Elections

September 2: Chris Wright, Delcy Rodríguez and Paula Henao at the contract-signing ceremony for new deals with Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova.

The lights could come back on in Maracaibo without Venezuelans gaining the capacity to change their government. More unsettlingly, restoring power to their homes could help keep those governing them in place.

This is the possibility taking shape in Venezuela. Chavismo’s relationship with Washington has changed under the pressure of American intervention; new investment could improve services while giving both the government and its foreign partners a growing interest in preserving the arrangement that delivers those improvements.

The issue goes beyond whether chavismo has abandoned its ideology: the infrastructure sustaining its power is being rebuilt around different relationships. Democratic demands now confront a governing system whose continuity may serve interests extending well beyond Venezuela.

A different foundation for continuity

Maduro remained after July 28, 2024, but maintaining control of the State could not repair the gap between holding office and having a credible electoral mandate. When US forces captured him in January 2026, that legitimacy deficit shaped the international response. Although there were international condemnations of the operation, opposing the use of force and defending Maduro’s right to govern were different positions. Some governments rejected his claim to the presidency while still questioning the intervention. 

Nevertheless, Maduro’s removal left much of the chavista governing apparatus in place. Under Delcy Rodríguez, that apparatus faces a powerful external actor that can influence its room to manoeuvre. Pragmatism is therefore more than an ideological preference: cooperation with Washington has become a condition of political survival.

Tension arises when immediate commercial stability becomes tied to particular officeholders and agreements whose terms a democratic government might review.

For Washington, the authorities in Caracas can authorize contracts and implement agreements. For those authorities, cooperation offers resources and international acceptance. Their interests are different, but they can converge around continuity.

That convergence is acquiring a material basis. On October 17, Rodríguez announced expectations of almost $76 billion in oil investment over five years. These are anticipated investments, rather than money already spent. As contracts, payments and operations develop, however, businesses may become increasingly dependent on the officials and arrangements enabling them.

This does not make democracy incompatible with American investment. Accountable institutions could offer stronger guarantees over time. Tension arises when immediate commercial stability becomes tied to particular officeholders and agreements whose terms a democratic government might review. Political change can then appear as a risk to be postponed.

What changes behind the light switch

In my earlier article on infrastructure after the earthquakes, I argued that relationships, trust and coordination are as necessary to a response as machinery. Electricity works the same way. A power station depends on engineers, maintenance routines, payments and decisions about where resources go.

In my sociotechnical research, a cultural infrastructure framework helps distinguish three connected levels. The first is what people experience. The second is how work is organized to provide it. The third concerns who has authority, whose expertise counts and what makes their decisions acceptable or open to challenge.

During Maduro’s presidency, the drought of 2016 and the blackouts of 2019 exposed failures across all three. Households lost electricity. Behind the outages were maintenance problems, fuel shortages and the loss of experienced staff. An assessment by the Inter-American Development Bank also identified weak planning and the absence of independent regulation. Repairing machinery could not, by itself, correct the arrangements allowing the system to deteriorate.

Venezuelans may receive better electricity without gaining a meaningful say in how the system operates.

Under Delcy, the third level has changed profoundly. Washington now helps shape the conditions for reconstruction, and international suppliers offer access to equipment and expertise. The US Department of Energy describes an agreement with GE Vernova to modernize the grid and expand generation over several years.

That shift could enable changes in the second level, from procurement and contractor payments to maintenance and staffing. Those changes could eventually improve the first level, with fewer outages and more reliable services. However, Reuters reported in May that suppliers still faced uncertainty over payments, project priorities and authorizations. Announcements do not remove accumulated failures.

The important distinction is that changing who authorizes recovery does not necessarily give citizens more authority over it. The third level can be extensively reorganized between governments and companies while remaining closed to the people who depend on the service.

Whose stability, and for how long?

Electricity makes the resulting tension concrete. An oil producer needs reliable power. A household needs it too. Investment serving production could benefit both, but shared need does not ensure equal influence over which installations are repaired first or which communities wait.

If those priorities are negotiated mainly between officials and investors, Venezuelans may receive better electricity without gaining a meaningful say in how the system operates. Successful repairs could strengthen the government’s public standing while making commercial partners more invested in its continuity.

The different timescales matter. As I argued in “Venezuela Isn’t Transitioning. It’s Operating,” daily life follows immediate needs while political change moves on another timetable. A repaired installation may reduce outages before the wider network has dependable maintenance. Sustaining improvements requires organizational capacity. Establishing public accountability requires political decisions that neither repairs nor foreign investment can make automatically.

Venezuelans should not have to choose between functioning services and political rights. Nor should investors have to depend on indefinite chavista rule for contracts to be secure.

Meanwhile, every contract and operational dependency can make the emerging arrangement harder to alter. A process presented as temporary stabilization could acquire beneficiaries with reasons to prolong it. Recovery would then help rebuild the foundations of chavista power before the question of democratic authority is settled.

That is why an electoral timetable matters alongside investment commitments. US-backed talks involving Dinorah Figuera continue while María Corina Machado remains outside the process and no firm election date has been established. The practical question is whether citizens acquire enforceable rights to scrutinize and replace their government while economic arrangements are being consolidated.

Reliable electricity would be a real improvement, but Venezuelans should not have to choose between functioning services and political rights. Nor should investors have to depend on indefinite chavista rule for contracts to be secure.

