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How the US organ transplant system works and what to ask to improve your chances There are about 100,000 people on the U.S. transplant list at any given time, the vast majority of whom need a kidney. It can be difficult to learn how to navigate that search, but there's publicly available information that can help. Read more. What to know: The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, or SRTR, database has new patient-friendly tools developed in the hopes that more would-be transplant recipients will use it. Search for a particular organ and a list of the highest-to-lowest-volume centers pops up, with dials showing how they perform on measures such as getting a transplant faster, survival on the waiting list, and the new organ’s survival. Typically, a doctor or other health worker points patients to the nearest hospital offering the kind of transplant they need. But the SRTR database allows people to compare transplant centers around the country in multiple ways. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Arizona woman’s 3-year wait for an intestine shows the US organ transplant system’s complexity A novel mRNA cancer vaccine helps reduce the chances of melanoma patients’ tumors returning Sign up for AP Live Well, a weekly guide to navigating news that directly impacts your life

Voters in Israel are deciding whether to oust Netanyahu after 3 years of war Israelis are voting in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country is embroiled in unresolved wars, still reeling from Hamas’ 2023 attack and deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it. Read more. What to know: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing off against an array of parties seeking to oust the longtime leader from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Over 7 million people are eligible to vote. In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority, so political leaders must forge coalitions. There is a chance that neither Netanyahu’s religious and ultranationalist coalition nor the group of parties looking to remove him has enough support to win a parliamentary majority. That could set off weeks of negotiations before a leader is declared. RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Live updates: Israelis head to the polls in first elections since Oct. 7 attack Polls suggest a tight race between Netanyahu and his main rival. Here’s what to know as Israel votes A look at the main issues in Israeli elections seen as a referendum on Netanyahu Opponents accuse Netanyahu of stoking tensions with Iran before Israel’s election UN-commissioned experts say Gaza ceasefire has not stopped Israel from committing genocide PHOTOS: Israel prepares to vote as Netanyahu faces a tight fight to stay in power

🎤 1 fun thing: Hov's halftime show Image: NFL Jay-Z — one of the music industry's most powerful performers — will headline the Super Bowl halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles next February. The rapper's entertainment company, Roc Nation, helps produce the halftime show — meaning he effectively picked himself to perform. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had one request when the league first reached an agreement with Roc Nation in 2019: "That Jay-Z take the stage himself one day, whenever the moment felt right to him." Go deeper ...

📊 Young voters shift to Dems Chart: Rachel Buigas-Lopez/The New York Times 70% of young voters identified as Democrats or leaned that way — a 15-point jump from just two years ago, a New York Times/Siena poll found. 53% said they fear the U.S. is in danger of failing as a nation, up from 38% two years ago. NYT gift link.

🔎 DOJ charges Comey again Screenshot: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for the third time in 13 months, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes. Court documents unsealed yesterday allege that Comey — long a subject of President Trump's ire — directed the disclosure of national defense information to a reporter in October 2016. Comey's attorney said in a statement that the former FBI director "steadfastly maintains his innocence" and will fight the latest charges. He said the case concerns an Oct. 5, 2016, New York Times article that two separate teams of prosecutors investigated during Trump's first administration. Both teams decided not to bring charges. The Justice Department filed the charges through what's known as a "criminal information" — a charging document that doesn't require a grand jury — ahead of the statute of limitations. ⚖️ Flashback: Last year, Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction. The case was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. In April, a grand jury in North Carolina indicted him on two counts over a 2025 Instagram post of seashells spelling "86 47," which prosecutors called a threat against Trump. Go deeper.

🇻🇪 Rubio warns Venezuela A supporter of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a Venezuelan flag on top of a truck after her arrival in Caracas on Sunday. Photo: Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images A day after Venezuela's exiled opposition leader returned to Caracas with great fanfare, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a veiled warning against interfering with the country's fragile democratic transition pushed by the Trump administration, Axios' Marc Caputo writes. "You're not going to street-protest your way into a democracy," Rubio told reporters without explicitly mentioning Maria Corina Machado. Why it matters: Machado's demands for elections next year — and her criticism of a massive U.S. oil deal struck with the current Caracas regime — have put administration officials on edge after her surprise return. "Rubio is on a political edge," said a White House source familiar with his thinking. "Venezuela is the top foreign policy achievement of this administration, and if the progress we made gets undone and Machado is a spoiler, nobody wins." Keep reading.

