Mountain Dew brings back a nostalgic logo — and its full name

In its latest brand update, Mountain Dew is aiming for nostalgia in its look — and name. The "MTN" abbreviation that has been on every Mountain Dew can and bottle label for the past 15 years will soon be a thing of the past as the company brings back the full word "Mountain" to its products.

How a new FDA warning revealed my beloved Mountain Dew is actually "healthier" than we all thought

“Born in the mountains, the distinctive citrus flavor of Mountain Dew propelled the brand to become a global cultural phenomenon, giving us a rich history to lean into as we reimagine the next 75 years of the brand," JP Bittencourt, the brand's vice president of marketing, shared with "Food & Wine." "Mountain Dew is reclaiming the mountain with a new logo and visual identity that is synonymous with adventure, celebrating the great outdoors and embracing the 'Dew the Dew' spirit.”

According to "Food & Wine's" Stacey Leasca, the new label will aim to "convey the soda's timeless, adventurous spirit and features what PepsiCo describes as 'relaxed angles' in citrus-inspired colors to 'evoke the refreshing taste of drinking a can of Dew' out in the wilderness with your buddies." The new label will also include the year 1948, noting when the brand was first officially established.

Umi Patel, the Vice President of consumer insights and analytics at PepsiCo Beverages North America, said the new visual identity "tested positively and drove positive purchase intent across DEW loyalists, Gen Z and millennial consumers."

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Anne Hathaway apologizes to journalist known for string of viral awkward interviews

Kjersti Flaa, the Norwegian journalist who made headlines not too long ago after a clip resurfaced of her receiving double-barrelled stink eyes from Blake Lively and Parker Posey during a 2016 interview in which Flaa congratulates Lively on her baby bump, is digging back into her cringe archives to air out another celebrity, Anne Hathaway.

This time around, the already viral clip that is helping keep Flaa's name a topic of public discourse centers on a 12-year-old interview with Hathaway meant to promote the actor's role in "Les Misérables," where Flaa is seen squandering her brief junket slot by asking her interview subject to sing her answers.

"Well, I won't be doing that, but you're more than welcome to sing," was Hathaway's response to that request, punctuated with a sip from a glass of water, meme style.

Here's the "It Ends With Us" controversy people aren’t talking about

And while Flaa is still waiting for an earnest apology from Lively for that 2016 interview, she did get one from Hathaway, albeit many many years after the fact.

“She sent me a long email explaining to me what she was going through right then and she apologized for giving me an awful interview,” Flaa said in a recent update. “It was so touching to me, just talking about it makes me almost teary-eyed. I was just so grateful that she did that. It was a very personal note.”

One would think, at this point, that Flaa would use this as an opportunity to tighten up her interview questions but, based on her viral status, it seems like she's making this a thing.

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Is TikTok right? Can adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your coffee help you burn fat?

Cinnamon has been long used around the world in both sweet and savory dishes and drinks.

But a new TikTok trend claims adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your daily coffee (and some cocoa to make it more palatable) for one week can help you burn fat. Is there any truth to this?

Not all cinnamon is the same

There are two types of cinnamon, both of which come from grinding the bark of the cinnamomum tree and may include several naturally occurring active ingredients.

Cassia cinnamon is the most common type available in grocery stores. It has a bitter taste and contains higher levels of one of the active ingredient cinnamaldehyde, a compound that gives cinnamon its flavor and odor. About 95% of cassia cinnamon is cinnamaldehyde.

The other is Ceylon cinnamon, which tastes sweeter. It contains about 50-60% cinnamaldehyde.

Does cinnamon burn fat? What does the research say?

A review of 35 studies examined whether consuming cinnamon could affect waist circumference, which is linked to increased body fat levels. It found cinnamon doses below 1.5 grams per day (around half a teaspoon) decreased waist circumference by 1.68cm. However, consuming more than 1.5g/day did not have a significant effect.

A meta-analysis of 21 clinical trials with 1,480 total participants found cinnamon also reduced body mass index (BMI) by 0.40kg/m² and body weight by 0.92kg. But it did not change the participants' composition of fat or lean mass.

Another umbrella review, which included all the meta-analyses, found a small effect of cinnamon on weight loss. Participants lost an average of 0.67kg and reduced their BMI by 0.45kg/m².

So overall, the weight loss we see from these high-quality studies is very small, ranging anywhere from two to six months and mostly with no change in body composition.

The studies included people with different diseases, and most were from the Middle East and/or the Indian subcontinent. So we can't be certain we would see this effect in people with other health profiles and in other countries. They were also conducted over different lengths of time from two to six months.

The supplements were different, depending on the study. Some had the active ingredient extracted from cinnamon, others used cinnamon powder. Doses varied from 0.36g to 10g per day.

They also used the two different types of cinnamon – but none of the studies used cinnamon from the grocery store.

How could cinnamon result in small amounts of weight loss?

There are several possible mechanisms.

It appears to allow blood glucose (sugar) to enter the body's cells more quickly. This lowers blood glucose levels and can make insulin work more effectively.

It also seems to improve the way we break down fat when we need it for energy.

Finally, it may make us feel fuller for longer by slowing down how quickly the food is released from our stomach into the small intestine.

What are the risks?

Cinnamon is generally regarded as safe when used as a spice in cooking and food.

However, in recent months the United States and Australia have issued health alerts about the level of lead and other heavy metals in some cinnamon preparations.

Lead enters as a contaminant during growth (from the environment) and in harvesting. In some cases, it has been suggested there may have been intentional contamination.

Some people can have side effects from cinnamon, including gastrointestinal pain and allergic reactions.

One of the active ingredients, coumarin, can be toxic for some people's livers. This has prompted the European Food Authority to set a limit of 0.1mg/kg of body weight.

Cassia cinnamon contains up to 1% of coumarin, and the Ceylon variety contains much less, 0.004%. So for people weighing above 60kg, 2 teaspoons (6g) of cassia cinnamon would bring them over the safe limit.

What about the coffee and cocoa?

Many people may think coffee can also help us lose weight. However there isn't good evidence to support this yet.

An observational study found drinking one cup of regular coffee was linked to a reduction in weight that is gained over four years, but by a very small amount: an average of 0.12kg.

Good-quality cocoa and dark chocolate have also been shown to reduce weight. But again, the weight loss was small (between 0.2 and 0.4kg) and only after consuming it for four to eight weeks.

So what does this all mean?

Using cinnamon may have a very small effect on weight, but it's unlikely to deliver meaningful weight loss without other lifestyle adjustments.

We also need to remember these trials used products that differ from the cinnamon we buy in the shops. How we store and how long we keep cinnamon might also impact or degrade the active ingredients.

And consuming more isn't going to provide additional benefit. In fact, it could increase your risk of side effects.

So if you enjoy the taste of cinnamon in your coffee, continue to add it, but given its strong taste, you're likely to only want to add a little.

And no matter how much we'd like this to be true, we certainly won't gain any fat-loss benefits by consuming cinnamon on doughnuts or in buns, due to their high kilojoule count.

If you want to lose weight, there are evidence-backed approaches that won't spoil your morning coffee.

Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

McDonald’s files suit against the “Big Four” beef companies, alleging a “price-fixing scheme”

Fast food juggernaut McDonald's is suing Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company and their subsidiaries, the Associated Press reports. The company is "alleging a price fixing scheme for beef specifically" and has filed a federal complaint in New York that "accused the companies of anticompetitive measures such as collectively limiting supply to boost prices and charge 'illegally inflated amounts,'" according to the publication.

When combined, Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef control more than 80% of the U.S. beef market.

McDonald’s attempts to get ahead in the ongoing “value meal wars” with an all-new supersized burger

McDonald's alleges that this has been ongoing since possibly 2015 and has resulted in "a monopoly in which direct purchasers were forced to buy at prices dictated by [the meat packers]."

The AP notes that in recent years, both JBS and Tyson agreed to multi-million dollar settlements "after facing class-action claims that alleged purposely inflated chicken prices." These settlements, however, did not include any "admissions of wrongdoing."

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Ethel Kennedy, human rights advocate and widow of Robert F. Kennedy, dies at 96

Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, died on Thursday after suffering a stroke last week. She was 96 years old.

The news was confirmed on X by her grandson, Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman from Massachusetts now serving as the U.S. special envoy to Ireland.

"Along with a lifetime's work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly," the post said.

Robert Kennedy, improbable liberal hero

Mrs. Kennedy was born in Chicago in 1928 to a wealthy Catholic family and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was 17 years old when she met Mr. Kennedy, who was dating her sister at the time. They married in 1950, just a few years before his brother John F. Kennedy entered electoral politics.

Mrs. Kennedy was an energetic advocate for the family and in particular her husband, who served as Attorney General in his brother's administration, then as a U.S. Senator and then, at her urging, challenged then-incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson and other rivals for the Democratic nomination in 1968. Johnson dropped out in March of that year, and Mr. Kennedy was on the cusp of victory in June when Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed him in a Los Angeles hotel.

In the funerary events that ensued, Mrs. Kennedy gamely planned ceremonies and received well-wishers in the public eye, showing unabated grief only in private. That set the pattern for the rest of a life punctuated by visits to her husband's grave, but otherwise largely absent of comments over Mr. Kennedy's death — except, notably, her opposition to granting Sirhan Sirhan parole in 2023.

Mrs. Kennedy received a flood of goodwill from a sympathetic nation, which named her "America's most admired woman" in a Gallup poll that year.

Four months after the assassination, Mrs. Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation, which commemorates her husband's memory and supports human rights programs around the world. In October of that year, she gave birth to her 11th and last child, Rory.

More tragedies and shocks followed — her son David died of a drug overdose in 1984, and another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident in 1997. Rory's wedding in 1999 was shaken by the news that Mrs. Kennedy's nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn died in a plane crash en route to the event. Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was imprisoned for more than a decade for killing a 15-year-old neighbor in the 1970s. The conviction was overturned in 2018.

In addition to her work with the human rights center, Mrs. Kennedy co-chaired the Coalition of Gun Control, marched in labor demonstrations and led projects that helped restore neighborhoods stricken with poverty. She also continued to be a fixture in Washington's social and diplomatic circles. In 2014, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"Ethel has been a force for change in her quiet, unflashy, unstoppable way," Obama said at the ceremony. "As her family will tell you – and they basically occupy this half of the room – you don’t mess with Ethel."

about the Kennedys

Geomagnetic storm brings auroras, risk of power outages Thursday and Friday night

From the Quebec Blackout of 1989 to the historically intense Carrington Event 140 years earlier, geomagnetic storms are often memorable and spectacular events. This is why skygazers are excited about the recent news of an impending geomagnetic storm that will occur on Thursday evening and Friday evening, producing colorful auroras from northern California to Alabama. Though such storms are safe to view, they do carry some risk: possible widespread power outages.

The geomagnetic storm is expected to be a G4 class, according to the scale used by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). This is the second-highest level on the SWPC scale used to measure geomagnetic storms.

Scientists recreate conditions of Saturnian moon in a lab — and it could help us find alien life

Known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), the solar outburst was created by a solar flare which erupted from our Sun on Tuesday evening. This means that tangled magnetic-field lines on the Sun suddenly snapped back into place. Like a whip hitting a ball of cream, the lash effect has ejected some of the Sun’s matter toward the Earth’s atmosphere. These types of events usually take place during the solar maximum, or a period of peak activity in the Sun’s 11-year cycle. While astronomers previously anticipated the Sun’s solar maximum would begin next year, the new CME causes some to believe it has already started.

