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Microsoft Is About to Mess With Your Most Important Keyboard Shortcut Decades of muscle memory are on the line as Microsoft weighs turning your Start menu shortcut into a streamlined search bar. https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-is-about-to-mess-with-your-most-important-keyboard-shortcut?

Dolores Huerta, influential labor leader, feminist and civil rights icon, dies at 96 https://apnews.com/article/dolores-huerta-dies-255fd49a5346475dbace4a74994b2c62?

900+ women criminally charged for their conduct during pregnancies In the first three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, more than 900 women faced criminal charges for conduct related to their pregnancies, according to a new report. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/27/repub/900-women-criminally-charged-for-their-conduct-during-pregnancies/? Rhode Island is first state to sue Meta over alleged profits from scam ads A fake investment opportunity, a phony Social Security benefit or a dubious health product might seem like just another random ad on Meta’s platforms. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/27/repub/rhode-island-is-first-state-to-sue-meta-over-alleged-profits-from-scam-ads/?

‘Go to Canada’: Trump touted Americans’ access to cheaper drugs. A new rule threatens it. Days before it was to go into effect, the Trump administration pushed back a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/27/repub/go-to-canada-trump-touted-americans-access-to-cheaper-drugs-a-new-rule-threatens-it/? Trump’s DOJ sends 1,000 election monitors to 50 states; locations not yet disclosed The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send election monitors to every state ahead of Election Day, expanding a long-standing practice that’s spurred concern this year among Democrats and voting rights advocates because of President Donald Trump’s push to influence elections. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/27/repub/trumps-doj-sends-1000-election-monitors-to-50-states-locations-not-yet-disclosed/? Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family land in Miami after fleeing Brazil MIAMI (AP) — Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family arrived in Miami on Wednesday after he refused to concede the election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and fled the country. https://apnews.com/article/brazil-election-flavio-bolsonaro-ecuador-argentina-9fc1f409ed993403736dbae07bd74bd8?

Trump administration awards Florida $193.7M for rural healthcare Florida has been awarded $193.7 million in federal funds to support telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, pharmacy services, diagnostic kiosks, and community paramedicine for rural areas in Florida, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/27/republicans-laud-feds-for-awarding-florida-193-7m-for-rural-healthcare/?

Bracing for El Niño A potentially record-setting El Niño could bring a stormy winter to parts of the US, and a new CNN Weather analysis offers clues about what to expect for snowfall. Meanwhile, erosion is already taking a toll along California’s coastline. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Tuesday to protect the iconic Pacific Coast Highway from the impacts of El Niño-related storms. + Latest: New maps show who could see more snow during this year’s super El Niño + Newsom signs order protecting PCH + Video: Beach erosion leaves buildings perched on California coast + Download CNN Weather: Go beyond the forecast with stunning stories and visuals

Exit polls show deadlock Israel’s elections produced no clear winner Tuesday night, exit polls showed, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main rival Gadi Eisenkot within reach of the 61 seats needed for a governing majority in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. The final vote count is expected to take a few days. + Video: No clear winner emerges in crucial Israel election + Analysis: Netanyahu defiant despite falling short of clear victory

White House hunts for voter fraud Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter stands next to a display showing photos of people charged with illegally registering to vote. (Jae C. Hong/AP) The Trump administration has sent several states lists of voters it claims are noncitizens, stepping up its controversial push to keep them from casting ballots in the midterm elections. In California, the administration alleges 20,000 possible noncitizens are on voter rolls. In Washington state, it says that 400 possible noncitizens cast 1,500 votes in past elections. The Justice Department demanded both states set aside their ballots and sued California after it refused. While the legal battle plays out, judges and state officials are questioning how the lists were compiled, where the information came from and how they could be used before and after Election Day. Looming over it all is President Donald Trump’s reluctance to commit to accepting the midterm results. On Tuesday, he was asked whether he would accept the outcome, even if Republicans had a tough night. “I will, if they are honest elections, yeah,” Trump said, once again leaving himself room to reject an outcome he doesn’t like. + For subscribers: Trump’s election-denying strategy is back for the midterms + Read more: Inside the controversial lists of alleged noncitizen voters

🤖 AI's Y2K moment Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images The AI-discovered software flaws that sent the cybersecurity world into a panic last week have so far led to surprisingly few successful attacks, Axios' Sam Sabin writes. Why it matters: Hackers have made millions of attempts to exploit bugs that OpenAI agents found in PHP, software used by roughly 70% of websites. The flaws have proven unusually hard to weaponize, and companies' rush to patch them appears to have helped. The past week has unfolded in ways that remind some researchers of Y2K, a feared software crisis in 1999. Warnings of Armageddon helped rally companies to engineer a solution. Keep reading.

