Europe is searching for someone capable of negotiating with Vladimir Putin. Yet the question confronting European capitals is considerably more difficult than identifying a politician with sufficient experience, authority and diplomatic skill. It is whether Europe possesses the political unity and strategic independence to negotiate with Moscow on equal terms.
According to diplomatic accounts published on 22nd October, five European leaders have emerged as possible representatives: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Czech President Petr Pavel, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
No appointment has been announced, and a group of negotiators may ultimately prove more acceptable than a single representative. The initiative reflects concern that Washington’s negotiations with Moscow could produce arrangements affecting European security without sufficient European influence over their terms.
The European Commission insists that the EU is already participating in diplomatic consultations, including discussions held in Oslo on 20th October. But participation in preliminary meetings is not the same as possessing the authority to determine the outcome.
Europe’s predicament contains an extraordinary contradiction. The European Union is among Ukraine’s principal financial supporters. Its governments provide military assistance, maintain sanctions against Russia and control decisions affecting Moscow’s future access to European markets. Nevertheless, European capitals remain concerned that the decisive political framework for ending the war could be negotiated principally between Washington and Moscow.
This anxiety has intensified under President Donald Trump, whose transactional approach increasingly treats diplomatic settlements as exchanges of economic concessions and strategic advantages.
As EU Today recently examined, proposals involving sanctions relief, renewed energy cooperation and commercial opportunities raise the possibility of arrangements that depend upon European consent but are negotiated elsewhere.
Washington can discuss reopening economic relations with Russia. It cannot independently reverse European sanctions, guarantee Ukraine’s accession to the EU or decide the continent’s future security arrangements. The European Council explicitly reaffirmed this distinction in its conclusions of 16th October, insisting that decisions affecting the Union’s security and responsibilities belong to Europe itself.
The central issue is therefore not whether Europe has influence, but whether it can organise that influence into a coherent negotiating position.
An equally important weakness would arise if European governments selected their representative without making Kyiv an integral participant in the decision.
Ukraine is not merely the geographical subject of negotiations. Its government controls whether a proposed settlement can acquire political legitimacy, while its armed forces determine much of what can be implemented on the ground.
A negotiated agreement rejected by Kyiv could neither reliably end the war nor provide the security arrangements that Europe seeks.
European security, moreover, can no longer be considered independently of Ukraine’s military capabilities. Ukrainian forces possess extensive operational experience against Russia, including in drone warfare, electronic warfare and long-range strikes.
Any future continental defence architecture that excludes this experience would disregard one of Europe’s most consequential military assets.
An effective European representative would therefore require a mandate developed jointly with Ukraine, rather than simply endorsed by European governments after the event.
The proposed candidates illustrate the difficulty of combining political authority with negotiating credibility. Meloni possesses a working relationship with Trump and considerable influence within European conservative politics. Stubb combines experience of Russia’s immediate neighbourhood with access to Washington. Pavel brings military expertise and an understanding of NATO’s command structures. Yet none could independently commit Europe’s governments to financial, military or territorial-security obligations.
This is the fundamental weakness of the proposed office. A negotiator requires more than access to powerful leaders. The ability to make commitments, withhold concessions and impose costs is what gives diplomatic representation substance.
Europe possesses potentially significant instruments: sanctions, industrial capacity, financial assistance and growing defence expenditure. But these remain distributed across institutions and national governments with differing strategic priorities.
Poland, the Baltic states and Nordic governments approach Russian security threats differently from several Western and Southern European capitals. Reconciling those positions is not an administrative exercise. It is a prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy.
The search also reflects European concern about a return to great-power bargaining over the continent’s political geography.
The historical comparison frequently invoked is Yalta in 1945, when Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin discussed Europe’s post-war settlement. Munich in 1938 offers another warning about negotiating territorial concessions at the expense of directly affected states. Neither precedent precisely describes the present situation.
Unlike the countries subjected to Soviet domination after the Second World War, today’s European states possess established institutions, substantial economic resources and collective defence arrangements. Ukraine, meanwhile, has demonstrated that Russia cannot simply dictate its political future through military superiority.
Nevertheless, the danger lies in accepting the underlying principle that powerful states possess a privileged right to determine the sovereignty and security choices of their neighbours.
Moscow’s demands concerning NATO, Ukrainian territory and Europe’s wider security arrangements extend beyond any conventional ceasefire negotiation.
A European representative would have to challenge that premise rather than merely negotiate the geographical limits of Russian influence.
The debate inevitably leads to Europe’s military dependence upon the United States. An American withdrawal from NATO is not inevitable. Indeed, US legislation restricts unilateral presidential withdrawal. But Washington could substantially reduce its military commitments without formally abandoning the alliance.
Europe must therefore consider how much independent military capacity it requires to support its diplomatic positions. That entails coordinated procurement, integrated military planning, sustainable defence production and deeper cooperation with Britain, Norway, Canada and Ukraine. Recent security challenges in the Black Sea illustrate the difficulty of converting European diplomatic commitments into effective collective action.
These developments would not automatically create a European army or replace NATO. They could, however, give European governments greater freedom to act if American priorities diverge from their own.
The relationship between military capability and diplomacy is particularly important in dealing with Moscow. European representatives cannot expect Russia to revise its demands simply because Brussels has selected a more prominent interlocutor.
Russia would have to conclude that continued aggression carries greater costs than a settlement respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty. Europe’s diplomatic standing would then derive not from the personality of its representative but from the collective resources and political commitments behind that individual.
The immediate search for a negotiator may appear a limited diplomatic initiative. Its implications are considerably larger.
For decades, European security rested upon an arrangement in which American military power compensated for Europe’s fragmented strategic authority. The present negotiations are exposing the limitations of that model. The decisive question is not whether Meloni, Stubb, Pavel or another European leader can secure a place at the negotiating table. It is whether Europe can establish a common position, backed by Ukraine’s consent and by sufficient economic and military power, that neither Washington nor Moscow can disregard.
Without those foundations, a European envoy risks becoming a participant in decisions made by others. With them, the appointment could mark the beginning of a substantially different European role in international security.
Israel is talking about the pickaxe mountain, where Iran is enriching uranium, and is making it a potential red line. Reportedly, leaders discussed a narrow 7-day window for joint military operations, and Trump’s response was a get-ready signal with no timeframe.
Ten days from the US midterm elections and three days left in the Israeli general election, Prime Minister Netanyahu broke his deafening silence and appeared at a formal military function. Netanyahu stressed the existential threat to Israel from Iran. He declared toppling Iran’s present regime as the only way in view of Mujtaba Khamenei’s ambitions for a nuclear weapon.
Abbas Iraqchi, in return, has also delivered a blunt message to the USA and Israel. He even accused Netanyahu of pushing Trump towards another War for political survival. War is likely to be used as a political lifeline. Today’s world is otherwise governed by underground forces, as stated recently by the British Prime Minister, and is being manifested from the US to Afghanistan, including my beloved country. Pakistan has recently tried to bring Tehran to the table at the highest level, but Iran remains firm on its demands of blockade lifting and asset freeze.
The US has conveyed the latest demand fornegotiation directly, also threatening the mother of all bombs shall manifestunprecedented destruction, inhalation, devastation, havoc, obliteration,demolition and wreckages for Iran and the World to see. Iran’sretort is even vicious and has threatened to bring the entire region engulfed in war even if a single attack is made. Iran warns to burn things to ashes with no limits, no hesitation or considerations. In the last 4 days, many military and diplomatic jets have flown in and out of Tehran.
America still wants to negotiate on its terms after 9 months of lingering conflict and continues to threaten with unimaginable intensity and shock. Three aircraft carriers with over200 aircraft alone claim to be burning to ashes the famous nuclear mountain of Iran. By making shallow claims, the US admits its failure that bombs used before were insufficient, while not giving any logic as to how this intensity shall guarantee success this time around.
However, Iran is confident it can survive another round of fighting if it happens. In reality, the USA has not created anything new in the technology of warfare domains in the last 9 months. Although three aircraft carriers and more troops have arrived, they are not nearby, and Iran has 24/7 surveillance with real-time satellite imagery, not static imagery.
A US victory, even if orchestrated brutally, will not be a defeat for Iran. The balance of power in the Middle East has shifted in the last 9 months. Expanding defence pacts coupled with exposed UAE-Israel-India nexuses and losing US grip over the region has left a vacuum in one of the important regions of the World.
The war in West Asia is about to escalate. Markets are already sensing the roar; oil prices are rising,stocks are falling, and crude oil has crossed 110 $ per barrel, meaning prices have effectively entered the danger zone. No short-term respite is foreseeable. European energy is being rationed, and the looming reality means Europe can no longer supply energy to its people; soon the rest of the world will face the same. US must choose wisely between sanctions, pressure and patience, bankruptcy, and bombs.