Chavismo’s pragmatism is rebuilding the relationships through which it can survive. Whether that reconstruction also serves democracy depends on who can challenge its terms. The lights coming back on may show that the system works better; the decisive political test is whether Venezuelans can change the people running it.

Polls indicate Brazil’s presidential candidates are neck and neck before Sunday’s voting.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his right-wing rival Flavio Bolsonaro have focused on policy proposals in the final debate before their presidential run-off.

The candidates questioned each other on Friday, two days before the election, about Brazil’s economy, infrastructure and regional development.

Lula challenged his rival’s plan to take a “chainsaw” to public spending in a manner similar to that of Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei.

“I’ll have the same job here [as Milei in Argentina] because you’re leaving the country bankrupt,” Bolsonaro responded.

Bolsonaro, son of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused the incumbent of allowing organised crime to expand, driving families into debt and not addressing the higher cost of living.

“He doesn’t know what hunger is,” Brazil’s first working-class president said of Bolsonaro, who responded, “Why are things so expensive?”

Lula questioned the senator’s experience, saying, “He doesn’t know Brazil.”

His challenger doubled down on presenting himself as a capable candidate who represented change for the country.

Tense moments

Friday’s debate in Rio de Janeiro, which was broadcast on TV Globo, was notably more diplomatic than their initial face-off on Sunday but also saw its share of personal attacks and tense moments.

Bolsonaro called Lula “Nine Fingers”, a pejorative nickname used by many of his supporters that references an accident the Brazilian president suffered during his time as a metalworker. The 80-year-old leader demanded an apology, which Bolsonaro gave him.

Lula in response called Bolsonaro a vigilante, referring to allegations that his rival has ties to paramilitary groups in Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro said he would classify those groups as “narcoterrorists”.

The third tense exchange was between Bolsonaro and the mother of a five-year-old who was killed in a shootout that involved a policeman who had the presidential candidate as his lawyer. Bolsonaro said he doesn’t believe his client was guilty.

Bolsonaro finished first in the initial round of voting on October 4 with 47 percent of the vote to Lula’s 45 percent.

A Datafolha institute survey published on Thursday suggested the pair are now tied with 50 percent support each, compared with Bolsonaro’s four-point lead in polls published two weeks ago.

Both candidates are expected to join supporters in the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in their last campaign effort before Sunday’s run-off.

To his supporters, he is known as “King Bibi”; but to his opponents, he is the king of security failures and corruption.

Disputes over names aside, what is not in question is that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has left his mark on the country’s institutions, politics and social attitudes during a decades-long career that has been defined by Israel’s lurch to the right.

As he seeks re-election in Israel’s October 27 polls, analysts say his most enduring domestic legacy may be the right-wing, militaristic opposition that he has helped create and now faces.

Born in 1949, Netanyahu entered Israel’s central political stage in the early 1990s by fuelling anger at possible peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.

Israeli political leaders have accused him of leading incitement that motivated the 1995 assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was leading negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, by an ultranationalist Israeli. Netanyahu had led rallies in which participants depicted Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform and held signs of him in the crosshairs of a gun, while others shouted “traitor”.

The Likud Party leader denies any responsibility, but former security officials have said they warned Netanyahu before the assassination and asked him to dial down his rhetoric, only for him to refuse, according to Israeli media reports.

In 1996, Netanyahu’s populist tactics succeeded at the ballot box, making him Israel’s youngest prime minister. Netanyahu’s transactional leadership style gave prominence to extreme-right and religious parties that are now an indispensable part of his right-wing alliance.

Under him, religious courts have expanded powers, including over civil and business disputes. State institutions accommodate religious agendas and allocate record levels of funding to ultra-Orthodox schools and institutions.

Netanyahu inscribed his political ideology, especially on the identity of the state and the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, into law. In 2018, the Knesset passed the so-called Nation-State Basic Law, which states – among other things – that Israel is the exclusive state of the Jewish people and also makes advancing illegal settlements a national priority.

Human rights organisations in Israel petitioned the High Court to stop the legislation from going into effect, but the petition was rejected. International experts and rights groups cite this law, among others, as evidence of Israel committing the crime of apartheid in its treatment of Palestinians.

Netanyahu also re-engineered state institutions, including Israel’s security structures, appointing loyalists and political allies to senior positions. He also clashed with security chiefs that he deemed antagonistic. And in the aftermath of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu deflected blame and responsibility on the security establishment, prompting Ronen Bar, who was the Shin Bet chief in 2023, to sue him for defamation.

A major change to Israeli institutions that was spearheaded by Netanyahu during his 19 on-and-off years in power affected the judiciary, which is examining lingering corruption charges that could see him serve time in prison if he is convicted. Netanyahu, who is up against three separate cases of corruption filed in 2019, denies any wrongdoing.

Under his leadership, the Knesset adopted legislation that changed the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee to ensure greater political influence for the governing coalition.

Netanyahu called it “judicial reform” to stop what he often calls a “judicial dictatorship” ruling over elected officials.

Opponents called it a “coup” that sparked wide-scale protests: a push to curtail the independence of the High Court and give politicians influence over the courts and ministerial legal advisers.

In line with his efforts to subvert independent oversight, Netanyahu tried repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, to fire the attorney general.

