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Oct. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday night said he commuted the sentence of George Santos, freeing the former Republican U.S. House member after just three months in federal prison.

Santos, who served in the House for less than one year, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Santos, 37, reported to a federal facility in Fairton, N.Y., on July 25.

Santos also gained prominence for lying about his employment history and education, and information about his family.

“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”

Trump left the White House on Friday to spend the weekend in Florida. He’s the keynote speaker Friday night at a fundraiser for the super PAC MAGA Inc.

A senior White House official told NBC News that Trump decided to help Santos this week and “many people wrote to him about it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., had sought a pardon, which erases the legal consequences of a crime. A commutation only reduces the severity of the punishment.

Greene told NBC News this week that she had been in contact with the Department of Justice in recent weeks regarding the possibility, saying the sentence was overly harsh.

“George Santos never raped anybody, never murdered anybody, is not a child sex-trafficker. Why is he in solitary confinement?” she said. “That is an extreme treatment for someone for the crimes that he was convicted of.”

CNN didn’t receive comments from his lawyers.

Santos, before reporting to prison, told a Saudi outlet, Al Arabiya English, that he asked Trump for a pardon.

“I did not spend time in D.C. making friends,” Santos said. “I never made it to the president. I got stonewalled by the gatekeepers.”

From prison last week, Santos wrote a letter to Trump published in The South Shore Press: “Mr. President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness — for the chance to rebuild. I know I have made mistakes in my past. I have faced my share of consequences, and I take full responsibility for my actions. But no man, no matter his flaws, deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires.”

Trump took notice of Santos’ situation.

“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard ‘Da Nang Dick’ Blumenthal came up again.”

Trump explained that Blumenthal, who has served as a U.S. senator serving Connecticut for 14 1/2 years, lied about his military involvement.

“He was ‘a Great Hero,’ he would leak to any and all who would listen — And then it happened! He was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD. He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else. … This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

Santos fabricated parts of his biography, including falsely, saying that he was a “star” player on a championship volleyball team.

Santos was raised Catholic but claimed his mother had a Jewish background and that his maternal grandparents were Jewish refugees from Ukraine who survived the Holocaust. His grandparents were born in Brazil.

He also said his mother died in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, though she wasn’t in the United States at the time.

Santos took office on Jan. 3, 2023, serving in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

On Nov. 16, 2023, Santos announced he would not seek re-election for the seat that serves parts of Long Island and Queens.

That day, the House Ethics Committee found that he “violated federal criminal laws.” The funds were used for personal purposes and he filed false campaign reports, the report said.

Despite a slim Republican majority and relying on his vote, the House expelled Santos the next month on Dec. 1, 2023. The 311-114 vote surpassed the required two-thirds majority.

He was the sixth lawmaker to be forced out of the chamber.

On March 7, 2024, he announced he would run as a Republican in the 1st Congressional District and 15 days later, Santos said he would seek the office as an independent. A month later, on April 23, he withdrew his candidacy.

He pleaded guilty on Aug. 19, 2024, in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., and was sentenced on April 25.

“I deeply regret my conduct,” Santos said in court during his conviction and sentence. “I accept full responsibility for my actions.”

Here are the key events from day 1,332 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, October 18, 2025:

Fighting

• Ukrainian shelling killed two adults and a 10-year-old child in Russian-occupied Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region, wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region killed a 38-year-old man and injured four others, the regional administration wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks also injured at least eight people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, according to local officials.
• Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed a Ukrainian drone attack destroyed an oil depot and a gas treatment plant in Russian-occupied Crimea on Friday night.
• The Russian-installed governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged several electrical substations in the Russian-occupied region, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
• Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s Chernihiv region 68 times in a 24-hour period, causing fires at a logging company and damaging residential areas, Regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus said.
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called for relevant United Nations bodies to condemn the Ukrainian attack that killed Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev and seriously wounded his colleague in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region on Thursday.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, telling reporters he was optimistic about ending the war. “I think we have a chance of ending the war quickly if flexibility is shown,” Trump told reporters.
• Zelenskyy congratulated Trump on his “successful ceasefire” in the Middle East, saying that while “Putin is not ready”, he is confident that with Trump’s “help, we can stop this war, and we really need it”.
• Trump did not commit to Zelenskyy’s request for Tomahawk missiles, which are precise, long-range projectiles that Kyiv is seeking in order to strike deep into Russia, saying doing so “could mean big escalation”.
• Trump also told reporters that Zelenskyy will “be in touch” during upcoming negotiations in Hungary, where the US president will meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
• Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would allow Putin to attend the planned summit with Trump in Budapest, despite the Russian leader facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Hungary is in the process of leaving.
• Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, proposed building a “US-Russia link via the Bering Strait” in a post on X, also suggesting that the undersea tunnel connecting Russia and the US could be built together with billionaire Elon Musk’s The Boring Company.
• Asked about the tunnel proposal on Friday, Trump said it was “interesting”, while Zelenskyy said: “I’m not happy with this idea.”
• United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a call with Zelenskyy after his White House meeting, where he “reiterated their unwavering commitment to Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian aggression”, according to a summary of the call published by Downing Street.

Regional Security

The United States Treasury has sanctioned two Haitians, one a former police officer and the other an alleged gang leader, for their affiliation with the Viv Ansanm criminal alliance.

On Friday, a Treasury news release accused Dimitri Herard and Kempes Sanon of colluding with Viv Ansanm, thereby contributing to the violence wracking Haiti.

The sanctions block either person from accessing assets or property in the US. They also prohibit US-based entities from engaging in transactions with the two men.

“Today’s action underscores the critical role of gang leaders and facilitators like Herard and Sanon, whose support enables Viv Ansanm’s campaign of violence, extortion, and terrorism in Haiti,” Bradley T Smith, the director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

Since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has sought to take a hardline stance against criminal organisations across Latin America, blaming the groups for unregulated immigration and drug-trafficking on US soil.

Trump has termed their actions a criminal “invasion”, using nativist rhetoric to justify military action in international waters.

Viv Ansanm has been part of Trump’s crackdown. On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order setting the stage for his administration to label Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”.

That process began several weeks later. In May, Viv Ansanm and another Haitian criminal organisation, Gran Grif, were added to the growing list of criminal networks to receive the “foreign terrorist” designation.

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021, a power vacuum has formed in Haiti. The last national elections were held in 2016, and its last democratically elected officials reached the end of their terms in 2023.

That has created a crisis of public confidence that criminal networks, including gangs, have exploited to expand their power. Viv Ansanm is one of the most powerful groups, as a coalition of gangs largely based in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In July, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that the gangs now have “near-total control of the capital”, with 90 percent of its territory under their control.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced in the country as a result of the gang violence, a 36 percent increase over 2024. Last year, more than 5,600 people were killed, and a further 2,212 injured.

In Friday’s sanctions, the US Treasury accused Herard, the former police officer, of having “colluded with the Viv Ansanm alliance”, including through training and the provision of guns.

It also noted that Herard had been imprisoned by Haitian authorities for involvement in the Moise assassination. He later escaped in 2024.

Sanon, meanwhile, is identified as the leader of the Bel Air gang, part of the Viv Ansanm alliance. The Treasury said he “played a significant role” in building Viv Ansanm’s power, and it added that he has been implicated in killings, extortion and kidnappings.

The UN Security Council echoed the US’s sanctions against Sanon and Herard, designating both men on Friday. It also agreed to extend its arms embargo on Haiti, which began in 2022.

