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Alexander Volkanovski secured a total knockout in the closing seconds of second round at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.

Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski has retained his featherweight title after making short work of Russia’s Movsar Evloev in the UFC 333 main event in Abu Dhabi.

Volkanovski secured a technical knockout (TKO) with a right hand, followed by a ground-and-pound move in the closing seconds of the second round of their scheduled five-round fight on Saturday.

The official time was 4:54, as the fight was called off with six seconds left to the jubilation of the Etihad Arena crowd in the United Arab Emirates capital.

It was Evloev’s first professional loss and he remained classy in defeat.

“Like I said, Alex is a great champion and it was an honour to share the cage with him,” Evloev said after the loss.

Meanwhile, Volkanovski said he wants to keep stacking wins for as long as he can.

“I’m choosing to do [fight], I don’t have to. I said if I didn’t take too much damage, we will probably keep going. So maybe we keep going,” Volkanovski said.

In the co-main event, Petr Yan won his three-fight series against Merab Dvalishvili in a Russia vs Georgia showdown as Yan swept the scorecards 48-47, 48-47, 48-47 with a mix of a gruelling pace, wrestling, dirty boxing and keeping Dvalishvili at distance to defend his UFC bantamweight title.

Yan beat Dvalishvili last December to regain the title for the second time, having previously won it in July 2020 against Jose Aldo at UFC 251.

The finishes kept coming, but this time in the flyweight division. England’s Lone’er Kavanagh secured a TKO stoppage against Uzbekistan’s Ramazan Temirov with an uppercut, followed by strikes, at 4:28 of Round 1.

At heavyweight, Russia’s Alexander Volkov won a unanimous decision over Rizvan Kuniev utilising dominant wrestling and top control to earn his third-straight win. Volkov called for a title shot at Thursday’s presser, which may have stumped UFC CEO Dana White when addressing him.

Kuniev had his two-fight winning streak snapped.

Opening the main card, Aaron Pico needed just over a minute to TKO Losene Keita of Guinea in their featherweight fight. Pico has won back-to-back fights, while Keita has split his last four.

Israel is heading to the polls on October 27 in an election that could end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long grip on power.

The vote for all 120 seats in the Knesset is the first since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, the onset of Israel’s subsequent genocidal war on Gaza and a wider conflict that has seen Israel carry out attacks in several countries across the region.

Opinion polls suggest his right-wing bloc is in a close race against a Jewish-led opposition alliance. But defeating Netanyahu at the ballot box does not necessarily mean removing him from power.

Israel’s proportional representation system means parties must negotiate alliances to secure a governing majority in the Knesset. No single party has ever won an outright majority of at least 61 seats.

According to recent polling, the opposition bloc is projected to win 52 seats, compared with 50 for Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist alliance. Palestinian-led parties could, therefore, determine who governs.

Here are eight possible outcomes:

Netanyahu forms another government

Despite slightly trailing in opinion polls, Netanyahu could remain prime minister if his Likud party assembles enough parliamentary support from existing allies or new coalition partners.

His traditional partners include far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.

Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism – which have previously joined his coalition multiple times but also walked away, most recently in 2025 – could also play an important role.

An opposition-led majority government

In late September, four opposition parties signed a non-aggression pact, agreeing to work together in a bid to unseat Netanyahu.

The rival movements – the Yashar party, the Democrats, the Yisrael Beytenu party and the Together alliance – said they are united in their goal to “preserve and strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

The bloc has not announced who would lead a future governing coalition, but former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, is seen as its most likely prime ministerial candidate.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Together alliance with Yair Lapid, is another potential candidate.

A coalition involving Ra’am

The Joint List and Ra’am – the two Arab-led parties representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population – are projected to win about 13 seats.

Ra’am, also known as the United Arab List, made history in 2021 by joining Bennett’s coalition, becoming the first Arab-led party to participate in an Israeli governing coalition.

Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra’am, has signalled a willingness to repeat that arrangement if the opposition-led alliance needs additional seats.

He has said his priorities include combatting the wave of violent crime that has been allowed to engulf Palestinian communities, as well as addressing discriminatory government policies, including on housing.

However, most opposition leaders, including Eisenkot, have ruled out such an alliance.

A minority government

If a coalition falls short of 61 seats, it could seek outside parliamentary support from other parties without including them in government, such as the Palestinian-led parties.

Joint List, which includes the Hadash, Ta’al and Balad factions, has said it could provide a so-called safety net to the anti-Netanyahu coalition by agreeing not to stand against it in a confidence vote, even if the alliance does not join the government. In return, it has said it would demand certain conditions, including a path to Palestinian statehood and fighting organised crime.

However, any such arrangement would leave the governing coalition vulnerable to defections and disputes over major policies.

A national unity government

A national unity government, according to Israel’s parliament, is a “government based on a broad coalition, the members of which also include representatives of rival parliamentary groups”.