But he succeeded in dismissing the military’s advocate general for leaking a video of Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee. The soldiers were also released and cleared of charges.

At the same time, Netanyahu is dogged by corruption cases dating back to 2019, which could see him serve time in prison if convicted

The prime minister, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Gaza, says his work is not over. He promises his supporters he will complete the overhaul of judicial review and press on with other highly controversial policies.

Netanyahu’s supporters and allies view him as a leader who delivers, and one who achieved what others could not. His opponents pledge to undo the damage Netanyahu caused over the past decades, pointing to corruption, social divisions and increasing international isolation as outcomes of his rule.

But undoing such formative changes, many of which are now law, may be easier said than done.

With the US midterm elections approaching, the balance of power in Congress is at stake, and the outcome could shape the legacy of President Donald Trump’s second term. As Republicans face growing voter dissatisfaction, Trump’s record has become a central battleground in the fight to control Congress.

Trump faces mounting challenges, including low approval ratings, an unpopular war in Iran, high inflation and petrol prices, economic uncertainty surrounding his tariff policies, and widespread backlash over his immigration crackdown.

How does Trump’s second term measure up against the promises he made on the campaign trail?

In this interview, Mehdi Hasan goes head-to-head with Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign adviser, who defends the president’s second-term agenda, including his economic and immigration policies, and Islamophobic rhetoric.

Joining the discussion:

Olivia Troye – Former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Nellis – Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris
Rob Arlett – Former Trump campaign chair and political commentator

Lawyers for two accused officials say Department of Justice seeking to revive scandal before midterm vote.

Two former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents have been charged in connection with a 2020 probe into a laptop belonging to former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

The former officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, were charged with lying to Congress. They made their first court appearance in Washington, DC, on Friday.

Lawyers for the officials accused the Department of Justice of filing the charges to revive the salacious saga just days before the November 3 midterm vote, in which Republicans face an uphill battle against Democrats to maintain control of Congress.

A lawyer for Floris said she “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years”, while accusing the Justice Department of building its case on hearsay.

“Yet today, the DOJ [Justice Department] has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” the statement said.

“It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”

Floris and Benavides had overseen the Foreign Intelligence Task Force (FITF) at the FBI when Hunter Biden’s laptop was found. The pair testified to Congress that the unit, which focuses on foreign interference in US elections, was not involved in the laptop investigation.

In a criminal complaint, federal prosecutors alleged the statements contradicted messages sent during the same period.

While launched by Trump during his first term, the FITF was heavily targeted by Republicans under former US President Joe Biden. They charged the unit was politically biased and used to cover up information about Biden’s laptop.

The unit was disbanded when Trump took office for the second time in January 2025.

Scandalous saga

The existence of the laptop became known in October of 2020, just weeks before Biden and Trump faced off in a presidential election.

Its strange origins, having been dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop and apparently abandoned by Hunter Biden, prompted suspicion. Its contents were first reported on by the New York Post, based on information provided to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Several former intelligence officials warned that the laptop had the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. However, the FBI later seized and verified that the laptop and its contents, including messages related to the younger Biden’s foreign business ties and explicit photos of his drug use, were authentic.

The laptop was later used to back federal gun and tax evasion charges against Hunter Biden, although no wrongdoing related to his business ties or connection with his father was found.

Trump FBI Director Kash Patel has pledged to investigate the agency’s conduct throughout Biden’s presidency. Critics have accused him of flagrant politicalisation.

“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said in a statement posted on X.

The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public and overt investigative acts in the direct lead-up to an election that involve candidates or that risk influencing an outcome.

But officials in the last two weeks have made a series of bold moves in cases with political undertones, including a search of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar’s house in an immigration fraud investigation.

The department also unsealed a corruption indictment on Thursday against powerful Democratic Virginia state Senator L Louise Lucas.

Voters in Brazil are headed to the polls for the second time in one month, as Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva square off in a run-off election to decide who will hold the presidency for the next four years.

While Bolsonaro outperformed expectations during the first round of voting on October 4, when he beat Lula by less than two percentage points but failed to secure the majority needed to avoid a run-off, the leftist president has sought to rally supporters ahead of the second round.

The vote on Sunday will decide whether Brazil joins a growing list of countries across Latin America that have handed victories to far-right candidates promising closer ties with the United States, a hard hand on crime and insecurity, and market-friendly economic policies.

Brazil under Lula has emerged as a key holdout against that shift, and a Bolsonaro victory on Sunday would galvanise conservatives in the region seeking to extend their winning streak to the largest country in Latin America.

When is the second round of voting?

The run-off will take place on October 25, 2026.

What happened during the first round?

The first round on October 4 saw Bolsonaro win 47 percent of the vote compared with just more than 45 percent for Lula, with the remainder of the votes distributed among several largely conservative candidates who did not advance to the next round.

While most polls had anticipated a close race that would go to a run-off, Lula had been slightly favoured to win the first round of voting. While Bolsonaro’s margin of victory was small, his overperformance indicated a level of enduring appeal for the political right that caught many Lula supporters off guard.

In addition to Bolsonaro’s success, even as his father, former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, serves a 27-year prison sentence for his involvement in a coup plot following his loss to Lula in 2022, right-wing candidates also racked up wins in legislative races across the country.

Who is Lula?

