WSJ and NYT report the US may resume Iran strikes after the midterms

Walter P. Kennedy coined nocebo in a 1961 article, “The nocebo reaction,” in Medical World. A 2023 Frontiers in Psychology editorial quotes him: “it is somewhat surprising that little attention has been drawn to the existence of the contrary effect” to the placebo, “which I may call the nocebo reaction.”² The word is a Latin joke on placebo: Merriam-Webster glosses Latin nocēbō as “I will harm,” against placebo’s “I shall please.”¹ Kennedy meant a narrower thing, a reaction that comes from the patient and not the drug’s pharmacology. Confusing the two, he warned, could lead doctors to discard useful drugs.²

Netanyahu reportedly pressed Trump to restart the Iran war after the election

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times report the US may resume military action against Iran after Tuesday’s vote, CNBC said Sunday.³ Israel’s Channel 12, citing an Israeli and an American source, says Benjamin Netanyahu urged Trump on Saturday to resume the war right after the election, and Trump prefers to give Qatari-mediated talks more time. The White House and Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.⁴ Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Trump “hasn’t made a decision,” and CNBC notes Washington has not said it plans to resume attacks.³

Learjet 60 crashes in a Florida neighborhood, killing all nine aboard

A Learjet 60 flying from Austin toward the Bahamas crashed in a residential area of Greenacres, Florida, at 12:50 p.m. Sunday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said all nine aboard died, PBS NewsHour reported.⁵ The same report cites air traffic control recordings and flight-tracking data showing the pilots reported turbulence and icing at 35,000 feet. The jet then dove at up to 30,000 feet per minute, beyond its design limits. The FAA is supporting the NTSB investigation, and the cause is undetermined.⁵

Sen. Chris Murphy is hospitalized after a stroke and expects a full recovery, his office says

Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, 53, “started experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game” on Saturday, chief of staff Allison Herwitt said, the AP reported.⁶ He was moved to Johns Hopkins, where his office says he is “awake and alert,” responding well to treatment and expected to recover fully. He is not on Tuesday’s ballot.⁶

Microsoft offers every US school district its AI privacy terms, starting with no training on student data

From 1 November, Microsoft says, every US school district can add the protections in its AI Safety & Privacy Standard to existing or new agreements without renegotiation.⁷ Its fact sheet lists 10 contractually enforceable protections, the first barring training on student or educator data except for narrow safety and security uses. Districts choose whether to add them.⁷

Google runs Gemma 4 on a data-center-class TPU in orbit

Google Research says its Project Suncatcher prototype, launched 1 October, returned “the first-ever AI response from a data center class TPU in orbit”: a Gemma 4 haiku about being in space, downlinked during a pass over Svalbard, Norway.⁸ Its 30 October post says tests of thermal stress and radiation come next, then twin interconnected satellites in 2027.⁸