Budget key points at a glance Here's what you need to know from John Healey's first Budget, as the chancellor sets out the government's tax and spending plans.
Watch: At the scene of Spain's deadly train crash People have been killed after a Spanish high-speed train collided with another train south of the capital Madrid, making this the country's worst disaster since 2013.
Egypt fines prominent editor Lina Attalah and shuts independent news outlet Mada Masr Warnings of escalating clampdown on press freedom come after Cairo court convicts Attalah of managing an unlicensed websiteLina Attalah, a prominent Egyptian journalist and the editor-in-chief of the news outlet Mada Masr, has been released from detention by Egypt's authorities and had her website ordered to be shut down by a court amid an intensifying crackdown on independent media in the country.Attalah was taken briefly into custody after a Cairo court convicted her of managing an unlicensed website, prompting fresh international concerns over press freedom in Egypt. Continue reading...
Africa's 'unprecedented' Ebola outbreak could reach UK, says top health official Jean Kaseya, of the Africa CDC, warns of the illness spreading like Covid unless more funding is secured to increase preparedness and possible treatmentThe "unprecedented" spread of the Ebola outbreak means it could reach the UK and other countries, according to one of Africa's top health officials.As the current outbreak reached 10,000 cases, with almost 5,000 deaths, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), compared the outbreak to the Covid pandemic, which first took hold in China before spreading to countries across the world, claiming millions of lives, and ravaging health systems and economies. Continue reading...
UK sanctions Sudanese military leaders implicated in El Fasher 'campaign of rape' Commanders suspected of sexual violence during the largest and fastest slaughter of civilians in more than 30 years have been subjected to travel ban and asset freezeSenior Sudanese commanders implicated in a "campaign of rape" have been targeted by the UK on the first anniversary of a mass atrocity that saw tens of thousands of civilians killed over several days.A year after the fall of El Fasher, the British government said it had sanctioned military leaders from both sides in the country's ongoing conflict whom it suspected of sexual violence during the siege of the city. Continue reading...
US forces accused of 'weaponising' Somalia's floods by trapping women and children in the path of El Niño Exclusive: Coordinated airstrikes on territory held by al-Shabaab are driving the civilian population to find refuge alongside a river where rising water levels are a threat to safety. Is it a deliberate military strategy?The water was rising rapidly. It had already reached Cayni Ali's waist. Her home, five metres from the flooded River Juba in southern Somalia, never stood a chance. There was nowhere to go. Ali's city of Jilib was under attack. Repeated airstrikes, said the mother of six, were pinning its population beside the rising river."The drones come all the time," said the 27-year-old. "We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere." Continue reading...
Sudan paramilitary drone strikes cause mass power cuts in eastern states Rapid Support Forces strike five power stations in three states controlled by Sudanese armySudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have launched a coordinated drone attack against five power stations, causing mass power outages across the country's east, a government official said.The drones hit two power stations each in the states of Al-Jazira and Gedaref and one in White Nile state, "resulting in power outages across large parts of these three states", the official said on condition of anonymity. Continue reading...
Flávio Bolsonaro calls himself the 'leader of Brazil' after fleeing to Miami Far-right senator and family land in US after crossing from Brazil into Argentina and then flying via EcuadorFlávio Bolsonaro declared himself the "true president" of Brazil after losing last Sunday's presidential election and fleeing to the United States.After landing on a private jet with his family in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, the far-right senator published the claim in a letter - even though his own party has recognised the legitimate victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as have all of Brazil's institutions, and international observers who monitored and endorsed the vote. Continue reading...
