message

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has met Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei in Moscow to discuss regional security as diplomatic efforts gather pace to end the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

During the meeting on Thursday, Rezaei also delivered a letter to Putin from Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV.

Speaking after the meeting, Rezaei said the talks had focused on security arrangements in the region, as well as Russia’s support for ending what he called the US’s “aggression” against Iran.

“Important regional issues were discussed with Putin and significant conversations took place regarding the post-war period and regional security arrangements,” he said.

Other topics, he said, included plans to deepen energy cooperation, including building gas pipelines from Russia to Iran.

Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Khamenei had wanted him to deliver the message to Putin as soon as possible. The trip to Moscow had been planned nearly a month earlier, he said, but was postponed due to “daily discussions about the military situation in the region”.

He did not say what the message contained.

Khamenei said in a written statement on Wednesday that there should not be “even the slightest inclination towards submission” to the US. He also called for an “ever stronger” Iran to reach a “point of absolute deterrence”.

Seven conditions

Rezaei’s meeting with Putin came as Qatar steps up diplomatic efforts to end the war on Iran amid fears the US could renew attacks following its midterm elections.

In Tuesday’s vote, US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate amid widespread anger over rising prices that many blame on the war on Iran.

Efforts to end the conflict have centred on the future status of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a US blockade of Iranian ports, sanctions against Iran, and a resumption of negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme.

Rezaei said on Thursday that Tehran would not hold talks with the US on ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz until Washington meets its seven demands.

“On the issue of diplomacy, we have announced seven conditions to the Americans. As long as they do not execute our seven conditions, we will neither open the Strait of Hormuz nor have negotiations,” he said.

According to Rezaei, Putin reiterated that Russia is ready to provide support to end the war. Last month, Putin told Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian that Russia was prepared to “do everything” it could towards that end, Russian news agencies reported.

Rezaei said the discussion at the Kremlin also focused on the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia to Iran, aimed at addressing Iran’s gas shortages and enabling Russia to sell its gas to countries neighbouring Iran.

He added that he had briefed Putin on a meeting held in Tehran in late October among Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan, and that the Russian leader had welcomed it.

“Like our Chinese friends, we believe that there should be regional arrangements and that foreign countries should not interfere in the security of the region,” he said.

The Kremlin did not immediately release its own account of the meeting, which took place in the Senate Palace, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Separately, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held phone calls with his counterparts in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Turkiye and Jordan.

His calls focused on regional developments and ongoing diplomatic efforts to promote peace, Iranian state media reported.

Russia and Iran, both under heavy Western sanctions, have strengthened their diplomatic and military ties in recent years.

In January 2025, they signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty covering trade, military cooperation, science, culture and education.

The treaty took effect that October, but unlike Russia’s pact with North Korea, it does not include a mutual defence clause.

On Saturday, Iranian army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia said Iran had bought Russian Su-35 fighter jets and expected to receive them after the war ends.

The planes were originally supposed to arrive before the fighting began, he told the Iranian news site Tabnak, and the necessary preparations and pilot training were complete.

WASHINGTON — After spending a month asking voters to treat the midterms as a vote on him, President Trump closed his monthlong campaign sprint on Monday sounding like a man bracing for defeat.

“For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” Trump said. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”

Still, Trump said he hopes Americans are “ready to do the right thing” and insisted that Republicans could hold on to Congress if voters who buoyed his 2024 victory turn out again. He urged voters to do so, calling this election “the most important midterm, I believe, in our lifetime.” The alternative, he warned, will be a “radical agenda” in Washington as he finishes his last two years in office.

“With your vote, we will decide if these extremists will be given power or not,” Trump said, claiming that the Democratic Party has “nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history.”

The message capped a dizzying campaign push in which Trump made himself the focus of the midterms as he held dozens of rallies in mostly Republican states. In those rallies, he promised $5,000 checks and brighter days ahead to Americans who vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress. But heading into Tuesday, most polls are predicting a Democratic wave amid a voter backlash to Trump’s handling of the economy and a war in Iran.

Democrats are heavily favored to retake power of the House and are leading in all the key states that would be the likeliest to decide which party will control of the Senate, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released Sunday. But polling can be flawed, as evidenced by forecasts that underestimated Trump’s support in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Trump’s approval rating is near historic lows this time around, the poll found. A separate NBC News poll released Sunday found nearly two-thirds of voters are seeking a change from the direction Trump is leading the country.

This year, early voting has already seen strong turnout, outpacing the last midterm election cycle, a trend that could mean bad news for Republicans. If a Democratic surge materializes, party leaders have vowed to use their potential congressional powers to investigate Trump and his family’s business dealings, with a focus on alleged corruption and economic harm to the American people.

Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if Democrats win control of both chambers he will “become Mr. Veto” and “make deals” with them, but hopes he won’t have to “worry about that.”