Desperation can lead to anything; Trump is desperate for a notion of victory, while Iran pledges to be ready for a doomsday scenario. Birds, animals, and even humans in the region are sensing disaster.
The post Looming Middle East Disaster appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.
Damascus - Almost two years on from the fall of Assad’s regime in 2024, continued violence targeting Syria’s ethnic minorities is placing the country’s post-war recovery under strain as the government struggles to manage persistent sectarian tensions.
Earlier this month, pro-government demonstrators gathered in Kurdish areas of Hasakeh and Raqqa, vandalising Kurdish symbols and calling for the government to take full control of the region.
This comes amid the ongoing integration of the Kurdish-led SDF into the Syrian state.
The unrest followed a series of mob attacks and acts of vandalism targeting Christian homes, vehicles and shops in Al-Suqaylabiyah, a predominantly Greek Orthodox town in Hama province.
These are not isolated incidents. Post-Assad Syria has seen “several minority communities that have feared systemic discrimination and unfair treatment - particularly the Kurdish, Druze and Alawite communities,” Caroline Rose, a senior director at the Soufan Center, tells The New Arab.
Al-Suqaylabiyah has already experienced a previous spate of mob violence over the past year, while Syria continues to witness sectarian killings on an almost daily basis.
The country’s post-war recovery was also blighted by a series of massacres targeting Syria’s Alawite and Druze minorities in 2025.
Syria’s decade-long civil war deepened sectarian hostility. Assad sought to frame the conflict as a sectarian war between Syria’s minority communities and Sunni “Islamists” and “terrorists”.
As the revolution progressed, opposition to Assad became increasingly Islamist and sectarian in nature. During the conflict, communities on all sides were targeted, with many villages and neighbourhoods suffering killings and displacement.
The collapse of the regime saw many displaced communities return to their destroyed homes, in many cases living alongside those they believed had destroyed them in the first place.
While the government has repeatedly moved to clamp down on outbreaks of violence, two years into Syria’s “transitional period”, it has struggled to address many of the underlying grievances that allow disputes to escalate into communal violence.
It is this legacy of civil war grievances that allows disputes, often rooted in personal conflicts or criminal activity, to escalate into communal violence. The recent violence in Al-Suqaylabiyah began with a fight between two men, one of whom returned to his village to rally a mob.
Although Damascus has made efforts to deploy its security services to quell unrest, in many parts of Syria this does not necessarily create a greater sense of security among local communities.
“Local officials and security chiefs come mainly from the networks that toppled Assad, often recruited for their loyalty. Minority recruitment into the security forces remains limited,” explains Dr Nanar Hawach, an independent expert specialising in Syria, to The New Arab.
“The already few minority recruits mostly hold desk or traffic jobs, and the armed patrols in their areas are often drawn from elsewhere,” he adds.
“As a result, many ethnic minority residents hesitate to report threats to the officers who patrol their streets, who they may not trust.”
Over the past two years, although the government has made significant strides in filling the security vacuum that emerged after the collapse of the regime, the Interior Ministry remains understaffed according to analysts.
One way to address this, alongside the communal sense of distrust, would be to encourage the recruitment and active deployment of security personnel from minority backgrounds, particularly in areas where minorities make up a substantial proportion of the local population.
However, Gregory Waters, an independent researcher and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, cautions against establishing a system of local communal policing on ethnic or religious lines which he believes in the long run may serve to “solidify sectarian divisions” by clearly demarcating that “this is a Christian town with Christian police, and that is a Sunni town with Sunni police”.
He argues that alongside more personnel, the local security services need to improve their coordination with local communities, in order to be quickly made aware of and pre-emptively halt sectarian mobilisations before they become violent.
However, analysts agree that establishing civil peace requires more than simply securitising the issue.
Local disputes have long been common in many of these communities, although they have taken on a more sectarian character in post-Assad Syria because of grievances that emerged during the civil war.
“For many of those people returning home, seeing their hometowns destroyed has a very visceral impact,” says Waters.
He suggests that this sense of grievance manifests as anger stemming from the perception that “the people responsible were let off the hook”. Those affected perceive a lack of genuine transitional justice.
The Syrian government has begun the long and complicated process of trying those responsible for crimes committed during the civil war. In August, Bashar Al-Assad and several senior regime figures were sentenced to death in absentia.
Despite this, many lower-level figures have not yet been arrested. According to Waters, this gives aggrieved communities “an excuse to cause problems”, even when those targeted by retaliatory violence were not actually responsible for the original crimes.
However, many within minority communities are sensitive to perceived state overreach. Genuine arrests linked to transitional justice can also be misrepresented, with such actions “often get[ting] blown up and distorted through misinformation and fake news”, explains Waters.
The arrests “become construed as the government targeting ethnic minorities – which can aggravate these communities further”.
Waters suggests that building genuine civil peace requires more than simply imposing justice. Instead, he argues, there needs to be “a systemic whole-of-sector approach, that brings together local leadership, revolutionary figures, security chiefs, and most importantly, those who are causing the civil disturbances”.
Governance disputes appear to be a driving force behind much of the recent violence in northeast Syria.
The integration of the SDF into the government is “sparking fears amongst Kurdish communities about the loss of Kurdish political autonomy, Kurdish language rights and security control in the region,” says Rose.
“These fears have been exacerbated by increasing fuel prices and the general cost of living, which have also contributed to public demonstrations.”
Meanwhile, Arab communities in the northeast are frustrated by the slow pace of integration. Reflecting long-standing grievances over what they perceive as corruption and discrimination under SDF rule, some want Damascus to take a more direct role in governing the region.
There is an economic dimension to this issue. The risk of violence erupting is heightened by the lack of real livelihoods for young men, and the sense that material support remains scant.
“You have unemployed young men, angry that their homes and workplaces are destroyed with nowhere else to channel their frustration,” says Waters. “These are the types that are sparking incidents.”
Alongside economics, part of the frustration is rooted in the sense that “communities have limited influence over how their areas are governed,” Hawach explains to The New Arab.
“Alongside security officials, local civilian leaders are often recruited from opposition networks. Minority candidates may be viewed with a degree of distrust, particularly Alawites, given their association with the former regime.”
Hawach suggests that the authorities could address these concerns by giving local communities more meaningful decision-making powers. He points to the Ismaili Council in the town of Salamiyah as a key example.
The Ismaili Council, which represents Syria’s Ismaili community, established contact with HTS before the fall of the regime and helped facilitate the city’s handover to advancing opposition forces.
Since then, the council has worked closely with local security chiefs and community leaders to ensure that occasional incidents of violence do not spiral into broader communal conflict.
“Syria could develop these local bodies with genuine authority over local services, public employment and disputes,” suggests Hawach.
Ultimately, ensuring civil peace in Syria will require the Syrian government to not only develop its security architecture but also address the grievances that cause local disputes to escalate.
Without meaningful accountability, economic development and greater local representation, efforts to restore stability risk leaving the underlying causes of communal tension unresolved.
Cian Ward is a journalist based in Damascus, covering conflict, migration, and humanitarian issues
Follow him on X: @CP__Ward
Edited by Charlie Hoyle
France’s violent protests have exposed a vulnerability in European security that conventional policing cannot easily address: the ability of foreign information networks to exploit domestic political crises, amplify social divisions and transform legitimate grievances into instruments of geopolitical pressure.
President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged foreign manipulation of information surrounding the disturbances of 17–18 October but insists there is no evidence that foreign actors organised the violence itself. His assessment reflects the evidence currently available, although new investigations indicate that Russian-linked networks were actively exploiting the protest movement weeks before the worst disorder began.
On 24 October, France deployed approximately 70,000 police officers and gendarmes to prevent further violence. Yet the security operation addresses only the physical consequences of a crisis whose online dimension extends across national borders.
An investigation published on 22 October by Alliance4Europe provides evidence that Russian-linked information networks were exploiting French discontent well before the disturbances.
Researchers examined 547,471 posts and articles across nine languages. They identified 639 coordinated messages attributed with high confidence to Russia’s Doppelgänger operation, generating approximately 7.4 million views in the six weeks preceding 17 October.
The campaign used genuine concerns about living costs and public expenditure to promote a particular political argument: money allocated to Ukraine was being taken from European citizens.
This was not a random selection of grievances. France’s budget difficulties, public-service pressures and disagreements over defence expenditure provided material through which Moscow could seek to weaken support for Kyiv.
The researchers found that the operation targeted pro-European and pro-Ukraine politicians across the political spectrum. It praised selected proposals associated with Jean-Luc Mélenchon while also promoting nationalist narratives, illustrating a strategy driven less by ideological consistency than by opposition to existing European policies.
An earlier investigation by EK Strategies, published on 8 October, identified an additional development.
