USA Today — 13.10.2026

Hoping to get bags of Halloween chocolate?

It may be slim pickings for trick-or-treaters with cocoa prices still at high levels. In Money

Stan knows ‘Fjord’ is bound to strike a nerve

The Apprentice' star pushes back against criticism of 'timely' new movie. In Life

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BUTCH DILL/GETTY IMAGES 'Proud to have him as my quarterback'

In the AI era where fake is real and real is fake, Georgia QB Gunner Stockton is unassumingly and unapologetically real. In Sports

ICE secretly tracking protesters

An “Agitator Log” contains 60 instances of ICE officers in Minneapolis logging their interactions with protesters and observers. SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES FILE

Records reveal ‘Agitator Log’ kept in secret database in MN field office

Nick Penzenstadler

USA TODAY

Michael Khalili always suspected his work tracking federal immigration officers in Minneapolis would land him on the federal government's radar. The photos agents took of his car and face had to go somewhere.

Those fears became real when his status with Global Entry, a prescreened flyer program, was revoked a day after an exchange in March with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He then faced secondary airport screening when returning to the United States from an international trip this fall.

Now he has proof.

USA TODAY sued ICE under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained a St. Paul, Minnesota, field office database that reveals what legal observers feared: Protesters are being tracked and logged into a secret database for what they argue is exercising protected First Amendment speech.

The document, titled simply “Agitator Log,” contains 60 instances of ICE

See TRACKING, Page 6A

Nonpartisan observers to monitor midterms

Carter Center plans to issue report on voting

Sarah D. Wire

USA TODAY

Terry Hoverter spent decades as a nonpartisan observer monitoring elections in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Armenia and many other countries. He's worked on elections, democracy and human rights in more than 70 nations – and even helped write constitutions and election laws.

Nonpartisan election observers like Hoverter are trusted worldwide to assess whether elections are conducted according to laws and procedures.

Now Hoverter, 52, and other seasoned election observers from around the world are working with the Carter Center Democracy Program. They are training hundreds of Americans to do the same election observation work in Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico ahead of the 2026 elections. The Carter Center, which has conducted more than 125 election observation missions since 1989, typically focuses on countries emerging from conflict or showing signs of democratic backsliding.

"I never thought I'd be doing it in my own country, if I can be honest," he told USA TODAY. "I felt like we are at a point in our history that is critical and I thought, if I'm really living what my professional compass has been, it's important to not ignore the fault lines that I'm seeing in this country right now."

The Carter Center – which has decades of experience observing international elections – is preparing to give Americans a nonpartisan report on the accuracy and trustworthiness of midterm election results. The timing is pivotal. This November, control of both chambers of Congress is at stake, determining what President Donald Trump can accomplish in his final two years in office.

After trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump is again making unsubstantiated claims about the security of the 2026 midterms. For 18 months, he has harnessed the power of the federal government to seek unprecedented control over how states run elections.

See OBSERVERS, Page 3A

Vehicles for transport, work fail safety tests

The Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 electric van is among the few vehicles that Insurance Institute of Highway Safety tested to earn "Good" ratings for pedestrian crash avoidance. PROVIDED BY INSURANCE INSTITUTE OF HIGHWAY SAFETY

Group assesses vans, trucks for first time

Jackie Charniga Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK

There are fewer government standards for delivery vans, box trucks, tractor-trailers and larger work pickups than for passenger cars, says David Kidd, vice president of vehicle research at IIHS

The vehicles that deliver packages in American neighborhoods and take workers to job sites fall dangerously behind passenger vehicles in preventing crashes.

That is the conclusion of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, which did a first-of-its-kind testing series for commercial vehicles, cargo vans and work trucks that found they performed poorly almost across the board in vehicle-to-vehicle tests.

MORE ONLINE

The institute began the assessment of work vehicles in June 2026, checking parameters similar to those checked for retail vehicles, assessing standard front and side airbags, advanced seat belt technology and effective seat belt reminders.

See SAFETY TESTS, Page 6A

Get more automotive content

Find articles on trends, recalls and news, plus how-to videos and new model galleries at usatoday.com/cars.

Earhart expedition team heads to island of meat-eating crabs

Coconut crabs are a species of arthropod that the London Museum of Natural History calls “bird-eating behemoths” that thrive on “isolated tropical islands.” GETTY IMAGES

Theory blames animals for aviator's demise

Phaedra Trethan

USA TODAY

Could a crab (or crabs) be responsible for the ultimate demise of one of the 20th century's great American heroes?

As researchers make their way to the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro in search of the famed aviator Amelia Earhart, they'll contend with thick vegetation, rats and giant meat-eating crabs.

Nikumaroro, an island that's controlled by the nation of Kiribati, is home to coconut crabs, a species of arthropod that the London Museum of Natural History calls “bird-eating behemoths” that thrive on “isolated tropical islands.”

“Their leg span is up to a meter,” or more than 3 feet, the museum says on its website, and the crabs, which can live up to 60 years, “have incredible grip strength and they can lift objects the weight of a 10-year-old child.”

The museum describes the crabs, whose scientific name is Birgus latro, as “absurdly large, land-dwelling,

See CRABS, Page 3A

DOJ starts probe targeting TV outlets

Zac Anderson USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is conducting an antitrust investigation into a group of television networks after they suspended their White House pool coverage in solidarity with CNN following President Donald Trump's decision to ban the news organization, and two other media outlets, from the White House.

“Members of the television press pool have proudly boycotted covering White House events,” the department said in a statement. “Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act. The Anti-trust Division is investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws.”

The investigation further ratchets up the administration's efforts targeting the White House press corps. The five networks that make up the television press pool – which distributes broadcast feeds of White House events to other outlets – are ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and CNN.

A solidarity sign hangs outside the Associated Press booth at the White House grounds Sept. 21.

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS FILE

The probe also puts legal and potentially financial pressure on media outlets to continue coverage of the president even when they disagree with how the White House handles them. Trump has repeatedly called the mainstream media “fake news” and often has clashed with reporters.

On Sept. 21, the television pool announced the decision to suspend coverage, with the pool's chair saying in an email that it followed “the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.” The television networks have since resumed pool coverage.

Trump said Sept. 18 that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House complex, complaining about their coverage. The White House said covering the president was a “privilege – not a right.”

The media outlets sued, arguing the ban violates their constitutional rights to speak freely.

In a Sept. 24 ruling, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the media ban. The judge issued a restraining order requiring the White House to reinstate the outlets' press passes for two weeks. A final decision in the case is pending.

The New York Times reported that ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News are under investigation by the Justice Department over whether they violated antitrust laws. The networks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The networks that make up the television pool share the costs of covering the president, take turns organizing coverage, and share the footage with outlets around the country.

On the same day the television pool suspended White House coverage, outlets with still photographers in the White House pool – including Reuters, Getty Images, The New York Times and the Washington Post – agreed not to publish or distribute any photos taken Sept. 21 until midnight the next day.

Contributing: Reuters; Joey Garrison, BrieAnna J. Frank and Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY

Roofing material lies on the ground Oct. 10 in Destin, Florida, after Hurricane Isaias tore it off as it passed through the region. JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

Power outages linger after Isaias slams into Gulf Coast

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At least 4 deaths have been tied to storm

Christopher Cann, Trevor Hughes and James Powel

USA TODAY

Days after Hurricane Isaias barreled ashore along the Gulf Coast, crews in multiple states worked to restore power as residents surveyed the damage left behind in the storm's wake.

Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, on Oct. 9 as a Category 2 hurricane, shredding homes, uprooting trees and causing significant flooding. Some parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama recorded wind gusts around 100 mph and more than 10 inches of rainfall. Officials tied at least four deaths to the storm.

By Oct. 12, Isaias had weakened to a post-tropical cyclone moving northward through Alabama toward the Tennessee Valley, while authorities continued working on recovery efforts.

AccuWeather predicted 2-4 inches of rain could be seen from far eastern North Carolina into the Delmarva Peninsula through Oct. 12. The forecaster said 1-2 inches of rain could fall on areas farther north and west.

Meanwhile, ocean swells continued affecting the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coast.

Isaias ended two years without a hurricane landfall in the continental United States, the most recent being Hurricane Milton in October 2024, two years to the day before Isaias made landfall. Recovery efforts are underway in Alabama and Florida.

The Associated Press reported that weather stations in western North Carolina recorded as much as 9.57 inches of rain as Isaias moved through the region. The highest reported rainfall total was 12.97 inches in Bellwood, Alabama, according to AccuWeather.

Florida avoided the worst-case scenario, as landfall occurred several hours before high tide. Some meteorologists estimate that storm surge could have reached as high as 7 feet.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during an Oct. 11 visit to a Waffle House in Milton, Florida, that northern Santa Rosa County was probably the area hardest hit by the storm, according to the Pensacola News Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.

In Santa Rosa, a beach community between Destin and Panama City, crews worked Oct. 12 to clear trees and other debris off neighborhood roads and thoroughfares. Several schools in the area were heavily damaged, including one that had its roof partially ripped off. Multiple counties in the region remained under boil water notices.

More than 140,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Florida on Oct. 12, according to a USA TODAY outage tracker. Most outages in the state were concentrated in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, on the Panhandle. An additional 21,000 in Alabama were in the dark.

Deaths from Isaias

In the Birmingham, Alabama, area, a person was killed when a tree fell on their home, Jim Coker, director of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency, told NPR. In Barbour County, a driver died in a wreck that involved fallen trees, the Alabama Reflector reported.

Florida officials confirmed two deaths in Escambia County.

A woman, whom AccuWeather identified as 57-year-old Jen Williams, was pinned beneath a falling tree inside her home. Her stepson Zane Williams told AccuWeather that she was a “good woman” and “a wonderful mom.”

Separately, a man was found inside a closed garage in which he'd been running a generator. Four others were hospitalized in the same incident, according to NPR.

Americans win Nobel for economic stability work

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Academics' models used by top central banks

Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander

REUTERS

STOCKHOLM – American academics Robert Hall and Michael Woodford won the 2026 Nobel Prize for Economics on Oct. 12 for decades of work developing ground-up models currently used by central banks and finance ministries across the world to stabilize economies.

“With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume,” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement.

Woodford and Hall are frequently name-checked by the world's top central banks which, after a 2022 inflation surge in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, are currently grappling with the energy shock triggered by the war with Iran.

One of the laureates' key insights is that economies could only be kept on an even keel by taking into account the millions of decisions made at a micro level by households and businesses, rather than by using top-down theories of how economies work.

“... Authorities shouldn't view stabilization of the economy as an exercise that is simply conducted by people pulling levers to control the econo-"Making more explicit statements about the likely future path of interest rate policy, as opposed to relying on simply being able to cut interest rates further immediately, that was an important part of the policy response in the years from 2009 onward."

Michael Woodford

Winner of 2026 Nobel Prize for Economics

my independently of what people in the economy understand about this," Columbia University's Woodford told a news conference.

In contrast to the oil shocks of the 1970s, when central banks struggled to combat sky-high inflation, Woodford said the new framework was useful during the global financial crisis of the late 2000s to bolster traditional tools of monetary policy.

“Making more explicit statements about the likely future path of interest rate policy, as opposed to relying on simply being able to cut interest rates further immediately, that was an important part of the policy response in the years from 2009 onward,” he said.

Beyond so-called “forward guidance” on the future path of monetary policy, the work of Woodford – and Stanford University’s Hall, 83 – promoted other concepts used today such as the idea of “sticky” inflation when price changes lag changes in demand.

Another is the “output gap,” a measure of demand pressure building up in an economy and how efficiently resources are being used – the goal of stabilization policy being to steer that gap toward zero.

Hall has served as adviser to the Treasury Department, the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve Board. His insight in a 1978 paper that household decisions on consumption are a perfect indicator of their expectations was used by Woodford in a model on how consumption is determined.

Woodford also showed that central banks can stimulate or suppress economic activity by adjusting interest rates, rather than just by the amount of money in circulation.

Such concepts remain core to central banking today. Forward guidance became especially important after the 2008 financial crisis, when rates were near zero or even negative and standard monetary policy seemed to be out of ammunition.

Now, however, some are questioning how relevant it is given the amount of uncertainty in the global economy – with new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh a notable skeptic.

The economics prize, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final award to be given out this year and is worth about \$1.2 million. First awarded in 1969, it is not one of the original five awards created in the 1895 will of Nobel, but was established by Sweden's central bank.

The Nobel prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were announced last week.

Volume 45, No. 21

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Kyiv: Deadly Russian airstrikes violated new energy ceasefire

Russian drone strikes in Kharkiv, Ukraine, hit residential buildings on the morning of Oct. 12, wounding at least 22 people. SERGEY BOBOK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Drones struck multiple targets, Zelenskyy says

Daniel Flynn and Pavel Polityuk

REUTERS

KYIV – Russia hit at least six energy targets during a night and morning of deadly air strikes across Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 12, adding this showed Moscow had no interest in an energy ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump.

Under pressure over high energy prices ahead of U.S. midterm elections in November, the U.S. president blind-sided Kyiv and its European allies by declaring that Kyiv and Moscow had agreed not to hit each other's energy systems.

"It is increasingly evident that Russia is unwilling to accept an energy ceasefire proposed by the United States and intends to continue its terrorist air attacks against our people and communities," Zelenskyy said on X. "This is what happens when Russia sees the prospect of higher revenues for its war machine."

In earlier comments by video link to a conference in Poland, Zelenskyy identified two of the targets as a gas facility and a gas station, both hit by Russian drones.

Trump announced the purported energy ceasefire days after unveiling a deal to buy diesel from Russia, which Zelenskyy has criticized as a reversal of years of Western policy aimed at isolating Russia's economy.

Trump, for his part, has called on Ukrainians to unseat Zelenskyy in an election, an unusually tense exchange in a relationship between the two leaders that has been strained since Trump returned to power in 2025. Trump's announcement was the second time within a few weeks that Trump has declared an energy ceasefire without confirmation from the two warring sides.

Ukraine's European allies on Oct. 12 voiced skepticism of any such agreement, spoke strongly in support of Kyiv and approved the largest set of European Union sanctions since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

'We do not want a ceasefire,' Kremlin says

Kyiv has increasingly targeted Russian oil refineries and logistics with long-range strikes in recent months, its answer to more than $4 \frac{1}{2}$ years of relentless Russian attacks on its cities, including persistent campaigns to knock out Ukraine's power and heat in successive winters.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had carried out no attacks on Russian refineries overnight and was willing to agree to an energy ceasefire, but only if Russia complied with it. He also said elections, suspended during wartime, could be held in Ukraine if Moscow agreed to a full ceasefire for 60 days.

Russia, for its part, said talks were ongoing about a possible energy ceasefire, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said further information would be revealed in due course. But he rejected Zelenskyy's proposal for a full 60-day truce.

"In the Kremlin, both President [Vladimir] Putin and officials at other levels have repeatedly stated that we do not want a ceasefire," said Peskov. "We want long-term peace and are prepared to do everything possible to achieve it."

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Body among wreckage

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, rescue workers picked through wreckage of shattered buildings. The body of a dead civilian in jeans and white sneakers lay beneath debris, lit up by floodlights in the nighttime.

Nataliia Minka said she had just made it to a shelter when a missile struck nearby. She and her child had seen what they believed to be a missile hitting a nearby power station.

“Ten minutes had passed since they promised they wouldn't target energy facilities,” she said.

“It’s so hard to describe how a child was lying there, already covered up, and the father was running around her, crying and screaming,” she added. “It’s so terrifying – it’s impossible to get through something like this.”

After nighttime attacks killed at least three people in the city, further strikes took place in the morning, hitting residential buildings and wounding at least 22 more people, municipal officials said. At least three others were reported killed on Oct. 11 in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Russia began its latest strike campaign on Ukraine's grid two weeks ago, already causing daily, hours-long power cuts in Kyiv, affecting the capital's water and sewage systems and twice bringing its underground trains to an abrupt halt.

To maintain pressure on Moscow, EU foreign ministers on Oct. 12 added 1,569 new names to their sanctions list of banned individuals and businesses, billed as the largest single package to date.

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Moscow "will only negotiate seriously under pressure, which is why we are sticking to our sanctions against Russia.

“Following Moscow’s ruthless attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure, we must actually tighten them further.”

Trump has increasingly blamed Kyiv's attacks on Russian refineries for surging global costs for fuel, especially diesel, which has hit record prices in the United States since he launched his military campaign against Iran. On Oct. 10 he said Zelenskyy had “better damn well stop” attacking Russian refineries.

A person familiar with the situation said the United States had threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine and supplies of weapons, which Washington no longer provides to Kyiv but allows European countries to buy on its behalf.

Crabs

Continued from Page 1A

bird-hunting crustaceans." Once fully grown, they can only live on land, and they're known to hunt rats and large migratory birds, the museum says.

The Taraia Object expedition, which includes researchers from Indiana-based Purdue University, Purdue's Archaeological Legacy Institute and the Purdue Research Foundation, departed Oct. 2 and is expected to reach the island by Oct. 12. They're in search of the plane that belonged to Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, who went missing in 1937 as they attempted to be the first people to fly around the world at the Equator. Purdue produced a podcast series about Earhart and the search for her plane.

USA TODAY reached out to Purdue to ask about the crabs. While the research team is en route to Nikumaroro, communication is difficult. But one member of the team, Steve Schultz, senior vice president and general counsel at Purdue University, indicated that the team is well aware of the danger the crabs pose, saying in an email through the university, “The coconut crabs are one of the reasons we’re leaving the island every night before sundown.”

Meanwhile, at least one theory has Earhart meeting her demise not in a crash, but instead at the hands – uh, claws – of the giant coconut crabs, which have an excellent sense of smell and may have detected a wounded Earhart on the beach after a crash landing.

A 2013 article in Smithsonian Magazine, drawing on a story in Environmental Graffiti (a now-defunct online publication), lays out the long-held, if somewhat gruesome, theory that Earhart and Noonan crash-landed their Lockheed Electra 10-E in a lagoon on Nikumaroro and that she survived but was wounded.

The theory goes that the crabs, whose huge claws are strong enough to crack open coconuts, were drawn to the smell of blood and descended on the wounded aviator, overtaking her and, well, taking her.

Smithsonian Magazine quotes Environmental Graffiti, which wrote: "In 1940, researchers discovered a fraction of a skeleton on the island that matched the description of Amelia Earhart. Now, even more interesting clues are arising that seem to substantiate the idea that this is where she met her demise. The most compelling hypothesis currently under consideration is that coconut crabs overwhelmed her where she lay."

In 2007, researchers even tried to test the theory, using a small pig carcass to see how the crabs would react, Environmental Graffiti said; the bones, it added, were quickly removed and scattered by the crabs.

Observers

Continued from Page 1A

In a Sept. 28 interview with Time magazine, he refused to rule out declaring a national security emergency in the final weeks of the election or invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy the military on U.S. soil to suppress civil disturbances.

For the first time in decades, the administration did not invite foreign-based observers with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to monitor the election. The United States is a founding member of the organization and in 1990 signed an agreement to invite foreign and domestic observers to monitor national elections, according to the organization's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and Parliamentary Assembly.

“We regret that we will not be able to continue this work during the upcoming mid-term elections,” Maria Telalian, who leads the office, said in a statement. “Election observation is not a judgment on a country or its institutions. It provides voters, election administrators, contestants and the wider public with an independent and objective assessment of the electoral process.”

Trump invited the organization during his first term. Asked why the group was not invited this year, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said: “No other nation has done more to advance the cause of human freedom and representative government. American elections will be administered, participated in, and observed by American citizens.”

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2020 elections spurred efforts

The Carter Center Democracy Program has slowly expanded the domestic election observation efforts it began in

2020. That year, it decided it needed to begin observing U.S. elections after watching voting disruptions caused by the pandemic, the narrative from Trump and others about not trusting election results, and the Black Lives Matter social upheaval, according to its director, Avery Davis-Roberts.

“We looked at that situation and sort of asked ourselves, ‘If we were seeing this in other countries where we’ve worked, what would the Carter Center do? Would we act?’” Davis-Roberts said.

The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and ongoing claims by Trump and the MAGA movement about election security confirmed for the center that it needs to continue focusing on voting at home and abroad, she said.

The U.S. Constitution gives states authority over election administration, and thus the rules vary by state, and in some places, by county. Many states allow poll watchers representing political parties to be present, but few explicitly allow for nonpartisan observers.

What the Carter Center observers will be allowed to monitor varies by

Terry Hoverter, right, director of the Michigan Election Observation Project, and Zaneta Adams, director of partnerships at Veterans for All Voters, recruit volunteer election observers Sept. 27.

PROVIDED BY VETERANS FOR ALL VOTERS

state. In Nevada, they can monitor early voting. In Georgia, they can view tabulation and accuracy testing, which ensures the election and voting equipment function accurately.

In other states, they'll observe Election Day operations and watch as ballots are processed that night and in the days after. Some will monitor the tabulation and county canvassing states do to ensure the results were accurate in the weeks after Election Day.

Davis-Roberts said states were selected in part based on where election observers are allowed. But they also considered a balance of political preferences and demographics and whether people vote by mail or in person. In Montana and New Mexico, they want to examine the experience of Native American voters.

For decades, the United States and other major developed countries have monitored elections in emerging democracies. The presence of organizations such as the Carter Center is pervasive enough that voters expect to see them.

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Observers provide transparency

While nonpartisan election observation is common internationally, it remains relatively rare in America, where voters are more accustomed to partisan poll watchers and advocacy groups.

“We don’t have what we see in most other countries in the world, which is nonpartisan election observation that’s really focused on understanding how the process works and providing transparency on the process itself,” Davis-Roberts said. In the U.S., she added, “there was almost a gap where the election administration process needed its own champion. We felt that nonpartisan observation could fill that role.”

Nicole Rowsell considered the rhetoric around the 2020 presidential election and other events taking place in the country and decided it was time to come home after 20 years overseeing elections and democracy overseas.

“It, for me, raised questions about my own responsibility as an American to try and contribute at home,” Rowsell told USA TODAY.

Rowsell, 49, has observed elections in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. She now leads the Montana Election Observation Initiative, which has partnered with the University of Montana's Mansfield Center and the Carter Center to train observers.

Rowsell is recruiting up to 400 Montanans in 20 counties to observe the process before, during and after Election Day. She's hoping this will help people better understand how their own elections work.

“They’re going to go home to their families and their communities and talk about what they did all day – probably how bored they were,” she said. “But their ability to understand a very complex process and to share that with people in their community is extremely important.”

Midterm campaigns may test '28 viability

Democrats in tight races

shun some surrogates

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy

USA TODAY

NEW YORK – Democrat Cait Conley, who is seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in one of the nation's most crucial House races, in the suburbs just north of New York City, was asked last month if she would campaign with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“I’m good,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sept. 6, about joining hands with Ocasio-Cortez, a high-profile figure in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party who serves in an adjacent New York district.

Conley, an Army combat veteran who served as a national security expert in the Biden administration, said she

Conley

wanted to focus on local voters.

Lawler

Exactly 10 days later, she campaigned with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The following day, it was a rally with Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in Yorktown, a suburb in the Lower Hudson Valley where Ocasio-Cortez grew up.

Ocasio-Cortez, Buttigieg and Kelly, along with former Vice President Kamala Harris and Cali-

fornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, are among the top polling names for potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates.

Conley's campaign did not comment on whether Harris, who was the Democrats' unsuccessful 2024 presidential nominee, had been invited to campaign in the district. It is one of only three congressional districts nationwide that voted for Harris in the 2024 presidential election while electing a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives.

At a time when Democrats across the country are wringing their hands about the lack of a party standard-bearer, could these potential candidates' presence on the midterm campaign trail serve as a signal about their

viability in 2028?

Conley is not the only candidate keeping her distance from Ocasio-Cortez and Harris.

Among the Democrats refusing help from Harris are Senate candidates Adam Hamilton of Kansas and Josh Tu-

Harris

rek of Iowa; Rob Sand, the candidate for governor of Iowa; Senate candidate Mary Peltola of Alaska; and House candidate Rebecca Cooke of Wisconsin. Cooke, meanwhile, campaigned with Buttigieg and Kelly. Sam

Forstag, a progressive House candidate in Montana who appeared with Ocasio-Cortez at a May rally, has since scrubbed her endorsement from his campaign website.

Is it a sign that voters view the most viable female candidates as having too much baggage to be competitive in purple states? After Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024, cautious primary voters might worry that for Democratic female presidential candidates the third time may not be a charm.

Still, Democrats' performance in the midterms could change the political landscape. And district-level elections can hinge on local factors far removed from the national debates that dominate presidential-level politics.

But experts say campaigns in swing states are choosing surrogates that will best appeal to the voters in that state – the same voters that will help decide the next presidential election.

Melissa DeRosa, a Democratic strategist, said for candidates trying to win over independents and moderate voters, sometimes the most valuable surrogate isn't the one who generates the most excitement – it's the one who doesn't alienate the voters they need to win.

"I don't think it's necessarily that Pete Buttigieg is additive so much as he's unobjectionable," DeRosa said. "He's disciplined, articulate and doesn't come with the ideological baggage or political controversy that can make other national Democrats a liability in competitive districts."

Buttigieg, who launched an unsuccessful presidential primary bid in 2019, has campaigned in-person with 50 candidates across 37 states, according to his political organization Win the Era.

Buttigieg

Ocasio-Cortez, commonly known as AOC, is widely popular among

progressives but is also seen by many moderates as a polarizing figure aligned with the far-left wing of the Democratic Party who once supported defunding the police and continues to call for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As for Harris, the Democratic National Committee's autopsy of why the party lost the 2024 election, released this year, cited her inability to energize voters as one of the reasons for the defeat.

“Losing a whopping 6.8 million voters who supported Biden in 2020 proved pivotal in this extremely close election,” the report said. “Harris’s inability to mobilize these pro-Biden voters may have been the campaign’s biggest failure.”

Newsom, meanwhile, has also been on the campaign trail, sticking largely to early calendar Southern states, such as South Carolina, and swing states such as Nevada, Michigan and North Carolina.

Donna Brazile, a former acting chair of the Democratic National Committee and a longtime Harris ally, pushed back against the notion that the campaign trail choices are “about women.”

She said candidates in red states often emphasize distance from national politics.

"Those in red or purple states tend to use fewer surrogates than typical blue-state candidates. They must appeal to center-right voters or independentleaning Republicans," she said. "Trust me, it's not about women. It's about reaching the voters you need to put you over the top."

Ocasio-Cortez

Ocasio-Cortez, 36, who became the youngest woman to be elected to Congress in 2018 at age

29, has said that she has not ruled out a run for president in 2028. Polymarket, meanwhile, currently has her as the top

Democratic contender. In a poll conducted at the end of September by Harris Poll, which is unaffiliated with the former vice president, Harris tops the list, with Ocasio-Cortez in third place.

Despite some candidates' hesitancy, many hopefuls have welcomed both Harris and Ocasio-Cortez.

A self-identified democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez has been crisscrossing the country rallying for other progressive candidates. She traveled to Kissimmee, Florida, to rally and campaign for Senate candidate Angie Nixon. She campaigned for Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson in his congressional bid. And she campaigned for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan.

For her part, when asked about some red-state Democrats shunning her, Harris told MS NOW that the “candidates know what they need to do to win” and that she supports them in the effort.

In September, she campaigned with El-Sayed in Michigan. This month, she attended a fundraiser for Nevada's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Aaron Ford, in Los Angeles and spoke at a fundraiser with Shomari Figures, who is running in a very competitive red district in Alabama's 2nd Congressional District. She will also campaign alongside Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff as he seeks reelection.

Eduardo Negrón, Harris' spokesperson, told USA TODAY that in the coming weeks, “Harris will continue doing all she can to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”

Bakari Sellers, a former Democratic member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and a political commentator, said both parties are trying to make the midterm elections “hyper-local because national Democrats and national Republicans are underwater when it comes to likability.”

“I mean, sometimes they can help you gin up excitement and sometimes they can help you raise money,” he said. “But what you don’t want to be doing is answering questions about their politics. So you have to find that balancing act.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @Swapna-Venugopal.

Why didn't widely used pentobarbital work on Pike?

Common execution drug used by 14 states

Amanda Lee Myers

USA TODAY

When it comes to executing death row inmates, pentobarbital is the drug of choice for more than a dozen states and the federal government.

It has been used to kill more than 100 murderers in the United States for more than 15 years. So how did Christa Pike survive her execution in Tennessee after a doctor injected her with two doses of pentobarbital on Sept. 30?