On the eve of the election, Trump’s message once again seemed to acknowledged that possibility, but his focus was largely focused on the numerous beautification projects his administration is leading in the nation’s capital.

President Trump holds up an image of algae in the Reflecting Pool as he delivers remarks Monday.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

His final pitch to voters was made in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark his administration has spent months trying, and at times failing, to repair. For the first 20 minutes, he did not mention the election at all. Instead, he flipped through photos of the damaged pool, describing in detail how crews resurfaced and re-caulked its granite, and worked to address the “tremendous algae” that covered the pool.

“Look, it is not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. It forms easily and I don’t think you’ll see too much,” Trump said as he showed a picture of the algae layered over the water. “The green, that’s not grass, that’s algae. It took over the entire pool.”

The renovation has not gone as promised. When he took on the project in April, he said contractors he knew would refinish the pool within weeks for about $1.5 million. The work wrapped up behind schedule at more than 10 times that cost, after algae blooms and a peeling blue liner forced crews to drain it again in July. Trump blamed vandals for the issues, but federal prosecutors in Washington attributed the problems to shoddy workmanship.

Trump spent time listing numerous other renovation projects around the capital, arguing that the construction work shows how his presidency is delivering for the American people.

“Our country is strong, respected and prosperous once more and our capital is cleaner and safer and more spectacular than ever,” Trump said.

His focus on renovation projects drew the attention of Democrats, who argued his message was out of touch with what American voters want from leaders now.

“This is just [what] the median voter wants to hear — an update on various capital improvement projects in the District of Columbia,” Ashley Schapitl, a former Biden Treasury official, posted on X.

It was not the first time Democrats had poked fun at the president’s for being too focused on construction projects. At a rally last week, former President Obama said Trump “should be on HGTV,” ridiculing his ballroom project and the changes he has made to the Rose Garden and the Oval Office.

“He has the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said. “There’s just gold everywhere.”

Trump has bristled at such criticism, insisting that renovations relax him and that he gets them done quickly.

His message on Monday struck a similarly dismissive tone as in other campaign events. Even as voters say they are struggling with the cost of living, Trump has insisted the economy is “booming” and brushed off higher gas prices as a “very small price to pay” for the war in Iran.

The contrast was on display over the weekend at a glitzy Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. As hundreds gathered in the club’s ballroom, eating Alaskan king crab and caviar, Trump showed off the crowd to reporters.

“Look at all my rich members,” Trump told reporters. “They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is escalating a criminal investigation over an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony or documents, along with records preservation demands, were issued after the New York Times reported that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr. as part an alleged effort to confuse voters in the highly competitive race.

More subpoenas were expected to be sent Thursday, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe. Neither the recipients of the subpoenas nor the number of them were immediately clear.

The Justice Department for months has been looking into allegations that Dan J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race to siphon votes from the incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.

The potential targets of the Justice Department’s investigation are unclear, but President Trump earlier this week called for the criminal prosecution of Peltola and her campaign.

The new subpoenas were confirmed by a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe.

Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche in a Fox News interview on Wednesday said he wouldn’t discuss any criminal investigations but accused Democrats of “cheating.”

“They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election, not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name,” Blanche said.

The race is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber. Trump had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Peltola defeat Sen. Sullivan.

Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign. “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.

Separately, Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into Peltola, saying the newspaper’s reporting “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”

“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.

Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens,” the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. “It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”

Later, as he rallied for GOP Sen. Darline Graham, Trump said he felt Peltola “actually should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.”

Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.

“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”

And the situation in Alaska isn’t that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.

“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”

Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.

The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.

Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — In the final days before an election that will decide control of Congress, President Trump’s closing argument — buoyant, digressive and characteristically off-script — is at times running headlong into the economic anxieties of the voters Republicans most need.

With a war in Iran driving up gas prices for Americans, Trump is boasting to supporters that the conflict is making the country rich. At a rally in Georgia, he said his aides had urged him not to brag about the billions of dollars the United States was earning on oil from the war, since Americans are “paying a little higher” in costs because of it. But he did it anyway.

“I said, I don’t give a damn,” Trump said. “We are making a freaking fortune. Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time. And those pump prices are going to come down.”

The moment underscores the gamble at the core of Trump’s final pitch to voters. With polls showing an overwhelming majority of Americans unhappy with the economy, the president is offering a portrait of national prosperity that many voters do not recognize, and pairing it with jokes and digressions that can seem to make light of their struggles.

Tuesday’s results will be the clearest test yet of whether that message still moves his base, or whether the president has become a liability for a party at risk of losing Congress in part because of his sinking popularity.

Signs of GOP anxiety are reflected in where Trump is spending his final days campaigning. Rather than courting swing voters in battleground states, he is leading rallies in Mississippi, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina and Kansas — states that have long been Republican strongholds but where the party now worries its voters may stay home.

Still, the president is insisting to voters that the country is succeeding, and he is making the election a referendum on his agenda.

