What F'nHappened This Week October 30, 2026

What F'nHappened This Week

October 30, 2026

F'nAround

This was a week that ran on two tracks at once. On one track, F'nAround was out in the field, in the archives, and in the drafts, putting a major convention write-up together, lining up the next one, and keeping a long research program moving. On the other track, the news kept coming from Chicago, from Washington, and from places a lot farther away than either. This roundup keeps those tracks separate and straight: what we did, what happened in Chicago and Illinois, what happened nationally and around the world, and what is coming up next. Nothing here is dressed up as more than it is. Drafts are drafts. Allegations are allegations. And a watch is a watch, not a result.

F'nAround This Week

Happy birthday, Mike. Today, October 30, is the birthday of F'nAround cofounder Mike, the on-camera half of this operation. He does the interviews, he mingles, he becomes part of the event, while Joseph stays behind the camera. That division of labor is the whole show, and this week was no exception. So this one is for Mike, on camera as usual, and off camera for one birthday wish.

Chicago Build Expo 2026, October 28 to 29, Hall F2, McCormick Place.

F'nAround attended Chicago Build Expo 2026 and published a full review and breakdown of the event. The breakdown covered 314 exhibitors, 324 speakers, and 13 networking events, along with the sponsor and partner lists. That is the count from the public lists on the official site, and it is worth stating plainly because the site's headline numbers run higher: 350 or more exhibitors, 450 or more speakers, and 15 or more networking parties advertised. The lists say 314, 324, and 13. We went with the lists.

The floor notes are the part you cannot get from a directory. Connie's Pizza and Robinson's No. 1 Ribs were there inside the hall. So was a dancing chipmunk walking around, guys on stilts, DJ booths, and a DJ booth on top of the Red Bull truck. The Department of Water Management had a table handing out canned water, and the Smartlift glass-lifting machine was out on the floor doing exactly what its name says. Put together, that is the expo in one sentence: a serious trade show for people who build things, with a festival running right through the middle of it.

The Wingstop stop, and the candy wings Mike did not like.

F'nAround also stopped at Wingstop to try the collaboration everybody was arguing about online: Wingstop and Sour Patch Kids, in the form of Sour Patch Kids Wicked Punch. The flavor is a sour then sweet redberry glaze finished with Sour Patch Kids Bitz, the little candy pieces, on top. Club Wingstop members got early access starting October 23, it went nationwide October 27, and it is scheduled to run through November 5, while supplies last. Mike did not like it. That is the review in one sentence. The best part of the stop was not even the wings. An employee told Mike to buy other wings instead. When the person behind the counter is steering you away from the stunt flavor and toward the regular menu, you have your answer, and you have a better story than a sauce description. Candy on chicken was a dare, and Mike declined the dare.

Research and writing delivered this week, held unposted unless stated otherwise.

·         The Stratton speech restriction

·         FROM seasons 1 to 3 and Oz show reviews

·         The Kansas attorney complaint against Ben Stelter-Embry, sent October 27, with the signed copy on file. The next step is any office reply. The complaint is Joseph's allegation, not a finding by any disciplinary office.

·         The OEIG FOIA sent October 27, seeking disposition and referral records for three IDFPR complaints. The five business day response watch lands about November 3.

·         The regulator second comment note sent October 27 to 10 recipients, offering a pre-publication read for the next 12 articles.

ResearchGate snapshot, October 29.

RI Score 1.2, Reads 118, Recommendations 0, Citations 9. ResearchGate profile

The meme that fed the beast.

A Bailey Ellinois versus Pritzker Illinois meme and related posts drew about 93,000 views, 382 upvotes, and 125 comments on Reddit on October 28. Most of the comments were agreement, with about a dozen accent complaints mixed in. The beast gets fed either way.

Timeline and legal status updates, record only, no legal opinion offered here.

·         The Cook County post-trial JNOV motion dated October 26 is pending, with no response or ruling on file.

·         The IDFPR PAC review clock runs to December 4.

Two full pieces run with this roundup. They are summarized here, in short, not reprinted in full.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in short.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day was released July 31, 2026, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, with Tom Holland as Peter Parker. The full F'nAround review calls it uniquely good because it stops trying to be the biggest Spider-Man movie and settles for being the most human one. This is street level, darker, and character first. Peter has given up civilian life for Spider-Man after No Way Home, lonely, grieving Aunt May, watching MJ and Ned from afar. Much of the trailer footage is burned off in an opening montage of street level villain cameos, rather than being the main plot. Sadie Sink plays Jean Grey, a young mutant telepath on the run from the Department of Damage Control, searching for her sister Sara. Jon Bernthal as the Punisher, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, and Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova round out the ties that pull Peter back into a larger fight. The full review is spoiler heavy after its spoiler free verdict.

A Star Trek deep dive in honor of Patrick Stewart, in short.

The Stewart piece is not a mushy eulogy. It is a Star Trek deep dive, built the way Joseph asked for it: lore, story, history, characters, and cameos, in Stewart's honor. It opens with him watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day, where a vent cover reveal, V-Max, leads straight back to V'Ger and Voyager 6 in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. From there it goes deep into Trek, and only throws off at the end to Stewart's other most famous work, Professor X and the rest. It closes on how Joseph will always remember him, as himself in Extras, and on his friendship with Sir Ian McKellen, Magneto to his Xavier, and Gandalf. That is the tribute: Picard first, the rest in their place, and the man himself at the end.

Chicago and Illinois

Mother Jones gets her monument.

On October 28, the groundbreaking took place in the Loop for the Mother Jones We Shall Rise monument, at Wacker Drive, Wabash Avenue, and South Water Street. It is downtown Chicago's first monument dedicated to a historic woman, and dedication is expected May 1, 2027. That date is not an accident. May Day and Mother Jones belong in the same sentence, and now they will belong on the same corner.

Halloween weekend in Chicago.

Halloween weekend brought two very Chicago stories. Airbnb blocked Halloween party rentals, which is the platform trying to get ahead of the annual house party problem before it starts. And last minute costume shopping in Lincoln Park did what last minute costume shopping always does: turned a neighborhood full of adults into a neighborhood full of adults pretending they had a plan all along. Some of them did. Most of them bought ears and called it a costume.

Chicago rents, up again.

Chicago rents rose 3.1 percent year over year, the largest increase among the 10 largest metros in the cited report. That is not a rounding error and it is not a one month blip in the framing of the report. It is the number renters in this city are living with, and it lands hardest on the people who were already stretching.

The Loyola student death case, handled carefully.

This one is reported only as alleged, because that is all it is at this stage. Sheridan Gorman, 18, was allegedly killed near Tobey Prinz Beach, with Jose Medina, 25, arrested. Mayor Brandon Johnson was questioned about city immigration policy in connection with the case. There is a grieving family, a young life lost, and a set of facts still being established. This roundup is not going to fill in gaps the record has not filled in yet.

The mayoral field narrows at filing.

Filing for the February 23, 2027 Chicago mayoral election closed at 5 p.m. on October 26, and the field that gets talked about all year is not the field that files. That is the first filter, and it did real work this week. Final day filers reported by local coverage included retiring Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, with a self reported 26,000 signatures, cardiologist and political newcomer Lisa Nee, with a self reported 31,000, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner George Cardenas, with a self reported 31,500, and Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, with what she said was slightly shy of 40,000 signatures. Attorney William Quinlan, businessman Joe Holberg, conservative Danielle Carter-Walters, and former real estate developer Zoe Ma also filed on the final day. First day filers were Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, lobbyist John Kelly, former Chicago Housing Authority Chair Matthew Brewer, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley, and businessman Willie Wilson. Mayor Brandon Johnson filed Friday, with a reported 33,000 signatures. One report put the filed total at 14 candidates. That is a filed total, not a final ballot. The petition challenge period runs October 27 to November 2, adjudication continues until December 17, when the final mayoral ballot is certified, and a runoff, if no one gets a majority on February 23, would be April 6. Do not treat a filing headline as a ballot. Challenges are where this field gets cut again. Full breakdown: The Race to Run Chicago

The mayoral breakdown, in full.

That filing paragraph is the short version. Here is the breakdown underneath it, from the full mayoral article, updated for filing day. The article was written October 24, before filing closed, so it counted 18 declared candidates, plus Maria Pappas pending and Liam Stanton withdrawn, for 20 candidacies in total. Filing closed October 26, and the filed field is smaller than the declared field. One report put the filed total at 14. That is a filed total, not a final ballot, because petition challenges run October 27 to November 2 and certification is December 17. Declared is not filed, and filed is not certified. Keep those three stages separate and the rest of this makes sense.

