These are among the truest words ever spoken. From Momsrising’s blog, here are resources: we should share them far and wide so that people can at least get by. I write letters and make phone calls with Momsrising; this is good and vital information. And, you don’t have to be a mom to use, share, or help anyone with this info! It’s for all. -A
We moms shouldn’t have to hold the nation together on empty.
Yet here we are in the middle of a government shutdown that has thrown families into chaos. SNAP benefits are being cut; air traffic controllers,
We moms shouldn’t have to hold the nation together on empty.
Yet here we are in the middle of a government shutdown that has thrown families into chaos. SNAP benefits are being cut; air traffic controllers, military school teachers, families in several states are losing child care as Head Start centers start to close; and other federal employees are facing another missed paycheck (while still showing up every day, keeping our country running!). WIC is barely hanging on by thread, and rising costs are pushing families past the brink.
Moms are holding it all together and we see you!!
We see your strength. We see your exhaustion. And we know that love shouldn’t have to come with this kind of struggle.
While the Trump Administration continues to play politics with families’ livelihoods, we want to make sure you have support right now while we keep up the fight.
This Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the Trump tariffs case, arguably one of the most important cases it will hear all term.
But, it’s important to understand that this is not a case about tariffs in general or about whether they are good policy. It’s a case about specific tariffs that President Trump imposedin February and whether he had the statutory authority to impose them. In other words, this is yet another example of Trump attempting to seize power that neither the Constitution nor our laws grant him and going to the Supreme Court in hopes they will validate it nonetheless. After argument, the Supreme Court will decide whether Trump had the legal authority to impose these tariffs in two cases.
We’ve been tracking this issue since Trump first threatened to impose tariffs, waffling back and forth seemingly from minute to minute. We studied the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision that rejected Trump’s effort to impose tariffs using IEEPA (I-E-Pa), the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, for the very simple reason that the Act, unlike other statutes that do give a president the right to impose tariffs, doesn’t mention tariffs at all. It does not give the president any authority to impose them under the statute that he has expressly said he used to do so. This is the kind of textualist argument conservative justices have backed in other cases, and to abandon that approach here would be a sharp and hypocritical departure for them. Last term, Justice Gorsuch wrote that the justices’ primary focus should be on the text of the statute.
The Constitution gives the power to impose taxes, which includes tariffs, to Congress. Because IEEPA doesn’t extend that power to the president, his use of it here is just a power grab, the kind of practice the Supreme Court should push back against if it intends to remain relevant to the American experiment. The Federal Circuit’s decision pointed out that while other laws expressly give the president the power to impose tariffs, IEEPA does not. Congress knows how to give the president the power to impose tariffs when it wants to and because it did not do so here, that should be the end of the inquiry. The administration should lose here. So what we hear in oral argument, even though it won’t necessarily signal where individual judges will end up, is worth following closely to see what tea leaves can be read for this case. It may also give us some sense of whether the Court intends to act as a check in other cases involving Trump’s power grabs.
The “major questions” will also be in play on Wednesday. You may recall it from recent terms of Court, where a conservative majority has recently used it to say there must be clear guidance from Congress before a federal agency can act on a major question of economic or political significance. Here’s the wrinkle: The Court has only used the doctrine to hamstring the Biden administration, and not to hinder Trump.
In 2022, the Court decided West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, rejecting the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants because Congress had not specifically authorized a regulation with such major political and economic consequences.
In 2023, the Court rejected Biden’s student loan relief package in Biden v. Nebraska, holding that even though a federal statute allowed the Secretary of Education to “waive or modify” student loan debt, that authorization was insufficient for the Biden policy because this was a major question.
The Federal Circuit used these cases as precedent against the Trump administration. “Tariffs of unlimited duration on imports of nearly all goods from nearly every country with which the United States conducts trade” is “both ‘unheralded’ and ‘transformative,’” the court wrote, concluding that as a result, the administration needed to be able to “point to clear congressional authorization” for its tariffs. The absence of any language in the statute authorizing them was fatal to Trump’s case in the lower court. But the sardonic joke among appellate lawyers has been that the major questions doctrine only applies to Democratic administrations. On Wednesday, we will see whether that holds up and if the Court’s conservative majority is willing to twist itself into pretzel logic to support this administration’s political objectives.
