NEWS: 10/06/26

Introduction 

Good evening, everyone. You are listening to WHRW Binghamton, and this is your weekly news power hour. I’m Bailey, your News Director, and today I am joined by my fellow analyst, Tolu. 

International News

Ukraine Claims Deep-Strike Successes Against Russian Refineries

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry claims its long-range strikes have disabled 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity across major industrial centers, including Moscow, Yaroslavl, and Perm, severely disrupting fuel supplies and forcing Moscow to “lower fuel standards and restrict gasoline sales”, according to BBC News. In a rare public acknowledgment, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted the strikes have cost Russia roughly 1% of its GDP, while the resulting global diesel supply squeeze pushed U.S. President Donald Trump to urge Kyiv to halt hits on Russian energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia retaliated with widespread aerial bomb droppings across Ukraine, killing at least four civilians in Kharkiv, striking energy facilities, and sinking a commercial Turkish-owned grain vessel in the Black Sea with drones. In response to Moscow’s intensifying drone and missile barrage, Ukrainian officials revealed they have deployed new artificial intelligence-operated, machine-vision turrets to shoot down advanced Russian jet-powered drones that are protecting the city’s infrastructure.

Massive High School Protests and Police Crackdown Ahead of France’s Election

More than a quarter of a million protesters rallied across France as nationwide high school demonstrations over underfunded schools expanded into a major political crisis for booting President Emmanuel Macron’s administration. What began in mid-September as local pupil blockades against rundown, overcrowded classrooms has escalated into  social unrest, with students, parents, and teachers taking to the streets across Paris, Marseille, and Lille. BBC reports, French riot police deployed tear gas, water cannons, and stun grenades to disperse crowds, resulting in nearly 500 detentions on Tuesday alone and raising the total arrests to over 6,500, mostly targeting teenage students. The government’s heavy-handed tactics, which have left hundreds of officers and demonstrators injured, have drawn severe backlash from civil rights groups, parents, and politically-opposing leaders who are completely the use of force against minors. With hundreds of high schools forced to shut down and unrest spreading into neighboring Belgium, the demonstrations have tapped into deeper economic grievances over rising inflation, energy prices, and wealth inequality, making education reform and police accountability main focuses in the early stages of France’s upcoming presidential election.

Congressional News

Data Centers Bill

A bill that attempts to address voter worries about data centers and their impact on energy costs failed to advance in the Senate on Wednesday, falling victim to an election-year clash on how best to address a growing concern.

Before leaving Washington to campaign, Senate Republicans reserved one of the chamber’s final votes for a bill they hoped would underscore efforts to address the impact data centers have on voters’ monthly energy bills. The bill needed 60 votes to advance, but fell short, 57—43.

The bill is a modest one. It requires utility regulators to consider adopting a federal standard that charges large power customers a rate that covers the cost of the system upgrades needed to serve them. Democrats say it amounts to a suggestion and that more is needed. Republicans say the bill sends a message to regulators to act.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, is in a tough reelection battle and has been labeled in campaign ads as the “face of data centers” by his Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.

“You all know this is the only game in town,” Husted told reporters in advocating for his bill. “This bill passing is the only way to get a chance to prove to the American people before the midterm elections whose side you’re on.”

The measure passed the House by a vote of 417-3. It needed support from at least seven Democratic senators to proceed to a final vote, but that didn’t happen given the criticism from within their ranks that it doesn’t go far enough and knowing that passage could give Husted’s reelection prospects a lift.

“The bill is a fraud, plain and simple,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Democrats have offered competing proposals. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. sponsored legislation that would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue rules for large electricity customers that requires them to pay for necessary grid upgrades.

“They want it optional, which means zero. We want it mandatory,” Schumer said.

Republicans are looking to position Democrats as obstructionists who are blocking progress on key voter concerns. Husted’s bill is one example. Another would be the bill from Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., that would bar members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks. The issue is a popular one with candidates running for office this election cycle, but also includes voter identification requirements that Democrats have called a poison pill.

Thune teed up both bills for procedural votes and both failed to meet the 60-vote threshold for advancing.

“Both pieces of legislation strike at the very heart of issues that the American people care deeply about, passionately about, and we’ll see if the Democrats are willing to take yes for an answer,” Thune said.

The House and Senate are both expected to be out of session for all of October. The House left in mid-September, canceling nearly two weeks of votes as Republicans were anxious to get on the campaign trail in a bid to keep their majority in the next Congress.