·         Money, third quarter reports: Alexi Giannoulias, 19.15 million dollars. John Kelly, 2.52 million dollars. Susana Mendoza, 1.73 million dollars. Joe Holberg, 1.06 million dollars. Mayor Brandon Johnson, 379,471 dollars, down quarter over quarter. Mike Quigley, 343,482 dollars. Bill Quinlan, 204,215 dollars in the filing, against a campaign claim of roughly 600,000 dollars plus another 250,000 dollars, reported as an unreconciled difference, not a finding. George Cardenas, 106,174 dollars. Lisa Nee, 50,697.51 dollars. Willie Wilson, 48,453 dollars. Maria Pappas, about 278,000 dollars in recent rankings. Liam Stanton, who withdrew August 10 and endorsed Giannoulias, still showed 91,869.79 dollars.

·         Signatures, first day, October 19: Giannoulias, about 60,000. Quigley, about 42,000. Kelly, 36,000 to 37,000. Wilson, about 35,000. Matt Brewer, over 32,000. The threshold is 12,500 valid signatures, and campaigns file two to three times that because Chicago petition challenges strike signatures for registration, circulator, and handwriting problems.

·         Signatures, final day, October 26: Mendoza, a self reported 26,000. Nee, a self reported 31,000. Cardenas, a self reported 31,500. Pappas, slightly shy of 40,000, as she put it. Quinlan, Holberg, Danielle Carter-Walters, and Zoe Ma also filed on the final day. Johnson filed Friday, with a reported 33,000.

·         Polls versus markets, as of the October 24 article: a NORC survey put Giannoulias at roughly 25 percent, Johnson at roughly 14 percent, with the rest divided and a large undecided bloc. Kalshi, the prediction market, priced Giannoulias at roughly 74 percent to win. A market price is not a vote count, and in a thin market a modest amount of money can move a price dramatically. Believe the polls over the market, and believe neither as a result.

·         The rest of the field, in one line each: Brewer, the housing chief the mayor removed, who co-owns The Wieners Circle and helped open Grasshopper Club, described as the city's first Black owned cannabis dispensary. Kelly, the lobbyist running on the argument that lobbying is the job, with clients including the White Sox, the United Center, and Bally's. Holberg, first into the race, running on growth arithmetic, at least 100,000 new homes, and a book called The Holberg Plan. Nee, the cardiologist and whistleblower who raised alarms at the Hines VA about unread heart tests, testified before a Senate hearing in 2015, and survived breast cancer. Quinlan, the attorney who sued Giannoulias, Quigley, and Pappas over dual office holding, dismissed October 14 as not yet ripe, expressly not on the merits. Toni Brooks, the Army National Guard veteran and anti violence organizer running block by block. Carter-Walters, the Republican in a nonpartisan race, co-founder of Chicago Flips Red, running on public safety, forensic audits, freezing property taxes, and ending sanctuary status. Ma, the developer running as an independent progressive, seeking to become the city's first Chinese American and first Muslim mayor, with a guaranteed income in her platform. Jabari Taylor, health policy researcher, running on green social housing. Jesse Maronto, Chicago Department of Transportation signal repair worker, running a No Poli-Tricks campaign. Johnny Logalbo, addiction recovery counselor, previously a write in candidate. Mark Su, businessman and former U.S. House candidate. Pappas, Cook County Treasurer since 1998, the late entrant whose name recognition alone put her in the top tier once she filed.

·         The knockout frame, plainly: Giannoulias, the promotion that hands his job to the governor, because a win in both races forces his resignation as Secretary of State before the May 17, 2027 mayoral oath, with the vacancy filled by gubernatorial appointment, plausibly until a November 2028 special election. That is the attack opponents will compress into one mailer sentence, and it is why the dual run is the structural story of this race, not a footnote to it.

Budget issues: Chicago's 882 million dollar hole.

Chicago's budget fight is the local story underneath a lot of the other local stories this week. The city faces a projected 882.4 million dollar deficit for fiscal 2027, on top of an 85.1 million dollar gap still to fill for the remainder of 2026. Mayor Brandon Johnson presented a 17.6 billion dollar fiscal 2027 proposal in late October, called the Fair Share Budget, which the administration says closes the deficit without workforce layoffs or slashing core neighborhood safety net operations. The proposal, as reported, includes an Equitable Employer corporate contribution on large companies employing 125 or more workers, with credits for enterprises creating jobs in historically disinvested South and West Side communities, plus 30 million dollars for the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund and emergency homelessness diversion programs, and 7 million dollars to expand Community Violence Intervention street outreach. A bloc of aldermen, reported as 29 in one letter and 26 in another coalition account, drew three hard lines in advance: no property tax increase, no corporate head tax or tax on job growth, and no reliance on revenue from Springfield that has not yet been approved. Johnson has said he will not raise property taxes, and has said he plans to close the remaining 2026 gap with bond refinancing. The drivers, as the administration and critics both describe them in different ways, include rising personnel and pension costs, higher debt service, and police misconduct settlements. One analysis put corporate fund spending growth at 554 million dollars, or 8.9 percent, to a record 6.76 billion dollars, with financial costs including bond payments up 282.1 million dollars, or 86 percent, and corporate fund revenue projected to fall by 244 million dollars. Since 2019, city spending is up by more than 4.1 billion dollars, or 46.5 percent, with pension fund contributions up by more than 1.54 billion dollars, and debt service in 2026 costing 1.98 billion dollars, or 15.2 percent of net spending. In February, Fitch Ratings and KBRA downgraded Chicago's credit rating from A- to BBB+, only three notches above junk status, with Fitch citing consecutive operating deficits since 2023 and dependence on non-structural solutions. That is the backdrop for every other Chicago promise this week: the money is not settled, the lines are drawn, and the council still has to vote.

National and World

Sir Patrick Stewart, 1925 to 2026.

Sir Patrick Stewart died October 28, age 86, with the death announced October 29. Tributes came from Marvel, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, and William Shatner, among others. Avengers: Doomsday is still set for December 18 as his final on-screen appearance. The full tribute runs alongside this roundup. The short version is this: he was our Captain, and he was Professor X, and somehow he was both without ever making either one smaller.

Sanctuary policies go back to the 7th Circuit.

On October 29, the 7th Circuit heard arguments on the Trump administration lawsuit seeking to overturn Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County sanctuary policies, a case previously dismissed. The argument is about who gets to set immigration enforcement policy in Illinois: the federal government, or the state and local governments that have written their own limits. The court heard it. It has not decided it yet.

Election Day monitors, addressed in advance.

Federal poll monitor obligations for Election Day were addressed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. Getting that question answered before Election Day, rather than in the middle of it, is the whole point. Voters, poll workers, and local officials should not have to guess at the rules while people are standing in line.

Midterms, four days out.

The midterm election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. All 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, and 36 governorships are on the ballot, along with statewide ballot measures in 39 states, according to a midterm tracker checked October 27. That is the national frame for everything else in this section, and it is why the last week of October always feels like a holding pattern and a sprint at the same time. One state poll from this week gives a sense of what voters say is driving them. A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of New Jersey likely voters, released October 27, found 55 percent supporting Democratic congressional candidates compared with 32 percent for Republicans, a 23 point advantage, with affordability important to 90 percent of respondents and gas prices important to 87 percent. That is a congressional preference poll, not a forecast for any single district, and not a result. Results come after polls close on November 3, and until then every poll is a snapshot with a margin of error and a mood attached.

Illinois on the ballot: Senate, governor, and the rest of the state ticket.