There are other issues to look at this week:
As the Trump administration continues its extraterritorial strikes on supposed drug traffickers, there is increasing concern about the legality of that conduct. Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck and I will take up that issue on Monday evening at 9 p.m. ET/8 CT in a Substack Live (if you subscribe to Civil Discourse, you’ll receive an email inviting you to join us when we go live, so mark your calendars and be ready).
As we head into the week, there are billboards up on the expressway heading toward U.S. Southern Command, in Doral, Florida, that tell troops “Don’t let them make you break the law” in response to those attacks.
New billboards are going up near Miami, Chicago, and Memphis, Tennessee, as well, a warning to troops being deployed in American cities. The billboards are part of a campaign by veterans to support and encourage the troops to uphold military order.
If you’ve forgotten about DOGE, unfortunately, it’s time to remember. There are reports that the Pentagon’s DOGE unit “is leading efforts to overhaul the U.S. military drone program, including streamlining procurement, expand homegrown production, and acquire tens of thousands of cheap drones in the coming months.” And the Bulwark reported that Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus was recently removed from his post as chief of naval research, the top post at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and replaced by Rachel Riley, who has been working in DOGE-related roles in the Trump administration. Although she was a Rhodes Scholar, Riley, 33, has “no apparent naval experience.”
There are also reports of DOGE interfering with the Department of Agriculture. Senator Dick Durbin tweeted that “President Trump and the DOGE cowboys want to close and diminish critical agricultural research at the University of Illinois. The only other soybean lab like that in the world is in…China. Our President is ceding our agriculture research leadership to China.”
Remember back in February, when Trump floated the idea that everyone could get a $5,000 check from all of DOGE’s “savings”? That didn’t work out so well, did it? You may want to remember this for Thanksgiving dinner.
Tuesday is election day. There is the Virginia governor’s race and the New York City mayoral race. Also, the governorship is at issue in New Jersey. A California ballot initiative will determine whether that state will engage in defensive redistricting designed to offset the aggressive way the Trump administration has demanded Republican states use it to spike the balance between the two parties in the House in their favor, effectively letting politicians choose their voters, instead of the other way around. There is also a race in Pennsylvania, where three Democratic members of the state Supreme Court face retention votes that could be highly significant in the potential 2028 battleground state.
Vote.org, a nonpartisan voter registration and engagement platform, announced a “huge spike” in voter registration ahead of the elections, with their online registration platform being used more than twice as many times as they were during the comparable 2021 election cycle.
They reported that:
More than 80% of those users are under the age of 35
Nearly half (46%) are just 18 years old
Compared to 2021, there are more young voters, more women, and more voters of color using the platform
It’s good news for pro-democracy Americans.
The house will remain out of session, yet again this week.
Epstein. Epstein. Epstein.
But as we all know, that means SNAP is still in danger, which means many of our fellow citizens could begin to go hungry this week if the administration tries to skirt compliance with or obtains an injunction staying decisions by a court in Massachusetts, and a more specific one in Rhode Island, which require the administration to use emergency dollars to fund SNAP. There, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ordered the USDA to distribute contingency funds and to report to the Court on its progress by 12:00 p.m. on Monday, November 3. Expect more litigation this week.
ICE agents are still engaging in “enforcement actions” in American communities and residential neighborhoods. Stories of abuses are circulating; it’s a critical moment for using our skills to ferret out misinformation and focus on the truth. This photo is from a Day of the Dead celebration in New Orleans.
It is clear that this is a week that will require us to summon our courage and continue to pay close attention. The times are far too important for us to look away. Remind yourself that dictators use overwhelm as a tactic for getting people to give up and submit to their rule. Let’s not do that to us.
Here in the USA, we mourn our loved ones when they pass with funeral services and wearing dark solemn clothing. It’s usually a sad time in our families when we have to say goodbye to grandpa forever. Different cultures grieve and treat death differently with traditions that have been around for centuries.
One culture that has created a unique and interesting way to face death and the deceased is Mexico. Mexico is colorful, noisy, and lots of fun. The people, the food, and the celebrations are bright, loud, and unequaled. So when it comes to death, in true Mexican style, Mexicans celebrate with color, food, and music.
Day of the Dead is a 2-day celebration where it is believed that the passageway between the real world and the spirit world is open so our deceased loved ones can come back to visit us. What do we do when grandpa comes back from the land of the dead? We make his favorite meal and we offer him his favorite drink. We sing, dance, and rejoice before he heads back to the underworld for another year.
