Economy

Voters have sent a strong election-year message to the new Democratic congressional majority and President Trump: Repair the damage inflation has done to the economy.

Trump, who campaigned on the idea that a Democratic victory in the midterms would trigger a 1929-style economic depression, has maintained that the economy is booming. Since his party lost in Tuesday’s voting, he has claimed he is willing to work with Democrats in the House and Senate, though that’s not something he has done much of in the past.

“I’ll get along, probably, with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive,” Trump told reporters last week.

After Friday’s strong jobs report showed employers adding 165,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dipping to 4.1%, Trump was defiant. “Democrats may control Congress, but I will NEVER stop fighting for you, and I will VETO anything that hurts America,” he said in a text message to his supporters.

Democrats are seeking to check Trump’s power and are preparing for early fights on government spending. Other challenges include chronic budget deficits, tariffs, artificial intelligence and difficult choices about a Social Security system that could run short of money in as little as six years.

But as long as rising prices keep making middle-class lives less affordable, Democrats and Republicans alike face the risk of angering and alienating voters in the next election cycle.

“Until inflation and interest rates are under control, the likelihood of change elections is going to be high on an ongoing basis,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Americans want lower prices

Trump’s tariffs and the war against Iran that he launched in February contributed to the consumer price index climbing to 3.7% annually. The president also tried to bully the Federal Reserve, an independent body tasked with keeping inflation low, to slash its benchmark interest rate in ways that could have worsened inflation.

The gridlock of a Republican White House and Democratic Congress gives the Fed more room to maneuver, possibly smoothing the central bank’s ability to return inflation to the 2% target it has failed to reach for nearly six years.

“I think that one of the surprise winners Tuesday was the Fed,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the center-right American Action Forum.

The Democratic Senate could block Trump’s ability to fill potentially open spots on the Fed board, Holtz-Eakin said, removing “Trump’s incentives to meddle with the Fed” and clearing a path for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh “to follow his instincts and aggressively reduce inflation.”

Trump has maintained that the costs of oil, gasoline and diesel will all plummet once the Iran war ends. The problem is he refuses to say when or how the war will come to a conclusion.

John Cochrane, an economist at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, stressed that the Fed’s efforts to combat inflation would be helped if the federal government reduced budget deficits.

“It takes monetary and fiscal restraint,” he said.

Federal government keeps borrowing

The U.S. government keeps amassing debt as tax revenues fall short of burgeoning spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. Paying the interest on the national debt now tops $1 trillion annually and exceeds spending on the military. The problem could spiral because investors have pushed up the interest rates charged on government debt over the past year.

Neither the White House nor Democrats ran on spending cuts. The president wants an additional $500 billion a year for the military, while some Democratic candidates have pushed for restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies that lapsed under Trump.

Since August, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly said the administration would put forward a plan to trim the roughly $2-trillion annual budget deficit. Bessent is working with White House budget director Russell Vought on cuts they’re branding as a “fiscal consolidation plan,” to be released after the election.

Deficit reduction would likely require some combination of tax increases and spending cuts, Goldwein said. But he said that the lowest hanging fruit would be to trim Medicare expenditures in ways that save money for both the government and patients.

“It’s not rocket science,” he said. “The most important thing you can do is reduce healthcare costs and find policies that lower the costs of Medicare, which will reduce deficits and interest rates.”

AI poses a dilemma for economy

When Harvard University economist Jason Furman thinks about the most important economic issues facing the United States, AI is at the top of his list.

“It’s the most screamingly obvious investment boom this country has ever had, or, possibly, second to railroads” in the late 19th century, Furman said.

Using AI, Furman has built an economic analysis tool called Econvitals that replicates some of the work done when he was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in Democratic President Obama’s administration.

Econvitals parsed construction spending data on Tuesday and found an 80.6% increase in data center construction over the past year, while spending on building homes, schools, factories and offices had fallen.

The stock market sold off last week on concerns that Democrats could restrict the construction of data centers and impose guardrails on AI. But the American economy still needs the technology to keep fueling growth now and into the future.

Trump has been vociferous in promoting the sector and has taken a hands-off stance on regulating AI, insisting that existing laws and voluntary agreements signed by tech companies are enough. He has shrugged off public concerns about the risks of job losses and large-scale cyberattacks, but a majority in the AP Voter Poll, a sweeping survey of the American electorate conducted in all 50 states, say AI does more harm than good for the economy.

The dilemma is that AI is helping to propel demand in the economy and sustain the stock market. If those slipped, there could be less consumer spending, lower growth and many in the U.S. feeling even worse off financially.

“Every time you have a single strength in an economy you are also having a big vulnerability,” Furman said.

Social Security needs to be rescued

Senators who won six-year terms last week will face the politically fraught challenge of working with Trump’s successor to find ways to save Social Security, which is projected to be unable to pay full benefits at the end of 2032.

Removing the cap on payroll taxes and increasing the retirement age are among the possible lifelines for sustaining the program that provides income to older Americans and those with disabilities. But any changes would likely need to be bipartisan to get enough votes to clear the Senate because Social Security overhauls cannot be made by party-line votes through the reconciliation process.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she saw an opening earlier this year to fix Social Security when she overheard Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, talk about the need to lift the cap on payroll taxes. “I reached out to him in a matter of days,” she said in an interview this summer. The two senators went public with a plan that is still being formulated as legislation.

Warren, who worked with the Republicans on a law this year to encourage the construction of more homes, said other bipartisan efforts had failed because Republican lawmakers had been afraid to cross Trump.

But with Social Security, there is a need to act now. Experts say “the checks that go out to seniors will drop by nearly a quarter” after 2032, Warren said.

“Think what that means, literally, to millions and millions of Americans, who depend on those Social Security checks, or who have parents who depend on them. And Congress is doing nothing,” she said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

US President Donald Trump has said the FBI is probing Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with a woman accused of working for Chinese intelligence services.

Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump said law enforcement had began inquires following Jensen’s admission that he engaged in an extramarital relationship with a Chinese executive named Alice Huang.

“We’ll look into it. I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else,” Trump told reporters in a news conference.

“I think he will be in good shape.”

Trump said Huang told him earlier that he had “absolutely no idea” that the woman was an alleged intelligence agent.

“He said I had no idea that she was a spy, and I really believe him,” Trump said.

Asked when he first become aware of concerns about the relationship, Trump said it was “not too long ago.”

“I have been hearing about it and I have been reading a little bit about it over a period of time,” the US president said.

Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable companies, on Sunday announced that it had opened a probe into its CEO’s relationship with the woman following media reports that US intelligence officials had determined that she was working for China’s Ministry of State Security.

Nvidia’s board of directors said it had no reason to believe that national security or company secrets were compromised, but that an independent inquiry overseen by outside counsel would examine “all available information”

More to follow…

The economy was cited for the number of technology-related employment cuts in the report released by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Technology job cuts fell to their lowest level of the year in October, with the sector announcing just 5,576 layoffs.

Markets rebound after tech rout triggered by Democrats’ sweeping victory in US midterm elections.

Asian stock markets have rebounded after last week’s tech rout triggered by the Democratic Party’s sweeping victory in the US midterm elections.

Key indexes in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong made substantial gains on Monday, following a rebound on Wall Street on Friday.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 3.45 percent as of 04:00 GMT.

In Taipei, the Taiex was 5.72 percent higher, while the Kospi in Seoul was up 1.68 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up 0.19 percent.

Futures for Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were up 0.60 percent and 0.59 percent, respectively.

They had dipped earlier following US-based chip giant Nvidia’s announcement that it would investigate its CEO over a romantic relationship he conducted with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy.

Nvidia’s board of directors said that while it had confidence in CEO Jensen Huang and had no reason to believe that national security or company secrets were compromised, an independent inquiry would examine “all available information”.

The board said Huang supported the inquiry and pledged his full cooperation.

“The Board prioritizes U.S. national and economic security, which is paramount to the interests of NVIDIA and its shareholders,” the company said.

The stock market rebound comes after the US midterm results prompted a $2.5 trillion sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday amid concerns that Democratic-controlled legislatures could slow the rollout of data centres used to power AI.

The tech rout spilled into Asia on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 and Kospi plunging about 6 percent and 9 percent, respectively, and the Hang Seng Index dropping more than 1 percent.

United States-based chipmaker Nvidia is investigating its chief executive officer, billionaire Jensen Huang, after he confirmed he had an intimate relationship with a woman accused of working for Chinese intelligence.

In an announcement on Sunday, Nvidia said the probe would be conducted by a “committee of independent directors” with outside counsel.

“While the board has no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, the board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” Nvidia’s board of directors said.

It said the board continued to have “confidence in Jensen and his leadership team”. Huang will continue to lead Nvidia during the probe.

The investigation follows a report in The New York Times last month that Jensen may have been the target of a Chinese espionage plot.

China and the US have been in competition to dominate key tech sectors like artificial intelligence (AI).

Amid the AI boom, Nvidia has seen demand for its chips and programming interfaces explode, resulting in the company being valued in the trillions of dollars.

For years, the US has sought to restrict the export of advanced chips to China, fearing the Asian superpower could gain an edge over its technology and military sectors.

But on October 29, The New York Times said it had obtained exclusive information that a Chinese woman named Alice Huang, or Huang Le, sought to cultivate close ties with Jensen Huang in an effort to glean information about Nvidia’s technology.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, has denied any allegations of spying in the case.

The New York Times also reported that Alice Huang’s employer, Megaspeed, had become one of Nvidia’s largest buyers, purchasing some $4.8bn in equipment from the US firm.

Jensen Huang’s ties to Alice Huang, who is of no relation, spurred fierce bipartisan backlash in the US Congress in the aftermath of the report.

