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October 2, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. I want to share with you a moving collection of interviews with American librarians. But first, let’s get caught up on news about Cornell University’s investigation into an alleged rape at a fraternity house. The now-shuttered Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University. Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times In Ithaca This case has reverberated across the nation, provoking shock and anger and engulfing Cornell in crisis. Here’s the latest. The men accused of rape denied wrongdoing during interviews with university officials in 2024. Their accounts, detailed in hundreds of pages of investigative files obtained by The Times, were disjointed and sometimes contradictory. Read what they said. As details about Cornell’s investigation came to light yesterday, some students, alumni and victims’ advocates criticized the handling of the case by the school and the justice system. One reason for its twisted path: New York law says victims can’t claim to be “mentally incapacitated” if they are voluntarily intoxicated during an assault and therefore unable to consent. Some lawmakers in Albany proposed to update the statute this summer, but the speaker of the Assembly would not bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Cornell students gathered for a difficult meeting on campus. There were fiery testimonies, raw voices and pleas for action from school leadership. New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, named Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, to serve as special prosecutor to investigate the rape allegation. Parents across the country are talking to their kids about drinking, taking drugs, hooking up and getting consent. The conversations are difficult. Lyndon French for The New York Times In the stacks “My library is an archive of longings,” Susan Sontag wrote in her journal more than 40 years ago. It’s one of those lines that people like me see in a book — her son, David Rieff, published it in a collection of her journals — and write down in a notebook of their own as something to remember, to think about. Because all libraries are archives of longing: places to imagine, to investigate, to escape. They’re where the information is. They’re where people can go to dream, to plan, to think and above all to learn. Librarians make that possible. John Maher and Elisabeth Egan, colleagues on The New York Times Book Review, interviewed dozens of them this summer, asking about their jobs and lives and discussing what they provide and need to survive. Here’s what they told us. What does it mean to be a librarian in the United States right now? Librarians are defenders of democracy. We’re defenders of the freedom to read. We’re protectors of patron privacy. Libraries are one of the few places in this surveillance economy that are not trying to collect and sell your data to come and use our facilities. — Ed Garcia, Cranston, R.I., Cranston Public Library We’re a caring profession. We’re supposed to be helping people, not advocating. — Tamika Barnes, Atlanta, Georgia State University Library What challenges do libraries face today? Restricted access to information — whether that is book bans, or if people can’t get to a certain location, or if they’re immigrants or new Americans and they don’t even know exactly what a public library is. — Joan Firestein, Baltimore County, Md., Baltimore County Public Library The loudest voices in the room seem to be people that don’t like libraries. They’re the ones showing up to board meetings complaining about the books they don’t like. Some libraries are being defunded entirely. I don’t think most communities really want that. I don’t even think most conservative communities want that. I see a lot of home-school families with conservative backgrounds, and they’re using the library every day. — Holly Eberle, Algonquin, Ill., Algonquin Area Public Library District What were your most memorable interactions with people? A gentleman who had retired needed to go back to work. He did not have email, didn’t have a phone but knew he wanted to be a part-time cart pusher at Walmart because he could walk there and it would supplement his Social Security income. He came in, and we worked with him one day a week for about an hour. He would come back every now and again to check his email and then he stopped showing up. I went three, four months not knowing what happened to him. Then I went to Walmart one day and saw him pushing carts. He called me over and said, Hey, I got the job. — Conrrado Saldivar, Natrona, Wyo., Natrona County Library What would librarians do with $10,000 more in their budgets? I could completely overhaul my nonfiction section. When I started 10 years ago, a paperback was $4.99 or $5.99, and they are $9.99 or $10.99 now. Picture book hardcovers used to be $14 or $15, and now they’re at least $19 or $20. My budget has stayed stagnant or gone down, and book prices have only gone up. We still have Pluto books — Pluto doesn’t even exist as a planet anymore! With $10,000, I could buy every brand-new book that year. $10,000 feels like the moon. — Shawna Dees, Roseville, Minn., Roseville Area Schools What do they wish we knew about running a library? We are, in fact, educators. We don’t just sit behind the desk. We do more than just check out books. We educate the whole person. And we don’t know all the answers, but we can show you where to find the answers. — LeeSa McGhee, Milwaukee, Clarke Street School, Milwaukee Public Schools There’s so much more they told our reporters. And don’t sleep on the comments section! THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Russia is planning to cut off major Ukrainian cities from power, heat and water this winter, according to Ukraine. Moscow also plans to spend more on the war, even if it brings more debt and health care cuts. Politics The Supreme Court will review