Government

The officer faces charges after allegedly striking a fleeing construction worker with an SUV during an immigration raid.

A grand jury in Texas has indicted a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer accused of deliberately running over a Mexican construction worker during an operation in Houston this month.

ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the October 10 incident, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced on Friday.

Criminal charges against federal immigration officers have been rare during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, although several encounters involving officers have prompted investigations.

Morales is accused of striking 48-year-old Miguel Parra-Hernandez, an immigrant who has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years. Teare said that Parra-Hernandez had no criminal record.

Parra-Hernandez was running away from federal agents when an unmarked black Jeep Cherokee struck him in a car park near Clay Road and Highway 6, according to investigators. He suffered multiple fractures to his right leg and an ankle injury which required surgery.

The indictment follows a dispute between local prosecutors and federal authorities over what happened. ICE has maintained that Parra-Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, dismissing the allegations that the officer intentionally struck him as “reckless and false.”

But Teare has said surveillance video contradicts the agency’s account.

It shows the SUV crossing a median and pursuing Parra-Hernandez as he runs away. Although another vehicle obscures the moment of impact, the video shows the man on the ground moments later.

Authorities also released body-camera footage on Friday. In the recording, Morales can be heard acknowledging that he struck Parra-Hernandez with his vehicle.

Teare also accused federal authorities of failing to cooperate with the investigation, including by removing the Jeep before local investigators could examine it for potential evidence.

A search warrant obtained by local media shows investigators had not been granted access to the vehicle as of October 23.

The case has also raised questions about the operation’s intended target. ICE said agents were searching for a man identified as Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom they believed to be travelling with Parra-Hernandez.

But Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter told The New York Times that her father died in 2017. Parra-Hernandez’s family has disputed that the two men knew each other.

The Morales indictment comes as the Harris County District Attorney’s Office continues investigating the fatal shooting of another Mexican, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, on July 7.

An ICE officer, Gregory Feathers, has been accused of firing at the vehicle Salgado Araujo was driving on his way to work in Houston.

Federal authorities said the officer acted in self-defence, a claim the surviving passengers in the vehicle dispute.

US District Judge Richard Stearns sided with 25 states and the District of Columbia which sued the administration.

A federal judge has ruled against enforcing a new rule by the administration of US President Donald Trump that would require chronically ill people on Medicaid, a public health insurance programme for low-income individuals, to prove themselves “medically frail” to qualify for work exemptions.

US District Judge Richard Stearns blocked the rule on Thursday, siding with 25 states and the District of Columbia, which had sued the Trump administration in June over the change, arguing that it unlawfully limits exemptions for people with serious medical conditions.

The law says the definition of medically frail must include people who are blind or disabled, have substance use disorders or disabling mental disorders, have certain disabilities that significantly impair daily activities, or have serious or complex medical conditions.

‘Significantly impair’ abilities

But the administration’s rule went further, requiring people in those categories to show that their conditions also “significantly impair” their ability to comply with the law’s work requirements.

The plaintiffs argued that the stricter rule would prevent eligible Americans from accessing the care they need, and that it oversteps the law’s text.

“The states have met their burden of showing irreparable harm for which monetary damages would provide inadequate compensation – they face the burden of costly and intensive alterations to their eligibility verification systems,” Stearns said in his 16-page ruling.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency that adopted the rule, declined to comment.

Medicaid is a public health insurance programme for low-income people, funded by state and federal governments.

Two restrictions upheld

Starting January 1, 2027, Medicaid expansion enrollees aged 19 to 64 must show that they work or do community service at least 80 hours a month, or are in school at least half the time. There are exceptions for those considered medically frail or in addiction treatment programmes, among others.

Notably, while the ruling will make it easier for some Medicaid recipients with qualifying medical conditions to obtain an exemption from the new work requirements, Stearns’s decision does not strike down the work requirements as unlawful.

Stearns serves in the District of Massachusetts and was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

His ruling upheld two other federal restrictions on how states can verify medical frailty that the states and the District of Columbia had also contested.

The updated lawsuit cites a new report that Democratic operatives recruited a competitor to confuse voters and unseat a Republican incumbent.

The United States Department of Justice has filed a revised lawsuit seeking to decertify the results of a Senate race in the state of Alaska if Republican incumbent Dan S Sullivan loses narrowly.

The updated lawsuit on Thursday comes just days before the November 3 midterm election, which will determine control of Congress.

The complaint accuses Democrats of trying to confuse voters by placing a candidate with the same name as Sullivan on the ballot.

Alaska’s Senate race is one of seven key toss-ups that will likely decide whether Republicans keep their majority in Congress’s upper chamber.

Democratic challenger Mary Peltola is seeking to unseat Sullivan, a Republican ally of US President Donald Trump.

But a New York Times report on Wednesday alleged that members of Peltola’s campaign helped recruit a retired teacher, Dan J Sullivan Jr, to run for the Senate seat as a spoiler candidate, designed to draw votes away from the incumbent.

The Times report prompted a renewed legal push under the Trump administration to bar Alaska from certifying its election results, should Senator Sullivan lose.

The Department of Justice issued 40 subpoenas and document preservation requests as part of the revised complaint, the Reuters news agency reported.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy also ordered a criminal investigation into the allegations. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement in Dan J Sullivan Jr’s bid for the Senate.

Prosecutors, however, have accused the Democrat and her allies of playing partisan tricks – and undermining voters as a result.

“They orchestrated his sham campaign for the purpose of misleading Alaskan voters and getting Peltola elected,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in their amended complaint.

But the Justice Department’s lawsuit has raised concerns about election integrity and federal meddling.

Under the US Constitution, election administration falls to the states, not the presidency.

In June, Alaska’s Supreme Court ruled that Dan J Sullivan Jr could compete in the midterms, and the state’s election office has already taken steps to reduce confusion between the two Sullivans.

Recruiting candidates to split an opponent’s vote – a practice known as ballot stacking – is also generally considered to be legal and has been used by both parties in Alaska.

Critics have been sceptical of the Justice Department’s bid to pause the certification of Alaska’s Senate results if Senator Sullivan does not win re-election, noting it would be impossible to divine voter intent based on the final tally alone.

Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official under President Joe Biden, also questioned what legal authority the federal government had to get involved in the case.

“I don’t know what they’re putting out subpoenas to investigate because I don’t know what federal violations are implicated that DOJ would have jurisdiction over,” Levitt told the Associated Press news agency.

“Sure makes it seem like the point of the investigation is to become the story.”

Democrats and Republicans are locked in tight races nationwide that will determine which party holds a majority in the US Senate for the remainder of Trump’s second term in office.

Republicans currently hold a slim majority in the legislature’s upper chamber, with 53 out of 100 seats.

Democratic candidates are hoping to win seats by capitalising on Trump’s deep unpopularity and frustration over the cost-of-living crisis.

Trump has suggested he may not accept the midterm results if his party loses its majorities in Congress, and he has pushed false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The Justice Department has also attempted to challenge the voting process in several states, including California.