The explanation that makes the most sense is that the pentobarbital never made it to Pike's veins, say Pike's attorneys and death penalty experts. Rather, they think Pike's executioners either missed her veins altogether or pierced all the way through them, sending the drugs into her body tissue instead of her bloodstream.

That would point to human error as the culprit.

Though pentobarbital is a common execution drug, the people who inject the poison into inmates are different in every state. And though they can carry "M.D." after their names, their skills and experience can vary wildly.

“Good doctors don’t want to be involved in executions,” said Columbia Law School’s Bernard Harcourt, who represented Doyle Lee Hamm, an Alabama inmate who survived a botched lethal injection in 2018. They take the Hippocratic oath, he said, which dictates that medical professionals must “do no harm.”

"The result is that you get folks who aren't very good at this," Harcourt said. "You've got people who are not really qualified ... doing this under extremely stressful conditions in the middle of the night. And that's just a recipe for disaster."

An investigation remains ongoing as Pike's attorneys fight to save her from a potential second execution.

Pentobarbital is a sedative used in animal euthanasia and assisted suicides. In smaller doses, it can treat seizures, insomnia and anxiety, and can be used as a preanesthetic or sedative.

The Schedule II controlled substance affects a person's brain, respiratory system, cardiovascular system, consciousness and motor functioning.

Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike survived her execution attempt after a doctor injected her with two doses of pentobarbital on Sept. 30.

PROVIDED BY CHRISTA PIKE'S LEGAL TEAM

In executions, the drug typically is delivered to an inmate's veins through an IV line. The drug is supposed to flow through the bloodstream and enter the heart before causing a coma and death.

"Good doctors don't want to be involved in executions. The result is that you get folks who aren't very good at this. "You've got people who are not really qualified ... And that's just a recipe for disaster."

Bernard Harcourt

Columbia Law School

Ohio became the first state to use pentobarbital as the sole execution drug in 2011, when executioners lethally injected it into death row inmate Johnnie Roy Baston. The execution happened without incident and Baston was pronounced dead 13 minutes after the pentobarbital began coursing through his veins, according to archived news reports.

Now 14 states use it in as the sole drug in some or all of their executions, including Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. It's also the drug of choice for the federal government.

The last time pentobarbital was used effectively in an execution came a week after Pike's attempt in Tennessee. On Oct. 7, Texas executed Jamaal Howard for the 2000 murder of a mother of three named Vickie Swartout just northeast of Houston. Howard was executed without incident.

Dr. Mark Fowler oversaw Pike's execution, according to reporting by NBC News and WSMV-TV.

Fowler has publicly identified himself as the doctor who botched the execution of Tennessee death-row inmate Tony Carruthers in May. While Fowler established a primary IV line in that execution, he failed to establish a second IV line required under the state's execution protocol. He also unsuccessfully tried to place a central line.

After Carruthers spent more than an hour strapped down waiting to die, the state abandoned the execution and Gov. Bill Lee granted him a rare one-year reprieve. In a lawsuit filed in July, his family said that they believe Carruthers suffered a stroke and that the entire right side of his body was left paralyzed.

Fowler had not placed a central line in at least 13 years, according to his deposition in litigation over Tennessee's execution procedures. Fowler testified that he had placed about a dozen central lines during his career and had no current hospital privileges.

“I am qualified,” Fowler said during a tense exchange with Carruthers’ attorney inside the death chamber, according to the Nashville Banner. USA TODAY has been unable to contact Fowler.

Fowler told NBC News in June that he participates in executions to lessen the suffering of the prisoners being put to death. “Every attempt was made to minimize the defendant’s discomfort in the case at hand,” he said.

Following Carruthers' botched execution, Lee's office ignored USA TO-

DAY's request for comment about whether the state was doing anything to avoid another failed execution. The Tennessee Department of Correction also did not respond to USA TODAY's questions about whether it would continue to use Fowler in future executions and if so, why.

Fowler carried out a successful execution in Tennessee in August.

Nearly 10 months before Pike's execution date, her attorneys warned the state that it would have a hard time gaining access to her veins and properly delivering a fatal dose of pentobarbital because she has unusually small veins and a blood condition known as thrombocytosis.

State officials dismissed those concerns, arguing in the Tennessee Supreme Court that her “alleged medical conditions do not warrant a stay.” The courts agreed.

Defense attorneys have been fighting the use of pentobarbital for years.

In a previous case that went to the Supreme Court, defense attorneys argued that pentobarbital can cause pulmonary edema in inmates, making them feel as if they're drowning or asphyxiating and causing “extreme pain, terror, and panic.”

In a 5-4 decision in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that pentobarbital had become “a mainstay of state executions” and cleared the way for the government to use pentobarbital. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court was “setting a dangerous precedent” and “there will be no meaningful judicial review of the grave, fact-heavy challenges” being brought by the inmates.

In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma's use of the execution drug midazolam in 2015. In that case, Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, “While most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune.”

Sotomayor, who wrote the principal dissent in that case, said that the ruling “leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake.”

Contributing: Madeline Mitchell and Janet Loehrke, USA TODAY; Richard Wolf, formerly of USA TODAY; Kelly Puente, Nashville Tennessee

Houthis claim fatal attack at Saudi airport

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Aviation authorities say they're assessing impact

James Powel

USA TODAY

Officials in Saudi Arabia said Riyadh's international airport remained closed Oct. 12, two days after a strike claimed by Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi rebels killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 300.

The Saudi-led coalition backing government forces in Yemen reported a new barrage from drones and missiles, but it wasn't immediately clear whether they were intercepted.

On Oct. 11, another strike hit King Khalid International Airport. Saudi officials said that an “unidentified projectile” targeted Terminal 4 of the airport, injuring an unspecified number of people and sparking a fire. Saudi air defenses also intercepted a cruise missile in the vicinity of the airport, officials said.

Saudi civil aviation authorities said they were still assessing the damage. They also said Dammam airport in the kingdom's Eastern Province was attacked Oct. 11.

In a televised speech Oct. 11, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for the Oct. 10 attack as well as another on the airport in Dammam and two facilities of Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco. It also renewed warnings about potential strikes against the King Khalid airport.

Smoke and flames rise from King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Oct. 8.

SOCIAL MEDIA VIA REUTERS

“We urge everyone to take our warnings seriously, and Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed interceptions,” the group said.

The Oct. 10 attack on Riyadh's airport killed four Saudis, two Bangladeshis and people from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt, Saudi authorities said. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh said Oct. 11 that one of its citizens injured in the attack had died, raising the initial death toll of 12 to 13.

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Houthis: 'Worse is yet to come'

Saudi Arabia has stepped up its military involvement in Yemen in recent weeks, launching strikes against the Houthis and backing a Yemeni government-in-exile counteroffensive after the group seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast in September.

The Houthis had been attacking Saudi airports and oil facilities over the previous week.

President Donald Trump said Oct. 10 that the United States was considering joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis in the conflict, potentially increasing the scope of the war on Iran that the U.S. and Israel launched in February.

The Houthis said Oct. 11 that Saudi Arabia carried out 124 military strikes in Yemen in the previous 24 hours, including the capital Sanaa and the group's stronghold Saada. The Houthis foreign ministry warned that further attacks would cause it to escalate.

“Unless the Saudi enemy stops its aggression and interference in Yemen, worse is yet to come, God willing,” the ministry said in statements carried by Houthi-run Al Masirah television.

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Energy conference begins

Despite the strikes, a long-planned international energy conference went ahead in Riyadh as planned Oct. 11. The five-day conference of international energy organizations, WPC Energy, opened as planned at a convention center about 6 miles from the airport.

A ministerial meeting of the International Energy Forum also went ahead, with its plenary session to be held behind closed doors, according to a media advisory.

Contributing: Reuters

Continued from Page 1A

officers in Minneapolis logging their interactions with protesters and legal observers around the Whipple Federal Building in the spring of 2026.

“I am in no way surprised. It was clear they were tracking us and trying to find reasons to crack down on us,” Khalili told USA TODAY. “I try to keep this in perspective. I wasn’t physically harmed, but American democracy cannot operate this way.”

Each incident includes an ICE officer's brief description of the interaction, along with information about the protester's vehicle, license plates, a photo of the car, and whether the officer contacted local law enforcement. Personal information was redacted in the copy of the database released to USA TODAY.

While not identified by name, Khalili was driving a black Hyundai SUV during his interactions with ICE. Those incidents are described accurately in the database on the correct dates, he said.

“Black Hyundai began following ICE Officer. Officer made contact with [white] male and white female and asked why they were following him. The [male] stated ‘You know why I’m following you,’ ” an ICE officer wrote in the database. “The vehicle continued following the Officer over 16 miles before he lost them in traffic.”

Homeland Security officials had insisted, for months, that no such database was being kept, captured, logged or maintained.

In a separate revelation on Oct. 2, a newly unsealed court filing in Maine revealed ICE is uploading photos of protesters into an “Investigative Case Management” database.

An ICE officer in the Maine case mentions a “Master List of Agitators,” though that list remains under court seal. The agitator lists may be part of a larger surveillance effort.

"This confirms exactly what we've alleged: They're tracking information in a database, using the term ‘agitators’ as an excuse to retaliate against people who are observing and exercising their First Amendment rights," said Maryam Jazini Dorcheh, an attorney with Common Cause who represents Khalili and other observers.

ICE and DHS spokespeople did not immediately respond to USA TODAY about the database's existence, but as recently as Oct. 2 told other media outlets that it's a “lie that there is a database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”

Whether the government was tracking Americans became an issue in January, after Renee Good was shot and killed while monitoring ICE officers in Minneapolis. Senior Trump admini-

Safety tests

Continued from Page 1A

Crashes involving heavy- or medium-duty vehicles and light vans killed 6,215 people in the United States in 2024, the most recent year that data is available. That's $16\%$ of all roadway fatalities the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recorded that year in its Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

Heavy-duty pickups used for towing and hauling things like lawn care equipment, furniture and construction equipment, in particular, scored poorly for front-crash prevention, trailing behind passenger cars.

David Kidd, vice president of vehicle research at IIHS, told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, that there are fewer government standards for delivery vans, box trucks, tractor-trailers and larger work pickups than for passenger cars.

"There are a lot of gaps between those things that are required for passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles around the airbags, advanced restraints and even towing regulations," Kidd said. For example, automatic emergency braking that detects vehicles as well as pedestrians; "that's not coming for commercial vehicles."

"When there are large crashes, those vehicles are usually doling out the harm," he added. "Our hope is that by doing these evaluations, we motivate the manufacturers to improve the technology in these vehicles and hopefully make them standard."

IIHS is an independent nonprofit, funded by auto insurance agencies, that seeks to reduce deaths, injuries and property damage from car crashes through research and education of consumers, policymakers and safety professionals.

The first assessment focused on cargo vans and Class 3 pickup trucks, stration officials, including then-Home-

land Security Secretary Kristi Noem,

called her a “domestic terrorist.”

Demonstrators hold a protest outside the ICE field office in Scarborough, Maine, on July 14. A newly unsealed court filing in Maine revealed ICE is uploading photos of protesters into a database. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Weeks later in Maine, a masked ICE officer was caught on video taking a picture of a protester and saying: "We have a nice little database ... And now you're considered a domestic terrorist."

Former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons testified under oath to Congress about allegations that ICE was tracking protesters in February.

He was emphatic during the hearing: "There is no database for protesters," he told them.

Noem did the same in March: “We’re not creating a database.”

Lyons said again in an April follow-up letter to Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Florida, and 11 others that “[ICE] does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities.” Lyons wrote that ICE was “fully committed to upholding the Constitution and respecting First Amendment rights of all individuals, including the right to peacefully assemble.”

Lyons claimed the only time ICE keeps information on protesters is if their actions “go beyond protected speech,” like threatening, assaulting or interfering with ICE operations.

Federal prosecutors charged 15 people in Minnesota in June for allegedly attempting to impede or injure federal law enforcement officers during the ICE surge last winter.

The “Agitator List” released to USA TODAY appears to directly contradict Lyons.

Kevin Riach, an attorney for some of the Minneapolis defendants in the criminal case, received a version of the same ICE database released to USA TODAY.

He said what ties the incidents on the released list together is that they originated at the Whipple building. Riach said he believes DHS was trying to build

the latter of which is classified through a maximum gross vehicle weight rating, or GVWR, from 10,001 to 14,000 pounds. The GVWR is the most a vehicle can safely carry, according to IIHS, and includes its own weight and all cargo and passengers.

Eleven vehicles were tested at the institute's Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia.

Two trends in particular captured the attention of IIHS researchers: the growing market for work and delivery vehicles, and the increasing size of those commercial vehicles.

"These vehicles are common on roadways, these wider vehicles and larger pickups," Kidd said. "It's harder to discern if they're different from their 'smaller' light-duty counterparts."

The institute selected the most well-known commercial vehicles based on notoriety and insurance registration information, Kidd said. The Rivian RCV-Delivery 500, which scored "Marginal" in the vehicle-to-vehicle tests but "Good" on pedestrian safety, is the platform for customized vans Amazon uses.

Cargo vans were more likely to secure “Good” ratings, with the discontinued Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 electric van and the Rivian RCV-Delivery 500 earning that distinction for pedestrian crash avoidance. The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500 got a “Good” rating for vehicle-to vehicle front crash prevention.

These vans and trucks scored “Poor” when tested in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes:

● 2025-2027 Chevrolet Express

2500

support for criminal charges against the protesters and the list only represents a small fraction of the documented interactions throughout the Twin Cities.

ICE officers often reported benign interactions, such as “I was followed,” to enter a protester’s detailed information into the database, according to the records released to USA TODAY.

Others include details of cat-and-mouse evasions that ended with local law enforcement stepping in.

Some of the “agitators” in the database appeared to understand they could draw more scrutiny if they followed ICE officers across the state border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. That’s at the heart of the government’s case against 15 protesters charged with interstate stalking, which can carry a five-year prison sentence.

Redactions make it difficult to definitively match the vehicles in the ICE database with any of the 15 people charged by federal prosecutors in Minnesota.

But many of the vehicles and situations line up, including in the case against Natasha Rakotz, who prosecutors claim drove her black Honda Civic into an ICE officer's Ford pickup truck on May 15 and has been charged with assault.

In general, following ICE officers, shouting at them or recording them in public spaces is lawful. But speeding, running red lights or driving recklessly makes it a crime, which some officers alleged in the database.

Tracking protesters solely for expressing their constitutionally protected speech could be a violation of the First Amendment, said Mindy Haas, an international affairs professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

"If you end up chilling speech," Haas said, "we're pushing up against the line of thought crimes."

Several systems “did not issue warnings or slow at all” in most of the motorcycle scenarios, while others slowed to avoid or mitigate a collision but were docked points for not alerting the driver in time.

Only two vehicles – the 2025-2027 Chevrolet Express 2500 and 2025-2026 GMC Savana 2500 – earned “Poor” results when tested in pedestrian crash avoidance scenarios because they are not outfitted with automatic emergency braking systems. The vehicles come with optional forward collision warning systems instead.

Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said Oct. 8 that the IIHS's ratings pose "a clear warning that too many commercial vehicles lack adequate front crash prevention," particularly from the lack of automatic emergency braking on two of the tested vehicles.

NHTSA noted in June 2023 that a federal requirement for automatic emergency braking on heavy vehicles could save “155 lives and prevent 8,814 injuries and over 19,000 crashes annually” and save “close to \$2 billion per year,” Chase said in a statement. “Equipping all trucks with AEB, including those driving around our neighborhoods where children are playing or biking to school and people are walking their dogs, to drop off e-commerce packages and conduct other services will save lives.”

● 2025 Ford Transit T250

● 2025-2027 GMC Savana 2500

Even the vehicles that earned an “Acceptable” rating in pedestrian collisions faced difficulty with sight lines. Both the F-350 and Ram 3500 struggled to detect and avoid the child-size dummy in broad daylight when compared with avoiding the “adult” dummy at night.

● 2025-2027 Ram ProMaster 2500

● 2025-2026 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 heavy-duty

• 2025 Ford F-350

● 2025-2026 GMC Sierra 3500

Results for each vehicle “varied widely,” according to IIHS, though the motorcycle target presented the biggest challenge.

At closer distances, child-size dummies “disappear” from the line of sight of the driver, as well as the sensors positioned near the rearview mirror, because of tall front ends of the vehicles.

That's why automatic braking technology could be especially helpful for larger vehicles, Kidd said.

Don't lose our title as world leader in research

Jenna Jambeck, a MacArthur Fellow here in her lab at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, in 2023, is an environmental engineer developing new methods for understanding and addressing global plastic pollution.

JOSHUA L. JONES/USA TODAY NETWORK VIA REUTERS CONNECT

Kristen Mack

Opinion contributor

The United States spent more than two centuries becoming a world leader in science and humanities research, but we're quickly losing that title as universities face federal funding cuts and global competition intensifies.

China is now the leader in several critical fields, including engineering, the physical sciences and agriculture.

To understand how we got here and what we can do about it, we need to look back at how the United States constructed its intellectual leadership, what chipped away at it, and how the values that first made us leaders in research can guide a renewed commitment to investing in ideas.

After World War II, America embraced the belief that open-ended exploration in the sciences and humanities without the promise of immediately exploitable knowledge would elicit breakthroughs. And it did.

Where we choose to place our funding dollars for research is a value judgment on what forms of knowledge are worthy of pursuit. When federal funding constraints or political agendas influence intellectual inquiry, scholars lose the agency to pursue what drew them to the work.

Instead, they shape their ideas around what institutions consider fundable. As a result, that narrows not just our curiosity and creativity, but also the space for wider discovery.

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What Du Bois had in common with discovery of penicillin

That space to discover and experiment is critical for us to move forward.

For example, sociologist and civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois needed to transcend the confines of disciplines to challenge prevailing ways of understanding Black American life by combining sociology, statistics, history and visual design.

Or consider the accidental discovery of penicillin: Alexander Fleming published his landmark paper on the antibacterial effect of a new mold long before knowing its therapeutic potential.

Time and time again, we have seen that some of the most consequential breakthroughs have come from curious people following unexpected results.

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From ‘ocean plastics’ to inheritance law

Against this backdrop, private funding and philanthropy play an important role in preserving that freedom of intellectual inquiry.

For 45 years, the MacArthur Foundation has put this principle of trust into practice through unrestricted support of some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers in this country.

We steward a rigorous process of selection, engaging many nominators and a community of peers relevant to the nominee's work, before awarding Fellowships, but we don't prescribe "what's next."

The Fellowship offers researchers, scientists, writers, historians and artists the autonomy to exercise their judgment about where to lead their ideas.

Fellows are often selected after years of pursuing questions or approaches that are overlooked or doubted:

“Ocean plastics” was a relatively obscure term when Jenna Jambeck started studying them. It wasn’t until 2015 that her first estimate of how much plastic waste enters the oceans each year was highlighted on the cover of the Science academic journal.

And Thomas Wilson Mitchell persevered, even after being warned that he was committing “career suicide” by focusing on legal reform solutions to involuntary land loss that disproportionately affected Black landownership and wealth. Today, his work continues to be cited in analyses of the lasting impact of heirs’ property law.

We chose these Fellows because they showed what curiosity and commitment – despite career, financial or popular headwinds – can achieve.

Removing funding pressures tied to discipline adherence makes room for interests that do not neatly fit into established professional categories. Fellows like Ieva Jusionyte and Robin Wall Kimmerer bring together forms of knowledge and practices that traditional institutions often separate – from anthropology and emergency medicine to Indigenous knowledge and plant ecology.

This is also why the familiar “genius” shorthand for MacArthur Fellows often obscures that kind of range. The shorthand overlooks Fellows’ ability to move beyond boundaries, take risks, and persist through personal and conceptual obstacles. Jacqueline Woodson, for instance, moves across forms of storytelling to tackle complex issues with children and young adults. Most recently, she wore the many hats of executive producer, cowriter and narrator in a PBS Kids adaptation of her book, “The Day You Begin.”

Beyond their individual freedoms to explore through unrestricted funding, this commitment to intellectual exploration shapes how we bring Fellows together to exchange ideas. This year, to mark the 45th anniversary of the MacArthur Fellowship, Fellows across classes have been coming together for a series of events to interrogate different questions, compare perspectives, and come up with innovative ideas that cut across disciplines.

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What rebuilding America's strength in discovery will require

Across these collaborations, we've seen just a glimpse of the possibilities that come with unrestricted funding for inquiry, enhanced by the opportunity to encounter different disciplines and ways of thinking.

Those exchanges across disciplines can generate connections and directions that no single field or institution could prescribe in advance.

At a moment when federal funding is constraining questions, rebuilding America's strength in discovery will require renewed commitment to curiosity at every level. Across classrooms, workplaces and homes, we should resist rewarding only ideas that reinforce what we already know.

Not every question will identify a new deep-sea species or decipher a lost language. But you never know which ones will, until you ask.

Kristen Mack serves as vice president of communications, fellows and partnerships at the MacArthur Foundation.

If a pro-data center party breaks out near you, go – like I did

Natalie Sandoval

USA TODAY

On Sept. 26 in downtown Washington, DC, hundreds gathered for Data After Dark: A Pro-Data Center Party.

Among them were protesters, three of whom I saw rush the stage hours later to deliver largely inaudible rants.

One thanked the crowd for “using all of our water,” according to a video shot from a better vantage point than my own. She then flipped the audience double birds. Shouts of “USA! USA!” and booing drowned out the protesters.

Organizer Jonas Du, a writer for Pirate Wires, first conceived of the event as a house party. Public interest was overwhelming. So the event, cohosted by R Street Institute fellow Ed Tarnowski and Young Voices CEO Casey Given, moved to PubKey, a “bitcoin bar.” By the time the doors opened at 8:30 p.m., more than 1,000 people had RSVP’d.

I went because I support building data centers, and because I was curious what a pro-data center party would look like. Would it be held inside a data center? Sadly, no.

Data centers are buildings that house information technology equipment such as servers and routers. Those servers host websites and apps, run cloud services such as email and online banking, and power messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. If you've ever Googled something, a data center found you the answer.

There are more than 3,000 operational data centers in the United States. Most skeptics don't object to data centers themselves, just to building new, bigger ones. The average data center covers 100,000 square feet; hyperscale centers can sprawl across 10 million.

Artificial intelligence is driving the boom. Critics point to water use, a problem that closed-loop cooling, already in some Oracle facilities, goes a long way toward solving. About 45% of U.S. data centers use it.

Critics also cite strained power grids and noise. And large data centers tend to be windowless and plain – that is to say, not especially attractive.

The right response to these concerns is innovation.

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Public fear vs. public good

All technologies come with corresponding problems. Around the turn of the 20th century, one American cartoonist depicted electricity as an “Unrestrained Demon.” In the 1920s, many city dwellers condemned motorists for trampling the rights of pedestrians.

In neither case did America abandon the technology. It solved for the public's fears instead. An America without cars or electricity might appeal to some, but it would almost certainly be poorer and weaker on the world stage.

Halting data center construction could do subtler damage, especially with the United States racing China on AI. China is investing billions in data centers. Chinese state media and individuals linked to the Chinese Communist Party have ties to anti-data center activism in the United States.

Data centers can also be a boon to the towns that host them. Thanks to tax revenue from a Meta data center, some teachers in one Louisiana school district are receiving bonuses of more than \$50,000 each.

Just outside the nation's capital in nearby Virginia, Loudoun County is home to the world's largest concentration of data centers.

Plenty of journalists showed up at the Washington party, many of them, I suspect, lured by the promise of open bars. There were themed cocktails: the "SMR-tini," the "Closed Loop Spritz" and the "Loudoun County Iced Tea." There was a generative AI photo booth, a live DJ and a jazz trio in the basement speak-easy. A poster read "Virginia is for Servers," a play on the state's tourism slogan.

Also in attendance were think tank staffers, engineers, attorneys, White House officials and defense industry workers. Some came just to observe. The mood was optimistic, even defiant.

A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 61% of likely voters oppose building data centers. Opposition was highest among voters under 30 – the age group that made up a large share, if not most, of the partygoers.

A single party is unlikely to solve a nationwide PR problem. Nor, as far as I can tell, was that ever the goal. Remember, Du originally planned to host it in his house.

There's value in socializing with people who share your views, especially when those views are being attacked and when they bear directly on policy.

Later in the evening, Du argued that leadership on AI can't happen only on X; it has to happen at in-person events like this one.

“This is a competition,” he said, “between people who fear the potential of the future and people who believe in the potential of the future.”

Besides, issue-themed parties are hardly foreign to Washington. Neither are corporate sponsors. On the day of the party, Du publicly announced the party's sponsors, which included the Manhattan Institute, the Bitcoin Policy Institute and Strata, a modular data center start-up.

Toasts began after 10 p.m. Strata founder and CEO David Meyer urged the crowd to “hear and respond to both enthusiasm and reasonable concerns."

Journalist Jasmine Sun stressed public education. People “understand a car factory, they understand a chip factory, they understand solar panels,” she told the party. “People do not understand yet what AI is or why it’s happening to them.”

Tarnowski, of the R Street Institute, made the case for techno-optimism: "We need to defeat this pessimism plaguing Gen Z. And here tonight, we are going to be optimists. ... We can make the world a much, much better place for our kids and for the future."

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'Take this party on the road'

Still skeptical of a pro-data center party? You might soon have the opportunity to attend one for yourself.

Given, the Young Voices CEO, told the crowd that he hopes to “take this party on the road” in 2027: “New York City, San Francisco, Miami, Austin, LA. We want to help take it off the ground all across the country. So let’s make this a start of a movement.”

I'd recommend going, even if you're squarely on the other side (just don't storm the stage). You might find that data center supporters are sincere in their advocacy and bear the public no ill will.

Or you might just have fun. Du, Tarnowski and Given threw a good party.

My one complaint: the conspicuous lack of dancing. The main dance floor was nearly empty. In the speakeasy, one man seemed determined to make up for it all by himself. He was very good.

Natalie Sandoval is an opinion fellow with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. She graduated from Columbia University in 2024 with a degree in English. Prior to this role, she worked as an opinion columnist at the Daily Caller, where she focused on politics and cultural commentary.

USA TODAY

Pentagon increases Iran war death count

Correction raises total to 21 U.S. service members

Miles J. Herszenhorn

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon admitted that more troops have died in the Middle East than it had previously publicly reported, raising the official number of U.S. service members who died during the war against Iran to 21.

Two deaths were from noncombat causes. Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, a member of the Army National Guard from Queens, New York, died in Kuwait on March 6. In September, an unidentified member of the Navy died by suicide, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A third death occurred as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military's effort to combat ISIS. Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, died in Iraq in May after a

training accident.

The correction on Oct. 9 to the U.S. military's official casualty database, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, comes amid intense congressional scrutiny of how the Pentagon has counted casualties during the Iran war.

The update means that 21 U.S. service members have died since the start of the war against Iran and 865 have been wounded, according to the military's official toll.

The Washington Post first reported in September that the number of U.S. military casualties in the Iran war was higher than what the Pentagon's official database showed. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth denied the news report at the time, saying it was “fake” and a “complete lie.”

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Chrissy Hou- lahan, D-Pennsylvania, said in a statement that there's "no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude."

"We are glad to see the error has been corrected, and we will continue to fight for transparency and accountability," they added. "While this public correction is an important first step, we expect the Department to make the necessary changes to policies and procedures to ensure this mistake is not repeated and that they are more transparent with the public going forward."

Senate Democrats previously demanded answers from the Pentagon about its process for reporting the deaths of U.S. military personnel, expressing concern about “inconsistent casualty figures” in the Defense Casualty Analysis System.

Earlier this year, lawmakers expressed outrage after the Pentagon briefly removed the deaths of four troops in July who were killed during the war against Iran from its casualty database.

The four deaths were initially listed as part of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. military's official name for the war against Iran. They were added back to the database under a different category labeled as "Overseas Operations," which Pentagon created to count casualties after President Donald Trump announced the end of Epic Fury despite ongoing fighting with Iran.

Americans largely oppose the war, which has lasted for more than seven months as U.S. officials struggle to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Iran. The prolonged conflict has driven up gas and diesel prices across the country, forcing Trump to turn to Russia for help lowering prices at the pump.

The war has also put a significant strain on the U.S. military's personnel and resources, costing at least \$43.6 billion as of Sept. 3, according to the Pentagon's latest estimate. More than 50,000 U.S. service members have been deployed to the Middle East to support the war effort.