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, simply referred to as Lula, is the incumbent president and the candidate for the Workers Party, or PT.

His time in office has been defined by an effort to pair political democracy with material improvement for the country’s poor and efforts to build ties between developing, non-Western countries on the global stage.

The 80-year-old is seeking his fourth, non-consecutive term, hoping that his record of popularity and support for social programmes, credited by supporters with transforming the country, will help stave off a Bolsonaro win.

Lula clinched a third term in 2022, marking a dramatic comeback following a stint in prison based on corruption charges that were later overturned following revelations of prosecutorial impropriety.

But a highly polarised political landscape has hindered Lula’s ability to usher in ambitious and sweeping reforms during his third term.

Notable successes, such as sharp drops in unemployment and poverty and tackling deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, have been countered by rising household indebtedness that has strained families across the country.

A corruption scandal centring on disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro has also implicated powerful figures and institutions across the political spectrum, including Bolsonaro himself as well as several members of the country’s Supreme Court, a target of right-wing ire for the conviction and sentencing of the elder Bolsonaro.

Who is Flavio Bolsonaro?

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is running as the candidate of the right-wing Liberal Party.

The 45-year-old has emerged as the de facto leader of the country’s political right, filling a role previously held by his father before his conviction for a plot to remain in power despite his loss to Lula in 2022.

The younger Bolsonaro has sought to project a more polished image than his father while pledging continuity with many of his beliefs and policy priorities and promising to fight for his release from prison if elected.

He has pledged a militarised approach towards crime and insecurity posed by organised gangs in close partnership with the administration of United States President Donald Trump, who has sought to expand US military involvement across Latin America through ties with right-wing allies in the name of combatting crime.

Bolsonaro has also promised to rein in inflation and government spending, with an adviser stating that he would implement a debt ceiling if elected.

In the days after the first round, Bolsonaro has said he would “redemocratise” Brazil by reforming the constitution. The constitution was put in place after Brazil’s return to democracy in the 1980s, and Bolsonaro’s father has long expressed open nostalgia for the dictatorship period. There’s heavy speculation that Bolsonaro could be seeking to reform the judiciary, after his father’s legal setbacks. He has also promised to restore tax cuts for the events sector.

What has happened since the first round?

While many members of the PT were despondent following Bolsonaro’s first-round victory, Lula quickly urged his supporters to rally for the run-off and threw himself into campaigning.

He has also taken credit for his party’s long-sought constitutional amendment to reduce the six-day work week and promised free public transport on weekends.

Pro-Lula demonstrations in cities across the country have attracted millions of people, helping galvanise the president’s voters and cut into Bolsonaro’s lead. Bolsonaro has held his own rallies, hoping to capitalise on momentum and consolidate support from other conservative parties.

The two candidates held a combative debate on October 18, exchanging insults and accusing each other of corruption.

Questions of outside intervention have also been a theme in the campaign’s closing days, with US social media giant Meta facing allegations that it restricted pro-Lula activity online in a bid to support Bolsonaro.

Concerns about foreign interference, in particular from the US, have loomed over the campaign since the beginning.

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to intervene in Brazilian politics, previously introducing steep tariffs and penalties against judicial officials in a bid to have the case against the elder Bolsonaro tossed out and mirroring rhetoric on the Brazilian right to cast doubt on the reliability of the country’s voting system.

Trump has himself used false claims of widespread fraud to ignore unfavourable election results, and observers have expressed concern that the US could throw its support behind Bolsonaro based on such claims even if he were to lose the race.

What do polls show?

After his victory in the first round, Bolsonaro emerged as the race’s de facto frontrunner. But polls continue to show a close race, with Lula cutting into Bolsonaro’s lead but continuing to trail within the margin of error.

Speculation that Bolsonaro might pull ahead decisively following the first round, after other conservative candidates failed to advance to the run-off, has not yet appeared in new polls.

A Nexus poll released on Monday showed Bolsonaro winning 46.5 percent of the vote in the second round, with Lula taking 45.9 percent. A poll from the previous week had shown Bolsonaro with 47.9 percent and Lula with 45.1 percent.

Another poll by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg, also released on Monday, showed Bolsonaro with 49.8 percent versus 47.6 percent for Lula. An October 9 poll had shown Bolsonaro with 51.1 percent and Lula with 45.7.

A Quaest poll released on October 21 showed Bolsonaro’s lead continuing to drop, with Lula winning 44 percent and Bolsonaro 45 percent.

Thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets in several cities to demand free elections and other political changes, in the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years.

US President Donald Trump and acting President Delcy Rodriguez have said there would be elections, but no date has been set for a vote to decide on a successor for Nicolas Maduro, after the former Venezuelan president was captured by US forces in a military raid in January.

Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been outside the country for nearly a year after living in hiding following a contested 2024 election, has said elections must take place by July 2027.

Her Vente Venezuela movement organised the protest, which took place in the capital Caracas and other cities, including Valencia, Maracay, San Cristobal and Maracaibo.

“Seeing this makes me happy because I know change is possible,” said 18-year-old cosmetology student Leosmary Hernandez, as she gathered with hundreds of others in northern Maracay. “I’ve been through so many hardships, so many problems because of the dollar, and difficulties studying. I have high hopes for my country and for our next leader and president, Maria Corina.”

“I went out to protest before, when things were much tougher, and I’m even less afraid today because I want my voice to be heard,” she added.