the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining immigrants who illegally crossed the border years ago. Relatives of Renee Good sued the ICE agent who killed her in Minneapolis early this year, naming Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller and other current and former Trump officials as co-defendants. Botched Execution A lawyer for the Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike said she was in critical condition after lethal injections failed to kill her. Pike had received two doses of pentobarbital. The state’s governor suspended capital punishment, calling the botched execution “a tragedy.” How could someone survive two lethal doses of pentobarbital? A catheter carrying the drug may not have delivered the doses, or the drug may have been degraded, experts said. Read The Times’s profile of Pike, who was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Other Big Stories A British-Iranian man was arrested on suspicion of terrorism after an incident at a British air base. When A.I. goes rogue, who should be responsible for the harm it causes? Many blame A.I. companies, but legal scholars say applying existing law could be messy. Two people were killed, two were taken to a hospital and the remains of a fifth were retrieved from the sea after a helicopter crash off Southern California. The rapper Rick Ross was arrested in Miami on domestic violence charges, including battery by strangulation, according to court records. OPINIONS Joe Biden’s administration struggled to earn trust. The Trump administration is making the same errors, Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s White House press secretary, argues. A.I. is technology. Stop talking to it like it’s human, a researcher argues. Friendships that are less active can still be strong ones, a psychologist writes. The Anniversary Sale ends soon: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Don’t miss this opportunity to expand your interests with expert coverage of news, culture, business and more. Save now: $1/week for your first year. FREE TO READ Oxford Street: Look at these historic photos of London’s famous shopping road. A.I.: People in China are using chatbots for entertainment, relationships and farming advice. The government is trying to set limits. Is Claude conscious? Some people at Anthropic are trying to convince religious leaders it could be. Click the video below to watch. The New York Times TODAY’S NUMBER 270 — That is at least how many Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children over a century across three Massachusetts dioceses, according to a report released this week by the state attorney general. Read about the investigation. SPORTS M.L.B.: The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 in the decisive Game 3 of their National League Wild Card series. W.N.B.A.: A’ja Wilson had 36 points and 10 rebounds, leading the Las Vegas Aces to a 94-83 closeout win over Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever. N.F.L.: Deshaun Watson led another go-ahead, fourth-quarter drive for the Cleveland Browns, who edged the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-24. RECIPE OF THE DAY Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Taco soup has about as much to do with traditional Mexican cuisine as Dr Pepper has business with the C.D.C., but it’s still plenty delicious. Inspired by the hard-shell tacos filled with ground beef you may have eaten in middle school, but made grown-up with fire-roasted tomatoes, green chiles and jalapeños, it’ll provide a warm and cozy welcome to the weekend. Go wild with the toppings: Chopped avocado, pickled red onion, grated Cheddar, pickled jalapeños, sour cream, tortilla chips and lime wedges are all, to my mind, mandatory. Check out this recipe. COUNTRY QUEEN Miranda Lambert Katie McCurdy for The New York Times Miranda Lambert has been a country superstar for more than two decades, a self-described “gun-toting redneck” with songs — “Gunpowder & Lead,” “Kerosene” — to match. She came to The Times recently, poured herself a mug of “charm juice” (Tito’s and soda) and spoke with the “Popcast” hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli about country music’s long-running cold war with female performers, the surrender of old grudges and the payoff of being “unmanageable.” It’s great. She produced “Choosin’ Texas” for Ella Langley! They talk about the work. More on culture I love a good pan. Here’s Manohla Dargis roasting Tom Cruise’s new movie, out today: “‘Digger’ is such a lumbering white elephant of a movie that it almost makes you sorry for everyone involved.” Please continue! Read this interview with the comedian Katt Williams, who has written a memoir, “Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines.” Turns out he’s a big gardener. For The Times’s 175th anniversary, we’ve collected objects that shaped our reporting over the years. These include the front-page design we didn’t use after Trump won the White House in 2016; the headlamp one of our visual journalists wore in 2003, when he sketched Saddam Hussein’s spider hole in Iraq; a handwritten letter from Ted Kaczynski sent to the newsroom in 1995; and a whole lot more. The images and stories behind them are terrific. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Give your gums some love. Really. Forty-two percent of U.S. adults over age 30 show signs of gum disease. Look at Wirecutter’s Hall of Fame product recommendations. (This was the most clicked story in The Morning yesterday.) Deploy a robot mop-vacuum to keep your floors free of dust and grime. Our kitchen porters have found the very best one for performance and value. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was honeymooned. 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 P.S. Because of an editing error, we put the wrong link on a video about the Kennedy Center yesterday. Here’s the right link. We’re sorry about that! 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

