Top 5 US news stories

Washington Shows Little Urgency as Shutdown Enters Second Week

Indiana Residents Successfully Block $1B Google Data Center

Musk Builds Massive AI Supercomputer Hub in Memphis Area

Trump Mobilizes Troops in Chicago; Federal Judge Halts Guard Deployment in Oregon

Trio Wins Nobel for T-Cell Research, Paving Way for New Cancer Treatments

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…US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ENTERS 6th DAY…

1. Washington Shows Little Urgency as Shutdown Enters Second Week

At the White House, President Trump is posting A.I.-generated memes about the government shutdown, depicting his wonky budget director dressed as the Grim Reaper and ready to visit death on the federal bureaucracy. In the Senate, Democrats show no sign of backing down from their demands in the shutdown fight, while Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, has given verbal shrugs to reporters who ask about the status of his nonexistent negotiations with the other party about how to bring the crisis to an end. “I don’t know that there’s a lot to sort out,” Mr. Thune said on MSNBC on Friday, before sending senators home for the weekend. And in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson has canceled votes for this week, telling his members they could stay home for the third straight week given the shutdown logjam. With Mr. Trump and lawmakers having made no progress on a deal that would reopen the government, one thing was clear as the shutdown headed into its second workweek: There was little sense of urgency in Washington about cleaning up a mess that has thousands of federal workers facing furloughs and possible layoffs, and could disrupt critical federal programs. It all reflects the reality of two parties so convinced that they have the political advantage in their partisan battle that a shutdown has seemed inevitable for weeks, and a quick resolution feels out of reach.

NYT

2. Indiana Residents Successfully Block $1B Google Data Center

Google nixed plans for a gigantic $1 billion data center on more than 460 acres of land in Indiana after residents hotly protested the proposal due to concerns that the complex would jack up electricity prices for neighbors and suck away untold gallons of water in an area already plagued with drought. The tech behemoth was planning to rezone the acreage for the data center, but then withdrew the plans at a raucous Monday meeting where the Indianapolis City Council was expected to vote on whether to approve the rezoning, according to NPR affiliate WFYI. Cheers reportedly broke out among the overflowing crowd when attorneys from Google said they were pulling out. “We beat Google,” said one unidentified woman, quoted in a X video posted by progressive group More Perfect Union. “For a long time, we felt like four people with cardboard swords fighting a monster but tonight shows that people power still rings.” But this may just be a blip in a continuing struggle; Google can resubmit the proposal in as soon as three months from now, according to The Indianapolis Star; protesters said they will be on the look out if the project comes back from the dead.

Futurism

3. Musk Builds Massive AI Supercomputer Hub in Memphis Area

MEMPHIS—For Elon Musk, ground zero of the artificial intelligence arms race is a 114-acre tract of grass and swamp on the state line of Tennessee and Mississippi. This once-sleepy plot of land, filled with groves of water-rooted tupelo trees at its western edge, is now part of a growing empire Musk is accumulating in the Deep South, just a few miles from Elvis Presley’s homestead at Graceland. Labor crews hired by Musk’s xAI were excavating power equipment on the site—a defunct energy plant just over the state line in Mississippi—and preparing to build a new plant capable of generating over a gigawatt of electricity, enough to power around 800,000 homes. Engineering permits show that Musk plans to route transmission lines that will connect the new power plant to a million-square-foot data center that is also under development just north of the border, in Tennessee. Memphis is the front line of Musk’s costly foray into the AI wars. His artificial intelligence company, xAI, has already built one massive data center here in the Bluff City that it calls the world’s largest supercomputer. That facility, called “Colossus,” houses over 200,000 Nvidia chips and powers the technology behind the AI chatbot Grok. Now, Musk is close to finishing the second facility, which will be even bigger. He calls it Colossus 2. The AI arms race is shaping up as the most expensive corporate battle of the 21st century, with the belief that the first to the finish line will dominate the market, making speed crucial. Money also makes the difference: The more cutting-edge chips companies have, the smarter their models are. But at this stage it’s unclear if or when the enormous investments will pay off. Technology companies that are splashing out to hire AI talent are writing even bigger checks to build the infrastructure needed to power cutting-edge AI models. Morgan Stanley estimates companies will spend over $3 trillion on AI infrastructure through 2028.

WSJ

4. Trump Mobilizes Troops in Chicago; Federal Judge Halts Guard Deployment in Oregon

A. President Trump’s mobilization of Illinois National Guard troops Saturday capped a tense week in Chicagoland. Federal agents made arrests in tourist areas, they conducted a massive nighttime raid on a South Side apartment building, and they skirmished with protesters outside a migrant processing facility and on city streets. Illinois Democrats say the show of force is meant to intimidate and instill fear. “Illinois is not a photo opportunity or warzone, it’s a sovereign state where our people deserve rights, respect, and answers,” said Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, in a social-media post. The White House maintains the efforts are necessary to make the city safer. Trump has been increasingly using the military on U.S. soil to either participate in what he has called a crime crackdown—or protect immigration buildings and agents from Americans protesting his immigration policies.

B. A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the deployment of any National Guard under the Trump administration’s control inside Oregon in an emergency hearing Sunday night. Judge Karin Immergut had said on Saturday that the Trump administration had overstepped its authority and couldn’t deploy Oregon’s National Guard to Portland. She said the same reasoning held for Sunday’s order, which came after the administration sent to Oregon 200 California National Guard troops that were under its command. The Trump administration also authorized the mobilization of up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard for federal protection missions in cities including Portland and Chicago. The temporary order expires in 14 days.

WSJ

5. Trio Wins Nobel for T-Cell Research, Paving Way for New Cancer Treatments

Immunologists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that spurred the development of new treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases and laid the foundation for a new field of research. “Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases,” said Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee, during the announcement ceremony Monday. The laureates identified the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells, which prevent immune cells from attacking our own body. Japanese immunologist Sakaguchi made the first key finding in 1995 when he discovered a previously unknown class of immune cells that protect the body from autoimmune diseases. American duo Brunkow and Ramsdell made a further key discovery in 2001, when they presented the explanation for why a specific mouse strain was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases. The laureates’ discoveries went on to launch the development of medical treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. Brunkow is based at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Ramsdell at the Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, while Sakaguchi is a distinguished professor at Japan’s Osaka University. The group will share the 11 million Swedish kronor, or roughly $1.1 million, prize.

WSJ

October 6 1866: The Reno brothers carry out the first train robbery in U.S. history

On October 6, 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana. Of course, trains had been robbed before the Reno brothers’ holdup. But these previous crimes had all been burglaries of stationary trains sitting in depots or freight yards. The Reno brothers’ contribution to criminal history was to stop a moving train in a sparsely populated region where they could carry out their crime without risking interference from the law or curious bystanders.

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Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/us/politics/parties-deadlock-shutdown.html
2. https://futurism.com/future-society/residents-shut-down-google-data-center
3. https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-xai-memphis-tennessee-power-dec4c70d?st=CtYWhM&reflink=article_copyURL_share
4. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/behind-chicagos-tense-week-protester-clashes-and-tactical-gear-downtown-73d069b2?st=YccSXD&reflink=article_copyURL_share
5. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/california-troops-sent-to-oregon-after-court-bars-oregon-guard-deployment-5545de00?st=iWEoMp&reflink=article_copyURL_share
6. https://www.wsj.com/science/trio-wins-nobel-prize-in-medicine-for-discoveries-on-immune-system-0b566e73?mod=hp_lead_pos10