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Gianni Infantino’s chances of being re-elected as Fifa president appear to have been given a major boost with potential rival Victor Montagliani set to remain as head of Concacaf.

The Canadian, 61, was widely seen as a possible candidate after Infantino’s failed plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors sparked a global backlash.

However, Montagliani never confirmed he wanted to challenge Infantino, and according to sources, he has now told colleagues that he will instead seek a final term as head of the confederation which governs North and Central America and the Caribbean.

As first reported by the Guardian, it means he will not stand against Infantino, 56, who is seeking a fourth term in March’s presidential election.

The rebellion against him, spearheaded by European governing body Uefa, must now try to identify a unifying candidate by the deadline of 18 November.

Meanwhile, Aleksander Ceferin will stand for a fourth term as Uefa president.

Ceferin informed delegates of his decision at a meeting of all 55 national association chiefs in Berlin.

Uefa also reaffirmed its opposition to Infantino as it published a 14-point plan to reform world football’s governing body.

Ceferin’s move had been widely anticipated and reverses his insistence he would not seek re-election, which the Slovenian outlined in February 2024.

At that point Ceferin, who was initially elected in 2016, was embroiled in a row over Uefa changing its statutes to allow him to serve for a fourth term.

However, there had been a growing expectation the 58-year-old would stand.

This has only been made more likely since Uefa launched its efforts to oust Infantino, who scrapped his sell-off plan following widespread opposition.

“I want to thank the national associations for their trust,” Ceferin said.

“We have faced extraordinary challenges over the past years, and we have faced them as one team. There is still important work ahead, and I have therefore accepted their request.

“My ambition remains the same: to keep European football united, make our game stronger and leave Uefa ready for the next generation.”

Ceferin has ruled out standing against Infantino himself but is committed to finding a candidate around which the game can unite in March’s FIfa election.

Nvidia (NVDA) introduced the Open Agent Safety Platform, an open software platform and reference system designed to strengthen AI security from agent testing through deployment.

The platform enables full-stack governance and control across the software that runs agents, the hardware and

Transfer windows, team budget caps and drones replacing convoy vehicles at races are three of the ideas to boost cycling in a new report from the sport’s global governing body.

The Union Cycliste Internationale’s (UCI) report, entitled “Future of Cycling”, examined road cycling and heard from 55 stakeholders including professional teams, national federations, race organisers and some riders.

It aims to turn a “large but passive audience into active, loyal fandom”, admitting cycling’s under-35 audience was “under-represented” and there was a need to “strengthen its appeal”.

“While the sport today enjoys strong and growing popularity across five continents, its media exposure and the revenue it generates for its stakeholders do not yet fully reflect its potential,” it said.

Among the most frequently referenced recommendations were:

The combined total budget of professional UCI tour teams in 2025 was £731m (850m euros), but individual team budgets vary.

Long-discussed budget caps, aimed at evening out the peloton and increasing “financial fairness”, would improve the attractiveness of the sport for investors according to the UCI.

But it admitted any such mechanism remains the biggest point of difference for stakeholders and would be at the heart of upcoming discussions.

Meanwhile work on a new transfer system and rider-agent regulation was already under way, it said.

WASHINGTON — A nonprofit run by Black federal lawmakers launched a multimillion-dollar effort Tuesday to engage lower-propensity voters in key districts in the midterm elections, following years of dissatisfaction over traditional efforts to reach such voters.

The Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s “SO VOTE” campaign will seek to register and mobilize young voters, as well as voters in majority-Black and rural communities, across the South, Midwest and West. The campaign involves partnerships with dozens of local organizations, the institute said, with in-person and online outreach to voters often sidestepped by major political campaigns.

“For decades, as far as I can remember, there are those of us who have always complained about the fact that neither party spends the significant and requisite time with Black and brown and poor and rural communities,” said Marcia Fudge, a former Democratic congresswoman from Ohio who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Biden administration.

“So we finally decided to take it upon ourselves to do something that we didn’t think anybody else in the industry was doing,” said Fudge, who is spearheading the new effort alongside former Black Caucus colleagues.

Effort blends old tactics with new technologies to boost turnout

Voter engagement efforts will cover outreach across Georgia and Mississippi, as well as target voters in 16 congressional districts that are likely to determine control of the House.

Instead of traditional television advertising, the campaign will convene local civic groups and houses of worship, as well as fraternities and sororities. The effort will also use some now-widespread techniques in political campaigns, such as geotargeting online ads and partnerships with local content creators for audiences who mainly receive their news online.

