Quebec

Quebec separatist win rattles Carney's unity push

BY MATHIEU GORSE WITH BEN SIMON IN TORONTO

  • Carney said he had spoken Tuesday to Quebec's incoming separatist premier, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a 49-year-old lawyer known by his initials, PSPP. "I congratulated him on his victory.
  • Prime Minister Mark Carney insists "Canada strong" can defy threats from the United States, but his national unity message faced a new reality Tuesday after a separatist election victory in Quebec.
  • Carney said he had spoken Tuesday to Quebec's incoming separatist premier, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a 49-year-old lawyer known by his initials, PSPP. "I congratulated him on his victory.
Prime Minister Mark Carney insists "Canada strong" can defy threats from the United States, but his national unity message faced a new reality Tuesday after a separatist election victory in Quebec.
The Parti Quebecois, which wants the majority French-speaking province to separate from Canada, is returning to power in Quebec after 12 years in opposition.
The PQ victory was partly underwhelming. It fell short of a majority in Quebec's 127-seat parliament and won only 28 percent of the popular vote.
But with an unwavering commitment to break up Canada, the resurgent PQ presents a clear challenge for Carney's effort to steer the country through a storm ignited by US President Donald Trump's trade war and annexation threats.
Carney said he had spoken Tuesday to Quebec's incoming separatist premier, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a 49-year-old lawyer known by his initials, PSPP.
"I congratulated him on his victory. We discussed the ways that we would work together," Carney told reporters in Ottawa.
Quebec separatists have lost two previous independence referendums, in 1980 and 1995, and PSPP has promised to call a third after Trump leaves office, saying he doesn't want debate on the issue "hijacked" by the volatile president.
Asked about the prospect of another referendum following the PQ win, Carney sidestepped.
"This is not the time to wait for something a few years down the road," he said. "It's a time to act. It's a time for boldness."

'Rocky chapter' for unity

Polls consistently show support for Quebec independence at roughly 30 percent and, without a legislative majority, the PQ lacks a clear path toward a third referendum.
But the risks of having a separatist government running Canada's second most populous province cannot be dismissed.
"Like it or not, Canada will need to brace itself for another rocky chapter on the unity file," Globe and Mail columnist Konrad Yakabuski wrote Tuesday.
University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes told AFP that, hours after the PQ win, "the challenge to Canadian unity was small."
But he expected PSPP to push hard on an issue linked to Quebec separatism that enjoys far broader support: abolishing the role of the British Crown.
The Parti Quebecois says it wants to defund the lieutenant governor, a position that represents King Charles III in Canadian provinces.
Mendes called attacking the monarchy "rabble-rousing," and another way to enforce the idea that Quebec "is being smothered by English Canada."
But 87 percent of Quebecers told the Leger polling firm last year they felt no attachment to the British Crown, and the move could gain traction.
It would also be "blatantly unconstitutional" and would trigger a clash with Carney's government, Yakabuski wrote.

'Wait him out?'

PSPP was accommodating in his victory speech Monday, assuring English-speaking Quebecers that his separatist agenda was not "against" them, while also offering a few unexpected words in English:
"We're all in the same boat and we share the same future," he said.
Carney will need some cooperation as he tries to push through major national infrastructure projects to jumpstart a Canadian economy buckling under US tariffs.
A massive hydropower expansion that runs through Quebec is a priority. Canadian premiers have broad authority, and a PQ government could stall those plans indefinitely.
But many experts tied the separatist surge to frustration over affordability and a general desire for change.
Mendes said the PQ could wobble if it opposes popular, job-creating projects, and noted that minority governments are notoriously unstable, often lasting less than two years.
PSPP "is not as strong as he thought he was going to be," Mendes said. "Carney can just wait him out."
mg-bs/mlm

security

Iceland is 'critical outpost' for security, says Rubio during visit

BY LéON BRUNEAU

  • Rubio said at a news conference that Iceland had long served as "a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behaviour and deterring our adversaries".
  • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio  said Tuesday that Iceland had long been a "critical outpost" for security during a visit to the island, as his country pushes for greater American influence in the Arctic region.
  • Rubio said at a news conference that Iceland had long served as "a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behaviour and deterring our adversaries".
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio  said Tuesday that Iceland had long been a "critical outpost" for security during a visit to the island, as his country pushes for greater American influence in the Arctic region.
His trip came after US President Donald Trump has stirred up the power balance in the region by making threats to buy or annex Greenland.
The US signed a security pact with Denmark and Greenland in late September that will allow Washington to establish two new military bases there, drawing the autonomous Danish territory further into US orbit.
Rubio said at a news conference that Iceland had long served as "a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behaviour and deterring our adversaries".
He arrived in Reykjavik on Monday and has held talks with Icelandic Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir and top diplomat Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir.
They covered topics including geothermal energy, data centres and the pharmaceutical industry.
With competition on the rise in the Arctic, Iceland has regained status as a strategic player, even as the island continues to rely heavily on the US for security.
"For decades this nation, Iceland, has occupied a critical strategic position for our collective security and that remains true today more than ever before," Rubio said.
At the start of September, Trump sparked new controversy by sharing an AI-generated map that appeared to show all of North America, the Caribbean, Greenland and Iceland as "the United States of America."
In response, Reykjavik summoned the US ambassador and called the image "wholly inappropriate".
Gunnarsdottir said on Tuesday the issue had now been dealt with and she also welcomed the US deal with Greenland, adding that her country would continue strengthening ties with Washington.
 

EU rejected

 
Trump again signalled his obsession with Greenland on Sunday, posting on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of his face looming over what appears to be its landscape, accompanied by the words "Hello, Greenland!".
Icelanders voted in late August 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent against resuming negotiations on joining the EU, which have been frozen since 2013.
Since gaining independence in 1944, Iceland has never had a military. It relies on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its security and on a bilateral defence pact signed with the US in 1951.
Washington does not have a permanent base in Iceland, but is looking to consolidate its control over Arctic access routes coveted by Russia and China.
Later Tuesday, Rubio left Iceland for Athens where he will participate in a "strategic dialogue" with NATO member Greece on regional and energy security, the State Department said. 
The wars in Iran and Ukraine have laid bare the fragility of energy supply chains, and Greece is positioning itself to become a key hub in southeastern Europe for natural gas transport.
The visit follows media reports about possible conflicts of interest involving the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. and ex-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In a letter addressed to Rubio, Congressman Gregory Meeks sought clarification of a Wall Street Journal report alleging that Guilfoyle had stated the United States could create "political change" in European countries.
Rubio later wraps up his European tour with a brief stop in Lisbon.
bur-ft/jxb/yad/gv/rmb

