Seattle Bans Grocery Chains from Blocking New Stores

October 29, 2025

Grocery Store (2) — Grocery Store (nrd/Unsplash)

The Seattle City Council unanimously passed an emergency ordinance Tuesday banning “restrictive covenants” that prevent new grocery stores and pharmacies from opening in locations previously used for those purposes. The move comes in response to growing food and medicine deserts across multiple Seattle neighborhoods.

The ordinance, Council Bill 121094, targets anti-competitive tactics in which grocery store chains place legal covenants on properties they vacate, blocking potential competitors from moving in. In some cases, these restrictions were designed to last up to 50 years, keeping critical services out of neighborhoods with few alternatives.

“Access to food is a human right,” said Councilmember Debora Juarez. “It should not be limited due to barriers put in place by grocery store owners.”

The measure, proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and Council President Sara Nelson, took effect immediately and will remain in place for one year while the city studies permanent policy options. The legislation also declares a public health emergency due to recent closures, including a Whole Foods Market in Capitol Hill and a Fred Meyer in Lake City.

In tandem with the ordinance, Mayor Harrell issued an executive order directing city officials to explore the purchase of the Lake City property and other potential grocery store sites. The plan includes possible zoning and permitting changes to encourage development and third-party partnerships to operate food stores in underserved areas.

The push for stronger food access mirrors a broader debate happening in cities like New York, where socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has advocated for publicly owned grocery stores. In Seattle, Harrell’s mayoral opponent, Katie Wilson, supports a public-option model where the city would partner with a private grocer or union to maintain affordable access.

Opponents warn that government intervention in the grocery business could lead to inefficiencies, wasted spending, and political interference in commercial real estate markets. Still, Seattle’s leadership appears united in its short-term goal of removing legal barriers to market competition and improving access to basic necessities in struggling neighborhoods.

Mamdani Rides Asian Immigrant Wave to Shock NYC Lead

October 29, 2025

Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist and current front-runner in New York City’s mayoral race, is surging in support among Asian immigrant communities, according to reports this week. Mamdani has built a commanding lead by campaigning in immigrant-heavy enclaves, positioning his far-left platform as a tool for economic “liberation.”

Mamdani’s strategy has upended political assumptions, particularly regarding the voting patterns of Asian Americans. In areas that previously supported centrist incumbent Eric Adams, Mamdani dominated the Democratic primary, securing large margins in neighborhoods like Pelham Parkway — a Vietnamese American community in the Bronx where he beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 10 points.

Mamdani’s message of socialist reform found strong support in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where he won the primary by 28 points, and in Brooklyn’s Asian-majority 49th Assembly District, where he led by 16 points — despite Republican Assemblyman Lester Chang running unopposed in the same area just last year.

According to Jacobin magazine, Mamdani has gained traction by tailoring his economic pitch to first- and second-generation immigrants, many of whom live in lower-income neighborhoods and face rising living costs. His campaign paints traditional economic structures as exploitative, seeking to use government intervention to “liberate” residents from what he frames as corporate greed.

While Cuomo performed better in the Bronx overall, Mamdani outperformed him in key immigrant communities, showing a distinct divide between the native-born and foreign-born electorate.

A recent Patriot Polling survey underscores this shift: Mamdani commands 62% of the vote among foreign-born New Yorkers, compared to Cuomo’s 24% and Republican Curtis Sliwa’s 12%. However, among native-born citizens, Cuomo leads with 40%, while Mamdani falls to 31% and Sliwa climbs to 25%.

The numbers highlight how mass immigration is reshaping the city’s political dynamics. Mamdani’s success suggests a growing reliance on foreign-born voter blocs that are more receptive to far-left economic policies, even in traditionally conservative ethnic enclaves.

Trump’s War at Sea, Narco-Terror Fleets Crushed by U.S. Strikes

October 29, 2025

President Trump told U.S. troops aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, Japan, that interdiction operations in the Caribbean have been so effective “we can’t find a ship” loaded with drugs anymore. The president credited Pete Hegseth — introduced by administration aides as “Secretary of War” — for leading aggressive military action that has destroyed trafficker vessels and crippled maritime smuggling routes.

