The violence of facelifts Unherd
🚨3I/ATLAS Just Got Bluer Than the Sun and Nobody Knows Why
3I/ATLAS is changing fast. As it hit perihelion on October 29 the interstellar object rapidly brightened and shifted to a color bluer than the Sun itself.
That’s what Avi Loeb just confirmed from new STEREO, SOHO, and… pic.twitter.com/UP48mn01Xs— Skywatch Signal (@UAPWatchers) October 30, 2025
From poison to power: How lead exposure helped shape human intelligence ScienceDaily (Anthony L)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
Coronavirus found in samples from 96% of flights AirSpot
⚠️ BREAKING:
Virologist warns of pandemic risk as bird flu spreads in Germany 🇩🇪
German virologist Klaus Stöhr warns growing H5N1 spread in Germany could spark a pandemic, saying the virus “has all the characteristics” needed.
He urged urgent vigilance and preparedness. pic.twitter.com/dEmwjlBmIg
— SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) (@COVID19_disease) October 31, 2025
Climate/Environment
The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink BioScience Oxford
After a modest decline over the first half of the year (and after record 2024 warmth), global temperatures are ticking back up. The past two days have been the warmest on record for this time of year in ERA5 and the highest temperature anomalies since January. pic.twitter.com/P9ObtsPBiZ
— Zeke Hausfather (@hausfath) October 28, 2025
China?
>Chinese pundits claim victory after Trump’s trade concessions Asia Times (Kevin W)
China’s rare earth export delay offers US a chance to weaken Beijing’s grip on the market Associated Press (Kevin W). Note top of the article at odds with headline. Is AP engaging in soft self censorship?
China NBS Manufacturing PMI falls to 49 in October, contraction deepens Action Forex
China housing slump deepens as oversupply drags prices PropertyGuru
Koreas
How North Korea will fight back against the South’s nuclear submarine plans NKPro
Antipodes
Australia’s housing market is turning sub-prime MacroBusiness
Africa
Hundreds reportedly killed at Sudanese hospital as evidence of RSF atrocities mounts Guardian
Sudan’s military expels top UN food aid officials as conflict escalates BBC
Tanzania shaken by unprecedented protests at ‘sham election’ Financial Times
South of the Border
Maduro turns to Moscow, Beijing, Tehran as US presence builds in Caribbean Anadolu Agency
Venezuela under Attack Vanessa Beeley and UK Column
European Disunion
ECB keeps interest rates on hold despite eurozone inflation fears Guardian
Euro-homeless, time to hit the trash heaps? TopWar (Micael T)
The municipal toolbox Makroskop via machine translation (Micael T). On addressing housing shortages.
Poland’s Superpower Dreams resurface after centuries Forum Geopolitica (Micael T)
What grim fate awaits EU member states? Just look in the Dutch crystal ball RT (Micael T)
The Left Wins the Irish Presidential Election in a Landslide Counterpunch (resilc)
Old Blighty
Rachel Reeves wants Brits investing — just as the City fears an AI bubble Politico
Isreal v. The Resistance
Testing boundaries James Dorsey
Israel has erected nearly 1,000 barriers in the West Bank during the war in Gaza, group says Independent
Lebanese president orders army to confront Israeli incursions after deadly raid Guardian
Iran rebuilding its ballistic missile program Long War Journal
Dubai: the dark truth — what lies beneath the wealth and glamour? The Standard (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
NATO’s Three-Pronged Response To The Latest Russian Scare Raises The Risk Of A Larger War Andrew Korybko
Moscow Won’t Accept Peace Without Rewriting the Post-1991 Order Global Affairs (Micael T)
Sending them to their deaths in war? Söder demands that Ukraine change the relaxed exit regulations for young men Nachdenkseiten via machine translaton (Micael T)
The Christchurch massacre and Ukraine Events in Ukraine
Imperial Collapse Watch
US begins troop drawdown in Romania Politico
Leaks expose collapse of EU/US-backed Belarusian ‘opposition’ The Grayzone
Trump 2.0
Red states to be hit hard by Trump disability eligibility rules Propublica. When I would fly the NYC-Birmingham, AL direct flight, the proportion of wheelchair passengers was much higher than on any other route I have traveled.
Chuck L notes, “When you’ve lost Bill Kristol…”
Purges of senior military officers.
If this were happening elsewhere, we'd understand right away what was happening.
