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Fabricated political polling has forced its way into the spotlight during the midterm election period in the United States.

Revelations that a small number of fraudulent firms have released fictitious results – some of which were picked up by news outlets and polling trackers – have raised concerns about how easily false information can acquire credibility.

Those datasets can be used to cast doubt on the electoral process. And when bad actors are unmasked, their existence can be leveraged to undermine voter confidence in election information overall.

The latest example occurred earlier this month, when Wedgewood Polls released a statement on social media admitting its statistics about a bevy of battleground states – like Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas and Maine – were fake.

Wedgewood described its work as “an experimental project” designed to highlight the “vulnerabilities, lack of oversight and overall low barrier to entry” in the US polling industry.

“Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,” the firm said in a statement posted to its social media account, which has now been deleted.

It justified its false data as a test to see how easy it would be for fabricated polling to gain traction among voters and the media.

“The short answer: Far too easy,” Wedgewood said.

But Wedgewood’s admission came after its surveys had already circulated through the political information ecosystem, reaching prominent media outlets like The New York Times.

The incident was the second such scandal in the 2026 election cycle, following the exposure of another operation, Median Strategies, which acknowledged in August it had also faked results as a “short-term social experiment”.

In an increasingly polarised US political environment, the incidents have roiled a polling industry – and a public – struggling to adapt to an ever-changing information landscape.

How fake polls gained credibility

Wedgewood, which launched in June, published surveys covering competitive races across several states. Its results attracted attention from political campaigns, commentators and organisations that compile polling data.

The New York Times said its polling tracker had listed 15 Wedgewood surveys between June and October. The newspaper subsequently removed them.

In the wake of the scandal, it explained that the firm had answered questions about its personnel, methodology and funding before its results were included.

While the Times said Wedgewood’s surveys were not incorporated into the newspaper’s own presidential approval or national congressional polling averages, the case revealed a vulnerability in the process by which polling information becomes established as credible.

Polling aggregators help journalists and voters make sense of a crowded field of surveys by collecting results from multiple research organisations. Their value depends partly on their ability to distinguish reliable research from poorly conducted or fraudulent work.

Wedgewood’s success in passing some of those checks suggests that transparency on paper is not necessarily proof that research has been conducted as claimed.

According to FiftyPlusOne, a polling and forecasting website that investigated the firm, inconsistencies in the raw data and the technical identifiers associated with survey responses helped raise suspicions about its authenticity.

The investigation prompted Wedgewood to acknowledge that most of its results were fabricated.

Though Wedgewood has denied trying to mislead the public, some pollsters are not convinced, suggesting the group could was up to something more nefarious.

“We were investigating Wedgewood for faking their data,” said data journalist G Elliott Morris, who was involved in FiftyPlusOne’s probe. “They are trying to cover up for their fraud with the ‘we were doing a social experiment’ excuse.”

How fake polling has impacted elections

The consequences of fake polling extend far beyond the polling industry.

Mallory McMorrow, who ran unsuccessfully in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, has argued that a Wedgewood survey showing her support in the single digits damaged her campaign.

McMorrow said the poll left her volunteers demoralised, and journalists repeatedly contacted her to ask whether she should abandon the race.

Donations, she added, also evaporated, with Democratic supporters looking to other campaigns to invest.

In a social media post, McMorrow described the poll from Wedgewood – and another from the firm Mitchell Research and Communications – as a “one-two punch” that “killed her campaign”. She suspended her Senate bid in July.

“By that point, we took a risk and we spend our money. We put our ads up. They were working. But the damage was done. And I was drowned out by outside spending and the narrative that we had completely collapsed,” she wrote.

Experts say McMorrow’s account illustrates a broader problem: Even when a poll does not accurately measure public opinion, its findings can still influence the decisions of people who believe it does.

Why it matters

The Wedgewood controversy demonstrates how fraudulent data can become ammunition in an already polarised political environment.

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public tracked how discussion of Wedgewood’s admission spread across social media.

Initially, much of the conversation was concentrated among polling experts and people who followed election data. But the story subsequently gained traction among influential political commentators and partisan accounts.

Some posts focused on the fact that prominent outlets and polling aggregators had listed Wedgewood’s results. Others used the revelation to question polling more broadly, particularly surveys suggesting that Democrats were competitive in closely contested races.

The researchers found the controversy became intertwined with claims that polling was systematically misleading voters or understating support for particular political parties.

“Within 24 hours, the right-wing media ecosystem had succeeded in drawing attention to the story and setting some of the most salient frames: that poll numbers around the midterms, especially poll numbers favoring Democrats, cannot be trusted,” the Center for an Informed Public wrote in its analysis.

President Donald Trump, who has regularly made false claims about US election integrity, seized on the revelations to criticise the Times for including Wedgewood’s surveys in its polling tracker.

“The New York Times got caught,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Everything about The Failing New York Times is ‘ARTIFICIAL’.”

He also suggested the Wedgewood case would help his $15bn defamation suit against the Times.

“Our powerful Lawsuit against them is getting stronger and stronger everyday,” he added.

What can be done?

No laws exist in the US that criminalise fake polls outright.

Some advocacy groups and law scholars have argued that the publication of fake polls constitute commodities and wire fraud, warranting federal prosecution.

“Deterring this sort of fraud before it can happen – and raising awareness of it – is vital,” Tyler Yeargain wrote for the Missouri Law Review in 2020.

He argued that enforcement of election-related laws against fake pollsters has “not been fully utilized”.

“Prosecution would serve a strong federal interest,” he wrote. “The interest at stake is weightier than concerns over how fake polls can shade the accuracy of an academic endeavor in prediction markets. It is instead to deter other wrongdoers, the sort who would weaponize fake polls to manipulate elections.”

Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcasts in the US, said there has been “a significant surge” in fake polls during the 2026 midterms, urging networks not to amplify them. Otherwise, Carr said, they could lose their licence to operate.

“Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes,” Carr wrote on social media. “It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations.”

But the FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, disagreed with Carr’s assessment.

“Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” she wrote on X. “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”

Without a clear legal remedy against fake polls, experts argue the onus is placed on media outlets and voters themselves to evaluate the quality of the election data they see.

