US & Canada

UFC boss breaks up tense face-off between the two fighters before their welterweight title bout at Madison Square Garden.

UFC boss Dana White had to separate a tense staredown between welterweight title holder Jack Della Maddalena and Islam Makhachev before their fight this weekend, as the defending champ pledged to beat the mixed martial arts “legend” to bring the belt home to Australia.

The fighters came nose-to-nose and refused to break eye contact during a face-off after their news conference on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, New York, where they will headline UFC 322 on Saturday night, eventually leading White to prise them apart.

Della Maddalena (18-2) will mount his first title defence after beating Belal Muhammad by unanimous decision to become champion in May. The 29-year-old Australian is undefeated in the UFC and is now on an 18-fight win streak overall.

The 34-year-old Makhachev (27-1), who is regarded as a pound-for-pound great and is on a 15-win streak, vacated his lightweight belt to move up a weight class.

Della Maddalena was taciturn but appeared unfazed as he received a chorus of boos from the crowd at Thursday night’s news conference, with his Dagestani opponent the clear fan-favourite.

“This is what I got in this sport for – big challenges, big moments. I’m excited for the challenge and I’m looking forward to it,” Della Maddalena said.

“I’m going to bring this belt back home to Australia, no doubt,” he added.

“Obviously, Islam’s a legend. A big win over him would be a big name on the resume and it would definitely put me up on the pound-for-pound list.”

Makhachev responded by saying he would go 4-0 against Australian fighters – although he may have been lumping the New Zealander Dan Hooker in that list, as his only previous Aussie opponent was Alexander Volkanovski, who Makhachev beat twice.

“Australia, it’s a good place. I was there, I like it and now it’s 3-0, I will make it four,” he said.

Della Maddalena hit back by saying several Australian fighters were thriving in the UFC.

“I am very proud to be Australian, very proud to raise the Australian flag,” he said.

“Australia is very competitive, it has a fighting culture and that’s why we’re doing so well. We have two champions and after this weekend we will still have two champions.”

Although Della Maddalena and Makhachev are both well-rounded fighters, the Australian is renowned for his boxing while the Dagestani is famed for his ferocious ground game.

Makhachev smiled and said he “didn’t know” when asked if Della Maddalena was the best boxer in the UFC.

“Jack is one of the best, but I am also a good striker, so let’s see who is better,” he said.

Della Maddalena, meanwhile, told reporters he would “absolutely” be able to defend Makhachev’s takedown attempts for the entire fight, as he did so effectively in his victory over Muhammad.

“[I can do it for the] full 25 minutes,” he said, with a wry smile of his own.

A newly released batch of correspondence involving disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has prompted new speculation about ties between the deceased financier and United States President Donald Trump, but experts say its significance stretches beyond the White House.

The never-before-seen emails have added to pressure on the Trump administration to release files about Epstein in the US government’s possession, with a vote in Congress now expected as early as next week. Trump has rejected suggestions that he has anything to hide, and insists that while he knew Epstein, they broke ties in the early 2000s.

But the newly released emails also raise ethical questions about the role played by acclaimed author Michael Wolff as he appeared to provide advice to Epstein on how to handle his dealings with Trump.

In the exchanges published by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, Wolff – best known for his bestselling books on the first Trump presidency – appeared to share confidential information before a presidential debate on CNN in December 2015 with Epstein, advising him on how to exploit his connection with Trump.

“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you – either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote.

“If we were to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Epstein replied.

“I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency,” Wolff told Epstein.

“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime,” Wolff added, in his response to Epstein.

Al Jazeera reached out to Wolff for comment, but has not received a response.

In a conversation on a podcast with the news outlet The Daily Beast, Wolff said he was seeking to build a relationship with Epstein at the time to better understand Trump, but acknowledged that in “hindsight”, his comments could be seen as “embarrassing”.

Wolff, 72, is best known for his four books exposing the inner workings of the first Trump presidency, including Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Jane Kirtley, professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said any judgement on whether behaviour like Wolff’s with Epstein was appropriate would depend on how the writer’s role is understood.

“Some people are reporters, some are commentators, and some are book authors, and there are some differences in the way that those different people operate,” Kirtley told Al Jazeera.

“If you want to be a public relations person, or if you want to be an agent, those are perfectly valid career choices. But I think that they are unfortunately incompatible with journalism because the public has a right to assume and to believe that you are acting independently,” she continued.

“You can’t serve two masters, as the saying goes, and your interest has to either be the public interest or serving some other interests.”

Insider reporting

Experts note that reporters often face ethical and professional dilemmas while cultivating relationships with sources, especially in areas where insider information is highly sought after, such as Wolff’s research on relations between various figures in the first Trump administration.

But the prerogative to build rapport with sources, especially those with influence, can also raise difficult questions about a reporter’s proximity to the very centres of power they are supposed to be scrutinising.

Edward Wasserman, a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said such relationships have to maintain certain boundaries and be balanced with the usefulness of the information being brought to the public’s attention.

“I think that the public has the right to be sceptical of this kind of cosy relationship with sources,” Wasserman told Al Jazeera. “But the answer the journalist has is that this is in the interest of the public, that there’s a redemptive dimension to this. It enables the kind of relationships that will allow people to confide in a reporter, who can then share that information with the public.”

Still, such relationships can also have a troubling inversion, where a journalist might be tempted to offer a source preferential treatment if they believe they might be rewarded with information.

Another journalist who corresponded with Epstein in emails released on Wednesday, a former New York Times finance reporter named Landon Thomas Jr, also appeared to have a close relationship with the convicted sex offender, whom he informed about a writer named John Connelly who was researching him.

“Keep getting calls from that guy doing a book on you – John Connolly. He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media. I told him you were a hell of a guy :)” Thomas Jr said in an email dated June 1, 2016.

“He is digging around again,” Thomas Jr said in another email to Epstein on September 27, 2017. “I think he is doing some Trump-related digging too. Anyway, for what it’s worth…” he added.

