“Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday she spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday and that the two agreed to extend a looming trade deadline ‘for a few more weeks’ to discuss pending issues with Washington. The U.S. agreed in July to pause for 90 days an increase in tariffs on some [American buyers of] Mexican goods to 30% — from 25% — as the two countries continued talks aimed at reaching a new trade deal. That pause was set to end this week.” (10/27/25)
“Turkey and Britain on Monday signed a deal worth 8 billion pounds ($10.7 billion) for 20 Eurofighter Typhoon jets. The agreement to enhance Turkey’s air capabilities was signed in Ankara during British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s first visit to the country. It marks the first new order of U.K. Typhoons since 2017. ‘Our countries may sit at either end of Europe, but we’re strong partners, working more closely together now than ever before,’ Starmer said during a signing ceremony alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ‘This will bolster security across NATO, deepen our bilateral defense cooperation and boost economic growth here and in the United Kingdom, securing 20,000 British jobs,’ Starmer added. ‘I am proud that British typhoons will form a vital part of the Turkish Air Force for many years to come.’ Erdogan hailed the agreement as ‘a new symbol of the strategic relationship between us as two close allies’.” (10/27/25)
“Rodrick Johnson, 67, had just returned home from a trip to the hospital and was trying to get some rest. But in the early hours of September 30, bright lights suddenly flooded his apartment. A fleet of Black Hawk helicopters descended on his five-story building — a 130-unit apartment complex at 7500 South Shore Drive — shortly before armed, masked men stormed past the doors of the ground floor. ‘The next thing I knew, they were kicking my door in,’ Johnson says. He and dozens of his neighbors were marched outside at gunpoint during the multiagency raid carried out by some 300 federal agents in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Black and Latino residents were zip-tied, separated by race and detained inside cargo vans, as South Side Weekly reported in the raid’s aftermath.” (10/27/25)
“If polls are to be believed, democratic socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani is likely to win the mayoralty of New York City this November. An October 9 Quinnipiac University survey taken after Mayor Eric Adams dropped from the race shows Mamdani is up 13 points over his nearest competitor, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Despite his youth and executive inexperience, Mamdani has all the advantages …. Yet despite these electoral advantages, the deck is stacked against Mamdani’s administration. This is because the political coalition necessary to govern is quite different from that which can get him elected.” (10/23/25)
“On Friday, Alabama officials unveiled statues of two indomitable native daughters – civil rights activist Rosa Parks and disability pioneer Helen Keller. The move, unanimously approved by the state legislature in 2019, makes Ms. Parks and Ms. Keller the first women to be depicted among the many monuments on the Capitol grounds in Montgomery. And it underscores how, in overcoming limitations, both women overturned restrictive societal views and values about individual ability and worth. While they faced vastly different challenges, their lives are entwined by a common thread of quiet determination and dignity.” (10/24/25)
“The most consequential Supreme Court case involving race in the current session centers on whether Louisiana must, per the Voting Rights Act, have not one, but two, majority Black congressional districts. Progressives fighting a challenge to the current congressional district map — which includes two such districts — are already crying foul, as oral argument seemed to indicate that a majority of the justices are inclined to bar consideration of race in drawing district lines — much as they barred Harvard from considering race in its admissions decisions. For progressives, such a change would, as Politico put it, ‘gut’ the Voting Rights Act, which ended Jim Crow’s outright disenfranchisement, through such means as poll taxes and literacy tests. But, there’s another goal which once commanded liberal support that drawing Black majority districts contravenes: residential racial integration.” (10/24/25)
“The Trump administration aspires to deport a million people in its first year of office. The president has also spoken of the more ambitious goal of deporting 15-20 million undocumented people overall, even if that category probably covers only 14 million folks. The discrepancy of a couple million people shouldn’t bother President Donald Trump. He’s happy to deport those with green cards, H-1B visas, and even American citizens. Deporting a million people in a year is a heavy lift. The previous record, 409,849 people, was during the Obama administration, as part of the 1.5 million deportations he conducted in his first term. Trump, no doubt, wants to best Barack Obama in this category, since he’s determined to outshine the former president in every respect, even the dubious ones.” (10/25/25)
“The daily headlines have this column almost writing itself. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, we have the recent revelations of Democratic candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, sending text messages to a colleague in 2022 wishing that someone would put ‘two bullets’ in the head of then-Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates, Todd Gilbert. … Then, in the state of New Jersey, we have Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Michelle ‘Mikie’ Sherrill facing questions over the circumstances of the discipline she received while a Naval Academy midshipman, which reportedly prevented her from walking with her class at graduation.” (10/25/25)
“It’s one of the most rousing calls to conscience to come out of the 20th century. I’m thinking of Martin Niemöller’s ‘First they came for the communists’. You know how it goes. It begins, ‘First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.’ And it ends, ‘Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’ It’s a powerful statement, and you’ll see it on T-shirts and posters and placards at demonstrations. But when you actually look at our history, it’s not just that good people didn’t speak out. It’s that many Americans threw other Americans under the bus. The story of the Danish king who wore a yellow star in solidarity with Jewish Danes during World War II is apocryphal. It never happened.” (10/25/25)
“Strip away the lies about Obamacare subsidies set to expire this year, and Democrats’ main excuse for shutting the government goes up in smoke. Above all else, Dems claim they’re looking to protect health care, that expiring Bamcare subsidies will send premiums soaring and cost many their coverage. The truth? Premiums are expected to rise by $1,665, or 20%, on average, a Paragon Health Institute study found — yet the expiring subsidies account for only four of those percentage points, or just $333. Fact is, most ObamaCare subsidies are not expiring. What’s set to vanish is merely the added cash Democrats in Congress agreed to pay insurers (using taxpayer money) during COVID. That’s it.” (10/25/25)
