Former US president comes to Georgia to support Jon Ossoff for US Senate and Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor

Barack Obama, speaking at a Wednesday campaign rally in suburban Atlanta, offered a closing argument for Democrats in the final week of the midterm election campaign.

“These are not serious people,” he said of Donald Trump and the Republican party. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”

Firm calls charges, which include violating state gambling ban and profiting from illegal activity, ‘crazy overreach’

Utah on Wednesday filed criminal charges against prediction market operator Kalshi and two of its executives, months after a federal judge rejected Kalshi’s effort to prevent Utah from enforcing its strict anti-gambling laws against the activity.

The felony charges could represent a new tactic in how states try to assert regulatory authority over the fast-expanding activity, a clash that appears headed to a showdown at the US supreme court.

Justice department had demanded state segregate and not count ballots from people it claimed were non-citizens

A federal judge declined to order California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the Trump administration claimed were non-citizens, rebuffing a legally thin request from the justice department that appeared designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

The ruling from US district judge David Carter, nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, comes about two weeks after the justice department delivered a USB drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento that it said contained the names of 20,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California and non-citizen voting is extremely rare.

Lawmakers, activists and union leaders across the US remember the co-founder of United Farm Workers union

Following the news that Dolores Huerta – the civil rights icon who popularized the rallying cry “Sí, se puede! – had died at the age of 96 on Wednesday, activists, lawmakers and civil rights leaders paid tribute to Hureta’s long and lasting legacy.

In California – where Huerta helped found the United Farm Workers (UFW) union – her death was deeply felt. It was in California’s central valley that she laid the foundations for the United Farm Workers, and helped organize the 1965 Delano grape strike – a national boycott of table grapes that resulted in better wages and working conditions for grape pickers. Several schools in California bear her name, and murals across the state depict her likeness. And in 2018, California declared 10 April – her birthday – Dolores Huerta Day.

Ukraine should pass the bill to join Europe’s single euro-payment zone without delay, because it would save Ukrainians up to €100 million a year. For businesses that buy goods or equipment in the EU, the cost of a transfer would fall several-fold and settle in minutes or hours instead of five to seven days, says the country’s representative to the EU, Taras Kachka.

The bill, No. 14327-d, aligns Ukraine’s rules against money laundering and terrorism financing with EU standards and those of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), part of the commitments on its path to EU membership. It has to move soon: the simplified route into the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is open only until November 2026.

Ukraine must apply before November

If Ukraine misses that window, new stricter EU anti-money-laundering directives take effect, raising the bar and risking years of delay.

Even once parliament passes the bill, connecting Ukraine’s banks will take about another year and a half, with full launch set for 1 January 2028. In Kachka’s words: “Passing the European-integration legislation for Ukraine to join the Single Euro Payments Area is critically necessary, needed ‘yesterday.’”

He said he hopes lawmakers will use the opportunity to pass the changes.

Small business gains the most

Kachka expressed hope that Ukraine's parliament would vote in favor of the necessary amendments, using this important political moment to benefit society.

“This will truly help businesses of all sizes, traders, manufacturers, importers and, of course, ordinary people who have so many relatives and colleagues in Europe and interact with them regularly,” Kachka noted.

SEPA's greatest practical value lies with small and medium-sized firms, including limited liability companies and sole proprietors. Membership would allow them to make cross-border euro payments on the same day at minimal cost, with no need to provide founding or confirming documents for each transfer.

Additionally, Ukrainian producers who export to the EU would be paid on their invoices instantly, as easily as inside the country.

“It really is help for every small and large business, traders, producers, importers and, of course, ordinary people who have so many relatives and dealings with colleagues in Europe,” Kachka adds.

Information released by Distributed Denial of Secrets is the third such government data disclosure in the last month

Data identifying more than 41,000 employees and contractors for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released on Wednesday in an unprecedented leak that reveals how the agency is organized. The records, which were made public by the transpaency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets reference operation names, surveillance programs and information on undercover initiatives.

DHS did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Seawater surges into low-lying communities from San Diego to San Francisco Bay Area, submerging streets, homes and businesses

Historic high tides have caused chaos up and down the California coast this week, as parts of the state were inundated by record-breaking water levels. Seawater surged into low-lying communities from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay Area, submerging streets, flooding homes and businesses, and jamming important transportation corridors and train routes.

Kayakers and paddle boarders could be seen gliding through typically busy thoroughfares in Marin county, north of San Francisco, on Monday and Tuesday. Several drivers had to be rescued from floating cars in the area, while cyclists who had attempted to cross the temporary lagoon that had formed quickly found themselves waist-deep. Further south, in cities such as Newport Beach, water pounded the emergency infrastructure set up to keep out the swelling sea, which seeped through berms, seawalls and sandbag blockades along the shoreline.

Dolores Huerta, the celebrated 1960s labor union leader and civil rights activist, died on Wednesday in California at the age of 96, her family said in a statement.

Huerta was a co-founder with Cesar Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist, of the United Farm Workers union (UFW), which was credited with improving pay and conditions for agricultural workers through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Dolores Huerta, California labor leader and civil rights champion, dies aged 96

Kushner threatens to sue, denying allegations that two slush funds were set up to influence his Middle East role

A new book containing incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media firestorm.

The book by author Matthew Cole is called Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East and was released in the US this week. An excerpt was published by Vanity Fair last Thursday, and immediately drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”. The book contains numerous allegations about Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump and who has served as one of his top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East – the most explosive of which are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states.

Ukraine has offered its soldiers a fixed term and a guaranteed way home under new contracts to encourage more people to enlist. However, in more than four months, only about 8,600 have signed, a drop in the ocean for a force of around a million, Ukrainska Pravda reports.

