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Top 5 US news stories

November 3 2025

Greg Loving

03 Nov 2025 • 7 min read

After an epic Game 7 comeback against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Los Angeles Dodgers became repeat World Series champions. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

Trump, Democrats Engage in Partisan Redistricting Arms Race Ahead of Midterms

Chicago, Detroit Save Billions by Moving Retirees to ACA Exchanges

Palantir Lures Top High School Grads With 'Meritocracy Fellowship'

Mexican Mayor Assassinated After Pleading for Harder Line Against Cartels

Dodgers Repeat as Champions With Thrilling Comeback Victory Over Toronto

…US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ENTERS 34th DAY…

1. Trump, Democrats Engage in Partisan Redistricting Arms Race Ahead of Midterms

On a Friday morning in mid-October, Republican legislators in Indiana were summoned to a conference call with President Trump. Using a charm offensive rather than threats, the president implored the lawmakers to redraw their congressional maps to add two more Republican seats before the 2026 midterms. The change was critical to retain control of Congress and continue his agenda, he said. Roughly a week later, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, was in Illinois, making the case to Democratic lawmakers that they needed to redraw their own maps to offset the growing number of newly drawn Republican districts. The main reason to take such a partisan action, Mr. Jeffries said, was to give Democrats a fighting chance in the midterm elections as Mr. Trump tried to tilt the maps in his favor. Redrawing congressional maps ahead of a midterm election to eke out more safe seats before any votes are cast is not part of the ordinary run-up to the midterms. At such a national scale, it is a historic break from decades of settled norms regarding when and how legislative lines are drawn. Yet this midcycle redistricting effort is at the center of Mr. Trump’s strategy to win the midterms and prevent Democratic control of the House of Representatives, which would give Democrats the power to open investigations and thwart the president’s agenda. What began over the summer in Texas, with the drawing of five new Republican-favored seats at Mr. Trump’s behest, has spiraled into a nationwide redistricting arms race.

NYT

2. Chicago, Detroit Save Billions by Moving Retirees to ACA Exchanges

Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago was scrambling to close a $369 million deficit in 2013. The inception of ObamaCare offered an enticing target for cost shaving: retiree health coverage. The city expected to spend $194 million that year subsidizing health insurance for its retirees, many of whom were too young to qualify for Medicare. Such costs were projected to increase to $540 million by 2023 at the same time as pension payments were ballooning. While courts in Illinois and other states have held that public employee pensions are legally protected, governments have more latitude to make changes to medical benefits. So Mr. Emanuel dumped his city’s retirees onto the nascent ObamaCare exchanges, where federal subsidies can reduce premium payments....Chicago’s $2.1 billion unfunded retiree healthcare liability vanished. Now U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for Chicago’s retirees in their 50s and early 60s. Chicago isn’t alone....Detroit, Stockton, Calif., and San Bernardino, Calif., also saved billions by shifting pre-Medicare retirees to ObamaCare when they filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in the 2010s. That minimized cuts to workers’ compensation and pensions. Detroit’s $170 million annual retiree healthcare bill made up nearly 20% of its general fund budget, one of the city’s biggest costs. Other municipalities may move retirees to ObamaCare to avoid layoffs and tax hikes. ObamaCare could soon became a safety valve for underwater cities.

WSJ OPINION

Editors note: Historically, many cities and counties promised retiree health insurance to workers who left public service before they reached Medicare age (65). These benefits were negotiated through union contracts and were meant to “bridge” the gap between early retirement (often at 55–60) and Medicare eligibility.

3. Palantir Lures Top High School Grads With 'Meritocracy Fellowship'

At first, the idea of skipping college to take a fellowship for Palantir Technologies seemed preposterous to Matteo Zanini. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. “College is broken,” one Palantir post said. “Admissions are based on flawed criteria. Meritocracy and excellence are no longer the pursuits of educational institutions,” it said. The fellowship offered a path for high-school students to work full time at the company. After deciding to apply, Zanini found out he got the fellowship at around the same time he learned of his admission to Brown University. Brown wouldn’t allow him to defer and he had also landed a full-ride scholarship through the Department of Defense. “No one said to do the fellowship,” said Zanini, who turned 18 in September. “All of my friends, my teachers, my college counselor, it was a unanimous no.” His parents left the decision to him, and he decided to go with Palantir. Zanini is one of more than 500 high-school graduates who applied for Palantir’s “Meritocracy Fellowship”—an experiment launched under Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s thesis that existing American universities are no longer reliable or necessary for training good workers.

WSJ

4. Mexican Mayor Assassinated After Pleading for Harder Line Against Cartels

MEXICO CITY—A Mexican mayor who pleaded with President Claudia Sheinbaum to take a harder line against drug cartels was assassinated in a brazen public shooting Saturday night, the latest sign of the power of organized-crime groups that hold sway over much of the country. Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, the hub of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry in violence-torn Michoacán state, was gunned down as he officiated a candle-lighting ceremony observing the Day of the Dead in the city’s main plaza. He was shot seven times by a gunman who was killed by security forces, officials said. In recent months, Manzo had taken to national media to ask the federal government for more help in fighting gangs that ran extortion rackets across western Mexico for years. He said that criminals who resisted arrest should be killed if they didn’t surrender. Manzo, who also had served as a federal congressman representing Mexico’s ruling party, ran as an independent to win the Uruapan mayor’s race last year. He took a hands-on approach to law enforcement, wearing his trademark cowboy hat and a bulletproof vest as he accompanied police during patrols and raids, despite constant threats from criminal groups.

WSJ

5. Dodgers Repeat as Champions With Thrilling Comeback Victory Over Toronto

The Los Angeles Dodgers are your 2025 World Series champions! L.A. became the first team to repeat as titlists since the 2000 New York Yankees with a thrilling come-from-behind victory in Saturday's Game 7, topping the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in the 11th inning. It was the second consecutive seven-game series the Blue Jays had played, as they clinched a spot in the Fall Classic by outlasting the Seattle Mariners in the American League Championship Series after coming back from down 3-2 to do so. The Dodgers, meanwhile, booked their return trip by sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series.

ESPN

November 3 1957: Soviet Union launches a dog into space

The Soviet Union launches the first animal to orbit the earth into space—a dog nicknamed Laika—aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft. Laika, part Siberian husky, lived as a stray on the Moscow streets before being enlisted into the Soviet space program. Laika survived for a few hours as a passenger in the USSR’s second artificial Earth satellite, kept alive by a sophisticated life-support system. Electrodes attached to her body provided scientists on the ground with important information about the biological effects of space travel. She died from overheating and panic.

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