Mark Baldassare, the survey director of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), said there are ways to quickly spot which surveys are real – and which are not.

“Look for transparency,” Baldassare told PPIC’s Stephanie Barton in an interview. “A credible survey will list its mission, the purpose of its polling, and its sponsors or funders.”

“A poll guided by partisan groups or campaigns that is publicly released may have a message to relay to the public.”

A wave of youth-led protests has swept Europe, with demonstrators denouncing rising prices and a lack of prospects.

Germany and France are preparing for potential protests over the weekend that could coincide with Halloween festivities.

Approximately 150,000 people in Germany have registered to turn out in about 30 cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne, to protest on Saturday.

Police plan to deploy thousands of additional officers across the country. Some luxury jewellery shops and clothing stores have boarded up windows to protect against potential looting or violence.

Protests in Germany are led by a group dubbed “GenZ regelt!”, which translates to “Gen Z has got this!”.

The German protest movement’s complaints include the high cost of living, poorly maintained schools, government spending cuts and, more broadly, politicians taking decisions with little regard for the younger generation.

A wave of largely youth-led protests has swept across Europe in recent weeks, many with similar complaints: rising prices, declining educational facilities and what many protesters see as a lack of prospects for their future.

France braces again

Many of those grievances mirror those of the youth-led protests that have convulsed French cities and towns for three consecutive weekends.

Shops and businesses in Paris and other cities were boarding up windows on Friday.

French police are preparing for another weekend of potential protests and violence by deploying 70,000 police officers nationwide. More than 40 metro stations in Paris will be closed.

Authorities have also said face-covering masks will not be allowed at the demonstrations.

France’s interior minister has warned of a “very high risk” of disorder over the weekend.

Two weeks ago, widespread unrest broke out in cities and towns across France as demonstrations against the cost of living and conditions in schools descended into large-scale looting and riots.

Since then, French authorities have sought to clamp down on violent protests, but last weekend saw further demonstrations across the country, including intermittent clashes with the police.

Alain Di Crescenzo, president of France’s Chamber of Commerce, said businesses were worried.

“Shopkeepers can’t wait for Saturday to be over,” Di Crescenzo told broadcaster France Inter.

Halloween “is not helping matters”, he said, “because we’re going to have people wearing masks”.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

Illustration shows a visit to the Commandobunker of Kemmel, in Heuvelland, Friday 18 March 2022. After World War II, in the middle of the cold war, several countries including Belgium, France and Great-Britain, decide to build a bunker to coordinate west Europe aerian defence. BELGA PHOTO KURT DESPLENTER (Photo by KURT DESPLENTER / BELGA MAG / Belga via AFP) (Photo by KURT DESPLENTER/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)

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• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

Caracas, October 29, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez defended an ongoing plan to privatize state assets and return nationalized companies to former owners on Thursday.

“I have ordered the evaluation of non-essential state assets to be offered to the private sector or returned to their previous owners,” she said in a televised address to the nation.

“This is already in motion. The right to private property is guaranteed by our Constitution,” Rodríguez added.

In April, the acting president established a commission to evaluate the “strategic” value of state-owned companies, land, and other assets, to determine whether they should be retained, privatized, or liquidated.

Former President Hugo Chávez implemented a program of nationalizations in the 2000s to assert state control over strategic economic sectors, including electricity, telecommunications, and heavy industries.

After enacting a pro-business overhaul of hydrocarbon and mining legislation earlier this year, the Venezuelan parliament is on the verge of approving the partial privatization of the electricity sector. Foreign companies are likewise in talks to acquire the country’s largest aluminum smelter, while a consortium headed by Sunergon Oil is reportedly pushing the takeover of several industrial plants associated with the oil industry.

Business sector representative Luigi Pisella, who heads the commission, recently proposed a law enshrining multinational corporate participation in privatized public entities alongside local capital.

“I have encountered no resistance to this idea,” he stated in an interview with Banca y Negocios. “Most investors agree it is indispensable to have local partners whose experience is essential to navigate the complex Venezuelan environment.”

Pisella added that “different models of private participation” are being evaluated, but ruled out the “strategic alliances” whereby the state grants the assets in a concession-type deal while retaining ownership. The business sector spokesman argued that “no one is going to invest” without the full transfer of property.

In Thursday’s address, Acting President Rodríguez also promised that workers’ incomes would be increased quarterly next year, with the raise being at least on a par with GDP growth. 

“For 2027 we are scheduling increases to workers’ incomes in four different moments, in amounts that can never fall short of economic growth in the preceding trimesters,” she explained. 

Rodríguez did not mention adjusting the minimum wage, which has been frozen since 2022 and is currently worth around US $0.15. Instead, Venezuelan authorities have leaned on non-wage bonuses, which do not factor into vacation pay, severance, and other labor benefits in what amounts to a de facto subsidy to employers. Public sector workers currently have a monthly income floor of $240.

While Venezuela’s GDP is predicted to grow 5-10 percent in 2026, even raising non-wage bonuses by that amount falls short of inflation. Finance website Ecoanalitica estimates that prices measured in USD will end up rising 20-30 percent in 2026, meaning that an income adjustment pegged to GDP growth would amount to a loss of purchasing power.

In her message, Rodríguez went on to tout ongoing labor reform talks involving business lobbies and select trade unions. 

Private sector associations such as FEDECÁMARAS and FEDEINDUSTRIA want to slash labor costs for employers, further reducing social security contributions and eliminating the retroactive nature of severance pay and other benefits such that any future wage hike would not trigger corresponding increases.

Finally, the acting president defended recent judicial reforms and ongoing US-endorsed talks with a sector of the Venezuelan opposition that will appoint a new Supreme Court and National Electoral Council. The US State Department has claimed that new presidential elections will be held in 2027.

Rodríguez offered no specifics on an electoral timetable, stating only that “there will be elections, with a renewed electoral authority and the world as a witness.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Alieu Kosiah killed civilians and unarmed soldiers, and ordered lootings and other crimes against humanity.

Switzerland’s supreme court upheld a 20-year jail sentence for former Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah on Friday, but overturned a conviction for crimes against humanity.

In 2021, Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court found Kosiah, now 51, guilty of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars, in which about 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.