🛰️ Musk-proofing modern warfare Two men set up a Starlink terminal in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Photo: Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images Axios' Thomas Novelly and Colin Demarest, authors of our twice-weekly Future of Defense newsletter, write: Rival satellite companies are jockeying to loosen Elon Musk's grip on battlefield communications after his company's restrictions on Ukraine's Starlink service shook officials in Europe and the U.S. Why it matters: The episode, which temporarily disrupted Ukraine's drone usage, shows how vulnerable a military can be to the whims of a single company or market dominator. 🌌 The big picture: Musk's SpaceX, which is the parent company of Starlink, is by far the world's leader in space-based connectivity with more than 11,000 satellites. Eutelsat, a French firm, is behind them with more than 600 satellites. SpaceX's massive lead has made it difficult for European countries that want to establish independence from the Musk-led company. 🔭 Zoom in: Now, non-U.S. firms seeking to compete with SpaceX are pitching their services with more urgency. Last week, Finnish firms ICEYE and Nokia announced an agreement with Ukraine's defense ministry to explore "sovereign satellite communications."

🇧🇷 Trump opens door for Bolsonaro The U.S. government is granting visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family following his defeat in Brazil's presidential election, a senior Trump administration official tells Axios' Marc Caputo and Rebecca Falconer. Why it matters: The move comes days after Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Following the election, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports and barred him from leaving the country. The order stems from an ongoing investigation into alleged money laundering. Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing. 🔭 Zoom out: President Trump and his administration have repeatedly backed the Bolsonaro family, with the president denouncing the prosecution of the elder Bolsonaro as a "witch hunt." Trump suggested Brazil's election was "rigged." Keep reading.

📈 Charted: AI's price plunge Data: Ramp. Chart: Axios/Matt Phillips The price companies pay for AI tokens has plunged roughly 35% since the end of June, Axios' Matt Phillips writes from Ramp's AI price index. Why it matters: Falling prices for tokens — a basic unit of AI usage — raise questions about the strength of demand for AI and how much revenue the data center boom will ultimately generate for investors.

🗳️ Election security blind spots Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images Some of the biggest vulnerabilities in election security are lying in plain sight, Axios' Brittany Gibson writes. Why it matters: There's no credible evidence that voting-system vulnerabilities have been exploited to change election results. But researchers have found isolated flaws that threaten ballot secrecy, accurate vote recording and independent verification of results. 🔎 Election security experts interviewed by Axios found these vulnerabilities in parts of the U.S.: 1. Paperless voting: Louisiana is the last remaining state to use paperless voting machines statewide on Election Day. Voters press buttons to select their candidates, and the machines record their votes electronically without producing a paper ballot. That leaves no independent record to check whether votes were counted correctly. 2. Ballot-marking devices (BMDs) let voters select candidates on a touchscreen before printing a paper ballot. Researchers warn the machines are vulnerable to hacking and errors, and studies show voters often miss mistakes on the printout. Roughly 23% of U.S. registered voters live in jurisdictions that exclusively use BMDs for in-person voting, according to the nonprofit Verified Voting. 3. A software flaw in Georgia's vote-counting system could be used to expose how individual voters cast their ballots, according to research from Princeton University. Researcher Max Springer used public voter records and roughly $20 in AI credits to reconstruct the order in which nearly all in-person ballots were cast in the Georgia counties he studied. With an additional public record, Springer matched individual voters to their ballots, as he showed with two counties and 2,200 votes in his study. Keep reading.