This is usually formed at times of national emergencies, such as war, natural disasters or economic crises.

In May 2020, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz formed a unity government following three inconclusive elections. That agreement collapsed within a year.

However, in 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, Gantz and members of his party joined Netanyahu’s coalition – seen as an emergency unity government – despite Gantz previously bitterly opposing it.

A rotating premiership

Two political leaders could agree to alternate as prime minister under a power-sharing arrangement.

Netanyahu and Gantz agreed to such a rotation in 2020, but their coalition collapsed before Gantz could take over.

Bennett and Lapid made the same arrangement for the prime minister’s office to change hands after the former came into power in June 2021. After Bennett’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority in June 2022, Lapid took over as caretaker prime minister in July that year.

A different prime minister from the same political camp

In Israel, the prime minister is voted in by members of the Knesset after an election.

If negotiations stall over forming a government, parties could agree to support another Knesset member from Netanyahu’s political camp or that of an opposition bloc, someone who is more acceptable to future partners.

No agreement – another election

If no leader can assemble sufficient support in the Knesset, Israel could face another period of political turbulence and head for a new election.

The country held five elections between 2019 and 2022 as rival blocs repeatedly struggled to form stable governments.

In such a scenario, Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister until a new administration took office.

Maiduguri, Nigeria – For more than 15 years, Kashim Mohammed has hoped that his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, is still alive.

Falmata disappeared in 2011 while travelling with her mother from Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, to Port Harcourt in the south. According to Kashim, the two women were abducted by unidentified gunmen.

Years later, a man approached Kashim at Baga Road Market in Maiduguri with news that briefly revived the family’s hopes of finding the women. He claimed Falmata had been found in Benin and was searching for her relatives.

But the man disappeared without leaving contact details. Kashim said he has never been able to establish whether the information was genuine.

“From then until now, nobody knows anything about the man who brought the information,” he said.

Kashim, 39, chairs the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons’ Families, a community organisation based in Bolori II, Ngarnam ward, Maiduguri. He said years of violence have torn his family apart.

“As a result of the violence, I lost my sister from the same father,” he said.

Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at Maiduguri’s State Specialist Hospital. Kashim said his father died at 60 from an illness he attributed to high blood pressure without learning what had happened to his daughter.

Kolo had refused to abandon hope that she would return.

“Our father always said, ‘Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,’” Kashim recalled.

A brother still searching

For Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, the disappearance of his elder brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, has left a similar void.

Muhammad, 29, said Bakura went missing around 2012 or 2013 when Muhammad was about 14. His brother, then believed to be in his early 20s, sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and was studying civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic, according to Muhammad.

“I sincerely lost my brother as a result of the Boko Haram crisis,” Muhammad said.

Boko Haram’s armed rebellion began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009. The conflict has devastated communities through attacks, abductions and displacement, leaving families searching for relatives whose fates remain unknown.

Muhammad said Bakura’s family searched across Maiduguri. A rehabilitation centre offered them some hope.

“Whenever we heard that rescued people had been brought to the rehabilitation centre in Bulumkutu, we went there with Bakura’s pictures, but unfortunately, nobody recognised him,” Muhammad said.

Muhammad said his father and stepmother, who was Bakura’s mother, later died from illnesses the family attributed to hypertension. He and other relatives continue to search, without confirmation of whether Bakura is alive or dead.

Thousands of families, thousands of questions

The two families’ experiences reflect the uncertainty facing relatives of people who have disappeared during more than a decade of conflict in northeastern Nigeria.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), working with the Nigerian Red Cross Society, has supported efforts to trace missing people and reconnect separated families.

Local advocates for missing people cited an estimate of 17,000 people missing across northern Nigeria, many of them linked to the conflict involving Boko Haram and its aftermath. Kashim said his association’s records indicated that about 10,000 people are missing in Borno State alone. He added that many families have yet to register their missing relatives.

The sources for the estimates cited by advocates and the association, their geographical coverage, reporting periods and methods of compilation have not been independently established for this article.

Behind the estimates are families who have spent years searching, parents who have died without learning what happened to their children and children growing up without a parent.

Some people reportedly disappeared during attacks on their communities. Others became separated from relatives while fleeing violence or travelling between towns. Families search hospitals, displacement camps and centres receiving people rescued from conflict areas, often following leads that prove impossible to verify.

Even when names, photographs and personal details are submitted to organisations involved in tracing missing people, locating relatives can take time.

An association born out of loss

Kashim said his search for Falmata helped motivate him and other affected families to establish their association in 2023. He said the organisation obtained registration with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025.

Members meet monthly to share information and discuss their circumstances. Some families have reported losing eight or nine relatives, according to Kashim.

“In our community of Bolori II, we have many families who lost their relatives as a result of years of violence that ravaged northeastern Nigeria,” he said.