Homeland security agents search MN Rep. Ilhan Omar's home

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, speaks alongside Democratic Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan at Cedar Field Park in Minneapolis on Aug. 8.

STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES

Zachary Schermele and Jay Stahl

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home on Oct. 12, according to an official familiar with the matter.

Homeland Security Investigations agents conducted the early-morning raid at the Democratic congresswoman's DC-area residence.

The raid marked a significant escalation of President Donald Trump's efforts to target his political opponents using the federal law enforcement apparatus. It also dramatically intensifies his year-slong feud with the Minnesota lawmaker, a progressive Muslim whose religion and ethnicity Trump has frequently attacked.

The purpose for the search wasn't immediately clear, but top Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, have long accused Omar, who was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a child refugee, of immigration fraud, which she denies.

The Department of Homeland Security referred USA TODAY to the Justice Department for comment. In a statement, the DOJ confirmed Homeland Security Investigations had “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” at a Washington, DC-area home as “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

Spokespeople for Omar did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Omar, the first Somali American in Congress, was elected in Trump's first term during a blue wave in 2018. She was an original member of the progressive group dubbed the "Squad," which also included Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

She immediately drew Trump's ire. In July 2019, a North Carolina campaign rally crowd chanted “send her back” after Trump repeatedly criticized the congresswoman. Earlier this year, in January, Trump without evidence accused Omar of staging a town hall attack during which an attendee sprayed her with apple cider vinegar.

HUD's federal civil rights probe accuses Wells Fargo of sorting homeowners by race

Wells Fargo bank has been hit in recent years by allegations it discriminates against Black customers. MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS FILE

'Unethical and un-American'

Jessica Guynn USA TODAY

The Trump administration is investigating a Wells Fargo program to increase the homeownership rate of Black Americans, signaling a sharp escalation in its broadside against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's federal civil rights probe accuses the bank of sorting homeowners by race.

Craig Trainor, assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity, told bank CEO Charlie Scharf in a letter that the agency would scrutinize the bank's commitment to expanding access to home loans for Black Americans and other minority groups. Wells Fargo had pledged \$150 million to reduce mortgage rates and refinancing fees for qualifying Black homeowners.

“Even if Wells Fargo did not violate the law, its practice of dividing Americans based on race is immoral, unethical and un-American,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. “Wells Fargo and all of its employees that engaged in race-based decision-making should be ashamed of themselves.”

Wells Fargo declined to comment. The bank has been hit in recent years by allegations it discriminates against Black customers, and faced backlash after a Bloomberg report found it rejected half of all refinancing applications from Black

families in 2020.

HUD accused Wells Fargo of violating the Fair Housing Act, a civil rights-era law prohibiting discrimination based on factors such as race.

“Attempting to close statistical racial gaps in homeownership by doling out loans based on race is no way to do business,” Trainor wrote. “And doing so in residential real estate-related transactions is illegal under the Fair Housing Act.”

A senior HUD official told The Wall Street Journal the agency is reviewing similar initiatives at other financial institutions. In the view of the Trump administration, these programs discriminate against other homebuyers.

The investigation into mortgage lending practices to minority groups is a shot across the bow to financial institutions engaged in race-based lending practices that the Trump administration says proliferated during the Biden administration.

The Justice Department has launched antifraud probes into various federal contractors, targeting DEI programs created after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Since President Donald Trump's reelection in 2024, many companies have walked away from these programs.

The Wells Fargo investigation not only marks a new chapter in the federal crackdown on

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Halloween bags may be missing chocolate

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corporate DEI initiatives, it exposes financial institutions to high-stakes government scrutiny and growing regulatory and legal risks.

Fair housing advocates say the Wells Fargo program was created under federal rules that expressly allowed it.

“Congress wrote Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs) into federal law 50 years ago to enable lenders to adopt programs to remedy the effects of historic barriers and exclusions from the lending market based on gender, race and national origin,” Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said in a statement.

“Investigating a bank for following the government’s own rules to create paths to address longstanding discrimination in lending is an abuse of the agency’s investigative authority and a transparent attempt to scare every lender in the nation away from their le-

Chocolate

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surveyed said they planned to celebrate Halloween this year, up from 78% last year. That number rises to 94% among Gen Z respondents.

Its survey found spending will average \$263 a person, down from \$289 in 2025, though the average budget rises to \$368 among millennials.

“Old traditions are meeting new ways of celebrating,” Ali Furman, PwC consumer markets industry leader, told USA TODAY. Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they still planned to shop in stores for Halloween, but 43% of Gen Z shoppers said social media shapes their Halloween plans and nearly half of AI users said they were turning to the tech for costume ideas.

Health-conscious decisions are also making a mark on Halloween. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they were limiting or moderating candy or treat intake due to weight, blood sugar or metabolic health goals. Twenty-nine percent said they were reducing alcohol consumption at Halloween events and 25% said they were choosing lower-sugar, allergen-friendly or “better for you” treats to hand out to trick-or-treaters.

“Higher prices and health goals may mean smaller candy hauls,” Furman gal obligation to serve underserved communities," she said.

Past administrations pressed banks to develop programs to close racial homeownership gaps. In 2024, less than one-quarter of Black households owned the home they lived in compared with nearly three-quarters of White households, according to the Pew Research Center.

Critics argue the Trump administration is ignoring the legacy of government-backed redlining and restrictive covenants that barred Black and other minority Americans from building wealth through homeownership. What's more, discrimination continues to unfairly limit access to homeownership as the nation faces an affordable housing crisis, they say.

"The Trump administration now appears increasingly interested in dismantling policies designed to acknowledge those consequences while invoking the language of equality to justify doing it," citizen journalist George Cummings wrote in his "What Did Donald Trump Do Today?" Substack newsletter.

"The chocolate in Halloween candy on store shelves today was largely made with cocoa that manufacturers purchased six to 12 months ago, when prices were still near record highs," said David Branch, sector manager of Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES FILE

said.

But it may come down to whether there's a trick or a treat in the candy dish: three-quarters of Halloween celebrants in the PwC study said they'd still choose chocolate as their go-to treat, compared to $46\%$ of revelers passing out gummy candy.

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Cocoa prices still high after record numbers

Betty Lin-Fisher

USA TODAY

There may be something scary in Halloween trick-or-treat bags, or rather, a lack of something: chocolate.

Cocoa prices have dropped from record high numbers in 2024, but retail chocolate prices are still high.

That will likely mean less chocolate for trick-or-treaters, David Branch, sector manager of Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, told USA TODAY.

“For families, this Halloween they may notice they’re getting a little less for their money,” Branch said. “We expect shoppers to lean more heavily on value packs, promotions and alternative treats, while some households may buy fewer chocolate items than in previous years.”

The cocoa market is starting to show early signs of stabilizing after record highs in 2024 that mostly stemmed from changes in weather patterns, particularly in Western Africa, Branch said.

But ongoing weather risks have kept cocoa from returning to its historical trading range, he said.

Adding to that, “the chocolate in Halloween candy on store shelves today was largely made with cocoa that manufacturers purchased six to 12 months ago, when prices were still near record highs,” Branch said.

Still, Halloween is big business. The National Retail Federation is estimating consumers will spend \$13.5 billion this year, up from \$13.1 billion last year on Halloween-related activities.

“Consumers continue to make Halloween a spending priority, but they are also approaching the season with affordability in mind,” NRF Vice President of Industry and Consumer Insights Allison Zeller said in a news release.

Seventy-four percent of consumers surveyed by the NRF said they planned to celebrate Halloween this year, on par with last year's $73\%$ . Participation in Halloween has held steady since its increased popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and is higher than pre-pandemic levels of $68\%$ in 2019.

Consumers said they expected to spend an average of \$115.14 per person, similar to the \$114.45 per person last year. But they are mindful of costs and are planning ahead. Nearly one-third, or 31%, said they will comparison shop and 26% said they'd look for coupons or sales for Halloween purchases.

A survey by professional services company PwC found similar results.

Eighty-six percent of consumers

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Michigan AG sues Blue Cross, alleges a monopoly

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel alleges Blue Cross engaged in “a series of illegal and anti-competitive agreements.” MANDI WRIGHT/USA TODAY NETWORK FILE

Kristen Jordan Shamus

Detroit Free Press

USA TODAY NETWORK

DETROIT – For years, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan operated an illegal monopoly, violating state and federal antitrust and consumer protection laws to drive up health insurance premiums while limiting reimbursements to medical providers and making it more difficult for residents to access quality health care, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel alleges in a new, landmark lawsuit.

Nessel sued Michigan's largest insurer on Oct. 8 in U.S. District Court in Detroit, calling it “arguably the most consequential antitrust case ever filed by a state against a health insurance company.”

“I believe we are the first state to bring these particular claims,” she told the Detroit Free Press.

Court documents lay out a complex scheme that Nessel alleges Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Mutual Insurance Co. used to amass 65% of Michi-

gan's overall commercial health insurance market – and 79% of preferred provider organization health insurance plans – placing Michigan fourth nationally among states with the least competitive markets.

"They didn't accomplish that commanding market power through superior products, marketing genius or skillful business acumen," Nessel said. Instead, she alleges Blue Cross engaged in "a series of illegal and anti-competitive agreements in conspiracy with the entire Blue Cross Blue Shield network to allocate customers and territories, to restrict product offerings and eliminate competition for health insurance services."

The company, she alleges, also abused its market dominance “to drive the rates it pays health care providers to near the lowest in the nation – sometimes even below the medical providers’ own costs to provide care” while at the same time charging consumers more.

In an emailed statement to the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, Blue Cross said it was “blind-sided by this announcement.”

"Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has not yet been served and therefore we cannot comment on the specific merits of the case. We fundamentally disagree with the Attorney General's

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Starbucks unveils winter menu, merchandise

Greta Cross

Starbucks' Holiday Village collection celebrates the company's Seattle roots with festive keepsakes inspired by the original Pike Place store. PROVIDED BY STARBUCKS

USA TODAY

Starbucks is gearing up for the return of one of its viral cups alongside drinks and treats for the upcoming season.

The coffee shop chain shared its 2026 winter holiday menu on Oct. 5, with most of the new drink, food and merchandise items available on Nov. 5.

This year's menu includes a new Tiramisu Velvet line of drinks and an apple pomegranate refresher. But perhaps what Starbucks loyalists may be most excited for is the return of the beloved Bearista Glass Cold Cup, which flew off shelves last season. The 20-ounce glass cup is shaped like a teddy bear with a green Starbucks stocking cap on its head and a green straw. Last year, the cups sold for about \$30 and, according to Starbucks, sold out in less than a day.

The new drinks are the Tiramisu Velvet Latte, hot or iced, topped with velvet mascarpone cold foam and cocoa and coffee dusting; a Tiramisu Velvet Cold Brew; an Apple Pomegranate Refresher with crisp apple flavors and popping pomegranate-flavored pearls; and the Snowy Apple Pomegranate Refresher, an Apple Pomegranate Refresher made with coconut milk.

Returning drinks include the Peppermint Mocha, Caramel Brulée Latte, Sugar Cookie Latte and Gingerbread Chai.

On the food side, Starbucks is releasing two new items: Braised Short Rib Grilled Cheese and a rejiggered Turkey & Stuffing Sandwich. Favorites coming back include the Cranberry Bliss Bar, Snowman Cookie and Sugar Plum Cheese Danish.

As of Oct. 5, Starbucks had not announced when the Bearista Glass Cold Cup would return. Last year, the cups hit shelves on Nov. 6 – and didn't stay there long. “Despite shipping more Bearista cups to coffeehouses than almost any other merchandise item this holiday season, the Bearista cup and some other items sold out fast,” Starbucks said in a statement that month.

Starbucks released a soccer-themed

Bearista cup in June for the World Cup and a Pink Bearista cup in July. Starbucks previously told USA TODAY that the Pink Bearista cups sold out by 7 a.m. local time, the day of their release.

A Snoopy Glass Cold Cup, with a similar look as the Bearista cup, dropped in September and also quickly sold out.

It wouldn't be a Starbucks release without new merchandise items, too. Here's what new seasonal items will be available:

The Holiday Village Collection celebrates Starbucks' Seattle roots with festive keepsakes inspired by the original

Pike Place store, available Nov. 5: Holiday Village Ornament (\$14.95), Holiday Village Piece (\$29.95), Holiday Village Snow Globe (\$24.95) and Holiday Village Ceramic Mug (\$24.95).

The Peppermint Mocha Collection pairs retro charm with modern designs, available Nov. 5: Glass Christmas Tree Cold Cup (\$32.95) and Owala Shimmer Water Bottle (\$32.95).

The Bearista Collection offers Bearista-adorned drinkware, a collectible plush key chain and coordinated accessories: Owala Bearista Water Bottle (\$34.95), Bearista Plush Bag Charm (\$14.95), Bearista Mug (\$19.95) and Bearista Stainless Steel Cold Cup (\$27.95). These too are available Nov. 5.

The Winter Wonderland Collection will be available Nov. 17, featuring cool-toned drinkware with whimsical, wintery details and textures: Winter Wonderland Ceramic Mug and Snow Globe Set (\$29.95), Winter Wonderland Stainless Steel Snow Charm Water Bottle (\$29.95), Winter Wonderland Quilted Cold Cup (\$35.95) and Winter Wonderland Snow Tumbler (\$34.95).

Contributing: Gabe Hauari, USA TO-DAY

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characterization of an uncompetitive insurance market in Michigan. Competition exists everywhere in our state's insurance markets, with strong local and national insurers competing with us every day," Blue Cross said.

In March, the insurer reported a \$246 million net loss for 2025 on total revenue of \$43.3 billion, after a \$1 billion loss the prior year. The company reported it had a negative operating margin and paid out nearly \$1.02 in claims for every \$1 it charged for premiums. It was the fifth consecutive year that Blue Cross reported an underwriting loss – even as it has hiked some customers' premiums by double-digit percentages.

Michiganders are facing “historic” increases in health insurance premiums, court documents allege. Blue Cross filed for annual increases of 23.3%-24% in 2026 for individual plan members, and 11.2% for small group markets.

That has led to rising medical debt and “contributed to hospital closures and service reductions,” court documents say, which “have contributed to Michigan’s worsening infant mortality rate.”

One example is the June closure of Sturgis Hospital in southern Michigan. Hospital leaders cited declining health insurance reimbursements as the primary factor that forced it out of business, according to the lawsuit.

Following a complex, multiyear investigation, Nessel said she now is asking the court to consider whether Blue Cross is guilty on two counts of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlaws the restriction of interstate or foreign competition, trade or commerce and prohibits monopolies; four counts of violating the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act, which bans contracts and conspiracies that limit competition, trade or commerce in Michigan, and also outlaws monopolies and attempts to establish trade monopolies; one count of public nuisance; and one count of unjust enrichment.

The suit seeks damages, which Nessel estimated “will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” plus injunctive relief that would bar Blue Cross from engaging in such practices again.

Nessel's lawsuit alleges Blue Cross uses its enormous market share to control the prices it pays for health care services, essentially telling health systems to “take it or leave it.”

Caught in the middle are people like

Jibran Bashi, a baby boy from Detroit who was born with an exceptionally rare heart defect.

Even before he was born nearly two months prematurely in October 2025, Jibran's parents, Andrew and Amanda Bashi, sought care for him from the Michigan Medicine health system. Its hospitals had the only multidisciplinary team of physicians in the state capable of treating his unique cluster of heart conditions and safely managing the pregnancy complications.

Jibran's first surgery occurred 10 days after he was born weighing just 2 pounds, 13 ounces. The Free Press first reported his story in May.

But then Blue Cross became locked in a battle with Michigan Medicine that threatened in-network coverage for about 300,000 people. Michigan Medicine said it needed higher reimbursement rates to afford to treat people with Blue Cross commercial plans. Blue Cross said it could not pay Michigan Medicine higher reimbursements because it was trying cut costs to keep premiums low.

When the Bashis learned their family could lose in-network insurance with Jibran's doctors because of the Blue Cross-Michigan Medicine contract fight, the couple was devastated.

"The question for us was what it would cost us. If keeping his team meant going into debt, we'd go into debt. If it meant selling our home, we'd sell our home. If it meant declaring bankruptcy, we'd declare bankruptcy," Andrew Bashi said. "We were a contract dispute away from insurmountable debt."

The couple was relieved when Michigan Medicine and Blue Cross came to a deal, but Bashi said the stress and anxiety the insurance contract dispute created is a symptom of a larger problem in American health care.

“Antitrust law exists because concentrated power gets abused, and the people who pay for that abuse are the ones with the least ability to walk away,” he said. “But checking that power is a start, not a finish. More companies whose first obligation is the bottom line won’t, on their own, fix a system that treats a baby’s heart surgery as a cost to be managed.

"The real answer is health care that's driven by results, not revenue. A system that measures success by whether kids like Jibran grow up, not by whether the quarter closed in the black," he added. "Until we build something better, lawsuits like this one are one of the tools we can and must use to protect families in the meantime."

Contributing: JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press

AI personal agents, levels of risk are here

Expert: Managing secret data is ‘really important’

Greta Reich

USA TODAY

For Matt Robb, the choice to try out an AI personal agent was easy; he's a tech reviewer. To test the latest innovation, he downloaded Meta's Muse to handle his Facebook Marketplace messages.

It didn't take long for the new tech to backfire. Within four days, the AI personal agent accepted offers below asking price, gave multiple prospective buyers his home address and told one buyer that Robb was at a pickup location when he wasn't even aware of the interaction.

As a YouTube technology reviewer with a degree in computer science, Robb is accustomed to quirks that come with new products, especially AI, but said that before his experience with Muse, his feelings about AI were mostly positive.

"Now I feel like, okay, I kind of get the concerns now," Robb told USA TODAY.

Meta released its personal assistant, an autonomous AI software that takes actions across apps on behalf of a user, on Sept. 8. The company touted it as “a secure, private personal AI agent that proactively helps with people’s goals and suggests ideas.”

AI personal agents, sometimes called personal assistants, are distinct from chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude because they are not only capable of answering questions, but can also take action on a user's behalf, like sending an email or making a purchase. Experts say they bring a new level of risk management.

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AI agent gave out home address of YouTuber

In a later conversation addressing the issues, Meta told Robb that an error on their end caused the pricing issue, but that he had granted the agent permission to send messages on his behalf using a template it put together from information it asked during set up, which included the pickup address.

"The part that threw me off was, it didn't even admit that it's an AI. It was talking as if I was talking," he told USA TODAY, adding that it mimicked his "lowkey" tone and casual voice.

Robb decided to test Muse on Facebook Marketplace, a platform also owned by Meta, to handle incoming messages from prospective buyers. On Sept. 26, he got a bite from someone who wanted to buy his keyboard. That's when the issues began. The offer Muse accepted was \$100 below asking price and the agent sent Robb's address without notifying Robb of the interaction or telling the buyer they were speaking with an AI agent.

In one message reviewed by USA TO-DAY, Muse wrote, "Yep, I'm here! ... Message me when you're at the door."

The buyer responded that he was also there, sending a picture of the apartment to confirm the location. No one showed up and he left.

About two hours later, Muse – still imitating Robb – wrote, “Hey, really sorry about tonight, got tied up and missed you completely. My bad for wasting your time. The keyboards still here if you want to try again another day, lmk.”

The buyer gave Robb a poor rating. And Robb was finally notified when Muse sent an apology.

“Muse actually popped up, like, ‘Hey, Matt, I did something bad today,’” Robb said. The message informed him of the interaction – or lack thereof – that had taken place, taking full responsibility.

The encounter went viral when Robb posted about it on Threads. “Deleted Muse after seeing this post,” one person responded. In a follow up post, Robb shared parts of a conversation he had with Meta to figure out what went wrong.

"I did go into this knowing it's new, it's experimental," he said. "It's not like I blindly went into it, but at the same time, I'm glad it happened to me, and not someone more vulnerable."

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Personal agents are not chatbots

September has been a good month for the AI personal agent market. Around the same time Meta released Muse, three other AI assistant companies were also growing: Instinct announced a fundraiser valued at \$2.5 billion, Town was reportedly in talks to raise \$1 billion, and Ollie raised \$7.5 million.

And on Sept. 29, OpenAI announced its own version of a personal agent called “dots,” meant to compete directly with Meta’s Muse.

The impact of this rise in personal agents can also be seen from consumers. A recent Visa survey found that

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents the Muse Charm during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 23. CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

64% of respondents expect to use AI shopping agents within two years, and 56% would already let AI agents search and compare products.

According to Michael Reitblat, who runs an AI commerce platform called Forter, agentic traffic more than tripled in a month since Muse and Instinct launched. In its first week alone, Muse made up 48% of all agentic orders on Forter.

Personal agents are useful “because they can take an arbitrary input and act,” said Ian Rogers, chief human agency officer at cybersecurity company Ledger. “But that’s also exactly where the danger comes in.”

This danger is sometimes referred to as the “lethal trifecta,” according to Rogers. It is the combination of “access to secrets, input from the outside world and exfiltration risk.” Exfiltration risk is the danger that comes with the ability for the agent to share personal information without authorization.

“We all know it’s not possible for them to be useful if they don’t have access to things like our email or our calendar, our contact list, like these kinds of things, right?” he added. “But those are inherently secrets that you don’t want to be extracted and infiltrated. And so managing that is really important.”

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How are companies managing risk?

Each assistant is tailored to slightly different audiences, meaning risk management looks slightly different across companies.

At Town, for example, the company is focused on assisting in the workplace, rather than personal life. Jean-Deniz Greze, the CEO and “Mayor” of Town, said their product emphasizes human approval at every step.

"It is more like a relationship between two beings," he told USA TODAY. "And as such, trust has to be earned in the relationship before you ask it to do more and more and more."

Meta's Muse, tailored to assisting in personal life, emphasizes individual permissions for each app and access point. The company told USA TODAY that individuals can ask Muse to “forget” certain pieces of information and has audit trails of every action it’s taken.

Still, concern is natural, Greze added.

"If you're conservative about it, you should stand in the sidelines and see how it works." he said. "You'll be sold it enough that you will have plenty of opportunities to decide whether it's for you."

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The future of personal agents

Despite his interaction with the agent, Robb said he will likely continue to use Muse, perhaps even purchasing a Muse Charm, a physical device of the AI agent.

“I kind of feel like Meta’s gonna fix this,” he said.

Personal agents may soon become ubiquitous, entirely replacing the way users currently search the web or access applications, Greze said.

“I think mostly you will interact with just one assistant that will do things for you on existing websites,” he said.

Rogers voiced a similar prediction, comparing the place personal agents are in now to where email was in the 1990s.

"The notion that everybody would use some hosted email provider was like craziness in 1996, but that's where we've ended up," Rogers said.

“We’re just moving into an entirely different era of what it means to secure things,” he added. “And these things just take time to kind of catch up and sort themselves out and become true consumer products.”

Greta Reich covers the artificial intelligence industry for USA TODAY through a fellowship from the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. Funders do not provide editorial input.

Official data might be undercounting farm debt

Inflation-adjusted U.S. farm debt has more than doubled since 2000, rising from about \$300 billion to more than \$605 billion this year, according to the latest USDA estimates. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/REUTERS FILE

Nontraditional, vendor credit has created gaps

P.J. Huffstutter

REUTERS

CHICAGO – American farmers are borrowing more money than ever before to operate – but the rise in nontraditional and vendor credit has created some gaps in the federal government's current ability to measure and track farm debt, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials told Reuters.

Financial pressure is mounting across farm country, where growers have already faced years of tight margins due to slumping prices and high input costs. More recently, farmers have struggled with disruptions to export markets from Washington's trade fights with top buyers including China, while the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has driven up the cost of fertilizer and fuel.

As farm bankruptcy filings have climbed, some banks have tightened credit, prompting growers to seek money elsewhere. Inflation-adjusted U.S. farm debt has more than doubled since 2000, rising from about \$300 billion to more than \$605 billion this year, a record, according to the latest USDA estimates.

But that figure may understate how much farmers owe, Reuters found. Farmers are increasingly borrowing from suppliers, farmer cooperatives, equipment manufacturers, financial technology firms and other nontraditional lenders that are more difficult for the government to comprehensively measure.

The USDA is launching research projects to better track that debt, and to understand whether financial stress in agriculture could be affecting the broader economy, officials said.

"There are new lenders popping up and we need to find ways to access that data," Jeffrey Hopkins, acting assistant administrator at the USDA's Economic Research Service, told Reuters.

Jenny Ifft, a Kansas State University agricultural finance professor currently working on a research project with the USDA studying nontraditional farm lenders, estimates there could be two to three times as much debt as what the USDA reports in its “individual and others” category, which the agency pegged at \$45 billion in 2025.

Such suppliers of vendor credit include Minnesota-based dairy company Land O'Lakes, one of the largest U.S. agricultural cooperatives, which offers credit lines for farmers. Its financing arm has grown from roughly \$100 million last fall in committed loans, or lines of credit typically issued to help producers cover operating costs, to more than \$1 billion for crop year 2027, Chief Executive Beth Ford said on Oct. 6 at the Economic Club of New York.

To gather vendor credit data, the USDA is cross-checking farmer surveys against USDA Farm Service Agency loan records and funding research examining the size of the nontraditional lending market, among other efforts, Hopkins said. The agency hopes for results within two years.

This past season, roughly half of all U.S. commercial farms relied on vendor or nontraditional lenders to cover their operational expenses, up about 10% from a year earlier, said Wesley Davis, a partner at Meridian Agribusiness Advisors, an agricultural economics firm.

As a result, the USDA is looking at “whether there are potential areas that could have spillover effects to the rest of the economy,” Hopkins said. He pointed to past periods, such as the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2010, which rippled through the broader economy, and limited data made it difficult to distinguish healthy from troubled debt.

Historically, the USDA measures farm debt from data that banks, Farm Credit institutions and other lenders report to regulators. To measure vendor credit, it typically uses its Agricultural Resource Management Survey, a roughly 24-page producer questionnaire, where response rates have fallen from about 68% in 2009 to nearly 33% in 2025, according to USDA data.

Of the more than 52 commercial-sized row-crop farmers Reuters interviewed across seven Midwestern and Southern states, the majority maintained between seven and 10 separate lines of credit. One family in Iowa said it had 42, largely because equipment dealers often required separate credit lines each time they bought or leased a new piece of machinery.

Previous research has found evidence that the USDA can significantly undercount equipment debt.

A 2024 peer-reviewed study from Kansas State University, the USDA's Economic Research Service and the National Credit Union Administration analyzed more than 4.4 million equipment liens across 14 farm states from 2001 through 2019. The study found that equipment debt issued by nontraditional lenders was as much as four times larger than USDA data showed.

"How can lenders, policymakers, regulators and key stakeholders accurately assess debt volumes and farm financial stress when neither is reported for many lenders that serve the most stressed borrowers?" said Ifft, one of the authors.

Some vendor financing is captured in federal data the USDA already analyzes, Hopkins said. Some loans that appear to farmers to be vendor-financed are actually credit issued by the Farm Credit System or commercial banks that report such debts to regulators, he said.

Suppliers and retailers that offer credit help customers to buy their products, Davis said. But those businesses also could be taking on additional risk themselves, particularly if the credit they offer has no assets securing such debts.

"The risk we could see then is not just to the farmers themselves, but financial distress to the broader agribusiness ecosystem," he said.

ALABAMA Montgomery: GE Aerospace is funding the expansion of the aerospace manufacturing industry in Alabama's I-85 corridor with a \$1 million investment into workforce training in multiple communities throughout the state.

ALASKA Juneau: Scientists have identified nine new species of sea sponges that dwell on the seafloor along the state's coastline, Alaska Beacon reported.

ARIZONA Tucson: Federal authorities arrested a man accused of threatening to bomb the White House and other Washington, DC, sites. Jacob Aaron Hicks, of Tucson, was arrested and charged Oct. 7 on suspicion of making an interstate threat to injure, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona.

ARKANSAS Russellville: The Arkansas Tech University Foundation received a \$3.15 million donation from the Windgate Foundation, KARK reported, with most of the funds dedicated to student scholarships.

CALIFORNIA Shasta County: A 72-year-old woman missing for days after embarking on a solo camping trip in a Northern California forest was found alive with injuries from a fall, authorities said. Mary Beth Granbery was rescued on Oct. 4 after a joint search-and-rescue operation in the Cabin Creek Trailhead area of Shasta County, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office and Shasta County Sheriff's Office.