With only days left until the 2026 midterm elections, United States President Donald Trump has announced he will scale back his packed rally schedule, cancelling scheduled appearances in Iowa and Kansas.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) confirmed the cancellations in a statement on Thursday, unveiling a slate of “tele-rallies” to replace the cancelled events.

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters argued that the virtual appearances will be more efficient, reaching more voters than Trump otherwise could with on-the-ground stops.

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

The tele-rallies will be broadcast to nearly 20 states, including battlegrounds like Michigan, Alaska, Texas and Iowa, where competitive races are unfolding for the US Senate.

The RNC statement added that further events may be announced in the coming days.

Trump’s rally on Friday in Daytona Beach, Florida – some 320 kilometres (200 miles) up the coast from his Mar-a-Lago resort – will proceed as planned.

Less than five days remain until the midterm elections on November 3, which will decide the composition of Congress, as well as key state and local offices.

Whichever party controls Congress will shape Trump’s legislative agenda during the final two years of his second term.

Trump has also expressed concern that the Democratic Party might push to impeach him for a third time if it wins majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Currently, the Republican Party holds narrow majorities in both chambers. In the Senate, the party holds 53 seats out of 100. In the House, it has 218 seats, with all 435 offices up for grabs this election cycle.

The Senate, meanwhile, will see only about a third of its offices on the midterm ballot. Unlike in the House, where terms only last two years, senators are elected to six-year time spans, and their elections are staggered across different election years, to allow for greater stability.

Political forecasters have predicted Democrats have an advantage this midterm election cycle, citing Trump’s slumping poll numbers and voter blowback over cost-of-living issues, foreign policy and other concerns.

Harvard University’s ElectIt election forecasting model, for instance, has estimated that Democrats have a 94 percent chance of taking control of the House.

The race for the Senate, however, will be more difficult, with fewer seats available to win.

Trump has placed himself at the centre of the Republican strategy to defend the party’s congressional majorities. To motivate his base of support, he has repeatedly encouraged voters with the phrase, “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”

Midterm elections occur halfway through a president’s term, and they are often considered a reflection of a president’s popularity.

At 80 years old, however, Trump will be the oldest president by the time his term concludes, and his health has been a concern.

Since starting his second term, the Republican leader has been photographed with bruising on his hands, sparking speculation about any undisclosed medical conditions he may have.

After concluding a rally in South Carolina on Thursday, reporters inquired about his health.

“Mr President, you’ve been doing a lot of travel. We’ve been doing a lot of travel with you. How are you feeling? How’s your health?” a reporter from the news agency Reuters asked on the tarmac.

Trump, at first, dodged the question, focusing instead on his optimism about the Republican Party’s prospects in the election.

“We’re going to have a strong Tuesday night,” Trump said.

But the reporter continued with his line of questioning: “So you’re not going to Kansas has nothing to do with you being sick of travelling?” That prompted an irate reply from Trump, who lashed out.

“Oh, you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” Trump said, as he proceeded to insult the reporter’s weight.

“You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.”

During his remarks to the reporter, Trump also questioned the need to visit Salina, Kansas, as he had planned to do on Saturday. “I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” the president said.

Kansas, normally a Republican stronghold, has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

But this election cycle, Republican Senator Roger Marshall is facing a tight race with Democrat Adam Hamilton, the pastor of a megachurch.

On Thursday, the news outlet CNN released a poll showing Hamilton up by four percentage points, leading with 49 percent support to Marshall’s 45 percent.

An Icelandic web company, FlokiNET, has defended the data’s publication as satisfying a ‘legitimate’ public interest.

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked an Icelandic web hosting company to take down a site with information about tens of thousands of its employees.

On Thursday, the Icelandic company FlokiNET posted a letter it received from the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox, on behalf of DHS.

The letter accused FlokiNET of violating its terms of service by publishing a “stolen” employee dataset and asked it to “remove or disable” the information.

“The content is live and places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking, and physical harm,” the letter said.

FlokiNET said the letter concerned one domain, icepi.cx, which has compiled information about employees from a range of DHS agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Those agencies have come under intense scrutiny since the start of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign in 2025.

But the Trump administration has often refused to identify DHS agents involved in specific operations, citing safety risks.

Though FlokiNET said it refused to comply with DHS’s request, it noted that the website’s registrar ultimately suspended the domain. The employee information has since moved to a different domain.

In a statement posted online, FlokiNET defended its decision not to remove the site.

“Federal officers carrying out an enforcement programme are not private individuals while they are carrying it out,” the company said. “The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is doing that work, under whose authority, and in which office.”

The database was first posted online on Wednesday by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a group that showcases leaked government data.

In the past, DDoSecrets has released emails from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as information from the Israeli Ministry of Justice and police departments in the US.

A hacker group calling itself the “Department of Peace” has claimed responsibility for obtaining and sharing the DHS data.

Since the database was first published, other groups have spread the information elsewhere, including on sites like icepi.cx. As a result, the information is unlikely to be entirely scrubbed from the internet.

The Trump administration, however, has taken an aggressive approach to online platforms purporting to contain information about ICE employees and other agents involved in immigration operations.

Last year, for instance, the US Department of Justice pressured tech giants like Apple to remove apps that track ICE agents, including one called ICEBlock.

The move sparked backlash from Democrats and free-speech advocates, who argued that the public has a right to report on ICE’s movements.

“Blocking access to these apps at the request of the federal government raises the distinct possibility that Apple is working with government to violate its customers’ First Amendment right to record and report on the activities of their government,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin wrote in a letter last year, asking Apple to review its decision.

Immigration agents, meanwhile, have taken several steps to conceal their identities during operations, including wearing face masks or street clothes.

That lack of transparency has spurred criticism from human rights groups and immigration advocates, who argue that they have little recourse to pursue allegations of excessive force or impropriety during ICE raids.

Since Trump was sworn in for a second term, at least 25 people have faced gunfire from immigration agents. Six of the shootings have resulted in deaths.

Other cases have involved alleged violations of civil liberties – including unlawful arrests and racial profiling – as well as controversial tactics like car ramming and tackling.

Oct. 28, 2026 9:44 AM PT

MINNEAPOLIS — The parents of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti said the federal government is shielding the immigration enforcement officers involved in their son’s killing, and no one from the government has reached out with any substantive information for nine months.

Michael and Susan Pretti on Tuesday called for the Department of Justice to hold accountable those who shot their 37-year-old son during President Trump’s ramp up in deportations targeting Minnesota. Federal prosecutors disclosed in recent court filings they had stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities who are investigating the January killings of Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers.

“The federal government went on TV and lied about Alex,” said Susan Pretti, his mother. “They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime. Not only was it wrong, it was shameful.”

Within moments of his Jan. 24 death, Trump administration officials sought to portray Pretti, a U.S. citizen and nurse at a veterans hospital, as an armed disruptor intent on doing harm to federal agents when he brought his own gun to a Minneapolis street where officers clashed with protesters. Kristi Noem, the then-Homeland Security secretary, painted the Veterans Administration hospital nurse as a domestic terrorist who violently resisted federal agents. Court records show he had no criminal record.

