Bill Essayli, a former GOP lawmaker and ally of president, has not been confirmed by the Senate in his role

A US judge ruled on Tuesday that Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in southern California, was “unlawfully serving” as the head of the US attorney’s office and was disqualified from overseeing two criminal prosecutions.

The order, however, will not immediately go into effect, and the Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it intends to appeal.

Hazardous storm conditions delayed recovery efforts on mountain that has proved to be a perilous hiking spot

The body of a missing California hiker, blanketed in a layer of snow, was recovered on Mount Whitney on Sunday after a blustery storm delayed retrieval operations for five days.

The Inyo county sheriff’s office extended its condolences to the loved ones and family of the hiker, who has not been publicly identified, in a Monday statement.

Coastal communities across California were preparing for days of flooding amid potentially 'record-breaking tides' this week, as water levels began rising on Monday.

• Coastal California braces for flooding amid forecast of ‘record-breaking tides’

Eight-bedroom mansion listed at $18.5m sold for $28.5m and has a private garden and three-car garage

A San Francisco estate sold for $10m above its listing price this month in a new record for the city as the artificial intelligence boom continues to drive up real estate prices.

Located in the city’s tony Presidio Heights neighborhood, the eight-bedroom mansion was listed at $18.5m on 2 October and ultimately sold for $28.5m on 22 October, according to the property’s listing.

A Russian court sentenced Yuri Belenky, director of the IT company DiHouse, to 13 years in prison on terrorism financing charges, Radio Liberty reported on 26 October. The case concerns cryptocurrency donations that investigators believe were meant for Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the outlet said. The court also fined Belenky 500,000 rubles ($6,200), according to the report.

Since 2022, Russian courts have imprisoned Russians and Ukrainians under treason, terrorism, and other national-security laws over donations to Ukrainian causes. Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, left Russia in 2023 but says it cooperates with lawful law-enforcement requests in different countries.

Belenky had lived in Bulgaria with his wife and child since 2015. In September 2025, he traveled to Moscow on business, and police detained him at the airport for allegedly using obscene language, Radio Liberty reported. In court, Belenky denied swearing, but the judge gave him 13 days of administrative detention. On the 10th day of his detention, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against him under an article on terrorism financing, based on a report from the Federal Security Service, according to the report.

Binance shared account records with Russian investigators, rights group says

In October 2025, Russia’s Investigative Committee contacted Binance to request information on six users who had transferred funds to a cryptocurrency wallet published by journalist Arkady Babchenko, the Russian human rights project First Department said on 17 August 2026. The exchange provided investigators with Belenky’s detailed account history, including his personal information, copies of identification documents, and cryptocurrency transaction records, according to the organization. The human rights project said the materials helped investigators identify nine more transfers, which went into the final charge against Belenky. Binance told his lawyer it does not give law enforcement user account data without a court order or an equivalent ruling, the group said.

Belenky’s alleged offense was transferring donations totaling 126,000 rubles ($1,560) between 2022 and 2024 to an account published by Babchenko, Radio Liberty reported. The court ordered that sum confiscated.

Explore further

Russia sentences Ukrainian women from Zaporizhzhia Oblast to 14 years for donating $120 to Ukrainian forces

The court said the money in Babchenko’s account went to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and the Azov battalion, which Russia designates as a terrorist organization, Radio Liberty reported.

In a statement dated 14 October 2025, Babchenko said he had not received transfers from Belenky to the cryptocurrency wallets he had published. He emphasized that he had raised money for civilian humanitarian needs, not to support the military.

Binance’s exit from Russia and previous data-sharing concerns

In September 2023, Binance announced that it would sell its entire Russian business to cryptocurrency exchange CommEX, according to the company’s website. Operating in Russia was incompatible with Binance’s compliance strategy, the exchange’s chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, said in the announcement. Binance said it would fully exit the Russian market, receive no share of future revenue from the sale, and retain no option to buy back the business.

CommEX said on 29 September 2023 that it was not owned by Binance but confirmed that it had hired some former Binance employees during the platform’s six-month development, Cointelegraph reported.

Explore further

UK sanctions crypto exchanges and “A7 network” in crackdown on Russian evasion systems

The exit came after earlier questions about Binance’s dealings with the Russian state. In April 2021, Russian financial intelligence officials met with Binance’s head of Eastern Europe and Russia in Moscow and asked the exchange to provide customer data, including names and addresses, Reuters reported in April 2022. The Binance executive agreed to the request in a message to a business associate, saying he didn’t have “much of a choice,” the outlet said. Binance told Reuters it had never been contacted by Russian authorities about Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

In February 2026, 11 US senators asked the Treasury Department and the Justice Department to investigate Binance’s compliance with sanctions and anti-money laundering rules, Cointelegraph reported. They cited reports that about $1.7 billion had moved through Binance to Iran-linked entities, as well as possible activity related to evading Russian sanctions. The senators also warned that Binance payment cards launched in parts of the former Soviet Union could facilitate sanctions evasion. Binance rejected the allegations.

