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Wasted opioid settlements are a new low in the West Virginia exploitation story West Virginia is a special place, known to outsiders as “Almost Heaven,” as John Denver sings in his song “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” However, West Virginians know there is an eerie emphasis on the word “almost” in our mountain mama’s hymn. The word “almost” speaks to the promise and potential found in West Virginia. Or, as a neighbor back home in Union once put it: “It’s called Almost Heaven, because we’re close to dying every day.” https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/wasted-opioid-settlements-are-new-low-west-virginia-exploitation-story?

Epstein’s money left a record. New Mexico is right to demand it Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes took more than one man. Someone had to manage the properties, handle the paperwork, move the money and keep quiet. New Mexico’s attorney general says those people were Epstein’s lawyer and his accountant, and he is asking a federal court to stop the estate from paying them tens of millions more. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/epsteins-money-left-record-new-mexico-right-demand-it?

If you care about affordability, vote with climate in mind Like many Americans, the issue that is top of mind for me as we approach the midterms is affordability, or rather, a lack thereof. That’s why I’m disappointed to see how few voters, and even candidates, are focused on climate change this election. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/if-you-care-about-affordability-vote-climate-mind?

Florida Republicans say they’re not sweating early voter turnout — not yet, anyway Although Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the alarm about Republican voter turnout earlier this week, other Florida GOP officials insist they’ve little to worry about as Democrats turned out in bigger numbers than they did four years ago in early in-person and mail voting. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/30/florida-republicans-say-theyre-not-sweating-early-voter-turnout-not-yet-anyway/? Trump OKs individual FEMA assistance for eight Florida counties hit by Isaias President Donald Trump has approved the DeSantis administration’s request that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide individual assistance to eight counties in the Florida Panhandle that suffered damage from Hurricane Iasias. https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/10/29/trump-oks-individual-fema-assistance-for-eight-florida-counties-hit-by-isaias/?

City employee comes to the rescue after a 5-year-old's beloved stuffed animal fell down a storm drain. (More) Minnesota man finds a stray kitten at Chicago's O'Hare airport during a missed connection, buys a kennel and brings it home. (More, w/video) British woman living in DC starts weekly "Great British Bake Off" watch parties at a local bar, building a new community. (More, w/video) Engineering students refurbish a 2020 Hyundai and donate it to a disabled Navy veteran who hasn't owned a car in over two years. (More) Australian diver saves kangaroo stranded nearly two miles from shore. (More, w/video) Today, we're sharing a story from reader Ted R. "For over 50 years, Halloween in Emsworth meant a mandatory stop at a very special home that three generations of neighborhood trick-or-treaters know very well. It was the house where Jackie and Walt Kenderski transformed their driveway with pumpkins, scarecrows, and cornstalks. No matter the weather, Jackie would sit outside in her signature witch’s hat, welcoming the costumed visitors with open arms. If it rained, they simply opened the garage doors and kept the magic alive. They didn't just hand out store-bought candy. Every single year, Jackie and Walt purchased local orchard apples and poured their hearts into making at least 100 homemade, individually wrapped candy apples. It was a true labor of love that became an Emsworth Halloween tradition."

‘Reparations now’: King and Burnham face protests at Antigua Commonwealth summit Activists see meeting as opportunity to demand UK confront role in transatlantic enslavement https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/31/protests-expected-king-charles-reparations-slave-trade-commonwealth-summit-antigua?

Riot police deployed to Poland’s constitutional court after judge suspended President Karol Nawrocki seen struggling to gain entry to court building in Warsaw amid long-running row over the court’s legitimacy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/31/riot-police-deployed-to-polands-constitutional-court-after-judge-suspended?

Alliance for the Future, unveiled at Montreal summit and open to other countries, conceived for world ‘shaken by new storms’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/30/canada-european-union-alliance?

‘You need the power of all your votes’: Bedouin women secure success for Arab parties in Israeli election With 180,000 eligible voters, Bedouin turnout was key in Palestinian-led parties winning unprecedented 19 seats https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/31/bedouin-women-success-arab-parties-israel-election?

What is ballot-stacking and is it illegal? Alaska Senate race controversy, explained Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola's campaign allegedly recruited a second Dan Sullivan to run for Senate and confuse Republican voters. https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/10/30/ballot-stacking-alaska-senate-race/? ps:I don't like that, but if that confuses republicans that's pretty sad! It's interesting that they cry foul in this case, but have no problem with "gerrymandering?"