Video shot by bystanders that day showed Pretti only had a mobile phone in his hand. No footage has since emerged showing him brandishing a weapon or attacking federal agents in the moments before he was killed.

The Prettis spoke Tuesday at a news conference organized by an attorney representing the family, calling their treatment by the Trump administration “cruelty.” They said they decided to speak out after being “stonewalled” by U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, U.S. Atty. Dan Rosen.

“At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us, and shielded Alex’s killers,” said Michael Pretti, his father. “We are a family who love this country. We trust in the institutions of this country. We believe in the rule of law — and that people should be held accountable through that law.”

After months of reaching out to Rosen’s office, the federal prosecutor agreed to meet with them in July. But the family and their attorney, Steve Schleicher, said that meeting raised more questions than answers, with Rosen refusing to provide even basic information about the status of the federal investigation into Pretti’s death.

A spokesman for Rosen’s office had no comment when reached by the Associated Press on Tuesday. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Pretti family’s remarks.

Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration in March for access to materials they said they needed to independently investigate the shootings of Pretti and Good. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself.

The state is still seeking the cellphones of the officers involved in both shootings and recordings of key interviews.

Pretti’s parents recounted how they first learned of his death when they were called by a reporter for the Associated Press.

“We learned about his death from the media as we saw him being shot repeatedly in the back after helping a woman from his community, a fellow Minnesotan, who had been shoved to the ground viciously,” Michael Pretti said. “No one from the federal government called us on that horrible day, but they did go on TV to tell lies about Alex. No one from the federal government has called us since.”

He said the videos of his son’s killing haunt his family every day.

“I think it haunts many Americans to see a U.S. citizen who was peaceful and in his community shot multiple times on the back, in the back, while on the ground,” the father said, calling his family heartbroken.

“We wish we didn’t have to be here,” he said. “We wish Alex was alive. We wish we were simply in Minneapolis to visit with Alex. For he and I to chat about cars, hiking, biking or anything that came to our mind. This administration has taken that away from us forever.”

Biesecker and Vancleave write for the Associated Press. Biesecker reported from Pittsburgh.

British Chancellor John Healey will set out the country’s autumn budget, the government’s tax and spending plans, the first under Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s premiership amid high inflation and government spending levels.

While the budget will be announced in parliament on Wednesday at 12.30 GMT, speculation about what it will lay out has ranged from a series of tax announcements to commitments to defence spending.

But the country continues to deal with a rising cost-of-living crisis and energy bills are expected to see their biggest rise in four years in January due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

As total United Kingdom borrowing broke through the 3 trillion pounds ($3.99 trillion) barrier for the first time in September, the country is already spending 100 billion pounds ($133bn) each year just on servicing that debt.

Despite that challenge, the chancellor has said the budget will move “money and power out of Westminster and into every postcode around Britain”.

In a speech last month, Healey said that he and Burnham were in “lockstep” in meeting fiscal rules, “to balancing the books, with a buffer to protect against uncertainty, to control borrowing to bear down on inflation, and reducing long-term pressures on our public finances”.

Following the two budgets from former Chancellor Rachel Reeves, which included big tax and spending increases, Healey’s budget is expected to take a more “steady as she goes” line, which some say is the wrong approach.

Here’s how he will be expected to achieve that.

Defence spending

On Monday, Burnham said Healey would set out a plan to fully fund the government’s defence plans and commitments, telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain that his government’s first challenge was financing the already announced defence investment plan.

Announced in June, the plan is backed by 298 billion pounds ($396bn) of investment and will transform the armed forces as the country moves to “warfighting readiness” and stepping up “European security”, according to a government policy paper.

But Burnham said it was “crucial that we have a funded plan that we can then implement, and we will set out more details on Wednesday as to how we’ve done that”.

He added that NATO commitments of spending 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence spending by 2030 and 3.5 percent by 2035 are included in the pathway, explaining that national security issues were “at the top of the priority list”.

As it stands, Britain spends about 2.6 percent of its GDP on defence.

The Guardian reported that on defence spending, Healey aims to close a 4.7-billion-pound ($6.2bn) funding gap in the government’s plan inherited from the previous Labour Party leader, with cuts to other departmental budgets likely to fund it.

Inflation

Government borrowing and inflation continue to rise, which is a potential spanner in the works for proposed spending.

Last week, UK inflation and government borrowing both hit their highest levels in a year.

According to the Office for National Statistics, borrowing was nearly 25 billion pounds ($33bn) last month alone, “a little higher than a year earlier, as spending, including higher debt interest costs, increased more than government income, partly reflecting the impacts of inflation”.

ONS added that in the financial year to September 2026, borrowing remained below the same period last year, but it was higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast.

However, debt at the end of last month exceeded 3 trillion pounds ($3.99 trillion), much of it due to the Iran war and the fallout from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as the government borrowed more than expected.

According to Jasper Kanter, a professorial research fellow in ecological economics at Aberystwyth Business School, for the government to grow the economy without raising inflation levels, there needs to be an understanding of what kind of economy is created.

“The strongest policies improve prosperity, resilience and sustainability at the same time,” Kanter said.

“Growth is less likely to be inflationary when it comes from increasing the economy’s productive capacity rather than simply boosting spending. Measures that improve skills, reduce energy dependence, strengthen local economies and regenerate ecosystems are likely to deliver more lasting benefits than short-term stimulus,” he added.

Moreover, Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said in a media release ahead of the budget that Healey “faces a forecast in which borrowing is still expected to fall in coming years, and the fiscal rules are still being met”.

“Despite that, a ‘steady-as-she-goes’ budget is not an option available to the chancellor. Choosing to stay the course with the inherited tax and spending plans would mean allowing inflation to blow departments’ spending plans off course,” Miller said.

Tax on banks, online sellers

The budget is also expected to reveal new taxes on banks and online marketplaces such as Amazon, Temu and eBay, as well as a funding boost for mayoralties and local authorities.

The biggest four banks collectively made about profits of 15 billion pounds ($19.9bn) in the first six months of this year. Trade unions are calling for higher taxes on those earnings, the BBC has reported.

According to the BBC, the Treasury is leaning towards changing a 2023 surcharge rate on banks, which would raise about 2 billion pounds ($2.6bn).

On marketplaces such as Amazon, Healey is reportedly looking to crack down on foreign sellers who avoid paying VAT – a UK sales tax – which is expected to raise as much as 1 billion pounds ($1.3bn) and help fund business rate cuts for high street shops, The Times reported.

Paying for social care and benefits

According to The Guardian newspaper, Healey is expected to allocate about 1.42 trillion pounds ($1.8 trillion) this year for day-to-day spending and public investment, with about 100 billion pounds ($132.8bn) going on debt interest.

Kanter, of Aberystwyth Business School, told Al Jazeera that he expects “targeted support rather than large-scale tax cuts or rises” in the budget announcement.