In 2023, the court’s appeals chamber upheld his 20-year sentence for war crimes and, for the first time in Swiss history, also made a new ruling that Kosiah was guilty of crimes against humanity.

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland was asked to review the case, and its verdict, dated September 28, was published on Friday.

The court “rejected the appeal filed by a high-ranking Liberian military official challenging his conviction for violations of the laws of war committed between 1993 and 1995 during the first Liberian civil war”, it said in a statement.

“However, the court has acquitted the individual of the charge of crimes against humanity, based on a strict application of the principle of non-retroactivity.”

Switzerland recognises the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to prosecute individuals suspected of international crimes, regardless of where those crimes were committed.

The court said the offence of crimes against humanity – introduced into Swiss law in 2011 – could not be applied to acts committed before then.

Kosiah’s conviction for violating the law of war was upheld, as was the maximum 20-year custodial sentence imposed.

“The decision makes final the first war crimes conviction ever handed down by a Swiss civilian court, and the first conviction anywhere of a Liberian for war crimes committed during the country’s civil wars,” said the Swiss organisation Civitas Maxima, which works to bring perpetrators of international crimes to justice.

Kosiah settled in Switzerland in the late 1990s and was arrested in 2014.

“Today the survivors of Alieu Kosiah’s crimes have final justice,” said Civitas Maxima director Alain Werner, who represents victims in the case.

“We are, however, deeply disappointed by the acquittal on crimes against humanity. What happened in Lofa between 1993 and 1995 is the very definition of a crime against humanity.”

Like war crimes, crimes against humanity refer to atrocities, including murder, torture and rape. However, instead of isolated or sporadic events, the charge is used for incidents carried out in a widespread or systematic way.

In the 2021 verdict, Kosiah was found guilty of a slew of war crimes committed as commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy rebel group.

He ordered or participated in the killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, as well as rape and the deployment of a child soldier, the court ruled.

He had also ordered looting and repeatedly ordered, or had himself inflicted, cruel and humiliating treatment of civilians and mishandled corpses, according to the verdict.

Both sides signed a digital trade deal, as Trump’s trade threats push Washington’s allies to seek closer ties elsewhere.

The European Union and Canada have launched what they described as an Alliance for the Future, as Ottawa prepares to become the bloc’s first so-called “associate member”.

Prime Minister Mark Carney hosted the Canada-EU summit in Montreal and signed a digital trade deal, alongside other agreements. Also at the Friday summit were European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.

The term “associate member” has no legal basis and is contested by some EU states. However, its use underscores the desire of Canada and the EU to forge closer relations, as United States President Donald Trump continues to threaten Washington’s traditional allies with trade tariffs if they do not play by his rules.

“Canada and the EU are working to establish the closest possible partnership, which will be far from full membership, but which will make Canada the first associate member of the European Union,” Carney posted on X.

“Today in Montreal, we have taken a major step forward by establishing more than twenty measures that will increase affordability, create opportunities and ensure our sovereignty on both sides of the Atlantic.”

In a joint statement following the summit, the two sides announced an agreement under which the European Investment Bank will invest in critical Canadian resources, particularly raw minerals. They also said they would advance cooperation on artificial intelligence security and safety.

“A more dangerous and divided world has fundamentally changed the requirements of sovereignty. It is no longer enough for nations to feed, fuel and defend ourselves,” the statement said.

It added that “true sovereignty” requires secure access to critical minerals, semiconductors, payment systems, energy, vaccines, space-based communications and AI.

Ukraine was also on the meeting agenda, with Carney announcing Canada’s participation in the EU’s 90 billion euro ($103bn) support loan for Kyiv. Carney said Canada would make an initial contribution of 500 million euros ($558m).

Opportunities for students in Canada and the EU were also discussed. Both sides said they would launch negotiations aimed at deepening Ottawa’s participation in Erasmus+, the EU’s flagship student exchange programme.

Carney and Trump are currently engaged in a trade dispute, with talks under way to reach a deal between the two countries.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee paused all executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review to “determine exactly what occurred”.

Lee was asked by reporters this week about a potential second execution attempt. “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts,” he responded.

Speaking about the state’s response to what happened to Pike, Mann said: “I find it deeply troubling that, even after what Christa endured, Governor Lee has shown little public willingness to reconsider the death penalty itself, rather than simply the procedures used to carry it out.”

She added: “What happened to Christa is not an isolated tragedy, nor should this conversation begin and end with her.”

The Tennessee Department of Correction has not explained why the execution did not go as planned, though it has defended the method it used.

It declined comment on Pike’s statement when contacted by the BBC.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, was among those pushing for Pike to be put to death and attended the botched execution, later calling it a “mess”.

She told a local ABC News affiliate in Florida, where she lives, that she thinks the state owes her an apology.

“All I wanted was justice,” Martinez said.

Pike was the first woman scheduled to be executed in the state of Tennessee in over 200 years.

Her lawyers have spent decades appealing her case. In the days leading up to her scheduled execution, both the US Supreme Court and Lee declined to block the execution.

The attempted execution of Pike was not the first in Tennessee in 2026 that did not go to plan.

The execution of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, was postponed in May after staff were unable to find a vein for a lethal injection. He was granted a year’s reprieve by the governor.

In 2022, more than a third of executions across the US were botched or highly problematic, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which does not take an ethical stance on the penalty.

Binance, which was founded in China in 2017, allows users to trade digital assets and is estimated to have more than 300 million registered users worldwide.

The company said in 2024 that it had more than $160bn in assets under its custody.

A lot of the fear right now from Binance users – and the crypto industry at large – is whether or not Binance will actually be capable of covering this enormous financial loss.

The company has said repeatedly that customer funds will be covered and that the firm is strong enough to weather the storm.

But crypto history watchers have been pointing out online that this is exactly the kind of message that FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried gave before his crypto exchange collapsed in 2022, leading to huge losses for customers and the industry.

Several experts have warned customers not to regard Binance’s promise to cover losses as legally binding and said they may need to pursue litigation to recover them.

Daniel Tunkel, of the London-based Edwin Coe law firm, said that would “come down to what [customers] have been promised in their contracts”, and “where Binance can be sued for non-performance, if it comes to it”.