For Illinois voters, November 3 is not just a midterm and not just a Chicago mayoral filing story. It is a full state ticket. Polls open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central, and the top of the Illinois ballot starts with an open U.S. Senate seat, the first Illinois Senate election without an incumbent since 2010, because longtime Senator Dick Durbin is retiring after 30 years in the Senate. The printed candidates are Democratic Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, Republican former state party chair Don Tracy, and American Center Party candidate Whitfield Harrington Jr. Stratton won the Democratic primary March 17 with 40.4 percent of the vote over Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Congresswoman Robin Kelly, according to the Senate race guide, and Tracy won the Republican primary with 40 percent over attorney Jeannie Evans. Ratings as of late October put the race Solid Democratic by the Cook Political Report as of October 20 and Inside Elections as of October 15, and Safe Democratic by Sabato's Crystal Ball as of October 27. Affordability is reported as the biggest issue in the race, with immigration enforcement a flashpoint after the federal enforcement campaign known as Operation Midway Blitz, and a voter guide video reports Stratton would raise the federal minimum wage to 25 dollars an hour and expand access to affordable health care. That last point is attributed to the guide, not stated here as a prediction. For governor, incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker faces Republican Darren Bailey again in a third term bid, with Christian Mitchell selected as Pritzker's running mate after Stratton left the lieutenant governor slot to run for Senate. Attorney General Kwame Raoul, a Democrat, faces Republican Bob Fioretti, a former Chicago alderman. Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is also on the statewide ballot, which is the other half of his dual run, with the Chicago mayoral election following on February 23, 2027. All 17 Illinois House seats are on the ballot, with five House seats reported as open. Your exact ballot depends on your registered address, so check a sample ballot for district, county, judicial, and local measures. No result is stated here, because no result exists yet. Polls close first.

The Madigan orbit, still moving.

As reported October 29, the Michael Madigan Supreme Court petition response and the nearing deals in the related McClain and Pramaggiore case kept the long Illinois corruption saga in motion. These are the cases that have defined Illinois politics for years, and they are not done defining it yet. The petition response is a filing, not a verdict, and the deals are nearing, not done. Both are worth watching precisely because they are not finished.

Paris, October 24: boards up, streets full, and a game still played.

France had its second big protest weekend in a row on October 24, and Paris went into it boarded up. Shopkeepers on the right bank had spent the week cutting planks and covering storefronts, after the violence of October 17, when more than 2,000 people were arrested and 217 were incarcerated, according to Le Monde. On October 24, the Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 410,000, while unions put it closer to 800,000. About 110,000 marched in Paris, where the main demonstration was on the southeastern fringes of the city. The protests began with high school and university students demanding more funding for education and better conditions in schools, and they have since widened into a fight over rising living costs, inequality, and public services, with President Emmanuel Macron blamed by many marchers for the cost of living and record high fuel prices. The day was largely peaceful in its marches, and then clashes broke out at Porte de Vincennes at the end of the Paris march, when some in the crowd threw bottles and rocks at police, who fired tear gas and used water cannons. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested across about 800 demonstrations nationwide, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, and roughly 70,000 officers and gendarmes were deployed. The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Picasso Museum, and Grand Palais closed for the day, and businesses boarded up storefronts. The next day, October 25, the Pittsburgh Steelers played the New Orleans Saints at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, about six miles from most of the protest areas, and the atmosphere outside the stadium was reported as calm and festive, with no disruptions around the stadium before the game. That contrast is the story of the weekend: a country in the streets on Saturday, and a football game played on Sunday as if the streets had been somewhere else.

Milan and Rome, October 24: soldiers in one city, water cannon in the other.

Italy had its own October 24, and it rhymed with France without copying it. Thousands of mostly young people marched in Milan, Rome, Turin, and other Italian cities, with large demonstrations also reported in Madrid, Lisbon, and Tirana, over education, corruption, war, pensions, housing, and rising living costs. Milan was on particularly high alert. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sent 500 additional soldiers to Milan, on top of forces already there, backed by drone surveillance, checks at railway stations, and rapid response units, after looting and clashes the week before. Luxury boutiques in Milan's fashion district, including Omega, Tiffany, and Gucci, boarded up their windows, and the Apple store closed and stayed shut. About 10,000 people joined the Milan march on Saturday, which lasted nearly four hours and ended peacefully outside the Milan Polytechnic, more than 3 kilometers from the city center. Rome was tenser. A national march gathered under the slogan Keep Italy out of the war, opposing military involvement and increased defense spending. Police used a water cannon after protesters threw bottles and firecrackers near Largo di Santa Susanna, a small number of protesters tried to force their way into the Colosseum and were removed by guards, and several hundred students marched peacefully to show they were not rioters. There were also clashes in Turin, Bologna, and Florence. Police reported nine arrests and 371 brief detentions across Italy that day, 110 of them minors. The throughline is the same as in France: young people, rising prices, and a war that keeps showing up in domestic politics, even when the march is about rent, school, or pensions.

Wars, still going, even when the headlines move on.

Two wars kept killing people this week while the protest news took up the front pages. In Ukraine, the United Nations daily briefing on October 29 condemned a deadly drone strike on a train at a railway station in Dnipro, on a train traveling between Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, with preliminary reports from Ukrainian authorities of at least 13 people killed and 10 injured, and casualty figures that could rise. Elsewhere in Ukraine, attacks killed and injured dozens of civilians, including children, across several regions, and renewed strikes on energy infrastructure disrupted electricity in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy, with emergency power cuts continuing in Kyiv and its surrounding region. UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned October 28 that casualties in Ukraine could reach their highest levels since 2022 amid intensified drone warfare, and that attacks on electricity grids, railway infrastructure, and supermarkets were hitting older people and people with disabilities particularly hard. In Gaza, Palestinian medical and local sources said Israeli strikes killed at least five people on Wednesday, October 28, despite a ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, including a drone missile at a checkpoint run by the Hamas run Crossings and Borders Authority in Mawasi in the south, and another person killed in a strike on Khan Younis. Gaza's health authorities, as reported October 29, count 1,568 people killed and 5,649 wounded since that ceasefire began. Those are health authority figures, reported through news and UN briefings, not independently verified counts in this roundup, and they sit inside a much larger cumulative toll since October 7, 2023. In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said three tankers exploded and caught fire after hitting sea mines in the past 24 hours, as reported October 29. The wars do not pause for protest weekends or football games. They just keep their own calendar.

DEA rescheduling and the hemp fight: two tracks, one calendar.

This is the F'nAround home turf, so it gets stated carefully, with dates first and predictions nowhere. On October 22, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius admitted a Government Accountability Office report, GAO-26-108623, into the marijuana rescheduling hearing record, but refused to reopen the hearing for more testimony or document discovery. He limited follow up to short written briefs, up to 10 pages, on two questions only: what weight, if any, the tribunal should give the GAO report, and whether its gaps are substantial enough to jeopardize the rescheduling process or impact the proposal. Initial briefs were due October 29, replies are due November 5, and the stay runs until that briefing closes. After that comes record certification and Julius's nonbinding recommendation to Administrator Terry Cole. That hearing is about moving marijuana itself to Schedule III, including adult use. It is separate from the April 2026 Justice Department order that already moved FDA approved and state licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III. Do not mix those two tracks up. The hemp track runs on its own dates. November 12 brings the first stage of the federal hemp definition rewrite in section 781: the ban on intermediate hemp derived cannabinoid products, and on finished products containing cannabinoids the plant cannot produce on its own. The same day, the new Illinois Hemp Act replaces the old Industrial Hemp Act, and finished products with more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container stop counting as hemp in Illinois, and can only be sold in licensed dispensaries under HB 2641. New Jersey has its own transition: bars and liquor stores can sell intoxicating hemp beverages until November 13, and from November 14 any hemp beverage with more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container counts as cannabis, must be made by a licensed cannabis manufacturer, and can only be sold in licensed cannabis dispensaries. December 11 is the next cliff: the federal funding expiry and the total THC cap, which rescheduling alone will not save, because the hemp limit is a separate track from Schedule III. A Texas lawsuit over counting THCA had an injunction hearing reported as set for October 30. No outcome from that hearing is stated here, because none was in hand when this roundup was expanded. The fight, in short, is not one fight. It is a hearing, a definition rewrite, and a state by state sell through calendar, all landing within about six weeks.

What we learned about tax fraud and charities.

This week taught a lesson worth writing down plainly, because the first version of the story is the one most people get wrong. A nonprofit paying for somebody else's lawsuit is not, by itself, illegal. Charities can fund litigation that advances a public purpose. The tax question starts somewhere else, and it is narrower and more document driven than the headline version.

First, state incorporation is not federal tax exemption. A Kansas nonprofit corporation is not automatically a federal tax exempt organization. Those are two different steps. So the first question for any nonprofit in this kind of story is whether it ever held IRS recognition under section 501(c)(3), section 501(c)(4), or another subsection of section 501(c), and what its articles, bylaws, determination letter, and annual returns actually show. If it was never IRS exempt, the federal private benefit and excess benefit rules do not apply to it as such, even if Kansas corporate or charitable solicitation law still does.