Midwest Democrats face do-or-die moment to win back Trump districts before 2028 Midwest Democrats face do-or-die moment to win back Trump districts before 2028EAU CLAIRE, Wisconsin - In this rural-heavy stretch of the upper Midwest, Democrats are trying to claw back districts where their party brand is still deeply toxic. It won't be easy, even in a midterm environment that heavily favors their party. Local Democratic organizers in western Wisconsin, where Rebecca Cooke is trying to oust GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, know that elections here are decided by the slimmest of margins. They have no room for error. "Everything's on a razor's edge," Clara Serrano, who volunteers for the local Democratic Party, said as she drove along farms and cornfields outside Eau Claire. But a decade after President Donald Trump's populism and culture wars swung the formerly Democratic-leaning region right, many voters from western Wisconsin over to southern Minnesota and down to eastern Iowa are hurting - and blame the president's policies. Family farms are reeling from his tariffs. Diesel is over $6 a gallon. The cost of fertilizer has shot up more than 30 percent since the war in Iran began earlier this year. "[Rural voters are] mad when we get to the door - and not at us," said William Garcia, co-chair of the La Crosse County Democratic Party who has been out canvassing. "They're mad about gas prices. They're mad about fertilizer. They're mad about the tariffs. And so all we do as Democrats is say, 'Hey, we agree. We rejected all of these things. We've been fighting all of these things.' So it's much more receptive now than really it's ever been." Local Democrats have pulled out all the stops to propel Cooke in Wisconsin's 3rd District, knocking endless doors in redder areas. There have been national reinforcements as well: Populist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) endorsed Cooke during the primary and hit the campaign trail with her this week in Eau Claire. The national party is trying to make generational gains in Minnesota's 1st District - where they're hoping to pull off a major upset to unseat GOP Rep. Brad Finstad in a Trump +12 district - and in deep-red Iowa, where Democrats are targeting three GOP House seats, a Senate seat and the governorship. Democrats for years have faltered with rural voters in these districts. Now, with polling showing Democrats gaining ground in redder territory and an electorate that's souring on the GOP, Democrats hope they can finally make up ground this November - and lay a solid foundation for the 2028 presidential election. If that doesn't happen, it's an ominous sign for the party. "If we can't win these seats now in this environment, it seems like we're in for a world of hurt in 2028," said one House Democrat, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. Wisconsin Democrats have worked nearly-year round to build up a ground game. A major new initiative from the state party has helped to boost organizing, especially in rural counties and other places they've struggled. "We haven't really stopped organizing since 2024," said Pete Huff, co-chair of the nearby Dunn County Democratic party, where Trump won by 16 points. Cooke, who grew up on a farm in the area, has tried to create a more durable brand of politics in the district by largely trying to distance herself from the national Democratic party as she seeks to win over a broader base of voters. It helped in 2024: She overperformed Kamala Harris by 9,000 votes across the district, even though she narrowly lost to Van Orden. "I think that the party doesn't know how to speak the language of rural America, and I feel like I uniquely do," Cooke said in an interview. She regularly canvasses in rural communities and has tried to tie Van Orden to increasingly unpopular data center developments, after local projects sparked backlash. On Sunday, before the campus rally, Cooke attended a meeting for residents worried about a new high-voltage transmission line that would cut through farmland. This cycle, she's especially leaned into the rare House endorsement from Sanders, who's built his own populist and anti-establishment brand. At a Sunday rally on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus, she introduced the Vermont senator by saying: "Everyone forgets he's an independent." Potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders see the stakes of winning back rural-heavy districts as well. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is traveling to Minnesota's 1st District on Sunday to rally voters for Democrat Jake Johnson in Rochester. It's one of the many once-safe red seats that Republicans and Trump's political operation are scrambling to shore up in these final days, with Johnson and Finstad running in what's become a highly competitive race. Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, then a high school teacher, won a House seat here in a 2006 wave election amid voter anger at the Iraq war and their GOP incumbent. Also that year, a local prosecutor named Amy Klobuchar swept to a big Senate win, part of a Democratic surge across the region. Democrats are hopeful that history is repeating, with high costs and a president unpopular because of a Middle East incursion hurting the GOP in the region and nationally. "The price of diesel is devastating," said Ted Winter, who farms with his son near Fulda. "We've patterned a lot of our campaign after Amy Klobuchar, who famously shows up in every single county every single year," Johnson, a math teacher, said in an interview. "And so I just said, 'hey guys, let's host a town hall in every county.'" National Republicans for months brushed off concerns from local Republicans that Finstad's race was growing increasingly competitive. Pro-Trump super PACs only recently injected their first cash of the race into the district, with the latest total quickly hitting several million dollars - an unheard-of prospect just a few weeks ago. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent for the first time in the race Tuesday. Democratic groups, on the other hand, started spending in the contest over the summer - and the leading House Democratic super PAC just responded with a $2.2 million money dump and a last-minute TV ad campaign. Finstad said in an interview at a local textile mill in Faribault that he flagged money concerns to national Republicans weeks ago. He also raised those concerns to GOP Whip Tom Emmer, who is from Minnesota. "We raised that with anybody and everybody that would want to hear it," Finstad said. "From a global perspective, people were like, 'Well, you won by 18, you're fine.' And, you know, those of us in Minnesota know that this district has always had kind of an independent streak to it." But Finstad said the tariffs were helping farmers in some cases, and the massive fraud scandals in Minnesota are keeping Trump voters and Republicans engaged in the final days. That's one particular drag that could hit Johnson in this area. Democrats are still optimistic. "Things are changing in rural America right now," Klobuchar, who's now running for governor, told a crowd of volunteers and voters alongside Johnson on Sunday, at a local park in Fairmont. She pointed not only to the tightening 1st District race, but also to neighboring Iowa as proof. Republicans have grown particularly worried about the Hawkeye State as they've privately come to believe Democrats will flip at least one of three congressional seats there. And, they're alarmed about the prospect of wider losses across a state Trump won by 13 percentage points, should disillusioned Republican voters decide not to turn out in the numbers they need."Does it feel good to be running neck-and-neck against Democrats in Iowa just days out? No," said one GOP strategist in Iowa working on a House race. But they noted that long-term demographic make-up of most Iowa districts do not favor Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson is traveling to Rep. Zach Nunn's Des Moines-based district in Iowa on Wednesday to help save the seat. Republican Joe Mitchell, who is running in the nearby seat to replace GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson, is locked within the margin of error in his race against Democrat Lindsay James, according to two people with direct knowledge of internal polls. And Republicans are largely assuming GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks' seat just to the south of that is already gone as she faces Democrat Christina Bohannan. "The tariffs, the Iran war, the health care cuts, these things are just brutal for the people of Southeast Iowa," Bohannan said in an interview. That's why national and local Democrats alike worry if they can't pull out key wins in the upper Midwest this election season, they will continue to be shut out of power for years. They're keenly aware that, no matter how frustrated rural voters are with Republicans, they're still wary of the national Democratic party brand. "I don't approach the door as a Democrat," Jeremiah Fredrickson, who's running to flip a Wisconsin state assembly seat, said in an interview before he knocked doors in the small, GOP-leaning village of Elk Mound. "My goal is to try to be a representative. I think way too many of our politicians have gotten to the point where they go to Madison, and they forget about the people back here." At one door, an older man with white hair looked down at the pamphlet Serrano - the Democratic volunteer for Cooke and Fredrickson - was holding. "You can keep that," he replied. "I'm not voting for them. No way in hell." Van Orden, the Wisconsin Republican racing to hold his seat against Cooke, is skeptical his district's voters will swing back toward Democrats. That's despite high prices and Trump's current unfavorability. The retired Navy SEAL rode in on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the Boon Docks bar as part of a multi-day district tour. After greeting patrons, he told POLITICO in an interview that Cooke is a "flat-out socialist." He dismissed Sanders' draw, saying that "voters here hate career politicians." "Is it politically convenient that we're fighting with the Iranians now? The answer is no," Van Orden said. "I don't want gas prices to go up. I also don't want my grandkids fighting the Iranians … 50 years from now." But he's counting on Trump voters to turn out for him. Across the bar, Deb Bork, who's in her 70s and lives up the road in the small town of Independence, said she was sticking with Van Orden and Trump, regardless of the "hardship" of higher gas prices, saying the war was a blip compared to the length of other U.S. wars. She still trusts Trump. "He feels it's in the best interest of our country to protect us," she added. "For so long we've been out there protecting everybody else and forgetting about the people that live here."This article originally appeared on Politico at https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/28/democrats-rural-midwest-rebecca-cooke-01137050
It was, for a while, considered one of those colorful quirks that crop up in the course of an election: the fact that not one but two candidates named Dan Sullivan will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot for U.S. senator from Alaska.
But now the situation seems to be getting more serious. At President Trump's direction, the Justice Department last week sued in federal court to block certification of the election if Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses, alleging that retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan is a Democratic plant whose purpose is to siphon away votes.
"The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola's team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader," the paper wrote. "The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent's support and help catapult the Democrat to victory."
In response to the report, Trump called for both Peltola and the "fake" Dan Sullivan to be removed from the ballot in a post on Truth Social.
Yahoo
The outcome of the legal dispute, if it moves forward, could have enormous national implications. Democrats need to win at least a few Senate races in historically Republican states to secure a majority in the chamber. Polls suggest Alaska is one of their best chances to turn a red seat blue. Given how close other races across the country appear to be, a legal ruling that erases a narrow Peltola victory could be the pivot point that allows the GOP to keep control of the Senate for the last two years of Trump's presidency.
How did this happen, and where do things go from here? Here's everything you need to know to catch up and make sense of the story.
How Alaska wound up with two Dan Sullivans on the ballot
Ballot-stacking - the process of recruiting a spoiler candidate to help your candidate win - isn't unheard of in politics, and the Times says it's "generally considered legal."
But it's a lot easier in Alaska than other states because of the unique way elections work there. When Peltola ran for reelection to the U.S. House in 2024, the state GOP backed an effort to help a second Democrat - an inmate who conducted his campaign from a New York prison - remain on the ballot. And during this year's primaries, super PACs aligned with both parties "flooded the state with ads for fringe candidates" in an attempt to "dilute support for the mainstream candidates opposed by the groups," according to an October Alaska Beacon report.
How is any of this possible? The Last Frontier sends the top four primary candidates to the general election regardless of party - then asks voters to rank them on Election Day in order of preference. This means that candidates can claim any party affiliation on the ballot without being vetted by parties themselves. (Dan J. Sullivan initially claimed to be a Republican.) It also means that as ,long as they finish in the top four, primary candidates don't have to earn many votes to secure their very own ballot line on Nov. 3. (Dan J. Sullivan won 4,107).
For months, Republicans have questioned Dan J. Sullivan's intentions and tried to get him tossed off the ballot. In June, the Alaska Supreme Court dismissed their arguments, ruling that neither state law nor the U.S. Constitution provided any legal basis for removing Dan J. Sullivan's name. How the Senate candidates will appear on Alaska's midterm ballot.
elections.alaska.gov
The more obscure Sullivan has "maintained that he [is] running in good faith and of his own volition, as a moderate Republican and not a secret Democrat," as a Times profile put it in August. He said he'd voted in the past for some Alaska Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, even though he also "acknowledged previous donations to Ms. Peltola and a handful of other Democrats," and said he would prefer Peltola for Senate over the Republican incumbent "if it was between those two."
But according to this week's Times report, "operatives aligned with" the Peltola campaign convinced Dan J. Sullivan to enter the race "to help Mary." The report cited as its sources 12 people "who participated in or were told of the plan" as well as interviews with other would-be recruits and dozens of internal text messages.
For the record, both Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which directs the party's campaign strategy in Senate races across the country, have denied any "involvement," and Dan J. Sullivan did not respond to the Times's repeated requests for comment. One of the Times's main sources - former Peltola campaign manager and longtime aide Elisa Rios, who had been planning to file a wrongful termination lawsuit - also tried to retract her statements to the paper ahead of publication.
The Times story described an elaborate endeavor - which was "internally called the ballot composition project" - that "involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name and made his pitch to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs." The Times also reported that the "Peltola campaign's lawyers, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee" were "involved" with the effort.
The Trump administration's lawsuit
Legal battles over the dual Dan Sullivan issue had been confined to state courts until last week. That's when Trump's administration filed its lawsuit aiming to have the certification of the results blocked if Peltola wins a close election that may have been affected by Dan J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot.
"Should Alaska certify any electoral results tainted by the inclusion on the ballot of Daniel J. Sullivan … the State and its officers will fail in its obligation to protect the integrity of its election," the Department of Justice wrote in its legal filing.