“The world is falling apart, and we are doing better than we’ve ever done,” he told a crowd in Mississippi on Monday. The next day, during a stop in Texas, he joked that the $5,000 he has promised Americans if Republicans win would not be enough for his supporters to eat a meal at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla.

“You will be my guest at Mar-a-Lago. The problem is that for $5,000 the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert,” Trump said, laughing. “I’m not even sure you could buy that.”

Democrats have criticized the president’s remarks, calling them dismissive of voters’ concerns. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Trump boasting that the country was making money out of the Iran war was a “fitting” slogan for Trump’s White House.

Trump’s personal oil and gas holdings are now estimated to be worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million, up from $12.6 million to $46 million at the end of last year, according to a report released this week by congressional Democrats.

Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, rejected the idea that the president has dismissed voters’ financial pain.

“The president, I think, shows empathy about what we’re going through, and he is fighting like hell,” Gruters said in an interview.

Asked to sum up Trump’s closing message, Gruters framed it as a choice between “common sense vs. crazy.” When pressed on the economy, Gruters pointed to Trump’s push to limit federal taxes on tips and overtime pay, to create investment accounts for children and to bring back manufacturing jobs.

“He has transformed the Republican Party into the workingman’s party,” Gruters said. “He is all about trying to bring back jobs that will bring up real wages across the board.”

But that message can be overshadowed with the off-script riffs that have long defined Trump’s rallies. During a rally in Ohio, while praising Sen. Jon Husted, Trump detoured into remarks about the Republican senator’s backside as well as rapper Nicki Minaj’s.

“I looked at his ass and I’ve never done that with a man before. It’s true. Off the record: Women, yes, men, no, OK?” Trump said. “By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj.”

At a separate rally, Trump turned his attention to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, saying that if elected, El-Sayed should be forced to pass through a metal detector before entering the U.S. Senate chamber.

“Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane,” Trump said of El-Sayed. “They certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.”

In those moments, the message is aimed squarely at his base, which over the last decade has celebrated his unfiltered style. And it is that base, more than swing voters, that Trump has spent his precious time courting in the final stretch of the campaign.

On Monday, Trump rallied supporters in Mississippi, a state he carried by 23 points two years ago. On Tuesday, he went to Texas for the fourth time this month to make the case for Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee trying to stave off what could be the first statewide Democratic victory there in three decades. Then on Wednesday, Trump was in Ohio for the third time this month, playing defense in a state he has won every time he’s been on the ballot. And on Saturday, Trump is heading to Kansas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

Gruters said the red state swing reflects the need to get Republicans to the polls.

“You can’t take anything for granted. You have to fight hard in every single state, and remind people why they need to go vote,” he said. “This is a turnout, turnout, turnout race. And we’re doing everything we can as a party.”

Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas, said it is still surprising to see the party deploy the president in Republican strongholds so close to the election.

“It really reflects, not just the tilt toward Democrats, but also the lack of enthusiasm among Republican voters for this election,” Haider-Markel said.

Republicans outnumber Democrats in Kansas, but there is a possibility that Democrats can win if Republicans stay home, he said. One of the biggest assets the party has to mobilize the MAGA base is having Trump talk to them in person, he argued. But so far, it is unclear whether his closing message will resonate.

“I don’t think that he’s really speaking to the issues that voters care about, but I don’t think he’s coming to change people’s minds,” Haider-Markel said. “He’s looking for lines that get him applause and praise.”

In rally after rally, Trump has turned the event into a show about himself. In Iowa, congressional candidate Joe Mitchell presented Trump with a “man of the century” certificate. In Texas, Trump bemoaned that he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. And in several events, he has shown the crowd a video of a CNN analyst saying that among GOP voters, Trump is more popular than Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln.

But in the end, he also tried to appeal to his base with nostalgia.

“We’ve been doing this together for 11 years, and there’s never been anything like it and there probably never will be anything like it again politically or otherwise,” he said. “So let’s go out and do what we do best and that is win on Nov. 3. We gotta win!”

This method could reduce the cost of your Ryanair flight

Those planning holidays in the coming months may be looking for ways to keep costs down, with opting for a budget airline being a popular choice for this. But even cheaper airlines including Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air can quickly add up when booking flights, choosing seats, and checking luggage.

However, there are ways to keep costs down, and Martin Lewis‘s moneysavingexpert.com has shared a number of tips and tricks for Ryanair customers, including one that involves booking your outbound and return flights separately. Start by searching for your outbound flight as a one-way ticket, and then in a second browser search for your return flight.

When searched this way, the return flight will appear in the currency of the country you are flying from, and will often be cheaper than it is in pounds – although it’s definitely worth double-checking before booking.

Ensure our latest DWP headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings

The experts also warn that this likely won’t be cheaper if your bank has a foreign transaction charge, so you’ll need to check this before booking, or you may end up actually paying more for your flights.

You’ll also need to opt out of Ryanair’s guaranteed exchange rate, or you’ll still end up paying in pounds rather than euros or other foreign currencies.