US

White House denies Trump suggested Iran should 'take out' US cities

  • "He was clearly stating US cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X.  The White House's Rapid Response account on X took issue with a Los Angeles Times headline saying Trump had suggested "letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego."
  • The White House pushed back Tuesday after Democrats accused President Donald Trump of suggesting Iran should "take out" the major US cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.
  • "He was clearly stating US cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X.  The White House's Rapid Response account on X took issue with a Los Angeles Times headline saying Trump had suggested "letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego."
The White House pushed back Tuesday after Democrats accused President Donald Trump of suggesting Iran should "take out" the major US cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.
Viral footage showed comments by Trump at a midterm elections rally in Nebraska on Monday, where he said high oil prices from the Iran war were justified by the need to stop Tehran getting nuclear weapons.
"It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe," Trump said.
"They can take out a city. Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over with very soon."
Democrats -- who control the state of California where both Los Angeles and San Diego are located -- accused the 80-year-old Republican president of encouraging Iran to hit the two urban centers.
"Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego. He is deranged and dangerous," California Governor Gavin Newsom said on X.
"The nuclear annihilation of an American city is no laughing matter," Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the US House of Representatives, said on X.
But the White House insisted Trump was talking about the threat posed by Iran, branding it a "media freakout" that was "not rooted in reality."
"He was clearly stating US cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X. 
The White House's Rapid Response account on X took issue with a Los Angeles Times headline saying Trump had suggested "letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego."
"No, he didn't, you buffoons. He was saying the US is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance," it said.
Trump is hitting the road in the last month before the midterms amid Republican fears that voter anger over the Iran war and high prices could cost them control of Congress.
dk/pnb

execution

Trump approves firing squad for convicted US military base shooter

BY W.G. DUNLOP

  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "has recommended -- and President Donald J. Trump has approved -- death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X. "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution.
  • President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at a military base in 2009, the Pentagon said on Monday.
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "has recommended -- and President Donald J. Trump has approved -- death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X. "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution.
President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at a military base in 2009, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Hasan's execution for the attack at Fort Hood in Texas -- which also wounded more than two dozen people -- will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "has recommended -- and President Donald J. Trump has approved -- death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X.
"The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come," Parnell wrote.
Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting at Fort Hood.
He chose to conduct his own defense during the trial but called no witnesses and gave no testimony, and made no attempt to deny the charges. Court-appointed defense attorneys expressed concern that he was seeking execution.

Base shootings rare

Hasan, US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on November 5, 2009, at a medical facility in the sprawling Fort Hood base, which served as a staging point for soldiers to deploy to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot and partially paralyzed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.
The court that convicted Hasan was told that he was opposed to the US military's occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that he had spoken online with an alleged Al-Qaeda figure, radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
While mass shootings in the United States are common, they are rare at military facilities.
In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a US military base in the state of Georgia, wounding five fellow troops before he was tackled and apprehended.
In 2019, a US sailor fatally shot two people and wounded a third at a base in Hawaii, while a Saudi military student shot dead three people at a military facility in Florida the same year.
A Kuwaiti-born US citizen attacked two military installations in Tennessee in 2015, killing four Marines and a sailor. The FBI concluded the violence was inspired by a "foreign terrorist group."
Two years earlier, a man killed 12 people and wounded eight at the Washington Navy Yard in the US capital, before being shot dead by officers.
wd/sla

plague

Russia downplays plague reports as Trump offers US help

  • "We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
  • Russia on Monday sought to downplay reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, even as President Donald Trump said Washington was closely monitoring the situation and offered US help.
  • "We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
Russia on Monday sought to downplay reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, even as President Donald Trump said Washington was closely monitoring the situation and offered US help.
Reports on Friday that pneumonic plague had killed a 28-year-old woman named Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region, sparked alarm.
"We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
"We'll help them, we'll help them as much as we can."
The Russian news outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to the regional security services, said the dead woman may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube.
Other media reported a possible link between her death and a lab accident at the facility.
As many as 200 people with whom she may have had contact were under quarantine, the People of Baikal outlet added, without elaborating.
But Russian officials stressed that postmortem tests had not detected the disease.
Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said Monday that a special expert commission inspection in the region had found that "the cause of death was pneumonia of undetermined aetiology". 
He said on Telegram that Russia's consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor had determined, following tests, that "no microorganisms linked to the young woman's professional work were found in her biological samples".
He added that there had been "no new cases of staff from the anti-plague institute seeking medical attention" since the woman's death.
Kobzev said the sanitary-epidemiological situation in Irkutsk was "stable".
"The situation remains under our control and that of the experts."

'Rumours and speculations'

Asked about the situation on Monday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to "rely on Rospotrebnadzor's official statements rather than... rumours and speculations".
Plague is a bacterial disease that can occur in several forms, including pneumonic plague, which is the most contagious type and can be transmitted by respiratory means. Bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas.
Pneumonic plague can be fatal if not treated early, according to the World Health Organization.
The reports will be closely watched in Washington, where memories of the Covid-19 pandemic that started in Trump's first term are still fresh. 
Trump has strongly backed the theory that the disease was due to a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his country was monitoring the Russia situation but saw no "cause for alarm".
"There's very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously, but like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread," Rubio told reporters before taking off for a visit to Iceland.
"So we're watching and monitoring it closely. I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we're doing that."
Experts said the reported response in Russia appeared "proportionate".
"It appears that measures are being implemented to quarantine any potential contacts and prevent any onward transmission," Malick Gibani, clinical associate professor in bacterial vaccinology, Imperial College London, said in a commentary.
dk/pnb

law

US Supreme Court considers bid to shut the door on climate suits

BY ISSAM AHMED

  • Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pushed back, describing the case as "chapter three" in the story of corporate accountability lawsuits, where earlier chapters were litigation against the tobacco industry and against pharmaceutical companies that pushed opioids. 
  • The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a crunch climate case, with justices wrestling over whether it followed the well-worn path of corporate accountability lawsuits or was instead a backdoor attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pushed back, describing the case as "chapter three" in the story of corporate accountability lawsuits, where earlier chapters were litigation against the tobacco industry and against pharmaceutical companies that pushed opioids. 
The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a crunch climate case, with justices wrestling over whether it followed the well-worn path of corporate accountability lawsuits or was instead a backdoor attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The outcome of Suncor v. Boulder has the power to end dozens of similar lawsuits brought by jurisdictions nationwide, seeking damages from fossil fuel companies for their role in global warming and for allegedly carrying out deception campaigns to conceal their products' harms. 
Outside the court, activists waved placards and decried the rising costs of climate catastrophes, calling on "Big Oil" to be held accountable for their "climate lies."
The city and county of Boulder, Colorado, sued ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy in 2018 for damages, claiming they "knowingly caused and contributed to the alteration of the climate" while "concealing and/or misrepresenting the dangers" of oil and gas.
They contend they have suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from wildfires, flooding and other weather extremes stemming from climate change.
But Kannon Shanmugam, representing the oil giants, told justices the case "involves an unprecedented effort to use state law to regulate global conduct."  Under Boulder's theory, he argued, they could "sue me on a nuisance claim for refilling my car and thereby contributing to global climate change." 
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pushed back, describing the case as "chapter three" in the story of corporate accountability lawsuits, where earlier chapters were litigation against the tobacco industry and against pharmaceutical companies that pushed opioids. 
 
- Three scenarios - 
 
The companies lost bids to have the case dismissed in state court and at Colorado's Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump's climate skeptical administration filed a brief urging the US Supreme Court to take up the case, and the justices agreed.
The court is considering whether federal law preempts Boulder's claims, whether the Constitution itself bars such suits, and whether it can review the case before a trial has taken place -- a question notably raised by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas in court Monday.
Judges may also have to weigh the Trump administration's recent decision to overturn the landmark "Endangerment Finding," with the executive now arguing Congress did not give it the power to regulate greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act. 
Questioning Department of Justice attorney Sarah Harris, Chief Justice John Roberts showed some skepticism towards the government's position, saying "there are a lot of familiar situations where conduct outside of a state has broad effects among other states" and state litigation is permitted. 
But Roberts also pressed Kevin Russell, the attorney for Boulder, telling him the suit "is an effort to reduce emissions."
"No, it is not an effort to reduce emissions," replied Russell, arguing that under Boulder's deception theory the companies "can continue to produce as much fossil fuels as they like" so long as consumers are properly informed.
Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia University, told AFP there were three possibilities. First, the court could decide the case is too premature and sends it back down. Second, it could block the damages claims but leave the deception claims alone, and the third is it blocks the case entirely. "That basically wipes out all of the similar cases that are out there," he said. A decision is expected by next June.
 
