Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin started his White House news conference on the nationwide air traffic control meltdown with a little quip about it being Friday the 13th. Oh, yes, ha-ha. I guess a little gallows humor is okay.
Residents in Spring report loud and frequent drone services buzzing across neighborhoods.
When I was a kid, we wanted to grow up to be baseball players, or firemen, or astronauts. What do kids want to grow up to be today? Don't make me say it.
El Nio could bring a milder winter, but an early polar vortex breakdown may send Arctic air south. Forecasters say it's too soon to know which will prevail. read more
EV owners could soon pay a $130 annual federal fee to help fund roads, since electric vehicle drivers don't pay federal gasoline taxes. read more
Related ...
OpEd: Despite the Rising DSA, the Democratic Party Actually Moved More to the Center
www.mediaite.com
... As the dust settles on the 2026 midterm elections, with only Alaska's Senate race yet to be called, a surprising reshaping of the Democratic Party has taken place. Instead of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's (D) ascendant wing of the party filling the power vacuum left in Washington by President Donald Trump's crumbling MAGA movement, red-state Democrats are on the upswing.
While the progressive left scored some wins and a troupe of democratic socialists are heading to Congress next year, the real power base will be among the 44 Democrats who flipped their seats from the GOP. Those Democrats are now accountable to constituencies that are certain to reshape the Democratic Party's priorities and move the party more toward the center.
With a likely majority of more than 260 seats, no one faction of House Democrats will easily be able to extort the rest of the majority, and the leadership's goal will be first and foremost on keeping the seats they flipped.
Some of those seats, like North Carolina's 9th District, saw the now-ousted incumbent, Rep. Richard Hudson, win reelection in 2024 by 18 points. Rep.-elect Richard Ojeda (D-NC), an Army veteran and former host on The Young Turks, is going to have to work overtime to brand himself as a Democrat who can keep that deep-red seat.
Part of that work will require keeping a distance from the most progressive elements of the House Democratic caucus, who are certain to be the focus of conservative media in the next two years. DSA-affiliated Rep.-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier (D-NY) spoke on a podcast in October about wielding her newfound power. The "point of building power is to use it," she said, arguing that "whatever we call ourselves, whether that's a squad' or a bloc or whatever . . . we have just grown the number of people who share our values in Congress significantly." ...
Trump blames Biden administration for ground stop: Made 'old and broken system worse'
abcnews.com
... In his first public comments about the nationwide FAA ground stop that took place on Friday, President Donald Trump blamed the Biden administration for "making an old and broken system worse than when they began."
"The Biden Administration was an FAA disaster. Everything they touched turned bad. Big money spent unwisely, making an old and broken system worse than when they began," Trump wrote on his social media platform Sunday morning. ...
FAA disables Juniper router feature after overload, WSJ report
www.siliconreport.com
... High-rate pings from replacement hardware flooded the agency's legacy copper air traffic communications network.
Federal Aviation Administration technicians disabled a specific networking feature across all of the agency's Juniper routers after newly installed hardware flooded air traffic control systems with high-rate data traffic, The Wall Street Journal reported. ...
"We saw two places that were actually pinging our network at a very high rate, a thousand connections over every four to five seconds," FAA technology chief Rebecca Guy said at a press conference on Nov. 14, 2026. ...
Federal officials are investigating whether installation errors by contractor L3Harris, configuration mistakes, or defective hardware caused the failure. "Was it a faulty installation? Was it a faulty configuration? Or was it just a bad piece of router technology that we put into this system that propagated these errors?" FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement on Nov. 14, 2026.
A spokesperson for router manufacturer HPE, which produces the Juniper units, defended the hardware, stating that the routers appeared to function as designed and that "They did not fail." ...
Air Traffic Control Systems: Ambitious New Modernization Effort Needs to Improve Cost and Schedule Planning (September 14, 2026)
www.gao.gov
... The Federal Aviation Administration has struggled for decades to modernize its outdated air traffic control systems, which are critical for safe and efficient flight operations. In May 2025, it launched an initiative to accelerate these efforts.[emphasis mine]
FAA has made progress implementing this initiative, but it could be prioritizing speed over costs and air traffic disruptions.
For example, FAA doesn't have a lifecycle cost estimate or master schedule for related projects. Without them, the agency could end up causing air traffic disruptions or prolonging reliance on severely outdated systems.
Our recommendations address these issues. ...
[full document at the link]
What caused the FAA ground stop? Officials point to router failure during update
www.scrippsnews.com
...Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that a faulty router might have caused the communications outage that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a nationwide ground stop Friday, disrupting thousands of flights and stranding travelers.
Investigators have not yet determined the exact cause of the router failure, including whether it stemmed from human error, an installation mistake or a problem with the equipment itself.
Duffy said the outage occurred during routine FAA telecommunications maintenance at a remote facility, where aging copper communications lines were being replaced with fiber-optic service. The work was being performed by L3Harris, the FAA's longtime telecommunications contractor, as part of a broader modernization effort.
"At least one of our remote FAA locations, a contractor was doing routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire, and they were bringing it over to fiber," Duffy said. "What we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router." ...
Kalshi ditches Trump Jr. as advisor; CEO admitted "optics" weren't good
arstechnica.com
... Trump Jr. may still have a financial interest in Kalshi, which has benefited from the Trump administration's legal and regulatory support for prediction markets. Trump Jr. "was handed about $300,000 worth of equity in Kalshi after joining the prediction market platform as a strategic adviser in early 2025," the Financial Times reported in June.
"Kalshi's donation of shares to the US president's eldest son granted him a stake in the private company when it was valued at under $2 billion, less than a tenth of its $22 billion valuation in a funding round last month," the Financial Times article said. Kalshi is reportedly in talks for a new funding round that would value it at $65 billion. ...