Twin victory speeches Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, waves an Israeli flag onstage following the release of the first exit poll in Israel's general election in Tel Aviv last night. Photo: Ariel Schalit/AP Axios' Barak Ravid reports from Tel Aviv: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition was running nearly even with Gadi Eisenkot's opposition bloc as vote counting continued today — but both are short of a 61-seat majority. Why it matters: Political stalemate is the most likely outcome of yesterday's historic election, with Netanyahu weakened but neither side having a clear path to forming a coalition government. Weeks of negotiating could lie ahead. Arab parties are poised to win 18 to 19 seats in what would be an unprecedented electoral achievement. Theoretically, Eisenkot's bloc could try to swear in a minority government supported by the two Arab parties. But that looks unlikely. 📊 State of play: A close outcome could leave the country in a state of limbo, with Netanyahu likely staying on as a caretaker prime minister at the helm of the executive branch and the opposition led by Eisenkot controlling the Knesset. That scenario could last until new elections, possibly as early as April. The two sides could try to break the deadlock by forming a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot. But that's improbable, since none of the opposition parties will agree to sit in a Netanyahu-led government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at an election-night rally in Jerusalem. Photo: Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images 🔎 Zoom in: Eisenkot claimed victory in a speech after midnight Israeli time. He said if Netanyahu was a "decent leader," he'd leave the political stage after the public voted for change. Eisenkot alluded to the possibility that the prime minister would launch military action before a new government is seated. "Netanyahu, don't dare use Israel's security for your political needs," Eisenkot said. After 3 a.m. Israeli time, Netanyahu took the stage and also claimed victory: "We are still waiting for the official election results. Likud is the largest party in Israel. The right-wing bloc has a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public and among the Jewish population as a whole."

🏕️ Parting shot! Photo: Bill Rapai This photo of mule deer at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in Washington was taken by reader Bill Rapai of Grosse Pointe, Mich., a couple weeks ago. He writes: "That's the Olympic Mountain Range in the background. We had just completed hiking one trail when these guys showed up near the parking lot. I followed them for a while, keeping a respectful distance, to get an image where the background was not full of cars and asphalt. I got my chance when they headed up this incline and fell into single file — just for me!"

💪 "Bloc" plots first moves Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios Anything short of a landslide victory for House Democrats next Tuesday will open the door for a faction of left-wing insurgents known informally as "The Bloc" to complicate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' plans. Why it matters: Jeffries would push to restore Affordable Care Act tax credits, vote against the Iran war and tariffs, and reverse cuts to Medicaid if Democrats take the majority. But that's not nearly enough for the left. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told us: "We have to have a vision that is much more than just 'restore the subsidies.'" Zoom in: The Bloc is coordinating with progressive incumbents on Capitol Hill to use the House speaker election, subsequent procedural votes and any other leverage points they can find to shift the Democratic Party to the left. Group members have been strategizing about demands they could make if Jeffries needs their votes to secure the speaker's gavel, sources familiar with the discussions told us. Possible concessions that have been privately floated include prime committee assignments, resources for their districts, changes to House rules to "democratize" the chamber and votes on progressive legislation, sources said. These sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the group's discussions are in the preliminary stage and no plans have been finalized. State of play: The Bloc is an informal grouping of candidates who won House primaries this year with support from left-wing groups such as the Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), often by unseating incumbents. They include Melat Kiros of Colorado; Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez of New York; Adam Hamawy of New Jersey; Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania; and Donavan McKinney of Michigan. All are running in safely Democratic seats. Other progressives facing competitive general elections — including William Lawrence of Michigan and Mai Vang, Angela Gonzales-Torres and Randy Villegas of California — could also end up aligning with the group. So could a broader group of Bloc-adjacent progressives such as Brad Lander of New York, who is not a DSA member but won his primary by unseating more establishment-aligned Rep. Dan Goldman. The bottom line: Most of these candidates have declined to commit to voting for Jeffries as speaker, with some making it clear they won't give away their votes for nothing. "We're focused on pushing for a bold House agenda with priorities that reflect what the voters want to see us fighting for," one person involved with the Bloc told us. — Andrew Solender

