Bend School Shooting, the Pope's Cancer Questions, and a Fed Chair Who Won't Tip His Hand

MayaMorning, everybody. I'll be honest, this is not a coffee and laughs kind of morning.

DavidNo, it isn't.

MayaMy name's Maya, and this is David, and you're listening to the Morning Rundown.

DavidWe've got three stories for you today, and the first one is a tragedy involving a school.

MayaHmm. After that, there's news about the Pope's health and some new questions about what comes next for him.

DavidAnd then the Fed, a chair who is very carefully not telling anyone what he's going to do.

MayaWhich, with markets watching his every word, matters more than it sounds.

DavidSome of this morning's details are early reporting and could change, so we'll try to be clear about what's confirmed and what isn't.

MayaWe will, and we'll keep it plain and respectful with no guessing beyond what's been reported.

DavidRight, but the heavy one leads.

MayaYeah. Let's start with the hardest story of the day: in Bend, Oregon. CNN reports that three children and a teacher were killed at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon. The shooter was a sixteen-year-old.

DavidAnd a bystander shot him. That part matters, and we'll get to it.

MayaABC has the ages of the children: five, eight, and eleven.

DavidHmm. That's a lot.

MayaIt is. Five, eight, eleven. Those are kids who are at school doing what kids do at school.

DavidAnd they're the center of this, more than any headline or any detail we're about to run through.

MayaABC also reports a seven-year-old and a fifty-four-year-old teacher are in critical condition. The school is Silver Rail Elementary.

DavidSo the toll could still change.

MayaIt could. And this is early reporting from this morning, so details may shift as the day goes on.

DavidWhat do police say about who he was?

MayaNot much yet. ABC says police haven't named him, and they haven't given a motive.

DavidWhich means we shouldn't guess at one.

MayaRight. Nobody should.

DavidNBC laid out the timeline. Police say it was around one in the afternoon Pacific Time, and he forced his way in by firing through locked doors.

MayaLocked doors. So the school did what schools are told to do, and it still wasn't enough to stop him.

DavidThat's the part that sticks with me. Somebody locked those doors, and he shot his way through. It's hard to hear that the one precaution everyone points to wasn't enough on its own.

MayaThen the bystander. NBC says a good Samaritan pursued him and shot him dead.

DavidAnd authorities credited that person with preventing further loss.

MayaWhich is a heavy sentence to read because we don't know what further loss would have looked like, and we don't want to.

DavidRight. I think you can say two things at once here: honor what that person did and ask why a locked door wasn't the end of it.

MayaWait, are you saying more guards, more armed people in schools?

DavidI'm saying it's a fair question, and parents are gonna ask it. How do you protect a building full of five-year-olds? Some districts will look at armed security. Some will look at hardened entrances. Nobody wants that conversation, but it's coming.

MayaHere's what I keep coming back to. Whatever the answer is, it starts with the kids and the people who work in that building. It's not a talking point, and it's not a team sport.

DavidAgreed. The test of any idea is whether it keeps a classroom safer. And as for the person who stepped in, all we know is what the reporting says. They pursued him. That's someone who moved toward danger when most of us would pray we never face that choice.

MayaAnd we don't have a name for that person in what we're reading, so we'll say what they did and leave it there.

DavidThat seems right. The act is what matters here, not a headline.

MayaAnd honestly, it can wait a day. Families are still waiting on news about the ones in critical condition.

DavidTotally. One more detail, and it comes with a big flag on it.

MayaYeah. ABC cites multiple sources saying he used a pump-action shotgun believed to have been bought by his mother.

DavidBelieved, and police haven't confirmed it.

MayaRight. So treat that as preliminary.

DavidWhy say it at all then?

MayaBecause you'll hear it elsewhere, and it's better with the flag still on it. If it holds up, it'll matter for the investigation. If it doesn't, we've learned nothing and hurt someone.

DavidThat's fair, and a mother who may be dealing with that on top of everything else if it's even true.

MayaExactly. We'll stay with what's confirmed, and we'll update you when police say more.

