cd206f91d39d0236? ps:Of course he would!!

FACT FOCUS: When it comes to Trump’s economy, these are the numbers that matter before Nov. 3 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is trying to convince voters before the Nov. 3 midterm elections that the U.S. economy is rocketing upward. But voters say inflation remains a challenge because the Iran war has pushed up gasoline prices, grocery bills have remained expensive and high interest rates have made it harder to afford a home or a new car. https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-economy-inflation-38c6e694edd13742244e23cff5f96446?

Voters want the next Congress to focus on costs and Iran, not Trump, a new AP-NORC poll shows About 8 in 10 registered voters, including a large majority of Republicans and Democrats, say lowering the cost of living should be one of the highest priorities for the session coming up, according to a new AP-NORC poll. Most voters also want Congress to prioritize ending the war with Iran, with roughly 7 in 10 saying this should be a top focus. Read more. What to know: Substantially fewer voters, about 4 in 10, want Congress to make investigating the Trump administration a high priority, and only about 2 in 10 want Congress to prioritize supporting Trump's agenda. But the poll also indicates that there are deep divisions within the parties on what to focus on. Most Democratic voters who identify as supporters of democratic socialism are hoping for a Congress that will investigate the Trump administration, and many want to end military aid to Israel, while MAGA Republicans are interested in Congress supporting Trump’s agenda. Moderates in both parties, meanwhile, are much likelier to want Democrats and Republicans to find common ground.

🏗️ Pic to go Photo: Mariam Zuhaib/AP Just over a year after demolition of the East Wing began, construction continues on President Trump's White House ballroom, seen yesterday from the Washington Monument.

⚡ Politico corrects after White House threat The White House counsel's office warned Politico in a Monday letter that it had 48 hours to retract or correct three recent stories about alleged staff drama, or it would suffer unspecified consequences, Axios' Marc Caputo writes. Last night, Politico posted a correction to one of the stories, originally posted last Friday: "An earlier version of this report, including its headline, mischaracterized the role White House chief of staff Susie Wiles played in then-press secretary Katie Zacharia's interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. POLITICO's follow-up reporting indicates she did not play a direct role in setting up the interview." Last week's headline: "Susie Wiles helped set up Fox interview ahead of press secretary's exit." The new headline: "Susie Wiles 'offered positive reinforcement' for press secretary's Fox News interview ahead of her exit." Over the weekend, the New York Post reported that internal White House texts show five-day press secretary Katie Zacharia had personally pushed to go on TV ahead of the disastrous Sean Hannity interview. The Post reported that Zacharia texted a White House official: "I'd like to do news hits morning and evening." 📝 The big picture: The White House demand threatens to escalate already tense relations with Politico specifically and, more generally, the press corps that covers President Trump in Washington. Trump last month banned Politico, CNN and MS NOW from covering him in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. This week, CNN threatened further legal action to regain access to Air Force One. Trump also blocked all three outlets from the White House grounds, but a judge restored their access on Oct. 13. 🔮 What's next: White House Counsel Will Scharf didn't specify what consequences Politico faces. But a White House official said "all options are on the table" and described Trump's counsel as "uncharacteristically enraged." Trump is highly litigious with media organizations and, advisers say, his appetite for launching lawsuits hasn't diminished. Politico didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. More on the stories.

⚠️ Least popular in 80 years Graphic: The New York Times President Trump has the lowest approval rating for any president before a midterm since Harry Truman and the Democrats were routed in 1946, The New York Times' Nate Cohn writes. The final national Times-Siena poll before the election puts Trump's approval rating at 34% — down three points from last month. Graphic: The New York Times Likely voters preferred Democratic congressional candidates in their districts by 11 points. Keep reading (gift link). 🗳️ Sabato's Crystal Ball moved 28 House races toward Democrats, pushing the number of seats at least leaning their way to 223 — five more than the 218 needed for a majority. ❎ Turnout for early voting is soaring in many of the states that are expected to decide control of the Senate in next month's midterms, including Texas, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio, AP reports.

🕶️ Zuck's deal to stay in California Meta's board struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to keep him living in California after the founder and CEO warned he was considering leaving the state that houses the company's headquarters if voters pass a wealth tax proposal next month, an SEC filing reveals. Under the deal, Zuckerberg will receive non-voting shares he can sell to potentially cover a multibillion-dollar tax bill. In return, he committed to remaining a resident of California, or wherever Meta is headquartered, for eight years, Reuters reports. Zuckerberg told Meta he was considering moving his primary residence outside California because Proposition 40, a ballot measure dubbed the "California wealth tax," could expose him to a massive tax liability. Proposition 40, which asks Californians whether to impose a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires, is far from certain to pass. The state is home to as many as 250 billionaires, collectively worth more than $2 trillion. 🔎 How it works: Meta will issue a new class of non-voting Class C common stock in January 2027, effectively creating a two-for-one split to fund acquisitions and retain top talent while maintaining Zuckerberg's control. Zuckerberg can immediately sell 20% of the Class C shares he receives, representing 10% of his overall economic stake in the company, allowing him to pay a potential tax bill without losing voting control. Keep reading ... Class C announcement.

🤖 Exclusive: Main Street's budget AI boom Data: Goldman Sachs. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Small businesses across America are embracing AI, but usage and spending vary dramatically by state, Axios' Herb Scribner writes from an exclusive Goldman Sachs survey of 2,474 small business owners. Why it matters: Companies nationwide, big and small, are figuring out how best to incorporate AI into their workforces and what that means for productivity. 🧮 By the numbers: For all the talk about AI's explosive growth in the enterprise, the survey shows 73% of small businesses are spending $100 or less per month on AI. In Texas, most use AI for marketing copy. In Florida, it's mainly for productivity. More data.

