For the second time in two weeks, Republicans distanced themselves from the president, expressing unease about his failure to disavow a right-wing organization linked with white supremacy and acts of violence.

By Alexander Burns, Jonathan Martin & Maggie Haberman @ NYTimes.com, Sept. 30

[....] On Wednesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, called it “unacceptable not to condemn white supremacists,” without criticizing Mr. Trump by name, while Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the president should “make it clear Proud Boys is a racist organization antithetical to American ideals.” [....]

By Ken Ritter @ AP.com, 1 hr. ago

LAS VEGAS  — A court on Wednesday approved a settlement totaling $800 million from casino company MGM Resorts International and its insurers to more than 4,400 relatives and victims of the Las Vegas Strip shooting that was the deadliest in recent U.S. history.

The action makes final a deal settling dozens of lawsuits on the eve of the third anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 58 people and injured more than 850 at an open-air concert near the Mandalay Bay resort [....]

2.11. minute Covid update for grownups of the type interested in finance and business:

“Trump’s been saying what’s happened to the Senate is all my fault, because of what we did in 2013. But you have to remember what was going on at the time. Obama was President. We had the majority, but we didn’t have enough to break filibusters. And the Republicans were filibustering everything. For the first time in history, they filibustered the nomination of a Secretary of Defense, and let’s keep in mind that it was Chuck Hagel, a Republican. They filibustered all the sub-Cabinet positions, all of his judges. The government couldn’t function. “If we hadn’t acted, Obama would have accomplished nothing,” Reid said. “We had no choice—zero.”