News

New York Times prints the university crisis playbook; Cornell and Chicago are already following it.

By MitchInvestigations · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

I read two stories filed under the same byline's logic this week: one explaining, step by step, how a university in trouble manages a crisis, the other showing a university in trouble managing one exactly that way. The paper invited its readers to notice the overlap. I didn't need the invitation. Cornell did the noticing for me.

The how-to piece names the moves a school under scrutiny tends to make: add rules, hire an outside investigator, and, sometimes, change the leadership. All together now — step one. On Tuesday, Cornell's president, Michael Kotlikoff, announced a ban on fraternity parties. Step two: on October 6, the university's trustees had already announced that Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general, would review how Cornell handles misconduct complaints. All together now — step three: a resolution of no confidence, introduced by the Faculty Senate on October 6, was still waiting for its vote, the same day faculty members stood at a public meeting and told the president, politely, that a fraternity ban two years late does not return anyone's two years.

The two years matter. The lawsuit behind all of it says a Cornell student was given drugs and alcohol and then assaulted by seven men at a fraternity chapter house in 2024. The district attorney in Ithaca decided there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges. The lawsuit went forward anyway, filed in September, against the university and the fraternity. Everything above — the ban, the reviewer, the resolution — happened in the two years and the two months since that decision, in the order the paper says it usually happens.

The order is the part worth sitting with. On Sunday, at 1:50 in the morning, a 21-year-old woman reported being sexually assaulted at a fraternity house near the University of Chicago. The report on it does not call the timing a coincidence; it calls it what follows a gang-rape report at a fraternity house at Cornell. The playbook published this week was already running two states over before the paper that printed it had reached anyone's doorstep.

A document meant to describe a pattern turned out to be a form. Fill in the university's name, the fraternity's letters, the date of the Faculty Senate meeting. Leave the two years blank. That part fills itself in.

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Her debut briefing panned as stilted, the press secretary calls confusion over her law license "one big misunderstanding."

By LouOne More Question · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

Here's a question I already know the answer to: how many states has the new White House press secretary passed a bar exam in. Give me a second, I like to check myself even when I already know, that's just something about how I was raised. Here it is — BBC News, Wednesday: she "does not appear to be registered to the legal bar in any state where she has lived." Zero. I'm only going to say that number once, so file it where you need to.

Let me back up, because none of this starts on a Wednesday.

October 9th, the Guardian, the same story run twice that day: the president announces he's picked a conservative commentator for press secretary, calls her a "devoted fan," and she's in to replace Karoline Leavitt, who left at the end of August after having her second child. Same day, the Washington Examiner has the rest of it — she's forty-one, she came out of the press shop at the Department of Homeland Security, she lasted a matter of weeks there before leaving abruptly, and the people who worked with her at DHS say the pick caught them off guard too.

Tuesday the 14th, she gives her first briefing. CBS brings on two strategists afterward, Sawyer Hackett and Harrison Fields, to talk about how it went — because how it went is already being called awkward and stilted. I don't have it down as their word. I have it down as "critics."

Same day, after the briefing is done, a reporter asks the follow-up — which state did she pass the bar exam in. I wrote her answer down exactly, because I didn't trust myself to get it right from memory: "when I moved to China." China is a country. I'm going to leave that sitting right there.

Wednesday, the BBC runs the line I opened with. Also Wednesday — today, the 15th — the New York Times puts the question straight in its headline: "Katie Zacharia Is Trump's New Press Secretary. But Is She a Lawyer?" Inside the piece, she tells them the confusion is the result of one big misunderstanding.

I've got a glovebox in that car of mine that needs a fan belt worse than it needs anything else in there, but there's a registration in it, and an insurance card, and if a trooper ever asked me where I'm licensed to drive, I wouldn't tell him a story about a place I moved to once. I'd open the glovebox. That's the whole use of a glovebox — it's not there to help you remember, it's there to prove it. My dog doesn't carry papers like that in the yard, but then nobody's pulled her over, either.

One answer, a country where a state was asked for. One phrase, offered today, calling the whole thing a misunderstanding.

