Americans have come to expect hateful campaign rhetoric from Republican candidates and their proxies. Comments that once were off-limits to politicians are now standard fare. Donald Trump did more than anyone to normalize such vicious attacks, and his example continues to inspire imitation. The 2026 midterm elections have spawned a hurricane of extremist vitriol.

Republicans used to rhapsodize about curbing federal deficits, minimizing government intervention in the economy, and standing for democracy around the world. But those themes are obsolete under Trump. Today, the GOP takes a distinctly different approach: vilifying one marginal and vulnerable group after another in an effort to provoke fear and anger among voters. And Trump’s noxious views and tactics have permeated to the lowest offices on the ballot.

There was a time not so long ago when appeals to racial prejudice had to be subtle and deniable, like Ronald Reagan’s denunciation of “welfare queens.” Those were bad enough. But Trump has normalized overt racism so thoroughly that some Republican candidates feel empowered to practice it openly.

The Texas Races

Bo French, running for the Texas Railroad Commission, posted a photo of dark-skinned students, apparently of South Asian descent, cheering at a University of Texas football game with the lament: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Facing criticism, he added: “Like body-cams expose criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners.”

For French, who chaired the Republican Party of Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth and 2.2 million people, this was nothing unusual. Earlier this year he demanded that Muslims “go home,” declaring, “That’s the only way we’re going to stop the Islamification of Texas and America.” He charged that the federal H-1B visa program replaces American workers with “low IQ, document mill fake diploma having, non assimilating third worlders.”

Such inflammatory invective would have rendered him radioactive with a previous generation of GOP leaders—even in Texas, where the comparatively moderate George W. Bush once reigned supreme. But those days are gone. The Texas Tribune reported, “Even as a long line of Republicans condemn French—calling his comments racist—none have rescinded their endorsements. Meanwhile, some party leaders—like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick—have remained silent.” Gov. Greg Abbott’s prim response was that French’s tirades were “not my message.”

Texas has no peers when it comes to baseless smears and nasty abuse. Sen. John Cornyn lost to his primary foe, Attorney General Ken Paxton, after accusing him of being “soft on radical Islam”—an astonishing claim against someone who has sued to block a Muslim residential development near Dallas while vowing, “There will be no ‘Sharia city’ in Texas under my watch.” Paxton responded by asserting that Cornyn “helped radical Islamic Afghans invade Texas”—referring to a commendable program to admit people who had helped American forces in the war against the Taliban.

Islamophobia is not the only poisonous Republican theme in this Senate race. A Republican PAC has run ads accusing the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, of voting to use “taxpayer dollars for sex change surgeries on children,” which he didn’t. White House aide Stephen Miller feigned surprise that Democrats would “nominate their first transgender senate candidate, who is clearly transitioning to female.”

Vice President JD Vance, who has turned the office into a delivery system for MAGA’s most inflammatory talking points, suggested that Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian with a longtime girlfriend, is gay. At a rally for Paxton, hearing an expression of support from a man in the audience, he said: “I love you too, sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.” He also implied that Talarico is a pedophile: “He was asked what he loves in life besides his own family and friends, and he responded, without skipping a beat, and I quote, ‘trans children,’” said Vance. “Now, you gotta wonder what the Internet search history of a man like that looks like.”

It was a malicious misrepresentation. Talarico had been asked in an interview what he loves besides family and friends, and he mentioned transgender kids who had come to the Texas Capitol to speak up for themselves. His reply: “I love—and I’m just going to say this because it’s on my mind—the trans children who showed up at the State Capitol to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn’t have to, but it was an inspiration to watch.” The obvious term for that sentiment would be “kind.”

Michigan’s Senate and House Races

But if Texas is second to none in crude hyperbole, Michigan can hold its own. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, running for the Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, said: “Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.” The remark cited by Rogers actually came from leftist commentator Hasan Piker, who campaigned with El-Sayed before the primary. But Piker retracted it, and El-Sayed has said, “Of course I don’t think 9/11 was justified.” Referring to an attack on a synagogue that houses a preschool in a Detroit suburb, Rogers has claimed that his opponent “could not condemn the terrorist who tried to attack and kill 140 Jewish children right here in Michigan.” El-Sayed did condemn the attack. Then, in a follow-up statement offering “context,” he said that “hurt people hurt people,” which sounded like a lame rationalization of the attempt. He later apologized, saying, “I made a mistake.”

Campaigning with Rogers, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said El-Sayed “sleeps in a bin Laden jersey.” When social media provocateur Dave Portnoy called the Democrat a “terrorist,” Rogers said he was “exactly right.”