“The government appears keen to signal empathy with the pressures many people are facing. Addressing the harsh cliff edge in carer’s allowance and expanding parental pay are good examples of this,” he said.

Some of the budget’s contents have already been announced, including ending the carers’ allowance limit and removing tariffs on a range of food items, including chocolate and beans, to make them cheaper for shoppers.

Pensioners are also expected to be shielded from income tax through the introduction of a new personal allowance, while Healey is expected to add another 1 billion pounds ($1.3bn) to the 39 billion pounds ($51.8bn) planned for social and affordable housing in England over the next decade.

“Pensioners will benefit from another substantial increase in the state pension, while low-paid workers will benefit from increases in the minimum wage. For most households, the bigger determinants of living standards will remain wages, inflation and energy costs rather than any new tax measures announced in the budget,” Kanter explained.

Last month, Burnham announced a new national care service to provide free personal care for elderly people. As costs of care for the elderly have soared in the UK, this was a major issue from the outset of Burnham’s premiership.

He said the plan would be introduced in phases and would be fully funded from public spending and savings from scrapping the state pension triple lock – an annual increase in state pension that goes up with inflation, wages or a fixed rate of 2.5 percent, whichever is highest.

A report on how this will be implemented is due in summer 2027.

Energy bills

Amid high gas and oil prices as a result of the US-Israeli war with Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, energy prices worldwide have increased, with Brent crude futures at $115.90 a barrel on Wednesday.

In the UK, energy prices are predicted to reach nearly 2,000 pounds ($2,655) a year for households in January after energy consultancy Cornwall Insight projected in its latest forecast last month that the government’s cap on energy prices is expected to increase by 16 percent.

On energy bills, reports suggest the chancellor is expected to announce help for households in the budget by scrapping standing charges for energy supply, among other things.

Israel has only ever been governed by coalitions. Can you put one together that reaches 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats?

Israelis voted on October 27, but there appears to be no clear winner.

The next government, like every government in Israel’s history, will have to be a coalition.

The question now is who can secure at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats to form a government and become Israel’s next prime minister.

Al Jazeera has built an interactive tool that lets you test different combinations of parties. Start with any of the four exit polls or enter your own seat numbers. Then add parties until your coalition reaches 61 seats. You can add an entire bloc at once or select parties individually.

Who is ahead?

Initial counting by the Central Elections Committee put Likud ahead as the largest single party, with 27 seats.

Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 54 seats, against 50 for Eisenkot’s.

Four exit polls published on election night showed how close the race is.

Kan 11 and Channel 13 put Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc and Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc level at 51 seats each. Channel 12 gave Netanyahu 52 seats to Eisenkot’s 49, while Channel 15 was most favourable to the incumbent, projecting 55 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc against 49 for the opposition.

How many seats are needed?

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has 120 seats. Parties win seats in proportion to their share of the national vote, provided they clear the 3.25 percent threshold to enter parliament.

A government needs the support of at least 61 politicians to secure a majority.

Neither of the main blocs has reached that number in the exit polls or the initial count. The next step is to find enough parties willing to join forces to make up the difference.

Why is forming a government so difficult?

The Arab-led parties Ra’am and the Joint List could hold the balance of power, with exit polls putting their combined support at between 16 and 19 seats.

But the political obstacles are considerable. Netanyahu has described a coalition with Arab parties as “shameful”, while leading figures in the Jewish-led opposition have also ruled out governing with them.

That leaves potential coalitions that may work on paper but face serious political barriers.

Which parties belong to each bloc?

Netanyahu’s bloc spans Likud, the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, and the far-right parties Religious Zionism, led by Bezalel Smotrich, and Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Eisenkot’s opposition bloc includes his Yashar party, the Together list associated with former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats.

What happens next?

Once the results are certified, the president gives the mandate to the member of the Knesset considered most likely to assemble a majority.

That politician has 28 days to form a government, with a possible extension of up to 14 days. If they fail, another lawmaker can be given a chance. If no one can form a government, Israel may have to hold another election, as it did repeatedly between 2019 and 2022.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, with 19 years in office across three stints, remains caretaker prime minister while coalition negotiations unfold. He is also standing trial on corruption charges, which he denies.

Official results are due on November 4. Negotiations to form a government could take considerably longer.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Monday to extend an order blocking the Trump administration’s renovation plans for a century-old public golf course in the nation’s capital.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the East Potomac Golf Course. The administration must give 10 days’ notice in writing before making any “irreparable modification” to any “forms or features” of the course while the lawsuit is active.

“The Court earlier stated, ‘I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees.’ The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law,” Reyes wrote.

Reyes expressed astonishment that the government has asked her to “not to believe the sitting President” and disregard Trump’s statements about his plans for the golf course renovations.

“This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more,” Reyes wrote. “It now forces the Court to reconcile assertions by President Donald J. Trump with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the argument of senior Department of Justice attorneys.”

On Oct. 18, Trump announced plans on social media to close the golf course for 15 months, starting Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers. A day later, Trump posted that the work would start immediately.

Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Biden, previously ordered the administration to suspend work on the project until at least Oct. 26.

Trump was asked about the case late Monday night as he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland following a rally in Mississippi and indicated that work on the golf course will proceed as planned.

“It has the go-ahead. The judge feels that she would like to approve it as it goes along. And I didn’t know she was an architectural critic of golf courses,” Trump said sarcastically.

He added of the judge: “She knows nothing about that, so we’ll appeal that” while also calling his planned overhaul a “beautiful project for Washington, D.C.”

Trump later in a social media post reiterated a statement he made Oct. 18 that the course would close for 15 months. “We are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons,” he wrote.

The plaintiffs challenging the project, DC Preservation League and two golfers, claim the work is inflicting irreversible damage. At a hearing, the judge excoriated the government after workers cut down at least 400 trees over a holiday weekend with little notice to the plaintiffs.

The course renovation project is part of the Republican president’s aggressive campaign to leave his personal imprint on Washington’s historic landscape. Those plans include construction of a huge ballroom at the White House, a massive arch and the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park. DC Preservation League is part of a coalition of organizations, including the Cultural Landscape Foundation and one D.C. resident, who have filed lawsuit challenging those plans.

Reyes rejected the administration’s request for her to recuse herself from the case. The government questioned her impartiality and accused her of engaging in “egregious” behavior from the bench during an emergency hearing in the case.

In Monday’s ruling Reyes stressed that she had hoped the parties could have resolved their dispute without judicial intervention. She noted that she had denied plaintiffs’ previous requests.

“The Court would much prefer not to have to resolve Lorax v. Once‑ler redux. Indeed, for months, the Court declined to intervene,” she wrote.

But she said the government forced her hand by bulldozing hundreds of trees without any notice, doing “what it assured all it would not do.”

Reyes quoted from a golf-related opinion written by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, in stressing the temporary nature of her own decision.

“Here, golf and government have again clashed,” Reyes wrote. “By issuing this preliminary injunction, the Court does not end the round: it simply marks the ball until the parties can fully and fairly litigate this case.