In September, the UNSC also approved the creation of a “gang suppression force”, with a 12-month mandate to work with Haitian police and military. That force is expected to replace a Kenyan-led mission to reinforce Haiti’s security forces, and it is slated to include 5,550 people.

But on Friday, the Trump administration said that the UN had not gone far enough in its efforts to combat Haiti’s gangs. It called for more designations against individual suspects.

“While we applaud the Council for designating these individuals, the list is not complete. There are more enablers of Haiti’s insecurity evading accountability,” an open letter from US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta read.

“Haiti deserves better. Colleagues, we will continue pressing for more designations through the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure the sanctions lists are fit for purpose.”

Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.

Norris said: “Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.

“A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy.”

Piastri said: “A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn’t really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow.”

The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.

The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.

Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.

“Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine,” the German said. “P1 looked too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.

“The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that’s all.”

Oct. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump refiled a dismissed federal lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defaming him during the 2024 election cycle and seeking $15 billion.

The president refiled the lawsuit on Thursday after U.S. District Court for Middle Florida Judge Steven Merryday in September dismissed the original filing.

The judge ruled the initial 85-page filing was too wordy and took too long to detail any formal complaints against the news outlet, The New York Times reported.

Merryday gave Trump 28 days to refile his lawsuit, which the president did on Thursday in the same federal court.

Trump’s revised filing is 40 pages long and accuses The Times’ reporters Peter Baker, Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig of writing “false, malicious and defamatory statements” against him in two news articles, according to NBC News.

Baler and Buettner also wrote a book titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.”

Trump’s legal team argues that he asked The Times to retract defamatory and false information, which its leadership refused, The Hill reported.

“Defendants rejected President Trump’s reasonable demands for retraction and instead doubled down and expanded on the malicious and defamatory falsehood,” the legal team says.

“These breaches of journalistic ethics are further proven by The Times’ enthusiastic aiding and abetting of the partisan effort to falsely link Russian interference to President Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election,” Trump’s filing says.

The claims of Russian interference on behalf of Trump “is well on its way to becoming one of the most profoundly disturbing criminal political scandals in American history,” Trump’s legal team argues.

Officials for The New York Times in a statement on Friday said the lawsuit lacks merit.

“Nothing has changed today,” the statement said. “This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate [public relations] attention.”

The Times’ executive editor Joseph Kahn previously said the news outlet will not settle the case, which other news outlets have done to end similar cases filed by the president.

A young Kelvin carries multiple identities. Today, he’s Kelvin, but that might change tomorrow, depending on the identity game he’s up to. For at least 14 hours a day, he describes himself as “Richard”, a stranded American engineer needing financial help from a sympathetic woman he met on a dating site. He’s always glued to his laptop, scheming to swindle his next target in his many romance tricks. 

Kelvin lives in a community in Asaba, South-South Nigeria. 

For him, the end justifies the means, as long as he amasses enough wealth to fund his exorbitant lifestyle. Internet fraud, colloquially known as Yahoo-Yahoo, is his ticket to the flashy cars and designer clothes he sees flaunted by mentors in “HK” – the local term for the Hustling Kingdom, a structured network of internet fraudsters in the state.

Just a few kilometres away, a mechanics workshop stands half-empty. Togolese artisan, Awe Gao, wipes grease from his hands and shakes his head. “Where are the Nigerian boys?” he asks. “Before, this workshop was full of apprentices. Now, they all want quick money from the internet. They call this ‘Yahoo’, saying it is better than dirty hands.”

This is the new reality in Nigeria’s oil-rich South-South region. A generation of young men is abandoning traditional vocations such as furniture making, tiling, automobile mechanics, and welding for the seductive, high-reward world of cybercrime. This mass gravitation is not just a social ill; it is creating a dangerous security vacuum, crippling the local skilled workforce, and ceding vital trades to a steady influx of skilled migrants from Togo and the Benin Republic.

Nigeria has an unemployment problem, and young people are desperately looking for an alternative way to make a living. While many have chosen artisanship to overcome their employment plight, others are resorting to cybercrime. With many youths taking pride in internet fraud as a way of life, Nigeria ranks 5th in the global report on sources of cybercrime activities, trailing behind Russia, Ukraine, China, and the United States. 

A report by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) documented a significant increase in conviction numbers between 2020 (976) and 2022 (3,785), with a high percentage of these related to cybercrime, such as obtaining by trickery and impersonation. The EFCC authorities noted that, in 2022, the country lost over $500 million to cybercrimes, which contributes to the nation’s reputation as a significant source of cybercrime globally. 

While the EFCC claims to have improved measures to curb cybercrimes in Nigeria, the institution has been accused of being overhand in handling suspects and focusing too much on internet fraudsters rather than corrupt public officials and politicians. The agency has, however, defended its actions, stating that internet fraud is a major crisis linked to more serious crimes. 

“I want Nigerians to know that we are having a crisis on our hands. If you travel abroad with your green passport and stand in the queue among so many people, you will discover that by the time you present the passport, the people [immigration officers] will look at you with some reservation,” said Olanipekun Olukoyede, the EFCC chairman. “That is, if they don’t take you aside to carry out some special scrutiny. That is a national shame that some young Nigerians [yahoo-yahoo boys] have caused us.”

The cybercrime problem seems to carry a different weight in the South-South region, with many young people leaving artisanship for internet fraud. HumAngle spoke to multiple sources, including self-confessing internet fraudsters, cybercrime experts, and community leaders, to unravel the dangerous escapades of youths making internet scams a way of life in the region. The reporting revealed how youths have chosen to enrol in criminal hubs where they learn to swindle people online. One such criminal enterprise is HK, a sophisticated ecosystem operating on a structured mentorship model, where an established fraudster houses and trains five to fifteen apprentices.

“My Oga taught me everything,” explains Kelvin, who dropped out of a polytechnic where he was studying electrical engineering. “How to use VPN, how to create a fake profile, how to talk to these white women, how to make a sad story. For three months, I was just learning. Now, I run my own operations and give him 20 per cent of my ‘hit’.”

The training is rigorous. Recruits are schooled in the psychology of manipulation, the technology of anonymity, and the financial logistics of moving illicit funds. They learn to target vulnerable individuals abroad through romance scams and email compromises.

Another cybercrime apprentice, Franca, 24, from Warri, serves as a “picker,” using her female identity to receive funds through her bank account: “At first, I was doing it to survive after my NYSC. No job. But the money is fast. One transaction can give you what a hair stylist will earn in six months. Why would I learn a trade that pays peanuts?”

The consequence of this mass shift is starkly visible in the region’s industrial and commercial layouts. Workshops that once buzzed with the sounds of apprentices learning a trade now operate below capacity.

“Look around,” says Chinedu Okoro, the owner of an automobile spare parts shop in Benin. “The Togolese and Beninois are taking over because they are willing to learn. Our youths see manual labour as punishment. They point to the ‘Yahoo boy’ with a new iPhone and say, ‘That is my target’. We are losing our capacity for production and becoming a society of scammers.”

The region is becoming dependent on foreign nationals for essential services and skilled labour, from building houses to repairing vehicles. This creates economic leakage and reduces local resilience. Contrary to the illusion of widespread success, only a fraction of internet fraudsters make significant money. The majority live in precarious uncertainty. The abandonment of viable vocational paths means a growing pool of unemployed, frustrated youth who have invested their formative years in a criminal enterprise with a short shelf life.

