Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, breaks down three Stephen King movie adaptations and how they differ from their source material.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is set to exhaust its funds on Saturday, making it the most significant casualty yet of the government shutdown.
At an Asia-Pacific summit, the Chinese leader urged countries to “resist unilateral bullying,” an appeal that seemed at odds with his country’s recent actions.
President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, on TV at a restaurant in Gyeongju. Mr. Xi was the sole superpower leader at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit with Mr. Trump gone.
At an Asia-Pacific summit, the Chinese leader urged countries to “resist unilateral bullying,” an appeal that seemed at odds with his country’s recent actions.
Outnumbered and facing vast stakes, Justices Kagan and Jackson are split over the best approach: investing in diplomacy inside the court or sounding the alarm outside.
President Trump was given a replica of an ancient crown at a meeting with South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Wednesday.
Zohran Mamdani’s opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians could influence New York City’s investments, his appointees and city policing tactics.
The Texas attorney general has escalated the pace of high-profile legal actions, raising concern that his Senate campaign is influencing his law enforcement work.
As a high priestess of Wicca, a branch of modern paganism founded in England, she promoted an image of witches as early feminists who were benevolent and spiritual.
In Wisconsin, Democrats are launching nearly 400 canvassing events this weekend focused on health care. A major liberal advocacy group, Protect Our Care, will push a six-figure digital campaign. Top Democratic governors, including Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Laura Kelly of Kansas, are holding press calls to “to slam D.C. Republicans for causing Americans’ health care premiums to skyrocket.”
It adds up to a campaign of doomsday messaging aimed at voters’ concerns about health care as premium spikes are due to arrive.
“November 1st is a health care cliff for the American people, and I think it's also a political cliff for Republicans,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care, a liberal nonprofit that has hosted a dozen town halls with House Democrats throughout the country on the impending premium increases. “More and more people are paying attention to it.”
In the coming days, Democrats will launch ad buys, hold town halls and convene media appearances to highlight the Nov. 1 date when Americans must choose to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace with higher premiums or forgo it altogether, an attempt to ensure Republicans shoulder the blame for rising health care costs.
Some of the tactics, like the DNC holding a call with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are routine. But others are more national in scope, including Protect Our Care is deploying a digital search advertising campaign that targets people who are researching their ACA health care plans online with ads blaming Republicans. Those ads will run in House districts held by vulnerable Republicans in Arizona, Iowa, New York and Pennsylvania, among other places.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also has an upcoming ad scheduled to run in 35 competitive House districts starting this weekend. The four-figure digital buy shows Speaker Mike Johnson on vacation — a reference to the House being in recess for six weeks amid the looming insurance hikes.
In the days leading up to Nov. 1, Democratic governors have described how the hikes could devastate Americans. On Monday, outgoing Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers released the 2026 plan outlining rates for the state’s individual marketplace, which showed that many premiums for individuals and families will double. Some seniors will face an increase of more than $30,000 per year. Nationally, on average, out-of-pocket premium payments for subsidized ACA enrollees will be 114 percent higher without the tax credits, according to KFF, a health care research group.
“Republicans’ reckless decisions are causing prices on everything to go up,” Evers said in a statement. “Republicans need to end this chaos and stop working to make healthcare more expensive. It’s that simple.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill have refused to engage in health care negotiations with Democrats until the government reopens, and many within the GOP are resistant to extending the tax credits at all. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he would meet “soon” with Democrats to discuss an appropriations agreement, which would amount to the most high-level meeting to end the shutdown that will soon enter its second month.
In Virginia and New Jersey, where voters will cast ballots next week in off-year bellwether elections, the Democratic candidates for governor have made combating rising costs central to their campaigns — tying that message to the looming ACA hikes. It's an early road test of a message the party will hammer leading up to the midterms: President Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington have made life more expensive.
Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, has highlighted how out-of-pocket costs could be two to more than five times higher for families who purchase insurance through the ACA exchange, and those hikes could force thousands of people to go uninsured. Spanberger this week toured a rural hospital in southwest Virginia that stands to feel the effects of the Trump administration’s tax law that slashes Medicaid.
