Police fired tear gas and water cannons as demonstrators gathered in Paris to demand more funding, teachers, and better conditions in schools. The movement has entered its third week, with police tactics under scrutiny after several teenagers were seriously injured.
Published On 8 Oct 20268 Oct 2026
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By Josh Boak and Aamer Madhani
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that he will not order a resumption of military strikes on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the United States.
Trump, while stumping for Republicans this week, has hinted that he was confident that an endgame to the war could come in the days before or after the election, while also hinting that he remained open to resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.
For weeks, Trump has been threatening that a post-midterm election escalation in the seven-month-old war remains a viable option, despite his initial promises to Americans of a military campaign that would last a matter of weeks.
But Trump in a social media post on Thursday said the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”
Trump added that his team has been “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Negotiations had appeared at a standstill since Trump late last month publicly rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the U.S. met certain conditions.
Iran, however, said last week it had received a U.S. counterproposal. And Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday said he expected Tehran would offer a formal reply within days.
Trump’s post comes as the military has dispatched more resources to the region. U.S. officials have said a third aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and thousands of troops aboard it and accompanying ships could arrive as early as the end of October.
Trump’s announcement was made the same day the USS Abraham Lincoln was due to arrive to its home port in San Diego after a record-long deployment in support of the Iran war. There have been reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products.
The USS George Washington, which is usually based in Asia, relieved the Lincoln in August. The other aircraft carrier in the Middle East, the USS George H.W. Bush, has been deployed for about six months, but it pulled into Phuket, Thailand, for a port visit several days ago.
Boak and Madhani write for the Associated Press.
By Jacques Billeaud and Wufei Yu
PHOENIX — An Arizona congressional candidate says she was knocked unconscious and sexually assaulted this summer when repairing campaign signs overnight.
Bernadette Greene-Placentia told investigators that two men raped her, and she kicked her feet up at one point to try to fight back. She said she felt the weight of one of her attackers on her body, and had bruises on her arms from being held down, a bump on her head and other injuries, according to police reports.
“I knew that I had been knocked out,” Greene-Placentia told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Greene-Placentia, 52, is a Democrat who is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh for the 8th Congressional District seat representing parts of metro Phoenix that are reliably red. She said she told her husband and campaign staff about the mid-August attack in Sun City days after it happened. The Phoenix New Times first reported on it Wednesday.
Greene-Placentia told the AP she was disgusted that two men took control of her body and she had no say in it. She said she decided to speak out publicly when she realized she was telling voters she would advocate for them when she was not advocating for herself.
“My takeaway is that I have a lot more empathy and understanding of why so many women don’t come forward,” she said. “And, and I’m hoping that I can encourage them.”
Greene-Placentia said she couldn’t recall many details of the Aug. 14 assault, including the exact location or a description of the men, though she said one wore black boots and had small feet. She told investigators one of the men used an expletive to describe her, and she believes he referenced her political party.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on its investigation of the attack.
Greene-Placentia is a former long-haul trucker and later ran a small transportation company, according to her campaign.
In a social media post supporting Democrat Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 run for the presidency, Greene-Placentia called herself a former Republican and a “never Trumper,” and said she voted Libertarian in 2016. Greene-Placentia later became more engaged in Arizona Democratic politics.
She said she often put up and repaired campaign signs overnight because it was cooler than the blistering summer days and there was less traffic.
Arizona Democratic Party treasurer Greg Freeman said he got a call from Greene-Placentia, a friend who ran his 2024 campaign for a county assessor, the morning of Aug. 17. She told him she had been sexually assaulted by two men, Freeman said, and he could tell she wasn’t ready to go to the police or share it publicly.
“Obviously she was processing it on the phone,” Freeman said. “She was just in shock. She was just horrified by what happened.”
Greene-Placentia said she wishes she had called police immediately and gone to the hospital. After the attack, she took multiple showers and washed the clothes she was wearing, police reports state.
The embarrassment and anger made it hard for her to come forward, she said. She reported the attack to police in late August.
Billeaud and Yu write for the Associated Press.
DAKAR, Senegal — In Miami, Daniela Fuentes styled hair for clients and performed in drag at a nightclub called Azúcar. She wore her blond wig in public and dressed as the woman she had known herself to be since adolescence in Cuba.
Now, more than 6,000 miles away in the Central African Republic, she wears men’s clothes, lowers her voice and tries not to draw attention to the breasts she developed after beginning hormone treatment as a teenager. As part of U.S. efforts to deport people to countries other than their own, authorities sent her Aug. 29 to a place where she has no ties and where advocacy groups have reported arbitrary detention, torture, and other rights violations of sexual and gender minorities.
“Everything is difficult here because I have to hide who I am,” said Fuentes, a 32-year-old transgender woman living on a compound she rarely leaves, sharing a room with four Cuban men also deported from the U.S. “I don’t know this place, the people or the language, and I have no idea what will happen to me.”
The Central African Republic — one of the world’s poorest countries, a place with a history of conflict that the U.S. State Department advises American travelers to avoid — is one of at least 12 African nations that signed agreements to accept “third-country” deportations, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court last month allowed to continue, at least temporarily.
In the Central African Republic — where transgender people have little to no legal protections and are marginalized in much of society — Fuentes dons her wig only in the privacy of her bathroom. She described disguising herself as protection, first in U.S. detention and now in a country she first heard of when she was already headed there on a deportation flight.
“My whole life, my whole identity, was taken away from me,” Fuentes said.
Public records say a judge ordered Fuentes to leave the U.S. but offer no other information. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to emailed questions.
Fuentes’ compound in the capital, Bangui, is an apartment complex where the government houses male deportees.
Fuentes said she can leave but that officials have advised her and others to avoid it — they have no identification, which could lead to issues with the police. It also means they can’t work, she said, and she’s waiting on travel documents that would allow her to leave the country. The International Organization for Migration, an agency associated with the United Nations, has provided food, and the migrants say they’ve crowdsourced for donations to buy groceries.
The U.S. — via agreements often not made public — has deported about 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries that aren’t their own, the vast majority to Mexico, according to a tally by Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First. The U.S. has not released numbers or details.
From January 2025 to August 2026, more than 500 were sent to countries in Africa, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday — including at least 12 people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and were deported to places that criminalize same-sex relations or public same-sex romantic conduct. Some advocates say the number is likely higher.
“These are not bureaucratic errors or isolated incidents,” said Bridget Crawford, of the group Immigration Equality. “They are the predictable result of policies that purposefully abandon our legal and moral obligation to protect LGBTQ+ immigrants fleeing persecution.”
The U.S. government says the policy is lawful and that receiving governments provide assurances deportees won’t be persecuted or tortured.
Fuentes grew up in La Lisa, on Havana’s outskirts, and said she understood from childhood that she was different. She began living as a woman in adolescence and started taking hormones at 18.
She ran a salon from her home, coloring and cutting hair. She said she was harassed because of her gender identity and attacked at least twice, leaving scars on her arm and head. Police also questioned her about operating a private business, she said — though housefront businesses are common in the area.