As competition intensifies, many fraudsters are turning to money rituals, known as “Yahoo Plus”, incorporating spiritualists and, alarmingly, resorting to violence for “quick money”. This has contributed to a spike in mysterious killings and kidnappings, with body parts sometimes linked to ritual demands for “cyber charms”.

For 19-year-old Daniel from Bayelsa, the choice was simple. His father was a renowned welder, but he watched him struggle financially for years.

“My father’s hands were rough, his back was bent, but at the end of the month, what did he have? Nothing,” Daniel says. “Then I saw my cousin from the same HK. In one year, he built a house for his mother. He drives a Lexus. My father’s workshop is now closed. I am his only hope, and this laptop is my tool.” 

Ufoma Ighadalo, 27, told a similar story. His father worked for 35 years for the Delta State government and retired as a school principal. Within that period, he could only build one house at Ughell, Delta State, and buy an old Peugeot car.

“He trained five of us at the university level. But I don’t consider him a success,” Ufoma says in a conspiratorial voice. “In this line of business, I will achieve what my father achieved in less than two years. I already have a house of my own and a car as well. I plan to build my second house here in Asaba before the end of this year. Who says hustling doesn’t pay?”

This narrative is repeated across the region. The tangible, delayed gratification of vocational work cannot compete with social media’s viral, glamorous portrayal of cybercrime success. The HK offers money and an identity of instant wealth and societal validation.

Community leaders and security analysts warn that the situation is a ticking time bomb. “When you disconnect a generation from productive labour and orient them towards predatory online activities, you create a profound societal crisis,” notes Chioma Emenike, an Asaba-based sociologist. “We are nurturing a generation that believes wealth comes not from creating value, but from clever exploitation. The long-term effect on our social fabric and security architecture is devastating.”

Experts argue that the solution must be multi-pronged: aggressive vocational reorientation, government-driven investment in the digital economy to create legitimate tech jobs, and severe enforcement against the kingpins of the HK networks.

But for now, in the half-empty workshops of the South-South, the sounds of learning hammers and revving engines are being replaced by the silent, desperate click of keyboards, as a generation chooses the elusive kingdom of fraud over the solid foundation of a skilled trade.

As voters in Bolivia prepare to go to the polls for the final round of the country’s presidential election, there is no left-wing candidate on the ballot for the first time in nearly two decades.

Since the last election, the current governing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), has suffered an implosion, with party leaders splintering off and attacking one another.

Amid the fracas, MAS failed to advance a candidate to the run-off election, meaning its leadership — nearly uninterrupted since 2006 — is slated to come to an end.

A centrist and a right-wing candidate are now facing off in Sunday’s highly anticipated run-off.

But the election is unlikely to smooth over the divides that have fractured and destabilised Bolivian politics in recent years, with a severe economic crisis spurring continuing unrest.

Who are the candidates? What issues are front and centre for voters? And what challenges could the new government face in the months ahead? We answer those questions and more in this brief explainer.

When does voting take place?

The run-off vote will take place on October 19, with the winner of the election inaugurated on November 8.

What was the result of the first round?

The final stage of the election is itself a sign of the shifting and unpredictable state of the country’s politics.

Rodrigo Paz, one of the two final candidates, was the surprise victor in the first round of voting despite registering less than 10 percent in early polling. He carried more than 32 percent of the votes in the August 17 general election.

His rival is Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, a former president who came in second place with nearly 27 percent of the vote.

Neither met the threshold to win the presidency outright, which would have required winning 50 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin over the nearest competitor.

Who is Rodrigo Paz?

Paz is a senator and the son of the former left-wing President Jaime Zamora.

Though he has aligned himself with various parties throughout his career, in this election, he is representing the centre-right Christian Democratic Party.

Paz has pitched himself as a more moderate voice who will embrace pro-market policies while taking a cautious approach to austerity measures. “Capitalism for All” is his campaign slogan.

His running mate, meanwhile, is Edman Lara, an evangelical Christian and former police officer who resigned from his position and became a popular figure on social media for his outspoken criticism of corruption.

Who is Jorge Quiroga?

Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga is a businessman and former president.

Early in his career, he worked in Texas for the multinational tech company IBM. But his interests shifted to politics, particularly in the 1990s, and he even worked under Paz’s father as Bolivia’s finance minister.

In 1997, Quiroga ran as the running mate on the successful presidential ticket of Hugo Banzer, who led a military dictatorship in the 1970s. But when Banzer was diagnosed with cancer and resigned in 2001, Quiroga succeeded him as president, serving the remainder of his term.

Quiroga’s subsequent bids for the presidency have fallen short: He lost in 2005, 2014 and 2020.

In this election, he is running on a stridently pro-market platform as the head of a right-wing coalition, the Libre Alliance.

Quiroga’s running mate is Juan Pablo Velasco, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur.

What do the polls say?

Polling currently shows Quiroga with a slight advantage, but analysts have pointed out that polling before the first round of voting failed to detect support for Paz.

A poll taken between October 1 and 6 by the research firm CB Consultora found that Paz has an approval rating of 42.5 percent. Quiroga, meanwhile, leads with 56.7 percent approval.

While 75 percent of respondents said they would vote in the run-off, CB Consultora said protest votes — with ballots intentionally left blank or spoiled — are expected to increase.

What happened to Bolivia’s left?

Under the presidency of Evo Morales from 2006 to 2019, the left-wing MAS party oversaw a period of strong economic growth while simultaneously decreasing inequality, a rare feat.

That translated into electoral dominance for Morales, who is considered the country’s first Indigenous president.

But an electoral crisis in 2019 resulted in Morales fleeing the country after seeking a contested fourth term, in circumstances that his supporters have characterised as a coup.

The crisis caused a brief interruption in MAS leadership, and the post-election period saw turmoil and widespread protests, with the short-lived right-wing government overseeing a deadly crackdown.

In 2020, the left returned to power when Morales’s finance minister became the current president, Luis Arce. But internal divides have critically weakened MAS, leading to Morales leaving the party.

Courts have barred Morales, who faces an arrest warrant for alleged statutory rape, from seeking a fourth term. But Morales has persisted in his efforts, characterising the ban on his candidacy as an assault on his rights.

He has called upon his followers, many of whom are rural and Indigenous voters, to boycott the vote.

What issues are front and centre?

For many Bolivians, concerns about the economy and the cost of living are top of mind as they head to the polls.

High inflation and fuel shortages, along with dwindling foreign currency reserves, have been a source of hardship.

“People are waiting in line for hours at a time for gasoline,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based group that promotes human rights. “Diesel, which is important for the transportation of other goods, is even worse.”

Polling compiled by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (ASCOA) shows that 24 percent of Bolivians consider the economy their primary concern this election season. Another 17 percent cited price increases as a top concern, and fuel shortages were at 14 percent.

What controversies have defined the election?

Velasco, Quiroga’s vice presidential running mate, has faced scrutiny over a series of racist social media posts he made in the past, celebrating violence against the country’s Indigenous population.

The posts, some of which are nearly 15 years old, were initially unearthed by an Argentinian social media figure. Bolivian fact-checking agencies have since verified the posts.

Velasco responded by denying that he authored the posts. He has also attacked the fact-checkers, prompting the Bolivian press association to release a statement in support of the fact-checking agencies.

What policies have the candidates proposed?