Rogers charged that his opponent “has taken money from individuals on his campaign who openly support Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda.” PolitiFact concluded that Rogers was “cherry-picking donations and associations from El-Sayed supporters.” Let’s not forget that Rogers decided to run after getting a call from Trump saying, “I need you to do this”—the same Trump who incited the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, a shocking episode of domestic terrorism, and who accepted a $400 million plane from Qatar, a country with a long history of funding the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rogers has suggested that El-Sayed is a radical Islamist while, hilariously, also attacking him for supporting transgender rights. “Abdul thinks football is bad but men playing in women’s sports is good,” said a Rogers campaign ad. El-Sayed, who played football in high school, has talked about the dilemma of enjoying a sport that inflicts so much damage on players, which hardly makes him un-American. And on the subject of transgender participants in athletics, El-Sayed has said, “I think it’s perfectly within the means of local communities and sporting governing bodies to lead the conversation about high school sports.”

Michigan also boasts the candidacy of Tom Smith, the GOP nominee for Congress in its 8th District, who is firmly ensconced on the right-wing lunatic fringe. Earlier this year, he reposted a tweet that urged, “Eliminate every demonic violent liberal terrorist and deport the corrupt Somali infestation from American soil.” A CNN review of his social media history found “repeated accusations of treason, attacks on Muslim Americans and Islam, birther-style conspiracy theories about Barack Obama, and posts in which Smith said he had been awakened before dawn with a message from God for conservative radio host Dan Bongino.” Smith calls his Democratic opponent, Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a “communist.” Rivet has signed on to the Promise to America, a project of centrist Democrats who reject democratic socialism.

Smith won the primary despite dropping out of the race. He beat Amir Hassan, who is Black and had Trump’s endorsement—but whose name apparently turned off GOP voters. After the primary, Laura Loomer, a notoriously extreme MAGA enthusiast, waxed triumphant, noting that Hassan “claims he’s not a Muslim, but it doesn’t matter. His name sounds like he’s fresh off the boat and MAGA voters reject the Islamic infiltration of our country and party.”

Beyond Texas and Michigan

There are plenty of other examples across the country. In the House, more than 65 Republicans have joined a “Sharia-Free America” caucus. In response to El-Sayed’s nomination, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X, “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic.”

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, who lost his August reelection primary, said that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” In 2024, asked about the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza, he replied, “I think we should kill them all.” Bruce Blakeman, running for governor of New York, asked a group of Hasidic Jews, “If there is rioting here, if they’re burning down the yeshivas and your shuls, and burning down your house and raping your women, you think Zohran Mamdani is going to stop them?”

Trevor Lee, a Utah state representative running for reelection, responded to the entry of Democrat Liban Mohamed into a race for Congress by posting, “This is what happens when past policies to incentives (sic) foreigners and not protect your culture run unchecked,” while endorsing “prosecuting and deporting foreign invaders.” Mohamed, whose parents came from Somalia, was born in Utah.

As usual, the president is happy to join in. He has repeatedly called El-Sayed a jihadist and a terrorist. “If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadis to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas,” he said at a Sunday rally in Port Huron. Asked in August for his advice to GOP candidates, he said, “We have jihadists being elected all over the place.” On Truth Social, he referred to South Carolina’s Democratic Senate candidate as “Annie ‘Trannie’ Andrews.” Andrews is not transgender. At a recent rally in Youngstown, Ohio, supporting GOP candidates, he bragged about expelling Haitians who had been here legally, recalling his absurd 2024 claim that those in Springfield were eating pets. He denounced Somali immigrants as “low-IQ people” from a country where “all they do is shoot each other.” He said Democrats favor the “transgender mutilization of your children.” He said Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown is the choice of “Marxists, communists and anti-Americans.”

Campaigning in Kansas, he did more of the same. “If you want to see what’s at stake in this election, just look at what’s happening in France, a once great nation, that is being conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity, and they hate, frankly, Western civilization itself,” Trump said. “When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical Democrats want to do in America.”

(The left is hardly immune to demagoguery, but nothing on that side approaches the torrential downpour of extremism that Republicans, from candidates on the ballot to the president himself, are peddling.)

