Explainer

A months-long siege on the Malian capital, Bamako, by the armed al-Qaeda affiliate group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), has brought the city to breaking point, causing desperation among residents and, according to analysts, placing increasing pressure on the military government to negotiate with the group – something it has refused to do before now.

JNIM’s members have created an effective economic and fuel blockade by sealing off major highways used by tankers to transport fuel from neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast to the landlocked Sahel country since September.

While JNIM has long laid siege to towns in other parts of the country, this is the first time it has used the tactic on the capital city.

The scale of the blockade, and the immense effect it has had on the city, is a sign of JNIM’s growing hold over Mali and a step towards the group’s stated aim of government change in Mali, Beverly Ochieng, Sahel analyst with intelligence firm Control Risks, told Al Jazeera.

For weeks, most of Bamako’s residents have been unable to buy any fuel for cars or motorcycles as supplies have dried up, bringing the normally bustling capital to a standstill. Many have had to wait in long fuel queues. Last week, the United States and the United Kingdom both advised their citizens to leave Mali and evacuated non-essential diplomatic staff.

Other Western nations have also advised their citizens to leave the country. Schools across Mali have closed and will remain shut until November 9 as staff struggle to commute. Power cuts have intensified.

Here’s what we know about the armed group responsible and why it appears to have Mali in a chokehold:

What is JNIM?

JNIM is the Sahel affiliate of al-Qaeda and the most active armed group in the region, according to conflict monitor ACLED. The group was formed in 2017 as a merger between groups that were formerly active against French and Malian forces that were first deployed during an armed rebellion in northern Mali in 2012. They include Algeria-based al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) and three Malian armed groups – Ansar Dine, Al-Murabitun and Katiba Macina.

JNIM’s main aim is to capture and control territory and to expel Western influences in its region of control. Some analysts suggest that JNIM may be seeking to control major capitals and, ultimately, to govern the country as a whole.

It is unclear how many fighters the group has. The Washington Post has reported estimates of about 6,000, citing regional and western officials.

However, Ulf Laessing, Sahel analyst at the German think tank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), said JNIM most likely does not yet have the military capacity to capture large, urban territories that are well protected by soldiers. He also said the group would struggle to appeal to urban populations who may not hold the same grievances against the government as some rural communities.

While JNIM’s primary base is Mali, KAS revealed in a report that the group has Algerian roots via its members of the Algeria-based al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM).

The group is led by Iyad Ag-Ghali, a Malian and ethnic Tuareg from Mali’s northern Kidal region who founded Ansar Dine in 2012. That group’s stated aim was to impose its interpretation of Islamic law across Mali.

Ghali had previously led Tuareg uprisings against the Malian government, which is traditionally dominated by the majority Bambara ethnic group, in the early 1990s, demanding the creation of a sovereign country called Azawad.

However, he reformed his image by acting as a negotiator between the government and the rebels. In 2008, he was posted as a Malian diplomat to Saudi Arabia under the government of Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure. When another rebellion began in 2012, however, Ghali sought a leadership role with the rebels but was rebuffed, leading him to create Ansar Dine.

According to the US Department of National Intelligence (DNI), Ghali has stated that JNIM’s strategy is to expand its presence across West Africa and to put down government forces and rival armed groups, such as the Mali-based Islamic State Sahel, through guerrilla-style attacks and the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Simultaneously, it attempts to engage with local communities by providing them with material resources. Strict dress codes and bans on music are common in JNIM-controlled areas.

JNIM also destroys infrastructure, such as schools, communication towers and bridges, to weaken the government off the battlefield.

An overall death toll is unclear, but the group has killed thousands of people since 2017. Human rights groups accuse it of attacking civilians, especially people perceived to be assisting government forces. JNIM activity in Mali caused 207 deaths between January and April this year, according to ACLED data.

How has JNIM laid siege to Bamako?

JNIM began blocking oil tankers carrying fuel to Bamako in September.

That came after the military government in Bamako banned small-scale fuel sales in all rural areas – except at official service stations – from July 1. Usually, in these areas, traders can buy fuel in jerry cans, which they often resell later.

The move to ban this was aimed at crippling JNIM’s operations in its areas of control by limiting its supply lines and, thus, its ability to move around.

At the few places where fuel is still available in Bamako, prices soared last week by more than 400 percent, from $25 to $130 per litre ($6.25-$32.50 per gallon). Prices of transportation, food and other commodities have risen due to the crisis, and power cuts have been frequent.

Some car owners have simply abandoned their vehicles in front of petrol stations, with the military government threatening on Wednesday to impound them to ease traffic and reduce security risks.

A convoy of 300 fuel tankers reached Bamako on October 7, and another one with “dozens” of vehicles arrived on October 30, according to a government statement. Other attempts to truck in more fuel have met obstacles, however, as JNIM members ambush military-escorted convoys on highways and shoot at or kidnap soldiers and civilians.

Even as supplies in Bamako dry up, there are reports of JNIM setting fire to about 200 fuel tankers in southern and western Mali. Videos circulating on Malian social media channels show rows of oil tankers burning on a highway.

What is JNIM trying to achieve with this blockade?

Laessing of KAS said the group is probably hoping to leverage discontent with the government in the already troubled West African nation to put pressure on the military government to negotiate a power-sharing deal of sorts.

“They want to basically make people as angry as possible,” he said. “They could [be trying] to provoke protests which could bring down the current government and bring in a new one that’s more favourable towards them.”

Ochieng of Control Risks noted that, in its recent statements, JNIM has explicitly called for government change. While the previous civilian government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (2013-2020) had negotiated with JNIM, the present government of Colonel Assimi Goita will likely keep up its military response, Ochieng said.

Frustration at the situation is growing in Bamako, with residents calling for the government to act.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, driver Omar Sidibe said the military leaders ought to find out the reasons for the shortage and act on them. “It’s up to the government to play a full role and take action [and] uncover the real reason for this shortage.”

Which parts of Mali is the JNIM active in?

In Mali, the group operates in rural areas of northern, central and western Mali, where there is a reduced government presence and high discontent with the authorities among local communities.

In the areas it controls, JNIM presents itself as an alternative to the government, which it calls “puppets of the West”, in order to recruit fighters from several ethnic minorities which have long held grievances over their perceived marginalisation by the government, including the Tuareg, Arab, Fulani, and Songhai groups. Researchers note the group also has some members from the majority Bambara group.

In central Mali, the group seized Lere town last November and captured the town of Farabougou in August this year. Both are small towns, but Farabougou is close to Wagadou Forest, a known hiding place of JNIM.

JNIM’s hold on major towns is weaker because of the stronger government presence in larger areas. It therefore more commonly blockades major towns or cities by destroying roads and bridges leading to them. Currently, the western cities of Nioro and gold-rich Kayes are cut off. The group is also besieging the major cities of Timbuktu and Gao, as well as Menaka and Boni towns, located in the north and northeast.

How is JNIM funded?

For revenue, the group oversees artisanal gold mines, forcefully taxes community members, smuggles weapons and kidnaps foreigners for ransom, according to the US DNI. Kayes region, whose capital, Kayes, is under siege, is a major gold hub, accounting for 80 percent of Mali’s gold production, according to conflict monitoring group Critical Threats.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (Gi-Toc) also reports cattle rustling schemes, estimating that JNIM made 91,400 euros ($104,000) in livestock sales of cattle between 2017 and 2019. Cattle looted in Mali are sold cheaply in communities on the border with Ghana and the Ivory Coast, through a complex chain of intermediaries.

In which other countries is JNIM active?

JNIM expanded into Burkina Faso in 2017 by linking up with Burkina-Faso-based armed group Ansarul-Islam, which pledged allegiance to the Malian group. Ansarul-Islam was formed in 2016 by Ibrahim Dicko, who had close ties with Amadou Koufa, JNIM’s deputy head since 2017.

In Burkina Faso, JNIM uses similar tactics of recruiting from marginalised ethnic groups. The country has rapidly become a JNIM hotspot, with the group operating – or holding territory – in 11 of 13 Burkina Faso regions outside of capital Ouagadougou. There were 512 reported casualties as a result of JNIM violence in the country between January and April this year. It is not known how many have died as a result of violence by the armed group in total.

Since 2022, JNIM has laid siege to the major northern Burkinabe city of Djibo, with authorities forced to airlift in supplies. In a notable attack in May 2025, JNIM fighters overran a military base in the town, killing approximately 200 soldiers. It killed a further 60 in Solle, about 48km (30 miles) west of Djibo.

In October 2025, the group temporarily took control of Sabce town, also located in the north of Burkina Faso, killing 11 police officers in the process, according to the International Crisis Group.

In a September report, Human Rights Watch said JNIM and a second armed group – Islamic State Sahel, which is linked to ISIL (ISIS) – massacred civilians in Burkina Faso between May and September, including a civilian convoy trying to transport humanitarian aid into the besieged northern town of Gorom Gorom.

Meanwhile, JNIM is also moving southwards, towards other West African nations with access to the sea. It launched an offensive on Kafolo town, in northern Ivory Coast, in 2020.

JNIM members embedded in national parks on the border regions with Burkina Faso have been launching sporadic attacks in northern Togo and the Benin Republic since 2022.

In October this year, it recorded its first attack on the Benin-Nigeria border, where one Nigerian policeman was killed. The area is not well-policed because the two countries have no established military cooperation, analyst Ochieng said.

“This area is also quite a commercially viable region; there are mining and other developments taking place there … it is likely to be one that [JNIM] will try to establish a foothold,” she added.

Why are countries struggling to fend off JNIM?

When Mali leader General Assimi Goita led soldiers to seize power in a 2020 coup, military leaders promised to defeat the armed group, as well as a host of others that had been on the rise in the country. Military leaders subsequently seizing power from civilian governments in Burkina Faso (2022) and in Niger (2023) have made the same promises.

However, Mali and its neighbours have struggled to hold JNIM at bay, with ACLED data noting the number of JNIM attacks increasing notably since 2020.

In 2022, Mali’s military government ended cooperation with 4,000-strong French forces deployed in 2013 to battle armed groups which had emerged at the time, as well as separatist Tuaregs in the north. The last group of French forces exited the country in August 2022.

Mali also terminated contracts with a 10,000-man UN peacekeeping force stationed in the country in 2023.

Bamako is now working with Russian fighters – initially 1,500 from the Wagner Mercenary Group, but since June, from the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps – estimated to be about 1,000 in number.

Russian officials are, to a lesser extent, also present in Burkina Faso and Niger, which have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with Mali.

Results in Mali have been mixed. Wagner supported the Malian military in seizing swaths of land in the northern Kidal region from Tuareg rebels.

But the Russians also suffered ambushes. In July 2024, a contingent of Wagner and Malian troops was ambushed by rebels in Tinzaouaten, close to the Algerian border. Between 20 and 80 Russians and 25 to 40 Malians were killed, according to varying reports. Researchers noted it was Wagner’s worst defeat since it had deployed to West Africa.

In all, Wagner did not record much success in targeting armed groups like JNIM, analyst Laessing told Al Jazeera.

Alongside Malian forces, the Russians have also been accused by rights groups of committing gross human rights violations against rural communities in northern Mali perceived to be supportive of armed groups.

Could the Russian Africa Corps fighters end the siege on Bamako?

Laessing said the fuel crisis is pressuring Mali to divert military resources and personnel to protect fuel tankers, keeping them from consolidating territory won back from armed groups and further endangering the country.

He added that the crisis will be a test for Russian Africa Corp fighters, who have not proven as ready as Wagner fighters to take battle risks. A video circulating on Russian social media purports to show Africa Corps members providing air support to fuel tanker convoys. It has not been verified by Al Jazeera.

“If they can come in and allow the fuel to flow into Bamako, then the Russians will be seen as heroes,” Laessing said – at least by locals.

Laessing added that the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso, in the medium to long term, might eventually have to negotiate with JNIM to find a way to end the crisis.

While Goita’s government has not attempted to hold talks with the group in the past, in early October, it greenlit talks led by local leaders, according to conflict monitoring group Critical Threats – although it is unclear exactly how the government gave its approval.

Agreements between the group and local leaders have reportedly already been signed in several towns across Segou, Mopti and Timbuktu regions, in which the group agrees to end its siege in return for the communities agreeing to JNIM rules, taxes, and noncooperation with the military.

Zohran Mamdani has won the election to be the next mayor of New York City, knocking out political heavyweight Andrew Cuomo. In less than a year, Mamdani has gone from being a little-known state assemblyman to becoming one of the most high-profile politicians in the United States.