Russian-linked channels were not merely commenting on existing demonstrations. They were circulating protest dates, identifying organisers and encouraging French audiences to follow the example of demonstrators in Germany.
On 28 September, the International Reporters network published an appeal urging French audiences to take to the streets. Other channels subsequently reproduced information about planned school blockades and demonstrations.
In one instance, a channel identified as Gavroche published rhetoric encouraging an attack on France’s Education Ministry.
Such activity goes beyond retrospective propaganda. It attempts to influence participation and behaviour while events are developing. Nevertheless, evidence that a network encouraged protests does not establish that it controlled the organisers or directed subsequent violence.
The original demonstrations arose from domestic grievances over schools, prices and government policy. The significance of the foreign activity lies in attempts to redirect and intensify an existing movement.
Once violence erupted, the information campaign acquired an international audience.
Alliance4Europe found that claims blaming migrants or Islam for the disturbances appeared in approximately one in 33 French-language posts, compared with nearly one in five English-language posts.
False allegations that immigrants had burned Limoges town hall circulated substantially more frequently in English than in French.
The same report identified 1,018 articles distributed through 28 websites associated with the Russian Pravda network. Their rapid republication across languages enabled a common narrative to reach audiences far beyond France.
The operation also presents a longer-term technological problem. Repeated publication of manipulated accounts can contaminate material subsequently retrieved or reproduced by artificial-intelligence systems, allowing false narratives to persist beyond the original campaign.
The political effects were visible when President Donald Trump and other foreign leaders portrayed France’s unrest principally through immigration and cultural conflict.
Speaking in Qatar on 21 October, Macron rejected these portrayals and criticised the circulation of fabricated AI-generated images. His remarks identified foreign manipulation after the riots but stopped short of alleging foreign responsibility for their organisation.
The transcript raises a more substantial allegation: that the American Heritage Foundation and Russia’s FSB have participated in a coordinated effort to destabilise France.
There are documented connections between the Heritage Foundation and political institutions associated with Hungary’s former prime minister Viktor Orbán.
A 2026 investigation into Hungarian-funded international influence networks established that the Danube Institute had channelled substantial public funding towards foreign researchers and commentators. The institute also maintained a formal relationship with Heritage.
Heritage has acknowledged its cooperation with Hungarian conservative institutions but denied receiving funding or direction from foreign governments.
These relationships demonstrate the development of transatlantic political networks capable of circulating common ideas about sovereignty, migration and European integration.
They do not establish operational cooperation with Russian intelligence. Nor has credible evidence emerged connecting Heritage to the organisation or financing of France’s October riots. Ideological convergence, institutional cooperation and participation in a clandestine operation require separate evidential assessments.
The European Union’s response has exposed a regulatory problem.
Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, major online platforms must address systemic risks arising from their services, including the amplification of illegal content and threats to public security.
On 23 October, the French government announced enhanced cooperation with digital platforms. More than 100 priority reports had been submitted ahead of the weekend demonstrations, approximately half resulting in account suspensions.
These measures targeted unlawful online activity, particularly incitement to violence and looting. They did not constitute findings that the suspended accounts belonged to foreign intelligence networks.
The European Commission has likewise refrained from activating emergency measures under the Digital Services Act without sufficient evidence connecting foreign manipulation to the violence.
The broader security concern is that foreign operations can exploit the interval between the emergence of social unrest and the establishment of reliable information about its causes.
Russia need not organise an entire protest movement to advance its strategic interests. By amplifying domestic grievances, promoting hostility towards support for Ukraine and circulating distorted accounts internationally, it can attempt to convert France’s internal political difficulties into pressure on European policy.
With France approaching its 2027 presidential election, these operations warrant continuing scrutiny. The central investigative question is no longer simply whether foreign networks spread false information after violence occurred, but whether their activities before and during demonstrations materially influenced mobilisation, radicalisation or political responses.
The evidence currently demonstrates organised manipulation and attempts at amplification. Establishing direct responsibility for violence would require a further evidential step, involving financial records, communications, operational instructions or connections with identifiable perpetrators.
France’s experience illustrates how contemporary information warfare can operate within a democratic society without necessarily directing events on the ground. Its immediate objective may be to alter the political interpretation of a crisis; its longer-term consequence may be to influence the policies adopted in response.
Stefanie Keenan/Oscars/Getty Images for Academy Museum Foundation
The stage was set for Taylor Swift to sing her way back into critics' hearts — and back onto the country charts — with nostalgic twang and another picture to burn.
Instead, the curtains raised to reveal a rare strategic misstep.
This week is the 20th anniversary of Swift's debut album, "Taylor Swift." For much of this year, fans had been expecting Swift to mark the occasion by releasing "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)" and reclaiming her place in the country-star pantheon — especially after "I Knew It, I Knew You," her cowgirl-inspired single for the "Toy Story 5" soundtrack, became a crossover hit in June, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs simultaneously and finishing at No. 2 on the Songs of the Summer chart for 2026.
"I Knew It, I Knew You" suggested an imminent return to Swift's country beginnings, one that would be welcomed with open arms by longtime listeners and Nashville gatekeepers alike. The charm offensive was well underway: Swift gave interviews and exclusive snippets to country radio stations and publicly gushed about honoring her "country roots." Even the song's lyrics seemed to play like a sly Swiftian in-joke, the kind of marketing wink that she's famous for weaving into her work: "I remembered I loved you / Came back when it mattered."
But the "Taylor Swift" 20th anniversary celebration has been interrupted by a flashier, less prudent version of its titular author.
In late September, Swift surprised fans by unveiling the deluxe edition of her 12th album. "The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore" features four new songs Swift said she wrote in an excitable creative burst last year, shortly after the original album's release.
Commercially, this unexpected move has paid off. One of the new "Showgirl" tracks, "Patient Zero," has been No. 1 on the Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks, making "Showgirl" one of just a handful of albums throughout history to yield three chart-topping hits. The album also returned to No. 1, adding hundreds of thousands of additional sales to its already eye-popping total.
Strategically, however, revisiting "Showgirl" in lieu of "Taylor Swift" is far from savvy — especially for a self-described mastermind who is seldom caught in the middle of a PR campaign with a domino out of place. Swift had seemingly arranged her country-music homecoming with care, precision, and pitch-perfect anticipation. Now, that momentum is gone.
After two decades of Swift's solo-written anthems and high-pressure reinventions, the 2025 arrival of "Showgirl" was uniquely disenchanting. Swift had recently wrapped the highest-grossing tour in history, reunited with two of the music industry's most revered producers, and promised the album would contain "the best ideas we've ever had." This was positioned to be her pop opus.
Alas, "Showgirl" was overhyped and underbaked, peppered with ham-handed imagery and corny puns. Critics tempered their disappointment with justifications: Swift is too famous and too successful to disappear into her work; her public persona has grown too distracting and unwieldy; she's likely experiencing professional burnout.
This year's deluxe album was received with much less mercy, earning a 39 out of 100 on Metacritic, a 40-point drop from the original's score. When Swift brought "Showgirl" back to the fore, its shortcomings shifted focus away from the goodwill she'd spent all summer cultivating with "I Knew It, I Knew You."
Even worse, the new batch of "Showgirl" tracks included "Cleveland!" — an egregious attempted kiss-off that indulges all of Swift's worst impulses. Social media exploded with derisive glee, with some going so far as to say Swift had ruined her own songwriting legacy. Even fans who defended the song called it "rage bait" and "not that deep."
Even if the other deluxe tracks are catchy, polished, and well-structured, they were unleashed at a far too precarious time to receive the general public's benefit of the doubt.
Indeed, many assumed that Swift, ever the tactician, would move on from the "Showgirl" era with haste — and what better way to course-correct than by reminding us how she became a household name?
Back in 2006, critics were charmed by the precocious lyrics and banjo-laden hooks that populate Swift's debut, from "Tim McGraw" and "Our Song" to "Should've Said No" and "Picture to Burn." At 16, Swift had already penned indelible zingers like "You said the way my blue eyes shine put those Georgia stars to shame that night / I said, 'That's a lie.'"
Twenty years later, the highlights on "Taylor Swift" stand as peak examples of Nashville-honed storytelling — the kind that helped pave the way for a new wave of country stars like Ella Langley to dominate the charts.
Of course, Swift may still release "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)." It could arrive tomorrow, next week, or years from now. While the "Taylor's Version" project was made redundant when Swift bought back her masters last year, she had already rerecorded her debut by the time the purchase went through. "I really love how it sounds now," she told fans, saying it would be released "when the time is right."
But it's hard to imagine a better window than the one Swift just squandered. If "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)" does end up closely following "The Encore," it will no longer live in its own moment, but in the shadow of a critical flop. The triumphant return-to-country narrative has been muddled. Plus, with "Patient Zero" still performing well on the charts, it doesn't make economic sense to release another album that would siphon away attention and streams.