How the GOP Got Here

What happened to make such rhetoric not only acceptable but popular among much of the party rank and file? The immediate explanation is that given the unpopularity of their president, Republicans desperately want to change the subject. But their thuggish methods are not a new thing. The election of Barack Obama, who not only is Black but has an Arabic middle name (see: Loomer’s “insight,” above), brought out the latent racial and religious prejudice of many white Americans, which the GOP fanned and exploited. Bush’s war on terrorism induced many of the same people to equate Islam with extremist violence. The push to protect transgender people offends many Americans who have no experience with them and perceive a dire threat to religious dictates and gender norms. The growing share of immigrants and their kids in the national population has created fantastical fears that nonwhites will seize power, punish whites, and destroy American culture.

All these factors create a fertile environment for right-wing efforts to demonize Muslims, immigrants, transgender people, and conventional liberals. Democrats are likely to win a sweeping national victory in November in the face of this systematic fear-mongering. But given how far it’s taken them and Trump, it may be too much to hope that Republicans will give it up.

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.

EU countries have dropped the idea of offering Canada "associate member" status in the 27-member bloc, opting instead for softer language promising "ever closer association" ahead of a landmark EU-Canada summit, according to the latest version of the draft statement, seen by POLITICO.

A group of countries including Germany, Italy, Greece and France all objected to mentioning associate membership in a joint EU-Canada statement to be issued in Montreal, the diplomats said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had originally proposed "associate membership" for Canada in her State of the European Union speech in September, catching some EU countries off-guard.

A previous draft of the joint statement had read that the EU and Canada would "work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of Associate Member that will reflect, through this even closer association, our common endeavour and cooperation towards our shared goals of prosperity, economic security and strategic autonomy."

In the final version, the text reads: "We will create an even closer association between Canada and the EU... and work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself."

Later in the statement, the language changes from "even closer" to "ever closer."

The text still needs final approval. EU countries have a deadline of 6 p.m. to raise objections.

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”.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has for the first time acknowledged Russia’s need for security guarantees as part of a future settlement to end the war in Ukraine, in a significant shift amid a renewed US diplomatic push to restart peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

Ukraine’s president said western powers could eventually discuss Moscow’s demands for security guarantees, but insisted Kyiv’s own security needs must be addressed first. Until now, Kyiv and its western allies have dismissed Russia’s demands for security assurances from Nato and a sweeping overhaul of Europe’s security architecture as attempts to reassert Moscow’s sphere of influence and undermine the sovereignty of its neighbours.

“First, we need to resolve the issue of this war, and only then look for answers to the questions Russia is raising based on its own views and expectations about security,” he told reporters in Kyiv.

Negotiating teams from Ukraine, Russia and the US are supposed to meet in early November in Abu Dhabi for what the Ukrainian president described as technical talks on possible de-escalation measures, including an elusive energy and maritime ceasefire, as well as to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

Discussions on a postwar settlement and security guarantees would have to involve Europe, Zelenskyy insisted: “We can discuss the conceptual issues with the Russians through American mediation. But if we move on to the security guarantees format and it’s agreed that these guarantees will require Europe’s involvement, then Europe has to be part of those discussions.”

The Ukrainian president made the comments on Tuesday during a discussion with reporters held at the president’s office in Kyiv’s heavily secured government quarters. It came hours after President Alexander Stubb of Finland and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a phone call with Vladimir Putin, the first direct conversation with European leaders since July last year.

Zelenskyy said he had talked with Stubb and Støre the night before their call with Putin and immediately after. The two leaders said they had the impression Moscow was “serious” about planned talks between Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiating teams in Abu Dhabi, Zelenskyy said.

“I have a positive view of [Stubb and Støre] . . . I understand their communication format,” he added.

But Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday ridiculed the Nordic leaders’ attempts “to insert themselves into the negotiating process” and said “nothing new was discussed” on the call with Putin. The war, Lavrov said, “will continue and, even I will say, is likely to escalate”.

The Ukrainian president also acknowledged the Europeans’ call to Putin came at a moment of renewed contacts between Russia and the US, saying Moscow was looking to offer the US “a kind of ‘economic marriage’”.

US negotiators have been discussing major business deals with Russia in a bid to convince Moscow to end its war in Ukraine, the FT reported. US and Russian negotiators discussed potential joint ventures between US and Russian oil majors, the reopening of the Russian airspace for transit and overflights for US airlines or restarting co-operation with Russia on the production and supply of titanium.

The deals would only come online after the end of the war, people familiar with the matter told the FT. 

The Ukrainian president said the 2025 Anchorage meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska had “ended Russia’s diplomatic isolation” and fear the “diesel deal” secured this month between the US and Russia would be followed by more agreements.