The system, launched on 15 June 2026 as an experimental government project, lets soldiers sign for a fixed term for the first time: infantry-assault contracts of 6 to 14 months, and combat and base contracts of two years, each ending in a guaranteed discharge and a deferral from re-mobilization.

That guarantee was meant to draw people in, but many soldiers, even some who signed, do not believe the state will let them go when their term ends.

Soldiers don’t trust the way out

The most common answer soldiers give is flat: “I don’t believe that after the contract ends I will really be able to leave and get a deferral.”

The doubt has history: officials have promised fixed service terms since 2023 and kept pushing them back. About 2,000 had signed a month after enrollment opened, and the total has crept only to around 8,600 since.

Veterans have a second grievance: those who have served since 2022 can sign for the same terms as raw recruits and get the same deferral, which starts at six months, too short, many say, to rebuild a civilian life before the draft reaches them again.

The raises that split the ranks

Meanwhile, new pay is reaching the troops. Higher combat payments are going out after some early paperwork delays, commanders confirm.

“The guys are getting good money. Everyone is very satisfied,” says Oleksandr Nastenko, who commands the 475th separate assault regiment “Code 9.2” under the callsign Flint.

The increases, though, were uneven, now one of the sorest points in the ranks. Infantry and assault troops saw the biggest jump, from about $2,700 to between $6,700 and $10,300 a month, while drone operators and other combat specialists who often share the same trenches received no comparable raise.

Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara’s team is now weighing which parts of the experiment to carry into a future reform bill.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Elon Musk as a genius and revealed Russia is in contact with him as it develops a rival satellite internet network.

Ukraine may have to revisit its blackout measures if Russia begins mass-using the Susanin optical navigation module on Geran-5 drones and other drones and missiles at night, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a defense-technology adviser to Ukraine’s president, says. Road and highway lighting will be the first concern.

Russia keeps upgrading the weapons it sends against Ukrainian cities. It has already fitted its jet-powered Gerans with machine vision that lets them recognize and track targets on their own in the final seconds of flight, which Ukraine’s electronic warfare cannot easily defeat.

Flash says Ukraine would act deliberately this time

In 2022, Ukrainians switched off lights out of fear. Flash says that if optical navigation spreads, darkness may have to become a deliberate defense.

“If our enemy begins to use the Susanin optical navigation module en masse on the Geran-5 and other drones (missiles) at night, we may have to revisit the question of light masking,” Beskrestnov says.

This especially concerns the lighting of roads and stretches of highways, where cars are especially vulnerable to drone and missile attacks, with Ukrainian rescuers named being in a vehicle during a strike as one of the most dangerous places.

Meanwhile, Beskrestnov does not say how widely Russia already uses the module.

Russia’s air war grows faster and more frequent

Jet-powered Gerans already fly too fast for the mobile gun teams and light interceptors that stop slower drones, and Ukraine is still testing jet interceptors of its own.

“Credit to the Russians. They know how to scale,” Serhii Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, said in September.

By August, Russian forces were striking Kyiv almost twice a week on average, each attack costing the city about $12 million, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ukraine’s Economy Ministry expects losses from Russian strikes to reach up to $10 billion this year.

Starting in May, Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps began exploiting gaps in Russian lines just north of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. Five months later, the corps and its supporting drone units had cleared Russian troops from 277 sq km of northern Donetsk, inflicting what the corps says were 8,000 Russian casualties and pushing the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies back across a key terrain feature: the Zherebets River.

On 14 October, the 3rd Army Corps declared victory in its Operation Vivaldi. "Four seasons of Vivaldi are over. But the music plays on," the corps wrote on Telegram.

It was unclear at the time what the corps meant. Its commander, Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, has since been seconded to lead Ukraine's new Center Group of Forces. But it's clearer now. According to at least two observers, Ukrainian troops have continued attacking along the Zherebets River—and have even crossed the river at several points.

If true and confirmed, the crossings could ratchet up the pressure on the battered Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies following their hasty and chaotic retreat from their former salient north of Sloviansk. The Zherebets should have been a natural defensive barrier for the Russians.

Sheltering on the river's eastern bank, the Russians could have rested, reset, and reinforced in preparation for a renewed offensive next year. But if the Ukrainians keep attacking, rest might be impossible. And that could force the Russians to rethink any plans for a fresh push toward Sloviansk and neighboring Kramatorsk, the last two big free cities in Donetsk.

But an extension of Operation Vivaldi isn't without risk for the 3rd Army Corps. If the corps pushes too far, too fast across a difficult obstacle, it could expose itself to counterattack.

Continuing counteroffensive

Ukraine's Vivaldi counteroffensive in the Lyman direction "has not stopped, despite claims to the contrary," the mapping account AMK Mapping explained on Monday after noting possible Ukrainian forces on the eastern side of the Zherebets in recent weeks. "Ukrainian forces have made new advances in several different areas over the last couple of weeks, crossing the Zherebets River onto its eastern bank at multiple different locations." AMK Mapping also noted that many Ukrainian assaults over the past month had been repelled and that casualties were likely rising.

AMK Mapping isn't alone. On Monday, mapper Suriyak also logged Ukrainian troops on the far side of the Zherebets in three key settlements: Makiivka, Novosadove, and Terny. "They are establishing a significant bridgehead," Suriyak wrote.

The possible Ukrainian river crossings could defy recent expectations. "The Ukrainians have continued their push and advancement toward the Zherebets River," mapper Clément Molin wrote on 20 October. "They have reached it at several points, and Russian forces no longer control any territory west of this river—with the exception of the forest east of Lyman."

But Molin didn't expect the 3rd Army Corps to force the river, a risky maneuver under the best of circumstances. "Despite various rumors, I have not been able to confirm that the Ukrainians have actually crossed the river," Molin wrote.