So why did Swift decide this time wasn't right for her debut to reemerge? We can only speculate, though it's possible that Swift's talent for brand management has distracted us from her primary drive, the very thing that made "Taylor Swift" a sensation in the first place: She's a creative, an artist, a songwriter with something to say. Perhaps this was not a calculated choice, but a personal one. Perhaps she simply wrote new songs and decided to share them. Perhaps she anticipated "The Encore" would face more pushback than "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)" and decided to do it anyway.
Swift's lyrics offer clues to this effect. "Babylon," the final deluxe track on "The Encore," warns against "using nostalgia as a weapon to hurt yourself" and "missing all the best parts" of the present day. The story is not told from Swift's first-person perspective, but, when read as a meta-narrative, it seems to forestall critiques just like this one — asking listeners not to romanticize the past precisely as she declines the most obvious opportunity to monetize her own.
"Babylon" doubles as a preemptive epilogue to the embattled "Showgirl" era. Swift has recently been accused of devolving, of failing to live up to the heights of her past work — as if her now-beloved albums like "Red" and "Reputation" were never dismissed or ridiculed upon release.
Will "Showgirl" receive the same revaluation? Only time will tell, but it sounds like Swift is feeling optimistic.
"You hate this song," she sings, "but you wake up on the train with your headphones gone / Now that melody is all you want."
Sixteen days before Election Day, Abdul El-Sayed is sitting at the dinette of a bus that has his face plastered all over it.
I had just played him a clip on my iPad. It was of Tashawna Gill, a Detroit organizer he knows well and who was one of his earliest supporters, describing an alarming trend in what she and her canvassers were hearing from Black voters in the city’s retirement communities.
“They’re skipping that part of the ballot,” Gill said. “We do the senior home tour, and they’re not interested. They skipped that on the ballot. They have returned their absentees, and some of them have shared that they’ve returned their absentees without checking the box for anything for the Senate race.”
In the tight space on the bus, the clip finishes, and El-Sayed says: “I hope more folks will fill out that part of the ballot. This one’s for all the marbles.”
How did it feel, I asked? Hearing that his story, his message isn’t landing with people in a community he has long served, people he needs if he wants to become Michigan’s next senator?
El-Sayed has a reputation of being pretty sure of himself. Unflappable, quick on his feet, someone who leans into the “don’t let ’em see you sweat” brand of politics.
For a second, that drops.
”Obviously, it’s heartbreaking. I’ve spent most of my career serving exactly those communities,” he says. “But I also get that campaigns are complicated.”
He blames the tens of millions of dollars in PAC money for the tepidness within the Black community toward his attempt to hold Michigan’s open Senate seat for Democrats, and for “destroying trust” he built with the Black community in his time as a public health official in Detroit.
“Rebuilding it takes a long time, so I’ve got work to do to rebuild trust, but I’ve been serving those communities for a long time,” he said. “I’m confident in the work I have done and confident in the work that I will do. And I hope I get the opportunity to do it.”
He notes that he’s not sure, either, just how widespread the sentiment Gill related is among his would-be constituents.
And just like that, the self-assuredness is back.
It’s clear, though, that he’s hurt that the work he has done in Detroit is being misconstrued or discounted, or that folks just don’t know about it. And he’s running out of time to spread the word.
The clip that I had El-Sayed respond to was from a walk I took with Gill on a quiet street back in Detroit.
She wanted me to see the lawns on Greenview Avenue in North Rosedale Park. It’s a neighborhood of brick houses on Detroit’s northwest side that she calls one of the most educated, highest-turnout precincts in the city. And she would know — her office is one block over.
Gill is a well-known organizer who chairs the Michigan Democratic Party’s Grassroots caucus, founded the African American Leadership Institute, helped get Gretchen Whitmer elected governor and was an early endorser of El-Sayed’s Senate campaign when most of the party establishment — including Whitmer — was behind U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. Every day, Gill’s office sends out about 70 canvassers across Wayne County.
She knows of what she speaks, especially when it comes to Black voters.
“If you look down here, do you see any yard signs? Look left and right,” she says. I do, and it’s … empty. “It doesn’t even look like it’s an election going on anywhere,” she said.
Typically, Gill said, the streets are pretty lined with them. That they aren’t now, so close to the election, “is scary to me.”
Yard signs are not votes, but they are a sign of enthusiasm and of a campaign that is working hard to get those signs stuck in lawns.
Detroit is 75% Black, according to census data, the largest majority-Black big city in the country. And the Democratic playbook for winning statewide has not changed in a lifetime: run up the score in Wayne and Genesee counties, then hang on everywhere else.
When Detroit doesn’t turn out, Democrats lose. Two years ago, when Elissa Slotkin narrowly held Michigan’s other Senate seat, she won 86% of the Black vote compared with Republican Mike Rogers’ 12%. Recent polling shows El-Sayed hovering below 80% of the Black vote.
The concerns aren’t new. Back in the primary in August, El-Sayed eked out a 1-point win against Stevens. He won the college towns and progressive strongholds. He lost Detroit by 28 points.
El-Sayed seems well aware that the tepidness exists. The campaign says it and party entities have spent nearly $14.3 million in paid media specifically for the Detroit and Flint markets.
They’ve invited the equivalent of the Black political Avengers to endorse and campaign with him in the state, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Former President Barack Obama is stumping with El-Sayed in Detroit this weekend.
The campaign says it has been to 45 Black churches and had more than 125 meetings and roundtables with Black elected officials, faith leaders and community organizations.
It’s not something that’s been lost on his opponent either; they see an opening. The Rogers campaign opened a storefront office on Livernois Avenue in Detroit while we were there, and a group calling itself Democrats for Mike Rogers has been campaigning for him. A recent ad features Black voters saying they felt El-Sayed cared more about Palestine than Detroit.
“If you’re from Detroit, you know no Republican will be going through Detroit like they’re going through Detroit. They are in places a Republican would never be,” Gill said. “So I’m scared that a slice of that, just a little bit, will go to them.”
A Rogers campaign spokesperson touted their outreach, saying they are the first Republican to open a Detroit office, have visited a dozen Black churches and visited Flint and Pontiac “multiple times.” And multiple Democrats in Michigan have told me that Rogers is showing up in places in Detroit that haven’t seen a statewide GOP candidate in years.
Nearly every person I talked to on the ground in Detroit pointed to three reasons why El-Sayed is underperforming with Black voters.
The first one is uncomfortable to talk about: historic tensions between Black and Arab Michiganders. Dearborn sits right on the edge of Detroit, and today Arab Americans are estimated to make up the majority of that city’s 105,000 residents. Older Black voters know the long, violent history between the two communities. In 1980 an Iraqi immigrant store owner shot a Black customer he suspected of stealing soda. In 2023 a clerk at a gas station locked customers inside with an armed man after a card used to purchase less than $4 was declined. One of them was killed. A crash this fall reignited the fight.
Gill puts it in plain terms: “African Americans, especially seniors, feel like they were treated disrespectful, targeted, kicked out of the stores in Dearborn. So our seniors and our parents, when they see Abdul, they blame him for all of that.”
He wasn’t there, I point out. She knows that but says that trauma is unfairly being taken out on his candidacy.
Former Obama administration official Portia Roberson is CEO of Focus: HOPE, a civil rights organization in Detroit founded in 1968. She put those tensions this way:
“It has seemingly been that Arab people have been able to move to Detroit in this area and find ways to be successful, whether that is owning gas stations, whether that is owning party stores, and that Blacks who have been here have been locked out of those places,” she said.
I asked El-Sayed about the tension.
“I’ll be honest with you, I understand. I’ve worked in the city of Detroit. You walk into one of these party stores, you walk into a gas station and you’ve got somebody that looks like me behind bulletproof glass, and you look at the way that they’re treating customers. The number of times that people have been denied a bathroom or their kid gets sold a loosie cigarette out of the back or they’re catcalling a woman in the community. That’s deeply inappropriate. It’s wrong and I’ve never been one of those guys,” he said, “even if I look like one of those guys.”
While he was health director in Wayne County, he said, he led a conversation with “those guys” about why that behavior was inappropriate, adding, “You can’t just take money out and not invest in the local community. You can’t just deny local contractors opportunities to service your business and think that’s OK.”
That second reason? The Uncommitted movement in 2024. In February of that year, more than 101,000 Michigan Democrats, about 13%, voted “uncommitted” in the presidential primary to protest President Joe Biden’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. El-Sayed publicly announced that he was one of them. Nine months later, Harris lost the state as Black voters watched a party they had carried for decades fail to show up for the first Black woman at the top of the presidential ticket.