Zelenskyy also repeated a longstanding demand that territorial issues be only discussed at the leaders’ level. Zelenskyy also said Ukraine had been “prepared” to discuss a US proposal of a demilitarised zone created on both sides of the front line.

The comments on Russian security demands and renewed discussion between the west and Moscow highlighted Kyiv’s growing unease with the latest rapprochement between Russia and the US.

The Ukrainian president said he “heard signals” regarding a possible reduction of US troops in Europe.

“In my view, security guarantees for Russia — as Russia understands them — mean changing the security framework in Europe and the world,” he said.

In August of last year, Zelenskyy had dismissed Russian demands for security guarantees during a press conference with Nato secretary Mark Rutte: “When Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, I honestly don’t know who is threatening them yet. They attacked us, they are on our land. I don’t quite understand what guarantees the aggressor needs. Guarantees of what?”

Rutte and key Nato leaders have long rejected Russian demands for negotiations on security guarantees before a final peace settlement with Ukraine is reached, and any discussions about European security negotiated without their participation and consent.

Three months before launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin demanded far-reaching limitations on Nato, including a ban on further enlargement of the US-led military alliance, the withdrawal of forces and equipment from countries bordering Russia, and limits on certain military deployments and exercises. European governments rejected the proposals as an infringement of their sovereignty.

Russian demand for security guarantees “isn’t a new issue”, Zelenskyy acknowledged.

The leaders of France, Germany and the UK, together with Zelenskyy, agreed a joint declaration in June stating: “European security interests must be safeguarded in any [Ukraine peace] deal. Elements of any negotiation related to the EU and Nato would need the consent of the EU and its member states and Nato allies respectively.”

Relations between Washington and Kyiv deteriorated sharply in October after Donald Trump pressed Ukraine to halt its long-range drone strikes on Russia’s oil industry. Ukrainian officials also complained about delays in deliveries of critical air-defence missiles, a suspension of intelligence sharing on incoming missile attacks and restrictions on the Starlink satellite communications system.

Although intelligence sharing and Starlink access were eventually restored, the disruptions fuelled fears in Kyiv that Washington could withdraw its support for Ukraine altogether.

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday the US had supplied an average of just 12 interceptor missiles a month for Ukraine’s Patriot air-defence systems this year. He estimated in early October that Russia had stockpiled about 700 ballistic missiles and was producing another 130 each month.

The Ukrainian president acknowledged Kyiv had recently decreased the tempo of its attacks on Russian oil refineries since Trump declared a unilateral energy ceasefire: “During those days our guys were probably trying to be a little more cautious.”

🪱🪱🪱🪱🪱

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.

The Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than three years on Wednesday as it warned higher costs from the war in the Middle East are likely to spread.

The central bank’s policy rate now stands at 2.5 per cent following a quarter-point hike.

That key rate, which influences the cost of borrowing for banks, businesses and consumers alike, had held steady for nearly a year following a series of cuts.

The Bank of Canada spent much of 2026 watching to see if higher global energy prices from war in the Middle East would spread to other parts of the consumer basket.

Inflation ticked up to 3.1 per cent in September — thanks again to high gas prices — with few signs inflation pressures were broadening.

But Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said in prepared remarks Wednesday that global oil prices are staying higher for longer and cost pressures are building. Businesses that have been absorbing costs from the global energy shock are increasingly likely to pass more of those costs on to their customers.

Macklem said the central bank’s governing council is increasingly convinced that consumers could soon feel the pinch beyond the gas pumps.

“With the outlook for inflation substantially higher and the economy showing resilience, an increase in the policy rate is needed to reduce the risk that elevated energy prices could spill over and become generalized inflation,” he said.

The Bank of Canada now forecasts that annual inflation will hit 3.5 per cent by the end of this year. Inflation is expected to average three per cent next year — about a percentage point higher than its outlook published in July — before cooling to around its two per cent target by mid-2028.

The recent ramp-up in tariffs between Canada and the United States is expected to drop real gross domestic product to 0.8 per cent in the fourth quarter, but officials at the central bank generally see more resilience in the economy than first expected.

The Bank of Canada warned its projections are still subject to considerable uncertainty, particularly around the Middle East conflict and U.S. trade policy.

Macklem said the central bank will take its upcoming decisions “one meeting at a time” but also suggested future rate hikes are still in the cards.

“There could be a need to raise the policy rate further, but given the uncertainties, we will proceed carefully,” he said.

CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said in a note to clients Wednesday that he expects the Bank of Canada to pause at its final rate decision of the year on Dec. 9 before delivering another quarter-point hike in January.

