Category: Uncategorized

Liverpool teenager Rio Ngumoha is not named in England’s matchday squad for Saturday’s Nations League opener against Spain.

Source: BBC.

Source: Vogue

After sitting out much of the summer, President Donald Trump’s political operation has started spending big. With less than six weeks until Election Day, where that money is going, and where it isn’t, suggests a Senate map that is narrowing for Republicans.

In Texas, where Democrats haven’t won a statewide race in more than three decades, Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC has disclosed spending $15 million since early September to protect a Republican-held seat, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That includes $10 million earlier this month to boost Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and the GOP nominee, and attack his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, on top of another $5 million in TV and digital ads over the weekend.

In North Carolina, where Republicans are defending an open seat, No Going Back PAC Inc., one of two new super PACs reportedly funded by MAGA Inc., has no October ad reservations yet, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. In another pivotal Senate race, in Georgia — one of only two states where Republicans realistically have a chance to win a Democratic-held seat — it has booked only a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of October airtime so far.

That’s a sharp drop from the group’s earlier spending in both states. It could still book more airtime, and the figures don’t capture direct mail or canvassing. But the pullback could signal waning confidence in the Republican Senate candidates there, or a decision to leave those races to other GOP groups.

In contrast, No Going Back PAC is continuing to spend big going into October to flip Democratic-held Senate seats that are now open in Michigan and New Hampshire, and to hold on to Republican-held seats in Ohio and Alaska, according to ad spending data.

The choices offer the first real look at Trump’s spending priorities for the midterms. By the end of August, MAGA Inc., which is run by the president’s outside political team, had spent only a sliver of its $400 million war chest supporting other Republicans, prompting questions — including from some in the GOP — about when and how the president intended to use the money.

The answer is arriving as Republicans’ financial advantage has failed to translate into political momentum. The Republican Party and its top outside spending groups have touted a cash advantage of roughly $500 million over their Democratic counterparts. Democrats, meanwhile, are outraising Republicans at grassroots campaign levels in many races and lead the generic congressional ballot by about 7 points, according to the polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne. The measure asks voters whether they would rather support an unnamed Democrat or Republican running in their House district.

Much of the money is moving through No Going Back PAC and a second new group, Safety and Affordability PAC Inc. Both launched in early September, and as of Friday, the two PACs and MAGA Inc. had together aired or reserved at least $168 million in ads backing Republicans in Senate and House races nationwide, according to AdImpact, with MAGA Inc. making up only $18 million of that so far. Neither of the super PACs reportedly funded by MAGA Inc. has yet disclosed its donors to the FEC. Because the groups pay for the ads, the onscreen disclaimers carry their names rather than MAGA Inc.’s — a potential boon for Republicans reluctant to be tied to Trump amid a string of recent polls that show his approval rating deep underwater.

Partial expenditure reports from No Going Back PAC show tens of millions of dollars spent on TV and digital ads, plus direct mail, in Senate races in North Carolina, Texas, Michigan and elsewhere. The group is also active across the House map, trying to unseat a Democratic incumbent in New York while defending vulnerable GOP-held seats in Iowa, California, Nebraska, North Carolina and other states.

Still, the MAGA Inc.-linked spending is only one part of a much larger Republican operation. Since January 2025, GOP campaigns, super PACs, political nonprofits and other groups have spent almost $4 billion on ads, according to AdImpact.

“MAGA Inc. spending is additive,” a Republican strategist working on midterm races told MS NOW. “It’s not going to be determinative to the results, but it’s helpful. Republicans would much rather have it than not.” (The strategist was granted anonymity to give a candid assessment of the president’s political spending.)

At least $1 billion is in play for the final stretch across MAGA Inc., the top super PACs aligned with GOP leadership and other Republican groups, the strategist said.

“There’s more cash, more resources than ever being deployed across the Republican ecosystem,” the strategist added. “It’s an ever-evolving, ever-moving target in the last 40 days before the election.”

If Democrats perform as well as the polls now suggest, this cycle could answer a question that will shape the next few: whether unlimited money, on its own, can still win close races.

