CHINA SYNDROME: President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping reached a détente, of sorts, in their mutual trade war while meeting for the first time in Trump’s second tour of office.

  Meeting in South Korea, Trump and Xi agreed to a one-year truce on tariffs that had reached more than 100 percent. Trump told reporters that Xi had agreed to curb the production of fentanyl chemicals and loosen up on export of vital rare earth metals. 

TO YOUR HEALTH: Americans who get healthcare insurance through the Affordable Care Act …Obamacare … are facing a 30 percent increase in many states unless Congress extends the Covid era subsidies. That’s what the government shutdown is about. The Democrats are demanding an extension of the subsidies so people can afford health insurance.

  Enrollment doubled after Congress increased the subsidies in 2021.

  Rates will go up about 30 percent in 30 states according to analysis from KFF, the health research group. They say rates will increase 17 percent in states that run their own markets. If the subsidies are not extended, the cost of health insurance will rise steeply for about 20 million Americans and it’s certain that many will go uninsured. Already, about 27 million Americans are uninsured.

LA MIGRA: As many as 160 American citizens have been swept up and detained in immigration enforcement sweeps, ProPublica reports. 

  As immigration agents target mostly Hispanic looking people, “Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents,” the publication reports. “They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear.  At least three citizens  were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.”

  ProPublica said they were told by the Department of Homeland Security that, “We don’t arrest US citizens for immigration enforcement.” 

CATEGORY 5: Hurricane Melissa caused “significant” damage in Cuba and Jamaica and killed 23 people in Haiti and five in Jamaica. Those 23 died when a river burst over its banks.

  The storm passed through the Bahamas as a category 2 and  is now tracking northeast, well off the US coast.

THE REGIME:

— US Forces blew up yet another suspected drug boat, this one in the eastern Pacific, bringing the number of destroyed boats to 15 and the dead to 61.

  “The Western Hemisphere is no longer a safe haven for narco-terrorists bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth bragged in a statement. “The Department of War will continue to hunt them down and eliminate them wherever they operate.”

   Many outside legal experts have said that the use of military force in these strikes is not legal because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians, even if they are criminal suspects. 

— Two federal prosecutors in Washington were placed on leave after writing in a sentencing memo describing the January 6, 2021,attack at the US Capitol as stemming from a “mob of rioters.” They wrote the memo in the case of Taylor Taranto, who was pardoned for his part in the insurrection but later arrested on a gun charge.

POKE IN THE EYE: The newly-enlarged Paramount entertainment company has begun layoffs the help pay for its $8 billion merger with Skydance.

  Among divisions getting hit is CBS News, where “CBS Saturday Morning” co-hosts Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson are among the nearly 100 news employees cast out.

  CBS News is having a tumultuous year, aggravated by the appointment of editorial director Bari Weiss who reports directly to Paramount’s chief David Ellison, rather than the President of CBS News. Weiss held a meeting with the staff of the revered “60 Minutes,” asking them why America thinks they are biased and being met with a silent room.

  Former “60 Minutes” boss Bill Owens, who resigned in conflict with Paramount’s previous majority owner Shari Redstone, told an audience at Colby College in Maine that she had tried to kill stories about the Israeli war in Gaza and about Donald Trump.

 He said, ““When I said we were going to do another Gaza piece, that was like hitting a hornet’s nest,”and that an intermediary for Redstone asked, “Do you need to mention Trump’s name that often?”

  While the Paramount/Skydance merger was pending before government regulators, Owens said he was also asked to apologize for the editing of  the election-season interview with Kamala Harris, the target of Trump’s lawsuit. He told the Colby crowd, “I said, I’m not apologizing for anything. We haven’t done anything wrong.”   

HOME PLATE: Toronto shelled Los Angeles 6-1 last night at Chavez Ravine, pulling ahead 3-2 in the World Series. Game six is tomorrow night in Toronto. 

THE SPIN RACK:  French authorities arrested five more suspects in the $102 million jewelry heist at the Louvre, bringing the total to seven, but the jewels have not been recovered. — The trial has begun in a $40 million lawsuit brought by a Virginia schoolteacher shot by a 6-year-old. Abby Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest. The lawsuit claims former school administrator Ebony Parker failed to act after four people went to her with concerns that the child brought a gun to school. — Former Illinois deputy sheriff Sean Grayson, 31, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2024 shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who had called 911 about a prowler.Grayson shot the 36 year old Massey after confronting her about how she was handling a pot of hot water. Bodycam video showed Massey telling the two responding officers, “Don’t hurt me,” and repeating, “Please God.”

BELOW THE FOLD: President Trump posted on his Truth Social that he has ordered the “Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons” as other countries are doing and “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

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