When Is Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. It is sometimes confused with Halloween because of the symbolic skulls but is not related at all.
It is said that on November 1st the children who have passed come back to visit and celebrate as angelitos and on the following day, November 2nd, it’s the adults (Difuntos) turn to show up for the festivities.
Family members prepare for several weeks in advance for the tradition by creating altars, decorating burial sites, and cooking specific Day of the Dead food. (snip-MORE)
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Day of the Dead Traditions
Ofrendas
In the weeks leading up to the holiday, Mexican families will begin to decorate their homes for the holiday. The centerpiece will be the Ofrenda, or Altar de Muertos, a display meant to commemorate the lives of loved ones. This tradition can be traced back to the Aztecs, who would place offerings for the dead, including food and flowers, on tree stumps on their days of remembrance.
The traditional Ofrenda is divided into various levels to represent the various stages of life and death. There can be two levels, representing heaven and Earth, three levels, representing heaven, Earth, and the underworld, or seven levels, representing the seven stages souls have to cross to reach eternal rest. It is decorated with purple and orange, the traditional colors of the holiday, and often adorned with papel picado, a popular Mexican paper craft that is made up of ornate cut-outs. The papel picado used for the holiday will feature specific images and motifs associated with Day of the Dead, such as sugar skulls and dancing skeletons. Traditional Mexican oilcloths are commonly used to drape the surface of the Ofrenda. (snip-MORE)
Calavera: Sugar Skull
Skull Imagery in Mexico and its History
Skull imagery has a long history dating back to the traditions of pre-Columbian civilizations. The Aztecs had several festivals of remembrance where they would worship the Goddess Mictecacihuatl, ruler of the afterlife and keeper of the dead. Mictecacihuatl was often represented as a skeleton, adorned with a crown of flowers and skulls. For many pre-Columbian cultures, human skulls or skull motifs were used as decoration on walls as a sacrificial offering to the gods. These are commonly referred to by the Nahuatl term Tzompantli. Some of these, such as the Mayan Chichen Itzá Tzompantli in Yucatán, and the Aztec Huey Tzompantli in Mexico City, remain to this day and can be viewed by visitors.
Another motif that may have influenced calavera imagery as we know it today is likely a type of European art known as Danse Macabre. These paintings and engravings, often featuring dancing skeletons, were meant to represent the inevitability of death and were used as decorations in churches across Europe. It is probable that the Danse Macabre motifs were brought over by Spanish missionaries and later fused with Indigenous skull imagery. (snip-MORE)
OK, so we’ve posted about this here at least a couple of times, and now we’re in the week where people will not be receiving benefits on which they depend, to eat. Here’s one more story. And, yes, this is a particular cause of mine, so I want to note that I’ve been looking around town to see where I might be able to help out should this come to fruition, as it appears to be doing. My posting may be sparser, because trying to help people get enough to eat will take up more time now. But, as we’ve also written here, building and sustaining community is important during times such as those we in the US find ourselves, and for me, helping people get enough to eat is sustaining community. So, while I’ll still be around, I may not post as often; the energy only goes so far. Here’s today’s AP story:
The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”
The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.
The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say Democrats must first agree to reopen the government before negotiation.
Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s benefits.
Government shutdown The AP has journalists around the country covering the shutdown of the federal government. What questions do you have for them?
But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things such as helping people in disaster areas.
It cited a storm named Melissa, which has strengthened into a major hurricane, as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster.
Some states have pledged to keep SNAP benefits flowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost.
Other states are telling SNAP recipients to be ready for the benefits to stop. Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, are advising recipients to identify food pantries and other groups that help with food.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., accused Republicans and Trump of not agreeing to negotiate.
“The reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly,” Murphy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn’t be any crisis in the food stamp program.”
Jasper Nathaniel joins the program from the occupied West Bank and walks us through the horrific settler violence he survived over the weekend. October 20, 2025.