It's hard to grasp that it's happening here. But it is…
https://t.co/ESDlODaPj6— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 30, 2025
‘Startup City’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’ Wired (Paul R)
Banks and retailers run short on pennies as the US Mint stops making them Associated Press (Kevin W). More incompetence. Australia got rid of the penny before 2002, and required retailers to round up or down to the nearest five cents.
Under Vinay Prasad, employees at a key FDA center fear speaking out, look for the exits STAT
Shutdown
Trump administration blocked from suspending Snap benefits for millions of Americans Guardian (Kevin W). See our related post. This frees up only a few weeks of emergency funding, although the plaintiffs contend more coins could be found in the couch cushions.
Tariffs
America’s Suez Warwick Powell
14 Republican lawmakers say Argentinian beef imports ‘undermine American cattle producers’ in new letter The Hill (resilc)
Immigration
Unmarked, Plate-Less Vehicles Seen in ICE Arrests Across U.S., Report Finds: ‘The Agency Clearly Wants to Appear Like a Ghost’Los Angeles Times (Paul R)
Sobbing daughter captures ICE ‘detain her mom for not having social security number memorized’ Mirror (resilc)
US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans Guardian
Charlie Kirk
State employees fired over Charlie Kirk posts inundate courts The Hill
Mamdani
Billionaires are spending big to stop Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral bid CNBC (Li)
Kathy Hochul admits socialist Zohran Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ plan would hurt NY’s middle class: ‘I cannot do that’ New York Post
Police State Watch
Pentagon orders states’ national guards to form ‘quick reaction forces’ for ‘crowd control’ Guardian
Our No Longer Free Press
Stephen Miller Wife CRASHES OUT On Cenk: Threatens Deportation Breaking Points. Entertaining if your taste runs to train wrecks and may also be an indicator of increased desperation among Israel allies in the US over having lost control of “the narrative”.
As I was saying: https://t.co/KfJ4Jqsc61
— Lara Friedman (@LaraFriedmanDC) November 1, 2025
For background:
Tucker Carlson tells Nick Fuentes he despises Christian Zionists more than anyone on earth, calling Christian Zionism a dangerous heresy within Christianity.
He names Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, John Bolton, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush as examples.
Carlson says Christian Zionism… pic.twitter.com/741M5Tuvbj
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) October 28, 2025
EU parliament could block Russian media – Politico RT (Micael T)
Mr. Market is Moody
How Bad Could the Private-Credit Crisis Get? Just Look at 1929 Barrons
BlackRock loses $500m on shadow banking blow-up Telegraph. BlackRock is a latecomer to this business.
Proliferation of private credit raises fears of looming financial crisis NPR
Oracle Bond Risk Jumps on Concerns Over AI Spending Spree Bloomberg
Economy
Largest capacity purge in history coming Freight News
Federal Reserve plans to shrink board of top banking supervisor Financial Times
The Bezzle
Crazy stat of the day:
Nvidia’s market cap is now greater than the GDP of every country in the world except US and China
Totally normal pic.twitter.com/s6N0YTBC3S
— Ankur Nagpal (@ankurnagpal) October 29, 2025
NVIDIA × Samsung — The Barter Relationship:
I give you 50,000 GPUs, you supply me with memory chips. I recognize revenue, you recognize revenue. No cash needed — cash is useless. pic.twitter.com/TDephlFs87— Kakashii (@kakashiii111) October 31, 2025
A closer look at the record-smashing ‘Hyperion’ corporate bond sale Financial Times
Meta Stock Plummets as Investors Horrified at How Much Zuckerberg Is Spending on Misfired AI Futurism
How A Pharma Giant Is Looting The Pentagon The Lever
Big tech’s futile attempt to kill death New Statesman (Micael T)
Guillotine Watch
Royal Flush: Sotheby’s to Sell Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-Karat Gold Toilet in New York ART News)
Class Warfare
Mapped: Where U.S. Families are Most Strained by Debt Visual Capitalist (resilc)
⚠️The US job market is in a RECESSION:
The long-term unemployment rate (jobless for 27+ weeks) hit 25.7% of all unemployed people, the highest in 4 YEARS.
When this metric first breached 25% during the FINANCIAL CRISIS, the US was already more than a year into recession. pic.twitter.com/yq0P1JlngN
— Global Markets Investor (@GlobalMktObserv) October 29, 2025
Americans are drowning in auto loan debt CNBC
Chipotle stock craters as company says young people without jobs can’t afford their food anymore Yahoo
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
This lion pride getting pranked by an Elephant 😂 pic.twitter.com/IlklIlXwMz
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) October 30, 2025
A second bonus:
The dog had no clue what was going on and just stared at the police officer like, “Sir, I’m gonna need some context.”pic.twitter.com/5WNJxAjkUg
— Puppies 🐶 (@PuppiesIover) October 31, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Goooooooood Mooooooorning Fiatnam!