🏈 Scoop: Trump enlists Texas football stars Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images President Trump will campaign with three football stars in Texas on Tuesday, leaning into America's favorite sport as Republicans scramble to turn out voters in the final week before the midterms, Axios' Alex Isenstadt has learned. Former college football stars Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy, along with two-time Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola, will join Trump for campaign appearances in Lubbock and Corpus Christi. Amendola starred at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Manziel won the Heisman Trophy at Texas A&M, and McCoy was a standout quarterback at the University of Texas. 🎨 The big picture: Trump has made football a recurring feature of his campaign stops in recent weeks. Trump attended the Texas-Tennessee game in September and planned to attend the Georgia-Alabama showdown earlier this month before canceling because of a hurricane. Former NFL coach Jon Gruden joined Trump at an Ohio rally this month, while former Georgia and NFL star Todd Gurley accompanied the president on a stop in Georgia. Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

AI money tsunami Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios Anthropic filed yesterday for what could be the biggest IPO ever, capping a massive day of AI dealmaking that nearly equals 1% of U.S. GDP, Axios' Dan Primack writes. Why it matters: Few industries have ever become so central to the American economy so quickly — and we're watching Wall Street finance the buildout in real time. Anthropic's long-awaited IPO may seek to raise a record $100 billion. Also yesterday, SpaceX secured $40 billion in debt financing to lease GPUs — the chips that power modern AI — and Meta said it would seek up to $95 billion in financing for its AI buildout. Together, that's roughly $235 billion in a single day — more than the entire U.S. airline industry adds to the economy in a year. 🖼️ The big picture: AI's appetite for capital has outgrown what any one part of the financial system can supply. Anthropic alone has committed roughly $750 billion to computing power in the coming years — about seven times what its record-setting IPO may raise. Even private investors are struggling to keep up: OpenAI's record $120 billion funding round took months to close. Zoom in: Most Americans will be financially exposed to these deals, even if they never buy a share. SpaceX and Meta are already major holdings in the top stock indices that fill pensions, 401(k)s and other retirement plans. Anthropic will soon join them. Between the lines: Anthropic's filing spells out how big the stakes are, devoting more than a quarter of the document to risks. The company warns that AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" and that models may try to manipulate the people using them. 🔭 Zoom out: Each of these three deals is a bet that AI use keeps compounding fast enough to justify the industry's trillions in spending. The flip side: Declining use could crack the foundation of America's entire economy. The bottom line: Everyone is on the AI train, whether we want to be or not.

> Israelis vote in their first election since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and war in Gaza; polls suggest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or main opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot will need to woo coalition parties to govern (More) > Federal judge orders the Justice Department to reinstate prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey (More) | DOJ charges Comey for third time over allegations he shared classified information (More) > Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee kicks off its four-day, closed-door plenum, with agenda covering party discipline and corruption (More)

> Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to about 27% of its workforce, as it shifts more spending to AI infrastructure buildout (More) | Dollar General sued by Federal Trade Commission and 20 states over alleged deceptive pricing (More) > Brazilian markets plunge following the reelection of left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; benchmark stock index posts 14% single-day loss, the worst since the COVID-19 pandemic (More) > NBA partners with Kalshi and Polymarket, becoming the latest major US sports league to collaborate with the prediction market industry (More) | How prediction markets compare to the stock market (More)

> High-resolution simulation reveals detailed view of how stars and galaxies formed in the first 2 billion years of the universe, shedding light on the cosmic dark ages (More, w/videos) | What were the dark ages? (More) > Clinical trial suggests obscure psychedelic compound based on toad venom could help patients with difficult-to-treat depression (More) > AI-powered mosquito trap identifies species with 98% accuracy in lab tests, potentially helping curb mosquito-borne diseases | Florida is experiencing its largest dengue outbreak in decades, with over 700 cases (More)