The post What Trump’s super PAC spending says about the GOP’s Senate map appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

When the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to use a citizenship database ahead of the midterm elections, the court noted a limitation on the ruling: the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, which bars states from systematically purging voters 90 days before federal elections.

Likewise, in her dissent for the court’s three Democratic appointees, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the “bright side” of the ruling is its “minimal short-term impact,” because states can only conduct individualized voter roll maintenance ahead of November.

But in a footnote to Friday’s ruling that discussed the NVRA’s limitation on states ahead of federal elections, the majority recalled that the court will consider the scope of that provision in a case this coming term, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota.

One of the issues in that case is whether the law bars states from implementing programs within 90 days of federal elections to cancel the voting registrations of noncitizens.

“The parties in this case do not ask us to address that question and have not briefed it, and we do not need to decide it here,” the court said in the footnote Friday in the database case, Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters.

So whatever impact the database ruling will have (or not have) for the midterms, it highlights that the broader issue isn’t going away in the months and years ahead.

RNC v. Mi Familia Vota is scheduled for oral argument in December, with a decision expected by July. The justices agreed to review the Republican-backed appeal in that case over opposition from Democrats and voting rights groups. It takes four of the nine justices to grant review of a petition, but the vote tally isn’t public. The justices are set to return to the bench on Oct. 5 to start their new term.

The 90-day rule is just one of two issues presented in the appeal. The other asks whether the NVRA or a federal consent decree prevent Arizona from making those registering to vote prove their citizenship when using a state form.

The RNC is challenging a federal appeals court ruling that raised concerns the Republicans’ desired restrictions would result in voter suppression.

The Trump administration is supporting the GOP at the high court.

The post Supreme Court citizenship database ruling highlights important appeal to come appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

President Donald Trump has never been a typical politician. In his first campaign, he whiffed an easy question about nuclear weapons at a debate, failed to understand the need for a presidential transition and regularly expressed surprise that subjects like healthcare policy were complex.

But if there was one subject he was supposed to be an expert in, it was real estate. Trump built his reputation around it, from the towers and golf clubs that bear his name to “The Apprentice,” where he role-played a decisive mogul who knew how to make a deal.

Now, in his second term, Trump has undermined that reputation with his handling of the housing market. His policies have made it more expensive to build homes, more difficult for potential buyers to afford them and less likely that developers will build more.

Trump’s tariffs have raised the price of lumber, steel, appliances and other building materials, adding an estimated $10,900 to the cost of a typical new home. His immigration crackdown has worsened a construction-worker shortage, while his war with Iran has helped push up energy prices, inflation and mortgage rates. At the same time, his administration has cut Department of Housing and Urban Development staff and housing grants and proposed deep cuts to programs that help communities finance affordable homes.

The result is a housing policy that seems to have been designed by someone who knows the price of a penthouse but not the economics of building a single-family home.

White House tour

It was a visit featuring flattery over real conversations about serious issues confronting the U.S. and China: the Iran war, artificial intelligence, trade and tariffs, Taiwan and human rights, just to name a few. Instead, Trump played tour guide, showing off the helipad and future ballroom to Chinese President Xi Jinping. If Trump relished pointing out his golden redecoration of the White House and the autopen “portrait” of former President Joe Biden, Xi stayed focused on keeping the rivalry between the two countries from heating up, even citing Thucydides (again). As for deals, the two countries extended until January a trade truce that keeps tariffs lower. Perhaps the most noticeable accomplishments were two pandas for the Atlanta Zoo and a giant bald eagle sculpture for Xi.

“We hope it will find a nice place, a wonderful place, in Beijing,” the president said at the state dinner.

Miss Anthropic

Just about everyone who’s anyone from Wall Street to Silicon Valley dined on sesame encrusted sea bass at the state dinner, except for Anthropic’s Dario Amodei. (Axios reported the White House is considering casting Amodei as a leader of a fringe movement.) Many in the room dislike one another (that’s putting it mildly), while others disagree about whether or not to slow down the development of AI, including the two presidents. Xi acknowledged the risk and suggested there is space for more government oversight, but his concern might be more maintaining political and social control in China.