How did he do it, and what could happen now? Start Here with Sandra Gathmann explains.

This episode features:

Joseph Stepansky | US reporter, Al Jazeera Digital

Christina Greer | associate professor of political science at Fordham University and cohost of the FAQ NYC podcast

Andres Bernal | lecturer at the School of Labor and Urban Studies of the City University of New York

On Tuesday, voters in the largest city of the United States, New York, will choose a new mayor in a race that has stirred debate across the country and drawn global interest.

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assembly democratic socialist who surprised many with his June win in the Democratic Party’s primary, is facing former Governor Andrew Cuomo, now running as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination. Republican Curtis Sliwa is among the other candidates in the race.

Here is what we know:

What’s happening on Tuesday?

Voters on both coasts of the US will cast ballots in a series of elections: gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, the New York City mayoral race, and a vote in California on a redistricting measure.

But of these electoral battles, it is the New York mayoral vote that has grabbed the most attention .

Who are the candidates in NYC?

The three leading candidates are Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa.

Zohran Mamdani

The Democratic nominee is running on a platform focused on affordability, calling for rent freezes, universal childcare, cheaper public transport, and a raise in the hourly minimum wage to $30. An immigrant, Muslim, and democratic socialist, his popularity has surged during the campaign, with nearly 370,000 early ballots already cast, and appealing strongly to young voters.

Mamdani, whose parents have Indian roots, was born in Uganda. If elected, he will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first to be born in Africa, and the first of South Asian descent.

Andrew Cuomo

Cuomo served as New York state’s governor from 2011 to 2021 and resigned after a state inquiry confirmed sexual harassment allegations by 13 women. He lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani (56 percent to 44 percent), but stayed in the race as an independent.

Curtis Sliwa

At 71, Sliwa has resisted pressure to withdraw from the race amid concerns he could split the anti-Mamdani vote. Known for his trademark red beret, he rose to prominence as the leader of the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime-fighting group that became famous for its patrols of the New York subway system.

Who is leading in the polls?

The latest RealClearPolitics average shows Democratic nominee Mamdani leading the mayoral race with 46.1 percent , giving him a 14.3-point edge over Cuomo (31.8 percent ) and a 29.8-point lead over Sliwa (16.3 percent ).

US President Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk backed Cuomo late on Monday. Whether that high-profile, last-minute support will shift voter sentiment remains uncertain.

What time do polls open and close in New York?

Polling stations across the city will open on November 4 at 6am local time (11:00 GMT) and voting will continue till 9pm (02:00 GMT on November 5).

Early voting took place from October 25 to November 2.

When will we know results?

In New York, mayoral races are usually called quickly.

This time, however, with two candidates vying for the support of the city’s mostly Democratic voters, it may take longer to determine the outcome.

The 2021 mayoral race ended quickly – Democrat Eric Adams was declared the winner soon after the polls closed.

What are the main issues and what’s at stake?

Being the US’s most diverse city, known around the world for its business and culture, makes picking a new mayor an especially important occasion.

New York’s election campaigns have mirrored the bigger national debates in the US, over identity, religion, political beliefs, and the country’s future.

Some of the key issues include:

Cost of living: The city is facing one of its tightest housing markets in decades. In 2023 the city had a vacancy rate of 1.41 percent , which means that only 14 out of every 1,000 housing units were unoccupied; 9.2 percent of all rental housing was described by city authorities as “overcrowded”. The number of new housing permits issued fell in 2024 compared with 2023.

This has made housing cost and availability a dominant issue. After a slate of California cities, New York is the costliest urban hub in the US to live in.

“Most of us are working multiple jobs, can’t make rent or rents are going up,” Tom Grabher, a city voter, told Al Jazeera.

Law and order: Serious crimes in the city, including murder, have gone down from their 17-year high in 2023. However, lower-level offences, such as shoplifting, remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, adding to public worries about safety and disorder.

Migration: The city has long been a magnet for people from around the world, from its historic role as a gateway for immigrants to the recent influx of asylum seekers that critics say has placed new strains on the city’s resources.

Israel and Gaza: The ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict and the city’s large Jewish and Muslim populations have made foreign policy a key issue in this race.

What has Trump said about the race?

A former New Yorker, Trump has loomed over the mayoral race for months, threatening to arrest Mamdani, deport him, and take control of the city if he wins.

On Monday, Trump urged the city’s voters on his Truth Social platform to back Cuomo, saying they had “no choice” but to vote for the former governor.

When the federal government shut down in October, Trump put on hold roughly $18bn in federal funds, although $187m from New York’s security funding has since been restored. Trump has threatened to withhold more federal aid for the city if Mamdani wins.

What other elections are taking place?

Virginia governor

All eyes are on Virginia, a state next to Washington, DC, that has been directly affected by Trump’s spending cuts and the recent government shutdown.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger is facing off against Republican Lieutenant-Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.

New Jersey governor

In New Jersey, the governor’s race has centred on concerns about affordability. Although Democrats hold a voter advantage, Republicans are optimistic that Trump’s rising popularity in the state could lead to a surprise win. Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill is up against Republican Jack Ciattarelli , a former state assemblyman.

California

In California, a proposed ballot measure would redraw congressional districts in a way that could benefit Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections. Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers say they introduced the plan in response to Trump’s earlier push for Texas to reshape its districts to give Republicans an advantage in five seats currently held by Democrats. If approved, the measure would effectively eliminate five Republican-held districts in California.

The United Kingdom’s King Charles III has stripped his brother, Andrew, of the title of prince and ordered him to leave his lavish residence near Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Observers say the Palace is finally taking decisive action over Andrew’s connections to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations that the two men sexually abused Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager.

Andrew, 65, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth and younger brother of King Charles, has faced growing scrutiny over his personal conduct and ties to Epstein. Earlier this month, he was pressured into giving up his title of Duke of York.

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life,” Andrew said at the time. He also said he “vigorously den[ies] the accusations” against him.

Buckingham Palace hopes to be seen as taking a decisive step, drawing a line after years of compromising scandals. In 2022, Andrew was removed from numerous royal duties due to his connections to Epstein.

How did Andrew’s ties to Epstein come to light?

Born in 1960, Andrew was once one of the more popular members of the British royal family, known for his military service as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War in 1982.

For years, however, Andrew’s personal antics have generated embarrassing headlines, testing the patience of the royal family. In 2024, for instance, court documents revealed that a close adviser on Andrew’s business affairs was a suspected Chinese spy.

But it was Andrew’s persistent ties to Jeffrey Epstein that ultimately forced King Charles’s hand and led to Andrew stepping down from his royal duties in 2019. Epstein died by suicide in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In 2021, Virginia Giuffre – one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein – filed a lawsuit alleging rape and sexual abuse against then-Prince Andrew. She claimed she had been forced to have sex with him on multiple occasions when she was 17, a minor under US law.

Prince Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations, even insisting that a now-infamous photograph that appeared to show them together had been doctored. But in 2022, he agreed to settle the lawsuit, costing him as much as $16m.

Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. She was 41 years old.

Earlier this month, British newspapers reported that Andrew had emailed Epstein in February 2011 – more than two months after the prince told the BBC he had severed all ties with his former associate.

The email was sent at a time of heightened media coverage of the Epstein scandal, with Andrew telling Epstein they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it”.

These disclosures ultimately prompted Buckingham Palace’s response on Thursday.

What has Buckingham Palace said?

In a statement released on Thursday night, Buckingham Palace said the King’s brother is now to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

He will no longer be styled “Prince” or “His Royal Highness (HRH)” and he has lost his dukedom, earldom, barony, military ranks and royal patronages.

It also announced that he is to be evicted from his residence, the sprawling Royal Lodge that was once home to the Queen Mother, near Windsor Castle, west of London.

“His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation,” the palace statement said.

“These censures are deemed necessary… Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” it added.

A palace source said the decision was taken by King Charles, but that he had the support of the wider family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William, in a bid to limit reputational risks to the monarchy.

Elsewhere, culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Question Time programme that the king’s latest decision was a “truly brave, important, and correct step”, sending a “powerful message” to survivors of sexual abuse.

Why has Andrew been evicted from Royal Lodge?

In recent weeks, the British press has been rife with speculation about Andrew’s finances after The Times newspaper reported on October 21 that he had not paid rent on his 30-room mansion – known as Royal Lodge – for two decades.

It was revealed that he had a lease on the property stipulating a “peppercorn rent”: In return for carrying out renovations and maintaining the mansion, Andrew was paying a rent of “one peppercorn” each year.

In a rare political intervention, a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday questioned whether Andrew should still be living in the house, which is owned by the monarch and located 5km (3 miles) south of Windsor Castle.

On October 28, the BBC also revealed that Prince Andrew had hosted Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s associate, later jailed for sex trafficking – and Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer convicted of rape, at Royal Lodge.

The three visited Andrew’s home in 2006 to celebrate his daughter’s 18th birthday, just two months after a United States arrest warrant had been issued for Epstein over the sexual assault of a minor.

Where will Andrew live now?

It is understood that Andrew will move to a property on the private Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which will be privately funded by his brother, the king.

The wider Sandringham Estate covers approximately 8,100 hectares (20,000 acres) with 240 hectares (600 acres) of gardens, and the Palace has not stipulated which property he will stay in.

It is also understood that Andrew’s move to Sandringham will take place “as soon as practicable”.

His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson – who still lives at Royal Lodge with him – will also move out of Royal Lodge and make her own living arrangements.

Have other royals in the UK been stripped of their titles in the past?

The stripping of Prince Andrew’s royal titles by King Charles III is unusual in modern British history.

Other royals have relinquished titles voluntarily – such as Princess Diana giving up HRH following her divorce from King Charles – and King Edward VIII, who abdicated from the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been divorced twice.

Others have lost their privileges for political reasons – such as Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for siding with Germany in World War I – but there has not been a case of a reigning monarch or immediate family being stripped of their status for scandal-related reasons.

In that sense, Andrew’s case is the most serious demotion of a senior British royal in recent memory.

US states have relied on vaccine mandates since the 1800s, when a smallpox vaccine offered the first successful protection against a disease that had killed millions.

More than a century later, Florida’s top public health official said vaccine requirements are unethical and unnecessary for high vaccination rates.

“You can still have high vaccination numbers, just like the other countries who don’t do any mandates like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the [United Kingdom], most of Canada,” Florida Surgeon General Dr Joseph Ladapo said on October 16. “No mandates, really comparable vaccine uptake.”

It’s true that some countries without vaccine requirements have high vaccination rates, on a par with the United States. But experts say that fact alone does not make it a given that the US would follow the same pattern if it eliminates school vaccination requirements.

Florida state law currently requires students in public and private schools from daycare through 12th grade to have specific immunisations. Families can opt out for religious or medical reasons. About 11 percent of Florida kindergarteners are not immunised, recent data shows. With Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s backing, Ladapo is pushing to end the state’s school vaccine requirements.

The countries Ladapo cited – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the UK and parts of Canada – don’t have broad vaccine requirements, research shows. Their governments recommend such protections, though, and their healthcare systems offer conveniently accessible vaccines, for example.

UNICEF, a United Nations agency which calls itself the “global go-to for data on children”, measures how well countries provide routine childhood immunisations by looking at infant access to the third dose in a DTaP vaccine series that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough).

In 2024, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 94 percent of one-year-olds in the United States had received three doses of the DTaP vaccine. That’s compared with Canada at 92 percent, Denmark at 96 percent, Norway at 97 percent, Sweden at 96 percent and the UK at 92 percent.

Universal, government-provided healthcare and high trust in government likely influence those countries’ vaccine uptake, experts have said. In the US, many people can’t afford time off work or the cost of a doctor’s visit. There’s also less trust in the government. These factors could prevent the US from having similar participation rates should the government eliminate school vaccine mandates.

Universal healthcare, stronger government trust increase vaccination

Multiple studies have linked vaccine mandates and increased vaccination rates. Although these studies found associations between the two, the research does not prove that mandates alone cause increased vaccination rates. Association is not the same as causation.

Other factors that can affect vaccination rates often accompany mandates, including local efforts to improve vaccination access, increase documentation and combat vaccine hesitancy and refusal.

The countries Ladapo highlighted are high-income countries with policies that encourage vaccination and make vaccines accessible.

In Sweden, for example, where all vaccinations are voluntary, the vaccines included in national programmes are offered for free, according to the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

Preventive care is more accessible and routine for everyone in countries such as Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK with universal healthcare systems, said Dr Megan Berman of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences.

“In the US, our healthcare system is more fragmented, and access to care can depend on insurance or cost,” she said.