In Wisconsin, a battleground state that backed Trump by under 1 point last year, Democrats are launching hundreds of canvassing operations focused on subsidy cuts, and are planning messaging billboards as well. This weekend, as Wisconsinites see tangible increases in their premiums, Democratic Party Chair Devin Remiker said, “the objective reality is going to hit people in a way that you can't talking point your way out of, if you're the Republican Party.”
Wisconsin Republicans aren’t planning to spend money in response, however. State GOP Chair Brian Schimming says Democrats are going to hang themselves by tying the subsidy cuts to the shutdown.
“I think they're putting a massive, massive bet on not just the shutdown, but on getting people to think that the shutdown is … Republicans’ fault,” he said.
One Republican candidate in South Carolina’s open gubernatorial primary said Donald Trump would “decide my fate.” Another pledged to send the state’s National Guard troops wherever Trump wants. A third accompanied the then-presidential candidate to his 2024 criminal trial in Manhattan.
In recent interviews with POLITICO, three contenders for the seat being vacated by Gov. Henry McMaster gushed over Trump’s coveted endorsement and described some of their early efforts to secure it as the president plans to attend a fundraiser in the state for the reelection of his longtime ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The winner of next June’s Republican primary is all but guaranteed to become deep-red South Carolina’s next executive. The candidates include the state’s lieutenant governor, attorney general and two members of its congressional delegation — all of whom are thirsting for the president’s support.
A new Winthrop University poll — the first major independent survey of the primary — found Rep. Nancy Mace and Lt. Gov. Pam Evette led the field in a statistical tie at 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Rep. Ralph Norman and Attorney General Alan Wilson followed with 8 percent each.
Though early favorites have started to emerge, the race remains wide open without Trump’s nod.
“He’ll get to decide my fate. He is a kingmaker, and I hope in this case he will be a queenmaker,” said Mace, the third-term member of Congress known for being outspoken on conservative cable news and social media.
South Carolina has a long history of fierce loyalty to Trump. McMaster became the first statewide elected official to endorse the president’s nascent 2016 campaign, and Graham is one of his closest advisers on Capitol Hill and friends on the putting green. Democrats haven’t won the state in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976.
But so far, Trump has stayed out of the race, forcing the contenders to try to define themselves and their candidacies without input from someone who has dominated the party for a decade and remade it in his image. In that way, the race — taking place during a pivotal midterm cycle — mirrors the challenge awaiting the Republican Party, which must begin to grapple with a future without Trump, who is in his final term.
For now, the candidates aren’t willing to explore that future.
“Donald Trump is the gold standard. He casts a very long shadow over state politics here in South Carolina, especially in the Republican primary,” said Wilson. “Anyone who says they don’t want the president’s endorsement is crazy.”
From his perch in Columbia, Wilson has filed nearly 20 briefs across the federal judiciary in support of Trump administration initiatives like federalizing the National Guard or enforcing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, according to a POLITICO analysis. His campaign website features a “Trump Tough” section, which includes a slideshow of selfies and step-and-repeat pictures with the president.
Trump’s only attention to the race so far was a captionless post on Truth Social in mid-August showing the results of a survey that put Mace atop of the crowded field — a poll that the congresswoman shared with the president, according to campaign spokesperson Piper Gifford.
“I absolutely communicate with the White House on this race and provide data and information to them and to those who will be ultimately making the decision,” Mace said in the recent interview.
Wilson has also been in touch with “high level members” of the White House about his candidacy, but has yet to broach the race directly with Trump. “They are aware of my campaign. They are aware of what I have done as attorney general. They are aware that I have defended the president's agenda, that I have defended the president,” he said.
Evette entered the race in mid-July. Though she served two terms alongside McMaster, her foray into gubernatorial contention will be her first time running for elected office on her own ticket. Asked about any behind-the-scenes conversations with the White House seeking support, the state’s second-in-command demurred, while reiterating her loyalty to Trump at his political nadir.
“In January of ‘23, President Trump came to South Carolina, and he was looking for friends,” Evette said, recalling Trump’s brief time in the political wilderness following his 2020 loss and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. “Out of all the people that are in this race, I was the only one that showed up for him, stood shoulder to shoulder with him when there were no polls to say that he was going to win.”