The public broadcaster NPR reported that Thomas Jr was no longer working for the Times by January 2019, and it had come to light that the reporter had asked Epstein for a $30,000 donation to a cultural centre in New York City. The New York Times has previously stated that the behaviour was a clear violation of its ethics policies and that it took action as soon as it learned of the incident.

In the case of Wolff, Wasserman also noted that his direct participation in matters relating to Trump, Epstein, and the media raised doubts about the writer’s ability to credibly report on those issues. Those questions may be especially poignant in a scandal that, for many people in the US, has become a symbol of close relationships among figures at the highest levels of power.

“The problem is that Wolff was offering advice on how to engineer, how to play this situation, in a way that’s advantageous to Epstein. And the problem that I have with that is that he then would presumably preserve the right to report on the consequences,” he said.

It also remains unclear whether Wolff’s relationship with Epstein resulted in the kind of public revelations that journalists typically point to when justifying close ties with sources.

“It occurs to me as important that in this exchange, Wolff doesn’t do anything to illuminate the core mystery, which is whether Trump was a sexual participant in what was going on with Epstein and these young women,” said Wasserman.

“And there’s nothing in this where I’m seeing Wolff even asking that,” he added.

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani wins fourth MLB MVP award while New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge bags a third.

While Shohei Ohtani had his greatness reconfirmed, Cal Raleigh learned not even the greatest season by a catcher in Major League Baseball history could stop Aaron Judge from adding another Most Valuable Player (MVP) award to his trophy case.

Minutes after Ohtani secured his third consecutive MVP award and fourth in the last five years – leaving him just three shy of Barry Bonds for the most in MLB history – Judge was announced as the American League’s MVP in a close vote with Raleigh on Thursday night.

Ohtani and Judge became the first duo to win the Most Valuable Player Award in the same back-to-back seasons.

The New York Yankees outfielder secured 17 of a possible 30 first-place votes and 355 points. The Seattle Mariners catcher claimed the other 13 first-place votes and finished with 335 points.

In the end, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters determined that Judge’s MLB-leading batting average (.331), on-base percentage (.457) and slugging percentage (.688) outweighed Raleigh’s AL-best 60 homers and 125 RBIs.

“It’s pretty wild,” Judge said. “You try not to think about it during the season. I try to keep my head down through all 162 and do whatever I can in today’s game to help our team win.”

For the 33-year-old Judge, it marks his third MVP award. That puts him in an exclusive neighbourhood with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Mike Trout and a handful of others – but Ohtani no longer resides there.

The 31-year-old Japan native received all 30 first-place votes for the National League MVP.

Ohtani earned his latest honour after piling up a career-high 55 homers, a majors-best 146 runs and an NL-high .622 slugging percentage and 1.014 OPS in 158 games.

He also returned to the mound after taking 18 months off and forged a 1-1 record with a 2.87 ERA in 14 starts. He registered 62 strikeouts versus just nine walks over 47 innings.

“It was a great year,” Ohtani said on MLB Network via translator. “Like I said, I’m grateful to my teammates, the coaching staff … but not only them. The fans were the ones who really rooted us on and supported us.”

Ohtani added eight home runs in 17 postseason games while leading the Dodgers to their second consecutive World Series title, though his playoff exploits did not factor into the BBWAA voting.

Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber, who produced a league-high 56 homers and 132 RBIs while playing in all 162 games, finished second in the balloting. He was followed by New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (43 homers, 38 stolen bases), Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo (.290 average, 20 homers, 100 RBIs, 27 steals) and Phillies shortstop Trea Turner (league-leading .304 average with 36 steals).

In the American League, Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez (30 homers, 44 steals) finished a distant third.

Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr (23 homers, 38 steals) and Detroit Tigers starter Tarik Skubal, who claimed his second consecutive Cy Young Award with a 13-6 record and 2.21 ERA, rounded out the top five.

Here are the key events from day 1,359 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, November 14:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv early on Friday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, with air defences in action and a series of explosions reported in the capital.
• Klitschko said falling debris had struck a five-storey apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the east side of the Dnipro River, and a high-rise dwelling was on fire in Podil district on the opposite bank.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near Ukraine’s southeastern front line, where he warned of the need to shore up defences after his troops lost ground in increasingly high-intensity battles far from Russia’s main offensive in the east of the country.
• President Zelenskyy said the situation near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region was “one of the most difficult” along a sprawling front line and that thwarting Russian forces there was key to shielding Zaporizhzhia city.
• Ukraine’s military said its troops hit a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea and also an oil depot in the occupied Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian oil facilities and other military targets were hit by domestically produced weapons, including the “Flamingo” ground-launched cruise missile, drone missiles, and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces have captured two more Ukrainian settlements: Synelnykove in the Kharkiv region and Danylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• Russian air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reports, citing daily data from the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Peace talks

• The Kremlin said Ukraine would have to negotiate an end to the war “sooner or later” and predicted that Kyiv’s negotiating position would worsen by the day.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.
• Lavrov said United States President Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and “demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution”.
• “We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine energy scandal

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Zelenskyy have discussed the $100m energy corruption scandal that has engulfed Kyiv, the German government said in a statement.
• Zelenskyy pledged complete transparency, long-term support for independent anticorruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors, the statement said.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also announced an audit of all state-owned companies, including in the energy sector, following the scandal that has led to the suspension of two cabinet ministers.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is lending 22.3m euros ($26m) to a Ukrainian energy firm as part of a pipeline of deals, signalling its ongoing support for the sector despite the corruption scandal.
• The EBRD cash will go to private Ukrainian energy company Power One to finance new gas-piston power plants and battery energy storage systems, the lender said in a statement.

Aid to Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soon begin a staff mission to Ukraine to discuss its financing needs and a potential new lending programme, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said.
• Ukraine is in talks with the IMF about a new four-year lending programme for the country that would replace its current four-year $15.5bn programme. Ukraine has already received $10.6bn of that amount.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the European Union could either borrow the money needed to cover Kyiv’s financial needs in 2026 and 2027 against the collateral of its long-term budget, or each EU country could borrow on its own and extend a grant to Ukraine.
• A third option was a proposal from the Commission to organise a loan that would effectively become a grant, on the basis of the Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU. European finance ministers agreed that funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most “effective” of the three options being considered.
• Europe’s top development banks and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz signed a deal to provide an EU grant of 127 million euros ($127m) in additional funding to the firm, on top of a 300 billion euro loan ($349bn) it outlined last month to secure Ukraine’s natural gas supply, amid the ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure by Russia.
• Nordic and Baltic countries will together contribute $500m to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List arms initiative, their defence ministers said in a joint statement.

Russian sanctions

• About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, or almost a third of the country’s seaborne exporting potential, remain in tankers as unloading slows due to US sanctions against energy firms Rosneft and Lukoil, according to US financial services firm JPMorgan.
• Bulgaria’s parliament has overruled a presidential veto on legislation allowing the government to take control of Lukoil’s oil refinery and sell it to shield the asset from looming US sanctions.
• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had attempted to veto a move by lawmakers giving a government-appointed commercial manager powers to oversee the continued operation of Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria beyond November 21, when the US sanctions are due to take effect, and to sell the company if needed.
• Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
• The group said critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilisers at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions. The attack was successfully repelled, and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.

Voters’ approval of Proposition 50 means Democrats might win up to five additional seats in the US House of Representatives in 2026.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has joined a lawsuit against California over the state’s redistricting effort, which was approved by a landslide in the November 4 election.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice said it would seek to overturn California’s new map of congressional districts, which was passed through a ballot initiative with approximately 64 percent support.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

She accused California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, of attempting to stifle Republican voices in his state. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

The ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, is poised to redraw the boundaries of electoral districts to favour the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

The proposition was designed as a counterattack against Trump’s gerrymandering in Republican states.

In Texas, for instance, the Trump White House urged the state legislature to pass new congressional districts that would allow the Republicans the opportunity to win five more seats in the House of Representatives in 2026.

In August, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the new Republican-backed map into law.

Republicans also expect to gain one seat each from new maps in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially two more in Ohio. Civil rights advocates have argued that the new boundaries in Texas and Missouri illegally disadvantage minority communities at the ballot box.

Proposition 50 in California means that Democrats might win as many as five additional seats in the House in 2026, in an explicit attempt to offset the new Texas congressional map.

However, the California Republican Party and 19 registered voters sued the state in federal court on November 5, a day after the election was held.

They claimed California’s redistricting effort violates provisions of the US Constitution by unlawfully favouring Hispanic communities.

The Justice Department has echoed those concerns in its complaint. It argues that California’s map “manipulates district lines in the name of bolstering the voting power of Hispanic Californians because of their race”.

Tonight, California sent a powerful message to Donald Trump. We will fight for our democracy. And we will win. pic.twitter.com/tEcPlxVbi4

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 5, 2025

In response, Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Governor Newsom, said, “These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court.”

Newsom has emerged as a prominent Democratic critic of Trump, calling the president’s opposition to California’s ballot measure the “ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE”.

Newsom has confirmed he will consider a White House run in 2028 once the 2026 midterm elections are over.

California’s new district boundaries will apply for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.

Normally, congressional districts in California are drawn by an independent commission, based on the results of a national census taken every 10 years.

Proposition 50 suspends that commission’s work for the next three national elections and instead adopts a map created by the state legislatures.

In theory, electoral maps should reflect the people who live in a given state. In reality, most boundaries are rejigged by the parties in power, in a process called gerrymandering. Legislatures in many states determine how the districts are drawn.

California’s new congressional map aims to dilute Republican voters’ power, in one case by uniting rural, conservative-leaning parts of far northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

The Justice Department is asking a judge to prohibit California from using the new map in any future elections.

More than a thousand unionised Starbucks baristas have walked off the job in more than 40 cities across the United States as negotiations have stalled between the company and the union, Starbucks Workers United.

Workers at 65 stores began an open-ended strike on Thursday, coinciding with the Seattle, Washington-based coffee shop chain’s Red Cup Day sales event, when customers who order a holiday-themed beverage can receive a free reusable cup with their purchase.

The event typically drives higher traffic to Starbucks stores.

The coffeeshop chain, which has more than 18,000 stores across the US and Canada, says that the walkouts have caused limited impact.

More stores could soon join the strike. Starbucks Workers United represents roughly 550 stores around the US. Combined, this strike could be the largest in the history of the coffeeshop chain.

Stores in cities including Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin and Portland will join the work stoppage, it said. Some locations had already shut down for the day, a union spokesperson told journalists on a media call.

In an Instagram post on Thursday, the union called on consumers not to shop at any Starbucks location “today and beyond” ahead of a nationwide rally slated to begin at 4pm local time for each location.

The union has filed more than 1,000 charges to the National Labor Relations Board for alleged unfair labour practices such as firing unionising baristas, and last week, it voted to authorise a strike if a contract was not finalised by November 13.

Starbucks has said it pays an average wage of $19 an hour and offers employees who work at least 20 hours a week benefits including healthcare, parental leave and tuition for online classes at Arizona State University.

The union said starting wages are $15.25 per hour in about 33 states and the average barista gets less than 20 hours per week.

Talks between the union and the company stretched for about eight months in 2024, but broke down in December, after which workers went on strike during the key holiday period.

“Unfortunately, it’s not unusual to see stall tactics used in collective bargaining, as we’re seeing with Starbucks. But the situation and the strike vote also demonstrate that long-term grassroots organising empowers workers. There’s strength in numbers,” Jennifer Abruzzo, former General Counsel at the National Labor Relations Board under former US President Joe Biden, said in remarks shared with Al Jazeera.

History of strikes

Starbucks workers have gone on strike several times over the last few years, starting in 2021. Workers at a location in Buffalo, New York became the first unionised store and subsequently launched a nationwide movement, which now represents four percent of the Starbucks cafe workforce, or about 9,500 people.

In 2022, workers at roughly 100 stores went on strike, and in December 2024, workers walked off the job amid stalled negotiations at 300 stores. Negotiations began again earlier this year, but the two parties have yet to come to an agreement.

In April this year, the union voted to reject a Starbucks proposal that guaranteed annual raises of at least two percent, saying it did not offer changes to economic benefits such as healthcare, or an immediate pay hike.

“Despite the fact that thousands of Starbucks baristas voted to engage in collective bargaining some years ago, the company has manipulated the situation to avoid having a contract,” Sharon Block, executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School, said in remarks provided to Al Jazeera.

“Baristas are staying strong. The strength of the strike vote shows that baristas aren’t giving up. They continue to demand fair treatment by the company.”

Executive pressures

The strike comes as Starbucks under CEO Brian Niccol shuts hundreds of underperforming stores this year, including the unionised flagship Seattle location, while trimming corporate roles to control costs.

Niccol, who previously spent six years leading Chipotle, has stressed improving service times and in-store experience in the US to revive demand for beverages as sales have remained flat or negative for the past seven quarters.

Niccol had said in September last year when he took over as CEO that he was committed to dialogue.

However, Lynne Fox, the union’s international president, said on a call with journalists that things changed once Niccol took the helm.

“A year into Niccol’s tenure, negotiations have gone backwards after months of steady progress and good faith negotiations last year,” Fox said.

In 2024, Niccol’s compensation package totaled more than $95m, which is 6,666 times the median employee salary, according to the AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch tracker. That represents the largest CEO-to-worker pay gap among the S&P 500, according to the Institute for Policy Studies’ Executive Excess report.

Niccol’s pay, however, is largely driven by the performance of Starbucks’ stock, with $90m coming from the value of stock awards. Since Niccol took over the company in September 2024, the stock price of Starbucks has fallen by about 6 percent.

On Wall Street, Starbucks’ stock in midday trading is down by 0.9 percent.

The poll also shows 44 percent of Democrats were ‘very enthusiastic’ about voting in the 2026 midterm elections.

The approval rating for United States President Donald Trump remains at its lowest level since he began his second term in January, according to a new poll.

But Thursday’s survey, conducted by the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos, found a jump in the share of respondents who said they disapproved of his performance.

His disapproval rating increased from 52 percent in mid-May to 58 percent in November. His approval rating, meanwhile, stayed at approximately 40 percent, roughly the same as it was in May.

The online poll, conducted over six days this month, surveyed 1,200 US adults nationwide about their opinions on top political figures and who they planned to vote for in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

It found that Democrats appeared to be more enthusiastic about next year’s midterms than their Republican counterparts, a result perhaps influenced by key Democratic victories this month.

Approximately 44 percent of registered voters who called themselves Democrats said they were “very enthusiastic” about voting in the 2026 elections, compared with 26 percent of Republicans.

Some 79 percent of Democrats said they would regret it if they did not vote in the midterm races, compared with 68 percent of Republicans.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs next year, as will 35 seats in the 100-member Senate. Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress.

But Democrats have recently been buoyed by wins on November 4, during the off-year elections.

The party won resounding victories in governor’s races for Virginia and New Jersey, and in New York City, a closely watched race mayoral race saw Zohran Mamdani sweep to victory over his centrist and right-wing competitors.

Voters in California also passed a ballot measure that will redraw its congressional districts to favour the Democrats, in response to Trump-inspired gerrymandering in Republican states.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll closed on Wednesday, just before Congress voted to end the longest government shutdown in US history.

The new spending bill, which extends federal funding until January 30, passed in the House of Representatives by a margin of 222 to 209, with six Democrats joining the Republican majority to reopen the government.

Trump signed a federal government spending bill late on Wednesday, ending the 43-day shutdown, which caused tumult for federal workers, families in need and air travel.

The bill had previously passed the Senate on Monday, after seven Democrats and one independent agreed to support it.

While Democrats appeared more “enthusiastic” than Republicans in the Reuters-Ipsos poll, the survey noted that the two parties appeared to be evenly matched in voter intention moving forward.

When poll respondents were asked whom they would vote for if congressional elections were held today, 41 percent of registered voters said they’d pick the Democratic candidate, while 40 percent chose the Republican candidate.

The narrow difference in those results fell well within the poll’s 3-percentage-point margin of error.

The Trump administration is pushing an Israeli-crafted resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) this week aimed at eliminating the possibility of a State of Palestine. The resolution does three things. It establishes US political control over the Gaza Strip. It separates Gaza from the rest of Palestine. And it allows the US, and therefore Israel, to determine the timeline for Israel’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza, which would mean never.

This is imperialism masquerading as a peace process. In and of itself, it is no surprise. Israel runs US foreign policy in the Middle East. What is a surprise is that the US and Israel might just get away with this travesty unless the world speaks up with urgency and indignation.

The draft UNSC resolution would establish a US-UK-dominated Board of Peace, chaired by none other than President Donald Trump himself, and endowed with sweeping powers over Gaza’s governance, borders, reconstruction, and security. This resolution would sideline the State of Palestine and condition any transfer of authority to the Palestinians on the indulgence of the Board of Peace.

This would be an overt return to the British mandate of 100 years ago, with the only change being that the US would hold the mandate rather than the United Kingdom. If it were not so utterly tragic, it would be laughable. As Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Yes, the proposal is a farce, yet Israel’s genocide is not. It is a tragedy of the first order.

Incredibly, according to the draft resolution, the Board of Peace would be granted sovereign powers in Gaza. Palestinian sovereignty is left to the discretion of the board, which alone would decide when Palestinians are “ready” to govern themselves – perhaps in another 100 years? Even military security is subordinated to the board, and the envisioned forces would answer not to the UNSC or to the Palestinian people, but to the board’s “strategic guidance”.

The US-Israel resolution is being put forward precisely because the rest of the world – other than Israel and the US – has woken up to two facts. First, Israel is committing genocide, a reality witnessed every day in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where innocent Palestinians are murdered to the satisfaction of the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Second, Palestine is a state, albeit one whose sovereignty remains obstructed by the US, which uses its veto in the UNSC to block Palestine’s permanent UN membership. At the UN this past July and then again in September, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for Palestine’s statehood, a fact that put the Israel-US Zionist lobby into overdrive, resulting in the current draft resolution.

For Israel to accomplish its goal of Greater Israel, the US is pursuing a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, squeezing Arab and Islamic states with threats and inducements. When other countries resist the US-Israel demands, they are cut off from critical technologies, lose access to World Bank and IMF financing, and suffer Israeli bombing, even in countries with US military bases present. The US offers no real protection; rather, it orchestrates a protection racket, extracting concessions from countries wherever US leverage exists. This extortion will continue until the global community stands up to such tactics and insists upon genuine Palestinian sovereignty and US and Israeli adherence to international law.

Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli manoeuvres. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond. Israel and the US are currently at war, overtly or covertly, across the Horn of Africa (Libya, Sudan, Somalia), the eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Syria), the Gulf region (Yemen), and Western Asia (Iraq, Iran).

If the UNSC is to provide true security according to the UN Charter, it must not yield to US pressures and instead act decisively in line with international law. A resolution truly for peace should include four vital points. First, it should welcome the State of Palestine as a sovereign UN member state, with the US lifting its veto. Second, it should safeguard the territorial integrity of the State of Palestine and Israel, according to the 1967 borders. Third, it should establish a UNSC-mandated protection force drawn up from Muslim-majority states. Fourth, it should include the defunding and disarmament of all belligerent non-state entities, and it should ensure the mutual security of Israel and Palestine.

The two-state solution is about true peace, not about the politicide and genocide of Palestine, or the continued attacks by militants on Israel. It is time for both Palestinians and Israelis to be safe, and for the US and Israel to give up the cruel delusion of permanently ruling over the Palestinian people.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

US President Donald Trump signed a funding bill in Washington DC to end a 43-day government shutdown, the longest on record. The deal followed a partisan standoff over healthcare that left nearly a million workers unpaid.

Jack Miller, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, discusses how the narratives from both major political parties are likely to shift following the end of the US government shutdown.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of using Palestinians as human shields in violation of international law.

The United States had evidence last year that Israeli officials discussed how their soldiers sent Palestinians into tunnels in Gaza that the Israelis believed were potentially lined with explosives, two former US officials have told the Reuters news agency.

The information was shared with the White House and analysed by the intelligence community in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration, the officials said.

International law prohibits the use of civilians as shields during military activity.

Israel’s use of Palestinians as human shields in Gaza and the occupied West Bank has been documented on multiple occasions, but Wednesday’s Reuters report is a rare acknowledgement that Washington collected its own evidence on the subject.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security information, did not provide details on whether the Palestinians referenced in the intelligence were prisoners or civilians.

Reuters could not determine whether the Biden administration discussed the intelligence with the Israeli government.

Responding to the report, the Israeli military said in a statement that it “prohibits the use of civilians as human shields or coercing them in any way to participate in military operations”.

It added that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division is investigating “suspicions involving Palestinians in military missions”.

In May this year, seven Palestinians who had been used as human shields in Gaza, as well as the occupied West Bank, shared testimonies in a report published by The Associated Press.

In June 2024, video footage verified by Al Jazeera showed Israeli soldiers tied a wounded Palestinian man, Mujahed Azmi, to the front of a military jeep and drove him past two ambulances during a raid on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military claimed at the time that the soldiers involved violated protocol, while a US State Department spokesperson described reports and video of the incident as “disturbing” and “a clear violation” of Israel’s “orders and procedures”.

Israel quizzed at UN over torture allegations

Israel was questioned at the United Nations on Tuesday and Wednesday over multiple reports alleging the torture of Palestinian detainees, in particular since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

“The committee has been deeply appalled by the description we have received, in a large number of alternative reports, of what appears to be systematic and widespread torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians, including children,” the body’s rapporteur, Peter Vedel Kessing, said.

Twenty-eight Israeli officials appeared in front of a panel of 10 UN experts on torture in Geneva.

The experts asked the Israeli team: “Does Israel have a law against torture?”

The answer from the Israeli delegation was no.

“Does Israel apply the agreements it has signed against torture in Gaza and the West Bank?” the question continued, to which the answer was also no.

The committee confronted Israel with multiple reports and a long list of violations against Palestinians. The Israeli delegation denied most of them. In some instances, the delegation said, soldiers had acted in “self-defence”.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of using torture during its two-year war on Gaza.

In one instance, a video leaked from its infamous Sde Teiman military prison appeared to show Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee.

In addition, dozens of dead bodies of Palestinian detainees that have been returned to Gaza since the start of a ceasefire have exhibited signs of torture.

The UN Committee Against Torture will issue a non-binding summary of its findings on the allegations against Israel at the end of November.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The successful vote means the long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Trump to sign into law.

The House of Representatives has passed a federal government spending package, clearing the final hurdle and bringing an end to the longest government shutdown in United States history – at least for now.

In a vote held late on Wednesday evening in the Republican-held House, the bill was backed by 222 lawmakers – including six Democrats – while 209 voted against it, including two Republicans.

The long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

On Monday night, the upper chamber of Congress had approved the spending package by a vote of 60 to 40 to fund the US government through January 30, reinstating pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers after six gruelling weeks.

All but essential government services had ground to a halt amid the shutdown.

The breakthrough came following negotiations last weekend that saw seven Democrats and one independent agree to back the updated spending package and end the shutdown, which entered its 42nd day on Tuesday.