More limited healthcare access, decreased institutional trust and anti-vaccine activists’ influence set the US apart from those other countries, experts said.

Some of these other countries’ cultural norms favour the collective welfare of others, which means people are more likely to get vaccinated to support the community, Berman said.

Anders Hviid, an epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, told The Atlantic that it’s misguided to compare Denmark’s health situation with the US – in part because Danish citizens strongly trust the government to enact policies in the public interest.

By contrast, as of 2024, fewer than one in three people in the US over age 15 reported having confidence in the national government, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of advanced, industrialised nations. That’s the lowest percentage of any of the countries Ladapo mentioned.

“The effectiveness of recommendations depends on faith in the government and scientific body that is making the recommendations,” said Dr Richard Rupp, of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences.

Without mandates, vaccine education would be even more important, experts say

Experts said they believe US vaccination rates would fall if states ended school vaccine mandates.

Maintaining high vaccination rates without mandates would require health officials to focus on other policies, interventions and messaging, said Samantha Vanderslott, the leader of the Oxford Vaccine Group’s Vaccines and Society Unit, which researches attitudes and behaviour towards vaccines.

That could be especially difficult given that the United States’s top health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has a long history of anti-vaccine activism and scepticism about vaccines.

That makes the US an outlier, Vanderslott said.

“Governments tend to promote/support vaccination as a public health good,” she said. It is unusual for someone with Kennedy’s background to hold a position where he has the power to spread misinformation, encourage vaccine hesitancy and reduce mainstream vaccine research funding and access, Vanderslott said.

Most people decide to follow recommendations based on their beliefs about a vaccine’s benefits and their child’s vulnerability to disease, Rupp said. That means countries that educate the public about vaccines and illnesses will have better success with recommendations, he said.

Ultimately, experts said that just because something worked elsewhere doesn’t mean it will work in the United States.

Matt Hitchings, a biostatistics professor at the University of Florida’s College of Public Health and Health Professions, said a vaccine policy’s viability could differ from country to country. Vaccination rates are influenced by a host of factors.

“If I said that people in the UK drink more tea than in the US and have lower rates of certain cancers, would that be convincing evidence that drinking tea reduces cancer risk?” Hitchings said.

Google Translate was used throughout the research of this story to translate websites and statements into English.

United States President Donald Trump expects “a lot of problems” will be solved between Washington and Beijing when he meets China’s President Xi Jinping in South Korea for a high-stakes meeting on Thursday, amid growing trade tensions between the two.

Relations between the two world powers have been strained in recent years, with Washington and Beijing imposing tit-for-tat trade tariffs topping 100 percent against each other this year, the US restricting its exports of semiconductors vital for artificial intelligence (AI) development and Beijing restricting exports of critical rare-earth metals which are vital for the defence industry and also the development of AI, among other issues.

Officials from Washington and Beijing have been locked in trade talks since August to de-escalate trade tensions, and they also came up with a framework for a trade deal during meetings in Malaysia over the weekend.

On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Wednesday, Trump said an expected trade deal between China and the US would be good for both countries and “something very exciting for everybody”.

But only a meeting between Trump and Xi can confirm if a trade deal is really in the making.

Expectations for the agreement are modest, with analysts expecting the two world powers to continue to clash over their myriad differences long-term.

When are the two leaders meeting?

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi on Thursday in the port city of Busan in southeastern South Korea. The meeting is expected to start at 11am local time (01:00 GMT).

It will be the first time the leaders have met in person since Trump returned to the White House in January.

The US president last met Xi in 2019, during Trump’s first term, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Osaka, Japan.

“I think we’re going to have a great meeting with President Xi of China, and a lot of problems are going to be solved,” Trump told journalists on Wednesday on Air Force One while en route to South Korea.

On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the meeting between Xi and Trump in a statement and said the leaders “will exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest”.

What will Trump and Xi talk about?

Discussions are likely to cover:

• Trade tariffs
• Trafficking of fentanyl, a drug responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the US each year
• China’s export controls on critical rare-earth metals and its purchase of US soya beans
• US export controls on semiconductors
• Geopolitical and security issues, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine and Washington’s position on Taiwan
• Port fees on Chinese ships docking in US ports
• Finalising a deal to buy TikTok, the social media platform, from its Chinese owners

Alejandro Reyes, adjunct professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that at this meeting, both sides will want to steady an uneasy rivalry – but for different reasons.

“For Washington, the goal is to show that its tough line on China has delivered results. The Trump team is walking into this summit after signing trade pacts with Malaysia, Cambodia and Japan that link market access directly to national security cooperation. These deals require America’s partners to align with US export controls and supply-chain rules – essentially making ‘economic security’ a shared obligation,” he said.

“For Beijing, the priority is to project calm and endurance. The meeting comes just after the fourth plenum, which reaffirmed Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authority and set the direction for the next five-year plan. China’s message is that it has weathered Western pressure and is back to focusing on growth and domestic stability,” he added.

But discussions on disputes over trade tariffs, critical rare-earth metals, AI technology and geopolitical strategies, the issues that most define the current relationship between the US and China, according to Reyes, are not going to be easy to resolve.

“The mistrust is structural now – it’s built into how both countries think about power and security,” he said.

What are the sticking points?

Fentanyl

A key issue for the Trump administration is stopping the illegal flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl – a powerful synthetic opiate which is 50 times more potent than heroin – from China to the US. In February, Trump slapped a 20 percent trade tariff on all imports from China, citing Beijing’s lack of effort in curbing the flow of the drug into the US.

In a media briefing note sent to Al Jazeera by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Bonnie Glaser, managing director of GMF’s Indo-Pacific programme, said the fentanyl trade has been “a really contentious issue between the US and China”.

“From what I have heard, a criminal money-laundering cooperation supports the fentanyl trade, and this is where China is willing to cooperate, in a way where it will have minimum negative impact on their domestic situation,” she said at a briefing held in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Late on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that during Thursday’s meeting, “China is expected to commit to more controls on the export of so-called precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.” The newspaper added that if this agreement is reached, Trump would reduce the tariffs imposed because of fentanyl by as much as 10 percent.

Trade tariffs

Following the fentanyl-related tariffs, in March, China imposed a 15 percent tariff on a range of US farm exports in retaliation, triggering a tit-for-tat tariff war.

In April, Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent, prompting China to hit back with 125 percent tariffs of its own.

Washington and Beijing later cut tariffs to 30 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in May, and agreed to a 90-day truce in August for trade talks. The truce has been extended twice, but despite repeated talks, a trade agreement has not been reached.

Rare-earth metals and soya beans

China has restricted exports of 12 critical rare-earth metals this year, as well as of the machinery needed to refine these metals, citing security reasons. Beijing also said its restrictions were in response to US restrictions on the Chinese maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries.

The first seven metals to be restricted were announced in April, while the remaining five were announced on October 10. These metals are crucial for the defence industry and for developing AI technology.

In October, Trump responded by threatening to impose 100 percent tariffs on China from November 1, citing Beijing’s strict export controls on critical rare earths as the reason for the tariffs.

Trump added that the US would also impose export controls on “any and all critical software”.

Reyes noted that while the US wants guaranteed access to rare earths and battery materials, it signed a new agreement with Japan and trade clauses with Malaysia this week, which aim to reduce the US dependence on China for these. “Beijing sees this as an effort to contain its influence,” he said.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told many US media outlets this week that he expected China to defer its restrictions on rare earths and that Trump’s 100 percent tariff threat was “effectively off the table”.

Bessent added that the Chinese side would agree to increase purchases of US-grown soya beans.

Dylan Loh, associate professor in public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University, said he anticipates some positive movement on solving these trade disputes but does not believe the fundamental economic tension between the US and China will be resolved at the meeting.

“The competition and mistrust go beyond simply economics,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the problems can be managed and must be managed well. It requires political capital and the ability to move beyond zero-sum thinking.”

Technology and TikTok

In September, Trump signed an executive order to transfer TikTok’s US assets to US investors, citing national security reasons. On Sunday, Bessent told US broadcaster CBS that the US and China had “reached a final deal on TikTok”, which will be finalised at the Trump-Xi meeting.

But, Reyes said, “the deal cools one dispute but doesn’t end the fight over chips, AI and digital control”.

In October, Washington blacklisted hundreds of Chinese tech firms, claiming they posed a risk to national security. The US has also restricted companies such as Nvidia from exporting advanced chips, important to manufacture key equipment used for the development of AI, to China, claiming that Beijing would use it to advance its global power.

Beijing has been irked by Washington’s restrictions and has launched antitrust investigations into Nvidia and Qualcomm, and has also increased its export controls on rare-earth elements.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One en route to South Korea on Wednesday, Trump said he might speak to Xi about Nvidia chips.

“I think we may be talking about that with President Xi,” Trump said.

Geopolitical Issues

According to analysts, Trump is eager to use this meeting with Xi to discuss ways to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Beijing, a close ally of Moscow, has said a prolonged war in Ukraine “serves no one’s interest”. But, in July, according to a report by The South China Morning Post, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union that it can’t afford to have Russia lose the war in Ukraine since the US would then turn its attention to China.

Trump has threatened to slap sanctions and tariffs on countries that buy Moscow’s crude oil in efforts to end the war. It has already imposed an additional 25 percent tariff – bringing the total to 50 percent – on India as a punishment for purchasing Russian oil.

But the US has not yet taken this step with China, which imports about 1.4 million barrels of Russian oil per day by sea.

According to a Reuters report, however, after the US sanctioned two of Moscow’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in October, Chinese national oil companies like PetroChina and Sinopec have said they will refrain from importing seaborne Russian oil for the short term.

“Trump wants a ceasefire and a peace deal in Ukraine. Putin has been unwilling to play ball, and Trump, I think, intends to raise this with Xi Jinping, possibly ask him if he can reach out to Putin and encourage him to come to the negotiating table,” Glaser said.

“We know so far, Xi Jinping has been very, very cautious about getting involved. I think he will be reluctant to pressure Putin to do,” she added.

Besides Ukraine, Beijing will be eager to discuss the US position on Taiwan, according to Glaser.

“Xi Jinping will raise concerns about what Beijing views as the pro-independence policies of Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, and I think he will want clarification of the US stance and may well press Trump to say that the US opposes Taiwan independence and supports China’s unification,” she said.

“The bottom line is that Trump is not likely to abandon Taiwan because doing so could lead to a PRC [People’s Republic of China] decision to use force, and Trump wants to take credit for ending wars, not starting them,” Glaser added.

Trump, however, told journalists on board Air Force One on Wednesday that he was “not sure” he would discuss Taiwan.

How strong are their negotiating positions?

The balance of power in the respective negotiating positions of China and the US has shifted in the recent past.

Former US President Joe Biden restricted exports of US semiconductors, which are crucial for the development of AI, much to China’s annoyance. Then, early this year, Trump compounded this with 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods.

China retaliated with 125 percent tariffs on US goods, escalating a trade war, until the two sides agreed in May to pause tariffs to allow for trade talks.

But that was not before China placed export restrictions on seven rare-earth metals in April. In October, China restricted exports of five more rare-earth metals, and Trump threatened 100 percent tariffs again in retaliation.

This week, seeking to diversify trade and its supply chains, China strengthened a trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). But the US also drew up new trade agreements with Japan, Malaysia and Cambodia. On Wednesday, South Korea announced that it too had reached a trade agreement with the US, and was lowering tariffs on imported US goods.

According to Loh, it is unclear who has the upper hand right now between the US and China.

“While the signing of the FTA [with ASEAN] has certainly enhanced China’s position and influence and is indeed quite significant for ASEAN and China, it does not necessarily have a direct bearing on US-China itself,” Loh said.

“US retains considerable political and economic influence in this part of the world still, as evinced by Trump’s trip here,” he added.

According to Reyes, each side has different kinds of leverage.

“The United States has built a new network of allies who have literally signed on to Washington’s playbook,” he said, referring to the deal Washington signed with Malaysia, which obliges Kuala Lumpur to match US trade restrictions. Malaysia has clarified that this deal would only apply to matters of shared concern.

But Reyes said such a deal “gives Trump’s team political and legal momentum going into the China meeting”.

“China, though, has the economic stamina. It still anchors global manufacturing, dominates critical-mineral processing, and has proven that tariffs couldn’t break its model. China used the trade war to build muscles, resistance and resilience – it learned to do everything faster, cheaper and at scale,” he said.

“So the US has the ‘louder’ hand; China has the steadier one. Washington can escalate, but Beijing can outlast,” Reyes added.

So what is likely to come out of these talks?

