Friday, October 2, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. Working people across Europe took another hit as annual euro zone inflation reached 3.8% last month, its highest level since September 2023. In Britain, the squeeze threatens to deepen after Trump threatened to cut off US diesel supplies; the government scrambled to head off panic at the pumps, with minister Keir Mather insisting the UK is not facing a shortage and calling fuel supply “inherently resilient”. The administration wields energy as a weapon and households pay the bill.

The surveillance state keeps expanding. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debuted a bill to crack down on Flock cameras, a technology abused by law enforcement, while Rep. Greg Casar is pressing the FBI over its plan to tap that license-plate-reader network, warning it “raises the risk of substantial abuses of Americans’ data.” The repression is global: human rights groups warn of a “swap market” of repression in Southeast Asia, with pro-democracy activists hunted across international borders.

The rot runs through the agencies meant to serve people. ProPublica reports that an Oregon housing director runs an agency distributing billions for housing projects her husband’s company helped develop — capital and the state tangled at the top while tenants wait for homes.

Elsewhere, Spain may be forced into an early general election if, as expected, Sanchez’s government loses a vote in Parliament on Friday. In the US, a [Department of Energy electrical engineer was arrested by the FBI on charges of providing support to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/energy-department-employee-arrested-fbi-iran-houthis-yemen-ashton-ellaboudy); Democrats are making gains in deep-red states while struggling in the traditional battlegrounds and have begun to reverse their post-2024 voter registration slide in key states. And in Germany, 45,000 students walked out in a fourth nationwide school strike against conscription — the resistance to war and austerity being built from below.