President Donald Trump has embraced the building of more data centers, but there is growing wariness from voters. About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.

And a majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.

In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a recent memo that Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers. Husted helped promote Ohio as a destination for data centers while serving as lieutenant governor.

The Ohio race is seen as vital to determining control of the Senate, helping explain why the data center bill has generated so much scrutiny and is so hotly contested despite the overwhelming vote it received in the House.

Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Husted said that the bill requires states to at least confront the issue of data centers paying their own way for their power and the grid improvements needed to serve them. He said the bill could hardly get broader support than it did in the House, but by blocking the bill in the Senate, Democrats would be showing they don’t care about the issue of affordability.

“Let’s hold data centers accountable and let’s stop blocking a path to affordability,” Husted said.

Election News

Local officials from around the country are reporting a sharp rise in political polarization within their communities in the months leading up to the midterm elections, with the high cost of living a top driver, a new survey shared first with NBC News has found.

The results of the more than 1,200-person survey, conducted over the summer by the nonprofit research firm CivicPulse, show that 41% of local officials reported “substantial negative effects” of polarization, about a 10-point increase from the organization’s three previous surveys. The reported levels of polarization differed depending on the size of the community, with 49% of local officials in towns with more than 50,000 residents reporting more, compared to 39% of local officials in smaller communities.

In interviews with NBC News, survey participants provided examples of the kind of tensions they’re seeing. One described residents venting their frustrations at local officials over national issues like rising gas prices that are out of their control. Another recalled how an immigration arrest sent shock waves through the community, leading to protests and clashes with federal authorities. A third local official even considered giving up her position over the hostility she has faced doing her job.

Still, the survey found that local officials believe political polarization is far worse at the national level, with 91% of participants saying it is “substantially” hurting the country. Both nationally and locally, the cost of living was considered one of the most polarizing issues. Immigration, election administration and foreign affairs were also among the top drivers nationally, while taxes and housing were high on the list locally, with immigration behind those, but causing more divisions as the midterms approach, they said.

Nathan Lee, CivicPulse’s managing director, said most local governments seem “to be functioning quite a bit more harmoniously and less divisively” than what officials perceive is happening at the national level, but the survey indicates that “that good news is starting to be compromised.”

NBC News spoke with more than half a dozen local officials from around the country who participated in the survey about how political polarization is affecting their communities.

James Kvaal, an executive at the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said political conflict over controversial national issues is increasingly being felt at the local level.

“Some of the rhetoric that’s used in the national debate is now being used locally as well, and I think that is in part due to the heat of the midterms that is bringing greater attention to debates that are dividing our country,” Kvaal said.

For April Ramirez, a City Council member in Twentynine Palms, California, the political polarization has grown so “severe” that she considered giving up her seat.

Describing how national issues are affecting local politics, she said, “Some Democrats will not accept an idea if it’s a Republican that’s proposing it, even if it’s fundamentally a Democrat idea that they’re trying to push, and then that’s where the division starts.”

Ramirez, a Republican who says she holds some liberal-leaning views, recalled being yelled at and called a “f—ing MAGA b—-” for her position supporting a controversial solar development project that she said would have spurred investment in the area but faced opposition from environmentalists. Another time, she said, she was stalked while pursuing a community grant that would have funded things like emergency and homeless services through a church-affiliated nonprofit. Instead, some residents accused her of trying to put money toward upgrading the church.

“That’s when it got really bad, like to the point of threats, to the point of like, ‘Let’s just run her out of this town,’” Ramirez said.

The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County, Texas, has seen its share of political polarization over the years. The district became a target of the conservative cellphone company Patriot Mobile after it created a political action committee and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on school board races in the state in 2022.

Company president Glenn Story touted the results to former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon, who a year earlier had exhorted conservatives to win seats on school boards to “save the nation.” Speaking to Bannon at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, Story bragged that his group “took over” four of the state’s school boards.

Tensions in the district had escalated over things like book bans, school board trustee Randy Campbell said. “Anything that would be nontraditional for quote, unquote, ‘Christian values,’ they would try to have pulled off the shelves, and they did so,” he said, referring to materials that some in the community had targeted over what they said were diversity or LGBTQ themes.

Campbell, a Democrat, said the culture war issues exemplified “the local impact of Project 2025” in his community, referring to the conservative blueprint for a Republican agenda ahead of the 2024 elections.