Both Quiroga and Paz are promising pro-market policies and a departure from the left-wing programme that has dominated Bolivian politics for the last two decades.

Where the two candidates differ is over how quickly to implement those economic changes.

Quiroga has said that he will cut spending on social programmes and fuel subsidies, privatise state enterprises, and seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Paz has been more hesitant when it comes to embracing calls for austerity and steep cuts to social programmes, although he has also said that he would cut fuel subsidies.

He has also suggested that Bolivia could lower tariffs to help import goods that the country does not produce itself and expressed interest in greater integration into regional trade blocs, such as MERCOSUR.

What will the election mean for relations with the United States?

The administration of US President Donald Trump has expressed approval over the prospect of a right-wing government in Bolivia.

Bilateral ties under MAS leadership had been strained over conflicting policies towards growing coca, a major crop in Bolivia and the raw ingredient for cocaine.

On October 14, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the election outright, calling it “important”.

“Later this month, there’ll be an election in Bolivia,” Rubio said. “After 25, 30 years of anti-American, hostile governments, both of the candidates running in that election, in the run-off election, want strong and better relations with the United States. Another transformative opportunity there.”

Morales, a firm critic of the US “war on drugs”, expelled the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2008 and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2013, alleging it was working to influence Bolivian politics.

“There was a great deal of frustration in Washington, DC, because this was a refutation of the idea that, to govern successfully, you need cooperation and funding from the US,” said Ledebur.

Both Paz and Quiroga have said that they will seek closer ties with the US. Quiroga, in particular, has been a critic of left-wing governments in Latin America, including in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, with which MAS had cultivated ties.

That shift comes at a moment when the Trump administration is taking on a more aggressive stance in Latin America, pushing a highly militarised approach to combating drug trafficking and using US influence to assist right-wing allies in countries such as Argentina and Brazil.

What’s next for the Bolivian left?

After years of dominance, Bolivia’s political left is preparing for a period in the political wilderness.

The candidate for MAS, Eduardo del Castillo, won just 3.2 percent in the first round of voting in August. A former MAS member, Andronico Rodriguez, won approximately 8 percent of the vote.

Many former MAS supporters have turned to Paz due to his populist stance and softer approach towards economic austerity, and Ledebur says that the once-powerful left will have to mend internal rifts and find a new path forward.

But the forces that have powered the Bolivian left for decades, such as Indigenous and rural voting blocs, are likely to remain a formidable force, even if MAS finds itself out of power.

Ledebur says that efforts to implement harsh austerity measures could spark strong backlash and protests.

She predicts that conflict with the new government could help unite the left around a common cause, but that doing so will take time.

“The left will definitely have to change something after its defeat in the election,” she said. “There will be a reconfiguration, but it could take a long time.”

The electric carmaker had unveiled chief Elon Musk’s proposed $1 trillion compensation plan in September.

Tesla’s proposed $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk has come under renewed scrutiny after proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) urged investors to vote against what could be the largest compensation plan ever awarded to a company chief.

ISS’s comments on Friday marks the second consecutive year that it has urged shareholders to reject a compensation plan for Musk.

Proxy advisers often sway major institutional investors, including the passive funds that hold large stakes in Tesla.

The ISS recommendation adds pressure on Tesla’s board before a closely watched November 6 shareholder meeting and renews scrutiny of Musk’s compensation after a Delaware court earlier voided his $56bn pay package.

Musk’s record Tesla pay plan could still hand him tens of billions of dollars even if he falls short of most of its ambitious targets, however, thanks to a structure that rewards partial achievement and soaring share prices.

Last month, Tesla’s board proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan for Musk in what it described as the largest corporate pay package in history, setting ambitious performance targets and aiming to address his push for greater control over the company.

ISS said that while the board’s goal was to retain Musk because of his “track record and vision”, the 2025 pay package “locks in extraordinarily high pay opportunities over the next ten years” and “reduces the board’s ability to meaningfully adjust future pay levels.”

Tesla’s shares rose after the compensation plan was unveiled last month, as investors believe the pay package would incentivise Musk to focus on the company’s strategy.

“Many people come to Tesla to specifically work with Elon, so we recognise that retaining and incentivising him will, in the long run, help us retain and recruit better talent,” Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson said in a video posted to Tesla’s X handle on Friday.

Unlike the 2018 pay deal, Musk will be allowed to vote using his shares this time, giving him about 13.5 percent of Tesla’s voting power, according to a securities filing last month. That stake alone could be enough to secure approval.

The proxy adviser cited the “astronomical” size of the proposed grant, design features that could deliver very high payouts for partial goal achievement and potential dilution for existing investors.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

ISS valued the stock-based award at $104bn, higher than Tesla’s own estimate of $87.8bn.

The grant would vest only if Tesla reaches market capitalisation milestones up to $8.5 trillion and operational targets, including delivery of 20 million vehicles, one million robotaxis and $400bn in adjusted core earnings.

The proxy adviser’s guidance on Musk’s pay was part of a wider set of voting recommendations issued on Friday.

As of 3:45pm in New York (19:45 GMT), Tesla’s stock was up 2.4 percent.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — A nine-year, $335 million restoration of the U.S. Air Force Academy Chapel has President Donald Trump calling for a federal investigation into the matter.

The president in a social media post on Thursday called the cadet chapel in Colorado Springs, Colo., a “construction disaster” since it was built in 1962 and said the current renovation is projected to be finished in 2028.

“The earlier stories are that it leaked on day one, and that was the good part,” Trump said on Truth Social.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent,” he explained. “The renovation, which essentially has been going on since the day it was built, is now projected to go on until 2028.”

He said a newly revised budget adds $90 million to the renovation cost, which now is $335 million from its prior $247 million budget.

“This mess should be investigated,” Trump added. “Very unfair to the cadets — a complete architectural catastrophe!”

The Defense Department in August awarded a contract that exceeds $88 million to the JE Dunn Construction Co. to renovate the chapel, which is projected to be finished in November 2028, The Hill reported.

Officials at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center are overseeing the renovation project and said the additional funds will cover additional costs after encountering unexpected problems.

The chapel has been closed since October 2019 as the restoration project began, but the discovery of asbestos and other issues has delayed the renovation and greatly raised its cost from an original estimate of $158 million, according to KOAA-TV.

The current construction cost estimate is nearly half the cost to renovate the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was completed twice as fast.

The latest nearly $90 million project allocation from the Defense Department boosted the total cost by 36% from $247 million.

The project “ensures the long-term structural integrity and watertightness of the Cadet Chapel and will resolve issues that have plagued the building since its opening 60 years ago,” the AFCEC said.

The facility leaked water from the moment it opened in 1962 and underwent numerous “Band-Aid fixes” over the years, USAFA architect Duane Boyle said during an April 2024 news conference.

The 150-foot-tall, 52,000-square-foot chapel is comprised of 17 triangular spires that give it an aircraft-like appearance.

It was one of the first modernist-style structures built in the United States and is “one of the most seminal pieces of modern architecture in the United States,” Neal Evers, Colorado University-Boulder Environmental Design Department professor, told KOAA-TV.

He said the chapel was designed and built when modernist-style architecture “was really taking off in the ’50s.”

Evers said it’s unfair to compare the project’s cost and time to other restoration projects, but he acknowledged it is a “problem” when the initial five-year timeline is extended to nearly 10.

Two years of Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians – including 20,000 children.

For now, the bombing campaign has largely halted after a ceasefire was agreed last week.