Since January 3, the country has been led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez of the long-governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

PSUV leaders have been accused of carrying out human rights abuses against political dissidents, including arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and torture.

After the United States launched a military operation to abduct and jail former President Nicolas Maduro, the PSUV remained in power with the support of the White House.

US President Trump has backed Rodriguez’s leadership, despite her having been Maduro’s vice president.

His administration has maintained an active role in Venezuela, exerting control over its oil resources and pressuring the Rodriguez government for reforms.

Minimal security presence

Venezuela’s socialist movement, in power since 1999 under late President Hugo Chavez and then Maduro, has in the past deployed security forces against protesters, but government forces had minimal presence at protest sites on Thursday, and in many smaller cities demonstrators dispersed before dark.

The ruling Socialist Party called for its supporters to march from Caracas’ Plaza Venezuela, the same place the opposition planned to gather two hours later, to a location near the presidential palace to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, known for his close ties to the security services, was pictured on state television attending the march, while the opposition supporters moved their protest to a nearby location.

US-backed talks continue

Talks between a faction of the opposition and the interim government, aimed at remaking the top court and the electoral council ahead of eventual elections, held their latest session this month, but changes could take significant time.

The negotiations, backed by the US, do not include Machado’s political movement, though she has said she will not stand in the way of their progress.

Machado’s proxy Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia claims to have won the 2024 election according to vote tallies by the opposition. But the government, which never released full counts, backed Maduro, as did the country’s legal and electoral institutions.

Machado has for years sought US support, aligning with hawks in the Trump team who argued that Maduro, through alleged links to drug gangs, represented a direct threat to US national security. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are facing drug and torture charges in the US. They have pleaded not guilty.

Trump advises the Republican gubernatorial candidate to keep running the controversial advertisement.

US President Donald Trump has backed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy amid controversy over an attack advertisement by the Ohio gubernatorial candidate against his Democratic rival.

Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that Ramaswamy should keep running the advertisement that features Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s estranged mother.

In the advertisement, Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, disputes her daughter’s account of a childhood involving homelessness and ⁠⁠sexual abuse by her stepfather, urging Ohioans not to vote for her.

Acton says she has not seen her mother since 1978. Acton’s brother has supported her account of being sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a child. The stepfather, who died in 2004, was charged with rape.

“Anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in office,” Trump said.

The US president also attacked Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who advised Ramaswamy to take down the advertisement, labelling him “disloyal” to the Republican party.

‘It’s wrong’

At a gathering with reporters at the Ohio Statehouse, DeWine recalled the painful experiences of rape victims he dealt with as a county prosecutor and state attorney general.

“It’s wrong to run this ad,” he said. “And, even at this late time – my wife, Fran, saw the advertisement just run this morning on TV – I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down.”

Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, called the advertisement ⁠⁠a “desperate, disgusting attack”, while Acton campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock called Ramaswamy’s decision to promote it “both despicable and entirely predictable”.

Vice President JD Vance, campaigning on Wednesday with Ramaswamy ⁠⁠and US Senator Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, had brushed aside ⁠⁠the blowback.

Vance, a former senator from Ohio, expressed disgust with Republicans “whining” about the advertisement as low and in poor taste.

Ramaswamy’s campaign said it was spending $4m to promote the advertisement.

Opinion polls suggest Acton is narrowly leading Ramaswamy in a tight race to replace the term-limited DeWine.

Homeland Security targets nine states in a push to identify voting fraud, a move critics denounce as tantamount to voter intimidation.

A United States federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt operations aimed at finding non-citizen voters in nine states ahead of the midterm elections.

The ruling by US District Court Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said the investigations likely violate a provision of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits voter intimidation. She further said the DHS may have relied on flawed data in its investigations.

That leads to “an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote”, she wrote.

The order applies to federal efforts targeting California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

The DHS has publicised what it has described as a push to identify individuals who have committed voter fraud, with some local offices posting photos of agents knocking on the doors of suspects.

The operations come as the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to highlight instances of voter fraud ahead of the November 3 midterm vote.

While there are recorded instances of fraud in every election cycle, such isolated cases remain exceedingly rare.

There has been no evidence to indicate that non-citizen voters have influenced the outcome of any election at any level in the country.

In a statement following Thursday’s ruling, the DHS maintained that its investigations were aimed at “removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of US citizens”.

“We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be US citizens,” it said.

In their lawsuit challenging the DHS’s efforts, the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, along with the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, said that some US citizens felt they were wrongly identified and questioned as part of the investigations.

A lawyer representing the groups said it was “clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data, never checked how often it was wrong, and recklessly sent agents to people’s homes weeks before an election”.

Benjamin Farley, the supervisory counsel for democracy defense at the National Immigration Law Center, said the ruling sent a strong message about voter intimidation ahead of the midterm vote.

“Yesterday’s decision is a clear rebuke of the government’s efforts to scare voters away from the polls this November and a reminder that all US citizens – regardless of color, place of birth, or the nationality of their family members – have the right to participate in American elections free of intimidation,” he said.

“No armed federal agent is going to stop us from casting our vote.”

Right-wing presidential candidate says he will release personal records if his opponent, President Lula, meets his conditions.

Brazilian right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro has set out steep conditions for disclosing his personal records in response to a challenge from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his opponent in Sunday’s election run-off.

