Early voter turnout is soaring in many states deciding control of the U.S. Senate, an Associated Press analysis shows. A new AP-NORC poll found that voters want Congress to focus on lowering the cost of living and ending the war with Iran, rather than investigating the Trump administration’s past actions.

Hello. In the news today: Early voter turnout is soaring in some key states; a new AP-NORC poll on voters' priorities for Congress; and the internet scrambles to tackle flaws detected in a widely used programming language. Also, a bunch of new films hit theatres this week. I'm looking forward to watching Paweł Pawlikowski's 'Fatherland' -- maybe because it's only 90 minutes long. Have you seen 'You Can See Everything' yet? Does it live up to the hype? Write in!

Many states deciding control of the Senate are seeing a big boost in early voting, AP analysis shows

Voter turnout is soaring compared with the last midterm election in many of the states that are expected to decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to an Associated Press analysis of early voting two weeks before Election Day. Read more.

What to know:

* In Texas, early voting is up 74% compared with 2022. In Kansas it's more than doubled. Maine, North Carolina and Ohio also have seen increases of more than 30% in early in-person and mail voting compared with the same point in 2022. Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held Senate seats in each of those states. In most of them, Republicans are accounting for a smaller share of advance voters than they did four years ago.

Voters want the next Congress to focus on costs and Iran, not Trump, a new AP-NORC poll shows

About 8 in 10 registered voters, including a large majority of Republicans and Democrats, say lowering the cost of living should be one of the highest priorities for the session coming up, according to a new AP-NORC poll. Most voters also want Congress to prioritize ending the war with Iran, with roughly 7 in 10 saying this should be a top focus. Read more.

What to know

* Substantially fewer voters, about 4 in 10, want Congress to make investigating the Trump administration a high priority, and only about 2 in 10 want Congress to prioritize supporting Trump's agenda. But the poll also indicates that there are deep divisions within the parties on what to focus on. Most Democratic voters who identify as supporters of democratic socialism are hoping for a Congress that will investigate the Trump administration, and many want to end military aid to Israel, while MAGA Republicans are interested in Congress supporting Trump's agenda. Moderates in both parties, meanwhile, are much likelier to want Democrats and Republicans to find common ground.

Some websites go dark as operators address an AI-detected flaw in a web programming language

An AI-assisted discovery of vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language led governments and other organizations in Europe and the U.S. to take their websites offline temporarily Wednesday as they scrambled to make security updates. Read more.

Why this matters:

* "The potential impact is enormous," said Ismael Valenzuela, vice president of labs, threat research and intelligence at cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf. The FBI's cyber division warned the vulnerabilities could allow malicious actors to remotely execute code in the programming language, PHP, which powers websites and web applications. That raised the risk of sensitive data and networks being compromised, said the agency, which recommended that operators take websites offline if they can't update them immediately. The exposed vulnerabilities, Valenzuela added, put a "significant portion of the internet's business and commercial infrastructure at potential risk."

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