- 4-4 split possible - 
 
The questions also bear on so-called "climate superfunds" -- laws that would make polluters pay for climate resilience projects.
New York's was struck down by a federal judge last month, and an adverse Supreme Court ruling could shut the door to it being revived on appeal.
Ahead of the hearing, ultraconservative Justice Samuel Alito recused himself after critics called on him to step aside over his oil and gas stock holdings, reducing the number of judges down to eight and leaving a 4-4 split possible  -- which would leave the Colorado ruling in place and let the case proceed to trial.
Congress could also render the case moot. Republican lawmakers are attempting to pass an immunity shield that would void all such lawsuits.
ia/mjf

children

Without lawyers, migrant children face deportation from the US

BY MOISéS ÁVILA

  • - Babies in court - She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts.
  • A one-year-old toddler stumbles around an immigration court in Arizona, crying.
  • - Babies in court - She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts.
A one-year-old toddler stumbles around an immigration court in Arizona, crying. He throws a toy that nearly hits a prosecutor. 
The judge instructs the baby and his mother, age 17, to apply for asylum. But the teenager can barely focus on what he is saying. 
Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of a group that provides legal support for unaccompanied minors, described this scene, which she witnessed in August.
"This child is being expected to file her own application, also figure out how to file things for her one-year-old baby, while living through the distress of being a detained young mother," Avila-Cimpeanu told AFP.
President Donald Trump's administration has choked off funding for organizations that have years of experience assisting unaccompanied minors, bringing in substitutes that are under-equipped and unqualified, advocates say.
"We are gravely concerned that ORR would entrust a vulnerable population with firms so plainly unqualified for the task," Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the Deportment of Health and Human Services this week.
ORR is the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency traditionally tasked with the care of unaccompanied minor migrants.
The category describes children who arrive in the United States without an adult, or whose parents were detained by immigration agents and are in shelters or government custody.

'Attack on children'

Since he returned to the White House for his second term in January 2025, President Donald Trump has a mounted an aggressive and sometimes violent operation to deport undocumented immigrants from the United States.
Last year the administration tried to cut off funding that ORR used to support a national network of organizations that have for years provided legal services to unaccompanied migrant minors.
Following a lawsuit, the measure was blocked by a federal judge who ordered that the services, which were mandated by a 2008 law, be maintained.
Months later, the government stopped making payments, and in July 2026, it allowed a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice -- which managed a network of about 100 organizations -- to expire.
Avila-Cimpeanu told AFP that in late 2025 that the government made funding contingent on the release of confidential information about some 20,000 children represented by the network -- "and we did not do so."
The government then announced plans to hand the cases over to the Burke Law Group, run by a former Trump administration official, but that firm withdrew its bid.
It then planned to deploy Our Rescue, an organization founded by a controversial anti-trafficking activist and led by a former investigator for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The contract was put on hold following questions raised in Congress, amid a review of federal funds allocated for this purpose.
"Children's legal protections should never be the currency Of political patronage," Democratic lawmakers said in their letter.
Avila-Cimpeanu says the administration is trying to complicate the defense of minors "in order to get to their goal of deporting as many children as quickly as possible."
"I have been doing this work for 10 years, and this is the worst time that I've ever seen with regard to the government's concerted attack on children," she said.

Babies in court

She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts. That is why a lawyer who understands the issue -- and even speaks the child's language if it is not English -- is necessary.
Avila-Cimpeanu recalled a case in 2018 when her organization was in court on behalf of a baby just months old.
"We had to say: this baby denies the allegations. This baby would like voluntary departure.
"It's ridiculous that children have to go through this process as if they were adults, but it is part of the proceeding."
This week, CNN reported that 25 migrant children, several without a lawyer, had a hearing in a Texas court.
In a statement to AFP, ORR said that in August it provided funding through the end of the year for the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) to appear at immigration hearings.
"USCRI is appearing at 100 percent of the hearings and has expanded to provide legal orientation, legal consultations and direct representation," it said.
Bilal Askaryar, a spokesman for Acacia, explained that USCRI is a small organization with about 50 attorneys, compared to the 800 in Acacia’s network.
"This isn't about a contract for us. This isn't about a dispute between an organization and the government. This is about 20,000 children who came to the United States seeking safety," he said.
mav/ksb/dw

security

Rubio arrives in Iceland to push for greater US presence in Arctic

BY LéON BRUNEAU

  • The lightning visit, as symbolic as it is political, comes after the US signed a security pact with Denmark and Greenland in late September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
  • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Iceland late Monday at the start of a three-nation European tour to push for greater US influence in the Arctic after Washington sealed a pact on Greenland.
  • The lightning visit, as symbolic as it is political, comes after the US signed a security pact with Denmark and Greenland in late September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Iceland late Monday at the start of a three-nation European tour to push for greater US influence in the Arctic after Washington sealed a pact on Greenland.
Rubio will meet with officials in Reykjavik "to discuss economic and security collaboration," the US State Department said in a statement announcing the trip.
The lightning visit, as symbolic as it is political, comes after the US signed a security pact with Denmark and Greenland in late September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The agreement has apparently put an end to President Donald Trump's threats to buy or even annex Greenland, which soured relations with the European Union.
Before taking off, Rubio described Iceland as "a good friend of the United States." 
"So it's an opportunity to stop there and meet with them... it really is a result of a conversation I had with their leaders at the NATO summit with the leaders earlier this year, and with their foreign minister, so I'm looking forward to it," he said.
Under the pact, Washington plans to establish two new military bases on Greenland, drawing the autonomous Danish territory further into US orbit.
With competition on the rise in the Arctic, Iceland has regained status as a strategic player, even as the island continues to rely heavily on the United States for security.
At the start of September, Trump sparked new controversy by sharing an AI-generated map that appeared to show all of North America, the Caribbean, Greenland and Iceland as "the United States of America."
In response, Reykjavik summoned the US ambassador "to convey a clear message that the image was wholly inappropriate," Iceland's foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP.
Icelanders had voted in late August 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent against resuming negotiations on joining the EU, which have been frozen since 2013.
The last US secretary of state to visit Iceland was Antony Blinken in 2021.
Since gaining independence in 1944, Iceland has never had a military. It relies on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its security and on a bilateral defense pact signed with the United States in 1951.
Washington does not have a permanent base in Iceland, but is looking to consolidate its control over Arctic access routes coveted by Russia and China.
Trump again signaled his obsession with Greenland on Sunday, posting on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of his face looming over what appears to be its landscape, accompanied by the words "Hello, Greenland!"
 

Greece, Portugal

 
After Iceland, Rubio continues to Athens to participate in a "strategic dialogue" with NATO member Greece on regional and energy security, the State Department said. 
The wars in Iran and Ukraine have laid bare the fragility of energy supply chains, and Greece is positioning itself to become a key hub in southeastern Europe for natural gas transport.
The visit follows media reports about possible conflicts of interest involving the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former fiancee of Donald Trump Jr. and ex-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In a letter addressed to Rubio, Congressman Gregory Meeks sought clarification of a Wall Street Journal report alleging she had stated the United States could create "political change" in European countries.
Rubio later wraps up his European tour with a brief stop in Lisbon.
bur-ft/ach/gv

media

Former Trump press secretary Leavitt joins Fox News

  • Since leaving the White House, Leavitt has joined an election fundraising organization: MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political group.
  • Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, will join Fox News to provide "commentary and analysis," the conservative TV network announced Monday.
  • Since leaving the White House, Leavitt has joined an election fundraising organization: MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political group.
Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, will join Fox News to provide "commentary and analysis," the conservative TV network announced Monday.
She will make her debut on November 1, according to a statement from Fox News Media's Suzanne Scott touting Leavitt's "a distinct understanding of today's political landscape."
Leavitt, who gave birth to her second child in the spring, stepped down in late August to focus on her family, while making clear that she intended to continue promoting the "MAGA" (Make America Great Again) brand of right-wing American politics.
"I look forward to bringing my unique perspective from my experience as White House Press Secretary, along with the same energy and candor that defined my tenure," Leavitt said.
She was already a frequent guest on Fox News in her former role.
Trump has yet to appoint a new press secretary.
Since Leavitt's departure, the White House has stopped holding regular press briefings.
Since leaving the White House, Leavitt has joined an election fundraising organization: MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political group.
At 28, she was the youngest person ever appointed to the high-profile position of press secretary.
A native of New Hampshire in the northeastern United States, whose meteoric rise alongside Trump illustrated the spread of his ideas among Gen Z, she spearheaded an aggressive communications strategy targeting traditional media.
She also opened the White House to influencers and content creators aligned with the MAGA ideology.
Since her departure, Trump's hostility toward the press has intensified further. He sought to bar CNN and MS NOW, as well as the news outlet Politico, from the White House.
A judge ordered the administration to reverse course.
aue/pnb/msp
 

crime

Disgraced former US House speaker dies at 84

  • At his sentencing the following year, Hastert admitted for the first time that he had sexually abused boys while teaching and coaching wrestling at Yorkville High School in Illinois from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
  • Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives whose career ended in disgrace after he admitted sexually abusing teenage boys he had coached, has died aged 84, officials said Monday.
  • At his sentencing the following year, Hastert admitted for the first time that he had sexually abused boys while teaching and coaching wrestling at Yorkville High School in Illinois from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives whose career ended in disgrace after he admitted sexually abusing teenage boys he had coached, has died aged 84, officials said Monday.
The Kendall County Coroner's Office in Illinois said Hastert died at his home Saturday night while under hospice care.
Hastert was one of Washington's most powerful politicians during eight years as House speaker from 1999 to 2007, a position that placed him second in the line of succession to the presidency.
But his reputation collapsed years after he left Congress when a federal investigation into suspicious bank withdrawals exposed payments intended to conceal sexual abuse dating back to his years as a high school wrestling coach.
Hastert pleaded guilty in 2015 to illegally structuring cash withdrawals to avoid bank reporting requirements as part of a $3.5 million agreement with one of his victims.
At his sentencing the following year, Hastert admitted for the first time that he had sexually abused boys while teaching and coaching wrestling at Yorkville High School in Illinois from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
"They looked to me and I took advantage of them," Hastert said in court.
Prosecutors detailed abuse involving at least five boys, some as young as 14.
He could not be prosecuted for the sexual offenses because the statutes of limitations had expired, and was instead sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for violating banking laws.
US District Judge Thomas Durkin described Hastert at sentencing as a "serial child molester."
Hastert served in the House from 1987 until 2007 and became speaker after the turbulent departure of fellow Republican Newt Gingrich and the withdrawal of Gingrich's intended successor, Bob Livingston.
He remained speaker until Democrats regained control of the House in the 2006 midterm elections.
Hastert was released from federal prison in 2017 after serving most of his sentence.
ft/msp

espionage

US arrests woman accused of spying for China on Taiwan leader's family

  • Wanying Zhang, 34, is accused of acting as an unregistered agent of China and spying on a "close relative of a Taiwanese government official" in the United States, First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday in a post on X. The woman allegedly surveilled Lai's "son and his family -- filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to (People's Republic of China) handlers", the FBI said on its rapid response account on X.  Lai's office confirmed Zhang's actions had targeted the president's family and said it was a case of "transnational repression."
  • A woman accused of spying for China on Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's son and his family in the United States was arrested Sunday, US and Taiwanese officials said.
  • Wanying Zhang, 34, is accused of acting as an unregistered agent of China and spying on a "close relative of a Taiwanese government official" in the United States, First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday in a post on X. The woman allegedly surveilled Lai's "son and his family -- filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to (People's Republic of China) handlers", the FBI said on its rapid response account on X.  Lai's office confirmed Zhang's actions had targeted the president's family and said it was a case of "transnational repression."
A woman accused of spying for China on Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's son and his family in the United States was arrested Sunday, US and Taiwanese officials said.
Wanying Zhang, 34, is accused of acting as an unregistered agent of China and spying on a "close relative of a Taiwanese government official" in the United States, First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday in a post on X.
The woman allegedly surveilled Lai's "son and his family -- filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to (People's Republic of China) handlers", the FBI said on its rapid response account on X. 
Lai's office confirmed Zhang's actions had targeted the president's family and said it was a case of "transnational repression."
China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to annex the island.
Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 and, acting at the direction of Chinese officials, sent "photos, videos, and license plate information to those officials", Essayli said.
She was detained by the FBI at Los Angeles International Airport "attempting to depart for China" on Sunday, he said.
FBI Director Kash Patel cheered the arrest in an X post, warning foreign adversaries that "America is no longer a safe place to run your espionage operations."
"Allegedly surveil a foreign leader's family on US soil for the PRC -- and try to catch a flight back to Shanghai? Not happening," Patel said.
Lai, who was elected president in January 2024, has been an outspoken defender of Taiwan's sovereignty and is detested by Chinese leaders.
Lai's office condemned the "barbaric acts," confirming they had targeted the president's family.
"Such behavior should not be tolerated in the civilized world," Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo said in a statement, thanking US judicial authorities for "their assistance and protection of our citizens." 
- 'Tradecraft' - 
Zhang, who resides in Irvine, California, "coordinated the trip with an associate and used tradecraft to avoid detection," Essayli said.
She allegedly flew to Seattle on September 1, 2025, rented a black Nissan and drove to Lai's son's home, according to a court document seen by AFP.
Images from a neighbor's security camera included in the complaint allegedly show Zhang and her associate "appearing to film" the family as they arrived home one evening, CBS News said.
Zhang is expected to make her initial appearance in federal court on Monday.
Taiwan's government has warned Taiwanese people of growing risks to their safety in China and elsewhere after Beijing's ethnic unity law took effect in July.
The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress aims to forge a "shared" national identity among ethnic groups.
But overseas campaigners have argued it will further degrade the rights of ethnic minorities, like Uyghurs and Tibetans, that Beijing is accused of persecuting.
They also point to a clause stating that people can be held liable for violating the law even when outside China, saying it gives the Chinese government more justification for targeting its opponents abroad.
Zhang's arrest comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington, during which Xi told US President Donald Trump to show "prudence" over Taiwan and urged the US to oppose the island's independence.
The US paused a $14 billion weapons purchase by Taiwan in May, with Trump calling it a "very good negotiating chip" in dealings with China, which raised fears that Taiwan's security could be traded away.
sla-joy/amj/hol/lkd

SupremeCourt

Immigration, guns, climate on US Supreme Court docket

BY SELIM SAHEB ETTABA

  • The court will hear oral arguments in that case during the fall term and a ruling in the administration's favor could open the floodgates to more so-called "third country" deportations.
  • The US Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, gun rights and the fate of climate change lawsuits on the docket.
  • The court will hear oral arguments in that case during the fall term and a ruling in the administration's favor could open the floodgates to more so-called "third country" deportations.
The US Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, gun rights and the fate of climate change lawsuits on the docket.
The session opens one month ahead of a crucial midterm vote that could see President Donald Trump's Republican Party lose its majority in the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate.
Losing control of Congress would force the president to have to rely even more on the conservative-dominated top court to push through his policies.
Not that it has always been in lockstep with Trump.
Trump suffered stinging defeats this year over his tariffs and bid to restrict birthright citizenship, sparking tirades by the president against the court, particularly the three justices he appointed during his first White House term.
"I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often," he told Time magazine in a recent interview.
At the same time, the 6-3 conservative majority has allowed Trump to vastly expand his executive powers and handed him a number of victories on what is known as the emergency docket, where cases are fast-tracked without oral arguments.
At the end of September, for example, in an immigration case in which the three liberal justices dissented, the court allowed the administration to continue for the time being to deport undocumented migrants to countries that are not their own.
The court will hear oral arguments in that case during the fall term and a ruling in the administration's favor could open the floodgates to more so-called "third country" deportations.
More than 25,000 people have been sent to third countries since Trump returned to office after reaching secret agreements with some 35 nations, most of them in Latin America and Africa.