COLORADO Fort Collins: City Council will consider putting a temporary moratorium on development of large data centers at its next meeting. On Oct. 6, council members directed staff to prepare a proposed ordinance that would prevent any applications for a data center from being accepted, if they are proposed as a primary use.

CONNECTICUT Hartford: Connecticut is awarding \$2 million in grants to 42 local education agencies to expand high-dosage math tutoring programs aimed at helping students strengthen academic skills and accelerate learning.

DELAWARE Newark: The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Oct. 1 to challenge the University of Delaware's policy to grant in-state tuition to students who are not U.S. citizens.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: A city official died after two scooters collided Oct. 9 on Capitol Hill, WUSA9 reported. Talib Shakir, director of the mayor's Office on Returning Citizen Affairs, was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the outlet.

FLORIDA Tallahassee: Florida asked a state judge on Oct. 7 to order changes to Instagram and Facebook to better protect young users, pressing ahead with a lawsuit accusing parent Meta Platforms of harming teens after most states resolved similar claims through a sweeping settlement.

GEORGIA Atlanta: In a new report from WalletHub, Georgia ranked 41st among U.S. states for overall safety, ranging from assaults to climate disasters to unemployment rates.

HAWAII Honolulu: City Council discussed a new look for transportation vehicles, including TheBus and new Skyline rail system, by allowing advertisements on their exteriors, Hawaii News Now reported.

IDAHO Boise: The Boise School District is asking for the community's feedback via a survey about possible changes that could close schools because of declining enrollment, KTVB reported.

ILLINOIS Springfield: The city is paying a heftier price for its road salt this year: \$116.99 a ton, compared to last year's price of \$89.99 per ton. The prices increase follows a large supplier to the state that typically submits bids to provide salt throughout Illinois, which chose to not participate this year, said a spokesperson for Illinois Department of Central Management Services.

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HIGHLIGHT: NEW HAMPSHIRE

INDIANA Indianapolis: The Indianapolis Downtown Heliport will remain open, reversing a previous decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down operations, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita's office announced Oct. 9. The FAA's decision ends a yearslong saga over the future of the heliport and puts to bed local pitches to build a professional soccer stadium on the land.

Prince Boateng of Skog & Stone Sauna Company learned about the tradition during Navy Reserve trips. CHANDLER BLAISDELL/SPECIAL TO USA TODAY NETWORK

North Hampton: Inspired by the Scandinavian sauna culture he encountered during Navy Reserve trips to the region, Skog & Stone Sauna Company owner Prince Boateng set out to bring a community-focused winter experience to the Seacoast. “There’s just a limited amount of activities that you can do in New England in the winter if you’re not doing snow sports,” said Boateng. He found a home for his wood-fired saunas at Throwback Brewery, a location he chose because of the natural scenery and the lively community. He wanted the guests’ experience to match that of the traditional Finnish sauna, where food, drinks and community are central to the post-sauna experience.

IOWA Carlisle: After a week without water and two days under a boil order, Carlisle has safe running water again. A series of water main breaks left residents without running water after city officials asked them to stop using water until the system could be repaired.

KANSAS Topeka: Kansas Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial Day is established as the first Friday in May, starting in 2027, after Gov. Laura Kelly signed an executive order Oct. 6.

KENTUCKY Louisville: Jefferson County will be offering drive-thru voting for all precincts and voters at the Kentucky Exposition Center Oct. 29-31 and Nov. 3, Jefferson County Clerk David Yates announced.

LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: A University of Louisiana at Monroe College of Pharmacy graduate has been named America's top independent pharmacist. T.J. Woodard, who operates two Prescriptions to Geaux locations in Baton Rouge, was named the 2026 National Community Pharmacists Association Willard B. Simmons Independent Pharmacist of the Year during the organization's convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

MAINE York: Old York Historical Society is embracing spooky season with an expanded lineup of Halloween-themed programs throughout October, including nighttime tours of the Old Gaol, lamplight walks through the Old Burying Ground, a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, pumpkin carving, and trick-or-treating at historic buildings.

MARYLAND Sparrows Point: Defense tech firm Anduril unveiled plans on Oct. 7 for a \$3.7 billion shipyard that is expected to generate 3,100 jobs. Anduril, which was also awarded a \$2.9 billion Navy contract, said the new high-tech shipyard at Sparrows Point would make components for the Navy's Virginia-class submarines.

MASSACHUSETTS Worcester: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is suing UMass Chan Medical School, claiming it's illegally withholding the names of committee members who oversee the institution's research on laboratory animals. PETA filed the lawsuit Oct. 6 in Suffolk Superior Court.

MICHIGAN Macomb County: Three people were found dead in a submerged vessel in Lake St. Clair near Macray Harbor, the Macomb County Sheriff's Office said. Deputies responded to a report of a capsized vessel near the marina on Oct. 7. A passenger aboard reported being in an accident and was able to swim to shore, where a resident called 911, the sheriff's office said.

MINNESOTA Sherburne County: The Sheriff's Office has asked the public to avoid the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge while crews battle a large fire, KARE reported.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: The Mississippi State Fair is open now through Oct. 18 with a new theme of Let Freedom Ring in honor of America250. Agriculture Commission and governor hopeful Andy Gipson encouraged attendees to dress in patriotic colors.

MISSOURI Jefferson City: A state task force created by Gov. Mike Kehoe to recommend changes to the child welfare system convened recently to begin developing clearer common standards for determining whether a child is safe that can be used by abuse and neglect investigators, the courts, juvenile officers and others across the state.

MONTANA Red Lodge: A bull moose that was trapped in the concrete bowl of the city's skate was safely tranquilized and relocated outside town, KPAX reported.

NEBRASKA Lincoln: Lincoln Fire and Rescue responded to a two-alarm fire in the northeast area of the city on Oct. 10, KOLN reported. LFR said no one was injured but six people needed to be relocated, according to the outlet.

NEVADA Reno: NOW Foods, a manufacturer of vitamins and supplements, has signed a lease for 190,000 square feet of space at Reno AirLogistics Park.

NEW JERSEY Trenton: Companies that have purchased homes with the benefit of anonymity would be required to disclose the identity of their biggest owner under a bill proposed by state lawmakers. The bill aimed at limited liability companies, or LLCs, is designed to make it easier for municipalities to enforce code violations. But it also would help the public answer an elusive question: Who is buying a growing percentage of homes in the state?

NEW MEXICO Las Cruces: The Sky-Fiesta Air Race & Airshow is returning to the Las Cruces International Airport for a second year. The event is scheduled for Oct. 17 and will feature Sport Class Air Racing.

NEW YORK Rockland County: East Ramapo Central School District is reconstituting a “Saturday Academy” program to help high school seniors at risk of not graduating. The relaunch of the program was announced during the district’s Oct. 6 school board meeting.

NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: The state's Advisory Council on Cannabis faces a Dec. 31 deadline to issue final recommendations for a comprehensive cannabis policy to Gov. Josh Stein.

NORTH DAKOTA Fargo: In a special election on Oct. 6, voters rejected the move to change from a commission to a ward-system form of city government, KVRR reported.

OHIO Columbus: A headless horse-man sighting may be in store when All Hallows' Eve returns to Ohio Village. The Ohio History Connection will hold the Halloween event Oct. 17 and 24 at Ohio Village, which is reopening for the event while renovations continue on the site.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named the 2025 flu season as one of the most severe in years, but an OU Health doctor is cautiously optimistic that this year could be more mild. Dr. Douglas Drevets, chief of infectious diseases at OU Health, believes Oklahomans could be much more protected this upcoming respiratory virus season, either due to natural infection or vaccines.

months of waiting, the playground at Riverfront Park is now open. The city held a soft opening of the park on Oct. 9. Riverfront Park is among 24 city parks getting new playgrounds, sport facilities and other amenities through a \$300 million infrastructure bond passed by voters in 2022.

PENNSYLVANIA York: The state Department of Transportation has scheduled a public meeting for Nov. 10 to discuss the future of the Norman Wood Bridge that spans the Susquehanna River between York and Lancaster counties.

RHODE ISLAND Chepachet: Bird rescue Congress of the Birds is trying to raise \$50,000 to install an X-ray machine and an anesthesia machine at its clinic in Chepachet. The organization is on track to rescue 2,500 birds this year and relies on local veterinarians, who give a discount, to provide X-ray services, according to Sheida Soleimani, the nonprofit organization's executive director.

SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville: Plans to bring the first IKEA store to Greenville have been in the works for nearly a year but an Oct. 8 decision by the Board of Zoning Appeals has cast uncertainty over the project's future. In a unanimous vote, the board denied an appeal by Magnolia Park, a Woodruff Road shopping development hoping to add IKEA to its list of tenants. At the heart of the dispute was a familiar issue: traffic.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: The W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds will host the Banquet's Thanksgiving Day Run on Nov. 26, Dakota News Now reported.

TENNESSEE Knoxville: The University of Tennessee at Knoxville will ask the UT System Board of Trustees to name one of the newest buildings on campus after UT trustee and former PepsiCo President John Compton and his wife, Cindy Compton. The Student Success Building is scheduled to open by fall 2027.

TEXAS Austin: Texas is among the least safe states in the nation, according to a new study. The Lone Star State ranked No. 48 out of 50 states in WalletHub's Safest States in America in 2026 report, released Oct. 5, placing it among the bottom three states for overall safety. Only Louisiana and Mississippi performed worse in the nationwide analysis.

UTAH Taylorsville: The Family Support Center distributed free Halloween costumes for children and free winter coats to more than 500 families on Oct. 10, KUTV reported.

VERMONT Middlebury: Middlebury College will offer tuition-free attendance to admitted students from families earning up to \$175,000 annually “with typical assets” beginning with the Class of 2031, according to a community announcement.

VIRGINIA Petersburg: Casino project developers rubbed elbows with politicians and citizens on Oct. 8 to mark a major milestone in the development of the \$1.4 billion Live Casino + Hotel Virginia project. They gathered at the construction site for a “topping-off” ceremony in which the final beam in the framework of the 10-story luxury hotel was put into place.

WASHINGTON Bremerton: Planned Parenthood has hired a retired Navy physician to provide advanced gynecological services at its Bremerton clinic, a move they hope will allow more women to access care in a community that has suffered from a shortage of providers.

WEST VIRGINIA Morgantown: On Oct. 9, West Virginia University notified the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity of an interim suspension taking effect immediately after allegations of hazing, WV News reported.

WISCONSIN Milwaukee: Measles cases in the four southwest Wisconsin counties at the center of an ongoing outbreak now total 244, bringing the year's statewide measles count to 263. Wisconsin has reported the fourth-most measles cases this year, after Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Utah, according to the states' latest case counts.

WYOMING Mammoth Hot Springs: Park crews are working to rehabilitate Yellowstone National Park's oldest functioning structures as part of a \$25 million project to stabilize and restore several historic Fort Yellowstone buildings, Wyoming News Now reported.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

The real thing

Chaos is everywhere in college football; calm are Gunner Stockton and Georgia

John Brice USA TODAY

TUSCALOOSA, AL – When it was over, when his head coach had said he never is calm, and when the kid who had grown up 75 miles from Georgia had yet again delivered as the calm before, during and after the storm, Gunner Stockton made an admission. ● He is trying to get better. ● On his postgame handshakes. ● With opposing quarterbacks. ● “I’m trying to do better with that,” Stockton said after Alabama counterpart Keelon Russell waited on Stockton’s victory interview to congratulate him. “Trying to go shake the other quarterback’s hand, no matter what.”

In the AI era where fake is real and real is fake, Stockton is unassumingly, unapologetically, real.

Oh, so, too, is Georgia, which reached the top of the US LBM Coaches Poll on Oct. 11, mere hours after a captivating 20-17 Bulldogs win at Alabama.

On a day that further exposed pretenders – not to mention college football's great talent dispersal in this age of name, image and likeness (NIL) – Georgia showed it owns the best quarterback, fastest defense, most complete team.

Has a pretty damn good dog for a coach, too, in Kirby Smart.

Even if he won't calm down with a veteran signal-caller in Stockton who carries 29 games' collegiate experience, 21 of them starts and 18 of them wins.

“I’m not calm, ever, with any quarterback,” Smart told USA TODAY Sports after the game. “I was talking to my mom (Sharon) earlier (Saturday). I got perspective on things now that, win or lose this game, I’m going to be judged on my kids, my wife, my

mom. What kind of man am I? And I look at that and a lot more than I look at what somebody's going to say about a record against Alabama or against the SEC or national championships.

“That’s just not my motivation anymore. I’d rather make memories for my kids and my family and my team and my coaching staff. Made great memories today. Regardless of whether we won or lost this game, we’ve got to go win the next one.”

Georgia remains unbeaten, with rebuilding Auburn calling between the hedges Oct. 17, before the team's lone open date. Because this team is hearkening memories of Smart's back-to-back national title carriers from the 2021-22 campaigns.

Stockton's efficient, 18-for-22 passing for 249 yards included one touchdown to chain, with the one he scored on the ground on the third quarter's opening possession.

He had, dare it be said, a Heisman (finalist) moment in the third quarter with a deft dart down the right sideline, hauled in by a falling-backward Craig Dandridge Jr. for 30 yards. Stockton's 14-yard scoring scamper two plays later boosted the Bulldogs back on top.

"He's a killer, cold-blooded killer," said Georgia safety Khalil Barnes, a transfer from Clemson in his

See REAL THING, Page 2C

GUNNER STOCKTON

BY THE NUMBERS

Against Alabama

18-for-22

passing

attempts

2

touchdowns

(1 passing,

1 rushing)

249

passing yards

1

interception

This season (through 6 games)

95-for-124

passing

attempts

1,298 passing yards

15

touchdowns

(14 passing,

1 rushing)

2 interceptions

Jarrett Bell

Columnist

USA TODAY

Stunning ineptitude plus Snoop stood out

Welcome to Monday Morning JB! NFL columnist Jarrett Bell has covered the league for decades. Here are the moments, players and results that caught his eye in Week 5.

ATLANTA – Part of the gig for Tyler "Snoop" Huntley as he prepared to fill in again for Baltimore Ravens star quarterback Lamar Jackson involved the needle from Derrick Henry.

"I have been messing with him all week," Henry said after the Ravens rallied to upset the Atlanta Falcons 30-23 in overtime on "Sunday Night Football" on Oct. 11. "I was like, 'I want to see the 2025 Green Bay Snoop.'

"We were laughing about it. He told me it is 2026, and I won't mention 2025 no more. He got it."

Huntley wasn't bad in 2025, winning both games when filling in for an injured Jackson, including the match-up at Lambeau Field when he passed for 107 yards and a touchdown.

But he was better than “Green Bay Snoop” in the ATL. The seventh-year pro took it to a notch higher – especially in crunch time when he went 11-for-11 passing to help the Ravens rally from an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter. He threw for a touchdown and punched in a rushing TD on the game-tying and game-winning drives in the fourth quarter.

And as first-year Ravens coach Jesse Minter saw it, “Snoop is just like one of the coolest dudes. He doesn’t really get rattled.”

See BELL, Page 2C

California a gold rush pipeline for NLCS teams

Josh Peter

USA TODAY

The National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers prompts a longtime baseball scout to share wisdom.

“It’s all about fishing in the right pond,” Logan White, former vice president of amateur scouting for the Dodgers, told USA TODAY Sports.

When he joined the Dodgers in 2002, White said he studied every state to determine its history of producing major leaguers. More than two decades later, the postseason rosters for the Dodgers and Brewers reinforce White's findings: California rules.

Ten Brewers players on the team's 26-man roster for the NL Division Series were native Californians, making up almost $40\%$ of the roster. That

See GOLD RUSH, Page 4C

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman hit 16 homers and drove in 70 this season.

BRETT DAVIS/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Bell

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Continued from Page 1C

All of this fits a certain narrative. It's 2026, which is shaping up as the Year of the Backup Quarterback.

Huntley's effort followed the Thursday night shocker in Dallas, when undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers past the Cowboys. Before that, there was Case Keenum's big moment for the Bears in Week 3, a day after Marcus Mariota led Washington to an upset win against Seattle. Carson Wentz came off the bench in Week 1 to lead the Vikings to a victory against the Packers, then survived as the starter the following week at Chicago. Drew Lock came off the bench for the Seahawks against the Patriots in Week 1, then won the next week as the starter at Arizona. And Jameis Winston still hasn't lost (2-0-1) in his starts for the Giants since Jaxson Dart's season-ending knee injury.

Now the Ravens (4-1) are off to their best start since 2021, while Jackson nurses a left ankle injury. Jackson, who missed the second half of the win against Tennessee, pushed to make it back for Sunday's game. With another week of rehab, he could return in Week 6 at Cleveland.

Jackson was still plenty active on Sunday night, listening on the headset to the play calls from coordinator Declan Doyle, then huddling on the bench with Huntley between series.

“That is probably the best thing you can have when you are coming off the field, just somebody who has been there before,” Huntley said. “He is able to just tell you what he sees and that translates over.”

Jackson told me that it was also important to be the quintessential supporter. “I just told him to be himself,” Jackson said. “He knows what to do.”

The Ravens won for the third consecutive time with Huntley filling in for Jackson. No, he doesn't replace Jackson's skill set, but he still possesses considerable mobility. And they know they can win with him.

“I thought of the clip of Jameis Winston saying, ‘I’m not the backup’ or whatever he said,” said Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton who made the game-sealing interception of Tua Tagovailoa in overtime. “When Snoop gets the chance to go out there, it is a Snoop game. It is not a backup quarterback playing. Snoop is going to go out there and do what Snoop does. He’s done that countless times. That is the reason why we need him here and why he has been here.”

Every team needs a Snoop, a quarterback to capably fill in during a pinch. Especially during a season when quarterbacks are seemingly sustaining injuries at an increasing rate.

Strikingly, the contrast wasn't hard to find on Sunday night. When Michael Penix Jr. left the game late in the fourth quarter with a rib injury and couldn't go in overtime, it became rather apparent that the Falcons became a different team.

Tagovailoa's pick virtually hit Hamilton in the numbers. It was more of the same for a team that floundered with Cooper Rush and briefly with rookie Jake Strand when Penix missed the first two games while coming off knee surgery.

The good news for the Falcons, maybe, is that Penix doesn't expect that he suffered a long-term injury. An MRI on Monday will provide more details.

Without him, the Falcons can only wish they could call on someone for a “Green Bay Snoop” game.

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What I learned (again)

Situational football matters. The fi- asco that likely cost the Commanders an overtime victory in the crazy game against the Giants – the clock ran out before Washington could spike the ball and set up a field goal – is the type of scenario that costs coaches their jobs.

What happened? Who blew it? What was the plan? Did they think they had a timeout?

The lack of clarity in explaining the misadventure following the 27-27 tie did little to get to the bottom of it.

Just as stunning, when Commanders coach Dan Quinn met with the media, he said he had not even talked about the end of the game mess with quarterback Jayden Daniels.

And Daniels, who seemed to lack urgency in getting up after running on what turned out to be the final play of the game, never directly answered the question about knowing whether they had a timeout.

Teams practice such end-of-game situations as a matter of routine. Yet somehow the Commanders weren't prepared enough to receive the gift from the Giants, who blew their chance when Cam Skattebo fumbled while in field-goal range.

Hard lessons for Quinn, Daniels, offensive coordinator David Blough and more.

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Did you notice?

For the second time in three weeks, both teams scored in the final 10 seconds of a game as the Jaguars finished off the Eagles with Cam Little's 57-yard field goal as time expired in London. It followed the Ravens triumph against Dallas in Rio, when they had all of seven seconds to set up Tyler Loop's 56-yard kick.

How rare is this? Well, this is the 107th NFL season ... and it's never happened before.

Two scores in 10 seconds? It sounds more like something that will happen on the basketball court during March Madness. Go figure.

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Two-minute drill

\- It would be a shock if the NFL doesn't suspend 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw for head-butting Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV on the sideline in Seattle. Greenlaw, who sparked the brouhaha with a flagrant out-of-bounds hit of Sam Darnold, was ejected from the game via a new rule that allows for ejections from the NFL's officiating command center. Now the league can go a step further with more discipline as Greenlaw rammed his helmet into a player not wearing a helmet.

\- The completion of the mystery trade that sends Marvin Harrison Jr. from the Cardinals to Houston is undoubtedly a big win for the Texans as the talented receiver – who has just five catches this season – reunites with quarterback C.J. Stroud, his teammate at Ohio State. But it’s a much bigger loss for Arizona, which drafted Harrison fourth overall in 2024 and gets a second-round pick in 2027, plus a sixth-round choice in the exchange. The Cardinals also sent a seventh-round pick with Harrison. Of course, time will reveal. But it’s worth the risk for Houston.

\- Kyler Murray completed his first 12 throws and finished with 229 passing yards in Minnesota's win at New Orleans. What he did with his legs was more striking, scrambling seven times for 54 yards – the most times he's bolted for runs on drop backs since 2020. And three times, he ran for first downs on third downs. If that layer of his game returns in addition to meshing with Kevin O'Connell's system, it just might result in the Murray who was envisioned when drafted No. 1 overall in 2019.

\- The Broncos won their 13th straight one-score game dating to last season, coming back to topple the Chargers. There's something to be said for Denver's clutch gene, but in taking over the play-calling duties Sean Payton can't be happy with the 1-for-12 measure on third-down conversions.

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Studs of the Week

\- Jaylen Warren: What a monster day for the Steelers running back. It's not just that Warren compiled 188 yards from scrimmage (101 rushing, 87 receiving) to fuel the victory against the Colts. It's how he did it. Warren took a short pass to the flat and zipped 80 yards up the sideline for his first touchdown. Later, he took a handoff, cut inside, weaved through traffic and streaked up the middle for a 50-yard score.

\- Drake Maye: My, did the Patriots

Ravens

quarter-

back Tyler

Huntley

celebrates

after the

win in

overtime

against

the

Falcons on

Oct. 11 at

Mercedes-

Benz

Stadium in

Atlanta.

BRETT DAVIS/

IMAGN

IMAGES

VIA REUTERS

quarterback light up Las Vegas. The Raiders defense, that is. Maye, 24, passed for 374 yards and four TDs, posting a 150.9 passer rating in the romp. That makes him the youngest player in NFL history to throw for 350 and four TDs, while topping a 150 rating. It was also significant that in posting his first 300-yard game of the season, Maye didn't throw a pick for the first time all season. After his shaky start to the season, he's showing just how he can get his groove back.

\- David Bailey: The Jets rookie edge rusher led the eight-sack assault on Deshaun Watson by collecting three sacks. And that's not the whole picture. Bailey also tied for the team high with seven tackles, including three for losses, and registered four quarterback hits.

\- Jahmyr Gibbs: Another week, another milestone for Detroit's multidimensional threat. In amassing 207 yards (151 rushing, 56 receiving) to help bury the Cardinals, Gibbs, 24, scored his 58th touchdown from scrimmage. It has added significance because he topped the 57 TDs that Lions legend Barry Sanders had before turning 25.

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What I'm looking forward to in NFL Week 6

Cowboys at Packers. Months ago, this prime-time encounter at Lambeau Field was pegged as a potential target for Micah Parsons to return from his torn ACL and face his former team. That's not the case now, with recent reports indicating that Parsons isn't expected to return until late October or November. In any event, the defense that Dallas has been trying to rebuild since trading Parsons to Green Bay will be in the spotlight – and that hardly seems like a good thing, given the issues the unit has had all season under new coordinator Christian Parker. Will the 10 days of rest since the embarrassing (the limo driver's word, not mine) loss against Tampa Bay make a difference? Even worse, Packers quarterback Jordan Love comes in hot. According to NextGen Stats, Love connected on six of eight deep passes (20-plus air yards) for a career-high 258 yards, with two TDs, against Chicago. If he could torch the Bears with an array of deep heaves, imagine what he might do against Dallas' suspect secondary.

Follow Bell on X: @JarrettBell

Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton has directed the Bulldogs to 18 wins in 20 starts. DAVID LEONG/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Real thing

Continued from Page 1C

first season as Stockton's teammate. "I don't think any moment gets too big for him and proud to have him as my quarterback.

“He don’t need (hype). He got us. We trust him, we love him enough so the media don’t got to.”

Despite outgaining Alabama 455-346 in yardage, the Bulldogs nonetheless needed a late-game stand – not to mention an egregious missed pass interference call inside Georgia's 5-yard line that would have given the Tide fresh downs inside the 20.

Smart issued blanket instructions to defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann: Win with the bones hanging out of the defense's mouth as the Tide faced third-and-10 at the Bulldogs 34. Georgia responded with a sack of the precocious Russell, whose evasiveness, legs and maturity beyond a half-dozen college starts kept the Tide in the game to that point.

"If we're aggressive, then we lose swinging," said Smart, guiding a team to a 6-0 start for the sixth time in his 11 seasons atop his alma mater, “and we get the ball back [if Alabama did score], and we had a chance to win.

“We didn’t come here to play ‘lose.’ I didn’t come here to play to go to over-time. Came here to win, and he called up a timely blitz that knocked them out of field-goal [range].”

Alabama punted. It never touched the ball again.

“I knew when they punted, our offense had started to take the anaconda effect,” Smart said, “and it was wearing them down. And we had a chance to run it out, and that happened.”

The head of that snake, of course, was Stockton, constricting emotions and the opposition in another win.

Placid in postgame, even as celebratory shouts and tunes echoed through the walls of the Georgia locker room and into the cramped media space.

“Maybe not always (calm), but I try to be,” Stockton told USA TODAY Sports. “Just try to be calm in the chaos.”

Thus, chaos is everywhere else in college football.

The calm again resides in Athens, Georgia, with college football's best team.

Top QBs emerging from monthlong slumber

Nate Davis

USA TODAY

Things we learned from Week 5 of the NFL season:

0. Still the total number of wins, combined, by the Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans, who are now a collective 0-15.

(QB)1. If you were hoping that the level of quarterback play throughout the league would start to pick up with the first month or so – now effectively preseason – of the 2026 season in the rear view ... then you might be in luck. Several of the NFL's brightest stars emerged from varying states of slumber – or injury – Oct. 11 to breathe some life into the most glamorous position in American sports. And it's about time.

4. The number of season-high TD passes thrown by Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow, albeit against the hapless Dolphins. While distributing the ball to nine different receivers, Burrow also had a much cleaner game, protecting the ball after turning it over a total of three times during the two-game skid Cincy successfully snapped in Week 5. Nice way to go into a bye week.

5. The number of consecutive regular-season games in which Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love has thrown two touchdown passes, i.e. all of them this season.

However, Sunday's performance in a 31-7 beatdown of the archrival Chicago Bears was certainly Love's most consequential and complete performance of the season, his 137.5 passer rating nearly 40 points better than his next-best showing of 2026.

5a. The number of Bears turnovers.

6. The number of games that passed between Drake Maye's five-TD efforts, the second of his career occurring Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders. Maye threw for 374 yards and four TDs in a 45-17 rout of the Raiders and ran for another score.

The only other time he accounted for five NFL TDs was a Week 17 defeat of the New York Jets last season.

7. The past two weeks have been especially encouraging for Maye, the 2025 league MVP runner-up who engineered an upset of the Bills in Buffalo in Week 4, and the defending AFC champion Patriots (3-2), who moved above .500 for the first time this season.

8. The number of sacks racked up by the Jets in their 17-12 defeat of the Browns, including a strip sack of QB Deshaun Watson on Cleveland's final offensive snap. It tied the Jets' team record for sacks since the statistic became official in 1982.

9. The number of TD passes thrown this season by Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and the Carolina Panthers' Bryce Young, both among league leaders in that department amid strong starts to the season – even though both were on bye in Week 5.

Drake Maye runs for a Patriots TD against Jeremy Chinn of the Raiders.

WINSLOW TOWNSON/GETTY IMAGES

10. The number of international games played by Jacksonville P Logan Cooke, a new record for overseas, uh, caps. Cooke, who doubles as the Jags' holder, had a standout day in that role while handling the high snaps from fill-in long snapper DaVon Hamilton, including on the game-winning field goal.

11. And how about QB Aaron Rodgers' resurgence this season amid his reunion with head coach Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh? Rodgers passed for three TDs in Sunday's 34-22 defeat of the Indianapolis Colts and took sole possession of third place with 582 TD throws (regular season plus playoffs), breaking his tie with Hall of Famer Peyton Manning.

Rodgers' 80-yard TD pass to RB Jaylen Warren, who did most of the work on the play, was the ninth of the four-time league MVP's career covering at least 80 yards, tying former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger's league mark.