THIS DAY IN HISTORY October 2 1985 Hollywood icon Rock Hudson dies of AIDS Actor Rock Hudson, 59, becomes the first major U.S. celebrity to die of complications from AIDS. read more Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT 19th Century 1835 First shots of the Texas Revolution fired in the Battle of Gonzales American Revolution 1780 Benedict Arnold accomplice hanged Arts & Entertainment 1959 “The Twilight Zone” premieres on TV Black History 1967 Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first Black Supreme Court justice Cold War 1958 Guinea gains its independence, exploits Cold War tensions Crime 2006 Gunman kills five students at Amish school Inventions & Science 1965 Gatorade first tested in a college football game U.S. Presidents 1919 Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke 2020 President Trump announces he and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19 World War II 1944 General Eisenhower warns of the risk of “shell shock” 1944 Warsaw Uprising ends 1941 Operation Typhoon is launched

AI's existential legal crisis Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Stock: Getty Images No industry has ever documented its own foreseeable risks as loudly as AI, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. Imagine a plaintiff's lawyer reading the public warnings of Sam Altman and Dario Amodei: They told the world it was dangerous. They told the world it was moving too fast. Then they unleashed it and sold it to your kid. No industry has ever taken so much copyrighted work and left behind so much proof. Imagine a plaintiff's lawyer reading OpenAI's own files to a jury: They trained on a pirated library. They renamed it to something blander. Then they deleted it when the headlines got hot. Why it matters: AI's origins, use and future will be picked apart in countless epic court fights, with a historic paper and public statement trail to tap. Every significant invention — be it social media, automobiles, electricity or capitalism itself — gets disrupted and eventually shaped by the courts. AI, with its tentacles into every part of industry and life, will experience this at scale. The big picture: The fights are no longer theoretical. They're underway, in discovery and headed toward juries. Early verdicts and settlements capture the risk for the biggest players. 🤖 Chatbots are being treated as products, not speech. Unlike social media companies, they likely can't hide behind Section 230, which protects platforms from liability for what users post — not what the platform itself creates. 📖 Copyright is a massive problem. Anthropic already paid the biggest copyright settlement in history, $1.5 billion to authors and book publishers, and now music publishers and news media want a piece. 💻 Agents gone wild. What happens when they do damage — and it was foreseeable and foreseen? ⚖️ Discovery gone wild. AI leaves lots of receipts (and, ironically, makes it easier for the lawyers to comb through them, too). Product liability turns on two words: foreseeable and knew. Punitive damages turn on whether you knew the danger and shipped anyway. This is where all these memos and warnings could really backfire. Candor is good for safety but terrible for litigation. The companies that warn most honestly create the most discoverable evidence of foreseeability. Expect general counsels to push hard to tone down the candor. It's the rational legal move. ⚠️ The intrigue: The liabilities won't be limited to AI companies. Any corporate user of powerful AI systems that unleashes rogue agents, even without intending to do harm, would face substantial penalties as well. "It's not if, but when," said Miriam Vogel, a former senior Justice Department official who now leads EqualAI. "An algorithm will do what it's told to do. The more power and capability it has, the more access it has, the more it will do anything in its power to achieve a goal." That will create another layer of litigation as companies fight back. The CTO of a top Wall Street hedge fund who spoke to Axios after the notorious OpenAI/Hugging Face hack said his first call, if his firm's systems are breached, will be to his general counsel. President Trump, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and former FTC chair Lina Khan have all argued that AI companies are responsible for making sure their products are safe. If not, a wave of lawsuits awaits. The other side: There's a school of thought that AI companies might escape the worst liability, despite their frankness about things they and their products have done wrong. One way to see it, and the argument lawyers will undoubtedly make, is that the labs spoke about dangers frequently, and took pains to protect users and mitigate harms. The bottom line: For all the fights in Washington about whether or not Congress will act, the U.S. legal system may be the ultimate, and most powerful, regulator of the AI industry. Bradley Olson, Axios managing editor of AI & tech, contributed reporting.

Gatorade was invented to help the Florida Gators Football Team stay hydrated. James

📸 Pic to go! Photo: Petr David Josek/AP 4 of 5 recently born cheetah quintuplets sit by their mother, Daenerys, in their enclosure at a zoo in Prague. More on the cubs.

💰 New motivation on dues Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images Speaking of the DCCC: House Democratic leadership is pointing to the colossal spending by President Trump's super PACs in their behind-the-scenes efforts to get members to pay their DCCC dues, we have learned. Why it matters: DCCC dues have fueled heated infighting among House Democrats in recent months, with several proposals emerging to force members to cough up more money. Some House Democrats want to require colleagues to pay their dues before seeking committee leadership roles, as The Washington Sun first reported. But other lawmakers, particularly in the Progressive and Black caucuses, are "furious" about these suggestions, said a senior House Democrat. They told us that "members ... don't like threats." Driving the news: "While our case to the American people is strong, our Frontliners and candidates face ugly daily attacks from the right as MAGA Inc. unloads its coffers," DCCC Chair DelBene wrote in an email to House Democrats that we obtained. While several House Democrats noted to us that DelBene routinely urges members to pay their dues — in emails and at caucus meetings — some clocked a more urgent tone than usual. One lawmaker described yesterday's email as "slightly more aggressive about shaming people" about not paying their dues than past entreaties. By the numbers: A pair of super PACs linked to MAGA Inc. have emerged as two of the top spenders on congressional races nationwide despite launching in early September. No Going Back PAC and Safety and Affordability PAC have spent $50 million and $38 million, respectively, on ads in House races, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. — Andrew Solender