Kashim said the group sometimes receives notices from the Red Cross containing names and details of missing people. These can give families leads to pursue although they do not necessarily mean a relative has been located.

The association also supports children affected by the disappearances. Kashim said it was assisting about 600 orphaned children from affected families. Some attend school while others have dropped out because their relatives cannot afford to pay for their education or other basic needs.

“We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions,” he said, adding that the ICRC had distributed relief items to some families.

When a missing person is a parent or breadwinner, relatives must cope with lost income while trying to provide food, shelter and schooling for children. The association’s work has consequently expanded beyond tracing missing people to helping families manage the hardships their disappearances leave behind.

Floods add to the losses

The search became harder for some families after devastating floods struck parts of Maiduguri in 2024.

Kashim said floodwaters submerged parts of Ngarnam and destroyed photographs that families had kept to help identify missing relatives.

Photographs can be vital when families try to identify people who have been rescued, displaced or found in unfamiliar communities. Without them, relatives must rely on names, physical descriptions and memories.

Kashim said some families now have little beyond remembered details and surviving records to help identify their relatives.

The floods added another obstacle to searches already complicated by years of conflict, displacement and uncertainty.

Waiting for an answer

For Kashim, finding Falmata would resolve a question that has haunted his family since 2011. His father died believing she might still return, and the family has never established whether the report of her discovery in Benin was true.

Muhammad’s search for Bakura continues without the parents who once helped him look for his brother.

Both families are appealing to anyone who may have information about their missing relatives. For them, finding an answer would mean more than ending a search: It would establish what happened to someone whose absence has shaped their lives for years.

Kashim’s message to his sister remains a plea for a reunion that his family has waited years to see.

“Falmata Mohammed, if you are alive anywhere in this world, we are the family of late Mohammed Kolo in Bolori II, Ngarnam. We are waiting for you,” he said.

Polls show populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in a tight race against the anticorruption and anti-authoritarian movement.

Serbians are voting in parliamentary elections amid a mass student protest ⁠movement that seeks to oust longtime populist leader Aleksandar Vucic, who has held power as prime minister and then president for more than a decade.

The snap elections, called by Vucic in September, follow almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption ⁠and creeping authoritarianism, triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024.

The students have since gained widespread support.

A loss for Vucic ⁠would mark a profound political shift in the Balkan country of some 6 million people, reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban in April.

But Vucic, who resigned as president in September to run again for prime minister, is a strong incumbent. Many voters thank him for pulling Serbia out of economic obscurity and ‌orchestrating a period of sustained modernisation.

“The Serbian election ⁠is shaping up to be a watershed moment for the country as the Student List mounts the biggest challenge against Vucic yet,” Mario Bikarski, senior Europe analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told the Reuters news agency.

During the campaign, Vucic has promised higher pensions and public sector salaries, investment in state healthcare, and subsidies for young couples. He has balanced closer ties with China, a major investor, and Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally and principal supplier of natural gas, while leaving the door open to joining the European Union.

But relations with the EU have frayed under his leadership, with the bloc growing increasingly frustrated over a lack of reforms addressing the judiciary, the rule of law and corruption.

The Student List movement’s agenda focuses on rooting out corruption and improving schooling, while saying little about their international ambitions.

Their roster of 250 largely unfamiliar candidates, including university professors, actors and farmers, is led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic.

Opinion polls are predicting a tight race.

An Ipsos poll published on Thursday gives Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party 47 percent ⁠of the vote to the students’ 40 percent, though other polls have put the students ahead.

Rights groups and activists say repression has worsened since the deadly train station canopy collapse, which was widely blamed on government corruption and sparked the student demonstrations.

About 150,000 supporters of the student movement rallied in central Belgrade on Thursday.

Vucic and his party have repeatedly denied accusations of repression, corruption and spying on their opponents.

The former president claims the students are funded by foreign agents in Croatia and Montenegro, a charge the students deny.

The settlement is the second-largest after an $880m ​deal reached by the Archdiocese of Los ​Angeles in 2024.

The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to pay more than $800m to settle the legal claims of about 1,300 survivors of sexual abuse by clergy.

New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks said on Saturday that the settlement will be formally signed on November 6 after an agreement with the plaintiffs and their lawyers.

“We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors,” he wrote in an email sent to his priests and shared by the archdiocese’s news outlet.

“This agreement will also allow the archdiocese to turn its full attention once again to its mission of preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, caring for the poor and needy, welcoming the stranger, and educating our children,” he added.

According to The New York Times, which broke the story, each of the approximately 1,300 survivors will receive at least $250,000 from the Archdiocese of New York and potentially more depending on the severity of the abuse suffered.

The settlement is the second-largest of its kind after an $880m deal reached by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2024.

“The unanimous agreement of survivors who filed claims against the Archdiocese of New York marks a powerful moment in the pursuit of justice,” Jeff Anderson, a lawyer representing people who filed more than 1,000 claims against the Catholic Church in New York state, said in a statement.

