Getting charged with election fraud while fueling bogus allegations of election fraud — that’s the MAGA way.

In the Trump era, it’s not uncommon for Republicans to be charged or even convicted of voter fraud while their conservative movement pushes false — and fundamentally racist — claims of election chicanery. My colleague Steve Benen has covered this trend for years.

We, of course, can’t forget the insurrectionists pardoned by Donald Trump after they fueled a riot at the Capitol premised on lies about voter fraud. Or the Trump allies who agreed to pay up in 2024 after concocting a fraudulent voter suppression scheme.

And earlier this year, I wrote about the former official at Turning Point Action who comported himself as a champion of election integrity before pleading guilty to election fraud.

Certified hypocrites abound.

And now, Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that scandal-plagued conservative activist James O’Keefe and pro-MAGA content creator Cam Higby have been charged with various crimes over an alleged plot involving fake identities presented to election workers in an effort to sow doubt about the integrity of next week’s midterms.

Per MPR News:

Hennepin County prosecutors on Wednesday said they charged conservative provocateur James O’Keefe and another man with felonies for unlawful voting and identity theft for filming themselves misrepresenting their identities to election judges during the Minnesota Aug. 11 primary.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said they were alerted by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office that James O’Keefe, Cameron Higby and others were trying to undermine the state’s vouching system.

Videos posted by O’Keefe’s operation show them wearing burkas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some residents who were dead and at least one who voted.

Here’s the way O’Keefe’s operation recently defended the effort:

In a press release in August, O’Keefe’s group, which calls itself the “Justice League,” said the people in the video “did not cast ballots. The investigation was intended to test the limits of Minnesota’s vouching law and document how election workers apply it on Election Day.”

Trump has gone on several racist rants about Somali immigrants in Minnesota, accusing them of engaging in fraud and other criminal behavior — often sounding every bit like a klansman attempting to stoke a race war.

On Monday, he claimed that the “only way” Republican candidate Michele Tafoya can lose her Senate race in Minnesota is if liberals “cheat.” That’s the context for O’Keefe and Higby’s alleged scheme, which Media Matters recently described in more detail:

In August, O’Keefe and other right-wing content creators affiliated with his Citizen Justice League descended on Minnesota to attack the state’s voter voucher system, claiming to be registered voters in various precincts and asking poll workers if they would be able to vouch for several unregistered individuals who lacked photo ID.

Videos of the stunts, produced by Higby, O’Keefe, and Rubin, make the broad claim that Minnesota’s voucher system, which allows for a registered voter to “vouch” for the identities of up to eight unregistered individuals living in the same precinct, is a natural source for fraud.

Media Matters noted that some of the footage has been promoted by the Trump administration and conservative media. And the racism involved was unsubtle:

In the videos from O’Keefe and Higby, the pair dressed in what O’Keefe described as “full traditional Muslim attire” and adopted fake accents to impersonate registered voters and ask if they could vouch for several friends or family members.

For the record, making false voter fraud claims and being forced to walk them back is not new for O’Keefe.

But intimidation appears to be the primary intent here. O’Keefe is known for launching bogus sting operations that conservatives can use to peddle MAGA propaganda, potentially placing their targets in various kinds of danger. In 2024, I wrote about how one such operation apparently fueled violent threats toward staff at a shelter for immigrants in Arizona.

Now, Republicans are attempting to conjure up voter fraud claims to gin up backlash over a crucial Senate race in which polling has consistently shown the Democrat with an edge. And Minnesota’s Hennepin County apparently isn’t standing for it.

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The U.S. Marine Corps values loyalty to one’s fellow Marines and to doing the right thing even when it’s easier to do what’s wrong. It’s not a huge surprise, then, that some Marines have been saying “no” to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s demanded the expulsion of all transgender service members despite their demonstrated fitness for service. In two of three of these boards, formal hearings roughly similar to a trial, Marines have voted to retain transgender fellow Marines. And in the third case, the board expressly concluded that despite its vote, the Marine should be retained due to his “commendable service record and unique skills.”