This was the first report I watched on this. This one is longer because he tells the whole story and shows clips he took on his phone at the time. The mob was going to kill him after the IDF set the group up to be murdered at the hands of illegal settlers. The military told them to go to the spot where the settlers were hiding. Please watch to see the very illegal and horrific ways Israeli is treat people to simply drive them off of and steal their lands. Hugs
US Embassy ABANDONS Journo After Israeli Mob Attack
A 55-year-old Palestinian woman, Umm Saleh Abu Alia, was hospitalized after being brutally attacked by a masked Israeli settler in Turmus Ayya, West Bank. Captured on video by US journalist Jasper Nathaniel, the unprovoked assault shows the woman struck unconscious and hit again on the ground. Settlers continue to harass Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest, while the Israel Defense Forces claim to have intervened. This horrifying incident highlights escalating tensions and ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settlers burn trees, assault Palestinians in occupied West Bank olive harvest attacks
In the occupied West Bank, armed Israeli settlers systematically attack Palestinian olive harvesters and farmers, burning trees and beating farmers. These assaults, often protected by Israeli forces, have caused severe injuries. Palestinians, joined by international activists, continue harvesting to avoid surrendering their land, despite the violence and threats aimed at driving them away. For them, this is a fight for their very livelihood and homeland.
Israel’s Next Move: Create ‘Six Little Gazas’ In West Bank | Jasper Nathaniel | TMR
Happy Monday from Atlanta! I just tried to convince thousands at a public health conference that it’s time to reimagine systems—not just defend the status quo. I’m happy to report that tomatoes weren’t thrown my way. This is my fourth state in five days, and the highlight is actually seeing the seasons change and meeting a lot of you in person. I couldn’t be more excited to see my girls (and survive another round of the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack).
Top: Plenary stage with Mike Osterholm; From the bottom left: Met YLE reader Krisandra Allen at the conference. Fall leaves in Idaho. My daughter welcoming me home at the airport.
This week’s Dose runs the gamut: from what’s really going on with lead in protein powders (and whether you should be worried), to a refreshing burst of leadership as 15 governors join forces to strengthen public health collaboration, to falsehoods swirling around mammograms. We’ll wrap with an infectious disease weather report and a quick note for dog owners on an FDA recall.
Let’s go!
Consumer Reports found lead in protein powders. How bad is it?
Last week, Consumer Reports released an analysis revealing elevated lead levels in several popular protein powders and shakes. Google searches for “lead in protein powder” spiked 300%, and influencers lit up social media. Depending on which news source you read, it was either a five-alarm fire or no big deal.
So what’s actually going on? Lead is everywhere—soil, food, water, and air. Thankfully, overall exposure has dropped dramatically since the 1970s, and modern lab tests can now detect vanishingly small amounts (down to parts per billion). But detection does not necessarily equal danger.
How bad is bad?That’s where things get tricky because not everyone agrees:
California limit: 0.5 mcg/day. This number comes from a very conservative calculation: regulators took the “no observable effect” level for reproductive harm for inhaled lead exposure in workplaces and divided it by 1,000. Many experts argue that this threshold is unrealistic. It’s also not linked to adverse health outcomes.
FDA’s limit: 2.2 mcg/day for kids, 8.8 mcg/day during pregnancy, and 12.5 mcg/day for other adults based on blood lead levels, toxicology data, and a built-in 10x safety factor.
European Union limit: Allows up to 3 mg/kg (3 ppm) in food supplements—roughly 90 mcg per 30-gram scoop of protein powder. In this case, the FDA is far more cautious than Europe (and that’s not usually how things go).
Back to the report: of the 23 protein supplements they tested, two-thirds exceeded “Level of Concern.” One brand (Naked Nutrition Vegan Mass Gainer) hit nearly 16 times the limit. But because Consumer Reports used California’s exceptionally strict benchmark, those numbers sound scarier than they really are.
The average American already gets 5.3 mcg of lead daily from food and the environment. That’s another reason California’s cutoff doesn’t make much sense. Still, some products identified in the report could push intake close to the pregnancy (8.8 mcg) or adult (12.5 mcg) daily thresholds.
What this means for you: Don’t worry too much. While the FDA continues to reduce lead exposure through programs like Closer to Zero and the Total Diet Study (that is, if the funding continues), there are several things we can do in our own homes, especially for parents of kids and during pregnancy.
Check to see if your protein supplement (or any supplement, really) has third-party testing for heavy metals (like USP or Informed Sport).
Advocate for more pre-market regulatory oversight in the supplement industry (which has very little, if any at all) by writing to your local representative.