“Through their courage, sacrifice, and determination, survivors have helped bring about a reckoning and a meaningful step toward accountability.”

Scandals and settlements

The agreement marks the end of years of negotiations with lawyers representing the plaintiffs, as the Catholic Church in the United States has been mired in sexual abuse scandals since the early 2000s.

In the 2000s, media investigations revealed that Catholic priests in the US had committed sexual abuse against thousands of children over several decades, and that church leaders had often covered up these cases or transferred the offending priests instead of reporting them to civil authorities.

Dioceses across the country have had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and programmes have been created to compensate survivors without going to trial.

In June, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced it had reached an agreement to pay $395m to about 530 survivors of sexual abuse committed by its clergy to settle their lawsuits.

The two leading candidates condemn recent deadly Black Sea drone strikes but differ on the Ukraine war more broadly.

Bulgarians are voting in a presidential election amid the spread of Russia’s war on Ukraine to the waters off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, President Iliana Iotova, 61, and ex-caretaker Prime ⁠Minister Andrey Gyurov, 50, were leading a field of 27 candidates in the polls.

⁠The presidency is a largely ceremonial post in Bulgaria. While major policies must be approved by Parliament, direct election gives the president greater political authority. The president leads the armed forces and can veto legislation, sign international treaties and appoint ambassadors.

The election has also gained attention after a series of drone attacks on merchant ships off Bulgaria’s coast that likely killed some two dozen international seafarers.

The drone strikes ‌sparked international condemnation and concerns about the growing reach of the war in Ukraine, prompting Bulgaria to seek allied assistance to bolster its maritime security.

The Bulgarian government has stopped short of explicitly blaming Russia for the attacks, but Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the outcome of the strikes “benefits the Russian Federation”.

Relations with Russia, West at stake

The two leading candidates for president have both condemned the strikes, but they differ on the broader war in Ukraine.

Gyurov, who served as caretaker prime minister this year, is backed by ⁠pro-Western, reformist parties and has long expressed support for Ukraine. He ⁠signed a security cooperation agreement with Kyiv during his time as premier.

“I want Bulgaria to have a voice of its own in Europe, a reliable NATO ally that defends its interests through preparedness, strong diplomacy and ⁠a clear position,” he said at a rally on Thursday.

Iotova, a former vice president, became acting president in January after Radev resigned to ⁠enter the parliamentary race, which he won on what many ⁠political analysts considered a Kremlin-friendly ticket.

Radev supports Iotova, and they both call for a diplomatic end to the war.

“My opponents argue that there must be ‌a war of attrition,” Iotova told a rally on Thursday. “The truth is, we are all the ones who are most exhausted.”

While there is a broad consensus among the parties in Parliament on the country’s pro-Western path, widespread pro-Russian sentiments based on traditional historical and cultural ties with Russia have divided society, particularly since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Dobromir Zhivkov, managing director of the Market Links polling agency, said Iotova is among those who advocate that Bulgaria take a more neutral position.

“They call for an end to aid for Ukraine and a halt to arms deliveries to Ukraine; we often hear them use Kremlin rhetoric and terminology borrowed directly from Kremlin propaganda,” he told The Associated Press news agency earlier this week.

Run-off vote expected

Candidates are also addressing public fears about the steep rise in energy prices and surging inflation, with many Bulgarians in rural areas struggling to make ends meet.

Polls by Alpha Research give Iotova 41 percent of the vote and ‌Gyurov ‌28 percent.

Voting starts at 7am (05:00 GMT), and polls close at 8pm (18:00 GMT).

Analysts expect none of the 27 candidates to secure the outright majority needed to win in the first round, however.

Turnout must also be above 50 percent of the 6.6 million registered voters, and Sunday’s turnout is expected to be less than 40 percent, which means a likely run-off on November 1.

Two years after United States voters delivered a stunning rebuke of the country’s Democratic Party by electing Republican President Donald Trump to a second nonconsecutive term, some of the party’s midterm candidates are reassessing stances on a host of hot-button issues.

Whether they have dialled it back on issues like transgender rights or ramped up efforts to oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Democrats in some of the toughest midterm battleground races are responding to voter concerns – or even breaking outright with party leadership.

Those shifts have resonated with some voters, while others have been alienated as the party tries to find its footing in Trump’s second term and wrestle away control of both houses of Congress from Republicans.

But in the time since Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, Democratic divisions have only grown deeper. Establishment and self-described moderates within the party have struggled to hold back a rising tide of progressive populism as voters increasingly demand stronger, bolder policies.

That movement, powered by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, has forced a reckoning over what it means to be a Democrat in Trump’s second term, leading to significant differences among candidates on policies that often depend on where they are running.

Here’s how – and why – the party has shifted:

Democrats’ shifting views on Israel

The most notable shift among Democrats has, arguably, been on Israel.

