Election

The Chicago Board of Elections is running daily four-hour training sessions through Oct. 30 as it works to recruit more election judges for the Nov. 3 general election. Officials say they are especially in need of high school students and bilingual judges, and are encouraging applicants to apply as soon as possible, ideally by Oct. 23, through pollworker.chicagoelections.gov so they have time to complete training. High school juniors and seniors with a 3.0 GPA can apply with parental and principal approval, and are urged to sign up by mid-October.

Judges are paid a total of $260 for training and Election Day work, but many participants cite civic duty and a desire to ensure a transparent, fair process as their main motivations. The recruitment drive underscores ongoing public attention on election administration, transparency, and poll worker staffing ahead of the vote.

A Washington Examiner opinion column argues that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's policy platform—including proposals for free childcare, free public transportation, rent-controlled housing, and city-run grocery stores—amounts to unrealistic promises that history shows cannot be sustained without heavy taxation or economic collapse. The author, Les Rubin of Main Street Economics, compares Mamdani's proposals to past socialist experiments, citing Venezuela's economic decline as a cautionary example, and argues that Scandinavian "democratic socialism" models are more capitalist than commonly portrayed, funded by broad-based taxes on all income levels rather than just the wealthy.

The piece contends that taxing high earners to fund social programs risks driving wealthy residents out of the city, undermining the tax base needed to pay for the proposed benefits. It frames the debate as a broader ideological clash between free-market capitalism and socialist policy, arguing the former has a stronger track record of raising living standards.

Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar briefly criticized then reversed her position on President Trump's newly announced oil agreement with Venezuela's interim government. She initially posted, then deleted, warnings that any deal with the "interim regime" would expire once Trump left office and that Venezuela had a history of seizing American investments. About an hour later, she posted a revised message calling the deal "a great deal" for both the U.S. and Venezuelan people, framing it as a way to counter China's discounted access to Venezuelan oil while still criticizing interim leader Delcy Rodríguez as "the wrong person" for the arrangement.

Trump announced Friday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth negotiated the deal with Rodríguez, giving private U.S. companies access to an estimated 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves across 17 oil fields, with Venezuela citing potential investment and tax revenue gains. Rodríguez has led Venezuela since U.S. forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro in January.