The Trump administration has helped prediction markets grow with a permissive regulatory approach taken by the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC). The CFTC has also sued 11 states in attempts to block state regulation of prediction markets, and filed briefs supporting Kalshi in its own cases against individual states. Attorneys general in many states accuse Kalshi of running an illegal gambling operation. ...
Trump Was Briefed On Alleged China Spy Plot Involving Nvidia's Jensen Huang And Did Nothing, Report Finds (October 29, 2026)
www.forbes.com
... Topline
President Donald Trump received intelligence about a suspected Chinese spy with close ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, an ally and top tech advisor to the president, but chose not to act, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Key Facts
Trump was briefed on U.S. intelligence findings about Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom officials determined was gathering information for Beijing, around a year ago, but chose not to do anything about it, according to The New York Times.
U.S. surveillance unveiled her close professional and social relationship with Jensen Huang, raising concerns that China could gain access to critical information on artificial intelligence development, thwarting U.S. efforts to prevent the country from beating it in the global AI race.
Trump has been concerned about disrupting Nvidia's chip sales"which drive U.S. AI advancement and the entire economy, as the company makes up around 8% of the S&P 500 by market capitalization"as well as further complicating trade relations with China.
Jensen Huang has not received a defense intelligence briefing, which U.S. officials sometimes use to warn Americans that foreign intelligence services may be targeting them, The Times reported, citing people briefed on the surveillance.
Nvidia defended its relationship with Alice Huang's company, Megaspeed, saying its dealings with her were routine and that it shared no sensitive trade secrets or information about national security.
U.S. officials did not believe Jensen Huang knew Alice Huang was gathering information for China when they briefed Trump last year, The Times reported, but some of Trump's senior officials believe Jensen couldn't have remained unaware of this.
...
The U.S. doesn't let companies export Nvidia's most advanced chips to China, but some have illegally smuggled them over the border, and others set up businesses that buy large numbers of chips to build data centers in Southeast Asia, that then serve Chinese firms.
The Trump administration rolled back rules the Biden administration put in place in 2022 to prevent this practice, and Megaspeed is one of the companies that buys chips and then rents computing power to Chinese companies. U.S. investigators also think some Nvidia chips are actually making their way into China through Megaspeed, The Times reported.
...
TANGENT
Jensen Huang has become one of Trump's close tech advisors. In April 2025, Trump was considering banning sales of Nvidia chips to China, which prompted Huang to meet with him and explain why selling to Beijing was crucial. People briefed on that discussion said Trump was very impressed with Huang. ...
Bruce Cockburn - If I Had A Rocket Launcher (2005 concert of a 1984 song)
www.youtube.com
If I Had a Rocket Launcher
en.wikipedia.org
... Background
"If I Had a Rocket Launcher" was inspired by Cockburn's visit, sponsored by Oxfam, to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico, where he witnessed helicopters attacking refugees.[1] He said in a 2010 interview that the song was intended to express his dismay over the plight of Guatemalan refugees.[2] Speaking on the song's subject matter, Cockburn said that "one of the most striking things was seeing the strength of people in incredibly desperate situations."[1]
Cockburn was concerned that "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" would be misinterpreted by some listeners as a call to violence and almost decided against recording it for this reason. He ultimately decided to go forward with including the song on Stealing Fire over his belief that listeners would understand the song's intent.[3] ...
Another view ...
The polar vortex just broke a new record but experts aren't sure what it means for this winter's weather
www.bbc.com
... The spiralling winds of the polar vortex high above the Arctic have reversed direction marking the earliest 'major sudden stratospheric warming' on record.
These polar winds usually blow in a westerly direction keeping cold air locked high above the North Pole.
However in recent weeks the polar vortex has weakened and shifted position. Observations have now shown a switch to easterly winds, which experts say defines a 'major sudden stratospheric warming' or SSW.
Similar disruptions can occur during winter and are often linked with colder weather in the UK. But this event happening so early in autumn is unprecedented in modern observations.
What is sudden stratospheric warming?
The polar vortex is a normal feature of our climate in the months around winter. As the North Pole tilts away from the sun, temperatures above the Arctic drop and strong westerly winds form in the stratosphere.
Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) is when a rapid and dramatic rise in temperature occurs high in the stratosphere, roughly 10 to 30 miles (15-50km) above Earth's surface.
It can happen due to atmospheric disturbences causing a shift in the position or shape of the polar vortex which can make its winds weaken.
This sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) can eventually lead to the strong westerlies reversing into easterly winds.
In the following days and weeks these changes can slowly filter lower down in the atmosphere altering the position of the jet stream which drives what type of weather we experience on the ground. ...
Trump Denied Knowing About Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's Spy Link. He Was Warned Before China Trip
www.timesnownews.com
... US President Donald Trump was informed in May that American intelligence agencies had obtained sensitive information suggesting Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang was in a relationship with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy, according to people familiar with the matter quoted by The New York Times. The warning was delivered by Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio aboard Air Force One, shortly before Huang joined Trump's trip to Beijing at the President's invitation, the people said.
It was at least the second time in seven months that Trump had been briefed about intelligence concerning Huang's alleged relationship with the woman, identified as Alice Huang. US officials had concluded that she was working for China's Ministry of State Security, according to the report.
The latest disclosure contradicts Trump's claim on Monday that he had not known about the relationship when he travelled to China to meet President Xi Jinping.
"No, I didn't hear about it then," Trump said when asked whether he knew of Huang's alleged ties to the woman before the trip.
The President also appeared uncertain about whether he had received an earlier briefing on the matter. Asked if intelligence officials had informed him last year, he said he would have to check. ...
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