Korean Crush: South Korea is in shock after a Halloween festival attended by as many as 100,000 people turned into a crushing crowd surge that killed at least 154 people.

  The incident happened in in a narrow alley in Itaewon, the nightclub district of Seoul. Most of the dead were in their teens and 20s, with women significantly outnumbering men. Two American college students were among those killed.

  The injured were distributed to as man as 59 hospitals with 19 people in critical condition.

  Video taken after the incident showed desperate attempts to save people with CPR, bodies in bags lined up on the street, and the dead wheeled away on gurneys.

  Parents described repeatedly calling their children’s’ cellphones and getting no answer. 

  Survivors described a surging sea of human bodies and said once things got out of control people fell like dominoes. They said there was little or no crowd control leading up to the disaster. 

The War Room: Russia fired a barrage of missiles at Ukraine today, damaging power and water facilities in some areas. Ukraine claims to have shot down most of the incoming missiles.

  Over the weekend, Russia backed out of the deal in which it was allowing Ukraine to continue exporting grain through the Black Sea, endangering a vital food supply for much of the world. It was a very unusual arrangement in which the invading country was allowing its target to keep supplying grain to the world.

  Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tweeted that, “Putin needs leverage as things go south for him on the battlefields in Ukraine, so the threat of global food crisis needs to be put back in the Russian toolbox of coercion and blackmail.” 

  Russia ruptured the deal after a swarm of air and sea drones attacked its Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol. Moscow called it an act of terrorism and Ukraine has not taken responsibility. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, rejected “false accusations that our country is exacerbating the global food problem.” He said in a statement, “It is unfair to condemn Russia in suspending the implementation of the deal. This happened because of the reckless actions by the Ukrainian authorities.”

Brazilian Ballot Box: Brazilian voters turned out their right wing President Jair Bolsonaro after just one term and elected the leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s been to prison and back.  It’s a stunning rebuke of  Bolsonaro’s far-right movement in which he accelerated cutting of the Amazon rain forest and fumbled the Covid pandemic that killed 700,000 Brazilians. 

  Like Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has questioned the integrity of the electronic voting system and has suggested he might not accept a loss. It’s close.  His opponent known simply as “Lula,” captured only 50.90 percent of the votes opposed to Bolsonaro’s 49.10. 

  The 77-year-old Da Silva is a former metalworker and union leader with a fifth-grade education. He Brazil during prosperous time 20 years ago, he was later convicted of corruption and 580 days in prison before his conviction was overturned.

Chief Twit: Elon Musk, who just took over Twitter saying he would open it to free dialogue, re-posted a conspiracy theory that Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was drunk and meeting a male prostitute when he was attacked in their San Francisco home. Mr. Pelosi, who’s recovering from brain and skull surgery, was the one who called 911 and the man arrested was known for following conspiracy theories, but Musk didn’t check it out, like many users banned under the previous Twitter regime. 

  Musk wrote, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.” The intruder was reported to have been shouting “Where’s Nancy?” when he broke into the home, looking for the Democratic House Speaker. Her husband was struck with a hammer just as police entered.

  Fox News erroneously reported that the attacker was in his underwear and the conspiracy theories took off from there. Some have claimed it is a “false flag,” an incident staged to inspire sympathy for Nancy Pelosi.

  Musk, who’s dubbed himself “Chief Twit,” has been busy firing Twitter staffers over the weekend, took down the post after the damage had been done.

The Ball Game: The Houston Astros on Saturday evened the World Series at 1-1 with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Astros scored three quick first-inning runs and went on to win 5-2.

  There was no game yesterday — too much conflict with professional football. The Series continues tonight.

The Spin Rack: At least 60 people were killed in India yesterday in the western state of Gujarat when a foot bridge collapsed, dropping hundreds of people into a river. — The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case challenging affirmative action to create diverse student bodies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The challengers say that according to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, admissions must be made regardless of color. The universities say Brown means they must consider color to create equal opportunity. — Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer told an interviewer that the former President is too  afraid of losing to run for president again.

Below the Fold: The popularity of electronic bicycles and scooters has exploded over the past year or two, and so have the batteries.

  “These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch,” Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department told NPR.

  The batteries sometimes blow when they are hooked to a mismatching charger that doesn’t shut down when the battery is charged. But sometimes the batteries can just leak and burst into flames. Flynn said, “We’ve seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they’re actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments.”

  Other than that, electronic bikes are really cool.

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