Instead, he expected the Ukrainian corps to do what the defeated Russian field armies were trying to do: consolidate in new positions and get ready for the next round of major fighting, potentially next year. "For the time being, I believe the Ukrainians will focus on consolidating their gains and adopting a defensive posture."

If indeed the 3rd Army Corps has crossed the Zherebets, it's a possible indication that the corps still has some combat power in reserve—and is eager to prolong its momentum for as long as possible, even if that means heavier losses in risky river crossings.

A major clash could occur if and when the 3rd Army Corps tries to seize full control of Terny, which anchors the Russian line on the east bank of the Zherebets. Two years ago, Terny was the site of intensive fighting as Russian forces fought their way across the Zherebets on their long march toward Sloviansk. That battle was a costly victory for the Russians as they sent mechanized column after mechanized column across a drone kill zone toward Terny.

Explore further

Starlink helped Ukraine pull off Operation Vivaldi. Now Starlink could help Russia take the ground back

The worst outcome for the outnumbered Ukrainian troops in northern Donetsk may be a mirror image of the Russian march through Terny in 2024. Yes, the Russians eventually captured Terny and secured a bridgehead on the western bank of the Zherebets. But the Russians overextended as they kept pushing toward Sloviansk, roughly 40 km to the southwest of Terny.

It's that overextension that afforded the 3rd Army Corps the opportunity to counterattack and roll back the hard-won Russian gains. To preserve its own recent victory on the western side of the Zherebets, the 3rd Army Corps may want to choose caution. Ukrainian forces "need to organize a coherent and solid defensive line," Molin advised.

That may mean not attacking across the Zherebets—despite the temptation to do so.

Keaton Denlay says agents handed him ‘poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet’ and threatened to criminally prosecute him

A California county elections official is speaking out about the Department of Justice’s campaign against purported “voter fraud”, saying federal officials provided him a disorganized list of names filled with inaccuracies – and threatened to criminally prosecute him if he didn’t take action.

Keaton Denlay, the county clerk-recorder for Butte county, a region north of Sacramento, said a federal agent on Friday hand-delivered what appeared to be a printout of a “poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information”. The DoJ claimed the list was of 47 “likely” noncitizens who were unlawfully registered to vote and demanded the county set aside their ballots. But Denlay said the document was riddled with errors and lacking crucial details, and he declined to act on it.

The great powers may be about to sit down and carve up the world’s spheres of influence again, and that is exactly what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns against. He says a possible meeting of US President Donald Trump, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin would likely focus on the Middle East and Ukraine, and that he does not want it to become a new “Yalta.”

At the Yalta Conference in 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill carved postwar Europe into spheres of influence, settling the fate of smaller nations without them at the table.

Zelenskyy warns that a meeting of today’s great powers could revive that practice.

Who stands to gain

Zelenskyy is blunt about who such a format would serve. He says he cannot see what China would gain from it, while Russia stands to gain a great deal.

“I just don’t see the benefit for China, and I definitely see the benefit of this format for Russia. We’ll see what kind of meeting this will be,” Zelenskyy says.

That advantage, he argues, would build on the 2025 Alaska summit, the Trump-Putin meeting that ended without a deal but which Moscow has since invoked as a baseline for its demands.

Zelenskyy warns against a new Yalta

What the three powers would actually discuss is not yet settled, Zelenskyy says, but Ukraine would be on the table whether or not it is in the room.

“They will certainly talk about the Middle East. They will certainly talk about Ukraine. I really don’t want this to be ‘Yalta 2, 3, 4,’ when there is a redistribution of influence,” he says.

He adds that he would like the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi to take place before any meeting in China.

Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections

The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.

On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

Trump ally, who is seeking to shutter the department, had said office relocation would save taxpayers $4.8m annually

The Trump administration has insisted its controversial education cuts are saving “millions of dollars” after it was reported that Linda McMahon, secretary of education, is planning to spend roughly $43,000 on new furniture for her office.

McMahon’s office told Congress that the secretary’s current furniture was worn out and “cannot be configurationally or aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space”, according to non-public records seen by the New York Times.

A jet carrying the Brazilian far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has landed in Miami, Florida, where the losing candidate in Sunday’s presidential election runoff left the airport under police escort without speaking to the press. The Gulfstream IV, registered as LV-JQW, left Guayaquil in Ecuador earlier in the day. After losing Sunday’s election to the incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro disappeared for more than 24 hours, until Argentina’s migration authorities said he had entered the country by land on Tuesday night

• Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami after Brazil election loss

• Flávio Bolsonaro flees Brazil after presidential election loss, reports say

Republicans have condemned the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, calling it a ploy to split votes

Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, both of whom will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Republicans have condemned the presence in the race of two candidates named Dan Sullivan – one the two-term US senator, the second a retiree living in south-eastern Alaska with scant political experience – calling the newcomer a ploy by Democrats to cost the incumbent re-election by splitting his supporters.

Effort to loosen rules on unproven peptide drugs, favored by RFK Jr, faced fierce pushback from agency scientists

A plan to give people in the United States easier access to unproven peptide drugs favored by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, was opposed by most Food and Drug Administration scientific staff members, who had limited input in drafting the policy, according to six people familiar with its development.

The document posted online on Wednesday by Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) covers a handful of injectable peptides promoted within the wellness industry for building muscle, healing injuries and boosting energy.

James O’Keefe and Cam Higby claim they were trying to show vulnerabilities in allowing a voter to vouch for others

Two rightwing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis over attempts in the state’s election primary to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim they were local voters.

James O’Keefe and Cam Higby went to polling places in Minnesota during the state’s August primary in an attempt to show vulnerabilities in the practice of “vouching”, where a registered voter from the same precinct can vouch for another voter’s eligibility.

