Chicago police said the attack happened late Saturday morning on South Cottage Grove Avenue in the Chatham area. Officers said a woman approached the 7-year-old girl on the sidewalk and stabbed her several times in the back with a sharp object. The child was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead. Police described the attack as unprovoked and said the woman did not know the child.

Webmaster Addition: 

Health officials and civil defense responders in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in Gaza City early Saturday, killing five people, four of them women. Al-Shifa Hospital said it received the dead and the injured from the strike. Civil defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said his teams pulled five bodies from the site and transported several wounded to care. Several outlets repeated this same toll from the same event, citing local medical sources.

Reuters reported that the Israeli military later said it conducted an overnight strike on an apartment in Gaza, describing a targeted effort to kill Ali al-Amoudi. The report noted it was not immediately clear if that statement referred to the same strike that left five people dead, as reported by Gaza authorities. Outlets including the Agence France-Presse network and public broadcasters echoed the figure of five killed and placed the incident in Gaza City’s Rimal area during the early morning hours.

There was no testimony during the trial that Daga broke any law with his firearms. In New York mere possession of a homemade firearm is a crime.

There were no ATF or any other federal agents present when law enforcement raided Daga’s home in 2025. The entire investigation was conducted by the New York State Police. These state troopers examined purchases Daga had made online, after they were told to look at his online history by New York’s Queens County District Attorney’s Office.

“We’ll provide you with a list of 10-20 viable targets to focus your efforts on as we try to bring our ghost gun model to the Capital Region as a test run,” an investigator in Queens wrote in an email to state police in Albany, according to evidence presented during Daga’s trial.

by Dave De Camp, antiwar.com

While oil exports from the Middle East have reportedly exceeded pre-war levels, attacks on tankers in or near the Strait of Hormuz have also risen over the past week, with at least 11 coming under attack since last Monday, according to a count from The New York Times.

According to the UK Maritime Trade Operations, at least four tankers have come under attack since Saturday, October 3. The latest attack occurred on Monday, when the master of an unnamed tanker reported that an unknown projectile struck his vessel, according to a report from gCaptain.

In another incident on Monday, a tanker reported being contacted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while it was transiting near the strait off the coast of Oman and was told to turn around or risk being targeted, and the master of the vessel complied with the IRGC order.

The increase in attacks on tankers in the region, coupled with the increase in oil exports, has led to speculation that Iran may be collecting tolls from some of the vessels that are passing through the strait. Some ships are being escorted by the US Navy, and other smaller tankers have been conducting ship-to-ship transfers from larger tankers inside the Gulf to others in the Arabian Sea.

Last week, an IRGC official said that Iran had continued daily attacks on ships in the strait while the US has stopped responding. In early September, the US bombed multiple Iranian tankers, declaring a new policy of bombing Iranian tankers in response to Iranian strikes on commercial ships, but that policy has stopped as the Trump administration appears to be avoiding further escalation with Iran until after the midterms.

I very politely disagree with the author on the timing of the next US attack; my sense is that it may be sooner rather than later, to give President Trump something approximating a "win" going into the mid-terms. 

This may be attempted because so  many Americans are deeply (and legitimately)  concerned about this war's potential escalation.  

Add that to the financial burdens of an unpayable national debt, coupled with massive inflation, and you have a really unhappy bunch of working Americans.  

And there is utterly no messaging possible which can away the financial pain and pressure these people are experiencing right now, courtesy of the above realities.

Posted by Tyler Durden:  Authored by Larry C. Johnson via SonarIntelligence (Sonar21),

Once again Karl W. Miller has put numbers to a problem that most of the commentariat still treats as a temporary price spike. His latest forward outlook, "The Five-Year Global Energy Crisis," dated October 3, makes an argument that should alarm every finance ministry from Berlin to Jakarta. The war's damage to Gulf energy infrastructure is not a disruption that ends when the shooting stops. It is a reconstruction problem measured in years and trillions of dollars, and while it is solved, the world will be short of the fuels that run its economy.

A ceasefire is not a repair crew

Miller's central insight is simple. A ceasefire can reopen a shipping lane overnight. It cannot manufacture a compressor, mobilize commissioning engineers, or pay a contractor. The next phase of this crisis, he writes, is a competition for cash, equipment, qualified contractors and finished fuel.