“For months, bipartisan members of Congress have raised concerns about NVIDIA’s advanced AI chips going to China,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a statement.

“NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and NVIDIA’s board owe Congress answers. And we need to pass bipartisan legislation we have ready to stop advanced American technology from going to China.”

Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives also called on Huang to appear and testify before Congress about the affair on November 18.

“It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which US national security has been placed at risk,” Republicans John Moolenaar, Brian Mast and Rick Crawford said in a statement.

In an email to Nvidia staff on Sunday, Huang had admitted to having an extramarital relationship.

“I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse ‌for what I did,” Huang said.

Nvidia has grown rapidly in recent years with the rise of AI, producing chips for large language models developed by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google.

Huang has also been closely working with US President Donald Trump since the Republican leader returned to office in 2025.

In August of that year, the Trump administration announced it would take a 15 percent cut of certain Nvidia chip sales to China.

Trump reportedly bought as much as $1.6m in Nvidia stock and sold about $1m in August, ahead of November’s midterm elections.

After the midterm races last Tuesday, stocks for AI-related companies, including Nvidia, tumbled in reaction to widespread Republican losses.

Trump has pushed back against calls to regulate AI companies, but many Democrats during the midterms campaigned on placing restrictions on the companies, including on the construction of data centres.

Nvidia lost $450bn in market value in a single trading day last week, but it rebounded on Friday, regaining 4 percent of its losses.

PICKING the best seat in economy no longer just boils down to aisle or window.

Some seats come with extra perks like more legroom or easier access to the bathrooms – but how do you know which one to choose?

There is a little known tool that can tell you everything you need to know about the seats on your flight and help you to find the best one.

AeroLOPA has highly detailed seat maps that are drawn to scale.

To use the website, you need to know the airline and the aircraft you are flying on, although this can be found with a quick Google search.

When you know if, you can check the website for all kinds of extras such as how much legroom there is as well as how far the exit door intrudes into a leg room area.

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You can also find out which seats have the best window view.

And the seats even have reviews from other passengers, which are ranked up to 5, with red being bad, amber being fine and green being the best.

Seats that are yellow usually have downfalls, which can include being located near a bassinet-suitable seat, suggesting that you could face noisy children during the flight.

Other things highlight include if the window is aligned behind the seat, when there is no under seat storage and being near the loo.

Any seat highlighted with red are rated as the worst seats on the plane and will be labelled with ‘avoid’ – unless you fancy sitting directly by a possibly smelly and noisy loo.

In our opinion? You will normally find the best seats near the front of economy, due to legroom by the bulkseat, or by the back where you might have a missing seat (so more room for yourself).

AeroLOPA doesn’t just have seat maps either.

You can also access its Super Schedule which shows all the possible flights on a route to choose from.

Washington is attempting something remarkable in Venezuela. After spending more than two decades confronting the geopolitical ambitions of chavismo, the US is now helping to rebuild the industry that made those ambitions possible. 

Through a combination of military pressure and the promise of renewed oil production, foreign investment, and access to international markets, the Trump administration is seeking to secure the cooperation of Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government. But there is a paradox at the heart of that strategy: if it succeeds, Washington could end up restoring the very instrument of geopolitical power that Hugo Chávez once used against it.

The danger is not that Rodríguez is preparing to revive Chávez’s revolutionary foreign policy tomorrow. It is that the economic recovery of a government does not necessarily entail its political transformation. A regime that cooperates with Washington under military pressure and out of economic necessity may behave quite differently once those constraints diminish.

Understanding this risk requires revisiting a frequently misunderstood aspect of Chávez’s legacy. His oil diplomacy was not simply a collection of expensive ideological adventures, but a part of a coherent grand strategy that achieved much of what it set out to accomplish, even as it undermined the economic foundations of the Venezuelan state.

Revolutionary oil

That is the central argument of Petróleo y revolución: La geopolítica de Venezuela bajo Hugo Chávez y su desafío a Estados Unidos, a new book by Venezuelan political analyst Martín Rodríguez Rodríguez. Drawing on diplomatic documents, petroleum industry intelligence, and historical research, Rodríguez reconstructs how Chávez transformed Venezuela’s oil wealth into the principal instrument of an ambitious strategy to challenge American influence in the hemisphere.

Chávez did not invent petroleum diplomacy. Venezuelan governments had long understood that the country’s position in international energy markets provided diplomatic leverage beyond what its economic or military weight might otherwise suggest. But while previous governments generally employed that leverage to advance Venezuela’s commercial interests and international standing, Chávez subordinated it to the objectives of his revolution.

Rodríguez traces the development of this grand strategy through Chávez’s consolidation of power, the political takeover of PDVSA, the revitalization of OPEC, and the construction of an international network designed to diminish Washington’s influence.

New relationships with China, Russia and Iran allowed Chávez to position himself as a participant in an emerging multipolar order.

The Caracas-Havana alliance formed the backbone of this strategy. Cuba provided political experience, ideological affinity, and a regional partner with its own long history of confrontation with Washington. Venezuela supplied the resources that allowed the relationship to acquire a significance neither country could have achieved on its own. ALBA and Petrocaribe extended that logic across the Caribbean and Central America. By providing oil under preferential financing arrangements, Chávez cultivated governments whose diplomatic support helped complicate American efforts to isolate Caracas, while he established relationships that continued to provide diplomatic support to his successors even as Washington intensified its pressure.

The strategy extended beyond the hemisphere. China offered financing and an alternative market for Venezuelan crude. Russia provided military equipment and diplomatic backing. Iran became an ideologically compatible partner in Chávez’s confrontation with the United States. Together, these relationships allowed Venezuela to position itself as a participant in an emerging multipolar order.

Rodríguez’s contribution is to examine these initiatives not as disconnected episodes of revolutionary diplomacy but as instruments of a larger grand strategy. Chávez understood that control over petroleum resources could compensate, at least partially, for Venezuela’s limited military and economic weight. 

Rodríguez documents how repeated threats to interrupt oil shipments to the United States collided with transportation costs, refinery infrastructure, and commercial interdependence. In 2004, roughly two-thirds of Venezuela’s crude exports still went to the American market. Redirecting those shipments was neither as simple nor as economical as Chávez suggested.

Chávez succeeded in expanding the international influence of his revolution while weakening Venezuela’s capacity to sustain that influence. 

The relationship with China was similarly contradictory. Diversification reduced Venezuela’s exclusive dependence on the American market, but oil-backed financing arrangements created new obligations and dependencies. In attempting to escape one relationship, Chávez risked exchanging it for another.

More consequentially, the politicization of PDVSA, the deterioration of its technical capacity, and the subordination of commercial decisions to revolutionary priorities progressively undermined the industry that financed the strategy.

Chávez succeeded in expanding the international influence of his revolution while weakening Venezuela’s capacity to sustain that influence. His geopolitical accomplishments were real, even if their durability was limited. The success of a revolutionary project, Rodríguez demonstrates, should not be confused with the success of the state whose resources made it possible.

The 2026 irony

The Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela rests, at least in part, on a plausible proposition: a government facing American military pressure while benefiting from economic cooperation will have strong incentives to preserve its accommodation with Washington. Restoring oil production can create jobs, attract investment, increase revenues, and provide the economic stability necessary for a political transition.

There is nothing inherently misguided about pursuing economic recovery. Venezuela desperately needs to rebuild its petroleum industry, and a recovery that excludes American capital, technology, and markets would be considerably more difficult. Military coercion and economic incentives can secure compliance without necessarily producing lasting political change, but economic cooperation and political transformation are not interchangeable.

The administration is dealing with a government whose leading figures emerged from the same political movement that Chávez built. Delcy Rodríguez is not Chávez. She lacks his charisma, his popular mandate, and the extraordinary international circumstances that made his ambitions possible. Yet the institutions and networks of power through which chavismo governs have not necessarily changed simply because its relationship with Washington has.

The distinction becomes especially important when considering what a successful recovery would accomplish. Increased production would not merely strengthen Venezuela’s economy. It would increase the resources available to the government, expand its international commercial relationships, and potentially reduce its dependence on American support.

A weakened chavismo has good reasons to accommodate Washington. A revitalized chavismo might have more options.

These developments could support a democratic transition. But without corresponding institutional and political changes, they could also strengthen the governing establishment and give it greater room to maneuver. A weakened chavismo has good reasons to accommodate Washington. A revitalized chavismo might have more options. 

Of course, the circumstances are not those of the early 2000s. The United States possesses considerable military and economic leverage, as well as influence over Venezuela’s access to investment, technology, financial services, and energy markets. Chávez’s successors also face constraints that he never encountered. A return to his confrontational foreign policy is neither inevitable nor necessarily desirable to the current leadership.

But those differences do not eliminate the underlying question. What political and institutional changes must accompany Venezuela’s economic recovery to ensure that the resources generated by its petroleum industry serve the country rather than the preservation of a particular governing movement?

Chávez’s grand strategy demonstrated that Venezuela’s oil wealth could be used to challenge American influence, even without the economic or military power to confront Washington directly. His successors inherited the alliances, institutions, and political networks that strategy helped establish, although the deterioration of the petroleum industry progressively deprived them of the resources needed to sustain it.

None of this means that a recovered Venezuelan oil industry would inevitably produce a renewed confrontation with the United States. It does mean that Washington should be careful not to mistake cooperation obtained through coercion and economic necessity for a lasting change in the interests of those governing Venezuela.

Santiago Pena was impeached over the collapse of Ueno Bank, which left millions unable to access their accounts.

Paraguay’s former President Santiago Pena has been charged after spending the morning at the attorney general’s office in Asunción for questioning, a day after being impeached over his alleged involvement in a banking scandal that has left nearly half the country unable to access their savings.