In light of the numerous other passages that place women in subjection to men, it must be evidence of a Herculean nature. This is not a single text upon which women's subservient roll depends. It's not only Paul. Peter (1Pe. 3:1,5) twice refers to women as being in subjection to their husbands, just as the traditional understanding of Genesis 3 indicates. Verse 6 explains that being in subjection means obeying [the husband].

What evidence would that be?

Sounds very similar to "Borat". I know that movie enraged the LGBT community with some of the things that was said in it. It was definitely crude humor but there were funny parts to it.

I knew an Adventist who had this view. We had many discussions. He believed Cain would be saved. I never knew there was a name for it.

October 31, 2026 Good morning. Halloween presents an endless parade of ghouls and goblins. Most aren’t actually scary, but can illuminate some things about the nature of fear. María Jesús Contreras Stage fright By Melissa Kirsch My landlord’s spooky-season sidewalk tableau this year features three skeletons carrying an open casket, inside of which is yet another skeleton, as well as a disembodied hand. One morning last week, I emerged from the building to see two women with infants in strollers parked out front. It’s not unusual around Halloween to see families taking pictures of the spectacle, but I found it amusing that these people had stopped to show it to their babies. What would these tiny humans make of a surprisingly lifelike rotten-toothed crone beckoning them from the hedge? Would they recognize Halloween’s creepy cast of characters as frightening? Perhaps they were too young to even register what they were seeing. Perhaps the world in their eyes was still a series of shapes, light and color — everything new, everything still coming into focus, still taking on the valence of scary or safe. The things that spook us as children leave their mark. We grow into adults who must disentangle real threats from perceived ones, and often discover that a present-day fear took root when we were too young to know better. Growing up, my family had a vinyl record of Boris Karloff narrating Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” that I found so frightening I could not look at the album cover. I insisted it be removed from my room and then lay awake worrying because the album was still somewhere in the house, pulsing with its fearsome power. Listening to a recording this week — No matter how hard the duck tried to run, she couldn’t escape the wolf. He was getting nearer, nearer, catching up with her — I felt a similar surge of terror as I felt as a child, combined with a pleasurable measure of gratitude that my more mature, rational brain can separate a ghost story from imminent menace. In a recent Times article, the writer Alessandra Schade recalled that as a child she lived next door to the “Goosebumps” author R.L. Stine. She read his horror stories for kids and convinced herself that Stine’s house was haunted. Twenty years later, Schade met Stine, who told her about his career and how he came to inhabit the home from whose chimney she once was certain she saw ghosts floating. She learned that Stine and his wife, who met when they were editing magazines at Scholastic in the 1960s, had lived there, on a quiet cul-de-sac in Sag Harbor, on the eastern end of Long Island, for a quarter century. The source of her childhood anxiety turned out to be, as she put it, “a friendly octogenarian” who “goes by Bob.” Our childhood fears resist rationalization. We can turn on the light and see that the boogeyman is just a pile of clothes, but we sleep with one eye open nonetheless. As adults, we have the tools to distinguish between real and imagined peril, but we don’t always use them. The scary album is replaced by the amorphous worry about a difficult conversation, a potential loss, things not turning out as we wish. We picture the worst-case scenario; we still see monsters where there’s just dirty laundry. No matter how old we get, we still need to remind ourselves that what is unknown or mysterious to us isn’t necessarily dangerous. Halloween is a laboratory for experimenting with this. All around us, bedsheet ghosts haunt the neighbor’s oak tree, spiders as big as hatchbacks climb up the side of tenements. And children, the ones most likely to shrink from this pageant of frights, walk through it delightedly, meeting witches and vampires and learning to distinguish costumes from reality. THE LATEST NEWS Midterm Elections Doug Mills/The New York Times President Trump will travel to Kansas and Iowa to hold campaign rallies this weekend, a White House official said, in a sharp reversal after he announced that he planned to do virtual events instead. A federal appeals court again rejected the Trump administration’s effort to make California officials set aside more than 20,000 mail-in ballots. The administration could now ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Pope Leo XIV cast a mail-in ballot in his home state of Illinois. At the polls on Tuesday, Floridians will decide whether to reduce property taxes. (They already pay no state income tax.) Some call it a “Faustian bargain.” More on Politics The Trump administration detained dozens of Afghan immigrants in Louisiana and plans to deport them, despite concerns that many would face persecution by the Taliban. Obamacare premiums will rise by 13 percent next year, hitting middle-income people already struggling with health care costs. Around the World Gains for Arab-led parties have electrified Palestinian citizens of Israel, who voted in record numbers, even as others hope to exclude those parties from any future government. Violent unrest in France has eroded support for Édouard Philippe, the leading centrist candidate for prime minister, and benefited his far-right and far-left rivals. The leading independent news outlet in Russia, whose co-founder received the Nobel Peace Prize, said that it would shut down — and that the Kremlin had orchestrated its demise. An error by rail traffic controllers caused this week’s deadly train crash in Spain, officials said. Business Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, said it had suspended withdrawals after hackers stole more than $6 billion in digital coins. One research lab attributed the theft to North Korea. Tech company stocks tumbled, some by double digits, as investors fretted about whether their A.I. spending spree is paying off. The war with Iran with has been very lucrative for U.S. oil companies, which nearly tripled their annual profit as consumers faced higher prices for gas and other fuel. Other Big Stories In her first comments since Tennessee botched her execution last month, Christa Pike said she was in constant pain and has