The votes to retain are similar to jury nullification, and they send the clear message that honor restrains them from kicking out Marines who have met and continue to meet every Marine Corps standard. Thus, their vote to retain despite evidence that the Marine in question is or may be transgender.

Trump and Hegseth have already decided that any record of gender dysphoria, even if the service member never transitioned, requires a Marine or solider or sailor or airman to be stripped of the nation’s uniform

It is an Orwellian world that Marines and military members from the other services enter when ordered to sit on separation boards that Hegseth ginned up to kick out folks who refused “voluntary” separation. (It’s no less Orwellian for military lawyers made to facilitate such proceedings.) Military separation boards, in general, wield discretion to decide whether it’s in the best interest of the service to retain a fellow service member despite their alleged misconduct or diagnosed physical disability, these are boards in name only. President Donald Trump and Hegseth have already decided that any record of gender dysphoria, even if the service member never transitioned, requires a Marine or solider or sailor or airman to be stripped of the nation’s uniform. Hegseth means for these boards to do one thing: Confirm an indication, past or present, that the service member is transgender. That’s it.

They are directed to disregard the full record of the service member before them; to ignore their long history of honorable service including combat deployments; to look away from their superb performance evaluations; to not listen to their stellar character witnesses; and to pretend away the individual service member’s demonstrated excellence in an occupational specialty critical to a military at war.

Plainly put, the board members are ordered to lie and say that the service member is unfit to serve and thus play a role in depriving the U.S. military of that service member’s substantial training, experience and willingness to serve. It’s no wonder, then, that most Marine board members thus far — as well as most Navy board members — have ignored such nonsense and voted to retain. Their moral compasses demanded it.

This doesn’t mean that the Army and Air Force board members who have gone along with Hegseth’s lies don’t have moral compasses or that they enjoy being complicit with the cruel subterfuge that these boards represent. But despite whatever moral dilemma they may have between being asked to follow their values or follow orders, they have come down on the side of following orders. And they have had help. From Hegseth’s top civilian lawyer in the Pentagon to the services’ military judge advocate corps, Pentagon and military lawyers have contributed to the rationalization game that allows the Orwellian discharge boards to churn along. Legal top cover is a great way to rationalize dishonesty and justify morally bankrupt decisions that are inconsistent with one’s values.

But it’s disappointing that military lawyers have helped enable these gaslighting boards, especially since June when a Washington, D.C., federal judge agreed to make all transgender service members remaining on active duty part of a class protected by her preliminary injunction. That judge ordered Hegseth not to separate transgender service members (originally, only the named plaintiffs in Talbott v. United States) until their federal litigation challenging the transgender ban on constitutional grounds is complete.

Navy and Marine Corps boards voted for retention in nine of 12 cases, challenging an administration that treats transgender identity as grounds to end a military career.

— The Advocate (@advocate.com) 2026-10-27T17:18:21.537Z

But Judge Ana Reyes has still not issued her written ruling to that effect — she’s likely waiting to see what the Supreme Court will do with the government’s late August emergency petition challenging her preliminary injunction — and the services, surely reacting to pressure from Hegseth, have been accelerating the boards. But Reyes’ oral ruling gave and continues to give military lawyers strong legal ground to advise their commanders that holding separation boards — at least since June 30 — is contrary to a federal judge’s order. Yet the boards continue.

Hopefully more boards will follow in the footsteps of those service members who have decided to be guided by their values of integrity, loyalty, honor and respect. As social psychology studies have long shown, situational dynamics are incredibly powerful. Such dynamics have surely contributed to some boards rubber stamping the administration’s counterfactual determination that no transgender military member is worthy of continued service. There’s no reason to think that boards that refuse to rubber stamp Hegseth’s orders can’t be similarly influential.

While the unbelievably powerful dynamic of obedience to authority (recall the Milgram shock experiment) is almost impossible to interrupt, we’re seeing evidence that almost impossible isn’t the same as completely impossible, and that values and common sense can trump a service member’s order to lie and do what’s wrong.