In 2023, Fuentes sold her home and left amid a deepening economic crisis and a crackdown on dissent — even as Cuba, one of Latin America’s most progressive countries for LGBTQ+ rights, adopted new inclusion laws. Making her way to the U.S., she said, she presented as a man traveling through Central America; she believed it was safer.
After seven months in Mexico, she said, she entered the U.S. through Texas via CBP One, a President Joe Biden-era online appointment system that allowed migrants to live in the country for two years on humanitarian grounds. Then she went to Miami.
There, she began living openly as a woman again. She found work styling hair and performed at Azúcar. Though she lacked permanent legal status, Fuentes said Miami offered something she’d rarely experienced: the freedom to move through daily life as herself.
That ended when officers encountered her outside a motel. Fuentes said they learned she had missed an immigration court hearing in Texas. She said she asked that the case be moved to Florida but received no response.
Fuentes said she was taken into custody and later placed in immigration detention with men. Officials confiscated her wig and gave her a male detainee’s uniform, she said.
Such treatment is in line with a January 2025 executive order directing officials to exclude transgender women from women’s prisons and detention centers.
“When I learned that they were going to put me with men, I almost fainted,” Fuentes said.
Fuentes was held at two detention facilities in Florida, then transferred to Texas. When armed officers arrived there, she said, she suspected she was facing deportation, but they didn’t reveal she was being sent to Africa until about five hours into the flight.
Other deportees on the flight told AP they also weren’t told the destination until they were on the plane. Dozens have been sent to the Central African Republic, including an Iranian woman facing persecution in her home country and an Afghan whose brothers worked with the U.S. military.
Fuentes said she does not understand why she was sent to Africa rather than Cuba. She told AP she has no lawyer.
The U.S. does repatriate Cuban citizens, as part of agreements to resume deportation flights in 2023, despite tensions in relations between the countries. Charter flights have arrived in Havana regularly.
Yasmany Moreno, another Cuban deportee in Bangui, said that upon arriving, the group had no visas or documents establishing their legal status in the country. Officials spoke of providing assistance for 90 days, he said, but the deportees didn’t know what would happen afterward or where they would live.
Several told AP their longer-term status remained unclear and that U.S. authorities had taken their identity documents.
A policy officer at the Central African Republic’s Foreign Ministry said the deportees are in “good hands” and are being monitored by the International Organization for Migration. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The U.S. this year committed to $85 million in funding to IOM for Central African Republic operations including “assistance to migrants” and “community stabilization.”
IOM says migrants can seek asylum in the country, request assistance to return home or get help traveling to another place they’re authorized to enter. It referred questions about the deportees’ status and individual cases such as Fuentes’ to Central African Republic officials. A government spokesperson didn’t reply to phone calls and text messages seeking comment.
Human Rights Watch’s report says some people deported to third countries face detention, abuse and the prospect of persecution. Eswatini has held deportees in a maximum-security prison without charges. Equatorial Guinea has held them against their will at a hotel owned by the president’s family.
“Several of these African governments are not only complicit in U.S. abuses but have violated the human rights of these deported people themselves,” Michael Garcia Bochenek, of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Fuentes said the Cuban men in her room know she is a woman and look out for her. She rarely feels safe enough to leave. Once, at a supermarket, workers pointed at her breasts and initially refused to sell her fruit, she said. Other people in Bangui have mocked her and pointed at her.
“My personal appearance is awful,” she said. “I look like a different human being.”
Moreno described restrictions on the group’s movements, saying officers accompanied them to the market and on occasional outings but restricted them from going out at night.
Fuentes and Moreno said they have no passports or other identification and cannot work. Most days, Fuentes remains at the compound, looking at her phone and waiting for travel documents.
She said Cuba has agreed to accept her return — a Cuban embassy document shows she is authorized.
But Fuentes said she hopes to seek asylum elsewhere, possibly Canada.
“The harassment and economic hardship that caused me to flee still remain,” she said.
Banchereau writes for the Associated Press. Jean Fernand Koena in Bangui, Central African Republic; Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis; and Cristiana Mesquita in Havana contributed to this report.
By Matthew LeeAP Diplomatic Writer
ATHENS, Greece — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio flatly refused to comment on a new report alleging that U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before taking up her post.
Rubio told reporters that he would not discuss the allegations contained in a Wall Street Journal story that said Guilfoyle had asked a donor and supporter of President Trump to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.
He spoke before leaving Greece, where he delivered a speech calling for European countries to return to what he described as their civilizational roots.
Rubio said he was aware of The Wall Street Journal’s report, which was published late Wednesday, but had no idea if it was true and he would not address it.
“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things,” he said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart Greece, looked on.
At a joint news conference with the Greek foreign minister on Wednesday, Rubio said he would not address the allegations while visiting a foreign country, but added, “Suffice it to say our embassy here is doing a great job. Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”
The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees have called for an investigation into Guilfoyle, but Rubio would not say if he was prepared to open one.
Congressional Democrats already were looking into claims reported last month by the Wall Street Journal that Guilfoyle acted improperly while serving as the top U.S. envoy to Greece.
The Journal reported that Guilfoyle told guests at a reception that the U.S. could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company, and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.
Guilfoyle, a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr., has denied any wrongdoing and Rubio has defended her before.
Lee writes for the Associated Press.
Visa probe also targets universities for allegedly exploiting international students to reduce US wage costs.
Published On 8 Oct 20268 Oct 2026
The United States government is suspending several major tech companies, including Adobe and Microsoft, from a programme that gives skilled foreign workers a path to permanent residency amid allegations of fraud.
This comes amid pressure by the White House on companies to hire more Americans. “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” US Vice President JD Vance said at a news conference on Thursday.
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Vance added that the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant laid off 6,000 American workers, while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
“You cannot lay off American workers and replace them with foreign indentured servants,” Vance said.
“When someone comes in, they are completely subordinate to that company. If they lose that job, they have to leave the country.”
Across the tech sector, there have been more than 131,000 layoffs in 2026 alone, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts across the tech and startup industries.
Neither Adobe nor Microsoft responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling also said that several major information technology firms will be suspended from the programme as well. Among them are Indian tech giants Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.
The Department of Labor also said it had uncovered $22bn worth of visa fraud.
“Today we are protecting something far more valuable than any dollar amount. We are protecting the American worker,” Sonderling said.
During the news conference, officials also announced a crackdown on alleged J-1 visa fraud involving nine universities, including MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Cal State, amid allegations that they brought in international students to undercut US wages. A J-1 visa allows foreign nationals to enter the US temporarily for education or cultural programmes. Universities use these visas to bring in international PhD candidates or scholars.
Vance claimed that when schools employ an American as a researcher, that person earns $20,000 more than someone brought in under a J-1 visa.
Al Jazeera asked for data supporting this claim, but the White House did not respond.
Microsoft’s stock slumped 7.5 percent on the heels of the news, while Adobe was up 4 percent in midday trading on Thursday.