Officially described as "severe," the G4 classification signifies that the geomagnetic storm could cause widespread voltage control programs in power grids, with some protection systems tripping out important assets during the event. The geomagnetic storm may also interfere with spacecraft operations — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk infamously flew 40 of his satellites into a geomagnetic storm in 2022 — particularly by causing tracking and surface charging problems. The geomagnetic storm could also disrupt satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation, as well as cause damage to “critical infrastructure technology.”

Yet the geomagnetic storm will also put on a beautiful show, with skies suffused in hues of green, red, pink and other colors. As a bonus, the geomagnetic storm is coinciding with the passing of the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (official name: C/2023 A3). Since late September and through mid-October, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has been visible along the eastern horizon in certain parts of the world. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is usually invisible without a telescope, but for the next few days can be viewed with the naked eye. This will not be possible again for 80,000 years.

about space

“Three Women” from the page to our TV screens: Lisa Taddeo expands our view of desire

We expect stories of first kisses to be singular and unforgettable because that’s what movies and books taught us to expect. “Three Women” author Lisa Taddeo points to two incidents: “Because I don't know, my memory is so spotty,” she said.

Taddeo told me that her first may have been in Italy when she was around 12. That was the one she doesn’t remember in much detail other than it was with a beautiful, kind, red-haired young man named Massimiliano in a hay field in her mother's hometown. "And it was light and nothing, no tongue, and it was beautiful, it was 'The Princess Bride,'" she said, adding that it feels like such a figment that Taddeo doesn’t even remember how it happened.

The second one, the kiss Taddeo calls the real one, closes memory’s distance with sharper edges, and there was no hero whispering, “As you wish.” She was 16 or 17, and she’d just dyed her hair for the first time and went to a party where a guy just started kissing her. “I didn't want that kiss, but I was also like, 'Oh, at least now this will be my first real kiss,' so it was confusing.”

“I have this beautiful memory that was weighed down by this gross memory,” she concluded, “and I feel like that's a very, very female response.”

I don’t typically ask personal questions of those I interview, but the 10-episode series adaptation of Taddeo’s 2019 book contains so many scenes that are staged and framed from a place of profound knowing. (Taddeo wrote or co-wrote five of its episodes.)

The sex scene isn’t disappearing — it’s simply shifting from clichéd fantasy to messy reality

The one inspiring my question is a character’s flashback to her first kiss outside a movie theater. Every detail is cut crystal – the titles on the marquee, the amber cast from the crowd of small lights. When the kiss happens, the boy spins the girl; the bright globes blur into honeyed sparkles. An exiting crowd filters around the pair, but for them, time has stopped.

It’s a brief rewind, but it holds another type of weight than what Taddeo recalls.

That memory belongs to a woman named Lina, played by Betty Gilpin, and it steadies her. Lina's marriage has deteriorated to a degree that her husband tells her that “kissing me gives him the heebie-jeebies the way wet wool does.”

We meet Lina at the three-month and 17-day mark of not being touched at all by her husband, which has driven her to take matters into her own hands — innuendo intended. That movie house memory pulls her back to her first love, pushing her to a new chapter where pleasure doesn’t come second to wifely sacrifice.

“I don't know if we've ever truly kissed,” Lina says. “It's important. It's the most important thing in the world to me.”

Taddeo’s book and the series do something too rare in literature and TV, centering the stories of women’s desire and everything encapsulated in that idea – bliss, emptiness, joy, agony. All of it, and never simply one thing.

Lina’s is one of four stories “Three Women” explores, including Gia’s. Like the book, the drama captures a spectrum of archetypes and definitions of how desire appears in life, which isn't uniformly rosy.

DeWanda Wise’s Sloane, for example, is a wealthy East Coast event planner and influencer whose husband (Blair Underwood) is turned on by watching her with other sexual partners. But their agreement chafes against a deep-seated resentment of restriction, and a lifetime of being dismissed and misunderstood has left her lonely and prone to self-harm.

A young North Dakota woman named Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy) is frozen after high school, combing through her relationship with a popular teacher (Jason Ralph) who abruptly cut her off. In its aftermath, she realizes it was exploitative and decides to report it to the police and go public.

Although the drama travels into dark emotional spaces, it’s still the sexiest show on TV that isn’t expressly about sex. Like the affection Lina yearns for, its main fuel is a yearning for intimacy.

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“Three Women” was originally published in 2019 after #MeToo lost steam but also in a time of rearranging how popular culture considers female characters. Any character that wasn’t featured in a novel by Elena Ferrante or Natalia Ginzburg, Taddeo remembers, was some version of plucky and fun, with some physical flaw differentiating her from classic beauties. She wanted to present other profiles.

“I really do think that in fiction, there has been an incremental shift away from that, that I find to be incredibly promising,” the author said. “Not to say that we don't still want those plucky characters who, you know, they exist. They're real women too. I don't know as many of them, but that could just be what I attract. I attract fellow dark souls, not plucky heroines.”

She continued, “But it’s just about who feels adequate enough to tell their story. And the truth is that everybody should feel important enough to tell their story . . .We're used to men being swashbuckling pirates who go away and do the hero's journey but a woman doing the same thing needs to be, you know, extra self-aggrandizing.”

Or, as a famous author tells the show’s fictional version of Taddeo, called Gia (Shailene Woodley), they need to have a lot of sex with married men to gain stories worth telling.

“Three Women” is about how women have sex and want sex, and whenever we say those words about a TV series another famous title tends to come to mind. But this is not “Sex and the City” any more than Taddeo can be likened to a certain non-existent Manhattan author (even if Woodley sports a similarly tousled mane).

Taddeo’s and Gia’s story is expansive, the result of spending most of a decade crisscrossing the country to find her subjects, sometimes staying in their towns to wring every drop out of their accounts.

Starz’s drama reflects that through broad airy shots of the open road and varied landscapes – the luxe green of Rhode Island, the spare chill of North Dakota, and the hay-spun softness of Indiana, where Lina lives and is dying to truly live.

The depictions of sex are explicit but meaningful and conscientiously presented. Similar care is taken in showing women’s bodies – men’s too, but women’s especially. Bloodstains on sheets and towels are framed as shameful, dirty, or accidental. One scene makes it part of Lina’s erotic awakening. This is not coincidental; every episode is directed by a woman.

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The TV version of “Three Women” was originally set to air on Showtime but, in 2023 the premium channel announced it would not air the completed production. Then Starz swooped in. Even so, the drama premiered in Australia first before finally making its U.S. debut early last month.

Five episodes into the season, full episodes have been devoted to each character’s story – more than enough to get a sense of how varied these women are along with their commonalities.

Taddeo once told Salon that she wrote the book “to show that women don't talk about their desire enough.” In the way of all screen adaptations, though, the meaning of stories shifts when we’re able to see them play out before our eyes.

“What I hope this show and the book do is to remind [us] genuinely not to judge other people,” she said, “to look at a representation of someone's shame and desire and not attack it, but receive it and go, ‘Oh, I am like that too.’”

New episodes of "Three Women" air 10 p.m. Fridays on Starz and on the Starz app.

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“There will be no rematch!”: Trump says he won’t even debate Harris on Fox News

Former President Donald Trump reiterated on his Truth Social platform Wednesday that he won't debate Vice President Kamala Harris, providing a list of excuses for why he would be declining Fox News' invitation for another showdown.

"There will be no rematch!" the 78-year-old wrote, rejecting a chance to recover from his disastrous first debate, even on a friendly network.

Fox News had offered up mainstay anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier to moderate a debate in Pennsylvania on Oct. 24 or 27, saying in a statement that it “would present an opportunity for each candidate to make their closing arguments." But Trump, who has held a grudge against both anchors and is annoyed at the network for what he claims is insufficiently positive coverage, insisted that voters did not need to hear from him again in a prime-time debate.

Republicans are drowning in Donald Trump's lies

Trump, writing in capital letters, claimed that it was already "LATE" in the process with early voting underway; that Harris turned down a Fox News debate in early September that he had proposed instead of their meeting on ABC; and that there was no point in debating the Democratic nominee because she said on "The View" that she, in Trump's paraphrasing, "WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM JOE BIDEN."

CNN also proposed a late October debate that Harris has accepted, but Trump rejected that one too. According to the Republican nominee, there's no need because, he falsely claimed, he was the consensus winner

"I AM ALSO LEADING IN THE POLLS, WITH THE LEAD GETTING BIGGER BY THE DAY – AND LEADING IN ALL SWING STATES. THE FIRST THING A PRIZEFIGHTER DOES WHEN HE LOSES A FIGHT IS SAY THAT HE 'DEMANDS A REMATCH,'" he wrote. In fact, polling averages show Harris ahead in most swing states that decided the 2020 contest between Trump and President Joe Biden.

about the 2024 campaign

Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton leading the charge in celebrity hurricane disaster relief donations

As the South continues to be battered by its second hurricane in two weeks, celebrities like Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton are mobilizing their resources to donate to hurricane relief funds for impacted people.

Reuters reported that Swift donated $5 million to the food nonprofit Feeding America to alleviate some of the pain of the storms' destruction across the Southern States.

In a statement, Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot says that Swift's "generous $5 million donation” will be used to “help communities rebuild and recover, providing essential food, clean water and supplies to people affected by these devastating storms.”

Taylor Swift donates $100k to family of woman killed at Chiefs parade

Babineaux-Fontenot continued, "Together, we can make a real impact in supporting families as they navigate the challenges ahead. Thank you, Taylor, for standing with us in the movement to end hunger and helping communities in need."

Country music's matriarch, Parton personally donated $1 million for relief efforts after Hurricane Helene. Parton donated to a nonprofit called Mountain Ways Foundation that provides flood relief across the Appalachian region. Alongside her personal donation, her Dollywood partners contributed another $1 million, CBS News reported.

"God has been good to me and so has the public, and I feel that if there's anything I can do to give back in any way I can I'm always willing to do that. I want to feel like I'm doing my part," Parton said.

Other musicians like country music's biggest stars Keith Urban, Luke Combs and Eric Church have also organized a star-studded concert benefit called "Concert for Carolina" on Oct. 26. Even singer Morgan Wallen gathered supplies for people at a food drive in Knoxville, Tennessee Wednesday. He also donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief.

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“It’s so stupid”: Biden slams Marjorie Taylor Greene’s suggestion that he can “control the weather”

President Joe Biden tore into Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for insinuating that the hurricanes battering the southeast United States, far from being natural phenomena, were actually manufactured by the federal government. Such misinformation, he said, risks further endangering lives and provoking division as his administration works to mitigate damage and send relief to affected areas.

“It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop, moments like this, there are no red or blue states,” Biden said at virtual briefing Wednesday about Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida later that evening. He began the briefing with an overview of the hurricane's projected path before addressing comments made by Greene and her conspiratorial allies, which earned ridicule and condemnation by Florida Republicans as well.

Hurricane Milton is a major disaster — and more super-storms could be coming

“The last few weeks, there’s been a reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies,” Biden said. “It’s undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken. It’s harmful to those who need help the most.”

Greene last week told her 1.2 million X followers that, "Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done." She later posted a meme with a list of patents to suggest "they" do indeed have the technology to manipulate the climate.

Biden ridiculed the notion Wednesday.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather,” Biden said. “We’re controlling the weather. It’s beyond ridiculous.”

He also called out former President Donald Trump for fanning the flames with a set of falsehoods that include false claims of Biden "sleeping" during the hurricanes and his government redirecting FEMA money to house undocumented immigrants.

"Assertions have been made that property is being confiscated. That’s simply not true,” Biden confirmed, referring to another lie spread by Trump. “They’re saying people impacted by these storms will receive $750 in cash and no more. That’s simply not true. They’re saying the money needed for this crisis is being diverted to migrants. What a ridiculous thing to say. It’s not true.”