When it comes to the Black community, El-Sayed leans hard on his track record. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s mandate to him when he hired him back in 2015 to run a health department that had been gutted: “rebuild it.” In his first year, the department restarted lead screenings for children and helped pay for them in Detroit schools. The department also partnered with a nonprofit to offer free eye exams and glasses to thousands of students. After his failed run for governor in 2018, El-Sayed became director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services.
His stance on Uncommitted is overshadowing all of that.
Roberson has voted consistently her entire adult life, and that movement still stings.
“As a Black woman, I’ve never had the luxury of voting on one issue. I’ve never had that luxury. I’ve never been able to walk into a polling booth and say, this is my one issue and if it doesn’t correlate with my one issue, I’m willing to throw the rest of it away,” she said. “We knew all of the things that have now happened to us, and you still decided to be uncommitted because of your issue.”
El-Sayed endorsed Harris the day after she became the nominee; Uncommitted largely was about the primary for him. And Harris came to Detroit just last month to endorse and campaign with El-Sayed. She has gotten over his criticism of the Biden-Harris policies.
“But a lot of folks haven’t,” Roberson said, laying out the very kind of single-issue objections she had just disavowed. “And I have friends who are very politically astute, and they have said, ‘I will never forgive that.’ It got so big so quickly that they couldn’t pull it back when it was time to coalesce around Kamala Harris, and now we are here.”
At the doors Gill’s team knocks on, the version that seniors are sharing is harsher than what actually happened and full of wrong information, she said.
They tell her teams, “‘He didn’t vote for Kamala. He didn’t help her get in.’ That’s the No. 1 thing,” she said. So the message from his campaign to set the record straight “needs to be louder.”
The third reason is largely ideology, and in some ways reflects the maneuvering between progressives and mainstream Democrats within the larger party. Older Black voters in Detroit are more likely to be politically moderate. El-Sayed is running on Medicare for All, and Rogers has spent the fall telling anyone who will listen that Detroit is about to elect a socialist. For the record, El-Sayed says he is a capitalist.
The campaign’s answer to older Black voters has largely been to head to the Black church, the Old Faithful of politics. His team says he has been to 45 Black churches during this election season.
Last Sunday he visited two churches in Flint. His message was, yes, political and full of references to a shared God between his Muslim and their Christian faith. But one of his biggest applause lines was his promise to be back as Sen. El-Sayed.
“This is not my first time in communities like these,” he said from the front of the stage. “I’ve been showing up to do this work for the better part of a decade, and I hope that I can show up for you in the United States Senate. If you give me that honor, I promise you this will not be the last time you see me, and the next time I come, God willing, I’m bringing resources and I’m taking your pain and your purpose with me to the halls of power.”
The bridge he’s trying to build is a difficult one. A 2024 poll from AARP found that among Black Michaganders, only 29% called themselves “liberal.”
El-Sayed’s bet is that a different Black voter can come and make up the difference. “There’s a generational divide, and even if there are some seniors who might say, ‘You know what, we’re going to leave this blank because we’ve seen all the ads,’ there are a lot of young Black voters who are like, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever voted,’” he said.
The candidate isn’t blind to the tensions. On the contrary, he seems very aware of them and how hard they may be to overcome. But he’s also running out of time.
I asked Roberson if she thinks he has done enough in the short period he has been the nominee to get the Black vote where it really needs to be.
“That’s tough. Probably not,” she said. “I think there’s more he could have done. And listen, I’m giving grace to the fact that he had a contentious primary. But I do think there were more voters out there, and there are still more voters out there that he could be talking to.”
Her larger point is that it’s less about effort and more about translation. That in a lot of his ads, his platform sound great to the voters who follow politics closely, and who maybe aren’t affected by those three points of tension.
She’s also pretty hopeful. That when Detroit’s most reliable voters wake up on Election Day, they will do what they’ve always done.
”We know what we’re going to get if he doesn’t win,” she said. “So what are we so afraid of that we’re going to get if he does win?”
Nobody on Greenview Avenue has answered that yet. The lawns are still empty.
“Detroit just needs to be waking up. It needs to be waking up because it is asleep,” Gill said. “That is my fear, that Detroit has not woken up.”
El-Sayed says he’ll keep coming back either way.
“At the end of the day, whether folks vote for me or they don’t vote for me, I intend to serve in the same way that I showed up to serve back in 2015 when I came to Detroit to rebuild the health department.”
MS NOW producer Alexander Trowbridge contributed to this report.
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MS NOW’s Michael Steele slammed Donald Trump’s “11th-hour move” ahead of the midterm election, as the Department of Justice sued Alaska, seeking to delay certification of the state’s Senate election in the event the Republican incumbent loses.
On Thursday, the department asked a federal court to block certification of the results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses by fewer votes than another candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan, receives. Alaska courts have allowed the other Sullivan to remain on the ballot. The Justice Department is arguing that voters could confuse the two candidates, and that such confusion could potentially affect the outcome of what is expected to be a close race against Democratic nominee Mary Peltola.
“Every step this administration is taking, all the lies that they have told the American people about their sense of making sure elections are fair and free, have just all led to this,” Steele said Friday, shortly after the lawsuit became public.
“The Weeknight” co-host called Attorney General Todd Blanche “the worst of the worst” and said the Justice Department was doing the president’s bidding. Steele argued that the Constitution leaves election administration to the states and that “the federal government and the Department of Justice have absolutely zero role here.”
Trump has previously criticized Alaska’s “crazy voting system.” The state uses a ranked-choice system, in which voters list their candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those votes go to voters’ next choices until one candidate wins.
Steele said the lawsuit shows that Republicans are “afraid” because they have “done jack to give the voters a reason to vote for them.”
“So now, in the 11th hour, they’re going to go and try to manipulate an outcome that’s already foretold by the voters who started early voting, who are already in the game,” he added.
Steele predicted that voters would see through Republican efforts and that the party would get “their you-know-what’s handed to them” on Election Day.
“They have sown and built mistrust in the system that’s coming back to bite them, because we do not trust them. We do not trust their word. We know you’re lying to us,” he said. “And now you’re going to have to reap what you sowed.”
You can watch Steele’s comments in the clip at the top of the page.
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The CEO of Turning Point USA’s independent offshoot in the United Kingdom is facing scrutiny after he was recorded discussing murder-for-hire abilities.
The scandal surrounding Jack Ross is inconvenient, to put it mildly, for a conservative movement that has sought to portray liberals as the primary culprits for sowing deadly violence. After TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated last year, the MAGA movement shamelessly used the killing to encourage a federal crackdown on liberals and to demonize liberalism itself as a vector for political violence.
According to a new report from Al Jazeera, part of an investigation called “Contract Killers and the Far Right,” Ross was shown on camera discussing his ability to coordinate paid acts of violence with a right-wing extremist named Allan Nesbitt.
Ross made clear that he and Nesbitt had a long history together. Ross was filmed by our undercover reporter agreeing to pay Nesbitt thousands of pounds to stage a fake political rally designed to show support for the lifting of UK sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Ross also told Al Jazeera’s undercover operative that for “a certain amount,” Nesbitt and his contacts could arrange physical attacks, saying they could “kick the f*** out of someone. They can start cutting people’s faces up. That’s another amount. They can stab someone,” Ross said. “They can shoot someone. They could kill someone.”
Al Jazeera reported that Ross “denied our findings ‘completely,’ telling us that everything he said to our undercover reporter was not meant seriously.” Turning Point UK, which was launched by Kirk and operates independently of its U.S. affiliate, and TPUSA didn’t immediately respond to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
Despite the “I was just joking about murder” defense, Ross has already been suspended from the U.K.’s Conservative Party. And according to The Guardian, police in Scotland are looking into the matter.
The silence from Republicans on this is telling. It almost goes without saying that if the CEO for an offshoot of, say, the NAACP or the activist group Indivisible were recorded discussing paid opportunities for murder and other violence, conservatives would be airing the footage constantly.
Yet it seems this macabre story is of little interest to MAGA world. The hypocrisy here is clear as day.
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This is the Oct. 23, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
Eleven days.
In 11 days, Americans vote.
People can’t afford their lives right now, whether it’s buying groceries, paying for healthcare, or gassing up the truck. Despite workers struggling more every day, Republicans have picked quite a closing argument for this year’s race.
We expect distractions and October surprises in the final days of a campaign. But I never expected Republican leaders to openly flaunt their status as the party of pedophile protectors.
This week, Republicans smeared Amy Acton — a woman who survived child rape — and Donald Trump called it “pay dirt.” He praised Acton’s mother, the rapist’s wife, for showing “a lot of courage.”
Some courage.
Acton’s mother fled the state with the man charged with raping her 12-year-old daughter. She abandoned her children and never saw them again. But the Republican Party defines that as “courage.”