> Singer Chris Brown avoids prison, receives eight-month suspended sentence for 2023 London club attack in which he hit a music producer in the head with a liquor bottle (More) | Watch footage (More) > Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 10-1 to take a 3-0 lead in the World Series; Game 4 tonight (8 pm ET, FOX) | Harry Kane wins the Ballon d'Or, awarded to the world's best soccer player each year (More) > Actor Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original "Star Trek" and seven "Star Trek" movies, passes away at age 90 (More) | Watch top Chekov moments (More)

How much are candidates spending for the 2026 midterm? Based on FEC data downloaded October 21, 2026, Senate and House candidates have spent around $2.86 billion on races for the 2026 November midterm election. That's about 84.6% of campaign funds raised this election cycle. https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-are-candidates-spending-for-the-midterm/country/united-states/? One last fact A senatorial snapshot ahead of the midterms: 25 states currently have a pair of Republican senators, 21 states have a pair of Democratic senators, and four have some combination of Republican, Democrat, and independent senators. This data is from before Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s passing. However, he was replaced by his sister, Darlene Graham, a fellow Republican.

A New Low View in browser They say that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but President Trump and his allies have found a new low: open bigotry against Muslims. The bar for what can shock has been raised steadily over the past decade, but even by Trump-era standards, remarks that the president made yesterday at a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, are astonishing: a straightforward assertion that a Muslim candidate for office is a terrorist by virtue of his faith. Trump was campaigning for Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, when he attacked Rogers’s opponent, the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. “I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” Trump said. “If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.” Trump also said that “anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane.” He added that if elected, El-Sayed “would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.” (In fact, the only time that members of Congress have had to pass through metal detectors in the Capitol was on the House side, as a security precaution after Trump supporters sacked it on January 6, 2021.) To be clear: El-Sayed has disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, and no one has produced any evidence that he has ties to the group. Neither has anyone produced any evidence that El-Sayed has ties to any jihadists or is one himself. If he did, the Justice Department would presumably be prosecuting him—it certainly hasn’t shied away from politicized cases under Trump. The president and anyone else are free to critique El-Sayed’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or any other policy matter, but that’s not what this is. Asking a candidate to disavow a foreign political group that has no American arm is a nonsensical and prejudiced thing to do, but Republicans have been trying hard in the past couple of weeks to draw some connection between El-Sayed and the group, despite a lack of evidence. (They have been assisted by allies in the press, including Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, whose staffers complained to Semafor that she is disproportionately focused on candidates such as El-Sayed because of her own views on Israel. CBS News called the report “baseless.”) Perhaps this is because they believe “Muslim Brotherhood” sounds shadowy and scary to voters. The new tack is also silly because the GOP previously spent months trying to connect El-Sayed to the Democratic Socialists of America, another group that he says he is not a member of. Historically, the Brotherhood, an Islamist organization, has typically clashed with socialists in the Muslim world. Trump’s idea of what a senator should be is an older white man. That’s not a guess—it’s what he said about Rogers, the Republican candidate. “I call him apple pie,” Trump said. “He’s like, perfect, this guy. He’s like central casting. He’s what your state is all about.” As I’ve written in the past, it’s not a dog whistle if everyone can hear it. Trump has also made light of El-Sayed’s full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, mocking the prevalence of Muhammad in Muslim names. (The president’s own middle name is John.) “Donald Trump and J. D. Vance, their whole campaign, Mike Rogers’s whole campaign, is to point at me and my name and my faith,” El-Sayed said in response at a rally yesterday evening. “But my name and my faith are not the reason you can’t afford your gas. My name and my faith are not the reason you can’t afford your groceries. My name and my faith are not the reason you can’t see a doctor.” Trump’s latest remarks about El-Sayed are of a piece with a series of racist and Islamophobic remarks. Two frequent targets of late are Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, and the Somali community in Minnesota. He has called Omar “garbage” and said that Somalia is “filthy, dirty, disgusting, dirty.” He has labeled Somalis “low-IQ” but also complained that they are highly effective grifters. Politicians allied with Trump are also getting in on the hate. Earlier this year, I wrote about a spree of bigoted remarks by GOP members of Congress. More recently, Representative Tom Emmer, a Minnesota Republican, said that Somali Americans should assimilate or “go the hell back.” (He added that he wasn’t afraid of being called an Islamophobe.) And Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is in a tough reelection race, falsely claimed that his Democratic opponent, Gina Hinojosa, “supports Sharia law” because she received an endorsement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. You don’t have to think too hard to guess why CAIR opted to back someone running against Abbott. With this kind of talk, it’s no wonder that Muslim voters who backed Trump in 2024, largely out of frustration with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel, are now angry and disillusioned, as The New York Times reports. (Anyone is entitled to cast a protest vote, but given Trump’s long record of anti-Muslim bigotry, those who lined up behind Trump shouldn’t be surprised.) Islamophobic rhetoric deserves condemnation on its own terms, but the attacks don’t just affect El-Sayed, Omar, or even Muslim communities in the United States. During the same speech, Trump—who has previously said that Jewish Democrats are “disloyal to Jewish people”—called for ostracizing any Jewish Michiganders who vote for El-Sayed. “Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” he said. “You should never speak to them again.” Once bigotry against one community enters the mainstream, it tends to spread quickly to other groups. Related: The firebrand A horrible throwback to the early 2000s