Second, the core federal test is private benefit and private inurement. For a 501(c)(3) organization, section 501(c)(3) requires that it be organized and operated exclusively for an exempt purpose, and that no part of its net earnings inure to the benefit of a private shareholder or individual. Private benefit is broader than inurement. Inurement concerns insiders. Private benefit can concern any private interest, and it is disqualifying when it is more than incidental, judged against the public benefit. For a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, section 501(c)(4) requires that it be operated primarily to promote the common good and general welfare of the community. An organization that primarily benefits a selected group of businesses, rather than the community, does not meet that test.

Applied to a lawsuit funding case, the argument is not that a lawyer got paid. Fees paid at fair market value for bona fide legal services that further an exempt purpose are not an excess benefit merely because a lawyer was paid. The argument arises only if the dominant, demonstrable purpose and effect was to benefit identifiable private businesses, their owners, or their donors, and any public benefit was incidental, pretextual, or merely a byproduct of that private gain. The records that would separate those two cases are the ones that matter: who donated, in what amounts, and when; whether donors or their businesses controlled the board or the spending; whether the litigant was selected through a neutral, public interest process; whether the nonprofit had any other substantial program activity; and what the fee agreements and any third party payor or joint representation agreements actually said. A single payment, without that context, does not prove private benefit. A pattern of donor control, donor benefit, and no independent public program would strengthen it.

Third, there are separate rules for insiders, donors, and reporting. If a recipient or decision maker was a disqualified person, section 4958 imposes excise taxes on excess benefit transactions, starting at 25 percent of the excess benefit, with a 200 percent second tier tax if the transaction is not corrected. Donor deductions depend on section 170, and only contributions to a qualified 501(c)(3) organization are generally deductible as charitable contributions. Contributions to a 501(c)(4) organization are generally not deductible that way, even though the organization itself may be tax exempt. A donor that deducted payments whose real purpose was to buy a private business advantage would face a separate question under sections 170 and 162. An organization that merely passes donor money to a pre-selected private beneficiary, with no independent judgment over the use of the funds, risks being treated as a conduit rather than as a charity exercising its own exempt purpose.

Fourth, reporting is where a lot of these stories either hold up or fall apart. Most exempt organizations must file an annual information return under section 6033, usually Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N, and must make returns and exemption applications publicly available under section 6104. Under section 6033(j), failure to file a required return for three consecutive years automatically revokes exemption. Kansas has its own lane. Under the Kansas Charitable Organizations and Solicitations Act, K.S.A. 17-1759 et seq., a charitable organization that solicits in Kansas generally must register with the Attorney General under K.S.A. 17-1763, and K.S.A. 17-1767 provides for investigation, with K.S.A. 17-1768 authorizing action including a declaratory judgment, an injunction, actual damages, and investigation expenses and fees. Critically, the Kansas Attorney General cannot revoke a federal tax exemption. That remedy belongs to the IRS, typically on referral.

Fifth, do not use a tax claim as a shortcut for a market claim. An allegation that a lawsuit helped large licensees gain market share while hindering minority entrants does not, by itself, prove a tax violation. Antitrust law has its own elements, under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1 and 2, including agreement, market definition, and exclusionary conduct, and filing a lawsuit is generally petitioning activity unless it falls within a narrow sham exception. A minority hindrance claim needs its own proof too: the licensing rule or practice, the comparator applicants, and the causal link. Those facts may support a separate referral, but they do not convert a lawful public interest case into a tax violation, and they do not cure a weak tax case.

What happened this week, on the record, is narrower than any of that. State and federal referrals were submitted October 30, one to the Kansas Attorney General under charity fraud, and one to the IRS as a Form 3949-A information referral. Neither submission is a finding by the Attorney General or the IRS. The Kansas submission was confirmed by a thank you page, with no case number yet. Per that page, attorneys will review the request, a case number and investigator will be assigned, the investigator will contact the complainant and provide the case number in approximately two weeks, the organization filed against will be contacted and given a chance to respond, normal initial processing is two to three weeks, and an investigation could take several months. The IRS, per its confirmation page, will not provide a status update, and will contact the referrer only if additional information is needed. That is the honest status: referrals in, findings nowhere, and a watch for about November 13 for the Kansas case number. This section is general information about how the law works, not legal advice, and it names no organization and no person as a tax fraud finding, because no agency has made one.

Crime, Local and National

Chicago crime: Garfield Park, the Loop, and two FBI shootings in three days.

Chicago crime this week is not one story, it is three different kinds of violence and enforcement, and they should not be blurred together. On October 24, at about 10 p.m., three suspects exited a white SUV at a gas station in the 400 block of South Kostner Avenue in Garfield Park and opened fire, according to police reporting. A 30-year-old man died after being shot in the neck, a 28-year-old man remained in critical condition, and another 28-year-old man was treated for a knee injury. No arrests had been made, and the search for the three suspects and the white SUV remained active. On October 26, at about 9:45 p.m., two men were shot inside a 7-Eleven in the first block of East Adams Street in the Loop, after a confrontation involving an armed man, according to police. A 26-year-old man was shot multiple times and a 23-year-old man suffered a graze wound to his foot. Both were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and were expected to recover. No arrests had been made, and Area Three detectives are investigating. Then there were two fatal FBI shootings in three days, both under review by the FBI Inspection Division, with key facts still unreleased. On October 27, at about 5:30 p.m. near 18th Street and Union Avenue in Pilsen, an off-duty FBI agent driving home from work in an FBI vehicle saw a man allegedly discharging a firearm into a group of people, according to the FBI, and engaged him. The man, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Oscar Daniel Isaya Corrales, died. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not involved in that incident, according to DHS. On October 28, at about 7 a.m., an FBI team moved on a home near 145th Street and Cooper Avenue in south suburban Dixmoor in a court-authorized operation, according to the FBI. Chicago rapper Chadwick Clark, known as LoWick, 22, was shot and killed during the operation, and about five other people were taken into custody, according to reporting. No FBI personnel were hurt in Dixmoor. Federal officials have not said what warrant they were serving in Dixmoor, what led agents to fire, or whether Clark was armed or was the target of the warrant. His sister is demanding answers, according to reporting. That is the honest place to leave both FBI cases: deaths confirmed, reviews open, and the sequence that produced the gunfire not yet released. The Loyola student death case, covered above in the Chicago section, is kept separate here, because it is still alleged and still being established, and this roundup will not fill in gaps the record has not filled in yet.

National crime: ghost students, a meth and GBL ring, and voter fraud arrests.

Nationally, the biggest crime story this week is a fraud case with a name that sounds like a Halloween costume. The Justice Department announced October 29 and 30, as part of what it calls Operation Ghostbusters, charges against five people accused of enrolling ghost students who existed only on paper to rip off federal student aid, seizing about 750,000 dollars in cryptocurrency from a Kenyan account. Three defendants in New Jersey were charged as money mules who opened bank accounts to send about 1.3 million dollars to Kenya, and two Kenyan citizens were indicted in Nebraska and Virginia. One New Jersey complaint, filed October 20, alleges one person received more than 1 million dollars in deposits linked to more than 300 fraudulent student accounts over five years. Investigators said the fraud has been ongoing since at least 2021, could exceed 200 million dollars in total, has already uncovered hundreds of participants, and has sent about 50 referrals to 26 FBI field offices. These are indictments and criminal complaints, which are allegations, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, as the Justice Department itself cautioned. A second federal case, announced October 29, charged 15 men accused of running a trafficking network since at least November 2022 that moved methamphetamine and GBL into Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. Four suspects were arrested Tuesday during raids in D.C. and Pennsylvania, and 11 others had already been taken into custody in April and May. Authorities recovered more than 190 pounds of methamphetamine, more than 1,760 pounds of GBL, and more than 125 pounds of ketamine, plus additional narcotics and cash. If convicted, the defendants face a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison. Again, these are charges, not convictions. A third national crime item, closer to the election, is an ICE lineup released October 28 and 29 of 13 noncitizens accused of voter fraud, with documents detailing alleged unlawful registration or voting in federal, state, and local elections across multiple cycles. The documents, as reported, do not establish that every individual named has been convicted of an election-related offense, so this roundup names no individual from that lineup and treats the cases as allegations under investigation. In a cannabis-adjacent crime story that fits F'nAround's beat, Virginia state Senator Louise Lucas and six others were indicted October 22, with prosecutors alleging a marijuana distribution enterprise run through businesses that appeared to be hemp retailers, plus racketeering, trafficking, money laundering, and corruption-related counts, citing at least 100 kilograms of marijuana and millions of dollars in proceeds. Lucas is expected back in federal court November 16. Those charges are allegations, and the Justice Department says it is not going after state-legal cannabis as such. In Greece, three people were arrested October 30, suspected of stealing copper gas pipes from a building, causing a leak that led to a deadly explosion September 25 in central Athens that killed six people, including four Americans. Those suspects are expected before a prosecutor Friday, and they are suspects, not convicted.