Three years after Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza and killed more than 74,000 Palestinians following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, polls have suggested that Americans hold increasingly negative views on Israeli military actions.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year suggested that 60 percent of US adults had an unfavourable opinion of Israel. That number is significantly higher – 80 percent – among US Democrats.

In response, some longtime Democratic supporters of Israel – including Senator Chris Coons, who is likely to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats retake control of the Senate next month – have shifted, as voters, especially younger ones, demand greater accountability from the US ally.

The moderate Delaware Democrat told Politico in an interview this month that he wants a “thorough reexamination” of the US-Israeli relationship and is even willing to impose sanctions on Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is a marked change in tone after Harris rejected calls to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Earlier this year, 40 Democratic senators voted in support of a motion that disapproved proposed military sales to Israel. Only seven Democratic senators voted with Republicans to block it.

But as a new Congress may include even more progressive voices demanding the US rethink its relationship with Israel, those calls would likely be met with stiff resistance from some in the Democratic leadership, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The New York Democrat, who would likely become majority leader if Democrats retake the Senate, has said that the US “commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad”.

Have Democrats changed their positions on transgender rights?

Following years of attacks from Republicans, Democrats in tightly contested US House or Senate races have downplayed – or outright dismissed – support for the transgender community, mostly when it comes to the participation of transgender students in school sports.

In Ohio, Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur ran an advertisement featuring her saying, “Boys should not play in girls’ sports”. And in North Carolina, Representative Don Davis released a television commercial in which the Democrat says there “should always be a safe and fair space for women and girls in sports”.

Next door in South Carolina, Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews, a doctor, said in a newly released advertisement that she opposes “biological men playing in women’s sports”.

Trump’s return to the White House was fuelled, in part, by a now-famous advertisement in the 2024 campaign that highlighted Harris’s support for transgender Americans.

“Kamala is for they/them,” a narrator said in the advertisement, referring to gender neutral pronouns used by some in the transgender and nonbinary community. “President Trump is for you.”

But the reassessment of transgender rights after the commercial’s airing is not taking place in every part of the party.

On Thursday at a “Students vs Billionaires” town hall in Portland, Maine, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed concerns from a transgender college student who told the New York progressive that they felt “abandoned” by Democrats.

“They’re wrong”, Ocasio-Cortez said about some members of her party. “First and foremost, I want to just let you know how shameful and sorry I am that there are people out there that scare so easily after an election”.

The congresswoman added, “The moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen.”

What has changed on immigration and border security?

During former US President Joe Biden’s term, Democrats encountered near-daily attacks from Republicans on the country’s immigration system.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 8 million encounters at the US-Mexico border between 2021 and 2025, fuelling concerns among some voters that the Biden administration had ignored the issue.

In Texas’s closely watched Senate race, candidate James Talarico has positioned himself as a “border security Democrat”, advocating for stronger border enforcement and comprehensive immigration reform.

Third Way, a US-based organisation that pushes for moderate policies, said stances like Talarico’s resonate better with voters because they have taken a proactive, rather than a reactionary approach.

“I remember very clearly when Harris came out and spoke at the DNC in 2024; she… said we need order at the border and to have a strong immigration system”, Third Way’s senior political adviser, Lucas Holtz, told Al Jazeera.

“The problem is, after that, the Harris campaign really did not stick with that line in the sand… They stopped taking a stand on these issues, and more voters thought that she was too far to the left.”

“[Talarico] is making the case in a lot of his ads that the Biden administration failed on securing the border… It’s putting Republicans on their back foot in some of these races.”

But among progressives, Trump’s response to the nation’s immigration issue has also prompted a strong swing to the left.

After several high-profile incidents earlier this year – including federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shooting dead US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti  – calls to abolish, or drastically overhaul, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gained momentum.

Left-leaning political groups and politicians have united behind a message of “abolish ICE”, which would dismantle the federal agency and end its enforcement authority.

Do Democrats support Medicare for All?

As cost-of-living issues remain paramount for voters, Democrats of all stripes have coalesced behind the need for more government intervention in the country’s healthcare system.

But how exactly the party addresses rising medical costs remains up for debate.

Some progressives, including Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, have championed policies like Medicare for All, which would expand the nation’s federal health insurance programme for seniors so all US citizens would be guaranteed healthcare.

Others running in more conservative states, like Andrews, have called for the return of Affordable Care Act subsidies that lapsed during Trump’s second term, as well as limits on health insurance companies’ profits.

Polling released by the independent health organisation KFF suggested that 66 percent of US adults now support Medicare for All, a 13-point increase from October 2020.

“Everybody’s going to have their own approach to this, but by and large, all Democrats want to move to a universal healthcare system in the best way possible”, Holtz said.

“We’re in agreement that we need to do better than what the Trump administration has done.”