Ukrainian drones reportedly struck the Azot chemical plant in Novomoskovsk, Tula Oblast, Russia, one of the country’s largest nitrogen-fertilizer producers, on 28 October. The attack set off a major fire at the facility overnight, Exilenova+ reports.

Russia’s munitions need explosives, and those explosives start from nitric acid, a basic industrial chemical. Azot is one of Russia’s biggest sources of it, a plant Ukraine has struck before and hit again overnight.

Nitric acid feeds Russia’s explosives

Military observer Oleksandr Kovalenko explains why the plant matters for Russia. Azot is one of Russia’s biggest producers of ammonia, ammonium nitrate, urea, and methanol, and in 2023 the company reported supplying more than 60 countries, he says.

For the war economy, he argues, one product stands out from the rest.

“The main reason for its strategic importance is nitric acid and its role in producing explosives for munitions,” Kovalenko says.

The acid goes into the chemical synthesis behind some of Russia’s most powerful explosives, and ammonia, further up the chain, is the base feedstock that the whole of nitrogen chemistry runs on.

Azot supplies the makers, not the munitions

Kovalenko is careful not to overstate what the plant does. Ammonium nitrate, the compound most associated with Azot, is first of all a fertilizer and only secondarily a raw material for industrial explosives.

“The fact of its production alone does not mean the plant makes military munitions,” he stresses.

The same holds for methanol and the plant’s other chemicals, whose military weight depends on which enterprise they are shipped to and what it builds there.

What gives Azot its place in the war machine, in his account, is that it sits one step back from the weapon, feeding the factories that make explosives rather than making them itself.

“Azot does not necessarily produce finished explosives itself. Its role is to supply raw materials to the next-link enterprises that produce energetic materials,” Kovalenko says.

The clearest trace of that role runs through a single customer: recorded deliveries of nearly 5,000 tons of nitric acid to the Sverdlov plant, sanctioned by Ukraine for actions threatening its sovereignty, between 2022 and 2024, with data from 2026 showing the reagent concentrated among a handful of Russian firms.

Research looked at prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in 2,362 players who died in 2008-2023

A new study published on Wednesday estimates that about 75% of former NFL players who died over a 15-year period had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

The research, published in Jama Network Open and conducted by a Boston-based team, examined the estimated prevalence of the degenerative brain disease among NFL players who died from 2008 through 2023. Researchers found that the estimated rate of CTE among these players was substantially higher than the rates observed in brain samples collected from the general population.

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) has published the names of 49 Russian and Belarusian companies and institutions building Rassvet, Russia’s low-orbit satellite internet system, on its War&Sanctions portal, the agency said on 28 October. It needs it for its military purposes.

Russian troops ran front-line communications and long-range strike drones on smuggled Starlink terminals until SpaceX blocked them on 1 February 2026. Ukraine still flies on Musk’s network, and on 24 October it got back to full speed after a ten-day cap imposed abroad. Rassvet is meant to give Russia’s army satellite links under its own control.

HUR has said Moscow may struggle to obtain components for more satellites, and its list names the suppliers that sanctions would need to target while the network is still being built.

Terminals for Iskander-M command vehicles

Rassvet is first of all a military communications system. Russia plans to use it for command and control, strike platforms, and drones, and to install terminals in the command-and-staff vehicles of Iskander-M missile systems, HUR says.

The Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics is involved in integrating Rassvet into army communications, including fitting command vehicles, Iskander ones among them, with terminals once 292 satellites are in orbit, according to the portal. The same institute produces guidance components for the Iskander-M and Kinzhal missiles.

Planned coverage takes in Ukraine and the EU first, and once it is wide enough, Russia could use the system in hybrid attacks on other countries. That is why partners should block Rassvet’s access to components, equipment, and software now, the agency said.

Roscosmos launches it, a Belarusian missile maker signs on

The lead company is Bureau 1440, part of the IKS Holding tech group. According to the portal, it is linking its flight control center to systems of the Russian Defense Ministry. Roscosmos launches the satellites into orbit, and its head, Dmitry Bakanov, personally oversees Rassvet.

Meanwhile, Belintersat, Belarus’s national satellite operator, signed a partnership with Bureau 1440 in May 2026 to bring Rassvet into Belarus’s telecom network. It is a branch of the Plant of Precision Electromechanics, Belarus’s lead missile developer and maker of the Polonez rocket launcher.

Another Belarusian firm, Aerospace Instruments, prototypes components for the system.

23 of 49 not sanctioned by Kyiv’s allies

Of the 49, 23, Roscosmos among them, are not under sanctions by any country in the sanctions coalition. The companies involved “must be included in all blacklists” of countries, banks, and businesses, the agency wrote.

32 satellites launched, seven launches to go

Russia launched its first 16 Rassvet satellites earlier this year. Stable communications would need 200–250 in orbit, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, then adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, said in May.

By August, Russia had launched 32 Rassvet satellites and planned seven more launches by the end of 2026, a HUR official told Janes. Only 12 of them, all from the first batch, had reached a sustainable altitude by the end of August, ISW reported.

Obama has been accused of ‘snobbery’ over his Trump diss, as people rush to defend the restaurant chain’s ‘affordable opulence’

Around lunchtime on Tuesday, a Rolls-Royce stopped at the intersection of Beverly Drive and Dayton Way in Beverly Hills, California. Local people in athleisure walked past Balenciaga, Dior and Prada boutiques, as visitors on Hollywood bus tours ogled nearby Rodeo Drive, where Burberry and Louis Vuitton shops meet at a celebrated street corner.

Up the street, across from the upmarket Erewhon grocery store – home to $21 smoothies – a few diners sat outside an American landmark: the Cheesecake Factory.