What People Are Searching For

Halloween costumes, Patrick Stewart, and a Brewers parade that took over Wisconsin.

Search traffic is not news by itself, but it tells you what people were actually typing this week, and this week it lines up with the rest of the roundup. Patrick Stewart was the top search story October 30, with at least 5 million searches, according to a trending searches roundup, which fits the tribute above and the death announcement October 29. Halloween is Saturday, October 31, and that matters for search because a Saturday Halloween gives costume posts two nights instead of one. Group costume searches jumped about 36 percent in a week, trio costume ideas were logged at around 4.8 million searches, and the top costume searches listed were Buddy the Unicorn first, NeeDoh second, and Nikki from Obsession third. The National Retail Federation forecast for the season is a record 13.5 billion dollars. That is a forecast, not a receipt total. In sports search, the Brewers kept winning the internet after winning the World Series. Former President Barack Obama congratulated the Brewers on X, writing that the best team all season left no doubt. On Thursday night, October 29, the Green Bay Packers beat the Carolina Panthers 27-19 at Lambeau Field, improving to 5-3, and the Brewers, fresh off the clincher October 28, surprised Lambeau fans between the first and second quarters, hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy, taking a Lambeau Leap, and wearing cheeseheads that read 2026 WS Champions, before their victory parade October 30 in Milwaukee. The parade steps off at 10 a.m. near Fourth Street and Wisconsin Avenue and ends at Maier Festival Park on the Lakefront, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printed about 20,000 mini newspapers, 5 inches by 4 inches, to hand out along the route, the first time in about a decade it has revived the mini paper. Pittsburgh rock legend Donnie Iris, known for Ah! Leah! and The Rapper, died at 83, and was also among the top searched names October 30. Israel's election ending in deadlock was another top search topic that day, with no outcome stated here beyond the deadlock framing in the trending list. If you are searching for this roundup later, the terms that will find it are the ones in its headings: Chicago crime, World Series Brewers, Curaleaf Aurora, DEA rescheduling hemp, Chicago mayoral filing, Illinois Senate Stratton Tracy, Halloween costumes, and Wingstop Sour Patch Kids.

Sports

World Series: Milwaukee, at last, and a parade today.

The Milwaukee Brewers are World Series champions, for the first time in franchise history. They beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 on Wednesday, October 28, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, capping a 4-1 series win and ending a wait that goes back to the franchise's only previous World Series appearance, in 1982. The scores tell how close it was, and then how clear it became: Game 1, Brewers 3, Rays 2, on October 23 in Milwaukee; Game 2, Brewers 5, Rays 4, on October 24 in Milwaukee; Game 3, Brewers 10, Rays 1, on October 26 in St. Petersburg; Game 4, Rays 4, Brewers 3 in 12 innings, on October 27; Game 5, Brewers 4, Rays 1, on October 28. Milwaukee finished the regular season 103-59, hosted Games 1 and 2 for the better record, and went 11-2 in the postseason. In the clincher, rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt drove in Brice Turang with an RBI single in the second inning and finished with two hits and two RBIs, David Hamilton added an RBI single in the fifth, and World Series MVP William Contreras doubled home Christian Yelich in the sixth before Pratt's sacrifice fly made it 4-0. Starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski delivered five and two thirds scoreless innings, allowing just two hits before exiting with a right calf cramp, and Trevor Megill secured the final out after Tampa Bay scored one run in the ninth on a Chandler Simpson RBI double. The Brewers parade is scheduled for Friday, October 30, today, in downtown Milwaukee. For Chicago, the note is simple: neither Chicago team was in this series, but the team that won it plays about 90 miles up the lake, and a lot of Chicago baseball fans know exactly how long 44 years can feel.

Business

Curaleaf, Aurora, and a hostile bid that will not go away.

In cannabis business news, the Curaleaf and Aurora fight kept escalating through this week, and it is worth following because it is about consolidation, not just one company. Curaleaf Holdings formally launched a hostile bid for Aurora Cannabis in August, offering 0.75 dollars in cash and 0.3463 Curaleaf shares per Aurora share. At the beginning of October, Curaleaf improved the offer to 1 dollar in cash and 0.4013 Curaleaf shares per share, for an implied value of 5 dollars per share, with a maximum consideration cap of 6 dollars, and extended the offer deadline to December 4, 2026. Aurora's board rejected the revised offer, again arguing that it undervalued the company, while its special committee continues exploring other options. On October 19, Curaleaf challenged Aurora's rejection, arguing that Aurora's board was denying Curaleaf diligence access while granting access to unnamed other parties. On October 26, Aurora announced that the Alberta Securities Commission had dismissed Curaleaf's application to halt Aurora's at-the-market share issuance program, saying the outcome confirms the program complies with securities laws. On October 27, Curaleaf responded that the dismissal does not change the fundamental questions, as it put them, about why Aurora issued shares under the program after Curaleaf indicated a bid was coming, why an 86 percent premium offer is dismissed as inadequate, and why Curaleaf remains excluded from customary diligence. Curaleaf's first half 2026 revenues rose 8 percent to 664.3 million dollars, while adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 20.6 percent, and the company targets 35 million to 40 million dollars in SG and A savings, with competition and pricing pressure remaining key challenges, according to a Zacks analysis October 23, which also noted Curaleaf shares were up 7 percent year to date against an industry decline of 18 percent, with a Hold rank. Curaleaf reports third quarter results November 3, after the market close, with a conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern. This is business reporting, not investment advice, and the bid is still open, not decided. In a smaller business footnote that fits the Wingstop section above, one analysis of Wingstop noted domestic same store sales fell 7.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026, even as systemwide sales rose 5.3 percent, which is the kind of split that makes a stunt flavor like Wicked Punch make sense as a traffic play, whether or not Mike liked the wings.

Gaming

Gaming this week: Call of Duty on top, Halloween sales everywhere, Capcom still printing money.

For the week ending October 24, the UK physical software chart, as reported, had Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 at number one, with a split of 78 percent for PlayStation 5, 19 percent for Xbox Series, and 3 percent for Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort debuted at number two in its first week, EA Sports FC 27 held at number three, Final Fantasy Resonance debuted at number four, with 54 percent PlayStation 5, 34 percent Switch 2, and 12 percent Switch 1, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer held at number five. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was also in the top 15, at number nine. New releases for October 26 to November 1, as listed by Gamesplanet, included Stygian: Outer Gods leaving Early Access on October 26, a Lovecraftian horror game where sanity is a threat as much as monsters are, Northgard Battlegrounds entering Early Access on October 27, a Viking city building auto battler, and the Farming Simulator 25: Beans and Alpacas expansion on October 27. Halloween sales ran through the week, with Bandai Halloween deals, Focus Halloween Sale from October 27 featuring Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy and the Plague Tale Bundle, Warhammer Day from October 29, and Capcom Halloween deals from October 30 featuring Resident Evil titles. On the business side of gaming, Capcom reported October 27, as part of its second quarter fiscal 2026 results, that Resident Evil Requiem has sold 8.51 million copies, Pragmata is at 2.73 million units, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword is at 1.78 million after almost two months on the market, with Resident Evil 4 selling another 1.1 million copies in the quarter, Resident Evil 2 at 640,000, Devil May Cry 5 at 540,000, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard at 460,000. Cumulatively, the Resident Evil series has sold 218 million units, Monster Hunter 132 million, and Street Fighter 60 million. That is a reminder that in gaming, the back catalog is often the real chart, even in a week full of new releases.

Cannabis, More Than the Hearing

Illinois cannabis: record sales, more inspections, and 45 new social equity infuser licenses on the table.