DavidIt's the waiting that gets me. A seven-year-old and a teacher still in critical condition and families sitting there with no news.

MayaAnd the families of the three children and the teacher who died are past waiting and into something much harder. Nothing we say this morning reaches that.

DavidAnd if you're a parent listening or a teacher and this one hit you hard this morning, that's normal. There's no right way to take this in.

MayaNone. Be gentle with yourself and with the kids in your life.

DavidTake a breath with us. We'll move on gently now to a story we touched on yesterday. Maya, the Pope's health.

MayaYeah. There's a follow-up, and the big thing is what's still unknown. Okay, the Pope. Quick reminder for anyone who missed yesterday. CNBC reporting the Vatican Medical Bulletin says Pope Leo XIV, who is seventy-one, has lung adenocarcinoma.

DavidConfirmed during surgery at Gemelli Hospital on October thirteenth. Surgeons took out the lower lobe of his right lung.

MayaQuick translation for anyone who doesn't live in medical shows. A lobe is a section of the lung, and the report says surgeons took out the lower one on his right side.

DavidAnd adenocarcinoma is a type of lung cancer. The word sounds scarier than it is helpful. It's the name for the kind of cancer the surgery confirmed.

MayaAnd the procedure was described as curative. That word matters.

DavidIt does. The same CNBC report says he's expected to stay in the hospital about a week.

MayaSo that's the baseline: official, confirmed, and a surgery that went the way you'd hope. But I keep seeing people jump ahead to the prognosis.

DavidRight, and that's where I wanna slow down. Fox News published a piece Friday with an oncologist in it, and the number going around comes from there.

MayaThe ninety percent.

DavidYeah. The oncologist says the Pope has roughly a ninety percent chance of cure if the cancer is stage one.

MayaIf.

DavidBig if. And I wanna be careful because that's a conditional. It's not a statement about him.

MayaWait, so do we know the stage?

DavidNo. None of our sources state it. Not the Vatican bulletin, as CNBC reports it, not the Fox piece.

MayaHuh. So somebody quoted a number for stage one, and a lot of people are hearing it as his number.

DavidTotally. And that's a human thing, honestly. If someone you care about is sick, you grab the best figure in the room.

MayaSure. I mean, come on. I'd do it too.

DavidSame. But the oncologist in the Fox piece says pathology results will determine next steps. So the tissue that came out of that surgery gets examined, and that tells doctors what comes after.

MayaWhich we haven't heard yet.

DavidNot in anything we've got.

MayaSo walk me through it. When we say stage and when we say pathology, what are we actually talking about?

DavidIn plain terms, stage is the label for how far along a cancer is. Pathology is the examination of the removed tissue, and it's the part the oncologist says will shape what happens next. Neither of those is in our sources yet.

MayaMm. So what does that actually mean for somebody listening, like, if you're not a doctor?

DavidIt means there's a gap between good news and complete news. The surgery being curative is good news. The stage and the pathology are the rest of the picture, and that picture isn't public yet.

MayaI'd say there's a version of this where we all just wait, right? Because he's the head of the Catholic Church, and people want answers now.

DavidThey do, but nobody's served by us guessing at the stage on air.

MayaAgreed. And look, it's a man recovering from major surgery. Whatever your faith or no faith, that deserves some basic decency.

DavidYeah. A week in the hospital, then we'll see what the Vatican chooses to say and when.

MayaAnd that week is an expectation, not a promise. Recovery from a surgery like this has its own pace.

DavidRight. If that changes, we'll tell you.

MayaOkay. So for now, confirmed cancer, curative surgery, stage pending.

DavidAnd a ninety percent figure that only applies if it's stage one. And if you're worried about someone in your own life, one number from a news story isn't a plan. Their own doctors are the ones who can tell them what applies.

MayaWell said. We're wishing him a steady recovery, and when there's more, we'll tell you. Last up, the other thing everybody's waiting on, David, what the Fed does next.

DavidAnd a chair who so far isn't helping anybody guess.