As both countries want to “win” the AI race, agreeing to actual steps will be difficult. Trump has also been dismissive about the recent warnings around AI, posting on social media, “Whoever wins AI, wins.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Chinese vice premier met ahead of the summit and discussed creating a direct line for AI-related national security issues reminiscent of the Cold War “red phone,” but for our digital era.

Meanwhile, the hacks keep coming as OpenAI agents broke into an Australian government website. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Amodei addressed the United Nations about their concerns, with a headline from The Associated Press summing it up: “Tech leaders to UN: For the sake of humanity, please control the AI technology we created.”

Day trader in chief

As Trump actively supports the unfettered expansion of AI, he also continues to actively trade stocks in those companies making it happen. New disclosures show over 1,100 securities trades in July. The Guardian estimated the value between $79 million and $270 million that included as much as $5 million to $25 million in shares of Amazon and Microsoft. He also traded Oracle, Nvidia and Salesforce. The White House said his portfolio was “independently managed by third-party financial institutions” and that there were no conflicts of interests. The Washington Post kicked off the week with a story about how his “sprawling family business empire has become increasingly intertwined with the boom in artificial intelligence.” The White House responded saying there are “no conflicts of interest.” Representatives for his family’s businesses said they are private citizens.

Running on fumes

Trump’s energy secretary said it won’t work: “The blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn’t work because the U.S. exports a lot of diesel.” His interior secretary said the same last week: “We would consider an export ban if we thought that actually might lower ​prices, but that’s not the case.” The energy industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers urged Trump to “to reject calls to ban or otherwise limit the exports of diesel,” saying, “You have been asked by some to ban or limit the export of diesel to help lower prices, when in fact the opposite would occur.”

But with the war with Iran unresolved, gas prices a few cents from their highest level since the war began and diesel regularly setting new records, the administration is actively considering a ban of some sort.

“The U.S. is not short of diesel. The world is,” Patrick De Haan at Gas Buddy said on social media. “A potential export ban treats the global price problem as if it was a U.S. only problem, and the cure would be far worse than the disease.”

An easier solution to bring down price would be to end the war.

Nobody puts BB-8 in a corner

Are runway models and backup dancers the latest job at threat from AI and robots? At the Vogue World event in Milan this week, four robots made by the Chinese-firm Unitree walked the runway. They weren’t even wearing clothes. The Cut suspected Meta’s sponsorship, along with OpenAI, might have been the reason. Also, backup dancers need to watch their backs. Chinese robots made it to the finale of “America’s Got Talent,” performing with a Chinese engineer a Chinese-inspired dance. Read that again. It still doesn’t make sense.

The post Trump built his brand on real estate. His policies have been a disaster for the industry. appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

I have been sitting with the news about Nolan Wells, a Black teenager from the Mississippi Gulf Coast who went to party on a barrier island with a group of mostly white friends on July 4, never returned home and was later found dead. On Monday the district attorney in Jackson County, Mississippi, said the 23 members of a grand jury had unanimously voted against charging anyone with a crime in Wells’ death.

The cause of the teen’s death remains categorized as “undetermined,” and the grand jury found that his death was “consistent with drowning.” His family has long rejected the idea that he simply drowned, because he was a good swimmer and athletic.

At a Tuesday news conference, Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, asked, “How can a jury come to the conclusion of drowning, despite knowing that there was trauma to his body, and despite hearing many inconsistencies?”

An independent autopsy conducted by Wells’ family that was released in July also found that the cause and manner of his death were “undetermined,” pending further investigation.

The state’s official autopsy report determined that Wells’ airways and stomach were empty. “What this means is that there is no water in the stomach, there is no water in the lungs, and there is no water in the throat,” Liza Park, an attorney for Wells’ family said Thursday.

The more I process the news of no charges being filed in Wells’ death, the more I think about the difference between a justice system and what Black people have longed called a “just us” system.

Play

Nolan Wells’ death sparks protests, calls for independent investigation

July 12, 2026 / 09:48

I want to be careful here. I don’t know what happened to Nolan Wells. But in Mississippi in particular, Black people know when the pieces of a puzzle don’t seem to fit together. That isn’t paranoia. It’s experience.

I was born in Mississippi. Being a Black woman from the South means I come from people who know the difference between justice and what the system calls justice.