In Texas, a man sexually abused a young boy, and Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to hand him an Epstein-style sweetheart deal. One day in jail.
James Talarico now calls Paxton a “pedophile protector.” And this week, from Ohio to Texas to the White House, Republicans sided with rapists, pedophiles, and their protectors over the young victims they tortured.
Covering for pedophiles seems to have become a nasty habit for Trump’s Republican Party.
Voters swept them into power partly on their promise to release all of the Epstein files. But the president and Republicans broke that promise and buried the files instead. Congress voted almost unanimously to release them all, but the administration still sits on millions of them — including damning accusations against President Donald Trump himself.
Epstein’s survivors kept begging for the truth to come out. Congress went home.
For years, right-wing conspiracy theorists accused Democrats and Hollywood stars of sex trafficking and pedophilia. Then a jury found their beloved cult leader liable for sexual abuse in a New York courtroom. Then this week, Trump attacked a rape victim, proving again John Heilemann’s rule that most of what the president says is either confession or projection.
Eleven days. Voters are watching.
***
Tonight in Milwaukee, the Brewers and the Rays open a World Series that will crown a first-time champion. The last time that happened was 1980, when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to end the Phillies’ 97-year wait. Before that, it was 1920, the year Cleveland’s Bill Wambsganss turned the only unassisted triple play in Series history. The Brewers’ own broadcaster is recommending Maalox to make it through.
Here’s what else is going on this weekend:
In Washington tonight, the National Zoo hosts Night of the Living Zoo, a 21-and-over Halloween party. Expect open bars, animal-inspired tarot readings, and after-hours visits with the great cats and reptiles. Tomorrow, the Smithsonian’s Air and Scare brings trick-or-treating, Star Wars characters, and a costume runway show to the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport.
In Boston on Saturday, the Doggone Halloween Pet Parade turns Downtown Crossing into a catwalk (so to speak!) for costumed canines. By 3 p.m., expect to congratulate — and pet — the winners in categories ranging from Scariest Costume to Best Dog and Child Duo.
In Brooklyn tomorrow, the Botanic Garden’s Fall Harvest Festival offers peak foliage, live music, pumpkin carvers, a cider garden, and an afternoon costume parade. Dress code: your best flannel.
Philadelphia celebrates Filipino American History Month this weekend with Taste of the Philippines, a free rain-or-shine festival of food, music, and shopping at Cherry Street Pier. Afterward, head to Oaks for the Pennsylvania Chocolate and Coffee Festival and a (bitter)sweet finish.
In Miami, haunted houses have competition. On Saturday night, the Friends of Cape Florida transform a trail at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne into a Haunted Hike, complete with staged scares, costumed performers, and a carnival for the faint of heart.
Just outside Chicago, the village of Forest Park — where the dead outnumber the living — hosts its 14th annual Casket Races (!). Teams push helmeted riders in coffins on wheels down a 585-foot course, vying for speed, style, and, for the least ambitious, a trophy for “dead last.”
In Los Angeles tomorrow, Hollywood Forever Cemetery hosts its 27th annual Día de los Muertos celebration, with elaborate altars, Aztec and folklórico dancers, and festivities from noon to midnight. ¡Que vivan los muertos!
And in Austin, Formula One rolls into the Circuit of the Americas for the United States Grand Prix. Max Verstappen arrives fresh off a long-awaited Singapore win, but all eyes are on Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, who leads the standings by 102 points and could clinch his first championship on Sunday.
LETTERS FROM OUR READERS
Joe, thank you for your brief essay on the history of Western civilization. In a handful of paragraphs, you nicely crystallized the key concepts behind what has led to the successful rise and spread of democracy. Unfortunately, you didn’t have room to expound on the concomitant fragility of the process, the dedication, patience, and constant vigilance necessary to assure its survival. Lately, we have taken our eyes off the ball, and we are now paying the price. Rebuilding will be costly in both financial and human terms, and will require principled rededication to the ideals of democracy. I just hope we still have the fortitude within us to accomplish that!
— Peter H., Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Peter, Hillary Clinton told Mika last week at the Forbes-Know Your Value 30/50 Summit that this republic can be saved, but we’ve got to start turning things around now.
I believe we will. And I know we have much hard work in front of us. But we Americans will do it!
My mother and three older sisters brought me up to respect women. Who in God’s name instilled the disgusting responses supporting Vivek Ramaswamy’s video ad about the abuse of Amy Acton during her childhood? Trump and JD Vance are the ringleaders, and anyone else who is not condemning this ad are all guilty of moral turpitude and of violating the acceptable standards of any society.
— Michael P., Sarasota, Fla.
These Republican leaders have spent the past decade undermining the most basic rules of human decency. What they are doing in Ohio this week is a new low.
I have confidence American voters will show Republicans in 11 days that they have had enough, and will turn back to voting for candidates who hold those traditional values that made America great.
Is there any reliable data that proves that all the hateful political ads we are bombarded with for MONTHS actually work? I know they don’t work for my family, and I think most Americans are smart enough to see through them for what they are — partisan attacks that have nothing to do with how a candidate will perform or what a candidate believes. Listening to political strategists justify these ads as a “story arc” makes me sick — the ads tell us nothing positive about any candidate and honestly make me question the ethics and morals of any candidate that would allow these ads to be run on their behalf.
— Anonymous
We will find out in 11 days.
For the sake of our country, let us pray these hateful attacks, funded by trillionaires and billionaires, do not prove to be more powerful than the good people who volunteer for candidates, knock on doors, and build the framework of successful campaigns.
As I have been listening or reading about the current news, I have become so demoralized with how the Republicans are accepting the same demeanor of vulgarity, falsehoods, and vile comments Trump has stated within the last week. As Mika stated, “Whether it’s in Ohio in the governor’s race or in our foreign policy, we’re seeing moral depravity play out in real time.” How did a good portion of this country become so mean and hateful?
— Peggy R., Santa Fe, N.M.
Peggy, that is a question historians will be asking themselves for generations to come.
With Trump openly siding with Putin and Russia re: Ukraine, why is it not considered aiding and abetting of the enemy, considering we know that Russia is supplying Iran with weapons/info that have killed/injured our troops? It’s mind-boggling that few are talking about his aiding a known hostile country of the U.S. in these terms.
— Sandra S., Lagunitas, Calif.
Earlier this week, I said that if any other president or political aide had said about Vladimir Putin what Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff said this week, they would be considered traitors to America. It is hard to believe that my former party devolved from being champions of Western civilization and democratic freedom to being apologists for the worst tyrants and dictators on the globe. But they have. I believe there will be a political reckoning in 11 days.
I am so disheartened about Ukraine. I believe that Americans would care if someone with money and power could see a video speaking to regular Ukrainians about their daily lives. It needs to be brought home to Americans how inhumane Russia is to Ukraine. Many do not realize that Putin and China’s leader are helping Iran against our troops and our president is coordinating with our enemies. I wish there was a quick way this could be shown to all Americans. I believe that most Americans would understand the crisis. It is a war that is far away and has to be made real by interviews and getting to know the real story. It doesn’t matter what side of politics you are on. Seeing the tragedy in a way that connects would help Ukraine. It would also show that the president does not have our interest at heart, but is working with our enemies.
— Kate K.
Completely agree, Kate!
It seems that throughout this midterm election cycle, we have forgotten that Senate control is vital, at least because many judicial appointments and Supreme Court confirmations may occur in the last two years of the current presidential term. This issue alone underscores the need to vote in the next election.
— Anonymous
I could not agree with you more. While most are predicting the House of Representatives will have Democratic leadership next year, the Senate will remain up for grabs until election night.
Democrats will win Georgia and North Carolina, but need to also do well in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Alaska, and Maine. We will probably be up late on Nov. 3 to see how many of those races break.
Polls are always misleading. Yes, they show facts as of today but the actual poll is when the voter goes behind the curtain and votes. All other polls before are meaningless. Still 35% are backing the Republicans. When breaking it down, 35% are voting for Trump as most of those up for re-election back the president. So the real poll results will be Nov. 4, when all votes are counted.
— Bruce M., Moncton, New Brunswick
As Tom Brokaw always said, stop looking at polls and let the voters have their say. Then report on what Americans tell you on Election Day!
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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
Miley Cyrus is oozing star power.
Sporting an electric guitar and the perfect smoky eye in a recent promo video, she strums in the stance of a rock star, putting one leg up on a step and whipping her hair to the music. The clip is black-and-white, with the backdrop completely blank, suggesting Cyrus — who now goes mononymously by Miley — is magnetic all on her own.
The 33-second video, simply titled "MILEY," was designed to tease her big comeback shows at the Hollywood Bowl in October. It worked: Cyrus' two-night run sold out in minutes after 1.5 million hopefuls joined the presale ticket queue. Clearly, people were itching to see Cyrus in the flesh.
That demand, however, lately hasn't translated to people purchasing her music. Cyrus' new album, "Bass Persuades," sold only 61,000 units in its first week. For comparison, Taylor Swift's "The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore," the deluxe version of a year-old album, sold 173,000 units the very next week. Earlier this year, Ariana Grande's new album "Petal" sold 295,000 units in the same timeframe. Aside from Cyrus' titular lead single, which peaked at No. 35, only one more song from "Bass Persuades" cracked the Billboard Hot 100: "Let's Get Married" sneaked in at No. 99.
While Cyrus did sell enough to secure a No. 1 chart debut in a non-competitive release week, "Bass Persuades" also earned a less-flattering distinction when it plummeted to No. 157 on the Billboard 200 the following week: the biggest single-week drop for an album ever recorded.
Yet, somehow, when Cyrus appeared onstage at the Hollywood Bowl, numbers and technicalities melted away. Clad in understated, monochromatic looks with no backup dancers or flashy set pieces to speak of, she proved that her name alone is still a powerful draw.
In the last decade or so, Cyrus has become a celebrity whose creative output is tangential to her status, like a vestigial organ she's evolved to no longer need. Sure, Cyrus still makes and releases music, but she rarely engages with the typical cycle of promotion and performance. She hasn't staged an arena tour since 2014, and, with the sole exception of her Grammy-winning song "Flowers," her music over the past decade has struggled to capture the zeitgeist. (Perhaps if her 2020 rock opus "Plastic Hearts" hadn't been released during the pandemic, it could've broken that curse, but I digress.)
But as her sold-out Hollywood Bowl stint proves, Cyrus has a legion of supporters at her fingertips, whether her recent music is resonating or not. Even when Cyrus drew criticism for not singing every word of some of her songs — especially nostalgic hits like "Party in the USA," "The Climb," "We Can't Stop," and "Wrecking Ball" — the backlash underlined just how little she needs to do to keep her A-list position secure.
"I've learned now through the queue that my calculations are correct and people will come to me," she previously told Apple Music's Zane Lowe of the mini-residency. "I don't need to drive to you."
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Even as Cyrus' music since her last No. 1 album, 2013's "Bangerz," has failed to achieve widespread relevance and popularity, as a name, she remains as relevant and popular as ever.
Part of this is thanks to her longevity. Cyrus has been famous since she was the tween star of "Hannah Montana," a role that led to her being named the youngest-ever Disney Legend in 2024. Earlier this year, Cyrus celebrated the show's 20th anniversary with a Disney+ special, in which Chappell Roan told her, "You literally walked so I could run."
Cyrus and her blonde alter ego have also been cited as major influences by artists like Sabrina Carpenter and this year's breakout star Adéla, whose viral hits like "Ain't in LA" and "Nicole Kidman" have drawn comparisons to "Bangerz."
"Watching 'Hannah Montana' was my introduction to pop stardom," Adéla told Dazed.
As members of pop's new guard look to Cyrus' early work for inspiration, Cyrus remains positioned as a tastemaker and a reference point. The success of her newer albums is a secondary concern.
In recent years, Cyrus has deliberately been out of touch — both figuratively, from trends, and literally, from her audience. Despite fans clamoring for more live performances, Cyrus has declined to satisfy the demand, telling British Vogue that she doesn't want to live her life for "anyone else's pleasure or fulfillment." Cyrus has also been open about her "unhealthy" relationship to touring; she experienced job burnout at a young age and never quite recovered. As a result, she seems wholly unconcerned with chart positions or sales figures. She is more interested in building a legacy that will endure than in instant gratification.
"My life is so beautiful. It never feels like I'm swimming upstream anymore," Cyrus told Variety in March. "I like the way people see me. And when I first left 'Hannah' and put out 'Bangerz,' I did not feel that way."
Barry King/WireImage
Videos from the Hollywood Bowl show the crowd singing every word to Cyrus' decade-old favorites. For newer songs like "Orbit" and "Something Beautiful," Cyrus did most of the singing herself.
The gap between her past and present impact has never been more glaring. Cyrus may not have liked her public image as a teenager and young adult, but fans were gratified — and future phenoms were taking notes.
At 33, Cyrus has become a premature legacy act. The way she's navigating her career today resembles that of long-established divas like Cher, who remains a cultural touchstone but hasn't scored a hit in decades, or Madonna, whose most recent album is a callback to her earlier career heights. "Confessions II," the sequel to 2005's dance-pop blockbuster "Confessions on a Dance Floor," has thus far failed to spawn a top-40 hit. Still, Madonna's devoted fan base is ready to swarm a concert venue at a moment's notice.
Leaning on legacy and nostalgia is not necessarily a sign of failure. In fact, for Cyrus, it may be the goal.
With "Bass Persuades," her 10th studio album, Cyrus has dropped her surname in marketing materials. As her dad pointed out, this is a time-honored tradition in the music industry.
"I told @miley yesterday I felt good about her going with her first name," Billy Ray Cyrus wrote on X. "I mentioned Dolly and Cher. Thinkin about it more and more … Elvis .. Prince …and so on. It's a natural progression for an iconic superstar legend."
Like her forebears, Miley is in a league of her own — neither in the lower nor upper echelons of the music industry, but a secret third space, detached from standard markers of success.
In the end, a mononym is less a branding choice than a vote of confidence: the audience already knows exactly who you are.
The Kremlin has announced plans for renewed negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the United States in Abu Dhabi during the first half of November, reviving a diplomatic process that has repeatedly failed to produce a settlement to Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, 23 October, that the discussions would concentrate on post-war security arrangements. He also left open the possibility of eventual European participation, although the initial meeting is intended to remain trilateral.
The announcement follows talks in St Petersburg between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Yet the emerging American proposals reveal a fundamental problem: Washington appears increasingly prepared to offer Russia substantial economic incentives, while Moscow has provided little indication that its political objectives in Ukraine have changed.
According to details reported on 23 October, citing The Economist, the American proposals involve Ukraine abandoning its ambition to join NATO in exchange for investment, security arrangements and the prospect of European Union membership.
Russia would receive sanctions relief, renewed commercial relations with American companies and potentially the restoration of natural gas exports to Europe. A demilitarised zone in Donbas is also reportedly under consideration.
The commercial dimension extends beyond theoretical proposals.
American and Russian representatives have discussed investment in the Nord Stream pipeline system and possible arrangements involving Lukoil’s international assets. The negotiations surrounding Russian energy infrastructure suggest that Washington regards commercial cooperation as a potential instrument for securing Moscow’s agreement.
There is no established evidence that Witkoff, Jared Kushner or members of Trump’s family would personally benefit from these arrangements. Nevertheless, the involvement of investors in strategically important Russian assets raises questions about whether economic agreements might advance independently of a settlement acceptable to Ukraine.
The Trump administration has already demonstrated its willingness to relax economic pressure. On 16 October, the president waived major provisions of the Graham sanctions legislation, which he had signed into law only four weeks earlier.
As EU Today previously examined, the decision suspended measures designed to increase the economic costs of Russia’s continuing aggression. Washington justified the waiver on the grounds that sanctions could interfere with negotiations.
The central weakness in a settlement built around commercial incentives is the assumption that Putin’s territorial and political demands can ultimately be exchanged for economic advantages.
Russia’s objectives have never been confined to Donetsk, Luhansk or access to Western markets.
In his July 2021 essay on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, Putin advanced a conception of the two nations as belonging to a single historical and cultural space. His interpretation, examined by the Centre for Eastern Studies, challenged the legitimacy of Ukraine’s development outside Moscow’s political influence.
These ideas preceded the full-scale invasion of February 2022. They also followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its intervention in eastern Ukraine.
Putin’s demands therefore concern more than military geography. They involve the extent to which Ukraine can exercise independent political authority, determine its international alliances and integrate with Western institutions.
Even a settlement granting Moscow substantial territory could leave this larger objective unresolved.
An independent Ukraine, increasingly integrated into the European economy and protected by Western security commitments, would remain outside Russia’s political control. For a Kremlin leadership that has repeatedly questioned Ukraine’s separate historical identity, such an outcome would represent a limitation on its wider ambitions.
Putin reinforced this position on 22 October when he again described Ukrainian territory in Donbas as historically Russian.
This creates an apparent contradiction. Why would Moscow return to negotiations if its broader objectives remain incompatible with the proposed settlement?
One explanation is that participation itself offers Russia strategic advantages.
Negotiations can preserve diplomatic engagement with Washington, complicate attempts to introduce additional sanctions and maintain American pressure on Kyiv to accept territorial concessions.
They also provide opportunities to negotiate economic arrangements before fundamental security questions have been resolved.