'Concerned about the future'

In another immigration case, the court will weigh a new practice of automatically detaining undocumented migrants -- even those who have lived in the United States for years -- instead of releasing them while their cases are being adjudicated.
"The Trump administration is interpreting that mandatory detention statute in a way that no administration has ever done in the 30 years since that statute was enacted," said Cecillia Wang, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "It's to pressure people to, as the government puts it, self-deport."
The opening case of the term may decide whether climate suits brought by local governments against oil companies for their role in global warming can proceed or whether federal law should prevail.
On the election front, the Supreme Court will take up an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
Trump and fellow Republicans have baselessly claimed for years that many non-citizens vote in US elections but studies have shown the actual number is insignificant.
Gun ownership returns to the court in a case challenging state or local bans on certain semi-automatic weapons such as AR-15s.
The role of religion in public education will be tested when the justices hear a case involving a Catholic preschool in Colorado that denies admission to children of LGBTQ+ parents.
The question in the case is "whether they have a right to receive taxpayer dollars without following the non-discrimination rules that apply to everyone else," said Dan Mack, director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.
On the eve of the new term, Justice Samuel Alito, a staunch conservative, gave a rare public interview in which he told Fox News Sunday he was "concerned about the future of the court."
"There has been a concerted effort to intimidate the court and justices on the court to try to influence us to decide cases," the 76-year-old Alito said.
A recent Gallup survey found that Americans' views of the Supreme Court are at their least positive since the organization began polling on the institution in 1972.
Only 34 percent of US adults approve of the job the court is doing, essentially unchanged from the record-low 33 percent approval tallied in July, Gallup said.
sst/cl/sla

midterms

US midterms: 470 seats, $12 billion and one absent president

BY FRANKIE TAGGART

  • 44: House races on November 3 that are rematches between the same major-party candidates who fought for the seat in 2024.
  • Americans go to the polls on November 3 for elections that will shape the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency -- although the president himself will not be on any ballot.
  • 44: House races on November 3 that are rematches between the same major-party candidates who fought for the seat in 2024.
Americans go to the polls on November 3 for elections that will shape the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency -- although the president himself will not be on any ballot.
The "midterms," held halfway through a president's four-year term, decide control of Congress as well as governorships and thousands of state-level offices. 
A Democratic takeover of either chamber would constrain Trump's agenda and bring greater congressional scrutiny of his administration; Republican victories would preserve the party's control in Washington.
Here is a look at the 2026 showdown by the numbers:

House of Representatives

435: Every seat in the House, the lower chamber of Congress, is contested every two years.
218: The magic number for a majority in the 435-seat chamber.
3: The net number of seats Democrats need to gain from the 2024 election result to take control. Republicans won a 220-215 majority then, although deaths, resignations and a party switch mean the current House stands at 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, one independent and two vacancies.
For Republicans, that means a net loss of two seats is survivable. Three is not.

Senate and the states

35: Senate seats being contested -- 33 in the normal six-year rotation plus special elections in Florida and Ohio.
Republicans hold a 53-47 advantage in the 100-seat chamber, counting two independents who vote with the Democrats. Democrats therefore need a net gain of four seats to reach the 51 required for control; a 50-50 tie would be broken by Republican Vice President JD Vance.
36: States electing governors, nearly three-quarters of the total.
6,139: State legislative seats being regularly contested, across 88 of the country's 99 state legislative chambers. 

What the polls say

53-41 percent: The Democratic advantage over Republicans among registered voters asked which party's congressional candidate they would support, in a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll conducted September 14-15.
The same survey found Democrats ahead among independent voters by 57 percent to 32 percent.
32-41 percent: The range of Trump's approval rating in several major September surveys.
Reuters/Ipsos put him at 32 percent among US adults, the lowest of his political career, while Marist recorded 39 percent and NBC News 41 percent among registered voters. The surveys use different methodologies and populations, so the figures are not directly comparable -- but none suggests an abundance of presidential coattails.
55 percent: Registered voters who told NBC News that Trump's policies had hurt the economy, against 26 percent who said they had helped it.

Money, money, money

About $12 billion: The amount expected to be spent advertising on the 2025-26 election cycle.
Ad-tracking company AdImpact forecasts $11.6 billion, exceeding both the previous midterm record of $8.9 billion in 2022 and even the 2024 presidential cycle.
Kinetiq Political Insights' latest estimate is slightly higher at $11.96 billion, with a projected range of $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion.
$330 million: Advertising spending in the California governor's primary alone, according to AdImpact -- making the preliminary contest to choose November's candidates the most expensive gubernatorial race on record.
And that was merely the warm-up.

For the trivia file

2,497: Candidates who ran in US congressional primaries this year, the most in any election cycle since at least 2014. An extraordinary 2,232 of them were chasing House seats.
44: House races on November 3 that are rematches between the same major-party candidates who fought for the seat in 2024.
Broaden the search to state and local contests and there are 474 electoral rematches nationwide -- proving that in American politics, as in Hollywood, there is rarely any objection to a sequel.
ft/mjf

midterms

US midterms: five issues shaping the vote

BY FRANKIE TAGGART

  • Congress even spent some of its final pre-election days arguing over who should pay the electricity costs created by them -- proof that, in 2026, even the server farm has become political.
  • Americans voting in the November 3 midterm elections will decide who controls Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency, along with dozens of governorships and thousands of state offices.
  • Congress even spent some of its final pre-election days arguing over who should pay the electricity costs created by them -- proof that, in 2026, even the server farm has become political.
Americans voting in the November 3 midterm elections will decide who controls Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency, along with dozens of governorships and thousands of state offices.
The campaign is playing out against an unusually combustible mix of economic anxiety, war, immigration battles, corruption concerns and unease over rapidly expanding artificial intelligence.
Polls asking voters about priorities use different methodologies, but they broadly agree on the dominance of pocketbook concerns.
A Pew survey found economic issues easily topped voters' worries, while a September Emerson poll put the Iran war, jobs, tariffs, gas prices, immigration and AI regulation among the most important factors in voting decisions.
Here are five issues shaping the midterms:

It's the economy

Affordability remains issue number one.
Inflation was running at 3.4 percent in August, but the political problem goes beyond the headline rate, with voters paying more for gasoline, housing, electricity, groceries and borrowing.
Pew found 29 percent of voters spontaneously named an economic concern when asked what they most wanted congressional candidates to discuss -- more than three times any other category.
Another survey, from the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, found 57 percent placing groceries, gas or utilities among their top three issues.
Trump's tariffs feed directly into the debate, with opponents blaming them for higher costs while the administration argues they protect American industry and raise revenue.

Iran war

A foreign war has become a domestic pocketbook issue.
The conflict with Iran, underway since February, has driven energy costs higher and become deeply unpopular.
Emerson's September survey rated the Iran war the single most important issue among those it tested, while Reuters/Ipsos found only 34 percent approving of Trump's handling of the conflict.
Republican candidates in several competitive races have called for the fighting to end, and four Republican senators joined Democrats in a September vote seeking to rein it in.

Immigration

Trump's signature political strength has become more complicated.
The president returned to office promising mass deportations, but controversy over aggressive ICE operations and other enforcement tactics has eroded support.
Reuters/Ipsos found 55 percent disapproved of Trump's handling of immigration. Marist, meanwhile, found Democrats and Republicans essentially level on which party voters trusted more on the issue -- a striking change from the clear Republican advantage of 2024.
The shift is particularly notable among Latinos. A survey across competitive House districts found 62 percent of Latino voters disapproved of the administration's deportation and immigration enforcement.

