Russia Sanctions Waived, a Bend School Tragedy, and the Pope Heads Home

MayaI am on my second coffee, and the news is already on its third plot twist.

DavidOnly three? You're slipping.

MayaFair. Okay, I'm Maya, this is the Morning Rundown, and David is here to keep me honest.

DavidLow bar, but I'll try. We've got three stories today, and they're a mixed bag.

MayaFirst, a Russia sanctions waiver. Washington is doing something a lot of people didn't see coming.

DavidAnd there's a money trail behind it. I mean, come on. Mm, wait, I'm getting ahead of us.

MayaYou are. Second, Bend, Oregon, a school tragedy, and it's a heavy one, David.

DavidYeah, that one deserves a slower, more careful voice, so we'll give it that.

MayaAnd we'll take our time there. No rush, no jokes. The rest of the show can stay a little looser, but not that part.

DavidWhich is a promise I intend to keep, and one you're welcome to hold me to.

MayaTotally. Third and last, the Pope is heading home after his lung surgery.

DavidWhich is good news, right?

MayaMostly. Questions linger, though, and we'll get to them. Okay, so anyway, let's start with the story that has people in both parties frowning.

DavidBoth parties? Now you've got me curious.

MayaOkay, the facts first. Late Friday, Trump signed an executive order waiving two main pieces of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

DavidTwo pieces. Which ones?

MayaDuties of up to five hundred percent on Russian goods and tariffs of up to a hundred percent on the top buyers of Russian oil and gas, like China and India.

DavidFive hundred. That's not a tariff, that's a wall.

MayaRight? CNBC's report on the order lays out both pieces, and Axios framed it as Trump easing up on Russia just as a bipartisan chorus asks him to do the opposite.

DavidWait, so the law hadn't even kicked in yet?

MayaNot yet. The waiver landed two days before the law's implementation deadline.

DavidHuh. So he waived it before it bit anybody.

MayaYep, and it follows a separate temporary easing on Russian diesel.

DavidAnd the buyers on that second list, China and India, those are big names. What does the waiver mean for them?

MayaHere's the careful part. The reporting names them as top buyers of Russian oil and gas and says the tariffs of up to a hundred percent were aimed at buyers like them. The waiver sets that piece aside. Beyond that, I'm not going to guess how any of it plays out.

DavidFair. Say what we know, skip what we don't.

MayaExactly. What we do know is that the waiver stays in effect until the administration decides further action is appropriate, so that part of the law is on hold for now.

DavidOkay, the diesel part matters because there's a fair argument here. Fuel prices hit everybody: truckers, farmers, the guy filling up on Monday morning.

MayaTotally, and Yahoo News connected the waiver to an October ninth Russian diesel agreement. Trump says that deal is meant to bring fuel costs down.

DavidSo the stated rationale is cheaper energy. I mean, come on, wanting lower prices at the pump is not a crazy goal.

MayaNo, it's a legitimate aim. Nobody on the right or left is saying gas should cost more.

DavidBut...

MayaBut the sharpest critics aren't you'd expect. Republican Rep Don Bacon said the waiver prolongs the war.

DavidA Republican saying that flat out.

MayaFlat out, and Republican Rep Michael McCaul, per that same piece, said he understood the wish to lower diesel prices.

DavidOkay, that's the concession.

MayaThen the worry. Easing Russian oil sanctions, he said, would fund the Kremlin's war machine.

DavidHmm, that's a hawks argument, and it's coming from inside the House.

MayaDemocrats weighed in too. CNN's reporting says Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep Don Beyer also objected.

DavidSure, but when it's Bacon and McCaul, the usual partisan noise excuse doesn't work.

MayaHere's what I find interesting. Both instincts on display are conservative ones. Lower prices for working people is one. A hard line on Moscow is the other.

DavidAnd they're pulling against each other inside the same party. That's the real tension in this story.

MayaAnd think about what that means at home. If you drive a truck or fill a tank, the diesel goal is about your wallet. If your worry is the war, the hawks concern is about that. Both are real, and neither side is being silly.

DavidWhich is why this one has people in both parties frowning. Right, now the Russian side.

MayaCNN says Kirill Dmitriev, who runs Russia's sovereign wealth fund, called it a historic moment.

DavidWell, that's never a comforting review from the other side of the table.

MayaYeah, not exactly a pat on the back you want.

DavidAnd does the order explain itself? Why is this in the national interest?

MayaIt doesn't say. CNN reports the order never spells out why the waiver serves the national interest.

DavidWow. So how long does it last?

MayaUntil the administration decides further action is appropriate. No end date.

DavidSo open-ended and no reason on paper.

MayaAnd that's why the Republican pushback stands out. When an order comes with no written reason, critics get to fill the silence, and two of the critics we heard from are Republicans.

DavidWhich isn't to say the diesel goal is a cover story. The diesel agreement is the stated rationale, and it's on the record. It's just that the order itself never says why the waiver serves the national interest.

MayaThat's what the reporting says. Anyway, that one is about policy and prices.

DavidAnd the next one is about people. It needs a slower pace.

MayaIt does. Let's give it that. Okay, Bend, Oregon. This is Silver Rail Elementary, and I'm gonna tell you what police have said so far.

DavidAnd it's early, so details could change. We're working from reporting as of October seventeenth.

MayaPolice say a sixteen-year-old shot his way into the school. Three children were killed. They were five, eight, and 11 years old.

DavidMm.

MayaA teacher was killed too. A seven-year-old and another teacher are critically injured.

DavidThat's a lot to hold. Three kids, and one of them was five, barely out of preschool.

MayaYeah, and every one of the victims was in the same classroom, a special needs classroom.

DavidWait, the same room? So this wasn't random across the building.