But the Israeli military’s actions in the past 24 months were livestreamed, documented and archived in unprecedented detail.

In September, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. And this week, South Africa said the ceasefire will not affect its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

But the ICJ lacks the resources to carry out arrests unless United Nations member countries decide to act.

So, will Israel be held accountable, or will impunity become the new norm?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Sawsan Zaher – Palestinian human rights lawyer

Dr Mads Gilbert – Researcher and medical doctor who has worked in Palestinian healthcare for more than 30 years

Neve Gordon – Professor of international law at Queen Mary University of London

Sixteen-year-olds now have the right to vote in all UK elections, as part of sweeping election reforms. Supporters believe this change will modernise democracy and say the young generation is already engaged with issues like climate change, education, and the economy. Opponents, however, argue that 16 is too young to make such weighty political decisions and warn that it could weaken the integrity of the electoral system.

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Guests:

Cameron Holt – Member of Youth Parliament, Bassetlaw

Thomas Brochure – Co-director, Make It 16 NZ

Nuurrianti Jalli – Researcher, Oklahoma State University

A week into the ceasefire, Israel has continued to seal Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt despite repeated international calls to allow in large-scale aid deliveries. Meanwhile, Israeli attacks killed and wounded several Palestinians in northern Gaza.

For several days, the United Nations has warned that there has been little progress in aid deliveries into Gaza and that assistance must enter at scale through all border crossings to meet urgent humanitarian needs. Under the deal to end Israel’s genocide, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in two years, Israel was to allow for a surge in aid deliveries.

The UN said on Friday that aid convoys were struggling to reach famine-hit areas of northern Gaza due to bombed-out roads and the continued closure of other key routes – Zikim and Beit Hanoon (called Erez in Israel) – into the enclave’s north.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it has brought an average of 560 tonnes of food per day into Gaza since the ceasefire began last week, but the amount is still below what is needed. The UN agency said it has enough food to feed all of Gaza for three months.

UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher said this week that thousands of aid vehicles would have to enter weekly to tackle widespread malnutrition, displacement, and a collapse of infrastructure.

“We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance,” WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a news briefing in Geneva.

But the WFP said it had not begun distributions in Gaza City, pointing to the continued closure of Zikim and Beit Hanoon, with Israeli forces remaining in the north of the enclave where the humanitarian crisis is most acute.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which calls for their gradual withdrawal, Israeli forces remain in approximately 53 percent of Gaza.

“Access to Gaza City and northern Gaza is extremely challenging,” Etefa said, adding that the movement of convoys of wheat flour and ready-to-eat food parcels from the south of the territory was being hampered by broken or blocked roads.

“It is very important to have these openings in the north; this is where the famine took hold. To turn the tide on this famine … it is very important to get these openings.”

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initial MSF, said many relief agencies had not fully returned to the north, where hospitals are barely functioning, leaving many still unable to access regular care.

More Palestinians killed

As calls for much-needed aid continue, Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza have also gone on unabated.

Gaza’s civil defence said its teams are carrying out rescue operations after an Israeli artillery strike hit a small bus carrying a displaced family who were heading to inspect their homes east of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

The attack caused “several deaths and injuries”, the agency said. One injured boy was rescued, while the fate of the others remains unknown “due to the danger at the site” as attempts to reach the area continue.

Separately, three Palestinians were injured, with varying severity, after Israeli forces opened fire towards them in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Hamas insisted it was committed to returning the remains of Israeli captives still unaccounted for under Gaza’s ruins. The group’s armed wing said it has handed over all the bodies it was able to recover, adding that returning more remains would require allowing heavy machinery and excavation equipment into Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said there is “a clear disconnect” from what the Israeli government is demanding from an area that has been “reduced to rubble”.

With heavy equipment and machinery being blocked by the Israeli military, Israel is creating “a challenge for the residents of Gaza who are experienced and have the expertise to search and to dig out bodies from under the rubble,” Mahmoud said.

He noted that it is not just the bodies of deceased Israeli captives under the rubble, it is the “thousands of Palestinian bodies buried and missing and trapped under tonnes and tonnes of rubble and debris”.

Authorities in Gaza have also been struggling to identify dozens of bodies of slain Palestinians that were returned by Israel earlier this week. Only six out of 120 bodies have been formally identified so far, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry said the bodies exhibit signs of torture, including hanging and rope marks, bound hands and feet, and gunfire at close range.

The bodies showed “conclusive evidence of field executions and brutal torture”, Gaza’s Government Media Office said.

Hamas disarmament

The next phases of the truce are expected to address the disarmament of Hamas, possible amnesty for its leaders who lay down their weapons, and the question of who will govern Gaza after the war.

Hamas politburo member Mohammad Nazzal said the group intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, adding that he could not commit to disarmament.

He told the Reuters news agency Hamas was prepared for a ceasefire lasting up to five years to allow for the reconstruction of Gaza, provided Palestinians are offered “horizons and hope” towards statehood.

Asked whether Hamas would give up its weapons, Nazzal replied, “I can’t answer with a yes or no. Frankly, it depends on the nature of the project. The disarmament project you’re talking about – what does it mean? To whom will the weapons be handed over?”

He added that any discussion about weapons would not concern Hamas alone but also other armed Palestinian factions, and would require a collective Palestinian position in the next round of negotiations.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — At least 11 protesters were arrested amid clashes with local police outside the Broadview, Ill., Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Friday morning.

Protesters arrived earlier than normal on Friday at the Chicago-area ICE facility and clashed with local law enforcement when the protesters blocked a local street and refused to go to a designated protest zone, WLS-TV reported.

“We are all Latino,” a protester told WLS-TV. “We all got to be united. What they are doing is not fair.”

The protester said ICE should focus its efforts on criminals and “leave the good people that are working” so that they can continue to work and improve their lives.

A report by WGN-TV said “things appeared to get out of hand rather quickly” when the protesters arrived during the morning hours.

The protest began near 8 a.m. CDT, which is an hour earlier than allowed by local regulations, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Those regulations allow protests from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and within a designated protest area.

The protest was the first since a protective fence around the ICE building was removed on Tuesday, as ordered by a federal judge.

Although the fencing is gone, the protesters are required to stay off the street and within an area lined by concrete barriers.

Those who did not clash with Illinois State Police officers, resulting in 11 being arrested for blocking the street and refusing to move to the designated protest area, local authorities told WLS-TV.

Protester Akeisha Lee was charged with disobeying a police officer or arresting and obstructing, and several others were being processed for violations during the morning hours, the Sun-Times reported.

Among those being processed following her arrest was United Church of Rogers Park Pastor Hannah Kardon.

While the protesters are restricted in their activities, federal law enforcement also is restricted in how it can operate in northern Illinois.

U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois Judge Sara Ellis earlier restricted when and where federal law enforcement officers and agents can use tear gas and on Thursday expressed concern that her restrictions were not being followed.

Ellis also amended a restraining order on federal law enforcement to require those equipped with body cameras to wear them and keep them on during enforcement operations.

The government has said it is “doing everything in our power” to overturn a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending a football match in Birmingham and is exploring what additional resources could be required.

On Thursday, Aston Villa said the city’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) decided that fans of the Israeli club should not be permitted to attend the Europa League fixture on 6 November over safety concerns.

Facing mounting pressure to resolve the situation, the government said it was working with police and exploring what additional resources are required.

A meeting of the SAG to discuss the match is expected next week, the Home Office said.