When a reporter asked Biden why Trump was making those claims, the president shook his head, telling the pool: "I simply don’t know. You can speculate, but I just find it — I’ve used the phrase more than I’ve used it ever my whole career — un-American.”

Later on Wednesday, Greene issued a clarification that offered little insight. “Everyone keeps asking, ‘who is they?’” she wrote on X. “Well some of them are listed on NOAA,” a reference to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a federal agency that forecasts the weather. A community note clarified that, beyond small-scale operations like cloud seeding to create local rain, no human effort can directly manipulate weather events like hurricanes. Global warming caused by emissions and other long-term human activity, however, certainly can.

about extreme weather events

CNN’s Anderson Cooper struck with debris while reporting on Hurricane Milton

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was hit by an unidentified object while reporting on Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida late Wednesday, causing widespread damage and power outages.

Cooper was standing on a riverwalk next to the Manatee River just off the coast in Brandeton, Florida, resisting sheets of rain and 100 mph winds as he updated viewers on the storm's progress.

How hurricanes turn political: All eyes on Trump and Harris amid deadly storms

"The wind has really picked up,” he said at around 9 p.m. ET. “The water’s really moving. You can get a sense of just how fast the wind is moving there. You can see it in the light there. It is now just whipping off the Manatee River. It’s coming from kind of the north, I guess northeast. And the water now is really starting to pour over. If you look at the graph – whoa!"

Cooper's report was interrupted by a white, square-shaped object that shot out from the bottom of the screen and hit him on the face and chest. The CNN anchor took a second to recover, then suggested that he and the crew would take cover soon. "Ok, that wasn’t good," he said. “I’ll probably go inside shortly. But you can see the amount of water here on the ground. This is water from the Manatee River. It’s also water coming from the land as well.”

Journalists sent in harm's way to report extreme weather for their network's viewers often fall victim to those flying objects. In 2022, Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was struck by a tree branch while reporting on Hurricane Ian. Four years before that, a sheet of metal flew into Houston reporter Ted Oberg while he reported on Hurricane Florence.

about Hurricane Milton

“Can I talk about water?”: Kari Lake dodges election question at “messy” Arizona Senate debate

Kari Lake lost in 2022 when she ran for Arizona governor, falling short by some 17,000 votes. Like her ally Donald Trump, she has spent almost every day since claiming that she won.

But on Wednesday night, Lake, who has significantly fallen behind her Democratic opponent in the polls, didn’t want to talk about the past.

“Can you finally tell the people of Arizona: Did you win or lose that election?” Rep. Ruben Gallego, Lake’s Democratic rival for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat, asked during the pair’s first and only debate.

New poll shows Gallego defeating Lake by whopping 15-point margin in Arizona Senate race

Gallego posed the question during a discussion about climate change, something — the consensus that the Earth is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions — that Lake has dismissed as fake science (“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she previously said about the topic. “I’m not going to be afraid of the weather.”). But, trailing by double digits in several recent polls, Lake opted to return to the climate query rather than address the question that her opponent put to her.

“Can I talk about water really quickly?” she asked. “Because I thought we were gonna do water.”

“Please, talk about water,” one of the moderators replied.

Post by @american_bridge

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Up to that point, Lake had gone on about fraud — in her own race and in 2020 — to the point that even the former president was making fun of it, as Politico’s Meridith McGraw reported over the summer. “It doesn’t matter what you ask Kari Lake about,” she quoted Trump as saying about his MAGA ally in the Copper State. “How’s your family?’ And she’s like, ‘The family’s fine but they’re never going to be great until we have free and fair elections.”

Trump was another sore point at Wednesday’s debate. Polling well ahead of Lake in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris, “it seems like Donald Trump doesn’t want to campaign with her anymore,” Gallego charged. “He’s not allowing her pictures on any of her billboards.” (For his part, Gallego is distancing himself from Harris, not appearing at her recent rallies and telling NBC News he’s running “independently” of her campaign.)

Lake’s retort: “President Trump, my good friend, has called me ‘Border Kari.’ I love the nickname, and I’m going to go there to Washington, DC, and help him build that border wall and secure the border.”

But bogus claims of election fraud have been so central to Lake’s public persona that she dabbled in it even as she sought to deflect questions on the subject. Gallego accused her of trying to disenfranchise Arizona voters by denying her 2022 loss and Trump’s 2020 defeat: “How could you trust someone like that who’s willing to lie to you all the way to the end?"

Lake could not help but take the bait. She “never lied to the people of Arizona,” Lake asserted, before citing voter concerns over the lies she’s told —“about hiccups and loopholes and problems that happen on Election Day” — as reason to continue discussing allegations that have been thoroughly investigated and debunked.

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Like Republicans elsewhere, though, Lake would prefer to talk about immigrants behaving badly, despite studies repeatedly showing they commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. She brought up the murder of a 22-year-old in Georgia, allegedly by an immigrant from Venezuela, as reason to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We want to be able to go for a jog in the morning like Laken Riley did and not have to worry about being killed, raped and murdered,” she said.

We also, Lake added later, “want to make sure UVF [sic] is protected.” Coming during a discussion of abortion and reproductive rights, Lake was presumably referring to in vitro fertilzation, not a loyalist paramilitary in Northern Ireland. It was a mistake she would continue to make.

“I have many friends who are here, they’re my friends today because of UVF. And I have many of my friends who have had children and experienced the joy of motherhood and parenthood because of UVF,” Lake said.

In 2022, when she lost the governor’s race, Lake had celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade and praised an 1864 state law that banned most abortions. In 2024, like Trump, she is campaigning as a moderate on bodily autonomy.

Wednesday night’s gaffe had critics questioning the sincerity of that pivot.

“Kari Lake cares so little about women’s reproductive health that it’s *IVF* at risk by her party, not *UVF.*,” commented Alexandra De Luca, vice president of strategic communications at the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. “Messy!”

about the Arizona politics

Small Business Administration disaster loan program running out of money

A loan program for businesses and residents affected by disasters could run out of funding in a few weeks, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The SBA said its disaster loan program is likely to be depleted before the end of October. In a statement issued Saturday, the SBA urged Congress to comply with President Joe Biden's request to replenish funding. Congress is scheduled to reconvene in mid-November.

Climate change is jacking up insurance costs. Freak hurricanes like Helene only make it worse

The SBA has been serving people affected by Hurricane Helene in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia in late September. Hurricane Milton dealt another blow to Florida on Wednesday.

The agency said it would continue helping borrowers with initial processing and servicing their loans, but "if funding lapses, all new offers will be held back and delayed until program funding is replenished."

“We look forward to working with Congress to secure the federal resources necessary to ensure the SBA can continue funding affordable disaster loans for homeowners, renters, small businesses, and nonprofits. Americans should not have to wait for critical assistance when they need it the most," SBA Secretary Isabel Casillas Guzman said.

The agency offers low-interest loans of up to $500,000 for homeowners. Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $100,000, and businesses can apply for loans up to $2 million.

about personal finance

Natural disasters leave fertile ground for MAGA’s exploitation

It has been an interesting and tiresome week in the news. Time to recap.

Donald Trump made loving phone calls to Vladimir Putin after he left office. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump's favorite sycophants in the House of Representatives, believes people have nothing to do with climate change, but also believes the Democrats are secretly steering hurricanes. The Georgia congresswoman is also the same woman who doesn’t believe in science, so I guess she thinks the Democrats possess mad wizard skills.

Vice President Kamala Harris likes Miller High Life beer. Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson like to joke about killing Harris. Musk also showed up in small-town Pennsylvania to imitate a cheerleader at a Trump rally.

But the real annoying part of this week’s pushback from the Trump camp was Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson sitting down on a television set and joking about the foolishness of killing Harris because another “puppet” would simply take her place.

Members of the GOP who voted to limit FEMA funding now claim FEMA hasn’t done enough in areas ravaged by weather. Meanwhile, other Republicans from the ravaged areas have debunked their colleagues’ misinformation.

Trump wouldn’t sit down for an interview with "60 Minutes." Harris did. Now Trump wants the CBS show investigated for edited promotions of the interview.

Meanwhile, Florida is suffering from a second deadly hurricane while FEMA tries to fend off accusations that the agency doesn’t care about survivors and Gov. Ron DeSantis refuses to answer Vice President Kamala Harris’ phone calls.

The expanding war in the Middle East still isn’t expanding, according to our government — even as Gaza is basically leveled and parts of Beirut are starting to look like Gaza.

The flat earth has a new moon for the next six weeks.

How hurricanes turn political

JD Vance continues to cry about being fact-checked while doubling down on his lies, while right-wing media political polls show Donald Trump “running away” with the election. Left-wing polls show Harris winning and for some reason, there are still “undecided” voters out there who could make a difference in the election, now only a few weeks away.

Never mind that, though: Trump has made it clear he won’t accept any election results other than those that put him back in the White House, while Harris' critics say she laughs too much.

Did I miss anything?

Talk to most people these days, whether they're inside or outside politics, and you will hear people bemoan their plight, saying how exhausted they are. The drain on our country from political divisiveness is frustrating even if you’re not directly involved in it. “I’m worn out,” Mary Trump said Tuesday at the beginning of her “Nerd Avengers” show. I understand the sentiment.

On any given day, if you’re inside the bubble, you have to explain to people who should know better the latest efforts of disinformation and misinformation spread by Trump, his obviously unknowing supporters and the vast, militant stupidity that constitutes corporate media.

Trump attacked FEMA's response to Hurricane Helene, complicating efforts to assist those who are now trying to live through Hurricane Milton. Trump lied and claimed Biden didn’t try to contact the governor of Georgia. He lied about a biased response to the hurricane from Democrats. He lied when he said Biden had received “universally” bad reviews for assisting people suffering from Helene.

He also lied when he said Harris diverted FEMA funds to house migrants. FEMA had to launch a website to explain these falsehoods. FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell had to take time out of disaster preparation to go on CNN and other media outlets to call out the lies Trump spread. That actually takes time and energy away from her primary responsibility – helping people. Criswell said there were more than “3,400 members” of the federal family, which includes FEMA, already on the ground assisting people, and that Trump’s lies make people fearful of FEMA. That fear, she said, could “keep them from registering for aid” they could get from the government.

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Trump also lied about residents only getting $750 and claimed that a billion dollars has gone “missing” from FEMA.

All of this takes more energy to combat than it took Trump to spread such malicious lies. Ultimately it only hurts those who need the help the most – but like most grifters, Trump doesn’t care.

The real danger for the survivors of the storms begins during cleanup. Years ago, I put together an investigative series for “America’s Most Wanted” following a devastating hurricane in Florida. Trump-like grifters made their way across the state pretending to be in the remodeling and construction business. They took cash down payments from homeowners who had received insurance settlements to rebuild their property. The contractors then vanished. It will happen again and because people fall for Trump’s lies, he’s made the ground fertile for those grifters who follow like parasites in the wake of natural disasters.

But Trump isn’t the only problem.

Veteran Washington journalist Bob Woodward apparently had information about Trump that he sat on until he could write a book. It was information that could be argued is vital for voters to have in their possession. In his latest book, which I refuse to promote and thus won’t name, Woodward claimed that Trump secretly sent Putin COVID testing kits during the time when they were scarce in the U.S. He also claimed Trump has had several conversations with Putin since he left office. Trump denies this, and his minions have called Woodward demented and deranged. Putin didn’t deny the COVID tests, however, and Woodward withheld all of this until it was economically advantageous for him to release it.

These are serious allegations with the implication that Donald Trump is a traitor to the United States. That Woodward would sit on this for any length of time at all says more about his motives, and thus gives Trump the ability to question the information – which he did immediately.