Bolsonaro’s campaign has said it will release the data Lula requested if the president expands his own pledge to disclose his personal records to include those of his advisers, security staff and records from companies held by Lula’s children.

Lula said on Tuesday that he would share his bank, tax and telephone records, along with those of his family, if Bolsonaro would agree to do the same.

His campaign submitted conditional authorisation to Brazil’s electoral court to release the president’s personal data.

Camilo Santana, a senator and representative of Lula’s campaign, told journalists that ⁠⁠Lula has agreed to Bolsonaro’s new demands, and the president’s would file an official response with the court on Thursday morning.

Corruption scandal

The call from Lula on Tuesday came as both campaigns try to navigate the fallout of an explosive corruption scandal involving disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro, which has implicated influential individuals and institutions across Brazil.

Bolsonaro, who narrowly leads Lula in the polls, is under investigation over alleged corruption and money laundering related to an investment he allegedly ⁠⁠sought from Vorcaro. He is also under investigation in a separate probe over alleged money laundering.

The presidential hopeful denies any wrongdoing.

Brazil’s president is also linked to a corruption scandal, via his son Fabio Luis Lula da Silva, a businessman, who is accused being investigated over allegations that he unlawfully helped another businessman to gain access to the government.

Lula’s eldest son is also being investigated over his links to a businessman detained under a pension fraud probe.

Lula’s son denies the allegations, and the president has said his ‌‌son ‌‌would be treated like any other citizen.

Neil Bush says that he will vote for Democrat James Talarico due to reservations about Republican candidate Ken Paxton.

Neil Bush, brother of former Republican President George W Bush, has said that he voted for the Democratic candidate James Talarico in a crucial race for the United States Senate.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Bush said he voted for Talarico due to concerns about the Republican candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Talarico and Paxton are in a tight race for Texas’s open Senate seat. Democrats are hoping to seize control of the 100-member Senate in the November 3 midterm elections, when 35 seats will be on the ballot.

Bush’s endorsement of Talarico is the latest sign of division among Texas Republicans.

Bush comes from a prominent Republican family: not only was his brother a president, but his father, the late George HW Bush, was too.

“My concerns about his judgment and conduct are hardly mine alone,” Bush wrote. “He was impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House, although subsequently acquitted by the Texas Senate.”

To explain his decision, Bush pointed to Paxton’s divisive track record, including efforts to support President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

“I have been deeply troubled by Paxton’s conduct as Texas Attorney General, particularly his decision to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in other states in an effort to help Donald Trump remain in power,” Bush said.

“I believe that effort was an affront to our democratic institutions and the peaceful transfer of power.”

His brother, the former president, has largely receded from political life and has declined to endorse candidates in recent elections. Before serving in the White House from 2001 to 2009, George W Bush was governor of Texas.

But George W Bush’s daughter Barbara Bush has also shown her support for Talarico by donating to a political action committee backing his campaign.

Texas has long been considered a Republican stronghold, and Democrats have not won a Senate race in the state since 1988.

But polls show Talarico locked in a close race with Paxton, who defeated incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Republican Party’s primary run-off on May 26.

Paxton had secured an endorsement from Trump on May 19, days before the run-off.

In a statement, Trump criticised Cornyn as “not supportive of [him] when times were tough”, while praising Paxton as a “MAGA Warrior”.

Some Republicans have expressed frustration over Trump’s intervention on Paxton’s behalf, given the vulnerabilities posed by his state impeachment and other scandals.

A Marist poll released on October 14 found Talarico winning 47 percent of the vote compared to 45 percent for Paxton.

The United States has accused Canadian politicians of trying to influence its midterm elections, pointing to Canada’s efforts to push back against President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign.

In a fact sheet released on Wednesday, the US embassy accused Canada of being dismissive of its allegations of election interference.

“The Canadian government brushes off concerns about potential interference in U.S. elections, even as its ministers and premiers openly describe plans to influence American politics in official documents and public appearances,” the fact sheet reads.

The two countries have been locked in a trade war since the start of Trump’s second term in 2025, with Canada responding to US tariffs with import taxes of its own.

But the US embassy identified public statements about the tariffs as being attempts to sway the November 3 midterm election.

Among the politicians singled out in the fact sheet was Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly. The fact sheet pointed to comments Joly made in August about responding to Trump’s tariffs.

“We’re also targeting products that will target states in the US. And so we’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure,” Joly said at the time.

The embassy also took issue with Joly’s meetings with Democratic officials in Boston and Chicago in September. When asked by a reporter what she thought might happen with regard to tariffs if Democrats won the midterms, she said, “That’s exactly why I’m meeting so many governors and potential presidential candidates.”

Joly has rejected the suggestion that her actions could amount to interference, saying Canada would never meddle in US elections. She said her meetings with US politicians, both Democratic and Republican, were about building Canada’s economy.

“Fundamentally, what I’ve done in the US is to attract investments,” she told reporters on October 14.

The embassy also pointed to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s calls for retaliatory measures on US products, as well as his government’s advertising campaign against Trump’s tariffs, launched last year.

The campaign, which featured clips of former US President Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs in a 1987 radio address, prompted Trump to call off trade talks with Canada in October 2025.

While the embassy laid out several examples of Canadian officials trying to influence US trade policy, it didn’t explain how those efforts amounted to interference.