He said CIBC doesn’t expect the Bank of Canada’s preferred measures of core inflation to accelerate as much as the central bank fears.

The Bank of Canada did consider holding its policy rate steady at this meeting, Macklem said, because the rise in inflation has been narrowly concentrated around the energy price shock.

The central bank said it’s also seeing prices rise for some industrial inputs and technical equipment for the build out of artificial intelligence systems.

Tariffs and past weakness in the Canadian dollar are also driving up import costs, the Bank of Canada noted in its outlook.

The bank is also expecting higher food inflation next year as rising energy prices move through the supply chain. It expects food inflation to average around four per cent in 2027, up about half a percentage point from this year.

Higher global energy prices also offer a bit of a boon to Canada’s economy. Rising oil prices, combined with supportive fiscal policy, are expected to drive up business investment and support growth in the coming years.

The Bank of Canada now sees real GDP growth of two per cent in 2027 and 2028, compared with one per cent in 2026.

The central bank’s outlook is more subdued for the housing market. Affordability constraints, slowing population growth and rising borrowing costs – fuelled in part by the Bank of Canada’s own rate hike – are all expected to weigh on home buying and construction in the years ahead.

The AfD leaks reveal how prominent pollsters, legal experts, and journalists offered their services to the party at an early stage—and which far-right extremists were awarded contracts.

Alice Weidel was preparing for a television appearance and evidently wasn’t sure exactly what she should say. So, she sent an email to a confidant, asking if he could provide her with some talking points on social justice and pensions—adding, "You always have such good ideas." The man replied promptly, saying he would be happy to give some thought to what could be said on the subject—"including some punchy, headline-grabbing points." That would be standard enough—if the confidant were an AfD party strategist. But the person responding was Hermann Binkert, head of the independent polling institute Insa.

This email exchange took place in September 2017, ahead of Weidel’s appearance on the ZDF program hosted by Maybrit Illner. Even then, Binkert was a highly sought-after guest for interviews; his polls influence both public debates and elections. Insa’s weekly "Sunday Question" (a poll on voting intentions), published in the Bild newspaper, reaches millions of people. Late that night, Binkert sent Weidel arguments to use during her talk-show appearance.

The owner of an ostensibly non-partisan polling institute was advising the AfD’s lead candidate shortly before the federal election—a state of affairs that is, to say the least, highly disconcerting.

The email exchange between Weidel and Binkert is part of what has become known as the "AfD Leaks." Unknown hackers stole 421,155 emails and more than 200,000 other files from the AfD and posted them online. Analyzing this data offers a deep look into the party’s inner workings. An investigation by DIE ZEIT reveals just how early on prominent legal experts, journalists—and, indeed, the pollster Binkert—began offering their services to the party.

The polling institute Insa has long faced criticism for its proximity to the AfD. Insa has been working for the AfD since 2014. These allegations stem primarily from a contract that an Insa subsidiary undertook for the state parliamentary group of the Thuringian AfD—a branch now classified as right-wing extremist—as well as a donation made to the party by Hermann Binkert in 2014.

Insa head Binkert rejects the accusation that his institute lacks independence. He told DIE ZEIT that he works for "all parties without distinction," noting that he has also made donations to other parties in the past. Binkert claims that "politicians from all parties" receive "advice on political topics" from him, describing this simply as "client relations—provided free of charge." Until now, Binkert had consistently denied providing any advice to the AfD beyond conducting polls. However, emails to Weidel that have now come to light suggest otherwise.

It appears that Binkert provided political counsel to Weidel on several occasions. In an email from November 2017, the Insa chief suggested that Weidel leverage the awarding of the Federal Cross of Merit to an "important staff member of the AfD’s parliamentary group" for the party’s benefit, arguing that it could help the AfD and that it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

In another email sent two weeks before the 2017 federal election, Binkert offered to include specific party topics in an upcoming poll on short notice: "If there is anything you would like to see included, I would be happy to add it. Internally, confidentially, and free of charge." Whether the AfD accepted this offer is not clear from the leaked data. When asked for comment, Weidel declined to respond. Binkert said that, in this case, he had apparently offered to expand an existing assignment to include additional questions. "We offer this all the time—to other clients as well."

Hermann Binkert maintains close ties not only to the AfD but also to circles associated with the "New Right." He has made appearances for the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit and the radical-right online outlet Deutschland-Kurier—a publication for which his firm, Insa, conducted exclusive polling.