⁉️ Senate guessing game Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios Senate leaders could be guessing who will control the chamber well into November, thanks to a slew of tight races and state-specific voting rules. Why it matters: A GOP majority would ease the pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to move quickly on nominations, while a Democratic majority would give Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer more leverage in the lame-duck session. If the chamber splits 50/50, leaders will have to start negotiating their power-sharing agreement. Zoom in: Four states could leave the majority in limbo. Alaska: Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) is trying to fend off former Rep. Mary Peltola (D). Alaska election results have taken weeks to finalize because of the vast state's transportation challenges, mail ballots and ranked-choice tabulation. The Trump Justice Department is preemptively trying to block results from being finalized if Sullivan narrowly loses. Maine's ranked-choice voting could lengthen the vote tallying if neither Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) nor Democratic nominee Troy Jackson gets more than 50% in the first round. Kansas' three-day grace period for mail-in ballots could delay results in the race between Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). It is far closer than expected. In Texas, a dragged-out recount could be coming. A candidate can request one if the margin is less than 10% of the winner's vote total — which is likely to happen between state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and state Rep. James Talarico (D). The candidate who requests it has to pay. The clock: Congress currently plans to leave for the holidays on Dec. 18. But if Republicans lose both the House and Senate, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) wants senators to stay in town through the holidays (yes, Thanksgiving and Christmas) to work on a massive GOP reconciliation package they can pass without Democratic support. The big picture: Congress has a long to-do list either way, including funding the government past Dec. 11, passing emergency defense spending and potentially raising the debt ceiling. It needs to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, Farm Bill and permitting reform, reauthorize the warrantless wiretap authority under FISA Section 702 and confirm nominations before they expire at the end of the year. The bottom line: "I'm guessing that's a possibility this year," Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told reporters today about working in D.C. through the holiday recess. — Stef Kight

Suriname’s Saamaka tribe turns to mapping and documenting in effort to protect the Amazon rainforest Deep in Suriname’s Amazon rainforest, Navaldo Vola hacked through thick vegetation with a machete, leading a group of Saamaka men up a forested mountain in sweltering heat and swarms of horseflies. Read More.

Dollar General is sued by the FTC and 20 states for what's being described as deceptive pricing The Federal Trade Commission has sued the bargain chain Dollar General for what it characterized as “long-running deceptive pricing practices” by charging customers more once they reach the register than the prices that are displayed on shelves and in advertisements. Read More.

Microsoft offers a quarter of its global workforce voluntary buyouts as AI spending accelerates Microsoft has offered 60,000 employees, or about 27% of its global workforce, voluntary buyouts as the software giant spends heavily on artificial intelligence. Read More.

Trump failed to stop inflation. Now Republicans may pay the price in the midterm elections President Donald Trump would prefer that voters not worry about inflation. But it's hard for them to ignore. Read More. Trump administration asks Washington to set aside ballots from 400 voters it says may be noncitizens The Trump administration on Monday asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it suspects registered to vote without U.S. citizenship. Read More. US told Venezuelan authorities that opposition leader Machado should be allowed to return Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the Trump administration told Venezuela’s interim authorities “weeks and weeks ago” that opposition leader María Corina Machado should be allowed to return as the country moves ahead with preparing for elections next year. Read More. Trump heads to Mississippi for a midterm rally, and the Democrat he wants defeated is going, too President Donald Trump heads Monday to Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm campaign blitz that highlights Republicans' challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country. Read More.