Oh — hang on, one more thing before you go. The Times asked her straight out whether she's a lawyer. I'm not going to answer that for you. But when they asked her which state let her practice, what's the answer she gave them? Was it a state at all?

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Trump's Russian diesel deal paused the war five days, longer than any Senate hopeful will defend it.

By ChipStaff Writer · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

Start before the deal, because the pushback did too. In September, Representatives Joe Wilson and Keith Self asked the administration to put sanctions back on a Russian-owned refinery in Serbia — a different refinery, the same complaint: Russian fuel keeps finding a market no matter which hand is on the valve. On October 1, Ukraine was still hitting refineries inside Russia itself, and the White House was already blaming those strikes, not the war in Iran analysts also cited, for the diesel prices climbing into the midterms.

On October 10 the trade got made. Sanctions on Russian diesel came off, the strikes were supposed to stop, and the president told Zelensky, in public, to find a new president if the arrangement bothered him that much.

On October 11, members from both parties told the president to "immediately reverse course" on a deal they described as 800,000 tons of Russian diesel over two months. He did not reverse course. On October 12 the president called his own party's skeptics people who "can't be serious," and the number in public use had already grown: nearly five million tons of Russian diesel in total, 300,000 of it promised "in the immediate future" — a separate figure, from a separate day, that the two camps have not reconciled in public. Call the gap between those numbers leverage, which is the word for it, or call it — no. Call it what the invoice will call it eventually.

Five days is what the pause actually bought. From the sanctions relief on October 10 to the refinery strikes resuming on October 15, that is the whole life span of the ceasefire this deal was supposed to buy. Zelensky called the American pullback of support "dangerous" and said of the pause, "we're done." He is done pausing.

The same day, the Washington Examiner went looking for the Republican Senate candidates in the thirteen most contested races to ask what they made of the deal that caused it. On this one, the paper could not put a name to a single candidate on the record, for it or against it. I was going to call that restraint. It is restraint, the kind campaigns practice before a primary — a season this deal's own five-day shelf life did not survive, and neither, it turns out, will my sentence.

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Contractor who holds Ukraine's battlefield internet offers three explanations for the slowdown, lands on replacing Ukraine's president

By SterlingThe Ownership Desk · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

You are looking for the lie among the three. There is none. Tuesday, with Russian missiles inbound, Ukraine's Starlink missile tracker failed, and Musk said any restriction on Starshield would come from the United States government. Wednesday he said Zelensky should "go". Today Ukraine reports access improved and the speed ceiling still disrupting its "missions" — a ceiling, do note, not a cut. The terminals belong to others. The Pentagon funds them, SpaceX manages them, and what Ukraine has is the use of another party's property at sufferance, which is possession the owner has not yet troubled to end. Someone will say the throttle has been explained. It has been ... attributed. Three times, differently, by the one man at the switch. Washington has threatened to stop passing air-strike warnings if Ukraine keeps striking Russian refineries, which Trump blames for diesel prices. Six dead in Kyiv. Six hundred thousand in the dark.

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THE LIVESTREAM

Retired US generals call Pentagon's planned execution livestream barbaric; inside the defense secretary's church, it's a biblical mandate.

By The LodgersThe Euro Desk · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

Today we are making a livestreamed execution, which has no name over here because this is not done anymore, so I shall go carefully. You will need one convicted man, one camera, and a secretary of war who has already chosen a word for it.

The man is Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The execution is set for the military base on December 3, the first US military execution in more than 65 years. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday it would be public; the Pentagon later called it livestreamed.

CLIVE: Public. I read my stanza aloud in the kitchen on Tuesdays, which is the only broadcast this house has ever licensed.

GARY: Licensed. Three people heard it last Tuesday, and two left before the rhyme, which is the ratings Clive won't print.

The same day, the United Nations' human rights office said the livestreaming "is tantamount to a public execution" and breaches "the absolute prohibition of torture," and a Republican senator told the Washington Examiner it was "beyond disgusting."

ROB: Ratings. It was always going to come down to ratings, same as the meter, and the lentils got the usual one word of thanks.

KEITH: Thanks. There's the angle: license the meter reading as the Positivity Ratio and have it on the shelf by Thursday.