“No one should be stopped from watching a football game simply because of who they are,” a government spokesperson said.

They added the government was working with police and other bodies to ensure the game could “safely go ahead with all fans present”.

After it was announced on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer called the move to block fans attending “wrong”, adding “we will “not tolerate antisemitism on our streets”, while there has also been criticism from other party leaders.

The SAG – which advises the council on whether to issue safety certificates – will review the decision if West Midlands Police changes its risk assessment for the match, Birmingham City Council said.

On Thursday, West Midlands Police said it had classified the fixture as “high risk” based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including “violent clashes and hate crime offences” between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv fans before a match in Amsterdam in November 2024.

More than 60 people were arrested over the violence, which city officials described as a “toxic combination of antisemitism, hooliganism, and anger” over the war in Gaza, Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Home Office was briefed that restrictions on visiting fans might be imposed last week, but the BBC understands officials were not informed about the final decision until Thursday.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the revelation left the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, with “serious questions to answer” about why her department did “nothing” to avert the ban.

She said: “This is a weak government that fails to act when required.”

A source close to Mahmood told the BBC that “this is categorically untrue”.

“The first time the home secretary knew that the fans were being banned was last night,” they added.

Ayoub Khan, an independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr who campaigned on a pro-Gaza platform in last year’s general election, had pushed for the match to be cancelled due to safety concerns and welcomed Thursday’s decision.

Khan told BBC Newsnight “nobody should tolerate antisemitism” but added: “We cannot conflate antisemitism when we look at what some of these fans did in Amsterdam in 2024. The vile chants of racism and hatred, the chants that there are no schools left in Gaza because there are no children left in Gaza.”

Andrew Fox, honorary president of Aston Villa’s Jewish Villans supporters’ club, said he thought Khan’s comments on Amsterdam were “shameful”, describing what happened there as a “premeditated Jew hunt”.

If bill is signed into law, Portugal would join several European countries which already have full or partial bans.

Portugal has approved a bill to ban face veils used for “gender or religious motives” in most public spaces that was proposed by the far-right Chega party and targets burqas and niqabs worn by Muslim women.

Under the bill, approved by parliament on Friday, proposed fines for wearing face veils in public would range from 200 to 4,000 euros ($234-$4,670). Forcing someone to wear one would be punishable with prison terms of up to three years.

Face veils would still be allowed in aeroplanes, diplomatic premises and places of worship.

According to local media reports, the bill is now set to be discussed in the parliamentary committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees – a body responsible for reviewing legislation related to constitutional matters.

If signed into law, it would put Portugal alongside European countries, including France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, which already have full or partial bans.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa could still veto the bill or send it to the Constitutional Court for checks.

During Friday’s parliamentary session, Chega leader Andre Ventura was confronted by several female lawmakers from left-wing parties who opposed the bill, but it passed with support from the centre-right coalition.

“We are today protecting female members of parliament, your daughters, our daughters, from having to use burqas in this country one day,” Ventura said.

In a post on X, he wrote: “Today is a historic day for our democracy and for the safeguarding of our values, our identity and women’s rights.”

Andreia Neto, a lawmaker from the ruling Social Democratic Party, said before the vote: “This is a debate on equality between men and women. No woman should be forced to veil her face.”

Two out of the 10 parties in parliament abstained from the vote – the People-Animals-Nature party, and the Together for the People party, according to local media reports.

The parties have suggested that the proposal incited discrimination.

Only a small minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, and in Portugal such veils are very rare.

But full-face coverings such as niqabs and burqas have become a polarising issue across Europe, with some arguing that they symbolise gender discrimination or can represent a security threat and should be outlawed.

The U.S. Army is in the very early stages of formulating a vision for fleets of advanced and highly autonomous drones in a similar vein to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) that the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy are now developing. The Army’s CCA endeavor may ultimately be linked, at least in some way, with work already being done on so-called “launched effects,” a term generally applied to smaller uncrewed aerial systems designed to be fired from other platforms in the air, as well as on the ground and at sea.

Army aviation officials talked about the current state of the service’s CCA plans during a roundtable on the sidelines of the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference this week, at which TWZ was in attendance. The topic had also come up elsewhere during the three-day event, which ended yesterday. Army CCAs would be primarily expected to operate in close cooperation with the service’s existing crewed helicopters, as well as its future MV-75A tiltrotors.

“So, one, we’re following the other services very closely as they’re looking at this, this [CCA] concept,” Brig. Gen. Phillip C. Baker, the Army’s Aviation Future Capabilities Director, said. at the roundtable. “I think for the Army, especially launched effects, it comes down to a discussion of mass. … A platform, a loyal wingman, a CCA concept, allows you to increase mass while also reducing the amount of aviators you’ve got to have in the air.”

Baker noted that the Army is working in particular with U.S. military commands in the Pacific and European regions as it begins to explore potential CCA requirements, which might lead to an operational capability in the next few years. For the past year or so, the Army has been working to figure out “the capabilities that they need in order to deliver that mass, and really survivability,” he added.

At present, a key aspect of the ongoing discussions within the Army seems to be focused on where the service’s existing work on launch effects ends and where a CCA-like effort might begin.

“Launched effects, if you think about it, is a CCA, right?” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, also said at the round table. “These are things that we’re going to launch off of aircraft and are going to operate in a collaborative fashion, potentially autonomously, but we’re going to give them instructions, and they’re going to operate based off of guidance, either off of something on the ground or maybe they’re being quarterbacked in the air.”

“Manned-unmanned teaming is the future. We’ve talked about the potential of launched effects off the aircraft, or a potential loyal wingman,” Col. Stephen Smith, head of the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, better known as the Night Stalkers, had also said during a separate panel at this year’s AUSA conference. Smith had talked about increased use of drones as part of larger efforts to help his unit operate more effectively and just survive in higher-threat environments during future high conflicts, which you can read more about here.

The Army is already envisioning at least three categories of launched effects, broken down into short, medium, and long-range types. They could be configured for a variety of missions, including reconnaissance, electronic warfare, communications relays, and as acting as loitering munitions or decoys. The service has long said that it sees these systems, which could also be networked together in highly autonomous swarms, operating forward of friendly forces, extending the reach of their capabilities, while also reducing their vulnerability.

In some broad strokes, the benefits that launched effects and CCA-types drones offer do align, on top of the “affordable mass” they both promise to provide. However, as the Army currently describes them, even the largest launched effects are substantially smaller and less capable than something in the generally accepted CCA, or ‘loyal wingman,’ category. Most, if not all launched effects are also expected to be fully expendable, unlike a CCA. Any Army CCAs would likely carry launched effects themselves, further extending the reach of the latter drones into higher-risk environments, as well as the overall area they can cover quickly. This, in turn, would allow for a crewed-uncrewed team capable of executing a complex and flexible array of tactics.

When asked then to clarify whether a future Army CCA effort would be distinct from the service’s current launched effects efforts, Maj. Gen. Gill said that “it could be, yes.”

“So, last fall, we actually asked industry what they can provide for a Group 4 VTOL/STOL [vertical takeoff and landing/short takeoff and landing] perspective,” Brig. Gen. David Phillips, head of the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation (PEO-Aviation). “So we use that as a great set of information on what the state of the art of technology is from a range, speed, payload, and really effects perspective. What can we bring to bear, given modern technology versus some of our older UAS [uncrewed aerial systems].”