She recalled national consultants warning her, “‘You have a bright future, you're killing yourself. Like, why are you doing this? He's going to get indicted.’ And I was like, well, loyalty matters.”
Loyalty to Trump might determine his endorsement, and the candidates are willing to leverage that litmus test against one another.
Unlike Evette, Mace publicly rebuked the president following the attack on the Capitol but has since returned to his side as a faithful ally on Capitol Hill.
Norman might have the hardest case to make in seeking Trump’s endorsement.
As a member of Congress’ hard-right Freedom Caucus, Norman’s deficit-hawk style has at times positioned him against some White House-backed legislation that the group criticised for expanding the national debt. Perhaps worse for his fate: endorsing South Carolina’s Nikki Haley during the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
“Ralph Norman has the best record of voting with Trump of any candidate and is proud to work with him in Congress. He'd welcome the President's endorsement but knows that the President has other friends in this race and he respects that,” Norman spokesperson Evan Newman said in a statement.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president’s conversations around a possible endorsement or whether he is communicating with any of the candidates. The lack of endorsement in South Carolina isn’t indicative of a larger trend, though. The president has already thrown his support behind Rep. Byron Donalds to succeed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis next year, and his former rival-turned-ally Vivek Ramaswamy got the coveted endorsement not long after his campaign launch in February.
Lacking a race-changing boost from the president, the candidates have touted their own fundraising as evidence of grassroots support and the campaign strength. By those metrics, no runaway favorite has yet to emerge.
The four contenders each reported raising over a million dollars since starting their campaigns, according to financial reports filed with the South Carolina Elections Commission. Evette and Norman led the pack with $1.4 and $1.3 million respectively, though both also gave their own campaigns six-figure sums.
Wilson, who launched his campaign first, has just under $1.3 million. According to a memo released by his campaign, about one-fifth of that haul includes a six-figure transfer from his state attorney general campaign account, with “still more transfers on the way.”
“They believed in him to be Attorney General and now want him to be Governor,” campaign finance chair Barry Wynn wrote.
Mace’s fundraising shows her slightly trailing her competitors, with $1.06 million raised, but other indicators bode well for her campaign. In addition to the new Winthrop poll showing her with a slight lead, she pulled in over 18,500 individual donations, exponentially more than her rivals.
In addition to the candidates’ agreement on the eminence of a presidential endorsement, the emerging issues separating them are decidedly local.
They’re aligned on the perennial sticking points that are likely to define the race: lowering taxes, and specifically eliminating the state’s income tax, and fixing the state’s aging infrastructure as it buckles under population growth.
Judicial reform has also emerged as a salient issue, with South Carolina and Virginia being the only states in the country where judges are selected by a commission and approved solely by a legislative vote. Neither the governor nor voters have a say in who serves on the local bench.
“Many of these folks have cases before these judges and then many of these attorneys fund the attorney generals and the solicitors when they're running for office. Everybody gets paid, and nobody goes to jail,” Mace said.
The candidates don’t seem to agree on how to implement this one: as the state’s top prosecutor, Wilson helped push some recent changes through the state legislature that allowed the governor to appoint one-third of the seats on a selection committee that took effect this year.
“I believe that the governor should have all of the appointments on the [Judicial Merit Selection Committee],” Wilson said, while expressing openness to pushing a constitutional amendment that would embrace the federal advise-and-consent model.
Evette, banking on the relationship she forged with the state legislature alongside McMaster, hopes to move directly to amending the state constitution to have the state mirror federal judicial appointments.
Norman is the only candidate to call for direct election of judges in the state.
McMaster, who has focused on business development in the relatively small state, is preparing to leave his two terms in Columbia with a 46-percent approval rating, matching Trump at the top of the public figures included in the Winthrop University survey.
McMaster has so far demurred on whether he’ll endorse any of his potential successors.
Speaking to reporters recently, he said, “Elections will come and go, and endorsements will be made whenever they’re made.”