😱 Red scream Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios Senate Republicans see Iowa moving their way and Ohio slipping, with pessimism growing over Alaska and Kansas. Why it matters: Even when they squint, top Republicans struggle to see a majority beyond 51 seats, according to half a dozen senior operatives. ✈️ A combination of paid media and Air Force One visits has bolstered GOP confidence that they'll hold South Carolina and Mississippi. But across the map, the outlook looks bleak, with only a few bright spots. Zoom out: Republicans are fighting a two-front war: unprecedented Democratic enthusiasm and undeniable Republican apathy. 🏈 President Trump's strategy is to whip up the MAGA faithful with rallies in the reddest parts of red states. 😱 "The Red Scream is my biggest concern, not the blue wave," said Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican consultant who has worked to help Trump get elected. ‼️ "Republicans and independents are going to be screaming for attention, and many of them, including those who voted for Trump, may show their frustration by not showing up." Zoom in: Texas is starting to look like a late-season football showdown against an SEC rival: The GOP is still in the game, but defeat seems like a real possibility. 🌾 In Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall (R) has stopped the bleeding, but it's unclear whether there's enough time left to save his seat. 🛥️ Republicans are quietly bullish on Michigan, but they recognize that the demographics have to break heavily in their favor, especially among Black voters. By the numbers: The math hasn't changed, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sees multiple paths to 51 seats. No one disputes that North Carolina is going to have a Democratic senator. It seems like another lifetime ago that Republicans were talking seriously about flipping Georgia. If just two of the next tier of Ohio, Kansas and Alaska flip, the Senate would be split 50-50 before factoring in other competitive races, like Michigan, Iowa and Maine. 🦞 In Maine, Republicans and Democrats are consumed by competing fears. Republicans are terrified that a national wave will be big enough to wash away Sen. Susan Collins. Democrats, burned by her unforeseen survival six years ago, refuse to trust even the polls showing them ahead. 🎣 Between the lines: Maine and Alaska may be separated by more than 3,000 miles, but they pose a similar challenge for pollsters: small, overfished electorates where voters are increasingly unwilling to pick up the phone and bite on yet another survey. Both could also see delays in their final results — potentially keeping the majority in limbo for days or weeks, as we told you last night. — Hans Nichols and Stef Kight

Prominent Georgia Republican gets 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in Ponzi scheme A prominent Georgia Republican who ran a Ponzi scheme that federal prosecutors said caused losses of more than $76 million to more than 300 victims has been sentenced to spend 15 years in federal prison. Read More.

FACT FOCUS: Kennedy's claim that Arabs 'don't produce science' meets a Nobel Prize reality check Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s broad assertions about Arab contributions to humanity's scientific and literary discoveries at a Republican campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, have drawn criticism just days before midterm elections. Read More. ps:This guy needs a reality check along with the rest of this administration!!!!!

Bomb blast near Colombia’s border with Venezuela injures at least 4 police officers A bomb exploded Tuesday near a bridge that crosses Colombia's border with Venezuela, injuring at least four police officers in the Colombian city of Cucuta, officials said. Read More.

Romanian president calls alleged Russian sabotage plot a 'grave violation' of NATO member's security Romanian President Nicusor Dan on Tuesday called an alleged Russian sabotage plot last month a “grave violation” of the NATO member’s sovereignty and security, at a time when many fear Moscow's war in neighboring Ukraine risks spreading beyond its borders. Read More.

India evacuates tens of thousands as Cyclone Arnab nears eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh state Indian authorities Tuesday evacuated tens of thousands of people from vulnerable coastal areas in eastern Andhra Pradesh state as a severe cyclone over the Bay of Bengal was expected to make landfall along the country’s east coast, authorities said. Read More.

Rising prices squeeze more Americans ahead of pivotal midterm elections Americans’ growing frustration over high prices has defined many political campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/26/repub/rising-prices-squeeze-more-americans-ahead-of-pivotal-midterm-elections/?

Trump DOJ’s demand for emergency order in California vote counting dismissed by appeals court President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour campaign to intervene in California’s vote counting encountered its first resistance from federal courts on Monday, with appellate judges ruling against the effort. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/26/repub/trump-dojs-suit-over-california-vote-counting-meets-a-doubtful-appeals-court-panel/? Trump makes last-minute push to keep Texas in Republican hands with third trip President Donald Trump was in Texas for the third time in a month on Tuesday in a last-minute push to block Democrats from notching their first statewide election victory in more than three decades in next week's midterm elections. Read More.