The speech reiterated a hardline posture toward transnational criminal networks. “Those drug ships aren’t coming in anymore. We can’t find a ship,” President Trump said, adding praise for Hegseth’s role and sacrifice. The renaming of Hegseth’s title signaled a broader administration embrace of more forceful rhetoric and tactics in confronting the flow of narcotics.

Operations ordered by the White House began in September. The campaign culminated recently in the largest single strike to date: three separate airstrikes that destroyed four vessels off the Pacific coast of Colombia. Officials reported 14 suspected narco‑terrorists killed and one survivor rescued and turned over to Mexican authorities after a joint search effort. Since September, U.S. strikes have reportedly destroyed at least 14 boats, producing roughly 57 casualties across operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Pete Hegseth framed the campaign as defensive and urgent. “The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own,” he said, vowing to “track,” “network,” and “hunt and kill” narco‑terrorists who reportedly have been responsible for large numbers of American deaths. The administration argued that kinetic strikes at sea, conducted in international waters, have disrupted supply chains and hindered cartel operations that fuel addiction and violence at home.

Critics decried the tactic. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D‑Md.) labeled the strikes “illegal” and “extrajudicial killings,” urging arrests and upstream targeting of cartel leadership rather than battlefield eliminations at sea. Republicans and administration supporters countered that conventional law‑enforcement approaches had failed to stop the flow of deadly narcotics and that military action was necessary to protect American communities.

The episode illustrates a stark policy divide: one side advocating expanded use of force to choke smuggling routes and save lives, the other warning about legality, oversight, and the diplomatic ramifications of maritime strikes. For an administration prioritizing tough measures on border security and drug interdiction, the successes at sea have become both a public-relations centerpiece and a test case for how far U.S. power may be applied outside conventional battlefields.

Congressional Staff Stunned, No Paycheck This Month

October 29, 2025

white house — White House (Ana Lanza/Unsplash)

Congressional staffers were notified this week that they will not receive their October 31 paychecks due to the ongoing government shutdown, now in its 29th day. The announcement follows repeated Senate Democrat rejections of Republican-led continuing resolutions to reopen the government.

In a memo sent Wednesday, House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor confirmed that “paychecks will not be disbursed until after appropriations legislation is enacted.” The pay period covering October 1–31 was scheduled for direct deposit on Friday, October 31. However, without a funding agreement, those payments are on hold.

The shutdown is also disrupting Congress’s student loan repayment program. Szpindor warned staff that payments under the House Retention through Education Advancement Program (REAP) would not be processed. She urged staffers to contact lenders to make alternate arrangements, emphasizing the House does not assume responsibility for staff loans.

According to NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman, staffers, who are paid monthly, had already been informed their pay would be delayed. The paycheck freeze adds to growing pressure on Congress to resolve the funding standoff, as other government services also face disruption.

At the same time, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is scheduled to run out at the end of the month, affecting an estimated 42 million Americans. While Vice President JD Vance said military pay will continue for now—thanks in part to a $130 million private donation from billionaire Trump ally Timothy Mellon—he acknowledged the administration is facing serious challenges, particularly with SNAP.

Despite the mounting consequences, Senate Democrats once again blocked a clean continuing resolution this week. The CR, which needs 60 votes to pass, failed for the 13th time after most Democrats refused to support it. Only Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Angus King (I-ME) crossed the aisle to vote in favor.

The refusal by Democrat leadership to pass temporary funding has now put Capitol Hill staffers, SNAP recipients, and other federal workers in the crosshairs of political brinkmanship.

White House Tensions Erupt Over Charlie Kirk Assassination Probe

October 29, 2025

A rift has emerged inside the Trump administration after National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent launched an independent investigation into whether Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, had help from a foreign government or another group. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Kent’s actions have caused concern at the FBI and among top administration officials.

Kent reportedly accessed FBI case materials provided by a lower-level official without prior approval from FBI Director Kash Patel. Sources say Patel was unaware of Kent’s actions and was “troubled” by the breach of protocol. FBI officials believe Kent may have jeopardized the prosecution by potentially interfering with the investigation.

The situation prompted a pair of tense meetings at the White House involving Kent, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and several high-ranking officials including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General appointees, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The first meeting reportedly yielded little progress due to mounting friction between Gabbard’s office and the FBI. A second meeting was held to ease tensions.

Kent, one of Gabbard’s closest advisers, has come under scrutiny for his handling of the high-profile case. Some administration officials fear his efforts could unintentionally strengthen the defense of Robinson, who is already facing charges in the politically explosive case.

