IT’S POLITICAL: Counting down to the November 5^th  election, the candidates are making closing arguments. Vice President Kamala Harris visited two churches in Georgia before sitting for an interview with MSNBC during her “Souls to the Polls” mobilization effort to reach Black faith communities.

  Harris was interviewed by the Rev. Al Sharpton and serenaded by Stevie Wonder for her 60th birthday. “The American people deserve so much better,” than Donald Trump she told Mr. Sharpton.

  Former President Donald Trump, for his part, was in Philadelphia renewing his unsubstantiated claim that Harris never worked at a McDonald’s to help put herself through college. One of Trump’s basic plays is to undermine truth. And yesterday to put a point on it, he worked the fry station at a McDonald’s and handed people food through the drive-thru window even though the place was closed for his show of being a working man.

  Trump may never have worked at McDonald’s but he looks like he has dined there.

  Trump, who has described his rambling speeches as a “weave” of brilliant thoughts, said all candidates for president should have to undergo a cognitive test, while also insisting he is mentally fit for office. He said, “I’ve done cognitive tests twice and I aced both of them. The doctor in one case said, ‘I’ve never seen anybody ace them’.”

  Trump has increasingly used off-color language and obscenities in his public appearances. In one speech he told his crowd that they should send the message to Harris: “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president.”

  At the Al Smith charity dinner in New York at which the speeches are supposed to be funny, Trump stood just a few feet from the Archbishop of New York denouncing former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and saying, “He was a terrible mayor,” and “I don’t give a shit if this is comedy or not.”

THE WAR ROOM: Following a new series of airstrikes in Beirut and other locations, Israel says it is targeting the financial arm of the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. A senior Israeli intelligence official told reporters that the target is a Hezbollah unit used to pay operatives of the Iran-backed militant group and to buy weapons. 

  On the intelligence front, the US is investigating the leak of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, officials told The Associated Press. The documents are said to describe satellite imagery showing Israel moving military assets in preparation for a response to Iran’s missile attack earlier this month.

THE BOYS OF SUMMER: The Los Angeles Dodgers with the hitting power of Japanese star Shohei Ohtani won the National League baseball championship beating the NY Mets 10-5 in game 6 of their series.

  The New York Yankees on Saturday also landed a spot in the Series for the first time in 15 years, beating the Cleveland Guardians 5-2 in game 5 of the American league championships.

 The first game of the World Series is on Friday. 

HOOP DREAMS: The New York Liberty won their first WNBA title with a 67-62 overtime win over the Minnesota Lynx. Jonquel Jones scored 17 points for the Liberty in Brooklyn to take the series 3-2 and deny the Lynx a record fifth title.

THE OBIT PAGE: Sammy Basso, an advocate for research into progeria the rare disease he had that causes rapid aging in children and premature death, who lived with humor and good cheer knowing his life would be short, died on October 5th in the Veneto region of northern Italy. He was 28.

  Basso was skinny, bald and wrinkled, looking in his 20s like a little old man who weighed only 44 pounds. He was one of only about 150 people in the world identified with the condition. Average life expectancy for people with progeria is 14 ½ years.

  A 2022 profile in The NY Times described Basso as “one of Italy’s most recognizable advocates for science and human dignity, regardless of age.”  He was also a jokester who once posed outside the UFO museum in Roswell, New Mexico as a real alien visiting from outer space.

THE SPIN RACK: At least seven people were killed when an aluminum ferry boarding gangway collapsed on Sapelo Island, Georgia where crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants. As many as 40 people were reported to be on the gangway and 20 of them fell in the water, according to authorities. — Frozen waffles sold under the brand names of major retailers including Kroger, Price Chopper, and Walmart are recalled for the danger that they might be contaminated with listeria. — San Francisco 49ers rookie wide receiver Ricky Pearsall, who was shot in the chest during an attempted robbery less than two months ago, played his first game and made his first NFL catch yesterday in the team’s 28-18 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. — Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is giving away a million dollars a day to randomly selected voters who sign a pledge to support the first and second amendments to the Constitution … that’s the right to free speech and to own an assault rifle.

BELOW THE FOLD: He’ll have an Arnold Palmer. Donald Trump, who believes he should be president again, opened a weekend rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania with a story about the great professional golfer Arnold Palmer, a hometown hero. 

  Trump said: “Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women… but this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man, this man was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros they came out of there, they said ‘Oh my god. That’s unbelievable.’”

  That’s the Arnold Palmer that Trump admires. For everyone else, it’s a drink that’s half tea and half lemonade.

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