While this method often leads to savings when jetting around Europe, the experts have noted that it can sometimes end up more expensive when purchasing with non-Euro currencies.

To avoid extra charges when at the airport, ensure that your cabin bag and checked luggage fit the airline’s rules, especially when flying on a budget airline, as they are typically stricter when it comes to these rules.

You’ll also need to check-in and download ahead of time when flying with Ryanair, otherwise you may end up having to pay up £40 per person, per flight – setting you back £220 for a family of four before you’ve even boarded your plane.

TELLY host Eamonn Holmes’s ­girlfriend Katie Alexander says she’s had a “love” call from the star, who is still in hospital following a stroke.

It comes after we revealed she had moved out of his flat earlier this month.

Katie posted a video last week as she went for a stroll along a marina in a vest top, shades and headphones, adding a message: “When your man phones you to tell you he loves you.”

Tanned and relaxed Katie, 45, filming herself using a selfie stick, added the hashtags “you and me”, “meandE” — a ­reference to Eamonn — and “Lovewins”, with a heart emoji.

She also posted other selfie snaps from her sunshine break.

She wrote: “There is a quiet kind of strength in becoming comfortable with who you are.

Read More on Eamonn Holmes

RUTH’S PAIN

Ruth Langsford heartbroken as dog she shared with ex Eamonn Holmes dies

‘choosing peace’

Eamonn Holmes’ girlfriend posts about ‘knowing her worth’ after moving out

“No longer needing to prove, explain or seek validation — just choosing peace, protecting your energy and finding beauty in the life you’re creating.”

The £1.3million Surrey flat where they were living has now gone on the rental market.

The pair began dating in 2024 before Katie started staying at Eamonn’s home.

We revealed in April that Eamonn, 66, was found at his flat by a carer after a stroke.

He was previously wed to TV host Ruth Langsford, his former co-presenter on ITV1’s This Morning.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Campaign mailers urging Ohio voters to support a socialist U.S. Senate candidate over Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown are being underwritten by a newly incorporated PAC with ties to President Trump’s MAGA Inc., public filings show.

The mailers are sponsored by Enough Promises Ohio PAC and began arriving in voters’ mailboxes in recent days. They promote independent candidate Greg Levy over Brown with messages such as “Join the Revolution” and “Send a Worker to the Senate.” Levy describes himself as “Socialist running for the U.S. Senate to represent Ohio in 2026” on his X account.

Levy condemned the fliers for falsely impersonating his campaign and engaging in “dirty tricks” designed to mislead voters. He said he is considering legal action.

“This is a highly undemocratic practice and does a disservice to voters in Ohio and throughout the country,” he wrote on X.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, Enough Promises Ohio was founded on Sept. 29. It has not yet had to disclose its contributors, but additional federal filings lay out a trail of associations linked to Republicans.

Enough Promises paid the firm Seven Farms more than $397,000 on two dates last week for printing, postage and mail services either supporting Levy or opposing Brown. Seven Farms, also a new entity, lists as its address the same South Carolina business suite as the one used by Whistlestop Strategies LLC.

Whistlestop is a direct mail outfit operated by Big Dog Strategies LLC, the strategy firm that advises Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC and that managed Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno’s successful campaign against Brown in 2024.

Messages seeking comment were left with Enough Promises Ohio and Big Dog.

MAGA Inc. and affiliated groups began pouring huge sums of cash into midterm races in September, after party officials had been urging Trump to begin spending some of the fortune he had amassed to help embattled Republicans before it was too late.

Smyth writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

At the Republican Party’s midterm convention, President Trump said he would make his crusade against transgender rights a major campaign issue ahead of the Nov. 3 election — calling the message that “men should not be playing in women’s sports” one of his party’s “great sound bites of all time.”

During a recent campaign trip, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime LGBTQ+ advocate and likely Democratic contender for president in 2028, stood by his remark last year that allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports is “deeply unfair,” saying, “I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it fair from my perspective.”

For the second election cycle in a row, the rights of transgender people have taken center stage politically, despite their accounting for only about 1% of the U.S. population and many voters identifying other issues as far more important — splitting Republicans and Democrats, but also Democrats among themselves and putting the party on the defensive.

Transgender athlete AB Hernandez, third from right, sits with other athletes at the CIF State Track Championship finals in Clovis on May 30, 2026.

(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)

The politics are part of a much broader, international battle playing out in education, sports and the law, from local California classrooms and high school sports to the Olympic stage and the U.S. Supreme Court. Polling for years has shown most Americans oppose discrimination against transgender people, but also that a majority — including a substantial portion of Democrats — oppose transgender athletes participating in girls’ sports and children receiving gender-affirming care such as surgery or puberty blockers.

Republicans are pushing a well-funded message that transgender rights should be dismantled across the board, in healthcare, education, sports, the military and public spaces such as restrooms. Conservative mega-donors such as Elon Musk have spent millions amplifying that message in competitive races from Alaska to Ohio to Texas.

