The US military said vessels that have no need to move between ports in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz should stay away, as tensions ratchet up in the region.

“Due to the current geopolitical situation, vessels which do not need to transit the area are advised to remain well clear to avoid unnecessary delays to their voyage,” the US Naval Forces Central Command said in an advisory on Wednesday issued via the Joint Maritime Information Center.

“Vessels transiting this area are advised to plan additional transit time to allow for increased traffic density and military blockade enforcement operations,” the notice said.

It remains unclear what prompted the advisory. The US military last publicly issued a similar notice in mid-July, when it began its blockade of Iranian shipping. Back then, it said that the blockade would not impede neutral passage through Hormuz, though ships should expect to be questioned on their intentions.

Traffic through the chokepoint has recovered in recent months, with shuttle tankers making up a big part of the traffic carrying crude oil. These ships make multiple runs in and out of the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, where other tankers unwilling to risk the Strait await to receive cargoes.

Dozens of crude tankers willing to take the risk have helped lift oil flows from the Persian Gulf to near prewar levels, while the US blockade has pushed Iranian crude exports close to zero. At the same time, Iran has been ramping up its attacks on ships to a wartime high of almost 30 in October.

The latest US advisory said that neutral vessels with neutral cargo or are in ballast sailing between these neutral ports may be subject to questioning, visit, and search to confirm their intentions regarding the blockade.

The US Central Command and the US Naval Forces Central Command — the naval unit that is part of Centcom and oversees the naval blockade of Iran — did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Tuesday ordered a police investigation into alleged ties between a donor network co-founded by Vice President JD Vance and the presidential campaign of Flávio Bolsonaro in the run-up to Sunday’s election.

Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino directed the Brazilian federal police to investigate the “nature” of the contacts between the Rockbridge Network, which was founded in 2019, and any Brazilian companies or political operatives to aid or finance Bolsonaro’s run.

It’s a crime in Brazil for a political candidate to accept funding or other campaign assistance from a foreign source.

The investigation, Dino wrote, was “necessary to verify if there was the effective furnishment of resources — including human resources — services, or other measurable economic advantages, identifying its origin, its destination and its eventual use in the campaign.”

Rockbridge denied any such contact.

Vance has spoken at Rockbridge donor gatherings as recently as a year ago. His office on Tuesday declined to comment.

Bolsonaro, who lost the election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, fled Brazil for the United States on Tuesday in defiance of a separate Supreme Court order, three people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post. He and his family will be issued visas to stay in the U.S., a senior State Department official told The Post.

Before the election, Rockbridge’s alleged activities in Brazil triggered several complaints by Bolsonaro’s political opponents. One was by Lula’s Workers’ Party, which filed a complaint with the Supreme Court. Another was by presidential candidate Renan Santos, who took his case to the Supreme Electoral Court.

Santos, who was eliminated in the first round of the election, alleged that Brazilians who claimed to represent Rockbridge had discussed providing U.S. support with Bolsonaro campaign officials.

The representatives also approached Santos with offers of campaign help, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions.

The Rockbridge Network said it had no affiliation with the Brazilians who claimed to be its agents.

“The Brazilians made false representations about their relationship with Rockbridge and created documents representing or referencing Rockbridge without Rockbridge’s knowledge or consent,” the network said in a statement Tuesday.

Bolsonaro was already under investigation for his ties to a banker accused of involvement in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud and to a man suspected of laundering money tied to Brazil’s betting industry.

The order also has the potential to further strain relations between the Brazilian government and the Trump administration, which have feuded in recent years over the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was accused of planning a military coup to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat to Lula. Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio’s father, is an ally of President Donald Trump.

Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods and sanctions on several officials last year to pressure them into dropping the prosecution. They did not. Jair Bolsonaro was convicted last year of attempting the violent overthrow of the democratic rule of law and sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.

Flávio Bolsonaro ran on promises to free his father, pardon supporters convicted in a Jan. 6-style assault on Brasília and impeach the Supreme Court justices involved in their prosecution.

Relevance: This is the second major deadly train accident this year in Spain. Railway maintenance and safety has suffered greatly during Sachez's time in office. The technical reason is still unknown. Signaling systems and safety systems should have stopped this.

Submission Statement: South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung was effusive as he welcomed home the crew of the container ship PanStar Acro from a voyage across the Arctic. Hailing the crew’s “courage and sense of responsibility” on “distant seas”, Lee pledged to “answer with unwavering action and open a new path for the Republic of Korea”.

European diplomats in Seoul were less enthused. Sailing the Northern Sea Route, which hugs the Russian Arctic coast, shaves 10 days off European journeys via the Suez Canal but requires extensive co-operation from Moscow.

The voyage, South Korea’s first, which returned this month, was emblematic of what European officials see as a diplomatic and commercial tilt by Seoul towards Moscow, even as the Kremlin deepens its partnership with North Korea and continues its war against Ukraine.

Those concerns were heightened by reports this month that more than 176,000 tonnes of fuel, mostly diesel, were shipped from South Korea to Russia in July and August, including aboard tankers subject to UK and EU sanctions.

Seoul’s relationship with Moscow has prompted some European diplomats to question whether South Korea — which they saw as a “like-minded” democracy, with shared economic and security interests — remains a reliable partner.