Binance has been subject of regulatory scrutiny around the world.

Meanwhile, AI-powered investigations company TRM Labs said that several elements of the attack resembled earlier North Korean-linked incidents, including the Bybit hack.

In the last five years the crypto industry has been beset by enormous losses from hackers.

In nearly all cases investigators have blamed hackers from North Korea, pointing to the infamous Lazarus Group – also know as TraderTraitor. The names refer to clusters of cyber criminals accused of working directly for the regime.

Chainalysis, a crypto analytics firm, said it had “high confidence” that a North Korean is linked to the hack.

North Korea is an impoverished country with very little industry and heavy international sanctions and experts say the regime uses cyber crime as a way to bring money in.

North Korea has always denied this, but the wealth of evidence from cryptocurrency flow analysis and insider interviews from defectors is compelling.

It makes North Korea likely to be the only nation that uses hacking as a way to raise public funds.

European diplomats have refused to stand for an official photo with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in the US, leading to the American hosts cancelling the planned picture.

Two officials confirmed to the BBC the cancellation of the so-called family photo scheduled for Friday morning, which would usually include representatives from all the nations in attendance.

The meeting, which gathers top diplomats from the world’s biggest economies, is being hosted in Atlanta by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Ukraine is not not a G20 member but has been invited to similar meetings in recent years. However, Ukraine was not invited to this meeting.

Relations between Ukraine and the US have been particularly tense this month, with a diplomatic standoff between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump over Kyiv’s strikes on oil infrastructure within Russia.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is present and a diplomatic source confirmed the UK was among the countries which refused to participate in the picture.

One British official said: “The UK has a longstanding policy not to have direct, bilateral engagement with Russian ministers since the invasion of Ukraine and we are not about to change that”.

A US official said the photo was cancelled “after it became clear some of the delegations were unwilling to participate in a joint photo”.

“Rather than allow a ceremonial photo opportunity to become a diplomatic distraction, the US decided to forgo the photo and keep the focus on the substantive discussions,” the official said.

In contrast to Ukraine, relations between the US and Russia appear to have partially thawed in recent weeks, as Trump waived some sanctions and agreed a deal to import Russian diesel for the American market.

The move comes as Trump attempts to lower fuel prices in the US ahead of mid-term elections at the start of November, after months spent grappling with the political consequences of the Iran war.

Ukraine and its European allies have heavily criticised Trump’s deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky called it “a gift” to Putin that amounts to “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged”.

Trump said his decision to suspend several Russian sanctions is an effort to keep Moscow at the negotiating table in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Putin has said Russia, which introduced a ban on diesel exports earlier this year, is willing to supply both the US and global markets with oil and petroleum products.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and currently controls approximately a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Moscow has in recent weeks intensified its deadly missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

US stocks have continued to slide as concerns continue to intensify over the increasing costs of the artificial intelligence (AI) build out.

Shares in Intel continued their overnight slide into early trading on Friday, falling as much as 30% after the chip maker warned of a weaker computer market even as it plans to increase spending on AI.

Amazon shares fell as far as 6% before recovering after its reported earnings on Thursday evening fell short of investors’ expectations.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange opened on Friday at its lowest level in more than two months, down 2.5%, as other tech stocks including Reddit and Roblox continued to fall.

The losses follow the value of Google owner Alphabet plunging by more than $500bn on Thursday after it revealed its own AI summaries were affecting its core search advertising revenue.

Alphabet stock continued to fall in early trading, down 1% after Thursday’s massive slide.

The bigger losses on Friday were elsewhere, with Intel on track to lose more than $130bn in value after its earnings update rattled investors.

On Thursday, Intel’s finance chief David Zinsner said the firm did not expect positive cash flow this year, and forecast lower-than-expected revenue for its fourth quarter.

“Looking ahead, we see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year,” he said in the chip maker’s third quarter earnings report.

In the earnings call, he said the firm had significantly ramped up investment in equipment in the third quarter and expected that to be “even more significant” in the following three months.

No injuries reported after glacial lake burst, causing a flash flood and disrupting Bhutan’s Gasa Tshachu hot springs.

A flood caused by the Shintaphu glacial lake bursting its banks has washed away infrastructure at the Gasa Tshachu natural hot springs in the Himalayan ⁠kingdom of Bhutan.

According to state broadcaster BBS on Friday, no injuries or loss of life had been reported from Thursday night’s flash flood.

It added that the extent of the damage was unknown because of “darkness and the strong flow” of floodwaters.

Two Bailey bridges, which are bridges built in portable, prefabricated sections, may also have been washed away, BBS said.

According to Kuensel, Bhutan’s national newspaper, part of the road leading to the village of Laya, where the springs are located, had also been washed away, rendering it impassable. It added that the road has been closed to traffic indefinitely.

Kuensel said that as authorities assess the damage, concerns have emerged about a large artificial lake formed after the flood-affected river channels conjoined following the outburst.

Residents along the Mochhu and Punatsangchhu river valleys were also advised to remain vigilant and avoid riverbanks and flood-prone areas, the report added.

Moreover, in neighbouring India, flood warnings were issued in parts of West Bengal and Assam following the glacial lake outburst, India’s NDTV broadcaster reported.

The hot springs at Gasa Tshachu are a major tourist attraction in the northern part of Bhutan, nestled between India and China.

They were also hit by a flash flood in 2021 when the Mochhu River changed course and swept through the area.

In neighbouring Nepal, a mountainous area about 600km (380 miles) to the west, a flash flood on its border with China in August killed more than 1,500 people and left more than 5,000 missing.

Three audio recordings between Madrid’s control centre and two train drivers appear to show that one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another train had stalled on the track, about 25km (15 miles) ahead.

Puente had said that the decision to instruct the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions, was “inexplicable”.

The leaking of the audio recordings has been criticised by some Spanish politicians, with Alberto Ibáñez, a member of Congress for the left-wing Sumar platform, writing on X that they were “despicable”.

Meanwhile, Irene Montero – the prime ministerial candidate for the left-wing Podemos party – said responsibility for the crash should not be placed on one worker, adding that train drivers and experts have been warning against the liberalisation of the railway sector for years.