At least 19 people have died in Jamaica as a result of Hurricane Melissa, Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon has said, as search and rescue efforts continue and authorities try to get aid to hard-hit areas.
The hurricane, one of the most powerful to strike the Caribbean, has also killed at least 30 people in Haiti, officials said.
In Jamaica, "there are entire communities that seem to be marooned and areas that seem to be flattened," Dixon said, adding there are "devastating" scenes in western regions.
Electricity remains out to most of the island and as people try to salvage damaged homes and belongings from floodwaters and mud, many thousands are growing increasingly desperate for aid.
There are parts of the country that have been without water for several days and food is growing increasingly scarce.
Aid supplies are starting to arrive more rapidly with the main airport in the Jamaican capital, Kingston, largely back to normal.
But smaller regional airports, some of which are located near to where humanitarian assistance is most needed, remain only partly operational.
As such, aid agencies and the military are bringing in the urgently needed supplies from Kingston via road, many of which remain unpassable in places.
Residents of towns in western Jamaica told the BBC on Thursday that "words can't explain how devastating" the storm has been on the country.
"No one is able to get through to their loved ones," Trevor 'Zyanigh' Whyte told the BBC from the town of White House in Westmoreland parish.
"Everyone is just, you know, completely disconnected... Every tree is on the road, right, so you can't get too far with the cars, not even a bicycle," he said.
In Haiti, many of the victims in the storm died when a river overflowed in Petit-Goave. A full assessment is ongoing, as there are still areas that authorities have not been able to access.
Around 15,000 people were staying in more than 120 shelters in Haiti, interim UN co-ordinator for the country Gregoire Goodstein said.
In Cuba, more than 3 million people were "exposed to life-threatening conditions" during the hurricane, with 735,000 people "safely evacuated", according to the UN's resident co-ordinator for Cuba Francisco Pichon.
No fatalities have been reported so far in Cuba, but almost 240 communities have been cut off due to flooding and landslides, Cuban authorities said.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Tuesday in Jamaica as a category five storm, packing winds of up to 185 mph (295 km/h), before impacting other countries in the Caribbean.
Governments, humanitarian organisations and individuals around the world are pledging support for the nations hardest hit by the storm.
The World Food Programme said it is collaborating with partners to coordinate logistics, cash and emergency supplies across Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The US State Department said it is deploying a disaster response team to the region to help with search and rescue operations, and assisting in efforts to provide food, water, medical supplies, hygiene kits and temporary shelters.
The UK government said it is sending £2.5m ($3.36m) in emergency humanitarian funding to support recovery in the Caribbean.
While Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti assessed the damage left in Melissa's wake, Bermuda braced for impact.
The Bermuda Weather Service expected Melissa to be a category two hurricane when it passed the British overseas territory on Thursday night.
Government offices in Bermuda will close until Friday afternoon and all schools will shut on Friday.
"Until the official 'All Clear' is issued, residents are urged to stay off the roads so Government work crews can safely assess and clear debris," a public alert from the government said.
Joe Marler [L] with Cat Burns and David Olusoga enjoyed being round a table without having to vote anyone off
Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from the eighth episode of The Celebrity Traitors
Parting may have been sweet sorrow for young lovers Romeo and Juliet, but when Shakespeare's famous line is uttered by traitor Alan Carr, it's more like murderous Macbeth.
He has struck in plain sight - again - killing off Claudia's "Queen of the Castle", Celia Imrie, by quoting the bard while pouring her a goblet of wine at a lavish dinner for the remaining contestants.
"Oh honestly, just because I was brave enough to get the one traitor out," Imrie said when she learned her fate, referencing the faithfuls FINALLY getting rid of traitor Jonathan Ross.
Imrie's demise was indeed a sombre moment for all concerned.
"I love being here, it's been gorgeous and I'm devastated. I so wanted to stay to the end, but it's a game," she said sadly.
After learning it was Imrie's last supper, the burly Joe Marler became emotional, saying: "My darling Celia is gone. My heart is broken. I'm sick of this - they are taking out some lovely, lovely people.
"I'm not having it any more."