Both Obama and Trump are on the campaign trail, but only one of them appears to be descending into madness

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Barack Obama versus Donald Trump. It is the presidential election that never happened but has come to define an era of US politics.

Obama is back on the campaign trail for the midterms, still electrifying crowds, earning shouts of “We love you!” and skewering his successor. “What’s up with the gold?” he asked a crowd in Detroit. “I mean, he’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” This has, predictably, set off a mini culture war involving questions of elitism and the tastefulness of chain restaurants.

Twin brothers, 22, from Ghana and a 53-year-old American woman targeted older adults in 25 US states, officials say

Three people have pleaded guilty in a $9m romance fraud scam that targeted elderly Americans.

On Monday, the US attorney’s office in the northern district of Ohio announced that twin brothers from Ghana and an American woman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Huerta co-founded United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez, improving pay and conditions for farm workers

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Dolores Huerta, a celebrated 1960s labor union leader and civil rights activist, died on Wednesday in California at the age of 96, her family said.

Huerta was co-founder with Cesar Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist, of the United Farm Workers union (UFW), which was credited with improving pay and conditions for agricultural workers through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

The UK pledged £10billion of support to Ukraine in Wednesday’s Budget, with Zelensky praising the Prime Minister as a result

The $72.5m suit alleges Scott Jennings falsely told listeners Piker had a ‘plan of returning our country to lynchings’

The prominent socialist political commentator and influencer Hasan Piker is suing his conservative counterpart Scott Jennings for $72.5m over comments on a podcast that he said portrayed him as “a violent racist” who advocated the lynching of Black people.

Piker’s defamation lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in US district court for the District of Columbia, states that Jennings misrepresented his comments in a podcast and subsequent social media post in August.

Circumstances are ripe for change in this onetime Republican stronghold given the current dissatisfaction with Trump agenda, experts say

Donald Trump has repeatedly asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot in November’s crucial midterm elections. And in the comfortable confines of Arizona’s most affluent and fiercely contested congressional district, Trump is definitely on voters’ minds.

But whether that helps or hurts the warring congressional candidates in this sun-drenched swath of suburbia, where Teslas and walled-in luxury homes dominate, depends on who you ask.

Democrats urge FTC to tackle ‘systemic failure’ of biggest convenience and dollar stores over pricing practices after Guardian investigations

Thirty-four members of Congress are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate reports of widespread overcharging by some of America’s most-recognized brand-name retailers.

The 28 October letter to the FTC comes in direct response to Guardian investigations of four of the nation’s largest dollar-store and convenience-store chains. Both investigations revealed pervasive mismatches between shelf labels and register prices.

Ahead of a harsh winter, the Netherlands is giving Ukraine €1.2 billion to keep the lights and water on under Russian strikes. Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sjoerd Sjoerdsma announced the aid during a visit to Kyiv on 28 October.

The package comes as Russia targets Ukraine’s energy system every winter. Last winter’s strikes damaged or destroyed roughly 80% of the grid, and Moscow’s next target is Ukraine’s water supply.

“Ukraine is under heavy fire and faces a very harsh winter,” Sjoerdsma said.

That, he stated, is why the government is taking additional steps now. The funds will be distributed over the next three years.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed $8-10 billion to get through winter, TSN reported.

The Netherlands shores up Ukraine’s power and water

Also, the Netherlands is fast-tracking €40 million this year to Ukraine’s Energy Support Fund for urgent repairs to power and water facilities, which are increasingly targeted by Russian strikes.

Another €55 million goes to in-kind support: energy equipment supplied by Dutch companies to Ukrainian partners through the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.

The money will also help build emergency reserves and train staff in the energy and water sectors.

Dutch business steps into Ukraine’s reconstruction

Most of the rest goes to business. Some €136 million will go to the Partnership Facility with Ukraine and other programs, and a further €19.5 million is added to export credit insurance, on top of an existing €60 million line, to lower the risk for Dutch companies entering the Ukrainian market.

Separately, the Netherlands signed a letter of intent to contribute €10 million to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “Industrial Ramstein” initiative, which aims to restore and modernize the production capacity of Ukrainian companies. Sjoerdsma traveled to Kyiv with Koen van Oostrom, chair of the business association VNO-NCW.

The support also covers the search for Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, through the UN, as well as housing, humanitarian aid, healthcare, demining, and the restoration of cultural heritage.

In all, the Netherlands is confirming the previously promised €878 million in non-military aid and an additional €327 million, much of it delivered through the EBRD, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank.

The same day, President Zelenskyy said he had arrived in the Netherlands on an official visit. The two sides plan to discuss defense and economic cooperation, strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, and further support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy is also set to have an audience with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.

Civilians in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, are to be evacuated from the town hospital on the morning of 30 October, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, told DW on 27 October. The date could still change, he said.

Oleshky, a town on the Dnipro’s left bank across from Kherson, has been occupied by Russia since February 2022 and has gone short of food and medicine for months. Of about 24,000 pre-war residents, 1,700 to 2,000 remain, mostly elderly, the White House estimates. Drone strikes and mines have cut the town off from the rest of the region, the Financial Times reported. The evacuation would give them an organized way out, and test whether Russia lets those who choose Ukraine actually leave.

The route for those who want to go to Ukrainian-controlled territory is not yet set and will likely pass through Russia, Tolokonnikov said. “There will be two paths,” he added: one for those who want to stay in occupied territory or in Russia, and one for those who want to leave.

Putin calls Oleshky a “Russian settlement”

On 27 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Oleshky as a “Russian settlement” in a call with the leaders of Finland and Norway, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. ISW said it remains unclear whether occupation authorities will give residents “a legitimate and duress-free choice” to return to Ukraine. It warned that Moscow may treat holders of Russian passports as Russian citizens with no legal recourse to return.