On Friday Puente said he was “not going to use any worker as a shield”.

But he said “many questions” arose as a result of the tragedy and he wanted to look at them “one by one”.

“If the investigation shows there is human error we will act in consequence of that,” he said.

The country is observing three days of mourning, as the families of victims and the survivors of the crash struggle to comprehend how it could have happened.

The conservative People’s Party joined calls for Puente’s resignation after trade union CSIF called for the same earlier this week.

But Puente said on Friday he would not budge from his position.

“The easy thing for me would be to leave, but neither that fits with my character nor is it what the Prime Minister has asked me to do,” he said.

“I feel immense pain and immense sadness for the victims and their relatives… I cannot let this pain paralyse me though. We have to find solutions to this problem.”

Additional reporting by Sergi Forcada Freixas

Warning: This article contains distressing content

A man has been found guilty of murdering a head teacher who was dragged to his death for more than a mile while trapped under the wheels of a car.

Simon Richardson crashed into 56-year-old Michael Mullins, who was cycling home from work on the evening of 20 April in the village of Warburton in Greater Manchester.

Prosecutors claimed Richardson, 35, fled the scene of the crash before stopping to try to dislodge the injured but still-living cyclist and then driving on with Mr Mullins still lodged underneath the vehicle.

Richardson was also convicted of dangerous driving and will return to Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court to be sentenced on Monday.

There were shouts of “Yes!” from the court’s public gallery as the murder verdict was returned.

Others could also be heard crying.

The judge, Mrs Justice Brunner, told Richardson that there was only one sentence for murder, namely life imprisonment.

She also thanked the jury and acknowledged their job “cannot have been easy”.

The court heard Richardson drove through “give way” markings at a junction in Warburton and collided with Mr Mullins, who went under the car.

Richardson then stopped at a country lane and twice got out of the vehicle in attempts to pull Mr Mullins free, the jury was told.

Richardson then mounted the grass verge in his Volvo and finally dislodged him before reversing over Mr Mullins, causing “crushing” chest injuries.

Over the past week, Washington and Tehran have sent mixed signals about whether their eight-month war is heading back to full-scale strikes or towards a peace deal.

On Thursday, the head of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, briefed US President Donald Trump on options for renewed attacks on Iran, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

The US and Israel have drawn up joint plans to attack Iran after the November 3 US midterm elections, The New York Times (NYT) reported last week.

Yet on the same day, The Washington Post reported that Vice President JD Vance had offered to meet Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in person to negotiate an end to the war.

On Friday, Qatari mediators returned to Tehran for talks coordinated with the US, an official told Reuters.

So is Washington heading back to war, or towards a deal? Here’s what we know:

Why are there conflicting reports?

Essentially, Washington is preparing for war while keeping a diplomatic channel open.

The WSJ reported that the US has boosted air defences and munitions in the region and moved some troops away from bases vulnerable to Iranian retaliation.

Ten US military cargo planes landed at the Ovda and Nevatim air bases in Israel’s Negev region on Thursday, with more sent to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who said he had been briefed on the plans, called them “insane” and warned of a devastating escalation.

Can diplomatic efforts hold off a return to strikes?

Diplomacy has not stopped.

Vance’s letter, delivered to Rezaei through Qatari mediators on Sunday, proposed direct talks led by Vance, with Iran’s nuclear programme on the table from the start, according to the NYT, in a bid to prevent a renewal of strikes.

Whether it might have any influence over what happens next is a matter for debate. Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran analyst who is an affiliated researcher at Lund University’s Department of History and Human Rights Studies in Sweden, described Vance as the “voice of reason” on Iran within the Trump administration, saying his signals have been “the least volatile and unpredictable”.

But he also told Al Jazeera that Vance’s position has “never proven to be sturdy enough to actually sway Trump”.

“Thus, while the optics with Vance look better than anyone else in the Trump administration, I doubt that they [Iranian officials] give the outreach much credence until Vance proves able to actually deliver something on his own,” he said.

Furthermore, Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera that “Rezaei is just one voice among many” adding that the “reality is that decisions are made collectively inside the Islamic republic”.

Wolfgang Pusztai, a security and defence analyst and Austria’s former defence attache to Libya, has a different view, however, telling Al Jazeera, “There is no doubt that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] currently calls the shots in Iran.”

In February, Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial attacks by Israel and the United States, and his son became the new supreme leader, but Pusztai says he “simply does not have the influence his father did”.

“Without the IRGC’s approval, there will be no agreement with Iran,” Pusztai said, adding it is safe to assume that when Rezaei makes a statement or endorses a proposal, “it reflects the position of the IRGC leadership” and that the US was “absolutely right to negotiate with him”.

Pusztai said it is unclear whether Rezaei is indeed ready to make a serious compromise, but under sustained US pressure, Rezaei, who holds a doctorate in economics, could come to see that “Iran’s interests and the regime’s survival can be better secured without nuclear weapons and through a less aggressive foreign policy”.

“He certainly knows that peak oil is approaching and that time is running out for Iran’s economic recovery through the use of its oil revenues,” he said.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said progress depends on Iran’s seven conditions being met – including the lifting of sanctions, ending the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, guarantees to an end to US-Israeli strikes, and the unfreezing of Iranian assets – adding that the “carrot-and-stick approach has no effect on Iran”, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Vance, meanwhile, told Fox News on Thursday that Trump would “never” let the conflict become “a forever war”.

Which of all these signals matter most?

The diplomacy may say more than the threats.

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that Vance’s offer of direct talks “suggests that the Americans do have second thoughts” and that they are less ready to strike than they publicly suggest.

But he warned that Cooper, whom he called “quite hawkish”, could give Trump false confidence “that there is a military way out of it, when in reality there isn’t a military way out of it”.

“This idea that there is a short and crisp military operation to solve this issue is obviously an illusion,” he said.

Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera the White House could be sending signals to coerce Tehran, but that “the better interpretation is the simplest one”.

He believes “the United States is getting ready to carry out substantial attacks relatively soon”. He said he does not expect Washington to accept what he called the unfavourable deal Tehran is offering “without another round of attacks”.