The vote in London’s Holborn and St Pancras parliamentary seat tests whether Burnham can restore faith in Labour.
Published On 8 Oct 20268 Oct 2026
Londoners are voting in a special by-election in the electoral district of Holborn and St Pancras, where the Green Party is posing a threat to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour Party.
Zack Polanski, leader of Britain’s left-wing Greens, was among candidates bidding on Thursday to win the parliamentary seat vacated by the resignation of former Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
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Labour has held the seat continuously since its creation in 1983. Thursday’s vote is widely considered a two-horse race with the Greens, with thousands of activists from both parties out canvassing in recent weeks.
The vote is seen as a first test of whether Burnham can restore voters’ faith in Labour, which saw its popularity among left-wing voters plunge over the war in Gaza.
The by-election also offers him a chance to rob the Greens of the momentum they have built up under Polanski, the 43-year-old self-styled “eco-populist” who became party leader in September last year.
Green gains in areas of London contributed to Labour’s dismal local election results in May, which helped set in train a process that culminated on July 20 with Starmer’s resignation and his replacement by Burnham.
He has since adopted a tougher position on Israel and seeks to blunt the Greens’ rise by laying out a more left-wing vision for the UK.
Polanski, as the Greens’ candidate, faces Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, a local council leader who arrived in Britain as a child refugee from Somalia in the 1990s and is expected to be declared the winner.
Polls are scheduled to close at 10pm local time (21:00 GMT) and the result is expected to be announced in the early hours of Friday.
The other candidates are: Barmy Brunch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party; Ewan Cameron, Conservative Party; independent candidate Tom Darwood; Clare Fischer of the Climate Party; George Galloway, Workers Party; Tyler Johnson, Restore Britain; Briony Anne Lonbay Kapoor of Rejoin EU; Peter Newman of Reform UK; Ketankumar Pipaliya, UK VOICE; Jonathan Silberman of the Communist League; Helen Spiby-Vann, Christian Peoples Alliance; Patrick Thomas Stillman, Liberal Democrats; Ben Walker, UKIP.
Italy’s parliament is voting on Thursday on a new electoral law that would make it easier for election winners to form a majority government.
The law, proposed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, would award extra seats to any party or coalition that obtains more than 42 percent of seats in both parliamentary chambers, ensuring it holds a majority.
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Meloni has framed the legislation as a route to greater stability in Italy’s political system, which has often been run by fragile coalition governments. Her critics, however, say the move is actually aimed at boosting her own chances in elections next year.
Here’s what we know about the electoral law and what it means for Italian politics:
Italy currently has a mixed electoral system for its 600-seat parliament, with about 36 percent of members of parliament elected directly in constituencies where the candidate with the most votes wins, and the rest decided through proportional representation.
The system, called “Rosatellum”, has been in place since 2017. It encourages coalition-building but can produce fractured results that make a governing majority hard to forge.
The new legislation would replace the mixed electoral system with a fully proportional one, as well as awarding extra seats to the party or coalition that wins the most seats if it secures at least 42 percent in both chambers.
The bonus would be as many as 70 seats in the 400-member Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and up to 35 seats in the Senate, which has 200 elected members.
That means if a party or coalition meets the 42 percent share threshold in both chambers, it would have stronger power to govern. If no party or coalition meets the threshold, representation would be decided proportionally.
The new law would also force coalitions to announce their candidates for prime minister before the elections. Rado Fonda, head of research at Italian pollster SWG, told the Reuters news agency this provision could “prove problematic for the centre-left, potentially forcing an early leadership contest and exposing divisions that could weaken the bloc”.
Meloni, who currently leads the country’s longest-serving government since World War II, has said the reform will help stabilise the country rather than serve any one political group. “Whoever wins the elections will have the numbers to govern,” she said.
The proposed law has already been approved by the Senate and must now undergo a final secret-ballot vote in the Chamber of Deputies.
Giovanni Orsina, a political scientist at Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli University, predicted that the law is “extremely likely” to pass.
If it fails, Meloni has said she will resign.
Opponents say the law is undemocratic because it could potentially grant a winning coalition a disproportionate level of power in parliament.
They also say that the legislation is intended to favour Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party (Fdl) is bracing for a tough election battle next year.
Riccardo Magi, head of the liberal More Europe party, who is on a hunger strike to protest the proposed reform, has called it an “anti-democratic law” that risks giving a minority bloc a huge majority in parliament.
Senator Matteo Renzi, who leads the Italia Viva party, has accused Italy’s governing coalition of pushing the electoral reform due to a fear of losing power.
Other critics have pointed out that the law would do little to stabilise the political system if no party or coalition reaches the 42 percent threshold in both chambers – a relatively high bar.
“This could produce a hung parliament, making post-electoral negotiations necessary to form a government,” Vincenzo Emanuele, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome and a member of the Italian Center for Electoral Studies (CISE), told Al Jazeera. “Even relatively small changes in coalition composition could make the difference between a clear parliamentary majority and a situation of political deadlock.”
Italy’s next general election must be held by December 22, 2027, although the government can call elections earlier if it wishes.
Currently, Meloni’s Fdl is polling ahead of all other parties, with 27 percent support, according to Politico’s polling aggregator. Her coalition partners, Lega and Forza Italia, have a combined 12 percent support, according to Politico, bringing the coalition share to 39 percent.
Fdl’s polling has been dented by support for a new far-right group, Futuro Nazionale (National Future), Reuters reported. It currently has 7.8 percent support, according to Italian polling institute SWG.
In opposition, the Democratic Party (PD) has 21 percent support, the Five Star Movement (M5S) has 12 percent and the Alliance of Greens and Left (AVS) has 6 percent, according to Politico. The Italy Viva (IV) and More Europe parties have 2 percent support each.
Emanuele said the current landscape means the proposed electoral law would not necessarily favour Meloni and could even benefit the opposition.
He said recent simulations by the CISE have shown that a centre-left coalition including the PD and M5S could potentially reach 44 percent of the vote, securing a “comfortable parliamentary majority”, though that could change if Meloni allies with National Future.
“The reform does not inherently favour the incumbent government: Its effects will depend crucially on how the competing coalitions are formed,” said Emanuele.
Ukraine says it has received proposals from India, Turkiye, Egypt and the United States to broker talks with Russia. The offers come as the two adversaries escalate attacks on each other’s energy and port infrastructure with their war now in its fifth year.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha revealed the four proposals at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday and singled out New Delhi’s. “The most comprehensive is India’s proposal,” he said, adding that India had signalled a willingness to play a role for the first time.
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None of the proposals aims to end the war. Each seeks a narrower truce, covering energy facilities, ports or commercial shipping in the Black Sea.
Here’s what we know:
India has not made its plan public. Quoting unnamed sources, however, Indian media have reported it has three parts. According to the Hindustan Times, it would aim to protect infrastructure, keep grain and energy supplies moving through Black Sea ports, and ensure the safety of commercial shipping.
The first part – mutually halting strikes on energy facilities and ports – matches what Kyiv has been demanding. Sybiha said any deal must be a complete energy truce that covers port infrastructure as well.