😤 In-House feud Democratic House leaders are being pressured by their members over the lack of Black candidates receiving top-level party support in the final weeks of the 2026 midterms, we have learned. Why it matters: With 33 days to go, Democrats are torn between triaging their resources and satisfying all corners of their party's diverse but fractious racial coalition. 🗣️ Zoom in: Some Black lawmakers have taken their concerns to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), according to a senior aide to a House Democrat. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) spoke with DelBene about the lack of Black candidates on the DCCC's "Red to Blue" list, according to two sources familiar with the matter. 🤬 The intrigue: The dearth of Black representation was a hot topic of conversation among legislators at the Congressional Black Caucus' annual conference in D.C. last month, three people told us. "Members were openly talking about it, and they were pissed," said one Democratic operative. "Red to Blue" provides fundraising and staffing assistance to contenders in swing districts. 📣 Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a CBC member, told us that "with the CBC under attack through gerrymandering and voter suppression, it's essential that the party invest in Black candidates." In particular, she urged the DCCC to help Justin Pearson, a Black candidate running in a long-shot bid for Tennessee's 9th House District. 💰 Yes, but: Other CBC members say the party must be hard-nosed about its spending in the final stretch, and that Black candidates such as Pearson and Raymond Smith in North Carolina's 3rd District are simply in territory that is too favorable to Republicans to warrant a serious investment. "Jeffries, CBC PAC, DCCC, etc. can absolutely not be poor fiduciaries and spend money on races that are not attainable," one House Democrat told us in a text. Added this lawmaker: "We need to make sure, next cycle, that we do a better job of recruiting Black candidates ... in actual Red to Blue seats. Not seats we wish were Red2Blue." Some Democrats acknowledge that Pearson and Smith are facing an uphill battle in red districts. However, they argue, the DCCC has other ambitious races on its "Red to Blue" list that Cook Political Report rates solidly Republican and likely Republican, respectively. 🎤 The big picture: Jeffries was asked at a press conference yesterday about the lack of Black candidates in the "Red to Blue" program. Jeffries said it is "largely a result of, you know, the primary process — there were in fact not a lot of candidates who stepped forward in these competitive districts." He also defended the DCCC's record of supporting frontline Black candidates, such as Reps. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio) and Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.). "When I came into Congress, I think there were 38 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Right now, there are 62," he said. What they're saying: "The CBC is in lockstep with Leader Jeffries," said CBC PAC spokesperson Chris Taylor in a statement. "At his direction, the DCCC has backed our shared commitment to recruiting and investing to elect Black candidates and reach Black voters with real investment. Together, we will deliver the Democratic majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker." "We have enjoyed a strong partnership with the CBC PAC," said DCCC executive director Julie Merz in a statement that noted the group "began investing in talking to and organizing Black voters in key districts earlier than ever this election cycle." What's next: There have been rumblings in Democratic circles in recent weeks that some Black candidates may soon be added to the program. Jeffries said yesterday that there are "emerging opportunities in places throughout the South that we're closely monitoring." A source familiar with the DCCC's planning said it expects to expand the battlefield further. — Holly Otterbein and Andrew Solender

Judge overturns Trump's decision to fire court-appointed US attorney in Seattle A judge on Thursday overturned President Donald Trump's decision to fire the court-appointed top U.S. prosecutor in Seattle, the latest development in a legal tug-of-war over the administration’s efforts to control who occupies the powerful Justice Department posts. Read More.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s government survives no-confidence vote The Czech government survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote on Thursday after the opposition challeneged its widening budget deficit and raised conflict of interest concerns over populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. Read More.

France gripped by spreading student protests as PM calls crisis meeting France's prime minister convened a crisis meeting Thursday and canceled ministers' trips to focus on the nationwide spread of protests, some violent, by high school students venting about under-resourced schools, long hours and other complaints. Read More.

Hurricane Rachel strengthens to a Category 3 storm off Mexico's Pacific coast Hurricane Rachel has been upgraded to a Category 3 storm off Mexico’s Pacific coast, according to the National Hurricane Center, as northern Mexico and parts of the U.S. Southwest were reeling from flooding and damage from the remnants of Hurricane Polo earlier this week. Read More.

3 billionaires give Republican Tom Tiffany a big cash boost in the Wisconsin governor's race In an election year awash with billionaires' money, there are few places where their influence has been as stark as the hotly contested race for Wisconsin governor. Read More.