David Bendels, the editor-in-chief of Deutschland-Kurier, also sought to establish a close relationship with Alice Weidel at an early stage. The leaked material includes emails in which Bendels writes to Weidel in a highly familiar tone, addressing her by the informal "du" as early as 2017.

Then there is a message from November 16, 2017. At the time, the CDU/CSU, the FDP, and the Green Party were exploring the possibility of forming a coalition following the federal election. The status of these negotiations had been summarized by the four parties in an internal protocol the previous day. The very next day—November 16—Bendels forwarded the document to Weidel, labeling it "Paper of Shame" in the subject line.

Invoices totaling nearly 40,000 euros

Typically, journalists receive information from politicians, not the other way around. In this instance, however, an editor-in-chief sent an internal document to the rival party of his source—because Bendels had obtained the exploratory paper from an old friend within the CDU.

Sebastian Reischmann is a local politician from Hesse. He has known Bendels since 2010, when both were active in the Junge Union, Reischmann told DIE ZEIT. According to a report by Der Spiegel, a few months before the email containing the "document of shame" was sent, the two had traveled to Berlin—accompanied by someone who is now an AfD politician—to attend a New Year’s reception hosted by Junge Freiheit.

Reischmann no longer recalls exactly where he obtained the internal exploratory document. It might have come from a CDU WhatsApp group. Until now, Reischmann was unaware that Bendels had immediately forwarded the document to the chair of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag. He does not see anything remarkable about this, however: "As we speak, hundreds of such documents are being passed around; it’s not a question of whether they are shared, but merely whether you happen to receive one half an hour earlier than someone else," Reischmann said.

The AfD was elected to the Bundestag for the first time in 2017. At that time, Dietrich Murswiek, a legal scholar from Freiburg, reached out. He is a man who deals with grand questions: public law, constitutional law, and state law. This did not, however, prevent him from offering his services to Weidel for matters of a less fundamental nature. When Weidel was referred to as a "Nazi slut" in a satirical segment on the NDR program Extra 3—a piece that caricatured her own previous statements—Murswiek actively offered his assistance to the politician. "The fact that you challenged political correctness does not justify such abusive criticism," he wrote to Weidel in May 2017. "I do not wish to force legal advice upon you. (...) However, should you decide to pursue a legal defense and require support regarding constitutional law, please feel free to contact me." Whether Weidel accepted Murswiek’s offer is not clear from the available emails. Weidel declined to comment on the matter.

The following year, the AfD commissioned Murswiek to produce an expert report. In it, he analyzes how civil servants who are also party members should conduct themselves to avoid coming into conflict with their official professional duties.

The emails from Binkert, Bendels, and Murswiek are nine years old. In the meantime, the AfD has undergone several transformations, shifting further and further toward the far right. The party’s political environment has also changed—a fact that is likewise evident from the messages in the leak. While the party attracted mostly men from the right-wing conservative spectrum a decade ago, it is now far-right extremists who are receiving commissions from the AfD.

The data leak includes, for instance, invoices submitted to the AfD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania by far-right activist Michael S. just a few weeks ago. He reportedly received nearly 40,000 euros from the party for producing a campaign advertisement and working as a cameraman for the 2026 state election campaign. The broadcaster SWR was the first to report on this. Michael S. is said to be the "head of media" for the far-right Identitarian Movement and works for the media agency Filmkunstkollektiv—an agency founded by Identitarians. The Identitarian Movement is on the AfD’s list of organizations deemed incompatible with party membership.

According to information obtained by DIE ZEIT, a second activist from the Identitarian milieu, Annie H., was also involved in campaign work in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She and Michael S. were commissioned by Daniel Fiß—a former co-chair of the Identitarian Movement in Germany. Fiß has since become a member of the AfD and, in 2026, coordinated the party’s election campaign in the north.

For the state parliamentary election campaign, Fiß also enlisted other old acquaintances. Tannwald Media, a Leipzig-based advertising agency run by former Identitarian activist Alexander K., was tasked with producing an AI-generated campaign song, which was released under the title "Petermännchen – Blaue Wende (feat. Die Fidel)."

Tannwald Media had previously worked as an advertising agency for the Junge Alternative (Young Alternative) in Brandenburg, the AfD in Lower Saxony, and the AfD during the 2025 federal election campaign. Leaked data points to further commissions from the AfD to the agency; in 2024, for instance, Tannwald produced a lighter for the AfD’s state parliamentary group in Saarland, featuring the design: "Heating System – 'Habeck' Model."

Text translated by Google Translate, mistakes are my own.