Global and U.S. News

President Trump defended his Friday decision to block new Russia sanctions, passed by Congress in September, two days before they took effect, writing on Sunday that he did not want to "foolishly" drive Moscow from the bargaining table. He added that Volodymyr Zelensky "doesn't want to end this war, and probably never did." Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the move as a 60-day pause to study the sanctions' economic impact, and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev called it "truly historic." Zelensky told NBC that siding with Putin would be a "historic mistake."

Qatar's deputy prime minister, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told the Global Security Forum in Doha on Monday that "we haven't reached the peak with respect to energy" and warned of further fallout in the coming months. He rejected any transit fees on Strait of Hormuz shipping and said repairs to the Ras Laffan gas complex, struck by Iran in March, will take several years. He said Qatar still talks to Tehran and hopes mediation with Pakistan and Oman produces a U.S.-Iran agreement.

Vladimir Putin has floated a three-way summit with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to negotiate a Ukraine deal, the Wall Street Journal reports. Volodymyr Zelensky would not take part. The Journal describes the proposal as part of Moscow's effort to end the war on terms that favour Russia.

The New York Times published an investigation on Monday arguing that the line between dirty and clean gold in the trillion-dollar industry is a fiction, and that Wall Street and governments profit from gold produced by criminals, gangs and those who exploit children. A companion piece says the layers of auditors who certify gold as free of abuse rarely visit the mines. No other outlet or official response had picked up the findings by Monday afternoon.

The Houthis fired three ballistic missiles on Monday at the al-Alam camp in Shabwa during a training exercise, killing at least 18 and wounding more than 30, according to officials and medical sources; Shabwa's deputy governor put casualties at 40 or more. Rashad al-Alimi, head of the Presidential Leadership Council, said the dead were new recruits and promised a "firm response". The Houthis claimed the strike and said any site with a Saudi-backed presence is a legitimate target, as a Saudi-backed government counteroffensive tries to retake ground the Houthis seized on the Red Sea coast last month.

President Trump endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, calling him "a Great Warrior Prime Minister" and warning that if Israel chose anyone else, "America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so." He repeated a threat to "soon finish the job" against Iran. The endorsement follows months in which Trump declined to take sides, and comes before a tight October 27 vote, Israel's first national election since the October 7 attack.

The World Food Programme will cut the number of people it feeds in Gaza from 1.6 million to 1.1 million because of funding shortages, and community-kitchen meals will fall from 250,000 to 150,000 a day. The agency has received less than half its usual funding for Palestinian operations this year and needs $450 million for the next six months. Its Palestine director, Shaun Hughes, said the cuts come though needs have not fallen and access is available; about two-thirds of Gaza's 2.1 million people rely on food aid.

Israeli police said on Monday they had arrested eight suspects over the weekend's settler attacks in the West Bank. U.S. ambassador Mike Huckabee called the beating of Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, a 63-year-old American, a "despicable act of terror" and demanded arrests; she suffered broken ribs and needed hand surgery. Netanyahu condemned violence but called the attack "alleged," and France and the EU pressed Israel to stop settler violence during the olive harvest.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Iran's Abbas Araghchi in Tehran on Monday, his first visit since February 2025, to discuss the Gulf, Ukraine and Iran's talks with the United States. A day earlier in Bahrain, Gulf Cooperation Council members urged him to press Tehran into "serious dialogue" and to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz; the GCC's secretary-general said member states have faced more than 7,000 Iranian missiles and drones since the war began. Lavrov backed the collapsed June Iran-U.S. memorandum as a basis for talks and reaffirmed Russia's 20-year partnership with Iran.

Robert Kabera, a 50-year-old former Rwandan army sergeant major who had sought asylum in Uganda, was found beheaded on the outskirts of Kampala over the weekend, and Ugandan police said on Monday the head had not been recovered. Kabera ran a YouTube channel with more than 144,000 subscribers, much of it criticising President Paul Kagame. No suspect or motive has been named and Rwanda's government has not commented; the opposition Rwanda National Congress called for a thorough investigation, and the BBC recalls the 2014 killing of exiled spy chief Patrick Karegeya in Johannesburg.

Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News on Saturday that stripping Representative Ilhan Omar of her citizenship and deporting her could happen, answering "Of course" while calling it a long process. Barack Obama replied on Sunday that the federal government was bringing its "full weight" down on an elected official for criticising the president, and warned it would not stop with her. Agents searched Omar's home on October 12 in an inquiry into how she obtained citizenship; she denies wrongdoing and is on the ballot in the midterms.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll, as summarised by the Guardian, puts President Trump's approval at 33 percent, a new low, with 66 percent of Americans saying he is using the office to enrich himself. Among Republicans, 34 percent say so, 12 points more than last September. The poll lands just over two weeks before the November 3 midterms, as Trump campaigns for Republicans in tight races.

President Trump said on Sunday that work to rebuild the 106-year-old public East Potomac golf course will begin November 15, with reopening in about 15 months. The announcement cut against the government's Friday court filing that called the plan a "preliminary thought," and Judge Ana Reyes ordered it to say by Sunday evening whether its position had changed. Reyes has already halted tree removal after about 500 trees were cut on October 10, and the government has moved to disqualify her.

NPR reported on Monday that more than $15 billion has been raised for this year's midterm elections. The ad-tracking firm AdImpact said on October 14 that ad spending and future reservations this cycle had passed $10 billion, already above the final ad totals for the whole of the 2020 and 2022 cycles, with control of Congress at stake.

No disaster since Hurricane Milton in October 2024 has received long-term recovery money from HUD's Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery program, the Guardian reports, leaving survivors of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the St Louis tornado and the Texas Hill Country floods waiting. Officials estimate Los Angeles County and St Louis alone need more than $10 billion. Congress wrote the program into law for the first time in July, for three years, but has appropriated no new money, because the fund must be voted disaster by disaster.

President Emmanuel Macron refused the resignation of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on Monday, saying he must stay to keep the police chain of command intact, and asked him for new methods against looters and an account of the planning and intelligence failures behind the weekend's violence. Nuñez said police "lost control" in several cities on Saturday, when more than half a million people marched and about 60,000 officers were deployed. More than 2,300 people were arrested on Saturday and nearly 1,000 police and gendarmes were injured; about 30 Paris shops were looted on Sunday.

Russian ballistic missiles hit power plants in Kyiv late on Sunday, and Ukraine's air force said no advance warning came from Western partners, although one did arrive before a second wave at 3am. Volodymyr Zelensky called blocked air-defence supplies and sanctions relief for Russia "a denial of reality" by Ukraine's partners, and, the New York Times reports, said Washington appears to want the war ended at Ukraine's expense. Ukraine says it went unwarned on at least three days in the past week; Marco Rubio pointed to a recent software problem in the early-warning system and said U.S. European Command is looking into it.

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks of the war on Sunday; Russia's defence ministry said it downed 1,015 drones over 15 regions, Crimea and the Black Sea. In St Petersburg one person was killed and five injured, and fires broke out at the city's oil terminal and a fuel depot, while about 20,000 people in the surrounding Leningrad region lost power. Russia struck Kyiv overnight, killing a woman, and Zelensky said Russia had hit Ukraine's energy sector 76 times in the week since Trump's October 11 "energy ceasefire."

After an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked regional authorities to impose "local and partial" curfews where needed, ruling out a citywide curfew in Paris and holding a state of emergency in reserve. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez conceded police "lost control" in Paris, Marseille and Lyon, saying intelligence had expected 200,000 marchers when more than 500,000 came. Authorities count about 2,000 shops looted and nearly 2,400 arrests; Paris made 350 more arrests overnight into Monday, and protesters blocked the Louvre's entrances so it could not open.

Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC on Sunday that U.S. intelligence on Russian ballistic-missile attacks was blocked for three days and has since resumed, while access to SpaceX's Starshield military satellite service has not been fully restored. He said the restrictions followed a "message from the American government" and hampered drone interceptions and supply runs to the front. Elon Musk said limits on the service are decided by the U.S. military and "ultimately POTUS"; Marco Rubio called Zelensky's claim "categorically false," and a bipartisan group of senators has asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate.

Giorgia Meloni called an emergency security meeting for Monday after cost-of-living protests in Milan turned violent on Saturday and Sunday, with masked protesters throwing paving stones and police answering with tear gas and water cannon. More than 200 people were detained, about 80 percent of them minors according to Ansa, and there were further detentions in Turin. Meloni said "to demonstrate is a right; to lay our cities to waste is not" and pressed the opposition to condemn the violence, a year before Italy's election.

France's 10-year borrowing cost rose 7 basis points to 4.849% on Monday and its spread over German debt widened, as markets reacted to a weekend of riots and nearly 2,400 arrests. The CAC 40 opened 1% lower and the euro fell 0.4% to $1.1197. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid said the unrest would make investors less comfortable holding French debt, given a deficit of 5.1% of GDP, debt of 115.6% and a presidential election in 2027.

U.S. stock futures pointed higher on Monday, with Nasdaq 100 futures up 1.3%, after a week of heavy selling in artificial-intelligence stocks, the Financial Times reports. Last week's fall was the biggest weekly drop since the "liberation day" tariffs of April 2025. The Wall Street Journal describes investors making a cautious return to AI stocks, while European chip stocks traded mixed.

Oil prices fell on Monday as traders weighed Washington's waiver of newly imposed sanctions and tariffs on Russia against continuing risks in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reports. Brent crude fell 2.3% to $107.36 a barrel, and gold rose as oil slipped.

The S&P 1500 aerospace and defence index fell nearly 19 percent from its early-August peak through October 14, with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman down by double digits, as investors braced for Democratic gains that could bring tighter scrutiny of defence budgets. The Financial Times reported on Monday that the slide has continued as investors bet on a Democratic sweep, putting Trump's proposed $500 billion military spending increase at risk. Some analysts, including Citigroup's John Godyn, say the sell-off is near a bottom because both parties back missile spending.

Anthropic said on Sunday it will place 5% of its shares in a new public benefit fund, subject to stockholder approval, with up to 2% more at the board's discretion for every 50% rise in the company's value. The fund can give to nonprofits and make direct payments to groups such as workers displaced by AI, and will not fund lobbying or political donations. The move comes as Anthropic prepares a possible record stock-market listing before the end of the year.

Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT expects January-to-September revenue of 265 billion to 270 billion yuan, up from 32.1 billion a year earlier, and net profit of about 131 billion yuan against a loss, according to a preliminary filing in Shanghai. The company attributes the surge to AI computing demand that has left DRAM chips in short supply and pushed prices sharply higher. CXMT, listed in Shanghai since July, also proposed a share buyback of up to 2 billion yuan.

Elon Musk said on Monday he will give a SpaceX share to every child in America, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal report. The pledge follows Anthropic's announcement that it will put 5 percent of its stock into a public benefit fund, and earlier contributions by other tech billionaires to savings accounts for children. Neither report's description gives the cost or how the shares would be delivered.

Roche has struck a partnership with China's Hansoh Pharmaceutical that the Wall Street Journal says could be worth more than $15 billion. Under the deal, Roche takes responsibility for the drugs outside mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan once early-stage clinical trials are complete.

Albertsons is seeking about $9.3 billion from Kroger in Delaware's Court of Chancery over the collapse of their $24.6 billion merger, which a federal court blocked in December 2024 after the FTC found the planned store sales inadequate. Albertsons says Kroger "willfully" broke its duty to make best efforts to close the deal, including by refusing to change its divestiture plan; Kroger says it did all it could and accuses Albertsons of working with the buyer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, to push regulators for more divestitures. A two-week trial before Judge Lori Will is set for later this month, and the FT reported on Monday that the parties are heading to court.