The suit argues that a Democratic victory should be considered invalid if Peltola wins by a margin smaller than the total number of votes that Dan J. Sullivan receives - under the assumption that those votes may have come from confused voters who intended to vote for the incumbent Republican senator instead.
Democrats have asked the courts to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the administration lacks "any statutory or constitutional authority to insert itself" into the state's electoral process. Alaska's state government, which is currently led by Republicans, has also filed to dismiss the administration's lawsuit. On Monday, a federal judge agreed to fast-track consideration of the dispute to potentially allow it to be resolved before Election Day.
Many legal experts say the lawsuit has a slim chance of success. First, it requires a very specific outcome in which Peltola wins by what would likely need to be a very thin margin. Even in that scenario, election law experts say, the appearance of confusion on the part of voters does not create legal grounds for the federal DOJ to have the results rejected.
"I believe that this lawsuit is abusive in its intentions and borders on frivolous in its arguments, and that it is destined for defeat in the courts should it reach the merits," Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told the Alaska Beacon.
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor, told the Harvard Gazette that the law the administration is relying on in its lawsuit - the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) - does not give federal authorities any power to challenge state election procedures.
"The lawsuit has nothing to do with voter registration. There's no allegation that anybody is improperly registered in Alaska; there's no claim that Alaska isn't in compliance with the NVRA's requirements for voter registration," Stephanopoulos said.
More generally, experts say the lawsuit runs against the Constitution's language granting states the power to run their own elections.
"This is purely a matter of state law, and the administration has absolutely no authority to tell Alaska when or how to certify the results of its Senate election," David Becker, a former Justice Department attorney who worked on voting rights cases, told Alaska Public Media.
What's next?
The federal judge in Alaska considering Democrats' motion to dismiss the lawsuit is expected to rule on whether Peltola's campaign and other groups can join the case on Wednesday. If that motion is granted, the judge said the DOJ should be ready to respond to a motion to dismiss the case by Thursday afternoon.
That likely only matters in an extremely close race, which is not the recent norm in Alaska. The last time Dan S. Sullivan was on the ballot, he defeated his top challenger, independent candidate Al Gross, by 45,000 votes. The most recent Senate race, in 2022, was closer, but the top two finishers were both Republicans.
Things are expected to be much tighter this time around. Peltola has held a consistent lead in the polls since the summer, but her advantage has steadily shrunk in the months leading up to Election Day. The most recent surveys have her ahead by 2 points, well within the margin for Sullivan to win. The Cook Political Report, one of the nation's most respected election forecasters, lists the race as a toss-up. Another well-regarded forecaster, the Center for Politics, categorizes it as "leans Democrat."This article originally appeared on Yahoo News at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/article/alaska-democrats-linked-to-secret-effort-to-recruit-2nd-dan-sullivan-to-tip-senate-race-report-200632493.html
Tornado season isn't over, and fall twisters can bring added danger after dark Tornado season isn't over, and fall twisters can bring added danger after darkShane Ostrander looks for items at his home after a tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton swept through Fort Pierce, Florida, in October 2024. - (Kathleen Flynn/For the Washington Post)A second season of severe weather is about to ramp up across parts of the Plains, Mid-South and Gulf Coast. While tornado activity is most prominent in the springtime, autumn can bring a secondary peak. These cool-season tornadoes skew faster, stronger and more likely to happen at night - and they can hit a more vulnerable part of the country. There are signs November may start busy, ahead of a winter that could bring above-average tornado risk due, in large part, to a strong El Niño pattern.
Why do cool-season tornadoes happen?
Tornadoes come from thunderstorms that form when air masses clash. In the springtime, the coming summer warmth collides with the retreat of winter. There's plenty of heat and humidity to brew tall thunderclouds.