“[The South Koreans] aren’t really ‘like-minded’,” said one Seoul-based European diplomat who requested anonymity. “The attitude is that the [Ukraine] war won’t last for ever, and they want to get right back into business with Russia as soon as it’s over.”

European concerns over Seoul’s attitude to Russia predate Lee’s presidency. South Korea’s lax enforcement of its export controls on computer numerical control (CNC) machines, which can be used to produce munitions, has been a particular source of frustration.

Some observers say those concerns have grown under Lee, who took office in June 2025. Mason Richey, professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said that South Korean-Russian relations had been “improving quietly” since last autumn.

In November 2025, the Institute for National Security Strategy, which is affiliated with Korea’s National Intelligence Service, held a closed-door conference with the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-backed think-tank aimed at finding opportunities for political dialogue and “prospects for expanding economic co-operation”, according to the RIAC website.

In June, INSS president Kim Seong-bae travelled to Moscow for a closed-door strategic dialogue with Russian counterparts, according to RIAC.

This month, Lee appointed Song Young-gil, a former leader of his Democratic Party, as special adviser for peace diplomacy. Song, who also served as a presidential envoy to Russia, has long advocated for closer ties with Moscow, and was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in 2013.

Meanwhile, Seoul’s relationship with Kyiv has deteriorated following a dispute over the disclosurelast month that two North Korean prisoners of war had been transferred from Ukraine to South Korea.

Lee has accused Kyiv of violating a secrecy agreement over transfer and demanded an apology. Seoul this month recalled its ambassador to Kyiv, its first such move since 2008, while Korea’s foreign ministry said it would withdraw additional embassy staff. Ukrainian officials have disputed the Korean account, calling it a “diplomatic misunderstanding”.

European leverage is also limited by the increasing importance of South Korea’s defence industry, which has helped replenish European stockpiles drawn down to arm Ukraine. Poland alone has ordered more than $18bn of Korean tanks, howitzers, fighter jets and rocket launchers since 2022.

European governments “still need weapons — precisely because of [the Ukraine] situation,” Richey said. South Korea is “not easily replaced”.

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Submission Statement: India’s IT services companies have reported a larger share of revenue from helping businesses adopt AI, in an early sign that the sector is turning a corner after fears that the technology would damage the $300bn industry.

Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, two of the world’s largest outsourcers, said in their earnings reports this month that AI integration work now accounted for more than 10 per cent of their total revenue.

At TCS, the largest Indian IT services company by market capitalisation, AI revenue in the three months to the end of September rose nearly 20 per cent from the previous quarter. At Infosys, its nearest rival, AI revenue grew 29 per cent —even as the group cut its overall revenue growth forecast for the year.

Other companies also reported rising revenue from AI services this month.

The earnings have boosted Indian IT servicesshares, with the Nifty IT index rising more than 16 per cent this month. The index had declined 27 per cent from the start of the year until the beginning of October.

But the rise of cheaper models has increased the pace of AI adoption, giving outsourcers an opening to consult companies on how to incorporate the technology.

“The market had sort of gotten scared of the AI compression without realising the tailwinds that would go along with enterprise AI adoption,” Mohit Joshi, chief executive of Tech Mahindra, told the FT.

International clients, he said, were only just starting to build the foundations of their AI systems, giving IT services companies a long runway for more work.

“Enterprise AI adoption is still sort of at its early stages because a lot of modernisation work needs to be done before you can have a fully agentic layer within enterprises,” said Joshi, referring to AI agents that can autonomously accomplish tasks with minimal human intervention. 

As the sector wins more contracts, the companies have also started hiring more people.

India’s 24 listed IT services companies have added more than 31,000 jobs since April, according to research by Mumbai-based portfolio manager Vallum Capital, double their hiring in the entire fiscal year to the end of March 2026.

Analysts at Vallum Capital said the recent quarter’s results showed “Indian IT never stopped working” despite the threat posed by AI to the sector’s core outsourcing services.

“The crocodiles are still in the water, but Indian IT has learned to swim with them,” they wrote.

SS: The Gray Lady utilizes free speech to denounce the president.

Made a simple chart to help people describe their positions quickly and unambiguously.

Israel votes today. Here is some info. Don’t be weird.

Political Party Quiz (you're probably the Democrats or Yashar)

Map of Election Turnout (english top left, its been the highest turnout by 4 pm of polling since they started tracking in 1973).

Polls are CLOSED and the major TV exit polls have arrived. These aren't final results, and may end up fairly inaccurate, but they’re probably the best we’re getting for another 9 hours or so. Specific parties hovering around the threshold could take days until the November 4 due date. After coalitions will start forming.

 The longer write-up I had can be read here, to shorten the body of the post

a good general spot for all party lists (many don't matter), another quiz, live results, etc.

The other thread got broke so we'll try to repost.

Israel voted today. Here is some info I wrote on the other one. Don’t be weird.

Live Results can be viewed here but its estimating based on % collected so don't take it too closely until all the votes are in. Specific parties hovering around the threshold could take days until the November 4 due date.

Map of Votes Collected

Political Party Quiz (you're probably the Democrats or Yashar)