The former president, who was placed under house arrest on Friday, was charged over the scandal. The Reuters news agnecy reported that Pena was charged with breach of trust and administration for personal gain.

The scandal centres on Pena’s ties to Ueno, a digital bank that grew rapidly during his presidency, partly through an injection of more than $800m in public funds, and attracted millions of customers.

The bank’s collapse has prompted days of protests across Paraguay, with thousands taking to the streets demanding access to their savings. Some demonstrations have turned violent, with protesters clashing with police.

Pena, who held a stake in Ueno’s parent company until March 2025, has denied wrongdoing, arguing that the bank’s problems were a regulatory matter.

What is Pena accused of?

Among the allegations against Pena are that he used his political influence to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds into Ueno while shielding the bank from regulatory scrutiny as concerns grew over its risky lending practices.

They point to his appointment of Carlos Carvallo, a former executive at the company that later became Ueno, as head of Paraguay’s central bank in 2023. On Saturday, Carvallo was charged with breach of trust, producing false public documents and administration for personal gain.

Pena is further accused of allowing Paraguay’s state pension fund to deposit $355m at Ueno, above legal limits.

Pena had offered his resignation on Thursday, but lawmakers rejected it and pressed ahead with impeachment proceedings to prevent him from having the political immunity he would have gained had he stepped down.

An arrest order was issued shortly after he was removed from office.

On Saturday, after announcing the charges, prosecutors are also seeking pretrial detention for both Pena and Carvallo.

Bank collapse sparks political crisis

The scandal erupted after regulators took control of Ueno on Tuesday over concerns about its solvency, leaving nearly three million people unable to access their savings or use their bank cards.

Paraguay’s central bank said Saturday that 1.2 million customers had already received partial or full reimbursement of their insured deposits.

But that has done little to quell public anger, with many still waiting for their money back. Some protesters have also expressed frustration over Pena’s replacement, Pedro Alliana, who belongs to the same conservative Colorado Party and is himself under investigation in connection with the bank’s collapse.

Alliana, who was sworn in as president on Friday, has pledged to help those affected.

A LONG haul holiday to somewhere hot and sunny might be tempting – until you have to sit on a plane in economy for 20 hours.

Yet with so many ‘hacks’ and tricks to surviving a long flight, which of them actually work?

So on a recent flight to Australia, I decided to try them all out to see which ones were actually worth it.

While mentally prepared to be uncomfortable for the duration, I was surprised by some that really made the difference.

Of course, some where absolutely no help at all either.

Here’s my verdict on 13 item hacks I’d heard about and whether they are actually worth it.

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Scarf hack

You’ve probably seen the famous scarf hack lingering around on social media – where you tie it to your head rest to make, well, a head rest.

Now, when I saw it, I was skeptical. To me it looked more like something that would hurt my neck, rather than aid it.

You essentially tuck it in behind your seat head rest and then tie it in front of your neck, you then untuck one side and it creates a hammock for your head.

I hated this hack and sacked it off within a couple of minutes.

My scarf slipped too much, turbulence mean I kept getting choked and I felt overwhelmingly like I would be suffocated.

My verdict: Bin this off – you look stupid and it hurts your neck and ear.

Cheap vs high-tech airport neck pillows

Neck pillows seem to be the number one travel item to take on a plane.

But I’ve never used one.

Yes, you heard that right – I travel on dozens of flights each year and have never purchased a neck pillow.

On my 20-hour flight I decided to try out two – one from the airport that cost me an arm and a leg and another high-tech one I bought online.

I used neither on my flight, scrapping them both after about 10 minutes.

I find that they make my neck, head and ears hurt instead of feel comfortable, as well as getting too warm and feeling like I have something suffocating me.

Instead, I just opted for the pillow (which admittedly isn’t given out with all airlines) and was far more comfortable.

My verdict: If you like a neck pillow, obviously take one. But don’t feel like it is a tragedy if you don’t have one, you can often sleep much better with a bundled-up fluffy jumper or a pillow given onboard your flight.

Nasal strips

When you think of nasal strips, you probably either think of elite runners or people snoring.

Nasal strips help with getting more air through your nose when you breath in.

And let’s be honest, with all that stagnant air on a plane bunging you up you want to be able to get as much air as possible.

I tried out SleepyDeepy’s nasal strips and out of all items on this list, this is the one I now swear by.

You simply stick it onto your nose and you will feel the relief with the amount of air you can now breath in through your nose.

And it isn’t just good for getting better sleep.

For those of us who do snore or are worried about snoring on a plane, it helps to stop this.

My verdict: I was so impressed with how much more air I could breathe in when wearing the strip and it is definitely something I’d use on all my long-haul flights going forward.

Mouth tape

Mouth tape is another product I have always been skeptical of, but after getting a sore throat after every flight, on this flight I wanted to try something that would stop that.

SleepyDeepy’s mouth tape looks like a black cloud and you just stick it over you mouth.

It has a small air/vapour hole in the middle.

I slept like a baby with it on and it stopped me snoring or drooling on the plane.

Even better, I got off my flight without a sore throat for once.

My verdict: This is not something I ever thought I would like but it definitely made me feel like I wasn’t snoring or drooling… and that of course, is an instant win.

Ear plugs

A lot of people will skip earplugs when it comes to their flights but they are wrong.

Planes are loud, and while that constant droning fades into the background after a while, all that loud noise is not good for our ears.

I swear by Loop Earplugs and for the times on the flight when you don’t want to listen to music, but also don’t want to hear the plane they are ideal.

They are super comfortable and come in a load of different colours.

I then swapped to SleepyDeepy’s regular foam earplugs when I wanted to sleep as I found that these don’t stick out, making resting your head more comfortable.

My verdict: I love Loop Earplugs and think they are super practical – but they are great for sleeping. I would deffo opt for both and switch between them for when you are reading or having a snooze.

A good eye mask

For 20 hours I wanted to do everything I could to get good sleep, so I opted to take a SleepyDeepy silk eye mask on board.

The soft eye mask wraps around your head with a Velcro close, no tight strap and soft cushioning around the eyes to stop getting marks around your eyes.

It was so comfortable and cosy, I slept like a baby for my flight.

My verdict: This is a lovely eyemask that doubles up as a little bit of a cushion. But if like me and you don’t struggle sleeping with the lights on, then make just opt out of this one.

Silicone suction phone mount

If one item has changed my life (no exaggeration) for the better, it is a silicone suction phone mount.

These little items cost a few quid on Amazon and stick to the back of your phone or phone case and then the other side will suction on to smooth surfaces, such as a window or screen.

This means if you have downloaded films or TV shows onto your phone then you can watch them without having to hold your phone in your hand.

My verdict: A cheap must have item that will help you watch things on your phone but also take pictures without the need for a phone tripod.

AirFly

An AirFly is a brilliant piece of tech and means you can use your own headphones and ditch the annoying, cheap inflight headphones given out.

The Airfly gets plugged into your headphone socket and it connects to your own headphones or earphones wirelessly.

This means you don’t have to battle with an annoying cable or have poor sound quality.

My verdict: An absolute must travel item which means no more dodgy airplane earphones and input holes.

Electrolytes

Electrolytes aren’t just for marathon runners as they can help to counteract the harsh environment of a plane cabin and also help the impacts of jet lag.

I love Good Flyte electrolytes which come in a handy tube, you can snap them in half if you wish and all you need to do is drop it into your water and it will dissolve.

The taste is a nice orange flavour so it is enjoyable to drink as well.

My verdict: I love electrolytes and really do think they help me stay energised after a flight. If anything, they make your drink taste nice. Just make sure you don’t overdo it.

A small bottle of your fave fragrance

I love a Lavender pillow spray and genuinely think it helps to calm me down and get a good night sleep.

Taking one on a plane didn’t occur to me before this flight.

But spraying the pillows given to you on the flight and the blanket allowed me to feel at ease with 20 hours of travelling ahead of me.

My verdict: There is nothing quite like something that makes you think of home and a small bottle of fragrance is the ideal way of doing that – perhaps just spraying before your flight or subtly to not annoy other passengers.

Backpack footrest

If you are short like me (5’1 for reference), your feet often don’t comfortably reach the floor of the plane cabin.

For me, this makes me fidget and leaves me unable to get comfortable so now, I am strategic with not only which under seat bag I use but how I pack it.

I will use a large duffle bag and place a couple of jumpers or items of clothing at the top to bulk it up a bit but also make it squishy – this think makes the idea footrest and stops me from getting uncomfortable.

My verdict: This is the easiest way to ensure you have a comfortable foot rest without splurging the cash – it is an easy fix.

Compression socks

For long haul flights, you should always wear compression socks.

Compression socks help to improve blood circulation and prevent fluid from pooling in your lower legs while you are sat for long periods of time.

I picked up a pair from Boots a while back for around a tenner, and while they are not anything glamourous they definitely do the job. The added benefit is they help to keep your legs warm!

My verdict: These are a must to help blood circulation and prevent nasty blood clots – they might not be the sexiest, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Slippers

Don’t be that person wonder around the cabin or plane bathroom with just socks on, so I was told to take a pair of slippers with me onboard.

These are easy to slip on and off for when you do get up and wonder around the cabin or head to the toilet (and keep your feet warm when they ramp up the air con).

If you forget a pair of slippers, don’t stress – nick them from the hotel you are staying at (they always throw them away anyways).

My verdict: Slippers are great if you want to get comfy and if they have rubber bottoms even better as it means you aren’t stepping in anything suspicious when you nip to the loo onboard.

In September, a poll found that 70 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported limiting the construction of new data centres in the United States.