The stakes are high with Trump announcing that he anticipates a “great” meeting. But expectations of any “great” outcome are low.

Reyes said he expects a truce in their strained ties with photo opportunities rather than any grand bargain.

“Expect both sides to announce small wins: a delay on tariffs, a joint statement on trade stability, maybe a working group on critical minerals cooperation,” he said.

“This summit won’t end the rivalry – it simply marks a new phase: the US building alliances through treaties, and China doing much the same, while consolidating power through endurance building. This meeting isn’t about ending the rivalry – it’s about learning to live with it,” he said.

Palestinians in Gaza have experienced the deadliest 24 hours since the start of the United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect almost three weeks ago.

Israel killed more than 100 people, including 46 children, in attacks late on Tuesday and on Wednesday. Medical sources told Al Jazeera the strikes hit all over Gaza.

This adds to dozens of previous ceasefire violations with a rocky outlook ahead. Let’s take a look at where things stand:

What’s the latest?

The Israeli military said by noon on Wednesday that it was returning to the ceasefire in line with instructions from the political leadership but remained ready to attack again if necessary.

It said it hit more than 30 targets in the besieged enclave, claiming that the targets were “terrorists in command positions within terror organisations”.

But as more residential buildings were flattened by the Israeli bombs, at least 18 members of the same family in central Gaza, including children, parents and grandparents, were among the victims.

Civil Defence teams once again had to use small tools and their hands to dig in the rubble of bombed areas to search for survivors and the dead. Several tents belonging to displaced Palestinian families were also targeted.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 68,643 people have been killed and 170,655 wounded since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023.

What was Israel’s justification?

On Tuesday, Israel announced that the body of a captive transferred from Gaza by Hamas through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not match one of the 13 to be handed over as part of the ceasefire.

Israeli forensic analysts determined that the remains belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, who was taken to Gaza during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and whose partial remains were recovered in November of the same year.

Israeli officials reacted furiously, especially far-right ministers in the coalition government who are against stopping the war on Gaza and want Hamas “destroyed”. An organisation run by the families of the captives also expressed outrage and demanded action.

A short time later, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said it would hand over the remains of an Israeli captive at 8pm (18:00 GMT), but it held off after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were also heard in the southern city of Rafah. Israel alleged this was an attack by Hamas fighters, something Hamas rejected.

Israel also accused the Palestinian group of “staging” the recovery of a captive’s remains after showing footage purportedly of Hamas fighters burying a body before calling in the ICRC.

The ICRC said its personnel “were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival”.

What’s in the ceasefire?

As part of the agreement, which entered into force on October 10, Hamas handed over all remaining 20 living captives held in Gaza within several days.

The group has also handed over the remains of 15 deceased Israeli captives as part of the deal with 13 others remaining unrecovered or undelivered.

Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza, but supplies have been well below the 600 trucks a day specified in the ceasefire, a level that is required to help the famine-stricken population.

Israel has also prevented tents and mobile homes from entering the enclave but has let some heavy machinery enter to search for the remains of its captives.

After all the remains are handed over, a second phase of the ceasefire could potentially enter into force, allowing the deployment of an international stabilisation force and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stressed that they will not allow the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state and have been advancing with a plan to illegally annex the occupied West Bank despite international criticism.

What is Hamas saying?

Hamas has accused Israel of fabricating “false pretexts” to renew aggression in Gaza.

Before the attacks over the past day, Hamas  said Israel had carried out at least 125 violations.

Since October 10, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, at least 211 Palestinians have been killed and 597 wounded in Israeli attacks while 482 bodies have been recovered.

Hamas has also accused Israel of obstructing efforts to recover the bodies of the captives while using the same bodies as an excuse to claim noncompliance.

It pointed out that Israel has prevented enough heavy machinery from entering Gaza to recover the remains and has prevented search teams from accessing key areas.

The Qassam Brigades said its fighters have recovered the bodies of two more deceased captives, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during search operations conducted on Tuesday.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have said they are prepared to hand over administration of Gaza to a technocratic Palestinian body while maintaining that armed resistance is a result of decades-long occupation and apartheid by Israel.

What does this mean for Gaza’s civilians?

Since the start of the war, civilians have been the main casualties of Israel’s war on Gaza.

They have been disproportionately targeted, as they were in the latest overnight attacks, and have also seen Gaza’s infrastructure and means of living destroyed by bombs and invading Israeli forces.

Because nowhere in Gaza is fully safe, Palestinians underwent another day of panic that the Israeli attacks could be extended.

Israeli warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft continued to hover over the enclave.

What happens now?

The US has repeatedly expressed support for Israel despite its ceasefire violations, emphasising Israel’s right to defend itself.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the ceasefire “is not in jeopardy” despite the strikes.

Mediator Qatar has previously condemned violations of the agreement and accused Israel of undermining its implementation. But along with Egypt, it has worked to ensure the deal stays alive.

With millions of people in the United States at risk of losing access to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – also known as food stamps – from November 1, a viral chart has claimed to show the majority of the nation’s food stamp recipients are non-white and noncitizens.

The chart, titled Food Stamps by Ethnicity, listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the “percentage of US households receiving SNAP benefits”.

The groups were labelled by nationality, such as “Afghan”, “Somali”, “Iraqi”, along with the racial groups “white”, “Black” and “native”. The chart appeared to show that Afghan people were the largest group receiving SNAP benefits, at 45.6 percent, followed by Somali (42.4 percent) and Iraqi (34.8 percent). White people, represented on the chart with the US flag, were third to last at 8.6 percent.

The federal government shutdown, which started on October 1, is the cause of the looming SNAP funding lapse. SNAP provides food purchasing benefits to low-income households. Conservatives have peddled the misleading narrative that Democrats are pushing for healthcare for undocumented migrants, and people commenting on the chart rehashed a similar talking point.

“Who is getting their EBT cut?” read the caption of an October 25 X post sharing the chart, which had 3.1 million views as of October 27. EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer, which is a SNAP payment system.

“Only 18.7% of EBT or food stamp recipients are American. Let that sink in …” read another post sharing the chart, seemingly mistakenly referring to the figure next to the word “Armenian”; there was no “American” category in the chart. “We are subsidizing foreigners on the taxpayers dime.”

Who is getting their EBT cut pic.twitter.com/el8x9X5iVX

— The General (@1776General_) October 25, 2025

The chart doesn’t show the full picture of SNAP recipients by race or ethnicity. The most reliable source for the breakdown of SNAP recipients by demographics comes from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the programme.

According to the most recent USDA data available, from 2023, white people are the largest racial group receiving SNAP benefits, at 35.4 percent. African Americans are next, making up 25.7 percent of recipients, then Hispanic people at 15.6 percent, Asian people at 3.9 percent, Native Americans at 1.3 percent and multiracial people at 1 percent. The race of 17 percent of participants is unknown.

The same report found that 89.4 percent of SNAP recipients were US-born citizens, meaning less than 11 percent of SNAP participants were foreign-born. Of the latter figure, 6.2 percent were naturalised citizens, 1.1 percent were refugees and 3.3 percent were other noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents and other eligible noncitizens.

While large shares of the groups listed in the chart may receive food stamps, “they are certainly a tiny share of the households and spending on SNAP”, said Tracy Roof, University of Richmond associate professor of political science.

Survey data shows an incomplete picture on SNAP recipients

The chart shared on social media originated from a June blog post from The Personal Finance Wizards, which cited “US Census Table S0201” as its source. The site offers financial advice, but published a disclaimer saying it cannot guarantee the “completeness, accuracy, or reliability” of its information.

The site’s authors appeared to cherry-pick groups to include in the chart, noting, “It’s important to note that the graph highlights a selection of ethnicities we felt would be most relevant and engaging for our audience.” It did not name an author.

In a comment on an Instagram post sharing the chart, Personal Finance Wizards shared a link to the US Census table it used. It shows data from the 2024 American Community Survey, filtered by 49 racial and ethnic groups. The filtered groups don’t completely overlap with the groups in the chart, but the dataset has a column for “households with food stamp/SNAP benefits”, which shows percentages similar to the ones in the chart.

The data does not show what percentage of all SNAP beneficiaries belong to an ethnic or nationality group.

Joseph Llobrera, senior director of research for the food assistance team at the liberal think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the chart appeared to show the shares of households receiving SNAP based on the household respondents’ reported ancestry, which is different from citizenship status.

“Without context, this graphic is misleading and may lead some to conclude that many non-citizens are participating in SNAP, which is not true,” he said.

The American Community Survey allows respondents to self-identify their race. It also defines ancestry as a “person’s ethnic origin or descent, roots or heritage, place of birth, or place of parents’ ancestors before their arrival in the United States”.

Colleen Heflin, Syracuse University expert on food insecurity, nutrition and welfare policy, said the American Community Survey data on SNAP receipts is self-reported, and that question “is known to have a great deal of measurement error” when compared with SNAP administrative data.

Chart reflects higher levels of need in groups with higher shares of SNAP participation

Groups such as Afghans and Iraqis, who are first and third on the chart, would have been more likely to have immediately qualified for the SNAP programme before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s passage because of their special immigration status.

Before the law’s passage, refugees and people who had been granted asylum were also eligible for SNAP without a waiting period. Somalis, who were second on the chart, are “more likely” to qualify based on those criteria, Roof said.

Other noncitizens, such as lawful permanent residents, could be eligible for SNAP only after a five-year waiting period.

But the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed the eligibility, making refugees and asylum seekers ineligible. Immigrants in the country illegally are not and have never been eligible for SNAP.

Hurricane Melissa, which has been barrelling towards Jamaica, is expected to be the most powerful hurricane to ever make a direct hit on the island.

The hurricane intensified on Monday into a Category 5 storm, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with wind speeds exceeding 252km/h (157mph). It was expected to make landfall on Tuesday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the United States. It said the storm will cause “destructive winds” and “catastrophic flooding”, which it forecast to worsen throughout the day and night.

Jamaica’s Meteorological Service added: “Life-threatening storm surge, accompanied by large and destructive waves, is likely along the south coast of Jamaica late Monday through Tuesday morning.”

How did Hurricane Melissa form?

Melissa originated as a cluster of thunderstorms off the coast of West Africa. It travelled west and evolved into a depression. On October 21, it reached tropical storm status.

Over the weekend, Melissa became a Category 4 storm as it made its way west through the Caribbean Sea.

Melissa is the 13th hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. On average, the Atlantic basin experiences about seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes each year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US predicted an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year with 13 to 18 named storms.

This is the third Category 5 hurricane of the season after Hurricanes Erin and Humberto.

Authorities use the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale to classify storms. The scale divides hurricanes into five categories based on their sustained wind speeds.

The highest is Category 5, which means a storm that has a sustained wind speed of 252km/h (157mph) or higher. Category 5 storms usually bring “catastrophic damage”, according to the NHC.

How has Melissa progressed? When and where will it hit Jamaica?

In anticipation of the hurricane, residents in Jamaica have been told to protect their homes with sandbags and boards, and to stock up on essentials.

The NHC said hurricane-force winds will extend up to 45km (30 miles) from Melissa’s centre and tropical storm-force winds will extend up to 315km (195 miles) from it.

Here is how the storm has progressed so far:

Monday, 7am in Jamaica (12:00 GMT)

On Monday morning, Melissa was upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane as it moved northwest in the Caribbean.

Tuesday, 1am (06:00 GMT)

Melissa will likely make landfall soon after this time. The NHC said because the storm is moving slowly – at 8km/h (5mph) – it will cause more damage.

“This extreme rainfall potential, owing to the slow motion, is going to create a catastrophic event here for Jamaica,” NHC Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said.

Melissa is expected to bring rainfall of 381mm to 762mm (15 to 30 inches) to portions of Jamaica and additional rainfall of 203mm to 406mm (8 to 16 inches) for southern Hispaniola through Wednesday with rainfall totals of 1,016mm (40 inches) possible. Catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely.

Wednesday, 1pm (18:00 GMT)

Melissa is forecast to pass over Cuba by Wednesday before moving through the Greater Antilles and out into the Atlantic.

It is predicted to weaken to Category 3 by the time it reaches Cuba.

What is the latest on the ground?

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said: “I know that there are many Jamaicans who are anxious, who are very concerned, and rightfully so. You should be concerned.

“But the best way to address anxiety and any nervousness and concern is to be prepared.”

Jamaica’s Meteorological Service has advised small craft operators and fishermen on the cays and banks to remain in safe harbour until wind and sea conditions return to normal

“Leaving the island before the hurricane arrives is not an option,” it said. The main airports – Kingston and Montego Bay – are closed. Kingston’s airport is warning: “Passengers, contact your airline for rebooking. DO NOT go to the airport.”