And to some degree, those tactics have worked. While many Democrats have ardently defended transgender rights, particularly in California, others in the party have sided with Republicans or softened their support.

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico appears with Jeffrey Epstein abuse survivors in Dallas on Sept. 10.

(Anja Schlein / Dallas Morning News )

James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Texas, backpedaled from past votes by saying young transgender athletes shouldn’t be allowed to play “if it risks safety or fairness,” while others including Rob Sand, a candidate for Iowa governor, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) have said they shouldn’t play.

Such messaging has dismayed transgender people and their families, as well as LGBTQ+ rights groups who have been trying to refine Democratic messaging on trans issues since Vice President Kamala Harris — another longtime LGBTQ+ advocate from California — responded to Trump’s anti-trans attacks in 2024 with a message some considered muddled.

Imara Jones, a transgender journalist and founder of TransLash Media, a platform built to spotlight trans people’s own experiences, said the party’s conflicting messaging “underscores the degree to which the Republicans have actually successfully weaponized trans issues.”

“You’re seeing a really sharp political calculus among Democrats,” Jones said, with those “in tight races, where they need to have Republican votes,” bending one way, and others who “want to make a statement about principle” and defending LGBTQ+ rights moving in the other.

Many Democrats in California say they believe the issue is a moral one and that Democrats only hurt themselves by ceding ground on human rights.

A volunteer for Toni Atkins, the former president pro tempore of the California State Senate, is silhouetted holding a Pride flag at the Harvey Milk Coachella Valley Diversity Breakfast, at the Palm Springs Convention Center in Palm Springs Thursday, May 8, 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“The solution is not to be ambiguous, but to be firm that we support basic human rights and the basic humanity of trans people,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), a leader on pro-LGBTQ+ legislation running to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). “Then go on to talk about the big issues facing our country, like this illegal war, like the fact that Congress has done nothing to regulate AI, like the explosive cost of energy and child care and housing.”

A national conversation

Trump has signed executive orders to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, prohibit federal funding for gender-affirming care for youth, oust transgender service members from the military and deny recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities on critical documents such as passports.

The Justice Department has sued California and other states over their trans-inclusive sports policies, and successfully threatened large hospitals into ending gender-affirming care programs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services barred federal Medicaid spending on gender-affirming medication or surgeries for minors.

Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, speaks at Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington on Dec. 18, 2025.

(Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg)

Trump campaigned on such policies, and he and other Republicans clearly see them as helpful in the midterms. In his convention speech, Trump said he’s been surprised more Democrats haven’t abandoned transgender rights given polling showing a majority of Americans oppose transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

“They say it’s an 80/20 issue,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to a January 2025 New York Times/Ipsos poll that found 79% of respondents believed transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. More recent polls have shown a smaller majority opposed.

The debate has prompted new bans on transgender athletes in college sports and in the Olympics and divided some of the most well-known professional women athletes in the world. It has also put transgender kids in California and elsewhere under an intense microscope — and on the receiving end of harassment from protesters who show up with loudspeakers to local track meets.

Demonstrators at a Rainbow Families Action march in Emeryville, Calif., on Dec. 8, 2025.

(Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle )

Arne Johnson, a Bay Area father of a transgender child who helps run the advocacy group Rainbow Families Action, said being targeted by Republicans is scary, but watching Democrats “find ways to be more flexible about the rights of human beings” has been profoundly disappointing.

But he said he’s also been encouraged by some more recent polling showing Americans moving back toward the middle on transgender rights, which he believes is in part due to people being deluged with anti-trans ads getting frustrated that the political conversation isn’t focused on issues they care more about, like affordability and healthcare.

Ramiro Sarmiento, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, which has tracked at least $50 million in anti-trans political ads this cycle, agreed, saying, “MAGA wants to talk about trans kids because they’re losing the conversation voters actually care about.”

Conservative groups reject that framing. Many deny tht transgender people exist, while others say they are working to protect cisgender children or defend religious beliefs. They have also scoffed at Democrats who have changed their positions in the lead-up to the election, with the conservative American Principles Project accusing Talarico of only pretending to shift away from his “gender radicalism” on sports in order to win votes.

Allison Schuster, a White House spokesperson, said the Biden administration “spent four years pushing a radical agenda” of gender-affirming care for children, while Trump “pledged to restore common sense” and has since “delivered by consistently taking strong action to protect children from these dangerous, life-altering medical practices.”

The fight in California

In California, transgender athletes competing in youth sports has been raised as an issue in the governor’s race, where Republican hopeful Steve Hilton has rallied against their inclusion, and featured prominently in the races for the next state attorney general and the next state superintendent of public schools.

Transgender athlete AB Hernandez competes for Jurupa Valley High School at the 2025 CIF state track and field championships.

