PAYBACK:  Israel bombed targets in Iran last night in retribution for Iran’s missile barrage early this month. The Israeli attack appeared to be calculated to avoid triggering all-out war between the two countries. A US official told Reuters news “this should be the end of it.”

  Iran’s national air defense force said that strikes on military bases in three provinces caused limited damage. It appears that the city of Tehran itself was not hit.

  The Israeli military warned Iran against further escalation, saying in a statement that it would be “obligated to respond.” In a fairly standard response, Iran said it is “entitled and obligated to defend itself against foreign acts of aggression.”

NO OPINION: On the brink of an election that could be a turning point in American history, the chief executive of  The Washington Post announced that the paper “will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election”  Will Lewis also said, “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” Both now and in the future, he said.

    Lewis’s move at the Post follows an uproar at The Los Angeles Times, where the head of the editorial board and two of its writers resigned after the paper’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris.

  Both Soon-Shiong, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post, have major contracts or regulatory business with the federal government. There’s a good possibility that they fear endorsing Kamala Harris while there’s a chance that Donald Trump might win the election. It’s what happens when non-journalists own journalism outlets.

  The Post has endorsed presidential candidates since 1976 when it favored the winner, Jimmy Carter. Lewis cited decades-old editorials explaining the previous policy of not endorsing a candidate then said, “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility.”

  Oddly, Lewis said that “in 1976 for understandable reasons at the time, we changed this long-standing policy.” That was when Carter ran against the innocuous incumbent, Gerald Ford, who was nothing like Donald Trump.

THE BIG ISSUE: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is waging a campaign to defeat the state’s Measure 4, a constitutional amendment that would allow abortion in the state up to the point of fetal viability. Some of the latest polling says Measure 4 just barely has the 60 percent support it needs to pass … and at least one poll says it has far less.

  Florida is the most populous of the 10 states with abortion measures on the ballot so winning it would be big for the pro-choice movement. 

  Other states with abortion amendments on the ballot are Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota. 

  Nebraska has competing measures, one that would allow abortion up to the point of viability and one that ends after the first trimester.

SCHOOLED: President Biden yesterday formally apologized to Native Americans on Friday for the US government’s role in taking native children from their families and forcing them into Indian boarding schools to erase their language and culture. 

  The conditions and abuse of the kids at those schools have been described as a horror and it went on for 150 years. Biden called the government-run Indian boarding schools one of the “most horrific chapters in American history that most Americans don’t even know about.”

  “It did take place,” Biden said. “Darkness can hide much. It erases nothing. Some injustices are heinous and horrific. They can’t be buried. We must know the good, the bad, the truth. We do not erase history. We make history. We learn from history, and we remember so we can heal as a nation.”

HITS RUNS AND ERRORS: The Los Angeles Dodgers won Game 1 of the World Series 6-3 last night in LA when first baseman Freddie Freeman hit a history-making grand slam at the bottom of the 10^th  inning. It was the first “walk-off” grand slam in the history of the World Series.

  We committed an error yesterday when we reversed the schedule and mistakenly reported that the first three games of the World Series would be in New York. Game three is in New York on Monday.

THE OBIT PAGE: Phil Lesh, a bassist, singer and original member of the 1960s stoner band The Grateful Dead, has died at age 84. Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally wrote in his 2002 book that, “On a day-to-day basis, the psychic pivot to the Dead is Phil Lesh, the most aggressive purist, the anti-philistine Artist.” 

THE SPIN RACK: Kamala Harris held a rally with pop star Beyoncé in Houston last night while Donald Trump sat for hours talking to right wing podcaster Joe Rogan. Harris called Texas “ground zero” in the fight to restrict abortion rights in the country.—  The Department of Justice has reached a $103 million settlement with the owners of the container ship that hit and collapsed the Francis Scott key Bridge at the mouth of Baltimore harbor. — Cases of E. coli infections linked to McDonald’s hamburgers have risen to 75. Twenty-two people have been admitted to hospitals.

BELOW THE FOLD: Donald Trump greeted his crowd in Traverse City, Michigan last night to the tune of “YMCA,” which is a well-known gay anthem. 

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