Democracy Forward President & CEO Skye Perryman, whose organization is co-counsel representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a big win that will rightly protect East Potomac Park from further irreparable harm.” She added, in an email, that the move will stop activities “while the case continues, and we are eager to argue the case in court.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Gary Fields and Will Weissert contributed to this report.

The political party of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has acknowledged the result of Brazil’s presidential run-off, despite the right-wing candidate pledging to annul the outcome.

On Monday, Valdemar Costa Neto, the leader of the right-wing Liberal Party, issued a statement saying his political group had accepted the outcome of the vote.

Still, he echoed Bolsonaro’s concerns about the circumstances surrounding the election.

“We recognise the presidential election results,” Costa Neto said. “But we believe the issues raised need to be properly clarified.”

On Sunday, Bolsonaro was defeated by left-wing incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a margin of more than 4.4 million votes.

Bolsonaro has yet to formally concede. In a post-election speech, he called the election results “unacceptable”, citing a last-minute extension to voting hours.

“We will take legal action,” he told supporters. “I will request that these elections be annulled.”

An extension to Sunday’s vote had been sought by the campaigns of both candidates — but for different reasons.

Bolsonaro’s camp had pointed to inclement weather that impeded some voters from reaching polling stations. Parts of southern Brazil, considered a right-wing stronghold, had experienced heavy rains on Sunday.

Lula’s campaign, meanwhile, pushed for longer voting hours after it accused some cities of limiting public transportation on election day.

The left-wing leader’s allies framed those reductions in service as an attempt at election interference, aimed at preventing Lula’s working-class base from voting.

Media reports indicated that Pablo Souza, a transportation official in the city of Salvador, was arrested on Sunday over the matter.

In response to the petitions, Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin agreed to extend voting by two hours.

Whereas polls across the country had been slated to close at 5pm Brasilia time (20:00 GMT), Zanin’s order allowed those that had not already closed to remain open until 7pm (22:00 GMT).

Following his loss, Bolsonaro cried foul, saying that the justice’s decision had disadvantaged his voters.

He pointed to Zanin’s relationship with Lula as support: Lula had appointed Zanin to the high court in 2023, and Zanin had formerly served as the left-wing politician’s personal lawyer.

“With a simple stroke of a pen, at the request of a former partner, [Zanin] changed the rules of the game mid-match,” Bolsonaro said in his address on Sunday night.

But experts signalled they were sceptical of Bolsonaro’s claims of malfeasance.

An analysis by Pedro Burgos, a professor at the Brazilian educational institute Insper, found that the extension resulted in 35,000 additional votes across the country, less than 0.03 percent of the total.

That amount was far short of Lula’s 4.4 million vote advantage. The incumbent won more than 64.25 million votes, compared with Bolsonaro’s 59.83 million.

Still, some right-wing allies rallied to Bolsonaro’s support. US President Donald Trump, who has clashed with Lula in the past, told reporters that the vote seemed “rigged”.

“Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump said on Monday. “It looked like another rigged election, frankly.”

Still, Trump stopped short of suggesting that he would get involved on behalf of Bolsonaro, saying instead he “did not take sides” in the election.

Bolsonaro’s refusal to accept his loss has raised concerns about whether he will abide by the democratic process or follow in the footsteps of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who served as Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2023.

After his defeat to Lula in the 2022 election, the ex-president refused to acknowledge the outcome.

Instead, he and his allies sought to overturn the results, including through a legal challenge, and prosecutors accused him of plotting a coup to prevent the legal transfer of power.

Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on coup-related charges.

Separately, he was also barred from serving in public office for eight years, after a court found he had misused his public office to spread misinformation about the election.

Flavio Bolsonaro, along with his siblings, has sought to have his father released. The family has denounced the elder Bolsonaro’s trial as a case of political persecution.

Still, it is unclear whether Flavio Bolsonaro will continue with his legal challenge over Sunday’s election.

The Brazilian news outlet Folha de S Paulo reported on Monday that legal advisers and political allies have convinced Bolsonaro to abandon his quest to have his loss annulled, citing the large margin of Lula’s victory and its validation by the Supreme Court and election authorities.

Bolsonaro also announced on Monday that federal police asked him to hand over his passports amid speculation that he could leave the country following his loss.

He said that he would comply with the order and had no plans to leave.

“To withstand the chaos, I’m going to organise the opposition,” the right-wing politician said.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Comey, who was fired during Trump’s first term, has been accused of unlawfully divulging national security information

James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is facing a third set of criminal charges under the administration of United States President Donald Trump.

On Monday, sealed documents came to light showing that the Trump administration accused Comey of two counts related to the unlawful dissemination of “information related to national defence”.

Comey, a high-profile Trump critic, has not been indicted in the case. He has denied any wrongdoing.

But it is the third time the Trump administration has sought to level a criminal case against the former FBI director since the president returned to office in January 2025.

In a video on the online platform Substack, Comey once again denounced the Trump administration’s attempts to prosecute him as a campaign of political retribution.

“Well, now they’re back again. it would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to,” Comey said.

“Nothing’s changed with me. I’m still innocent, and I’m still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

He also noted that Trump is only midway through his second term, and he hinted that he expects more criminal charges to come.

“The next couple years are going to be hard for all of us,” Comey added. “It’s really important that we stand straight and keep the faith in America.”

More details to come.

The plaintiffs argue they are losing access to vital information media outlets covering Trump used to provide.

A group of private citizens has sued the administration of United States President Donald Trump over its restrictions on news outlets covering the White House.

“All of the Plaintiffs rely on the White House press corps for independent reporting about the president and his administration, and all of them use that reporting in a variety of ways in their scholarship, teaching, journalism, or advocacy,” says the lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in New York.

The lawsuit is the first lodged not by the news outlets being banned, but by those who consume the news and rely on it for their work.

The plaintiffs include a human rights advocate, a media watchdog, a university history professor, a high school teacher, a legal journalist and a student journalist.

Each argues they need unbiased, diverse media reporting from the White House to do their work.

“I’m gravely concerned that the Trump administration’s restrictions on White House reporters are cutting off access to crucial information,” Peter Schmidt-Nowara, a high school social studies teacher in New York City, said in a statement.

“I joined this lawsuit because my students deserve to know what’s happening in their government and to hear from a free and independent press.”

Trump already faces several legal challenges to his practice of banning journalists from outlets he dislikes from accessing the White House.

Last month, he banned journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from attending news conferences at the White House. A federal judge later ruled the order was unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of the press, and ordered access be restored. However, the Trump administration continues to fight the ruling.

Last week, Trump dismissed reporting that he planned to evict journalists from the White House press briefing room and restore a swimming pool that was housed there starting in 1933. But he said he is still considering moving the press out of the briefing room.

“I am thinking about moving the Press, and putting them in a different location, but I will use that location for very badly needed space,” Trump said in a social media post.