The second part builds on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Turkiye and the United Nations mediated in 2022 but Russia abandoned in 2023.
The third part, protecting merchant ships and their crews, is particularly important to India because Indian sailors have been killed or harmed on Black Sea routes.
The sources were quoted as saying India’s plan goes further than the other three proposals because it covers infrastructure and shipping together. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that it incorporates elements of the Turkish, Egyptian and US initiatives. The Kyiv Post reported that Sybiha also described the plan as addressing a possible ceasefire along the front lines, although other accounts said he gave no specifics.
The proposal likely took shape during Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s first visit to Ukraine last month and in a later meeting with Sybiha at the UN General Assembly in New York, also in September. Jaishankar said New Delhi was “trying to be helpful, starting with the Black Sea safety of shipping issue”.
Very little. Neither Ankara nor Cairo has published details. Both reportedly focus on keeping Black Sea grain supplies moving by suspending attacks on commercial shipping. Some reports said the two countries proposed a grain truce jointly while others described two separate plans.
Turkiye has done this before. With the UN, it steered the 2022 grain deal, one of the few narrow truces of the war to hold for any length of time. Ankara and the UN are now organising new Black Sea talks with a round planned for October.
Beyond its Black Sea focus, almost nothing is known about Egypt’s proposal. Its interest, however, is clear: Egypt relies on Ukraine for nearly one-third of its grain supplies.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Washington has proposed three steps: a mutual halt to energy strikes, a reopening of the grain corridor and a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and Russia, possibly in Abu Dhabi.
The latest effort began in early September when US President Donald Trump’s envoys visited Kyiv and Moscow and secured an agreement in principle for a trilateral meeting. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 5 while Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev visited the US twice in September.
The trilateral meeting has since been pushed back. It had been expected to take place in the United Arab Emirates in early October. Washington now wants it in late October, and people close to the talks blamed the delay on Russia.
Washington has also invited Putin to the Group of 20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. The Kremlin said no decision has been made.
At the same time, the US is applying pressure to try to end the war. Trump recently signed a law giving him sweeping powers to sanction buyers of Russian energy.
He has also called on Ukraine to stop targeting Russian diesel facilities amid a diesel prices crisis in the US, where Trump faces tricky midterm elections next month. “Mr Zelenskyy has to do one thing,” he said on September 13. “He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.” This drew much criticism that Trump instead should focus his comments on Russia, which began the war with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He is reportedly sceptical about his own government’s latest diplomatic initiative. People familiar with his thinking have told US media that he doubted Putin would agree to an energy truce before winter.
Sybiha said Ukraine would agree to a truce but with conditions. It would accept an energy and Black Sea shipping ceasefire, but only as a combined package, he said.
He added that Kyiv is also open to an unconditional ceasefire along the current front lines. Zelenskyy backs the US-proposed meeting but stressed it needs “not only Ukraine but also the Russian side” to support it.
Moscow has been warm in tone but has committed to nothing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would welcome India’s peace efforts while Putin said Modi has “very good ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable solutions”, but he did not elaborate.
In private, Moscow appears to have said no. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that Russia has rejected India’s proposal although this has not been confirmed publicly. Ukraine’s agriculture minister said Russia had rejected every Black Sea ceasefire option the mediators have presented.
Food supplies, the lives of their citizens and fuel prices are all at stake.
“I think it’s clear to many countries that this war is not a localised war, but it’s a war that has these global consequences,” Fredrik Wesslau, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.
Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of global wheat shipments, and their attacks on each other’s ports helped push wheat futures to a three-year high in August.
Sailors from countries with no links to the war are being killed. At least five Indian seafarers have died in strikes on Black Sea shipping in recent months along with seven Azerbaijani crew members since June. On Saturday, a Russian strike on a Liberian-flagged ship in a port in the Odesa region killed a crew member. Ukraine, for its part, has targeted tankers it links to Russia’s shadow fleet since July.
The energy war is also being felt in global markets. Ukraine reported more than 194 drone attacks on Russian refineries this year, hitting all 11 of the largest. Bloomberg News estimated that Russia’s fuel output has fallen by more than 30 percent. With Middle East supply already down as a result of the US-Israel war on Iran, global diesel markets are more exposed to the loss of Russian supplies.
Maximilian Hess, a nonresident senior fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said energy is at least as important as grain in driving the diplomatic efforts. He pointed to a “clear frustration” among many countries over high oil prices, which reflect both the Russia-Ukraine war and the crisis in the Middle East.
“Of course, Ukrainian grain is important for them, but the oil-price factor is important there as well,” he told Al Jazeera. “I think it is those commodity-shock concerns that are pushing them to re-embrace this rhetoric, rather than anything else.”
Every previous attempt at diplomacy has failed to end the Russia-Ukraine war. A US-brokered, 30-day energy truce in early 2025 collapsed amid accusations of violations on both sides. At talks in Istanbul in May 2025, Zelenskyy complained that Russia had sent a junior delegation with no authority to sign a ceasefire.
In August 2025, a meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska yielded no results despite Trump claiming to be close to a deal ahead of it.
Wesslau said Washington’s efforts have faltered partly because Trump – who had boasted he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office in January 2025 – has appeared unwilling to put real pressure on Moscow. “The Russians see this, and they conclude that they can continue this war,” he said.
Deep distrust remains. Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said: “Putin never keeps agreements.”
Moscow’s actions on the ground suggest it is in no hurry, Wesslau said “They’re trying to strangle Ukraine, strangle the economy, and make it unliveable ahead of the winter,” he said. He added that Moscow’s occasionally softer rhetoric was aimed mainly at the Trump administration and “has always proved to be a bluff”.
Russia’s terms are another obstacle. Hess said Moscow’s demands have not softened at any point since it launched the war and at times have grown. Putin has demanded all of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, including territory Russian forces have never controlled, as well as a buffer zone in northern Ukraine. Moscow is also seeking sanctions relief and military concessions for any Black Sea deal.
“I don’t think it’s a question of who actually mediates. I think it’s really a question of the calculation in Moscow,” Wesslau said. “Fundamentally, the problem is that Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire or a peace agreement. He wants to continue the war. He believes that he can win.”
Analysts said only greater economic pressure is likely to change that calculation.
Wesslau said if Europe can close down Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, “this would be a massive blow to Russia’s war economy.” Hess said the country best placed to shift things quickly is China, rather than the US, by cutting its purchases of Russian oil. However, he added: “I don’t think Beijing is interested in doing so.”
Hess said that unless there is an outside shock, the war “is much more likely to last another four years than another four months”.
WASHINGTON — Six years after he was released from a California immigrant detention facility, Wilfredo Gonzalez Mena has to sleep with his back propped up by pillows, nearly in a seated position, to avoid gasping for air.
He blames his lasting medical issues on the 10 months he spent in custody until September 2020 at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, during which guards sprayed him and fellow detainees nearly around the clock with a concentrated disinfectant meant to guard against COVID-19.