Pusztai said Trump’s main focus is now the midterms, making it “very unlikely that he will order another large-scale attack on Iran before the elections”.

“Starting in mid to late November, there could be a major wave of attacks aimed at advancing the American agenda,” he said, adding that the aim would be to weaken the IRGC enough to push it towards a deal on US terms.

Whatever the vote’s result, “in the short term it will not change much”, Musgrave said.

A strong Republican showing could encourage more aggressive tactics, while a Democratic win could push Trump to show his unilateral powers, including by attacking, he said.

Hasn’t this all happened before?

It has. Iran was attacked by Israel or the US while talks were under way in both 2025 and 2026.

“We’ve seen this pattern of behaviour before from the United States,” Hashemi said, describing it as “talking diplomacy while preparing for war”.

On June 13, 2025, Israel launched major strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, two days before a sixth round of US-Iran talks was due in Oman. The US joined on June 22, bombing Iran’s Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear sites.

This year, the US and Israel attacked on February 28, two days after talks in Geneva that mediator Oman said had made “significant progress”.

A day before the strikes, Oman’s foreign minister said Iran had agreed to reduce its nuclear stockpiles to “the lowest level possible”.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera in September that Iran no longer trusts negotiations with Washington because attacks had come during previous rounds of talks.

Hashemi said he suspects “the same pattern is repeating itself”, with the US preparing “a massive bombing campaign in Iran, replete with war crimes like we haven’t seen before”, citing his reading of Murphy’s comments.

What is blocking a deal?

“The issue is mostly around sequencing and the lack of trust on the Iranian side that the Americans will actually follow through with their commitments,” Krieg said.

Tehran wants sanctions and the US naval blockade lifted quickly, fearing that a slow process gives Trump room to backtrack, he said.

Some IRGC hardliners do not necessarily see war as a bad thing if it tightens their grip on the Hormuz strait, he added, and “the Iranians have been prepping for this war for the last three weeks, so they are ready to fight”.

Krieg said he expects “nothing is going to happen until the 3rd of November [the date of the US midterm elections]”. After that, he said, the likelihood of war will “increase exponentially”.

Any new escalation would be worse than in February and March, he said, with Iran readier to strike critical infrastructure in Gulf countries.

He said the threat to the Gulf “will be unprecedented”.

Dock and port workers have long had a tradition of solidarity with the oppressed, upheld by strong labour unions and workers’ rights.

In February 2025, nearly a year and a half into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, dockworkers’ unions from Mediterranean countries came together to disrupt weapons shipments to Israel and Western countries’ military support of the onslaught.

“Weapons need transport, infrastructure, and workers’ hands to reach their destination,” Markos Bekris, leader of Greece’s dockworkers’ union, ENEDEP, at the Port of Piraeus in Athens, told Al Jazeera. “That is where our power lies.”

Now, dock and port workers in 22 countries across five continents are holding a strike on Friday, which workers and researchers told Al Jazeera is expected to be “historic” in scale. The International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers – also called “Dockworkers do not work for war” – involves 110 ports and 25 trade unions.

“Every union will do what they choose, but be connected to the same principles and struggle,” Francesco Staccioli, the national secretary of transport and ports in Italy’s USB trade union, told Al Jazeera.

The unions’ main demand is “an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and all imperialist wars”.

Mohammed al-Attar, a dockworker who left Gaza in 2015 and is now based in Hamburg, Germany, said the workers “are the power”.

“We can save thousands of lives if we stop working just for two days,” he said.

Al-Attar feels hopeful about the global strike, but is “deeply disappointed” in his trade union Ver.di in Germany, which he accused of “incomprehensible silence” over Gaza.

What is the International Day of Action of Dockworkers and Port Workers?

In early 2025, dockworkers in the Mediterranean area came together to discuss how to concretely act “against privatisation, and against the genocide in Palestine”.

The original meeting included five unions organising in 20 ports across five countries, but continued to grow. The unions met several times, first in Athens, then in Genoa, and later in Istanbul. That was where unions from more than 35 ports published the Istanbul Declaration in May this year, and declared October 30 as their day of action.

In a statement, the unions called for the “recognition of an independent Palestinian state, recognised by the international community, within the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital”, and “an end to the US-Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East and against Iran, and full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan”.

“Refusing the war is giving humanity a chance to live better. This is what I’m really convinced about,” the USB’s Staccioli told Al Jazeera.

How many ports and unions are taking part?

More than 25 dockworkers’ trade unions, representing more than 110 ports in 22 countries and regions across five continents, are taking part. Most of the strikes will happen at regular working hours, but in France, Italy, India, Greece and Turkiye, 24-hour strikes have been called.

Strikes of up to two hours have also been announced in Morocco, Cyprus and other ports.

Organisers told Al Jazeera that workers and trade unions from other sectors have been called on to join with port workers, notably in Greece, while in Italy the USB has called for a general strike.

“It’s bigger than we thought,” Staccioli said. “This has spread all over the world.”

No Harbour for Genocide (NHG), a campaigning collective that researches weapon supply chains, supports the action. A spokesperson told Al Jazeera that maritime infrastructure was important in “facilitating military trade within the context of the genocide in Palestine”.

Dockworker unions in India, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and the west coast of the United States have all pledged to take part, the spokesperson added.

The Palestinian labour movement endorsed the strike and called on more to join, urging unions to “escalate Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) pressure to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

How are these ports involved in wars?

Of the ports participating, Genoa, Livorno and Gioia Tauro in Italy, Marseille in France, Piraeus in Greece, and Tangier in Morocco all have proven links to weapons shipments to Israel, according to No Harbour for Genocide.

The group said that between August 2025 and September 2026 it tracked 315 shipments of components for Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, moving through 56 commercial ports in 29 countries. All these 56 ports are expected to be on strike on October 30 , representing a major disruption, even if only for a day.

NHG said it expects that more than $2bn worth of cargo will sit idle on October 30 .

“Up to 95 percent of Israel’s imports and exports travel by sea, relying on port infrastructure across the Mediterranean,” the campaign’s spokesperson said. “Tangier, Piraeus, Gioia Tauro and Genoa, where the largest vessels unload containers onto smaller ships for the rest of the sea, are a few of the Mediterranean’s most frequently used transshipment hubs. All four are taking part on Friday.”

