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https://www.npr.org/2026/10/04/nx-s1-5987757/lanterns-finale-hbo

Superhero action fans waiting for a sprawling, special effects-laden fight scene to cap the percolating drama of HBO's Lanterns will likely be disappointed by the hit show's brooding, measured season finale.

Instead, what producers delivered Sunday night was a simmering meditation on parents and children, fear and love, ruthlessness versus kindness. And in the process, they wrapped up a season that revitalized and reinvented what a modern superhero story can do on the small screen.

Lanterns has become an unlikely hit for HBO, centered on the Green Lantern — a character with many iterations in comics books and animated features, but a somewhat more checkered history in live action. Famously, the Green Lantern film starring a pre-superstardom Ryan Reynolds tanked so hard he joked about it in the superhero franchise he finally got right, Deadpool.

From the beginning, Lanterns producers had a challenge: How to take a concept that sounds cartoonish on its face — space cops given one of the greatest weapons in the universe, a power ring capable of conjuring anything, by blue-skinned immortal Guardians — and make it feel real, with human stakes. And they had to do it while also showcasing several different characters who have worn the mantle of Green Lantern on Earth.

The solution was aping one of HBO's other unlikely hits: True Detective. So Friday Night Lights icon Kyle Chandler was tapped to play Hal Jordan, the most famous Lantern — depicted in this story as the first human to join the galactic Green Lantern Corps. He starts as a square-jawed hero, but as the meat of Lanterns' story unfolds in 2016, Jordan is a grizzled adventurer near burnout — forced to work with an aspiring backup Lantern he fears has been recruited to replace him, Aaron Pierre's John Stewart.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-10-05/trump-suggests-letting-iran-take-out-los-angeles-san-diego-at-campaign-rally

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https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-port-shuaiba-attack-soldiers-29f34587c6361261f6e803aff6791e8f

WASHINGTON (AP) — On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait.

In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “like opening up a sardine can,” one soldier recalled.

Six soldiers were killed and dozens were injured in the deadliest known strike on U.S. troops since Operation Epic Fury commenced on Feb. 28.

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https://abcnews.com/Politics/wireStory/dennis-hastert-longtime-republican-house-speaker-prison-dies-137003116

CHICAGO -- Dennis Hastert, the nation’s longest-serving Republican House speaker, who helped turn much of President George W. Bush’s agenda into law before his own political legacy was forever fouled by allegations that he molested high school athletes when he was a wrestling coach, died over the weekend, a coroner said Monday. He was 84.

Hastert, who was speaker from 1999 until 2007, died of natural causes at his home, according to Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell.

When he was sentenced in 2016 to more than a year behind bars, the former history teacher became one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered to prison.

In the late 1990s, Hastert was a little-known Illinois lawmaker with a reputation for congeniality that had helped him ascend the ranks of congressional leaders. When Newt Gingrich lost support because of ethics violations and the GOP’s poor showing in an election, Republicans elected Hastert to succeed him. In his first weeks on the job, he presided over the House while the Senate conducted Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

After the GOP reclaimed the White House, Hastert took much of what Bush proposed and steered it to passage, including massive tax cuts and a measure that amounted to a huge expansion of prescription drug benefits — the biggest change in Medicare in decades.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/10/cornell-to-become-first-ivy-league-university-to-offer-degrees-in-prison

Cornell will become the first Ivy League university to offer a degree to incarcerated students when the Cornell Prison Education Program launches its Bachelor of Professional Studies program at Cayuga Correctional Facility in Fall 2027.

The program, offered through a partnership with Cornell’s School of Continuing Education, features organizations, markets, and society as the first approved major.

Its first cohort is expected to enroll 12 to 18 students, Jenna LaPietra, CPEP's director of strategic initiatives, wrote in a statement to The Sun. The program is expected to take approximately three years to complete.

Applicants must have an associate’s degree or at least 60 college credits and either reside at Cayuga Correctional Facility or qualify to transfer there. The School of Continuing Education will oversee admissions and is developing an application process adapted to the prison’s paper-based environment.

The new degree expands CPEP, which was founded in 2001 by Prof. Emeritus Pete Wetherbee, literatures in English. Through its partnership with SUNY Cayuga Community College, CPEP students have earned credits toward associate’s degrees, with advanced students being able to earn Cornell’s certificate in liberal arts.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/04/trump-judges-courts-young-01105697
President Donald Trump has appointed far more federal judges who are under 40 than his predecessors — ensuring that his imprint on the judiciary will last for decades.