His cost model is sobering. In his aggressive case, rebuilding the damaged Gulf energy system requires $1.16 trillion in total program funding. Under prolonged stress, with scarce equipment, rising prices and delays, the bill reaches $2.53 trillion. Even his faster case runs to nearly half a trillion dollars. He is careful to say these are model outputs, not contractor quotes, and that the true extent of the damage is the largest unknown. An April assessment put energy-related repair costs at only $34-58 billion. But the direction of his argument doesn't depend on the exact figure. Every month of delay makes the same repair more expensive, because the global market for specialized equipment and crews is already stretched by LNG expansions, refinery maintenance and power projects elsewhere.

The timeline is just as stark. Weighted by cost, the rebuild averages almost five years from today. Only 60% of the work finishes by 2031, and the longest-lead packages run to seven years.

By Martin Armstrong,  Armstrong Economics

This is what Washington never understands about inflation. They tell people inflation has fallen because the RATE of increase is lower than it was at the peak. That does not mean prices went back down. Consumer prices are roughly 30% higher than at the end of 2019. Something that cost $100 then costs roughly $130 today. Lower inflation merely means prices are rising more slowly from an already elevated level.

This is why consumer confidence can collapse while spending remains strong. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 81.9 in September, its lowest reading since 2014. The University of Michigan’s sentiment index fell to 48.1 and is now 15% below January. People are continuing to spend because they must continue living, but they are increasingly worried about what comes next.

The University of Michigan reports that consumers’ expectations for inflation over the next year climbed to 4.6% in September, up from 3.4% in February. Consumers’ assessments of both their current and expected personal finances also deteriorated. The paycheck may still be coming in, but it simply does not stretch as far as it once did. Americans feel the conditions of the economy daily.

Even if inflation fell to 2% tomorrow, today’s elevated price level would remain. Prices would simply continue increasing from that higher base. This is how inflation quietly destroys the middle class. Savings decline, debt rises, homeownership becomes harder, young people delay families, and retirees discover that their savings purchase far less than expected.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos,  responsiblestatescraft.org

Reports that more oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz have been heralded as a win for the Trump administration, but experts say this kind of happy talk hides the fact that the war remains in a quagmire. As shipping costs rise and Iran continues to attack vessels, world markets — including fuel — will remain in peril for the foreseeable future.

In other words, no matter how much narrative-shaping is attempted to alter American perspectives before the midterms, prices for consumers will not come down to so-called pre-war levels in time for any change. If anything, the diesel crisis continues, as does the impact of ships carrying dry bulk (fertilizer, aluminum, petrochemicals, grains, sulfur, cement, industrial minerals, etc.) still stranded in the Persian Gulf.

So while the administration and its social media influencers have declared victory over Tehran, a very expensive cat-and-mouse game continues unabated — one that Rose Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, says may be impossible to sustain for the long term.

“We're still in this limbo where Iran can't fully close the strait, but the U.S. can't fully open it either,” she tells Responsible Statecraft.

“If the U.S. wants oil to go through the Strait without getting to a peace deal with Iran, it needs to commit a large amount of military force to do that,” Kelanic continued. “Whether that's really sustainable or wise or fair to the American taxpayer is an open question.”

Claire's Observations:  This horrific military misadventure, foisted on President Trump by Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu, should absolutely have never happened in the first place. 

 US troops should NEVER, under any circumstances, be "loaned" to a foreign government, to attempt to fight that country's wars for them, which was essentially what happened when Trump acquiesced to Netanyahu on the use of American troops in this war.

People in and around the administration who counseled caution before it began, were shown the door, and that door got locked behind them.

So the current status here?!?  

The US government is stuck in a quagmire out of which extrication is going to most probably involve one of two scenarios; either that of President Trump declaring victory, and bringing our troops home, or a potential ground invasion, which may cost an incredible number of American lives, before any kind of victory is accomplished, if that is possible.  

It is very difficult to see any kind of middle ground between these two alternatives.

Both President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are facing restive populations in their respective elections, with  mid-terms here at home (if they happen) scheduled for November, and Israel's General Election for the Knesset, their Parliament, and the choosing of their Prime Minister through that process, the end of this month.

Neither of Israel's two primary goals in this war have been accomplished; there has been no regime change in Tehran accomplished, and Iran's nuclear materials are still there, somewhere.

The big question now is, what will either man, or both men, be willing to do to create what they believe will give them "a decisive win" in this war,  ahead of their respective elections?    

But unfortunately, perhaps the more pertinent question is,  what will they NOT be willing to do to achieve that goal?!?

Israel's elections happens in 22 days;  the US's elections in 29 days, just one week apart from each other.  

Please, stay aware. Stock up if possible on storable food; potable water; and medications.   This  October... may well be to a very rough month geopolitically, with all that is going on. 