Helen Haines, the independent member for Indi in Victoria, was struck by a vehicle outside her electorate office in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon and airlifted to Melbourne in a critical condition. Police arrested a 43-year-old local man after a passer-by detained him, and say a knife was found in his car. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said federal police, ASIO and the joint counter-terrorism taskforce are investigating; police said they knew of no recent direct threats against her and the motive is unknown.

Indonesia is battling its worst forest fires in more than a decade, worst in Sumatra and Borneo, and four firefighters died in East Java's Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park on October 15. Satellites logged 799 high-confidence hotspots that night, up 427 in a day, and President Prabowo Subianto has agreed to accept help from neighbours. Citing Reuters, Al Jazeera reports that the haze has caused respiratory problems for hundreds of thousands of people and closed schools in Malaysia and East Timor.

China's GDP grew 4.5% year on year in July to September, up from 4.3% in the second quarter and ahead of most forecasts, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Exports, up more than 16% in the first three quarters on demand for chips and other AI-related goods, carried growth, while retail sales rose just 1.1% in September and fixed-asset investment fell 7.2% over nine months. Growth for the year so far is 4.6%, inside Beijing's target of 4.5% to 5%.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro repeatedly called each other liars in their first runoff debate on Sunday, a week before the October 25 vote. Bolsonaro led the first round by 47% to 45% and polls show a close race. The same day federal police asked the Supreme Court to open a money-laundering investigation into Bolsonaro, whose father is under house arrest serving a 27-year sentence for trying to overturn the 2022 election.

Four Canadian service members died and 39 people were taken to hospital, 19 in critical condition, after fire swept across a training range at CFB Wainwright in Alberta on Saturday. Maj-Gen Wade Rutland said a grass fire was driven by unusually strong winds toward soldiers on exercise; what ignited it is under investigation, and the military has ruled out terrorism and any oil or gas explosion. Prime Minister Mark Carney called it one of the worst peacetime tragedies for Canada's forces on home soil.

Five soldiers from El Salvador serving with the U.N.-backed force fighting Haiti's gangs are missing after an ambush in a gang-controlled area, the New York Times reports. The force said it was searching for them.

Japan's space agency is due to launch its Martian Moons eXploration probe on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima at 19:41 GMT on Monday, early Tuesday in Japan, the first day of a window that runs to November 7. The craft is to reach Mars in about a year, land the French-German rover Idefix on Phobos, collect about 10 grams of its surface and return the sample to Earth in 2031. No mission has yet brought back material from the Mars system; Russia's Phobos-Grunt failed in 2011.

California's latest Climate Change Assessment, the state's periodic analysis of how changing weather will affect the most populous U.S. state, makes dire projections for its way of life, the New York Times reports. The assessment is the fifth under a law requiring one at least every five years; the last came out in 2018.

The Environmental Protection Agency has rewritten its website to say that PFOA, long described as phased out in the United States, may still be produced, imported and used by companies, the Guardian reports. The change answered a complaint from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility over Inhance, a Houston company whose fluorinated plastic containers, up to 200 million a year, have been found to leach PFOA. The EPA has found almost no safe level of PFOA in drinking water, and the WHO's cancer agency classes it as carcinogenic to humans.

A Kelvin wave driven by this year's strong El Niño has raised sea levels along the U.S. West Coast; in early October they ran 6 to 8 inches above normal in Southern California when Tropical Storm Rachel's surge flooded neighborhoods. NC State's Dillon Amaya expects the next wave to reach San Diego in late October or early November, out of the five or six usual in a strong El Niño year. NOAA researchers expect El Niño to stay strong into early 2027.

Quantinuum said its Helios trapped-ion computer reached 99.9995 percent logical fidelity using a colour code, about five errors per million operations and a tenfold improvement on its own record set last month. The Quantum Insider reports that this is about 100 times lower than the best published result on other hardware, and the company says it is now within the accuracy range needed for Apollo, the fault-tolerant machine it plans by 2029. Robin Blume-Kohout of Sandia National Laboratories, who was not involved, called the gains "real, serious", though the results are the company's own.