Over the course of his two terms to date, Trump has appointed 31 people in their 30s to federal judgeships, and at least two more are pending in the Senate, according to a POLITICO analysis of government data. By contrast, President Joe Biden appointed 13 people in their 30s. President Barack Obama appointed just nine judges younger than 40 during his two terms.

A judge in his or her 30s can remain in place for as long as 60 years — there are multiple sitting judges in their 90s and one who is 102 — allowing the president who appointed them to leave a particularly long-lasting imprint on the courts.

“President Trump selects highly-qualified and credentialed judicial nominees who have passed the White House’s rigorous vetting process. Wherever there are judicial vacancies, President Trump will select highly qualified nominees with great respect for our Constitution and rule of law to be confirmed expeditiously,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said.

Trump’s young nominees include Samuel Adkisson, an associate in the White House Counsel’s Office who was 33 when Trump nominated him — making him one of the youngest people ever nominated to the federal bench. In his social media post announcing Adkisson’s nomination, which is currently pending in the Senate, Trump praised his work on a case that resulted in the Supreme Court widening the president’s power to control executive branch agencies.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/03/ted-cruz-blasts-jd-vance-as-insecure-says-hes-focused-on-helping-gop-win-midterms-01106033

Sen. Ted Cruz fired back at JD Vance for suggesting he’s already focused on a 2028 presidential bid, calling the vice president “insecure” while insisting he’s focused on the 2026 midterms.

“In my experience, people engage in political bomb-throwing when they’re feeling insecure,” Cruz said in a phone interview Saturday. “So he’s welcome to make whatever comments he likes. I’m going to keep focusing on the midterms and helping us win on Election Day in the next 30 days.”

Cruz’s comments came in response to an NBC News interview Thursday with Vance in which the vice president suggested Cruz was prematurely eyeing a White House run.

“It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president,” Vance said. “At this moment, I’m not. I’m trying to help elect Republicans. That’s what I’m going to keep on doing.”

Vance is widely viewed as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, but Cruz has said he doesn’t believe Vance is the sure-fire nominee and suggested he might throw his own hat in the ring. “I’ll certainly be part of the discussion,” he told MS NOW in August.

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>GOP Saving the Unpopular Stuff for After the Election

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gop-saving-the-unpopular-stuff-for-after-the-election.html

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https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/ckp8glpy55geo

French education minister announce say dem go partially or totally close up to 500 schools on Monday, 5 October afta fight-fight between riot police and student protesters wey hapun recently.

Édouard Geffray tok say dem go "totally or partly suspend" lessons for some "400 to 500" high schools as security conditions "neva dey fulfilled".

E also say dem "burn or ransack" 24 since di protests start.

Thousands of students dey demonstrate sake of education standards and di protests, wey bin start last week, spread from Paris to oda cities, wey include Montpellier, Nantes and Marseille.

High school pupils and odas bin don object to di lack of teachers, overcrowded classrooms and run-down buildings.

On Friday, French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin bin tok say 735 of France 3,700 schools dey affected "one way or anoda" by violent protests.

Di education minister bin warn say di number of schools wey dey potentially affected on Monday fit dey compared to di figure on Friday but im bin promise "partial, progressive return to lessons".

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https://apnews.com/article/japan-us-marine-crime-okinawa-e2ba88380a55f9b8af559dd616b92b11
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police arrested a U.S. Marine in the alleged robbery and killing of a woman on Okinawa, officials said Sunday, the latest criminal case on the southern island where the heavy American troop presence has remained a sensitive issue.

The Okinawa prefectural police said they arrested a 20-year-old Marine stationed at the Futenma Air Station on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old local woman at a hotel in Naha, Okinawa’s capital city, and taking her wallet and backpack in the early hours of Saturday.

Kyodo News agency, citing the police, reported the woman’s body was found in her hotel room and she appeared to have been strangled to death.

Police said security camera footage showed the man believed to be the suspect entering the hotel with the victim and coming out alone. An officer arrested the suspect after spotting him walking alone on a street in Naha’s entertainment district late Saturday, Kyodo said.

“The case deals a major shock and adds fear to the Okinawans who have already been forced to live next to U.S. bases,” newly elected Okinawa Gov. Genta Koja told reporters. “It is absolutely unforgivable and we are outraged.”