Trump, money and power

The president himself is an issue -- including how he uses the office.
Trump has explicitly asked voters to behave as though he were on the ballot, making the election partly a referendum on his second term.
Government ethics ranked second behind the economy in Pew's open-ended survey, cited by nine percent of voters.
A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found 97 percent of Americans believed there was at least some corruption in the federal government, while 66 percent said they had little or no trust in Trump to avoid using the presidency to benefit his family's businesses.
Democrats have promised investigations of Trump family business dealings if they win congressional subpoena power, although Republicans dismiss many such allegations as partisan attacks.

AI comes to town

Artificial intelligence has jumped out of the laptop and into the campaign trail.
Voters worry about job losses, safety and regulation -- but increasingly also about the giant data centers needed to power AI.
Almost half of Americans told Pew they were very concerned about AI's role in the economy, while 50 percent said data centers were mostly bad for household energy costs and 54 percent said they were bad for the environment.
AI regulation scored surprisingly highly in Emerson's September survey, just behind immigration and gas prices. Data centers themselves ranked lower nationally, but have become major campaign issues in states including Ohio as communities battle over electricity, water and construction.
Congress even spent some of its final pre-election days arguing over who should pay the electricity costs created by them -- proof that, in 2026, even the server farm has become political.

Other fault lines

Not every familiar American culture-war issue has dominated the 2026 campaign, but several remain potent dividing lines.
Transgender rights continue to produce fierce arguments over participation in women's sports. Health care is also a perennial election concern, encompassing the cost of insurance and medicines, and access to coverage.
These issues have not necessarily driven the national midterm campaign as strongly as affordability, Iran or immigration, but they remain powerful mobilizers for parts of both parties' coalitions.
ft/mjf

midterms

Meet the married officials winning back voter trust in rural Georgia

BY ASAD HASHIM

  • - Rebuilding trust - Many election workers in Georgia quit after the 2020 election.
  • (The charges were dropped after he was re-elected in 2024.)
  • - Rebuilding trust - Many election workers in Georgia quit after the 2020 election.
When Akyn and Noah Beck took charge as county election directors in rural Georgia in the wake of the 2020 US presidential election, they knew they'd be stepping into a maelstrom of conspiracy theories spread by the man who lost that election, Donald Trump.
Election integrity had conflagrated into a huge issue after then-incumbent Trump alleged widespread voter fraud in the southern US state.
Georgia used to be a Republican stronghold, but it flipped to Trump's rival Joe Biden in 2020. The Democrat took the state by just 11,779 votes.
Trump and his allies spread unproven conspiracy theories about everything from voting machines to mail-in ballots in the state, alleging that vast amounts of votes had not been counted.
Georgia recounted that election by hand statewide, and the results certified its original count. Trump went on to face criminal racketeering charges over his attempts to overturn the election result. (The charges were dropped after he was re-elected in 2024.)
Floyd County, where Akyn took over as elections director in 2022, was one of the very few places where errors had occurred. 
More than 2,500 ballots had been misplaced in the original count, but were found while doing the recount.
The discrepancy did not affect the final result, but it did pour fuel on the fire of the conspiracy theories.
"Once trust is lost, it's very hard to regain," Akyn told AFP at her office in the town of Rome as co-workers prepared for the November 3 midterm elections that will decide control of the United States Congress.
"Everyone's looking for something to blame," she said.
The results can be dangerous: In the wake of the 2020 election, election officials in Georgia were frequently threatened by Trump supporters. 
Even though Akyn had taken over after the crisis, she found herself in the crosshairs of that anger.
"It's not victimless," she said of the hate directed at her office. "We're mothers, we're sisters, we're daughters, we're somebody's family member, and a lot of times there's a humanity that's removed from our position."

Rebuilding trust

Many election workers in Georgia quit after the 2020 election. And Akyn was not alone in stepping into that fire.
About 20 miles south, in Cedartown, her husband Noah decided to come back to his hometown to help right the ship.
"Sometimes it wasn't safe, and sometimes the way that those engaged citizens were interacting with these public servants wasn't appropriate," Noah told AFP at the small three-room Polk County Election Office tucked away at the back of a former bank building.
Still, both Becks were determined to rebuild that trust and to engage with new election laws that brought in sweeping changes.
The laws narrowed the window for absentee ballots, tightened voter ID requirements and vastly expanded the scope of challenges for voter eligibility -- all steps that rights groups allege were aimed at disenfranchising working-class voters.
Noah said he approached his work from a committed non-partisan lens: It was not for him to question the legal changes, only to implement them in a way that satisfied voters.
Still, there is a "pendulum" between election security and voter access, he said.
"When we're tinkering with these laws, ultimately, what everything will boil down to typically is that question: Does this restrict voter access but increase election security?"
Akyn agreed, pointing to how the recent changes had increased requirements on some voters, potentially putting up barriers to voting.
"Any barriers of entry, people will decide they're not going to cast their ballot," she said, adding that such barriers disproportionately impact working-class voters who may not have the time or resources to address challenges.
Both officials, for example, said that changes to how absentee ballot dropboxes worked had made the tool functionally "pointless" or "defunct" after the law required them to be placed inside election offices and to only be available during working hours.
The new laws in Georgia also brought about a slew of procedural changes to the way in which ballots were handled, counted and recounted, all of which required county officials to have to build new systems -- usually with no additional resources.
At the Polk County office, there are two full-time employees, serving roughly 30,000 voters.
Noah says the changes did bring "logistical strain" with some unfunded mandates -- including the hand recounts and the large increase in voter challenges.
Akyn, whose office serves roughly 70,000 voters, said that no matter what the challenges, she was determined to deliver fair elections in this pocket of rural Georgia.
"I want my kids to say, 'Mom worked really hard for something very important,' because it is very important. It's the cornerstone of our country," she said.
aha/mjf

midterm

Integrity vs exclusion: US rights groups fight back against voting law changes

BY ASAD HASHIM

  • - 'Fig leaf' - Republicans deny allegations that the laws target Black and working-class people, arguing that reforms were necessary to combat alleged voter fraud.
  • Tierra Hollis fans herself with a sheaf of flyers in the late summer heat as she goes door-to-door in Georgia as part of the Black Voters Matter Fund's push to fight alleged US disenfranchisement after recent electoral law changes.
  • - 'Fig leaf' - Republicans deny allegations that the laws target Black and working-class people, arguing that reforms were necessary to combat alleged voter fraud.
Tierra Hollis fans herself with a sheaf of flyers in the late summer heat as she goes door-to-door in Georgia as part of the Black Voters Matter Fund's push to fight alleged US disenfranchisement after recent electoral law changes.
"We get out here and we tell them their rights because the government might not always tell them," said the 22-year-old, part of the organization's efforts to make sure sweeping voting reform has not removed legitimate voters from rolls ahead of key midterm elections held on November 3.
Voting reform has become a flashpoint issue ahead of the election, with President Donald Trump insisting that laws need widespread changes to ensure election integrity, and rights groups arguing restrictive new laws are curbing voter access.
Trump has frequently alleged voter fraud since he lost the US presidential election in 2020, and Georgia was at the center of his unfounded claims.
In August 2023, an Atlanta grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others under racketeering laws on charges including that he called a senior official in the southern state and demanded that he "find" 11,780 votes needed to reverse his loss there in 2020.
The charges were dropped after Trump was re-elected for his second term.
Since 2021, US states have passed dozens of "restrictive" voting laws that cause voter suppression, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. 
This year alone has seen nine states pass 12 such laws, the rights group says.
Since Trump's election loss in 2020, Republican-led Georgia has enacted a slew of election reform laws that have tightened voter access by requiring additional forms of identification, narrowed access to absentee ballots and voting dropboxes and vastly expanded the scope of ways that anyone can challenge voter eligibility.
One of the oft-ridiculed clauses in the new Georgia laws makes it illegal to offer food or water to voters standing in long lines outside polling places -- a regular occurrence in heavily-populated urban areas that have higher Black and working-class populations.
"All of this is to gain power. All of this is to keep Black and Brown people in our place," Wanda Mosley, deputy policy director at Black Voters Matter Fund (BVMF), told AFP.
"I don't have time to go back down to the county board of elections office with more ID when I'm probably working two jobs just to keep food on the table," she added, explaining how mass voter challenges and additional requirements disproportionately hit working-class voters.
"I feel like the Republican Party has found itself in a situation where they want to go back to what this country was like pre-Reconstruction, pre-Emancipation," she said, referring to a period in the 1800s when slavery was legal in the United States.