An Indonesian taxi driver who went looking for work abroad ended up in Russia's army and died in his first battle in Ukraine, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) said. Russian recruiters found him through a job application, and he reached the front in Donetsk Oblast within weeks of signing. HUR calls him one more foreigner drawn into Russia's war through deception.

Russia's war against Ukraine consumes men faster than the Kremlin is ready to replace them through another mobilization at home, so it keeps hiring abroad. Ukraine has identified nearly 46,000 foreigners who signed with Russia's army since 2022. On 26 October, a UN commission found “compelling evidence” that Russia trafficked men from 29 countries into its forces.

A résumé that reached Russian recruiters

Taufiq Muhammad, born in 1978 in Sorong, Indonesia, drove a taxi in Jakarta and had once worked in the US. Russian recruiters found him through a résumé he had sent out while looking for work, the agency said. He probably believed promises of “easy money” and traveled to Moscow. HUR sees his case as part of a pattern.

“In fact, he became yet another victim of Russia's scheme of recruiting foreigners for the criminal war through deception,” HUR said.

A week and a half of training, then the front

Muhammad signed a one-year contract with Russia's army in Korolyov, near Moscow, on 19 April 2026. HUR called that term typical for foreigners Russia uses as “disposable” infantry. Russia made him a machine gunner and gave him only a week and a half at a training center near Voronezh, Army Inform reported, citing HUR.

Russia moved him to occupied Ukraine in early May. He died almost at once, in his first battle. Russian troops were trying to advance from the village of Zelena Dolyna toward Novoselivka and Drobysheve in Donetsk Oblast, Militarnyi reported.

Indonesia is the newest recruiting ground

Russia's recruiters have been working in Indonesia for months. In August, Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service said it held documents on at least eight Indonesians recruited into Russia's army.

Another Indonesian, Rendi Apriyanto, 30, was reportedly killed in September, his family learned from an Indonesian fighting for Russia. Rendi had told his family he was recruited for logistics work, The Jakarta Post reported.

HUR has traced the same fast track before. In January, it identified a Filipino recruit killed in a Donetsk Oblast assault after one week of training. A Nigerian, 34, died in Kharkiv Oblast after a similar week of training, HUR said in May.

Russia courts Africa ahead of a summit

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has counted at least 2,982 Africans recruited into Russia's army, and 486 of them have died. Ahead of a Russia–Africa summit on 28–29 October, Moscow plans military and port-access deals with a string of African states, HUR said. The deals would help expand the campaign of Russia's Africa Corps, the Defense Ministry-controlled force on the continent, Army Inform reported, citing HUR.

Each recruit Ukraine identifies gives his home government a documented case to act on. Jakarta has said citizens shown to have been deceived will get its protection, while those who enlisted by choice could lose their citizenship.

Through thoughtful conversations and dynamic images, Quil Lemons’s new book Quiladelphia explores how Black men navigate desire and masculinity as well as the stereotypes placed on them. With a foreword by Brontez Purnell and including Lemons in dialogue with musician Santigold and artist Lyle Ashton Harris, Lemons asks the audience to consider who can embody the American dream

Both private and public schools in tech regions are limiting the use of tech in classrooms. But will low-income districts be able to follow suit?

German Gil spends most of his waking hours looking at screens. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, the software engineer has bounced between startups and giants including Netflix, Facebook and GitHub.

But when it came to the education of his daughter, Victoria, he wanted her to have a different experience, one in which his “kid could be a kid”.

It is essential not just to fund the public goods the nation needs, it is indispensable to restore a sense of fairness

Money doesn’t buy happiness, we’re told. Even some economists agree. The Nobel prize-winning economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton once proposed that rising income increased people’s emotional wellbeing only up to a ceiling of about $115,000 in today’s money.

They probably hadn’t met many billionaires. The ultra-rich may not pursue happiness in the joyful sense of the word. But they will try every trick in the book to hang on to their stash and woe betide the tax authority that tries to lay a finger on their treasure.

Benjamin Netanyahu is in the fight of his political life. Voters in Israel are heading to the polls on Tuesday to decide an election that could determine whether Netanyahu will remain the country's prime minister (and affect the outcome of the corruption charges against him). But the Israeli election also arrives at a time when voters around the world seem to be rejecting authoritarianism. A student-run movement stunned the world on Sunday when its candidates routed Serbia's long-serving leader, Aleksandar Vučić. That same day, Brazilians beat back a campaign by Flávio Bolsonaro – the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the disgraced former president – in a historic upset. Carter Sherman speaks to Julian Borger, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, about how these four elections could reshape the political world order in just 10 days, and why the upcoming US midterm elections are the biggest test for global democracy.