But as Ed Gamble pointed out in BBC Two's Celebrity Traitors Uncloaked, Imrie's demise was ripe for humour as well.
"Farting is such sweet sorrow," he said to her, in a line worthy of William Shakespeare himself, who also enjoyed contrasting dark, dramatic moments with bursts of humour.
BBC/Studio Lambert
Celia Imrie and Alan Carr were sat dangerously close to each other at the meal
Carr clearly got more of a taste for murder as the show progressed, bumping off Paloma Faith in plain sight and handing Lucy Beaumont her death warrant.
But this time round, his conscience re-emerged, and he found it "heartbreaking".
"I'm really hoping third time's a charm," he said, trying to convince himself he still had it in him to keep going.
Host Claudia Winkleman was rattled by losing Imrie, declaring: "I love her", as she stalked out of the breakfast room clutching Imrie's portrait.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Carr later looked a bit edgy about the upcoming round table, telling Cat Burns his Shakepearean moment was "so obvious".
"I'm so nervous, what do we do if everyone goes for me today," he said.
"I just hope no one puts two and two together with the the eggy Shakespeare quote."
Later on, the contestants had to put their doubts and suspicions aside for the day's challenge - in a creepy room full of headless dummies, which needed their Celebrity Traitor heads to be reattached.
Easy enough - except our celebrities had to navigate through a fiendish array of red laser beams, all pointing at awkward angles, meaning the most nimble had the easiest time of it.
BBC/Studio Lambert
The celebrity heads had to be reattached to their bodies
Nick Mohammed turned out to be something of a twinkle toes, making it through with relative ease.
But poor Marler had a trickier time of it, saying: "I'm not one of the nimble, agile rugby players" and calling himself a bit of an "oil rig".
Carr, noting that Claire Balding's head "looked like Boris Johnson", decided to carry Imrie across first, saying: "I took Celia's head because I missed her - even though I murdered her, but I had pangs of guilt!"
He later took his own, admitting: "I grabbed my own head, I'm a narcissist… well someone's got to love it!"
After a nail-biting finish, the celebs managed to complete the task, earning Claudia's praise, including a surprising accolade.
"Thank you, you were amazing. That was better than my wedding day," she said.
BBC/Studio Lambert
Alan Carr was less than complimentary about Claire Balding's plastic head
After all the camaraderie of the challenge, it was then even harder for the contestants to face the round table, where with just six of them left, everyone felt exposed.
Burns was hoping she hadn't "given them enough to cling on to", while Kate Garraway was uncharacteristically bullish.
"I'm going to fight to the death," she said.
There was plenty of fighting talk from Marler too, who looked like he was going to name and shame Carr and vote for him.
But he ended up voting for Garraway, calling her a "dipsy damsel", and she was voted off - yet another faithful biting the dust.
She gave a touching speech as she departed, referencing the death of her husband, political lobbyist and therapist Derek Draper. Draper died last year after living with extreme complications after getting Covid during the pandemic.
"I've had a lot of years of being very serious and very sad, and you've all allowed me to play the most amazing game," she said.
"But also you've allowed me to play and be silly and have fun. Every single one of you.
"I'm going to take away a new idea at the start of a new kind of life really, so thank you very much for that."
BBC/Studio Lambert
Kate Garraway thanked everyone for helping her consider a new start in her life
David Olusoga also got a couple of votes, including one from Carr, who managed to mostly lie low during the discussion, along with Burns.
Or so they thought.
Marler is onto them, convinced they're both traitors, and is now rallying Mohammed and Olusoga to back him as they go into the final.
"I'm hoping to get really close to Alan and Cat so they keep me in the game, and then I can try and pull the rug from under their feet last minute," he said.
"Sorry traitors, I'm coming for you."
There was a telling moment right near the end of the show, when each remaining contestant had to look the others in the eye and tell them they were a faithful.
The others kept straight faces, but Carr couldn't manage it without dissolving into a fit of giggles. One X user called it "the TV moment of the year".
"I am a faithful, I just get nervous," Carr told everyone.
"Yeah, I'm not having it," said Marler.
If Marler puts his full force behind his convictions, he could prove to be unstoppable.
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