'Fig leaf'

Republicans deny allegations that the laws target Black and working-class people, arguing that reforms were necessary to combat alleged voter fraud.
"I see this as being pro-America, pro-accuracy, pro-transparency and pro-election integrity," Georgia lawmaker John LaHood said of one of the major electoral law changes when it passed.
The new laws also include more explicit rules for how ballots are handled and counted, mandate hand recounts in close races and require Georgia to move to a non-QR-code based system by 2028.
The latter is a key Trump demand that stems from unproven conspiracy theories that voting machines in areas where he lost were hacked to alter the results.
Noah Beck, the election director in Polk County responsible for his region's 30,000 voters, says the voting machines are 100 percent accurate, but that he is open to whatever changes are required to gain voter trust.
"I hate a world where election legislation is politicized because ultimately it is an objective goal that we all have is that we want safe and secure elections," he said.
For Carol Anderson, a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, however, the argument that the reforms are needed to regain voter trust lost due to unfounded allegations is "pernicious."
"It's putting up these barriers, but it's putting a fig leaf in front of these barriers, and that fig leaf is 'election integrity,'" she told AFP.
"What actually is happening is it is trying to destroy democracy by removing American citizens from access to the ballot box."
Back in Macon, one of Hollis's colleagues out canvassing voters to make sure they make it to the polls is Octavia Brooks, a working-class grandmother.
"Back then, when my granny was coming up, she wasn't allowed (to vote)," she said.
"That's why people like me get out in the community, and we give example, and let them know it's okay for you to voice your opinion."
aha/mjf

midterms

'Out with a bang': Trump won't be a quiet lame duck

BY DANNY KEMP

  • The answer may be a lame duck Donald Trump after the US midterm elections.
  • What's more volatile than President Donald Trump?
  • The answer may be a lame duck Donald Trump after the US midterm elections.
What's more volatile than President Donald Trump? The answer may be a lame duck Donald Trump after the US midterm elections.
The 80-year-old billionaire faces a bruising final two years in the White House if Republicans lose control of Congress in the November 3 polls amid voter anger over the Iran war and soaring prices.
Investigations and a possible third impeachment would loom as his Democratic foes seek revenge. The president who loves to boast of his power would find much of it stymied.
But Trump with his back to the wall could cause major upheaval, from revenge at home to wars abroad -- and influencing the race to be his successor in 2028.
"I don't think he is going to go out with a whimper, he's going to try to go out with a bang," said Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University and author of "Great American Presidents: The Twelve Who Transformed the Nation."
"He can't stand not being the center of attention. So this may spark him to be even more aggressive," Lichtman told AFP.

'Kingmaker'

US presidents are often punished in midterm elections, weakening their party in Congress and leaving them with the dreaded lame duck epithet as their power wanes towards the end.
But if Republicans lose the House of Representatives as expected -- and possibly the Senate too -- Trump will find himself in a peculiarly precarious position as Democrats probe alleged corruption or abuse of power.
Trump has already signaled he will take his usual combative approach. 
"They'll probably go after me, and I'll go after them," Trump said in a Time Magazine interview published this week.
"I think he's going to be in attack mode," Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution told AFP.
First of all, Trump baselessly disputed his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden and it is "entirely possible" he could claim irregularities in the midterms as well, said Hass.
Then, Trump could direct the US Department of Justice to investigate leading Democrats probing him, in the same way that a number of his opponents have found themselves facing legal action.
In the longer term, Trump sometimes hints at running for a constitutionally-barred third term in the White House, even wearing a "Trump 2028" hat at a gala media dinner in July.
Lichtman said talk of a third term was to "stay relevant" but added that Trump would certainly "keep the focus on himself by being the kingmaker" for the Republican nomination.
Trump -- who hosted the television show "The Apprentice" in which he famously uttered the catchphrase "you're fired" -- has been notably coy about backing either Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the top job.
"I assume he'll want to keep the suspense," said Hass. "Who's going to watch the show if it's already been predetermined who's the winner?"

'Unrelentingly active'

Outgoing US presidents have often doubled down on foreign policy in the waning days of their terms, as it's the area in which they have the most power.
Trump recently said he may resume bombing Iran after the midterms, but prolonging a quagmire that his MAGA base hates could be politically and militarily risky.
"You could make the argument that he'll let it rip, but I don't think he wants his legacy to be a warmonger. He wants his legacy to have left America stronger," said Hass, who served in the National Security Council under president Barack Obama.
Hass expected Trump to continue the US pullback from some of its western allies while maintaining detente with authoritarian Russia and China and keeping a focus on Latin America.
On trade however, Trump would likely remain "unrelentingly active," as shown by his recent hostility towards Canada, Hass said.
Trump, like many other soon-to-be retirees, ultimately may be more interested in a little home improvement.
The real estate tycoon appears increasingly obsessed by his construction projects at the White House, such as his new ballroom and helipad.
For Trump, stamping his mark on Washington in granite and concrete may be the greatest legacy of all.
"I love doing it," Trump said during a recent event at the White House, "because that's what I did my whole life."
dk-aue/sst

midterms

Trump faces midterm verdict as Democrats close in on US Congress

BY FRANKIE TAGGART

  • Control of the House alone would hand Democrats powerful committees and subpoena authority.
  • A month before the US midterms, Democrats are eyeing control of Congress -- and the power to put President Donald Trump on the defensive for the rest of his term by investigating his administration and stalling his agenda.
  • Control of the House alone would hand Democrats powerful committees and subpoena authority.
A month before the US midterms, Democrats are eyeing control of Congress -- and the power to put President Donald Trump on the defensive for the rest of his term by investigating his administration and stalling his agenda.
The November 3 vote is shaping up as a verdict on one of the most turbulent presidencies in US history -- and, by several measures, Trump goes into it less popular than any predecessor facing midterms in modern polling.
Americans will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 senators, alongside governors in 36 states. The election decides who controls the legislature -- which passes laws, sets the budget and polices the White House.
Forecaster Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 75 percent chance of winning the House, projecting a 234-201 majority. It rates the Senate a near coin flip, with Democrats narrowly favored to take it 51-49.
Control of the House alone would hand Democrats powerful committees and subpoena authority.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has vowed to "hold the crooks accountable" and says that, in the majority, his party would move to reverse Trump's tariffs, end US involvement in the Iran war and restore health insurance subsidies.
He has left the door open to a third Trump impeachment. 
A Senate win would go further, letting Democrats block Trump's judicial and cabinet nominees.