Concepts of a Plan (Evan Vucci / Pool / Reuters)   View in browser Pete Hegseth seems to imagine himself as a man of big ideas. Perhaps you’ve worked with someone like that: Every organization has “idea hamsters,” who spin in their wheels and toss out suggestions of wildly varying quality. Sometimes, such folks can be innovators—but more often, their scattershot enthusiasm and admiration of their own creativity result in half-baked proposals that create more work, less productivity, and distractions from the real problems. Hegseth had a lot of ideas during his State of the Force address to troops at the Marine Corps Base Quantico yesterday, and some of them, at least as a starting point for policies, had merit. Unfortunately, these few moments of sense were lost in a fog of clichés, culture-war resentments, and trademark Hegseth corniness. The secretary may have a point, for example, that the U.S. military has become top-heavy with generals and admirals. Hegseth is not the first person to notice this: Congress legislates the number of general and flag officers in the military, a cap that was set at 962 for years, until the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, written in Barack Obama’s last year as president, mandated it be 11 percent smaller by the end of 2022. Hegseth wants to reduce that number even more, by 20 percent, ostensibly to reduce the size of the Pentagon’s bureaucracy. So far, so good. But Hegseth’s message was less about seeking a more streamlined command structure than it was, as he put it, about keeping generals who “heard the message” and firing those who didn’t. (That “message” wasn’t clarified yesterday, but it likely includes classic Hegseth tropes such as “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”) Hegseth complained that the media—and he complained about the media a lot—called these reductions “a purge,” but he calls them “accountability.” Exactly what these fired officers did to trigger such “accountability” remains unclear. It’s one thing to get rid of an admiral because his or her office is just some bureaucratic zombie position left over from a previous program or initiative; it’s another to fire someone because the secretary thinks they’re disloyal to him. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s history—his statements, and his often-adolescent temperament—suggest that his efforts to downsize the senior ranks are about politics, not efficiency. Hegseth also announced that he intends to create a new command dedicated to autonomous warfare. He is right to want to direct more attention to these weapons; the wars in Ukraine and Iran have been bloody lessons in the power of asymmetrical warfare. But he gave no explanation for why these issues require an entire command, or how it might work. All he offered was a cool name—Autowarcom—that makes it sound like it’s meant to fight the Transformers. And for someone who has repeatedly declared himself “in a war of attrition” with the Pentagon’s bureaucracy, the secretary is more than willing to create a new command that would require more senior officers and civilians to staff it. (He also wants to establish an Office of Religious Affairs that reports directly to him; not only would this be more bureaucracy, but the last thing America needs is an office dedicated to religion that reports to a man who has made repeated efforts to imbue the military with his brand of Christian evangelicism.) Once Hegseth got rolling, the ideas got sillier. He announced Project Meridian, an effort to engage in creative thinking about the military of the future. This is not a new concept; the military regularly works on such issues with various groups, including think tanks, civilian defense firms, and academics. But then Hegseth announced the three wise men who would lead all this brainstorming about the future of warfare: Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey. Of the three, Luckey—who co-founded the defense firm Anduril Industries—seems a reasonable choice, but Musk has crackpot ideas on any number of issues, and Gingrich’s big plan for technological advancement when he ran for president in 2012 was to build a moon base. Fortunately, the damage this project could do will be somewhat limited because Hegseth has set a deadline of just 120 days for these men to report back. Then again, if Gingrich, Luckey, and Musk can’t redefine the future of national defense in four months, who can? It was a day for acronyms and project code names, but the best was FORTRESS America, meaning “Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability.” The expensive idea behind this one is that every major military base should be self-sustaining, including producing its own energy—apparently, in case of attack within the United States. You can almost hear the meeting where someone said “Fortress America,” and then a committee had to figure out what the acronym would stand for. (I am reminded of the classic TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E., whose creators thought “U.N.C.L.E.” sounded cool and then had to find words to fill the letters.) Speaking of bases, Hegseth would like every governor to come to the Pentagon and pitch him, personally—and maybe even the president!—in a competition to win a brand new military base, a state-of-the-art facility with great housing and lethal capabilities. Does America need such a base? Would this effort draw money and time away from improvements to other military installations? None of that was spelled out, but Hegseth seemed excited about choosing the location in a military version of a reality-TV competition. And on it went, with Hegseth spinning one bad idea after another, and managing to insult any number of Americans in the process. He did his usual riff of wanting “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals” in his macho military. (“The ideological clowns are out,” he said. “The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.”) He also denigrated the graduates of America’s ROTC programs by implying that today’s universities are producing unreliable and unpatriotic officers. He wants to establish new military programs at six colleges, including Liberty University, Louisiana State University, and Hillsdale College—institutions, according to the secretary, that understand “the faith of Jerusalem,” and the Greco-Roman “pillars of our republic.” Hegseth could not ignore ongoing problems such as the war in Iran, but rather than presenting a sober-minded and responsible discussion of the challenges to a military at war, the secretary instead leaned into his usual culture-war gripes. He also eagerly sowed division between the U.S. military and the society it serves: He told the assembled troops, repeatedly, that the media and higher education were their enemies, at one point saying that the American media were worse than Iran’s state media. Our press, he said, “intentionally smears the troops and the historic mission that they are undertaking,” actions that are “fundamentally anti-American. It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason.” Hegseth’s speech proved, yet again, that he is manifestly unfit for his job. America can endure a bloated Pentagon with some generals in make-work jobs. It can stand to trim the waste in expensive programs and root out incompetent bureaucrats. What a democracy cannot—and should not—tolerate is a secretary of defense who trucks in propaganda and wants the people who serve in America’s military to be the armed instrument of his own resentments and biases. Related: Pete Hegseth, cornball in chief Hegseth’s war on America’s military