For Putin, the political timetable in Washington is relevant. Trump’s presidency is constitutionally limited to January 2029. Moscow can seek to exploit the present administration’s interest in a diplomatic agreement while continuing military operations.
None of this establishes that Putin has definitively rejected compromise. However, the Kremlin’s willingness to attend negotiations is not equivalent to a willingness to abandon its demands.
Russia continues attacking Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. As EU Today reported on 22 October, Russian forces launched 21 ballistic missiles against Kyiv shortly after Witkoff’s discussions with Putin.
The simultaneous pursuit of diplomatic engagement and military pressure allows Moscow to negotiate while attempting to alter conditions on the battlefield.
The proposed return of Russian gas exposes another contradiction in Washington’s approach.
The European Union has already adopted binding legislation to phase out Russian gas imports, with full restrictions taking effect during 2027.
The European Commission reiterated on 19 October that it had no plans to reverse its position. Reopening Nord Stream would also face sanctions, infrastructure and political obstacles, particularly in Germany.
Consequently, Washington cannot independently promise Moscow renewed access to European energy markets.
Nor can it guarantee Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Membership requires agreement among the existing member states, completion of accession negotiations and ratification of the relevant treaty.
A settlement negotiated primarily between Washington and Moscow would therefore depend on European decisions over which neither government has unilateral authority.
This helps explain the significance of Peskov’s remarks about possible European participation. Moscow needs European cooperation to secure meaningful sanctions relief and access to markets, even while seeking to negotiate Europe’s security arrangements principally with Washington.
Trump’s approach rests on the proposition that economic incentives can make a settlement more attractive to Moscow than continued warfare.
Putin’s position presents a different calculation. The Russian president must weigh the benefits of restored commercial relations against the political implications of recognising Ukraine’s durable independence and Western orientation.
Those objectives may prove incompatible.
A settlement that restores Russian energy revenues without credible guarantees against renewed aggression could reduce Moscow’s economic constraints while leaving the causes of the war unresolved.
The decisive test in Abu Dhabi will therefore not be whether negotiators can agree on investment, pipelines or sanctions relief. It will be whether Russia is prepared to accept a Ukrainian state whose sovereignty, political direction and future European integration remain beyond Moscow’s control.
Until that question is answered, renewed negotiations may offer Washington the prospect of a diplomatic achievement while allowing the Kremlin to pursue objectives it has not publicly abandoned.
This autumn, as Russia escalated its total-war-style strike campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and economy, and relations between Kyiv and Washington hit an all-time low, the daily battles along Ukraine’s vast battlefield have faded into the background of the information space.
Despite the reduced attention in
A new federal lawsuit looks to drive a stake through the heart of Donald Trump and his family’s questionable cryptocurrency empire.
The Trump family’s crypto ventures brought in more than $1.4 billion in 2025, as his administration has pressed for crypto-friendly policies. This is part of why polling shows that most Americans think Trump is profiting from the presidency in illegal or unethical ways.
And in a lawsuit filed Thursday, a shareholder of Circle Internet Group — a competitor of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto company — accuses the Trump business of “corruptly profiting” off crypto deals and says the president has violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. (A spokesperson for Circle said the company “did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing.”)
The lawsuit specifically cites the sale of a major stake in World Liberty to an entity involving the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser — also known as the “Spy Sheikh” — four days before Trump’s inauguration. The suit also details how a UAE-backed firm led by that same official used World Liberty cryptocurrency to make a $2 billion investment in the crypto firm Binance.
The lawsuit comes as some crypto enthusiasts turn on Trump over his profiting off the industry while in office. The president and his representatives have always said his crypto investments are above board, with a White House spokesperson calling the new lawsuit “frivolous” and adding, “There are no conflicts of interest.” A World Liberty spokesperson called the lawsuit “without merit” and has previously said Trump had no role in the company.
Such claims are disputed by people like Protect Democracy’s executive director, Ian Bassin, who has argued that Trump’s crypto dealings are blatantly unconstitutional. And Matt Pelikan, a lawyer whose firm filed the lawsuit, said in a statement:
President Trump has turned his office into a source of private profit on a scale without precedent in American history. The President’s business dealings are not only corrupt, they are illegal.
This lawsuit only stands to fuel voters’ anger over government corruption: A recent Fox News poll showed nearly 9 in 10 voters as extremely or very concerned about corruption. So, with the midterms less than two weeks away, anything that stands to remind the public about Trump’s terrible track record on this issue seems like a threat to Republicans’ electoral hopes.
The post Trump faces federal lawsuit over his questionable cryptocurrency empire appeared first on MS NOW.
The French protests began on September 17th, when teachers at a high school in south-eastern Paris protested over staff shortages and students joined them, Australia’s ABC News reported. Demonstrations followed in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Albania, and smaller protests took place in Greece, Austria, Ireland and Germany, according to the same report. What began over education has since widened to include the cost of living and public-sector cuts.
In this context, the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO) has come under the spotlight following its announcement of support for student protests in France and Belgium, and subsequently in Albania.
Several European reports have drawn links between FEMYSO and the Muslim Brotherhood, describing the student forum as the organisation’s youth wing. Among the most notable is a report by a French National Assembly investigative committee, published in December 2025, which points to close ties between the forum and networks linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and characterises its role as contributing to the spread of the movement’s ideas across Europe.
In a parliamentary question submitted in 2025, Germany’s Baden-Württemberg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution was cited as viewing FEMYSO as an umbrella organisation for youth groups with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
FEMYSO, however, rejects these allegations. In a previous statement, the organisation affirmed that it has no ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
On October 9th, the forum announced its solidarity with student demonstrations in France and Belgium. On October 18, it declared its support for student and youth protests in Albania, while also referring to ongoing demonstrations in Spain and Greece in the same context.
On October 15th, 2026, the French Muslim Students Association (Étudiants Musulmans de France, EMF), a member organisation of FEMYSO, went beyond expressing solidarity. It called on students, education workers and the broader social movement to join a nationwide mobilisation scheduled for October 17th, reaffirming its support for demonstrations stretching from Paris to Marseille and from Bordeaux to Strasbourg.
In a statement, EMF stressed the need to build a balance of power through protests. The statement came just two days before large-scale demonstrations took place across France, attracting hundreds of thousands of participants in largely peaceful gatherings before separate groups became involved in acts of violence, looting, arson and attacks on police officers and public buildings. These incidents reportedly resulted in more than 1,000 arrests and injuries to dozens of security personnel.
Such initiatives and calls for participation in demonstrations have raised concerns that political Islamist networks may seek to capitalise on public discontent, particularly when protests are accompanied by public disorder or acts of vandalism. This, critics fear, could turn student and social demands into instruments for expanding organisational influence and securing political leverage.
According to official French data, masked and violent individuals were present at the demonstrations. In several cities, shops were looted, while cars and rubbish bins were set on fire. In the city of Limoges, flames engulfed the historic town hall, a building dating back to 1883.
The same data indicated that 1,800 people had been arrested and more than 500 police officers and firefighters had been injured. In response to the violence and rioting, the French government announced the imposition of curfews in several cities.
These developments come at a time when the activities of organisations suspected of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood are facing increasing political scrutiny.
On September 15th, 2026, French MP Constance Le Grip submitted a written question to the government concerning European funding for projects involving FEMYSO, calling for clarification of funding mechanisms and oversight procedures governing grants.
The question followed recent reports and studies that raised concerns over the continued involvement of FEMYSO in projects benefiting from European funding, despite an earlier announcement by the European Commission that the organisation was no longer receiving direct funding.
FEMYSO has consequently become one of the most contentious issues in the wider European debate.
A recent study published by CERIF and AK Polis in September examined the organisation’s participation in the EmpowerAction project, which forms part of the TACKLE initiative funded by the European Union through its DEAR programme.
According to the study, the funding does not necessarily take the form of a direct EU operating grant to FEMYSO. Instead, it may be channelled through partner organisations, projects and sub-granting mechanisms.
This has raised concerns that European funds could reach an organisation through a project led by another partner or through a consortium and its sub-granting arrangements.
Against the backdrop of FEMYSO’s visibility in the protests, some of which were subsequently accompanied by violence and looting, as well as allegations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood, concerns have emerged over the possibility that the organisation could gain a foothold in current social unrest and convert it into political influence by winning the sympathy of European communities and left-wing parties.
The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO) describes itself as a European umbrella organisation bringing together Muslim youth and student associations.
FEMYSO currently comprises 32 member organisations across 22 European countries. Its roots date back to 1995, when the first meeting of Muslim youth organisations was held in Sweden.
The following year, FEMYSO was formally established at a meeting in Leicester, United Kingdom, which brought together 19 organisations from 11 countries. In 2000, the forum established its headquarters in Brussels.
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