Tuesday, October 13, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The machinery of execution could not do its job. Two doses of lethal injection did not kill Christa Pike, who killed Colleen Slemmer and was ultimately taken to hospital after the failed attempt; newly released emergency call records expose the confusion inside a state apparatus built to kill on schedule and unable to do even that cleanly. The same carceral machinery grinds slower elsewhere: in Pennsylvania, a man [waited nine years in prison for his lawyer to file a single brief — and the state has no rule against such post-conviction delay](https://www.propublica.org/article/post-conviction-legal-delays-pennsylvania). Justice denied is not an accident here; it is the design.

The electoral map is tilting. Gallup finds more than half of Americans say Democrats would better keep the country prosperous, against just 37% for Republicans, and Democrats carry a strong edge into the midterms. But a lead over a loathed administration is no program for workers: Gavin Newsom just endorsed a measure to cancel a one-time tax on California's billionaires. In Ohio, a [backlash against the AI data-center boom is upending the Senate race, as Sherrod Brown bets voter anger can unseat Jon Husted](https://www.ms.now/news/ohio-senate-data-centers) — while the IMF's own director warns the AI investment sustaining global growth may leave young workers with no way up the career ladder. The boom enriches capital and promises labor nothing. Massachusetts voters will decide whether to force cities and towns to allow smaller homes on smaller lots against a shortage landlords profit from. Even a focus group of 2024 Trump voters turned on him over a taxpayer-funded ad raging about expelling "globalists" and "Marxists".

At home the administration's enforcement arm keeps killing: voices in New York and across the country denounce the ICE shooting and kidnapping of Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican immigrant and father. Abroad, protesters in India are [demanding the removal of the chief election commissioner over alleged voter fraud, as Modi defends the country as the "mother of democracy"](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/13/cockroach-fraud-india-protest-modi.html). And Hurricane Simon is still battering western Mexico after tropical systems killed five along the Pacific coast.