TODAY’S MILITARY story

Navy jet and helicopter crash off carrier 30 minutes apart

What happened
A Navy fighter jet and helicopter based off the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz crashed into the South China Sea within 30 minutes of each other Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said on social media. President Donald Trump yesterday said “bad fuel” could be to blame for the “very unusual” dual crashes.

Who said what
The MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and F/A-18F Super Hornet jet were on separate “routine operations” when they went down, the Navy said, and all five crew members involved “are safe and in stable condition.” Trump told reporters traveling with him to Japan on Air Force One that he did not think foul play was involved. “They think it might be bad fuel,” he said. “We’re gonna find out. Nothing to hide.”

The F/A-18 was “at least the fourth of the $60 million fighter jets the Navy has lost this year,” CNN said. The other three were destroyed in a “series of mishaps” involving another aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, The Associated Press said. Two F/A fighter jets “went overboard” into the Red Sea while the third was “mistakenly shot down” by the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg. The half-century-old USS Nimitz is traveling to its home port in Washington state before being decommissioned next year.

What next?
Sunday’s incidents are “under investigation,” the Navy said. Results from the military’s investigations into the USS Truman’s mishaps "have yet to be released,” said the AP.

TODAY’S POLITICS Story

Federal shutdown stalemate nears key pain points

What happened
The government shutdown is in its fourth week and Senate Democrats and Republicans appear to be sticking to their positions while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) keeps the lower chamber out of session. But a federal employee union yesterday called on Democrats to accept the GOP offer of a “clean” short-term spending bill, adding to a “laundry list of pressure points” that could help break the stalemate, Politico said.

Who said what
“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown," American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley said in a statement. That was the “first major fraying” of the Democrats’ coalition, Politico said. But “Republicans are facing a tactical divide of their own” on whether to hold votes to “ease particular pain points” by funding SNAP food stamps set to expire Nov. 1 and paying federal employees.

Republicans are also under increasing “political pressure” from constituents as notices of Affordable Care Act “premium spikes” begin “landing in mailboxes” before the enrollment period opens this weekend, The Associated Press said. Extending ACA subsidies is the Democrats’ top negotiating ask, and it “appears to be gaining political strength heading into next year’s midterm elections.”

What next?
Democratic lawmakers say they “feel they have the upper hand and that Republicans are poised to come to the negotiating table,” Axios said, “though Republicans say essentially the exact opposite.” Meanwhile, Politico said, there are “growing signs of bipartisan frustration about the stalemate” among the “rank-and-file.” Some Republicans, NRP congressional reporter Sam Gringlas said, “predict Thanksgiving will be a turning point.”

It’s not all bad

Hanle, India — the country’s first dark sky reserve — is boosting tourism and local employment with an astronomy ambassador program. Twenty-five villagers, including 18 women, serve as ambassadors, and several open their homes to stargazers to earn more income. Padma Chamchot, 25, makes enough to support herself and her parents, even when the program is paused for five months a year due to snow. “By becoming an astro-ambassador, the universe has truly opened up for us,” she told The Guardian.

Under the radar

The Covid-19 mRNA vaccine’s cancer-battling effect

The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines can boost the immune system to better fight cancer, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Researchers looked at more than 1,000 patients with late-stage melanoma or lung cancer being treated with an immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors, a “common approach doctors use to train the immune system to kill cancer,” the study’s authors said at The Conversation. Those who had received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were “more than twice as likely to be alive after three years” compared with those who didn't receive either vaccine.

People undergoing cancer treatment are more susceptible to contracting viruses like Covid, but the researchers determined that the extended lifespans “had nothing to do with virus infections,” The Associated Press said. Instead, the mRNA in the vaccine appeared to “help the immune system respond better to the cutting-edge cancer treatment” they were undergoing.

“We are really tapping into that natural process that your body already knows how to respond to,” Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said to NBC News. “You are using your body’s natural system to fight tumors.”

The data is “exciting” but “needs to be confirmed in a phase III clinical trial,” said Adam Grippin, the study’s lead author, to The Washington Post. If the upcoming clinical trial confirms the findings, Grippin and co-author Christiano Marconi said at The Conversation, this “widely available, low-cost intervention could extend the benefits of immunotherapy to millions of patients.”

On this day

October 28, 1538

The University of St. Thomas Aquinas was established in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, becoming the first university in the Americas. The school operated for nearly 300 years before being shuttered in 1823, though a successor, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, still exists.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Stretch a $0 paycheck’

As “SNAP benefits run out” amid shutdown, “42 million won’t get food aid Nov. 1,” USA Today says on Tuesday’s front page. “Food banks in U.S. brace for a record demand,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. “Head Start could be next to lose funds,” says the Detroit Free Press. “GOP faces headache over health care costs,” says The Dallas Morning News. “Workers seek ways to stretch a $0 paycheck,” The New York Times says. “Good vibes for stocks return, fueled by earnings, trade talk,” says The Wall Street Journal. “Category 5 Hurricane Melissa rears up for record-setting strike on Jamaica,” the Miami Herald says. “Defiance of mandatory veiling grows in Iran,” says The Washington Post.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Bricks and order

Police in Santa Rosa, California, have broken up a Lego theft ring, raiding a home containing tens of thousands of beheaded figures, loose bricks and complete sets. The heads were found “organized in neat rows by facial expression,” while the other pieces were stored in dozens of bins, said The New York Times. The suspected ringleader, Robert Lopez, allegedly ordered others to steal the Legos, then bought them at a reduced rate to resell at inflated prices.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.