The U.S. military groups uncrewed aircraft into five categories. Group 4 covers designs with maximum takeoff weights over 1,320 pounds, but typical operating altitudes of 18,000 feet Mean Sea Level (MSL) or below. As mentioned already, this is far heavier and higher-flying than any of the UASs the Army is currently considering to meet its launched effects needs.

“I think we’re informing Gen. Gill and Gen. Baker’s teams on what industry has told us on what requirement that shapes out to be,” Phillips added. “It might not look like some of the things we’ve seen on the [AUSA show] floor today. But I can tell you, we received a very robust response from industry, and it’s a combination of maybe some of the things you’d seen on the floor, but we’re excited to start thinking about that space.”

Boeing announced plans for a family of new tiltrotor drones, collectively called Collaborative Transformational Rotorcraft, or CxRs, at this year’s AUSA conference, which you can read more about here. The company said the designs will fall into the Group 4 and Group 5 categories. Per the U.S. military’s definitions, the only difference between Group 4 and Group 5 is that the nominal operating altitude for the latter extends above 18,000 feet MSL.

Last week, Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, announced its own plans to expand existing work on a VTOL drone with a so-called rotor-blown wing configuration into a full family of designs dubbed Nomad, which is set to include a Group 4 type. You can learn more about Nomad, which was also showcased at AUSA, here.

Nearly a decade ago now, Bell also announced it was working on a design for a Group 5 tiltrotor drone called the V-247 Vigilant, aimed originally at a Marine Corps requirement. The V-247, or a scaled-down derivative, could be another starting place for a future Army CCA. Bell has notably shown renderings, like the one below, depicting V-247s operating together with versions of its crewed V-280 Valor tiltrotor design, which the Army’s MV-75A is based on.

Brig. Gen. Baker said that experimentation with CCA concepts, to varying degrees, is already underway, and that more is planned for the near future. He also pointed out that the Army is presented with unique questions to answer compared to the Air Force, Marines, and Navy, given that those services primarily expect CCA-type drones to operate collaboratively with higher and faster-flying fixed-wing tactical jets. The Army, in contrast, as noted, sees any such uncrewed aircraft partnered with its existing helicopters, as well as its future MV-75A tiltrotors, with much lower and slower operational flight profiles. It is worth noting here that the other services still have many questions to answer when it comes to their future CCA fleets, including how they will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated, let alone employed tactically.

The video below from Collins Aerospace offers a relevant depiction of what the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy expect future air combat operations involving their CCAs to look like.

“So, our experimentation really lies in two areas. One, our modeling that we do constantly. We do that with the feedback that [Brig.] Gen. Phillips talked about from industry. How do you put that [notional system] into a threat environment, and how does that play out, and really render the specifications that we’re looking at,” Baker explained. “The second piece is, we do an annual experimentation out west. That will be the second quarter this year. And, so, we are looking at vendors, potentially, to come out and partner with us to build off the study that [Brig.] Gen. Phillips did, of what’s truly [the] capability out there.”

“When you look at a CCA role for – really linked to rotary wing, that is a different dynamic than you have at 20-to-30,000 feet,” he added. “So it’s a whole set of different behaviors, a whole set of different capability you need to marry that up with an aircraft that’s flying at 100 feet, at 150-plus knots, at night. So that is what we’re really looking at, is what is the state of technology right now to develop a requirement that we can deliver.”

Altogether, the Army still clearly has many questions of its own to answer as it begins to explore concepts for future CCA-drones in earnest, including how such a program would fit in with work it is already doing in the uncrewed aerial systems space.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Oct. 17 (UPI) — The federal shutdown will last at least a few more days as the Senate expects to hold no votes until Monday. Meanwhile, lawmakers are questioning the legality of how the Trump administration plans to pay the military.

Senate Republican leader John Thune of South Dakota sent senators home for the weekend, so the government will stay closed. The Senate will return at 3 p.m. Monday.

Three Democrats have voted for the Republican bills to reopen the government, but five more are needed to reach the 60 votes needed to pass the stopgap funding bill.

Meanwhile, some Republican senators are questioning the legality of President Donald Trump‘s move to shift Defense Department funds to pay for military paychecks during the shutdown.

They say they’re glad the service members are getting paid, but aren’t sure where the funds are coming from and whether the money shift is legal.

Normally, the White House would need to ask Congress to reappropriate federal funding, then the Appropriations Committee must approve it before moving funds around.

Senators interviewed by The Hill say they aren’t aware of any requests. Trump ordered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to ensure troops got their paychecks.

“That’s a concern of not just appropriators, it seems broader than that,” an unnamed Republican senator told The Hill.

The lawmaker said Republican colleagues have asked the administration for more information about exactly which funds are getting shifted and what legal authority the White House is using to justify its action.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she wants more information from the White House.

“We’ve been given two different explanations. One, is that it’s unobligated balances. One, is that it’s taken from certain research and technology programs. But we don’t have the specifics. We have asked for the specifics,” Collins said.

Alaska’s Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said: “I get that they say for the military pay for this pay period it comes out of … research and development technology [fund] but where? Is that taking it from projects that we have already identified? Maybe something’s really important to me. Where’s it coming from? We haven’t seen that,” she said.

On Wednesday, Trump signed a memo expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent funds to pay service members during the shutdown.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said Trump’s reallocation of funds was, “probably not legal.” On Face the Nation on Sunday, he said the “White House’s understanding of United States law” was “pretty tentative to say the best.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Hungary in the very near future, where he will meet United States counterpart Donald Trump for a second summit on ending the war in Ukraine. The first – in Alaska in August – failed to result in any agreement.

But, with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in 2023 for Putin’s arrest over the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia’s war with Ukraine, how will the fugitive from justice make it to the negotiating table?

Signatories of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court in 2002, are required to arrest those subject to warrants as soon as they enter their territory – which theoretically includes airspace, which is also considered sovereign territory under international law.

Hungary, which recently stated its intention to withdraw from the agreement – making it a safe space for Putin – is surrounded by countries which would be bound by this.

However, the ICC, which has 125 member states, has no police force and hence no means of enforcing arrests.

So what awaits Putin on his upcoming jaunt?

Isn’t Hungary technically an ICC member, too?

On paper, yes. But it’s on the way out.

In April, right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the country would be ditching the ICC’s founding document when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit. Netanyahu is also on the ICC’s most-wanted list for Gaza war crimes – his arrest warrant was issued earlier this year.

The Hungarian parliament approved a bill back in May to trigger the withdrawal process, which becomes official one year after the United Nations Secretary-General receives a written notification of the decision.

Given Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s comments on Friday on the “sovereign” country’s intent to host the president with “respect”, ensuring he has “successful negotiations, and then returns home”, Putin seems safe from any arrest on Hungarian soil.

What about airspace? Could he be intercepted mid-air?

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, “many questions” need to be resolved before Putin sets off on his journey. One of those questions is likely to regard the president’s flight path.

Putin will probably want to avoid the Baltic states after recent violations of Estonia’s airspace by Russian jets, which have put the region on high alert for a potential overspill from the Ukraine war. The Baltics could well force a hard landing.

Friendly Belarus might provide a convenient corridor between the Baltics and Ukraine further south, but this would set the president on course for Poland, which has historically strained relations with the Kremlin and recently warned Europe to prepare for a “deep” Russian strike on its territory. Russian drones have also recently breached Polish airspace.