But that opposition was tested in Tuesday’s midterm election, with analysts examining key races to see if the public backlash would translate into votes.

It did. There were 41 ballot measures related to data centres in Tuesday’s midterms, spread across the country.

According to Data Centers on the Ballot, an election-monitoring project run by Redbud Consulting, voters are on track to reject data centre development in all but one of the contests.

Two of the races continue to be counted but are expected to result in majorities to reject or limit data centres.

Only Harwood, North Dakota, a small town with a population of fewer than 800 people, voted to oppose such limits. The measure it defeated would have required independent reviews of large industrial projects like data centres before they could be built in the area.

Experts say Tuesday’s midterm elections indicate that the debate around data centres has become a bipartisan issue, intertwined with cost-of-living concerns and fears over job stability.

A construction boom

As of April, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were already 3,000 data centres in the country, with more than 1,500 others in progress.

The construction boom has been driven in large part by the growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. That industry, experts say, has fed concerns about a shifting economic landscape.

“The unchecked acceleration of AI development has been causing concern across the board,” Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University, told Al Jazeera.

“People worry about their jobs and what it might mean from a broader economic perspective. But closer to home, people could see the physical manifestations of AI in data centres being built in their back yards, or they were hearing about it from others.”

Not only are voters afraid that AI might replace human work, but they also fear the downstream costs of data centres, according to Chakravorti.

Data centres consume large amounts of water and energy, which critics say can drive up electricity costs for nearby communities.

“Whether higher energy costs were driven by broader factors, such as the Iran war or tariffs, AI competing for space on the electricity grid was certainly part of its unpopularity,” Chakravorti said.

Voters, he added, were seeing the results “in their energy bills”.

A 2026 working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated that, as of last year, wholesale electricity prices had risen by 6.9 percent as a result of data centres.

James Mercer, founder of Metro Colo Advisory, an independent data centre advisory firm, told Al Jazeera that those anticipated costs mobilised voters in many areas.

“What they push back on is a building down the road that needs as much power as a small city, when they suspect their own electric bill will cover it,” Mercer said.

“That’s why local resistance has grown so fast: counties pausing new projects, zoning fights and data centres turning into a ballot issue.”

An election-season talking point

That popular resistance led several candidates in high-profile races to make AI and data-centre development central to their campaigns.

Among them is Democrat Sherrod Brown, who flipped a key Senate seat in Ohio, the state that accounted for the largest share of data-centre ballot initiatives this year.

Some 21 votes were taken on data centres in the state, out of a total of 47 referendums and measures that took place across the country in 2026.

Brown, a former senator, made Republican incumbent Jon Husted’s support for data-centre development a key point of attack.

“One guy has led the charge on these. That guy’s responsible, and that’s Jon Husted,” Brown told NBC News earlier this year.

In Texas, meanwhile, Democrat Gina Hinojosa called for a moratorium on new data-centre approvals until stronger protections for local communities were put in place.

Though her position worried tech investors keen on expansion in the Lone Star State, Hinojosa ultimately defeated incumbent Greg Abbott in the governor’s race.

“While Abbott had a moratorium on data centres in Texas currently, the overriding view is this would end once he got re-elected,” Dan Ives, managing director at the bank Yorkville Ives, said in an analyst note.

“Hinojosa is a known anti-data center politician and negative on the AI buildout, which makes worries around the future of the data center buildout in Texas a real issue for tech investors.”

Another successful Democratic candidate, Senator-elect James Talarico, also flipped a Republican-held seat with a pledge to increase data centre regulation.

Texas has been at the centre of growing concerns over the water demands of AI infrastructure.

The city of Corpus Christi, for example, has faced severe drought conditions, with its reservoir falling to just 8 percent of its total capacity earlier this year.

The city has been described as at risk of running out of drinking water. Talarico proposed adopting closed-loop water systems to reduce data centre consumption. He also advocated for data centre operators to fund local infrastructure improvements.

He won Corpus Christi by a 12-percentage-point margin.

In another key Senate race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed called for the creation of a federal agency to oversee the AI industry. He bested his Republican opponent with more than 52 percent of the vote.

Looming pressures

With Democrats poised to control both chambers of Congress, the AI industry is likely to face increased scrutiny from lawmakers.

“[We are] more likely to get real regulation and oversight,” Alex Turner, a former researcher who resigned from Google DeepMind, told Al Jazeera.

“I look forward to advising any congressperson who wants to get serious about the risks from AI, no matter their party affiliation.”

Congressional leaders are increasingly treating AI as a national security and public safety threat, after a string of alarming security failures over the past six months.

In one incident, OpenAI autonomous agents escaped a controlled testing environment and infiltrated the tech start-up Hugging Face. In another, AI agents accessed bank accounts without authorisation, according to reporting from the publication Axios.

In late October, Anthropic’s Claude AI model also accessed voter data in Georgia.

Once the 120th Congress is sworn in on January 3, Democrats are expected to use the legislature’s oversight committees to conduct investigations into AI malfeasance.

On Tuesday night, as it became clear that Democrats would win majorities in Congress, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts pledged that new probes were on the way.

“They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” the Democrat wrote on the social media platform X.

Another congressmember, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, posted on social media her support for more restrictions on AI growth.

“Top of the Democratic agenda on day one needs to be a pause on advanced AI development, regulation of this out-of-control industry, and a ban on artificial superintelligence,” Ansari said.

Tech companies themselves have responded to the midterm results with proposals for alleviating voter concerns.

After the election, OpenAI published a framework titled Setting a New Standard for Responsible AI Infrastructure. In it, the company pledged to “prioritize closed-loop or low-water cooling” and to “pay our own way on energy and infrastructure”.

Days before Tuesday’s contest, OpenAI also sought to rebrand its data centres as “compute campuses”.

The political shift is also hitting Wall Street. Investors increasingly see tighter oversight of AI on the horizon, and some of the sector’s biggest growth stocks have stumbled.

On Thursday, for example, chipmaker Nvidia lost $450bn in market value in a single trading day.

Despite Thursday’s losses, Nvidia rebounded on Friday, gaining 4 percent in early trading, although it remained down 6.8 percent over the previous five days.

Data-centre operators such as CoreWeave tumbled on Thursday before climbing 6.6 percent on Friday. The company remained down 16 percent over the previous five days.

IF YOU are heading on the world’s best airline next year, it will have an entirely new cabin.

Singapore Airlines has revealed a massive £1.16billion overhaul of its cabin, with new economy, premium economy, business class and first class seats.

In economy, the seats will be grey and teal with a width of 44.7cm.

On the back of each seat there will be a 33cm 4K OLED screen, which passengers can pair their Bluetooth headphones to.

Under each screen will be storage nooks, a personal device pocket and cup holders.

Passengers in economy won’t miss out on amenity kits usually reserved for upper classes either, as each seat will have a small pouch with a selection of travel essentials.

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When it comes to premium economy, each seat will have a 101cm pitch and have a leather finish.

It will be able to recline 22.8cm as well.

The headrests will be winged and each seat will also have a footrest for added comfort.

As for tech, there will be 4K screens, multiple USB ports and noise-cancelling headphone connections.

Each seat will have an amenity kit as well with Ink and Water products.

In Business class, seats will have sliding doors and adjustable dividers, making them more like suite-style pods with a grey and yellow theme.

Seats will be able to recline to a lie-flat bed, stretching 182cm.

Tech includes 4K screens, Bluetooth connectivity, multiple charging ports and Starlink wifi.

Amenity kits at each seat will include products by Byredo.

If you are lucky enough to be in a First Class suites, you’d have your own door, with the seat measuring 76.2cm wide and 203.2cm long when lying flat.

And the two centre suites have two seats next to each other that look more like a comfy sofa.

These can then also be reclined to make a 152.4cm wide double bed, which is the largest of any airline bed in the sky.

There will be 4K screens, ambient mood lighting and wireless charging too.

And for when you want to freshen up, there is even a dressing table that slides out from under the screen, complete with a lit-up mirror.

New amenity kits will include products from Sisley and passengers will get cotton pyjamas as well.

Singapore Airlines’ 777-9s will have all four new cabin products and then 41 A350-900 long-haul and A350-900 ULR planes will be retrofitted with the new business class seats.

And the A350-900 ULRs will get first class seats for the first time.

Food on board is also getting upgraded, with more than 100 new appetisers, main courses and desserts across all cabin classes.

There will be new drink options too, including wine and spirits.

The new cabin will be rolled out in the second half of 2027.

Mr Goh Choon Phong, Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Airlines, said: “Our customers experience Singapore Airlines as one seamless journey, and this significant investment is designed to deliver greater comfort, choice, and convenience at every stage.

“This launch is not an endpoint, but another step in our continuous pursuit to earn and retain the trust and loyalty of our customers and reinforce our leadership in the airline industry.”

A tech stock rout that began overnight in the United States has persisted in Asian trading.

Market authorities in South Korea paused trading on Friday as prices plunged across the region. Global markets have been rattled by a sharp fall in the trading price of tech stocks, which is driven by fears that the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections will increase regulatory scrutiny of AI and slow the country’s data centre build-out.

Japan’s Nikkei index slumped 6 percent, its deepest one-day drop since April 2025. Indices in South Korea and Taiwan plunged more than 8 percent after the opening bell, before cutting losses as authorities scrambled to stem the selling.

Wall Street’s volatility “fear gauge” soared overnight on Thursday and the tech-focused Nasdaq sank 5.5 percent, wiping $3 trillion off S&P 500 firms, as investors fretted that the Democrats could put the brakes on the AI boom being encouraged by President Donald Trump.

“It was a brutal morning for many investors here in Asia. We saw that the AI sell-off continues here across many countries,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.