12. Speaking of former Pittsburgh passers, Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw wore No. 12, which is why Rodgers stuck with No. 8 in the Steel City. However, Rodgers did match Bradshaw's franchise mark of passing for at least three TDs in three consecutive games.

13. "Browns are gonna Browns." Sorry, Coach Monken, but it was only a matter of time. And, yes, the weather was bad Sunday as the remainder of Hurricane Isaias wound down. But punter Corey Bojorquez's inability to handle a snap inside the final four minutes set up the Jets' game-winning TD run by Braelon Allen three plays later.

14. Another QB on the upswing? How about Kyler Murray of the Minnesota Vikings, the first team to win five games. Murray had his best game in purple and gold, passing for 229 yards and a TD and getting 51 more yards on the ground.

16. The Raiders' Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 pick of the 2026 draft, got his feet wet in Foxborough, passing for 48 yards in his regular-season debut while mopping up for Kirk Cousins in Las Vegas' worst loss of the season.

17. Speaking of wet feet ... and No. 1 picks ... and Hurricane Isaias-impacted weather, how about a nod to the New York Giants' Jameis Winston, who has taken a fair amount of heat since replacing Jaxson Dart for being more of a football persona than an effective quarterback? But Winston passed for 326 yards and three TDs (and nary an interception), if in a 27-27 tie against the Washington Commanders. It was Winston's second straight start with three TD strikes as the Giants maintained their perch atop the NFC East.

18. The jersey number – most recently – of Arizona Cardinals WR Marvin Harrison Jr., who is being traded to the Houston Texans. Could be a win-win for both clubs.

19. Back to that Commanders-Giants game, which marked the return of Washington QB Jayden Daniels from a dislocated left elbow, which necessitated a two-game absence. Daniels passed for 199 yards and rushed for 103 – including TD runs of 38 and 26 yards – in the rain. He looked great, until ...

20. ... the very unfortunate game-ending sequence when Washington's clock mismanagement prevented the Commanders from attempting what would have been about a 44-yard field-goal try for the win. Whether it was Daniels' fault, that of coach Dan Quinn – he unsurprisingly took the blame – rookie offensive coordinator David Blough or otherwise, bad look for Washington. And, realistically, Daniels should have sufficient situational awareness to know he can't be fighting for meaningless yards with his legs when the clock is winding down and he has no timeouts.

21. Fortunately for the Commanders, the Giants didn't feel like winning this game, either. Rookie kicker Dominic Zvada missed three field goals, including one in overtime. He would have had a shot at redemption ... except Cam Skattebo made the running back's version of Daniels' mistake – fighting for unnecessary yardage, and fumbling, to ruin New York's shot at another game-winning field-goal try.

22. It's possible no one wants to win the NFC East this season given the ugly Week 5 losses by the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. For now, the Dart-less Giants still have a $1 \frac{1}{2}$ -game lead over Dallas and Philly.

23. Did we mention Detroit Lions QB Jared Goff? No? Put him squarely in the MVP conversation. He passed for 271 yards and three scores, while running for a fourth TD, as the Lions blew out Arizona 45-21.

Goff became the second player in NFL history to throw for at least 12 TDs without being intercepted in his team's first five games of a season.

24. The San Francisco 49ers' Brock Purdy has been widely mentioned as a strong MVP candidate this season, though he didn't have his best game Sunday in Seattle.

Still, his pair of TD passes helped knock off the reigning champion Seahawks while keeping the Niners undefeated and tied with Minnesota for the league's best record.

25. Not quite the age of Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs, whose 58 career TDs from scrimmage – he scored twice Sunday – are the most ever by an NFL player who has yet to celebrate his 25th birthday.

26. Among the quarterbacks who needs to step up? Dallas' Dak Prescott. He and Mahomes are the only guys in the league averaging at least \$60 million annually.

Yet Prescott, who's coming off a two-interception showing in the Cowboys' Thursday loss to the previously winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers, needs to earn his keep more consistently – at least as along as it's apparent that Dallas' high-powered, high-priced offense needs to continue compensating for its (still) underwhelming defense.

27. Same goes for the Eagles' Jalen Hurts, who continues to look miscast in an evolving – if gutted, from a personnel perspective – offense.

28. Another signal-caller who needs to play better is Sam Darnold, who was picked off twice by San Francisco's Renardo Green in Seattle's 32-29 loss. That's five INTs in basically three games for Darnold, who missed most of Seattle's opener with a glute injury – a concerning trend for player who's struggled with ball security over the course of his career. Given how well QB2 Drew Lock played in Darnold's stead early in the season, not hard to imagine a QB controversy percolating if Darnold can't clean up the mistakes.

29. Sean Payton's return as the Denver Broncos' offensive play-caller? Mid. They scored 23 points and had just 224 yards, their second-lowest output of the season. But it was enough to keep the Chargers winless.

30. DeMeco Ryans' return as the Texans' defensive player-caller? Masterful. Houston held the still-winless Titans to three points and 187 yards while taking the ball away twice.

31. The jersey number of Jets OLB David Bailey, who had a monster game against the Browns, an effort that included three sacks. Your early frontrunner for Defensive Rookie of the Year.

32. RIP, Mike Ditka, who died Friday. One of the most talented and colorful characters in NFL history, it somehow feels appropriate that the Pro Football Hall of Famer and Chicago legend passed with the Bears on a winning streak rather than seeing them fall to the Packers on Sunday.

'SNF' WINNERS AND LOSERS

Snoop and King Henry pick up slack for Ravens

Jarrett Bell

USA TODAY

ATLANTA - No Lamar Jackson.

Well, it's a good thing the Baltimore Ravens brought Derrick Henry, Kyle Hamilton and Tyler "Snoop" Huntley to pick up the slack as their star quarterback nurses an ankle injury.

The Ravens (4-1) stung the Atlanta Falcons in overtime 30-23 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, scoring the game's final 15 points and ending it with Hamilton's pick of Tua Tagovailoa.

Huntley? Dating to last season, he's 3-0 starting in the place of Jackson.

Here are winners and losers from the Ravens' overtime win over the Falcons on Oct. 11 on “Sunday Night Football”:

WINNERS

Tyler Huntley: In this year of the Backup Quarterback, who has a better backup than Baltimore? Huntley, aka "Snoop," proved his worth again as Lamar Jackson's sub. And he was at his best in crunch time, flawlessly leading the Ravens on a 71-yard game-tying TD drive in the fourth quarter, then a 14-play, 68-yard TD drive in overtime. Huntley was 24 of 32 for 201 yards, with two TDs – and no turnovers. And yes, Jackson, was surely proud of his understudy.

Derrick Henry: The Ravens star running back upstaged his counterpart, Bijan Robinson, on his own turf. Henry took a lot of the load off Huntley by doing what Henry does. He carried 24 times for 102 yards and scored an 18-yard TD on his only pass reception.

Kyle Hamilton: Baltimore's big play safety, an Atlanta-area native, came home and sealed the deal with an inter-

ception of Tua Tagovailoa in overtime.

Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley finished with 201 yards and two TDs in completing 24 of his 32 passing attempts Oct. 11.

DALE ZANINE/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Jessie Bates III: Atlanta's savvy safety scored the game's first touchdown, scooping a Mark Andrews fumble and motoring 36 yards to the end zone in the first quarter. Late in the half, Bates made a key play that might have avoided a disaster. It came on a third-and-1, when Huntley ran a sneak on a "rush-mush" expected to go for a yard or two. When no one tackled him, Huntley bounced outside and kept going for 15 yards – until Bates clipped him down from behind. Baltimore wound up with a field goal, but it was almost much worse for the Falcons.

Kyle Pitts Sr.: For the first time this season, the Falcons tight end struck pay dirt. Pitts scored Atlanta's first offensive touchdown of the game, a 5-yarder, off a skinny post. And he might have shaken Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a thunderous spike that seemingly made a statement about his agreement with the touchdown. In June, the Falcons signed Pitts to a three-year, \$53 million extension. But through four games, he was virtually non-existent in the passing game with five catches on nine targets. At least he can now chalk up another TD. And in catching all five of his targets (42 yards), Pitts matched his total from the first four games of the season.

Tyler Loop: The Ravens kicker connected on two 51-yard field goals, in addition to a 21-yarder, to continue his hot streak. It's been a good bounce back for Loop, whose rookie year ended in January when he missed the field goal against the Steelers that could have lifted Baltimore to the AFC North crown. So far this season, Loop is 5-for-5 on field-goal attempts from 50 yards or more.

Jake Matthews: When the Falcons left tackle was knocked out of the Oct. 5 game at New Orleans due to a groin injury, it seemed to jeopardize his chance to make a milestone 200th consecutive start. Well, no sweat. Or fast healer. Matthews was in the lineup again, extending the NFL's longest active streak. The 13-year vet still has a ways to go, though, to claim the longest Iron Man streak in his family. His Hall of Fame-decorated father, Bruce, started 229 consecutive games. And Jake couldn't haul his first NFL touchdown off a tackle-eligible play in the third quarter.

LOSERS

Michael Penix Jr.: It went downhill fast for the Falcons quarterback. Then it got worse as he was knocked out the game with a rib injury. Uh-oh.

Tua Tagovailoa: The Falcons really needed their backup quarterback to come up big in overtime with Penix sidelined and the Ravens up a touchdown. Needed or wanted, that didn't happen. Tagovailoa's second pass of OT, underthrown over the middle for Drake London, was picked off by Kyle Hamilton. Ballgame.

Mark Andrews: It was a rough night for the Ravens' usually reliable tight end. In the first quarter, Andrews fumbled after hauling in a pass over the middle. It turned into Atlanta's first touchdown as Jessie Bates III ran back the turnover 36 yards. In the third quarter, a wide-open Andrews dropped a pass on a two-point conversion attempt that could have tied the game. In the fourth quarter, Andrews had a third-down pass swatted out of his hands by Xavier Watts.

Falcons cornerbacks named Mike: Veteran cornerback Mike Hughes was victimized twice in the open field on Baltimore's game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter. He missed a tackle that allowed Rashod Bateman to spin forward for a 20-yard gain. Then when the Ravens called for a direct snap to Derrick Henry on a 2-point conversion attempt, Hughes was left to stare down the diesel of a running back on the corner. Bad matchup. Henry bulled his way into the end zone to tie the game. Then there was Mike Ford Jr. He was beaten by Devontez Walker for a 7-yard touchdown with 40 seconds on the clock in the fourth quarter. It set up the 2-point conversion that tied the game.

Lane Kiffin, uh, gives Brian Kelly run for money

Lane Kiffin's LSU football team is 4-2 overall but just 1-2 in the SEC. JORDAN PRATHER/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Blake Toppmeyer

Columnist

USA TODAY NETWORK

Alabama's coach is screaming and cussing, Arch Manning is throwing a pick-six, Texas A&M's coach is insulting a portion of the team's fan base, Nebraska is choking, and Lane Kiffin is losing to Kentucky.

Suffice it to say, college football is in full sprint as we arrive at the season's midpoint.

Here's what's left on my mind after Week 6:

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Lane Kiffin on the Brian Kelly track at LSU

Will Stein is enjoying a better first season at Kentucky than Lane Kiffin is at LSU.

Let that sink in.

LSU's 35-34 loss in Lexington supplied fresh evidence that Kiffin neglected to see the forest for the trees when he left Ole Miss on the playoff's doorstep in favor of what he deemed a glitzier job, where he thought he could win a national championship.

Never mind that Kiffin left behind a team and an Ole Miss program good enough to contend for a national championship.

This loss to Kentucky doesn't change the possibility that Kiffin might indeed win a national title at LSU, some years down the road. Or, he might lose as often as Brian Kelly did and get himself fired. Both possibilities remain in play.

What's becoming strikingly obvious is Kiffin stands further from a national championship today than he did 12 months ago.

Ole Miss is better than LSU. Kentucky is better than LSU, too, or at least it's good enough to humble Kiffin's expensive roster in overtime in front of a sold-out crowd.

What Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron achieved at LSU is ancient history from a bygone era. Fact is, LSU made the College Football Playoff just once in 12 seasons. After this season, it'll be once in 13 seasons. Put differently, LSU has never made the playoff when Joe Burrow wasn't its quarterback.

Sam Leavitt is no Burrow. Kentucky logged two takeaways from LSU's turnover-prone quarterback, and the Wildcats also scored on a punt return.

College football changed forever with the dawn of name, image and likeness (NIL) and transfer free agency. In this era, Kentucky can topple LSU behind a rookie coach and a transfer quarterback and another gutsy 2-point walk-off for the Wildcats, and it doesn't feel like a fluke.

Kelly, if you're wondering, went 4-2 through his first six games despite inheriting a mess from Orgeron. So, LSU (4-2) sits where it did halfway through Kelly's first season.

Oh, and the Tigers reached the SEC championship game in Kelly's first season.

Check the standings, and you'll see Kentucky is a couple of steps closer to the SEC championship game than LSU is, and Kiffin is a couple of losses away from his first season in the bayou being declared a bust.

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Kalen DeBoer kills off one narrative at Alabama

Remember the tale that Kalen De-Boer doesn't cuss that emerged after Alabama hired him? Well, we can put that one to bed.

Amateur lip readers deduced DeBoer does, in fact, cuss. Or, at least he did during his sideline tirade directed at Dijon Lee Jr., after the Alabama cornerback's bone-headed personal foul penalty allowed Georgia to go into victory formation and salt away a 20-17 victory.

Alabama lost the game, but DeBoer's sideline demeanor has never been closer to that of the coach he replaced than when he chewed out the officials in the fourth quarter after they neglected to flag Georgia for what sure looked like pass interference. DeBoer saved another sideline rant for Lee.

As Saban would put it, those are called ass chewings, and Alabama fans must've liked seeing such fire from the typically mild-mannered DeBoer. They also must love what they're seeing from quarterback Keelon Russell, who delivered some dazzling moments in defeat, even if Gunner Stockton proved one rung better.

Few teams come home from Bryant-Denny Stadium victorious, and Georgia earned its No. 1 ranking with this triumph. This is Kirby Smart's best team since his back-to-back national title teams. Georgia is good enough to win it all, and Alabama isn't that far off, especially if DeBoer's ass chewings hit home.

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Texas Longhorns' warts include Steve Sarkisian, Arch Manning

Why are Georgia and Alabama the SEC's two most-trustworthy teams? In part, because they have two of the conference's best quarterbacks.

Texas doesn't.

As Arch Manning put it after Texas lost 27-24 to Oklahoma, “we beat ourselves.” He’s correct.

The Longhorns had been trying to beat themselves for a couple of weeks. Finally, they succeeded, and Manning's two interceptions played a direct role. So did Oklahoma scoring off a blocked punt.

Texas remains talented but untrustworthy, and Steve Sarkisian is taking heat for refusing to surrender play-calling duties. The play-calling narrative misses the point.

It's not so much the calls as it is the ineffectual execution, like Manning panicking and throwing two avoidable and crippling interceptions.

Also, it's not as if Sark has an obvious play-calling savant ready to take on those duties midseason.

Forget play-calling, because here's the important question: Why can't Sarkisian get more out of Manning? It's not the plays. It's the performance.

Sarkisian is the first college coach in history who couldn't develop a Manning into something more than an average quarterback.

Sarkisian earned offensive guru status for his work calling Alabama's offense in an undefeated 2020 season, but these last two seasons are enough to revoke his membership to “Club Guru.”

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Big Ten Conference finds its playoff sleeper team

If Texas is the most untrustworthy team money can buy, then Oregon is the most mediocre team money can buy. We must take UCLA seriously as a playoff sleeper after the Bruins stayed undefeated by clipping the Ducks' wings.

Southern Cal is the only ranked opponent left on UCLA's schedule, and Bob Chesney is in a battle with Stein of Kentucky to be the most celebrated first-year coach.

With Oregon wilting, there's room within the Big Ten for someone to rise up and join Ohio State and Indiana as playoff teams. Chesney's Bruins staked their place in that conversation thanks to a defensive performance that bottled up all of Oregon's expensive talent.

1. In the aftermath of Texas A&M coach Mike Elko taking a foolish shot at "Billy's cesspool" (a nod to Billy Liucci's TexAgs website), some savvy thinker launched a new website that can be found at billyscesspool.me. I'm still finding my way around the new website, but the early returns are promising. The new site includes a hot-take generator. Here's an easy take: Elko's tenure hit rock bottom in a 27-6 loss to Missouri.

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Three and out

3. Perhaps Notre Dame ain't played nobody, but I retract my previous statement that the Irish are overrated at No. 3. After Notre Dame stomped a hole in Stanford's face in a 58-7 victory, no argument here about the Irish being ranked No. 3.

2. Wake Forest won again. The Demon Deacons are 5-1, and Jake Dickert is going to be the belle of the coaching carousel.

But, wait, what's this I see? Notre Dame is now ranked No. 2? Just when I was beginning to accept the Irish at No. 3 ...

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer

Gold rush

Continued from Page 1C

includes Christian Yelich, the three-time All-Star, and Trevor Megill, a closer who made the All-Star team in 2025.

Five Dodgers players on the team's 26-man roster for the NLDS were native Californians, making up almost $20\%$ of the roster. That includes Freddie Freeman, the 10-time All-Star first baseman, and Tarik Skubal, the two-time Cy Young Award winner.

Population and warm weather give California an inherent advantage, of course. But Logan also noted, “They have always had a great infrastructure with youth leagues, Little League, everything else.”

White, who left the Dodgers for the San Diego Padres in 2015, said his research helped dictate how he allocated resources.

Brewers second baseman Brice Turang watches the flight of his solo home run during the fourth inning Oct. 11. MARK HOFFMAN/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

“(In California), I had multiple cross-checkers that lived there, part-timers and area guys,” he said.

An MLB.com story published in 2020 showed California has a huge lead over other states.

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Scouting options galore

Tim Fortugno, a former major leaguer who scouts for the Tampa Bay Rays, was sitting inside Cal-Berkeley's Stu Gordon Stadium on Oct. 9. He rattled off names of some of the Cal-Berkeley players who became major leaguers, such as Hall of Famer Jeff Kent, three-time All-Star Marcus Semien and 10-year catcher Bob Melvin.

All three are native Californians.

“That’s just one college,” Fortugno told USA TODAY Sports. “You know, I could go down the street to Stanford. I could go down the street to Fresno State.”

Or he could head south, where UCLA, Southern Cal and Cal State Fullerton produced a litany of major leaguers.

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Changing landscape

White said he thinks California is losing college talent because of name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation, which took effect for college athletes in 2021. According to White, it's not just sweeter NIL deals that have lured native Californians elsewhere, but also sold-out crowds at schools like Tennessee and LSU and the ability for families to watch games live-streamed rather than needing to be near the school.

“That never used to happen,” White said of talented players leaving California.

As for youth baseball, California has won the Little League World Series championship eight times, more than any other state. But California has won only once since 2023.

White attributes that to the rise of elite travel baseball teams. “I think they’re just bypassing playing Little League because you have so many of these travel ball programs (that) want their kids playing year-round with their team so they don't let them go play Little League," White said.

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Cold-weather phenomenon

Cold-weather states produce pitching talent, White said.

Of the 15 native Californians on the Dodgers' and Brewers' NLDS rosters,

His theory: Young pitchers in states with large populations and warm weather get “pitched all year.”

“I think you lose a lot of pitchers,” White said, “because they, I don’t want to say they got abused, but they pitch so damn much that they get abused, right?

"I can't tell you how many kids I knew were great pitchers at 12 in Arizona, and even some I've heard of in California, and they were not that good when they're 18.

"It's because they play in the fall, the winter, and they were playing a lot, I think. And I like playing, but pitching all the time, year-round is tough."

eight are pitchers. And White also said, "California is always going to produce players because it's got weather, it's got population, great infrastructure, coaching, all that stuff. How might those numbers look in a decade?"

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Sleeper states

In addition to studying the states producing the most major leaguers, White said he also studied the ratio of major leaguers to population. He said the highest ratio belonged to the state of Washington. Sleeper states for producing talent include Georgia and Ohio, according to White, who also called the Carolinas “sneaky good,” with a wealth of Division I college programs between the two states.

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Californians on Brewers' and Dodgers' NLDS rosters

The Dodgers and Brewers had to turn in their finalized 26-man rosters for the NLCS on Oct. 11. Though that could lead to some adjustments, here are the native Californians (with their birthplace) who were on the NLDS rosters for the Brewers and Dodgers.

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Dodgers

Kris Bubic, Cupertino, CA

Freddie Freeman, Villa Park

Tyler Glasnow, Newhall

Tarik Skubal, Hayward,

Alex Vesia, Alpine

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Brewers

Jake Bauers, Newport Beach

Robert Gasser, El Dorado Hills

Kyle Harrison, San Jose

Trevor Megill, Long Beach

Garrett Mitchell, Orange

Joey Ortiz, Garden Grove

JoJo Romero, Camarillo

Brice Turang, Corona

Andrew Vaughn, Santa Rosa

Christian Yelich, Thousand Oaks

NFL MARVIN HARRISON JR. TRADE WINNERS AND LOSERS

Receiver, Stroud, Cardinals brass gainers

Wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. is heading out of Arizona after being traded to the AFC and the Texans in Houston.

CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Nate Davis

USA TODAY

The Houston Texans not only got their first win Oct. 11, they also consummated a trade that sends a direct signal to their players that this season is not over – despite their 1-4 start.

Shortly after a resounding 26-3 pasting of the Tennessee Titans, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans concluded his postgame press conference by confirming the acquisition of wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. from the Arizona Cardinals. It's a bold gambit for the Texans, who gave up a second-round pick in next year's highly anticipated draft to get the deal over the finish line. But H-Town might also be the right spot for a player who's disappointed in his two-plus NFL seasons to date.

The winners and losers of the rare deal signaled on a Sunday:

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WINNERS

Marvin Harrison Jr.: The fourth overall pick of the 2024 draft has yet to live up to his advance billing, yet to catch 70 passes in a season nor surpass 900 receiving yards. "MHJ" has been virtually invisible this year, totaling just five receptions for 85 yards and a TD in four appearances for Arizona. But now he gets a much-needed fresh start with a team that's reached the playoffs in each of the previous three seasons – and is reunited with his college QB.

C.J. Stroud: Houston's quarterback, who is playing for a long-term extension but has been playing with a stripped-down wideout corps – particularly when Pro Bowler Nico Collins has been out of the lineup – now has his talented former Ohio State teammate back in the fold, and Harrison should have a golden opportunity to thrive in the WR2 role behind Collins. Harrison caught 77 balls for 1,263 yards and 14 TDs in 2022 for the Buckeyes, when Stroud was throwing to him. Perhaps more important to Stroud and his teammates, this signals the front office's belief that this team is still capable of going on a run and an acknowledgment that a defense-skewed roster needs more help on the other side of the ball.

“I loved him in college,” Stroud said after Sunday’s victory. “He’s probably the hardest worker I’ve ever been around in my life. And then just who he is off the field, he's a great dude, quiet guy, but definitely you feel his presence. So, I'm excited to get him in here and get him learning, and get him around other guys. And I think it's perfect for him. I think fresh starts are good."

Monti Ossenfort: Arizona's general manager parlayed Harrison and a 2027 seventh-rounder into Round 2 and 6 picks in next year's draft, quite a nice recovery for a player who underperformed as blatantly as Harrison did. Moving forward, Ossenfort can target a wideout replacement next year or perhaps bundle this pick should he need to move up for the quarterback target of his choice next spring – when the Cards will almost certainly be in the market for a potential new face of the franchise.

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LOSERS

Monti Ossenfort: It's fair to wonder whether the Cards would have been better off taking Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. in 2024 rather than Harrison at No. 4 (after Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye). If nothing else, Ossenfort definitively missed at wideout given Malik Nabers was on the board.

Nick Caserio: This is a bold – desperate? – roll of the dice by Houston's EVP/GM, who paid a massive price for an unproven player ... and might be obligated to pay even more. Harrison has only 12 weeks to assimilate and make a difference in Houston's 2026 season in order to prove he was miscast or just part of a bad marriage with the Cardinals. If he doesn't, Caserio has mortgaged a nice chunk of the Texans' future – especially given the presumed quality and depth of next year's draft. (Don't forget, Caserio already gave up S Jaylen Reed and a 2028 seventh-round draft pick in a trade with the New England Patriots for WR Kayshon Boutte in August.) Yet if Harrison does show signs of life – surely what Caserio and company are hoping for here – then Houston will be obligated to pick up the receiver's hefty fifth-year contract option next spring, which will add further strain to a salary cap already weighted down by high-leverage contracts and yet to account for a likely Stroud extension.

Ohio State WR legacy: Reigning Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and Emeka Egbuka, all first-round picks since 2022, have more than upheld the lofty pedigree of Buckeyes wideouts. Carnell Tate, the fourth overall pick by the Titans this year, is expected to join their ranks soon enough. But Harrison, anticipated by many draft observers to be the best of the bunch from recent years when he came out, has thus far unequivocally been the biggest disappointment and a bit of a blight on the Columbus wideout assembly line. (No, we don't expect it to impact the draft position of Jeremiah Smith in 2027. Not. At. All.)

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PUBLIC NOTICE

The Town of Delight, AR is soliciting competitive bids for 26COR-114, Pharmacy Benefit Management Services (“PBM”). Interested suppliers must submit a proposal in accordance with solicitation documents posted at http://www.coretrustpg.com/public-sector/solicitations. Responses must be received by 3:00 p.m. CT, 11/19/2026.

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REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Sourcewell, a State of Minnesota local government unit and service cooperative, is requesting proposals for Scoreboards, Digital Displays, and Video Boards with Related Services to result in a procurement solution for use by its Participating Entities.

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Only proposals submitted through the Sourcewell Procurement Portal will be considered.

Proposals are due no later than December 1, 2026, at 3:30 p.m. Central Time, and late proposals will not be considered.

Rockies Procurement Services (RPS), on behalf of Equalis Group members, has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for School Food Supply Chain Traceability & Compliance Technology Services. Organizations who wish to participate in the RFP process must register with Euna Procurement strategic sourcing platform through this link https://equalisgroup.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities to download and complete the RFP package. Completed proposals are due before 2:00pm Mountain Standard Time on 11/25/2026.

The Town of Delight, AR is soliciting competitive bids for 26COR-100 Travel Management Services. Interested suppliers must submit a proposal in accordance with solicitation documents posted at http://www.coretrustpg.com/public-sector/solicitations. Responses must be received by 3:00 p.m. CT, November 12, 2026.

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REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Sourcewell, a State of Minnesota local government unit and service cooperative, is requesting proposals for Material Processing and Recycling Equipment with Related Products and Services to result in a procurement solution for use by its Participating Entities.

Sourcewell Participating Entities include thousands of governmental, higher education, K-12 education, nonprofit, tribal government, and other public agencies located in the United States and Canada.

Sourcewell encourages the use of Small, Minority-owned. Women's Business Enterprise, Veteran-owned Business Enterprise (S/M/WBE/VBE) suppliers both as prime and subcontractors and encourages the participation of these suppliers in the solicitation process.

A full copy of the Request for Proposals can be found on the Sourcewell Procurement Portal https://proportal.sourcell-mn.gov.

Only proposals submitted through the Sourcewell Procurement Portal will be considered.

Proposals are due no later than November 24, 2026 at 3:30 p.m.

Central Time, and late proposals will not be considered

United States Bankruptcy Court

Middle District of Florida

In re Star Island Vacation Ownership Association, Inc.

Case No. 6:25-bk-07207-GER

Adv. Proc. No. 6:26-ap-00074-GER

TO: All Defendants on the list below ("the Defendant List")

YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED AND REQUIRED to serve upon K&L GATES LLP via email to Jeffrey Kucera (jeffrey.kucera@klgates.com) or Carly Everhardt (carly.everhardt@klgates.com) and via mail to Jeffrey Kucera and Carly Everhardt at K&L GATES LLP, One Biscayne Tower, 2 Biscayne Blvd., Suite 1900, Miami, FL 33131, a motion or an answer to the Complaint, in which Star Island Vacation Ownership Association, Inc. is the Plaintiff and the parties on the Defendant List linked above are among the Defendant(s), pending in the United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida and bearing Adv. Proc. No. 6:26-ap-00074-GER within thirty (30) days after the actual date of such publication, exclusive of such date. If you make a motion, your time to answer is governed by Fed. R. Bankr. P. 7012.