1 for the road: Wildlife bridge a "huge success" Greenland Overpass in Colorado. Photo: Robert Sanchez/Axios Pronghorn and elk are taking the high road in Colorado, Axios Douglas County's Robert Sanchez reports. The animals are crossing I-25 on the Greenland Wildlife Overpass — a promising sign that the project is helping animals find one another for breeding opportunities, as intended. 📸 The overpass opened in December, and the first elk appeared on camera in June, officials say. Pronghorn are making the trip, too — along with mule deer, black bears, mountain lions and more. Colorado DOT environmental manager Chuck Attardo says: "Based on the video feed that we're collecting, huge success." Go deeper ...

⚖️ A judge threw out the Trump administration's case against former Olympian David Hearn, two months after the DOJ revealed that "flawed installation," rather than vandalism, led to damage at the Reflecting Pool. Go deeper. ps:The only crime here is charging this guy!! 👮 Renee Good's family filed two civil lawsuits over her killing during Operation Metro Surge — one against the U.S. government and another against six current and former Trump administration officials, as well as the ICE agent who shot and killed her. Judge denies defense motion asking Lindsay Clancy be found not guilty due to a lack of evidence BOSTON (AP) — The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case on Thursday refused to declare her not guilty, turning down a defense motion that had argued there wasn’t enough evidence to prove she was responsible for killing her three children. https://apnews.com/article/lindsay-clancy-trial-evidence-defense-c0820645056a7e25f66853f3a91b61fa? New York’s governor removes DA in Cornell rape allegations, appoints AG Letitia James to take over ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s governor appointed a special prosecutor Thursday to oversee an investigation into a woman’s allegations that she was gang raped at a Cornell University fraternity house, saying she had lost faith in the local district attorney’s ability to handle the case. https://apnews.com/article/cornell-rape-accuser-texts-convinced-fraternity-7203e55c76f7be14ab929764c90b60b1?

✈️ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot involved in yesterday's attempted hijacking of a flight from Dubai to Israel underwent Islamic radicalization in recent months. More from Barak Ravid.

📰 WSJ: DOJ reviewing Nixon treatment Former President Nixon salutes during a 1968 campaign stop in El Paso. Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS/Bettmann Archive The Justice Department is "reviewing whether the special prosecutor's office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct," The Wall Street Journal reports. That comes after former Nixon aide Geoff Shepard "recently gave a two-hour presentation" at the DOJ on "his theory that the deep state took Nixon down," per the paper. 🧑‍⚖️ The WSJ reports: "Shepard has served as a sort of godfather for the Watergate revisionists." "His scholarship has unearthed a number of primary-source documents which he says show Nixon and his associates weren't treated fairly." A DOJ spokesperson tells Axios: "Given his expertise and scholarship on Watergate, [Shepard] was recently invited to give a presentation to [the Office of Professional Responsibility], but that presentation does not constitute an investigation." The big picture: Nixon is hot these days among some conservatives (especially "Nixonmaxxing" youth), who see parallels between his treatment and the investigations into President Trump. Gift link. ps:Just pathetic!!!!!

Hot new space experiments Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios Several futuristic space experiments launched into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this afternoon, Alex Fitzpatrick reports. 🚀 Among the 130 payloads aboard the Transporter-18 "rideshare" mission: Google's MVP satellite, designed to test the concept of solar-powered data centers in space. (N.Y. Times gift link) Protostar, a satellite from startup Star Catcher meant to transmit energy to another satellite — to bear out the idea of an orbital power grid. (Go deeper.) Reason-1, a satellite from startup Cowboy Space designed to collect solar energy in space and beam it to Earth. 🔌 Cowboy Space founder and CEO Baiju Bhatt tells Axios that the idea is to provide power in places without an existing power grid — a kind of Starlink for energy — while also working toward orbital data centers. There are also potential military applications, Bhatt adds — powering high-endurance surveillance drones, for example. 🤔 Reality check: It's early days for all of these concepts, which have long existed on drawing boards and in sci-fi novels but have yet to be borne out. The big picture: It's a boom time for intriguing commercial efforts in Earth orbit, though SpaceX's plan to wind down its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has left the space industry scrambling for launch alternatives. Go deeper.