“Some of those major markets have fortunately recovered some of those losses, but all of them are still clearly in the red,” she said.

Analysts say the political jitters are hitting an AI trade already on shaky footing due to worries about returns on massive spending on related infrastructure.

“The selloff shows that AI stock prices had been built on rosy illusions about the future, and now that illusion is gone,” Dong Baozhen, chairman of asset manager Lingtong Shengtai, told the Reuters news agency.

“The US stock market has been the standard-bearer and backbone of the global AI bull run. Now that backbone has snapped. Can AI bull markets elsewhere hold up on their own?”

Authorities step in

Markets cut some of their losses by the time Asian markets closed, as authorities worked to stem the panic.

Trading on South Korea’s Kospi market was temporarily halted amid the sharp slide. Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il also eased rules on retail investors’ leveraged investments.

In China, state entities stepped in to buy up equities in a bid to stabilise the market, said Al Jazeera’s Yu.

The Taiwan stock market closed down 4.5 percent, recovering somewhat from its early morning slump. For the week, the index clocked a 12.2 percent decline, its biggest since 1991, LSEG data showed.

The government of the island state, a key producer of chips, sought to talk up the prospects for the sector.

Demand ⁠for emerging technologies like AI, ⁠high-performance computing and ⁠cloud services is expected to keep expanding, driving ‌demand for tech companies, the economy ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.

Korean AI chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell nearly 6 percent and 9.4 percent respectively, cutting steep losses from earlier. TSMC fell as much as 8.5 percent in Taiwan, before closing down 4.7 percent.

In Japan, Kioxia plunged 11 percent while AI investor SoftBank Group slid 11 percent.

New regulations

The selling indicates investors are starting to factor in increased opposition to data centres. Analysts say markets have yet to fully consider the cost such building work has imposed on communities.

Toby Walsh, the chief scientist for the AI Institute at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said he expected new regulations on data centres in many countries, including the US, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“The developers were building them in a way that wasn’t actually getting social licence,” Walsh told Al Jazeera.

“They were building them in places where they didn’t need to build. You don’t have to build data centres in urban areas. You can build them in the middle of nowhere.

“I think it’s actually for the good of the tech industry in the United States that this has happened,” he added. “We’re spending money a bit too quickly. And maybe this is the way to let that bubble deflate in a manageable way.”

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Paraguayan President Santiago Pena resigned on Thursday after calls for his removal swelled following the collapse of digital lender ueno that left millions of customers unable ‌to access their accounts.

“I do so with the stability of our country, social peace and the need to preserve our democratic institutions in mind,” he said in a video recorded address on Thursday.

Pena, an ally of US President Donald Trump, is stepping down after the ⁠opposition called an extraordinary session to begin the process of filing an impeachment motion in Congress, and as protesters demanded his resignation.

Earlier on Thursday Pena lost backing from members of his own conservative party. Vice President Pedro Alliana is set to take office as his replacement.

Lawmakers had accused Pena of conflicts of interest, misuse of pension funds and institutional cover-ups linked to the collapse of ueno, which had grown ‌quickly ⁠from a niche fintech player into a mid-tier bank administering close to $850 million in public funds.

“He is accused of negligence at the very least and complicity in covering up the fact that the bank was insolvent,” said Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman.

“The congress right now is tying to impeach the president and the vice president, this session is underway,” she added. “As a I speak, there are people outside urging congress not to accept the resignation of the president because they say that they want him tried and impeached.”

Paraguay’s central bank intervened in ueno after determining ⁠that it had breached minimum solvency requirements, setting off a crisis that has left the company’s roughly 3 million customers, in a ⁠country of 6.5 million people, unable to access accounts.

“My greatest wish is that the return of those funds be guaranteed, that the deposit guarantee fund fulfill its purpose, and that ⁠public funds – as well as the resources that belong to all Paraguayans – be protected,” Pena added in his address.

Ueno has made no public statement on the issue.

Supermarket refrigerators and freezers across Europe have been targeted by a cyberattack that raised the temperature of internet-linked units, destroying and damaging large quantities of food.

On Monday, fridges and freezers at more than 100 shops in several European countries ran hot. Cyberattacks on supermarkets began last month, when hundreds of French supermarkets were left with spoiled food and damage to units which had overheated, costing millions of euros.

So far, it remains unclear why hackers targeted the supermarkets, but attacks have spread across the continent and even to the United States.

Here’s what we know:

Which countries in Europe have been targeted?

On Monday, several supermarkets in Europe were affected, including the following:

• Dutch supermarket operator Delhaize said dozens of its shops in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit by an “IT incident”.
• French retailer Carrefour said about 15 of its 700 Belgian locations were hit by refrigeration problems.
• The Colruyt group, which runs Spar stores in Belgium as franchises, said five of its shops were affected.
• Swedish Coop said cooling systems at seven of its 800 stores were affected, with disruptions ranging from complete shutdowns to partial operation.
• Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, which also operates restaurants at its stores, said one site in Mons, Belgium, had been affected by a cyberattack.
• De Laet & Van Haver, the Belgian butchery chain, said the temperature in its fridges at its store in Hove, south of Antwerp, was raised as high as 18 degrees Celsius, ruining meat worth about 15,000 euros ($16,764).
• The food wholesaler Musgrave said a cyber-incident affected refrigeration systems in 13 of its SuperValu stores in Ireland.
• In October, hundreds of French supermarkets suffered cyberattacks, spoiling tonnes of food, causing fires and melting parts of refrigeration units.

What has happened in the US?

In August, freezers at a market in Fort Huachuca, an Army base in Arizona, went into defrost mode, spoiling all the frozen food they contained, according to a post on Facebook by the base.

The same month, the naval station in Newport, Rhode Island, reported on Facebook that its refrigeration system was affected, leaving only dry goods were available for purchase.

The Pentagon considered the freezer malfunctions on the military bases to be a suspected hack, the Reuters news agency reported late last month, citing four officials close to the matter.

One official said Pentagon investigators were communicating with the French authorities about the issue.

How are cyberattackers targeting fridges and freezers?

Hackers can access the controls of fridges and freezers which use internet software and raise their temperature in order to spoil frozen food.

In some cases, hackers have increased the temperature of appliances to as high as 50C (122F) in European supermarkets, causing them to melt or even catch fire.

Awais Rashid, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Bristol in the UK, explained that many supermarket refrigeration systems which are remotely managed and, often by third parties, have not been given necessary software updates to prevent hackers.

“In line with established cyber security practices, these systems should be managed via secure networks. However, this is not the case in these incidents and they are accessible on the Internet,” Rashid told Al Jazeera.

“A remote managing party can access a web server on the controller to configure the system including temperature changes and maintenance. There are known vulnerabilities in several controllers (many of which are past their end of life),” he said.

Rashid added that vulnerabilities include “easily guessable” passwords, which would mean anyone could gain access.

Why are hackers doing this?

The motive behind the attacks is unclear, but authorities believe it may be a deliberate attempt to disrupt food supplies.

On Monday, the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, said the attacks on fridges were a “deliberate attempt to disrupt” the bloc’s food supply and to undermine consumer confidence.

He added that while “food security is not currently at risk … the food waste and impact on businesses are real”.

Rashid said that while there are few details about who may be behind the attacks or what their motives are, it is likely that these are “the motive here is likely disruption”.

“This has financial impacts on the supermarkets but also societal impacts in terms of security of the food supply chain. Critically, this risks undermining trust in infrastructures on which people rely daily,” he said.

Who is behind the attacks?

On Monday, Belgium’s prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened a criminal investigation into the latest fridge cyberattacks. But so far, no one has taken responsibility.

Theories have emerged linking state actors to cyberattacks generally, with North Korea most recently accused of being behind last week’s $6.3bn Binance cryptocurrency heist, which forced the crypto group to freeze accounts.

European intelligence officials have also warned that Russia is escalating its shadow war on the continent amid the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, with cyberattacks among the methods it uses.

On Tuesday, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre warned that Britain needs to be prepared for an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cyberattack on its critical national infrastructure within the next two years.

“By 2028, it is highly likely that Russia, China and other nation states will routinely use AI-cyber to achieve their geopolitical goals, with the UK facing an increase in scale and speed of sophisticated cyberattacks,” the NCSC said in a report.

The report comes shortly after the UK launched its “Be Ready” campaign, calling on citizens to stockpile enough tinned food, bottled water and cash to last three days in the event of a cyberattack or national emergency.

Rashid said that as our infrastructure becomes increasingly digitised, the risk of disruption from cyberattacks, especially “cyber-physical infrastructures such as refrigeration systems”, has risen.

“However, we should also note that a lot of our digital infrastructures operate safely everyday because good security practices enable that. The world works because cyber security works effectively. So it is important that all businesses follow good cyber security practices,” he said.

For all their dominance, California Democrats will emerge from Tuesday’s election facing considerable challenges.

As polls show nearly 6 out of 10 Californians believe the state is going in the wrong direction and even more anticipate bad financial times ahead, the state’s new governor and legislators will have to confront some chronic problems, including a severe budget deficit, housing unaffordability, homelessness, and rising energy and insurance costs.

They will also have to grapple with difficult decisions on whether the state can provide Medi-Cal healthcare to low-income residents, how to make the state more resilient to climate change, and who pays for wildfire damage.

“There’s not going to be a long honeymoon period,” said Mark Baldassare, the survey director at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Californians are in a “pretty grumpy mood,” Baldassare said. Although their dissatisfaction is mostly hyperpartisan, with Democrats pointing the finger at President Trump and Congress as Republicans blame Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento legislators, he said, a majority of Californians are worried about the state of the economy and want to see better government performance.