People with knowledge of the talks told the Financial Times that residents who agree to leave would first be taken to occupied Crimea or Russia. The paper also reported that buses would take people out on Thursday morning, 29 October, a day earlier than the date Tolokonnikov gave.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a television interview on 25 October, the FT reported, that Russia would “de-mine in such a way that these people go towards Russia and remain there.”

Truce holds into a second day

The ceasefire took effect at 03:00 Kyiv time on 27 October and runs until 22:59 on 1 November, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said on X. A day later, he wrote that Oleshky had gone 30 hours without an incident, crediting his contact with Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova. The goal, he wrote, is to “create the conditions for the safe departure of those who need it.”

The truce also covers Kherson Oblast’s coast, and Kherson city has gone quiet, Tolokonnikov told DW. The city has “literally come alive,” Lubinets wrote on 28 October, adding that both sides were still fully complying as of 12:00. On the truce’s first day, Volodymyr Obertas, an Oleshky-born press officer of Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, was killed in central Kherson while escorting journalists. The brigade’s communications chief told Suspilne he stepped on an unidentified explosive device. The Defense Ministry’s Army TV said Russian forces detonated it remotely.

The deal reaches beyond Oleshky. Under terms both sides signed, Russia and Ukraine are to organize aid deliveries and repatriation in Kherson Oblast settlements as needed, at least once a month, after the Oleshky mission, Fox News reported.

The White House announced the ceasefire on 23 October, crediting First Lady Melania Trump with brokering it.

“I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine,” she said.

Drone-dropped aid and warning of staged Russian videos

Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, working with National Guard and border guard units in Joint Forces South, delivered about 4 tons of food and medicine to Oleshky by drone, the command said on 25 October. According to intelligence, Russia is preparing dozens of staged videos in the town, in which residents would be forced to say on camera that they are well fed and grateful to the occupiers, it added.

Residents who try to leave the front-line town on their own cross mined ground, and Russian troops have seized food that Ukraine dropped in by drone.

From redrawing electoral maps to installing a sense of uncertainty around the electoral process ahead of the midterms elections on 3 November, Republicans have deployed several tactics to try to skew the vote in their favor. As the president's popularity continues to drop, it is crucial for him and his administration to retain a majority in Congress or they could face investigations and even impeachment. Guardian political reporter Shrai Popat looks at the ways the Republicans have tried and are still trying to influence the election

• The US midterm races that will decide control of Congress – mapped

• US midterms: what are they and why do presidents dread them? – explainer

‘Same Here’ was released in 2023 and features a recording of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukraine wants its Abu Dhabi talks with Russia and the US to come before a proposed summit of the US, Russian, and Chinese leaders, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 27 October. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated the first round in Abu Dhabi could come after 4 November.

Abu Dhabi is meant to host the first round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US on ending Russia’s war since delegations last met in winter. Meanwhile, Trump has waived new sanctions on Russia and struck a diesel deal with Moscow while pressing Kyiv to spare Russian refineries. In Abu Dhabi, Ukraine would at least sit at the table. A rival idea, a summit of the US, Russian, and Chinese leaders, would leave it out of the room.

Abu Dhabi first

The rival idea came from Moscow. Putin proposed meeting Trump and China’s Xi Jinping at the APEC forum in Shenzhen on 18–19 November to negotiate an end to the war on terms that would favor Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reported on 18 October. A senior US official told the paper Trump had not agreed but could be receptive. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the paper that a meeting was under discussion.

If that summit comes first, a deal shaped around Moscow’s terms could reach Trump before Ukraine’s own talks begin. Zelenskyy wants Abu Dhabi first. “We would very much like our meeting in Abu Dhabi to happen before that,” he said. Both Kyiv and Moscow have confirmed the meeting and view its format positively, he said. That leaves the American side, whose main focus is the Middle East.

Trump’s own remarks early on 28 October pointed to a meeting of leaders instead. One would be set up soon, he told reporters, “with President Putin and President Zelenskyy.”

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Ukraine now fights two enemies. One is America

For Abu Dhabi, Zelenskyy listed Kyiv’s agenda: de-escalation on energy and at sea, a prisoner exchange, and the format of a trilateral leaders’ meeting. A date is another matter. On the evening of 27 October, presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told journalists it was too early for announcements.

Warsaw looks past 4 November

Tusk spoke before a cabinet meeting, after Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a 90-minute call with Putin. The two said they spoke for their own countries, not for Europe. Stubb briefed Tusk afterwards. Tusk said the European side came away very moderately optimistic about constructive talks in Abu Dhabi, and pointed to a first round there after 4 November. Yet he urged absolute caution and warned against expecting an easy deal.

‘You try to leave, it is death,’ Halima Salman testified. Her mother and defense attorneys wept after the verdict

A New York woman whose father took her to Syria as a teenager and arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter was convicted on Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the militant group.

Prosecutors said Halima Salman, a US citizen, pledged loyalty to the extremist group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors were shown a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photo of her with the group’s flag and loving text messages she sent her husband.

China’s updated drone export rules will cover the engines in Russia’s Geran attack drones, Russia’s version of Iran’s Shahed, Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said on 27 October. He cited a clarification from China’s Commerce Ministry, Ukrainska Pravda’s defense desk Oboronka reported. The license requirement takes effect on 18 November.

Licensing itself isn’t new. China has required permits for some drone engines since September 2023. Even so, Chinese engines kept reaching Russian drone plants, some shipped as refrigeration units, Reuters reported. Russia’s jet-powered Gerans rely fully on Chinese turbojets, HUR deputy chief Vadym Skibitskyi has said. So the update’s value lies in enforcement, not in the list.