Warnings have also been put in place for parts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba, where Melissa is expected to cause similar damage.

Jamaica’s history of hurricanes

According to the NHC, Jamaica has experienced only one Category 4 storm, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. It was the most destructive storm in Jamaica’s history and killed at least 45 people.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy was the first to make landfall on the island since Gilbert. It hit as a Category 1 storm.

In 2024, Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm, brushed the southern coast of Jamaica and caused heavy winds and rain and damaged buildings. It also caused the deaths of four people.

A crackdown by armed forces in Cameroon has killed at least four opposition supporters amid protests over the declared re-election win by President Paul Biya.

Protesters calling for fair results from the African country’s contested presidential election held on October 12 have hit the streets in several cities as 92-year-old Biya prepares for an eighth term, which could keep him in power until 2032 as he nears 100.

Biya, whose election win was finally confirmed by Cameroon’s Constitutional Council on Monday, is Africa’s oldest and among the world’s longest ruling leaders. He has spent 43 years – nearly half his life – in office. He has ruled Cameroon, a country of 30 million people, as president since 1982 through elections that political opponents said have been “stolen”.

What’s behind the deadly protests?

Supporters of opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary of the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon party have defied a ban on protests, setting police cars on fire, barricading roads and burning tyres in the financial capital, Douala, before the announcement of the election result. Around 30 activists have been arrested.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon to break up the crowds that came out in support of Tchiroma, who had declared himself the real winner, and called for Biya to concede.

Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, the governor of the region that includes Douala, told the AFP news agency that the protesters attacked police stations in the second and sixth districts of the city.

Several members of the security forces were wounded, and “four people unfortunately lost their lives,” he said. Tchiroma’s campaign team confirmed the deaths on Sunday were of protesters.

Opposition supporters claim the results of the election have been rigged by Biya and his supporters in power. In the lead-up to the announcement of the result, the current government rejected these accusations and urged people to wait for the result.

Who is the main opposition in Cameroon?

The Union for Change is a coalition of opposition parties that formed in September to counter Biya’s dominance of the political landscape.

The forum brought together more than two dozen political parties and civil society groups in opposition to Biya with an aim to field a consensus candidate.

In September, the group confirmed Tchiroma as its consensus candidate to run against Biya.

Tchiroma, 76, was formerly part of Biya’s government, holding several ministerial positions over 16 years. He also served as government spokesperson during the years of fighting the Boko Haram armed group, and he defended the army when it stood accused of killing civilians. He was once regarded as a member of Biya’s “old guard” but has campaigned on a promise of “change”.

What happened after the election?

After voting ended on October 12, Tchiroma claimed victory.

“Our victory is clear. It must be respected,” he said in a video statement posted on Facebook. He called on Biya to “accept the truth of the ballot box” or “plunge the country into turmoil”.

Tchiroma claimed that he had won the election with 55 percent of the vote. More than 8 million people were registered to vote in the election.

On Monday, however, the Constitutional Council announced Biya as the winner with 53.66 percent of the vote.

It said Tchiroma was the runner-up with 35.19 percent.

Announcing the results on Monday, the council’s leader, Clement Atangana, said the electoral process was “peaceful” and criticised the opposition for “anticipating the result”.

What are the main criticisms of Biya?

Under Biya’s rule, Cameroon has struggled with myriad challenges, including chronic corruption that critics say has dampened economic growth despite the country being rich in resources such as oil and cocoa.

The president, who has clinched wins in eight heavily contested elections held every seven years, is renowned for his absenteeism as he reportedly spends extended periods away from the country.

The 92-year-old appeared at just one campaign rally in the lead-up to this month’s election when he promised voters that “the best is still to come.”

He and his entourage are often away on private or medical treatment trips to Switzerland. An investigation in 2018 by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found Biya had spent at least 1,645 days (nearly four and a half years) in the European country, excluding official visits, since being in power.

Under Biya, opposition politicians have frequently accused electoral authorities of colluding with the president to rig elections. In 2008, parliament voted to remove the limit on the number of terms a president may serve.

Before the election, the Constitutional Council barred another popular opposition candidate, Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, from running.

Some opposition leaders and their supporters have been detained by police on a slew of charges, including plotting violence.

On Friday, two prominent leaders, Anicet Ekane and Djeukam Tchameni of the Union for Change, were arrested.

The African Movement for New Independence and Democracy party also said its treasurer and other members had been “kidnapped” by local security forces, a move it claimed was designed “to intimidate Cameroonians”.

Analysts also said Biya’s hold on power could lead to instability when he eventually goes.

What is the security situation in Cameroon?

Since 2015, attacks by the armed group, Boko Haram, have become more and more frequent in the Far North Region of the country.

Furthermore, since gaining independence in 1960 from French rule, Cameroon has struggled with conflict rooted in the country’s deep linguistic and political divisions, which developed when French- and English-speaking regions were merged into a single state.

French is the official language, and Anglophone Cameroonians in the northwest and southwest have felt increasingly marginalised by the Francophone-dominated government in Yaounde.

Their grievances – over language, education, courts and distribution of resources – turned into mass protests in 2016 when teachers and lawyers demanded equal recognition of English-language institutions.

The government responded with arrests and internet blackouts, and the situation eventually built up to an armed separatist struggle for an independent state called Ambazonia.

The recent presidential election was the first to take place since the conflict intensified. Armed separatists have barred the Anglophone population from participating in government-organised activities, such as National Day celebrations and elections.

As a result, the Southwest and Northwest regions saw widespread abstention in voting on October 12 with a 53 percent turnout. The highest share of votes, according to the official results, went to Biya: 68.7 percent and 86.31 percent in the two regions, respectively.

What will happen now?

Protests are likely to spread, observers said.

After the deaths of four protesters before the results were announced, Tchiroma paid tribute “to those who fell to the bullets of a regime that has become criminal during a peaceful march”.

He called on Biya’s government to “stop these acts of barbarity, these killings and arbitrary arrests”.

“Tell the truth of the ballots, or we will all mobilise and march peacefully,” he said.

The mass-produced COVID-19 vaccines built using the mRNA model – which were rapidly manufactured during the global pandemic – could also help the immune system recognise and attack cancer tumours, new studies have shown.

Studies in mice and an analysis of medical records of cancer patients – who received mRNA shots for COVID-19 before starting immunotherapy for cancer treatment – revealed a startling pattern: the vaccinated patients lived significantly longer than those who had not received the shots.

A team of researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center presented the results this week at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Berlin and published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature.

The results, they say, reveal that the mRNA vaccines do not just prevent infection – they also “wake up” and prompt the body’s immune system to fight tumours.

The discovery has come at a time when US President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed funding for mRNA research.

So, why is this being touted as groundbreaking? What does it mean for cancer patients? And how did the COVID-19 pandemic become the medium for this unlikely discovery?

What is an mRNA vaccine?

Unlike traditional vaccines, which used weakened or inactive parts of a virus to trigger the immune system to build a defence, mRNA vaccines deliver a small strand of genetic code known as “messenger RNA” directly into the body’s cells.

The cell reads this blueprint as an instruction to manufacture a spike protein which mimics that of the virus, and display it on its surface, effectively waving a red flag that alerts the immune system to build a defence.

The body then creates antibodies and memory cells trained to recognise and attack that protein spike if it ever appears again.

How did researchers discover the link between mRNA and cancer?

This is an area of research which has been going on for some years, most notably by paediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, the Stop Children’s Cancer/Bonnie R Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research at the University of Florida, in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a particular opportunity to study the implications of mRNA for cancer treatment as the world moved en masse to vaccinate the population.

When Sayour’s former student, oncologist Adam Grippin, examined clinical data of more than 1,000 patients treated between August 2019 and August 2023 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, he found a striking pattern.

People who had received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy lived significantly longer than those who received the same medical treatment but did not have the vaccine.

How much longer did people live with the vaccine?

For patients with advanced lung cancer, the median survival rate nearly doubled if they had the vaccine, rising from 20.6 months to 37.3.

More strikingly, the survival improvements were most pronounced in patients with immunologically “cold” tumours – meaning that the mRNA vaccine appeared to “wake up” the immune system in patients with these harder-to-treat cancers – turning “cold” tumours into ones the immune system could more easily recognise and attack.

The researchers noted that their findings were consistent across varying factors, such as different vaccine manufacturers, doses and time of vaccination.

The researchers also compared the survival rates in a smaller group of patients receiving immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma, the most advanced stage of a type of skin cancer. In the study, 43 patients had an mRNA COVID vaccine and 167 did not.

Patients who did not receive the vaccine had a median survival of just more than two years. By contrast, those who were vaccinated before starting treatment had not yet reached their median survival point more than three years into follow-up, the research found.

How does it work?

The researchers discovered that mRNA vaccines work like an alarm for the body’s defence system.

When the vaccine is given, it puts the immune system on alert, making it more likely to notice cancer cells that it might have ignored before. Once the immune system is activated, it begins to attack these cells.

But cancer cells fight back. They produce a protein called PD-L1, which works as a shield that “hides” them from the immune system. However, there are drugs known as immune checkpoint inhibitors that can block this shield.

When both the vaccine and these drugs are used, it creates the ideal situation – the immune system is active and alert, and the cancer’s defences are down, Grippin explained.

While the researchers said that they do not yet fully understand the mechanisms, the findings suggest that mRNA vaccines can be used to re-programme immune responses to cancer.

What does this mean for cancer patients?

These findings are preliminary. If, however, the study is validated in clinical trials, it could have huge implications for the treatment of cancer.

“These vaccines produce powerful anti-tumour immune responses that are associated with massive improvements in survival for patients with cancer,” Grippin said.

“The implications are extraordinary – this could revolutionise the entire field of oncologic care,” said Sayour. “We could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilise and reset the immune response, in a way that could essentially be a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients.”

Grippen, who co-led the study with Steven Lin, professor of radiation oncology, said his team is launching a Phase 3 clinical trial to confirm the initial results and investigate whether COVID mRNA vaccines should be made part of the standard of care for patients.

What did scientists find in tests with mice?

In the mouse experiments, researchers found that injecting an mRNA COVID vaccine directly into a tumour made dendritic cells – a type of white blood cell – more alert.

Once the dendritic cells picked up on presence of the tumour, they sent out signals that attracted T cells to come and attack it. In some mice, this helped slow the growth of the cancer.

But there’s a big catch. Not everyone naturally has T cells that are capable of killing cancer cells. For some people, their immune system can tell that a tumour is dangerous, but their specific T cells do not know how to destroy it.

That’s one reason why immunotherapies – treatments that boost the immune system to fight cancer – work for some patients but not for others.

Having an mRNA COVID vaccine will not make your body produce new tumour-fighting T cells. What it might do, based on this early research, is make dendritic cells more likely to notice a tumour and effectively deploy the T cells.

Nearly two dozen world leaders are descending in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for a three-day summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from Sunday to Tuesday, and multiple other meetings on the sidelines.

This will be the 47th summit of the ASEAN.

Here’s what you need to know:

What is ASEAN, and who’s attending the summit?

ASEAN is made up of 10 members – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Together, they have a population of 678 million people and a gross domestic product of $3.9 trillion, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

This year, ASEAN will induct its 11th member, East Timor. The country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 and is home to 1.4 million people.

The summit will bring together leaders from every country in the bloc except for Myanmar’s acting president, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

The ASEAN summit is accompanied annually by the East Asia Summit, a gathering of leaders of the ASEAN nations, the US, China, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

This year, US President Donald Trump, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will be attending.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak will represent Moscow while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part virtually.

Beyond the leaders of ASEAN and the East Asia Summit nations, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be in Kuala Lumpur too.

The heads of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Labour Organization and the International Federation of Association Football, better known as FIFA, will also attend some sessions, according to Bernama, Malaysia’s state news agency.

What events will take place during the summit?

Apart from the ASEAN summit and the East Asia Summit, ASEAN will also hold separate conclaves with leaders of key powers in Kuala Lumpur.

There’s also a peace deal to be signed on Sunday when Cambodia and Thailand ink a pact to end a deadly border dispute. The ceremony will be presided over by Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, according to Bernama.

The long-running border conflict rekindled in July when dozens of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced along the border. A ceasefire was reached after five days with the help of Malaysia, China and the US.

Despite the high-profile nature of the event, some critics have questioned whether the deal will be more of a photo-op for Trump than a lasting resolution. Ceasefire violations have continued since July while the original issue around border demarcation has also not been resolved, according to Mu Sochua, a former Cambodian opposition leader and president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy.