Slovakia, which is led by Moscow-leaning populist Robert Fico, is still guzzling Russian energy in defiance of Trump’s orders to European countries to stop oil and gas imports, and may be more accommodating. Indeed, Fico is on a collision course with fellow EU members over sanctions against Moscow. But Putin would still need to cross Poland before reaching Slovakia.

Putin’s direct route to Budapest, therefore, appears littered with obstacles.

What about a more circuitous route?

Putin may be inspired by fellow ICC fugitive Netanyahu, wanted for crimes including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinian civilians in war-ravaged Gaza, who avoided several European countries on his way to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Wing of Zion plane briefly flew over Greek and Italian territory, but then ducked south, entirely avoiding French and Spanish airspace before heading over the Atlantic, according to FlightRadar24.

Flying south could be an option for Putin as well. Georgia, whose Georgian Dream governing party suspended Tbilisi’s bid to join the European Union, is a signatory to the Rome Statute but could potentially be relied on to turn a blind eye.

And Turkiye, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, but which has long walked a tightrope between Russia and NATO and hosted previous attempts between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the war, could be amenable to allowing the Russian president to pass.

From there, the main obstacle would be Greece, providing a route through the Balkan states to Orban’s respectful welcome.

Has Putin made other trips since becoming an internationally wanted war criminal?

Putin has clearly limited his travels since the ICC warrant was issued.

Last year, he hopped over the border to ICC member Mongolia, where he was treated to a lavish ceremony featuring soldiers on horseback by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.

Mongolia has very friendly relations with Russia, on which it depends for fuel and electricity. The country has refrained from condemning Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the UN, so it was little surprise to see the red carpet being rolled out.

Flying to Alaska for a bilateral with Trump last August was easy since the president could completely avoid hostile countries, flying over his country’s huge land mass over the Bering Strait to the US, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Similarly, this year’s visit to “old friend” and neighbour Xi Jinping for a huge military parade and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation posed no problems since China is not a party to the ICC.

This month, the Russian president met Central Asian leaders with whom he is eager to bolster ties in Tajikistan, which has signed up to the Rome Statute.

Will Putin ever be arrested?

The arrest warrants mark the first step towards an eventual trial, although the capture of Russia’s president is almost inconceivable.

Only a few national leaders have ended up in The Hague.

The former Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered to The Hague earlier this year to face charges of crimes against humanity. The charges pertain to extrajudicial killings committed during his widely condemned “war on drugs”, which killed thousands of people.

The former Liberian president and warlord, Charles Taylor, was convicted in 2012 by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which held proceedings in The Hague. He was found guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Would a future Russian leader decide to forcibly hand Putin over, as was the case with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, extradited to The Hague after his removal in 2000, for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia wars?

That would necessitate a seismic shift in the Kremlin’s power dynamic, which seems unlikely for the time being.

UK court to hear challenge to the pro-Palestine group’s ban under ‘anti-terrorism’ laws after government loses appeal.

The United Kingdom government cannot block the cofounder of pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action from bringing a legal challenge over the banning of the group under “anti-terrorism” laws, a court has said.

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, was on Friday given permission to challenge the group’s proscription on the grounds that the ban is a disproportionate interference with free speech rights, with her case due to be heard next month.

Britain’s Home Office, the interior ministry, then asked the Court of Appeal to overturn that decision and rule that any challenge to the ban should be heard by a specialist tribunal.

Judge Sue Carr rejected the Home Office’s appeal, saying challenging the proscription in the High Court was quicker, particularly where people have been charged and are facing trial for expressing support for Palestine Action.

The court also ruled that Ammori could challenge the ban in the High Court on additional grounds, which Ammori said was a significant victory.

BREAKING: The government LOST their appeal and failed to stop the legal challenge of the Palestine Action ban.

That means the Judicial Review will go ahead on November 25-27th.

Not only that, but we won TWO MORE grounds to argue the illegality of the ban.

Huge victory.

— Huda Ammori (@HudaAmmori) October 17, 2025

“It’s time for the government to listen to the overwhelming and mounting backlash … and lift this widely condemned, utterly Orwellian ban,” she said in a statement.

“The Judicial Review will go ahead on November 25-27th,” Ammori said in a post on X later on Friday.

She hailed the group’s win to challenge “two more grounds to argue the illegality of the ban”.

“Huge victory,” she added.

Disrupting the ‘arms industry’

Palestine Action was proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation by the government in July, making membership a crime which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

More than 2,000 people have since been arrested for holding signs in support of the group, with at least 100 charged.

Before the ban, Palestine Action had increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in Britain, sometimes spraying red paint, blocking entrances or damaging equipment.

It accused the UK government of complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly denied committing war crimes in its two-year genocidal campaign, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Rights groups have accused Israel of repeatedly committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023.

Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire last week.

Palestine Action particularly focused on Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems, and Britain’s government cited a raid by activists at an Elbit site last year when it decided to outlaw the group.

The group was banned a month after some of its members broke into the RAF Brize Norton air base and damaged two planes, for which four members have been charged.

Palestine Action describes itself as “a pro-Palestinian organisation which disrupts the arms industry in the United Kingdom with direct action”. It says it is “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.

Critics of the ban – including United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk and civil liberties groups – argue that damaging property does not amount to terrorism.

However, Britain’s former interior minister Yvette Cooper, who is now foreign minister, previously said violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest.

Widespread regional anger over Israel’s war on Gaza, and beyond, will likely prove a major obstacle to any further signatories to the accords.

United States President Donald Trump has said he expects an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hopes Saudi Arabia will join the pact that normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab states, one week into the all-encompassing and fragile Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump said in an interview broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network.

The US president called the pact a “miracle” and “amazing” and hailed the United Arab Emirates’s signing of it.

The “Abraham Accords” secured agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

“It’ll help bring long-lasting peace to the Middle East,” Trump claimed with his signature bombast.

But there are several factors at play since the original iteration of the accords, signed with fanfare at the White House during Trump’s first term as president in 2020.

Israel has carried out a two-year genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, escalated its harsh assault on the occupied West Bank, and beyond Palestine, bombed six countries in the region this year, including key Gulf Arab mediator Qatar, the huge diplomatic fallout from which effectively helped Trump force Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza.

An emergency summit of Arab and Muslim countries held in Doha in September, in the wake of the attack, staunchly declared its solidarity with Qatar and condemned Israel’s bombing of the Qatari capital.

The extraordinary joint session between the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) gathered nearly 60 member states. Leaders said the meeting marked a critical moment to deliver a united message following what they described as an unprecedented escalation by Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of a “Greater Israel”, has also been roundly condemned by Arab and Muslim countries, and involves hegemonic designs on Lebanese and Syrian territory, among others. Syrian President al-Sharaa, while welcoming Washington’s moves to end its international isolation, has not been warm to the idea of signing up to the Abraham Accords.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem appealed to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to mend relations with the Lebanese armed group, aligned with Iran, and build a common front against Israel.

An August survey from the Washington Institute, a pro-Israel think tank in the US, found that 81 percent of Saudi respondents viewed the prospect of normalising relations with Israel negatively.

A Foreign Affairs and Arab Barometer poll from June came to similar findings: in Morocco, one of the Abraham Accords signatories, support for the deal fell from 31 percent in 2022 to 13 percent in the months after Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Saudi Arabia has also repeatedly asserted its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognition of Israel on resolving the plight of Palestinians and establishing a Palestinian state.