• Julian Borger on 10 days that could shake the world

Social media companies including Meta have pulled back on efforts to protect voters from election-meddling lies

Social media feeds are awash with an unprecedented flood of AI-driven disinformation ahead of November’s US midterm elections, according to experts, who warn many posts are probably “slipping through the cracks”.

As tens of millions of Americans prepare to cast their vote, social media companies have scaled back their efforts to protect voters from lies meant to manipulate elections.

Rubio’s decision not to meet Narendra Modi last week was seen by some as a snub – but by focusing on business leaders and oil, the secretary of state made American priorities clear. Plus: the artist bringing a female perspective to men’s clothing

• Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

When the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited India for the second time this year, headlines concentrated on who he met and where he went.

The fact that Rubio bypassed New Delhi and did not meet the prime minister, Narendra Modi, during his trip last week, and instead traveled to the financial capital, Mumbai, where he met India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (pictured top with Rubio), and business leaders, did not go unnoticed. Nor did his decision to travel to Jamnagar, the small Gujarati town that is home to Reliance Industries’ colossal oil refinery complex.

Casey Sparks inadvertently ended up in Lyerly, Georgia, where he noticed burning home and helped to save family

An Alabama driver’s unintended, GPS-directed detour in Georgia positioned him to help save a couple and a dozen children in their care from a fire that enveloped their home while they slept recently, according to the family and their rescuer.

As he recounted in an interview with television station WRCB that quickly went viral among internet circles dedicated to uplifting news stories, James Burke had fallen asleep in his recliner while his wife, 12 adopted children and one grandchild slept in their beds on the night of 17 October in the community of Lyerly, Georgia.

The Trump administration has encouraged former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to run for UN secretary-general and discussed a joint US-Russia-China candidacy with Moscow and Beijing, the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) editorial board wrote on 25 October, citing sources in three countries. Russia’s biggest ally in the EU, Orbán has been out of office since May, when Péter Magyar became Hungary’s prime minister.

The UN secretary-general can influence the war through diplomatic negotiations, mediation, and by drawing the Security Council’s attention to Russia’s aggression. António Guterres’s term ends on 31 December, so the council has to settle on a successor within weeks.

According to the WSJ, US officials discussing the next UN chief kept saying they wanted “someone like Orbán,” and their Russian and Chinese counterparts agreed. The US then brought the idea to Orbán himself. Russia and China are believed to support his bid based on those earlier talks with Washington, and the plan is for him to be the three countries’ joint candidate.

Ukraine warns of Orbán’s veto tactics at the UN

Orbán is receptive but has not decided, and he does not want to enter the race unless he is sure he can win, the editorial board wrote. A State Department official counted eight Security Council votes as safe for him and 10 within reach. A candidate needs nine of the 15 votes and no veto from a permanent member. The editorial board asked whether Britain and France, typically cautious in using their veto, would stand in the way. Any announcement is being held until after the 3 November US midterm elections.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X that Orbán as secretary-general would put to good use “the masterful veto and blackmail skills” he developed over years of derailing major EU decisions. Ukraine, he added, could share its “great experience of taking him out for coffee at the right moment,” a reference to the December 2023 EU summit, where Orbán left the room so the other leaders could open accession talks with Ukraine without his veto.

Orbán ran Hungary for 16 years as Putin’s closest EU partner

Orbán’s 16 years of “illiberal democracy” eroded democratic values in Hungary. Since 2010, Fidesz has built an enormous partisan media ecosystem. Before the vote, it amended the electoral law twice and gerrymandered more than a third of the electoral districts, so the opposition might need around 55% of the popular vote to win a simple majority. Orbán still lost the 12 April election. Magyar’s Tisza won 138 of 199 seats, a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Explore further

Voted out and facing investigators, Orbán could reach for UN cover, sources say

Orbán kept close ties with Moscow throughout the full-scale war. When he met Putin in Beijing in October 2023, he spoke of “the military operations and the sanctions” rather than a war. In summer 2024, while Hungary held the EU Council presidency, he flew to Moscow on what he called a peace mission, and the EU distanced itself from the trip. In November 2025, he went back to Moscow, seeking to keep Hungary’s access to Russian oil and gas. He is widely considered Putin’s closest partner among EU leaders. After that visit, he said the only solution was for Ukraine to become a buffer state again, and that the longer peace was delayed, the more people and territory Ukraine would lose.

He used Hungary’s veto against Ukraine until his last weeks in office. In February, Orbán vetoed a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine amid the disruption of Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia. Hungary lifted its veto in April after repairs to the pipeline were announced. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó phoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov from EU meetings for years with “live reports on what’s been discussed,” a European security official told The Washington Post. Szijjártó did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.