been kept largely in isolation. Researchers are exploring novel ways to treat, or even prevent, the brain disease C.T.E. in football players. Among them: near-infrared light. THE INTERVIEW Philip Montgomery for The New York Times “My male friendships are quite deep and sad and open and everything that a female friendship is acknowledged to be and is seen in the culture.” — Martin McDonagh, writer and director of the new dark comedy “Wild Horse Nine.” He spoke to David Marchese about the Academy Awards race, the perils of writing a racist character, and how bands like the Clash helped inspire him to pursue an artistic career. Click to watch, listen or read a transcript. GAME OF THE WEEK Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images W.N.B.A. finals: The Golden State Valkyries barely existed two years ago. They were an expansion team with zero players and zero wins, yet their owner had enough blind confidence to make a promise: “We will win a W.N.B.A. championship in the first five years of this franchise,” he said. Now, less than 18 months after the team’s first game, the Valkyries are one win away from following through on that bold claim. They will host the Atlanta Dream tonight in the W.N.B.A.’s first-ever win-or-go-home Game 7. The Dream, who play best when they ride on the assertiveness of their biggest star, Angel Reese, are in their 19th season but are also vying for their first title. — Matthew Cullen Tip-off is at 8 p.m. Eastern. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Gabby Laurent for The New York Times Keira Knightley was once the victim of merciless paparazzi stalking and phone hacks. Now, she’s working on two projects that deal explicitly with surveillance. Coincidence? Patrick Stewart used his booming voice and his Shakespearean pedigree in the service of absurd — and often lewd — comedy. Read our critic’s appraisal after Stewart’s death Thursday at 86. The viral indie blockbuster “Obsession” is back in theaters for Halloween weekend. Director Curry Barker breaks it down in our “Anatomy of a Scene” video series. Click to watch: The New York Times Music Lil Baby nearly quit rapping before “Dead Fresh,” his slump-busting hit that marked a shift from Atlanta-centric music into the broader world of pop. “Now I honestly believe I could make any kind of song,” he said in an interview on Popcast. Watch the whole thing here. The New York Philharmonic has been performing the soundtrack live alongside screenings of “Get Out” this week. The composer, Michael Abels, dissected three pivotal moments from the score. The pop star Chris Brown was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence over a 2023 episode in which he repeatedly hit a man in the head with a tequila bottle at a nightclub. More Culture The world seems brimming with conflict right now. So where’s all the art about war? Lucien Smith, who died last month at 37, had largely retreated from the art world after skyrocketing early success. His final body of work is an exorcism of sorts. Museums are pitching themselves as date-night destinations — and finding a generation of takers. The Midterms are here. Understand their impact with savings on The Times. Benefit from unlimited coverage of the elections — and what they mean for you going forward. Sale: $1/week for you first year. Subscribe now. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. By Melissa Clark Tomato-Parmesan soup Happy Halloween! If you’re looking for something easy to feed your little witches and zombies before trick-or-treating — or to fortify yourself for the onslaught — may I suggest Ali Slagle’s tomato-Parmesan soup? Simmered from a couple of cans of tomatoes and some Parmesan rinds for depth, it’s a warming brew that will sustain you through the sugarcoated evening to come. Ali suggests serving this with Parmesan toasts on the side for grilled cheese vibes, and you certainly can’t go wrong with that. REAL ESTATE Graham Dickie for The New York Times The Hunt: A college student and his step-mom had up to $1 million for a Manhattan apartment to serve as dorm room and vacation lodging. What did they pick? Play our game. What would you get for $1.5 million? A space age-inspired house in Idyllwild, Calif., a Cape Cod house in Charlottesville, Va., or a condo in Washington, D.C.? LIVING President Trump and the first lady handing out candy to trick-or-treaters at the White House. Alex Kent/The New York Times Eye candy: Melania Trump’s Halloween coat was its own kind of costume, our fashion critic writes. Faux marble: Interior designers may not miss quartz countertops, which California is considering banning. But your budget-friendly kitchen might. Silver sanctuaries: These are the best cities to retire in now. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER 5 life-changing cleaning hacks By Christine Cyr Clisset I’ve learned all kinds of useful and unconventional hacks in my many years immersed in Wirecutter’s cleaning coverage. Here are five that have totally transformed my approach: You can skip dry-cleaning plenty of things, even if the label insists you should. Hand-washing many delicates — like wool or cashmere sweaters — can actually help them last longer. Dish soap is an underrated cleaner, and works wonders on far more than just dishes. I use it to clean my oven, wood floors, appliances and even some laundry stains. Make sure you’re cleaning the things that do the cleaning. For example, if your washing machine smells like mildew, it’s likely time to clean the filter. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were conclave and covalence. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Crossplay, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa 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 31 1517 Martin Luther posts 95 theses Priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. Read More Sponsored Content by REVCONTENT 19th Century 1837 Hundreds of Creek Indians die in Monmouth steamboat disaster 1864 The U.S. Congress admits Nevada as the 36th state 1920s 1926 Celebrated magician Harry Houdini dies 1960s 1963 Freak explosion at Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum kills 74 21st Century 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto publishes a paper introducing Bitcoin American Revolution 1776 King George gives first parliamentary address after the Declaration of Independence Arts & Entertainment 1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand, paving the way for the British Invasion 1993 Actor River Phoenix dies Crime 1984 Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated European History 1961 Stalin’s body removed from Lenin’s tomb Sports 1997 Violet Palmer becomes first woman to officiate an NBA game 1950 Earl Lloyd becomes first Black player to suit up in the NBA