Other instances of alleged election interference included Liberal MP Anthony Housefather saying he had campaigned in Florida on behalf of Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, ahead of her primary election in August.

The fact sheet also accused individual Canadians of illegally participating in US elections, naming 11 people who had been charged or sentenced for voting between 2012 and 2024.

The sheet did not, however, present any evidence linking those citizens to a Canadian government effort to involve itself in US elections.

“All Canadians should refrain from attempting to participate in or influence U.S. elections in any way,” the US embassy’s statement said. “Americans decide America’s elections.”

The fact sheet comes a week after US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said Washington was closely watching Canada for signs of interference ahead of the midterms.

“We’re monitoring it, we’re evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it,” Hoekstra said in a podcast interview on The Really Big Show, according to The Canadian Press.

The US and Canada have long been allies, but relations have frayed since Trump returned to office.

Not only has the Republican leader triggered a trade war with Canada, but he has also repeatedly threatened to make Canada a 51st state.

There have also been reports that separatist leaders from Alberta had sought support from Trump administration officials ahead of a failed referendum on the province’s independence this week.

Ahead of Monday’s provincial vote, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed concerns about potential US interference in the referendum, saying Canada expected foreign governments to stay out of its elections.

“Our expectation is, to be absolutely clear, on foreign governments, United States included, is we don’t get ourselves involved in their elections, they don’t get themselves involved in our elections,” he told Global News.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office and Global Affairs Canada for comment, as well as the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Industry Minister Joly.

What role will the Latino vote have in the upcoming midterm elections?

In the latest episode of “The De Los Podcast,” hosts and Times editors Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito welcome Times columnist Gustavo Arellano to dissect the increasingly important electorate, one that will help decide races locally and at the national level.

Long considered a reliable vote for the Democratic Party, Latinos shifted rightward in 2024.

“The Republican Party has always known — going back to the days of [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower — that there is something there in this demographic as it starts getting bigger,” Arellano said.

Arellano documented the history of Democratic support among California Latinos, highlighting the passage of 1994’s California Proposition 187 — which prohibited undocumented immigrants from using the state’s public services including non-emergency healthcare and education resources — as a turning point.

“It turned a whole generation of Latinos into voting Democrat, but it also showed the Republican Party that anti-immigrant politics work,” he said. “The problem with the Democratic Party in California for basically the next 30 years is all they would do is say, ‘You as a Latino should never vote Republican because they did 187.’”

A Pew Research Center study showed that in the 2024 presidential election, a slight majority of Latinos voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris — but they also voted for President Trump at a much higher rate than they did in 2020.

Trump garnered 48% of the Latino vote compared with Harris’ 51% share and significantly jumped past the 36% clip he received in the 2020 presidential election. The study’s results reveal that the initial 2024 exit polls actually underestimated Latinos’ Trump support, with the Republican candidate tracking at 46% of the Latino vote on election day.

Arellano contributed this shift in voting pattern to a lack of effective messaging from Democrats and widespread material hardships among Latinos.

“[You now have] an entire generation who have grown up and life has been harder for them because they are working-class folks,” he said. “And they’re saying, ‘The Republicans are racist? Well, life hasn’t improved for me as a Democrat, let me just take my chance with the racist.’”

But recent polling shows Latinos might have buyers’ remorse. The community cited increased cost of living, immigration tactics, involvement in wars across the world and a struggling economy as reasons for retreating from Republican leadership. Trump’s approval rating among Latinos dipped to 27% in an early October NBC News study. That same poll found that Democrats have a 24-point lead on whom Latino voters want to see in control of Congress.

“The Republican Party was given this extraordinary gift of the Latino vote, and what did they do? They blew it,” Arellano said.

He spotlighted Texas as a prime of example of how Republicans squandered their grip on Latino voters. The demographic voted heavily in favor of Trump in 2024, even in the long-Democratic borderland region of the state.

“Texas [Republicans] gerrymandered their state because they thought, “We have now this permanent Latino shift to our party, so let’s make these districts even more Latino because they’re going to vote Republican,’” Arellano said. “And now Latinos are running away [from the Republican Party] hard.”

Across the country, Latinos have also soured on the Republican Party due to the public display that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have put on in recent years, Arellano noted.

“To see people dragged and beaten … that weighs on you,” he said. “On top of that, the economy sucks, we’re in a stupid war, this president is increasingly saying crazy things … and now this immigration stuff. So [people are wondering] what good is it to be with [Trump] now.”

You can watch the entire episode below.

Both candidates for the Brazilian presidency have called for the disqualification of their rivals over allegations of social media interference, ramping up political drama ahead of the close-fought October 25 runoff election.

Brazil’s right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro has requested the annulment of the candidacy of his rival, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, over what he called unlawful propaganda.

Lawyers for Bolsonaro filed a request with the Superior Electoral Court on Tuesday, alleging Lula’s “abuse of power” in the mass dissemination of government postings during the campaign period via WhatsApp.

Bolsonaro’s camp claimed the Brazilian government sent mass messages to millions of Brazilians via the messaging service, promoting social programmes, benefits and government initiatives in the midst of the presidential race, Brazilian media reported.

The request to the electoral court seeks to declare Lula and Social Communications Minister Sidonio Palmeira ineligible to hold public office for a period of eight years.