Crucially, however, the deal has not resolved one of the shutdown’s most central issues – healthcare subsidies for 24 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration planned to cut.

For weeks, Democrats repeatedly blocked the bill’s passage in Congress, saying the measure was necessary to force the government to address escalating healthcare costs for low-income Americans.

Shortly before Wednesday’s vote, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accused his Democratic colleagues of using American citizens as “leverage” in their “political game”, as he denounced them for preventing the resolution’s passage in September.

“Since that time, Senate Democrats have voted 14 times to close the government. Republicans have voted a collective 15 times to open the government for the people, and the Democrats voted that many times to close it,” he said.

As part of the deal breaking the impasse, Senate Republicans agreed to hold a vote on the issue by December, raising fears there could be another shutdown in January.

The agreement had also provoked anger among Democrats, who preferred to keep holding out, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker – considered a contender for the 2028 presidential election – who called it an “empty promise” earlier this week.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, also described the agreement as “just a stopgap arrangement”.

“The deal that they’ve reached means most of the government will shut down again in January if they can’t come to another agreement,” he told Al Jazeera earlier this week.

Democrats who supported the deal were Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin from Illinois, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen from Nevada, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, and Tim Kaine from Virginia.

Angus King, an independent from Maine, also backed the deal.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow shortly.

United States President Donald Trump is committed to providing Americans with $2,000 cheques using money that has come into government coffers from Trump’s tariffs.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s staff is exploring how to go about making the plan a reality.

The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform on Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardship — specifically, the high cost of living.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 33 percent approve.

The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’

“Trump has taken to his favorite policymaking forum, Truth Social, to make yet another guarantee that Americans are going to receive dividend [cheques] from the revenues collected by tariffs,” Alex Jacquez, who served on the National Economic Council under former US President Joe Biden, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“It’s interesting that Trump’s arguments—which he has been pushing forward for several months now on Truth Social—do not match the arguments that his lawyers are making in court. It seems he is trying to pressure the Justices by implying that this will be some massive economic disaster if they rule against the tariffs.”

Budget experts have scoffed at Trump’s tariff dividend plan, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dividend cheques financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.

“The numbers just don’t check out,″ Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, told the Associated Press.

Details are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.

Even Trump’s US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan.

Appearing on Sunday on the ABC News programme This Week, Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a cheque from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.

The tariffs are certainly raising money — $195bn in the budget year that ended September 30, up 153 percent from $77bn in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than four percent of federal revenue, and have done little to dent the federal budget deficit, a staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.

Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.

John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200bn to $300bn a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividend — if it went to all Americans, including children — would cost $600bn. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” Ricco said.

The analyst also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. That would require legislation from Congress.

Legal challenges

Moreover, the centrepiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policies — double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the world — may not survive a legal challenge that has reached the US Supreme Court.

In a hearing last week, the court’s justices sounded sceptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the US Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.

If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend cheques to American families. Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court, but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by US importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.

The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. “If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.”

The carmaker first announced the plan for battery production in 2021.

Toyota Motor Corporation has begun production at its $13.9bn North Carolina battery plant as it ramps up hybrid production and confirms plans to invest $10bn over five years in United States manufacturing.

The Tokyo, Japan-based carmaker announced the developments on Wednesday.

It first introduced the plan in December 2021 to produce batteries for its hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). Batteries from the plant are set to power hybrid versions of the Camry, Corolla Cross, RAV4, and a yet-to-be-announced, all-electric, three-row-battery vehicle. The plant is producing hybrid batteries for factories in Kentucky and a Mazda and Toyota joint venture in Alabama.

“Over the next five years, we are planning an additional investment of $10bn in the US to further grow our manufacturing capabilities, bringing our total investment in this country to over $60bn,” said Ted Ogawa, president of Toyota Motor North America.

Toyota’s 11th US factory, on a 1,850-acre (749-hectare) site, will be able to produce 30 gigawatt-hours of energy annually at full capacity and house 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrids and full EVs. It will eventually employ 5,000 workers.

Last month in Japan, US President Donald Trump said Toyota planned a $10bn investment in the United States.

“Go out and buy a Toyota,” said Trump, who has been critical of Japanese and other auto imports and has imposed hefty tariffs on imported vehicles.

Toyota has been one of the slowest carmakers to move to full EVs, but has rapidly moved to convert its best-selling vehicles to hybrids.

“We know there is no single path to progress”, Ogawa said on Wednesday.

“That’s why we remain committed to our multi-pathway approach, offering fuel-efficient gas engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electronics and fuel cell electronics.”

Other car companies like Volkswagen have said they will add more hybrids as the Trump administration has rescinded EV tax credits and eliminated penalties that incentivised EV sales.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the event that the administration plans to soon propose to ease fuel economy standards, saying prior rules were too aggressive.

Duffy in January signed an order to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rescind fuel economy standards issued under former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for the 2022-2031 model years that had aimed to drastically reduce fuel use for cars and trucks.

Toyota’s stock is up by about 0.4 percent in midday trading in New York.

The House of Representatives will hold a session to vote on legislation to end the longest shutdown in US history.

Decision follows Senate vote to reopen the government, but legal saga has brought uncertainty to millions who need food assistance.

The highest court in the United States has extended a previous order allowing President Donald Trump to withhold food assistance to tens of millions of people in the US amid the government shutdown.

In a ruling on Tuesday, the Supreme Court extended a previous pause that it had granted the Trump administration after a lower court ordered the government to pay out about $4bn in food benefits for November.

Advocates have said that withholding the funds could have calamitous effects on people who depend on food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), although the issue could be made moot as the shutdown appears to be drawing to a close.

The Supreme Court decision comes one day after the Senate on Monday approved compromise legislation that would end the longest government shutdown in US history, breaking a weeks-long impasse that has disrupted food benefits for millions, left hundreds of thousands of federal workers unpaid and snarled air traffic as a lack of air traffic controllers forced cancellations.