President Lula da Silva rallied in Sao Paulo and Flavio Bolsonaro in Minas Gerais, on the eve of Sunday’s runoff election. The candidates are now polling at 50% each, according to a Datafolha poll.

Houthi missiles reportedly struck a number of targets in Yemen, including Aden’s airport and a coastguard base.

Houthi fighters have launched a series of attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia and the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government in Aden.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the Yemeni government’s Transport Ministry denounced what it described as the Houthis’ targeting of Aden International Airport with two ballistic missiles, calling it the “fourth such attack this month”.

The airport attacks pose “a threat to the safety of civil aviation” and have “humanitarian and economic repercussions for citizens” who rely on it, the ministry warned.

Yemeni authorities said that the coastguard headquarters and a second building were also hit.

The Houthis claimed attacks on the al-Nasr camp and Aden’s naval military base.

Yemen’s army said a Houthi missile killed three people when it malfunctioned and fell on a family home in Houthi-held Sanaa on Friday. The army said it was one of a number of missile malfunctions seen in recent weeks by the Iran-backed group.

Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV said on Saturday that Saudi coalition air strikes killed several civilians in Sanaa and in the port city of Hodeidah. The claim could not be verified and Riyadh has not commented on the alleged raids.

Saudi attacks

Also on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence said on X that the Houthis had launched two ballistic missiles towards Mecca and Medina, warning of “the fall of shrapnel” following their interception.

Images shared on X by the Saudi Press Agency appeared to show a large, blackened missile-shaped object that had landed somewhere in Saudi Arabia.

Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, described the Houthi attacks as “heinous”, which embody “a blatant disregard for the lives and security of civilians” in a statement shared on Saturday.

The Houthis said the claim that they targeted the two cities – the holiest in Islam – was a “huge lie”. They said their targets were three Saudi airports, oil infrastructure, and an airbase.

The Houthis have persistently targeted Saudi energy infrastructure and airports across the country with long-range strikes since a fragile ceasefire agreed in 2022 fell apart in July.

Fighting rages

Intense fighting is continuing on Yemen’s front lines as the Houthis battle forces of the internationally recognised government for control of key areas.

On Saturday, Yemeni army spokesman Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili said that government forces had carried out more than 700 “targeting operations” over the last 24 hours across Yemen, “neutralising” 300 Houthi fighters and disabling military vehicles.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify those figures.

Operations targeted field command centres, Houthi gatherings, weapons depots, and supply lines in Taiz, where intense clashes have been ongoing for days, the spokesman added.

Opposition figures join Tel Aviv protesters demanding an independent October 7 inquiry.

Thousands of Israelis are protesting against the government and calling for an independent inquiry into the security failures that led to the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Demonstrators rallied in the public plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday, three days before Israel’s first general election since the genocidal war on Gaza began.

The protest was organised by the October Council, a group founded by the families of captives taken to Gaza three years ago, to demand accountability for the government’s failure to prevent the Hamas attack that preceded the war.

“Three days before the election, we will hold the culminating event marking three years of struggle to uncover the truth, demand accountability and establish a state commission of inquiry,” the October Council wrote on X ahead of the rally.

Elsewhere in Israel, protesters were also gathering for antigovernment demonstrations, reported Haaretz newspaper.

Taking part were leading figures from opposition parties, including Gadi Eisenkot of the Yashar party, who is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main centre-right rival.

In Tel Aviv, Eisenkot was greeted by chants of “Who’s coming? The next prime minister”, according to The Times of Israel. The leader of the Democrats, Yair Golan, was also at the rally.

“Masses, masses of masses, flowing in the ‘Democrats’ march from Rabin Square to the Hostages Square – for change, for hope, for r-e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n. What energy. This time it’s ours completely!”, Israeli citizen and lawyer Dan Adin posted on X.

Polls ahead of Tuesday’s election suggest a tight race, with Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, in power since late 2022, neck and neck with Eisenkot’s. Neither bloc is currently projected to obtain a majority of seats in Israel’s parliament.

The election could be pivotal in determining whether Israel launches another round of strikes on Iran. Eisenkot is believed to be less inclined to resume military action against Tehran if he becomes Israel’s next prime minister.

However, on most other foreign policy issues, leading Israeli parties and politicians remain united, including in their opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Ahead of the protest, the October Council alerted law enforcement to possible “provocations” from pro-government agitators.

“We have sent an urgent letter to the Police Commissioner following alerts about attempts by entities linked to the coalition to disrupt tonight’s rally,” it wrote on X.

The October Council aims to hold Israeli officials deemed responsible for the October 7 attacks to account and deliver justice for affected families.

Netanyahu’s coalition government, however, has refused demands to establish an independent commission of inquiry. Instead, it has offered to set up a “political” commission. Half of the commission’s members would be appointed by the government, while the remainder would be appointed by opposition legislators.

