IT’S POLITICAL: With 31 days to go to election day. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are battling for votes in the seven critical swing states that could determine who becomes the next president.

  Today Trump is returning to the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds outside Pittsburgh to re-do the rally that was cut short when an assassin’s bullet nipped his ear on July 13^th. Expect a performance that will capitalize on his near death.

  Trump’s campaign is also reported to believe that the spreading warfare in the Middle East and the disaster of Hurricane Helene may give him an edge. 

  Both campaigns are pouring time and money into the battlegrounds of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Polling in those states says they are too close to call.

  Harris met yesterday with a group of Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan to talk about the wars in Gaza and Lebanon in which tens of thousands of civilians have died. Michigan has one of the largest Arab American populations in the country and they’ve been frustrated about the Biden administration’s response to the Israeli destruction of Gaza and the escalating attacks in Lebanon.

  Alison Fragale and Adam Grant write for The NY Times that as a woman running for a powerful office, “One of the clearest markers of her evolution as a candidate has been her ability to convey both strength and sympathy, and to do so in ways that come across as authentic.” 

  Overall, the Real Clear Politics average of polls has Harris leading Trump by 2.2 percent, but the polls are wildly divergent. Morning Consult and Susquehanna have Harris leading by 5 percent and Rasmussen has Trump leading by 2.

ECON 101: The economy added 254,000 jobs in September, indicating a healthy economy heading into the election although Donald.Trump has millions of voters convinced that the economy is bad. The aftereffect of inflation has done its damage. 

AFTERMATH: Rescuers are still searching for the missing in the flood-ravaged southeast now in the second week since Hurricane Helene hit the area. 

  At least 215 people have been confirmed dead, roughly half of them in North Carolina. In Buncombe County which includes the beautiful and historic Asheville, 72 people were killed.

  Search parties are dealing with washed out roads, downed trees, mudslides, debris fields and more. 

  Power is still out for just shy of one million customers, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia.

  Relief agencies are urging residents not to respond to rumors and conspiracy theories spreading in the disaster zone, some of them by politicians. Without evidence, as with so many things he says, Donald Trump claimed that the Biden administration, along with North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, is withholding or diverting relief funds because the hardest hit areas are prominently Republican. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk claimed in a post on X that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “actively blocking citizens who try to help.”

THE WAR ROOM: Israel has stepped up its attacks on targets in Lebanon, targeting the leaders of Hezbollah and stores of weapons. Hezbollah has responded by firing rockets into northern Israel.

  With diplomatic efforts under way, there is still concern about all-out regional war following Iran’s missile attack on Israel last Tuesday. President Biden popped into the White House briefing room yesterday and said Israel had not decided how to respond, but said that if he were the Israeli leader, “I would be thinking about other alternatives” to attacking Iran’s oil facilities.

IN TRANSITION: Four Mountain West Conference women’s volleyball teams have forfeited their games to San Jose State because San Jose has a transgender player on the team. San Jose administrators say they do not get involved with the gender identity of their athletes.

  Transgender athletes, particularly in women’s sports, is an increasingly political issue. Idaho’s Republican Gov. Brad Little last week signed an executive order barring sports teams at Boise State and other public schools in the state from playing against teams with trans athletes. Little said, “Biological males, men and boys, have physical differences that give them an unfair advantage when competing with women and girls.”

  Twenty-five states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes from competing on teams that align with their gender identity.

THE SPIN RACK: A new Marist Institute poll found that 69 percent of adults living in New York City, and 71 percent of Democrats, think their indicted mayor Eric Adamas should resign. Only 30 percent said Adams should serve out his term. — Seventeen years after the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list, avian flu is killing eagles and again threatening their survival as a species. The flu has killed half the eagle population in Michigan and overall killed 606 throughout the country.

BELOW THE FOLD: The Merriam-Webster online dictionary has added 200 new words and phrases including “MAGA,” “far left,” “beach read,” “dungeon crawler,” “IDGAF” and “touch grass,” which Merriam-Webster defines as: “to participate in normal activities in the real world especially as opposed to online experiences and interactions.”

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