“I must say, discipline and troop education are not working at all,” said Koja, referring to the U.S. military’s measures taken in response to past criminal cases.

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https://apnews.com/article/hemp-marijuana-cannabis-thc-mcconnell-a6f2a02b40c7c5d33d99c84f3221e93f

In a commercial kitchen outside Raleigh, North Carolina, Nicholas Hohns spreads a blue-green goo into a gridded mold, making one of his company’s signature products: potent THC gummies, featuring the primary intoxicating compound found in marijuana.

It’s a business he might soon have to give up. America’s multibillion-dollar market for impairing hemp products — from THC seltzers sold at some Target stores to smokable cannabis flowers, and different from the regulated legal marijuana industry — faces potential elimination after Congress voted to close a loophole in federal law that has allowed it to flourish.

Advocates for the industry, along with some lawmakers, are fighting to save it. The short-term government-funding bill signed by President Donald Trump last month delayed the effective date of the “hemp THC ban” from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, giving Congress more time to consider regulating the products rather than banning them.

“It’s such a weird spot to be in,” said Hohns. “You worked 100 hours a week for the past four years, and, yeah, you made some money. But now you might have nothing to show for it.”

Viral video captures Arizona State cheerleader being shoved to ground, pummeled by cops as she tries to stop arrest
https://nypost.com/2026/10/05/us-news/viral-video-captures-arizona-state-university-cheerleader-being-shoved-to-ground-pummeled-by-cops/
A viral video captured an Arizona college cheerleader being violently slammed to the ground and pummeled on top of a bicycle by cops after she allegedly interfered with an arrest. Arizona State University senior Eryn Bonner was hit with two misdemeanor charges last week in Tempe after a harrowing video captured cops allegedly leaving her covered in bruises during an arrest in July, according to the Tempe Police Department and ABC15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TngViNw2pOo DEREK CHAUVIN DA DOMINOS

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SAVE HOLD THE NEWS!

Independent Australian journalism going under after 80 issues, failing to secure funding.

The website has become home to local journalism, cartoons and takes on current affairs, and will be sadly missed.

https://holdthenews.com/

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Republican creatures are panicking now that MIGA is less receptive of overt corruption, worried that they're going to lose their phoney baloney jobs. They're willing to do anything it takes to limit the asskicking they're going to get in November except actually try to help America.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/03/politics/republicans-congress-control-midterms

Four weeks to Election Day, a growing number of House Republicans privately fear their chances of holding onto the majority are vanishing and have begun focusing on how to limit the size of a potential Democratic wave.

Inside the House GOP, Republicans have watched with alarm as President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have sunk in their own internal polling — including on traditionally red turf — over the last two weeks, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the discussions.

Now, the House GOP is entering triage mode. Republicans are discussing pulling money from once-competitive races they see as too difficult to win, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey and an open seat in Nebraska, according to three people familiar with the talks.

But the GOP does have a huge cash advantage, and not all Republicans are pessimistic. Speaker Mike Johnson is “absolutely still convinced” that he can hang onto the House and is not taking any seats “off his board,” according to a political aide. Johnson just returned from New Jersey and is planning a rally with Miller-Meeks in Iowa next week, according to his team.

The House GOP’s campaign arm, too, strenuously denies that the majority is lost.

“Thirty days out, House Republicans are on offense, and we’re outspending Democrats in the final stretch in every race,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Will Kiley said in a statement, adding, “House Republicans are going to defy history, and we’re going to win.”

Trump calls Cornell ‘a fine school’ as he breaks silence on alleged gang rape case
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-cornell-university-investigation-b3059992.html
President Donald Trump has weighed in on the alleged gang rape of an ex-Cornell University student who claims she was abused for hours by members of a fraternity at a house party two years ago. The young woman, identified as Jane Doe, is suing Cornell and the seven members of the Ivy League school’s Chi Phi fraternity house, alleging that she was pressured into taking ketamine and sexually assaulted for hours on October 19, 2024, at the house party in Ithaca, New York. She was 20 years old at the time. The president was asked Thursday by a reporter whether the university had “done enough to investigate” the alleged sexual abuse after the institution came under fire for its response following Doe’s bombshell lawsuit, filed last week. “Well, I don't know that much about it,” Trump began. “But Cornell's a fine school, and I'm sure they'll do what's right.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN7vm9mIPBs HARLOTTSVILLE