During the Prohibition era, the U.S. Government allowed Whiskey to be sold through pharmacies. As a result, Walgreens grew from 20 retail stores to almost 500. James

Greenland opens new international airport to lure tourists as it eyes future independence Greenland has opened a new international airport, seeking to lure visitors from around the world as the Arctic island looks toward eventual independence from Denmark. Read More.

Prosecutors drop felony charge against rapper Rick Ross in domestic violence case Prosecutors have dropped a felony charge against rapper Rick Ross a month after he was arrested in Miami Beach when a woman he was living with told police he hit her, court records said. Read More.

AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Minnesota on Election Day Minnesota voters will elect a new governor and new senator Tuesday after retirement announcements by two prominent Democrats caused a reshuffling throughout the ballot. Voters will also decide races for other federal and state offices, including contests across the state that could determine control of both chambers of the narrowly divided state Legislature. Read More. AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Texas on Election Day The 2026 midterm election is one of the biggest tests of Republican dominance in Texas — and Democrats’ best shot in decades at winning a key U.S. Senate seat in the state. Read More. AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Florida on Election Day Florida Republicans will try to extend their dominance in statewide elections Tuesday as voters decide races for Senate, governor and other state and legislative offices. The election will mark the first under a new congressional map adopted by Republicans to boost the party’s chances of keeping control of the closely divided House. Read More. AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Wisconsin on Election Day Democrats in midterm races across the country are seeking to capitalize on souring perceptions of President Donald Trump to gain seats in Congress and tip the balance of power in their favor as his approval ratings haveplummeted during his second term. Read More.