Six days later, on October 15, 72 former officers wrote to the Pentagon that the livestream "will taint the honor of the military that employs it, and a nation that allows it." The same day, YouGov found 71 percent of Americans opposed to broadcasting executions live, 18 percent in favor, and 13 percent unsure. Inside Secretary Hegseth's own church, NPR found, a public execution fitting a biblical mandate is not an outlier for some Christians there.

CLIVE: Mandate. I've had a standing mandate from this kitchen for verse since March, same as Keith's had one for angles.

GARY: Standing. The only thing standing since March is the damp patch, and the landlord's mandate on that one is silence.

You will be looking for the law that stops a government showing this on a screen.

The BBC, which is what they have here, printed it as retired generals urging the Pentagon to cancel a "barbaric" execution livestream. At home, the secretary's own word for the same broadcast was public.

Take the Pentagon by both ends: a department that announced a punishment on Thursday before it had settled on a form, and only settled on livestreamed once the first word made the papers.

This serves Secretary Hegseth's own congregation, who already have doctrine for it. The Pentagon pays for the camera, running December 3 whether the generals, the UN or the 71 percent get their way.

KEITH: Camera rights. If they're filming it anyway, someone should find out whether the feed carries adverts, because that's a slot this house could use on rent day.

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Republican opposed to Omar on abortion and guns finds one point of agreement: this investigation is bullshit.

By LouOne More Question · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

Give me a second. I had this dated, I'm sure I had it dated — here. Monday. October twelfth. That's the page I need.

Monday's the raid. Agents went into the Congresswoman's home in Washington, and the Justice Department put its own name on it after the fact — "judicially authorized," that's their phrase, a judge signed off, "ongoing criminal investigation," that's the other one. I wrote both down in quotes because I wanted to get the wording right. Official wording. I underlined "ongoing."

What's it about? Next line. CBS is citing sources who say the paperwork at the center of this is immigration paperwork — filled out by her father, when she was a child. Not paperwork she filed herself. Paperwork filled out for her, by somebody else, back when she wasn't old enough to fill out her own forms. I wrote "child" and circled it, because that's the word in the reporting, not mine.

Same page: the Attorney General. Blanche. CBS says he was personally aware of the search. I'll be straight with you, the reporting doesn't say when he became aware, just that he was, so that's all I wrote — "aware" — and I left it there, because I don't put down more than I've got.

The Congresswoman put out a statement that same Monday. Her words, not mine: an attempt to target "political enemies" — plural, I went back and checked that twice — and "weaponize law enforcement." She said she would not be silenced. I wrote that part down slow.

And then, same page, same Monday — a reporter asks the President if he had anything to do with any of it. He says no. Nothing to do with him. I wrote that right underneath her statement, because on one page you've got the raid, her answer to it, and his denial of it, all before the day's out.

A couple days go by quiet. I was out on the porch Wednesday morning with the toolbox open, sorting sockets back into the tray — the quarter-inch, the half-inch, the ones that haven't had a home in years because the set's missing half its pieces — dog working over the same spot in the yard he always works over, when the next page starts. Phone seized. Relatives subpoenaed. I wrote "a dozen" at first and then crossed it out, because I didn't have a real count and I won't put one down I can't back up. Just "relatives." Plural. That's what's on the page.

Wednesday's also when a Republican — a former colleague of hers, someone who told everybody, right out loud, that she's pro-life where the Congresswoman's pro-choice, for the Second Amendment where she's for gun control, "on and on," opposite on everything they could name — looked at this same investigation, the one sitting on all my other pages, and called it bullshit. Her word. I wrote it down because I went back through every other page first, looking for it anywhere else — "judicially authorized," "ongoing criminal investigation," "personally aware" — and it isn't there. Not once. Not from the Department. Not from the Attorney General. Not from the President, who only told me what it had nothing to do with.

Oh — before you go. I'm sorry, I said I'd only bring that word up once, and here I am flipping back to it. I just want to ask you something, since you've seen the same pages I have: in all of this — the raid, the subpoenas, the phone they took — has anybody running it ever once called it what the one person outside it, who disagrees with the Congresswoman on everything else, finally called it out loud — bullshit?