Three agencies, one list

Beijing issued the update in a joint announcement by the Commerce Ministry, the General Administration of Customs, and the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department. Announcement No. 49 bars exports of listed drone items without a license, including specially designed autopilots and certain drone engines. China will approve applications that comply with the rules, a Commerce Ministry spokesperson added.

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China calls itself neutral—but its fiber ends up in the drones that hit Ukraine

Vlasiuk said the core of Russia’s long-range strike drones has formally come under control. He named engines for Gerans, turbojets for their jet versions, autopilots, and jam-resistant navigation. The announcement lists anti-jam navigation as a technology, not as hardware. He called the step an opening for Ukraine because Beijing now formally takes responsibility for these categories. Kyiv will press for the rules to be applied to known suppliers of Russia’s arms industry and, with partners, track licenses, transit routes, and re-exports, he said.

Permits, refusals, and FPV parts

Licensing does not mean a ban, Vlasiuk stressed. Exporters China deems reliable can get general permits for up to three years, while the rules leave broad grounds for refusal. The new thresholds do not cover motors and speed controllers for FPV drones, batteries, cameras, or optical fiber, he added.

The rules do cover brushless motors that meet all of these: at least 48 volts, at least 3 kW, a power density of at least 3 kW per kilogram, and no more than 3,000 rpm. Their speed controllers are covered too, Militarnyi reported. Russia could still obtain parts with Beijing’s approval, the outlet noted. Ukraine, without such close ties, could face delays, inspections, and higher costs.

US health secretary falsely claims at Mike Rogers rally that Arabs have never won major prizes in science or literature

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won leading awards in science or literature.

Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim, in polling.

The Canadian prime minister’s reckoning with Trumpism in Davos clashes with his attacks on environmental, Indigenous and labour rights

The Canadian prime minister is a hero around the world for his Davos speech that reckoned with a reconfiguration of power in the shadow of Donald Trump.

But at home, Mark Carney is mirroring the US president by radically centralizing power within his office and cabinet and taking a hatchet to dozens of laws protecting environmental, Indigenous and labour rights, all in order to enact his economic agenda.

Shiri Pasternak is an associate professor in criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University and a member of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism research team, a collaboration between critical scholars and Indigenous land defenders across North America

Both of these threats have the same roots: private entities seeking to cash in. We have the power to stand against them

A summer of extreme heat, entire villages obliterated in Nepal, a super El Niño breaking records, Exxon publicly saying we may reach 3C by 2050 – could it possibly be any worse?

How about throwing AI extinction in the mix?

Increase will add strain on healthcare system already struggling amid cuts by Trump administration, experts say

The number of people with dementia in the United States is projected to increase dramatically over the next 25 years, which will place increasing strain on a healthcare system already struggling to help them amid cuts by the Trump administration, experts say.

According to a new study in Jama Neurology, the annual incidence of new dementia cases globally will more than double, from 11.4m in 2023 to 24.7m in 2050. In the United States, the number of adults diagnosed with dementia each year will increase from 514,000 in 2020 to 1m by 2060, according to a Jama study published in 2024.

A small Russian cruise missile of an unconfirmed type came down almost intact in Odesa Oblast, Militarnyi reported on 27 October. Its box-shaped airframe looks unlike the Geran-5 variant whose name a presidential adviser gave it.

Militarnyi describes Russia’s work on the Geran-5 line as iterative: features tested on one version reappear in the next. A variant reported in late September can correct its route by images of the ground instead of satellite signals, which Ukraine jams, according to the monitoring channel Polkovnyk GSh. Official Ukrainian sources have not confirmed that system. The airframe found in Odesa Oblast looks shaped for a different problem: radar. Russia now builds 4,000 jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones a month, Militarnyi says, most of them Geran-4. It is also building new launch sites for the Geran-5.

What the wreck shows

Local Telegram channel Odesa Info Live posted photos of the missile lying in open ground with little visible damage. Militarnyi described a compact cruise missile with a box-shaped fuselage, rounded edges, and a swept wing. The flat-sided body is probably meant to simplify production, the outlet said, and it may also cut radar visibility. A small turbojet engine exhausts through a V-shaped tail and draws air through intakes on both sides. Militarnyi read the dark composite skin as another measure against radar.

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, the president’s adviser on defense technology, published the first photos of the new missile on 22 October. He wrote that it navigates optically and has greater range, speed, and flight altitude, and he labeled it the Geran-5 K5-K. However, Militarnyi noted that it looks substantially different from the K5-K variant already known by that name. In its 23 October overview, the outlet said Russia had started using two new small cruise missiles, probably developments of the Geran-5.

How Russia got here

Russia first used the original Geran-5 against Ukraine in early January 2026, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said, describing it as a jet-powered strike drone. Militarnyi now classes the whole line as small cruise missiles.

Until specialists open the airframe, its navigation, range, and speed rest on Beskrestnov’s word. What they find inside will show how much of the design is aimed at Ukraine’s radar.

Benjamin Netanyahu vows to form new coalition while opposition bloc leader says result shows prime minister should step down. Plus, a scathing review of Elon Musk’s AI-generated version of The Odyssey

Good morning. Israel could be in for weeks of political haggling after exit polls and partial official results showed neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc led by the former general Gadi Eisenkot had won enough seats to form a government.

With 70% of the vote, or 4m ballots, counted so far, the Netanyahu bloc had 54 seats, the Eisenkot-led Change bloc 47 seats, and the Palestinian parties 19 seats. Sixty-one seats are needed for a majority.

What have the two leaders said so far? Israel’s longest-serving prime minister vowed to assemble a coalition through agreements between his Likud party, far-right factions and Jewish religious parties. Eisenkot had said earlier in the evening that “people decided in favour of change” and Netanyahu should have “announced today his retirement from politics”.