(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)

Several Democrats running for Congress in the state have been criticized for their records on transgender rights, including San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who is seeking the redistricted congressional seat of departing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall), as well as Reps. Adam Gray (D-Merced) and Derek Tran (D-Orange).

Christian Martinez, a National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, has accused Von Wilpert of having a “perverted agenda [that] pushes hormone treatments on kids,” and Gray of being “for they/them, not for Californians.”

Marni von Wilpert, a Democratic candidate for California’s 48th Congressional District, canvasses in a neighborhood Friday, May 29, 2026, in San Marcos, Calif.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office is fighting on multiple fronts to protect gender-affirming care and successfully rebuffed a Justice Department lawsuit over the state’s transgender sports policies. But pressure is coming not only from the Trump administration.

The California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees high school athletics, also revised its rules to ensure that transgender athletes in individual sports do not displace cisgender ones from rankings or medal podiums. And after local California teachers sued, the U.S. Supreme Court in March ruled against a controversial California student privacy law that precluded teachers from revealing a child’s interest in presenting in gender nonconforming ways in school to their parents if the child requested confidentiality, finding that the policy infringed on parents’ rights and the free exercise of religion.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers just passed at least a dozen measures aimed at bolstering LGBTQ+ rights, including by restoring an LGBTQ+ youth suicide and crisis hotline; helping discharged LGBTQ+ service members find housing and jobs; requiring California gender-affirming healthcare providers who are subpoenaed to inform Bonta’s office if they intend to respond; improving access to HIV prevention care and enhancing LGBTQ+ data privacy.

Newsom signed all those measures into law — his office said California “will not stand” for Trump’s “all-out assault on the LGBTQ community” — but vetoed a bill that would have barred future governors from allowing the extradition of abortion or gender-affirming care providers in California to states where such care is illegal, citing concerns about reduced executive discretion.

The 2026-27 state budget appropriated $66 million for gender-affirming care, including up to $30 million for underinsured patients in the Uncompensated Care Program, $26 million to assist organizations that provide such care and $10 million to cover care for poor children who lost it under the new Medicaid rules. Wiener called the latter a “short-term solution” that will protect kids while the state figures out a more permanent billing pathway under Medi-Cal.

A.W., a Bay Area mother of a transgender teenager who requested anonymity because she fears being targeted by the Trump administration, said her child’s gender-affirming care — a lifeline for him in recent years — was disrupted by the Medicaid rule change, and the state’s temporary fix was too little, too late.

A.W. said families like hers “shouldn’t have to make medical decisions based on politicians in Washington,” particularly for care so critical to her son and other kids. “If he had not had access to gender-affirming care, I don’t know where we would be,” she said. “It scares me to think about it.”

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

Actor Chad Lowe returned to Instagram on Thursday for the first time following the Sept. 29 death of his 13-year-old daughter Fiona.

The actor shared a spiritual message from author and psychologist Gerry Hussey through Instagram Stories.

“When you ask yourself the deeper, bigger questions,” Hussey said on Olivia Hunt’s podcast “On Healing” after being asked about God, “and you move beyond the human existence — as through meditation or something — as you experience transcendental experience, [you find] we are connected to everything that is.

“And there’s nothing there, but peace and love,” he continued. “When we die. Where do we go? We return to a state of peace and love.”

Fiona’s manner of death was ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner in a report released Oct. 2. She died in a hospital.

“We are deeply heartbroken by the loss of our beloved Fiona,” Lowe, the Emmy-winning star of “Life Goes On,” and his family said in a Sept. 29 statement announcing Fiona’s death.

Fiona was the second of Lowe and his wife Kim Painter’s three daughters. The couple also shares Mabel, 17, and Nixie, 10.

Mabel shared an emotional post about her sister on Oct. 3.

“I love you so much fiona,” Mabel wrote in a post containing photos of the sisters. “i wish your short time here was easier and i hope your mind is at ease now. I will honor you forever and keep your memory alive. I love you, i hope you knew just how much.”

Lowe is the brother of “St. Elmo’s Fire” actor Rob Lowe, whose youngest son paid tribute to his late cousin after her death. He posted Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers,” according to an Oct. 5 Page Six report.

“HOPE is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all,” John Owen Lowe shared in an Instagram Stories post. “And sweetest in the gale is heard; and sore must be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm.”

Chad and Rob’s father, Chuck, shared a photo of his granddaughter on Instagram after her death was announced, per People, with the caption, “Rest in peace sweet Fiona.”

The minuscule yet distinctly humanoid figure of a fairy flaps its wings as it flies into the ancient ruins of a bygone kingdom. Guiding a young heroine to meet a mysterious faun, for a moment, the fantastical creature looks as though it might cross the threshold of the screen.

It is in that instant that Guillermo del Toro — wearing 3D glasses while sitting at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ imposing David Geffen Theater for a tech check — chuckles with pride as if to say, “Look at that.” Later that night, almost 1,000 fans were transported into his entrancing 2006 masterwork, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” (a.k.a. “El Laberinto del Fauno”) at the premiere of the new 3D version.