Kenneth Roth, a senior fellow at Yale University and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the restrictions on press access were familiar postmarks in countries whose leaders have become authoritarian.

“Worldwide, I have seen how governmental leaders’ efforts to penalise independent journalists are a prelude to the rise of autocracy,” he said in a statement.

Oct. 26, 2026 9:23 AM PT

NEW YORK — The Trump administration last year illegally fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Maurene Comey, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for a decade, was illegally fired in July 2025 despite her work on some of the nation’s highest-profile cases and consistently receiving “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike,” Judge Jesse M. Furman found.

After her firing, Comey sued the Justice Department and others, saying her termination violated the constitutional separation of powers, the 1st Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment.

She asserted that she was fired because she was the daughter of James Comey, whom President Trump has long viewed as an enemy, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, the judge noted.

Furman rejected the government’s claim that Comey could be fired because federal prosecutors exercise the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers.

He said the government’s claim that Congress is barred from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”

Furman added: “Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.”

The firing violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and her 5th Amendment due process and statutory rights, the judge ruled.

Furman reserved judgment on Comey’s 1st Amendment claim pending further arguments to be submitted by each side, though he said he was inclined to dismiss the claim because it was largely moot since she is now in private practice and no longer seeks actual reinstatement.

The judge granted Comey retroactive reinstatement and back pay from the date of her firing through Dec. 20 to “make her whole” and ensure that she doesn’t suffer adverse employment consequences for the “unlawful termination.”

Comey’s lawyers, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali and Margaret Donovan, lauded the ruling.

“This hard-earned victory belongs to Ms. Comey, to all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law,” they said in a statement. “As the Court correctly held, to accept the government’s argument about unlimited executive power ‘would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.’ This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law.”

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The Justice Department during the Trump administration has fired scores of career employees, including prosecutors and FBI agents, who participated in investigations of President Trump or who were perceived as opposed to the administration’s agenda. Some of those firings have also resulted in federal lawsuits.

The firing of Maurene Comey was seen as particularly personal, given her father’s longtime adversarial relationship with Trump.

The president fired James Comey as FBI director in May 2017 as the bureau was investigating ties between Russia and the Republican’s successful 2016 campaign for the White House. Trump in the years since has repeatedly called for Comey to be jailed, and his Justice Department has worked with mixed success to make that happen.

An earlier criminal case accusing James Comey of having lied to Congress in 2020 was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case he has sought to dismiss that some legal experts have greeted with skepticism.

Sisak, Tucker, Durkin Richer and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. Tucker and Durkin Richer reported from Washington.

EXPLAINER

Uncertainty remains over key positions after student-led movement deals blow to longtime leader’s political dominance.

A student-led opposition movement has emerged victorious in Serbia’s snap parliamentary election, ending former President Aleksandar Vucic’s long grip on power.

The Student List’s win on Sunday followed nearly two years of youth-led protests triggered by the death of 16 people in a railway station canopy collapse in the city of Novi Sad in 2024.

Demonstrations demanding accountability quickly evolved into a wider political campaign against alleged corruption and capture of democratic institutions. In its electoral programme presented in September, the Student List said fighting corruption and organised crime were among its main priorities. It also pledged to raise living standards, boost employment, improve education, ensure media freedom and the independence of Serbia’s institutions.

After declaring victory on Sunday, the movement also said it would work to improve relations with neighbouring countries following a period of tension during Vucic’s more than decade-long rule.

Here’s what you should know:

What are the latest results?

The Republic Election Commission (RIK) announced on Monday that the Student List had won 52.54 percent of the vote, based on 8,077 processed polling stations out of 8,392.

The figures also showed the United Serbia list, led by Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, had secured 39.29 percent of ballots cast.

Voter turnout stood at 68.78 percent, a record high in more than 30 years, according to RIK data on Sunday.

What’s next?

While the final election result is not yet known, the figures mean that the Student List will be able to form a majority in Serbia’s 250-seat parliament on its own.

The bloc is projected to win 140 seats, well ahead of the 126 mandates required for a majority, while United Serbia is expected to have 103.

The remaining seats are set to go to the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (three); the Albanian political bloc (two); and the Rasim Ljajc-Ljudski and SDA Sandzak lists, with one each.

Who could be the new prime minister?

Unlike United Serbia, which named Vucic as its candidate for prime minister before the election, the Student List made no such announcement during the campaign.

Since its formal creation, the list has avoided highlighting single candidates, eager to emphasise the collective nature of the movement that brought together academics, doctors and workers.

During the campaign, the movement was led by Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Novi Sad. The cardiologist is now seen as the most likely candidate to become the next prime minister, but it remains unclear who will take over key ministries, including those of internal affairs, finance and justice.

When will the new government be formed?

This depends on when the final election results will be announced and when parliament convenes.

The new National Assembly must be established within 30 days of the final results being announced.

A government must be formed within 90 days after that – but the Student List’s clear majority removes the need for lengthy coalition talks.

What about the president?

Vucic has dominated Serbia’s politics – first as prime minister and then as president – since 2014.

Following his call for the snap parliamentary vote last month and his resignation as president, the post has been held temporarily by Ana Brnabic, the president of the National Assembly.

Brnabic is obliged to call for an extraordinary presidential election which must be held no later than three months after the end of Vucic’s mandate.

Vucic resigned on September 27 , so the deadline to hold a vote is December 27 .

The president of Serbia is elected directly by the citizens, not by the representatives in the assembly, but the post is largely ceremonial.

My fellow Californians, let us begin with an intelligence test.

Our great state has been voting since early October. Folks have been mailing in their ballots, dropping them off at collection sites and even showing up at in-person centers.

So raise your hand if you know — or even just assume — elections officials have been doing something with those ballots as they arrive, other than just throwing them in a pile.

Congratulations, hand-raisers. You are now officially smarter than the entire U.S. Department of Justice. Or at least more honest.

On Sunday, the lawyers for the DOJ managed to get a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to convene a rare emergency hearing because, OMG, people are actually voting and California is processing ballots!

Who could have possibly known?

Even though it’s literally law that counties count ballots in a timely manner; even though it’s happened in every other election; even though the daily tallies of how many ballots are received are posted online by the secretary of State; even though there are live camera feeds of ballots being processed in Los Angeles — somehow the U.S. government didn’t know this normal election procedure was happening, it claimed.

It wasn’t until late Friday, when DOJ lawyers read a filing by California DOJ lawyers laying out that L.A. is, like, actually opening mail-in ballots, that the U.S. DOJ realized that ballots are being opened. About 600,000 so far in L.A.

That seemed “absurd on its face,” argued California Deputy Solicitor Gen. Samuel P. Siegel.

Armed with this previously unknowable information, Trump’s lawyers were begging the appeals court to take their flimsy, constitutionally questionable case away from the judge who had already promised to rule on their requests on Tuesday and immediately give them an injunction to further their election conspiracy claims.

Most folks are aware of the background of this drama, but here’s the quick recap.

