“Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ sweeping plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s aging prison system, which includes closing a prison built in the 1800s, moved forward Tuesday with bipartisan support despite complaints from Republican lawmakers that their concerns weren’t being addressed. A bipartisan subcommittee of the state building commission approved spending $15 million to proceed with planning for the Evers proposal. The full building commission, which Evers chairs, was expected to green-light the spending later Tuesday. Evers in February presented his plan as the best and only option to address the state’s aging facilities. Problems at the lockups have included inmate deaths, assaults against staff, lockdowns, lawsuits, federal investigations, criminal charges against staff, resignations and rising maintenance costs. Republicans have opposed parts of the plan that would reduce the overall capacity of the state prison system by 700 beds and increase the number of offenders who could be released on supervision.” (10/28/25)
“Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara was reelected to a fourth term in an election marked by low turnout and empty streets in the economic capital of Abidjan, provisional results showed Monday. Ouattara, 83, who first came to power in the West African nation in 2011, won 89.7% of the vote, Electoral Commission head Ibrahime Kuibiert Coulibaly said Monday. Jean-Louis Billon, a former commerce minister from one of Ivory Coast’s richest families, came in a distant second with 3% of the vote. Simone Gbagbo, a former first lady, came in third with 2.4%, under the provision results. … Ouattara was challenged by what experts considered a weakened opposition after the exclusion of major candidates, Tidjane Thiam and Laurent Gbagbo, from the polls.” (10/28/25)
“Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has spent more than a decade warning that the world was on the brink of unimaginable peril due to rising global temperatures, now says climate change ‘will not lead to humanity’s demise’ in a stunning reversal. Gates, 70, who has sunk billions of his vast fortune into initiatives ostensibly meant to combat global warming, penned a lengthy blog post this week urging a shift away from the ‘doomsday outlook’ many climate activists have adopted to terrify nonbelievers into seeing things their way. ‘Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,’ he wrote. ‘People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.'” (10/28/25)
“Amazon said Tuesday that it will lay off about 14,000 corporate employees, marking the latest cuts in the company’s multi-year effort to rein in costs. In a blog post, the company wrote that the layoffs are being carried out to help make the company leaner and less bureaucratic, while it looks to invest in ‘our biggest bets’ including generative artificial intelligence. … The layoffs are expected to ultimately be the largest corporate job cuts in Amazon’s history, CNBC previously reported. Reuters reported the cuts could affect as many as 30,000 employees, citing sources familiar with the matter. Amazon is the nation’s second-largest private employer, with more than 1.54 million staffers globally as of the end of the second quarter. That figure is primarily made up of its warehouse workforce.” (10/28/25)
“Indian authorities on Tuesday carried out a cloud-seeding experiment over smog-choked New Delhi in an attempt to induce rainfall and clear the city’s toxic air, which has sparked anger among residents. A plane sprayed chemicals into clouds over some areas of the Indian capital to encourage rain and wash pollutants from the air, which remained in the ‘very poor’ category, according to air quality monitors. Cloud seeding — a weather modification method that releases chemicals into clouds to trigger rain — has been used in drought-prone regions, such as the western United States and the United Arab Emirates, though experts say its effectiveness remains uncertain. Delhi Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said that the trial was done in collaboration with the government’s Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, with more planned in the coming days.” (10/28/25)
“The man accused of killing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022 has pleaded guilty to murder. Forty-five-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami admitted all charges read out by prosecutors as his trial opened on Tuesday, according to the Japanese broadcaster NHK. Yamagami was charged with murder and violations of arms control laws for allegedly using a handmade weapon to shoot Japan’s longest serving leader. ‘Everything is true,’ the suspect told the court, according to the AFP news agency. Abe was shot as he gave a speech during an election campaign in the western city of Nara on July 8, 2022. Yamagami was arrested at the scene. The assassination was reportedly triggered by the suspect’s anger over links between Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the Unification Church.” (10/28/25)
“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Kenvue and Johnson & Johnson, claiming the use of Tylenol leads to higher risk of autism and that the over-the-counter drug is deceptively marketed to pregnant women as safe. Many medical experts have disputed such claims. The lawsuit, dated Monday, alleges Johnson & Johnson and Tylenol maker Kenvue, which separated from Johnson & Johnson in 2023, knew for decades ‘that acetaminophen — Tylenol’s active ingredient — is dangerous to unborn children and young children. Yet they hid this danger and deceptively marketed Tylenol as the only safe painkiller for pregnant women.’ In the lawsuit, Paxton pointed to the Trump administration’s claims about acetaminophen’s risks, saying that ‘the federal government confirmed what Defendants knew for years: acetaminophen use during pregnancy likely causes conditions like [autism] and [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder].'” (10/28/25)
“President Donald Trump on Monday asked a New York appeals court to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case that made him a felon as he plotted a path back to the White House last year. In a 96-page filing, Trump’s lawyers relied on many of the same arguments that Trump previously made before, during and immediately following the 2024 trial, including that the conviction should be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and that the judge who oversaw the trial should have recused himself because he made political contributions. … The appeal is just one of Trump’s attempts to overturn his conviction last May of 34 counts of business fraud for his effort to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.” (10/28/25)
“U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis on Tuesday ordered a senior U.S. Border Patrol official to meet her daily ‘to hear about how the day went’ after weeks of confrontations between immigration agents and the public in the Chicago area. The immigration sweeps from Operation Midway Blitz have produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force. Ellis also asked Border Patrol’s Greg Bovino to submit by Friday all use-of-force reports from Border Patrol agents involved in the operation from Sept. 2 through Tuesday. The courtroom on Tuesday gave the feeling of a principal’s office as Ellis detailed examples of incidents where she felt her previous order restricting the use of force, including tear gas, was not being followed.” (10/28/25)
“Elon Musk’s Grokipedia launched on Monday, but the encyclopedia powered by xAI’s assistant Grok that’s built to rival Wikipedia, crashed shortly after — leaving the site briefly inaccessible to users. Grokipedia was launched after Musk complained about ‘propaganda’ on Wikipedia and, after a stuttering start, it was live late Monday evening with nearly 900,000 articles available, according to the homepage. When asked for comment on the site crash, a representative for x.ai said in an email: ‘Legacy Media Lies.’ They did not immediately respond to Axios'[s] follow-up question Monday evening on the reason for the crash.” (10/27/25)