Eat a diet that includes a variety of nutrient-dense foods, which helps limit exposure to specific food sources and ensures we get an array of protective nutrients.
Prioritize getting your protein from whole food sources.
Big thanks to YLE’s Megan Maisano—Registered Dietitian Nutritionist— for writing this section.
Fourteen states and Guam join forces to launch Governors’ Public Health Alliance
Governors from 14 states and Guam announced the creation of the bipartisan Governors’ Public Health Alliance, which is a new effort to strengthen coordination and collaboration across state lines.
Why do we need this? In the U.S., authority over health rests with the states, not the federal government. Health (encompassing both health care and public health) is not only the highest budget item for a state but also the primary reason for state bankruptcy. In other words, governors hold enormous power over your health.
Today, though, federal support is shifting fast, funding is drying up, and states are being forced to get creative. States must decide whether to maintain their public health departments (due to funding cuts), how to continue purchasing vaccines (if the federal government stops recommending them), whether to negotiate drug prices (like insulin), and more. We saw a similar challenge during the pandemic with bulk purchasing of PPE.
In general, the more coordinating, collaborating, and innovative thinking, the better.
However, I’m growing increasingly concerned about the partisan gaps in public health. Although some Republicans are on the advisory board and the initiative was framed as bipartisan, no Republican-led states have joined. This worries me for my friends in red states, like Texas, but it also has implications for everyone, as diseases don’t care about borders.
What this means for you: If your state is included, you can rest assured your governor is talking to others, which is a helpful step toward innovative solutions. You could argue it was needed before this moment, too. Public health has been siloed for far too long.
Mammograms save lives. They’ve been wrongly targeted.
Happy Breast Cancer Awareness month! Unfortunately, this month has driven some influencers to post false claims about the harms of mammograms. So let’s clear this up.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the U.S., and accounts for 1 in 3 new cancers among women each year. (It affects men too, just at lower rates.) There is strong scientific consensus in support of routine mammograms to prevent breast cancer and detect it early:
Regular mammograms starting at age 40 are recommended for everyone, but may have even greater benefit for Black women, who are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and more likely to have aggressive cancers, younger.
There’s some critical nuance here:
With each mammogram, breast tissue is exposed to a small amount of ionizing radiation. But! We’re exposed to this type of radiation every day in our natural environment. At high doses, radiation exposure can change DNA and cause harm, but the amount of radiation exposure during a mammogram is about the same as flying from California to New York.
Organizations disagree on whether mammograms every year or every other year are optimal. Screening recommendations are based on evaluating science to maximize benefit (lives saved) while reducing patient worry, unnecessary costs, and diagnosing and treating cancers and pre-cancers that ultimately wouldn’t cause health problems—also called “overdiagnosis.” This is a balancing act.
Mammograms are just one tool for detecting cancer, and women with dense breasts or high risk for cancer (e.g., family history, known genetic predispositions, or other key risk factors) may benefit from additional screening, such as through an MRI.
For more, see YLE’s deep dive on breast cancer screening recommendations.
Infectious disease “weather report”
In the U.S., flu and RSV are still quiet. CDC data is still on pause because of the government shutdown, so we’re continuing to reference PopHive data. RSV activity is still low but growing in southern states, like Louisiana and Texas.
However, Covid-19 is having a moment in the U.K., with hospitalizations increasing exponentially after a 10-month lull. This isn’t driven by a dramatic variant, but rather by a lack of immunity building up over time. Flu might also be increasing, which suggests it’s coming soon (as expected) for the U.S.
The FDA recalled Raw Bistro frozen beef dog food for possible Salmonella contamination. The recalled products were sold directly to consumers and to select distributors between Sept. 1 and Sept. 17 in California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota.
Salmonella can make dogs sick, just like humans. Contaminated food can cause illness days later in dogs. And dog owners can get sick from handling contaminated food or dog bowls.
What this means for you: Check the lot numbers on your dog’s food, and toss it if they are included in the FDA recall notice. Sanitize bowls if they held contaminated food, wash your hands, and watch for warning signs in your dog: lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of appetite. If you notice these signs, take your pet to the vet.
That’s it for this week! Share your fall leave pics in the comments below so that I can continue to live vicariously through you.
Love, YLE
Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. YLE is a public health newsletter that reaches over 400,000 people in more than 132 countries, with one goal: to translate the ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below:
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