The post Pete Hegseth’s purge of trans troops hit a wall: Marines who refuse to lie appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* In light of the latest economic data, this decision was hardly the obvious one: “The Federal Reserve kept its key rate unchanged Wednesday at about 3.9% despite stubbornly high inflation, as Chairman Kevin Warsh suggested its policies are already showing signs of having an impact.”

* A remarkable turn of events in Brazil: “Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami on Wednesday after fleeing Brazil. The stunning move came after 48 hours in which Bolsonaro refused to concede to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then threatened to attempt to annul the election result.”

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

* A devastating disaster: “One high-speed Spanish train slammed into another that had stopped on the tracks Wednesday, killing at least 68 people and shredding carriages in the country’s second deadly rail collision this year. The regional government for Castilla La Mancha confirmed the death toll and said another 58 people needed medical treatment in hospital.”

* A case of ongoing interest: “Three news organizations that sued the White House after President Donald Trump banned them from the grounds have amended their lawsuit. They are now asking a federal judge to permanently restore their access, not just to the White House but to other areas including the Oval Office and Air Force One. The amended complaint filed by the news outlets — MS NOW, CNN and Politico — comes two weeks after U.S. Judge Timothy Kelly indefinitely reversed Trump’s ban and restored their access to the White House.”

* The need for secrecy in this case is hardly obvious: “The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington said on Tuesday that it would not unseal a search warrant executed by federal agents at the home of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota this month. The office also asked a federal judge to deny requests for the warrant’s release.”

* The White House sure has lost a lot of cases like this one: “A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Donald Trump-backed lawyer has been ‘unlawfully serving’ as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. The decision regarding Bill Essayli’s service does not immediately take effect, and Essayli said the Supreme Court ‘will ultimately decide’ the legality of his tenure.”

* A little something to keep democracy advocates up at night: “As Election Day nears, recent events have prompted some FBI agents to express concern, according to seven people with knowledge of internal discussions among the ranks, that they may be ordered to seize voting machines or take other actions that disrupt election results.”

* The passing of a legend: “Dolores Huerta, an icon of the labor movement in California who co-founded the United Farm Workers, died Wednesday at the age of 96, her family announced.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 10.28.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

Ahead of the 2020 elections, Donald Trump told anyone who would listen that a Joe Biden victory would lead to “a depression the likes of which you’ve never seen.” The then-president’s claim was obviously foolish and quickly discredited by reality.

The Republican is nevertheless recycling the line, declaring at a campaign rally in Mississippi this week, “If the Democrats win, you will have a 1929-style economic depression. What they want to do is so bad for our country, you’re going to end up with a massive recession or depression.”

The incumbent president never got around to saying how this economic calamity would happen, which parts of the Democratic agenda are so dangerous or why he was so spectacularly wrong when he made the same prediction six years earlier.

But what struck me as especially notable was that even Trump doesn’t seem to believe his own fearmongering.

Just hours before his event in Mississippi, the president briefly spoke to reporters, one of whom asked how he’d “work with Democrats if they have control of the House or the Senate.” He replied:

We’ll figure a way. Look, I have strong veto. I hope that that won’t be the case, but if it is, that’s happened before with many presidents. And you have strong veto and you end up working out deals.

Oh.

So on the one hand, Trump wants Americans to believe that a Democratic majority on Capitol Hill would transform the nation into a hellscape in which transgender Muslim immigrants come to your home to turn your children into communists.

But on the other hand, Trump also wants Americans to believe that if there is a Democratic majority, he’ll veto bad ideas while working on possible bipartisan agreements — which is unlikely to sound all that scary to many voters.

The president made similar comments in early September, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, “I’ll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won’t be the same, but I’ll be a blocker, what can I tell you?”

He then added that he’ll “probably be able to make deals” with the possible Democratic majority.