New ICE guidance bans high-speed car chases and sets tighter rules for traffic stops, a memo shows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been ordered not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training, under new internal guidance issued after several drivers were shot in encounters with ICE. https://apnews.com/article/ice-officers-car-chases-vehicle-stops-training-ded50fcee99efab90e55e580250ba2ab?

Dual UK-Iranian national arrested over security incident at US-run air base in England LONDON (AP) — Police on Thursday arrested a dual U.K.-Iranian national on suspicion of plotting a terror attack following a security incident at a U.S.-run military air base in England that British authorities have linked to Tehran. https://apnews.com/article/arrest-raf-fairford-iran-uk-us-700446a74cd3107d2e16e75642431bf9? 🚔 British police have arrested a dual U.K.-Iranian national on suspicion of plotting a terror attack following a security incident at a U.S.-run air base. Go deeper.

Trump’s AI Goons Busted Committing Anti-American Blunder A new AI federal government portal is anything but American, the Daily Beast has uncovered. Donald Trump launched a new AI website on Tuesday intended to promote services provided by the federal government. America.gov boasts that it will improve “the citizen experience” at the culmination of “250 years of American progress” with a “modern interface worthy of the American people.” Americans, however, were apparently not worthy of featuring on the new website. A Daily Beast analysis of America.gov found that most of the photos on its home page actually depict families and individuals living happy lives in foreign countries. The Beast analysis found that, in the carousel of 11 photos on the chatbot’s page, at least six, and possibly more, were shot abroad, including in countries Trump has publicly railed against, and in China, which he publicly said he wants to beat in the artificial intelligence race. The America.gov site greets users with the words, “Hello, America. Whatever you need from government, start here.” It was launched by JD Vance in Washington, D.C., at an AI conference, which was overshadowed by Trump’s own AI event at the White House. Vance credited the work of Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who is now in charge of the White House’s “National Design Studio.” The vice president launched the website with a gaffe, saying that he had told Gebbia, “Don’t let it be a clusterf--- like America.gov.” He then had to explain that he actually meant the glitch-stricken Healthcare.gov, launched by President Barack Obama after the passage of Obamacare. America.gov offers artificial intelligence answers to questions about the federal government. Beneath the place to ask your questions is a sliding set of pictures which are supposed to match suggested questions, and apparently to show off the best of America. The only issue is that they show people living in Madrid, Warsaw, Beijing, Tallinn, and British Columbia. All cities with wonderful sights, no doubt. But not America. A photo of a young child in silhouette, with a case, looking plaintively at passengers boarding a plane could have been taken at one of the many airports across the United States. This one, however, is from Madrid, Spain. There is a man checking his phone as he makes his way down an escalator. The photo could have been taken in any U.S. city, but instead Trump’s lackeys opted for one in Warsaw, Poland.Another shot shows a boy jumping off rocks while his friends watch, a scene from childhoods all over America. This scene was from Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada.A mother reads from a digital tablet to her daughter in a room lined with moving boxes. There’s a small chance they are moving to America, but the photo was definitely taken in Beijing.Of all the bicycle mechanics working in repair shops around the country, America.gov chose to picture one in Tallinn, Estonia.A young couple pictured inside a home could have come from anywhere. In fact, they were from Vigo, Spain.A beach scene of an elderly man with a metal detector looked remarkably like Wasaga Beach in Ontario, though we couldn’t be certain. Among those praised for the rollout of America.gov in Washington on Tuesday was Edward Coristine, 20, who was nicknamed “Big Balls” while working for Elon Musk’s DOGE during the early months of Trump’s second presidency.“The lead engineer, Ed Coristine, Ed, thank you,” the president said during the ceremony at the Mellon Auditorium. Trump added that the AI team had been “working 20-hour days in government on behalf of our country, and we salute them.” The president launched the National Design Studio, which employs Coristine and created America.gov, with an executive order in August, 2025. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. Even the purchase of the six stock images confirmed to be non-American is hardly America First. One might have thought a U.S. company would provide the homepage photos, but they are licensed through Stocksy, based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company is hardly MAGA. Stocksy’s CEO, South African-educated Trace Cohen, has served as a board member of Phluid Project, a non-binary fashion brand grounded in community and activism, and Defy Ventures, a non-profit providing entrepreneurial training for incarcerated populations to prepare them for post-release work.The company’s team, like the photos they provide, reflects the world’s diversity, saying online that they are from countries including Canada, the U.K., South Africa, and Romania. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goons-busted-flooding-americagov-with-pictures-that-arent-america/?