Now Gonzalez Mena, who is one of six named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2023 over the use of the cleaning solution, is expected to get a six-figure payout as part of a proposed settlement in the case, which was given preliminary approval on Sept. 25 by a federal judge in Riverside. The settlement applies to around 2,700 people detained at the Adelanto facility between March 11 and Sept. 30, 2020, who were exposed to the disinfectant called HDQ Neutral.
“When you least expected it, you would feel the mist,” Gonzalez Mena said. “They would spray us like we were animals.”
The Adelanto facility is operated by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison corporation that has faced criticism for years over conditions at its immigrant detention facilities. The company has also pushed back against California laws seeking to increase oversight of its facilities and inform the public about health and safety shortcomings.
Under the settlement, GEO Group and Spartan Chemical Co. Inc., the company that manufactures HDQ Neutral, acknowledged that HDQ Neutral — which is classified as a pesticide — can cause symptoms including blistering, chemical burns, vomiting, permanent eye damage, and damage to the respiratory tract, throat and stomach.
Those findings can now be used by class members who weren’t named plaintiffs and may pursue their own lawsuits, the settlement says.
Neither GEO Group nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment. After the lawsuit was filed, GEO Group denied its allegations and said cleaning products are used safely and securely, in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidelines and sanitation standards, at all detention centers.
At the time, a GEO Group spokesperson called the allegations “part of a radical politically motivated campaign to attack ICE contractors, abolish ICE and end federal immigration detention.”
The company later swapped HDQ Neutral for a different cleaning product.
Lawyers from the Los Angeles-based civil rights nonprofit Trial Impact Project who are representing the former detainees called the settlement a victory.
Executive Director Sara Haji referenced other pending lawsuits addressing allegations such as medical neglect, retaliation and substandard food and water. Each one is a different lens into the same problem, she said.
“When a company like GEO settles instead of defending itself at trial, and when it admits that the pesticide it sprayed everywhere can cause serious health problems, it should cause us all to sit up and pay attention to what detained people have been telling us about the everyday cruelty of immigration detention,” Haji said.
The lawsuit alleged that GEO Group engaged in a “months-long poisoning” of detainees when its employees sprayed HDQ Neutral inside the facility. Before the pandemic, staffers had used it as a cleaning product. But as COVID-19 spread, they began spraying the concentrated solution across wide areas, “directly into the air and on all types of surfaces,” the lawsuit said.
Detained immigrants quickly began experiencing the effects, the lawsuit claimed, including nosebleeds, headaches and dizziness.
Spartan Chemical warns that inappropriate exposure can cause the types of effects detainees experienced. Long-term exposure has been linked to asthma and, in laboratory studies on animals, reproductive issues and birth defects.
In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency found that GEO Group had violated federal law by misusing HDQ Neutral. The report found that staff and detainees were instructed to apply the pesticide inside the facility as often as every 30 minutes, without proper ventilation and at a dilution rate of 2 ounces per gallon of water, which is double the amount allowed for disinfectant use.
In September 2021, a federal judge ordered GEO Group to discontinue use of HDQ Neutral at the Adelanto facility, writing that it had been used “with a callous disregard for the safety of Adelanto’s detainees.”
Among the more than 100,000 pages of documents released during discovery for the lawsuit was an email from a nurse at the facility to Wendy Baca, who was acting health services administrator at the Adelanto facility for Wellpath, the company providing its medical care at the time.
The nurse wrote that patients were arriving with headaches, rashes and blisters, “we believe, due to the chemicals being used to spray.”
“Some of the officers have also reported ‘feeling burned’ after touching their skin with the same gloves that were used to handle the chemical. Please look into this so we do not endanger everyone we are trying to protect,” the nurse wrote.
Baca appeared dismissive of the nurse’s concern. She forwarded the email to GEO Group’s chief of security, asking him to look into it.
“Please also remind them not to put metal into light sockets, run with scissors, or anything usually avoided with a little common sense,” she wrote.
Mark Anthony Ferretiz, a former GEO Group cook supervisor who worked at the Adelanto facility for 14 years until March 2025, wrote in a declaration that his team was told to spray the red chemical “like Lysol.”
“I could taste the spray in my mouth when I used it, and it felt heavy in my lungs,” he wrote.
At some point, the facility’s safety manager brought men from HD Supply to talk to the staff about HDQ Neutral. After learning how often the chemical was being sprayed, one of the men told Ferretiz that it was “rat poison” and that “you’re going to kill someone like that,” he said.
Years later, former detainees such as Gonzalez Mena say they’re still living with the fallout. The former long-haul truck driver said his health deteriorated so significantly while he was detained that, afterward, he could no longer pass the required physical assessment because of his vision and breathing issues.
To make ends meet, he has turned to online resale.
“My wife says that after I was released, I didn’t go back to being the same person,” he said. “I’ve had depression and I often dream that I am there, in that place, and I want to get out.”
In the past three years, following the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the wider region has been marked by conflict, economic turmoil, and a shattering of the balance of power.
The network of alliances maintained by Iran, long central to its regional power, has been hit hard and severely weakened. Yemen’s Houthi rebels remain one notable exception.
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Israel has made gains. Many of the leaders of the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas have been killed, while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also assassinated in February. Israel occupies most of Gaza, where it has also killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.
Its military aggression has come at a cost, isolating it from its traditional allies and making it globally unpopular, including in the United States. The potential for more normalisation deals with Arab countries seems unlikely, at least in the short term.
Instead, Israel continues to launch attacks across the region, crossing previously held red lines – such as the 2025 attack on Doha, Qatar – and making many governments around the world view it as the primary source of unrest in the Middle East.
“Before October 7, the US’s entire policy in the Middle East rested on normalising Israel’s presence in the region through its so-called Abraham Accords,” HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute said, referring to the normalisation deals with several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates. “Israel’s response to the October 7 attack ended that.”
Instead, rather than a stable Middle East with Israel at its centre, the US entered into a war with Iran this year, and has since looked on as Tehran targeted US allies across the Gulf, shattering the perceived security of the US security umbrella.
Drones and missiles hit Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas hub and started fires near Dubai airport and at Fujairah’s oil zone. In September, the Houthis surged down Yemen’s Red Sea coast, taking the port of Mocha and nearby islands. Their gains tightened their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb strait, threatening a key route for global trade and energy supplies that had become even more important amid disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
“There’s been a loss of faith in the US as a singularly sufficient security guarantor,” Hellyer continued.
“This is why you’re seeing many in the region talk to other external actors, in addition to continuing, and in some cases deepening their US ties, as well as initiatives such as the Mecca security pact as states in the region look elsewhere for ways to safeguard their security,” he said, referring to the defence agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan, signed in August, agreeing that an attack on one was to be regarded as an attack on all.
Alongside the loss of confidence in the US as a security guarantor has come a dramatic reordering of alliances and rivalries. Much of Iran’s network – most notably Hezbollah, whose reputation had long served as a deterrent against Israeli attack – appeared to buckle under Israeli pressure.