 And folks, believe me, I hope I am dead wrong, but looking at how things are evolving right now, it is profoundly difficult for me to see how I might be.

The US stopped refueling Saudi warplanes in 2018, several months after the Saudis bombed a school bus in Yemen

Dave De Camp, antiwar.com

The US is refueling Saudi fighter jets as part of its support for Riyadh’s war in Yemen, a US official has told Al Jazeera, marking an escalation of US involvement in the conflict.

The US refueling of Saudi warplanes was one of the most controversial aspects of US involvement in the war in Yemen after it began in 2015, as the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, was notorious for bombing civilian targets.

The first Trump administration ended the practice of refueling Saudi jets involved in the war in Yemen in November 2018, several months after Saudi Arabia bombed a school bus in the Saada province of northern Yemen, killing at least 40 children, a strike that was carried out with a US-supplied bomb.

by Jason Ditz, antiwar.com

t least one Palestinian was killed, and several others were wounded on Monday in Israeli attacks targeting al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, an area filled with sprawling tent encampments housing Palestinian families displaced by Israel’s genocidal war.

The Anadolu Agency reported that an Israeli strike in al-Mawasi killed one Palestinian man and wounded four people, including a mother and her two children. Later in the day, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that an Israeli drone targeted a tent in the Algerian Camp within al-Mawasi, injuring three people, including a woman and a child.

A Palestinian child wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis on October 5, 2026 (APA Images/Tariq Mohammad via Reuters Connect)

Since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed nearly one year ago in October 2025, the IDF has killed 1,460 Palestinians and wounded 5,116. Gaza’s Government Media Office has said that it has recorded more than 5,000 Israeli ceasefire violations.

by Jason Ditz

Israeli forces continue to operate in southwestern Syria, with incidents reported in Quneitra, Daraa, and Rif Damasq Governorates. While most of the cross-border incidents involve the Israeli military searching homes and establishing temporary checkpoints in Syrian territory, there are also increasingly destructive incidents to report.

Up in Rif Damasq, Israeli troops not only entered a farmhouse near Bait Jinn, but later rigged it with explosives and blew it up. The house was reportedly abandoned, and the IDF did not explain why they felt the need to enter Syria and destroy an abandoned house.

Quneitra Governorate has seen considerable damage done to rural areas, with Israeli forces damaging croplands and cutting back forests in northern Quneitra. Over the weekend, Israeli drones had reportedly been deployed to prevent local journalists from covering IDF earth-moving operations in southern Quneitra.

Claire's Observations:  Looks as though Israel's IDF had adopted a "scorched earth"  policy in Lebanon, in order to make as much of the country as completely uninhabitable as is humanly possible for former residents.

Former Israeli prime minister says failure to challenge calls for killing and starving Palestinians has eroded Israel’s moral standards

Nadav Rapaport in Tel Aviv, Israel

There are "no innocent people" in Gaza and Israel should "also kill two-week-old babies" in the Palestinian enclave, Israel's former prime minister Yair Lapid has recounted young Israelis telling him.

"I heard all the rhetoric of: 'they all need to be killed,' 'there are no innocent people'," Lapid said in an interview on Wednesday, describing "a furious and painful meeting with a group of really young people" he had recently met.

The former prime minister, who is now part of the centrist-right wing alliance of the Together party, added that he asked them, "What about babies? They said: 'babies too, because eventually they'll grow up and become terrorists'," Lapid recounted, adding that they said it applies even to two-week-old babies.

"So, Hamas won," Lapid said, adding that "those are Hamas's standards. That's what it wanted. For us to become like them."

The government's failure to act against Israeli ministers and officials who called for the starvation of children caused, Lapid said, an "internal damage where you fail to define value-based standards for being different from Hamas.

Claire's Observations:  Looks as though both religious and secular leaders have achieved something in Israel which no one might have thought of as possible previously. 

How proud of themselves they mus be, upon hearing these remarks recounted by Lapid..

Sometimes, words..... fail.  This.... is one of those moments.

The cost of paying Britain’s wind farms to turn off has soared past £1.5 billion so far this year – according to new figures that will infuriate households squeezed by soaring energy bills.

Analysis shows the sum has already gone past the £1.47 billion total for last year, with three months still to go.

On windy days, turbines can produce more power than the local grid can cope with – so operators are paid to turn them off.

In addition, gas-fired power stations closer to urban areas where demand is greatest are paid to turn on, to replace this lost energy.

It comes at a time when household bills have just risen to a three-year high and are expected to rise further in January.