A construction worker on a new home under construction at the Taylor Morrison Avalon at Cypress.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Affordability and housing

For voters, a key concern is unaffordability. More than half of Californians rank cost of living, inflation and the economy — along with housing cost and availability — as the most important issues facing California today.

The state has long suffered from a housing shortage, driven largely by local zoning restrictions, high construction costs and lengthy permitting bureaucracy. Newsom made housing a centerpiece of his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, initially pledging to build 3.5 million homes by 2025. He has largely fallen short of that goal.

Since Newsom took office in 2019, about 692,000 homes have been built across the state.

“I don’t know if anyone sees a new direction to go,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. California Democrats have passed a slew of laws designed to solve the housing crisis and spur home building, he said, but although they have helped at the margins, prices keep creeping up.

The median price of a California home has risen from about $570,000 in 2018 to $900,000 in 2026.

Even if California’s housing woes are partly a product of its successful economy, Kousser said, “that’s no solace for anyone trying to make the rent or have a place to live, so these will remain defining problems for the next governor.”

Before the governor can do anything, voters will decide whether to pass a series of consequential propositions on housing and taxes.

Proposition 1 would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for low-income and veteran housing, and Proposition 37 would allow the state to amass a $25-billion down payment assistance program for middle-class households. Proposition 45 would enable the state to overhaul the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up reviews for housing, roads and water projects — a proposal that leaves many torn between protecting the environment and wanting more affordable housing.

“There are going to be a series of difficult choices that Californians will have to make,” Baldassare said.

Budget woes

One of the governor’s first challenges out of the gate will be submitting a state budget in January to legislators.

This fiscal year, California has an estimated $18.5-billion operating deficit, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. By the end of the year, the office predicts the state’s “wall of debt” to balloon to about $29 billion — even as the state’s economy and revenue have grown.

Lee Ohanian, a professor of economics at UCLA, said the major issue California faces is that the state budget has expanded about 75% in the last eight years. This translates to a 40% increase when adjusted for inflation.

California’s budget growth is particularly alarming, Ohanian said, considering politicians have had limited success in addressing major challenges such as homelessness and had delayed maintenance of public road and water infrastructure.

“It would have been one thing if that 75% increase had fixed all those issues,” Ohanian said. “But the next governor and state Legislature are going to be faced with some of the same exigencies that we’ve had for a very long time and they may struggle to pay for those repairs and that deferred maintenance. The question is: Where is the money going to come from?”

In many cases, Ohanian said, California’s ballooning budget has not resulted in higher quality of public services. The state’s school budget per classroom is over $500,000 a year, he noted, well above the national average. But only about 38% of California students met or exceeded state standards in mathematics.

“The Democratic Party just needs to at some point have a come to-Jesus moment,” Ohanian said. “With the amount of money we’re spending, we can do better.”

Leisure Picon, 35, with her 3-year-old daughter, Ivanka Mendoza, for a doctor’s appointment in Lynwood

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Healthcare for the masses?

After pledging in 2018 to bring universal healthcare to California, Newsom set about expanding the state’s Medi-Cal program that began under his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown.

In 2024, California expanded Medi-Cal to cover all income-eligible adults, regardless of immigration status.

Spending on Medi-Cal now accounts for 40% of the state’s total spending and is expected to reach $219 billion this fiscal year — more than double what it was a decade ago. But as the state faces massive cuts in federal Medicaid funding, rising healthcare costs and budget shortfalls, it has begun to roll back that commitment.

Last year, Newsom and state legislators agreed to freeze new enrollment for Medi-Cal benefits for adult immigrants without legal status. Next year, many adults under 60 enrolled in the program will also face a $30 monthly premium.

Democrat Xavier Becerra, who polls predict will beat Republican Steve Hilton by a wide margin, has promised to protect Californians’ health by “cracking down on fraud” and “cutting waste.” Becerra has significant healthcare experience after serving as secretary of Health and Human Services under President Biden, but he has yet to provide specific policy details.

More or less taxes? And who pays?

As Californians become more concerned about affordability, Baldassare said, they are becoming increasingly fiscally conservative. Polls now show a majority of Californians now say that they’d rather pay lower taxes and have fewer services.

But at the same time, about 6 in 10 likely voters also say the wealthiest Californians should pay more taxes.

“There’s a more liberal orientation, but that doesn’t translate into people saying ‘I want to pay higher taxes and have more services,’” Baldassare said. “It just is ‘I want to have more services. I want to be sure that we’re going to have healthcare’… but looking to others to take that fiscal responsibility.”

The midterms offered Californians a chance to weigh in on who should pay. The measure that grabbed the most headlines was Proposition 40, the so-called billionaire tax that would authorize the state to impose a new one-time tax on residents with assets over $1 billion.

But Californians also got to vote on a string of other tax measures that could affect the state’s budget. Propositions 41 and 42 would constrain state government’s ability to raise potential taxes on assets in the future, and Proposition 43 would make it more difficult for special taxes to be increased by local governments.

Proposition 3 would make permanent a temporary tax increase enacted in 2012 on individuals who earn at least $371,000 a year to fund schools and healthcare. Kousser described the original 2012 tax increase as a game-changer that allowed the state to redistribute wealth from rich to poor regions.

“If that political deal falls apart,” he said, “the state will face much more strain.”

Embers blow down a street as the Palisades fire ravages a neighborhood amid high winds in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

(Ethan Swope / Associated Press)

Who pays for wildfires?

As California contends with ever more catastrophic wildfires, Democratic politicians have so far failed to agree on who should be financially liable when a fire is sparked by electrical equipment: Wildfire victims? Insurers? Utility company investors? Ratepayers?

Earlier this year, Newsom pushed a controversial plan to limit utility companies’ liability, arguing that holding them fully financially responsible would raise the state’s already high power bills and thwart utilities’ ability to modernize and meet state clean-energy mandates.

But Newsom’s deal would have shifted more of the cost to property insurers, risking the prospect of rising insurance premiums. After wildfire victims dubbed the plan a corporate bailout, Newsom abandoned most of it and tried to push a compromise that would help fire victims receive quicker compensation. That deal also fell through, however, when the Assembly declined to vote on it

Political experts agree it will be a tricky issue to resolve.

The utility companies are not popular, said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist. Yet to shore up utilities’ risk profile and prevent upward pressure on utility rates, he said, the state will probably have to grant some liability caps.

“We’re going to pay for it through utility rates, or insurance rates, or subsidies from the government,” Stutzman said. “Those are basically the three options — and none of those are going to be that pleasant for the governor or for the Legislature.”

Artificial intelligence

With momentum building for regulating AI, California is in a unique position as the hub of the technology boom.

Politicians in Sacramento face intense lobbying from major tech companies and venture capitalists as they seek to limit AI’s potential for disruption and misinformation without stifling an industry that’s fueling the state’s economic growth — and has provided a critical stream of tax revenue to the state.

But some political experts say the issue may not prove as thorny for California as issues like housing or wildfires.

Most voters oppose data centers in their areas and support AI safeguards. Even some AI pioneers are calling out for more regulation. In recent weeks, Anthropic and OpenAI have written open letters to Newsom urging stronger safety requirements.

“That creates an unparalleled political opportunity for a governor and the state to lead the nation in addressing the issues,” Kousser said.

Oakland, California – Protesters dressed as cardboard robots chanted and danced to a drumbeat as they protested against new data centres outside Oakland City Hall last month.

Their concerns largely focused on how the centres — which process large amounts of digital information — might strain the energy grid.

The result, they argued, would not only be environmental harm but also sky-high electricity bills for local households.

“Power prices have gone up so much in Oakland that some people are thinking of shutting off their power,” said Carlos Gutierrez, an activist for Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice group.

“And the city is planning to provide power to a data centre instead.”

Opposition to data centres is growing across the United States, as residents express concern about their rapid expansion.

More than 3,000 data centres already operate in the country, with more than 1,500 others in development, according to the Pew Research Center.

But the backlash is perhaps most striking in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, a region considered to be the heart of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.

Major AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta are based in the Bay Area, and the industry’s growth has been credited with fuelling a local economic renaissance.

Data centres house the advanced computer chips and servers needed to run AI-powered services such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

But they also require 24-hour power and a large supply of water to cool their processors.

Even with such cooling technology, data centres are notorious for emitting heat, leading to an increase in land surface temperatures as high as 9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit).

A midterm election issue

Concerns about the cost of rapid data centre growth, both environmentally and financially, have catapulted the issue into the discourse around Tuesday’s midterm elections.

In the final two months before the vote, at least seven Bay Area cities, including San Francisco and Richmond, have passed temporary moratoriums on data centre construction.

They include Oakland, which passed a data centre moratorium on October 6, after days of protest.

Local politicians competing in Tuesday’s midterms have also used the topic as a wedge issue, to rally support among certain pockets of voters.

One of the most closely watched races in the Bay Area is for the seat left vacant by longtime Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. After 39 years in the House of Representatives, Pelosi is retiring at the end of the year.

Two Democrats are competing in Tuesday’s election to fill her position in Congress: San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and state Senator Scott Wiener.

Each one has staked out a different position on AI data centres. Wiener, for instance, opposes any ban on data centres.

“A blanket data centre moratorium could undermine AI regulation,” he told the publication Mission Local.

Chan, meanwhile, has pledged to seek a nationwide moratorium on data centres, at least until responsible AI regulation is put in place.

“Let’s start with a moratorium on data centres. Allow us to have that moment to regulate artificial intelligence,” she said at a debate in October.

Chan played a leading role in passing San Francisco’s moratorium in early October.

A poll from the University of Southern California showed Wiener leading Chan 47 percent to 41, as of mid-October.