President Trump for years has falsely but incessantly claimed that Democrats are colluding with undocumented people to help them sneak into the country in exchange for illegally voting in mass numbers for Democrats. This is not happening, but the president is obsessed with this conspiracy, so much so that he is weaponizing the Department of Justice to attack states, California in particular, in a bid to prove his delusions correct, and perhaps as a bonus, undermine democracy.

A few months ago, the DOJ came to the state of California and claimed it had a list of 190,000 people it believed were illegally registered to vote. That list has since dropped to 20,000. But with all the investigative power of the government hard at work on this, only 28 people in California have been indicted by the feds during this no-holds-barred effort, and it looks as though not all of those cases will hold up.

Undeterred, Trump lawyers tried to get a California judge to order the state (and Los Angeles) to set aside ballots that it claims to have doubts about. They asked the judge in that case for a temporary restraining order forcing L.A. County to do that, and the judge agreed to rule on that request early next week, in an already-expedited fashion.

But then the Trump lawyers learned about all that ballot processing and demanded the judge instead rule by Saturday afternoon — though the reasoning here seems iffy. When the federal judge assigned to the case didn’t rule by Saturday, an absurd ask that didn’t even allow enough time for lawyers to file briefs, the feds ran to the 9th Circuit, claiming that failing to rule on Saturday was a de facto denial of their request.

Basically, it seems the Trump lawyers were arguing two things. First, that once ballots are counted, they can’t be uncounted, and if there are illegal ballots, that hurts all voters. Sure, OK.

But again, there is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion, and the lists of potential vote scofflaws compiled by the government have been shown to be error-ridden. They may also involve the use of a mysterious non-government “third party” to gather the information that not even the Trump lawyers could identify Sunday.

DOJ lawyers also claimed they had just learned that once a ballot is taken out of the envelope, there was no way to reconnect that ballot to the voter who cast it — because our votes are anonymous. Therefore, the 20,000 ballots had to be grabbed before they were separated from the documents inside.

The lawyers did not explain why they needed to know how a person voted to confirm they illegally voted. The envelopes are retained by county elections officials, but apparently the Trump lawyers feel it’s critical to tie them to particular votes.

But here’s the thing — there are simply not enough illegal voters to sway a Los Angeles election, or a California one for that matter. We have a system to ferrets out problematic ballots right now, and a separate criminal system that can hold illegal voters accountable. Two weeks before an election isn’t a time to demand ballots be withheld — unless you’re trying to undermine trust.

The appellate judges did not seem impressed by the federal laywers’ arguments, questioning more than once if the 9th Circuit even had jurisdiction since states are in charge of elections, not the federal government. There was even some reading of the 10th Amendment. You know, the one the don’t-tread-on-me types love that reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States.”

We should expect a ruling sooner rather than later, but the real question remains, why the emergency? The DOJ is involved in another voting lawsuit in Washington, D.C., where the plaintiffs, led by the UCLA Voting Rights Project, have asked for a restraining order of their own stopping the government from creating national lists of who it thinks should vote, and using janky, secretive information gathering to do it.

It’s also true that the original case was reassigned from a Trump-appointed judge to one appointed by Bill Clinton. There has been speculation the switch may have been viewed unfavorably by the feds, though the Clinton-appointed judge, David O. Carter, was given the case because of his experience in the subject matter.

The D.C. restraining order could be decided in the next few days. I’m not saying the cases are related, or that the judge should or does matter, but the Trump DOJ’s argument in California is basically that its list of 20,000 is really solid, reliable information.

If the D.C. federal judge rules first that the government information gathering is potentially both an overreach and sloppy, it makes it that much harder for another judge, or the appellate court for that matter, to rule that the list is so critical that they must step in.

So maybe there is an emergency.

Just not the one the government is claiming.

Images from the violent unrest in France have travelled around the world. Smashed shop windows, destroyed property, acts of looting and raging fires have rightly caused outrage and condemnation.

There is no single explanation of the motives of the perpetrators. There are certainly opportunistic “criminal elements” who take advantage of such situations. But there is also a lot of public anger that has boiled over after it had simmered for years as living conditions have deteriorated and demands for changes have been left unanswered.

The French government has taken full advantage of these violent acts, using them to justify the overly securitised response to the protests and to avoid public scrutiny for the failure to address its own failures. The images of chaos allow those in power to pose as the defenders of a public order they have actively helped undermine.

These acts of violence, however, cannot delegitimise the reasons behind the mass mobilisation of students across France. They also must not distract from the brutal police violence that has unfolded.

Fourteen-year-old Eden suffered a fractured jaw and had teeth knocked out by a tear gas grenade fired from a police launcher. Sixteen-year-old Mael lost the sight in one eye after a suspected hit from a police rubber bullet. Fifteen-year-old Evan had a hand blown off by a police stun grenade.

By October 14, 7,950 people had been placed in police custody since the protests began in September, 85 percent of them minors. A further 2,700 were taken into custody following the October 17 protests. Yesterday, police made another 1,000 arrests.

The staggering scale of detention and the mobilisation of tens of thousands of police officers make this one of the most heavily repressed protest movements of this century.

But there is also the quieter violence of social deprivation that the students are protesting and that has largely been ignored in the public narrative.

Across France, the sense of growing impoverishment deepens year after year. Poverty rates are the highest they have been since the 1990s, with 9.8 million people living under the official poverty line. Meanwhile, 53 French billionaires own as much wealth as nearly half of the French population, according to Oxfam.

Deteriorating socioeconomic conditions have hit the French educational system hard.

In Acoua, on the island of Mayotte, the Cite du Nord secondary school was blockaded as early as August 31. Long before protests in the Paris region attracted attention, parents and staff came out in protest to demand better learning and teaching conditions.

Built for 900 pupils, this school accommodates 2,300 in cramped, poorly ventilated classrooms. Alongside staff shortages, the school also struggles with water supply failures and unsanitary conditions in toilets.

In Sevran, a suburb of Paris, pupils and teachers at Blaise-Cendrars secondary school have complained since 2024 about water leaks, mould, unusable toilets, and shortages of tables and chairs.

At Marcelin-Berthelot secondary school in Pantin, another Parisian suburb, windows no longer open at a time when heatwaves can bring temperatures as high as 40C.

At Politzer secondary school in Bagnolet, also a Parisian suburb, staff, pupils and parents learnt in late September that the water was unsafe to drink, although it had been tested in June.

These are just a few examples of a countrywide trend of an educational infrastructure that is fast deteriorating, especially in impoverished areas.

This is compounded by the erosion of the level of education pupils actually receive. According to the education ministry’s own figures, 20.2 million teaching hours were not delivered in state secondary schools in 2024–25, excluding Mayotte: almost one in 10 scheduled hours. Of these, 15 million were lost because absent teachers were not replaced.

According to French economist Lucas Chancel, since 2017, when Emmanuel Macron came to power, government spending per student has declined by 20 percent.

This is the structural violence French students are asking those in power to end. Instead of listening, the government has responded with repressive tactics and narrative spin.

