The Morning Sixpack stays free because the news that shapes your life should not be hidden behind a paywall. Paid subscribers are not paying for access. They are helping fund the research, writing, and independent voice that goes into every issue. Become a paid subscriber and help keep smart, honest news analysis free for everyone.
Buckle up — today’s batch runs from a Minneapolis gun battle to a feminist icon’s final chapter, with a constitutional stalemate, two court losses for the White House, a tariff war on flying cameras, and a Cabinet official’s very public correction sandwiched in between.
Three people are dead and five more wounded after a gunman opened fire inside a downtown Minneapolis apartment building, with police officers reaching the scene in under two minutes and following the sound of gunshots straight up the stairwell. Two officers were shot and a third injured, all expected to recover, after Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson said they encountered “a haze that significantly limited their visibility” while chasing the shooting to a higher floor. Residents said the suspected gunman had already raised alarms — one neighbor recognized him as someone known for showing off a weapon, while another had reported a man with a handgun to building management earlier in the week. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and FBI Director Kash Patel both pledged support as the investigation continues. Source: AP News
House Republicans came up short Wednesday on a constitutional amendment that would have permanently capped the Supreme Court at nine justices, losing 212-206 despite technically winning more votes than they lost. The catch is that constitutional amendments need a two-thirds majority, not a simple one, so the real function of the vote was political theater ahead of the midterms — paired with a 220-192 resolution condemning socialism that eight Democrats also backed. Speaker Mike Johnson framed both votes as an easy call Democrats somehow failed, while Democrats like Sen. Jim Clyburn have kept alive talk of expanding the court to 13 seats, a idea also floated by Kamala Harris. Nine justices have sat on the court since 1869, but nothing in the Constitution locks that number in place. Source: Al Jazeera
A federal judge blocked President Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, ruling the new executive orders are “almost certainly unconstitutional” just two months after the Supreme Court rejected his broader version of the same idea. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that Trump’s Aug. 6 orders — which target children of “alien enemy” parents, foreign-government employees, and so-called birth tourism — ran straight into a legal wall the Supreme Court had already built, since the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guarantee had already been settled in a 6-3 ruling this June. Trump has called that earlier decision “too bad for our Country” and is now pushing Congress to legislate the change instead, since the courts keep closing the executive-order route. Source: UPI
New U.S. tariffs of up to 100% on drones and drone components took effect Thursday, aimed squarely at breaking America’s dependence on a Chinese-dominated market led by DJI, which controls more than two-thirds of global sales. The steepest duties hit drones over 25 kilograms and units with thermal imaging or docking stations, while smaller consumer drones face a 25% tariff and additional component tariffs arrive in 2027. China’s Commerce Ministry pushed back, warning the move would “disrupt the global drone supply chain,” but U.S. officials argue Ukraine’s war has proven drones are now battlefield infrastructure too important to leave in a rival’s hands. Source: Euronews
Gloria Steinem, the journalist and activist whose name became inseparable from modern American feminism, died Wednesday at her New York home at age 92. She broke into journalism at a time when women reporters were funneled toward soft topics, then blew that expectation apart with a 1963 undercover exposé of Playboy Club waitresses, later co-founding Ms. magazine in 1972 to cover abortion, harassment, and domestic abuse when most outlets wouldn’t touch them. Beyond the page, she helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus, spoke openly about her own illegal abortion at 22, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2013 for changing “how women thought about themselves.” Her own preferred metaphor for change stuck: “Trees grow from the bottom.” Source: NPR
President Trump publicly corrected his own Commerce Secretary Thursday after Howard Lutnick claimed on CNBC that there “haven’t been American deaths” in the Iran war, even though 18 U.S. service members have been killed since fighting began in February. Trump clarified on Truth Social that Lutnick “had Venezuela on his mind,” but the transcript shows Lutnick was discussing Iran specifically while pitching the war’s economic upside. The stakes are bigger than one gaffe: the Pentagon has logged 757 wounded on top of the dead, bringing the total toll to 776 as the war drags into its seventh month with public support down to 31%. The moment lands especially awkwardly given how hard Trump’s own allies attacked Joe Biden for a nearly identical error during the 2024 debate. Source: Raw Story
From officers running toward gunfire in Minneapolis to a Cabinet official forgetting the human cost of a war his own administration is waging, today’s stories all circle back to the same question: who’s actually paying attention to the details that matter?
OR—buy something on Amazon and I’ll earn a small commission that will help keep this newsletter free & informative.
Prefer to read The Morning Sixpack? Do that here:
