No confirmation from Russia or Ukraine as White House says ‘localised’ ceasefire to take effect in Russian-occupied Oleshky.
Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
The White House has said First Lady Melania Trump has “secured a ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine in the southern Ukrainian city of Oleshky.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine immediately confirmed the statement on Friday, which comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has renewed diplomacy aimed at ending the war.
The approach has included upping pressure on Ukraine and handing several recent concessions to Russia.
“The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster,” Melania Trump said in a statement released by the White House.
“The people of Oleshky have limited electricity, live amid mined roads, and endure regular military attacks. It was abundantly clear that without my intervention, the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible,” she said.
The First Lady added that her representatives worked directly with “Russian and Ukrainian leadership to define the terms of the localized ceasefire” and that civilian leaders from both countries will work together to grant humanitarian access to civilians in the city.
The U.S. government seems to be coming for California (again). Big surprise.
But scratch the surface of the recent Department of Justice voter fraud blitz and the ugly truth peeks through — this is an attack on immigrants of color, no different than accusing the Haitians of Ohio of eating cats and dogs or the aggressive escalation of detaining and deporting Black and brown people with no criminal record.
Just a few days ago, the White House posted on social media that “If you import the third world, you become the third world.” Not be be outdone, the fine Americans at the Department of Homeland Security responded with what seems to be a problematic mission statement that may wind up in court documents: “Reject the third world. Export the third world.” So far in President Trump’s second term, only 20% of the nearly 1 million people deported had a criminal record, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Speaking of court documents, wow, do we have a lot to go through. Turns out not a lot of judges are into voter suppression.
There’s the U.S. Justice Department case claiming California is somehow stopping the feds from enforcing federal voting laws, despite those 28 cases. There’s a ruling in a different case that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from going door-to-door in California and other places checking on immigration status and voter registration — a terrifying overreach of power meant to intimidate legal voters.
And there’s the ongoing lawsuit from the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in a Washington courtroom — a case that could take the lead in protecting the midterms.
Here’s what you need to know about all three, and what comes next.
Stop the knocks
Starting around August, Homeland Security began knocking on the doors of residents in California and eight other states in what it dubbed a “surge” in investigations on voter fraud.
These in-person checks were based on lists of folks the government thought might not be legally allowed to cast a ballot — and focused on naturalized citizens, according to court documents. They were also, according to the court, unreliable and included “instances where DHS simply did not have data to determine that the individual did not engage in voter fraud,” the California judge in the case wrote, meaning it was a giant fishing expedition.
In addition, Homeland Security was apparently investigating nonprofits and other organizations that help get out the vote, including interrogating the staff and covertly infiltrating their operations, according to court documents.
That’s McCarthyism-level scary. The California Nurses Assn. and its parent union, National Nurses United, filed a lawsuit to stop the Homeland Security surge, arguing in part that one of their core missions is political organizing and turning out voters, and that the operation directly harmed them by scaring their members away from that work.
They also have a lot of members who are naturalized citizens. Four union members told the court that they didn’t want to participate in the union’s election work because they were afraid of being targeted by the government, citizens or not.
The court found that fear “objectively reasonable” and ordered Homeland Security to stop the door-knocking until after the election. The judge then stayed that order until Friday to give the government time to appeal. So far, the government hasn’t filed that objection.
“So many people in the United States are suffering under Trump’s corrupt and cruel policies on behalf of the billionaire class that he knows cannot hold onto power in these upcoming elections without illegally suppressing our vote through outright harassment, intimidation, and even detention,” said Puneet Maharaj, executive director of the two nurses groups.
Emergency relief
At the same time, the Department of Justice this week filed a suit against California seeking an emergency order to force the state to segregate 20,000 ballots of folks it claims may not be citizens — an unprecedented ask in furtherance of the long-running conspiracy theory that immigrants who lack legal status are in a scheme with Democrats to vote en masse.
State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has asked the court to throw out the case, in part because the federal government can’t prove it’s actually being harmed in any way by state law. The feds have already filed charges in those 28 cases claiming voter fraud, so it’s hard to argue that state law is preventing them from going after illegal voters.
But the feds are arguing that the state is aiding and abetting illegal voting by not segregating those ballots, even though there is no proof they are in the hands of noncitizens. A review by the Los Angeles County registrar’s office found that about 40% of those on the list were born in the United States.
Attorneys general from other states filed a friend of the court brief siding with California, arguing that the Justice Department is basically trying to create a new law where “the executive branch can invent new election requirements, unmoored from any constitutional or statutory authority, and demand that States enforce them in the middle of an election.”
The court will rule on that next week.
Beyond Nov. 3
Our final case takes us to Washington, where the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, are asking for their own temporary restraining order — this one stopping the government from carrying out its ballot segregation scheme and from using its flawed, janky methods for supposedly identifying noncitizen voters.
I’ve written about this lawsuit before, and how the Voting Rights Project beat back Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s attempt to snatch ballots. The court will probably make a ruling in that one next week as well.
But election day is less than two weeks away, and many have already voted. So what does it all mean?
It means we’re in for a rough ride. The Trump administration is not dumb. Midterms might not go the way Republicans would like, potentially even giving control of both the House and Senate to Democrats. Some experts and legislators are concerned that all these ballot drama is posturing for that midterm loss — creating a reason to potentially question results or even refuse to seat newly elected Democrats when the time comes.
And almost certainly, no matter what voters decide, Trump will spin it back to that white nationalism — the idea that “true” Americans are being replaced through fraud, violence and vote stealing, a trio of conspiracies glued together by the sticky, tricky manipulations of a man who will do anything for power.
Trump advises the Republican gubernatorial candidate to keep running the controversial advertisement.
Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
US President Donald Trump has backed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy amid controversy over an attack advertisement by the Ohio gubernatorial candidate against his Democratic rival.
Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that Ramaswamy should keep running the advertisement that features Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s estranged mother.
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In the advertisement, Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, disputes her daughter’s account of a childhood involving homelessness and sexual abuse by her stepfather, urging Ohioans not to vote for her.
Acton says she has not seen her mother since 1978. Acton’s brother has supported her account of being sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a child. The stepfather, who died in 2004, was charged with rape.
“Anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in office,” Trump said.
The US president also attacked Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who advised Ramaswamy to take down the advertisement, labelling him “disloyal” to the Republican party.
‘It’s wrong’
At a gathering with reporters at the Ohio Statehouse, DeWine recalled the painful experiences of rape victims he dealt with as a county prosecutor and state attorney general.
“It’s wrong to run this ad,” he said. “And, even at this late time – my wife, Fran, saw the advertisement just run this morning on TV – I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down.”
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, called the advertisement a “desperate, disgusting attack”, while Acton campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock called Ramaswamy’s decision to promote it “both despicable and entirely predictable”.
Vice President JD Vance, campaigning on Wednesday with Ramaswamy and US Senator Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, had brushed aside the blowback.
Vance, a former senator from Ohio, expressed disgust with Republicans “whining” about the advertisement as low and in poor taste.
Ramaswamy’s campaign said it was spending $4m to promote the advertisement.
Opinion polls suggest Acton is narrowly leading Ramaswamy in a tight race to replace the term-limited DeWine.
MIAMI — A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10-billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.
The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as the BBC’s lawyers complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Attorney Charles Tobin said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”
He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but that the Republican president canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” Tobin said Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia that day.
“He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said.
Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit — unless the discovery period was extended past Dec. 18.
The BBC asked the judge last week to compel Trump to appear. The British broadcaster says Trump is trying to delay his appearance until January 2027. The judge has threatened sanctions if Trump fails to comply with the court’s schedule.
Trump, who has often avoided depositions, filed his lawsuit against the BBC last December, seeking $10 billion in damages. He accused the publicly funded broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance.”
The BBC acknowledged that filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, to make it seem he was directly urging violence. The broadcaster apologized over the editing, and the head of the BBC and its top news executive both resigned. The BBC has denied Trump’s claims that it defamed him.
Trump’s lawyers say Jack Smith ‘lacks personal knowledge’ of issues in the case
To bolster its defense, the broadcaster subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith earlier this month. Trump’s lawyers argued, in a joint filing asking for a hearing on the matter, that there was no good reason for Smith, who is not a party to the case, to appear.
“Smith lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter,” they argued in the filing. “He was not present when President Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech … was made, nor did he participate in its preparation. Smith does not have any personal knowledge regarding President Trump’s state of mind at the time the Speech was given.”
Trump’s side also argued that “Smith’s testimony would be duplicative,” because he published a lengthy report on the events of Jan. 6 and also testified for many hours. “The entirety of his testimony is publicly available,” it argued.
The BBC countered, in the same filing, that there were few more knowledgeable sources about the events of Jan. 6 than Smith, who studied and investigated them for years.
“It is difficult to imagine a more authoritative source on these issues than Mr. Smith, who spent years gathering evidence on those topics with the force of the Justice Department and the power of the grand jury behind him,” the BBC’s lawyers argued.
“No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol. But as long as he chooses to maintain the case, he cannot commit the fundamental injustice of preventing the BBC from obtaining the evidence it needs to robustly defend itself on every element of his claim…”
When will Trump sit for a deposition?
In a filing Oct. 13, the BBC’s lawyers said they first requested dates for a deposition in July, and followed up repeatedly, with both sides eventually agreeing on Oct. 16.
After weeks of silence, they wrote, “Plaintiff’s counsel responded on September 28, 2026, indicating that ‘the President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance’ and that counsel would ‘endeavor to provide you with a replacement date by the end of this week.’ He did not.”
They said they were then told that Trump “has no availability whatsoever for a deposition” before discovery is set to close on Dec. 18, and that Trump would instead make himself available the second or third week of January.
Tobin wrote in the filing, “Those delays have flouted the cooperative spirit of discovery and precluded the BBC from obtaining the evidence necessary to robustly litigate its defense.”
Fischer and Noveck write for the Associated Press. Noveck reported from New York.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration is on track to deport about 660,000 people over the past year, a new report released Thursday shows, as arrests ramp up across the country fueled by billions of dollars meant to supercharge his immigration agenda.
The report by the Migration Policy Institute shows deportations increased from 620,000 during the first year of Trump’s second administration. The numbers fall short of previous highs in the early 2000s and fail to meet the Trump administration’s promise, made when it received the billions from Congress, that the money would allow for 1 million deportations annually.
The report, based on publicly available data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, comes after the Trump administration in January 2025 stopped publicly releasing similar figures compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump, a Republican, returned to power last year promising to stanch crossings at the southern border and crack down on immigration. His administration has pushed through restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and launched high-profile arrest operations in its bid to force migrants out.
More people being deported, but not at all-time highs
The analysis found that the Department of Homeland Security carried out 980,000 deportations during the first 18 months of the second Trump administration.
During the last fiscal year — when the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement mechanisms were shifting into high gear — an estimated 660,000 people were deported.
According to MPI’s analysis, that’s a 26% increase from the yearly average from 2021 to 2024 during the administration of President Biden, a Democrat, but well below the 1.86 million deportations recorded in 2000, under President Clinton, another Democrat.
Despite the surging arrests, the report details some of the challenges to the Trump administration reaching its deportation targets.
Historically, many immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization were from Mexico and didn’t often seek asylum. But in recent years, migrants have come to the U.S. from a wide range of countries, which can make it more complicated to deport them. And immigration courts, which ultimately decide whether someone can be removed from the country, face more significant case backlogs.
Voluntary departures are increasing as are interior arrests
The report said voluntary departures — when people give up their cases in immigration court and agree to leave the country — were at an “all-time high,” with 170,000 choosing to do so since Trump returned to office in January 2025. People who choose voluntary departure could one day return to the U.S. But some immigrant advocates and lawyers say that people give up their court fight and agree to leave simply to get out of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention.
The Trump administration was also increasingly deporting people it arrested in the country’s interior, the report said, reflecting how it was stepping up enforcement against migrants who have been in the country for a long time. In 2025, about 28% of the people deported were arrested inside the country, but by July of this year that had risen to 39%.
Migrants arrested at the southern border still make up a large number of deportations, the report said — 69% of all deportations between Jan. 20, 2025, and July 31, 2026, were of people initially intercepted at the border.
People in the country longer may have more opportunities to contest their removal while the government typically has greater authority to fast-track deportations for people arrested at the border.
The analysis said most people deported have never been convicted of a crime, despite the Trump administration claiming to be targeting the “worst of the worst.” Previous data has showed the same.
In response to the MPI report, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said: “President Trump has delivered the largest reduction in illegal immigration in modern history.”
Trump administration no longer regularly releases immigration data
Homeland Security stopped releasing similar data when Trump took office, making it difficult to track one of his key campaign promises. Figures the Trump administration has released are inconsistent and unverifiable.
The administration says it is transparent. On Tuesday, it released some of its own figures as part of a document boasting of its achievements on immigration, including that 1.2 million migrants have been deported or removed during Trump’s second term. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
In the absence of regular data, analysts and activists interested in immigration trends have relied on information obtained through lawsuits or limited and sporadic information released by federal agencies to track deportation data.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — President Trump said Thursday that Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, should keep running a controversial ad featuring the estranged mother of Democratic opponent Amy Acton, posting on social media that it was “hitting pay dirt.”
Trump also denounced Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who criticized the ad as “deeply, deeply troubling” earlier in the day. Acton previously served in DeWine’s administration as a health official. Her mother lost custody of Acton and her brother after her husband — the children’s stepfather — was indicted on a charge of raping Acton.
“He strongly suggested that Vivek should, ‘take down the Ad,’ ” Trump wrote. “He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing. I suggested, on the other hand, that Vivek should keep it up, and let everyone listen to the mother of a defective, dishonest, and incapable Candidate, explain how the daughter is a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!”
At a gathering with reporters at the Ohio Statehouse, DeWine recalled the painful experiences of rape victims he dealt with as a county prosecutor and state attorney general.
“It’s wrong to run this ad,” he said. “And, even at this late time — my wife, Fran, saw the ad just run this morning on TV — I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down.”
The term-limited DeWine’s remarks place him at odds with Ramaswamy, whom he has endorsed. The biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate plans to spend $4 million to broadcast it online and on television.
DeWine stops short of pulling his endorsement
But the governor stopped short of pulling his backing of the Republican for now. DeWine recalled a previous line of attack by the Acton campaign had mentioned Ramaswamy’s mother and said that also was wrong — “family members have always historically been off limits” — though he noted it was never used in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign.
That critique from the summer cited an investigative report into Geetha Ramaswamy’s role at a pharmaceutical company run by her son, whom Acton and Democrats described as “hiring his own mother to manipulate clinical trial data.”
The Ramaswamy campaign called those claims “slanderous” and said he’s being held to a different standard than Acton and other Democrats who have attacked Republicans’ families.
“Governor DeWine is correct that the first and only candidate to attack the mother of her opponent in this race was Amy Acton,” spokesperson Connie Luck said in a statement, adding, “We refuse to accept the media’s double standards.”
Ohio Republicans divided over the ad
By chiming in, DeWine has entered the fray of a growing rift among Ohio Republicans over the advertisement — as both the governor’s race and a race for U.S. Senate appear far tighter than expected in a state Trump won handily three times. The video features Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her “a liar” and insinuating she has mental health issues.
Acton, Ohio’s COVID-19-era health director, has made no secret of facing homelessness and abuse as a child. Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted on a charge of rape involving Acton. Acton’s campaign on Tuesday posted a video of her brother, who supported her backstory about living in a tent and being abused.
Republican Vice President JD Vance, an Ohio native son, expressed disgust during an Ohio campaign swing Wednesday with Republicans “whining” about the ad as low and in poor taste. But Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, DeWine’s former lieutenant governor — running in a tight retention race against Democrat Sherrod Brown — has said he would not have run the ad, as has Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for state auditor.
Another influential Ohio Republican, former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, posted a lengthy essay on X overnight, suggesting that “the floor may have just fallen out from under the Republican campaign for Ohio Governor” and urging every Republican to distance themselves from it.
Amid the turmoil, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou posted what sounded like a warning, or a threat.
“The final days of a tough campaign are always the best time to find out who is really with you and who just posts and pretends,” he wrote. “Yes—we are keeping score.” The quote was followed by a winking-eye emoji.
Ad has faced bipartisan rebukes, support in conservative media
The ad is also dividing Republicans nationally.
Nikki Haley, who sparred with Ramaswamy during the 2024 Republican presidential primary over the personal nature of his attacks, called him “a bad guy” in a social media post Tuesday. “It’s a shame he continues to get away with it,” she wrote.
At the same time, Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media watchdog group, has reported that many within the national conservative media are promoting and praising the ad. Ramaswamy’s campaign manager, Jonathan Ewing, characterized it as “a campaign-ending moment for Amy Acton.”
Wayne Allyn Root, of Gateway Pundit, called it “absolutely hilarious” and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles described it as “brilliant.”
Police and court records show Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of Acton in July 1978, when she was 12, after her biological father lodged a formal complaint against him. The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978. Cledith Arthur failed to show for a court appearance and became a fugitive.
Donna Arthur remained married to him until his death in 2004.
Mohammed Annour spent much of his youth living in a flimsy shelter in a dusty, overcrowded refugee camp in east Africa, where the days were long, the food was poor and the future nonexistent.
“Go to the army and fight. That’s one option,” said Annour, who fled war in Sudan for the refugee camp in Chad when he was 9. “The other one is you stay there. But you don’t have a future.”
If he had stayed, Annour, now 33, has little doubt how his story would have ended.
“Probably,” he said, “I’m dead.”
Mohammed Annour, a refugee soccer player who became a coach, and Alan Barker, chairman of the Mighty Cosmos, look across a field in Sweden.
(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)
Instead, he’s in Sweden, raising two boys, working as a quality control inspector for a textile company and playing amateur soccer for a team in the country’s fifth division. And the only thing that separates his experience from the tens of thousands of desperate people he left behind in the camp is the fact someone believed in him enough to give him a chance.
“Everybody needs a chance,” Annour said. “Don’t throw people out. People just need a chance in life.”
“And we got that chance,” he continued, “because of Katie-Jay and Gabriel.”
Scott and Stauring founded the humanitarian group iACT largely to respond to the crisis in Darfur, a semi-desert plateau in western Sudan that has known nothing but war this century. But unlike many of the dozens of other similarly minded people and groups working in Africa, Scott and Stauring came not to preach, but to listen. They came with questions, not answers.
And what they were told was that the children in the camps needed more than food and shelter. They needed a routine, they needed recreation, they needed joy and they needed hope.
Founders of iACT Gabriel Stauring, left, and Katie-Jay Scott hold up gifts they received after a training session in the Central African Republic. Stauring and Scott were killed in a car crash in 2021, but their nonprofit continues to support refugees.
(Courtesy of iACT)
In other words, they needed soccer.
“Many organizations came into the camps. They just came around and took some pictures and then they leave,” said Annour, a slight man with a serious countenance. “I think [Scott and Stauring] understood us as humans, not just these kids or these people who need food or shelter.
“They saw another side. They saw these people that can make something in life.”
“They were so kind, careful,” Annour said. “Listening to everyone. It didn’t matter where you came from, which color you are. They were open and gave time to everyone they met.”
“Honestly, I didn’t know they were going to change my life or anything,” added Moubarak Abdallah, another refugee introduced to soccer by Scott and Stauring. “I saw them as other people who just come and go. But they were quite special people.
Grace Tanda, of the Mighty Cosmos, strikes the ball during a match. The soccer team in Sweden is comprised of refugees.
(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)
“They wanted to help our ideas shine, to [give] other people hope. They were listening to what I needed.”
Today, there are more than 5,000 children participating in iACT soccer academies in Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Mexico. Another 1,800 children are enrolled in the group’s Little Ripples preschool program, which also served 475,000 meals to students and staff last year.
But the organization, like many similarly focused humanitarian groups, is fighting for its survival amid a global backlash against refugees and migrants.
The hostility has been especially strong in the U.S., where the second Trump administration has sharply restricted immigration and asylum access and drastically cut congressionally approved spending for life-sustaining programs previously funded through USAID. Many European countries have followed that lead, adopting a stauncher approach to border enforcement and deportations and slashing support for development assistance by 13.8% in 2025, the largest cut in a decade.
This summer, violent anti-immigrant protests in South Africa forced more than 178,000 people to flee to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria and other countries, reversing a trend that has seen the region’s richest country welcome migrants to work on farms, in construction and other low-paid jobs. Public sentiment toward refugees and migrants has also hardened elsewhere, creating a crisis for nonprofit aid groups.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, this month warned the gap between humanitarian needs and donor contributions is widening, leading to deep cuts and forcing aid groups to fight one another for the shrinking dollars that remain — all at a time when conflicts in Syria, Gaza and Ukraine have swelled the number of refugees worldwide to nearly 42 million; another 69 million people are displaced.
That’s more than 1 out of every 70 people on Earth, according to the UNHCR.
Annour and his family were once part of that wave, fleeing their home in Sudan in 2003, stepping around dead bodies and witnessing unimaginable horror, to escape one in a series of continuing civil wars that have given way to genocide. More than 15 million people have been displaced in the 23 years of fighting, with more than 1.3 million still stranded in teeming refugee camps in eastern Chad.
Annour said he would have perished there if not for Stauring and Scott, who introduced soccer to their camp. Three years after the pair arrived, an international tournament for stateless players, the CONIFA World Football Cup, was held and iACT entered a 20-man team comprised of players from 12 camps. Annour, a left back, made the cut as did Abdallah, a physical midfielder with a perpetual smile who would become the team captain.
“No one is thinking this [is] going to be life-changing,” Abdallah remembers thinking. “You know, there was like a small chance but it became big dreams for us.”
The team, Darfur United, was outscored 39-0 in its two games in Ostersund, Sweden, but most of the players chose to stay in Ostersund rather than return to their camps and were welcomed by the Swedish government. They received asylum and eventually formed an integration team, the Mighty Cosmos, that advanced as high as the fifth division of Swedish soccer.
Abdallah is a natural leader, said Alan Barker, chairman of the Mighty Cosmos, and the kind of person who receives total respect from the other players.
Mugenyi Ngabu, left, cheers during the Mighty Cosmos’ match in Sweden. The team is comprised entirely of refugees.
(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)
“He is a sort of guy you can rely on 100%,” Barker said. “Personally, I would trust him with my life. He is a doer, not a talker. A problem solver not a problem creator. And he always wants the best for everybody.”
Annour, he added, has been troubled by knee injuries on the field but remains “a strong and quiet yet forceful personality of the group.”
“He is a passionate believer in fair play and honesty and has no room for dishonesty or deception in any aspect of life,” Barker continued. “Maybe that’s a reflection of his childhood in the refugee camps and Chad, where there was no time for such things. He’s a sort of guy whose name would be first on the team sheet. The team sheet of football and life.”
More important is the fact that the players, teenagers or young adults when they arrived in Sweden, have married, had children of their own, become citizens and integrated into the local community, where their civic work was this year recognized with one of Sweden’s most prestigious awards.
“I never dreamed to be in this position when I was a kid. I was trying to survive, to live day by day,” said Annour, who is working three jobs to support his sons, aged 1 ½ and 4.
“I’m here. I can provide for my family. Moubarak provides for his family. It’s like saving a generation, not just me and Moubarak.”
“It’s about the chances,” agreed Abdallah, 35, who also lives in Sweden where he coaches the Mighty Cosmos while raising a 5-year-old son.
“The door has to open. That’s all.”
iACT offered a way to open those doors when it first rolled that battered soccer ball onto a dirt lot. Without that, “these guys wouldn’t be here, wouldn‘t have the lives they have,” said Darren Hamlin, a British filmmaker who has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary on the refugee players.
By focusing on single players and their game and not the vastness of the sprawling global refugee crisis, Hamlin says the film has the power to redefine these former refugees not as obscure numbers but as flesh-and-blood people with dreams and talents and aspirations. That was what inspired Scott and Stauring when they founded iACT.
“Football has this power to transcend sports. It becomes an emotional thing,” said Hamlin, who is behind on his goal of raising $66,000 by the end of the month to expand work on the documentary. “It doesn’t matter how many stats or things we put in front of people; they don’t really pay attention.
“But football kind of goes deeper sometimes. Football is kind of the vehicle that delivers the message.”
Getting that message out, however, is becoming increasingly difficult. As government funding for refugee programs around the world has dried up, groups like iACT have found themselves fighting for the same slice of a much smaller funding pie.
“Fundraising at all levels has become more difficult with the gutting of USAID, especially with the increase in larger NGOs [non-government organizations] applying for foundation grants,” said Merri Weir, a retired teacher and iACT board member since 2016. “It is becoming harder and harder because we’re competing with larger NGOs. The funding stream has become tighter.”
At the same time, the need has swelled.
“The refugee camps in Chad are still very unstable,” said Weir, who has visited the camps multiple times. “The current war has not ended and shows no sign of ending. Refugees are still coming across the border, which has more than doubled the number of Sudanese refugees.
“It is critical that we are able to sustain our current refugee-led programs.”
In response, Weir’s group, which will hold its annual fundraising event in Manhattan Beach next month, has considered everything short of a corner lemonade stand and selling chocolate door to door to make up for the lost financial backing it needs to continue what Scott and Stauring started.
“In the past, it is our uniqueness and our innovation and our refugee-led action [that] set us apart,” said Weir. “It was very appealing.”
The Trump administration complicated things even further in June 2025 when it instituted a travel ban and entry restriction list on Chad, leading the Chadian government to retaliate by revoking visas for American citizens, including aid workers. That means fewer children playing soccer and attending preschool, fewer meals being served — and fewer success stories like the ones told by Abdallah and Annour.
“I spent 12 years in a refugee camp,” Abdallah said. “People just hope to get a meal for the day. [iACT] brought the footballs and then just brought the idea. A chance to change our lives. Opportunity.
“There’s a lot of people in the refugee camps [that] could be pilots, doctors, better football players. Maybe there is the next Lionel Messi, Cristiano [Ronaldo], Lamine Yamal in the camp. But they don’t have any opportunity to get out.”
“The world is crazy. It’s just war everywhere,” added Annour, who is about to begin a college course on sports science. “Those people who don’t like refugees, who don’t want the United Nations to bring more refugees, they need to put themselves in our shoes.
“People are so naive to think they can just ignore what’s going on. It’s getting bigger every day.“
Abdallah and Annour may have left the camps, but the camps have not left them. The work they have done in Sweden includes the construction of a community sports and culture center, addressing crime prevention and mental health, refugee resettlement, and fundraising efforts that support the work of iACT and other groups working with the people they left behind.
“My mom is still in the same camp, so I’ve been back three times now with a lot of footballs, football boots and football equipment,” Abdallah said.
Scott and Stauring, who lived in Redondo Beach before the fatal car crash, thought they were bringing soccer to the camps in Africa, but what they really brought was hope and proof that if someone just opens the door, you might be surprised what you find on the other side.
United States President Donald Trump has long touted himself as a political outsider, someone who would expose the elites’ abuse of power and shift government focus from far-off conflicts to problems at home. Phrases like “drain the swamp” and “America first” have proved to be powerful rallying cries, sparking a whole cadre of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans.
Halfway through his final term as president, though, Trump has backpedalled on many of those ideas, cosying up to the ultra-wealthy, sidelining investigations into convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and launching an ongoing war with Iran.
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That about-face appears to be having a real impact on Republicans running in the US midterm elections in November, said Rina Shah, a geopolitical adviser and strategist and a former senior GOP congressional aide.
“In competitive races, some are quietly distancing,” Shah said, adding that they are “talking about gas prices, local issues, or [saying] ‘I’m focused on my district’ – because the Iran war and the Epstein drip are already showing up in attack ads and soft polling.”
Here’s what you need to know about whether the Republican Party has softened its stance on these issues.
Which Republicans have broken with Trump over the Epstein files?
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said he would declassify troves of files kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about Epstein and his global network of contacts. Trump’s future cabinet members, too, were enthusiastic about this, with Kash Patel, now head of the FBI, saying it was time to “put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are”.
Yet a few months after taking office, Trump began dragging his feet, sparking a backlash from influential MAGA figures. Trump began calling the entire issue a “hoax” and saying Republicans were being duped by Democrats into calling for an investigation into Epstein’s network.
US Congressional Representatives Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie, and Marjorie Taylor Greene speak during a news conference as the US House of Representatives prepares to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, the United States on November 18, 2025 [File: J Scott Applewhite/AP]
Congress did eventually force the release of the files, with help from a handful of Republicans who broke with Trump. The Trump administration has released batches of the heavily redacted files, but has continued to withhold some. Meanwhile, all the Republican lawmakers who voted to mandate releases have paid a price for their insubordination, with three even losing their offices.
US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene left her Georgia seat in January 2026, after publicly clashing with Trump over Epstein. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, lost her bid to become the party’s candidate in her home state after Trump refused to endorse her. Colorado’s Lauren Boebert barely won the primary in her own contest after angering Trump by supporting calls for transparency from Thomas Massie, another Republican bent on exposing what the files held. Massie, of Kentucky, also drew Trump’s ire, which likely cost him the primary.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump participates in a fireside chat with media host Tucker Carlson at the Desert Diamond Arena, in Glendale, Arizona, the US, October 31, 2024 [File: Brendan McDermid/Reuters]
No more foreign wars?
Trump had long said he would be reducing foreign military involvement, breaking with the interventionist tendencies of other recent Republican presidents. Now he and his party face tough questions about the US-Israel war on Iran, which influential figures in the MAGA movement like political commentator Tucker Carlson have called a mistake, saying, “This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war.”
Amongst disgruntled MAGA supporters, a narrative has emerged of Trump using the war to also distract from the Epstein issue. Massie, the former congressman, summed up the sentiment by saying, “Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away.”
Trump has tried to downplay the war’s impact, but voters, even in the Republican Party, think he broke his own promise, driving the overall approval rating for the ratings-obsessed president down to record lows. “Seven months into an open-ended campaign with shifting goals,” said Shah, “that promise looks different to a lot of his voters.”
Few Republicans, however, have responded to that public sentiment with their votes in Congress, where Democrats have tried repeatedly to curtail Trump’s war on Iran by passing resolutions pointing out he failed to get the body’s approval.
In September, just seven Republican House members joined Democrats to pass an anti-war bill. In the Senate, similar efforts have been supported by just a handful of Republicans. Trump called the Republican lawmakers supporting the anti-war bills “unpatriotic,” and said, “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
As with the Epstein files, Trump took action against rebellious Republicans over the Iran war, for instance backing a rival of Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted in favour of the anti-war bill, in a primary in Louisiana that the Republican senator ended up losing.
What happened to Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp”?
One of Trump’s most appealing promises had been to purge the government of a “deep state” establishment he says is running the country without being accountable to the public on social issues, and fiscal and foreign policy.
Priscilla Chan, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla CEO Elon Musk attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2025 [Chip Somodevilla/POOL/AFP]
In a way, Trump did keep that promise. An entire federal government division – the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – forced tens of thousands of federal workers out of their jobs and dismantled institutions like the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The military threw out notions of racial, gender, and economic diversity. Everything from universities to the Smithsonian Institution was subjected to a campaign against an unqualified, diversity-obsessed elitist class.
But lobbying groups, including some supporting foreign governments, have been given a free hand, and ethics rules and watchdogs who would tackle political corruption have been weakened, said Shah, the Republican strategist.
At his presidential inauguration, Trump literally surrounded himself with the wealthiest people in the world, some of whom have gone on to play some part in his administration.
NBA superstar LeBron James criticised by US President Donald Trump for disrespectful behaviour during national anthem.
Published On 22 Oct 202622 Oct 2026
US President Donald Trump criticised National Basketball Association (NBA) superstar LeBron James on Thursday for what he called disrespectful behaviour during the singing of the US national anthem at a recent NBA game.
“While listening to our National Anthem, LeBron James disrespects our Country,” Trump said in a Truth Social post accompanied by a video showing James moving his body during the anthem.
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“LeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!”
The clip Trump shared showed James standing in line with the members of the Philadelphia 76ers, swinging his arms in a warm-up-type stretch and performing basketball shooting movements.
A representative for the 76ers did not immediately respond to a request from Al Jazeera for comment.
Trump has repeatedly criticised athletes for their behaviour during pre-game renditions of the US national anthem, notably beginning with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest in support of racial justice.
Trump cancelled the planned White House visit of the Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 after the team disagreed with his call for players to stand during the anthem.
James became a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and has frequently supported progressive issues as he ascended to the top of the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
A US judge has ordered President Donald Trump to answer questions under oath in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC by 11 December.
Trump is suing the BBC over an episode of Panorama that edited together two different sections of a speech he gave before the riot at the US Capitol in 2021.
Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the BBC, said in court that “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff” with two months left in the discovery period.
Trump cancelled a previous deposition on 16 October, citing “matters of national importance” while he was campaigning in Georgia.
In US law, a deposition is an out-of-court statement made under oath in response to questions, which is recorded for use in later proceedings.
The judge in the case, US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, said that Trump must sit for the deposition by 11 December, unless the discovery period is extended.
Last week, attorneys asked that Lett compel Trump to face deposition after the last scheduled meeting did not take place.
On that day, Trump attended a midterms campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia and a fundraiser at his property in Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
In a separate filing on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers said that the president could appear for the interview between 11 and 22 January next year, and claimed that the BBC was “wrong to claim that President Trump is avoiding his deposition in this action.”
Trump’s lawsuit – filed in Florida – accuses the BBC of “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring” the speech he gave outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
The BBC apologised for the error and said that the broadcast gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump made a direct call for violent action”.
The broadcaster has since asked that the court dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the programme does not meet the legal criteria for defamation and was not available in the US.
In July, Trump’s lawyers conceded that they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the US on the BBC’s BritBox subscription service – as they originally claimed – or on the BBC’s website, BBC select or through US broadcasters.
Trump ultimately agreed to drop the lawsuit against BBC Studios, its commercial arm, after the BBC argued that it had “no role in creating or producing the documentary.
Typically, depositions take place in a lawyer’s office – rather than a courtroom – without a judge physically present.
Depositions, however, carry legal weight and take place under oath. They are recorded verbatim by a court reporter, and the transcripts can later be used as evidence during trials.
The US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, says Washington’s relationship with the Middle East needs to change, from one of control to one of support.
The United States ambassador to Turkiye and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq says Washington’s relationship with the countries in the Middle East needs to change.
Tom Barrack says the US no longer seeks to dominate the region.
He won’t say whether the war in Iran was a mistake – but acknowledges the instability it caused has led to unintended consequences.
Barrack says President Donald Trump is against what he calls “forever wars”, and ending the US-Israel war on Iran will require a major compromise. According to him, each side will have to accept conditions it does not like.
However, he is worried that growing tensions could lead to miscalculation.
Barrack says trust is lacking between Washington and Tehran, and that is hampering talks to agree on a deal.
He tells Al Jazeera that countries in the region should not depend on the US to solve their problems and that they need to look out for themselves. He insists the Trump administration has not abandoned the region, but is rather re-examining its role.
Barrack admits that years of US involvement in the region demonstrate that intervention and regime change do not work. He says it is time to put down the guns and resolve disputes through negotiations and mutual respect.
US President Donald Trump praised a man who punched a protester at a midterm election rally held in Clemson, South Carolina. Trump thanked the assailant as the protester was being removed from the event.
US federal judge blocked wall’s construction on Texas-Mexico border amid an ongoing legal battle.
Published On 22 Oct 202622 Oct 2026
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to resume plans to build a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas, as part of its anti-immigration policy to strengthen security on the border with Mexico.
The Justice Department filed an emergency request on Wednesday asking the court to lift a federal judge’s injunction in a lower court that has halted construction while a lawsuit against the project, brought by an environmental group and other challengers, plays out.
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The Department of Homeland Security plans include vehicle barriers, patrol roads, lighting and detection technology in and around Big Bend National Park.
Big Bend has about 805km (500 miles) of border, and, according to opponents of the project who have sued the administration, accounts for about 1 percent of migrant arrests.
Lipan Apache tribe member Joey Montoya attends a rally opposing border wall construction in Big Bend National Park, outside the federal courthouse during an emergency hearing on the project in San Antonio, Texas, on August 28, 2026 [File: Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters]
Landscape, historic church
The lawsuit, filed by plaintiffs including the Center for Biological Diversity and a Big Bend-area river guide, seeks to preserve the landscape, protect a historic church, and challenge the federal government’s waivers of environmental and historical laws to fast-track the $1.7bn project.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and current Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who issued the waivers between February and July, found the region to be an “area of high illegal entry”, requiring additional barriers to control the border.
US District Judge Kathleen Cardone issued an injunction in El Paso on October 2 halting work “until and unless Defendants comply with all applicable laws,” she wrote in her order.
In a later opinion, the judge found that the waivers exceeded the authority of Noem and Mullin.
The Justice Department in its request urged the Supreme Court to pause or overturn Cardone’s injunction.
The Supreme Court has not yet responded to this appeal.
“Even assuming that the secretary’s waiver authority implicates a question of ‘vast economic and political significance,’ Congress did clearly authorize the secretary both to build border barriers and to waive legal requirements in order to facilitate their expeditious construction,” the Justice Department wrote.
In August, the administration paused construction in Big Bend after the project drew bipartisan criticism over its potential impact on the park’s landscape and wildlife.
US President Donald Trump says Congresswoman Ilhan Omar could face jail or deportation as federal authorities investigate allegations surrounding her US citizenship. Omar denies wrongdoing and accuses the administration of political intimidation. With the midterm elections approaching, what could happen next?
The United States has accused Canadian politicians of trying to influence its midterm elections, pointing to Canada’s efforts to push back against President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign.
In a fact sheet released on Wednesday, the US embassy accused Canada of being dismissive of its allegations of election interference.
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“The Canadian government brushes off concerns about potential interference in U.S. elections, even as its ministers and premiers openly describe plans to influence American politics in official documents and public appearances,” the fact sheet reads.
The two countries have been locked in a trade war since the start of Trump’s second term in 2025, with Canada responding to US tariffs with import taxes of its own.
But the US embassy identified public statements about the tariffs as being attempts to sway the November 3 midterm election.
Among the politicians singled out in the fact sheet was Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly. The fact sheet pointed to comments Joly made in August about responding to Trump’s tariffs.
“We’re also targeting products that will target states in the US. And so we’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure,” Joly said at the time.
The embassy also took issue with Joly’s meetings with Democratic officials in Boston and Chicago in September. When asked by a reporter what she thought might happen with regard to tariffs if Democrats won the midterms, she said, “That’s exactly why I’m meeting so many governors and potential presidential candidates.”
Joly has rejected the suggestion that her actions could amount to interference, saying Canada would never meddle in US elections. She said her meetings with US politicians, both Democratic and Republican, were about building Canada’s economy.
“Fundamentally, what I’ve done in the US is to attract investments,” she told reporters on October 14.
The embassy also pointed to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s calls for retaliatory measures on US products, as well as his government’s advertising campaign against Trump’s tariffs, launched last year.
The campaign, which featured clips of former US President Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs in a 1987 radio address, prompted Trump to call off trade talks with Canada in October 2025.
While the embassy laid out several examples of Canadian officials trying to influence US trade policy, it didn’t explain how those efforts amounted to interference.
Other instances of alleged election interference included Liberal MP Anthony Housefather saying he had campaigned in Florida on behalf of Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, ahead of her primary election in August.
The fact sheet also accused individual Canadians of illegally participating in US elections, naming 11 people who had been charged or sentenced for voting between 2012 and 2024.
The sheet did not, however, present any evidence linking those citizens to a Canadian government effort to involve itself in US elections.
“All Canadians should refrain from attempting to participate in or influence U.S. elections in any way,” the US embassy’s statement said. “Americans decide America’s elections.”
The fact sheet comes a week after US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said Washington was closely watching Canada for signs of interference ahead of the midterms.
“We’re monitoring it, we’re evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it,” Hoekstra said in a podcast interview on The Really Big Show, according to The Canadian Press.
The US and Canada have long been allies, but relations have frayed since Trump returned to office.
Not only has the Republican leader triggered a trade war with Canada, but he has also repeatedly threatened to make Canada a 51st state.
There have also been reports that separatist leaders from Alberta had sought support from Trump administration officials ahead of a failed referendum on the province’s independence this week.
Ahead of Monday’s provincial vote, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed concerns about potential US interference in the referendum, saying Canada expected foreign governments to stay out of its elections.
“Our expectation is, to be absolutely clear, on foreign governments, United States included, is we don’t get ourselves involved in their elections, they don’t get themselves involved in our elections,” he told Global News.
Al Jazeera has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office and Global Affairs Canada for comment, as well as the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Industry Minister Joly.
WASHINGTON — President Clinton famously said he could feel voters’ pain over the economy. But these days, when it comes to questions about high prices, President Trump insists that the pain is his.
“They hit me with affordability, and that’s the first time I ever heard the word used,” he complained in Nebraska earlier this month.
The White House leaves Vice President JD Vance to use a softer touch. Last month in Texas, he admitted “there are people out there who are frustrated by the pace of progress.” And during a CBS News town hall on Saturday, Vance said, “I recognize that gas prices are too high right now” and “we’re working on it.”
Depending on which Republican is speaking, Americans are getting a different perspective on how bad things are with the economy. Trump says “the golden age of America is upon us.” Vance walks a tightrope to show that he knows voters are feeling an economic pinch while still selling them on Trump’s agenda.
The disconnect comes as Americans’ confidence in the economy sank to the lowest level in more than a decade this month, the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate jumped this month to its highest level in nearly three years and the unemployment rate ticked up last month.
Recent economic data released this month shows that high gasoline prices are intensifying inflation and more expensive oil and gas have begun to push prices up in other parts of the economy.
While most of Trump’s supporters don’t hold him at fault, some acknowledge that the president’s penchant for salesmanship may not hit the mark.
“I think he talks it up,” said Conda Little, a 76-year-old retiree who went to see Trump in Dalton, Ga., on Friday. “I think Vance is more real.”
Little takes the president at his word that he will achieve a victory over Iran in a way that benefits U.S. consumers back home. But she said it’s impossible to deny the fallout from the conflict.
“Everybody’s real upset about the gas” and “groceries are out of sight,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s really hard,” she said, adding that, “I think that people need to hear the truth.”
‘We need to do more’
Trump is loath to acknowledge concerns. He told reporters earlier this month that he gives himself “an A+ on the government, on economics, on everything.” He has dismissed concerns about high costs, arguing that concerns about affordability are a “hoax.”
“We’re in the golden age of America. So our nation is doing better now than ever before,” he told a crowd in Kentucky on Saturday while campaigning for Republican candidates.
Trump has occasionally acknowledged that gas prices are high, but has called it “a small price to pay” for keeping the country and the world safe with the Iran war.
Trump’s discordant message with one of the top concerns voters are voicing ahead of the midterm elections has seemed heightened by his fixation on beautifying Washington and building a large ballroom at the White House.
During a visit this month to an economically struggling corner of Arizona, he regaled the crowd with the story about how he ended up with a luxury jet gifted by Qatar to use as Air Force One.
Vance, as he crisscrosses the country, is quick to say that the administration has more work to do.
To cast blame, the vice president often says that his administration’s Democratic predecessors put the country in such a deep hole that they need more time to climb out.
To show empathy, he often references his own experience growing up in a working-class family in a Rust Belt town. That’s far different from Trump, who comes from a wealthy family, is a billionaire and even joked during his speeches on Friday and Saturday that if people have lunch at his Mar-a-Lago club, “for $5,000, you’ll get one hamburger and a small dessert.”
Vance, during a CBS News town hall that aired on Saturday, said: “I grew up in a working-class family. When gas prices were high, I know that it made my grandmother suffer, and I’m sure that you’re struggling with it in a variety of ways.”
When asked by the moderator about the mixed message he and Trump are giving on the economy, Vance said Trump was speaking about new investments coming into the country, but said the changes take time.
“We need to do more, and we can certainly do better,” he acknowledged.
Many Trump supporters trust his pitch
Some voters said Trump’s rosy view on the economy turns them away, like Santiago Rodriguez, a 19-year-old Texas college student who will be voting for the first time this year.
Rodriguez, who attended a campaign rally last week for Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, said he would consider voting for a Republican but not while Trump is in charge because he doesn’t grasp the high cost of living for Americans.
“I think he’s out of touch, I think he’s never seen what a true day as a Texan or anybody in general who is in the working class,” Rodriguez said.
Trump’s most loyal supporters aren’t interested in blaming high prices on anything the president has done.
Cindy Massengill, a 67-year-old who came to see Trump in Dalton, Ga., said she felt he’s doing the best he can.
“I’m positive that he’s got done more than any other president after the mess we were left with Obama and Biden,” she said.
Mary Bunker, a 67-year-old Republican who attended Trump’s Monday rally near Wichita, Kan., said she works multiple jobs, including as a waitress and DoorDash driver.
She feels the pressure of high gas prices, but she likes the tax breaks that Trump signed into law last year and she doesn’t fault the way he speaks about economic concerns.
“I think he’s a very good businessman,” Bunker said. “He’s been in business a long time, so I think he knows what he’s talking about.”
Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Bill Barrow in Dalton, Ga., Jesse Bedayn in San Marcos, Texas, and Nicholas Ingram in Park City, Kan., contributed to this report.
LEWISTON, Maine — Maine Republican Susan Collins has promoted her reputation as one of the most independent U.S. senators and she is using the waning days of the election season to sell that message to voters by campaigning with a former colleague who has endorsed her.
Collins is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, a onetime state Senate president, and on Wednesday she made appearances with Joe Manchin III, a West Virginian who was a Democrat then became an independent late in his career before retiring.
After stopping for breakfast at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston, Collins spoke of how she and Manchin were “part of every piece of bipartisan legislation that passed and became law” during their time together in office.
Manchin said to lose Collins would be “to lose the soul of the Senate.” He praised her independent streak, her willingness to buck Republican President Trump and her record of fighting for Maine’s interests.
“This is a true blue-blooded Maine person who knows exactly where she came from,” Manchin said.
They planned a stop later at a New Balance shoe facility in Norway. Jackson, 58, is scheduled to campaign Thursday in Portland with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York.
Collins, 73, is in what may be her toughest reelection fight as she seeks her sixth term.
It’s only the second time that she has sought reelection in a midterm with a sitting Republican president, and the national trends are much less favorable to the GOP than they were the last time she did so, in 2002. Trump’s approval has fallen well below where it was when he took office last year, and a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a strong majority of voters want change in Washington.
Collins has been working to persuade voters that she is independent of Trump and willing to break with him. In Manchin, she enlisted a politician who was one of the most moderate voices in the Senate. Manchin said in 2023 that Trump would “ destroy democracy in America” if he was elected to a second term.
Among the few dozen Collins supporters at the Lewiston event was Mike Marcotte.
“I may not have always been a fan of her complete package of votes, but when I look at the vitriol that’s in the U.S. Senate right now, we need more people like Susan Collins,” he said.
Jackson got a late start on campaigning after the party’s initial nominee exited the race but trails Collins in the money race by less than $3 million after an aggressive quarter in which he raised more than $20 million. Jackson has campaigned relentlessly and his events have drawn hundreds. Collins has largely stuck to smaller appearances.
Some of Jackson’s backers demonstrated across the street from the hot dog stand. A few held signs bearing the face of Brett M. Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court justice whom Collins voted to confirm and whose vote eventually helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
“Someone needs to stand up and be a check on Donald Trump and his harmful policies,” said David Sysko.
Collins has broken with Trump and Republicans over the years. She voted to convict him at his impeachment trial in 2021. Increasingly during the campaign, she has worked to distance herself from the president as Democrats argue that she is too close to him.
Collins said in early October that she is “not exactly his favorite senator,” and that she did not expect Trump to campaign in Maine. He has steered clear of the state with the Nov. 3 election nearing.
Pinning Collins to Trump is central to the Democrats’ strategy. In one ad, a nurse says the state is in a healthcare crisis “because of Susan Collins and Donald Trump,” citing Collins’ vote for Trump’s push for Medicaid cuts. Collins did vote to advance the bill but ultimately voted against it.
Trump also was a major focus of four contentious debates between the candidates this month, where Collins sought to distance herself from the president and Jackson repeatedly accused her of doing Trump’s bidding.
Asked at the final debate to name a time in which she bucked her own party and succeeded, Collins gave the example of rallying support against Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed as Defense secretary.
Democrats seized on the moment and released a statement that said the exchange “underscores a central question in the Maine Senate race: Does Collins, a Republican in a state that disapproves of President Donald Trump and has grown bluer in recent years, stand up to her party enough to earn the independent streak she has staked her career on?”
Jackson has characterized Collins as out of touch with the struggles of working-class people in Maine. He has described Collins as a “rubber stamp” for the president and criticized her votes on Kavanaugh and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s second-term Health secretary. Collins has said she does not regret either vote.
Republican ads against Jackson, a logger from northern Maine, have focused more on accusations of his having a volatile personality and behaving like a bully with female colleagues. Jackson has denied those accusations.
Collins distanced herself on Wednesday from a Republican super PAC attack ad that she said “should be taken down.”
The senator was a top target of Democrats in 2020 when she defeated challenger Sara Gideon by nearly 9 percentage points. Collins is the only Republican senator from New England, a distinction she has had since January 2013.
An Iranian performer in Tehran’s busy Tajrish Square has impersonated US President Donald Trump behind bars in an art installation featuring the slogan: “It is a crime not to see this scene.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s latest embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin is deepening alarm in Washington and among America’s allies that the White House pressure campaign could leave Ukraine vulnerable as Moscow advances.
Trump’s push to end the war, which has raged since 2022, comes on the cusp of a midterm election that could give Democrats partial or full control of Congress, expanding their oversight powers, and as polls show more than two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of foreign policy and support Kyiv’s fight against Russian aggression.
On Monday, Trump dismissed Russia’s ongoing assault on its neighbor, telling reporters that “they haven’t been doing much,” even as Russian forces bombed a park in Kharkiv that day, killing a mother and her 14-month-old child in her stroller.
Two days later, in St. Petersburg, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, described Putin as a “humanitarian,” despite his invasion unleashing Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said after securing the release of a detained U.S. citizen from the Kremlin. At least two other Americans, both from Los Angeles, remain wrongfully detained by Russia. “I salute you, and I commend you,” he added.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) described Witkoff’s remarks as “another embarrassment” after a steady stream of entreaties to Moscow from the Trump administration.
The diplomatic push follows Trump’s decision two weeks ago to import Russian diesel, a move that could bolster Moscow’s war effort and violate U.S. law. Days later, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly condemned the move, Trump ally Elon Musk reportedly throttled the speed of Starshield, a military-grade satellite internet service from Starlink that Kyiv relies on to defend itself against Russian attacks.
The Trump administration failed to provide Kyiv with intelligence warnings of incoming ballistic missile strikes, blaming the weather. The president waived sanctions on Russia that were passed just months earlier with overwhelming bipartisan support in the aftermath of the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally and Ukraine supporter. And Trump declined to approve the transfer of interceptor missiles to Ukraine — more defensive weaponry used to protect the country from Russian strikes that have increasingly targeted civilian areas.
The developments have raised fresh questions over whether Trump has exceeded his legal authority in reshaping U.S. policy on Ukraine.
Russian diesel imports could violate a 2022 federal ban, the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act, and throttling Starshield, withholding intelligence and delaying missile transfers could breach contractual or statutory obligations set forth by Congress — all potential subjects of investigation for a willing Congress.
And Trump’s push comes at a moment of political peril, as he faces the prospect of a Democratic-led legislature and a Republican Party ready to move beyond his lame-duck presidency.
But freedom from political obligation could also allow Trump to pursue his agenda without the needs for coalitions or popular support.
The prospect of an unchecked Trump has stoked fears on Capitol Hill that the White House could abandon Kyiv altogether.
Nine senators from both parties have asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate the Starlink episode, while lawmakers across the aisle have condemned the speed restrictions. And should they take power after the midterms, Democrats are also weighing whether to make Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation a condition of further defense funding, citing his criticism of Ukraine, according to a report in the newspaper the Hill.
“Congress will unequivocally reaffirm that Ukraine is an indispensable ally to the United States, that Russia is a self-declared enemy of the United States, and that the United States will 100% support and defend the people of Ukraine in their fight for their own freedom against this brutal, illegal, and unprovoked Russian invasion,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
“The United States must provide any and all defensive equipment that Ukraine needs to defend itself,” Fitzpatrick added. “Anyone who attempts to limit the use of Starshield for Ukraine will be fully investigated and will be held fully accountable, to include public congressional oversight hearings.”
Marco Rubio, the president’s secretary of State and national security advisor, was initially silent on Trump’s moves. But he ultimately defended them when confronted by reporters on a recent visit to Central Asia.
“We’re no longer going to be defensive about this topic,” Rubio said. “If it were not for the assistance of the United States, including under the Trump administration, there would be no Ukraine right now. Ukraine, as a sovereign state, would not exist.”
Still, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that Rubio’s explanation of Ukraine’s loss of Starlink access was “absolutely not” sufficient.
“This is something where there needs to be an investigation, there needs to be a congressional investigation,” Turner told CBS. “Lives are at risk, and lives are lost over these things.”
Trump has told reporters in recent days that his goal remains to secure a peace deal that ends the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. But Mitt Romney, a former GOP senator from Utah and the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, dismissed Trump’s arguments as a break from U.S. values.
“Churchill could have shortened WW2 by years if he had just ‘done a deal’ with Hitler,” Romney wrote on social media. “George Washington could have done a deal to end the American Revolution.”
Zelensky “is in good company,” he added.
Europe, too, is preparing for a new confrontation with the Trump administration over the defense of Ukraine.
Germany’s chancellor rejected Trump’s approach, saying of Europe, “We are the firewall.” And the European diplomatic service responded with derision to Trump’s waiver of sanctions.
“When Russia escalates aggression against Ukraine,” the European Union’s diplomatic service said in a statement, “Europe responds with more pressure on the aggressor.”
Trump has floated a trilateral summit with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, China, next month, fueling European fears that he could strike a deal on Ukraine without Kyiv at the table.
The Russians and Ukrainians agreed this week in principle to begin peace talks at a technical level moderated by the United States. No timeline or framework has been set for the talks.
In an interview on Fox News, Zelensky said that he was prepared to agree to a peace deal that froze the existing battle lines, ceding nearly a quarter of Ukrainian land to Russian control. Over the last year, Russia has demanded that Kyiv also relinquish land in the Donbas region that it has failed to conquer through military means.
“Right now, we have to freeze. And I think this is a real way to end this war. We call this ceasefire,” Zelensky said. “This is minimum what we need from Russia today.”
“The most important is peace, and secure peace,” he added, “not to be afraid that occupation will come back, aggression will come back, killing will come back.”
What role will the Latino vote have in the upcoming midterm elections?
In the latest episode of “The De Los Podcast,” hosts and Times editors Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito welcome Times columnist Gustavo Arellano to dissect the increasingly important electorate, one that will help decide races locally and at the national level.
Long considered a reliable vote for the Democratic Party, Latinos shifted rightward in 2024.
“The Republican Party has always known — going back to the days of [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower — that there is something there in this demographic as it starts getting bigger,” Arellano said.
Arellano documented the history of Democratic support among California Latinos, highlighting the passage of 1994’s California Proposition 187 — which prohibited undocumented immigrants from using the state’s public services including non-emergency healthcare and education resources — as a turning point.
“It turned a whole generation of Latinos into voting Democrat, but it also showed the Republican Party that anti-immigrant politics work,” he said. “The problem with the Democratic Party in California for basically the next 30 years is all they would do is say, ‘You as a Latino should never vote Republican because they did 187.’”
A Pew Research Center study showed that in the 2024 presidential election, a slight majority of Latinos voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris — but they also voted for President Trump at a much higher rate than they did in 2020.
Trump garnered 48% of the Latino vote compared with Harris’ 51% share and significantly jumped past the 36% clip he received in the 2020 presidential election. The study’s results reveal that the initial 2024 exit polls actually underestimated Latinos’ Trump support, with the Republican candidate tracking at 46% of the Latino vote on election day.
Arellano contributed this shift in voting pattern to a lack of effective messaging from Democrats and widespread material hardships among Latinos.
“[You now have] an entire generation who have grown up and life has been harder for them because they are working-class folks,” he said. “And they’re saying, ‘The Republicans are racist? Well, life hasn’t improved for me as a Democrat, let me just take my chance with the racist.’”
But recent polling shows Latinos might have buyers’ remorse. The community cited increased cost of living, immigration tactics, involvement in wars across the world and a struggling economy as reasons for retreating from Republican leadership. Trump’s approval rating among Latinos dipped to 27% in an early October NBC News study. That same poll found that Democrats have a 24-point lead on whom Latino voters want to see in control of Congress.
“The Republican Party was given this extraordinary gift of the Latino vote, and what did they do? They blew it,” Arellano said.
He spotlighted Texas as a prime of example of how Republicans squandered their grip on Latino voters. The demographic voted heavily in favor of Trump in 2024, even in the long-Democratic borderland region of the state.
“Texas [Republicans] gerrymandered their state because they thought, “We have now this permanent Latino shift to our party, so let’s make these districts even more Latino because they’re going to vote Republican,’” Arellano said. “And now Latinos are running away [from the Republican Party] hard.”
Across the country, Latinos have also soured on the Republican Party due to the public display that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have put on in recent years, Arellano noted.
“To see people dragged and beaten … that weighs on you,” he said. “On top of that, the economy sucks, we’re in a stupid war, this president is increasingly saying crazy things … and now this immigration stuff. So [people are wondering] what good is it to be with [Trump] now.”
US president has continued to support data centres in advance of midterms, despite growing opposition from Republicans.
Published On 21 Oct 202621 Oct 2026
United States President Donald Trump has said AI data centres should pay “dividends” to communities, in a shift before the midterm elections.
“If companies want to make their Data Centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a ‘dividend’” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.
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The president’s comments come after he doubled down on his support for data centres, a stance seen as one of several political liabilities for Republicans in the run-up to the midterm election, as Trump’s approval rating has hit record lows.
Polls show dismal support for such centres amid concerns about the sprawling complexes’ water and energy use.
In the post, Trump advised companies that they could make the centres popular if they “pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a ‘dividend’.”
“I have watched the process closely, and Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area, have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck,” he said. “MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!!”
Several top Republican candidates have opposed data centres before the midterm polls, with the issue emerging as an area of rare bipartisan consensus in advance of the November 3 vote.
Republican Senate candidates, including Ken Paxton in Texas, Mike Rogers in Michigan and John Husted in Ohio, have all called for more restrictions and oversight on the centres, in a reversal of earlier positions.
The issue featured prominently in a recent debate in Iowa, where Republican Senate Candidate Ashley Hinson said the local level should decide whether to build AI data centres.
Despite the shifting sentiment, Trump in late August issued an impassioned defence of data centres, decrying what he called “the anti-Data Center movement” as a gift to China.
“The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote at the time.
“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”
Trump has taken several measures to accelerate data centre development, including issuing an executive order last year that called for measures to fast-track permitting and environmental review. The order promised to use federal land for the “expeditious and orderly development of data centers”.
Trump has also backed a voluntary pledge by AI companies to cover the full cost of the electricity data centres use, but has avoided supporting legally binding federal restrictions.
A Gallup poll conducted in March suggested that 71 percent of Americans opposed establishing AI data centres in their areas.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday identified a similar rate of disapproval, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they opposed building new data centres in their communities.
![Lipan Apache tribe member Joey Montoya attends a rally opposing border wall construction in Big Bend National Park outside the US federal courthouse during an emergency hearing for a Petition for a Temporary Restraining Order against the Department of Homeland Security, in San Antonio, Texas, US, August 28, 2026 [Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2026-10-03T005837Z_737004234_RC2R7NAH97N9_RTRMADP_3_USA-MIGRATION-BIG-BEND-1792629816.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