The battle over SNAP benefits has underlined the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to slash government employment and roll back access to programmes that it had previously criticised under the auspices of the shutdown.

While it is common for some benefits and programmes to face delays or other issues during government shutdowns, food benefits ceased entirely at the start of November for the first time in the programme’s 60-year history.

The decision set off a series of legal challenges and several weeks of back-and-forth rulings that have kept those who rely on food assistance in a state of limbo.

A judge had ruled last week that the government must fully fund benefits for November, a decision the administration challenged. The Supreme Court had paused that order, but the stay was set to expire on Thursday.

A Virginia transportation security officer has accused the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of sex discrimination over a policy that bars transgender officers from performing security screening pat-downs, according to a federal lawsuit.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which operates under the DHS, enacted the policy in February to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring two unchangeable sexes: male and female.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency obtained internal documents explaining the policy change from four independent sources, including one current and two former TSA workers.

Those documents explain that “transgender officers will no longer engage in pat-down duties, which are conducted based on both the traveller’s and officer’s biological sex. In addition, transgender officers will no longer serve as a TSA-required witness when a traveller elects to have a pat-down conducted in a private screening area”.

Until February, the TSA assigned officers work consistent with their gender identity, based on a 2021 management directive. The agency told the AP that it rescinded this directive to comply with Trump’s January 20 executive order.

Although transgender officers “shall continue to be eligible to perform all other security screening functions consistent with their certifications” and must attend all required training, they will not be allowed to demonstrate how to conduct pat-downs as part of their training or while training others, according to the internal documents.

A transgender officer at Dulles international airport, Danielle Mittereder, alleged in her lawsuit filed on Friday that the new policy, which also bars her from using TSA facility restrooms that align with her gender identity, violates civil rights law.

“Solely because she is transgender, TSA now prohibits Plaintiff from conducting core functions of her job, impedes her advancement to higher-level positions and specialised certifications, excludes her from TSA-controlled facilities, and subjects her identity to unwanted and undue scrutiny each workday,” the complaint says.

Mittereder declined to speak with the AP, but her lawyer, Jonathan Puth, called the TSA policy “terribly demeaning and 100 percent illegal”.

TSA spokesperson Russell Read declined to comment, citing pending litigation. But he said the new policy directs that “male Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat-down procedures on male passengers, and female Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat-down procedures on female passengers, based on operational needs”.

The legal battle comes amid mounting reports of workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees during Trump’s second administration. It is also happening at a time when the TSA’s ranks are already stretched thin due to the ongoing government shutdown that has left thousands of agents working without pay.

Other transgender officers describe similar challenges to Mittereder.

Kai Regan worked for six years at Harry Reid international airport in Las Vegas before leaving in July, in large part because of the new policy.

Worried that he would be fired for his gender identity, he retired earlier than planned rather than “waiting for the bomb to drop”.

Regan, who is not involved in the Virginia case, transitioned from female to male in 2021. He said he had conducted pat-downs on men without issue until the policy change.

“It made me feel inadequate at my job, not because I can’t physically do it but because they put that on me,” said the 61-year-old.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a legal organisation that has repeatedly challenged the second Trump administration in court, called the TSA policy “arbitrary and discriminatory”.

“There’s no evidence or data we’re aware of to suggest that a person can’t perform their duties satisfactorily as a TSA agent based on their gender identity,” Perryman said.

The DHS pushed back on assertions by some legal experts that its policy is discriminatory.

“Does the AP want female travellers to be subjected to pat-downs by male TSA officers?” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin asked in a written response to questions by the AP. “What a useless and fundamentally dangerous idea, to prioritise mental delusion over the comfort and safety of American travellers.”

Airport security expert and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor Sheldon H Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of TSA PreCheck, said that the practice of matching the officer’s sex to the passenger’s is aimed at minimising passenger discomfort during screening.

Travellers can generally request another officer if they prefer, he added.

Deciding where transgender officers fit into this practice “creates a little bit of uncertainty”, Jacobson said. But because transgender officers likely make up a small percent of the TSA’s workforce, he said the new policy is unlikely to cause major delays.

“It could be a bit of an inconvenience, but it would not inhibit the operation of the airport security checkpoint,” Jacobson said.

The TSA’s policy for passengers is that they be screened based on physical appearance as judged by an officer, according to internal documents. If a passenger corrects an officer’s assumption, “the traveller should be patted down based on his/her declared sex”.

For passengers who tell an officer “that they are neither a male nor female”, the policy says officers must advise “that pat-down screening must be conducted by an officer of the same sex” and contact a supervisor if concerns persist.

The documents also say that transgender officers “will not be adversely affected” in pay, promotions or awards, and that the TSA “is committed to providing a work environment free from unlawful discrimination and retaliation”.

But the lawsuit argues otherwise, saying the policy impedes Mittereder’s career prospects because “all paths toward advancement require that she be able to perform pat-downs and train others to do so”, Puth said.

According to the lawsuit, Mittereder started in her role in June 2024 and never received complaints related to her job performance, including pat-down responsibilities. Supervisors awarded her the highest-available performance rating, and “have praised her professionalism, skills, knowledge, and rapport with fellow officers and the public”, the lawsuit said.

“This is somebody who is really dedicated to her job and wants to make a career at TSA,” Puth said. “And while her gender identity was never an issue for her in the past, all of a sudden, it’s something that has to be confronted every single day.”

Being unable to perform her full job duties has caused Mittereder to suffer fear, anxiety and depression, as well as embarrassment and humiliation by forcing her to disclose her gender identity to co-workers, the complaint says.

It adds that the ban places an additional burden on already-outnumbered female officers who have to pick up Mittereder’s pat-down duties.

American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley urged the TSA leadership to reconsider the policy “for the good of its workforce and the flying public”.

