Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Good afternoon. We're starting with a seven-year-old memo that never saw daylight — classified until a leak, then buried again when it finally surfaced. May 2017. Trump in the Oval Office with the Russian state photographer, no American press. He told Russia he wasn't concerned about election interference because the US does the same in other countries. Said it the day after firing the FBI director who was investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election. The memo contradicted the entire stated premise of the Mueller investigation. It was reported once, briefly, two years after it happened, and then it went dark.

KELI From our Ground News desk: what you'll hear in most coverage is that Trump said something casual and it got leaked and classified. Here's the structural piece. Trump framed American and Russian election interference as morally equivalent. That equivalence — if it stuck as the operative premise — would collapse the legal and diplomatic distinction between defensive counterintelligence and foreign attack. We now know the memo existed, was classified, and was deliberately kept out of public record during the Mueller probe and the first impeachment. The checkable prediction here is whether Congress demands the full transcript, or whether the memo stays fragmentary. Watch the next 48 hours for subpoena language.

HAST Staying with power and money. BlackRock is buying a majority stake in Humana's CenterWell Senior Primary Care clinics for 2.8 billion dollars. This swaps out one private equity owner — Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe — for one of the largest asset managers on earth. CenterWell operates senior-focused primary care across multiple states. What changes is who controls the clinic network and how aggressively it expands or consolidates. BlackRock doesn't run clinics; it runs capital. The deal closes next year.

KELI On a different front: interest rates on US Treasury bonds hit their highest level in more than 20 years. Same pressure is hitting France, Germany, and other major borrowers. When Treasury yields climb, the federal government pays more to service existing debt. It also makes it harder for states and cities to borrow for infrastructure. The Christian Science Monitor reports that global borrowing costs are rising in lockstep. This is a mechanical constraint on government spending across the board — not a choice, a math problem.

HAST Cornell University suspended fraternity parties and emergency-banned gatherings at fraternity houses after an alleged gang rape of a student by seven men in 2024. The university president apologized in a letter and promised what she called meaningful action. The suspension is immediate. This is an ongoing story — the university announced it in the last day or so in response to reporting on campus safety failures.

KELI The Pope underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of his right lung. The Vatican said the surgery was successful and that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. No timeline on recovery or return to public duties has been announced.

HAST Before we close, a date note. October thirteenth, nineteen seventy-two — the flag of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, was officially adopted.

KELI That's the Independent News Drop. For race night tools and setup, head to racer.wiki. Lawz bodycam explainers are on the channel. Cards at inkwell.wiki slash cards, bible-shirts and art-shirts in the shop. Full script at inkwell.wiki slash news. From Inkwell.

KELI Before we close, something lighter from Inkwell. There's a piece asking what the Beatles songbook keeps reaching for — a world set right, meaning that holds — without pretending the band were secret prophets.

HAST An honest look, and an open door. At inkwell dot wiki, slash beatles.