If you fail to answer or make a motion, judgment may be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Complaint. You shall also file your answer and proof of service in duplicate with the Clerk of the United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 400 West Washington Street, Suite 5100, Orlando, FL 32801, in accordance with the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure.

YOU are made Defendant(s) to this action because you have or may claim to have some right, title, lien or other interest affecting the real estate being sold, by virtue of ownership, inheritance, descent, intestacy, devise, dower, curtesy, mortgage, deed, or conveyance, entry of judgment or other legal or lawful right. The nature of which and the reason that you and each of you are joined as Defendants is set forth with particularity in the complaint/amended complaint, which may be found on the following web site maintained by Omni Agent Solutions, Inc. https://omniagentsolutions.com/starisland. A copy of the complaint will be furnished to you on request addressed to the attorneys for the Plaintiff at the above-mentioned address.

DEFENDANT LIST

BROWN, CURTIS

BROWN, WALTER AS TRUSTEE OF

THE WALTER H BROWN REVOCABLE

LIVING TRUST DATED 3/19/1998

CASSIMIRO, ANNA C KARINA PINHEIRO

COLLINS, JAMES

DELGADO, JORGE ALBERTO GATICA - DIXON, ANGELA

FLYNN, CHARLES

HALL, RICHARD

HALWEG, BRENT AS SUCCESSOR

TRUSTEE OF THE HALWEG FAMILY

TRUST DATED 4/27/1992

HERNANDEZ, JUAN

JACKSON, DAVID

JOHNSON, CATINA JORDAN

JOHNSON, JAMIE

JOHNSON, WILLIAM

JONES, BRYANT

JONES, DONALD

JONES, DONALD

KNAPP, ROBERT LEROY

LAMPHERE, JOANNE

LEE, WILLIE

LEWIS, PATRICIA

MARTIN, ALAN

MAWYIN, JOSE

MEYER, ANDREW

MILLER, DEBORAH

MODRUSAN, BRUNA

MURPHY, MICHAEL

NEWMAN, CLIFFORD JR.

PACE, NATOSHA

ROBINSON, WILLIAM

SANNER, DREW CHRISTOPHER

SCOTT, ROBERT

SMITH, EDWARD

SMITH, GREGORY

SMITH, JEFFREY

SMITH, RANDY

SMITH, THOMAS

SMITH, WILLIAM

TAYLOR, RONALD

THOMAS, LINDA

THOMPSON, SANDRA

THOMPSON, SANDRA

VEST, JAMES

WHITE, MICHAEL

WHITE, RICHARD

WILLIAMS, BARBARA

WILLIAMS, JAMES

WILLIAMS, JAMES

WILLIAMS, JOHN

WILLIAMS, JUSTIN

WILLIAMS, RICHARD

WILLIAMS, SHIRLEY

WRIGHT, JERRY

ZIMMERMAN, MICHAEL

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Note: Three points for win, one point for tie. Friday's Game

AQI Moderate

---

FOR THE RECORD

---

All times ET

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

AQI Good

AQI Good

TUE T-storms 90/77

EAST DIVISION | W | L | Pct | PF | PA | x-Montreal | 12 | 3 | .786 | 535 | 4220 | x-Toronto | 9 | 7 | .600 | 462 | 455 | Hamilton | 5 | 12 | .294 | 408 | 501 | Ottawa | 0 | 16 | .000 | 375 | 599 | WEST DIVISION | W | L | Pct | PF | PA | x-Edmonton | 12 | 4 | .750 | 497 | 394 | x-BC | 10 | 6 | .625 | 452 | 418 | Saskatchewan | 8 | 7 | .533 | 430 | 408 | Winnipeg | 8 | 8 | .500 | 415 | 447 | Calgary | 8 | 9 | .471 | 600 | 574 | Note: x- clinched playoff berth.

Friday's Scores

Edmonton 27, Hamilton 12

BC 41, Ottawa 20

Saturday's Score

Winnipeg 33, Calgary 28

Monday's Game

Saskatchewan vs. Montreal

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NFL

AMERICAN CONFERENCE Fact | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Buffalo | 3 | 1 | 0 | .750 | 127 | 107 | New England | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 110 | 94 | N.Y. Jets | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 93 | 96 | Miami | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 70 | 132 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Baltimore | 4 | 1 | 0 | .800 | 146 | 119 | Cleveland | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 93 | 112 | Pittsburgh | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 111 | 109 | Cincinnati | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 128 | 109 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Jacksonville | 4 | 1 | 0 | .800 | 123 | 70 | Indianapolis | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 124 | 138 | Houston | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 110 | 112 | Tennessee | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 58 | 109 | West | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Kansas City | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 | 118 | 77 | Denver | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 97 | 111 | Las Vegas | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 132 | 129 | L.A. Chargers | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 84 | 129 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | N.Y. Giants | 3 | 1 | 1 | .700 | 109 | 106 | Philadelphia | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 92 | 112 | Dallas | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 138 | 136 | Washington | 1 | 3 | 1 | .300 | 115 | 149 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Minnesota | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 109 | 64 | Green Bay | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 104 | 112 | Detroit | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 164 | 148 | Chicago | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 119 | 96 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Carolina | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 | 121 | 109 | Atlanta | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 119 | 122 | Tampa Bay | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 100 | 112 | New Orleans | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 118 | 151 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | San Francisco | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 | 154 | 93 | Seattle | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 134 | 105 | L.A. Rams | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 | 85 | 83 | Arizona | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 108 | 162 | Thursday's Score

Tampa Bay 24, Dallas 16

Sunday's Scores

Jacksonville 19, Philadelphia 17

Cincinnati 31, Miami 24

New England 45, Las Vegas 17

Minnesota 23, New Orleans 13

N.Y. Jets 17, Cleveland 12

Pittsburgh 34, Indianapolis 22

Houston 26, Tennessee 3

N.Y. Giants 27, Washington 27

Green Bay 31, Chicago 7

Denver 23, L.A. Chargers 17

Detroit 45, Arizona 21

San Francisco 32, Seattle 29

Baltimore 30, Atlanta 23

Monday's Game

Buffalo at J. A. Rams

---

Buffalo at L.A. Rams

Thursday's Game

Seattle at Denver, 8:15 p.m.

Sunday's Games

Houston vs Jacksonville at London, 9:30 a.m.

Chicago at Atlanta, 1 p.m.

Baltimore at Cleveland, 1 p.m.

Tennessee at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.

N.Y. Jets at New England, 1 p.m.

New Orleans at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.

Carolina at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.

Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay, 1 p.m.

Arizona at L.A. Rams, 4:05 p.m.

L.A. Chargers at Kansas City, 4:25 p.m.

Buffalo at Las Vegas, 4:25 p.m.

Dallas at Green Bay, 8:20 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 19

Washington at San Francisco, 8:15 p.m.

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COLLEGE FOOTBALL

AFCA FCS Coaches Poll | Rk | School (1sts) | W-L | Pts | LW | 1 | South Dakota State (23) | 5-1 | 647 | 1 | 2 | Tarleton State (3) | 6-0 | 626 | 2 | 3 | Stephen F. Austin | 6-0 | 588 | 4 | 4 | Lehigh | 6-0 | 558 | 5 | 5 | Montana State | 5-1 | 539 | 6 | 6 | Youngstown State | 5-2 | 517 | 9 | 7 | Montana | 5-2 | 461 | 3 | 8 | Lamar | 5-1 | 458 | 10 | 9 | South Dakota | 5-2 | 407 | 12 | 10 | Northern Arizona | 5-2 | 398 | 14 | 11 | Austin Peay | 5-2 | 397 | 8 | 12 | UC Davis | 4-2 | 396 | 11 | 13 | Illinois State | 4-2 | 333 | 13 | 14 | Tennessee Tech | 5-1 | 319 | 16 | 15 | North Dakota | 5-2 | 293 | 7 | 16 | Mercer | 5-2 | 253 | 18 | 17 | Harvard | 4-0 | 242 | 19 | 18 | Campbell | 5-1 | 227 | 20 | 19 | Colgate | 4-2 | 153 | 23 | 20 | Monmouth (NJ) | 4-2 | 125 | 24 | 21 | Idaho State | 4-2 | 106 | 17 | 22 | Richmond | 5-2 | 96 | 15 | 23 | Yale | 3-1 | 61 | NR | 24 | East Tennessee State | 5-2 | 49 | NR | 25 | Northern Iowa | 3-2 | 38 | NR | Dropped out: South Carolina State (21), Jackson State (22), Southeastern Louisiana (25) Others receiving votes: Jackson State, 32; West Florida, 25; Morgan State, 24; South Carolina State, 18; Stony Brook, 18; ACU, 11; Southern Illinois, 11; Cal Poly, 7; Charleston Southern, 4; Delaware State, 4; North Alabama, 4; Southeastern Louisiana, 2; Wofford, 2; Central Connecticut State, 1.

AFCA Division II Coaches Poll, presented by GoRout Gridiron | Rk | School (1sts) | W-L | Pts | LW | 1 | Ferris State (29) | 6-0 | 725 | 1 | 2 | Harding | 6-0 | 696 | 2 | 3 | Kutztown | 6-0 | 659 | 3 | 4 | CSU Pueblo | 6-0 | 635 | 4 | 5 | Minnesota State | 7-0 | 614 | 5 | 6 | Western Colorado | 6-0 | 553 | 7 | 7 | Slippery Rock | 6-0 | 545 | 8 | 8 | Emporia State | 6-0 | 517 | 9 | 9 | Davenport | 6-0 | 482 | 11 | 10 | Northwood | 6-0 | 436 | 12 | 11 | Central Washington | 4-2 | 409 | 13 | 12 | Northwest Missouri St | 4-1 | 392 | 14 | 13 | Grand Valley State | 5-1 | 388 | 6 | 14 | Michigan Tech | 5-1 | 358 | 19 | 15 | Henderson State | 6-0 | 334 | 17 | 16 | Findlay | 5-1 | 301 | 16 | 17 | Valdosta State | 4-1 | 213 | 18 | 18 | Carson-Newman | 6-1 | 207 | 21 | 19 | Indiana (Pennsylvania) | 5-1 | 190 | 10 | 20 | UT Permian Basin | 5-1 | 183 | 23 | 21 | West Alabama | 5-1 | 173 | 22 | 22 | North Greenville | 5-1 | 92 | 15 | 23 | Minnesota-Duluth | 5-2 | 62 | NR | 24 | Virginia Union | 5-1 | 50 | NR | 25 | Nashville (Nabracka) | 5-1 | 48 | NR | ---

(24). Northern State (25).

Others receiving votes: Shepherd, 34; Benedict, 33; Virginia State, 20; Augustana (South Dakota), 11; East Central, 11; Mars Hill, 9; Johnson C. Smith, 8; Central Missouri, 7; West Liberty, 6; Northeastern State, 5; Edward Waters, 4; Hillsdale, 4; MSU Moorhead, 4; East Stroudsburg, 2; Colorado Mines, 1; Midwestern State, 1; South Dakota Mines, 1; Washburn, 1.

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NBA

---

Preseason

Sunday's Scores

Dallas 132, Houston 115

Cleveland 119, Orlando 105

Charlotte 105, Milwaukee 90

Denver 133, Chicago 128

Monday's Games

Oklahoma City at Atlanta

Brooklyn at Washington

Minnesota at N.Y. Knicks

San Antonio at Utah

Tuesday's Games

Cleveland at Orlando, 7 p.m.

N.Y. Knicks at Toronto, 7 p.m.

---

Indiana at Oklahoma City, 8 p.m.

Golden State vs L.A. Lakers at Vegas, 10 p.m.

Portland at Sacramento, 10 p.m.

Wednesday's Games

Brooklyn at Miami, 7:30 p.m.

Charlotte at Boston, 7:30 p.m.

New Orleans at Dallas, 8 p.m.

Chicago at Milwaukee, 8 p.m.

Detroit at Minnesota, 8 p.m.

Phoenix at San Antonio, 8 p.m.

Denver at L.A. Clippers, 10:30 p.m.

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NHL

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Atlantic Division | W | L | OT | Pts | GF | GA | Tampa Bay | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 16 | 12 | Ottawa | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 15 | 11 | Boston | 4 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 20 | 13 | Toronto | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 20 | 18 | Florida | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 12 | Montreal | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 15 | 19 | Buffalo | 2 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 11 | 19 | Detroit | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 15 | Metropolitan Division | W | L | OT | Pts | GF | GA | Carolina | 5 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 27 | 17 | N.Y. Rangers | 5 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 23 | 13 | Pittsburgh | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 22 | 17 | Washington | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 17 | 14 | New Jersey | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 14 | Columbus | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 13 | 14 | N.Y. Islanders | 2 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 13 | Philadelphia | 0 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 28 | WESTERN CONFERENCE | W | L | OT | Pts | GF | GA | Utah | 4 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 22 | 15 | Minnesota | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 15 | 9 | Winnipeg | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 13 | 15 | Colorado | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 26 | 17 | Nashville | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 14 | Dallas | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 8 | St. Louis | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 14 | 16 | Chicago | 1 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 26 | Pacific Division | W | L | OT | Pts | GF | GA | Vegas | 5 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 23 | 14 | Edmonton | 4 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 25 | 17 | Anaheim | 4 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 18 | 13 | Seattle | 4 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 26 | 17 | San Jose | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 17 | Vancouver | 2 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 24 | 35 | L.A. Kings | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 17 | Calgary | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 27 | NOTE: Two points for a win, one for OT loss.

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Sunday's Scores

Seattle 5, Washington 3

N.Y. Rangers 6, Vancouver 2

Carolina 4, Philadelphia 1

Monday's Games

Florida at Buffalo

Ottawa at New Jersey

Vegas at Minnesota

Tuesday's Games

New Jersey at Detroit, 6 p.m.

Florida at Columbus, 6:15 p.m.

Buffalo at Montreal, 6:30 p.m.

Washington at Carolina, 6:45 p.m.

Seattle at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.

Tampa Bay at N.Y. Rangers, 7:15 p.m.

St. Louis at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m.

Vancouver at N.Y. Islanders, 7:45 p.m.

Pittsburgh at Chicago, 8 p.m.

Minnesota at Winnipeg, 8:15 p.m.

Colorado at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.

Vegas at Nashville, 8:45 p.m.

Toronto at Utah, 9 p.m.

Calgary at Anaheim, 9:45 p.m.

Edmonton at L.A. Kings, 10:30 p.m.

Boston at San Jose, 11 p.m.

Wednesday's Games

Montreal at Washington, 7:30 p.m.

Dallas at Colorado, 8:30 p.m.

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MLB

---

Playoffs

---

Championship Series AMERICAN LEAGUE

Cleveland Guardians vs. Tampa Bay Rays

Monday: Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay

Tuesday: Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay, 8 p.m.

Thursday: Tampa Bay vs. Cleveland, 6 p.m.

Friday: Tampa Bay vs. Cleveland, 6 p.m.

x-Saturday: Tampa Bay vs. Cleveland, 8 p.m.

x-Oct. 19: Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay, 5 p.m.

x-Oct. 20: Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay, 8 p.m.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Milwaukee Brewers 1, LA Dodgers 0

Game 1: Milwaukee 2, Los Angeles 1

Monday: Los Angeles vs. Milwaukee

Wednesday: Milwaukee vs. LA, 8 p.m.

Thursday: Milwaukee vs. Los Angeles, 9 p.m.

x-Friday: Milwaukee vs. Los Angeles, 9 p.m.

x-Sun, Oct. 18: LA vs. Milwaukee, 8 p.m.

x-Mon. Oct. 19: LA vs. Milwaukee, 8 p.m.

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SOCCER

English Premier League | GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts | Manchester City | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 5 | 18 | Arsenal | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 15 | Brighton | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 5 | 13 | Brentford | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 10 | Everton | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 5 | 10 | Chelsea | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 13 | 10 | Leeds United | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 9 | Hull City | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 9 | Liverpool | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 9 | Ipswich Town | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 9 | Newcastle | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 8 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 7 | Man United | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 6 | Nott'm Forest | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 5 | Aston Villa | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 5 | Sunderland | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 4 | Bournemouth | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 13 | 3 | Tottenham | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 | Coventry City | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 3 | Fulham | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 2 | Note: Three points for win, one point for tie.

Saturday's Scores

Arsenal 2, Leeds United 1

Chelsea 5, Bournemouth 1

Aston Villa 2, Brentford 2

Ipswich Town 2, Fulham 1

Sunderland 0, Brighton & Hove Albion 2

Manchester United 1, Tottenham 1

Sunday's Scores

Hull City 2, Everton 2

Crystal Palace 3, Nottingham Forest 1

Liverpool 0, Manchester City 3

Monday's Game

Newcastle United at Coventry City

Saturday's Games

Chelsea at Everton, 7:30 a.m.

Hull City at Fulham, 10 a.m.

Liverpool at Brentford, 10 a.m.

Ipswich Town at Manchester City, 10 a.m.

Aston Villa at Newcastle United, 12:30 p.m.

---

UEFA Champions League

---

Tuesday's Games

Tuesday's Games

Sporting CP at Lens, 12:45 p.m.

Slavia Praha at Sabah, 12:45 p.m.

Club Brugge at Inter, 3 p.m.

Lille at Arsenal, 3 p.m.

Man Utd at Atleti, 3 p.m.

PSV at Leipzig, 3 p.m.

Napoli at Villarreal, 3 p.m.

Barcelona at Galatasaray, 3 p.m.

Bayern München at Viking, 3 p.m.

---

MLS

EASTERN CONFERENCE | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | Nashville | 19 | 3 | 6 | 63 | 59 | 22 | Inter Miami CF | 13 | 5 | 10 | 49 | 68 | 50 | Chicago | 14 | 8 | 6 | 48 | 51 | 40 | New England | 14 | 10 | 4 | 46 | 45 | 39 | Charlotte FC | 13 | 8 | 7 | 46 | 50 | 40 | Philadelphia | 12 | 10 | 6 | 42 | 56 | 45 | Orlando City | 11 | 13 | 4 | 37 | 51 | 66 | NY Red Bulls | 10 | 12 | 6 | 36 | 38 | 52 | NY City FC | 8 | 11 | 9 | 33 | 42 | 38 | Cincinnati | 8 | 9 | 9 | 33 | 55 | 64 | Toronto FC | 7 | 10 | 11 | 32 | 41 | 52 | D.C. United | 6 | 9 | 12 | 30 | 34 | 46 | Columbus | 8 | 15 | 5 | 29 | 41 | 46 | Atlanta | 7 | 14 | 6 | 27 | 32 | 45 | CF Montreal | 6 | 16 | 6 | 24 | 35 | 56 | WESTERN CONFERENCE | W | L | T | Pts | GF | GA | Vancouver | 15 | 7 | 6 | 51 | 61 | 30 | Saint Louis | 14 | 6 | 8 | 50 | 54 | 38 | FC Dallas | 13 | 7 | 8 | 47 | 52 | 45 | San Jose | 13 | 8 | 7 | 46 | 50 | 40 | Houston | 13 | 9 | 6 | 45 | 36 | 34 | Los Angeles FC | 11 | 9 | 9 | 42 | 44 | 31 | Seattle | 11 | 9 | 8 | 41 | 38 | 35 | Colorado | 11 | 13 | 4 | 37 | 39 | 39 | LA Galaxy | 9 | 11 | 9 | 36 | 39 | 50 | Portland | 9 | 13 | 6 | 33 | 51 | 54 | Real Salt Lake | 9 | 14 | 5 | 32 | 41 | 46 | San Diego FC | 8 | 12 | 8 | 32 | 48 | 51 | Austin FC | 7 | 11 | 10 | 31 | 36 | 51 | Minnesota | 7 | 12 | 9 | 30 | 42 | 51 | Sporting KC | 6 | 18 | 4 | 22 | 35 | 68 | ---

Note: Three points for win, one point for tie.

Saturday's Scores

Toronto FC 2, CF Montreal 1

Chicago 2, NY City FC 1

Charlotte FC 3, FC Dallas 2

Atlanta 1, Cincinnati 3

New England 0, Seattle 3

Inter Miami CF 4, D.C. United 0

Philadelphia 2, Real Salt Lake 1

---

Orlando City 3, Columbus 2

NY Red Bulls 4, San Diego FC 1

Sporting KC 3, Portland 3

Minnesota 2, Houston 2

Austin FC 1, Nashville 4

Colorado 1, San Jose 1

Los Angeles FC 1, Vancouver 1

Sunday's Score

Saint Louis 6, LA Galaxy 2

Wednesday's Games

New England at Cincinnati, 7:30 p.m.

Atlanta at CF Montreal, 7:30 p.m.

NY Red Bulls at D.C. United, 7:30 p.m.

Charlotte FC at Columbus, 7:30 p.m.

NY City FC at Inter Miami CF, 7:30 p.m.

Orlando City at Toronto FC, 7:30 p.m.

Philadelphia at Chicago, 8:30 p.m.

Sporting KC at Nashville, 8:30 p.m.

Seattle at DC Dallas, 8:30 p.m.

Vancouver at Saint Louis, 9:30 p.m.

Minnesota at Colorado, 9:30 p.m.

San Jose at Real Salt Lake, 9:30 p.m.

Austin FC at Los Angeles FC, 10:30 p.m.

Houston at San Diego FC, 10:30 p.m.

Portland at LA Galaxy, 10:30 p.m.

---

NWSL | W | L | D | Pts | GF | GA | Gotham | 16 | 4 | 7 | 55 | 35 | 21 | San Diego | 16 | 8 | 3 | 51 | 40 | 28 | Washington | 15 | 8 | 4 | 49 | 39 | 26 | Utah | 14 | 9 | 4 | 46 | 44 | 35 | Kansas City | 13 | 9 | 5 | 44 | 48 | 38 | Angel City | 12 | 8 | 7 | 43 | 45 | 29 | Portland | 12 | 8 | 7 | 43 | 45 | 39 | North Carolina | 13 | 11 | 3 | 42 | 50 | 39 | Seattle | 12 | 11 | 4 | 40 | 33 | 32 | Denver | 10 | 9 | 8 | 38 | 45 | 37 | Orlando | 10 | 14 | 3 | 32 | 36 | 43 | Houston | 8 | 13 | 6 | 30 | 34 | 29 | Boston | 8 | 14 | 5 | 29 | 36 | 46 | Bay | 7 | 15 | 5 | 26 | 28 | 42 | Louisville | 7 | 17 | 3 | 24 | 36 | 52 | Chicago | 5 | 20 | 2 | 17 | 15 | 63 | ---

Friday's Game

---

Louisville at Boston, 8 p.m.

Saturday's Games

Gotham at Washington, 12:30 p.m.

Kansas City at Utah, 6:30 p.m.

San Diego at North Carolina, 7 p.m.

Angel City at Denver, 8:45 p.m.

Sunday's Games

Orlando at Houston, 1 p.m.

Portland at Bay, 5 p.m.

Seattle at Chicago, 7 p.m.

---

WNBA

---

Finals

---

(Best-of-7 series; x-if necessary)

Atlanta Dream vs. Golden State Valkyries

Saturday: Atlanta vs. Golden State, 3:30 p.m.

Mon, Oct. 19: Atlanta vs. Golden State, 8 p.m.

Thurs, Oct. 22: Golden State vs. Atlanta, 8 p.m.

Sat, Oct. 24: Golden St vs. Atlanta, 3:30 p.m.

x-Mon, Oct. 26: Atlanta vs. Golden St, 8 p.m.

x-Thurs, Oct. 29: Golden St vs. Atlanta, 8 p.m.

x-Sat, Oct. 31: Atlanta vs. Golden State, 8 p.m.

---

DEALS

---

FOOTBALL

---

National Football League

ARIZONA CARDINALS – WR Marvin Harrison Jr. traded to Houston Texans w/ pick for 2027 2nd- and 6th-rnd picks. CB Art Green practice squad addition.

ATLANTA FALCONS – LB Bralen Trice practice squad addition. DE Drake Jackson practice squad addition.

BALTIMORE RAVENS – G Kyle Hergel practice squad addition. G Chuma Edoga practice squad addition.

CHICAGO BEARS – RB Zavier Scott practice squad addition.

CINCINNATI BENGALS – S Russ Yeast practice squad addition.

CLEVELAND BROWNS – DT Chris Williams practice squad addition. DT Sam Kamara practice squad addition.

DENVER BRONCOS – CB Sean Fresch Jr. practice squad addition. CB Brent Austin practice squad addition.

DETROIT LIONS – S Jalen Mills practice squad addition.

HOUSTON TEXANS – WR Marvin Harrison Jr. traded w/ pick for 2027 2nd- and 6th-rnd picks. LB Kenneth Murray Jr. practice squad addition. CB Bryce Hall practice squad addition.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS – WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine practice squad addition.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS – CB Jabbar Muhammad practice squad addition. S Kaevon Merriweather practice squad addition.

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS – WR Deven Thompkins practice squad addition. RB Roman Hemby practice squad addition.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS – CB Isas Waxter practice squad addition. T Daniel Brunskill practice squad addition.

MIAMI DOLPHINS – RB Carlos Washington Jr. practice squad addition. DE Rodney McGraw practice squad addition.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS – WR Jeshaun Jones practice squad addition. WR Odell Beckham Jr. practice squad addition

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS – S Elliott Davison practice squad addition. LB K.J. Britt practice squad addition.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS – WR Cedric Tillman practice squad addition. T Easton Kilty practice squad addition.

NEW YORK GIANTS – LB Trace Ford practice squad addition. WR Dalen Cambre practice squad addition.

NEW YORK JETS – LB Jaden Keller practice squad addition.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES – T John Ojukwu practice squad addition. TE Zach Ertz practice squad addition.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS – WR Brandon Smith practice squad addition. RB Lew Nichols practice squad addition.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS – TE Jack Stoll practice squad addition. DE Ogbo Okoronkwo practice squad addition.

TENNESSEE TITANS – S Isaiah Oliver practice squad addition. RB Kalel Mullings practice squad addition.

WASHINGTON COMMANDERS – WR Van Jefferson practice squad addition. S Darren Hall practice squad addition.

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National Hockey League

NEW JERSEY DEVILS – RW Stefan Noesen Called up from minors Utica-AHL.

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AUTO RACING

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F1 Driver standings | 1. Andrea Kimi Antonelli | 340 | 2. George Russell | 238 | 3. Lewis Hamilton | 229 | 4. Max Verstappen | 221 | 5. Charles Leclerc | 215 | 6. Lando Norris | 201 | 7. Oscar Piastri | 138 | 8. Isack Hadjar | 97 | 9. Liam Lawson | 75 | 10. Pierre Gasly | 41 | 11. Arvid Lindblad | 38 | 12. Franco Colapinto | 27 | 13. Oliver Beerman | 25 | 14. Nico Hülkenberg | 13 | 15. Gabriel Bortoleto | 10 | 16. Esteban Ocon | 7 | 17. Fernando Alonso | 7 | 18. Carlos Sainz Jr. | 7 | 19. Alexander Albon | 5 | 20. Yuki Tsunoda | 1 | 21. Lance Stroll | 0 | 22. Valtteri Bottas | 0 | 23. Sergio Pérez | 0 | Constructors standings | 1. Mercedes | 578 | 2. Ferrari | 444 | 3. McLaren | 339 | 4. Red Bull | 332 | 5. Racing Bulls | 100 | 6. Alpine | 68 | 7. Haas | 30 | 8. Audi | 23 | 9. Williams | 12 | 10. Aston Martin | 7 | 11. Cadillac | 0 | ---

Schedule and winners

July 5 – British Grand Prix, Northamptonshire, Great Britain (Charles Leclerc)

July 19 – Belgian Grand Prix, Francorchamps, Belgium (Kimi Antonelli)

Burgam (Nim Antenich)

July 26 – Hungarian Grand Prix, Mogyorod,

Hungary (Lando Norris)

Aug. 23 – Dutch Grand Prix, Zandvoort, Netherlands (Lando Norris)

Sept. 6 – Italian Grand Prix, Monza, Italy (Kimi Antonelli)

Sept. 26 – Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan (George Russell)

Oct. 4 – Bahrain Grand Prix, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia (Max Verstappen)

Oct. 11 – Singapore Grand Prix, Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore (Max Verstappen)

Oct. 25 – United States Grand Prix, Austin

Oct. 23 – United States Grand Prix, Austin

Nov. 1 – Gran Premio de la Ciudad de Mexico,

Mexico City, Mexico

Nov. 8 – Grande Prêmio de São Paulo, Brazil

Nov. 21 – Las Vegas Grand Prix, Las Vegas

Nov. 29 – Qatar Grand Prix, Doha, Qatar

Dec. 6 – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, UAE

WEATHER WEATHER ONLINE USATODAY.COM

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TODAY'S FORECAST

A quick-moving storm will bring rain from the Great Lakes to New England today. There may be a few thunderstorms on the southern edge of the rain across New York. Drenching showers and thunderstorms will occur across Nevada and Utah. Lighter precipitation will occur across Arizona and Wyoming. There can be flooding in any heavier downpour in low-lying areas.