Then, last year, the district was nearly split up in a proposal that was pitched as a way to resolve financial problems. Campbell, who opposed the proposal, said the issue was one reason he decided to run for his school board position, explaining that the division “would have been very much on racial and economic lines.”

“A lot of people have been trying to sew the parts back together, but there’s a lot of resentment on both sides about that failed detachment,” he said.

The CivicPulse survey findings noted that 36% of local officials described immigration as “substantially polarizing” in their communities; 44% described it as becoming more so in the run-up to the midterm elections, making it the most rapidly polarizing topic at the local level of the issues asked about in the survey. The increasing tensions are driven in part over concerns related to federal enforcement actions, both from people who support them and those who are opposed.

“A topic that once reached local government mainly as campaign rhetoric now reaches it as a governing question,” the report noted.

In Durango, Colorado, school board director Andrea Parmenter said the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies rattled her community of about 20,000 people after federal immigration enforcement personnel detained a man and his two children on their way to school last year. Protests followed, leading to clashes with the authorities that made national headlines.

Still, Parmenter said, the college town doesn’t otherwise experience a lot of political polarization. Asked why she believes polarization seems worse at the national level, she said she thinks people feel they have more input at the local government level, where residents can have regular conversations with officials, while politicians at the national level can be harder to reach.

“The national level stuff is just frightening and scary, and you feel very helpless — I do, and I think a lot of other people,” she said, citing things like Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.

Cost-of-living issues are prominent sources of polarization at the local level in part because local governments have authority over things that affect household budgets, like property tax rates, utility charges and housing construction decisions, CivicPulse said. And local officials surveyed most often identified the cost of living and taxes as becoming more polarizing as the midterms near.

The report noted that in the discussions on affordability, partisan divisions “now show up in beliefs about inflation itself — its recent level, its future path, and the central bank’s target — not merely in views about how to respond to it.” Trump has repeatedly sought to pressure the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates as a way to spur growth, despite inflation, which has remained elevated amid high oil prices stemming in part from the war with Iran.

Still, some issues have created more unity across the political spectrum, said Mimi Panitch, the city councilor at large in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

While policing and immigration enforcement are polarizing local issues, Panitch said, the community has found some common ground in opposition to artificial intelligence data centers, which have become a prominent issue in the midterm elections. Earlier this year, Holyoke reportedly became the first Massachusetts community to ban data center development.

“Suddenly, people are talking to each other like we’re working from the same basic facts,” she said. “The other side are not space aliens. It’s encouraging, it really is.”

Entertainment News

Paramount

After nearly a yearlong battle, the $110 billion merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery closed earlier today after Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a last-minute effort to halt the deal.

The new company — known as Skydance — brings the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services under one umbrella, roughly seven months after Paramount won a long bidding war with Netflix for Warner Bros. The company said that all its direct-to-consumer streaming services “will unify into a single service over time.”

Skydance stock began trading on Tuesday under the symbol SKYD and closed down at $9.53 per share. The merger faced plenty of pushback and a long road to closing.

Skydance stated in a press release: “The completed transaction unites two of media and entertainment’s most storied companies, each with a history spanning more than a century, giving the combined business a rare legacy to build on. The aim of the combined company is to build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology.”

The company’s entertainment franchises span “Sopranos” to “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Euphoria” to “Harry Potter.” The portfolio also encompasses television networks CBS, CBS News, CBS Sports, CNN, TNT, TBS, Nickelodeon, and MTV, among others.

Last February, Warner Bros.’ board of directors deemed Paramount’s Skydance’s $ 31-per-share proposal for the entire company “superior” to Netflix’s offer.

The new name is a callback to the production company that David Ellison, son of Oracle (ORCL) co-founder Larry Ellison, founded in 2006 and merged with Paramount in 2025. David Ellison will serve as co-CEO of Skydance, alongside former Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, who abruptly stepped down from the toymaker last week.

On Monday, the company said David Ellison will focus on long-term strategy, creative vision, and direction, “including its talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology and capital allocation.” Kreiz will focus on day-to-day management and the integration of both companies.

Bari Weiss, editor in chief of CBS News, and Mark Thompson, CNN chair and editor in chief, remain in their roles. Both were named to the CEO’s News Executive Leadership Team.

Paramount CFO Dennis Cinelli will hold the same role at Skydance, while other leaders are taking on new roles with higher ranks. CBS Sports chief David Berson will take over the combined sports operations as Warner Bros. – Discovery’s top sports executive, Luis Silberwasser, exits. HBO head Casey Bloys ‌will become Skydance’s chief content officer.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav will enjoy a nice payday to the tune of roughly $886.8 million.