The Republican Party’s line is that the stakes in this election cycle are effectively existential — but Trump’s line is that it just won’t be that big a deal if Democrats prevail. That’s quite a message for the incumbent president to take to the electorate in the cycle’s closing days, but here we are.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump downplays concerns about a possible Democratic majority, stepping on his message appeared first on MS NOW.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that the use of paper ballots prevents hacking from tech mogul Elon Musk, who is supporting Republicans this election cycle. “Forty-nine of the 50 states have paper records of the ballots, right?” Himes said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” “Except for…

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that the use of paper ballots prevents hacking from tech mogul Elon Musk, who is supporting Republicans this election cycle. “Forty-nine of the 50 states have paper records of the ballots, right?” Himes said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” “Except for…

Amid a flurry of Justice Department efforts to target people whom Donald Trump doesn’t like, two former FBI officials were charged late last week with lying to Congress — in a case of particular interest to the president.

Remember the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop? As part of a Republican investigation into the matter, Nikki Floris, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, and Bradley Benavides, another FBI official, briefed members of Congress about the contents of the computer. Last week, Trump’s DOJ charged them with allegedly making false statements about their level of involvement into the investigation.

Their attorneys condemned the charges as political “nonsense,” announced 10 days before closely watched elections, and it didn’t help matters that the president told reporters after their arrest, “I heard they were bad people.” He did not say from whom he’d heard this.

Nevertheless, the case appears to be off to a rough start. After prosecutors added an obstruction charge to the case, for example, a federal judge dismissed it.

But just as notable was what we learned from Bryan Witt, a veteran FBI agent, who testified Tuesday and shed light on what transpired behind the scenes. The New York Times reported:

In mid-July, President Trump gave a prime-time speech in which he raised concerns about a disputed F.B.I. report that China had tried to interfere in the 2020 election in an effort to defeat him.

At the heart of his address was a bitter complaint: that some of the bureau’s intelligence officials had purposefully sought to play down the report to undercut his claims about the race.

According to Witt’s testimony, one day after Trump targeted FBI officials in his remarks, FBI Director Kash Patel directed prosecutors immediately to investigate the officials for obstruction and conspiracy.

Witt conceded that FBI officials saw the inquiry as a “witch hunt,” and he personally saw the effort as a “huge distraction,” but the push ultimately led to charges against Floris and Benavides.

The Times report went on to note that Witt “asserted from the stand that he had never before worked on a case where instructions came directly from the F.B.I.’s director. He added that Mr. Patel and his deputies often checked on his progress, pressing him and his colleagues to move as aggressively as possible.”

Time will tell what becomes of the case, though it’s a safe bet that the defendants’ attorneys have taken a keen interest in what Witt had to say. But the broader takeaway from the agent’s testimony is unavoidable: Trump snaps his fingers, and Patel follows the president’s orders.

White House control over the Justice Department has been well-documented, but its control over the FBI is just as overwhelming. Patel, best known as a podcast personality before Senate Republicans elevated him to his powerful role, may lead the bureau, but there is fresh reason to believe he’s effectively a DINO — Director in Name Only.

The post In court testimony, FBI agent sheds new light on the White House’s control over the bureau appeared first on MS NOW.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) on Wednesday morning issued a stark warning about the influence that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and other artificial intelligence technology leaders have over global affairs following a recent reported slowdown of the satellite company’s technology in Ukraine.  “We’re in this world where, you know, five weird trillionaires are going to control…

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) on Wednesday morning issued a stark warning about the influence that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and other artificial intelligence technology leaders have over global affairs following a recent reported slowdown of the satellite company’s technology in Ukraine.  “We’re in this world where, you know, five weird trillionaires are going to control…

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Donald Trump-backed lawyer has been “unlawfully serving” as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. The decision regarding Bill Essayli’s service does not immediately take effect, and Essayli said the Supreme Court “will ultimately decide” the legality of his tenure.

The justices may have the last word not only on Essayli but also on a host of lawyers who have purported to lead districts around the country without being confirmed by the Senate. U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright noted in his ruling that the federal government has asked the Supreme Court to consider the issue in disputes over Trump’s chosen lawyers in Nevada (Sigal Chattah) and northern New York (John Sarcone).