What does the increase in the Palestinian bloc mean? The election was marked by a record participation by Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin, a discriminated minority that makes up about 20% of the country’s population. Julian Borger explains from Nazareth that Eisenkot will have to work with Arab-Israeli leaders to have a hope of governing. Millions of other Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza cannot vote.

Here is what we know about the declared results so far. Our live coverage continues on the website.

What else has Trump been saying about fossil fuels? Trump suggested on Tuesday that Venezuela would become the 51st US state as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “1m barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.

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For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.

New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.

A Russian jet-powered drone set homes on fire in Kharkiv’s Osnovianskyi district during the night, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) reported. A small child was among the people hurt. Around 13:00 on 28 October, another Russian drone hit the same district, starting a fire, killing one person and injuring two, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Of the 88 Shahed-type drones Russia launched from 18:00 on 27 October, 38 were jet-powered, the Air Force reported. By its preliminary count at 08:00, defenses had downed or jammed 31 of those 38. Several drones were still in the air. Russia also fired an Iskander-M or S-400 ballistic missile from Taganrog. Even so, Russian weapons hit eight locations, and debris fell on two more.

One strike, a casualty count that shifted

Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov reported a drone strike on the district at 22:42 on 27 October. At 23:12, he clarified that a child hurt in the strike had acute stress reaction. At 23:39, he listed four people hurt: women aged 32 and 65, a 56-year-old man, and a 4-year-old boy. Three went to hospital. Eight minutes later, he added that a 65-year-old woman had acute stress reaction. His morning summary of the day’s strikes lists two 65-year-old women in Kharkiv, one wounded and one with acute stress.

The SES put the number of people hurt at five, including the child. Rescuers said a jet-powered drone struck the area, starting a 2,500 m² fire.

Kharkiv’s last two days

The Osnovianskyi fire was part of a run of Russian strikes on Kharkiv and the area around it. On the evening of 26 October, Russian multiple rocket launchers hit the city’s Novobavarskyi district, killing two people and hurting four. That night, jet drones struck three places in Kharkiv district, which surrounds the city. One hit, in the settlement of Vilshany, left people hurt. The SES counted three injured that night.

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Russia strikes publishing house warehouse in Kharkiv on Ukrainian Language Day, adding to a campaign against Ukrainian literature and culture

During the day on 27 October, another Russian jet drone hit a warehouse in the city’s Slobidskyi district. Preliminary reports showed no casualties. Drones also hit the Shevchenkivskyi district that afternoon, wounding one person, Terekhov said. Another hit damaged an administrative building in the Kholodnohirskyi district, he added. Hours later came the strike on Osnovianskyi. Across Kharkiv Oblast, 14 people were hurt over the past day, including a child, Syniehubov’s morning summary shows. In Osnovianskyi, rescuers were again working under the threat of repeat strikes.

A fire broke out in the area of a major Russian steel plant in Lipetsk late on 27 October, Kyiv time, as air defenses fired at incoming targets, the Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. Ukrainian partisans said the strike may have hit the plant. The region’s governor denied any large industrial fire.

Whether or not it was hit, the plant matters to Ukraine. The Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant (NLMK) is Russia’s only producer of electrical steel, Ukrainska Pravda reported in April 2025. NLMK’s tax records, obtained by the outlet, showed sales of that steel to Moscow’s Avangard plant, which builds missiles for S-400 air defense systems. Russia also fires those missiles at ground targets in Ukraine.

Pantsir fires, no visible hit

The targets over Lipetsk were jet-powered, Exilenova+ wrote, citing preliminary reports of impacts and a fire toward the city’s airfield. Footage it posted showed a Pantsir air defense system firing, and the channel suggested the system may have failed to cope. It then reported the fire near NLMK, blaming air defense fire or a falling object.

The Crimean Tatar-Ukrainian partisan movement Atesh said its agents in Lipetsk reported an impact, and in a follow-up said they believe it may have hit NLMK.

Contracts and denials

A 2022 investigation by Disclose and its partners tied 18 NLMK contracts, all signed after 2014, to eight Russian defense firms, including an S-300 maker. NLMK confirmed the contracts but said only a “negligible” amount of civilian steel grades went to those firms.

On 28 October, Lipetsk Oblast Governor Igor Artamonov claimed air defenses downed 45 drones over the oblast overnight. He insisted reports of a large industrial fire were untrue, saying drone debris fell in a tree belt and sparked a fire, since contained. Debris also blew out windows in a Lipetsk apartment block, and one person sought medical help but needed no hospitalization, he added. Whether NLMK took any damage remains unconfirmed.

Earlier strikes on weapons suppliers

Earlier, UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles reportedly struck a battery plant in Yelets, in the same oblast, on 25 October. Two days before that, they reportedly hit an electronics plant in Oryol. OSINT channels described both as suppliers of parts for Russian missiles.

In social media posts, president has said network is ‘doing little to help’ Republican party in midterm elections

Donald Trump has always viewed conservative media as a tool to help him and his party achieve political victory and stay in power. But with polls flashing red for his party ahead of next week’s midterm elections, the president and his allies have trained their fire on the most prominent player in the space: Fox News.

For years, the president has criticized Fox’s non-partisan polling operation, and in recent weeks he has called out the network for not sufficiently airing his midterm rallies – even when they are not particularly newsworthy.

Mexican police had said they found Shayna Feinman in Tijuana, raising the hopes of missing Arizonan’s family

Arizona authorities say their Mexican counterparts were resoundingly mistaken when they publicly claimed recently that they found alive a woman who was feared slain after disappearing in 2024 – a turn of events that her sister has called “turmoil” and “heartbreaking”.

The case in question centers on Shayna Feinman, who was reported missing in rural Yavapai county, Arizona, in March 2024 at age 38.