Weeks ago, Paramount reached a settlement with a dozen states, including California, which had sought to block the company’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. on antitrust grounds. Under the agreement, the combined company would face financial penalties if it fails to release at least 30 films in theaters each year.

According to two people familiar with the discussions cited by Bloomberg, Paramount would pay $30 million for each movie short of that target. The report also said Paramount could be forced to sell its 49% stake in Miramax if it does not meet the target. In a long-shot effort to block the merger filed on Monday, four petitioners who described themselves as Paramount customers argued the merger remained anticompetitive despite the settlement.

However, Supreme Court Justice Kagan denied the petition without comment. Skydance’s competitors include Disney, Netflix, Comcast, Versant, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet’s YouTube.

Big Brother

It was a Big Brother season that began with a velociraptor pushing a reality TV icon into a volcano to her fiery death. And it just sadly came to a close this past Thursday. Along the way, we got a drag queen, a tea party gone horribly wrong, a critical competition that involved trying to get to a toilet in time, and, naturally, a Pharaoh’s Curse.

Anyway, it all came to an end tonight as Big Brother would crown its season 28 champion. Rick Devens, Drew Campbell, and Taylor Brown were the last three contestants standing who walked into the live finale, but only one would leave a $750,000 winner. Spoilers ahead for the finale of big brother, but you’ve had 5 days to watch it so lets catch up- and here’s everything that happened during the finale.

The finale began with part one of the three-part Head of Household competition, as the finalists were forced to hold on to a kite for as long as possible while dressed in some ridiculous Ben Franklin costumes. Devens had previously promised Drew he would drop out after Taylor did, thereby handing part one to the kid. But as we always say on big brother… EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!

That’s because Drew was the first one to drop in the competition, falling off the log after 15 minutes. And when Devens later dropped at 50 minutes, Taylor was the winner of part one and immediately advanced to part three.

That set up a Drew vs. Devens matchup in part two, in which the duo had to match evicted Big Brother players with William Shakespeare plays by sling-shotting balls and knocking down cardboard cutouts of the houseguests that aligned with the given play. The first person to win three rounds would advance to face Taylor in part three, and that person was Devens. This took Drew totally out of contention for the final head of household- he would have to be brought to the end, or be evicted in 3rd place with nothing. 

Taylor was ready for the matchup: “Devens wins, and you know what? I’m ready and I’m down. Because if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. Devens is the final boss of Big Brother, and if I want to win that $750,000, I need to go through him.”

But going through him would not be so easy, because Rick won the final stage of the Head of Household competition in which the the duo had to watch videos of the jurors hilariously dressed up like old people telling two truths and a lie about their time in the game, with Devens and Taylor trying to pick out fact from fiction. Taylor seemed to crack under the pressure, switching out her answers for multiple questions at the last second, only to get them wrong. 

That means Rick secured his post in the final two and had to decide whether to honor his promise to bring Drew with him, or switch it up and bring Taylor, who made a last minute pitch to him that he would not get her, Yash, or Lala’s votes if he sent her to the jury.

In a stunning move, Devens, through tears, evicted Drew, acknowledging, “This is a total betrayal. I know that. I love you, but I have to evict you.” This is a stab to the heart- Devens and Drew were a father son duo from the very first days of the game. Drew played a hilariously fun game that was full of personality and big moves, and he came up short in the final hour. 

That put Rick and Taylor in the final two, where they faced questions from the jury. Taylor highlighted all the perseverance she showed in surviving so many times on the nomination block, while also pointing out the advantages Devens had in the game as an icon, while Rick deftly preserved Drew’s vote by saying that the people he actually controlled the most were Chuk, Kamu, and Haley. The jury reacted strangely to Taylor’s answers to the questions – she put way too much emphasis on moves that happened in the early stages of the game, instead of highlighting her smarts in evicting Angela over Dee earlier on, and convincing Devens on the last day to totally betray his number 1 in the house. 

In their final speeches, Taylor told the jurors, “Call me the Cinderella of the season because I prevailed through it all,” while Devens boldly proclaimed, “I wanted all the smoke. I made big swings every time I got the chance… I did not coast. I wanted to attack this game.”

In the end, the jury awarded that attack, and named Devens the winner of Big Brother season 28. He also won the $50,000 as America’s Favorite Houseguest (which should’ve been Drew) and $10,000 via the Pharaoh’s Curse. Not a bad result for a guy who was originally voted out fourth on his first Survivor season and was an alternate on Survivor 50.

