El-Sayed SCHOOLS Vance on 'weasel' insult

Ukraine’s military lost full use of Starshield, the military version of Starlink, on Wednesday with no warning. Now we know where the order came from.

Reuters reports, citing U.S. and Western officials, that it came from within the White House. Pentagon officials were told the service “needed to be slowed down.”

The officials didn’t say who gave the order. A senior U.S. official told Reuters it wasn’t Trump.

Speeds were capped at about 100 mph. That knocked out the drones Ukraine uses to hit targets in occupied territory and to shoot down Russia’s jet-powered attack drones. A Zelensky adviser said “several” missions were severely disrupted.

Elon Musk had already said whose call it was. Any limits, he posted, “are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.”

On Thursday, Trump told reporters Zelensky is “not a good guy for (the U.S.) to deal with.”

Ukraine isn’t waiting on him. It resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries after a three-day pause for Trump’s “energy ceasefire,” while Russia kept hitting Ukraine’s power grid.

Someone in the White House slowed down Ukraine’s drones. Nobody there will say who.

A 16-year-old forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon by shooting at locked doors, police said.

He killed three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher. A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher are in critical condition.

The first call came in at 12:59 p.m., about a shot fired into a car outside the school. Police Chief Mike Krantz said a community member chased the shooter into the building and shot him. He was dead when officers arrived.

Gov. Tina Kotek thanked the person who “heroically intervened to stop further loss of life.”

We’re holding the families in Bend in our hearts this morning.

JD Vance came to Monroe, Michigan, on Thursday to campaign for Republican Mike Rogers, and spent a good chunk of his 30-minute speech on Abdul El-Sayed.

He called the Democrat “a little weasel who should shut his mouth” and “show a little gratitude to the country that gave him everything.”

Michigan, Vance said, “belongs to those who love the United States of America,” not those who hate it.

A few hours later, El-Sayed was in Marquette with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in front of more than 1,200 people at Northern Michigan University.

“JD Vance called me a little weasel today,” he said.

“No, what you’re talking about is a f---ing wolverine.”

El-Sayed went to the University of Michigan. “You could take your Buckeye and go shove it somewhere else,” he told the Ohio senator.

Then he went after the trip itself. Vance “invited the five people who like him,” El-Sayed said. “Imagine being the candidate for Michigan and having to invite somebody from Ohio to campaign for you.”

One candidate needed a guy from Ohio. The other filled an arena in the Upper Peninsula.

James Talarico raised $64 million in three months, the biggest quarter on record for a Senate candidate in any state. His campaign says 97% of the donations were for less than $100.

Ken Paxton raised $18 million, his best quarter of the race. Talarico more than tripled it.

By Thursday night, Trump had his excuse ready. If Paxton loses, he posted, it’s the fault of “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks” like John Cornyn and Karl Rove.

Cornyn, who lost the May primary to Paxton, has called him a “bad candidate” and won’t raise money for him. Rove has said that “if John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over.”

Even Fox’s Jesse Watters said there’s “something off-putting” about Paxton, and a “whiff of corruption” around him.

In the governor’s race, Democrat Gina Hinojosa held her own debate outside the Governor’s Mansion in Austin after Greg Abbott turned down four of them.

“If Greg Abbott is not man enough to debate me, then he does not deserve to be the governor of Texas,” she said.

If you vote in Texas, early voting starts Monday and runs through Oct. 30.

Trump picked Paxton over Cornyn. Now Cornyn is the reason Paxton is losing.

A week after backing Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream a firing squad, Trump says the execution won’t be streamed.

Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan “will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump posted Thursday.

Streaming “might have been a strong deterrent,” he wrote, but “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die.” Victims’ families can watch in person.

That was most of the country. A Washington Post poll found about 80% of Americans opposed the livestream.

Thom Tillis called it “beyond disgusting.” GOP Rep. Austin Scott said livestreaming executions “is what jihadists do.” Mike Johnson worried it would become “a recruiting tool for future terrorists.” The archbishop for the military told Catholic troops not to take part.

Yesterday we asked you to tell Congress to ban public executions, and thank you to everyone who signed. This one died because enough people made noise. The next one should be illegal. Demand Congress ban public executions altogether!

U.S. District Judge Ramón Reyes Jr. dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against New York City’s sanctuary laws on Thursday.

The Justice Department sued in July 2025. It argued the city’s policies, first adopted in 1989, are preempted by federal law because they keep ICE from getting things like release dates.

Reyes found the government didn’t have standing. Then he added, “Even if the United States has standing — and it does not — its preemption claims fail.”

“There is nothing within federal law that obligates states to participate in federal immigration enforcement,” he wrote. He called the administration’s argument “a backdoor around the Tenth Amendment.”

“Neither New York City nor New York State will be bullied by the federal government to give up our rights and protections,” said Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigration Coalition.

The ruling came a week after ICE agents shot Oscar Belgal in his car in Marble Hill, with his 5-year-old son in the back seat.

The Tenth Amendment used to be conservatives’ favorite.

Illinois has now wiped out more than $1.4 billion in medical debt for 694,000 people, Gov. JB Pritzker’s office announced Thursday.

Nobody had to apply. People just got a letter in the mail telling them how much was gone. The average was about $1,200. One person had $900,000 erased.

The state put in $10 million. A nonprofit, Undue Medical Debt, buys up the debt from hospitals and cancels it. Households earning up to 400% of the federal poverty line qualify.

“Every penny that we put in relieves a dollar of debt,” Pritzker said.

Add Cook County’s program and it’s $2.4 billion for about 1.5 million people.

Remember when Abdul El-Sayed said he wants to erase all medical debt? Illinois just showed you the math.