That, in turn, emboldened an Israeli military push that saw troops invade Lebanon in October 2024 and again in March 2026, and seize Syrian territory during the brief power vacuum that followed Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in 2024.
“The Middle East has always been multi-aligned. However, now it’s even more so,” Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, said of the increased leverage given to external actors, such as Turkiye in Syria and China’s involvement in negotiations over the end to war on Iran, as Beijing finds its own energy supplies under threat.
“It’s ironic, since October 7, it’s Israel that has emerged as the revisionist power and Iran almost as the status quo power,” she said of the apparent reversal in status of the two belligerents, with Tehran seemingly more focused on regaining the ground it has lost in the last three years rather than advancing beyond them.
However, none of this was to overstate Israeli influence, or liken it to a regional superpower, Vakil cautioned. “Israel may currently be the preponderant military power in the Middle East, but real power is typically classed as being able to project stability, which Israel hasn’t shown itself able or willing to do,” she said.
While Israel and the US hoped February’s attacks would swiftly topple Iran’s government, they have instead opened a new front. Tehran now wields economic leverage over Israel, the US and their partners through the Strait of Hormuz, which borders Iran and typically carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, and through Bab al-Mandeb, which is now threatened by its Houthi allies.
Whatever Tehran’s intentions, the economic pain has been uneven. The West, cushioned by emergency reserves, record US oil production and supplies from countries such as Norway, has so far avoided the turmoil of the 1970s oil shocks, when US drivers queued for petrol, even though the current disruption is on a greater scale. In April, the International Monetary Fund trimmed its 2026 global growth forecast only slightly, to 3.1 percent from 3.3 percent.
Gulf exporters, in contrast, have fared far worse. The same assessment cut its forecast for Saudi Arabia from 4.5 to 3.1 percent, and turned Qatar’s from growth of 6.1 percent into a contraction of 8.6 percent.
“It’s curious, in many ways the West’s reduced need for Gulf oil has increased the degree to which Israel has become a liability for the US,” Israeli political economist Shir Hever told Al Jazeera, referring to a diplomatic alliance between the two states long underpinned by Israel’s strategic position in an oil-rich region central to US interests.
“There’s a train of thought in Israel that the current crises may push the Gulf states into allying with it,” he said, while noting the irony that Israel had been the main aggressor in the conflicts that followed October 7. “Though that seems fairly unlikely.”
Thursday marks 30 days since Israel’s foreign minister ordered the closure of the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem.
Published On 8 Oct 20268 Oct 2026
Workers at the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem have removed its signage as the Israeli shutdown deadline arrives, further damaging strained ties between allies.
Journalists from the Reuters news agency saw workers remove a plaque reading “British Consulate General” from the building on Thursday, as well as another sign for its consular section. The UK flag was still flying over the building.
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Thursday marks 30 days since Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the consulate in occupied East Jerusalem. The move was in response to the UK’s wave of sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements, including a ban on importing goods made there.
The United Nations and most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law. Israel disputes this.
The United Kingdom threatened to expel 27 Israeli diplomats if Israel proceeded to close the consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, according to unverified Israeli media reports.
The consulate has not responded to an immediate request for comment.
Israel has been adamant the consulate will close even as the UK has sought to keep it open, including sending the country’s top national security adviser to Israel last week for talks.
The UK’s presence in the city dates back almost 200 years, long before the state of Israel was established in 1948. The closure order does not affect the UK’s embassy in Tel Aviv, which handles diplomatic relations with Israel’s government.
The consulate, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, handles the UK’s relations with Palestinians in Jerusalem, as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. It also provides consular services to Palestinians.
The UK Foreign Office on Wednesday declined to comment when asked whether the consulate was still operating or if diplomats working there had returned to the UK.
Despite the current strains, the UK and Israel are close economic, security and intelligence partners.
WASHINGTON — President Trump says his administration will make one-time payments of $90 per person to help more than 20 million Medicare enrollees pay for their Part B premiums. It will cost about $2 billion.
Less than one-third of all Medicare recipients are eligible for the payments, which are expected to be sent out this week. Not eligible are roughly 35 million Medicare Advantage enrollees, millions of people with disabilities who get premium assistance and low-income Medicare recipients.
The election-year promise that the Republican president made over the weekend comes as the Nov. 3 midterms are fast approaching, with the cost of living and healthcare expenses among the top issues for voters.
Some questions and answers about the payouts:
Some 20.8 million people in the original Medicare Part B who are living in the United States, not receiving premium assistance from Medicaid or not paying an income-related monthly adjusted amount.
Medicare Advantage enrollees, who make up more than half of the eligible 64.2 million Medicare beneficiaries, will not receive a payment, according to KFF, a healthcare research nonprofit. Nor will 12 million low-income older adults and people with disabilities who get premium assistance.
The Part B program covers expenses such as doctor’s visits, ambulance services and lab tests. Total monthly costs generally start at about $200 and vary with income.
Allison Schuster, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the administration “is enabling Americans to take control of their health by putting money directly back in the hands of Medicare patients.”
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website, eligible beneficiaries will receive one $90 rebate this month, with most getting a direct deposit on or around Friday. Others will receive a paper check from the Treasury Department later in October.
Juliette Cubanski, director of KFF’s program on Medicare policy, said the payment will be automatic.
“As far as a benefit goes, people don’t have to call or sign up — it’s just money they receive directly, but not everybody on Medicare will receive this money.”
A White House fact sheet says people can call (800) MEDICARE ([800] 633-4227) to check their eligibility for the premium rebate. To check on payment status, people should call the Social Security Administration at (800) 772-1213.
Payments will come out of the Medicare Improvement Fund created by Congress in 2008 and intended to make improvements to the Medicare fee-for-service program.
The fund was created to improve program management and conduct oversight of contracts and contractors, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but its purpose has expanded after various legislative changes.
This is not the first time the fund has been used.
President Obama’s administration, along with Congress, redirected $20 billion to expand healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
But under Trump, it is the first time that the fund has been used to directly pay recipients.
Critics of Trump’s promise characterize the $90 payments as a preelection stunt designed to sway voters rather than address structural problems in healthcare costs and administration.
The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, said in a statement that “this is another desperate attempt by a failed president to escape Americans’ revulsion with his failed agenda, amounting to one tank of Trump-inflated gas.”
Trump recently promised $500 rebate checks to an estimated 1 million Obamacare enrollees across 30 states whom the White House alleged were overcharged by the Biden administration for some fees.
Cubanski said the Medicare rebate payments were being doled out when Americans were feeling the bite of higher food, energy and gas prices. Surging healthcare costs are only compounding those pressure, she said.
“This might be helpful for people but it might not go very far.”
Hussein writes for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — President Trump told a crowd in Texas on Wednesday night that he would not allow Iran to attack San Diego or Los Angeles, a comment that came two days after he made off-the-cuff remarks suggesting the West Coast cities could be struck.
“You want to see a horror show? You want to see problems? Let them hit San Diego, let them hit Los Angeles,” Trump said at a rally. He then assured the crowd: “We are not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. We protect our country.”