Navigating public backlash

“Right now, data centre opposition is an issue that unifies the US public like no other,” said Shum Preston, a political analyst based in San Francisco.

So far, there has been relatively little opposition to the data centre moratoriums in local hearings. But he speculates that there may be several reasons for the lack of pushback to the bans.

Among them are the surveys indicating widespread public backlash to data centre creation.

An October CNBC poll found that 63 percent of registered US voters oppose building data centres within 16 kilometres, or 10 miles, of their homes.

“Data centres poll very poorly, and developers probably don’t want to put their supervisor friends in trouble ahead of elections. So they probably let this pass,” Preston said.

He also signalled that the short-term nature of the moratoriums may be a factor.

Certain Bay Area cities like San Francisco, Brisbane and Oakland paused construction on data centres for 45 days, with the option to extend the ban later.

Opponents of the moratoriums “will be more vocal when” the 45 days end, Preston said. By that time, the heat of the midterm election season will also have settled, he added.

“That’s when the hearings will get more contentious,” he said.

Not long enough?

Another hurdle facing the moratoriums is the lack of transparency surrounding data centre construction.

Supervisor Shamann Walton, who sponsored San Francisco’s moratorium ordinance, has argued that the city’s definition of “data centres” is outdated.

Created in 2001 — long before the AI boom — the city planning code defines data centres as “internet service exchanges”, a definition that may not accurately characterise the technology today.

Walton said the outdated language has made it hard for authorities to count how many data centres exist in the city.

Not being able to identify data centres can also prevent city officials from monitoring their power and water usage.

“We cannot use 2001 rules to regulate 2026 technology,” he said in a September 14 statement.

Another issue is the time it takes to carry out the necessary environmental assessments. The moratoriums may not offer enough time for a comprehensive review.

“Forty-five days is hardly enough time to document and study the impacts and then frame regulations,” said Roger Lin, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a US environmental nonprofit.

He added that legal barriers limit access to such information from the data centres themselves.

“Data centres often have nondisclosure agreements, so even local air quality boards may not know the impact of data centres on air quality,” said Lin.

Supporters tout economic benefits

Still, AI industry supporters have touted the growth of the data centres as evidence of a flourishing industry, with positive downstream effects for US communities.

Anthropic, for instance, is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) that is likely to raise billions of dollars.

But critics warn that the company’s growth may not translate into an economic boom for the San Francisco Bay Area overall.

Instead, residents fear unequal economic growth that primarily benefits the wealthy. Already, San Francisco faces some of the highest and fastest-growing home rental prices in the country.

At a hearing at San Francisco City Hall, a resident vented their frustrations about the data centres to the supervisors.

“This city is less for humans and more for robots and billionaires,” the resident said.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and businesses reeling from the energy shock of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran are watching Tuesday’s US midterm elections closely.

Many want to see “enormous changes” during the rest of President Donald Trump’s term, analysts say, from the war on Iran to his policies on trade and tariffs. But few expect that to happen, even with the Democrats poised to take the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate, from Trump’s Republican Party.

“Of course, everybody is watching,” said Steven Okun, a trade specialist and the chief executive of APAC Advisors, a Singapore-based consulting firm. “It’s great political theatre.”

Outside the Middle East, no region has been hit harder by the war on Iran than the Asia-Pacific. Before the start of the conflict in January, the region took in most of the Gulf oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

When Iran closed the chokepoint in response to the US and Israel’s strikes, much of the region was left facing shortages.

The Philippines, which relies on the Gulf for more than 90 percent of its crude oil imports, has been under a national energy emergency since March. Soaring fuel costs have drained the foreign exchange reserves of the region’s poorest economies – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and East Timor, according to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have also spent heavily on fuel subsidies to shield consumers, it said.

Public opinion in the Asia-Pacific region remains firmly opposed to the war, but Okun said a Democratic-controlled US Congress was unlikely to force Trump to end the eight-month conflict.

“With Iran, I don’t see [a Democrat-controlled Congress] having much change at all, other than the fact that the war will be investigated and there will be oversight hearings,” Okun told Al Jazeera. “We might even see an impeachment of the secretary of defence, but it doesn’t change the overall impact of the war.”

Under the US Constitution, Congress holds the power to formally declare war, but Trump has claimed the attacks on Iran were in self-defence and has so far ignored congressional resolutions directing him to withdraw US forces from hostilities. If a Democrat-controlled Congress passes legislation restricting military operations or cutting funding for them, Trump can veto it. Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers, which Democrats are almost certain to fall short of.

‘Tariffs don’t change’

On trade and tariffs, too, analysts see little room for Congress to rein in Trump.

The US president rattled global markets last year when he imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of 10 percent to 50 percent on some 90 countries, with the aim of shrinking the US trade deficit. Asia was again hit harder than most. Cambodia faced a 49 percent tariff and Laos 48 percent. Vietnam was slapped with 46 percent and Myanmar 45 percent.

After the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February, the Trump administration turned to other tools. In July, it imposed tariffs of 10 percent and 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, accusing them of failing to stop imports made with forced labour. In Asia, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea and seven Southeast Asian nations – Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“In some ways, the new Congress is not going to matter to the Asia Pacific because it’s not going to affect trade policy,” Okun said. “Congress cannot change that … Tariffs don’t change. The war doesn’t change.”

Still, some analysts see a narrow opening.

Stephen Olson, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, argued in a recent essay that a “strong rebuke of ‘Trumpism’” at the polls could embolden a pro-free-trade wing of the Republican Party that has been “intimidated into standing down during the Trump presidency”.

That, Olson wrote, offers “a glimmer of hope” for Southeast Asian countries that depend on the US market. A Democratic-controlled Congress, he said, could also push for carve-outs and exceptions that would give the region’s exporters “a modicum of relief”. But any deeper shift in US trade policy, he added, will have to wait for the 2028 presidential election.

Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the region’s wish list goes beyond trade to security.

“I think nearly all of Asia would like to see enormous changes, across many domains, during the rest of Trump’s term,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I think much of the region believes this will not happen.”

Besides “more stability” in trade and tariff policy, Asia-Pacific countries “would like to feel more stable in security guarantees from the US,” he said. They would also like a “more clear, obvious US presence” in the South China Sea, where China’s claims overlap with those of five Southeast Asian nations, and in the Taiwan Strait, which separates China from Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its territory.

Businesses will also be watching whether a major Republican loss leads to “greater GOP willingness in Congress to stand up to Trump, along with Democrats, on issues important to companies in Asia,” Kurlantzick said, including tariffs, trade policy, arms sales and “overall economic unpredictability”.

US-China ties

One area where analysts do expect some change is US policy on Chinese technology.

The new Congress, whichever party controls it, will pass tougher restrictions on China, said Okun at APAC Advisors.

These include the Remote Access Security Act, which would extend export controls to remote access of US goods, software or technology and the Chip Security Act, which would require companies to verify that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips remain in authorised locations, to prevent diversion to foreign adversaries. It also includes the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act, known as the MATCH Act, which would press allies to bring their controls on chipmaking equipment in line with Washington’s, to keep advanced chipmaking technology out of China’s hands.

“The next Congress is going to pass them regardless of midterms because both parties agree on them,” Okun said. “The person who is least restrictive now on China is the US president,” he added, referring to Trump’s courting of China’s President Xi Jinping.

The two men have met twice this year as ties have warmed after a bitter and costly trade war last year. To preserve the fragile trade truce, Trump has also held off approving a $14bn package of arms sales to Taiwan, which would be the largest ever for Taipei.

Some analysts meanwhile worry that a lame-duck Trump, hemmed in at home by a Democratic Congress, could turn more forcefully to foreign policy.

“We should not be surprised by continued erratic foreign policy,” said James Guild, an assistant professor at the Indonesian International Islamic University.

“The Democrats have a poor record of effectively opposing and holding Trump accountable using conventional tools of congressional oversight,” Guild said. “We will have to wait and see if they rise to the moment this time.”

Americans will vote in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, with the economy, the cost of living, and immigration among the top issues. While Democrats and Republicans share concerns about the rising cost of living, recent surveys suggest differences in how they view the economy, President Donald Trump, and other key issues.

In an NBC poll released on Sunday, 75 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the state of the US economy, and 51 percent said they were dissatisfied with their personal financial situation.

Other surveys conducted in October also offer a look into how voters from both parties felt about their finances and which issues mattered most.

Here is what we know:

What issues matter most to Democrats and Republicans?

The economy is the main concern for US voters, but Democrats and Republicans vary on the importance of issues like healthcare, immigration, and crime.

A Pew Research Centre survey, conducted between September 28 and October 4, suggested that 84 percent of registered voters considered the economy very important to their midterm vote. It was the top issue for 82 percent of respondents who prefer Republican candidates, and 88 percent for those who back Democrats.

However, the two groups differed on other issues.

About 85 percent of Democratic Party supporters considered the future of democracy very important, compared with 69 percent of Republicans. Healthcare was a priority for 82 percent of Democrats, compared with 53 percent of Republicans.

Republican supporters were more concerned about immigration, with 72 percent saying it was very important, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

Violent crime was also more important to Republican supporters, at 64 percent, compared with 37 percent Democrats.

A KFF survey, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent nonprofit, from September 16 to 21, suggested 42 percent of registered voter respondents trusted Democrats more to handle healthcare costs, compared with 22 percent who trusted Republicans.

On the cost of living, 39 percent trusted Democrats more, while 25 percent preferred Republicans.

What grade do Democrats and Republicans give Trump’s second term?

Views of President Trump and his economic policies remain divided along party lines.

In the Pew Research Centre survey, 91 percent of Democratic respondents and those who leaned Democratic believed Trump’s economic policies had made things worse.