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But in the autumn, cold air encroaches more forcefully. Warmth is shunted south, and moisture is scant. Thunderstorms are more scarce, and when they do bubble up, they tend to be shallower - i.e., not as tall.Typically, a shorter thunderstorm would be weaker. In the wintertime, however, the atmosphere compensates. That's because the jet stream - the river of winds in the upper atmosphere - is strongest in the wintertime. And it dips southward over the Lower 48 states, tracing a serpentine pattern of crests and thoughts that propagate eastward.Even otherwise meager, low-topped thunderstorms tap into that jet stream energy above. Thunderstorms feel the robust wind shear, or changing winds with height, and can rotate.It's not unheard of to have a cool-season storm cell too short to produce lightning - maybe only 15,000 or 20,000 feet tall - that still manages to rotate and produce a tornado.
Where do they occur?
In the fall, these storms happen where it's warmest. That means the South. For much of the Deep South, November marks the unofficial start of a tornado season that will last until the start of summer. Tornado season is longer along the Gulf Coast than in any other part of the country.Mississippi averages 14 tornadoes between November and February - about 37 percent of its annual total. Alabama averages a dozen tornadoes, or 30 percent of its yearly average. Georgia and Louisiana get nearly a third of their tornadoes during the cool months, too.
How do cool-season tornadoes differ?
Cool-season tornadoes tend to have longer paths. That's because they're being yanked along more quickly by the jet stream aloft.
In Oklahoma, for example, wintertime tornadoes (the ones forming from November to February) have path lengths that are, on average, 46 percent longer than those during the rest of the year. In Mississippi, they're 24 percent longer. And in Illinois, 58 percent longer. Longer paths expose more population to potential impacts , which is why the risk of deadly tornadoes is greater in the wintertime than during the heart of summer.Since recordkeeping began in 1950, November and December have had more killer tornadoes in the U.S. than July, August or September.
Regional vulnerabilities
Cool-season tornadoes also target areas of the Deep South and Southeast that can be more vulnerable - a region where mobile homes are common. Because there's also less daylight, cool-season tornadoes are more likely to happen at night. That's another factor that contributes to an increased death toll.There's also emerging research that suggests cool-season tornadoes may skew a bit stronger, on average, than warm-season tornadoes. Although it's unclear if that is because their faster forward speed combines with their rotational wind speeds. Alternatively, the actual tornado vortex may be stronger. Tornado season also lasts a long time in the South and Southeast. Consider Louisiana - its tornado season would run from Nov. 16 to May 21. That's 187 days, or more than half the year.By our same definition, peak tornado season in Alabama would run from Dec. 16 to May 20, although activity often perks up sooner. Mississippi would be Dec. 7 to May 14. By comparison, in Oklahoma, peak tornado season lasts two months - about April 10 to June 13. The Sooner State gets just as many tornadoes, but the season crams its twisters into a much shorter window. In North Dakota, peak tornado season is even shorter, just 57 days.In other words, the Great Plains have a springtime tornado frenzy. The Deep South and Southeast get a slow, painful season stretched over a longer window.
How El Niño is playing a role
This year's cool-season tornado period may be enhanced by a strong El Niño pattern.El Niño begins as a warming of water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. That heats the air above, causing it to rise. In turn, key global weather systems are shuffled around. Among them is the subtropical jet stream, which slices west to east across the Gulf of Mexico during El Niño winters. That has been known to increase cool-season tornado risk in the Deep South, especially Florida.Florida's deadliest tornado outbreak happened during a strong El Niño winter. On the night of Feb. 22, 1998, into the next day, intense tornadoes tore through the peninsula, including a pair of F3-strength twisters in the greater Orlando metro area. (The Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale rates wind-damage intensity on a scale of zero to 5.) Forty-two people were killed. This article originally appeared on Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/10/28/tornadoes-form-fall-too-heres-why-theyre-about-ramp-up/
The Warsh Fed's taciturn nature has already raised the stakes for each FOMC meeting. With fewer hints or forward guidance about what the Fed is thinking and planning comes more suspense.
And next year, those stakes will be even higher as the Fed removes a rate decision from its calendar, making each meeting even more important and potentially adding another layer of uncertainty and volatility to markets.
At the October policy meeting on Wednesday, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh announced this major change to the Fed's calendar and added that 2028 might feature only six rate decisions. The meetings themselves will remain on the calendar, but instead of the Fed debating rates, broader monetary policy topics will be on the agenda.