Because let’s tell the truth: In Mississippi, in the South and, really, across the United States, there is a long history of the system not pursuing justice for us with the same urgency, rigor or determination it pursues justice for white people. In this case, Black people have a hard time imagining a white teen going off with a group of Black friends, mysteriously dying and none of his Black friends being charged.

We know history. Our parents and grandparents made sure of it.

I grew up hearing whispered stories about Mack Charles Parker, a 23-year-old Black Army veteran who was lynched in 1959, in a Mississippi town close to the one where I was born, after an all-white grand jury charged him with raping a white woman. Parker’s body was found in the Pearl River more than a week later. Nobody was ever charged in Parker’s death, and just three years ago, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division closed the case with no criminal referral.

The Equal Justice Institute, which maintains a memorial for victims of lynching, says, “Statements from those in the community suggested that the woman fabricated the rape claims to hide her consensual affair with a white man in a nearby town.” I remember hearing the whispers about what happened to Parker, hearing the things people believed they knew and the things that were never fully resolved.

And I learned something long before I had the language to name it: that sometimes a community carries questions long after the official record has gone quiet. That’s why I cannot hear about Nolan Wells and simply say, Well, the system has spoken.

I am not interested in manufacturing certainty where there isn’t any, but like so many Black people with connections to Mississippi, I also refuse to accept this uncertainty as the end of the matter.

I can admit I don’t know exactly what happened to Nolan Wells — and still say something about his death doesn’t add up. I can respect the legal process and still ask whether every question has been pursued with the urgency it deserves. I can acknowledge that the Jackson County grand jury did not indict anyone and still ache for a family — and a community — that feels justice hasn’t been done.

Because I am afraid of something else: I am afraid of Nolan becoming a footnote. Another story people tell years from now. Another “You know what I always heard? …” Another conversation at the kitchen table that begins, We knew something wasn’t right back then.

I don’t want the mysterious death of Nolan Wells to become a story that Black folks whisper to each other 20 years from now because we were afraid, unable or unwilling to keep asking the questions while there was still time to pursue answers.

I want the questions asked now. I want the unanswered questions pursued now. Not because I have decided I know what happened. But because that young Black man’s life is worth the trouble of finding out.

When the justice system reaches the limits of what it will — or can — do, then those of us left dissatisfied have a responsibility too.

Play

‘It just does not add up’: Questions surround Nolan Wells’ death as family demands investigation

July 11, 2026 / 08:57

Not to invent facts. Not to convict people in the court of public opinion. But to remember. To witness. To document. To keep asking. To make sure his family members aren’t the only ones raising the questions. To refuse to let the story disappear simply because the news cycle has moved on.

I don’t know what happened to Nolan Wells.

But I know he and his family deserve us doing everything possible to find out.

The post A grand jury’s dissatisfying response to Nolan Wells’ death and our louder demand for answers appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate yet again surrendered one of its core constitutional powers. The chamber voted 49-50 on a war powers resolution directing President Donald Trump to halt the war with Iran. This was the 12th time a war powers resolution failed in the Senate, but the political climate was unlike any previous vote. The midterm outlook for the GOP has gone from tough to downright awful. Gas is nearly $4.50 a gallon; diesel is $6.50. Yet with one exception, vulnerable Republicans sided with the president. To the question, “Can any midterms result shake Trump’s hold on the GOP?,” we now have our answer.

In the spring, I wrote about the similarities between Trump’s second term and former President George W. Bush’s second term. Once again, a president, his party and many in the press have misread a narrow election victory as something more definitive (a windfall of “political capital” in Bush’s case, a “vibe shift” in Trump’s). Once again, the president’s political fortunes have fallen sharply. And once again, the fallout is endangering Republicans in seats that a year ago would have been considered rock solid for the GOP.

If anything, in fact, Trump’s pre-midterm prognosis is even worse than Bush. Polling averages put the president’s net approval rating more than 20 points underwater. In the past week, he hit new lows for this term in a half-dozen polls, including CNN/SSRS, NBC News, Reuters/Ipsos, Strength in Numbers/Verasight and American Research Group. Various gimmicks — beef imports, a midterm convention, promises of $5000 checks — have flopped. As polling expert G. Elliott Morris wrote Thursday, “No president has gone into a midterm election this unpopular” — not Trump in 2018, nor former President t Barack Obama before the 2010 Tea Party wipeout, nor Bush in 2006.