"Well spent tax money!" - Official Drowning Street Souce

Russia has launched another wave of strikes across Ukraine, targeting ports, cargo vessels, fuel facilities, energy infrastructure and logistics sites, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials. Moscow says its forces struck two Ukrainian cargo vessels in the Black Sea that were allegedly carrying military supplies, while fuel storage facilities at the strategic port of Chornomorsk were also hit. Russian strikes were also reported in the Odesa and Kharkiv regions, with Ukrainian authorities reporting casualties in Kharkiv. 

NATO’s top military commander is working on a strategy for achieving a quick victory against a Russian attack on its eastern flank, with a particular focus on integrating new defense technologies like drones and AI into traditional power.

The document, called “Theory of Victory,” which Bloomberg has seen in an unclassified form, will be presented by Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, in Poland on Oct. 12 amid heightened tensions between NATO and Russia.

It is meant to clarify how the alliance would handle a possible incursion into NATO territory, according to senior officials and diplomats familiar with the matter. There have been numerous recent reports that Moscow is considering such action.

A Moscow drone slammed into Kyiv’s key Northern Bridge on Sunday, leading to a fiery explosion during a visit from Germany’s top official — as Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly preparing a mass military mobilization.

Dramatic footage from the Ukrainian capital showed a Russian drone crashing into the busy span during morning traffic, with a large fireball erupting from the explosion.

The female staffer at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East died from a “pneumonia of undetermined” origin last week, according to the regional governor, Igor Kobsev.

He said no “microorganisms linked to the employee’s professional activities were detected” in her body, and that there had been “no new cases” of illness among other employees of the lab.

“The sanitary-epidemiological situation” in the area “is currently stable,” Kobsev said.

Webmaster Addition: So now they know that whatever infected her was NOT work-related!

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakingPoints

Focus has been on the resulting rise in oil prices, but it is potential food shortages the world should be paying attention to, said ICC secretary-general John Denton.

About one-third of global fertilizer shipments pass through the narrow waterway, creating potentially catastrophic knock-on effects for agricultural producers.

Available fertilizer capacity has fallen by nearly 40% since the strait was disrupted, removing 2.7 million tons from the market, said Denton, who sits on a United Nations taskforce attempting to broker a solution to unblock the Strait.

If no progress is made, prices of food staples will soar, with Denton estimating an up to 80% increase in cereal prices.

Developing and emerging economies will feel the hit first. Countries like the Philippines, which imports roughly 90% of its fertilizers, are particularly vulnerable.

The Hormuz crisis has been compounded by recurring disruptions in the Black Sea as Russia and Ukraine continue to launch attacks against each other, and severe weather from the El Nino phenomenon, which is expected to disrupt harvests and drive up consumer inflation.

As part of the U.N. Task Force for the Strait of Hormuz, the ICC, an industry body that represents 45 million companies across more than 170 countries, has been working with U.N. agencies and the International Maritime Organization to create a framework that would temporarily hand governance of the waterway to the U.N. Secretary-General.

But the diplomatic mechanism, proposed in July, remains stalled due the U.S.-Iran gridlock, said Denton.

Claire's Observations:  Please:  if  you have any programs at your church, synagogue, mosque or temple which provide food aid to developing countries, and you can possibly contribute, even  just a little, now would be a good time to do so.  

This situation, unfortunately, is apt to get far worse before it gets better 

 Some people... many just infants and children ... are literally going to starve to death unless help reaches them, and soon.

And in terms of  your own buying:  please remember that the prices about which you may be complaining very loudly right now, may well look like absolute bargains in the next 90 days or so.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hormuz-gridlock-risks-global-food-crisis-international-chamber-of-commerce-chief-says-667781c8

The outlet posted the following image on its official Telegram channel. Newsquawk, which picked up the Sabereen report, has noted that it remains unclear whether this is a new incident or is damage stemming from the earlier reported Sunday attack on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline (detailed below):

Disgraced Biden-era special counsel Jack Smith’s team secretly monitored the phone activity of Susie Wiles while she was running President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, newly released documents show.

A Brooklyn, New York, teacher is under investigation following the discovery of social media posts reportedly praising Yahya al-Sinwar, the Hamas leader credited as the architect of the October 7 terrorist attacks, and other anti-Israel posts.

Attorney General Todd Blanche released an explosive report on Monday exposing former AG Merrick Garland’s weaponization against parents of school children.

The United States Coast Guard is investigating an incident from last week after an exchange of gunfire across the US- Mexican border.

The Americas Are Gaining Freedom – Communism Is Dying Across the Hemisphere