Illinois had its own cannabis week, separate from the federal hearing, and it starts with the state's own report card. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office released the State of Illinois 2026 Annual Cannabis Report on October 7, covering fiscal year 2026, and the headline numbers are growth, not contraction. More than 5 million adult-use items were sold in July 2026, the highest monthly total to date, and August totaled nearly 4.9 million items, a 9 percent increase from August 2025. The department issued 29 operational dispensary licenses during the fiscal year, increasing retail locations by more than 10 percent. It conducted 755 dispensary inspections, up from 625 the year before, while expanding inspection staff from 11 to 16 inspectors, and it reported no mandatory product recalls, continuing a run in which Illinois has never issued a mandatory marijuana product recall since recreational sales began in January 2020. The report credits Senate Bill 3222, the Cannabis and Hemp Omnibus signed June 12, 2026, which lets adult-use dispensaries opt in to serving medical patients, reduces barriers to entry, and increases ownership transparency. That same law is behind the next wave. On October 16, the Illinois Department of Agriculture published proposed rules in the Illinois Register for at least 45 new cannabis infuser licenses, all reserved for social equity applicants, to be issued by January 1, 2027, with a lottery if more than 45 qualifying applicants apply, and an extra draw for applicants with Illinois hemp business experience. The department may issue up to 100 additional social equity infuser licenses beginning January 1, 2028. Infusers are the businesses that turn cannabis into edibles, beverages, and other infused products. Under the proposal, social equity infuser licensees would not pay an initial license fee beyond the application fee, and would not be charged the renewal fee for their first renewal cycle, against a standard 20,000 dollar annual renewal fee. A 45-day written comment period runs from October 16, through roughly the end of November. This is the part of Illinois cannabis that does not make the national headlines: licenses, inspections, and rules, and it is where the market actually gets made.

Illinois hemp, November 12, no matter what Washington does.

Illinois will enforce its new hemp restrictions November 12, even though the federal government postponed many similar restrictions to December 11, according to an October 14 bulletin from the Illinois Department of Revenue and an October 21 informational bulletin from the Illinois Department of Agriculture. After November 12, any product over 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, counting delta-9, delta-8, THCA, THC-O, HHC, and THC-P, becomes cannabis under Illinois law, sellable only by licensed dispensaries. Products at or under that line may continue to be sold if they meet the Illinois Hemp Act's testing, labeling, and child-resistant packaging requirements, but products intended for smoking or vaping will not qualify as allowable final consumer hemp cannabinoid products. A new Hemp Product Manufacturer license runs 5,000 dollars per two years and is required for anyone making intermediate or final hemp cannabinoid products, with applications due by November 9 to be licensed before the Act starts, while an Industrial Hemp Processor license for non-cannabinoid products is 200 dollars per two years. Retailers and distributors of compliant hemp consumer products need no license, but must meet lot testing, certificate of analysis QR code, labeling, and packaging rules. Unlicensed cannabis sales carry penalties from a Class B misdemeanor up to a Class X felony and fines up to 200,000 dollars, as reported. That November 12 date is the same day the federal first stage hits, which is why the calendar in the DEA section above matters twice: federal and Illinois clocks, landing together, with different rules for what happens next.

Georgia mail, Massachusetts repeal, and the fight over Schedule III in practice.

Two other cannabis fights this week show what Schedule III means when it leaves the hearing room. On October 27, Republican Senators James Lankford of Oklahoma and Ted Budd of North Carolina wrote to Postmaster General David Steiner urging the U.S. Postal Service to maintain its ban on mailing all cannabis, even now that state-licensed medical cannabis products are classified as Schedule III. Their letter follows an August vote by the Georgia Medical Cannabis Commission for a new rule that would allow medical cannabis deliveries through the Postal Service or private carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL to patients, caregivers, and health care institutions. Georgia commission executive director Andrew Turnage said the intention is to improve patient access, calling attention to qualifying patients who are permanent residents in long-term care facilities and cannot drive or are immobile. The senators argue Georgia does not have the authority to alter Postal Service regulations, and that they strongly oppose any effort to allow shipment of marijuana. Under current Postal Service domestic shipping policy, marijuana, medical or otherwise, is listed as an item that cannot be sent in the U.S. mail, while hemp products containing 0.3 percent THC or less are allowed but restricted. That is the collision in one paragraph: a state commission trying to use the April 2026 Schedule III order for medical cannabis to reach patients who cannot travel, and two senators trying to hold the mail ban in place. On November 3, Massachusetts voters face Question 8, which asks whether to end legal adult-use sales. A yes vote would shut down recreational retail, along with its regulation and taxation, starting in 2028, according to a High Times calendar of cannabis dates. That is not a hemp question and not a rescheduling question. It is a repeal question, on the same ballot as the midterms, and it is the clearest test this year of whether legalization, once passed, can be voted back out.

Politics, The Midterm Sprint

Trump cancels Kansas and Iowa, doubles down in South Carolina, and the Senate map moves.

The final week of the midterm campaign did not look like a victory lap for anyone. On October 29, the Republican National Committee announced President Donald Trump had canceled rallies in Kansas, scheduled for October 30 in Salina, and Iowa, scheduled for November 1 in Dubuque, two states with unexpectedly competitive Senate races, with less than a week to go. Instead, Trump will hold tele-rallies for candidates in 19 states, which the committee said will allow him to reach more voters in the limited time left before polls close. Trump still has a rally planned in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 30. Speaking to reporters October 29, Trump said he felt confident Republican incumbent Senator Roger Marshall would win in Kansas, and pushed back sharply on a question asking why the rally was canceled. The polling context, as reported, is why the cancellations landed the way they did. In Kansas, one polling average showed Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton with a 0.2 percentage point lead over Marshall, while a CNN poll put Hamilton ahead 49 percent to 45 percent, in a state that has not elected a Democratic U.S. senator since 1932, and that Trump won by 16 percentage points in 2024. In Iowa, a polling average had Republican nominee Ashley Hinson with a 0.5 percentage point lead over Democrat Josh Turek. Trump had already visited both states, in Sioux City, Iowa, on October 22, and Park City, Kansas, on October 19, even as both candidates have at times sought distance from him. South Carolina told the same story from the other direction. Trump returned to South Carolina on October 29, his second visit in eight days, rallying in Rock Hill for appointed Republican Senator Darline Graham, who was urged to run for a full term after her brother, Lindsey, died in July, after a bruising August primary that left fissures among supporters of her runoff opponent, Congressman Ralph Norman. In the past month, both parties have spent about 40 million dollars on the South Carolina Senate race, according to AdImpact tracking data reported by NPR, four times as much as was planned a month ago. A New York Times and Siena poll released October 28 found that race tied at 48 percent to 48 percent between Graham and Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in a state Trump won by 18 points in 2024. The same pollster found Republican Senator Ashley Moody leading Democrat Angie Nixon 50 percent to 44 percent in Florida, and Democrat Peggy Flanagan ahead of Republican Michele Tafoya 54 percent to 40 percent in Minnesota. A Reuters and Ipsos poll completed October 26 put Trump's approval at 32 percent, with Democrats up 8 points on the generic congressional ballot, while another average put his approval at 37.4 percent on October 28, with disapproval near 60 percent. Those are polls, not results, and different pollsters give different numbers, which is why this roundup reports them as polls. The hard numbers are the seats. Republicans hold a 218 to 214 majority in the House, so Democrats need a net gain of three seats to reclaim control, with all 435 seats on the ballot. Republicans hold a 53 to 47 advantage in the Senate, with 35 seats contested, so Democrats need a net gain of four. Voters in 39 states will weigh 145 statewide ballot measures. Early voting was already underway, with tens of millions of ballots reported cast nationwide. That is the sprint: a president canceling in two red states, doubling down in a third, and a map where the Senate majority that looked safe a year ago is now a live question, five days out.

Markets and Tech

Big Tech spends, stocks fall, and Trump and Xi talk trade in Busan.