In an order accompanying his ruling, Seabright, a George W. Bush appointee, gave the government a chance to try to halt his ruling pending appeal as the administration presses the appointment issue to the justices.

Urging the high court to use the Nevada case to resolve the nationwide issue, the Justice Department argued that lower court rulings against the administration “misconstrue” the law that deals with federal vacancies, “upend a quarter-century of practice,” “threaten chaos for the next presidential transition” and “cast a pall over prosecutions in 14 judicial districts nationwide.”

We could learn later this year whether and when the justices will take up the matter. They could grant review to decide it this term after holding a hearing and issuing a ruling that would be expected by July.

Meanwhile, given Seabright’s pause on his decision taking immediate effect, Essayli said he will “continue running the office.” The New York Times included Essayli on its list of prosecutors who are “carrying out Trump’s grievance agenda,” writing that he “has pushed to charge cases against anti-Trump protesters, many of which fell apart in court” and “carried out a direct order from Mr. Trump to open an investigation of voting in the state.”

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.

The post Judge says Trump prosecutor in LA is ‘unlawfully serving’ in latest hit to Trump’s DOJ appeared first on MS NOW.

"We need to have this meeting till the end of (next) month, I hope... between Nov. 6 and 10," Zelensky said at a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten.

Software can fix a lot of this — if lawmakers let it.

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel signaled Tuesday that Democrats were likely to regain control of the House with a week to go before the midterm elections.   “I think the House, you know with three seats that the Dems need to pick up, is probably going to go to the Democrats,” she told…

It’s apparently called the “Cabinet Travel Competition.” According to a report published by The Atlantic last month, the White House came up with the contest, which is exactly what it sounds like: The White House “encourages” Cabinet secretaries to “traverse the country to promote President [Donald] Trump’s agenda” and “tracks their visits to politically competitive congressional districts or states ahead of the midterm elections.”

Cabinet members, the article added, are awarded “points” based on their performance.

Although there are ethics laws such as the Hatch Act that appear to limit secretaries from engaging in such partisan election-season politicking, there’s ample evidence that a) the administration has pushed the gambit anyway; and b) several secretaries have taken the “Cabinet Travel Competition” quite seriously.

Indeed, it’s been quite jarring to see so many powerful officials — from Attorney General Todd Blanche to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to Energy Secretary Chris Wright — allow themselves to serve as pieces on an electoral chessboard, to be moved around for the benefit of the Republican Party.

In each instance, these secretaries’ predecessors from both parties went out of their way to avoid electioneering, recognizing that it was not their place to use their taxpayer-financed positions to travel from state to state, participating in partisan campaign events.

And yet, in 2026, a new normal is taking shape.

For his part, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to know better. The Florida Republican, who has been tapped to serve in a cartoonishly long list of positions on Trump’s team, has spent the year steering clear of the “Cabinet Travel Competition,” perhaps because he saw it as unseemly, or perhaps because he simply couldn’t squeeze time into his busy schedule to appear at campaign events.

Either way, Rubio earned some “points” on Tuesday afternoon, traveling with the president to some campaign events in Texas. He even delivered remarks at a rally in Corpus Christi, where he told Trump’s devotees, “It’s an honor to work for the greatest country in the world, for the greatest president in the history of the United States of America.”

Marco Rubio gets on stage and says he works for the "great president in the history of the United States"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-27T20:48:58.021Z

As Tuesday got underway, Politico reported that Rubio was not expected to speak. Hours later, either he changed his mind or someone changed it for him. (A State Department official told The Hill that Rubio was traveling in his capacity as White House national security adviser, though that was hardly a compelling excuse, since he doesn’t have the luxury of simply pretending he’s not the current secretary of state.)

Almost exactly six years ago, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced an investigation from the Office of Special Counsel after engaging in election-season partisan activities. Six years later, Rubio is apparently picking up where his Republican predecessor left off, seemingly confident that he won’t have to worry about the consequences.

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Civilians in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, are to be evacuated from the town hospital on the morning of 30 October, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, told DW on 27 October. The date could still change, he said.