“The participating Mediterranean ports handle 63 percent of all container activity in the sea,” the spokesperson added, noting that “between southern France and Piraeus, the striking ports hold 74 percent of container activity. Worldwide, the ports taking part [in the strike] handle 13.5 percent of global shipping.”

Linda Maggiore, an Italian journalist and activist, said that she has discovered several examples of increasing weapons shipments from Italy’s major ports to Israel since the start of the war on Gaza.

“In Europe, a regulation on military mobility is about to be approved, which will make it even easier for arms to be transferred without scrutiny,” Maggiore told Al Jazeera. “Blockades are essential actions, because they make it clear that civil society does not wish to be complicit.”

From the Vietnam war to Iraq, the USB’s Staccioli said that “dockworkers have a long tradition of rallying against any imperialist war or aggression in the world.”

Are protest actions prosecuted?

In Greece, union leader Bekris is facing prosecution for a protest in which he and other workers blocked the loading of a container holding 21 tonnes of ammunition destined for Israel in October 2024.

“We carry forward the tradition of workers who refuse to load weapons against other people,” Bekris told Al Jazeera on the eve of the global strike. “Our hands get covered in grease and sweat every day. We refuse to let them be stained with the blood of other people.”

Caracas, October 29, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has instructed the Foreign Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office to advance diplomatic and legal efforts to recover 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold held by the Bank of England’s vaults for more than six years.

The freeze on the reserves, currently valued at around US $4 billion, dates back to the United Kingdom’s refusal to recognize Nicolás Maduro’s 2018 reelection. A year later, opposition leader Juan Guaidó formally asked British authorities to prevent the Venezuelan government from accessing the gold.

During a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Rodríguez described the ongoing freeze as a theft. 

“It is a mockery, but one aimed at illegitimately appropriating Venezuela’s gold reserves. We want no more excuses. Even the irrational lawsuit pursued by opposition factions was withdrawn by the very same people who brought it,” she said.

Rodríguez added that she “will not give up” on the claim and recalled that “there is an agreement among Venezuela’s political sectors” to secure the gold’s return. 

The Venezuelan government and an opposition sector representing the defunct 2015 National Assembly have been engaged in a US-backed dialogue process. On October 21, the delegations agreed to establish a joint commission to engage with London and seek the return of the reserves. The parties announced that the funds would be destined for post-earthquake reconstruction efforts, though Rodríguez has also pledged to use it to bolster public services and the electricity grid.

The acting leader had previously written to King Charles III requesting the release of the gold. In September, London and Caracas likewise began a diplomatic rapprochement and announced plans to appoint ambassadors to their respective missions.

According to reports, the Venezuelan gold is set to be transferred to the US Federal Reserve in New York, where its sale or use as collateral for loans would be contingent on the Trump administration’s approval and subjected to foreign audits.

Wednesday’s cabinet meeting additionally saw Rodríguez announce the arrival of 41 heavy machinery units to southeast Bolívar State to strengthen the Venezuelan Mining Corporation’s (CVM) operations at the Chocó plant.

The acting president said the delivery was part of a comprehensive state plan to acquire 544 pieces of equipment, including surface and underground machinery, drilling equipment, and mobile units. 

“More than 60 percent of this purchase will have arrived before the end of the year. What does that tell us? More gold production in 2027,” she affirmed. The Venezuelan executive has pushed a pro-business overhaul of mining legislation in recent months in a bid to court foreign investment. In September, New York-based Heeney Capital and commodities trader Mercuria Energy received a 30-year concession of the Chocó 10 mine in Bolívar State.

Rodríguez also promised short-term relief from electricity outages, often lasting up to 12 hours a day in certain parts of the country. However, she criticized the recurrent protests against blackouts

“I have not seen a single megawatt added to the national electricity system, which has been battered by the blockade, as a result of burning a tire (…) Soon, you will see relief in a country that has been hit so hard by the sanctions demanded by radical sectors,” she said.

Venezuelan authorities have pledged to restore 1,300 MW of generation capacity before the end of the year to mitigate a current deficit of around 4,500 MW. The Venezuelan National Assembly is close to approving a reform that will open electrical generation, transmission, distribution, and commercialization to the private sector.

Caracas has also turned to multinational corporations in a bid to recover the electrical grid.

However, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik stated that the company had already selected its contractors and completed the planning work but had not begun repairs because it has yet to be paid. “This is not an environment in which we are going to act without receiving payment upfront,” he said.

Meanwhile, popular organizations and trade unions staged demonstrations in Caracas and other cities on Tuesday. Through the newly formed “Blackout Victims Committee,” activists criticized the government for prioritizing the oil industry to satisfy US interests at the expense of rationing electricity throughout the country.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Court rules Patterson will spend the rest of her life behind bars after denying parole.

An Australian court has dismissed an appeal by “mushroom murderer” Erin Patterson against her conviction and ruled that she should spend the rest of her life behind bars.

A three-judge panel at the Supreme Court of Victoria delivered its ruling on Friday. The justices said that Patterson, who was convicted last year of murdering three of her estranged husband’s ⁠relatives with a meal ⁠laced with deadly mushrooms, should not have the chance of parole.

“This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be ⁠denounced in the strongest terms,” Justice Stephen McLeish, speaking on behalf ⁠of the panel, told the Melbourne court.

“In all the circumstances, after anxious consideration, we have concluded that the case involved such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate ⁠to fix a non-parole period.”

Patterson, then 51, was ⁠convicted for the murder of her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Gail and Donald Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them a lunch of beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

She was also convicted of the attempted ‌murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the meal.

Her crimes involved an “elaborate series of deceptions” including falsely claiming a cancer diagnosis to explain the absence of her two children from the lunch, the judge noted.

The survivor testified that Patterson had told her guests she wanted their advice about what to tell the children about her diagnosis.

Patterson was sentenced to ⁠life in prison with a 33-year non-parole period, among the longest terms ever handed to a woman in Australia. She has always denied wrongdoing, saying the deaths were accidental.