Despite the controversy, Patel and Gabbard issued a joint statement defending the aggressive pursuit of leads: “The FBI and intelligence community under the direction of President Trump will leave no stone unturned in the investigation of the assassination of our friend, Charlie Kirk.”

The internal clash highlights growing friction between intelligence officials and law enforcement within the Trump administration. As the investigation unfolds, questions remain about how much oversight was bypassed and whether internal coordination broke down in one of the most sensitive national security cases in recent memory.

Democrats Using Shutdown to Cover Obamacare Collapse

October 29, 2025

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says Democrats are deliberately prolonging the government shutdown to distract from the unraveling of Obamacare, which he describes as a failed system propped up by temporary subsidies and media spin. Speaking on Breitbart News Daily, Johnson argued that the true motive behind the Democrat-led standoff is to “mask the failure of Obamacare.”

“I’ll never understand the mind of a Democrat, and they do some pretty wacky things,” Johnson said. But in this case, he believes their actions are strategic. “What they are primarily interested in doing is covering up, masking the failure of Obamacare.”

Johnson explained that the current fight over extending enhanced subsidies is not about helping working families, but about shielding the public from the realities of a broken system. “They allowed premiums to skyrocket on the individual market because of the faulty design,” he said. The subsidies were introduced during COVID as a temporary measure, but Democrats are now pushing to make them permanent in order to keep Obamacare from collapsing under its own weight.

“They realized if those subsidies expired, people are going to really understand what a massive failure Obamacare is,” Johnson said. “So they’ve concocted this shutdown narrative to try and blame Republicans for the consequences of their own policies.”

He pointed out how legacy media outlets are helping the Democrats spin the story. “Unfortunately, you’ve got a lot of the lame stream media playing along with them, but I think that’s wearing a little thin.”

Johnson also highlighted the damage Obamacare has done to the individual insurance market. Before the Affordable Care Act, about 12 million Americans had access to flexible short-term plans that met their needs. Obamacare eliminated those options, scrapped high-risk pools, and forced those individuals into rigid, one-size-fits-all government plans—driving up premiums in the process.

“They forced that 12 million Americans to pick up the full cost of covering pre-existing conditions rather than using high-risk pools to spread the cost across everyone,” Johnson explained.

Calling it the “Unaffordable Care Act,” Johnson said Democrats want to paper over its failures by throwing more taxpayer money at it. “They don’t want people to know what a failure this law really was. They just want to mask it.”

He urged Republicans to stand firm. “Republicans had better not go along with that. I’m surely not going to. We need all of our Republican colleagues to dig our heels in, put up with the lies, and stay strong.”

Johnson concluded by emphasizing that the solution lies in free-market reforms, not more government spending.

Waymo CEO Admits Fatal Crashes Are Inevitable with Self-Driving Cars

October 29, 2025

Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana says society will accept the eventual deaths caused by self-driving cars as part of the cost of innovation. During an onstage interview at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mawakana admitted that despite years of development, autonomous vehicles will never be perfect and fatal accidents are a matter of “when,” not “if.”

“I think that society will,” Mawakana responded when asked if the public would accept a death caused by a robotaxi. She added that transparency and high safety standards are essential, pointing to Waymo’s public safety data hub as proof of the company’s openness. However, she made it clear that safety does not mean perfection. “We know it’s not perfection,” she said. “We say ‘when.’ And we plan for them.”

Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, claims its self-driving cars will drastically reduce traffic deaths in the long term. Still, Mawakana acknowledged the company frequently slows down or reverses rollout plans when safety issues arise. One example: their ongoing struggle to ensure robotaxis don’t interfere with emergency response vehicles.

That concern became reality when a Waymo robotaxi recently ignored San Francisco firefighters battling a blaze and nearly ran over an active fire hose. Police bodycam footage showed officers scrambling to stop the vehicle. “It doesn’t know what to do!” one officer yelled as the car slowly approached the water line. “I don’t trust this AI,” another officer told dispatch.

Waymo eventually intervened remotely, but the incident added to public skepticism surrounding the safety of driverless cars operating in dense cities.

Without naming names, Mawakana criticized rivals like Tesla and Cruise for failing to meet safety and transparency standards. “If you are not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary in order to actually earn the right to make the roads safer,” she said.