Meanwhile, Harris continues her curious strategy of not holding press conferences. Trump holds them, but only with friendly reporters. Harris, on the other hand, sat down for an interview with "60 Minutes," then appeared with Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show.” She laughed, shared a beer with Colbert and spoke casually before calling Trump a loser to a host of cheers. Trump’s people went nuts, of course. They really didn’t like the quip that maybe she should have more beer. Trump himself screamed about it, just as he ranted for the need of an investigation after “60 Minutes” edited a comment Harris offered about war in the Middle East. On Truth Social, he claimed it was the worst interview ever and that Harris was edited to look more presidential while she was incoherent and babbling.

Never mind that he constantly babbles, wouldn’t sit for an interview with “60 Minutes” at all and lies constantly. Again, we had to spend time cleaning up a mess that Donald Trump created. News magazines always edit interviews. Hell, Trump’s interviews have been edited. You have to edit him just for him to make any sense. And “60 Minutes” still adheres to very high standards, so the comments weren’t edited to benefit Harris. Trump lied again to push back against Harris — and against the obvious truth about his own cowardice. Anyway, Trump only knew about the editing because “60 Minutes” made the entire transcript and interview available online. In other words, they published the facts.

But the really annoying part of this week’s pushback from the Trump camp was Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson sitting down on a television set and joking about the foolishness of killing Harris because another “puppet” would simply take her place. Musk owns, arguably, the largest social media platform on the planet — though he’s trying hard to kill it — and those comments add to the fear factor of those who want a kinder, gentler nation. He also showed up at a Trump rally dancing like a cheerleader, a mental image that was enhanced by several memes showing him in a cheerleading skirt while thrusting pom-poms in the air.

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All this disinformation that Trump’s inner circle produces is pushed out as misinformation by his cult and the rabid followers who wish to make bank off the lunacy. It is a danger as they deny science, deny facts and continue to publish and promote fiction.

“It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and our species as well, if we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity,” Carl Sagan once warned. “We can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Renaissance.” Sagan remained hopeful that “our compassion, our intelligence and our technology and our wealth,” could instead make the world a paradise.

But paradise is indeed lost on Donald Trump and his cultists. The stark difference between the sum of our fears and the sum of our hopes has never been greater – and that's what is driving the exhaustion in all of society. Imagine being a meteorologist trying to inform the public about Hurricane Milton, only to face death threats from Trump supporters because of the disinformation he is spreading. It happened and it’s mind-numbing.

Whether you are dealing with Trump’s politics firsthand, or only absorbing it like second-hand smoke, passively and sometimes unwittingly, you are suffering.

Sure, it may feel like a bad acid flashback. Your ears are ringing. You’re tired. You’re irritable. You want to sleep and can’t. You want to eat but feel nauseated. You’re seeing tracers. Reality seems warped. You’re always tired. In short, you feel like you’re reliving the worst part of the '60s – even if you weren’t alive when they happened.

Relax. It’s just Donald Trump cultural irritable bowel syndrome. It's a serious condition brought about by listening to Trump, his minions and those who wish to make money selling his snake-oil elixirs at tent revivals across the nation. It leads to clouded thinking and the inability to separate fact from fiction when taken in large quantities. Symptoms of the condition include irritability, making death threats to complete strangers, screaming at relatives, arguing with mirrors, excessive weight gain, poor hygiene and mental confusion. There are several extreme examples of those suffering from Trump cultural IBS who cannot construct complete sentences and confuse science with magic. Throwing punches around and preaching from chairs while engaging in loud flatulence are also known symptoms.

But as Abraham Lincoln, the Bible and the ancient Persians said, “This too shall pass …”

Or, if you prefer; “See the bird with a leaf in her mouth. After the flood all the colors came out.”

You don’t need to sing like Bono to know that the final stages of Trump cultural IBS are about to pass and after November’s election we could be staring at a beautiful day. Then again, the whole country could look like Florida in the aftermath of two deadly hurricanes.

about this topic

Mending can extend the life of your wardrobe and wallet

Mending clothing is a smart way to make your wardrobe last longer, which can save money as well as keep clothing out of landfills.

“Your clothes don't have to be fancy or expensive to be 'worth' care and repair,” said Abby Seethoff, a Brooklyn-based writer who also offers clothing mending services.

You might think only high-end, well-constructed or expensive items can be salvaged, but Seethoff pointed out that mending “can slow down the disintegration of even a cheaply made shirt.”

“I have a Forever 21 shirt that I've had since high school,” said Seethoff, 30. “It has not fallen apart.” Instead of tossing the shirt when small holes tear through the old fabric, she fixes them — often with a technique called visible mending, which embellishes the garment rather than blending in.

“Some of my favorite socks are socks that are at this point more darn than sock,” she said, “and I think they look so beautiful.”

Do it yourself

Seethoff started mending during grad school, when she learned how to darn socks through a YouTube video.

“And I kid you not, my life changed,” she said. “I realized that darning is a technique that you can use on all kinds of things, not just socks.”

Darning — distinct from techniques such as sewing, knitting or embroidery — is a particular method of weaving strands of thread that creates a kind of built-in patch to cover a hole. Many people find it easier to learn than sewing, and it’s simple to start because it doesn’t require a machine. It can also be inexpensive; Seethoff recommends starting with embroidery floss, which is thicker and less expensive than many threads.

After the first few mends, Seethoff said, “I just got obsessed with fixing things. I fixed a bunch of my socks. I fixed my roommate’s socks. I fixed my friends’ socks. I fixed my then-partner’s socks. At one point, almost every sock he had I had worked on.”

Even cheaply made clothes can become some of your favorite items after you’ve contributed sweat equity to them.

“Caring for your clothes makes you love them more,” said Michelle Spencer, who DIYs her own clothing repairs.

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Spencer said it’s worth giving mending a try if you’ve never done it before. “Take your time and have a go.”

Both Spencer and Seethoff said replacing buttons and altering hems are good first projects. YouTube is the go-to for self-taught stitchers, and they both stressed: You’ll get better with practice. You might not love your earliest mends; that’s why Seethoff recommended starting with socks, which are “low stakes.” As your skills improve, you’ll also be able to make clothes last longer and longer with repairs.

A few more tips they shared for new menders:

The thicker the thread, the less work you’ll have to do. Darn with a thick material like embroidery floss or a wider yarn (for sweaters) to save yourself time.
Look for tools that make stitching more accessible, especially if the repetitive motion or fine pinching hurt your hands. Thimbles, pliers and other tools do some of the work for you and ease the pain.
Don’t give up on garments that are no longer wearable. You can recycle the material to use for patches on other items or for other projects — Seethoff gives her seemingly unusable fabric one last life as cat toys.
Steer away from tailors for mends; they’re better for alterations. If you have items with financial or sentimental value that require complicated mending, find a professional who specializes in whatever the item needs, like fine beadwork or leatherwork.

If you absolutely don’t want to learn how to darn or sew, try iron-on or glue-on patches to cover holes. One of Spencer’s first mends was attaching iron-on ladybird motifs over holes in the elbows of a red sweater.

“Hardly anyone noticed, but those who did thought it was fun,” she said.

Or, just use scissors to give inexpensive clothing a new life. That’s how Bree Tiura turns boring unisex T-shirts into pseudo-tailored pieces that fit her body.

“I thought for a long time that I should stay away from them altogether, but then I started customizing them,” said Tiura. She calls the technique “scissor sewing.”

By cutting around the neck and hems, she turns boxy T-shirts and tank tops into custom-fit scoop-necks and crop tops better suited for her body, which she identifies as petite.

“It definitely makes shopping more affordable,” she said. “Women’s T-shirts are often more expensive, so I’m glad I’ve found a way to customize [cheaper unisex] T-shirts.”

Scissor sewing leaves your clothes with a less polished look than sewing would, but it’s a simple, quick and nearly free way to update clothes you might otherwise be ready to toss.

about personal finance

As California bird flu outbreak worsens, a Missouri patient who caught it is alarming experts

The H5N1 virus, also known as bird flu, has created an enduring crisis this year, massacring millions of birds and other wild animals, while stirring outbreaks in dairy farms across the U.S. But now more and more human cases are being reported, raising the risk of another pandemic like COVID-19. As the number of confirmed bird flu cases continues to climb in various states across the country, many public health experts are anxiously awaiting results from testing performed in Missouri that will determine whether an infected individual passed the virus onto health care workers and a member of the household who later developed symptoms.

A third case of bird flu reported in California this week (with two others pending confirmation) is the 17th confirmed human case in the current U.S outbreak, which began in April 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All but one of these cases have occurred in farmworkers working with poultry or dairy cows who were exposed to the virus. The other occurred in Missouri.

How to pinpoint the H5N1 mortality rate in humans

There, someone who didn’t work on a farm became infected with H5N1, the first case of its kind to not have a direct link to animals. This is worrisome because it could indicate human-to-human transmission, which is a key component of any widespread illness, including a pandemic. So far, it seems that most, if not all, human H5N1 cases have involved the virus jumping from animals but petering out before spreading to others. All patients have recovered.

Although the infection was confirmed Sept. 6, the investigation to determine whether the people the individual came into contact with were infected is still ongoing. Yet it’s critical to find out this information quickly to keep the outbreak under control, said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.

“There are enough worrisome signs that I think we should be using this advanced warning to try to get ahead of [H5N1] as best we can,” Nuzzo told Salon in a phone interview. “That includes doing a really thorough investigation anytime we find cases to make sure they didn't spread to somebody else and to figure out if there is anything about this virus that's changing in additional ways that we don't want to see change.”

"We cannot rule out that future cases won't be severe."

Most cases reported have been classified as “mild” with symptoms like conjunctivitis (pink eye), fever and respiratory symptoms. In a case study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a man working with dairy cows in Texas who was infected with H5N1 experienced subconjunctival hemorrhage — which means he started bleeding from the whites of his eyes. However, bird flu infections can be more severe and even fatal. The overall fatality rate across H5N1 outbreaks is estimated to be above 50%, but that may be an overestimate due to many milder infections being missed. Regardless, it is not clear how this could change if the virus evolved to transmit between humans.

“We cannot rule out that future cases won't be severe,” Nuzzo said. “We're pinning our entire strategy for responding to this virus on the hope that it's not severe.”

Strategies are being enacted to reduce the spread of the virus: using personal protective equipment (PPE) on farms, increasing testing, and stockpiling vaccines. (An mRNA H5N1 vaccine is being developed, and a bird flu vaccine from Sanofi is also on its way.) Notably, the CDC is urging farmworkers in particular to get the flu vaccine this year because of the risk of co-infection. If multiple virus strains circulate together at once, genetic material could be swapped around in a process called viral reassortment, potentially producing more dangerous evolutions of either virus.

However, all of these strategies should be ramped up, said Dr. Scott Roberts, an infectious diseases specialist at Yale Medicine. The CDC has run around 52,000 specimens that could detect the virus in humans since late February. But a study in Nature last month suggested the contract tracing necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus among infected farmworkers was not being performed and that veterinarians anecdotally reported that testing on farms was lacking.

“I would hope that public health infrastructure and public health leadership here in the United States would have learned the lessons of COVID to really respond to this in a more robust way than it seems they have so far,” Roberts told Salon in a phone interview.

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Some of these strategies have been challenging to implement, with direct health consequences. In Colorado, for example, poultry workers got infected in July because it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit and they couldn’t keep their PPE on properly, said Dr. Abraar Karan, Stanford infectious disease physician and post-doctoral researcher.

“That should never happen,” Karan told Salon in a phone interview. “That is a problem we could anticipate … It’s more logistics and coordination and doing it consistently every single time because if you mess up one time or you let your guard down one time, you can easily be dealing with an outbreak.”