In his address to the public, Macron said he understood the students, but he did not express support for them the way he did for police officers. A meeting with 20 students on Friday resulted in a promise to reform the university entrance platform – not to address the students’ key demands.

Macron has doubled down on the security “solution”, deploying 70,000 police officers and pledging to ban protests. He has accused the “far left” of seeking to “bring down the republic”.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has called on the left to “choose a side”: the Republic equated with the police, or the rioters and their “violent agenda”. As if taking part in a protest amounted to an attack on the state.

Unsurprisingly, the far right is revelling in the chaos that appears to be engulfing the country, obscuring these needs by focusing on the presumed origins of people filmed committing acts of violence. Some far-right politicians have denounced the “hordes of thugs of foreign origin”, others have called for broader powers to strip people of their citizenship.

This rhetoric serves Macron’s political camp well as it allows it to present itself once again as the last defence against the far right, asking the general population to rally behind out of fear rather than because of its governance record. Voters are offered an increasingly bleak choice between those who have fuelled their anger and those seeking to turn it into racial hatred.

At this point, it is clear the government does not seem interested in genuinely addressing the demands of the students is in the cards. Doing so would mean confronting the priorities of Macron’s presidency: protecting the wealth of the few and abandoning the many.

Instead, the government will wait for the movement to exhaust itself, be weakened by fear or be discredited by unrest, until it dies out on its own.

This strategy, however, is a failed one. Even if this protest movement fizzles out, a new one will soon replace it. The French people cannot be scared into complacency forever while their living conditions continue to deteriorate.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Judge questions the Trump administration’s efforts to exert greater influence over elections process ahead of upcoming midterm vote.

A United States appeals court has expressed doubt over the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against California, which seeks to force the state to throw out mail-in ballots it has deemed likely to go to non-citizens.

Circuit Judge Mark Bennett said on Sunday that the three-judge panel would issue a decision as soon as possible, following a rare weekend oral argument.

But Bennett, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, voiced concern that the lawsuit would not hold up to scrutiny.

He pointed to the Elections Clause in the US Constitution, which allows states — not the federal government — to administer elections.

“It seems to me that you want us to issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law that the California legislature has adopted pursuant to the Elections Clause,” Bennett told Justice Department lawyer Matthew Donnelly. “How can we do that?”

The case is part of a larger effort under the right-wing Trump administration to crack down on alleged non-citizen voting ahead of the crucial November 3 midterm elections.

On October 15, less than three weeks before the midterm races, the Justice Department issued a complaint targeting California, a left-wing stronghold.

It asked the federal court system to set aside thousands of mail-in ballots that the government says were sent to “likely non-citizens”.

The lawsuit indicates the Trump administration sent California officials a list of 20,000 names it believes are not eligible to vote, based on citizenship.

Trump has often pushed the discredited claim that the Democratic Party is benefiting from widespread voting by non-citizens.

California has long been one of the targets for his election misinformation.

Earlier this year, Trump denounced the state’s primaries after right-wing candidates like Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt felt short of his expectations.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote on social media at the time.

He then announced that the state would be under investigation from the US attorney’s office.

Trump’s efforts have caused alarm, with critics accusing him of seeking to dampen voter turnout through intimidation and confusion.

The midterms will decide which party controls the US Congress, as well as key state and local positions.

Polls, however, predict steep odds for Republican candidates, given Trump’s souring approval ratings and dissatisfaction with issues like the cost of living and the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Voting rights advocates have warned that the Trump administration has not publicly revealed how it has compiled its list of non-citizen voters, and whistleblower reports have cast doubt on the accuracy of such lists.

In response to the October 15 lawsuit, California has countered that it has strong safeguards to prevent non-citizens from voting.

It also said that the Justice Department’s claims are based on dubious data.

“This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement earlier this month.

“We will continue to carry out free and fair elections in the Golden State — and call out this authoritarian as he tries every play in the dictator’s playbook.”

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has defeated right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s contentious presidential race, pulling off a remarkable comeback after a first-round loss that galvanised the country’s political right.

Shortly after 9:00pm Brasilia time on Sunday (00:00 GMT), Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court called the race for Lula, who had earned more than 51 percent of the vote. More than 64 million ballots were cast for the incumbent.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, netted 48 percent, or north of 59 million ballots. More than 4 million votes separated the two candidates, with the final votes still being counted.

With his victory, Lula has made history. No other politician in modern Brazilian history has lost the first round of a presidential election only to win the second round.

“A historic turning point for democracy,” Edinho Silva, the head of Lula’s Workers’ Party, posted on social media, along with a video of supporters chanting, “Ole, ole, ole, ole, ola! Lula, Lula!”

Still, the vote process was marred by allegations of voter suppression after reports emerged that public transport in some areas had been suspended.

Lula’s allies accused Bolsonaro’s supporters of reducing bus availability, in an attempt dampen the president’s working-class base.

Heavy rains, meanwhile, affected southern areas considered to be Bolsonaro strongholds.

The campaigns of both Lula and Bolsonaro ultimately petitioned the Supreme Court for a voting extension. Polls across the country were kept open two hours later than expected, until 7pm Brasilia time (22:00 GMT).

Sunday’s victory means Lula will retain the presidency of Latin America’s largest country, denying a crucial victory to the region’s right wing.

In recent years, right-wing leaders have swept presidential races in nearby countries like Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. Many have ridden a wave of anti-incumbent energy and enjoyed support from United States President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January 2025.

A former union leader for metalworkers, Lula – at age 80 – will be sworn in on January 5, 2027, when he will beat his own record as the oldest Brazilian president to take the oath of office since the country’s return to democracy.

His victory has earned him an unprecedented fourth non-consecutive term.

Lula came into Sunday’s run-off as an underdog. While he narrowly led pre-election, the first round of voting on October 4 showed him trailing Bolsonaro.

He earned 45 percent of the first-round vote, compared with the right-wing senator’s 47 percent, both tallies short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.

But in the weeks since, Lula has rallied supporters around cost-of-living issues. He championed a constitutional amendment passed this month that shortened the Brazilian workweek, and floated the possibility of providing free public transport on weekends.

Having entered politics in the 1980s, during the twilight of the country’s military dictatorship, Lula has run for president seven times.

He won two consecutive terms from 2002 through 2010, as well as a third term in 2022, in what was the tightest race in modern Brazilian history up to that point.

His rival in that election, former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, is the father of Senator Bolsonaro, Lula’s adversary in this race.

Jair Bolsonaro has since been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in plotting a coup following his loss to Lula.

Despite overseeing a decline in poverty and low unemployment during his third term in office, Lula has faced questions about his age, his ability to combat crime, and the country’s polarised political landscape.

An explosion of household debt has also left many Brazilians feeling their economic circumstances have worsened.

In September, Lula banned online gambling and sport betting apps to address the issue.

While the victory over Bolsonaro cements Lula’s status as one of the most significant and influential figures in Brazil’s modern history, efforts to advance legislative priorities during his fourth term could be stymied by the most right-wing Congress in recent memory.