Back in theaters across the country on Friday (which is also Del Toro’s 62nd birthday), “Pan’s Labyrinth” is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new 4K restoration, available in both 2D and in the aforementioned 3D transfer that Del Toro himself oversaw.

Doug Jones, left, plays the faun that beckons to Ofelia, right, played by Ivana Baquero in “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

(Scott A. Garfitt / Andreea Alexandru / Invision / AP)

As brutal as it is spellbinding, the Mexican filmmaker’s modern classic unfolds during the Spanish Civil War — more precisely, in 1944 — as young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother move into the camp run by the ruthless Capt. Vidal (Sergi López).

Amid the bloodshed, Ofelia discovers an underworld of magical entities, including the alluring faun (Doug Jones), who convinces her that she is a princess who must reclaim her royal status.

By winning three Academy Awards and being nominated for two more — one for Del Toro’s screenplay, the other for foreign language film, representing Mexico — “Pan’s Labyrinth” signified an artistic watershed moment in Del Toro’s career. These accolades came after he directed two comic-book adaptations for Hollywood studios: “Blade II” and “Hellboy.”

Beyond the recognition, the experience felt spiritually transformative for the Guadalajara native; not the least because of the hurdles he overcame to bring it to fruition.

“‘Pan’s’ marks a big divide in what I did before and what I did after. I became invested in a different way in filmmaking,” Del Toro tells me. “I don’t know how to describe it, but filmmaking became a religion, as opposed to something that I could do. It fused with me.”

Though the film is now regarded as one of the greatest works of the 21st century, when Del Toro set out to make it, the industry was not receptive to his ideas.

“Everything I thought I wanted to say about war in ‘Devil’s Backbone’ seemed obsolete, because we had gone through 9/11 and the world had changed,” Del Toro recalls. “I didn’t want to do an American movie. I was being offered a lot of comic- book movies and said, ‘I got to do a companion piece for “Devil’s Backbone” no matter what.’ But nobody wanted to do the movie.”

One key objection was the mature tone of the narrative, in which the child protagonist is directly confronted and endangered by the evils derived from fascist ideologies.

“They said, ‘If it’s a fairy tale then it should be a family movie,’ because I’d been offered ‘Narnia’ a year before by [former Walden Media chief executive] Cary Granat,” Del Toro tells me.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Narnia’?’ And I said, ‘Because I want to do my own version of a fairy tale where the lion doesn’t resurrect and it’s about a pitiless world against a boundless imagination.’”

Del Toro’s interest in stories where the woes of children are taken seriously was spurred by ‘Los Olvidados,’ Luis Buñuel’s classic from 1950, about a group of neglected children surviving a harsh reality in the streets of Mexico City.

“When I saw ‘Los Olvidados,’ I was in my early teens,” says Del Toro. “I thought every time somebody told a story about a child that was unsentimental and that was a little brutal — it could be ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’ or ‘Los Olvidados’ or ‘The Red Balloon’ or even Bobby Driscoll in ‘The Window’ — whenever you saw a child in real danger, a child in jeopardy, a child in moral dilemma, like ‘The Fallen Idol,’ I really was transported.”

Children, Del Toro believes, are often invisible to adults. They are “cartoons” in the eyes of “regular adults.” Thus, when his mother started reading child psychology books to better understand a young Del Toro, he read them as well, so that he could try to manipulate her.

Del Toro laughs mischievously as he remembers his antics. “I would do exactly what the book said, and I realized I could work within that preconception and make my grandma buy me horror comic books or make my mom allow me to miss school,” Del Tor recalls. “Ofelia is very strong. That was the point of the movie for me. I wanted to see the clash of wills between a young kid and a fascist captain, and I wanted to see the kid win.”

(Teresa Isasi / Picturehouse)

Del Toro’s mother, Guadalupe, died in 2022. But she lives on in cinema, thanks to the 1985 landmark queer Mexican film “Doña Herlinda and Her Son,” by director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, where she played the titular Doña Herlinda.

And if you look closely, you’ll also find Del Toro in the movie, which was filmed in Guadalajara.

“I have a cameo with my ex-wife in it. Lorenza. She’s the receptionist and I appear dancing in Chapala, but I’m super thin, so you can never recognize me,” he says. “I’m dancing with a girl that I liked, but I was already in the throes of dating the one who became my wife, Lorenza.”

Then there was the question of the picture’s language. Del Toro wouldn’t waver on making “Pan’s Labyrinth” in Spanish.

“Many of them said, ‘We’ll do it if you do it in English — set in Spain, same ending, the girl dies, no problem, but in English.’ And I said, ‘I can’t. It’s not true to the movie.’ I’m not saying you can never do that, but it’s always this ‘Zorro’ thing like, ‘Are you in a hurry, señor?’ or ‘Come to the hacienda,’” he says, doing a funny, exaggerated accent on the Spanish words.