Wall Street's week ended with a question, not a verdict: how long can artificial intelligence spending grow before investors demand the return? On Friday, October 30, tech shares slumped in Asia, the yen rose, and bonds surged toward their biggest monthly gain in nearly three years, as investors moved to safety on worries that huge and rising AI spending may not deliver sufficient returns, according to Reuters. The immediate triggers were after-hours moves Thursday. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, fell 12.6 percent on Wall Street, wiping out about 500 billion dollars in market value, after its earnings showed heavy AI spending pushing its cash flow into negative territory. Intel plunged about 23 percent after hours after issuing a much weaker outlook for the final quarter, and Amazon fell about 7 percent in extended trading after its third quarter figures missed expectations. Those after-hours moves are not closing prices, and after-hours trading can be thinner and more volatile than the regular session, but they were large enough to drive Nasdaq 100 futures down by about 1.4 percent in early Asian trade and send chipmakers across Asia sharply lower. South Korea's KOSPI slumped 5 percent for an October fall of more than 17 percent, and Japan's Nikkei fell 3 percent. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields fell by more than 7 basis points in Tokyo trade Friday to 4.91 percent, for a fall of some 37 basis points through October, the largest one-month drop since December 2023. The Federal Reserve had kept U.S. interest rates on hold on Wednesday, with no firm projection of when it might need to hike next, and the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank also held rates later in the week. The cloud numbers underneath the sell-off were, by themselves, strong. Amazon reported AWS revenue grew 39 percent year over year to 46 billion dollars, its fastest growth in roughly five years. Microsoft disclosed Azure cloud revenue in dollar terms for the first time, at 33.2 billion dollars for July to September, up 48 percent year over year. Alphabet's Google Cloud revenue jumped 103 percent year over year to 30.7 billion dollars, but capital expenditures surged to 51.4 billion dollars, swinging quarterly free cash flow to a deficit of 9.1 billion dollars. Bloomberg, via The Business Times, estimates collective 2026 Big Tech AI spending at about 750 billion dollars, including roughly 205 billion dollars at Alphabet and 220 billion dollars at Amazon, while Alphabet's search-ad growth was its slowest in five quarters. That is the tension in one sentence: cloud growth is real, and the bill for it is real too. In crypto, Binance faces a more immediate obligation, covering losses from a theft it estimates at 6.3 billion dollars, with frozen funds not yet money returned to customers, according to CoinDesk reporting summarized October 30, and Bitcoin closed October 30 at 78,449 dollars, down 1.74 percent, according to a market briefing. This is market reporting, not investment advice. In trade news, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Busan on October 30 and reached an agreement to ease trade tensions, according to a daily briefing: the United States will lower fentanyl-related tariffs from 20 percent to 10 percent, reducing overall tariffs on China from 57 percent to 47 percent, while China agreed to pause rare earth export controls for one year and purchase large quantities of U.S. soybeans. If that deal holds, it is the other half of the market story this week: tariffs coming down while tech stocks fall for reasons that have nothing to do with tariffs.

World in Brief

Spain, Bosnia, Congo, and the European Central Bank, in one paragraph each, because they all happened this week and none of them fit anywhere else. In Spain, two trains collided on October 28 at Urda, south of Madrid, in the worst tragedy on the Spanish rail network since 2013, and mourning dominated the days that followed. In Bosnia, an Italian helicopter of the European Force in Bosnia crashed Thursday in Brcko, in the northeast of the country, killing four people and injuring twelve, with EUFOR confirming the death of four Italian nationals in a CH-47 Chinook. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the last Ebola patients left a treatment center, a quiet end to an outbreak that did not get the headlines it deserved. In Europe, the European Central Bank kept its deposit facility rate at 2.00 percent for the third consecutive meeting on October 30, and Christine Lagarde will leave the ECB on February 7, 2027, nearly nine months before the end of her term, according to a world briefing. France's economy, meanwhile, went three quarters without growth, placing it on the brink of recession and weighing on fiscal consolidation. None of these are the main story of the week. Together, they are the reason a weekly roundup exists: the news does not wait for a theme.

Beyond Earth

NASA's revised Artemis timeline.

NASA's revised Artemis timeline, announced October 23, moves the goalposts in a way that is honest about where the hardware actually is. Artemis III is now a mid-2027 14-day Earth orbit test, using the SpaceX Starship and Blue Origin Blue Moon landers in test roles. Crewed lunar landings are pushed to Artemis IV and V in 2028. That is a delay dressed up as a test flight, or a test flight that finally admits it is a delay. Either way, the moon is still waiting, and it is not in a hurry.

One Mile: Chapter One, to watch and review. The 90-minute action thriller Joseph flagged is One Mile: Chapter One, on Paramount Plus in the United States. Ryan Phillippe plays former special forces agent Danny Beckett, on a road trip trying to rebuild a relationship with his daughter Alex, played by Amelie Hoeferle. It premiered on digital platforms in February 2026 and went largely unnoticed, then found its audience on Paramount Plus, where Chapter One sat at number one in the United States and Chapter Two sat at number three. That is why it is on our list to watch and review. We have not reviewed it yet, so this is a flag, not a verdict.

Starlink in Ukraine, admitted and disputed. On October 24, Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX had restricted Starlink service in Ukraine, saying the Ukrainian military violated the terms of service by using a civilian commercial service for offensive drone strikes to kill people, and that the loophole was closed the previous week. Ukrainian officials disputed the account, with presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov calling it very strange and arguing that speed limits and the inability of commercial Starlink to operate over Russian territory made the alleged long range use impossible. Ukrainian officials also reported that speeds had been restored. The admission is confirmed. The justification is still contested.

The Cheesecake Factory joke would not die. Barack Obama roasted Donald Trump's White House renovations by comparing the look to a Cheesecake Factory, then doubled down on the joke on the campaign trail. Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in August and was announced as a Fox News contributor starting November 1, was out spinning the roast. The joke is not about cheesecake. It is about whether a renovation reads as grand or gaudy, and once a line like that lands, no press operation can unland it.

LoWick killed in Dixmoor, answers still missing. Chicago rapper Chadwick Clark, known as LoWick, 22, was killed during an FBI operation in Dixmoor on Wednesday, October 28, at about 7 a.m., near 145th Street and Cooper Avenue. The FBI said it was court authorized law enforcement activity, that one person was killed, and that no federal personnel were injured. The FBI has not said what warrant agents were serving or what happened inside the home before agents opened fire, and its Inspection Division is reviewing the shooting. Clark's sister, Nia Cole, said he was hiding in an attic and had no weapon. That account is unconfirmed by the FBI, so it stays labeled as her account. This was reported as the second fatal FBI shooting in the Chicago area in three days.

The ICE arrest that split the MAGA room. Conservative Christian blogger Samuel Sey, 39, who had publicly argued that Christians should support ICE and deportations, was arrested by immigration authorities at Columbus airport in Ohio on October 21. The Department of Homeland Security said Sey, born in Ghana and raised in Canada, entered the United States legally in 2022 and overstayed his authorized admission, that he has no pending applications, and that he accepted voluntary departure and will remain in custody until removed. Supporters described it as a paperwork or clerical issue. The irony is the story, but the legal facts are the ones above, and they are still moving.

The 2028 Dodge Viper that is not quite a Viper. A rendered 2028 Dodge Viper looks right, low nose, wide haunches, proper menace, until you hear the catch: the render is electric, with no V10. The original Viper arrived in 1992 with an 8.0 liter V10, and the final 2017 car made 645 horsepower from an 8.4 liter V10. An electric restomod could be fast, with a hypothetical 900 horsepower from two rear motors floated in the coverage, but it would lose the sound, the manual, and the menace that made a Viper a Viper. This is a render and a debate, not a Dodge production announcement.

A Kentucky judge, a champagne shirt, and a 30 day suspension. Judge Lauren Ogden, who oversees Jefferson County Family Court in Kentucky, was suspended for 30 days after it was found she violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. The reporting that scandalized the local high society set lists wearing a shirt emblazoned with champagne glasses to court, and eating and texting during fractious hearings. The suspension is the fact. The shirt is the detail everybody will remember.

Musk's Odyssey, judged by its own chatbot. Elon Musk promised that Grok Imagine would make a full length Odyssey that was historically accurate and true to Homer, after criticizing Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. What arrived was a first episode of about seven minutes, made with Wonder Studios, which critics panned as AI slop, with stiff dialogue and identical looking ships. Grok itself told Wired the episode is an adaptation, not a historically accurate reconstruction, and does not meet a strict historical standard. The Odyssey is myth, not a history document, which makes the promise of historical accuracy the joke in the first place.

Bears to Bridgeport, on paper only. Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill unveiled renderings for a conceptual, domed Bears stadium at the Rate Field site in Bridgeport, as the centerpiece of a mixed use district with housing, entertainment, hospitality, parks, and public recreation, using CTA, Metra, and Dan Ryan Expressway access. The catch is in the word conceptual. The Bears have not committed to the site, the plan only works if the White Sox vacate Rate Field, and reporting says the team is still leaning toward Hammond, Indiana. This is a rendering, not a deal.

Hegseth fires his top planner, and the story splits. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, the Joint Staff director for strategy, plans, and policy, known as J5. Reports tied the firing to an alleged classified leak investigation over Iran and Ukraine, with Pentagon officials cited as saying Sylvia failed polygraph examinations, while other reporting said colleagues disputed the leak allegation and that Sylvia denied leaking while acknowledging contact with journalists. Reports differ on whether it was three or four failed polygraphs, and the matter was referred to the Justice Department. Sylvia is the second person removed from the J5 job in a year. Laura Loomer had previously targeted Sylvia after his son Gavin posted about Charlie Kirk's assassination, which is part of the political background, not proof of the leak case.

