Thursday, October 1, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The Supreme Court opened its new term by taking up a case that could shield oil companies from climate accountability, threatening a yearslong legal campaign and dozens of lawsuits seeking to hold the industry responsible for climate change. The highest court moves to protect capital just as the damage mounts. The same machinery is being retooled below it: a quiet rule change now lets Trump's SEC rewrite Wall Street's rules with a single vote — what the report calls "the end of independent financial regulators" — as the agency prepares to deregulate crypto, mega-IPOs and corporate governance.

The retreat extends to the science. A powerful El Niño is influencing extreme weather around the planet, yet NOAA is scaling back the research that could sharpen forecasts and save lives. During the last strong El Niño federal agencies ramped up that study; this year they won't match it. The state abandons the warning system as the floods arrive.

In Washington, Republicans are agonizing over their economic inaction as senators leave town, fearing it could cost them Congress. Undecided voters are focused on high prices and disappointed with both parties. Trump answers with a red-state tour of Oklahoma and Alabama plus swing-state stops in Ohio and Texas — a blitz many Republicans in close races see as a net negative, while Democrats sound the money alarm in Wisconsin.

And the machinery of enforcement keeps turning on the vulnerable. A former NYPD sergeant pleaded guilty to posing as an ICE official and threatening a woman and her family with deportation. In Tennessee, the failed execution of Christa Pike forced her legal team to file an emergency motion to halt it as it was already underway; she survived two doses of lethal injection.