She told Al Jazeera the threat of tariffs from Trump helped bring Thailand and Cambodia to the negotiating table in a move that was effective in the short term but also controversial. “Critics in both countries say it amounted to economic blackmail – trading peace for trade benefits rather than addressing justice, sovereignty or local needs,” she said.

What will be discussed at the summit? 

The ASEAN summit will discuss pressing issues like US tariffs and access to rare earth minerals, which are essential to high-tech manufacturing and whose production is dominated by China.

Trump launched his “Liberation Day Tariffs” in April against most US trading partners in a bid to lower the US trade deficit. After much negotiation, US tariffs for most ASEAN countries range from 10 to 20 percent while Brunei’s tariff rate is 25 percent. Tariffs for Laos and Myanmar are both 40 percent.

In response to Trump’s tariffs, China has tightened export restrictions on rare earths, a move that has been felt around the world.

Marco Foster, ASEAN director at the professional services firm Dezan Shira & Associates, told Al Jazeera that most attendees will be vying for a chance to speak to Trump about tariffs. “Pretty much everyone is going to be going after him or trying to get in the room with him or his people to talk about their deal,” he said. “Everyone will want to have a sideline meeting with Trump.”

Attendees are also expected to discuss pressing issues like Myanmar’s civil war and the proliferation of scam centres in Southeast Asia, which have earned criminal networks tens of billions of dollars.

Why is Myanmar skipping the summit? 

Myanmar’s acting president will not attend the ASEAN summit, and Myanmar will not take the helm from Malaysia as next year’s ASEAN chair because it has been embroiled in a civil war since 2021. Instead, the role will fall to the Philippines.

In 2021, ASEAN issued a Five-Point Consensus, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Myanmar and humanitarian assistance while creating a special ASEAN envoy to help mediate the conflict. Four years later, critics said it has had little impact on the crisis.

Charles Santiago, co-chairman of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera that he expected Myanmar and the fallout from the civil war to be discussed at the summit.

“Myanmar has become a destabilising factor, both [in terms of] security and social cohesion in the other parts of Southeast Asia,” he said. The civil war has facilitated the spread of the flow of drugs and weapons while creating a refugee crisis, he added.

Still, Santiago said he did not expect much to come from the ASEAN summit. “This will be a major photo opportunity for everybody,” he said, but “nothing much will happen” in terms of policy.

What are ASEAN’s limitations?

ASEAN has sometimes been criticised for lacking an enforcement mechanism to force members to abide by its rulings. This makes it different from other regional blocs like the European Union, whose members must abide by EU laws and rulings.

It’s a criticism that has been heard recently around issues like Myanmar as well as the Cambodian-Thai border conflict.

Foster said this feature is a legacy of ASEAN’s unique history. The organisation was founded in 1967 after a major wave of decolonisation around the world. Its structure reflects the norms of the era, he said.

“Because of the narrative that ASEAN was born out of independence, it will never lead to an ASEAN that will limit [member states’] independence by accepting rules from a body that is above the state,” Foster said. “The nation state will always be the number one in ASEAN.”

If the United States federal government shutdown continues, millions of low-income Americans could lose access to a monthly benefit that pays for food.

About 42 million people receive money through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes called food stamps. The Department of Agriculture told states in an October 10 letter that if the shutdown continues, the programme would run out of money to pay for benefits in November.

President Donald Trump’s Republican administration is blaming the Democrats with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins repeating a false healthcare talking point on October 16 on X: “Democrats are putting free health care for illegal aliens and their political agenda ahead of food security for American families. Shameful.”

The government shutdown stems from disagreements between Democrats – who want Congress, as part of approving federal funding, to extend expiring enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), through which uninsured Americans can buy health insurance – and Republicans, who want to extend federal funding first before negotiating over whether or how to extend the ACA subsidies.

SNAP is a federal programme operated by state agencies. Participants receive an average individual monthly benefit of about $190 or $356 per household. Recipients may use the benefits to buy fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products, bread and other foods. The majority of SNAP households live in poverty.

Lawmakers and social media users have made several statements about SNAP with varying degrees of accuracy about the shutdown and the Republican tax and spending law that Trump signed in July. Here’s a closer look:

Social media posts say food stamps will disappear on November 1

Many social media posts have said food stamps are going away as soon as November 1.

“Let that sink in – just in time for the cold season and the month of giving thanks,” one Instagram post said.

That could happen for millions of people. But it might not happen for all of them, and it could happen throughout the month of November because the monthly date when people receive their benefits varies by state.

The Trump administration could use SNAP’s contingency fund to pay for nearly two-thirds of a full month of benefits, or it could transfer other Agriculture Department funds, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. The administration has said it has found funding to continue the Women, Infants and Children programme, another food programme for low-income families.

According to an Agriculture Department funding lapse plan, SNAP “shall continue operations during a lapse in appropriations, subject to the availability of funding”.

An Agriculture Department letter told states to hold off on steps that would lead to people receiving their November benefits. Federal regulations require that reductions be made in a way that higher-income recipients lose more benefits than the lowest-income recipients.

We asked administration officials for more detail but received no response to our questions.

Many state officials – including in Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin – said that if the shutdown continues, participants might not or will not receive benefits in November. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families told PolitiFact that if the shutdown continues into November, benefits will not be issued.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday that he will deploy the National Guard and California Volunteers, a state agency, to support food banks and provide $80m in state money.

“Empty cupboards and stomachs are not abstract outcomes,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers told Rollins in a Wednesday letter. “They are the very real and near consequences of the dysfunction in Washington. These are also consequences you can prevent today.”

Meanwhile, food banks across the country have taken a hit from other Trump administration policies. ProPublica reported on October 3 that earlier in the year, the administration cut $500m in deliveries through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides food to state distribution agencies.

So what have key lawmakers said on this issue and how true are their claims?

‘We are not cutting’ SNAP

– Mike Johnson, speaker of the US House of Representatives, on the TV programme Face the Nation on May 25

This is false.

Johnson spoke after the House passed a Republican-backed bill known at the time as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which included many of Trump’s policy priorities.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan number-crunching arm of Congress, estimated in May that 3.2 million fewer people per month on average would receive SNAP benefits over the next nine years based on the bill’s changes to work requirements and restrictions on states’ ability to waive the work requirements in areas with high unemployment.

A more recent August CBO analysis estimated the changes would reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people.

‘Nearly 25 cents of every $1 spent via SNAP goes to farmers and ranchers’

– Wisconsin state Representative Francesca Hong in a June 12 X post

This is true.

In a series of X posts, Hong said it wouldn’t be only families receiving food aid that would be hurt by the legislation.

A chart published this year by the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service showed that in 2023, farm establishments made 24.3 cents of every dollar spent on food at home, including at grocery stores and supermarkets.

‘About 20 percent of households with veterans rely upon’ SNAP

– House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at a May 8 news conference

This is mostly false.

An April 2 study found that 8 percent of veterans rely on SNAP benefits. No state had a share higher than 14 percent. Studies with data from a few years earlier showed rates from 4.9 percent to 6.6 percent.

Louis Jacobson, Staff Writer Loreben Tuquero and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Madeline Heim contributed to this article.

United States President Donald Trump has begun construction of a $300m ballroom on the site of what was the White House’s East Wing.

The construction, which began on Monday, is the first major structural change to the complex since 1948. It involves tearing down the existing East Wing, which had housed the first lady’s offices and was used for ceremonies.

The work is being funded via private donations from individuals, corporations and tech companies, including Google and Amazon, raising uncomfortable questions about the level of access this might give donors to the most powerful man in the country.

A pledge form seen by CBS News indicated that donors may qualify for “recognition” of their contributions. Further details of this have not emerged, however.

How much will the new ballroom cost?

The estimated cost of building Trump’s ornate, 8,360sq-metre (90,0000sq-ft) ballroom, which he says will accommodate 999 people, has varied since plans were announced earlier this year.

In a statement made in August, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated the cost would be about $200m. However, this week, Trump raised that to $300m.

Construction began during a US government shutdown and, therefore, without the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal agency responsible for overseeing these operations, which is closed.

Who is funding the ballroom?

On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway – with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!”

He added that he himself will also be contributing to the bill: “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”

However, it seems that at least some of the donations are being made as part of deals struck with Trump over other issues.

YouTube will pay $22m towards the ballroom construction as part of a legal settlement with Trump pertaining to a lawsuit he brought in 2021 over the suspension of his account after the Capitol riot that year when his supporters stormed the seat of Congress on January 6 in a bid to prevent the transfer of the presidency to Joe Biden. YouTube and Google have the same parent company, Alphabet.

The White House did not disclose how much donors would contribute. Other prominent donors – some of which have had recent legal wrangles in the US – were on a list the White House provided to the media. They include:

Amazon

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Amazon over allegations that the multinational tech company founded by Jeff Bezos had enrolled millions of consumers to its streaming platform, Prime, without their consent and made it difficult to cancel the subscriptions.

Under the settlement, Amazon will pay $2.5bn in penalties and refunds, fix its subscription process and undergo compliance monitoring.

Apple

US-based multinational Apple – which produces the iPhone, iPad and MacBook – is headed by CEO Tim Cook.

On Tuesday, Apple asked a US appeals court to overturn a federal judge’s ruling in April that prevents it from collecting commissions on certain app purchases.

Coinbase

Coinbase is the largest US cryptocurrency exchange. It is led by CEO Brian Armstrong.

On September 30, a US federal judge ruled that shareholders could pursue a narrowed lawsuit accusing the company of hiding key business risks, including the risk of a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the risk of losing assets in bankruptcy.

Google

Last month, the US Department of Justice won a major antitrust case against Google. A federal court ruled that the tech giant illegally monopolised online search and search advertising.

Lockheed Martin

Aerospace and defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin is headed by President and CEO Jim Taiclet.

In February, Lockheed Martin agreed to pay $29.74m to resolve federal allegations that the company had overcharged the US government by submitting inflated cost data for contracts of F-35 fighter jets from 2013 to 2015.

Microsoft

The CEO of the tech group is Satya Nadella, who earned a record $96.5m in fiscal year 2025.

Lutnick family

The Lutnick family is associated with businessman Howard Lutnick, who is also Trump’s commerce secretary.

Lutnick is the CEO of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. His company Cantor Gaming has previously been accused of repeatedly violating state and federal laws, Politico reported in February.

Winklevoss twins

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are listed as separate donors.

The brothers are US investors and entrepreneurs, known for cofounding the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and Winklevoss Capital.

Last month, the SEC agreed to settle a lawsuit over Gemini’s unregistered cryptocurrency-lending programme offered to retail investors.

Who else is on the list?

Other companies, conglomerates and individuals on the list include:

• Altria Group
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Caterpillar
• Comcast
• J Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
• Hard Rock International
• HP
• Meta Platforms
• Micron Technology
• NextEra Energy
• Palantir Technologies
• Ripple
• Reynolds American
• T-Mobile
• Tether America
• Union Pacific
• Adelson Family Foundation
• Stefan E Brodie
• Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
• Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
• Edward and Shari Glazer
• Harold Hamm
• Benjamin Leon Jr
• Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
• Stephen A Schwarzman
• Konstantin Sokolov
• Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
• Paolo Tiramani

Is the private funding of Trump’s ballroom ethical?

Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the private funding violates the Anti-Deficiency Act.

The Anti-Deficiency Act is a US federal law that decrees the executive branch of government cannot accept goods or services from private parties to conduct official government functions unless Congress has specifically signed off on the funds.

The act protects the “congressional power of the purse”, Fein said.

“Think of this analogy: Congress refuses to fund a wall with Mexico. Could Trump go ahead and build the wall Congress refused to fund with money provided by Elon Musk or other billionaire pals of Trump?”

Fein added: “Trump is completely transactional. Funders of the ballroom will be rewarded with regulatory favours or appointments or given pardons for federal crimes.”

Washington has announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to pressure Moscow to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine. This marks the first time the current Trump administration has imposed direct sanctions on Russia.

Speaking alongside Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he hoped the sanctions would not need to be in place for long, but expressed growing frustration with stalled truce negotiations.

“Every time I speak to Vladimir [Putin], I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” Trump said, shortly after a planned in-person meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest was cancelled.

Trump’s move is designed to cut off vital oil revenues, which help fund Russia’s ongoing war efforts. Earlier on Wednesday, Russia unleashed a new bombardment on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, killing at least seven people, including children.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new sanctions were necessary because of “Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war”. He said that Rosneft and Lukoil fund the Kremlin’s “war machine”.