‘Algorithmic manipulation’

In the other camp, Lula’s campaign said on Tuesday that it would request the disqualification of Bolsonaro on Wednesday over alleged election interference by WhatsApp parent company, the tech giant Meta.

Lula’s petition, which has yet to be officially filed, alleges “algorithmic manipulation” by Meta aimed at harming Lula’s chances of winning, a campaign source told AFP.

The electoral court had given Meta 24 hours on Monday to prove it was complying with an order to treat both campaigns equally, threatening a daily fine of around $200,000 if it didn’t.

The order came after Lula’s campaign alleged that Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, was suppressing his online content to boost Bolsonaro.

“We have completed the implementation of the measures to comply with the Superior Electoral Court’s decision,” the company said on Tuesday.

Lula and Bolsonaro are locked in a heated presidential race after the right-wing candidate, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, won the initial round of voting earlier this month with 47 percent of the vote to the incumbent’s 45 percent.

Polls show a very close race ahead of Sunday’s runoff round.

The 2026 midterm elections are on track to be the most expensive in the history of the United States, with a record $11.6bn in political advertisements alone. Independent expenditure-only political action committees, or super PACs, dark money and billionaire donors now shape who runs and who wins, yet voters of both parties say money has too much power.

Josh Rushing asks two leading experts who is paying, what they are buying and whether the system can change.

Contributors:
Lawrence Lessig – Professor of law and leadership, Harvard Law School
Bradley Smith – Professor of law, Capital University

Voters in Alberta have chosen to remain part of Canada in a first-ever independence referendum.

Canadian state broadcaster CBC News called the results of Monday’s vote late on the same day after 48 percent of the ballots counted showed overwhelming support for the “remain” side, with 76 percent opting to stay with Canada.

The result marks a major win for Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is facing a trade and political war with the United States amid US President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs and repeated suggestions of annexing the country.

On his way into a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, Carney called it a “great day.”

“I’m thrilled that Albertans have chosen unity. They’ve chosen to build together. They’ve chosen to continue to take care of each other, to move forward together with purpose,” he said.

But the result also comes as a disappointment for those Albertans seeking independence for the resource-rich region following years of grievances laid at Ottawa’s door. Here’s what we know:

What was the referendum about?

The nonbinding referendum was first announced in May following a campaign and petition by a group of Albertans who want to be an independent country.

While only about one-third of Albertans were found to be pro-independence in polls, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith argued in her announcement that a referendum was necessary to respect the 300,000 Albertans who had petitioned officials for it.

In the referendum, voters answered 10 questions, including whether the government should begin a binding process to seek independence from Canada. They also answered questions on immigration, access to provincial services like education, social care and healthcare, and voter identification requirements.

Prime Minister Carney had campaigned for Albertans to vote “remain”, saying last week at a rally in Calgary that separation would be “ a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep division”.

“There are some outside our borders who are working to break us so they can own us,” he said.

Researchers have pointed to possible online influence campaigns by both Russian and US entities that helped amplify the call for separation and allegedly shared misleading information. Alberta PM Smith told media in August that the online activity was under observation.

What have the reactions been?

Prime Minister Carney, who grew up in the region, said “Albertans made a clear choice” in a statement he made early on Tuesday.

“They chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other,” he said, adding that “Canadians will move forward together with renewed purpose and high ambition.”

Alberta’s Premier Smith said she was pleased to see the results and that “Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada.”

Separatist leaders from the groups Let Alberta Decide, the Alberta Prosperity Project and the Pathway to Independence said they will wait for all votes to be counted before conceding.

First Nations groups turned out in strong numbers to vote to remain with Canada, with one southern Alberta polling station in an area home to the Siksika Nation temporarily running out of ballots, local media reported.

Why is Alberta important, and why are there calls for independence?

Many Albertans have long complained that their critical natural resources are funding the government in Ottawa and the commercial hubs of Toronto and Montreal, but that the province does not receive proportionate benefits.

The province, with a population of 5.1 million, holds massive oil deposits. It also holds reserves of critical and rare-earth metals including lithium, titanium and zircon, which are essential for manufacturing many tech items, from smartphones to fighter jets.

Separatist movements, some of which even support Alberta joining the US, go back to the 1940s, following the discovery of oil reserves. Some of Alberta’s premiers have had spats with Ottawa over wealth distribution.

US President Trump has made remarks about Canada becoming a US state in recent months.

Last week, he told a political rally in the US state of Arizona that Canada will “end up being the 51st state, because it’s the only way it works”.

The two countries have been embroiled in a trade war since talks fell apart in August this year and they slapped each other with tit-for-tat tariffs.

Earlier this month, tech billionaire Elon Musk called for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec to separate from Canada, saying “they’d be better off”.

But the matter of Alberta’s independence gained intense scrutiny last year after pro-separatists launched a petition to pressure the government.

Alberta, alongside other western provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, have all complained about “western alienation” by the government in the centre.

Is it over for Alberta’s independence bid?

With separatism agitations running so far back, experts say the referendum will likely not end the movement altogether.

Ahead of the vote, some separatist leaders said they would pursue another referendum if necessary, arguing that the referendum shows that independence is legally possible.

“Regardless of what happens on Monday, we’ve already won,” Keith Wilson, co-leader of Let Alberta Decide, said at a rally last week.