No wonder then that in the congressional generic ballot, Democrats’ average lead is now in the high single-digits. On Thursday, the White House announced the president will hold election rallies in deep-red Oklahoma and Alabama. Republicans are pulling money from Senate races in North Carolina and Georgia. Democrat James Talarico has led in each of the last 10 public polls taken in Texas’ Senate race. Republicans in Florida and Iowa are sounding alarms. And in Kansas, which hasn’t had a Democratic senator since the 1930s, GOP incumbent Roger Marshall may be in trouble.

Play

Why some GOP candidates are distancing themselves from Trump

September 25, 2026 / 10:28

There’s still more than a month to Election Day. Republicans and donors like Elon Musk are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an ad tsunami. And polls, even in the most accurate years, usually miss by a couple points in one direction or the other. A few points in favor of the GOP, and Democrats would take the House, yet fall well short in the Senate.

A few points the other way, however, and it’s a historic blowout.

It’s true that some Republicans are distancing themselves rhetorically from the president in the final weeks of the campaign. But if ever there were a hint that such a blowout would lead Republicans to rethink their MAGA loyalties after Election Day, we would have seen it Thursday.

The war with Iran is incredibly unpopular, and the latest spikes in fuel prices have made the conflict even more politically toxic. Ohio Sen. John Husted, Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson and former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers — all in close Senate races — have all called for the conflict to cease. And Trump has made clear he will effectively ignore any war powers resolution. That’s a terrible sign for our constitutional order, but it made any Republican vote for the resolution an easy gesture that you feel voters’ pain.

Yet Husted voted against the resolution, two days after he told Politico, “The war needs to come to an end as quickly as possible.” So did 48 other GOP senators, including Alaska’s Dan Sullivan and Kansas’ Roger Marshall. The only vulnerable Republican to vote for the resolution was Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Considering that Collins remains competitive (and, in some polls, leading) in a state Trump has lost three times, one would think more Republicans would have taken a page from her playbook.

Play

Trump’s war with Iran is unpopular. Why are vulnerable republicans still voting for it?

September 25, 2026 / 11:39

But Collins’ Senate colleagues aren’t interested in her favorite escape hatch. As political scientist Seth Masket wrote, “There are still several things preventing the party from pivoting away” from Trump. Most immediately, the president retains the support of most Republican voters and will likely intervene in 2028 primaries, much the same way he did in past cycles.

More broadly, though, should Republicans wish to go in a new direction, to whom do they turn?

A decade of bowing and scraping has emptied the party of alternatives to MAGA. Some left the party; others decided that they loved Trump after all. Just this year, Vice President JD Vance cast aside his antiwar stances to tie himself to the Iran war. As for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the next new idea he has will be his first. The party in lockstep with the president has nowhere else to go, no matter how bad it gets.

The post Republicans just whiffed on another great chance to break with Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

The spring 2027 runways—Prada’s, in particular—continue to champion the skirt in all its forms. Here’s how to style a skirt for right now.

Source: Vogue

From The Hill

The debate over how to regulate artificial intelligence is being pushed past the November midterms, frustrating some lawmakers who warn that Congress is running out of time to address the rapidly evolving technology. With the House out of session and the Senate facing a crowded agenda before it departs for a monthlong recess, lawmakers are…

From The Hill

President Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to new lows in several recent polls, driven by declining GOP support and souring views on the economy in a possible warning sign for Republicans just weeks out from the midterms. In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump’s overall approval fell three points from the previous week to an all-time…

From The Hill

A growing number of Republicans in the heartland are breaking with President Trump on policies that are unpopular as the GOP worries about paying the price for them in the upcoming elections.  Lawmakers and candidates in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio have called for a quick end to the Iran war amid high gas and diesel…

Funko, the company behind the big-headed Pop! figurines, warned last year it might not survive, squeezed by tariffs, canceled retail orders and its own overproduction. A new CEO based in Los Feliz is trying to turn it around.