How have Rosneft and Lukoil been sanctioned?

The new measures will freeze assets owned by Rosneft and Lukoil in the US, and bar US entities from engaging in business with them. Thirty subsidiaries owned by Rosneft and Lukoil have also been sanctioned.

Rosneft, which is controlled by the Kremlin, is Russia’s second-largest company in terms of revenue, behind natural gas giant Gazprom. Lukoil is Russia’s third-largest company and its biggest non-state enterprise.

Between them, the two groups export 3.1 million barrels of oil per day, or 70 percent of Russia’s overseas crude oil sales. Rosneft alone is responsible for nearly half of Russia’s oil production, which in all makes up 6 percent of global output.

In recent years, both companies have been hit by rolling European sanctions and reduced oil prices. In September, Rosneft reported a 68 percent year-on-year drop in net income for the first half of 2025. Lukoil posted an almost 27 percent fall in profits for 2024.

Meanwhile, last week, the United Kingdom unveiled sanctions on the two oil majors. Elsewhere, the European Union looks set to announce its 19th package of penalties on Moscow later today, including a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas.

How much impact will these sanctions have?

In 2022, Russian oil groups (including Rosneft and Lukoil) were able to offset some of the effects of sanctions by pivoting exports from Europe to Asia, and also using a “shadow fleet” of hard-to-detect tankers with no ties to Western financial or insurance groups.

China and India quickly replaced the EU as Russia’s biggest oil consumers. Last year, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of Russian crude, representing almost 20 percent of its total energy imports. India imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.

In both cases, these are orders of magnitude higher than before 2022, when Western countries started to tighten their sanctions regime on Russia. At the end of 2021, China imported roughly 79.6 million tonnes of Russian crude. India imported just 0.42 million tonnes.

Trump has repeatedly urged Beijing and New Delhi to halt Russian energy purchases. In August, he levied an additional 25 percent trade tariff on India because of its continued purchase of discounted Russian oil. He has so far demurred from a similar move against China.

However, Trump’s new sanctions are likely to place pressure on foreign financial groups which do business with Rosneft and Lukoil, including the banking intermediaries which facilitate sales of Russian oil in China and India.

“Engaging in certain transactions involving the persons designated today may risk the imposition of secondary sanctions on participating foreign financial institutions,” the US Treasury Department’s press release on Wednesday’s sanctions says.

As a result, the new restrictions may force buyers to shift to alternative suppliers or pay higher prices. Though India and China may not be the direct targets of these latest restrictions, their oil supply chains and trading costs are likely to come under increased pressure.

“The big thing here is the secondary sanctions,” Felipe Pohlmann Gonzaga, a Switzerland-based commodity trader, told Al Jazeera. “Any bank that facilitates Russian oil sales and with exposure to the US financial system could be subject.”

However, he added, “I don’t think this will be the driver in ending the war, as Russia will continue selling oil. There are always people out there willing to take the risk to beat sanctions.

“These latest restrictions will make Chinese and Indian players more reluctant to buy Russian oil – many won’t want to lose access to the American financial system. [But] it won’t stop it completely.”

According to Bloomberg, several senior refinery executives in India – who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue – said the restrictions would make it impossible for oil purchases to continue.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he would raise concerns about China’s continued purchases of Russian oil during his talk with President Xi Jinping at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea next week.

Have oil prices been affected?

Oil prices rallied after Trump announced US sanctions. Brent – the international crude oil benchmark – rose nearly 4 percent to $65 a barrel on Thursday. The US Benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, jumped more than 5 percent to nearly $60 per barrel.

Pohlmann Gonzaga, however, predicted that the “market will correct from this 5 percent over-jump. You have to recall that sentiment in energy markets is still negative due to the gloomy [global] economic backdrop.”

EXPLAINER

Satellite imagery shows Israel holds about 40 active military positions beyond the yellow line.

Satellite imagery analysis by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad shows that the Israeli army holds about 40 active military positions in the part of the Gaza Strip outside the yellow line, the invisible boundary established under the first phase of the ceasefire to which its troops had to move, according to the deal.

The images also show that Israel is upgrading several of these facilities, which help it maintain its occupation of 58 percent of Gaza even after the pullback by troops to the yellow line.

While the majority of sites are concentrated in southern Gaza, every governorate hosts at least one military position. Some sites are built on bases established during the war, while others are newly constructed. The total number of sites in each governorate is:

• North Gaza: 9
• Gaza City: 6
• Deir el-Balah: 1
• Khan Younis: 11
• Rafah: 13

One of the most prominent military points in Gaza City is located on top of al-Muntar Hill in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City. A comparison of images between September 21 and October 14 shows the base being paved and asphalted.

Where is the invisible yellow line?

Since the ceasefire took effect about two weeks ago, nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Strip, with some attacks occurring near the yellow line.

On October 18, Israeli forces killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence. Seven children and three women were among those killed when the Israeli military fired on the vehicle as the family attempted to return home to inspect it.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a “suspicious vehicle” that had crossed the so-called yellow line. With no physical markers for the line, however, many Palestinians cannot determine the location of this invisible boundary. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has since said the army will install visual signs to indicate the line’s location.

In the first ceasefire phase, Israel retains control of more than half of the Gaza Strip, with areas beyond the yellow line still under its military presence. This has blocked residents of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon, the neighbourhoods of Shujayea, Tuffah, Zeitoun, most of Khan Younis, and all of Rafah City from returning home.

What are the next phases of Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan?

According to the 20-point plan announced by United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 29 – developed without any Palestinian input – Israel is to withdraw its forces in three phases, as shown on an accompanying crude map, with each phase marked in a different colour:

• Initial withdrawal (yellow line): In the first phase, Israeli forces pulled back to the line designated in yellow on the map. Hamas has released all living Israeli captives that were in Gaza, and most of the dead bodies of captives who passed away in the enclave.
• Second withdrawal (red line): During the second phase, an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) will be mobilised to oversee security and support Palestinian policing, while Israeli forces are to retreat further to the line marked in red, reducing their direct presence in Gaza.
• Third withdrawal (security buffer zone): In the final phase, Israeli forces are to pull back to a designated “security buffer zone”, leaving a limited portion of Gaza under Israeli military control, while an international administrative body supervises governance and a transitional period.

Even after the third withdrawal phase, Palestinians will be confined to an area which is smaller than before the war, continuing a pattern of Israel’s control over Gaza and its people.

Many questions remain about how the plan will be implemented, the exact boundaries of Palestinian territory, the timing and scope of Israeli withdrawals, the role of the ISF, and the long-term implications for Palestinians across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The plan is also silent on whether Israel gets to continue its aerial and sea blockade of Gaza, which has been in place for the past 18 years.

Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa faced off in the final debate of the New York City mayoral race on Wednesday, in a final push to woo voters before the November 4 vote.

But the attack lines they deployed against each other, and their defences, were mostly along predictable lines, as their track records, United States President Donald Trump and Israel’s war on Gaza dominated their clash at LaGuardia Community College in the borough of Queens.

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, maintains a sizeable lead in the polls, after surging to a surprise victory in the June primary on a platform of affordability: pushing free buses, rent freezes, and universal childcare, paid for, in part, by raising taxes that favour the wealthy.

Cuomo has sought to portray Mamdani’s promises – most of which would require buy-in from state lawmakers – as unrealistic and has repeatedly taken aim at the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist’s lack of experience in governing. The race has narrowed since the current mayor, Eric Adams, exited the race, leaving just Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliva in the contest.

Here were the top takeaways from the debate:

Experience versus the future

The night began with Cuomo and Mamdani hammering home the themes that have defined the final stretch of the race.

Cuomo called himself the candidate who “can get it done, not just talk about it”.

“He’s never run anything, managed anything. He’s never had a real job,” he said of Mamdani.

Mamdani called himself the “sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city”.

“He is a desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him,” Mamdani said of Cuomo.

Later in the night, Sliwa took a swipe at both his opponents: “Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”

Countering Trump

The US president has loomed large over the New York City mayoral race. Wednesday’s debate also came hours after immigration agents raided Manhattan’s Chinatown, an escalation of federal enforcement measures in America’s largest city.

Trump has pledged to deploy the National Guard and to cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani is elected. Cuomo, who shares many of the same donors as Trump, has seized on those threats to portray a win for his rival as dangerous for the city.

“[Trump] has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will, because he has no respect for him. He [Trump] thinks he’s a kid, and he’s going to knock him [Mamdani] on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.

“I believe [Trump] wants Mamdani, that is his dream, because he will use him politically all across our country, and he will take over New York City,” he said. “Make no mistake, it will be President Trump and Mayor Trump.”

Mamdani called Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet”.

“You could turn on the TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” he said.

Support for Palestine again looms large

Mamdani was again asked about his staunch support for Palestinian rights, which Cuomo has repeatedly decried, baselessly, as anti-Semitic.

Mamdani said he “will be the mayor who doesn’t just protect Jewish New Yorkers, but also celebrates and cherishes them”. He said Cuomo was using false claims of anti-Semitism to “score political points”.

Cuomo accused him of stoking “the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.

Sliwa falsely accused Mamdani of endorsing “global jihad”.

“That is not something that I have said and that continues to be ascribed to me,” Mamdani responded, “and frankly, I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election.”

Mamdani announces pick for police commissioner

The leading candidate also broke some news during the debate, announcing he would ask current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on in her post if he wins.

That may upset some of Mamdani’s supporters, who could see the police chief, who is serving under current Mayor Adams, as out of step with the police reforms he has promised.

Tisch, whose family is worth billions, has championed increasing so-called “quality of life” enforcement that critics say disproportionately harms minority communities. She has also pushed to make some criminal laws stricter.

Cuomo grilled on sexual assault

Cuomo was repeatedly asked by his opponents about the sexual misconduct allegations from his employees that saw him leave his post as New York governor early in 2021.

Investigators with the state attorney general later found that Cuomo had “sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees”.

Cuomo has claimed the cases have been closed “legally”, but litigation in several cases continues.

During the debate, Mamdani revealed that one accuser, Charlotte Bennett, who Cuomo is currently suing for defamation, was in the audience.

“What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?” he asked Cuomo.

Cuomo pushed back, arguing that the sexual harassment cases have been dropped. “What you just said was a misstatement, which we’re accustomed to,” he responded to Mamdani.

Following the September assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, United States President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have shaped their political agenda by blaming the left for political violence.

“Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left,” Vance said while guest-hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast on October 15 in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing. About a minute later, he added, “Right now that violent impulse is a bigger problem on the left than the right.”

A Vance spokesperson did not answer our questions. When referring to left-wing violence, a White House spokesperson recently pointed to a September 28 Axios article about a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonprofit policy research organisation.

Democrats, calling your political opponents Nazis has consequences.

Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year highhttps://t.co/30NvIj9nzC

— Abigail Jackson (@ATJackson47) September 28, 2025

The study found that “2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right”. The study also showed that for the 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing violence.

“The rise in left-wing attacks merits increased attention, but the fall in right-wing attacks is probably temporary, and it too requires a government response,” the authors wrote in the study.

Vance’s statement oversimplified political violence and drew from part of one study of a six-month period. The federal government has no single, official definition of “political violence”, and ascribing ideologies such as the left wing and the right wing is sometimes complicated. There is no agreed upon number of left- or right-wing politically violent attacks.

Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

Trump has used the administration’s statements about rising left-wing violence to label antifa as a domestic “terrorist threat”, and administration officials also said they will investigate what they call left-wing groups that fund violence.

Although political violence is a small subset of violent crime in the US, it “has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarisation”, sociology professors at the University of Dayton, Arthur Jipson and Paul J Becker, wrote in September after Kirk’s assassination.

In an email interview with PolitiFact, Becker said the report in question “indicates there MAY be a shift occurring from the Right being more violent but 5 vs 1 incidents in 6 months isn’t enough to completely erase years of data and reports from multiple sources showing the opposite or to dictate new policies”.

Study examined three decades of political violence

The CSIS, a national security and defence think tank, published a September report examining 750 “terrorist” attacks and plots in the US between 1994 and July 4, 2025.

The report defined “terrorism” as the use or threat of violence “with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact”.

The authors wrote that it is difficult to pinpoint some perpetrators’ ideologies, which in some cases are more of what former FBI Director Christopher Wray called a “salad bar of ideologies”. For example, Thomas Crooks, who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump in 2024, searched the internet more than 60 times for Trump and then-President Joe Biden in the month before the attack.