The San Antonio crowd cheered the remarks.
Trump’s decision to return to the subject capped two days in which the White House had been on the defensive, and it appeared aimed at tamping down the fallout from remarks he made Monday night that quickly spread online.
Speaking to a crowd in Nebraska, Trump had said: “They can take out a city, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.”
The comments drew swift condemnation from California leaders, even as the White House communications director, Steven Cheung, insisted the president’s remarks had been taken out of context.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” Cheung wrote Tuesday. “He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the president. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”
But the remarks were enough to rattle many in California and drew backlash from the state’s leaders, including Republican Jim Desmond, a Navy veteran running in a highly competitive U.S. House race.
“I vehemently disagree with President Trump’s comments,” Desmond wrote on social media. “America must stand up to Iran and defend our interests, but the first responsibility of our Commander in Chief is to protect the American people and our homeland.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday opened the state emergency operations center to assess potential threats following Trump’s remarks. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also condemned the president for potentially compromising the safety of their cities.
“San Diego is not collateral damage,” Gloria posted on social media. “We are not expendable. And we are never a ‘small price to pay.’ Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”
The Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump over television advertisements that were publicly funded and allegedly used to promote his political policies.
Ken Martin, who heads the Democratic Party’s leadership body, suggested in a statement on Wednesday that the ads were designed to bolster Republican odds in the upcoming November 3 midterm elections.
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“Donald Trump is misusing millions of taxpayer dollars to fund pure propaganda ads in a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November,” Martin said.
Later that day, Common Cause, a democracy watchdog group, filed a second lawsuit over the same set of ads.
It argued that the ads were “overtly political” and therefore ran afoul of laws that bar public funds from being used for political propaganda.
“These ads are not public-service announcements,” Common Cause said in its lawsuit, citing a justification Trump has offered for the television spots. “They are personal publicity and political propaganda through and through.”
Both lawsuits argue that, to create the ad campaign, Trump directed the White House to repurpose $20m in funds that Congress allocated for commemorative activities related to border security, including for those killed in the line of duty.
That manoeuvre, they argue, violates the separation of powers established in the US Constitution.
“The founders made clear more than 200 years ago that the executive can spend money only according to Congress’s direction,” Common Cause’s lawsuit said.
The two lawsuits also point to a provision Congress includes in its appropriations bills barring the use of taxpayer funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes”.
Both complaints seek to have the ads declared illegal, and the expenditures stopped. They also call for steps to be taken to recover any money already spent on the ads.
The Democrats’ lawsuit was filed in Washington, DC, while the Common Cause complaint will be heard in the Southern District of New York.
Trump has faced mounting criticism over the ads, which began airing in September.
So far, the advertising campaign has cost more than $12m to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.
The $20m Trump tapped for the ads comes from a $175m package Congress assigned to the Department of Homeland Security as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Critics have pointed out that one of the ads appears nearly identical to a television spot Trump used in his 2024 re-election campaign.
Three ads have aired so far. In one, a choir sings “love me” over a montage of Trump as he declares the US will “never be a communist country”. Another uses images of Mount Rushmore as Trump heralds a new “golden age of America”.
The third is darker: Trump walks towards the camera in black and white, warning of a “final battle” against the “deep state” and other perceived enemies.
On Wednesday, the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos released a poll showing the ads are highly unpopular. Some 86 percent of the Americans surveyed, including four out of five Republicans, said it was inappropriate for Trump to have used public money for them.
Trump has defended the ads as “promotion for the country”, and he has argued they were similar to public outreach campaigns put out by previous administrations.
But after a bipartisan backlash, Trump said on Monday that taxpayer funds would no longer be used for future ads.
He did not, however, commit to paying back the money already spent on the existing ads.
Members of Trump’s Republican Party have been among those speaking out against the ad campaign.
Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said the advertisements resembled something former Hungarian leader Viktor Orban would put out.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, meanwhile, indicated he agreed with the message in one of the advertisements, but he emphasised that “it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars”.
Business groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Teachers Assn. and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California oppose the proposal.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, who are running to replace Newsom, also have spoken out against it.
Opponents describe the wealth tax as a “flawed experiment” that will harm California’s economy because companies and rich people will flee the state.
“If they leave, it will create a huge hole in our budget, threatening core services like education, healthcare and public safety,” arguments against the proposition say.
Opponents of the measure say the proposal is an ineffective attempt to address the long-term effects of the healthcare cuts and would harm California’s economy and budget.
The state budget in California already is largely dependent on income taxes paid by its highest earners. Because of that, revenues are prone to volatility, hinging on capital gains from investments, bonuses to executives and windfalls from new stock offerings, and are notoriously difficult for the state to predict.
Billionaires such as Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of defense tech startup Anduril Industries, and entrepreneur Mark Cuban have pushed back against the proposal on social media. Some tech executives have been relocating or moving their assets to try to avoid the potential tax. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been cutting ties to California, relocating to Nevada while funding groups such as Building a Better California that are backing ballot measures that could nullify the billionaire tax.
More than $187 million has been spent opposing the proposition, with the bulk coming from Building a Better California, cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs and its co-founder Chris Larsen, data from the secretary of state show.
Proposition 39 is opposed by leading state Democrats, major civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and major labor unions in the state, who say the measure would disenfranchise eligible voters and expose voters to identity theft by forcing them to write personal ID numbers on mail ballot envelopes.
According to campaign finance reports, the ACLU of Northern California has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeating the measure. Quinn Delaney, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser for former President Obama, and Patty Quillin, a major philanthropist and wife of Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, both have given $1.5 million.
The Service Employees International Union Local 2015, which represents long-term caregivers, provided $1 million, the SEIU California State Council for Working People gave $500,000, and the California Teachers Assn., through its independent expenditure committee, gave another $500,000.
Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU California and SEIU Local 2015, said in a statement that the group’s members “know our nation is stronger when working people make their voices heard and have their ballots counted,” and that strict voter ID laws “are part of Trump and MAGA extremists’ agenda to rig the election system so they can cling onto their own power and get richer from corporate corruption.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) recently convened a news conference where a slate of Democratic leaders — including state Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Goleta) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) — called on Californians to vote no on Proposition 39.
The Democrats called the measure a “dirty trick” from “Trump acolytes” akin to historic poll taxes designed to disenfranchise Black voters, and a power grab that would seriously harm millions of eligible voters, especially in Black and Latino communities.
“Proposition 39 is a direct assault on everything California stands for. Our people, our values and our fundamental belief that every eligible voter here in California deserves to have their voice heard and deserves to have their vote counted,” Rivas said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath presented a motion Tuesday calling for “bold action” to better protect victims of domestic violence and stalking, seeking to help them more effectively navigate the county’s restraining order system and obtain court-ordered protection.
Horvath cited recent Los Angeles Times reporting on the challenges victims face when obtaining and enforcing restraining orders as an inspiration for the Board of Supervisors motion, which was co-authored by board chair Hilda Solis. The supervisors are scheduled to consider the measure during the board’s Nov. 10 meeting.