Oleshky, a town on the Dnipro’s left bank across from Kherson, has been occupied by Russia since February 2022 and has gone short of food and medicine for months. Of about 24,000 pre-war residents, 1,700 to 2,000 remain, mostly elderly, the White House estimates. Drone strikes and mines have cut the town off from the rest of the region, the Financial Times reported. The evacuation would give them an organized way out, and test whether Russia lets those who choose Ukraine actually leave.

The route for those who want to go to Ukrainian-controlled territory is not yet set and will likely pass through Russia, Tolokonnikov said. “There will be two paths,” he added: one for those who want to stay in occupied territory or in Russia, and one for those who want to leave.

Putin calls Oleshky a “Russian settlement”

On 27 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Oleshky as a “Russian settlement” in a call with the leaders of Finland and Norway, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. ISW said it remains unclear whether occupation authorities will give residents “a legitimate and duress-free choice” to return to Ukraine. It warned that Moscow may treat holders of Russian passports as Russian citizens with no legal recourse to return.

People with knowledge of the talks told the Financial Times that residents who agree to leave would first be taken to occupied Crimea or Russia. The paper also reported that buses would take people out on Thursday morning, 29 October, a day earlier than the date Tolokonnikov gave.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a television interview on 25 October, the FT reported, that Russia would “de-mine in such a way that these people go towards Russia and remain there.”

Truce holds into a second day

The ceasefire took effect at 03:00 Kyiv time on 27 October and runs until 22:59 on 1 November, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said on X. A day later, he wrote that Oleshky had gone 30 hours without an incident, crediting his contact with Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova. The goal, he wrote, is to “create the conditions for the safe departure of those who need it.”

Ceasefire in Oleshky: Agreement Being Fully Honored

As of 5:30 p.m. on October 27, Ukraine and Russia are adhering to the ceasefire agreement in designated areas related to the humanitarian mission.

The ceasefire came into effect today at 3:00 a.m. Kyiv time and 4:00 a.m.… pic.twitter.com/2dzMIXRANX

— Dmytro Lubinets (@lubinetzs) October 27, 2026

The truce also covers Kherson Oblast’s coast, and Kherson city has gone quiet, Tolokonnikov told DW. The city has “literally come alive,” Lubinets wrote on 28 October, adding that both sides were still fully complying as of 12:00. On the truce’s first day, Volodymyr Obertas, an Oleshky-born press officer of Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, was killed in central Kherson while escorting journalists. The brigade’s communications chief told Suspilne he stepped on an unidentified explosive device. The Defense Ministry’s Army TV said Russian forces detonated it remotely.

The deal reaches beyond Oleshky. Under terms both sides signed, Russia and Ukraine are to organize aid deliveries and repatriation in Kherson Oblast settlements as needed, at least once a month, after the Oleshky mission, Fox News reported.

The White House announced the ceasefire on 23 October, crediting First Lady Melania Trump with brokering it.

“I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine,” she said.

Drone-dropped aid and warning of staged Russian videos

Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, working with National Guard and border guard units in Joint Forces South, delivered about 4 tons of food and medicine to Oleshky by drone, the command said on 25 October. According to intelligence, Russia is preparing dozens of staged videos in the town, in which residents would be forced to say on camera that they are well fed and grateful to the occupiers, it added.

Residents who try to leave the front-line town on their own cross mined ground, and Russian troops have seized food that Ukraine dropped in by drone.

MIAMI (AP) — Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami on Wednesday after fleeing Brazil.

The stunning move came after 48 hours in which Bolsonaro refused to concede to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then threatened to attempt to annul the election result.

Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, also fled to Florida after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula before returning to Brazil three months later. On Monday, the U.S. said that it would grant visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family. Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, visited the White House in May.

Bolsonaro first fled from Brazil to Argentina and then Ecuador alongside his wife and two daughters, Argentina’s migration authority said Wednesday — a day after the 45-year-old senator and his family were granted United States visas by the Trump administration.

Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. The court had ordered Bolsonaro to hand over his regular and diplomatic passports by noon Tuesday — two days after he lost the vote to Lula. It remained unclear whether he had complied, but allies said late Tuesday he also has an Italian passport.

Argentina’s migration authority said Bolsonaro, his wife Fernanda Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, and his daughters Carolina Figueira Bolsonaro and Luiza Figueira Bolsonaro crossed into the country at 10:50 p.m. Tuesday. They entered via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, a primary border checkpoint linking Brazil to Argentina’s northeastern province of Misiones.

“Those who did so possessed valid travel documentation and faced no legal impediments to entering the country,” the Argentine migration authority said on X.

The authority said that at 11:30 p.m. local time, shortly after clearing immigration control, the four boarded a private charter flight operated by aviation company Baires Fly S.A. According to the filed flight plan, the aircraft departed for Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The move is almost certain to cause a big diplomatic rift between Lula and Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump ally who traveled to Brazil to take part in Bolsonaro’s campaign.

Bolsonaro lands in Miami

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed that a plane fitting the description of Bolsonaro’s landed in Guayaquil at about 4 a.m. local time, before taking off minutes later for Miami-Opa locka Executive Airport. The plane carrying Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami at around 9:30 a.m. ET.

Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, told several dozen supporters outside the presidential residence in Brasilia before the plane landed that he didn’t have precise information about Bolsonaro’s whereabouts, but said he had left Brazil.

“I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven that the accusations are not true,” Lula said. “This act of leaving Brazil is shameful.”

Paulo Figueiredo, a close Bolsonaro ally who lives in the U.S., said in a short statement that he can’t confirm information from foreign authorities, but added “Flávio Bolsonaro is well, in security and resting with his family.” Figueiredo also said there would be a press conference Thursday in Miami to discuss the case.

Representatives of Brazil’s government didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

U.S. President Donald Trump said early Wednesday that he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the U.S., calling him and his family “fine people.”

“The election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, after returning from campaigning in Texas on Tuesday. He did not elaborate, but stressed that he didn’t endorse the election results.

Leaders all over the world and the Organization of American States, or OAS, endorsed the result and congratulated Lula, who was reelected by a margin of about 4.4 million votes in the second and final round.

On Tuesday, Milei’s administration spokesman Adrián Ravier said “there is no asylum request (from Bolsonaro) and there is nothing more to add.”

Bolsonaro visited his father, who is under house arrest, before leaving Brazil

The defeated candidate was served with a Supreme Court order to surrender his Brazilian passports Monday. In a video, he said he received it outside the home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula.

After that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro fled Brazil for Florida. He returned three months later.

Flávio Bolsonaro said on Monday in a video that he was attempting to organize opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results. His eight-year term as a senator expires Jan. 31, 2027, which will also cause him to lose special jurisdiction at the country’s Supreme Court.

Brazil’s Supreme Court is investigating Bolsonaro for allegedly using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In a separate case, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.

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During a brief Q&A with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump was asked whether he’ll “respect the results” of the midterm elections, “whatever happens.” Before we get to the president’s answer, it’s worth taking a moment to dwell on the question.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but we used to be a country in which questions like these weren’t even asked. It was a foregone conclusion for generations: The United States was a stable democracy and the world’s pre-eminent superpower. There was no real need to wonder: American candidates for powerful offices agreed to honor election results. The entire line of inquiry was unnecessary since the answers were assumed.

But as the radicalization of Republican politics intensifies, and GOP rejection of election results becomes more common, it’s no longer considered outlandish to ask Republican leaders whether they’ll accept voters’ judgment — just as it’s no longer surprising when they fail to say “Of course I’ll honor the will of the electorate.”

All of which brings us to Trump’s response on Tuesday afternoon.

Q: You'll respect the election results whatever happens?TRUMP: If they're honest elections(That's a no!)

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-27T15:40:17.338Z

“I will,” the president replied, indicating that he’d accept the election results, before quickly adding, “if they’re honest elections.”