💰 Scoop: AI agents slip into bank accounts Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts — with some agents attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources tell Axios' Madison Mills. Why it matters: AI agents are quickly becoming a nightmare for banks, slipping into their systems faster than they can respond. Because it's hard to distinguish a human from a bot, banks are blocking the technology and rapidly rewriting their terms of service. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo are among the banks racing to contain agent risks. Some are aware of unauthorized access, people familiar with the issue said. 🔭 Zoom in: These are generally situations when an agent or AI assistant accesses a human's account with the user's permission and login credentials. That violates guidelines of most banks, which require humans to log in to their own accounts. Banking execs fear what agents with login access might do, especially if a user has granted purchase authority or the ability to shift funds. Some banks have tracked activity when agents — programmed to fulfill requests or complete tasks on a user's behalf — contact call centers or appear to take actions independent of user instructions, the people said. Keep reading.

Trump's war problems surge Traffic passes portraits of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran yesterday. Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images Twelve days from midterms, President Trump can't escape the unpopular Iran war, which continues to dominate news coverage. Yesterday alone: The U.S. and Israeli militaries have drawn up specific plans for renewed strikes on Iran after Election Day, with targets that likely would include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenal, the N.Y. Times reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin told White House envoy Steve Witkoff he "agrees in principle" to resume trilateral peace talks with Ukraine and the U.S. to end the war, Russian and U.S. officials told Axios' Barak Ravid. The White House hopes Putin will show more willingness to compromise after Trump agreed to lift sanctions on Russian diesel sales and took other steps welcomed by Moscow. For now, it seems the only concession Putin agreed to is to negotiate. More from Barak. Putin has never been so close to his goal of normalizing relations with the U.S. "without having to make any compromises on Ukraine," as The Times puts it. The State Department said it ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees to depart Saudi Arabia, "following an uptick in attacks on the kingdom by Iran-backed Houthi militants. The U.S. military has also been quietly reducing its footprint at posts in the Middle East due to ongoing regional threats from the Houthis and direct threats from Iran," CBS News reports. 🛢️ The big picture: Oil prices are still high (the national average for a gallon of regular is $4.27 today) and stock market futures are shaky due partly to war fears.

Vance's whine-free zone Vice President Vance speaks at a rally yesterday in Sharonville, Ohio. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images Vice President Vance's call for fellow Republicans to "stop whining" about Vivek Ramaswamy's controversial attack ad in Ohio's race for governor showed a key part of his political mindset ahead of his expected run for president in 2028: Never back down. Why it matters: Channeling President Trump, Vance has shown contempt for what he sees as the old-guard GOP's reflex to cave under pressure from Democrats and the media, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes. Vance thinks too many Republicans sacrifice allies to make controversies go away, and that giving critics a political scalp only encourages them to demand another, according to people familiar with his thinking. It's an approach with some risk — namely whether Vance, entering a critical period in his political career, has the political muscle to get away with Trump's no-apologies approach. 🔎 Zoom in: Vance defended Ramaswamy yesterday amid bipartisan outrage over an ad featuring the estranged mother of Ramaswamy's Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. In the deeply personal ad, Acton's mother calls her daughter a liar, and says Ohioans shouldn't vote for her for governor. Not mentioned in the ad: Acton and her brother were removed from the mother's care as children after Acton accused her stepfather of sexual abuse. Her mother sided with the stepfather, leading to an estrangement that has lasted nearly 50 years. Vance said he was "disgusted" by fellow Republicans criticizing it, telling them to "stop whining." Asked whether the ad was appropriate, Vance said it was "not really my concern," and that politics is tough. The other side: Republicans and Democrats have criticized the ad, saying it crossed a moral line. "I would not have run that ad," U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who appeared alongside Vance and Ramaswamy at the rally, told AP. ps:Once again this administration shows just how pathetic it is!!!!!

The Glendale City church had an openly gay man on the pastoral staff for years. He was married to another man. His denominational service has been celebrated in certain circles. Somehow I doubt that he was celibate. He may well have been, never asked. I assume that two men married to each other, poster boys of a sort for gay clergy, are homosexuals. An acquaintance of mine took LSD and attended church one Sabbath. She described seeing the pastor preaching from the pulpit. One side of his face was satanic, the other side angelic. He spoke out of both sides of his mouth, one speaking truth, the other speaking lies. That illustrates the SDA position on homosexuality, at least in one case. Policy wise, indulgent homosexuals are not allowed. In practice they are. People sexually attracted to members of the same gender are bent. They don't belong in clergical work. There are plenty of other lines of work they can go into. ~30 years ago, the Glendale City church had a guest Sabbath school teacher. I wondered why they would import a non-SDA clergy to teach Sabbath school. After her introduction, a person in the class announced that the woman in question was a lesbian. That made sense, even though I had/have no way of verifying the charge. Considering that congregations recent history, it wouldn't surprise me. Pastoral staff introducing homosexuals to congregants as spiritual guides? Can't make this stuff up

THIS DAY IN HISTORY October 22 1962 JFK’s address on Cuban Missile Crisis shocks the nation During the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, U.S. and Soviet leaders engaged in a tense, 13-day standoff over the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida. read more Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT 1920s 1926 Harry Houdini is punched nine days before his death Arts & Entertainment 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre wins—and declines—Nobel Prize in Literature Crime 1934 FBI agents kill fugitive “Pretty Boy” Floyd Inventions & Science 1797 First parachute jump is made over Paris U.S. Presidents 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signs the Highway Beautification Act Sports 2012 Cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France titles Vietnam War 1965 173rd Airborne trooper dives onto live grenade, saving comrades 1972 South Vietnamese President Thieu turns down peace proposal 1957 American forces suffer first casualties in Vietnam

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