The Supreme Court will hear a case with a lot of 'buts' & 'ifs' over the meaning of 'and' (apnews.com)
It’s hard to imagine a less contentious or more innocent word than “and.”...
Alligator killed by Florida authorities after human body found in jaws (thehill.com)
A grandmother seeks justice for Native Americans after thousands of unsolved deaths, disappearances (apnews.com)
Yolanda Fraser is back near a ragged chain-link fence, blinking through tears as she tidies up flowers and ribbons and a pinwheel twirls in the breeze at a makeshift roadside memorial in a small Montana town....
Red states quit nation’s oldest library group amid culture war over books (www.washingtonpost.com)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) picked an unusual foil during a Judiciary Committee hearing last week about the historic rise in challenges to school books....
Nursing Homes Must Boost Staffing Under First-Ever National Standards (www.wsj.com)
Nursing homes will have to maintain minimum staffing levels under a Biden administration proposal despite furious lobbying from the industry, which says it will be too onerous amid a continuing labor shortage....
Women Say Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Are Rife in Group for Realtors (www.nytimes.com)
One woman said the man put his hands down his pants in front of her. Another woman said the same man texted her a picture of his crotch. A third woman said she had a consensual relationship with the man, only to have him retaliate after it ended....
127,000 New York Workers Have Been Victims of Wage Theft (www.propublica.org)
An analysis of federal and state databases sheds new light on the prevalence and scale of wage theft in New York restaurants and other industries, placing the total wages stolen in one five-year period at more than $203 million
Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals (www.npr.org)
Illinois hospitals are seeing a surge of out-of-state patients who need abortion care at a hospital due to medical complications. But hospital-based abortions are more costly and harder to arrange.
US Commercial fishing groups sue tire manufacturers over fish-killing chemical (www.reuters.com)
New York Times Writer Jazmine Hughes Resigns After Opposing Israel-Gaza War (www.yahoo.com)
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‘We’re the tip of the iceberg,’ say PFAS contaminated farmers (www.mlive.com)
Home sales fell again in September as surging mortgage rates, rising prices discouraged homebuyers (apnews.com)
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes in September fell for the fourth month in a row, grinding to their slowest pace in more than a decade as prospective homebuyers grapple with surging mortgage rates and a near historic-low level of properties on the market.
US Customs officials seize giraffe feces from woman at Minnesota airport (apnews.com)
Federal customs agents pooh-poohed the plans of an Iowa woman who wanted to make jewelry from giraffe feces she picked up on a trip to Kenya and brought back to the U.S. in her luggage....
Where are the homes? Glaring need for housing construction underlined by Century 21 CEO (apnews.com)
The highest mortgage rates in more than two decades are keeping many prospective homebuyers out of the market and discouraging homeowners who locked in ultra-low rates from listing their home for sale....
'Emotional support' alligator denied entry into baseball stadium (news.sky.com)
Fans were surprised to see an alligator turn up at a Philadelphia Phillies baseball match with its owner. Joie Henney has said they were there to meet the players in an arranged visit, but will have to go another time.
Surge in ‘abortion travelers’ to Mass. post-Dobbs (news.harvard.edu)
A new study confirms a rise in travelers from states as far away as Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia visiting Massachusetts to seek abortion care since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022....
Chinese hack of Microsoft engineer led to breach of US officials’ emails, company says (www.cnn.com)
The Chinese hackers who breached senior US officials’ emails in May and June were able to do so by first stealing sensitive data from a Microsoft engineer, the company revealed Wednesday....
China had almost 2 million excess deaths after the end of ‘zero-Covid,’ U.S. study finds (www.nbcnews.com)
There were almost 2 million excess deaths in the two months after China lifted its “zero-Covid” restrictions, a U.S. study found, contradicting official figures from Beijing that have been criticized as too low....
Russian geneticist gets probation for DNA smuggling. Discovery of vials prompted alarm at airport (apnews.com)
Customs agents were alarmed at their discovery last August at Dulles International Airport: an undeclared cooler packed in a suitcase and filled with 10 test tubes of an unknown yellowish substance, brought to the U.S. by a woman claiming to be a Russian scientist....
Heat dome over Central U.S. could bring hottest temps yet to parts of the Midwest (www.npr.org)
The man charged in last year's attack against Nancy Pelosi's husband goes to trial in San Francisco (apnews.com)
The man accused of breaking into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home, bludgeoning her husband with a hammer and seeking to kidnap her goes on trial Thursday....
Rashida Tlaib claims in video that Biden supports Palestinian genocide (www.theguardian.com)
Uber, Lyft to pay $328 million to settle wage-theft allegations in New York state (www.cnbc.com)
In addition to a financial settlement, Uber and Lyft agreed to ongoing changes in how they pay drivers and offer benefits in New York state
Justice Barrett expresses support for formal Supreme Court ethics code (www.politico.com)
But she also said the justices already agree they should hold themselves to the highest ethical standards possible....
Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks (www.washingtonpost.com)
The escalating campaign — led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other Republicans — has cast a pall over programs that study not just political disinformation but also the quality of medical information online.