Sports News

Injuries

As I started last week with our sports news, let’s go over the week 4 injury report- here’s what we have to watch out for as we move into week 5. 

Eagles running back Tank Bigsby is headed to injured reserve after suffering an injury Sunday against the Rams that requires core muscle surgery to repair it. The procedure will be done at the Philadelphia-based Vincera Institute. The hope is that Bigsby will be back in six weeks or less.

Bigsby was injured in the closing moments of the game when he was tackled by Byron Young following a short run to the right side. Bigsby was the primary running back for much of the game after Saquon Barkley exited with a hamstring injury early in the first quarter. Barkley is considered week-to-week, but it’s not considered to be a long-term injury.

Earlier yesterday, coach Nick Sirianni did not say whether Barkley will be available for Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. Will Shipley is the lone healthy back on the active roster. The Eagles have three running backs on the practice squad in Dameon Pierce, Carson Steele and Jaydon Blue.

The Eagles are also dealing with injury issues on the offensive line. Left guard Cam Jurgens self-reported concussion symptoms Monday morning, was evaluated and is now in the concussion protocol. Jurgens moved from center to left guard to replace Landon Dickerson, who is on injured reserve with a knee injury.

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Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota suffered a sprained MCL of his right knee, but the timetable for his return remains uncertain. Quinn also reiterated that starting quarterback Jayden Daniels will practice in full this week, with the hope of starting Sunday against the visiting New York Giants.

Mariota had started the past two games in place of Daniels, who was sidelined with a dislocated left elbow. Daniels has played a full game just five times since the start of the 2025 season, adding to Mariota’s importance.

Coach Quinn said the Commanders want to see how Mariota progresses before deciding whether they need to add another quarterback. Washington will play at the San Francisco 49ers on Oct. 19 before its bye week.

Mariota started eight games last season, and he has played in 17 overall since signing with Washington in 2024. He has thrown 18 touchdowns and seven interceptions in those contests.

Washington also lost its punt and kick returner Jaylin Lane to a fractured and dislocated ankle, ending his season. The injury occurred on a kick return on Sunday.

Quinn indicated that, in addition to Daniels, the Commanders are hopeful two other starters will return: safety Nick Cross (internal injury) and right guard Sam Cosmi (concussion). Running back Rachaad White (shoulder) also might be back.

Quinn said they’re not yet sure what Terry McLaurin will do in practice this week. The wide receiver missed Sunday’s loss after injuring a hamstring in Friday’s practice.

 

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Lamar Jackson is dealing with a sprained ankle that gives the Baltimore Ravens quarterback only an outside chance to play Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons. Jackson could end up missing multiple games based on how his rehab goes, but the injury is not considered long-term and should not require surgery.

Ravens coach Jesse Minter did not provide specific information about Jackson’s status Monday, saying only that the two-time NFL MVP is “dealing with a little bit of an ankle.” If Jackson is unable to play Sunday night against the Falcons, Tyler Huntley would start at quarterback for the Ravens.

Jackson suffered the injury to his left ankle just before halftime in Week 4 and did not play the second half of Baltimore’s 24-18 victory over the Tennessee Titans. He left M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday night wearing a protective boot on his left foot.

Minter acknowledged Monday that he was uncertain whether Jackson would play in Week 5, saying the organization was still “gathering information” on the franchise quarterback’s ankle.

Minter added that he does not expect Jackson to be sidelined for an extended period, saying he doesn’t “think it’s going to be crazy long term, but we’ll see what happens.” The Ravens are tied with the Cleveland Browns (3-1) atop the AFC North and are looking to improve to 4-1 for the first time since 2021.

Other stories

Now moving out of the injury report, lets talk about some other things that happened in football this week. The Atlanta Falcons’ offense has completed an improbable turnaround in the span of just two weeks.

Over the first two games of the season, the Falcons had a combined 16 points, the fewest in the NFL. After a 45-24 win over the rival New Orleans Saints on “Monday Night Football,” Atlanta had a league-high 80 combined points in Weeks 3 and 4.

The Falcons defeated the Green Bay Packers 35-14 at Lambeau Field last week on “Thursday Night Football.” According to ESPN research, Atlanta is the first team in NFL history to win back-to-back primetime games on the road by 20 or more points.

The biggest reason? Michael Penix Jr.’s return from ACL surgery.