Opposition leaders have said they would boycott a commission appointed by politicians.

Demonstrators want pensions to remain indexed to inflation and the gender pension gap to be eliminated.

Approximately 25,000 people have gathered in the Spanish capital in support of the state pension scheme, as protests continue across Europe, prompted by a range of issues, including the cost of living, school conditions and alleged corruption.

Protesters from across the country marched through Madrid on Saturday before next month’s general election.

The pressure on Spain’s state pension scheme is being driven by several factors, including an ageing population, a low birth rate and wage stagnation, as well as a declining ratio of workers to pensioners.

Demonstrators are concerned that the state pension scheme could be significantly weakened depending on who wins next month’s election. The country’s monthly pension bill hit a record high this year of almost 14.5 billion euros ($16.2bn).

Protesters marched from Atocha train station to the Gran Via, Madrid’s busiest and most famous street.

Several of the demonstrators carried banners reading “protect and guarantee our pensions”.

Emilio Delgado serves as the deputy spokesperson of the left-wing party Mas Madrid in the Assembly of Madrid. Posting on X, he said that “no pension should be below the minimum wage. A lifetime of work deserves a dignified retirement.”

Protesters want pensions to remain indexed to inflation and are calling for the gender pension gap to be eliminated.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has accused the right-wing Popular Party (PP) of planning to weaken inflation-linked pension increases if it wins next month’s election.

However, leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo said on Monday that he would continue to raise pensions in line with inflation if his party wins the vote.

Sanchez has pledged to protect pensions if he remains in office and says the current pension system is affordable.

The system has gradually become more reliant on state funding because of a growing number of pensioners and increases in monthly payments.

Trump’s remarks come amid a fractious moment between the US president and the journalists who cover him.

United States President Donald Trump has confirmed he could move the White House press corps to a different location, possibly away from the executive residence.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump described reports that he planned to remove the White House press briefing room in favour of restoring a historic swimming pool located underneath as “Fake News”.

“I NEVER even thought to do such a stupid thing!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.

Trump, however, indicated he may relocate dozens of reporters who cover the White House “to a less obnoxious location”.

The New York Times on Tuesday reported that Trump had pitched his former press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on an idea to move journalists out of the White House’s storied James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. That proposal did not move forward during Leavitt’s tenure, which ended on August 27.

Trump’s remarks come amid a fractious moment between him and the journalists who cover him.

Last month, Trump banned journalists from three US-based media outlets – CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO – from the White House, a move that proponents of free speech said violated First Amendment protections.

A US federal judge ruled that the order was likely unconstitutional, forcing the White House to restore the journalists’ access. The Trump administration continues to fight the ruling.

Trump has also regularly chided and denigrated members of the media he claims cover him unfairly.

The latest incident was during an Oval Office event on Tuesday when Trump attacked The Independent’s White House Correspondent Andrew Feinberg.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you a sick person? I actually think there’s something wrong with you”, Trump said as Feinberg tried to ask a question. The moment was amplified by the White House on social media.

If Trump opts to proceed with changes to the White House press briefing room, it would be the latest in a long list of controversial projects he has ordered that would transform the property.

Since returning to power last year, the US president has demolished the White House East Wing to construct a new ballroom, installed concrete pavers over the lawn centred in the White House Rose Garden and built a helipad on the South Lawn.

The Times reported Trump told aides he wanted to bring back a West Wing indoor pool constructed in 1933 for use by President Franklin D Roosevelt, who suffered from polio and often swam, according to his presidential library, to ease soreness.

In the 1970s, former President Richard Nixon had a floor constructed above the pool to accommodate a briefing room for the growing White House press corps. The pool remains beneath the floor of the briefing room.

Leavitt confirmed during a Friday interview that Trump was “flirting” with the idea of restoring the pool.

“He just, maybe, wants to restore it to all of its glory”, Leavitt said during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”. “I don’t know if he’ll do it.”

The White House did not immediately return Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The race between Brazil’s president and the right-wing senator has tightened in recent days.

⁠Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula ⁠da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro remain about even on the eve of Sunday’s election run-off, shows a CNT/MDA poll.

The right-wing ‌senator, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, would receive 46.3 percent of the vote compared ⁠with 45 percent for the leftist ⁠Lula, according to the poll released on Saturday. Last week, ⁠the poll showed Bolsonaro leading ⁠Lula 46.8 percent to ⁠45.9 percent.

MDA surveyed 2,032 people from October 21 to ‌October 23, with a margin of error of 2.2 ‌percentage ‌points.

The poll comes the day after the final debate before the presidential run-off.

The candidates questioned each other on Friday about Brazil’s economy, infrastructure and regional development.

Bolsonaro accused the incumbent of allowing organised crime to expand, driving families into debt and not addressing the higher cost of living.

“He doesn’t know what hunger is,” Brazil’s first working-class president said of Bolsonaro. “He doesn’t know Brazil.”