🏟️ 1 for the road: Happy "sports equinox" Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios Happy equinox, sports fans. It's the one time a year when several major leagues — the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and WNBA — all have games on the same day. ⚾️ Highlights include: Game 3 of the World Series, with the Milwaukee Brewers holding a 2-0 series lead over the Tampa Bay Rays (8 p.m. ET, Fox). In the WNBA finals, the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries are tied 2-2 heading into Game 5 (8 p.m., USA/CNBC/Peacock). How to watch.

📺 Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza are teaming up with elections website Decision Desk HQ to host a live election night broadcast. More from Sara Fischer. Early Voting Shifts More than 30 million Americans have voted in this year's midterms so far, with Election Day one week away. In Texas, over 4 million ballots have been cast, exceeding half of the state's 2022 turnout. The figures are from the University of Florida's Election Lab; see how your state compares here. Voting methods are also shifting, particularly in parts of the South. In Georgia, roughly 95% of early votes have been cast in person, while mail ballot requests have fallen more than 45% from 2022. North Carolina has seen a similar split, recording 1.5 million in-person votes and about 60,000 mail ballots returned. Nationally, early votes are roughly even between in-person (15.4 million) and mail (15.1 million) as of this writing. Experts say the shift may reflect concerns about mail ballots arriving on time or being counted, as well as a return to prepandemic voting habits. A Postal Service rule in effect since December largely postmarks mail when it's processed rather than dropped off, potentially pushing some ballots past deadlines. See the 52 races that could flip Congress here.

🇮🇱 Israelis head to the polls tomorrow in an election that could upend Israeli politics and reset the country's strained relationships abroad. More from Barak Ravid. 🇮🇱 Netanyahu's moment of truth Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photos: Ilia Yefimovich/pool/AFP via Getty Images and Erik Marmor/Getty Images Axios' Barak Ravid writes from Tel Aviv: Israeli polls opened at 1 a.m. ET for one of the most consequential elections in the country's history — with rival camps warning that victory for the other would put Israel's future in jeopardy. Why it matters: The election is yet another referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership and the path he's taken the country down over the past four years. It's Israeli voters' first chance to hold Netanyahu accountable for the security failures that led to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks — or to reward him for what he claims were unprecedented military successes in the three years of war since. If Netanyahu and his far-right coalition win, they're likely to renew the war with Iran in an effort to topple its regime, intensify their crackdown on Israel's democratic institutions and move to end Netanyahu's corruption trial. 👀 Behind the scenes: Netanyahu spent weeks trying to persuade President Trump to give him a green light to strike Iran ahead of the elections. Trump did not go along. In the 72 hours before the elections, Netanyahu tried to order the Israel Defense Forces to take steps to lay the ground for a potential new military strike or take actions short of an overt attack, Israeli officials say. IDF chief of staff General Eyal Zamir refused to comply. He warned that such a strike could lead to a miscalculation that quickly escalated hostilities and potentially forced the elections to be called off, the officials said. The other side: Netanyahu's main opponent, former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, ran on holding Netanyahu accountable for the Oct. 7 failure, forming a national commission of inquiry and drafting ultra-Orthodox men to strengthen the IDF after three years of war. How Israel's elections work.

🇧🇷 Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro is challenging the results of yesterday's presidential runoff election, setting the stage for a possible showdown with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro's legal pathway following Lula's decisive victory is unclear. Get the latest. ps:Of course he is! Just like his criminal friend will very shortly!!!!!

📕 Word of the year Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios Dictionary.com named "maxxing" its 2026 Word of the Year, Axios' Josephine Walker reports. The word's explosive popularity reflects society's relentless drive to optimize everything. Dictionary Media Group director of lexicography Steve Johnson tells Axios that maxxing was an ideal pick because it's endlessly adaptable. Fitness enthusiasts are "proteinmaxxing," AI superfans are "tokenmaxxing" and the Trump administration says it's "deportationmaxxing." Read the announcement.