The Falcons started third-string quarterback Cooper Rush the first two weeks of the season. Penix came back in Week 3 and led the Falcons to a dominant performance against the Packers. On Monday, Penix completed 15 of 20 passes for 223 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions.

Penix, who tore his left ACL last November, is the first Falcons quarterback with a completion percentage of at least 70% and 10 yards per attempt in consecutive games since Matt Ryan in 2018.

Penix’s presence has opened up things for the Falcons’ running game in a huge way. Atlanta has gone over 200 yards on the ground in each of the past two weeks. On Monday, the Falcons had five rushing touchdowns. Bijan Robinson had 19 carries for 145 yards and two touchdowns, and Brian Robinson Jr. had 62 yards on 14 carries with three touchdowns.

The Falcons started 0-2 with a feeble offense and then faced three straight primetime games, two of them on the road, including Monday when the Saints were celebrating the 20-year anniversary of their first game back at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.

Atlanta has now won two straight heading into a date with the Baltimore Ravens on “Sunday Night Football.”

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The NFL Referees Association earlier today said it will challenge the severity of the suspensions of two officials for unprofessional conduct, which the officials union maintains went beyond appropriate punishment.

The league on Monday suspended line judge Jeff Seeman for two games for swearing at Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride and referee Adrian Hill for one game for yelling and gesturing at Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson.

“NFL officials have a responsibility to conduct themselves professionally on the field, and the actions in these incidents fell short of that standard,” NFLRA executive director Scott Green said in a statement. “Accountability matters, but that should not result in discipline that is excessive or inconsistent with established precedent.”

Seeman was caught on camera cursing at McBride during the Cardinals’ loss at the New York Giants. Hill yelled at Wilson and pointed for him to get away after the Vikings linebacker tried to help him to his feet after a collision knocked him over.

Green continued: “Officials are routinely subjected to highly charged interactions and, at times, verbal abuse from players and coaches. While that never excuses misconduct by an official, it shouldn’t be dismissed as simply part of the game. The League expects the highest level of professionalism from its officials, and it should demand the same from everyone on the field.”

The NFLRA said it would meet with the league’s officiating department to discuss disciplinary standards and with players’ union leadership to address on-field conduct and the growing levels of confrontations between players and officials.

This Day in History

On October 6, 1926, Yankee slugger Babe Ruth hits a record three homers against the St. Louis Cardinals in the fourth game of the World Series. The Yanks won the game 10-5, but despite Ruth’s unprecedented performance, they lost the championship in the seventh game. In 1928, in the fourth game of another Yanks-Cards World Series, Ruth tied his own record, knocking three more pitches out of the same park.

The 1926 championship promised to be an exciting one. The AL champs had a powerful lineup, later called the “Murderer’s Row,” that included the great Babe, the young “Columbia Lou” Gehrig, and the leadoff man Earle Combs. For their part, the Cardinals had the intimidating Rogers Hornsby along with ace pitchers Flint Rhem and Bill Sherdel.But the Yanks were heavily favored, and they won the first game easily. They lost the second, though, thanks to an outstanding full-game performance from St. Louis pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. The next day, Cardinal Jessie Haines pitched the whole game—and hit the only home run—in his team’s 4-0 Game 3 victory.

By the fourth game in the series, the underdog Cards were up two games to one. The Yanks needed to pull it together, and for one game, they did. Veteran Waite Hoyt pitched all nine innings while St. Louis shuffled through its entire bullpen. And the Babe–the Sultan of Swat, the Caliph of Clout, the Wali of Wallop–hit his three homers and led the Yanks to a 10-5 victory. Unfortunately for the Bombers, that game didn’t decide the series. Though they won the next game in 10 innings, they lost the next one by eight runs. And they were losing the seventh game by one run in the ninth inning when the Bambino stepped to the plate again. With a 3-2 count, Ruth drew his eleventh walk of the series and trotted off to first base. The Yanks’ hopes plummeted as quickly as they’d risen, though, when second baseman Hornsby nabbed him as he tried somewhat ploddingly to steal second. The game was over. Thanks to the magical Bambino, the Bombers had lost.

On October 18, 1977, Yankee Reggie Jackson became only the second player to hit three homers in a single Series game.

Conclusion 

That wraps up our news power hour this week. We will not be back next Tuesday due to Fall break, so you can catch us back here on Tuesday, October 20th! Big thank you to Alana, our engineer, for all of her hard work today, and we will be back in two weeks to bring you the latest news!