Economic pain

Trump has chosen to make the election about his record -- a risky bet given polling showing his approval rating in the mid-to-low 30s, the lowest of his political career, with just 17 percent backing his handling of the cost of living. 
A Wall Street Journal survey found no president heading into the midterms had polled worse in its surveys dating to 1990.
Trump returned to power promising to tame inflation, which now stands at 3.4 percent -- higher than when he took office. 
The conflict in the Middle East, now in its eighth month, has pushed gasoline above $4 a gallon. Only around a third of Americans approve of the strikes on Iran.
Republican Senate candidates in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio have publicly urged Trump to end the war. 
And a sitting Republican senator called for investigations after the president's eldest son received a lavish wedding gift from a Kremlin-linked Russian businessman -- one of a string of Trump ethics controversies Democrats have folded into their pitch on affordability.
"The midterms could go down as one of the greatest self-inflicted political wounds in history," said political analyst and former Senate aide Andrew Koneschusky.
"From the impact of tariffs to the Iran war, so much of the economic pain the American people are feeling, and the political pain Donald Trump's party will likely feel in November, was entirely avoidable."

Republican firepower

Yet the formidable cash advantage held by Republicans means a Democratic sweep is not certain. 
Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC entered September with $416 million in the bank, and Republican groups are outspending Democrats on the airwaves in several key Senate races.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is touring more than 40 districts in the final stretch, offering voters what he calls "a clear choice between common sense and Democrats' crazy."
Congressional maps redrawn to protect incumbents have sharply cut the number of competitive seats, capping how far a historic wave of discontent can translate into seats.
A gain of around 19 House seats would fall short of the 27-seat average midterm loss for a president's party over the past 90 years. It would be less than half the 40 seats Republicans lost in 2018, during Trump's first term.
Still, the battlefield has widened since the summer. Democrats are now competitive in Senate races in Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska -- states Trump won by double digits in 2024.
For Trump, barred from seeking a third term, the midterms come just as the fight over his legacy, and over who inherits his movement in 2028, begins in earnest.
"A strong Republican showing would reinforce the argument that Trump permanently reshaped American politics," political analyst Michael Fahey told AFP.
"Significant Republican losses would raise a very different historical question: Was Trump building a lasting political movement, or was Trump himself the movement?"
ft/bgs

Alito

Justice Alito frets over future of US Supreme Court

  • In a rare interview granted as he plugs a book he just published, Alito, 76, told Fox News Sunday that he and the other eight justices on the conservative-dominated court try to ignore statements from public figures.
  • Justice Samuel Alito warned Sunday he was worried about the future of the US Supreme Court due to what he called an extreme level of public rhetoric and pressure over its rulings.
  • In a rare interview granted as he plugs a book he just published, Alito, 76, told Fox News Sunday that he and the other eight justices on the conservative-dominated court try to ignore statements from public figures.
Justice Samuel Alito warned Sunday he was worried about the future of the US Supreme Court due to what he called an extreme level of public rhetoric and pressure over its rulings.
The court in recent years has issued decisions that rocked US society to its core: eliminating the decades-old federal right to abortion and granting President Donald Trump -- indicted four times in his first term -- broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken while in office.
The court is traditionally seen as being above the noise and fray of American politics, but recent polls show it is increasingly unpopular and untrusted.
And public pressure has intensified, most notably from Trump himself, who has waged an unprecedented campaign of speaking out loudly on how he thinks the court should rule on everything from tariffs to birthright citizenship.
When judges he appointed have ruled against him, Trump has slammed them by name, calling them disloyal.
In a rare interview granted as he plugs a book he just published, Alito, 76, told Fox News Sunday that he and the other eight justices on the conservative-dominated court try to ignore statements from public figures.
"There has been a concerted effort to intimidate the court and justices on the court to try to influence us to decide cases," he said. "I am concerned about the future of the court," Alito said.
Alongside disappointment over a series of rulings giving Trump broad leeway on several issues, many Americans are angry over news that justices including Clarence Thomas have over the years accepted gifts and luxury travel from wealthy people, raising ethics issues.
A Gallup survey released last week said Americans' views of the institution are at their least positive since the organization began polling on the court in 1972.
Only 34 percent of US adults approve of the job the court is doing, essentially unchanged from the record-low 33 percent approval tallied in July, Gallup said.
Alito also addressed again the bombshell event of May 2022 when someone leaked the court's upcoming ruling that would do away with the right to abortion. He reiterated that he has an idea of who did it.
"I do have an opinion, but the evidence available at this time is not strong enough for the court or for me to say this is the person who was responsible," Alito said.
dw/md

AI

Spy chief Clayton, the Trump loyalist tech bosses trust on AI

BY ALEX PIGMAN

  • But by giving the AI portfolio to the nation's top spy, Trump seemed to be accepting arguments that the technology poses real dangers for cybersecurity and is key to the geopolitical rivalry with China, he added.
  • Jay Clayton, Donald Trump's pick for AI czar, is the nation's top spy, and a rare figure trusted by both the president and the tech bosses determined to keep the AI boom roaring.
  • But by giving the AI portfolio to the nation's top spy, Trump seemed to be accepting arguments that the technology poses real dangers for cybersecurity and is key to the geopolitical rivalry with China, he added.
Jay Clayton, Donald Trump's pick for AI czar, is the nation's top spy, and a rare figure trusted by both the president and the tech bosses determined to keep the AI boom roaring.
The 60-year-old lawyer, who will keep his post as director of national intelligence, is unlikely to question the central place of artificial intelligence in the US economy, even as opposition to the technology grows among American voters.
"Jay Clayton is a golden asset for the administration because he's so well respected by tech leaders as well as many in the government," said Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co, an investment company.
"He is not a typical Beltway bureaucrat," Ives added, calling the appointment "bullish for the industry because you can't just have a regular political appointee."
A regular golf partner of Trump, Clayton entered politics when Trump picked him to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, the national markets regulator, in 2017.
A longtime Wall Street lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, where he represented Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, Clayton ran the market regulator without ruffling feathers. He brought cases against crypto companies, an industry that has since become closely aligned with Trump and his family.
His wife, Gretchen Butler Clayton, worked as a wealth manager at Goldman Sachs but stepped down when he joined the government in 2017.

No David Sacks

Trump picked Clayton to lead the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York at the start of his second term, where he took on cases dear to the president, including a probe ordered by Trump into ties between prominent Democrats and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His office also signed off on controversial subpoenas against New York Times reporters days before his confirmation hearing for the intelligence post. The Senate confirmed him in July.
But Clayton is no David Sacks, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who held the AI role at the start of Trump's second term.
Clayton has no technology background, but does hold an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned his law degree, as well as an economics degree from the University of Cambridge.
"Jay Clayton doesn't have the same deep background in technology that Sacks brought to the role, but he has a rich federal resume and significant experience navigating the federal bureaucracy," said Aalok Mehta of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"He also seems to be highly in sync with the president's thinking right now -- though of course we have seen plenty of examples of other advisors that started out that way but ultimately fell out of favor," Mehta added.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said juggling two major jobs would be a challenge, though Trump has handed multiple roles to trusted officials in his second term, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

National security

"Jay Clayton ultimately is going to have to do what the president wants," said Connor Martin, a national security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
But by giving the AI portfolio to the nation's top spy, Trump seemed to be accepting arguments that the technology poses real dangers for cybersecurity and is key to the geopolitical rivalry with China, he added.
A tech industry source in Washington said the industry largely welcomed the appointment, but cautioned against expecting major change.
"Jay Clayton is not going to preside over some big regulatory effort," the source said. "If he brings coherence to the policy, or provides details that bring clarity, those would be wins."
Clayton will not be the only voice in Trump's ear on AI, however. 
Sacks, along with tech bosses including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, will continue to hold significant sway over how the president approaches the industry.
Elon Musk is also back in Trump's good graces after their falling out in 2025.
Clayton takes on the role days after tech bosses signed a commitment at the White House to self-police their AI models, an accord Trump called "morally binding."
Mehta said he expected Clayton to coordinate the government more effectively while sticking to Trump's goal of not slowing the industry.
"But at the same time, the problems he is facing -- like around AI safety and sentiment -- are bigger and harder now, and they are happening at a much faster clip," he said.
arp-tu/md