Warsh said the reasoning behind the schedule change is to "reserve the time and space as an intellectually diverse group for strategic deliberations, for thinking anew about big questions, looking out over longer time horizons."
We've all been wondering how the newly installed chair would reshape the Fed. Already, he's been doing that by changing the nature of the Fed's public communication.
"I don't believe in forward guidance," Warsh said on Wednesday. His remarks echoed his move earlier this year to end the years-long practice of offering forward guidance - removing an important signal for Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Warsh himself has not contributed a "dot" to the central bank's quarterly chart showing where individual policymakers expect short-term interest rates to go, and he doesn't plan to do so.
Now the Fed will also have fewer decisions to discuss.
Follow Hamza Shaban on X @hshaban.This article originally appeared on Yahoo Finance at https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/article/the-fed-just-removed-a-2027-rate-decision--making-the-remaining-7-even-more-important-194159258.html
Hayden Panettiere's death ruled accidental by South Carolina police Hayden Panettiere's death ruled accidental by South Carolina policeThe death of Hayden Panettiere has been ruled accidental, South Caroline police announced Wednesday.Greenville Police Department said the investigation into Panettiere's death has been concluded "based on the Medical Examiner's determination and the findings of the investigation," and the actor's death was officially ruled accidental.Last month, a South Carolina coroner confirmed Panettiere died from an accidental drug overdose that included fentanyl. There were no signs of trauma, the coroner's office said.Emergency responders were called to a residence where Panettiere, 36, had been staying in Greenville, South Carolina, on the afternoon of Aug. 16. Despite "advanced cardiac life support measures," she was pronounced dead there, the Greenville County Coroner's Office said.'Panettiere's on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach were at the scene of her death, according to a police report obtained by CBS News. The Hickersons made the 911 call that brought first responders to the apartment. Authorities, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, were investigating the circumstances of Panettiere's death. Police previously said that a preliminary investigation "has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances."This article originally appeared on CBS News at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hayden-panettiere-death-ruled-accidental/
Two right-wing provocateurs, James O'Keefe and Cam Higby, are facing election-related charges in Minnesota after posting videos of an undercover stunt intended to expose alleged deficiencies in election security. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said each man faces a count of unlawful voting and identity theft. "Elections are the bedrock of democracy and their protection is one of our highest priorities," Moriarty said in a statement. "Individuals engaging in unlawful conduct related to our elections will be held accountable." Hegseth directs military cyber forces to use 'every authorized asset' to defend midterm elections from foreign interference amid Trump's funding cuts to election security agenciesO'Keefe, a self-proclaimed "guerilla journalist" infamous for his undercover videos, and Higby, a social media influencer, posted the video at the heart of the charges in August. It shows the two men approaching election judges at multiple voting precincts in Minneapolis wearing burqas, speaking in fake accents, and allegedly misrepresenting their identities, in an effort to expose what O'Keefe and Higby say are gaps in the rules that allow residents to vouch for the identity of other voters. The video, which remains pinned on Higby's X account, is called "I Wore Burqa To EXPOSE Election FRAUD In Minneapolis." No ballots were cast in the course of their efforts.Tim Evans/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: People fill their ballots during the first day of early voting for the midterm elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 16, 2026. Prosecutors said Wednesday that O'Keefe and Higby deceived the election judges by using the identities of real Minnesota voters "without those voters' knowledge or permission" in violation of state law. Each count carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Neither man is in custody, according to charging documents. In a statement shared on X, Higby said, "No laws were broken. They want me in PRISON for exposing election vulnerabilities in their state." O'Keefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Steve Simon, the state's top election official, said in a statement that "any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated." The charges announced Wednesday in Minnesota are not O'Keefe's first brush with the law. In 2010, O'Keefe pleaded guilty in Louisiana to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal property under false pretenses after he posed as a telephone repairman to gain access to a U.S. senator's New Orleans office.
This article originally appeared on ABC News at https://abcnews.com/US/2-wing-provocateurs-facing-election-related-charges-minnesota/story?id=137646933
Emergency responders were called to a residence where Panettiere, 36, had been staying in Greenville, South Carolina, on the afternoon of Aug. 16. Despite "advanced cardiac life support measures," she was 
