Tariff Truce or Another TACO Trade? On Thursday, President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. High stakes, high drama. Already, US and Chinese negotiators have said the “framework” of a trade deal is ready to be signed. But this looks more like a cease-fire than a peace treaty in the trade war Trump launched when he came in to office. Yes, Trump will climb down from his most recent threat to put a 100 percent additional tariff on China; he backs down so frequently that Forbes has a “Trump TACO Tracker” for investors to keep up. But wild uncertainty is part of Trump’s tactical approach. The strategy remains the same, and in many respects has already succeeded: Trump wants to tear down the trading structure established over the last forty years. Every country in the world is rapidly adjusting, de-risking and de-coupling trade from the US as much as possible. It will make us all poorer.

Shutdown: The states step up. Day 27 of the government shutdown, and there’s no end in sight. Over the weekend, the Department of Agriculture posted a notice on its website declaring, “the well has run dry,” and announcing that the food stamp program (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP) will stop providing benefits beginning November 1st. This is playing hardball with the lives of the roughly one in every eight Americans who buy groceries with that money. There is a $5 billion contingency fund that could be used to help people during the shutdown; the Trump administration is refusing to tap it. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia have already taken steps to help residents in their states who are impacted. More and more in our country, state and local leaders are having to find ways to respond to federal failures and the abdication of normal governance in Washington.

Will The Sports Betting Scandal Spread? Almost certainly. Today is a rare day: A “sports equinox.” All four major US professional sports leagues are in action. The mega-corporations that run sports betting in America have declared it a “holiday.” But there’s nothing festive about the wreckage in the lives of thousands of Americans—mostly young men—caught in the corporate web of sports betting. And now the NBA betting scandal that exploded into view last week looks like just the start of a major (and long-overdue) reckoning for the predatory and destructive alliance between the gambling industry and pro sports. Given the size and scope of the probe and arrests so far, more players, coaches and insiders are very likely to be implicated. The fact that a Hall of Famer coach has already been named suggests this isn’t going to be confined to fringe cases. Other sports are already reacting. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a stern message to players; the culture and corruption of betting isn’t isolated to one sport.

Pope Leo Tips His Hand. Conservatives had high hopes for the election of American Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV in June. Many conservative Catholics despised Pope Francis for his seemingly casual, off-the-cuff departures from Church teachings (“Who am I to judge?” Francis famously responded when asked about gay priests in the Church), his pushing for change in many areas of doctrine and governance, and his attempt to suppress the Latin Mass, which he saw as a grounds for dissent within the Church. Pope Leo is much steadier and cautious in his pronouncements and softer toward conservative dissenters than Francis—but he is revealing himself to be much closer to his predecessor on a key issue: How the Catholic Church should be run. Francis wanted a church “walking together,” sharing power down through the hierarchy to the bishops, local priests, and lay people (though Francis personally could be high-handed and secretive in his decisionmaking). On Sunday, Pope Leo made clear he wants to continue the work of his predecessor, sharing power in the Church far beyond Rome. I’ll be looking this week to see how Catholic conservatives (who see such talk as dangerous moral relativism and the weakening of church authority) respond. Here’s what they have to confront: Pope Leo’s eloquent call for the church to change, from his homily at mass in St. Peter’s yesterday: “The supreme rule in the Church is love. No one is called to dominate; all are called to serve. No one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to one another. No one is excluded; we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”

Be Afraid! We are a Stephen King household. My wife, Johanna, has read a bunch of King’s masterworks; I was very late to the party, but ‘Salem’s Lot scared the daylights out of me last year. And we saw the recent movies It and It: Chapter 2 in the theater (the sequel was scarier). Now comes what looks to be a real treat: HBO’s new miniseries, It: Welcome to Derry. This is a prequel, and it looks terrifying. Happy Halloween!