State of Disarray (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty)   View in browser Many a heavy-handed metaphor has been constructed on the claim that Washington, D.C., is built on a swamp. This hoary cliché is also, for the most part, untrue—but the neighborhood Foggy Bottom, home to the State Department, really is former marshland. This is perhaps fitting. Stories of decadence, deviousness, and ineptitude within the current Trump administration are a dime a dozen, even at current inflation rates. The Justice Department acts as a private law firm for the president; the Department of Health and Human Services seems dedicated to undermining both; the Hegseth Pentagon is breaking globes, both physically and metaphorically. Yet the State Department has escaped some of the taint that has attached to other departments and agencies. This may be because the exploits elsewhere are so blatant, and because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a reputation as one of the more serious figures in the administration. Whatever the reasons, the State Department may deserve more opprobrium than it has received. One of the guiding philosophies of the second Trump presidency, imported from Project 2025, is that personnel is policy: The success of an administration depends on who staffs it. State shows how this can go very wrong. Perhaps holding Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ousted ambassador to Greece who was allegedly selling access, against the department would be unfair. After all, she was a political choice, likely selected as a thank-you from the president whose campaign she assisted, and to whose son she was previously engaged. But other appointments cannot be so easily explained away. One example is Darren Beattie, whose title is senior adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs. He has particular interest in policy toward Brazil, where the administration has worked to assist the right-wing movement associated with the Bolsonaro family; he is also president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, on which Trump has scrawled his own name. Beattie’s career shows the difference between the first and second Trump administrations: When his speech to white nationalists was revealed during the first, he was fired. In the second, he was welcomed back and given a plum role. One of his colleagues now is Nate Hochman. Once seen as a rising star of mainstream conservatism, Hochman went from National Review to the 2024 presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, from which he was fired for sharing a video featuring Nazi imagery. After a pit stop working for Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who has regularly made ethnonationalist comments (yes, he’s also the guy with the Jack Smith gaffe), he landed at the State Department, where he is reportedly Rubio’s chief speechwriter. This might explain why the secretary’s recent speech in Athens was so obsessed with supposed threats to the West. The overlapping politics does not appear to be coincidental. Jeremy Carl, who has warned that “white culture” is imperiled, missed out on a chance to join Beattie and Hochman only when his Senate hearing in February completely derailed over offensive old tweets and his inability to explain his own views. The department now has an “Office of Remigration,” using a white-nationalist shibboleth for ethnic cleansing. Some of the State Department’s hires are questionable less for ideological than for personality reasons. Britt McHenry, a former ESPN personality who then deployed culture-war takes to become a mid-tier MAGA figure, joined the State Department last month as a press adviser, but her time there was short: She was resigned this past Friday after throwing a drink at a fan during a Washington Wizards game. Another recent departure is Paolo Zampolli, an old Trump hanger-on most famous for introducing the president and first lady. Zampolli snagged a State Department appointment as special envoy for global partnerships, focused on cultural affairs, but then quickly began meddling in issues that were not in his remit. (Not that he was aware what his remit was: “I didn’t even read the notification” to Congress about his role. “I don’t know about the notification,” he told Politico, saying he took direction from Trump.) Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s attempts to control Zampolli produced what Politico described as “a monthslong fight” conducted via “emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials.” Shortly after that scoop, Zampolli was fired. Zampolli isn’t the only one inattentive to cultural diplomacy. Officials have been rampaging against a painting in the embassy in the Dominican Republic by the artist Kehinde Wiley, who is best known (perhaps not incidentally) for painting President Obama’s official portrait. Trump officials have referred to it as “very woke,” “aesthetically terrifying,” and a lesbian picnic. (The piece is much less titillating than this might suggest: It depicts four people posing over one of Wiley’s trademark floral patterns.) Are any top officials at the State Department above this chaos? Yes, but maybe not for long. My colleague Vivian Salama reported earlier this year on the deserted halls of the department, and The Washington Sun last week reported that leaders are working to promote political loyalists but squeeze out senior foreign-service officers, the most experienced members of the nonpolitical career staff trained in foreign relations. “The State Department is trying to get people to quit,” one officer told the Sun. Sometime soon, we might get a chance to learn what happens when diplomacy is fully in the hands of the least diplomatic people imaginable. Related: The end of diplomacy Marco Rubio’s disappearing Signal chat

The working class is more diverse than ever before The working class is a concept that carries tremendous political weight. But there is no official definition of what it is, and popular views of a mostly white working class are out of date. https://www.epi.org/publication/the-working-class-is-more-diverse-than-ever-before/?

Justice Department seeks to isolate Alaska ballots as criminal probe underway over Senate candidate ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice pushed Friday for a court order to isolate certain Alaska ballots to investigate potential voter confusion, while federal officials confirmed the existence of a criminal probe over a Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent. https://apnews.com/article/alaska-sullivan-peltola-senate-election-88259e40d70a7e4f535e01a2b88489aa?

Cashing in Big Oil is raking in huge profits, and wealthy shareholders are reaping the rewards. Americans are paying for it with high gas prices — to the tune of $1,184 more per household since the start of the war with Iran. ▶️ Streaming now: Why gas prices take so long to fall ps:I do recall back a while ago suggesting what was the real reason for starting the war against Iran????? ExxonMobil and Chevron top Q3 estimates on higher prices and strong output ExxonMobil and Chevron both reported better than expected quarterly results Friday as the oil majors benefited from higher prices and record production. Read More.