Waymo’s comments and recent incidents are likely to intensify debates over whether self-driving vehicles can be safely deployed at scale — and whether Americans are truly ready to pay the ultimate price for AI on the road.

Bill Gates Backtracks on Climate Craze

October 29, 2025

Bill Gates has backtracked from his previous statements espousing climate alarmism, now declaring that so-called climate change will “not lead to humanity’s demise.”

The statement contrasts with a statement made in 2020, when Gates said that a “global crisis has shocked the world.”

“Obviously, I am talking about COVID-19. But in just a few decades, the same description will fit another global crisis: climate change,” he wrote at the time. “As awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse.” Gates added that the “the only way to avoid the worst possible climate outcomes is to accelerate our efforts now.”

Ahead of the annual United Nations climate conference, COP30, Gates changed his tone, now suggesting that the primary goal should be to “prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries,” rather than focusing on “emissions and temperature change.”

“People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future,” Gates expressed, adding that the “doomsday outlook” on the subject has caused “much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it’s diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”

“To be clear: Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition,” Gates argued. “Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.”

In 2023, Gates asserted that “the planet is going to be fine.”

“There’s a lot of climate exaggeration,” he said. “The climate is not the end of the planet. So the planet is going to be fine.”

Trump Expands U.S. Power in Pacific

October 29, 2025

Trump South Korea — (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The United States and South Korea finalized a trade agreement as part of President Trump’s tour of Asia.

The agreement, centered on science and technology, aims to further U.S. energy dominance, advance the digital revolution, and build maritime partnership.

Under the deal, Korean Air will purchase 103 new Boeing aircraft, valued at $36.2 billion, which is expected to support up to 135,000 jobs across the United States. Korean Air will also purchase GE Aerospace engines in a separate deal valued at $13.7 billion to power the aircraft. The White House explained in a fact sheet that the agreement also expands cooperation with South Korea for “AI exports, AI standards, AI adoption, research security, 6G, biotech supply chains, and quantum innovation.”

Furthermore, the trade agreement secures investments from South Korea for the modernization and expansion of U.S. shipbuilding efforts. This includes a partnership between HD Hyundai and Cerberus Capital Management, cooperation between Samsung Heavy Industries and Vigor Marine Group, and an infrastructure plan from Hanwha Ocean to strengthen Pennsylvania’s Philly Shipyard.

The White House celebrated the deal, stating that the visit to South Korea “underscored America’s prominent role as the preeminent Pacific power” and builds upon the “historic trade victories” President Trump secured while in Japan and Malaysia.

Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said of the deal: “The Trump Administration is redefining American technological leadership by driving bilateral collaborative partnerships with allies like Japan and Korea. Each Technology Prosperity Deal offers great opportunities to accelerate scientific discovery and lead the world into a new era of innovation driven by the US and our partners.”

NASA Unveils ‘Revolutionary’ Supersonic Aircraft

October 29, 2025

fighter jet — (Image by Getty Images/guvendemir)

Lockheed Martin, in partnership with NASA, completed the first flight of the X-59, described as a “revolutionary, quiet supersonic aircraft designed to pave the way for faster commercial air travel.”

The aircraft took off from Skunk Works’ facility at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, landing near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. According to the defense contractor, the aircraft performed “exactly as planned.”

The X-59 is considered a “one-of-a-kind supersonic aircraft” that can fly at supersonic speeds while “reducing the sonic boom to a gentle thump,” Lockheed Martin explained. In doing so, the airframe overcomes “one of the primary barriers to supersonic commercial flight, which is currently restricted over land due to noise concerns.”

“We are thrilled to achieve the first flight of the X-59,” said OJ Sanchez, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. “This aircraft is a testament to the innovation and expertise of our joint team, and we are proud to be at the forefront of quiet supersonic technology development.”

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy hailed the aircraft as a “symbol of American ingenuity.”

“The American spirit knows no bounds. It’s part of our DNA – the desire to go farther, faster, and even quieter than anyone has ever gone before,” Duffy stated. “This work sustains America’s place as the leader in aviation and has the potential to change the way the public flies.”

Lockheed Martin has also announced plans to conduct an on‑orbit demonstration of a space‑based missile interceptor by 2028 in support of President Trump’s Golden Dome for America.