"Every time this virus goes from an animal to a human, it’s giving the virus one more chance to adapt."

The CDC has thus far assured the public that a person’s threat of being infected with bird flu is low if they don’t work with farm animals. In the Missouri case, contact tracing interviews with the infected person "detected that the household contact had been symptomatic with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea with a simultaneous onset of symptoms, implying a common exposure rather than human-to-human transmission," said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis the CDC’s Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at a media briefing.

Still, the more the virus spreads, the more chances it has to evolve, said Nahid Bhadelia, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Boston University School of Medicine.

“Every time this virus goes from an animal to a human, it’s giving the virus one more chance to adapt to potentially get better at infecting humans,” Bhadelia told Salon in a phone interview.

Public health experts are concerned that — with 281 dairy herds affected in 14 states and counting — cases are falling through cracks in surveillance systems and increasing those chances. Many farms have reportedly been hesitant to test animals for economic consequences throughout the outbreak. In California, the country’s largest dairy supplier, it was originally estimated that 10% of cows would be infected, but a newsletter from the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program suggests that number could be far higher at 50 to 60%. In a letter published in the NEJM, H5N1 was detected in the wastewater of 10 out of 10 cities tested.

“We've always known that there's likely more cases that have been missed, particularly among dairy farm workers that never were tested,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The testing among dairy cattle is not very robust, and the amount of proactive action taken by certain states is not enough to give a lot of confidence that this is being handled properly.”

Bird flu cases are going undetected, new study suggests. It’s a problem for all of us

Human cases are likely going under the radar as well, if, for example, infected people are not going through the health care systems where these cases are tracked, said Dr. Meghan Davis, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“These workforces are often marginalized and this is a lot of migrant and immigrant workers who may lack trust with authorities or not have great access to healthcare and may need extra support beyond what we might be able to do in other workplace settings,” Davis told Salon in a phone interview.

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The CDC is currently testing whether exposed individuals in Missouri have traces of H5 antibodies in their blood to retroactively determine if they were infected. However, the process to create a test that could specifically detect the virus that was genetically identical to the infected patient's is complex and involves reverse genetics, taking the CDC about three weeks, Daskalakis said at the briefing.

"We realize people, including all of us at CDC, are anxious to see results from this testing," he said.

Although many believe the chances are low that there was human-to-human transmission in Missouri at this point in part due to the nature of the index patient’s condition and the symptoms of those exposed, it can’t be ruled out until the final results are made public. There is a lot riding on the findings.

“If this virus gains the ability to spread between people, we would be in a new pandemic,” Nuzzo said.

about bird flu

Hurricane Milton tears roof off Tropicana Field and unleashes deadly tornadoes

Hurricane Milton left millions without power and caused a series of tornadoes after slamming into Florida Wednesday night.

Milton made landfall at around 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, Florida, a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Sarasota.

It came barreling through as a Category 3 storm, with maximum sustained winds at 120 mph. Throughout the course of its destruction, it weakened to a Category 1 storm while still causing severe damage. As residents wake up, the destruction will become more visible as flooding is expected to continue over the weekend.

Hurricane Milton is a major disaster — and more super-storms could be coming

Before making landfall on Wednesday evening, there were over 100 tornado warnings across the eastern part of the state, many of which occurred in South Florida.

According to a Facebook post from the Palm Beach Fire County Rescue, there were multiple reports of tornadoes and associated injuries in the Wellington, Acreage and Loxahatchee areas. Firefighters transported five patients, including three trauma patients.

There were “many more walk-up patients with minor injuries,” according to the Facebook post. In St. Lucie County, Fla., the local sheriff confirmed multiple fatalities from the estimated six to 12 tornadoes that touched down in the area. Fatalities were being reported at Spanish Lakes Country Club, a senior community near Fort Pierce. As of early Thursday morning, it remained unclear how many people had been killed.

One resident described witnessing a tornado to TCPalm: "I saw a semi knocked sideways, a truck knocked sideways," he said. "It looked like someone had dropped a weight from the sky and flattened a bunch of houses."

A tornado also destroyed the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s storage building.

According to the latest data from poweroutage.us, more than 3 million Floridians were without power by 5 a.m. Thursday. The worst affected areas were coastal ones, such as Sarasota, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties.

Power outages weren’t limited to Florida, as Georgia and North Carolina experienced power outages throughout the night, too.

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It wasn't only power outages that Florida residents had to deal with in the storm; St. Petersburg preemptively shut down its sewage plant, to protect employees and the sewage plants from the storm surge, meaning residents who did not evacuate could not flush their toilets, wash clothes, shower or do their dishes. Later, a video showed a crane crashing into a building in St. Petersburg.

Strong winds tore through the roof off Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, the stadium that is home to the MLB's Tampa Bay Rays. Earlier this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the stadium would be turned into a “10,000-person base camp” to support “ongoing debris operations and post-landfall responders” to prepare for Hurricane Milton. According to the New York Times, the roof of the stadium was reportedly built to tolerate wind speeds up to 115 miles per hour.

OMG. We all had a collected gasp when we saw this from our reporter. The fabric on the roof of Tropicana Field is shredded. #StPete #Milton pic.twitter.com/36UKLO9cK6

— Jason Adams (@JasonAdamsWFTS) October 10, 2024

Milton did not make a direct hit on Tampa as expected, and instead swerved a little bit south. However, the storm did cause a reverse storm surge, pushing water out of the city's bay. There were also reports of people trapped at a Holiday Inn in Plant City, east of Tampa, with water rushing into the bottom floor of the hotel, according to CNN.

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Very early on Thursday morning, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell confirmed to BBC radio that more than 70,000 people took refuge in government shelters throughout the night; 31 counties across the state had issued evacuation orders. At the time, Criswell warned that despite the wind decreasing, a major threat was the storm surge and flash flooding.

“You need to stay put,” Criswell said. “Don’t go out, try to make sure you’re as safe as possible."

Around 4 a.m., the center of the hurricane made its way to Cape Canaveral with sustained winds of 83 mph. Despite the hurricane starting to move off the coast, the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay warned that the impacts from the storm weren’t over yet. The agency warned on X there were “multiple reports of flooding areawide with dangerously high water in some areas.”

At 5 a.m., the National Hurricane Center confirmed that Milton was moving off the coast of east-central Florida. However, it was still “producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rains.” The NHC emphasized the danger of a “life-threatening storm surge” along the east coast of the state. Residents were still told in central and northern parts of Florida’s east coast to “remain in an interior room” and stay away from windows.

As daylight broke, emergency rescue crews started to gather to better assess the areas that were impacted overnight. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced on Facebook that “post-storm recovery efforts” were already underway.

about climate change

Here’s why getting a COVID shot during pregnancy is important

Nearly 90% of babies who had to be hospitalized with COVID-19 had mothers who didn’t get the vaccine while they were pregnant, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings appear in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Babies too young to be vaccinated had the highest COVID hospitalization rate of any age group except people over 75.

The study looked at infant medical data from October 2022 to April 2024 in 12 states and underscores the critical importance of vaccinating pregnant people. It also echoes what physicians have anecdotally reported for more than three years — that people are still skeptical of COVID vaccines due to persistent misinformation.

All eyes on XEC: Why COVID sleuths are paying attention to this variant

Of the 1,470 infants sick enough to be hospitalized due to covid, severe outcomes occurred “frequently,” according to the report. Excluding newborns hospitalized at birth, about 1 in 5 infants hospitalized with covid required intensive care, and nearly 1 in 20 required a ventilator.

“These aren’t necessarily high-risk, ill newborns. These are just regular, full-term, healthy newborn kids who happen to get covid and wind up on a ventilator in the hospital,” said Neil Silverman, a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and the director of the Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Babies can’t get the covid vaccination until they are at least 6 months old. That leaves a “huge window” when infants are most vulnerable, Silverman said. Vaccinating pregnant women so they pass the antibodies on to their newborns is an effective way of protecting babies during that time. Vaccination during pregnancy also protects pregnant people from severe disease.

But persistent vaccine misinformation online has led to skepticism among Silverman’s pregnant patients.

“The most frustrating response that I get from folks is that they need to do more research before they think about getting the covid vaccine,” Silverman said. “We have dozens and dozens of studies showing the safety of the mRNA vaccine. I don’t know how much more research we can provide to skeptics.”

Among the 1,000-plus babies hospitalized with covid, the median age was just 2 months old, according to the report. Nine of the infants died.

South Carolina pediatrician Deborah Greenhouse said she plans to share the study with families she cares for. “There absolutely is a proportion of the population who will look at this and say, ‘Hey, wow, I should get that vaccine. It could protect my baby,’” she said.

Greenhouse believes the new data could solidify the risk of skipping the vaccine when she speaks to families.

“I think that it might help to convince some parents when you can actually show them hospitalization numbers and you can show them intensive care numbers and you can show them mechanical ventilation numbers,” Greenhouse said. “Those things are a big deal.”

Often, Greenhouse waits to be informed that a person is pregnant before bringing up the updated covid shot. Now she’s rethinking that strategy. “As pediatricians we do get moms in our office who are pregnant and we have an opportunity to intervene and to do some education and make them understand how important this is,” she said.

Physicians can encourage vaccination by making it as easy and simple as possible, Silverman said. He encouraged fellow doctors to offer the shots in their offices, rather than sending patients to pharmacies or other providers.

“We lose probably 30 to 40% of vaccination opportunities once someone has to leave the office to get a vaccine,” Silverman said.

But offering covid shots in their clinics leaves some doctors with a difficult calculation. They are struggling to predict how many patients will be interested in the vaccine and may not be able to return all their excess doses. Many providers can’t afford to lose money on doses that won’t be used, but they still need to order enough to vaccinate vulnerable patients who want the shot.

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Trump’s hurricane of Milton lies: MAGA has a deadly addiction to disinformation

Of all the lies Donald Trump tells, perhaps the most preposterous is that he cares about his own voters. That was evident in 2020, when Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat of COVID-19, even calling the pandemic a "hoax." His followers got the message, risking their own lives first by refusing to socially distance and then, going further even than Trump himself, refusing to vaccinate. The result was that excess deaths were 43% higher for Republicans than Democrats in the months after the vaccines were released. Trump's lie killed his own voters by the thousands.

At the heart of Trump's pandemic lies was a sociopathic calculation: His lies and conspiracy theories would offset the loss of MAGA voters to COVID deaths. That bet did pay off, as most of the excess Republican deaths occurred after the election. Trump is making the same bet again in 2024 with his lies about Hurricanes Helene and Milton. He's spraying lies about the federal response that have rapidly spread throughout social media, convincing his followers to take risks with their own safety. His lies will kill people. He doesn't care, though, because he's betting that he can offset the losses by using these lies to turn out more voters.

As we saw during the pandemic, Trump supporters will shape their behavior around his lies, either because they believe him or just as a show of loyalty to the MAGA cause.

The big lie Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are telling is that President Joe Biden has cut off federal help to hurricane-affected areas so that he can write fat checks to undocumented immigrants instead. Every word of this is a lie, of course. As state and local officials have repeatedly told the public, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been working tirelessly to help people get to safety and to help them rebuild in the aftermath. There is also no evidence that "illegal" immigrants are being cut government checks, much less being put up in the lavish lifestyle the MAGA liars are claiming. And then there's the underlying implication that Republicans want to help. It's a lie. Many of the Republicans spreading misinformation amid natural disasters voted against FEMA funding mere weeks ago. Project 2025 outlines Trump's plan to decimate FEMA if he returns to the White House.