“A recent story from the L.A. Times spoke to the process of domestic violence restraining orders and the work done and not being done across the county to support survivors in need of this critical support,” Horvath said.
The Times’ reporting identified at least 63 women killed in 2024 and 2025 in L.A. County whose cases involved a former partner or close relative arrested or charged with their murder. The deaths accounted for more than 40% of the 156 women killed during that period. At least 10 of those women had filed for restraining orders.
In July 2024, the county Department of Public Health’s Office of Violence Prevention issued a report with more than a dozen recommendations for reducing domestic violence homicides by improving access to restraining orders. Today, most of those recommendations have not yet been implemented.
The office said the delay was the result of insufficient funding and challenges with coordinating between the many agencies responsible for the county’s restraining order system.
If passed, the motion would mandate reports from the county’s chief executive, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the departments of Public Health, Mental Health, Consumer and Business Affairs, Public Social Services, and Homeless Services to assess current efforts, improvement plans and additional funding needs.
“We know that domestic violence restraining orders protect survivors and I believe the board must take every step possible to better support and protect our survivors,” she said. “The county,” she added, “must step up and lead in this space.”
The motion calls for allocating millions of dollars annually to fully fund nine county-run self-help legal centers that assist people navigating the restraining order process.
It would also officially identify “Gender-Based Violence and Intimate Partner Violence” as a priority for the Board of Supervisors, and require a presentation from the Sheriff’s Department on how the agency plans to improve its handling of restraining orders.
The Office of Violence Prevention would be required to develop a plan for a “peer navigator model” to guide survivors through the restraining order system.
The Department of Homeless Services and Housing would be asked for an assessment of what additional resources would be necessary to provide emergency beds for all people fleeing intimate partner violence.
Published On 7 Oct 20267 Oct 2026
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in a student-led protest against presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and the growing influence of Brazil’s far right.
The march happened on Wednesday, just days after far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, earned the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential race.
Bolsonaro won 47 percent, ahead of his closest rival, incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who gained 45 percent support.
Since neither candidate surpassed the 50 percent threshold, they will face each other in a run-off on October 25.
The results have triggered fears that Brazil could become the latest Latin American country to see its presidency switch from left to right.
Protesters marched through downtown Rio carrying signs reading “Never again Bolsonaro” and “No to the father, no to the son”. Others held banners reading “Dictatorship never again” and “Get out Bolsonaro”.
“I’m here because I believe in democracy. Because I’m scared,” said Alice Carneiro, 25, an administrator in maritime shipping who participated in the protests. She explained that, under a far-right government, she feared a backlash against her wife, who is transgender.
Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, led the country from 2019 to 2023. But his single-term tenure was marked by a series of controversies related to his far-right policies.
He voiced support for Brazil’s past military dictatorship, which was responsible for the disappearance and murder of hundreds of perceived dissidents. He also spread unfounded claims about the accuracy of Brazil’s election system, leading to a court ruling that barred him from holding office for eight years.
Currently, the former president is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting to overturn his 2022 election defeat. After Lula’s inauguration in 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, reportedly hoping to trigger a military uprising.
Critics have framed Jair Bolsonaro’s actions as a threat to Brazil’s democracy.
But Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has received his father’s endorsement, and he has backed amnesty for his father, a prospect that has raised concerns among protesters.
“I find this rise of the far right and the rise of Bolsonarism in Brazil very, very sad,” said Emmanuel Araujo, 19, who is preparing for university entrance exams.
“Lula might not be my preferred candidate,” Araujo added, “but amid this barbarism, we have to choose between someone we can keep criticising and someone who might take away our right to speak.”
SACRAMENTO — A private prison company is challenging a new California law requiring detention centers to provide medical care, privacy and other civil rights to people detained by federal immigration authorities.
GEO Group, a for-profit prison company, filed a complaint in federal court over Senate Bill 942, also called the Civil Detainees’ Bill of Rights Act of 2026. It mandates that immigrant and other detainees are afforded privacy, safety, hygienic living conditions and other rights.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law last week as part of a package of bills to push back on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement, which the Democratic governor described as “Orwellian.” GEO Group filed its complaint the day after Newsom signed the law.
SB 942 declares that detainees at state, local and privately run facilities have the right to medical, dental and mental health care; physical exercise; clean drinking water and functioning toilets; and other rights. It allows the attorney general to bring civil action against private and public entities that allegedly violate those rights.
GEO Group attorneys argue in the federal complaint that while California elected officials “may disagree with federal immigration policy,” the state “may not impose its preferred immigration-detention standards on federal detention operations, whether those standards would tighten, loosen, supplement, or otherwise alter the federal framework.”
According to its website, the company operates six detention facilities in California, four of which are housing detainees under contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That includes a shuttered state prison that began holding ICE detainees earlier this year.
GEO Group has had some previous success challenging laws seeking to undermine the private prison industry’s role in federal immigration enforcement. A federal court struck down a 2019 law that attempted to bar any “private detention facility within the state” after the company filed suit.
Representatives for GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for Newsom, Atty Gen. Rob Bonta and state Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Salinas), who authored the bill, did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.
WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.
Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.
The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.
Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.
But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”
“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.
Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.
The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Swenson writes for the Associated Press.
A Gallup survey highlights a deep – and historic – partisan divide over confidence in the country’s elections.
Published On 7 Oct 20267 Oct 2026
With less than a month to go before the United States’ pivotal midterms, a new survey found that most independent voters and supporters of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party do not believe the elections will be honest.
Polling from Gallup, released on Wednesday, found 37 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of independents have confidence in the country’s electoral system, significantly lower than US Democrats (63 percent).
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Overall, 49 percent of Americans said they were confident in the honesty of elections, while 51 percent said they were not. Those figures are unchanged from the country’s last midterm election in 2022.
This “marks a change from 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, when confidence was nominally higher among approvers (51 percent) than disapprovers (45 percent)”, Gallup wrote in a statement highlighting the results of the survey.
The numbers highlight a deep, historic partisan divide over confidence in US elections.
“Since 2025 and Trump’s return to the White House, the relationship between leadership approval and confidence in elections has disappeared,” Gallup wrote.
Gallup said that the US is the only country out of more than 100 polled annually over the past 15 years to show this pattern – trust in US election integrity is markedly higher among those who disapprove of the country’s leadership under Trump (52 percent) than those who approve (41 percent).
In more than 100 countries where the polling organisation tracks views of national leadership and confidence in elections, people who approve of their governments have generally been more likely to trust their country’s elections.
In 2025, 70 percent of people globally who approved of their national leadership expressed confidence in the honesty of their elections, compared with 30 percent among those who disapproved.
“The current US pattern is highly unusual compared with the rest of the world,” Gallup wrote.
Under former US President Joe Biden, 81 percent of Americans who approved of the government expressed confidence in elections, compared with just 30 percent of those who disapproved, according to Gallup.
Gallup said the unusual divide could have implications for the November elections, raising questions about whether some voters will view the results as legitimate.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.