“The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday after hiking borrowing costs in September to clamp down on inflation. The central bank left the federal funds rate at a target range of 3.75% to 4%, keeping it unchanged after raising rates last month for the first time in three years. In a statement, the Fed said economic activity is growing at a ‘strong pace’ while acknowledging that inflation remains elevated.” (10/28/26)
“The U.S. 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 U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said in an advisory on Oct. 28 issued via the Joint Maritime Information Center. … It remains unclear what prompted the advisory. The U.S. military last publicly issued a similar notice in mid-July, when it began its blockade of Iranian shipping.” (10/28/26)
“President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that Democrat Mary Peltola be removed from Alaska’s Senate ballot following a report linking her campaign to a secret effort to peel away votes from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by recruiting a candidate of the same name. With less than a week before the midterms, the report intensified a fight over the competitive Senate race, drawing condemnation from Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and a warning from Attorney General Todd Blanche that the Justice Department could take further action. … The president’s comments come after The New York Times reported Wednesday that Peltola campaign aides and officials with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee participated in a monthslong operation to recruit another Dan Sullivan and other potential spoilers to the ballot in Alaska.” [editor’s note: Dirty trick? Sure. But in what universe is it illegal to recruit candidates for public office? – TLK] (10/28/26)
“Brazil’s defeated right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro arrived at a Miami-area airport on Wednesday, after the US State Department said it would issue visas to him and his family following his loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s runoff election. … Bolsonaro’s arrival in the United States follows conflicting reports about his movements after leaving Brazil despite a court order banning him from travelling abroad. … Bolsonaro, who received tacit support from US President Donald Trump, is under investigation in Brazil for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. He was ordered to surrender his passport and is expected to lose his parliamentary immunity following his election defeat.” (10/28/26)
“A judge in Milan has freed a 30-year-old researcher accused by police of helping orchestrate violent protests in Italy this month, in a ruling that has infuriated Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who denounced the decision as ‘shameful’. Youssef Siher, an Italian freelance journalist and geopolitics graduate of Moroccan origin, was detained by Milan prosecutors on 24 October on charges of incitement to commit crimes, aggravated by alleged terrorist purposes. … Prosecutors had portrayed Siher as a dangerous militant, but Milan judge Tiziana Landoni said in her ruling that the investigation appeared deeply flawed. ‘There are no serious grounds for believing that (Siher) committed the offences with which he has been charged, nor is there a risk of flight,’ Landoni wrote in her ruling.” (10/28/26)
“Alaska’s GOP-led government is urging a federal court to dismiss the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit seeking to bar the state from certifying its midterm election results, according to a Monday court filing. The DOJ lawsuit, filed last week, claimed the presence of a candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) could give Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola an unfair advantage in the upcoming election. In a motion to dismiss, attorneys representing Alaska and the other defendants named in the lawsuit said the state’s elections division ‘has taken significant steps to distinguish them on the ballot so that voters can easily determine which candidate is which.’ The state’s filing also noted ‘the United States lacks authority to intervene in state elections at all, much less in support of a favored candidate,’ adding ‘the complaint has no legal basis.'” (10/28/26)
“Scores of people have been killed and about 100 injured after a high-speed train collided with a stationary train. Spain’s transport minister called it ‘inexplicable’ that a train was allowed to continue its journey despite a red signal being in place. … This is the third rail disaster in Spain in 2026. In January, two high-speed trains collided near Adamuz, in southern Spain’s Córdoba province, killing more than 40 people. A commuter train near Barcelona derailed days later.” (10/28/26)
“The U.S. military [murdered] five people in a ‘kinetic strike’ targeting a boat operating along what it called ‘established narco-trafficking routes’ in the Eastern Pacific on Tuesday, as a senior Pentagon official compared Latin American drug cartels to Al-Qaida and ISIS and accused them of orchestrating legal challenges to the military campaign. The strike is the 72nd known attack by the U.S. military on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since the launch of the operation in September 2025. In those strikes, it has [murdered] at least 243 people it alleges were involved in drug trafficking, though family members of some of the dead have said their loved ones were fishermen and farmers.” (10/27/26)
“The Supreme Court, with no noted dissents, has allowed an agreement between Texas and the Department of Justice ending a Biden-era immigration rule to go into effect. The Biden administration adopted the rule in 2024, formally establishing procedures for immigration judges to temporarily pause certain deportation proceedings through a practice known as ‘administrative closure’, including when migrants were pursuing immigration relief through other federal proceedings. The Supreme Court’s move leaves in place a lower court ruling eliminating that rule, stripping away a procedure that allowed certain deportation cases to be put on hold. Texas sued the federal government in June, arguing that the rule was adopted without proper legal authority.” (10/28/26)
“El Salvador has sent about 1,000 troops to Haiti after four Salvadorean members of a UN-backed security mission went missing in a [rival] gang ambush on the outskirts of the capital on October 18, a security official in Haiti told Reuters on Tuesday. The troops’ arrival aboard flights in recent days dramatically expands the Central American nation’s role in Haiti’s long-standing gang conflict. Yet it remains unclear who will command the new Salvadorean contingent, how long it will stay in Haiti or whether more forces will follow. Neither the Haitian nor Salvadorean government immediately responded to requests for comment.” (10/28/26)