MayaRight. And that's about as far as anyone can responsibly go. Police are still investigating the motive, and we're not gonna guess at it.

DavidNo, we shouldn't. Guessing helps nobody in that town.

MayaThe reporting does say the suspect used to go to that school, and he was not enrolled there now.

DavidSo a former student. PBS NewsHour adds that he was a former special needs student there.

MayaThat's the extent of what we'll say about him. The people who matter in this story are the ones in that classroom and the town around them.

DavidAgreed. There's a way to report this that keeps the focus on the children and the teachers, and that's the way we wanna do it.

MayaMm-hmm. I'd rather spend our time on who got hurt because there are names now.

DavidTwo of them so far.

MayaFive-year-old Rhoam Summer and Megan Lambert. She was twenty-five.

DavidTwenty-five. That's what? A few years into a career she picked because she wanted to be in that room?

MayaYeah. Special education teachers don't end up there by accident.

DavidNope.

MayaI keep thinking about Rhoam's family. Five years old. Whatever the rest of the reporting turns out to be, that is a family facing a loss no one should have to face.

DavidAnd Megan Lambert's family and the people who worked beside her. We only have two names so far, and we'll leave the rest to the families and the authorities.

MayaNow, the last piece of what happened, police say a bystander killed the shooter.

DavidAnd a teacher is also credited with stopping him. So it sounds like ordinary people stepped in, and they didn't have to.

MayaI wanna be careful there, though. The reports say a bystander killed him and credit a teacher with stopping him, and that's where the reporting stops for now. How those two things fit together isn't something we've been told, so we're not gonna stitch it into a story.

DavidRight. What matters is that the attack ended and that people on the scene were part of ending it.

MayaPBS also described the community mourning and students giving their own accounts of that day.

DavidI can't imagine being a kid and having to put words for it.

MayaOr a parent standing outside a school waiting.

DavidThose student accounts are worth pausing on, students putting words to the worst day they've lived through out loud for the record.

MayaAnd the mourning is part of that same picture. A school is a shared place for a whole neighborhood. When something like this happens there, it lands on the town all at once.

DavidRight. So for Bend, it's going to be a long stretch. Funerals, a seven-year-old and a teacher still fighting for recovery.

MayaThose two are the ones to keep in mind this weekend. Critically injured is not a headline that ends today.

DavidNo. I hope the update we get next is good news.

MayaMe too. We'll keep following it as police release more.

DavidAnd if you're listening and this one is sitting heavy on you, that's normal. It's okay to sit with it before the rest of your day starts.

MayaAgreed. If you've got kids, maybe it's a long hug at breakfast. If you don't, maybe it's a call to someone you love. The details will keep coming, and we'll pass them along.

DavidOkay. Let me take a breath and then give you something a little lighter.

MayaWe'll end with a bit of news about someone heading home. Okay, a softer landing. Pope Leo is going home.

DavidFinally, some news that doesn't need a deep breath first.

MayaThe Vatican says he leaves the hospital Saturday. That's the line in The New York Times headline this morning.

DavidSaturday, as in today?

MayaToday, yeah. Reported October seventeenth.

DavidThat's a quick turnaround if the headline's right. Days after surgery and he's heading out the door?

MayaIt is, and that's the kind of news you just take and appreciate. Home is a good place to be after a hospital.

DavidAnd I like that it's a Saturday story. After the heavy one, a man going home is a nice way to land.

MayaRight. A small human piece of news. It doesn't change anything else, but it changes the mood.

DavidHmm. And the surgery itself, what do we actually know?

MayaLess than you'd think. A CNN headline in the roundup calls it lung cancer surgery. A 10TV headline says four days after. That's about the extent of what the headlines give us, and I'm not gonna go past them.

DavidFair. Nobody needs me playing doctor on a podcast.

MayaPlease don't. You'd prescribe coffee.

DavidIt's my answer for everything. Okay, but there's one more headline in that stack that caught my eye.

MayaThe other Times one.

DavidRight. It says, "Uncertainty over the Pope's health is fueling a familiar debate over the Vatican's candor."

MayaFamiliar. That word is doing a lot of work.

DavidIt is. I mean, come on. The Vatican has never been known for oversharing. When there's a gap in what gets said, people fill it.

MayaTotally, and that's all we can say from a headline. We don't have the article's argument here, so I won't pretend to.

DavidAgreed. We can say people are asking the question and leave it there.

MayaAnd here's the thing about a headline like that. It tells you a debate exists, not who's right in it. So the fair read is just that the debate is about how open the Vatican is being.

DavidAnd for most people at home, the practical part is simple. He's leaving the hospital. Everything past that, we wait for the Vatican and the reporters to fill in.

MayaAnd meanwhile, a man is getting out of the hospital and sleeping in his own bed. That counts for something. So we wish him a quiet, easy recovery.

DavidAbsolutely. Whatever else people argue about, that part is simple.

MayaWell said. Okay, that's our three stories. David, you've got one takeaway for us before we go? Okay, one takeaway for me, and it's about the waiver. Everybody can see what the order did. Nobody has been told why. The diesel deal is the stated rationale, and that's where the paper trail stops.

DavidHmm. And that's a long time to leave a question hanging.

MayaRight? No end date, no explanation. I'd like someone with a signature on that order to say it out loud.

DavidTotally. And Ben has a long road ahead, so quiet thoughts for those families today. And one good piece of news to carry out the door, the Pope is going home.

MayaWhich is a nice way to land. So quick recap, a waiver nobody has explained, a Bend community in mourning, and a pope going home to rest.

DavidThat's the whole show in one breath. If you take anything with you, let it be to check in on somebody today and to keep asking why when an order doesn't Say.

MayaThanks for spending your morning with us, Everybody. My coffee's gone cold, so that's my sacrifice for the day, and that's The Rundown.