MayaOkay. The money one. And I'll admit, a central banker saying nothing is usually not my idea of a thrill.

DavidExcept this time, the nothing moves something. The Wall Street Journal's market coverage on October sixteenth ran with a headline saying investors pared rate bets after Warsh declined to guide on the next move.

MayaPared. So people dialed back.

DavidRight. They'd been betting on more hikes, and then the chair wouldn't confirm it.

MayaWait. He didn't say no. He just didn't say.

DavidExactly. CNBC reported he was at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, and he declined to signal whether the Fed hikes again at its October twenty-eighth and twenty-eighth meeting.

MayaBangkok, and he still gave nobody a postcard.

DavidHe said he doesn't pre-judge meetings, which fine, that's a defensible thing for a Fed chair to say.

MayaIs it, though? I mean, come on. Everybody's waiting.

DavidSure. But think about it from his chair. If he says hike, markets price it in today, and then the data changes, and he's boxed in by his words.

MayaMm.

DavidSo the market has to guess, and when a market guesses, it hedges. Some folks who were sure about another hike are now only pretty sure.

MayaAnd that shows up as prices moving even with no news.

DavidYep. The absence of guidance is information. It's a little like a coach who won't name the starting quarterback. Everybody starts reading the practice reps.

MayaReading the practice reps. I love that.

DavidThat's a lot of what a market does, reading what isn't said. There's more from that CNBC piece. Warsh also called the path of AI development likely to be bumpy.

MayaBumpy how? Good bumpy? Bad bumpy?

DavidThe report just says bumpy. He didn't hand over a forecast, and I won't invent one for him. And the report doesn't say how it ties to rates, so I won't connect those dots either.

MayaFair. So what are the pros reading into all of this?

DavidGoldman economists read his comments as pointing to a pause in October and a final hike in December.

MayaFinal, like the last one for a while.

DavidThat's their read, one shop's interpretation, not a consensus, and the chair himself didn't say it.

MayaHang on, though. The Journal piece is a headline. Do we know how far the bets fell?

DavidNo, and I won't make up a number. All we have is the headline's word, pared. That means trimmed, not scrapped.

MayaSo if I'm just a person with a mortgage and a car payment, why do I care about any of this?

DavidBecause higher rates are a squeeze on families. Credit cards, car loans, a variable rate mortgage, they all get more expensive when the Fed keeps hiking.

MayaUgh, my wallet just flinched.

DavidMine too. And look, a household has to live within its means, and the Fed's job is to not make that harder than it has to be. Pausing is welcome if inflation lets it.

MayaAnd a pause isn't a cut, right? It just stops things from getting worse.

DavidRight. It means the climb stops, not that borrowing gets cheaper. Steady is welcome, but it isn't relief.

MayaSo what does a regular person actually do with that?

DavidNothing dramatic. Know which of your debts float with rates, and don't bet the budget on a guess about one meeting. That's the cautious version.

MayaAnd the chair's silence, is that because the data isn't in?

DavidThat's one way to read it. He's keeping his options open until the data comes in.

MayaSo we all just wait and watch our bank apps?

DavidPretty much, which is a lousy hobby, but here we are.

MayaOkay. Before we go, one thing to watch, the Fed's late October meeting. That's when we find out whether all that tea leaf reading was worth the coffee.

DavidMine's gone cold, so no. But everything else is guessing until then, and I'd rather say that than pretend to know.

MayaMm. And, um, the other two stories are going to stay with me a lot longer than a rate decision.

DavidYeah. Me too.

MayaA school in Bend is grieving. Families are starting the hardest week of their lives, and a man in Rome is waiting on a lab report.

DavidBoth waiting in different ways.

MayaRight. So if you've got kids, hug them. Call your parents or someone you've been meaning to check on. Maybe skip the doom scrolling tonight. You know what I mean?

DavidGood advice. And to the families in Bend and everyone pulling for the Pope, we're thinking of you.

MayaThanks for spending your morning with us. Be kind out there, okay? And that's The Rundown.