It was painfully obvious what the extraterrestrials on board 3I/Atlas were thinking, they’d heard from across the universe about Bitcoin and were eager to invest, the blue light emanating from the spacecraft an attempt to fill a buy order, alas out of range yet.
“‘Sobbing daughter captures ICE ‘detain her mom for not having social security number memorized”
I got an idea. All those emigrants could easily have their Social Security number tattooed on their lower arms and as it is only 9 digits, would not have to be big. That way if ICE pulls them up, they can proudly pull up their sleeves and show those agents their Social Security number as that seems to be the only number they are interested in. Any resemblance to this idea and a practise that was undertaken in Eastern Europe in WW2 is just a coincidence.
Really interesting article on lead exposure in early humans. Loved the points made regarding Neanderthal extinction and the potential linkages to Speech Sound Disorder and Autism.
Radiation hormesis now comes to lead, just in time for the Trump Administration to loosen pollution restrictions. Convenient!
I was very much surprised to read how many of those caves were contaminated by lead. How did that work out? It seems to have been widespread but I would have assumed that having places with lead deposits as well as developed caves would have only been a very small percentage and not over 70% like is suggested here.
“US begins troop drawdown in Romania”
Not just Romania but apparently Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia as well in December. I would imagine some panic in NATO over this as there might be the suspicion that Trump will eventually reduce US troop numbers until there is only a tripwire force left in Europe-
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/63332
Not much profit to be had from only a tripwire force.
Dubai: the dark truth — what lies beneath the wealth and glamour? – The Standard
Read to me like an indictment of many parts of the world including Dubai.
It takes global partners of privilege to create that kind of system. Some multipolar exploitation going on there.
China? I cannot find official Chinese confirmation that China will pause its rare earths export permits, per an X post by Arnaud B:
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1983910248416211116
– I checked and was unable to find a notice on the official Chinese govt website regarding rare earths – but did find notices on tariff rates and soy beans. Although we have Trump The Fantabulists’ words (echoed by the media), however, he has form.
If so, the economic implications to high tech (and the MICC) remain.
I also recall that in the prior restriction, I read a report where after several months, China was only able to process a handful of permits. I also saw nothing about Nexperia.
Side note, for a 90-minute meeting, 20-30 minutes are for opening statements, 10 minutes for closing statements, so 50-70 minutes of translation-slowed discussions means equivalent to ~20 minutes of normal discussion for issues with complex details. So did they run out of time before discussing rare earths, or was it just a case of:
Trump: “About those rare earths?”
Xi, “不是 (Bushi) – No.”
Trump: “So No Lunch or press briefing.”
Xi “Yes.”
Trump: “Fine, I was going to order a round of fast food burgers.”
Xi “Fine: We will buy some soybeans, if you drop tarriffs.”
Trump: “Ok. Ummm. Hmmmm. How’s the weather in Beijing these days?”
I wouldn’t put it past Trump to lie. He has made shit up before. “24 hours to end the Ukraine war.”
Part of the issue is that nothing is in writing. Both parties are free to exaggerate, charitably. Trump has changed his mind so many times and flip-flopped that these may be Schrödinger’s tariffs.
‘Heather Johnston
@HeatherJ_Israel
My name is Heather Johnston, and I am the Founder and President of @USIEducation
I am deeply concerned about the hate that Tucker Carlson is spreading in our country.
As a supporter of the Heritage Foundation, I am asking Dr. Kevin Roberts to clarify his statement regarding Carlson.
Israel is central to God’s divine purpose, and we need to know where the Heritage Foundation stands. @KevinRobertsTX’
Oh god. It’s Zionist Karen. And she’s demanding to talk to the manager of the Heritage Foundation.
The tucker Carlson interview was my first real exposure to Nick Fuentes. I’m almost done, but I’ve watched most of it.
I actually thought that he came off as reasonable. He’s a very good and talented speaker, maintains a good flow and poise. He’s overcome a lot which is impressive, was kicked off YouTube, was on the no fly list, was being threatened, had hundreds of people come to his home, etc
After he did a debate in college, a daily wire employee asked him if he’d like to visit Israel, he said no.
But the main reason that he has a bright future is that the establishment is not providing an alternative. Nobody under 40 is ever going to be passionate about Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz or Ben Shapiro.