And who gets to decide whether the elections are “honest”? According to Trump, he does.

To be sure, this isn’t altogether new. As The Washington Post reported, “In 2016, Trump said he would accept the election results ‘if I win.’ In 2020, he repeatedly declined to commit to accept the results, saying ‘We’re going to have to see what happens.’ In 2024, Trump said he would accept the results if the election was ‘fair and legal and good.’”

In other words, when it comes to conditional respect for democracy — the results are only legitimate if he likes and agrees with them — the Republican is at least consistent.

But this isn’t just a matter of Trump giving a Trumpian answer during a brief exchange with a reporter. On the contrary, there’s a more systematic effort underway, which appears designed to deliberately undermine confidence in the elections themselves. The Post separately reported:

President Donald Trump and his allies have spent the final weeks before the midterms showering his supporters with a relentless stream of doubt about the legitimacy of the election, priming them to question results if Republicans lose.

In court, the administration is telegraphing its readiness to challenge results based on alleged fraud. In podcasts and social media posts that are delivered nonstop to Trump’s core backers, right-wing influencers are telling supporters to expect cheating.

The newspaper’s analysis also found that the misinformation campaign is twice as intense as it was ahead of the 2024 elections.

It might be tempting to shrug this off, since Trump lies to so many people about so many things, and the president’s deceptions tend to have limited practical effects. But let’s not forget that the last time he tried to lay the groundwork for rejecting election results he didn’t like, and Republican candidates fared poorly, thousands of the president’s followers launched an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The post Asked if he’ll respect the will of American voters, Trump gives a Trumpian answer appeared first on MS NOW.

Software can fix a lot of this — if lawmakers let it.

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel signaled Tuesday that Democrats were likely to regain control of the House with a week to go before the midterm elections.   “I think the House, you know with three seats that the Dems need to pick up, is probably going to go to the Democrats,” she told…

Un simbolo, oltre che un animale al quale tutti coloro che fanno parte del Mara Elephant Project (MEP) si erano affezionati. L’elefante Fred è morto per cause naturali e con lui se ne va uno degli emblemi della lotta al bracconaggio per l’avorio in Kenya.

“Molti degli elefanti della sua generazione non sono sopravvissuti al bracconaggio abbastanza a lungo da raggiungere la sua età”, ha raccontato Claire Bolles, direttrice esecutiva di Mara Elephant Project USA, ad Africa Geographic. Secondo Bolles, Fred aveva circa 55 anni ed era uno degli esemplari più conosciuti del Maasai Mara.

A renderlo eccezionale non era soltanto la mole, ma soprattutto la dimensione delle zanne: le misurazioni effettuate negli anni fanno ritenere che ciascuna pesasse oltre 45 chili, anche se il dato ufficiale verrà confermato dopo l’esame post mortem del Kenya Wildlife Service. E oggi gli elefanti con zanne di queste dimensioni sono sempre più rari: secondo una stima di Africa Geographic, in tutto il continente resterebbero poco più di 85 super tusker, almeno 26 dei quali nell’Africa orientale.

Fred veniva seguito con un collare satellitare dal 2013, nell’ambito della collaborazione tra Mara Elephant Project, Kenya Wildlife Service e Wildlife Research and Training Institute. I dati raccolti attraverso i suoi spostamenti hanno contribuito a mettere a punto strategie di conservazione e protezione utilizzate anche per altri grandi elefanti del Kenya. Il Mara Elephant Project lo ha definito un vero emblema del Maasai Mara e un simbolo dei risultati ottenuti negli ultimi anni contro il bracconaggio. “Molti degli elefanti della generazione di Fred non sono arrivati alla vecchiaia. Quanto siamo stati fortunati che lui ci sia riuscito”, ha scritto l’organizzazione. Poi il saluto: “Ci mancherà, ma che vita straordinaria ha vissuto”.

L'articolo “Ci mancherà, ma che vita straordinaria ha vissuto”: è morto Fred, l’elefante simbolo del Maasai Mara e della lotta al bracconaggio proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.