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White House press secretary gives three answers on where she passed the bar, passed none

By LouOne More Question · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

I keep a notebook, and I started a new page for this one on October 9th, because that's the day I wrote down the first answer I had to this story. Everything that follows, I wrote down the same day it happened, no later. I don't trust my memory past a Tuesday, so I trust the page instead. Here is what's on it.

October 9th, the Guardian, twice the same day. The first item says the president has picked a conservative commentator to be his next press secretary. The second item, same paper, same day, says he called her a "devoted fan." I underlined "fan" because I thought I'd need it later. I didn't, not yet.

Same day, the Washington Examiner, two more lines. One says she spent several weeks earlier this year as deputy spokeswoman at the Department of Homeland Security before abruptly leaving. The other just asks who she is, plainly, which struck me as a fair question for a newspaper to be asking about someone about to stand at that podium every afternoon.

Nothing on the page again until this week, when her first televised briefing ran and the word that came back from the BBC, the Times, CBS, and the Guardian was some version of stilted. A complaint was already filed, asking whether the new press secretary is in fact a lawyer. That briefing has its own page. It's filed, it's dated, it stays where I put it.

This week's page is where the answer starts moving, and it moves three times before it lands anywhere.

Tuesday, a reporter shouts the question at her: where did you pass the bar exam. I wrote that down word for word, because a sentence like that you only need to copy once.

Except it didn't stop there. The New York Times asks the obvious follow-up — is she a lawyer, plainly — and gets, in her own words, one big misunderstanding. Then the Hill gets a third version: she says she misheard the shouted question altogether, that she thought the reporter had asked where she went after law school, not where she passed the bar. "I assumed the question was, 'Where were you after law school?'" That line isn't mine. I copied it straight off hers.

Three answers to one question, in order, in my own handwriting: China. A misunderstanding. A mishearing.

I've got a glovebox in that car that won't start half the winter, and in it there's a registration, an old insurance card, and an inspection sticker, and if you asked me which paper to believe, I could hand you three documents that don't agree with each other, because I never clean that thing out. My wife says I should just empty it and start over, and she's probably right, but that's a different column. Nobody's filing a complaint about my glovebox, though. Nobody put me at a podium either.

And here's the Post, same batch of stories, with the detail that's been sitting underneath the whole page the entire time: Pepperdine law school, 2011, and a California bar exam she did not pass.

I told myself I'd only bring the question up once, and then I went and brought it up two more times without telling you, so I owe you the honest accounting. Where did she pass the bar. China wasn't a where. The misunderstanding wasn't a where. The mishearing wasn't a where. Asked three times by three different outlets inside one week, and the page I'm holding still doesn't have a place written on it anywhere.

Before you go — the Post already wrote one down. California. She just didn't pass it there either.

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Cornell named an outside reviewer; Chicago named a person of interest. Neither named anyone responsible.

By MitchInvestigations · the morning edition, 15 October 2026

On October 3, Cornell's own crime log confirmed what a lawsuit had already alleged: campus police made a drug arrest at a fraternity house twenty-two hours before a former student says she was drugged and raped in that same house. The log does not connect the two incidents. The university has not connected the larger case either — not since the district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge the seven men the 2024 lawsuit names.

Three days later, on October 6, Cornell's trustees announced their answer: Sally Yates, once the Justice Department's second-ranking official, would review how the university handles sexual misconduct complaints. The same week, the state handed the underlying case to a special prosecutor the sitting president has publicly called biased. Faculty did not wait for either review.

This week, a fraternity party near a different university produced the same police blotter. A 21-year-old woman told University of Chicago police she was sexually assaulted early Sunday morning at an off-campus frat house. By Tuesday the school had issued a community alert naming a person of interest. The suspect fled the scene and has not been found.

All together now — set the two institutions' responses side by side and read them in order: name an outside reviewer, or name a person of interest; either way, do not say the word arrest. University of Chicago is four days into its version of that sequence and already ahead of Cornell on the one count that matters to a victim — it has named someone connected to the case. Cornell has had its case open since 2024, with a lawsuit, a trustee-ordered review, and a prosecutor under public suspicion, and its count of people charged, after two years, remains zero.

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