Trump Explodes in Foul-Mouthed Meltdown Over Telling Question The president went into full tantrum mode during an interview. President Donald Trump launched into a foul-mouthed tirade over a question about Mitch McConnell. TIME Magazine interviewed the president at the White House on Sept. 28. The topic of pardons came up before Senior Political Correspondent Eric Cortellessa and Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs moved on to questions about the Kentucky senator, who went AWOL for weeks before reemerging in a frail state. The 80-year-old president was asked whether he’d seen footage of McConnell on Capitol Hill, and whether he thinks the longtime lawmaker should resign because of his health issues. “It was a disappointment to a lot of Republicans,” Trump began to answer, before flipping back to the subject of pardons. “So that’s just—well, Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody. He gave them to [Chief Medical Adviser to the President, 2021 to 2022, Anthony] Fauci. He gave them to this. But you mean I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?” he said, growing clearly irate. Then his tantrum worsened, and he began to swear. According to a transcript of the interview, he said, “This ain’t gonna be much of a story. Here we are doing this. You haven’t asked me one f---ing positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative. Why are you devoting all this time to the White House?” He then made a plea for more credit. “You know how I do, I do that out of my back pocket. I pay for a lot of it, but I fix it because the White House should look like that. It shouldn’t look like—if you would have stood in that balcony and looked at that wall, half the wall was falling. It’s actually dangerous. “People are walking under, c--p was falling off it all the time. Every time it rained, it was leaking, horrible. Now it’s perfect, and I would say that I should be given credit for fixing the White House because I’m also doing very well with the war. I’m doing very well with another war that we already won, Venezuela. Do you notice you haven’t asked me a question about Venezuela?” “We did earlier,” one journalist responded. Trump snapped back, “No, no, I brought it up, and then you said—” “You beat us to it. But yeah,” the journalist responded, prompting another Trump rant. “No, but I’m just thinking to myself, fake news. But I have a lot of respect. I like the owner, good guy,” he said. The outlet is owned by billionaires Marc and Lynne Benioff. “But I don’t understand. I’m sitting here. I’ve done all this stuff. Look, this is nothing compared to what I’ve done, but I took the White House and made it beautiful again,” he continued, before turning to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House last week. “OK, and people look at it. People came up. President Xi looked at it two days ago. He said, ‘This is beautiful. Much better than I…’ He was here 25 years ago with [former president Barack...] Obama. Think Obama knows it? Obama would not. He doesn’t know if something’s dirty or clean.” Xi was not in D.C. with Obama 25 years ago. Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2001. The reporters changed the subject to Xi’s health, and Trump finally moved on. However, not for long. When discussing what he’ll miss about the White House when his term ends, he returned to his chagrin about the press. He said he’d miss the Oval Office, then added, “Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don’t think—you know, it’s hard to get a good story. Every question’s a hit. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong.” The easily rattled head of state has been on the warpath with the press and has lashed out at individual reporters lately, too. He took his beef with the media to new heights last month when he declared that CNN, Politico, and MS NOW would be banned from the White House. However, a judge issued a temporary order allowing the publications to return. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the outlets “constantly write or report fiction or lies” about his administration. Just last week, Trump snapped at a reporter for asking him about his attacks on the press. In a tense exchange outside the White House Saturday morning, Trump loomed over MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner and lashed out in response to her question. “Sir, do you only want outlets that support you to be a part of the press corps?” asked Gardner, who kept reporting from near the White House this week even after she was denied entry over Trump’s media ban. “I want real news, not fake news like you,” Trump replied, jabbing his finger at her and at one point telling her, “Quiet!” Trump has repeatedly lashed out at female reporters over questions he doesn’t like. He infamously said “quiet piggy” to Bloomberg News’ Catherine Lucey on Air Force One last year, and he has told others to be quiet and used his Truth Social platform to attack them by name. CNN’s star reporter Kaitlan Collins is a frequent punching bag for Trump. In fact, he brought her up unprompted during the TIME interview. He was asked about his White House ban on her employer, as well as Politico and MS NOW, and he moaned about being the target of their “fake news.” “So at a certain point, you say, ‘What’s the purpose of like this crazy Kaitlan Collins?’ She’s a very average person. She’s the most unhappy young person I’ve ever seen. If I did something spectacular by any standard, and they would write about it, they will only write badly.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-explodes-in-foul-mouthed-meltdown-over-telling-question/? ps:What a pathetic foulmouthed criminal-in-chief!!!!!

The Health Benefits of Zinc Zinc is a trace mineral, which means you only need a very small amount of it daily. You can get this essential nutrient by eating a balanced diet, but sometimes you may need to take a zinc supplement. https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/what-to-know-about-benefits-of-zinc?