Gusty thunderstorms will spark across the Plains late in the day and into the overnight. There can be localized wind gusts of 60-70 mph in any storm. The rest of the United States can expect largely dry weather.

Warm air will stretch from the Southeast north to the Great Lakes. Cooler air will stretch from the Southwest to the Midwest. It will be sunny across the Southeast and West Coast.

The weather changes. Stay up-to-date, 24/7. USA TODAY Download our free app

TODAY'S HIGH TEMPERATURES

TOP TRAVEL CITIES Air quality index (AQI)

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AccuWeather®

Superior Accuracy™ for Better Decisions Get the AccuWeather app

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PRECIPITATION FORECAST

T-storms Rain Snow Ice/mix

HOTTEST: 95° Carrizo Springs, Texas

COLDEST: 18° Burns, Ore.

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EXTREMES

BALTIMORE

TUE - Sunny, warm 83/63

WED - Stray t-storm 87/64

THU - Cooler 69/59

AQI Moderate | TUE | Mostly sunny91/77 | TUE | Cooler62/48 | WED | Mostly sunny89/77 | WED | Partly sunny61/48 | THU | Stray t-storm90/77 | THU | Shower57/43 | AOI Moderate | AOI Good |

CHARLOTTE

AQI Good | U.S. CITIES | TODAY | WED | Akron, Ohio | 82/62c | 70/51c | Albany, N.Y. | 67/62sh | 67/49c | Albuquerque | 74/54pc | 72/45s | Allentown, Pa. | 78/62f | 78/55pc | Amarillo, Texas | 84/61t | 68/56t | Anaheim, Calif. | 76/54s | 83/58s | Anchorage, Alaska | 42/34sh | 44/37pc | Aspen, Colo. | 58/39t | 53/32r | Atlantic City, N.J. | 74/65f | 80/61pc | Augusta, Ga. | 88/55s | 89/56s | Austin, Texas | 95/77t | 90/71pc | Bakersfield, Calif. | 75/53s | 78/55s | Baton Rouge, La. | 92/62s | 92/64s | Billings, Mont. | 54/33c | 61/40sh | Birmingham, Ala. | 90/60s | 90/62s | Bismarck, N.D. | 51/32c | 61/42c | Boise, Idaho | 62/38s | 66/42s | Buffalo, N.Y. | 78/58t | 65/49c | Burlington, Vt. | 56/50r | 56/44r | Cedar Rapids, Iowa | 74/55pc | 67/54sh | Charleston, S.C. | 87/63s | 87/64s | Charleston, W.Va. | 84/61pc | 83/66sh | Cheyenne, Wyo. | 61/40c | 43/38sh | AQI Good

TUE Mostly sunny 88/65

WED Mostly sunny 89/69

THU Mostly sunny 88/73

TUE - Sunny, warm 86/58

WED - Very warm 87/61

THU - Very warm 87/65 | TODAY | WED | Cincinnati | 86/66s | 82/64sh | Cleveland | 85/63pc | 68/52sh | Colorado Springs | 73/44pc | 50/41r | Columbia, S.C. | 88/57s | 90/59s | Columbus, Ohio | 86/64c | 78/56sh | Corpus Christi, Texas | 94/79t | 93/76t | Dayton, Ohio | 86/66pc | 76/56sh | Daytona Beach, Fla. | 85/70s | 87/71sh | Des Moines, Iowa | 73/52pc | 65/58sh | Duluth, Minn. | 53/41c | 54/38s | Durham, N.C. | 87/59s | 91/64s | El Paso, Texas | 85/64pc | 84/62s | Fairbanks, Alaska | 41/28c | 40/28pc | Flagstaff, Ariz. | 52/30sh | 56/33s | Fargo, N.D. | 52/40c | 58/42s | Fort Myers, Fla. | 89/70pc | 90/72s | Fort Smith, Ark. | 93/75t | 85/71t | Fort Wayne, Ind. | 85/63pc | 71/54pc | Fresno, Calif. | 76/51s | 79/54s | Grand Rapids, Mich. | 76/55pc | 67/47c | Green Bay, Wis. | 71/52c | 62/46pc | Greensboro, N.C. | 85/59s | 85/63s | Greenville, S.C. | 85/57s | 87/60s | Harrisburg, Pa. | 80/64f | 82/59s | TUE Partly sunny 71/66

WED Partly sunny 82/59

THU Cooler 66/56

AQI Good

TUE 📋 Very warm 81/64

WED 📋 Cooler 67/57

THU T-storms 62/49

TUE Plenty of sun 87/70

WED Partly sunny 88/71

THU Mostly sunny 89/72

WED Some sun, warm 83/61

THU Cooler 69/59

DETROIT | TODAY | WED | Hartford, Conn. | 63/58c | 78/51pc | Indianapolis | 89/68s | 79/62sh | Islip, N.Y. | 69/63pc | 80/57pc | Jackson, Miss. | 93/62s | 95/61s | Jacksonville, Fla. | 88/61s | 87/65s | Jefferson City, Mo. | 95/72pc | 77/66r | Kansas City | 88/62t | 66/61r | Key West, Fla. | 89/80sh | 88/80sh | Knoxville, Tenn. | 86/59s | 86/62s | Laredo, Texas | 101/79s | 99/78pc | Lexington, Ky. | 86/65s | 85/67sh | Lincoln, Neb. | 71/52pc | 61/53r | Little Rock, Ark. | 89/74t | 88/71t | Long Beach, Calif. | 75/57s | 83/59s | Louisville, Ky. | 88/70s | 84/69r | Lubbock, Texas | 84/68t | 74/64t | Madison, Wis. | 73/54pc | 65/49pc | Manchester, N.H. | 56/52sh | 71/51pc | Memphis, Tenn. | 92/73s | 93/70pc | Milwaukee | 75/59pc | 62/55c | Mobile, Ala. | 91/61s | 90/63s | Modesto, Calif. | 78/45s | 79/48s | Montgomery, Ala. | 90/57s | 88/58s | Myrtle Beach, S.C. | 82/65pc | 83/66s | WED Showers around 48/39 THU Very windy 51/36

TUE Showers 80/59

WED Sunny, cool 80/61

THU Sunny 87/70

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AQI Good

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AQI Good

THU Some sun 61/54

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HONOLULU

TUE An A.M. shower 87/73

WED Mostly sunny 88/74

THU P.M. rain 87/75

AQI Good | TODAY | WED | Nags Head, N.C. | 76/66s | 81/67s | Nashville, Tenn. | 91/66s | 90/67pc | Newark, N.J. | 75/66pc | 84/57pc | New Haven, Conn. | 67/62pc | 78/55pc | Norfolk, Va. | 83/65s | 87/69s | Oakland, Calif. | 76/49pc | 75/51s | Oklahoma City | 91/73pc | 77/68t | Omaha, Neb. | 70/50pc | 62/54sh | Palm Springs, Calif. | 79/59pc | 84/63s | Pensacola, Fla. | 89/64s | 88/66s | Pierre, S.D. | 51/36sh | 59/43c | Pittsburgh | 82/65c | 74/54sh | Portland, Maine | 54/49r | 63/46pc | Portland, Ore. | 65/48pc | 70/50pc | Providence, R.I. | 63/60pc | 77/53pc | Raleigh, N.C. | 87/61s | 90/65s | Rapid City, S.D. | 50/41sh | 57/45sh | Reno, Nev. | 59/34sh | 68/40s | Richmond, Va. | 85/63s | 91/66s | Rochester, N.Y. | 80/58t | 63/48c | Sacramento, Calif. | 79/45s | 79/49s | San Antonio | 93/78pc | 91/75pc | San Jose, Calif. | 77/50s | 80/52s | Santa Fe, N.M. | 69/48pc | 66/40s | TUE Mostly sunny 73/57

WED Plenty of sun 77/58

THU Sunny 84/63

AQI Good

TUE Partly sunny 73/51

WED Mostly sunny 73/52

THU Mostly sunny 80/57

AOL Good

LAS VEGAS | TODAY | WED | Sarasota, Fla. | 90/70pc | 90/72s | Savannah, Ga. | 88/62s | 89/63s | Scottsdale, Ariz. | 78/56sh | 77/57s | Shreveport, La. | 90/76t | 93/67t | Sioux Falls, S.D. | 62/42c | 62/47pc | South Bend, Ind. | 82/62pc | 69/55pc | Spokane, Wash. | 58/36s | 61/36s | Springfield, Mo. | 92/72pc | 77/70t | Springfield, Ill. | 92/68pc | 74/62r | St. Louis | 94/73pc | 79/70r | St. Petersburg, Fla. | 88/71s | 87/72s | Syracuse, N.Y. | 77/59r | 63/45r | Tallahassee, Fla. | 91/59s | 90/61s | Tampa, Fla. | 88/71s | 89/72s | Toledo, Ohio | 87/62pc | 69/51pc | Topeka, Kan. | 89/62t | 66/61t | Tucson, Ariz. | 81/59sh | 78/54s | Tupelo, Miss. | 93/62s | 93/63s | Tulsa, Okla. | 91/76pc | 81/70t | Virginia Beach, Va. | 79/65s | 86/69s | Wichita, Kan. | 93/65t | 69/64t | Wilmington, Del. | 79/62f | 83/59pc | Winston-Salem, N.C. | 84/60s | 86/63s | Worcester, Mass. | 58/54sh | 72/49pc | AQI Good

AQI Good

TUE Partly sunny 65/55

WED Sunny, nice 75/59

THU Sunny 80/63

THU - Sunny, warm 90/66

TUE Mostly cloudy 62/53

WED An A.M. shower 66/50

THU Mostly sunny 70/50

AQI Good

TUE Mostly sunny 82/65

WED Stray t-storm 88/67

THU Cooler 70/60

AQI Good

WORLD CITIES | TODAY | WED | Beijing | 73/40s | 73/48h | Buenos Aires | 64/56pc | 65/56pc | Cancun, Mexico | 91/75t | 88/76t | Dubai, UAE | 103/86h | 101/86h | Frankfurt | 58/48c | 64/42pc | Hong Kong | 91/80s | 90/80pc | Istanbul | 68/60r | 64/56r | Jerusalem | 78/62pc | 81/63pc | Johannesburg | 85/58pc | 80/57pc | London | 70/49pc | 67/54pc | Mexico City | 76/56r | 77/56sh | Montreal | 49/43r | 53/43c | Moscow | 51/44r | 54/41pc | Mumbai, India | 99/81h | 99/83h | Paris | 73/50sh | 67/47s | Rio de Janeiro | 81/72pc | 83/72t | Rome | 75/51s | 75/51pc | Seoul | 72/48sh | 67/49s | Singapore | 90/80sh | 91/79sh | Sydney | 69/59sh | 65/56sh | Toronto | 79/57sh | 65/45c | Tokyo | 77/68s | 83/65w | NHL POWER RANKINGS

Surprise team must overcome huge injury

Goaltender Dylan Garand (33) celebrates with his Rangers teammates after defeating the Canucks on Oct. 11. WENDELL CRUZ/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Mike Brehm

USA TODAY

The New York Rangers have been one of the surprising teams early in the 2026-27 NHL season and now they have to overcome a devastating blow.

Goalie Igor Shesterkin, a Vezina Trophy winner, has been ruled out for the season after suffering a lower-body injury on Oct. 9.

With backup Joonas Korpisalo also hurt, the goaltending duties now fall to Dylan Garand, who had been scheduled to start a fifth season in the American Hockey League.

So far so good. He stopped 19 of 21 shots against the Vancouver Canucks in his first game as the No. 1 goalie. That follows a shutout in his earlier start, and the Rangers sit second in the Metropolitan Division.

Here are the USA TODAY's NHL power rankings nearly two weeks into the 2026-27 season (number in parentheses is change from preseason power rankings):

32. Calgary Flames (-1): The Flames are in a rebuild, but they are off to a disastrous start, being outscored 27-8 in their first five games. They waived Connor Zary.

31. Philadelphia Flyers (-10): The Flyers (0-5-2) have lost their first seven games for the first time in franchise history. They are dealing with some injuries (Travis Konecny, Rasmus Ristolainen) but are also getting burned by giveaways. They have added free agent Michael Bunting.

30. Chicago Blackhawks (-1): The Blackhawks' 1-5 record is a combination of facing tough opponents while also missing captain Connor Bedard. He's practicing in a regular jersey as he works to come back from offseason shoulder surgery.

29. Detroit Red Wings (-3): Dylan Larkin was booed heavily when introduced in the opener amid his trade request then heard “We want Larkin” chants in Montreal. Meanwhile, defenseman Simon Edvinsson headed to Sweden while awaiting a contract resolution.

28. Los Angeles Kings (-4): Offseason acquisition Mats Zuccarello is week-to-week with an undisclosed injury. He had one assist in three games for the winless Kings.

27. Vancouver Canucks (+5): The Canucks have jumped from 31st in goals last season to ninth this season. But coach Manny Malhota will have to work on the defensive side. They've given up four or more goals five times, including a 9-7 loss.

26. Buffalo Sabres (-15): The Sabres haven't made up for departed free agent Alex Tuch's scoring touch. Zach Benson, who was going to help after a strong playoffs, has one assist in his first five games.

25. New York Islanders (0): Ilya Sorokin is off to a strong start with a 1.77 goals-against average. The team lost defenseman Alexander Romanov to an ACL injury but reports progress on injured Mathew Barzal.

24. Columbus Blue Jackets (-2): The Blue Jackets are going without a captain to start the season, when it appeared that Zach Werenski could get the role. The reigning Norris Trophy winner is averaging a league-best 29:35 in ice time this season.

23. Nashville Predators (-4): The Predators have made things interesting, overcoming a 2-0 deficit to the Canadiens but also blowing 2-0 and 3-0 leads in losses.

22. Pittsburgh Penguins (-7): Sidney Crosby had no goals this season. He had no points and was a minus-4 in his meeting with Alex Ovechkin.

21. St. Louis Blues (-6): Newcomers Mason McTavish and Connor McMichael have been productive with two goals and two assists each in five games.

20. Montreal Canadiens (-13): Playoff hero Jakub Dobes has a 4.43 goals-against average and .856 save percentage. The Canadiens have called up Jacob Fowler, who had a shutout in his last start.

19. New Jersey Devils (-5): The Devils have fared well against bottom-rung teams but were blown out by the Islanders and lost to the Mammoth.

18. Toronto Maple Leafs (0): No. 1 overall pick Gavin McKenna went without a point in his first three games but has four in his last three games. William Nylander has been strong, including five points in his last game.

17. Dallas Stars (-13): Goalie Jake Oettinger has been impressive with a 0.74 goals-against average and has given up one goal in his last three games.

16. San Jose Sharks (-1): Macklin Celebrini missed two games with a lower-body injury. The Sharks went 1-1 in his absence and he scored in his return to give him six points in three games.

15. Florida Panthers (-12): The Panthers, dealing with injuries to captain Aleksander Barkov and Brad Marchand, lost a home opener for the first time in eight years. The injuries will keep those players out at least six weeks, but that's less than the situation originally looked.

14. Winnipeg Jets (+14): The Jets were getting decent goaltending in the absence of award-winning goalie Connor Hellebuyck (trade request). Waiver pickup Clay Stevenson had a shutout but lost 5-1 in his last game.

13. Seattle Kraken (+17): The Kraken are getting scoring up and down the lineup as they jumped to No. 3 in scoring after being in the bottom five last season. Fourth-liners Frederick Gaudreau, Ben Meyers and Ryan Winterton have combined for 13 points in the last two games.

12. Ottawa Senators (+15): The Senators are surviving the trade of Brady Tkachuk. Now they must deal with an ankle injury to William Eklund, the team's top offseason acquisition who's out "for an extended period of time."

11. Minnesota Wild (-6):

Defenseman Quinn Hughes doesn't have a contract extension, but he's continuing to make his case for a huge payday with a five-game point streak and 27:31 in average ice time.

10. Utah Mammoth (0): The Mammoth have the league's best power play at $40\%$ . Nick Schmaltz has four power-play goals and Dylan Guenther has three. Guenther and Clayton Keller have six points each with the man advantage.

9. Washington Capitals (-3): All-time leading goal scorer Alex Ovechkin has announced this is his final season. He needs 10 goals to break Wayne Gretzky's record of 1,016 combined regular-season/playoff goals after scoring in his fifth game of the season.

8. Colorado Avalanche (-7): The Avalanche are dominating on offense with a league-best 5.20 goals per game. But their defensive play has been inconsistent as they blew a 3-0 lead against the Maple Leafs.

7. Boston Bruins (+6): The Bruins rebounded from a loss to the Senators with routs of the Mammoth and Flyers. And now they're getting Charlie McAvoy back from his six-game suspension.

6. Anaheim Ducks (+17): Leo Carlsson is leading the team in scoring after getting a then-record contract, and newly named captain Mikael Granlund ranks second.

5. Tampa Bay Lightning (+3): Defenseman Victor Hedman, who missed much of last season for personal reasons, is averaging 14 minutes a game this season. He picked up his first point of the season in his fifth game. The free agent signee is averaging nearly 20 minutes and has four points.

4. New York Rangers (+16): The Shesterkin news has dominated recently, but another big story is a breakout for Alexis Lafreniere. The 2020 No.1 overall pick is averaging more than a point a game, aided by a four-point game. He has never topped 57 points in his career.

3. Vegas Golden Knights (+9): Center Jack Eichel is off to a MVP-caliber start with 12 points in his first six games. His closest teammate is five points back.

2. Edmonton Oilers (+7): Defenseman Evan Bouchard is among the early Norris Trophy candidates. He was the first defenseman in NHL history to score five points in his opener and had eight points after two games. His six goals are tied for the overall league lead.

1. Carolina Hurricanes (+1): The defending champions have won five in a row since losing their first two. They're getting balanced scoring. First-liner Sebastian Aho has six goals in his last six games and fourth-liner Mark Jankowski is on a four-game goal streak.

Chase Briscoe wins Charlotte race in photo finish

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe (19) races to the line ahead of Christopher Bell (20) to win during the Bank of America 400. JIM DEDMON/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS

Mitch Northam

USA TODAY Sports

CONCORD, NC – Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell accomplished one thing together on Oct. 11 at Charlotte Motor Speedway: They brought 85-year-old Joe Gibbs' stress levels to a new level.

“That’s always when I’m the most nervous, when a couple of our cars are up front, because I know how bad Christopher wants to win, how bad Chase wants to win,” said Gibbs, the owner of the cars driven by Briscoe and Bell. “For me, it’s the time that I would say I get my blood pressure and heartbeat accelerated, for sure.”

But only one driver could win the race. Despite Bell's best efforts, Briscoe held off his teammate.

The two Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas banged together coming out of Turn 4 on the final lap and Briscoe retained his narrow edge to take the victory in a photo finish, winning the Bank of America 400 by 0.029 seconds. It is the second-closest finish in the history of the 66-year-old Charlotte Motor Speedway.

For Briscoe, the win marks the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career that he has won back-to-back races.

"When Christopher got into me off of (turn) 4, I kind of got sideways and I thought I was going to wreck," Briscoe said. "I'm glad that we won, but I wish it wasn't so stressful. I don't have very much hair to begin with, but I'm definitely losing it really quickly. Just an awesome day and really cool to end up in victory lane.

"I don't know what it is about these finishes. I've got to quit making it so exciting at the end."

Briscoe is becoming the master of mile-and-a-half tracks in his No. 19 Toyota. The 31-year-old from Mitchell, Indiana, won earlier this season at Chicagoland, placed second at Kansas, won last weekend at Las Vegas, then added to his collection of checkered flags at intermediate speedways on Sunday, leading the final 57 laps before rolling into victory lane after the close call with Bell.

And with four races to go in the post-season Chase, the eighth win of Briscoe's Cup Series career inched him closer to points leader Kyle Larson, who finished sixth. Briscoe is now fourth in the Chase standings, trailing Larson by 65 points.

"We probably need to win another race or two, but I feel like we've put ourselves in the ballgame," Briscoe said.

Between Bell in second and Larson in sixth, Ryan Blaney finished third, Josh Berry was fourth and Denny Hamlin was fifth. Rounding out the top 10 was Shane van Gisbergen in seventh, Tyler Reddick in eighth, Joey Logano in ninth and Chris Buescher in 10th.

Non-Chase drivers like Berry and van

Gisbergen were pleased with their top-10 finishes. It's Berry's eighth top-10 in his last 11 races, and the sixth time this year that van Gisbergen – a road course ace – has notched a top-10 placement on one of NASCAR's traditional ovals.

But for drivers with much more at stake, like Bell, all he was left with was disappointment. It's the eighth time this season he has finished in second.

“I think I’m just in shock right now,” Bell said. “I stayed with him pretty good, and I had a couple moments where I slid really bad and let him get away. ... It doesn’t do any good in the grand scheme of things. You know, I came in negative 55 (points), right? And I’m leaving negative 51 (points), so.”

The race changed near the end of Stage 1 when a pair of Chase drivers – Bubba Wallace and William Byron – were collected in a brutal crash when Alex Bowman got loose while battling for fifth place. Bowman's No. 48

Chevrolet turned right up the track and caught the left rear of Wallace's No. 23 Toyota, sending Wallace into the outside wall first, then spinning down the track where his left rear collided hard into the inside wall. Byron, riding the top, couldn't get out of the way in time and slammed into Bowman, damaging the front and right side of his No. 24 Chevrolet.

All drivers walked away from the crash without incident.

“Something snapped, it caught me off guard and I overcorrected and just did a (expletive) job and ruined some guys’ days,” Bowman said after exiting the infield care center. “I hate that for William and Bubba, it’s on me. I should be better than that.”

Said Wallace: “No hard feelings, that’s just racing. ... Sucks for our Chase hopes.”

This race at Charlotte was different from the previous two at mile-and-a-half tracks as no green flag pit stops occurred due to the number of timely caution flags brought out by racing incidents.

The sixth and final caution of the day came with 62 laps to go after Gray Gaulding made contact with Reddick, tagged the outside wall and went spinning across the track.

On the ensuing restart, Briscoe got a shove from Hamlin to push him ahead of Bell for the lead, which he retained through the checkered flag despite his teammate's best efforts.

NASCAR heads to Phoenix next weekend as it returns to short-track racing with four races remaining in the Chase. For drivers in the Chase like three-time champion Joey Logano, it's now or never.

“It’s a must win,” Logano said. “I feel like we got a lot of good racetracks ahead of us. So, still a positive attitude that we can still do it.”

Just for hands.

MAKING WAVES

DION TUMBLES, SINGS ON

But actor/filmmaker refused to bring his own 'baggage' to Netflix thriller. Page 2D

Writer/director says Meta head's ‘terrible decisions’ at core of ‘The Social Network.’ Page 4D

LIFELINE

LAURENT HOU, HANS LUCAS/AFP, GETTY IMAGES

Celine Dion is OK after taking a tumble during a recent show. The “My Heart Will Go On” singer, 58, slipped and fell onstage midway through a song during her Paris residency. Video from the concert shows Dion apparently slipping after her pants caught on one of her heels. A performance veteran, Dion quickly got back up, gave a thumbs-up and continued singing her 1998 song “Dans un autre monde” as if nothing had happened.

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IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY WHO'S CELEBRATING TODAY

Stan pushes back against criticism of 'timely' 'Fjord'

Singer Paul Simon turns 85. Singer Marie Osmond, 67. Comedian Matt Walsh, 62. Actor Christopher Judge, 62. Actor Kate Walsh, 59. Actor Tisha Campbell-Martin, 58. Comedianfilmmaker Sacha Baron Cohen, 55.

Singer Ashanti, 46. Politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 37. Actor Himesh Patel, 36. Tiffany Trump, 33. Actor Caleb McLaughlin, 25.

– USA TODAY Network

Patrick Ryan USA TODAY

NEW YORK – Sebastian Stan knows his latest movie is bound to strike a nerve. He likes it that way. • “I’m proud when I’m a part of something that speaks to a timely issue,” says “The Apprentice” star, who is following up his Oscar-nominated role as a young Donald Trump with an equally provocative new drama. • Loosely inspired by a true story, “Fjord” (in select theaters Oct. 9, expanding nationwide Oct. 23) follows a devoutly Christian family led by stern Romanian patriarch Mihai (Stan) and his Norwegian wife, Lisbet (Renate Reinsve), who works in a nursing home.

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HOROSCOPE | SANCTUARY More: www.sanctuaryworld.co

Aries (March 21-April 19). You know what you must do, as the moon clashes with the lunar nodes. Ask for the support you need.

Taurus (April 20-May 20). What you want: safety and control. What you need: to stretch out of your comfort zone. Conflict inspires personal growth today!

Gemini (May 21-June 21). Trying to maintain control? Micromanaging will only lead to disappointment.

Cancer (June 22-July 22). Vulnerability is required as the moon squares off with the lunar nodes today. Take a creative or romantic risk!

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22). Want to stay in your safe bubble? Too bad! The moon's clash with the lunar nodes demands more from you.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Draw a different conclusion! The moon's clash with the lunar nodes encourages looking for new solutions to a problem.

Libra (Sept.23-Oct. 23). Hoping friends will confirm your bias? That won't be so simple.

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Being defined by work? You are more than your profession. Remember that.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Feelings aren't facts! Keep that in mind as the moon squares off with the lunar nodes.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). United with friends under a shared vision? That may not be enough.

"Fjord" star Sebastian Stan is photographed in USA TODAY's New York studio on Sept. 21. NATHANIAL GARY/USA TODAY

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Want to make an independent name for yourself? You won't get there by clinging to someone's coattails!

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20). Looking for new inspiration? You won't have to work twice as hard to find it. Let it flow to you!

MOVIES

When they relocate to Lisbet's hometown, the conservative clan instantly raises eyebrows among their progressive new neighbors – specifically, when the children's teachers discover bruises on their bodies and the kids confess there's occasional physical discipline at home. They are soon taken away by child protective services, sparking a prolonged legal battle.

“Fjord” grapples with cultural clashes and individual freedom, asking at what point it is our responsibility to police others’ values and behavior. The Oscar hopeful won Cannes

Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, in May. But it has also sparked debate among critics and social media users, some of whom believe that it props up right-wing ideology with the film's depiction of protesters rushing to Mihai and Lisbet's defense, claiming religious persecution.

“They’re not understanding the nuances,” says Stan, 44, on a recent visit to USA TODAY’s studio. “I find it almost laughable to label it a ‘MAGA film’ when it’s essentially about an immigrant family going to a different

See STAN, Page 4D

"I knew it was going to explore this gray zone," actor Sebastian Stan says of Cristian Mungiu's thought-provoking "Fjord." PROVIDED BY NEON

BOOKS

Cooper exposes darkest moments

Melissa Ruggieri

USA TODAY

Somewhere in the world, Alice Cooper is sitting with a Sharpie, dutifully signing his name to thousands of copies of his new memoir.

“They told me if you sign a few of them, it will be a bestseller. So I signed 17,500 books,” Cooper says with a chuckle.

But that wasn't enough.

After learning that Michael Douglas was inking 25,000 copies of his new book, Cooper challenged himself.

"I've got to beat him, I've got to," Cooper adds playfully.

The Cooper opus, “Devil on My Shoulder” (Da Capo/Hachette, 496 pps, out now), is as riveting and entertaining as the man behind the byline.

The one born Vincent Furnier, who cofounded the Alice Cooper band in Phoenix in the late-'60s, adopted the Cooper persona with a legal name change in the '70s and still lives out the horror-goth-shock-rock theater of ringed black eyes, fake gore and the occasional snake (a new leg of his Alice's Attic Tour kicks off Oct. 27 following a worldwide book tour).

In “Devil on My Shoulder,” Cooper – in his quippy, self-deprecating voice – spares no details. He recalls his harrowing drug-addicted years, the journey of the band immortalized by rebel yells including “School’s Out,” “I’m Eighteen” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” his return to his faith and the evolution of a fruitful solo career that yielded a dozen-plus hits (“Only Women Bleed,” “You and Me,” “Poison”).

