USA - The flotilla is reportedly led by the new USS Gerald Ford supercarrier, now on its first deployment. A US carrier strike group, led by new supercarrier USS Gerald Ford, is expected to anchor near Portsmouth in southern England in mid-November, the UK Defense Journal reported on Sunday. The exact date of the flotilla’s arrival, which includes seven other warships, has not been announced publicly, the outlet noted. Releasing such data now “might not be the best idea from a security point of view,” it added. If reports of the US flotilla heading to British shores are confirmed, it will become the second American carrier strike group in European waters.

USA - 1.1 million chickens will be killed at a Wright County chicken farm about 80 miles north of Des Moines, ABC News reported. The commercial egg farm in north central Iowa was infected with bird flu. Iowa has had 15 commercial farms infected this year, including turkeys, egg-laying hens and other chickens. In addition, five backyard flocks have been infected. Because the virus is highly contagious, all birds on an infected farm are killed and disposed of to avoid the spread of the disease. Iowa has been hardest hit with bird losses at more than 13.3 million this year before the latest farm was found infected. Nationally more than 47.7 million birds have been affected in 43 states that includes 251 commercial flocks and 328 backyard flocks, US Department of Agriculture figures show.

USA - As a political scientist who studies the intersection of religion and politics, I am interested in which groups may have a strong impact on the balance of power. And if the data is any guide, there are two key communities political analysts often overlook: atheists and agnostics. In 2008, almost 8% of the entire US population claimed to be atheist or agnostic, according to my analysis of data from the Cooperative Election Study, or CES – an annual survey coordinated by a team at Harvard University. Atheists believe that there is no higher power in the universe, while agnostics contend that a higher power may exist but it’s impossible to know for certain.

Halloween is one of those annual celebrations that we just accept as part of the year, like Christmas and Easter, often without question – it is just something that happens at the end of October. However, much like Christmas and Easter, Halloween is specifically placed at a time of year that was intended to supplant an earlier celebration from the pre-Christian era.

USA - The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi in his home on October 28 has been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping by the Department of Justice. The Justice Department announced the two federal charges on Monday against David DePape, 42, who is accused of brutally attacking the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat for California). DePape is charged with one count of assault of an immediate family member of a United States official, which can be a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. He also is charged with one count of kidnapping, amounting to a 20-year maximum prison sentence.

CHINA - This summer, as China fired missiles into the sea off Taiwan to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, a much different kind of geopolitical standoff was taking shape in another corner of the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of miles away, a heavily-armed US Coast Guard cutter sailed up to a fleet of a few hundred Chinese squid-fishing boats not far from Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Its mission: inspect the vessels for any signs of illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing. Boarding ships on the high seas is a perfectly legal if little-used tool available to any sea power as part of the collective effort to protect the oceans’ threatened fish stocks. Still, the high-seas confrontation represented a potentially dangerous breach of international maritime protocol, one the US sees as a troubling precedent since it happened on the Coast Guard’s first-ever mission to counter illegal fishing in the eastern Pacific.

USA - A year ago, a bag of potato chips at the grocery store cost an average of $5.05. These days, that bag costs $6.05. A dozen eggs that could have been picked up for $1.83 now average $2.90. A two-liter bottle of soda that cost $1.78 will now set you back $2.17. Something else is also much higher: corporate profits. In mid-October, PepsiCo, whose prices for its drinks and chips were up 17 percent in the latest quarter from year-earlier levels, reported that its third-quarter profit grew more than 20 percent. Likewise, Coca-Cola reported profit up 14 percent from a year earlier, thanks in large part to price increases.

USA - “Left wing politicians are pushing sexual agendas on our children,” a new advertisement from Citizens for Sanity charges. The advertisement, obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, asserts that leftists are pushing both “X-rated drag shows for kids.” and “Pornography in elementary schools.” Parents across the country have fought back against school boards that have allowed sexually explicit, pornographic books aimed at children to be featured in library collections.

ISRAEL - As Israel heads to its fifth election in four years, Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentlessly campaigning across the country from the back of a delivery truck outfitted as a mobile campaign stage, imploring voters to come out on election day. Some call it the Bibi-bus, using Mr Netanyahu’s famous nickname.

ITALY - Raising their hands in a fascist salute, thousands of marchers sang in praise of Benito Mussolini to mark 100 years since the beginning of his dictatorship. In chilling scenes, as many as 4,000 fascist sympathisers marched to the despot's crypt in the town of Predappio, northern Italy, yesterday morning. With shouts of 'Duce, Duce, Duce' – Mussolini's honorific – the crowd descended on the dictator's birthplace with fascist flags and black shirts.

PHILIPPINES - Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 47 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a huge mudslide laden with rocks, trees and debris, officials said Saturday.

SOUTH KOREA - A video shows a fireman in South Korea trembling as he gives a press briefing about the Halloween stampede that killed over 150 people. Last night 153 people died in a crush in Seoul, with another 82 injured, as huge crowds gathered in the popular nightlife area Itaewon for a Halloween festival.

USA - In the month of October, the Mississippi River has seen record low levels from Illinois to Louisiana. In Baton Rouge, the level is revealing a more than 100-year-old sunken ferry and the underbelly of the USS Kidd. "While this is the time of the year when the river levels are usually low, we typically do not see anything this extreme.”

RUSSIA - The Russian president has predicted greater uncertainty as the era of unipolar Western dominance comes to an end. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the world stands at the precipice of a tumultuous decade that will bring the most danger and unpredictability in several generations as Western hegemony inevitably draws to a close.

USA - Nearly one in five Americans have skipped meals or did not buy groceries due to surging inflation, including 28 percent of Gen Z and 23 percent of millennials, according to a recent survey. Seventeen percent of respondents said they were receiving food items from a food bank, including 22 percent of millennials, while 17 said they have stopped buying healthier food options. Eighteen percent said they had skipped meals or did not buy groceries.