“This policy does nothing to improve airport security,” Kelley said, “and in fact could lead to delays in the screening of airline passengers since it means there will be fewer officers available to perform pat-down searches”.

Arrival of US aircraft carrier off Latin America fuels speculation that US could try to overthrow Venezuelan government.

The Venezuelan government has said it is preparing its armed forces in the event of an invasion or military attack by the United States.

A statement shared by Minister of People’s Power for Defence Vladimir Padrino on Tuesday said that the preparations include the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine and missile forces”, as well as the participation of police, militias and citizens’ units.

The announcement comes as the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region fuels speculation of possible military action aimed at collapsing the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime US rival.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated since the return of US President Donald Trump for a second term in January.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group — which includes the world’s largest aircraft carrier — had arrived in the Caribbean Sea, bearing at least 4,000 sailors as well as “tactical aircraft”.

In recent weeks, the US government has also surged troops to areas near the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago, for training exercises and other operations.

The Trump administration has framed such deployments as necessary “to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland”. Trump officials have also accused Maduro of masterminding the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang with a relatively modest presence in the US.

But Maduro and his allies have accused the US of “imperialistic” aims.

Questions remain, however, about whether Venezuela is equipped to fend off any US military advances.

Experts say the Maduro government has sought to project an image of military preparedness in the face of a large buildup of US forces in the Caribbean, but it could face difficulties from a lack of personnel and up-to-date equipment.

While the government has used possible US intervention to rally support, Maduro is also struggling with widespread discontent at home and growing diplomatic isolation following a contested election in 2024, marred by allegations of widespread fraud and a crackdown on protesters.

The military buildup in the Caribbean region began after the start of a series of US military strikes on September 2.

The US has carried out at least 19 air strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing approximately 75 people.

Trump has suggested that land strikes “are going to be next”. But when asked in late October whether he was considering attacks within Venezuela, Trump replied, “No”.

Legal experts say that a military attack on Venezuela would likely violate international law, and recent polling from the research firm YouGov suggests that about 47 percent of people in the US would oppose land attacks on Venezuelan territory. About 19 percent, meanwhile, say they would support such attacks.

While Venezuela’s armed forces have expressed support for Maduro and said they would resist a US attack, the Reuters news agency has reported that the government has struggled to provide members of the armed forces with adequate food and supplies.

The use of additional paramilitary and police forces could represent an effort to plug the holes in Venezuela’s lacklustre military capacity. Reuters reported that a government memo includes plans for small units at about 280 locations, where they could use sabotage and guerrilla tactics for “prolonged resistance” against any potential US incursion.

Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to approve funding bill to re-open US federal government in coming days.

United States President Donald Trump has called the looming end of the government shutdown a “big victory” after the Senate passed a bill to fund federal agencies.

Trump congratulated Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday for the soon-to-be-approved funding bill.

“Congratulations to you and to John and to everybody on a very big victory,” Trump said, addressing Johnson at a Veterans Day event.

“We’re opening up our country — should have never been closed.”

The US president’s comments signal that he views the shutdown crisis as a political win for his Republican Party, which is set to end the budgeting impasse in Congress without meeting the Democrats’ key demand: extending healthcare subsidies.

The Senate passed the funding bill late on Monday in a 60-40 vote that saw eight members of the Democratic caucus backing the proposal.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to pass the budget in the coming days to end the shutdown, which has been the longest in US history. Assuming the House approves the bill, it will then go to Trump’s desk, and the president is expected to sign it into law.

In the US system, Congress is tasked with funding the government.

If lawmakers fail to pass a budget, the federal government goes into shutdown mode, where it stops paying most employees and sends non-essential workers home.

The current shutdown started on October 1.

Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, but their narrow majority in the Senate had previously prevented them from passing a continuing resolution to keep the government funded.

In the 100-seat Senate, major legislation must generally be passed with at least 60 votes to overcome the filibuster, a legislative procedure that allows the minority party to block bills it opposes.

The Democratic caucus holds 47 seats in the chamber, which allowed it to successfully wield the filibuster until this week’s divisive vote.

Until Monday, Democrats had largely been united in opposition to the Republicans’ funding bill. They had previously maintained they would only approve government funding if the bill included provisions to extend healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Those subsidies, Democrats argued, help millions of Americans afford their medical insurance.

But Trump had threatened to ramp up the pressure against Democrats by cutting programmes he associated with their party.

During the shutdown, for example, Trump tried to withhold food benefits for low-income families – a policy that is being challenged in the courts.

The shutdown crisis has also led to flight delays and cancellations across the country due to a shortage of available air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay.

Monday’s Senate vote paved the way for a resolution to the crisis. But it has sparked infighting amongst Democrats, with segments of the party voicing disappointment with senators who backed the bill.

The issue has also intensified criticism against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted against the proposal but failed to keep his caucus united in opposition to it.

“Sen. Schumer has failed to meet this moment and is out of touch with the American people. The Democratic Party needs leaders who fight and deliver for working people,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a social media post on Monday.

“Schumer should step down.”

Senator John Fetterman, one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, defended his vote on Tuesday.

“When you’re confronting mass, mass chaos, you know, I don’t think you should respond with more chaos, or fight with more chaos,” Fetterman told the ABC talk show The View. “It’s like, no, we need to be the party of order and logic.”

A year ago, the United States was offering a $10m reward for the arrest of the commander of a Syrian armed group, previously linked to al-Qaeda.

Yet on Monday, President Donald Trump hosted him at the White House.

As Syria’s leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has positioned his country as a regional player – formally joining the global coalition against ISIL (ISIS).

Trump has also suggested he wants al-Sharaa to join the Abraham Accords.

However, the Israeli military is carrying out air strikes on Syria.

So, how might the new US-Syria relationship reshape power dynamics in the Middle East?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Haid Haid — Senior non-resident fellow at Arab Reform Initiative

Robert Ford — Former US ambassador to Syria

Rob Geist Pinfold — Lecturer in International Security at King’s College London