On Wednesday, Biden pushed back during a hurricane briefing, speaking directly to camera about Trump's "onslaught of lies" and reminding viewers that these lies harm "volunteers and first responders" who are "risking everything, including their own lives."

Biden: Trump has led the onslaught of lies.. Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather. We are controlling the weather. It's beyond ridiculous pic.twitter.com/uSBckDEfyB

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2024

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On "The View," Vice President Kamala Harris called the lies "the height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness," adding that Trump "lacks empathy on a very basic level."

These lies during tragedy aren't just gross, but deadly. As we saw during the pandemic, Trump supporters will shape their behavior around his lies, either because they believe him or just as a show of loyalty to the MAGA cause. In this case, that could mean rejecting aid, ignoring calls to evacuate, or even threatening aid workers who they have been told are agents of the "deep state." As the American Red Cross said in a statement, "It also disrupts our ability to deliver critical aid and affects the disaster workers who have put their own lives on hold to assist those in need." One state official in North Carolina outlined how serious the threat is to Politico:

“The scale of the misinformation — and simply the number of posts and the eyeballs that each of those are being given online, particularly on [X] — that is what is different and truly scary,” the official said. “This has felt like you’re in the Thunderdome, and people are just piping this noise in. They create this great confusion. It creates chaos and a crisis moment where you need people to be able to work together and come together.”

The most immediate motive for Trump and Vance to lie is to win the November election. But there's no reason to think Trump will back away from this tactic if he successfully obtains office. If anything, it will get worse. Keeping people paranoid, confused, and unwilling to trust even basic information is standard operating procedure for anyone who aspires to be an authoritarian dictator, as Trump does. Trump spent his first term painting himself as a victim of "deep state" conspirators to justify his fascistic urges and seize more power illegally. He's just grown angrier and more dictatorial since. Chaos is to his benefit, so he'll try to increase it at every turn.

Nothing presents a greater opportunity to spread chaos than a crisis. Trump's instinct in these situations is to lie his head off, coaxing his followers to further alienate themselves from facts and put their trust solely in him. During his first term, this was most evident in the pandemic, where Trump would ping-pong between different lies at dizzying speed. On some days, the pandemic was a "hoax." On others, he told his followers they could cure COVID-19 with snake oil or even bleach. The point is to keep people unmoored from reality, making them easier to manipulate.

The "Democrats control the weather" lie truly underscores how much this is simply about sowing chaos. Even if you buy the asinine notion that it's possible, it still doesn't make sense. Why would Biden send a hurricane right before an election, when such things notoriously hurt incumbent parties? But the point is not to make sense, but the opposite. The point is to keep MAGA followers in a swirl of confusion and paranoia, so unattached to rationality that they likely will never find their way back to reason.

Hurricane Milton's severity is fueled by climate change, experts say

But it wasn't just the pandemic that drew out Trump's knee-jerk instinct to respond to every crisis with a storm of lies. In 2019, Trump was eager to sow as much panic as possible ahead of Hurricane Dorian, and so tweeted the storm would hit "harder than anticipated" and insisted, falsely, that Alabama was among the states affected. This was a dangerous lie, one that could disrupt emergency response. The Alabama weather service tweeted a correction, saying, "Alabama will NOT see any impact." Trump was so furious at having his falsehood corrected that he literally drew over a storm map, in hopes of tricking people into thinking Alabama was in danger.

Here is Trump giving an update on #HurricaneDorian. If you blow up the map he holds up, you can see he used a black marker to extend the path of the hurricane to include Alabama so he still doesn't have to admit his tweet from a few days ago was wrong. pic.twitter.com/JCQbGKpalD pic.twitter.com/GYrSB2aX51

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) September 4, 2019

Using threats of firing, Trump then forced officials at NOAA to publicly back his ridiculous lie. This whole incident tends to be remembered in a comical light, as the time Trump took a Sharpie to a map rather than admit he was wrong. But it's part of this larger pattern, where Trump systematically demonizes fact-based information, ham-fistedly replacing it with dark and chaotic lies. Some people, like NOAA officials, go along with the lies out of fear. But Trump's followers back the lies out of a misguided sense of loyalty and tribalism. They would rather spit on reality than admit liberals are right about something, even if rejecting the truth means risking their own health and safety.

There's also an addictive quality to the lies for MAGA diehards. Trump has trained his supporters to feel empowered by lying. It is reframed as a dominance move, as if they can conquer reality by sheer will. In reality, of course, MAGA followers are being bamboozled by a con artist. As Jamelle Bouie wrote in the New York Times, "To lie without shame about everything" is to "demand obedience to a narrative" and "cultivate the habits of autocracy." Trump's followers feel powerful when they lie, but they are selling off their freedom to a wannabe dictator. Or worse, when it comes to lies about viruses or hurricanes, they sacrifice their own lives for Trump's lies.

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Hurricane Milton is a major disaster — and more super-storms could be coming

With Hurricane Milton making landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening, millions of Sunshine State residents have evacuated their homes or boarded up businesses to brace for the impending storm. This potentially historic storm has fluctuated between Category 3 status (meaning wind speeds above 110 mph) all the way to Category 5 status (wind speeds in excess of 157 mph), and its impacts, both short-term and long-term, will likely be devastating.

With Milton coming only days after Hurricane Helene battered the southeastern U.S., including inland areas many people assumed were more secure, Salon asked experts how to understand this year’s dramatic hurricane season.

Hurricane Milton's severity fueled by climate change, experts say

Dr. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, addressed the obvious question, saying that this rapid succession of devastating hurricanes is at least partly due to anthropogenic climate change.

“I recently asked the question: How many more storms like Helene do we need to convince the denialist crowd that climate change is real?” Serreze said. Perhaps Milton will be the event, he suggested, that will cause such skeptics “to get their heads out of the sand and accept what is happening.”

The most obvious immediate consequence of this succession of hurricanes will be social and economic disruption on a highly unusual scale. The devastation of Asheville and nearby communities in eastern North Carolina demonstrated that even elevated regions far from the coastline are not safe from tropical storms. Insurance companies are jacking up rates as they grapple with unprecedented levels of infrastructure damage.

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Milton is not occurring “in isolation from the other disasters going on,” said Samantha Penta, a professor of emergency management at the University of Albany. “Residents' perceptions of the danger the storm poses, and what their response and recovery experiences, will be are being informed by what they see going on in areas affected by Helene.” With federal and local governments already working to provide relief after Helene — an effort complicated by widely shared online conspiracy theories — responses to subsequent natural disasters, Milton included, may be stretched thin.

“Collectively, Helene and Milton highlight the importance of investing in our emergency response and disaster recovery capabilities at all levels,” Penta said.

On Wednesday evening, Milton began to hit Florida’s coastline with heavy rainfall and tropical storm-level winds. Both the heavily populated Tampa Bay metropolitan area and the region just south of it are at grave risk, although some meteorologists have suggested the storm’s path may alter or “wobble.” If it continues on its projected track, by Thursday it will likely hit Orlando, another densely populated metropolitan area, where millions of people have either evacuated or hunkered down.

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Storm surge warning has been issued for much of the Florida coast and portions of Georgia. Local institutions, from Tampa’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge to the region’s ubiquitous Waffle House franchises, have been shut down.

As the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports, local forecasters predict that “Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida." Some experts express another big worry: More super-storms may still lie ahead this season. “One would be more than enough,” said Michael Wehner, a senior scientist in the Computational Research Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who analyzes climate change data. But with waters in the Gulf of Mexico having “warmed so much because of climate change, I fear that we should expect such Category 5 storms to become more frequent.”

Even with all the data we now possess about past hurricanes and tropical storms, said Tom Knutson, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, it remains difficult to evaluate the biggest or worst such events in historical terms.

“Our ability to observe intensities and intensification rates of hurricanes over the open ocean or Gulf of Mexico has improved markedly since, say, 1900,” Knutson said. “Therefore, some apparent records based on comparison with the existing, limited historical data need to be viewed with caution.”

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Never Trump’s moment: Anti-MAGA Republicans could swing the election at the “margins”

Election Day is less than one month away. Experts have described the 2024 election as one of the closest in modern American history. The future of American democracy and freedom are at stake and yet so much remains in flux and undecided.

Trump’s strategy, for one thing, is clear. He plans to amplify his feral attacks on Kamala Harris and the Democrats. Given his personality, Trump will not stop or in any way be slowed down by outcries from the news media, or even members of his own party, about his horrible and dangerous behavior. Trump is an aspiring dictator, a public admirer of Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who wants total power and total domination over the country.

On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania to commemorate the failed assassination attempt on his life in July, where after getting hit in the ear by a bullet, he rose from the ground, bloodied, raised his fist and, in an iconic moment, chanted “fight, fight, fight!" Instead of turning down the political flames in this country during his return speech in Butler, Trump decided to add fuel to the fire. Trump told the throngs of his MAGA cultists that there are some dark forces, those "enemies within," who tried to kill him. "Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me … But I’ve never stopped fighting for you and I never will.”

JD Vance was more explicit in his lies, telling the MAGA faithful in Butler the following about the Democrats: "First, they're trying to silence him (Trump). That didn't work. They tried to bankrupt him. That didn't work. They tried to jail him. With all the hatred they spewed at President Trump, it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to kill him."

Trump knows his MAGA people and what they want. He is not raging out into the void; he is delivering hate sermons to the MAGA faithful, and they love him even more for it. Contrary to the so-called conventional wisdom that has been shown to be repeatedly wrong throughout the Age of Trump, his MAGA people and other followers remain devoted to him (and some even more so) even as his behavior becomes more extreme and dangerous.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is a joyful warrior. Since her ascent to leadership in the Democratic Party, Harris has been very effective in using her own high-dominance leadership style to undermine Trump’s alpha male persona and to force him into making tactical and strategic errors that could potentially cost him the election.

Weaponizing tragedy for political capital: How Trump assassination attempts fuel MAGA

In these last weeks before Election Day, the Harris campaign plans a TV ad blitz, more rallies (which are usually far larger and more high energy than Trump’s political cult meetings) and will spend very large sums of money on voter outreach and mobilization in the key battleground states that will ultimately decide the outcome of the presidential election. President Barack Obama will also appear on the campaign trial to boost Harris.

Trump and his agents are also working very hard on how to steal the election and/or otherwise delegitimate the results if Kamala Harris defeats him.

In an attempt to make better sense of this unprecedented and truly historic election and what may happen next, I recently spoke to a range of experts.

Rick Wilson is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a former leading Republican strategist, and author of two books, "Everything Trump Touches Dies" and "Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump – and Democrats from Themselves."

I feel good about where the race stands, but there is still a lifetime to go and a lifetime of work to do. Vice President Harris undeniably has momentum on her side, while Trump faces serious problems due to his organizational deficiencies: he’s losing the money battle, his staff is in open warfare and Trump’s addled brain is getting worse by the day.

Despite all that, this remains a very tight election that will come down to a few votes in key swing states. Everyone should be knocking on doors, making phone calls and getting engaged. These are some of the most consequential weeks in history for American democracy.

"Say what you want about all these endless political polls, but one thing they tell us repeatedly with astonishing consistency is that the majority of the white men in this country are a unified voting bloc and are going to do whatever they possibly can to once again jam the wheels of progress."

Since Harris took the nomination, she’s captivated the nation and reset the entire campaign. Becoming the nominee put the Trump campaign on their heels. LaCivita and Wiles were completely unprepared for Harris’ nomination and Trump himself has been weak and dithering in responding. He’s clearly afraid of a strong woman and she crushed him in the debate.

Trump seems more interested in finding new ways to grab as much money as possible from his gullible supporters. I didn’t anticipate ugly sneakers, crappy watches and insanely overpriced Bibles. But a grifter's gotta grift.