Sunday’s vote comes after Bolsonaro finished first in the initial round of voting on October 4 with 47 percent to Lula’s 45 percent.

A Datafolha institute survey published on Thursday suggested the pair are now tied with 50 percent support each, compared with Bolsonaro’s four-point lead in polls published two weeks ago.

Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi next month.

Ukraine says restrictions on its military’s Starlink satellite connections have been lifted after more than a week of disruption that hampered drone operations against Russian forces.

Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said on Saturday that Starlink and Starshield connections were stable on equipment travelling above 400 kilometres per hour (250 miles per hour). He credited talks with Washington and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s diplomacy.

Ukraine relies heavily on Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite services for communications and drone missions. However, who ordered the restrictions remains unclear, with US President Donald Trump denying responsibility while defending Elon Musk.

The disruption further strained relations between Kyiv and Washington, already under pressure over Trump’s agreement to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel and allow US imports.

Trump also called earlier this month for Ukraine to have a new president, then suggested on Monday that someone other than Zelenskyy should negotiate for Kyiv. The exchanges follow their public confrontation at the White House in February 2025.

Talks planned in Abu Dhabi

The lifting of the Starlink restrictions comes as the United States seeks to revive peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November, more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the planned negotiations on Friday, while Zelenskyy also announced agreement on technical-level meetings.

It comes as Trump credited his wife, Melania Trump, with securing a local ceasefire in Oleshky, in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, which Russian forces have occupied since 2022.

Subsequent Ukrainian and Russian statements putting the ceasefire’s start on October 27, with the humanitarian operation planned for October 29.

Deadly attacks continue

A Russian missile strike on Lozova, in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, killed a man and wounded two others on Saturday, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said, while in northern Ukraine, a Russian attack on Chernihiv on Friday killed a man and wounded at least 25 people, local authorities said.

Shelling in Kramatorsk killed one person and wounded six, including three children, according to Donetsk officials. In nearby Sloviansk, attacks on Friday killed a 62-year-old woman and wounded four people, Mayor Vadym Lyakh said.

Ukraine reported strikes inside Russia on Friday and overnight into Saturday, including on Togliatti’s Togliattikauchuk petrochemical plant, a major synthetic rubber producer. Mayor Ilya Sukhikh confirmed industrial damage but reported no casualties.

Ukraine also said it struck Oryol’s Proton electronics plant, which it says makes missile components. Regional Governor Andrei Klychkov reported three deaths in an attack on an unidentified facility.

Authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea reported power cuts after overnight Ukrainian attacks.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defences intercepted a SCALP cruise missile, four Neptune missiles and 1,297 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over 24 hours, TASS reported. The figures could not be independently verified.

Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany collapsed during training on Friday but is said to be ‘stable’ in hospital.

Bayern Munich expect coach Vincent Kompany to miss an extended period as he continues his hospital treatment for a virus after collapsing on the training pitch.

Speaking at a news conference on Saturday, a day after the collapse, Bayern Director of Sport Max Eberl confirmed Kompany was still hospitalised in a “stable” condition.

Kompany’s English assistant coach Aaron Danks will replace the 40-year-old for Sunday’s Bundesliga match at Freiburg.

Eberl told reporters “examinations were continuing” to determine the nature of the former Manchester City and Belgium captain’s condition with a recovery timeframe yet to be determined.

“Vinnie will be given all the time he needs. We’re not starting to put together any timeframes.

“We need to firstly figure out what it is, and then we’ll discuss calmly what the recovery time is to be. We won’t be talking about days but weeks. We need to all be clear on that.”

Taking Saturday’s news conference in Kompany’s absence, Danks said he had spoken with the former centre back briefly on Friday but only to wish him well.

“I explained to him that we wouldn’t be having no football conversations. It was just checking in on his health and making sure he’s OK.

“All the football operations are in our hands, and we’ll work together as a team to keep the club moving forward.”

Bayern’s second team’s game was postponed on Friday after Kompany’s collapse, but Eberl said the club did not consider trying to postpone Sunday’s Bundesliga game.

“I think the greatest joy for Vinnie would be for us to play well tomorrow and, ideally, get a positive result,” Eberl said.

“That would probably be one of the best things we could do to help him recover.”

Danks confirmed Germany captain Joshua Kimmich, who has been on bereavement leave since Tuesday, would also miss Sunday’s game.

Kompany returned to the dugout for Wednesday’s home clash against Arsenal despite missing the pre-match news conference due to the virus.

Speaking after the Arsenal game, Kompany said his body reacted after he tried to push through the illness.

“I caught a pretty nasty virus last week, and of course, I didn’t listen to my body, and then at some point, my body just said, ‘Enough is enough!’”

The defending champions sit on top of the Bundesliga table before Sunday’s game, one point above Freiburg.

Their next Champions League match is on November 3 in Madrid against Atletico.