Global and U.S. News

More than 5,000 people have died of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, government data released on Friday show, in the country's deadliest outbreak on record, with more than 10,000 infected since it was declared in May. The Bundibugyo strain has no approved vaccine or treatment, and the virus has reached eight of the country's 26 provinces amid conflict and delayed detection. Kenya, Uganda and, last week, Nigeria have reported cases, and Saudi Arabia suspended travel to and from Kenya on Friday.

A Wall Street Journal investigation using satellite imagery finds damage at more than two dozen U.S. military installations from Iranian attacks during the war, costing billions of dollars, in what the paper calls the fullest accounting of the destruction yet. The investigation could not be read, so the bases, countries and costs are not detailed here.

Siddiq Ander, a senior commander of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, says in video obtained by Al Jazeera that he has defected, accusing relatives of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of controlling its money, weapons, troop movements and promotions in "a purely family-based project." He said anyone who speaks out faces expulsion, prison or a hidden death. His is the latest in a string of RSF defections this year, including a lieutenant colonel who left with 300 men on 8 October.

Judges elected by Poland's current parliamentary majority suspended the Constitutional Tribunal's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy on Friday night, and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of five judges President Karol Nawrocki has refused to swear in, said she had taken charge. Nawrocki turned back his plane to Senegal, pushed past security into the building after 1am and called it a seizure of a constitutional body by force, while riot police faced hundreds of protesters outside and detained three. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called restoring the rule of law a duty, and his justice minister asked that the two suspended judges lose their immunity so they can be prosecuted for obstructing the court.

The State Department approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors to Ukraine for about $2.1bn, financed by Canada, Germany and Norway and by the EU's Ukraine Support Loan, with no U.S. funds involved. The missiles are new builds, and with production at roughly 600 a year and stocks drawn down by the U.S. war with Iran, Volodymyr Zelensky warned delivery could take several years while Russia has struck Ukraine's grid more than 30 times in two weeks. The approval follows an October rift between Zelensky and Donald Trump that eased after talks in Oslo.

Fitch revised France's outlook to negative from stable in an off-cycle review on 30 October, citing weaker growth, higher borrowing costs and a wider deficit since August, and a divided parliament that makes lasting consolidation harder. It expects government debt to climb to about 124% of GDP by 2028 from 115.7% in 2025. The move follows an unexpected third-quarter contraction and ten-year yields at their highest since 2002.

A federal judge late Friday barred the Justice Department from threatening or coercing California election workers to stop processing ballots, or from demanding they segregate ballots the government says may have been cast by about 20,000 possible noncitizens. The order came hours after a Ninth Circuit panel ruled 2-1 against the department's bid to set those ballots aside, and after Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli warned officials who process such ballots of legal jeopardy. California says the department's list is unreliable and includes many citizens; voting ends on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes opened a formal inquiry on Friday into whether Justice Department lawyers and agency officials misled her about plans for East Potomac Park's public golf course in Washington, possibly through a special master with full investigative powers. For months the government said no plan was final, then acknowledged this week a plan to close the course and much of the park in mid-November to build a championship venue. "For months, the court trusted, but did not verify. No longer," Reyes said, while stressing she has found no violation.

The Department of Homeland Security paid CoreCivic $495.6 million in August for the 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, empty since 2010, to hold ICE detainees, and kept CoreCivic on to run it under a five-year contract worth about $75 million a year, MPR News reported. The New York Times reports that Minnesota had declined to buy the same prison for $75 million, among the acquisitions now under scrutiny in the administration's deportation push.

OpenAI has lowered the valuation for its new funding round to $1.25tn from the $1.4tn it pitched earlier in October, with UAE investors and Coatue leading, TNW reported. The Financial Times now reports the company is seeking about $20bn, $10bn less than it had targeted, as anxiety over AI spending hits tech stocks. OpenAI last raised $122bn in March at an $852bn valuation and is framing the round as a bridge to a possible listing next year.

A Bangkok court on Friday sentenced human-rights lawyer Arnon Nampa to two years and eight months under Thailand's lèse-majesté law, taking his cumulative sentences across 14 cases past 34 years, with two verdicts pending. Arnon, jailed for three years, first drew charges for a 2020 protest speech, delivered dressed as Harry Potter, calling for scrutiny of the monarchy and of King Vajiralongkorn's control of Crown Property Bureau assets. Since 2020, 294 people, 20 of them minors, have been prosecuted under the law, which carries three to fifteen years per count.

The Bank of England is considering lifting the threshold on higher-risk mortgages in response to calls from the government and the industry to boost home ownership, the Financial Times reports. The report could not be read, so the size and timing of any change are not confirmed here.

Liu Yandong, a former vice-premier and state councilor, died of illness in Beijing on 28 October, Xinhua reported. She sat on the Communist Party's Politburo under its 17th and 18th Central Committees, one of only six women ever to do so, according to the New York Times, though she never reached the top ranks of power.