“If you’re trying to contrast reality versus fantasy, the reality has to be in its language, in its location,” Del Toro adds, emphasizing his resolve to make the movie in his native tongue. “I thought, ‘This is about the reality clashing with the fantasy. I have to make the reality stylized, but I don’t want to do it in English, because then everything is a construct. Everything is just an idea.’”

In 2026, the film’s bilingual appeal is a major component of the marketing strategy that Cineverse — the entertainment company that Del Toro approached to handle the restoration and rerelease of “Pan’s Labyrinth” — is implementing to reach audiences across the country.

“A lot of our messages are in English and in Spanish. The messaging around the making of the 3D — Guillermo likes to say ‘F— AI,’ but we positioned it as ‘Made for humans, for humans. Hecho por humanos, para humanos,’” says Yolanda Macias, chief motion pictures officer at Cineverse. “That’s a really strong message that has resonated with our fans.”

A Mexican American woman whose parents emigrated from Jalisco, Macias sees “Pan’s Labyrinth” as a timeless movie that’s as relevant today as it was two decades ago.

“We are not ignoring a very important segment of the audience, which is the Latino population who have always, in my experience, shown an interest in creators from Mexico or from Latin America,” Macias says. “And we are so proud of Guillermo for being that person for this audience.”

When first envisioning “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Del Toro found himself grappling with existential concerns related to the meaning and relevance of what each person leaves behind when they are gone. Can anything we mortals create stand the test of time? Does it matter?

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“One of the things I was going through was I thought, ‘Is making movies worth it? You give them years and years and years, and then they just move down the current into the oblivion of the culture,’” Del Toro says. “A central theme in the film is, ‘Can we give our lives to something that doesn’t change the world?’ That’s why the movie ends with a little flower blooming in a dried tree. That’s all that is left of her story in the real world.”

His films will one day too become flowers left not only as proof of his time on earth, but perhaps as messages for those to come who have the sensibility to appreciate them.

“You can say, ‘Ofelia lived in the other kingdom,’ but in the real world, there’s only one tiny flower. And that’s why it says, ‘For those that know where to look.’ Because that’s what we do as filmmakers. When you ‘discover’ a filmmaker, you say, ‘I discovered this guy Fellini.’ Well, he’s been there for a while, but sure. Or you discover Miyazaki or Mamoru Oshii … They’re continents, but they are only in maps that are very secret. I like that image.”

So long as they are found, Del Toro doesn’t worry that much about how people encounter them.

“[Films] live on to a certain degree. Like when we were shooting ‘Frankenstein,’ I said, ‘We will live forever in the Netflix queue,’” he recalls, trying not to laugh. “Theatrical is the best. There’s no comparison. But I remember my childhood, I saw all the Universal monster movies on TV, and they were monumentally important for me. There’s something to be said about accessibility that is also important.”

I agree with him — and mention that some of the most revelatory movie-watching experiences for me as a young cinephile happened thanks to bootleg DVDs, which I would buy as a teen in Mexico City.

“I love the pirate DVDs in Mexico,” says Del Toro with a laugh. “I’ll tell you a little story: We went to promote ‘Hellboy’ in Mexico City, and we were having coffee. A guy came in and said, ‘You want to buy movies?’ And he had ‘Hellboy’ already, opening week … and it didn’t have a cover either!”

Another distinction that “Pan’s Labyrinth” holds is that it was the last film in Spanish that Del Toro directed. But that could change, he says; he still has another project he’d like to make in Mexico.

“I actually have an idea that I would love to shoot, but I want to make it a drama. I don’t want to make it a fantasy movie,” he explains. “I have a great story that I want to shoot one day. It’s a kidnapping scene from three points of view. The victim, the people doing the pickup, and another component that I will not reveal.” (Del Toro’s late father, Federico, was famously kidnapped in Guadalajara in the late 1990s.)

The thought of Del Toro making another Mexican film in the future, reminded me that the original screenplay for his period ghost story, “The Devil’s Backbone,” was set in Mexico, but a lack of funding forced him to shift the production to Spain, with the help of Pedro Almodóvar’s company El Deseo.

“It was about a traveling circus during the [Mexican] revolution with a mother, a father and a boy. It was full of jarred fetuses. The boy was a clown, and the father was a magician. I was trying to do Bergman’s ‘Hour of the Wolf’ or ‘The Magician’ — modest but creepy,” he explains. “But it was very different. I had the orphanage, I had the legend of the fetuses and a ghost; and I had the devil live in the monastery.”

In any language, Del Toro is a fierce advocate against the use of generative AI in artistic creation. He believes that anything touched by humans has a better chance to endure. The love audiences still hold for “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a testament to this sentiment.

“[Pan’s Labyrinth”] is very truthful to who I was. And whenever you are able to be truthful, people feel that it matters to you,” Del Toro says. “And when you think it matters to someone, you cherish it.”