While the voter engagement efforts are officially nonpartisan, the Black Caucus’ targeted races are in many regions where Black voter turnout could prove key to whether a Democratic candidate prevails in closely divided House districts. Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana Democratic congressman who served as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, said the effort would focus on repeatedly engaging voters in rural communities who feel alienated from Democratic campaigns.

“If you’re not happy with the way things are going, then voting is part of the solution, but it takes constant communication,” Richmond said.

The Black Caucus’ institute has raised about $1 million for the campaign, primarily from individual donors, and plans to spend at least $4.5 million in the midterm election cycle.

Campaign responds to GOP redistricting and disappointing turnout in the past

The new outreach effort follows years of disappointment and frustration among some in the Black Caucus at the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to court Black, rural and younger voters.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, an influential South Carolina Democrat who decried the lackluster voter turnout in the 2024 election, said the campaign “allows us to put to practice that which we have been proposing, and we have never had the resources to do it. But this year we do.”

The effort is also a response to Republican-led redistricting efforts in multiple states, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat.

“These Southern states are trying to minimize Black political participation and ultimately Black political strength,” he said. “So what we have to do is take that low-propensity voter and elevate their participation so they become an additional voice to be reckoned with.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Caracas, September 14, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service announced a package of measures to boost US agricultural exports to Venezuela amid growing concerns about the South American country’s national production.

According to the USDA, the plan will facilitate Venezuelan corporations’ purchase of US food products and agricultural commodities through government-backed credit and will include the delivery of food assistance and training for Venezuelan technicians.

“The Trump administration is committed to Venezuela’s economic prosperity, and USDA is leveraging its export financing, market development programs, technical scholarships, and food assistance initiatives to address this situation,” said Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Luke J. Lindberg.

Lindberg added that he “looks forward to positioning US agriculture to help meet needs and build lasting trade relationships.” The US official visited Venezuela as part of an official delegation in early July.

Washington’s credit program for food exports will be provided through the reactivation of the GSM-102 guarantee program. The mechanism offers guarantees to exporters that reduce the risk for financial institutions backing the transactions in case importers fail to meet their commitments. 

The Agriculture Department also announced that it will lift restrictions to allow foreign banks to back Venezuela-related transactions.

A USDA report had already estimated that Venezuela would need to import 1.5 million metric tons of wheat during the 2026-2027 marketing year. Corn and soybeans are likewise identified as key staples to be exported to the Caribbean nation. The latest initiative 

The Trump administration also lifted restrictions under its Feed the Future Agricultural Resilience Mission Initiative and plans to include Venezuela in a regional agribusiness trade mission scheduled for early 2027.

A bigger influx of US farm products will place an additional strain on Venezuelan food production, with local campesinos increasingly protesting against imports from agribusiness corporations that seek to drive crop prices down.

On September 9, rice growers from Guárico and nearby states organized a “tractorazo,” blocking a major highway in Calabozo with trucks and tractors to demand that the government halt the entry of imported rice during the domestic harvest season and ensure that agroindustrial companies adhere to established prices.

Protesters complained that imports from countries where food production is subsidized, including the US, create unfair competition and risk driving Venezuelan campesinos bankrupt. The latest mobilization was sparked by the reported arrival of a shipment of 355 thousand tons of rice, more than half of the Venezuelan production in 2025. 

Rural organizations have likewise denounced the exoneration of tariffs and import taxes as another factor putting national production at a disadvantage. Venezuelan authorities, including the National Assembly and the Agriculture Ministry, have vowed to review the import issue but have offered no measures to date.

In the Calabozo protest, producers denounced that imported rice had saturated silos and storage facilities during the 2025-2026 winter-summer crop cycle, forcing them to sell below production cost or lose their crops altogether. Demonstrators demanded a $0.25-per-kilogram subsidy from the state to compensate for the losses incurred and vowed to take the protests to Caracas if they receive no response from authorities.

The September 9 “tractorazo” was the latest in a series of mobilizations in recent months in Venezuela’s main agricultural states. Rice growers have complained about high fuel and input costs and urged the government to establish and enforce fair crop prices. 

According to agriculture lobby FEDEAGRO, more than 2.2 million metric tons of white corn, yellow corn, and rice have entered the country so far in 2026, more than triple the recent combined high of 709,000 metric tons in 2023.

“We cannot continue depending on a neighbor’s pantry. That is a failure. In Venezuela, we have the land, a committed agricultural sector, and people investing in farming, but excessive imports place us at a dramatic disadvantage,” stressed FEDEAGRO President Osman Quero.

Quero stressed that foreign producers have access to credit programs, fuel and fertilizer subsidies, and better infrastructure, while Venezuelan farmers face inflation and a lack of financing programs.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Lisbon, Portugal.