Morning Report

TODAY’S CRIME story

Arsonist who attacked Shapiro gets 25-50 years

What happened
A 38-year-old man yesterday pleaded guilty to charges including terrorism, arson and attempted murder for breaking into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April and trying to burn it down as Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and his family slept upstairs. Under a plea deal, Cody Balmer was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison, “far less than he could have faced if the case went to trial,” The Associated Press said.

Who said what
Balmer broke into the official residence carrying a hammer after the Shapiros hosted a Seder on the first night of Passover. Shapiro, who supported the plea deal, told reporters yesterday that he and his wife “have struggled over the last six months to try and make sense of all of this” and “explain it to our four children” and other family members staying over that night. The attack still “brings with it a real sense of vulnerability our family feels every single day,” he said.

Balmer is “taking full responsibility” for his actions and paying a “hefty price for a man who’s 38 years old,” his attorney Bryan Walk said in court yesterday. Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo said Balmer had indicated the attack was intended as an “offset” to the deaths in Gaza.

What next?
Prosecutors said Balmer would be eligible for parole when he is 63. Nobody was hurt in the attack but Balmer’s Molotov cocktails “caused millions of dollars in damage” to the governor’s mansion, the AP said, and “work to fix the damage and to bolster its security features continues.”

TODAY’S POLITICS Story

‘Vile, racist’ leaked chats roil Young Republicans

What happened
Leaders of Young Republican groups across the country peppered a group chat with racist, antisemitic and violent comments, Politico reported yesterday, citing 2,900 pages of leaked Telegram posts from January through mid-August. The comments, including half-joking praise of Adolf Hitler and calling rape “epic,” drew broad bipartisan condemnation and led to at least four of the participants losing their jobs in state government and politics.

Who said what
The exchanges between Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont “offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening,” Politico said. “They referred to Black people as monkeys,” mused about “putting their political opponents in gas chambers” and “lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.”

The messages “reveal a culture” within President Donald Trump’s Republican Party where the “loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders,” Politico said. The use of racial slurs and white supremacist codewords was similar to online discussions among neo-Nazis, said University of Dayton professor Art Jipson. “You say it once or twice, it’s a joke, but you say it 251 times, it’s no longer a joke.”

What next?
The Young Republican National Federation board told all of the chat participants to “immediately resign” from the organization. Vermont Republicans urged state Sen. Samuel Douglass (R) to step down for his contributions to what Gov. Phil Scott (R) called the “vile, racist, bigoted and antisemitic dialogue.” The Kansas GOP said its Young Republicans chapter was now “inactive.”

It’s not all bad

When bulldozers digging Toronto’s new river channel hit patches of unusual green shoots, workers realized that they had uncovered a lost wetland buried since the 1800s. Scientists then unearthed worms, water fleas and plankton that sprang back to life in century-old soil samples. “It’s like finding buried treasure,” said ecologist Shelby Riskin of the University of Toronto. The discoveries, part of the city’s vast waterfront restoration and renaturalization project, “underscored the resilience of ecosystems in the face of human-led destruction,” said The Guardian.

Under the radar

Scientists want to use rock dust to cool the Earth

What if crop-dusting could cool down the climate? What about rock-dusting? It turns out that sprinkling rock dust on fields may enhance rock weathering, a process capable of trapping and removing atmospheric carbon. While the method would be low-cost, there is little data on how much carbon can truly be offset through the process.

Rock weathering is a natural carbon removal process that occurs when “rain falls through the atmosphere” and “combines with CO2 to form carbonic acid,” said Undo, a British company dedicated to carbon removal. The effects of rock weathering can be enhanced when rocks are “crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown,” said The Washington Post. Then, as it rains, “chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that eventually wash into the ocean, where the carbon remains stored.” The method has the potential to sequester billions of tons of carbon and slow climate change.

Companies working on rock weathering have “drawn some skepticism from researchers who say they want to see data and peer-reviewed research,” said the Post. “It’s at an exciting juncture,” said David Beerling, the director of the University of Sheffield’s Leverhulme Center for Climate Change Mitigation. “But there’s a need for caution in ensuring that we have rigorous, cost-effective [tracking and verification] so that people don’t make claims for carbon credits that aren’t substantiated.”

On this day

October 15, 1973

Dolly Parton released the single “Jolene,” which went on to become a No. 1 country hit in the U.S. and Canada and one of her most beloved songs. Parton said the lyrics were inspired by a bank teller who flirted with her husband, but she chose the name “Jolene” in honor of a young fan.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Feds crash out’

“Federal agents use tear gas to quell clash on East Side,” the Chicago Tribune says on Wednesday’s front page. “Feds crash out” and “ram SUV to end high-speed pursuit down residential street,” says the Chicago Sun-Times. “Federal firings target services for the most vulnerable,” The Washington Post says. “Special ed system in danger,” says USA Today. “Hamas cracks down on rivals after truce with Israel begins,” says The Wall Street Journal. “Outlook darkens for Gaza ceasefire,” says the Arizona Republic. “Media balks at Pentagon demands,” says the Los Angeles Times. D’Angelo, “silky R&B titan whose seclusion fed mystique,” dies at 51, says The New York Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

False AIcusations

Australian Catholic University employed AI software that wrongly accused students of using AI for their classwork. About 1,500 allegations of “academic misconduct” were dismissed when it was revealed that the only evidence was a red flag raised by AI detection software. But students were informed that the “onus was on them” to prove their innocence, said Australia’s ABC News, and one woman in the nursing program had to wait six months to be cleared of wrongdoing.

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.