The narrative against Trump hasn’t changed since the beginning of this campaign. He’s an unrepentant insurrectionist who hates democracy and would rule as an autocrat. Trump is tied to Project 2025 like a dog on a leash and will work to rip away women’s rights and push a racist agenda.

We’re already seeing Trump’s thinking and mind getting even more incoherent and pushing increasingly violent rhetoric. He’s going to keep spinning up his supporters like he did around January 6 in the hopes they scare Harris voters away from the polls. I fear we’ll see attacks on polling locations, counting facilities and communities of color to create doubts about the vote. And we see the games Trump supporters are playing in Georgia, trying to make it possible for local election officials to delay the counting and certification of the vote if they don’t like the outcome.

If Harris wins, democracy and respect for individual rights and the rule of law will continue. America will maintain the cooperation of its allies and will still be seen as the “city on a hill."

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If Trump wins, it will be chaos monkeys flinging poo everywhere. People like Stephen Miller and Eric Schmitt will encourage Trump’s worst and most despotic ideas. He’s already pledged revenge on anyone who criticizes him and the Supreme Court, will reward the violence on January 6 by pardoning those convicted and wants to target political opponents and their supporters for jail and military tribunals.

We will see the destruction of democratic norms that we’ve only seen overseas.

Cheri Jacobus, a former Republican, is a political strategist, writer and host of the podcast "Politics With Cheri Jacobus."

After being let down by so many of our institutions and leaders in this era of Donald Trump — now nine years in — I am cautiously optimistic about the election next month. Trump, MAGA, Putin and the MAGA oligarchs will still try to cheat. But we in the pro-democracy movement seem better prepared to thwart their efforts. That many high-profile Republicans are now being bolder in their justified attacks on Trump and are now endorsing Kamala Harris is encouraging. Close elections are won or lost in those margins. It all matters.

The bad news is that Donald Trump is as evil, dishonest, obviously mentally unwell and violent as ever. The good news is that we know this and many voters are just so damned tired of it. Even right-wing media seems like it needs a break. It's far easier and more lucrative to attack an incumbent and get your fans riled up than it is to defend the likes of Trump. Many right-wing media careers will soar if they can attack a Black woman President. The ratings! The books they will sell! The clicks and subscriptions! That said, the "normies" in the mainstream news media still appear to be addicted to the Trump ratings teat. It's hard to wean oneself from the easy Trump money, I imagine.

MAGA's defeat is essential to the survival of our nation. It begins with defeating Trump. But ensuring that the MAGA movement is no more than an impotent fringe in American life will take longer.

We are likely in for any number of "October surprises" in the coming weeks. While we can't predict what they will be, we can easily predict that Donald Trump and MAGA will be steeped in lies, racism, misogyny, treason and violence. I am steeling myself in preparation.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters." His website is Enough Already.

I’m scared and exhausted. I imagine that I am not alone in feeling that way. I probably kick this around 14 times an hour and always arrive at the same place. This election will come down to how many men vote for Donald Trump and how many women vote for Kamala Harris. Looking at it more granularly: How many men will stand up, do the right thing and support the accomplished woman? And how many women will do the wrong thing and support the corrupt and soulless man?

Say what you want about all these endless political polls, but one thing they tell us repeatedly with astonishing consistency is that the majority of the white men in this country are a unified voting bloc and are going to do whatever they possibly can to once again jam the wheels of progress. I wish I could tell you that I have confidence that enough of them will do the right thing, but I simply can’t. Most of the white men in this country scare the hell out of me. They endlessly discourage me. And I say that as a white man. As we head into the home stretch of the most critical election in the history of the United States of America, I take absolutely no pride as a white man in telling you very candidly that fully two-thirds of my confused, insecure herd are once again gearing up to do the worst thing possible and vote for the worst-possible person who has ever headed the ticket of one of our two major parties.

All that said, I believe Harris will win this thing. Why? Because I simply cannot allow myself to believe otherwise. I realize that doesn’t make me much of a pundit, but the fact is I am not built for another Trump presidency — or even considering one.

Here is some data to back up my prediction that Harris will beat Trump: Democrats have been winning elections at an impressive clip since the nightmare in November of 2016. There’s no reason to expect that’s suddenly going to stop with the most important election since the Civil War.

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Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but when the exit polling starts coming at us on the evening of November 5, it will sound something like this. “Americans, led by women, have voted to overwhelmingly turn the page on a decade of caustic, ugly politics. They have told us they are sick and tired of the vitriol and clearly want a new start with a new candidate. Kamala Harris is projected to win in a landslide.”

Now I’m going to get back to my pacing.

Dr. Lance Dodes is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute:

A month or so until Election Day, I feel this is Pearl Harbor again but only worse. I’m terrified that Trump may win since once in office he will never leave and democracy will be over. I’d like to think that Americans would recognize that there is only one choice but it’s clear that nearly half of our fellow citizens care or understand little about the Constitution, decency, democracy or the welfare of others.

I thought that Trump’s fraud convictions, his treasonous attempt to overthrow the government, his racist and fascist statements and his obvious apparent cognitive decline would have doomed his candidacy before now. But here we are.

I believe that we are at this point in the 2024 election with Trump basically being tied with Kamala Harris because there has been a massive dual failure in the country. This consists of a failure of education that has allowed people to grow up without knowledge of history that would allow them to see that they are repeating the story of Germany of the 1930s. This is joined by a massive failure of the press, which has allowed Trump to successfully spread his Big Lies while passively quoting him and giving him front-page coverage in order to sell more newspapers and TV space. When Trump shuts down the New York Times and The Washington Post, they will have only themselves to blame.

Unless there is an “October surprise” such as Donald Trump committing an act or statement so outrageous that even the media will have to describe his danger for what it is, he will continue to spiral more malignantly in his attempts to galvanize his MAGA cult and to create a civil war with the overthrow of the election and the Constitution if Harris wins. I believe there will have to be a clear landslide to prevent Trump from attempting another coup.

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How to build an emergency food kit as extreme weather becomes the norm

The 2024 hurricane season, which officially began on June 1 and lasts until Nov. 30, is shaping up to be a particularly active one. Forecasters at the National Weather Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, anticipate between 17 and 25 named storms this year — well above the 30-year average of 14.4.

Scientists attribute the rise in intense storms, which include categories 4 and 5, to the growing impact of climate change, which is also driving sea level rise and worsening storm surge flooding.

In light of the increasing frequency of extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene — which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 26 as a devastating, record-breaking Category 4 hurricane — and this week’s Hurricane Milton, it’s crucial to rethink how we prepare our kitchens for natural disasters. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 94.7 million people, or about 29.1% of the population, live in coastal counties particularly vulnerable to hurricanes, making a well-stocked emergency food kit as vital as boarding up windows or securing outdoor furniture.

But what, exactly, should go in that kit? And how can you plan your meals when power outages or supply chain disruptions are on the horizon? Here’s what you need to know.

Hurricane Milton's severity is fueled by climate change, experts say

Stock up on essential non-perishable foods

When assembling an emergency food kit, it’s useful to consider the main food groups — fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins and dairy or dairy substitutes — as you shop for non-perishable items. Shelf-stable proteins can include canned meats like chicken or tuna, as well as beans, lentils, nuts and nut butters. For carbohydrates, consider rice, pasta, instant noodles and crackers.

Shelf-stable fruits and vegetables, such as canned or dried options, fruit cups and applesauce, provide valuable nutrients. Many plant-based milks, the kind found in boxes in the coffee or baking aisles rather than the refrigerated section, are also shelf-stable and often fortified with essential nutrients.

It’s important to account for any dietary restrictions in your household. For those with gluten intolerances, packaged gluten-free snacks and pastas made from alternative grains, like rice or lentils, are widely available. Low-sugar snacks should be prioritized for individuals managing health conditions like diabetes. Also, don’t forget non-perishable food for your pets.

While the task of preparing an emergency food kit can be anxiety-inducing, as it forces us to confront the possibility of a natural disaster, don’t overlook comfort foods. “Familiar foods are important,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. “They lift morale and give a feeling of security in times of stress. Try to include foods that they will enjoy and that are also high in calories and nutrition. Foods that require no refrigeration, water, special preparation, or cooking are best.”

Small indulgences like instant coffee, tea, chocolate or favorite pre-packaged snacks can offer much-needed relief in stressful times.

“If activity is reduced, healthy people can survive on half their usual food intake for an extended period and without any food for many days,” FEMA continued. “Food, unlike water, may be rationed safely, except for children and pregnant women.”

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The agency notes that during and after a disaster, it’s vital those affected maintain their strength. They recommend individuals: eat at least one well-balanced meal each day; drink enough liquid to enable your body to function properly, which is about a half gallon per day; take in enough calories to enable you to do any necessary work; and include vitamin, mineral and protein supplements in your stockpile to ensure adequate nutrition.

“Even though it is unlikely that an emergency would cut off your food supply for two weeks, consider maintaining a supply that will last that long,” they said.

Storing food

FEMA recommends storing your emergency food supply in a cool, dry location, ideally in a dark area to preserve freshness. When opening food boxes or resealable containers, take care to ensure they can be tightly closed after each use. Perishable items like cookies and crackers should be wrapped in plastic and stored in sealed containers. For items like sugar, dried fruits and nuts, transferring them into airtight canisters will help keep pests at bay.

Before consuming, inspect all food for any signs of spoilage, and discard any canned goods that appear swollen, dented or corroded. To keep your supplies fresh, use food before it expires and replace it with newly purchased items, marking them with the date they were stored. Organize your storage by placing newer items at the back and older ones up front for easy access.

Stock up on water

“Having an ample supply of clean water is a top priority in an emergency,” according to FEMA. “A normally active person needs to drink at least two quarts [a half gallon] of water each day. People in hot environments, children, nursing mothers and ill people will require even more.”

The agency recommends stocking at least a two-week supply of water for each family member, with a minimum of one gallon per person, per day. The safest and most reliable option is to purchase commercially bottled water. It should be kept in its original, sealed container and only opened when needed.

If you plan to store water yourself, FEMA advises using food-grade containers, which can be found at surplus or camping supply stores. Fill the containers to the top with tap water. If your tap water is treated with chlorine, no additional treatment is necessary. However, if the water comes from a well or an untreated source, FEMA suggests adding two drops of unscented liquid household chlorine bleach per gallon.

Water that isn't commercially bottled should be replaced every six months to ensure its safety.

“If supplies run low, never ration water,” FEMA wrote. “Drink the amount you need today, and try to find more for tomorrow. You can minimize the amount of water your body needs by reducing activity and staying cool.”

Cooking without power

When preparing for a natural disaster, having the right cooking tools on hand is essential. When power outages render traditional appliances useless, items like portable stoves, propane burners, grills or solar cookers can become invaluable. These tools ensure you can still prepare hot meals even in the absence of electricity.

Similarly, consider keeping non-electric kitchen tools with your emergency food kit. A manual can opener is a must for accessing canned goods, while a hand-crank food processor can help with basic meal prep. Disposable silverware, plates and bowls are great to keep on-hand so you don’t have to worry about using water to wash dishes.

As part of your preparation, consider making a reference list of simple no-cook meals that offer essential nutrition. Examples include canned chicken with instant noodles, canned black beans and corn with a pouch of rice, or peanut butter on shelf-stable bread with dried fruit. Having a list like this on hand can help alleviate decision fatigue in the aftermath of a disaster.

Create a portable kit

In addition to keeping a two-week supply of food and water in your home, many disaster preparedness experts also recommend crafting a portable emergency food kit in case you and your family need to evacuate. This should include a several-day supply of non-perishable food items and water that can be easily carried in a small duffle bag or plastic bin.

