Top RFK Jr. adviser Calley Means resigns in blow to MAHA

Calley Means, a top adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., resigned Thursday, dealing a setback to the administration’s efforts to overhaul the U.S. food system.

Means’ departure is likely to come as a relief to big food companies, who had fought against his efforts to create a federal definition of ultra-processed food. He played a leading role in attempting to hold together Kennedy’s coalition of supporters, known as the Make America Healthy Again movement, ahead of the midterm elections. Means was also a driving force behind a proposal to increase transparency into food ingredients the administration released this summer.

“I leave with tremendous respect for President Trump and RFK — two historic figures who are committed to confronting a corrupt D.C. bureaucracy that is doing everything possible to protect the status quo,” Means said in a statement. “This movement is in the first inning and just getting started.”

Shares of food companies including General Mills Inc., Campbell’s Co., Kraft Heinz Co. and Conagra Brands all moved higher Thursday afternoon. Consumer staples companies had already been doing well after Procter & Gamble’s stronger-than-expected quarterly results, and were also fueled by investor appetite for defensive names after lackluster earnings reports from tech companies.

—Bloomberg News

Vice President JD Vance to visit Kansas again amid Marshall-Hamilton race

A week after President Donald Trump visited Kansas to rally support for Sen. Roger Marshall, Vice President JD Vance is coming to the area again.

Vance is scheduled to hold a midterm rally in Topeka on Monday, according to an RSVP page for the event. The rally, planned at Haas Metal Engineering, a steel company, is set to begin at 4 p.m.

The rally will mark Vance’s second trip to Kansas this cycle as the state has become an unexpected battleground in this year’s midterm elections. Marshall, the incumbent senator, is embroiled in a bitter reelection campaign that’s drawn national attention amid a challenge from the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Democrat.

Revelations about Vance’s visit come just a day after Marshall and Hamilton faced off in their final TV debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

—The Kansas City Star

Trump backs controversial Ramaswamy ad featuring Acton’s estranged mom

President Donald Trump Thursday strongly backed Ohio Republican Vivek Ramamsamy’s controversial attack ad that features his Democratic rival’s estranged mother denouncing her own daughter as a liar or worse.

Even as a growing list of Ohio Republicans criticized the ad, Trump sided with Acton’s elderly mother, who claims the former state health director is lying about her childhood. Acton has said that her stepfather repeatedly raped her as a pre-teenage girl and that her family lived in a tent at the time she was removed from their care.

“Let everyone listen to the mother of a defective, dishonest, and incapable Candidate, explain how the daughter is a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!’ Trump wrote on his social media site. “That took a lot of courage to do.”

“Anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in office,” Trump said. “Vivek should keep it up.”

Trump also trashed Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, for joining the bipartisan chorus of opposition to the ad.

—New York Daily News

Death of Epstein whistleblower is latest connected to sex trafficker’s circle

The late September death of a prominent British banking whistleblower has renewed interest on the expansive network of people connected to Jeffrey Epstein who have died, some under mysterious circumstances.

The latest death happened Sept. 23. Simon Andriesz, 57, a former British banker who exposed financial ties between Epstein and Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was found dead in a town just outside of Bangkok, Thailand. His death was reported as “asphyxiation from hanging.”

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, has ordered a probe into how it handled the case after Andriesz complained in a post before his death — and in media interviews — that his findings were not being taken seriously in the U.S. and the U.K.

It’s not clear why he was in Bangkok since he was most recently living in Cornwall, England. But it comes just months after he wrote about the toll that going up against powerful people had taken on his life.

“The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation I say followed, have been devastating for my family and me,” Andriesz said in his last post on X, dated Aug 9.

—Miami Herald

With Florida launch sites online, Musk expects weekly Starship launches next year

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida won’t get the next SpaceX Starship launch, but with the first of three launch towers on the Space Coast near completion, Elon Musk expects the company to build up the launch rate quickly.

“We expect Starship to fly weekly at some point in the first half of next year, and then second half of next year twice weekly or maybe even more frequently than that by the end of next year,” he said during SpaceX’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday.

For now, SpaceX has its test launch site in Texas up and running, and expects to fly its 15th Starship test flight next month.

“We’re going to attempt to catch both the booster and the ship,” he said. “This will be — if we succeed — the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered.”

SpaceX has its first Florida site at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39 near completion with a potential first operational launch before the end of the year.

—Orlando Sentinel