10 things you need to know today: October 26, 2016

The Cleveland Indians celebrate after beating the Chicago Cubs

(Image credit: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

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1. Indians beat Cubs in World Series Game 1 blowout
2. Colin Powell endorses Hillary Clinton
3. Ryan urges Pentagon to stop taking back enlistment bonuses
4. Trump ends big-money fundraising events
5. Apple reports first annual sales drop in 15 years
6. Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio charged with criminal contempt
7. Iraqi forces move residents from villages around Mosul
8. Judge approves VW settlement in diesel emissions cheating scandal
9. New poll gives Trump a narrow lead in must-win Florida
10. Paul Beatty wins Man Booker Prize

published 26 October 2016

1. Indians beat Cubs in World Series Game 1 blowout

The Cleveland Indians clobbered the Chicago Cubs to win the first game of the World Series 6-0 on Tuesday night in Cleveland. Pitcher Corey Kluber, the Indians' 30-year-old 2014 Cy Young Award winner, pitched six shutout innings and set a World Series record by striking out eight batters in the first three innings. "Just pretty much dominant as one could be," Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. Indians catcher Roberto Perez contributed two home runs. Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Wednesday night, also in Cleveland.

Colin Powell, a Republican former secretary of state, said Tuesday that he would be voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for president. Powell told members of the Long Island Association, a trade group, that Clinton, a Democratic former secretary of state and ex-senator, had served the country with "distinction" and demonstrated her "experience and stamina" on the job, according to people who attended the event. Powell also said Clinton's Republican rival, billionaire businessman Donald Trump, was inexperienced politically, and had insulted a "huge swath of people." Paule Pachter, a Long Island Association board member, said Powell talked about Trump's message, "which really paints our country in a negative light across the globe with all our allies."

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House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday called for the Pentagon to stop taking back enlistment bonuses from California veterans and active service members who received them 10 years ago even though they were not eligible. "When those Californians answered the call to duty" to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, "they earned more from us than bureaucratic bungling and false promises," Ryan said. The Pentagon said Tuesday that the number of people affected was about 6,500, not 10,000 as initially reported. Defense Secretary Ash Carter promised to resolve the issue, which has left some veterans burdened with debt as they tried to repay about $15,000.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has stopped holding big-money fundraising events with the Trump Victory fund, a joint effort with the Republican National Committee. The surprise move could hurt his party's efforts to finance its push to get out the vote in the Nov. 8 election. "We've kind of wound down," said Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance chairman, in an interview with The Washington Post. Mnuchin said, however, that Trump Victory is continuing to raise money from big donors by phone and online. Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, held her last big fundraiser Tuesday night in Miami, but high-profile surrogates — including her husband, former President Bill Clinton — plan to hold another 41 events through Nov. 3.

Apple reported its first annual revenue decline in 15 years after the market closed on Tuesday. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, said income in the just-completed quarter fell by 19 percent to $9 billion, or $1.67 a share. That's down from $11.1 billion or $1.96 a share in the same quarter last year, but just above analysts' expectations of $1.65 per share. The company's drop in revenue came mostly before the launch of the latest version of its dominant smartphone, the iPhone 7, which hit stores just before the quarter ended. Apple shares dropped by 2.8 percent in after-hours trading.

Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his hardline stance against illegal immigration, was officially charged with criminal contempt of court on Tuesday. He is accused of ignoring a judge's 2011 order in a racial profiling case to stop his immigration patrols, in which his deputies stopped people based on the suspicion they were undocumented immigrants without cause to believe they committed a crime. Arpaio, 84, is up for reelection in two weeks. He is seeking a seventh term. The Justice Department had warned two weeks ago that it would be filing the misdemeanor charge, which could carry a six-month sentence but would not bar Arpaio from serving as sheriff.

Iraqi special forces have evacuated more than 1,000 people from villages near Mosul as a massive coalition closes in, in a bid to retake the city from the Islamic State, officials said Wednesday. ISIS fighters have been accused of atrocities in recent days, including returning to one recently abandoned town and executing residents who were celebrating their departure. Special forces Maj. Gen. Haider Fadhil said the displaced residents of Tob Zawa and other villages were taken to a camp in the nearby Khazer region. The International Organization for Migration says at least 8,940 people have been displaced so far since the offensive began on Oct. 17.

A U.S. judge on Tuesday approved Volkswagen AG's $14.7 billion deal to settle its diesel emissions cheating scandal. The settlement with federal and California regulators — and the owners of 475,000 affected diesel cars — would be one of the largest corporate settlements in history. VW admitted last year that it installed software in diesel cars to help them beat exhaust emissions tests by appearing clean, even though they really emitted up to 40 times as much pollution as allowed. The German automaker — the world's second largest — said it would start buying back the cars in mid-November.

Donald Trump, who has lost ground in many recent polls, got a bit of good news on Wednesday when a new Bloomberg Politics poll showed him leading his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, by 2 percentage points in Florida, a must-win state for Trump. In a four-way race, Trump has 45 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 4 percent and the Green Party's Jill Stein at 2 percent. Pollster J. Ann Selzer said Trump's edge appeared to stem from his 2-point lead with independent voters in a head-to-head matchup. "This race may come down to the independent vote," she said. "Right now, they tilt for Trump." The RealClearPolitics average of polls has Clinton up 3.1 points in the state.

Paul Beatty won the Man Booker Prize in London on Tuesday for his novel The Sellout, a satire about race in America. Beatty was the first American writer to win the award. Amanda Foreman, chair of the five unanimous Booker judges, called Beatty's book "a novel for our times... Its humor disguises a radical seriousness. Paul Beatty slays sacred cows with abandon and takes aim at racial and political taboos with wit, verve, and a snarl." Winning the $60,000 prize is expected to assure Beatty of a significant sales boost worldwide.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.