Her lawyers had argued that certain evidence should have been kept from the trial, that her cross-examination ‌was unfair, and that placing the jury in the same hotel as other parties to the case compromised the result. Judges found these grounds for an appeal to be insufficient.

She can apply to Australia’s High Court to overturn the verdicts on her sentence and her convictions. The High Court is her last appeal option.

Patterson is only the second woman in Australia to be imprisoned for life without possibility of parole. The first is meatworker Katherine Knight, who was sentenced in New South Wales state in 2001 for the murder a year earlier of her partner John Price, whom she’d stabbed at least 37 times.

With four days to go before the United States midterm elections, Democrats are leading in national polls as both parties make their final push for votes.

Meanwhile, a legal dispute threatens to delay the Senate result in Alaska, and President Donald Trump has cancelled two weekend rallies in favour of campaigning by phone.

Here’s what you need to know.

What do the latest US midterm polls say?

Democrats lead Republicans by 51.4 percent to 43.2 percent, according to RealClearPolling, with a difference of 8.2 percentage points.

Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School Poll in the US, said Trump’s declining approval ratings and economic concerns are alarming Republicans.

The latest Marquette Law School poll, conducted in Wisconsin from October 14 to October 22 and released on October 28, put Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent and disapproval at 61 percent.

Only 16 percent of respondents said they were better off financially than a year ago, while 42 percent said they were worse off and another 42 percent said things were about the same.

“Democrats are more enthusiastic and more certain they will vote,” Franklin told Al Jazeera.

“That is giving Democrats an important edge, and reflects Republican disappointment in current national conditions,” he added.

In Arizona, where voters are experiencing increasing living expenses, a retiree told Al Jazeera that the cost of groceries had become a major concern.

“We’re retired, and every time we go to the grocery store, it makes me wonder what the heck is going on,” the voter said.

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico is polling at 49 percent against Republican Ken Paxton’s 43 percent, according to a CNN survey released on Thursday. In Michigan, the same pollster found Democrat Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Republican Mike Rogers, 49 percent to 42 percent.

However, Franklin warned: “Polls are not perfect predictions of outcomes.

“We could see those close races go either way, either due to polling errors or due to voters moving just a little more in one direction or the other.”

In Alaska, however, there is also a complication: a legal dispute that could delay the result of a Senate race.

What is happening in Alaska’s Senate race?

The battle for Alaska’s seat could continue in court after ballots close on November 3. The dispute centres on two candidates named Dan Sullivan: the incumbent Republican senator and an independent candidate with the same name, who is also registered as a Republican.

Trump has accused Democrats of recruiting an independent candidate to confuse voters and take support away from the Republican senator.

“It was a scheme. It was an election fraud. Total election fraud,” Trump said.

The Justice Department has taken legal action over the dispute, while Democrat Mary Peltola denied the accusations.

“I feel like this is yet another diversion from the issue that Alaskans want to talk about, which is affordability,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s US correspondent Alan Fisher said the dispute could have consequences beyond Alaska if the Senate’s control depends on the result.

“If this becomes the key seat in the battle for the Senate, we might not actually know who has control there for several days, maybe even weeks after November 3,” Fisher said.

What has happened on the campaign trail in the past 24 hours?

Trump travelled to South Carolina to campaign for Republican senator Darline Graham – sister of the late Lindsey Graham – who is running against Annie Andrews in a closely contested race.

In Rock Hill, Trump encouraged voters to cast their ballots and cautioned his supporters not to take the election outcome for granted. About Graham, Trump said that she was in the lead but that he still had to campaign there. “In politics you never know, right? So you got to get out and vote.”

He also addressed his supporters directly and asked the crowd to pretend that he was on the ballot.

“And I am on the ballot because all of these things that we’ve done, all of these incredible successes that we have,” he added.

In Texas, Vice President JD Vance attended a rally in Weatherford, near Dallas, alongside Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, as Republicans called on supporters to vote.

“Texas ain’t surrendering. Texas is not becoming California. It’s going to stay Texas, ain’t that right?” Vance told supporters.

Well-known Democrats have also joined the campaign trail.

On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama gave a speech in Georgia supporting Senator Jon Ossoff, criticising Trump’s management of the economy and his approach to the war with Iran.

When Al Jazeera asked about Obama’s visit, Ossoff’s Republican opponent, Mike Collins, said it showed “the desperation of Jon Ossoff because he knows he’s losing”.

“If he was winning so big, he wouldn’t have brought anybody in,” Collins said.

Democrats also campaigned in Texas and Georgia on Thursday.

In Dallas, Senate candidate James Talarico held a rally as part of his final campaign tour, while former Vice President Kamala Harris joined Ossoff at Clark Atlanta University, urging young people to vote.

Harris also campaigned in Macon, Georgia, where she criticised the Trump administration over rising living costs.

“We have a moment now to turn pain into purpose,” Harris told Democratic volunteers. Harris also urged supporters to participate in local and statewide contests.

Later, at Clark Atlanta University, she asked students to stay engaged.

“Don’t overlook those races, because those are the folks who make decisions about your life every day,” she said.

What happens next on the US midterms campaign trail?

Trump has cancelled weekend scheduled appearances in Kansas and Iowa, replacing them with telephone rallies across nearly 20 states in the final days before Tuesday’s elections.

Trump had been set to appear in Salina, Kansas, on Saturday and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday.

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said the change would allow Trump to reach more voters than he could with in-person appearances.

“Voters across the country want to hear from President Trump before Election Day, and this 72-hour sprint will be a huge boost in the closing days,” Gruters said.

Asked about the cancellations on Thursday, Trump questioned the need to travel to Kansas, where Republican Senator Roger Marshall is facing Democrat Adam Hamilton.

“I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” Trump said.

When a Reuters reporter asked whether the decision had anything to do with fatigue from travelling, Trump rejected the suggestion. “I feel perfect,” he said, before insulting the reporter.

Trump is still scheduled to hold a rally at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday at 23:00 GMT.

At the same time, Harris is due to address the Fulton County Democratic Party’s Fulton Forward dinner in Atlanta, Georgia.

Vance had also planned a news conference with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud in St Cloud, Minnesota, on Friday, but the visit was cancelled on Thursday. No reason was immediately given.