Robert Lloyd

Thursday is a paid holiday. Because Flavor Flav said so.

Despite the agency's human resources department saying he hadn’t even been onboarded, Jeremy Lewin oversaw the destruction of USAID. It’s not clear he had the legal authority to do so.

In newspapers around the world, the report that Donald Trump raped Béatrice Keul in an Atlantic City hotel room commands huge headlines. In US corporate media, it isn't reported. Ask yourself why that might be. Here's the front page of today's Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich.

Facing severe political attacks and threats, Muslim civil-liberties activists in Texas are urging their communities to vote. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Regular reminder that when you go to things while sick, you are giving those germs to people with autoimmune disorders, you’re passing them to someone’s newborn, to someone’s elderly parents. It’s “just a cold” to you but it can and does severely impact countless people.

The NBA is now partnering with prediction markets -- diving for dollars in a toxic pool dwightjaynes.substack.com/p/the-nba-is... #NBA

Hungarian PM Péter Magyar: "I have just spoken by phone with the leaders of the Students List, who won the elections in Serbia, to congratulate them... I assured them of Hungary’s support. I was delighted to hear how much strength our victory in April had given them during this difficult struggle."

It’s so insane how the president commenting on a Black woman’s body like this is not even remotely going to make the news cycle. It’s just another day

Two new outposts of the Victoria & Albert Museum make a vibrant case for handmade craft in an age of A.I. slop. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Missouri's Amendment 3 would restore an abortion ban with limited exceptions, but its ads focus on a different provision: banning gender transition care for minors. The campaign website never explicitly states it would repeal the constitutional right to abortion voters approved 2 years ago.

The Ramaswamy ad has pushed the largest newspaper in Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to reverse its position on endorsements. "A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party."

Surprise, surprise.

Pretty accurate.

Walter Koenig's Pavel Chekov was one of Gene Roddenberry's biggest swings with the original series. For season 2, he put a Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise, on prime time network television, just 5 short years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and during the height of the Cold War. 🥺

California should choose the sun. @xavierbecerra.bsky.social has proposed Power Hour, providing two free hours of electricity to households in the middle of the day. Wrote about how this would benefit California families and our grid for @latimes.com. ☀️⬇️

Meanwhile, pro-democracy, pro-Europe protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, are tonight nearing their 700th consecutive day of protest against the pro-Russian government. They haven't missed a single day in the last 23 months.

Lonnie Rouse worked at the Hanford nuclear site for nearly 20 years. It was so toxic, he said, that the floor once melted the rubber off his boots. Now he needs 24-hour care. The DOE has appealed his workers’ compensation claim more than 20 times.

Under Lulu, Amazon deforestation rates have been plummeting—by 41%. The planet won tonight. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The achievement of Serbian students overthrowing Aleksandar Vučić can't be overstated. In 2024, they began protesting. In 2025, they transformed a protest movement into civil dissidence. In 2026, they became a political party — and two months later, crushed a corrupt state-entrenched authoritarian.

Lula wins Brazilian record fourth term, defies Latin America’s rightward shift, is first to win runoff after finishing second in opening round, will face hostile Congress; Flávio has not yet conceded (his father still hasn’t conceded 2022)

"[A] child ... was forced into a hours-long virtual asylum interview one day after being hospitalized for a cardiac event. She requested to end the interview because she was experiencing pain in her chest, visibly crying and clutching her heart. The asylum officer insisted she continue[.]"

Finally, some actual good news in the world for once. apnews.com/article/serb...

Straight into my veins Young ppl realizing the red-pill path is one big con 🥹🥹🥹

www.pennlive.com/politics/202...

🌳Love it

the navy isn't as much of a surprise but i was not expecting we'd get the United States Marines in the national divorce

My uncle was the tsar of all the Russias. He later married Jean Harlow. And he invented the electric guitar. Since we're just making shit up.

Thursday review of television. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

The United States of America is bathing in shame.

Meta hit with $25-billion penalty for misleading Facebook users about data privacy

Lesson: don’t settle with these defendants.

Mood.

Everything these guys do to avoid the billionaire’s’ tax is going to radicalize people to vote for it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/t...

A scoop from me: CBS-owned local stations' election coverage will be sponsored by DraftKings, a deal that has stirred concern inside the company. www.status.news/p/cbs-draftk...

Seen this story all day today. Every headline says "27 year old Minnesota man..." I have yet to see one with the headline that the man was Somalian. The most maligned and denigrated group in Minnesota www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/2...

United Nations report highlights significant increase in U.S. climate pollution: www.npr.org/2026/10/21/n...

Gary Tyler, a quilt artist who spent decades on death row for a crime he didn’t commit, now has his first solo exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

Noted radical... Hillary Clinton... now in favor of court expansion. :)

Naza, coming soon to a theater near(er) you

How Wikipedia’s Editors Keep the Online Encyclopedia Human-Written spectrum.ieee.org/wikipedia-wi...

Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month www.scientificamerican.com/article/phys...

Wednesday review of television. It's a(nother) "social experiment."https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2026-10-21/the-new-stanford-prison-experiment-review-netflix

Just 10 people have already poured over $1 BILLION into this year’s midterm elections. 90% has gone to Republicans. In the entire 2008 presidential cycle, the last election before Citizens United, total billionaire spending was $16 million. We need to get Big Money out of our democracy.

My advice to Democratic candidates is simple: Don’t take advice from “Democratic strategists” who spend the two weeks leading up to Election Day running to the nearest television studio to bash Democratic candidates.