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Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir: Bombshell moments, from Michael Jackson to addiction

The intrigue around the Presley family has only heightened since the posthumous release of the late Lisa Marie Presley's memoir, "From Here to the Great Unknown."

As one of the most fascinating families in rock and roll, the book had two generations of Presleys work on it. After Lisa Marie's sudden passing in 2023 from surgery complications due to a small bowel obstruction, her daughter Riley Keough finished the book on her behalf, using a surplus of various diaries and taped interviews conducted for the crafting of the book as shortly as a month prior to her death.

But besides the ties to the legendary rock family, the memoir has made waves for its bombshell revelations about the life that Lisa Marie lived that was all her own. Released on Oct. 8, the memoir covers everything from her childhood as Elvis Presley's daughter, her relationship with Michael Jackson and the tragic loss of her son, Benjamin Keough.

Riley Keough is fulfilling her mother Lisa Marie Presley's dying wish by helping her seem relatable

Here are some of the most shocking moments from "From Here to the Great Unknown."

Lisa Marie kept her son Benjamin on dry ice for two months after his death

After the sudden loss of Lisa Marie's son Benjamin by suicide in 2020, the grieving mother chose to keep his body close to her. Benjamin's body was kept on dry ice for two months after his death in a separate bedroom in the family's Los Angeles home. The memoir details that Lisa Marie kept his body at a 55-degree temperature to preserve it, People Magazine reported.

"There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately," Lisa Marie writes.

Riley, Benjamin's older sister, writes that it was crucial for her mother to "have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she'd done with her dad," who died in 1977 when she was 9.

Lisa Marie explains in the book that it was difficult to decide where to bury her son: Hawaii or her father's estate, Graceland. She eventually chose to lay him to rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland, next to the rest of her family, where she herself is buried now, right next to him.

"That was part of why it took so long," she writes. "I got so used to [Benjamin], caring for him and keeping him there. I think it would scare the living [expletive] out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me."

She continues, "I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could become okay with laying him to rest."

In a tribute to Benjamin, the family members got tattoos of his name in the same style as the tattoos he'd gotten for them. Lisa Marie even invited a tattoo artist to look at his body so that they could get the tattoos accurate. Riley writes, "I've had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five."

If you are in crisis, please call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Michael Jackson allegedly told Lisa Marie he was a virgin when the pair met

When the couple met and began dating in 1993, according to the memoir, Jackson told Lisa Marie that he was still a virgin. At the time, Jackson was 35 and Lisa Marie was 26. According to her memoir, their first meeting was when she was 6 years old and she was introduced to a 15-year-old Jackson and his band Jackson 5 during a performance in Las Vegas.

"He told me he was still a virgin," Lisa Marie details in the book. "I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a thing with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been physical apart from a kiss. He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once, too, but nothing happened."

Lisa Marie also shares in the book that she was nervous to make any moves with the pop singer. “I was terrified because I didn’t want to make the wrong move. When he decided to first kiss me, he just did it. He was instigating everything. The physical stuff started happening, which I was shocked at. I had thought that maybe we wouldn’t do anything until we got married, but he said, ‘I’m not waiting!’”

The pair married in 1994 and divorced two years later citing "irreconcilable differences." However, the couple was on and off for four years after their divorce, Entertainment Weekly reported.

Lisa Marie writes of their marriage, “I was actually so happy. I’ve never been that happy again."

During her battle with addiction, Lisa Marie took 80 pills a day

Lisa Marie had long been open about her struggle with opioid addiction in her life. However, her recreational use of drugs worsened when the star became addicted to prescription painkillers following the 2008 birth of her twins Finley and Harper, People Magazine reported.

"It escalated to 80 pills a day," Lisa Marie writes in the book. "It took more and more to get high, and I honestly don't know when your body decides it can't deal with it anymore. But it does decide at some point . . . It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues. I just wanted to check out. It was too painful to be sober."

From Riley's perspective, she shares that her mother started taking opioids to cope with the pain of a c-section delivery, but "then she progressed to taking them to sleep." She details that Lisa Marie felt "shame" around her addiction because she had two young children. She recalls that outside her mother's stint with drugs as a teenager, Lisa Marie didn't even take over-the-counter medication as an adult, prior to her addiction.

Elvis Presley and his wife, Priscilla, prepare to leave the hospital with their new daughter, Lisa Marie. Memphis, Tennessee, February 5, 1968. (Getty Images/Bettmann)

Lisa Marie sensed her father's death at just nine years old

In "From Here to the Great Unknown," for the first time, Lisa Marie opens up about the details of her father Elvis' death, revealing that she wrote a poem in her diary prior to his passing with the ominous line, "I hope my daddy doesn't die," and recalls that as a young girl, she would frequently see her father in pain.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey for CBS Mornings, Riley shares that her mother had a sense of intuition about Elvis' death.

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"She said goodnight to him and I think she knew like saying goodnight . . . she had some kind of sense many times that he wasn't OK," she details. "She would tell me sometimes she would find him in his bathroom looking kind of out of it or holding onto the railing to stand up straight."

In the memoir, Lisa Marie recalls the night her father passed away. She writes that she kissed him and told him she loved him and he told her to "go to bed."

The next day, the nine-year-old was met with the sight of her father being wheeled into an ambulance after being told he had tragically passed away.

"My life as I knew it was completely over," she writes. "He's dead, and now I'm stuck with [Priscilla]."

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How hurricanes turn political: All eyes on Trump and Harris amid deadly storms

As Hurricane Helene tore its way through the southeast United States, it shook hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s now one of the deadliest storms in American history, with over 220 people dead and hundreds still missing.

While the impact to human life is immeasurable, the storm also threatens to shake up the election, with each candidate's response to the storm potentially impacting voters' decisions when they head to the polls, research suggests. With another Class 5 hurricane on its way to the American southeast, the damage to infrastructure and potential delays in mail delivery could also hinder the actual process of voting.

Natural disasters, while devastating, are a chance for politicians to show voters their competence and humanity — or lack thereof — in a crisis, John Gasper, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said in an interview with Salon.

Officials debunk Trump's "truly dangerous" Hurricane Helene Lies

Gasper’s prior research found that incumbent presidents who approve disaster funding are seen more favorably by voters and those that don’t are viewed negatively by voters.

“How an official responds ends up being a good test of leadership for a voter constituent,” Gasper said.

When a natural disaster strikes, a governor usually declares a state of emergency and has to request funding from the federal government through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The agency then does an analysis and makes a recommendation to the president, who decides if federal aid should be granted.

Though this is a process that has been used for years to disperse disaster funds, the GOP has spread lies about how FEMA spends its money, including that it distributes aid based on demographics. The rumors have become so widespread that the agency set up a page to debunk them all.

Shortly after the storm, Republican nominee Donald Trump flew to Georgia and quickly turned his visit political by criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to Helene. In a speech outside a furniture store in Valdosta, Ga., he falsely claimed that FEMA was “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas,” and that Biden was refusing to answer phone calls from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. The governor immediately confirmed that he had, in fact, spoken with the president.

Trump has since spread a wealth of misinformation about FEMA's response to Hurricane Helene, including that the agency was redirecting money from disaster funds to house migrants and that families were only being offered $750 in federal assistance.

While FEMA was in charge of administering a $650 million migrant housing program, those funds are entirely separate from FEMA's disaster relief, according to Department of Homeland Security. The $750 payment Trump is referencing is just an "upfront" for impacted families, but they are still eligible for additional federal assistance, the FEMA website states.

Harris, meanwhile, took a less ostentatious approach, visiting FEMA headquarters in the immediate aftermath of the storm and delaying a visit to the Southeast until she was sure her presence would not disrupt emergency operations.

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Natural disasters have a long history of impacting voter turnout and voters' perception of political candidates' competency. Hurricane Helene is the first major disaster to hit two critical swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, within six weeks of an election, according to a data analysis from E&E news.

North Carolina was the state hit the hardest by Helene, with 25 storm-impacted counties accounting for over 16% of the state’s voters, according to reporting from The Asheville Citizen Times. Buildings used for polling locations, such as schools and churches, were destroyed.

Mail-in voting in the state, previously delayed so ballots could be re-printed without Robert F. Kennedy as an option, began on Sept. 24, just three days before Helene struck. The storm has since stalled mail service and many ballots may have been destroyed or delayed by flooding.

These structural impacts could affect voter turnout, research suggests. In 2018, Hurricane Michael affected 3% of Florida’s polling locations and voter turnout across affected counties fell by 7%, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. It could be particularly impactful for the GOP, as the majority of the flooded counties lean red. In 2020, Trump won 61% of the vote in North Carolina counties impacted by the storm and 54% of impacted-counties in Georgia, according to reporting from Politico.

With so many red counties impacted, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, are urging the North Carolina election board to allow voters to cast their ballots in whatever county they find themselves in — endorsing a late change to the rules that, critics note, is at odds with their rhetoric about pandemic-era changes and "election fraud."

With in-person voting set to begin on Oct. 17, the North Carolina Board of Elections unanimously voted to make it easier for impacted residents by casting a ballot by changing voting hours and sites if needed, WHQR reported.

The board's executive director Kristen Brinson Belle said in a statement the state will “do everything possible to ensure every eligible North Carolina voter can cast their ballot.”

“This storm is like nothing we’ve seen in our lifetimes in Western North Carolina. The destruction is unprecedented, and this level of uncertainty this close to Election Day is daunting," she said.

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But Trump's and Harris' response to the storm — and voters' perception of it — may be just as influential as infrastructure damage.

The optics of natural disaster response are a fine line. Any wrong move is often bolstered by negative media attention and will likely stay in a voter's mind the closer a disaster is to an election, Gasper explained.

In 2017, a video of Trump jokingly throwing paper towels to Puerto Rican residents after Hurricane Maria struck the island went viral and continued to define his poor response to the disaster for years. He delayed more than $20 billion in hurricane relief to Puerto Rico and refused to accept the official number of deaths, which is still disputed to this day. While Puerto Ricans can't vote in U.S. elections, Trump's haphazard response to Hurricane Maria never faded.

When America’s deadliest storm, Hurricane Katrina, struck on Aug. 29, 2005, former President George W. Bush’s inaction struck doubt in his capabilities to respond to the crisis. At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He did not fly back to Washington until two days later, after 28 days at the ranch.

Upon returning from vacation, Bush still didn’t spur into action, but rather distantly monitored developments from the White House. In an image that would haunt the former president for years, he was captured solemnly looking out of the window of Air Force One when he flew over New Orleans to survey the damage from above instead of on-the ground. The photo became a symbol of his distance and withdrawal from the response to Hurricane Katrina, in which over 1,800 people were killed.

The photo drew so much backlash that Bush himself admitted he should have approached the situation differently to appear less “detached and uncaring.”

After Katrina, 56% of Americans reported a lack of confidence in Bush’s ability to handle a crisis, according to a CBS poll. His response, and voters’ perception of it, is widely regarded as his political downfall.

In comparison, former President Barack Obama was praised for his response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which happened just a week before the 2012 election. Obama swiftly approved disaster declarations and impacted areas of New York and New Jersey just days after the storm. After being behind in the polls for most of October 2012, Obama jumped ahead of Republican nominee Mitt Romney after Sandy.

While there’s no proven correlation between Obama’s boost in popularity and his response to Sandy, more than three quarters of Americans said his handling of the storm was “excellent or good.”

Gasper said it’s “hard to say” whether Harris and Trump’s response to Helene will be a “deciding difference” in November’s election, but decisions and images may linger in voters’ minds as they head to the polls amidst devastating loss of life and livelihoods.

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