Among Republican supporters, 39 percent said his policies had improved the economy, 35 percent said they made conditions worse, and 25 percent said they had little effect.

In the November 1 NBC News poll, 40 percent of registered-voter respondents approved of Trump’s overall job performance, compared with 60 percent who disapproved.

How do Democrats and Republicans feel about the economy?

Americans are concerned about rising costs, but Democrats are more likely than Republicans to express negative feelings about economic conditions.

In an October Pew Research survey, 36 percent of Republicans rated the US economy as excellent or good, compared with just 9 percent of Democrats or Democrat-leaning voters.

However, the majority in both groups expressed concern about the cost of essential goods and services.

According to PEW, 82 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners were concerned about food and consumer prices, compared with 62 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Healthcare costs concerned 80 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans, while petrol and energy prices worried 81 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans.

A Fox News poll released on October 14 also had 74 percent of registered voter respondents rating the economy negatively, and 60 percent identified the cost of living as their biggest economic concern.

The November 1 NBC News poll found that 53 percent of Republican respondents were dissatisfied with the state of the economy.

The Pew Research Center also found that abortion and gun policy were less central to Democratic respondents in comparison with 2022. Among Republican voters, education policy and energy policy were less important than they were four years ago.

Are Americans satisfied with their financial situation?

In the NBC poll, 51 percent of registered voters were dissatisfied with their personal financial situation, compared with 49 percent who were satisfied.

It was the first time in 30 years of NBC polling that dissatisfaction with personal finances outweighed satisfaction.

In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll on October 19-20, 38 percent of likely voters said their finances had gotten worse over the past year, 44 percent said they had remained about the same, and 15 percent said they had improved.

A total of 51 percent of Democratic likely voters said their finances had deteriorated, compared with 21 percent of Republicans.

In a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted from September 30 to October 5, 71 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans said their incomes had not kept pace with rising prices.

Eric Ham, a former Democratic congressional staffer and Senate national security adviser, said that Trump’s global tariffs and the US-Israel war on Iran had added to the financial pressure on American households.

“Americans are paying more not just in terms of self-inflicted wounds that President Donald Trump implemented through tariffs, but also if you look at this war of choice,” Ham told Al Jazeera.

Are Democrats or Republicans more enthusiastic about voting?

Democratic voters reported higher enthusiasm about participating in the elections.

In the Marist poll, 91 percent of likely Democratic voters were enthusiastic or very enthusiastic, compared with 86 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Independents.

John Fury, a former Republican congressional staffer, said the final days of campaigning were focused on turnout.

“This is not a persuasion election. This is a get-out-the base election,” Fury said.

In a KFF survey, Democratic candidate supporters were 25 percentage points more likely than Republican supporters to describe themselves as “more motivated” than usual to vote (63 percent versus 38 percent).

The November 1 NBC News poll also reported high interest in the elections, with 70 percent of registered voters rating their interest at nine or 10 on a 10-point scale.

Who are Americans planning to vote for?

Surveys conducted in the final weeks before the election suggested voters preferred Democratic candidates or Democratic control of Congress over Republicans.

An NBC poll conducted on October 28-30 and published on November 1 suggested that 52 percent of registered voters preferred Democratic control of Congress compared with 45 percent who preferred Republican control.

Similarly, the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from October 22 to October 26 suggested that 53 percent of likely voters would vote for or lean towards the Democratic candidates in their district, compared with 44 percent who supported Republicans.

These surveys measure voting sentiment, but they do not reflect the results of the individual races.

Tens of thousands of volunteers have taken part in building 108 Buddhist stupas in Bhutan’s new “mindfulness” city, as the Himalayan kingdom embarks on an ambitious project to boost economic growth.

The 15-metre-tall (50ft) stupas, sacred Buddhist monuments found across the Himalayas, were installed on Sunday along 12km (7.5 miles) of riverbank near the Indian border, at the site of the future Gelephu Mindfulness City.

More than 40,000 volunteers participated in building the structures as “a physical form of prayer made permanent in stone and earth”, after starting work after midnight, officials said. The number 108 is sacred in Buddhism, widely practised in Bhutan.

About 200,000 people attended the ceremony, or nearly a fourth of the population, officials told the AFP news agency.

“I was worried that raising 108 stupas in a single day might not succeed,” Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck said in a speech at the ceremony.

“But everything went successfully, and for that, I am truly grateful.”

Bhutanese leaders hope that Gelephu Mindfulness City, conceived by the king and designed by Danish architects, will boost the country’s economy and persuade more young people to stay, attracting investment in sustainable business, green technology, education, tourism and financial services.

Bhutan is facing massive economic challenges, from rising unemployment and falling birth rates to the mass migration of skilled workers.

The city, currently a small town with a population of about 10,000, is in southern Bhutan, along the border with India, about 240km (150 miles) south of Thimphu, the nation’s capital.

The king established the special zone by royal charter in 2024, saying its purpose was to “create a vibrant economic hub”.

The landlocked Himalayan nation, with a population of just under 800,000 and wedged between China and India, is known for its policy of prioritising “Gross National Happiness” alongside economic growth.

“This occasion will be recorded in our history for generations to come,” said Nima Gyeltshen, 65, head of the Organisation for Youth Empowerment, which helps young Bhutanese find work.

Cryptocurrency ambitions

Analysts have questioned whether Bhutan can attract sufficient investment to realise its vision for the new city.

But Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, head of the ports-to-power conglomerate, joined the project as a founding member in January.

The site is set to be connected to India’s rail network in neighbouring Assam, with an international airport slated to open in 2029.

The project is also linked to Bhutan’s cryptocurrency ambitions, with the kingdom mining Bitcoin using surplus hydropower and pledging to use digital assets to support the city’s development.

Bishnu Maya Moktang, a resident who attended Sunday’s ceremony, said she was excited about the upcoming mindfulness city.

“I hope to live long enough to see it,” Moktang, 56, told AFP.

“My parents died young, and they would never see the city. I feel fortunate.”

Hebron’s economic losses surpass $3.8m as Israeli forces demolish West Bank homes and close hundreds of businesses.

Israeli forces are maintaining their siege on Hebron for the 10th consecutive day, threatening to expand their offensive and forcing more Palestinian families from their homes.

The lockdown in the occupied West Bank city was enforced after an attack on October 23 near Hebron in which two Israeli soldiers were killed.

More than 3,300 Palestinians have since been displaced or affected, with homes destroyed and businesses shut, according to the local municipality.

Mayor Yousef al-Jabari told Al Jazeera on Saturday that daily economic losses were estimated to exceed 12 million shekels ($3.8m), with more than $1.9m worth of damage to infrastructure, along with losses in the health and environmental sectors estimated at about $160,000.

He said Israeli forces have demolished 15 homes and other structures and forced 327 businesses to close. About 80,000 students have been unable to attend school for 10 days, he added.

The mayor said Hebron accounts for about 40 percent of the Palestinian economy and the siege amounts to “collective punishment”.

Palestinian families in and around the city fear the army could soon extend its attacks.

Raids and settler attacks

Israeli arrests of Palestinians in Hebron and other cities in the occupied West Bank continued on Sunday.

Israeli forces arrested 10 Palestinian teachers in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron and seized their vehicle, reported the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Video shared by Palestinian media and verified by Al Jazeera showed the Israeli military raiding a school run by the United Nations in the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem.

The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, said Israeli settlers carried out 397 attacks on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in October, the highest monthly figure since monitoring began in 2006, Wafa said.

Between October 20 and 26, settler attacks targeted 49 Palestinian communities, mostly while Palestinians harvested olives on their land.

Nine children were among 57 Palestinians injured by settlers and Israeli forces: 34 by military gunfire and physical assaults and 23 in settler attacks.

Since the start of 2015, Israeli authorities have issued 9,518 demolition or stop-work notices against Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank, reported the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission. The Palestinian government commission added that 344 of those notices were given in the first nine months of this year.

Dozens of officers, some accompanied by police dogs, moved into Rossio Square in Lisbon early on Sunday.

Police have used shields and batons to disperse housing protesters who stormed a tent camp in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, a week after similar operations drew criticism from protesters and rights groups.

Dozens of officers, some accompanied by police dogs, moved into Rossio Square at about 4:30am (04:30 GMT) on Sunday, a day after thousands marched demanding the government withdraw a rental bill they say would deepen the country’s housing crisis.

Protesters had erected more than 50 tents following Saturday’s march through Lisbon. Police commander Iuri Rodrigues issued three warnings to remove the tents, saying they had been erected illegally and that anyone resisting their removal could face disobedience charges.

Hundreds of demonstrators shielding the camp were dispersed, while police also dismantled a smaller encampment in Porto’s Dom Joao I square.

Earlier, lawmaker Pedro Delgado Alves said Rossio Square was peaceful and that nothing justified “a police intervention involving force, physical violence or baton charges, the kind of scenes we witnessed last week”.

The intervention followed operations in the same squares the previous Sunday, when police arrested 25 people in Lisbon and six in Porto. Housing campaign group Casa para Viver said 60 people were injured across those operations, which police described as “proportionate”.

Rising housing costs

The protests reflect growing anger over housing costs across Europe, including demonstrations in Spain and opposition to government economic policies in France, Germany and Albania.

Portugal faces one of Europe’s severest housing affordability crises, with young people among the hardest hit. House prices have more than doubled since 2017, while rents on new leases have almost doubled.

The Bank of Portugal estimates a nationwide shortage of 300,000 homes, equivalent to Lisbon’s entire housing stock.

Demonstrators want the minority centre-right government to scrap legislation that would make evictions easier and remove rent caps on new leases, saying it would worsen affordability and leave tenants more exposed.