As voters in several states prepare to cast ballots next week in statewide elections that could serve as a referendum on President Donald Trump, he’s renewing his push to insert himself into how elections are run.

Over the past few months, Trump suggested the federal government should play a bigger role in running elections, including banning mail voting and handling the counting of ballots to — this week — banning early voting.

I met with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez just days after he was kidnapped. I’ll tell you about that, and the current President Nicolas Maduro’s visit to my New York office. But first, you must know three things about Venezuela to understand why Donald Trump has ordered a covert operation to overthrow their government.

• 1. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.

• 2. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.

• 3. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.

The current Shutdown

When Emmett Till’s mother lifted the veil from her son’s mutilated body in 1955, she forced America to face itself. She knew that if the nation could see what had been done to her child, it could no longer pretend innocence. That open casket was a moral explosion: it turned private grief into a public reckoning.

The same courage is needed now.

Amy Wallace, the co-writer of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl, has said she knows the names of the men who raped and trafficked children with Jeffrey Epstein.

AI chatbots are surging in popularity. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, more than 800 million people use ChatGPT each week.

For the Trump regime, the brutality is the point. It’s the means to the end of a violent, single-party state that they’re openly proclaiming, even though our media insists on turning away from it.

Back in the 1980s, I lived with my family and worked in Germany for a bit short of two years. The international relief agency I worked for (and lived at the HQ of) jumped through all the necessary hoops to get me a work permit, but if I’d overstayed my permit/visa nobody would have kicked in my front door or invaded my home with flash-bangs and automatic weapons drawn.

Three U.S. journalists have been abducted from aid flotillas bound for Gaza and detained by Israel. All three reported experiencing or witnessing abuse and even torture.

On July 1, 2025, the Indiana General Assembly effected the House Enrolled Act 101, a new Indiana budget bill that brings major changes to higher education. The Indiana Commission for Higher Education reported that six universities across the state have been affected, with 74 programs eliminated, 101 suspended, and 229 pending mergers.

At IU Indianapolis, several programs face suspension, including those of students like Rianna Vanhook, Laura Riley, and Phillip Wozniewski.

On Sept. 12, the U.S. Department of Education unexpectedly canceled a $35 million grant that Purdue had been awarded in 2024 as a result of the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs statewide. The grant was intended to prepare low-income Indiana students for college through a program called GEAR UP.

When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned.

“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.”

Israeli soldiers burn a home in Gaza City on the night of October 9. Source: social media. Faces obscured by Drop Site.

In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday that both Hamas and Israel had signed off on an agreement to stop the fighting, the Israeli military launched an arson spree, setting fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza City. After publication, the Israel Defense Forces told Drop Site it “is aware of the incident and it is being reviewed.”

On October 9, President Donald J. Trump’s office issued an official proclamation declaring Monday, October 13, “Columbus Day.” The proclamation says that the day is one on which “our Nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus—the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.

Gil Dezer and Donald Trump Jr pose at Mansion Nightclub in December 2007 in Miami Beach, Florida. Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images

A private jet owned by an Israeli-American billionaire family with close ties to President Donald Trump appears to have been used to fly 10 immigrants to a brutal prison in the tiny African kingdom of Eswatini, according to flight data.

Multiple Republican lawmakers on Friday lobbed smears against the upcoming “No Kings” rallies scheduled to take place on October 18 across the US.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) described the “No Kings” events as “a hate-America rally,” which he said would include “the Antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists.”

Our voices are strongest when we rise harmoniously with one purpose.

A top energy adviser to President Donald Trump admitted in an August interview that the administration is offering “concierge, white-glove service” to fossil fuel companies while blocking and defunding clean energy projects.

Yesterday, journalists observed members of the Texas National Guard at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, Illinois, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. This morning, the Defense Department announced the federal activation of about 200 soldiers from the Texas National Guard and about 300 from the Illinois National Guard, saying they would be protecting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal agents “who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.”

International students can no longer work at the student paper at Purdue University after the administration made a host of changes to distance itself from the outlet.

Hours after delivering his delusional and offensive speech to the United Nations yesterday, President Donald J. Trump did an about-face on his previous support for Russia in its war against Ukraine. After he met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, his social media account posted: “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” which would be before Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.

In the days since ABC’s decision, the blowback against Disney has been hurricane level....At least five entertainment industry unions, with at least 400,000 workers,