DEVIL ON MY SHOULDER

Alice Cooper's memoir, "The Devil on My Shoulder," arrived Oct. 6 and tells the full story of the man born Vincent Furnier. PROVIDED BY DE CAPO PRESS

In a recent conversation from Europe, where he'd been touring with supergroup The Hollywood Vampires, a gregarious Cooper, 78, delved into some of the darkest and funniest topics in his memoir.

Question: You had the “Me, Alice” autobiography in the ’70s – which you now tell us had a lot of fictionalized stories – and the “Golf Monster” book in 2007. So what makes this your definitive memoir?

Cooper: I really liked the idea that (cowriter) Daniel (Richler) had about Alice and myself having some sort of problem through the whole book, because everybody does have the devil on their shoulder, always whispering the wrong things to do, always tempting you. But in my case, it was coming from a religious background and ending up having my records burned on the 700 Club – even though there was never anything satanic on anything I ever did – and coming back to the Lord and still being Alice Cooper. There's a great conflict there, but at the same time it all fits together.

You've spoken openly about alcohol addiction before, but here you go much deeper into cocaine and free-basing. Why was this the time to tell those stories?

See COOPER, Page 4D

STREAMING

Affleck refused to bring his own ‘baggage’

Truths come out between high-profile married couple Abigail (Kerry Washington) and Mark (Ben Affleck) in "Animals." PROVIDED BY WARRICK PAGE/NETFLIX

Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Ben Affleck has his share of crying scenes in movies, even early in his career. The gut-wrenching goodbye of “Armageddon,” for instance, or the dad of “Jersey Girl” talking with his newborn daughter. But Affleck unleashes the waterworks during an intense exchange in his new film “Animals.”

"This is going to sound a little woo-woo, but as I've gotten older, living more life means having joy and having pain and making mistakes and having regrets," says Affleck, director, co-writer and star of the kidnapping thriller (streaming on Netflix). "What I've learned to understand more is kind of where those feelings are and be able to access and touch them, because I've just had more life experience."

In “Animals,” Mark Kimball (Affleck) is an independent politician running to be the mayor of Los Angeles when his boy is kidnapped and his personal life implodes. In the midst of taking care of the situation, Mark and his wife Abby (Kerry Washington) have it out in their home, shouting at each other as secret truths come out, resentments are revealed, and grievances are aired.

When “a relationship that’s really important to you is ending, if you’ve been through it, you sort of know how it feels, and you understand the gravity of what it is,” Affleck says.

In addition to tackling politics and moral compromise in “Animals,” Affleck was “really interested” in exploring “how much of marriage is about raising children together (and) is a shared economy,” he says. Marriage started as a contractual relationship – “literally, dowry, all that stuff,” where people didn’t know each other. Any romantic love “was sort of incidental,” whereas now, it’s “the central challenge of life in a lot of ways.”

So Affleck, 54, focused on asking certain questions, like how much do you have to invest in a marriage and how much vulnerability is required.

"There's a tension between what we want to show our partners," Affleck says. "We want them to be attracted to us and to see attractive things about us, and we don't want to show them things that are not attractive. I wanted to tell a story about a couple that got to the place where they're only really able to be totally and utterly honest with one another when they felt they had nothing to lose. And then propose an interesting thesis based on that. That felt, to me, like really rich ground."

Affleck can personally relate to Mark, a high-profile LA figure with fans and critics navigating a stormy relationship. The actor/filmmaker's romantic life has been in the public eye for decades, including marriages to – and divorces from – Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Lopez. (Affleck originally planned for Garner to play Abby when Matt Damon was to star as Mark.)

Affleck says he didn't pull from his own relationship drama – in fact, he and Washington hatched a shared history and conflict for their characters. While “there’s nothing literally the same,” moments in his life did help him understand this story and write it.

"I know there's a tendency to watch actors – particularly when you have a lot of things you associate with the actor, that's sort of our baggage – and sort of project those things onto them," Affleck says. "The truth is, really, it's not as correlative as you would think, except for the sense that you've got to have lived life to be able to relive it authentically.

"The circumstance of divorce with children is facing something that's excruciatingly painful," he adds. "People can identify with that if they've been through it. And as an actor, it's your job to find something that's related to that. Weirdly, as an actor, if you actually think about the exact moments that correlate to the exact thing, it's too literal, and it sort of doesn't work."

STREAMING

Massive change in ‘Carrie’ TV show exciting for King

Summer H. Howell stars as Carrie White, a girl with telekinesis who is a victim of bullying in school, in "Carrie." PROVIDED BY ROBERT FALCONER/PRIME VIDEO

Brendan Morrow

USA TODAY

Get used to the name Summer H. Howell: It could become ubiquitous in Hollywood after “Carrie.”

Howell, 22, has been acting since she was 8 and previously starred in a pair of “Chucky” movies. But her remarkable turn as Carrie White in Mike Flanagan’s TV series adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel (streaming Oct. 7 on Prime Video) could bring her an entirely new level of fame, as “Wednesday” did for Jenna Ortega.

“I can still remember the feeling of right after the call, knowing I had the role,” she says. “It’s really weird how your body can remember feelings. It was definitely life-changing. The first thing my mom said to me after I told them was, ‘Oh, your life is going to change forever.’ She was crying immediately, and I couldn’t fully process in that moment.”

With “Carrie,” Flanagan felt another faithful adaptation of King’s novel about a bullied telekinetic girl would be pointless when the 1976 movie already exists, so he made many drastic changes. Among the biggest: Carrie, in this version, has spent her entire life locked away at home before going to school for the first time when the story begins. In the book, she has been in school, and consistently bullied, for years.

This transforms “Carrie” into a “fish out of water” story, which asks viewers to “reassess what we’ve accepted and normalized” in society, Flanagan says.

The show also reconsiders why Carrie is bullied in the first place. This Carrie is defined by her empathy, so the series suggests that cruelty has become such an epidemic that kindness stands out. This is part of why Flanagan felt it was unnecessary for Carrie to match the book's description of a “chunky girl with pimples,” which led to some criticism of Howell's casting.

"The idea of her being tormented for her physical appearance I felt like had been done many times, and while that's absolutely still a major problem for kids and adults in the world, I thought it was really interesting to see how the world targets kind people and earnest people," Flanagan says, adding that taking appearance off the table left him "free to cast whoever does the best performance, which is what you want to do re-

gardless."

After growing up balancing school with acting, Howell could relate to feeling like an outsider in class.

"I was the only actor I knew in my school growing up," she says. "I'd be gone randomly for a month every couple of years, or whenever I could get a job, and I'd come back. And that's what people knew me as. So maybe they just assumed things about me, and it made it a little difficult to connect with people truly."

True to its 2026 setting, much of the bullying in “Carrie” occurs through an anonymous Instagram account, which Flanagan says reflects how social media has “normalized cruelty.” But although the account initially torments Carrie specifically, it soon targets many others in school, even teachers. And because the account takes submissions, a large number of students are either complicit or actively involved.

“It’s not as simple as the bully and the victim,” Flanagan says. “There’s this whole other ecosystem around it, and the degree to which we engage with, or amplify, or refuse to engage with, or refuse to criticize these things when we see them.”

Carrie's primary bully, Chris Hargensen, is more three-dimensional, with an expanded plot involving difficulties at home. "What she does is from a place of pain and desperation," star Alison Thornton says.

But perhaps the most drastic change concerns Carrie's mother, traditionally depicted as a monstrous lunatic who hates her daughter. Samantha Sloyan was initially concerned Margaret White would be too familiar after she played a religious zealot, Bev, in Flanagan's "Midnight Mass." But her concerns were eased when she learned Flanagan had a radically different take: A loving Margaret, driven by a desire to protect Carrie.

“She loves her daughter, and I love her for that,” says Sloyan, who connected to the idea of “loving somebody and being bound to them in so many ways, but still being two different people, and the difficulty of navigating that.”

The star could also understand Margaret's "terror" of the world. "There are many days where I'm like, 'No thank you!'"

This Margaret was inspired by Flanagan's fears over his son starting high school when teens "have to grow up in front of the whole world in a way that can live forever on the internet."

King was on board with the big changes and particularly “loved” how Carrie and Margaret “were the opposite of the characters he expected,” Flanagan says. But the “most exciting thing” for the author, Flanagan notes, was the show expanding to explore how Carrie exists in a “long legacy” of women with similar powers.

In another modernization, Margaret eventually starts her own Instagram account to defend Carrie and turns it into a platform for anti-bullying advocacy, though Carrie questions who she's really doing it all for.

Sloyan says this plot further speaks to the “insidious” side of social media. “She becomes so excited by the likes and the attention, and the approval and feeling important. We see her really start to fall for that.”

In her own life, Sloyan stays off social media, and Howell aims to do the same.

"My generation has been programmed to be addicted to our phones, and we have to make the decision when to put it down and not to believe those comments," she says. "...It's been interesting, especially with the show coming out and many comments of different opinions. I try to avoid it now."

While Howell couldn't process landing the role at first, she's had "plenty of time" to digest it since. And with the series now arriving, she's bracing for a dramatic shift in her life.

“I don’t think I’m fully prepared,” she says. “But I’m just gonna do my best and stay true to myself.”

DOWN | By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek | 10/13 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 60 | | 64 | 67 | EDITED Amanda Rafkin

BY Steve Jopek

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MASS CONFUSION

ACROSS

1 Riffs like Kim

Cattrall in a viral video

6 Roti flour

10 Limbs used during lunges

14 One might be hard to break

15 "No \_\_\_\_ done"

16 Villainous

17 Tony winner

Renee ---

Goldsberry

18 One of the Great Lakes

19 Trifling

20 Disneyland attraction whose theme song celebrates global togetherness

23 Pro who might clean their plate?

24 Property claim

25 Ore deposit

28 President on a \$5 bill, for short

31 Awaiting a pitch

34 Bonobo, for one

35 Show such as "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure"

37 Stuffed-up-sounding

39 Her "Bridesmaids" character said "I fell off a cruise ship, but I'm back"

42 Parts of some hats

43 Maple ---

(product associated with Vermont)

44 Billion-year period

45 Colorado ski resort

47 Opposite of norte

48 Dino with short arms

49 "We are the \_\_\_\_ we've been waiting for"

51 Yahtzee cube

53 Service for sending letters

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© Andrews McMeel

60 Make tweaks to

61 Detergent brand

62 Questioned

64 Purina \_\_\_\_ Prime

Cuts (dry dog food brand)

65 "You Shook Me All Night Long" band

66 Honking birds

67 Rip

68 Take a break

69 Delete

DOWN

1 “\_\_\_\_”s My Handsome" (76th Street song)

2 West Coast state, for short

3 Marginally

4 \_\_\_\_ paper

5 Old Faithful output

6 “Excuse me . . .”

7 “Josie and the Pussycats" star Reid

8 Warbly sound

9 Aviator Earhart

10 Citrusy dessert square

11 Happily \_\_\_\_ after

12 "The \_\_\_\_ With the Dragon Tattoo"

13 Snow day slider

21 Extends across

22 Moist towelette brand

25 Apt rhyme for "ram"

26 "Carmen," e.g.

27 Places to get cold cuts

29 Partiality

30 "The Pitt" awards

32 Daisy relative P C

33 Lake near Reno S F

34 Thumbs-up A T

35 Color similar to beige M A

36 Cat with tufted ears U N

38 Cat with tufted ears S T

40 \_\_\_\_ syndrome (feeling like a fraud) T I

41 Poutine pieces L A

46 Hummingbird food C N

48 Short movie trailer

Answers: Call 1-900-988-8300, 99 cents a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-320-4280.

50 Bad golf shot

52 Reputation

53 Remarkable deed

54 Sitting around

55 TV host Kelly

56 States further

57 Splinter group

58 Swedish furniture chain

59 A smaller amount

63 Civil rights activist Ruby

Monday's Answer

CROSSWORDS ON YOUR PHONE get our crossword app

🔗 [系统已自动跨页缝合转版续文：《Cooper》]

D

Because it's just being honest. If you lived in LA, cocaine was everywhere. It was a commodity at points. People were paying bills with it. I'm sitting there, a guy comes in and we sniffed a little bit and he goes, if you freebase it, it's not addictive. And by far the most addictive thing there ever has been on this planet is crack cocaine. I got way lost in it because it was so easy and it made you feel like you could do anything. The problem was, your basic everyday life disintegrates.

You also talk about “making the rock” (processing powdered cocaine into crack) and how much time was spent on that.

I was the chef. Everybody brought their coke to me because I was the best. I made the best stuff. But you don't realize at the time (the drug) is such a great liar. It tells you that everything's OK and you can do anything. Whereas you basically can do nothing because you're so wrapped up in getting the coke and making the coke and smoking it.

I didn't realize you and Bernie Taupin (Elton John collaborator and lyricist) were such close friends. But he was the first person you called out of rehab. What truth did he tell you that nobody else could?

It was one of those things where you almost don't have to say it. You're embarrassed about the fact that you took two or three years away from everybody. What happens is your relationship just disintegrates. Everything is just falling apart around you. It's a slow thing, but pretty soon you wake up and realize that it's you, a gun, cocaine and you're living alone up in Beverly Hills and you're absolutely paranoid.

Do you think you really spent a million dollars on drugs?

Oh, I think so. I think everybody did back then. That was fairly conservative.

You share a vivid recollection of your wife (Sheryl) coming at you with a frying pan because she was worried about your state of mind around your then-baby daughter (Calico).

That was a moment of reality that I went, this is the most gentle woman on the planet. And it was just pure frustration on her part. But at the same time, we just had our 50th anniversary. I couldn't live without her and she couldn't live without me.

And you share those stories with kids you counsel now?

I have the Solid Rock Teen Centers (around Arizona). When kids talk to me about alcohol and drugs, I can talk to them from reality. They can't say, "What do you know about it?" I'll go, "Hey, I got high with the best of them."

Maybe that was the greater plan for you, that you survived addiction so that you could one day help other people through it.

I fully believe that. I get emails all the time saying, if you can stop drinking and drugs, then I can. And I go, wow, what an interesting platform that is. Because I was sort of the Dean Martin of rock 'n' roll. I was always on that golden buzz. I was never an angry drunk. I was the kind of guy you wanted to hang out with.

You write about how you grew up watching the horror show hosts on TV. How much of Alice Cooper do you think came from them?

Something that changed my life was a movie by (John “Ole”) Olsen and (Harold “Chic”) Johnson called “Hellzapoppin.” That was absolutely the most absurd thing. I liked horror movies because I saw the humor in them. I loved being scared, but at the same time, there was always that laugh behind it. So I connected with the villain because I always thought the villain was a little bit absurd. If you can add the villain and the absurd humor and then write great songs, that’s what gave birth to Alice Cooper. Everybody wanted to be Peter Pan. I wanted to be Captain Hook.

There is a great story in the book about the cover art for “School’s Out” causing an uproar not because it came with a pair of lacy underwear, but because they were made of paper and flammable, which was against shipping laws. Do you think some of the salacious stuff the band was accused of would get you canceled today?

First of all, I think canceling is over. The whole idea is very silly because it actually went against everything that we fought for free speech. I mean, everybody knows you're not supposed to call people (certain) things ... But yeah, everything we did would have been canceled.

In the annals of music history, what do you hope that people say about how Alice Cooper changed rock ‘n’ roll?

I think really it was bringing production into rock music, making the lyrics happen on stage. We were the first ones to use uplighting and downlighting. When people saw the Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome to My Nightmare shows, it was like a form of Broadway, only not watering it down. It was hard rock, as hard as you could imagine. The theatrics were really well done. It wasn't schlock. That was really something I think we brought that nobody else did.

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TXTPERT

Across Down

1. 22828462 1. 26623786

5. 2328 2. 84788676

6. 724 3. 82267

8. 7668 4. 2586

10. 6263 7. 2742

11. 247 9. 227

© USA TODAY and Rich Coulter

Today's theme Music

Use the phone keypad to decode the clues.

For example: 2 could be A, B or C ... and 5678 could be LOST

Yesterday's solution

More puzzles: PLAY.usatoday.com

Want solutions? answers.usatoday.com

Feedback: feedback@usatoday.com

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SUDOKU

Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9 (no repeats). | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 5 | DIFFICULTY RATING ★★★★★

SUDOKU FUSION ON YOUR PHONE

puzzles.usatoday.com

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KENKEN

© Andrews McMeel

©2026 KenKen Puzzle, LLC www.kenken.com

Trademark KenKen, LLC Distributed by Andrews McMeel

1. Each row and column must contain the numbers 1 through 4 without repeating.

YESTERDAY'S SOLUTION

2. The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners.

3. Freebies: fill in single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner.

Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x2 box contains the numbers 1 through 6 (no repeats). | 4 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 | ---

KUBOK 16

Difficulty: EASY

Solution to Monday's puzzle

©2026 Kubok. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. 10/13/26 All rights reserved.

Enter the missing numbers from 1 to 16 without repetitions so that the sum of the four numbers in each row and column is the same as the corresponding circled number.

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Words

WORD ROUNDUP

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Find and Circle: | ____ crab | □□□□□□ | Five five-letter musical instruments | □□□□□ | Four four-letter fish | □□□□ | Home of the Crunchwrap Supreme: ____ ____ | □□ | Two four-letter countries | □□ | Monday's answer: SMILE FROWN SNEER GRIN / GRIZZLY BROWN POLAR TEDDY / DIAMONDS SPADES HEARTS CLUBS / CENTRAL NORTH SOUTH / FRET

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QUICKCROSS

By John Wilmes

QUICKCROSS ON YOUR PHONE

puzzles.usatoday.com

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DON'T QUOTE ME® Don't Quote Me

Actress Mindy Kaling thinks about sleeping in.

Monday's Answer: "A sibling is the lens through which you see your childhood." - Ann Hood

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7 LITTLE WORDS

Find the 7 words to match the 7 clues. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of letters in each solution. Each letter combination can be used only once, but all letter combinations will be necessary to complete the puzzle. | CLUES | SOLUTIONS | 1 whole (6) | 2 opening to the wind (9) | 3 earned (8) | 4 maxes out an engine (8) | 5 time between a route's buses (7) | 6 Arthur & Coolidge (10) | 7 whales' tails (6) | ---

UP & DOWN WORDS

Clues: Monday's Answer

1. Notable D.C. residence BROWN RICE

2. Indoor pet, perhaps RICE FIELD

3. Meow Mix product FIELD MOUSE

4. Restaurant on wheels MOUSE HUNT

5. Big part of a pickup HUNT FOR

6. Former store: \_\_\_\_ and FOR FUN

Beyond FUN MONEY

7. Something to dry off with | 1. WHITE | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | Rearrange the words to complete the quote.

BEAUTIFUL ME NO SEE SUNRISE

© WIGGLES 3D GAMES

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BONUS CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Cut of pork or lamb

5 Murder

9 Perjurers

14 Skywalker of "Star Wars"

15 Skin opening

16 Occur after

17 Goes wrong

18 Dilapidated

20 Raze

22 Come to be

23 Notable times

24 Clue

25 Used with others

28 "To —, with Love"

29 Repeat

33 Brooklyn's — Island

34 Crook

35 Moulder

36 Like a desert

37 "Last — in Paris"

38 Store

39 Dental degree

40 If not

41 Clergyman's residence

42 Ooze

44 Direction letters

45 Material of woven twigs

46 Prov. in Canada

48 Tall and thin

49 Singer — Osmond

51 Try

55 Not as good (2 wds.)

58 Hard to find

59 Writer — Zola

60 Ride share company

61 Lamb's pen name

62 Enciphered

63 Actor — Oldman

64 Limbs

1 Musical symbol

2 Pitch

3 Gumbo ingredient

4 Nagged

5 Stretch out

6 Bank offerings

7 Supply with a weapon

8 "By all means!"

9 Memorize

10 Egg on

11 Invites

12 — the roost

13 Understand

19 Coif

21 Card with three spots

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PREVIOUS PUZZLE SOLVED

10-13-26 © 2026 UFS, Dist. by Andrews McMeel for UFS

24 Device on a door

25 Oodles

26 Large group

27 Cordial flavoring

28 Meaning

30 Grouchy one

31 Equine

32 Weasel relative

34 Light wood

37 Tried

38 Food fish

41 Flat candy

43 Conditional release

45 Diluted

47 Wrinkled

48 Delayer's motto

49 Office note

50 Amino —

52 Father or son

53 Prude

54 Brewed beverages

55 Dry, as wine

56 Carpet

57 Goat hair fabric

MOVIES

Sorkin: Zuckerberg ‘making terrible decisions’

Brendan Morrow

\- a movie about a company unwilling to do same thing," he says.

Aaron Sorkin directs Mikey Madison as Frances Haugen in “The Social Reckoning.” PROVIDED BY SONY PICTURES

USA TODAY

NEW YORK – When Aaron Sorkin wrote “The Social Network,” the Oscar winner saw Mark Zuckerberg as someone “you rooted for” to a certain degree. But a lot can change in 16 years.

"The Social Reckoning" (in theaters now) finds "The West Wing" creator revisiting Facebook more than a decade after the 2010 film about the platform's origins. With that earlier movie, Zuckerberg was "a kid I could kind of identify with," Sorkin, 65, says. "That's when Facebook was a cool idea. That's when Facebook was a way of keeping in touch with people who you went to school with."

Cut to 2026, and the billionaire is “now the head of the largest media company in the world,” Sorkin says. “And making terrible decisions.”

Those decisions are at the core of "The Social Reckoning," which depicts whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) leaking internal Facebook documents to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), revealing that the company was aware of ways its platform can cause harm.

Jeremy Strong's Zuckerberg is even colder and more uncaring in “The Social Reckoning” than Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal in the original. He rudely rushes an employee through an important presentation and refuses to sacrifice even a small amount of engagement to make the platform a healthier place. But there are glimmers of empathy: In one scene, Zuckerberg remarks he is aware of what the public thinks of him and notes his wife and children also have to see this hatred.

So does Sorkin have sympathy for Zuckerberg?

“Yes, I do, and I have no wish to poke Mark in the eye,” he says. “I am a father, and so I can understand that. That line is there just to remind an audience that’s been looking at a very robotic character that [he] is not a robot."

Sorkin was never particularly interested in returning to the subject of Facebook. But things shifted after hours of conversation with the real Haugen, who met with Sorkin ahead of the release of her memoir. The writer began to see a story in her journey as a whistleblower.

“I met Frances Haugen in a period of epic writer’s block that I was having for more than a year,” he says. “I banged my head against the wall. I had no ideas.”

But rather than make Zuckerberg a main character again, Sorkin was more interested in a journalism thriller like “All the President’s Men” or “Spotlight.” It wasn’t even a sure thing that Zuckerberg would be in the film, and Sorkin ultimately turned him into a supporting character.

Zuckerberg is seen in a subplot where he rehearses for testimony before Congress. In one scene, he prepares to answer questions about Section 230, a law that says social media companies aren't liable for content posted on their platforms.

This, Sorkin argues, needs to change.

“Until the owners of internet platforms are legally responsible the way the rest of us are, then there won’t be a change,” he says. “Things will stay this bad. Things will get worse. The house is on fire right now.”

The movie went through a rigorous vetting to avoid legal action from Facebook, according to Sorkin, who finds this ironic, given that the film explores Facebook's decision not to fact-check political ads.

The studio "hired an outside law firm just to handle the legal vet on this movie

President Donald Trump is an important off-screen presence in a climactic scene where he is referred to as “the president” and “him.” Sorkin wrote around the name because it was “a distraction,” and he feared there would be people who “would have been with the movie that whole time, and now [think], ‘Is it a red, blue thing?’” In another scene, Sen. Bernie Sanders is referred to only as an unnamed progressive candidate, which Sorkin says was also an effort to avoid dating the movie.

“I don’t like things that are ripped from yesterday’s headlines,” Sorkin says. “I want them to be timeless.”

"The Social Reckoning" only covers events up until 2021, and it ends with a triumphant feeling after the publication of the Facebook Files. But "have things improved since then?" Sorkin asks. "No." In August, Meta reached a \$16.68 billion settlement resolving claims that Facebook and Instagram are harmful to kids, but Sorkin doesn't see this as a major step forward.

“Someone who knows a lot more than I do about this stuff said it’s a terrible problem that just got 3% better,” Sorkin says. “What will make a big difference is if laws are passed. The problem is that tech oligarchs are donating to the campaigns for the people who would otherwise be passing those laws.”

"The Social Reckoning" is arriving in theaters just less than a month before the midterms, and that timing isn't a total coincidence: Sorkin felt it was important for the film be released before the election.

"I didn't think we'd be in the mood if it came out in December or a year from now," he says. "We'd be fatigued from all of the arguing."

The writer and director is “not so arrogant,” he adds, to “think I can affect an election. But I wouldn’t mind if it did.”

Contributing: Dana Taylor

Stan

Continued from Page 1D

country and being torn apart. We could change Norway for the United States, and Romania for Mexico, or any number of places where that's happening."

Despite “these knee-jerk reactions,” it’s a film “that has to be processed and downloaded,” Stan adds. “In America, it’s going right to the heart of this divisive issue that we’re currently having, and the reason people are writing it off or feel it’s a propaganda piece is because we’ve normalized finger-pointing. This judgmental, dismissive attitude that plays out online is quite dangerous and naïve – but it’s unfortunately predictable in today’s time.”

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As a Romanian immigrant, 'Fjord' felt like 'a coming home'

Born in Romania, Stan and his mother moved to Austria when he was 8 after the Romanian Revolution. They eventually settled in upstate New York when he was 12.

Although his family wasn't particularly religious, “I still had exposure to emotionally guarded, stoic, Eastern European male figures,” he recalls. As an immigrant, he understood what it means to “feel different, have an accent, try to make new friends, and have that self-awareness that inevitably ends up carrying a slight degree of shame with it.”

After working in the U.S. for roughly two decades, “Fjord” felt like “a bit of a coming-home party for me,” Stan says. It’s written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, and it’s the actor’s first movie in which he gets to substantially speak his native language.

"I felt very embraced by the Romanian crew," he recalls. "I hung out with them every night; we spoke Romanian every day. Because I left [the country] so early, I felt like I'd been playing catch-up for a very long time. I definitely feel like I've arrived back to some old place that I left."

In making “Fjord,” Stan was very intrigued by the prospect of going to “morally ambiguous” places. While prepping for the project, he had extensive conversations with Mungiu and Reinsve about the characters’ respective childhoods. They also visited churches and spoke to parents who have been embroiled in similar legal cases.

"This movie deals a lot with history and tradition, and whether it still has value in today's world. And if so, what still works and what doesn't?" Stan\* says. “In terms of my own upbringing culturally, there was a sense of: Stick to your own lane, stay suspicious and stay guarded. Also, if you got in trouble, you really got in trouble – and maybe that did involve spanking or a slap here and there.

“I was a very accident-prone kid and I scared my mom,” he adds. “I could see she had the right intentions to protect me.”

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Stan says the movie is 'very relevant for me' as a new dad

Stan and his partner, actress Annabelle Wallis, welcomed their first child in July. As a result, “this idea of what we are passing onto our kids is very relevant for me at this time in my life,” he says. “It’s a movie about: How do you raise kids in today’s world? I’ve been thinking a lot about the things I learned that I’m inevitably passing down.”

The Golden Globe winner admittedly has “many” fears about raising a kid in 2026.

“All you have to do is just look at the news, and how we’re treating our planet and ourselves,” Stan says. “But on a personal level, you always have to look at what you have control over. Even though, as a parent, I have the best intentions for my kid, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am somehow free of fault or making a mistake. It’s very easy to impose your own perspective, and not see your child for who she or he or they may naturally exist to be.

“Suppression is a major issue,” he adds. “Any time something is suppressed or denied, it grows another head in some capacity.”

Since 2011, Stan has been in nearly a dozen Marvel projects as Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, and he will appear in an undisclosed role in Matt Reeves' upcoming "The Batman: Part II." But he has also stretched himself in audacious independent fare including "A Different Man," "Fresh" and "I, Tonya."

"I like Sebastian when he has to play something very different to what he does in the Marvel movies," says Mungiu, praising the mix of menace and warmth that Stan brings to Mihai. "He is very versatile and capable of expressing a lot by doing very little."

Stan fell in love with acting in high school, and “I never thought I was going to end up in this one role that I was going to be defined by,” he says. “I’m always indebted to Marvel because it opened these doors, but I feel like I’m getting to do now what I always wanted to do when I was younger. We’re all so overexposed now that it’s easy to get comfortable – and I worry about getting too comfortable.”