The full CSIS report gave a more complete picture of politically motivated violence:

• Left-wing violence has risen from low levels since 2016. “It has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
• Right-wing attacks sharply declined in 2025, perhaps because right-wing extremist grievances such as opposition to abortion, hostility to immigration and suspicion of government agencies are “embraced by President Trump and his administration”. The report quotes Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader pardoned by Trump, who said, “Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”
• Left-wing attacks have been less deadly than right-wing attacks. In the past decade, left-wing attacks have killed 13 people, compared with 112 by right-wing attackers. The report cited several reasons, including that left-wing attackers often choose targets that are protected, such as government or law enforcement facilities, and target specific individuals.
• The number of incidents by the left is small. A graphic in the report showing the rise in left-wing attacks in 2025 as of July 4 is visually striking. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

Studies have not uniformly agreed on some attackers’ ideological classifications. The libertarian Cato Institute categorised the person charged in the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy staffers in May 2025 as “left-wing”, while the CSIS study described the motivation as “ethnonationalist”. Ethnonationalism is a political ideology based on heritage, such as ethnic identity, which can create clashes with other groups. The Cato study counted only deaths, while the CSIS analysis was not limited to deaths.

“While Vance’s statement has a factual anchor for that limited timespan, it selectively emphasises one short-term slice rather than the broader trend,” Jipson, of the University of Dayton, told PolitiFact. “In that sense, it can be misleading: It may give the impression that left-wing violence is generally now more dangerous or prevalent, which is not borne out by the longer view of the data.”

The Cato analysis, published after Kirk’s death, said 3,597 people were killed in politically motivated US “terrorist” attacks from January 1, 1975, through September 10, 2025.

Cato found right-wing attacks were more common than left-wing violence. This research has been highlighted by some House Democrats.

Wrong again, JD. The data is clear: for decades, right-wing extremism has been the greater threat.https://t.co/TkxBZ08Xjg https://t.co/PCWv4EuP4H

— House Homeland Security Committee Democrats (@HomelandDems) October 15, 2025

Cato wrote that during that period, “terrorists” inspired by what it called “Islamist ideology” were responsible for 87 percent of people killed in attacks on US soil, while right-wing attackers accounted for 11 percent and left-wing “terrorists” accounted for about 2 percent. Excluding the September 11, 2001 attacks showed right-wing attackers were responsible for a majority of deaths. Measuring homicides since 2020 also showed a larger number by the right than the left.

Our ruling

Vance said, “Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left.”

He did not point to a source, but a White House spokesperson separately cited an article about a study that examined political violence from 1994 to July 4, 2025. It found that, in the first six months of 2025, left-wing attacks outnumbered those by the right. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

The study also showed that for 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing attacks.

The study detailed that the left wing “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers”. Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

The statement contains an element of truth because left-wing violence rose in the first six months of 2025. However, it ignores that right-wing violence was higher for a much longer period of time.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

Chief correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this fact-check.

A major outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday disrupted a large portion of the internet, taking down apps, websites and online tools used by millions of people around the world, before services were eventually restored.

From banking apps and airlines to smart home devices and gaming platforms, the hours-long breakdown revealed how much of modern life depends on cloud’s infrastructure.

Here is what we know:

What happened and what caused the AWS outage?

At about 07:11 GMT, Amazon’s cloud service experienced a major outage, meaning some of its systems stopped working, which disrupted many popular apps and websites, including banks, gaming platforms and entertainment services.

The problem started in one of AWS’s main data centres in Virginia, its oldest and biggest site, after a technical update to the API – a connection between different computer programmes – of DynamoDB, a key cloud database service that stores user information and other important data for many online platforms.

The root cause appears to have been an error in the update that affected the Domain Name System (DNS), which helps apps find the correct server addresses. A DNS works like the internet’s phone book, turning website names into the numeric IP addresses that computers use to connect to servers.

Because of the DNS issue, apps could not find the IP address for DynamoDB’s API and were unable to connect.

As DynamoDB went down, other AWS services also began to fail. In total, 113 services were affected by the outage. By 10:11 GMT, Amazon said that all AWS returned to normal operations, but there was a backlog “of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours”.

At the time of publication, Downdetector, a website that tracks internet outages based on user reports, was still showing problems with platforms such as OpenAI, ESPN and Apple Music.

Updated look at the total impact of the AWS Outage up to this point!https://t.co/Bgpm1fFGtf pic.twitter.com/TAAxjagNl6

— Downdetector (@downdetector) October 20, 2025

What is a cloud and what exactly is AWS?

A cloud is a way of storing and using data or programmes over the internet instead of on your computer or other physical storage devices.

When people say something is “in the cloud”, it means the files, apps or systems are running on powerful computers (called servers) in data centres owned by companies like Amazon (AWS), Google or Microsoft, not on your personal device.

In this case, AWS allows companies to rent computing power and storage. It supplies the technology that runs websites, apps and many online services behind the scenes.

One of AWS’s core services is DynamoDB, a database that stores important information for companies, such as customer records. On Monday, Amazon reported that customers were unable to access their DynamoDB data.

AWS is the biggest cloud service provider in the world.

Cloud outages are not rare, but they have become more noticeable as more companies rely on these services every day.

“The fallout impacted people across a number of different spheres,” Joshua Mahony, the chief market analyst at Scope Markets, told Al Jazeera. [But] of course this kind of comes with the territory with tech companies; the key is they can resolve it quickly, and it doesn’t cost them a lot of money.”

He said Amazon would likely weather the storm from the incident.

“You’re looking at something that is relatively contained,” he said. “Amazon Web Services has cornered 30 percent of the market alone. Their users are not going to suddenly jump ship. Their businesses are deeply ingrained.”

Which services and apps went down?

The outage affected dozens of websites, including Snapchat, Pinterest and Apple TV, according to Downdetector.

Other communication apps were also affected including: WhatsApp, Signal, Zoom and Slack; gaming services such as Roblox, Fortnite and Xbox; and places like Starbucks. Etsy also experienced issues.

In the United States, people were having issues with financial apps too, including Venmo.

Some users said their Ring doorbells and Alexa speakers stopped working, while others could not access the Amazon website or download books on their Kindles.

The language app Duolingo and creative tool Canva were among those reporting errors on their websites, and several media organisations were hit, including the Associated Press news agency, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Banks, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and AI firm Perplexity also reported issues, along with US airlines Delta and United.

Why did so many major apps go offline at once?

When AWS had its outage, it was not just Amazon’s tools that were affected. Thousands of other companies that use AWS for storage, databases or web hosting were also hit. These companies include many major apps that rely on AWS to run key parts of their systems.

“Whenever we see these headlines, the first thought that goes through everybody’s mind, that sends a shiver up the spine, is, ‘Is this one of those cyberattacks? Is this a military or intelligence-led thing that has led to this disruption?’ And in this case, it’s not,” Bryson Bort chief executive of the cybersecurity company Scythe told Al Jazeera.

“In fact, most of the time, it isn’t. It’s usually human error.”

How did Amazon respond?

AWS acknowledged the outage and said engineers were “immediately engaged” to fix the problem.

AWS said it worked on “multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery”. It also reported that the main issue had been fully resolved, though some users continued to face minor delays as systems recovered.

The company also said it would publish a detailed post-event summary explaining what happened.

The Louvre Museum in the French capital has closed for “exceptional reasons” after a group of intruders successfully stole eight pieces of priceless jewellery in a quick-hit heist that has rocked the world’s most-visited museum.

A manhunt for the thieves was under way in Paris on Sunday as police cordoned off the museum – famously home to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Mona Lisa – with tape and as armed soldiers patrolled its iconic glass pyramid entrance.

French government and museum officials said several intruders entered the Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery) through a window shortly after the museum opened, relying on a lift used to hoist furniture into buildings.

Within just four minutes, the thieves stole away on motorcycles laden with eight items dating back to the Napoleonic era, dropping a ninth on their way out.

French President Emmanuel Macron took to social media to denounce the heist as an “attack on a heritage that we cherish”.

“The perpetrators will be brought to justice,” he added. “Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this, under the leadership of the Paris prosecutor’s office.”

Here’s what we know about the heist, which arrives as the Louvre faces questions over large crowds and overworked staff.

What happened?

Around 9:30am local time (07:30 GMT) on Sunday, as tourists already roamed the halls of the Louvre, the thieves zeroed in on Apollo’s Gallery – a gold-gilded, lavishly painted hall commissioned by King Louis XIV that houses the French crown jewels.

Describing the incident as a “major robbery”, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the thieves used a basket lift to reach the museum’s windows, entered the gallery and escaped via motorbike with “jewels of inestimable value”.

The Louvre evacuated all visitors and posted a notice online that the museum would remain closed throughout the day under “exceptional” circumstances.

Police meanwhile sealed the gates, cleared courtyards and even closed off nearby streets along the Seine River as authorities kicked off an investigation.

It was “crazy”, one American tourist, Talia Ocampo, told the AFP news agency – “like a Hollywood movie”.

No injuries were reported, but the thieves – believed to number four people – remained at large as of Sunday evening.

What was stolen during the heist?

Thieves successfully removed eight items from two high-security display cases, the Ministry of Culture confirmed late on Sunday. These include pieces that belonged to Empress Marie-Louise, the wife of French Emperor Napoleon I, and others that belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.

These are the items that were stolen:

• Tiara from the jewellery set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense
• Necklace from the same duo’s sapphire jewellery set
• A single earring from the sapphire jewellery set
• Emerald necklace from the Marie-Louise set
• Pair of emerald earrings from the Marie-Louise set
• Brooch known as the “reliquary” brooch
• Tiara of Empress Eugenie
• Another large brooch of Empress Eugenie

The crown of Empress Eugenie was recovered outside the walls of the museum, the ministry said, where it was dropped by the thieves as they fled. The crown contains 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the Louvre.

Apollo’s Gallery is home to a range of other priceless gems, including three historical diamonds – the Regent, the Sancy and the Hortensia – and “the magnificent hardstone vessel collection of the kings of France”, according to the museum’s website.

Anthony Amore, an art theft expert and co-author of the book Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, told Al Jazeera the items contained in the collection were priceless “not just in terms of dollars, but in terms of cultural patrimony”.

“It’s not like stealing a masterpiece where instantly news media … would publicise this image,” Amore said. “You might see pieces like this broken up and individual jewels sold that are indistinguishable to members of the public.”

How did the thieves do it?

The thieves used a combination of power tools, motorcycles and efficiency to pull off the minutes-long heist, authorities said.

The group drew up on a scooter armed with angle grinders, one police source told AFP. They used the hoist to access the gallery from the outside, cutting windowpanes with a disc cutter.

One witness, who told the TF1 news outlet that he was riding his bicycle nearby at the time, said he saw two men “get on the hoist, break the window and enter”, adding that the entire operation “took 30 seconds”.

Le Parisien reported that the thieves entered the museum – located inside a former palace – via the facade facing the Seine, where construction work is ongoing. Two were dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests, the newspaper said.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati said authorities arrived “a couple of minutes after we received information of this robbery”.

“To be completely honest, this operation lasted almost four minutes – it was very quick,” she said.

Footage showed the hoist braced to the Seine-facing facade and leading up to a balcony window, which observers said was the thieves’ entry point before it was removed Sunday.

What happens now?

With the thieves still at large, forensic teams have descended upon the Louvre and surrounding streets to gather evidence and review CCTV footage from the Denon wing, where Apollo’s Gallery is located, and the Seine riverfront.

Authorities also planned to interview staff who were working when the museum opened on Sunday, they said.

The Interior Ministry said it was compiling a detailed list of the stolen items, but added that “beyond their market value, these items have priceless heritage and historical value”.

Dati, the culture minister, suggested the thieves were “professionals”.

“Organised crime today targets objects of art, and museums have of course become targets,” she said.

Have similar heists happened in the past?

The Louvre’s most famous heist occurred in 1911, when the Mona Lisa portrait disappeared from its frame. It was recovered two years later, but decades afterward, in 1956, a visitor threw a stone at the world-famous painting – chipping paint near the subject’s left elbow and prompting the portrait to be moved behind bulletproof glass.

In recent years, the museum has struggled with growing crowds, which totalled 8.7 million in 2024, and frustrated staff who say they are stretched too thin.

In June, the museum delayed opening due to a staff walkout over chronic understaffing.

One union source, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP that the equivalent of 200 positions had been cut at the museum over the past 15 years, out of a total workforce of nearly 2,000.

The fact that Sunday’s theft took place in broad daylight inspired a wave of consternation from French citizens and politicians.

“It’s just unbelievable that a museum this famous can have such obvious security gaps,” Magali Cunel, a French teacher from near Lyon, told the Associated Press news agency.