Psilocybin: the coverage ran ahead of the trials. A systematic review in JAMA Network Open on October 20 compared 70 psilocybin trial publications with 172 news articles and found that news and trials reported positive effects at nearly the same rate, but news often presented benefits as established and extended them to conditions with little or no trial backing. The sharpest example is PTSD: 74 news articles named it, while the review found zero eligible trials for it in its window. An earlier scoping review found only 12 percent of psilocybin studies were randomized clinical trials, most small, with a median of 22 participants. That does not mean psilocybin does nothing. It means the headlines are ahead of the evidence.

The venomous animal that was never really gone. The Bangka slow loris, a small nocturnal primate from Bangka Island in Indonesia, was last documented in scientific records in 1937 and was classified as critically endangered and possibly extinct. A new paper found it was not hiding that hard: more than 90 slow lorises were rescued on Bangka between 2015 and 2025, 86 of them later released to the wild, after turning up in gardens, on roads, and on power lines, including one found eating guavas in a garden in October 2024. Do not let the face fool you. Slow lorises are the only known venomous primates, producing a secretion from a gland on the inner elbow that becomes toxic when mixed with saliva. Cute, critically endangered, and best admired from a distance.

Mexico charges treason over a drug raid, and the charge is the story. Mexican federal prosecutors charged former Chihuahua attorney general Cesar Jauregui with treason, accusing him of allowing United States agents to join an April drug lab raid in Chihuahua without federal approval. The raid ended in a crash on the return trip that killed two United States agents, later confirmed as CIA officers, and two Chihuahua state investigators. A federal judge linked Jauregui to trial on October 25, he remains in preventive custody at Altiplano prison, and his defense denies he authorized CIA participation. A judicial linkage is not a conviction, and treason is rarely used in Mexico, with the last widely recognized conviction dating to 1867 and Emperor Maximilian.

Addison gaming cafe burglary, then a chase to I-290. Here the first headline needs a correction. The early headline said four arrested. Later reporting from NBC Chicago and Fox 32 says five people were taken into custody, with two more initially at large. At about 4:34 a.m. on Thursday, October 29, Addison police watching gaming locations for recent burglaries saw two vehicles pull into Maria's Gaming Cafe at 40 East Lake Street, saw people force their way in and burglarize it, and tried to stop both vehicles. Spike strips disabled one vehicle, its occupants piled into the other, Villa Park police picked it up near North Avenue and Route 83, and it crashed near I-290 and 25th Avenue. Police recovered multiple weapons and proceeds believed connected to the burglary, both vehicles were later confirmed stolen, and inbound lanes reopened at about 6:05 a.m.

Trump, Shylock, and a Kansas Senate race. At a rally in Park City, Kansas, near Wichita, on October 19, President Donald Trump defended Republican Senator Roger Marshall over reports that Marshall sued more than 700 former patients for unpaid medical bills as an obstetrician-gynecologist. Trump said the coverage made Marshall, who is not Jewish, sound like a Shylock-type guy. Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and the Anti-Defamation League has said the term is rooted in a longstanding antisemitic stereotype about Jewish greed. Trump used the term before, in 2025, and said at the time he did not know it was offensive. Marshall faces Democrat Adam Hamilton, a pastor and former Republican, in a closer than expected race.

983 Flock searches, one shared password, one lost job. Former Savannah, Georgia, police officer Amber Harpe was fired after sharing her Flock Safety login with her husband, Tyler Harpe, an ICE agent who did not have his own Flock account. An internal audit flagged 983 search entries on her account between January and July, covering 97 license plates from six states, with 788 of those tied to South Carolina plates and most registered owners in that group reported as Hispanic. The Harpes said every search was for ICE targets, many with arrest warrants, and not for personal use. Savannah police fired her for violating policy on unauthorized access to police software, not for a criminal charge, and she was not charged. She was one of six Savannah employees fired in August after Flock audits, four others were later arrested over alleged personal searches, and ICE is investigating Tyler Harpe's involvement.

Ohio: take this down, and then it came down anyway. Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine called Vivek Ramaswamy's attack ad against Democrat Amy Acton deeply, deeply troubling and said the Ramaswamy campaign needs to take it down. The ad featured Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a liar and urging voters not to vote for her. Acton called the ad horrible, hideous, and despicable, and said it exploited her childhood trauma. Ramaswamy said on October 29 that the ad had run to completion and his campaign had moved on to four other ads. A Republican commissioned poll reported by Axios put Acton ahead 50 percent to 42 percent, with 86 percent of respondents saying they had seen, read, or heard something about the ad. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance defended the ad, while DeWine still backed the Republican ticket.

The candidate who would not be kink-shamed. Democrat Chris Gallant, a retired military pilot and former air traffic controller running for Congress in New York's first district on eastern Long Island against Republican incumbent Nick LaLota, refused to drop out after the New York Post surfaced photographs in September from about 2010 in which he modeled leather and bondage gear for San Francisco shop Mr. S Leather. Gallant said he is proud of who he is, that he will not be shamed into silence, and that he will not allow his private life to be distorted and weaponized against him, and he leaned into the story with the slogan Make politics sexy again. The point here is not the photographs. It is that a leak designed to end a campaign became the campaign's answer instead.

Coming Up

·         Chicago TARDIS, November 27 to 29, Westin Chicago Lombard.

·         Avengers: Doomsday, December 18, with Patrick Stewart's final on-screen appearance.

·         The OEIG response watch

·         The IDFPR PAC review clock

·         Midterm election, Tuesday, November 3. Results after polls close, not before.

·         DEA rescheduling replies, November 5, then record certification and a recommendation to Administrator Terry Cole.

·         Wingstop Sour Patch Kids Wicked Punch ends November 5, while supplies last. Mike has already voted with his taste buds.

·         Hemp, November 12: federal section 781 first stage, and the Illinois Hemp Act 0.4 milligram per container line.

·         Illinois Hemp Act enforcement, November 12, regardless of the federal delay to December 11.

·         Massachusetts Question 8, November 3: vote on ending adult-use sales, effective 2028 if it passes.

·         Trump and Xi trade deal, October 30 in Busan: fentanyl tariffs down, rare earth controls paused for a year, soybean purchases to follow.

·         Illinois social equity infuser license comments, through roughly the end of November.

·         Hemp, December 11: federal funding expiry and the total THC cap.

·         Kansas Attorney General investigator contact, expected about November 13, with a case number for the October 30 charity fraud submission. No finding is expected at that step, just a number and an investigator.

Read More, Linked

Everything referenced above that lives on our own pages is linked here, so this roundup does not just name things, it points to them. The reviews and the Stratton article below are live on fnaround.com, and their links are in this section.

·         F'nAround weekly archive: What F'nHappened This Week

·         Mayoral breakdown, full article: The Race to Run Chicago

·         Chicago Build Expo 2026, full review: Chicago Build Expo 2026 review

·         Spider-Man: Brand New Day, full review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day review

·         Patrick Stewart, Star Trek deep dive: How a Vent Cover Led Back to Picard's Star Trek

·         FROM seasons 1 to 3, full review: FROM Seasons 1 to 3 review

·         Oz, full review: Oz review

·         Stratton speech restriction, full article: When the Comment Section Closes

·         ResearchGate profile: Joseph Phelan

·         When the State Speaks With Multiple Voices: F'nAround page, DOI

·         When the State Knows but the State Does Not Know: F'nAround page, DOI

·         Equity in Form, Exclusion in Function: F'nAround page, DOI

·         The Nonintervention Paradox: F'nAround page, DOI

·         Ceremonial Compliance: DOI

·         Reconciliation Testing: DOI

·         The Pritzker Legacy: DOI

·         The Art of Patronage and The Architecture of Not-Knowing: ResearchGate profile, publications 416812908 and 416895181

·         ORCID: 0009-0008-3135-3083

·         Illinois 2026 Annual Cannabis Report: IDFPR report

·         Cannabis dates to December 11: High Times calendar

·         Trump midterm rallies canceled: USA Today

·         Tech sell-off, October 30: Reuters

That is the week. The work continues, the watches keep ticking, and the next roundup will have to reckon with whatever those watches turn up. See you next week, and do not blink.