A mudança no horário de votação determinada pelo ministro Cristiano Zanin, do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), alterou os procedimentos da Justiça Eleitoral em Goiás neste domingo (25). O Tribunal Regional Eleitoral de Goiás (TRE-GO) suspendeu temporariamente a totalização dos votos e orientou as zonas eleitorais a manter em funcionamento as seções que ainda recebiam eleitores até as 19h.
A determinação chegou ao tribunal pouco antes do encerramento previsto para as 17h. O curto intervalo para comunicar a decisão às equipes eleitorais dificultou a aplicação da medida. Durante entrevista coletiva no início da noite, o desembargador eleitoral Laudo Natel Mateus classificou a situação como inédita.
O novo horário não autorizou a reabertura de seções que já haviam concluído a votação. A orientação foi direcionada aos locais em que ainda havia eleitores aguardando atendimento, inclusive pessoas que receberam senhas para votar.
Segundo Laudo Natel, naquele momento o tribunal não tinha confirmação oficial de que ainda existiam seções abertas em Goiás. A possibilidade, entretanto, não estava descartada diante das filas e do tempo necessário para transmitir as orientações aos responsáveis pelos locais de votação.
A suspensão da totalização foi outra consequência da mudança. O processamento dos resultados deveria permanecer interrompido até as 19h, horário estabelecido para o encerramento da votação nas seções que continuavam em funcionamento.
Durante a coletiva, o desembargador também esclareceu que a possibilidade de substituir as urnas eletrônicas por cédulas de papel não chegou a ser discutida. A alteração do horário, segundo ele, não modificaria o sistema utilizado para registrar e contabilizar os votos.
A decisão de Zanin ampliou o período de votação em todo o país após relatos de dificuldades de transporte para eleitores. O TSE esclareceu posteriormente que a extensão deveria ser aplicada apenas às seções que ainda não haviam encerrado os trabalhos.
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O Tribunal Regional Eleitoral da Bahia (TRE-BA) determinou neste domingo (25) o restabelecimento imediato da frota integral do transporte público de Salvador operando com frequência equivalente à de dias úteis e mantida a gratuidade integral aos passageiros.
Na decisão, o presidente do TRE-BA, Maurício Kertzman Szporer, define multa no valor de R$ 1 milhão por hora em caso de descumprimento da ordem. O desembargador pede ainda imediata expedição de ofício à Delegacia Geral de Polícia Civil da Bahia para fiscalizar o cumprimento, incluindo a utilização de drones para esse fim.
Diante da decisão, o governador da Bahia, Jerônimo Rodrigues, em seu perfil na rede social X, disse ter colocado a Polícia Militar e a Secretaria da Segurança Pública à disposição para identificar policiais com habilitação categoria D, aptos a dirigir os ônibus, caso se faça necessário.
“Não vou aceitar o que estão fazendo com a população baiana, tentando impedir que as pessoas exerçam seu direito ao voto. Vamos garantir que o povo tenha condições de votar”, postou.
Prefeitura
A Prefeitura de Salvador informou, em nota, ter determinado que todos os ônibus fossem liberados das garagens, ainda que estivessem com adesivação considerada como propaganda irregular, facilitando a locomoção de eleitores neste domingo.
“A prioridade segue sendo a circulação de veículos e o deslocamento da população. A operação já está sendo normalizada através do diálogo entre as equipes da secretaria e representantes sindicais”, destacou o comunicado.
Entenda
No período da manhã, eleitores relataram dificuldades para chegar aos locais de votação em Salvador em meio a queixas sobre demora e problemas na circulação de ônibus durante o segundo turno das eleições.
De acordo com o governo baiano, fiscais encontraram ônibus aptos para operação que permaneciam nas garagens durante a vistoria realizada no dia da votação.
Em publicação na rede social X, o secretário da Secretaria de Justiça e Direitos Humanos da Bahia (SJDH), Felipe Freitas, afirmou ter recebido do sindicato dos trabalhadores do transporte a informação de que motoristas não teriam sido convocados para operar toda a frota.
Na postagem, o secretário defendeu medidas para evitar que eleitores fossem prejudicados por dificuldades de deslocamento.
A fim de garantir condições de deslocamento para o exercício do voto, o Procon-BA, a Agência Estadual de Regulação de Serviços Públicos de Energia, Transportes e Comunicações (Agerba) e a SJDH organizaram a operação Vai e Vota para fiscalizar a gratuidade do transporte público e receber denúncias durante o segundo turno das eleições.
O prefeito de Salvador, Bruno Reis (União Brasil), afirmou que a frota estava disponível para atender à população e atribuiu os problemas registrados a questões operacionais nas garagens e a mobilizações que teriam atrasado a saída dos veículos.
Segundo ele, o município já disponibiliza transporte gratuito em dias de eleição antes mesmo das determinações judiciais relacionadas ao tema. Ele acrescentou que a Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade (Semob) registrou a retenção de 75 ônibus em uma garagem no bairro de Caminho de Areia, fato que teria afetado o início da operação do sistema.
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Um projeto de 150 mil euros devolveu ao formato original as câmaras onde a rainha viveu os seus últimos anos, no Palácio Nacional de Queluz. Poderemos conhecer a consorte vilificada de outra forma?
Un confronto a tu per tu, senza giri di parole nella puntata odierna, domenica 25 ottobre, ad “Amici 26”. Amadeus mette le carte in tavola con Nicolò e lo fa partendo da un paragone che gli è caro: quello con lo sport. “Tu sei un atleta, quindi forse mi puoi capire”, esordisce il direttore artistico, spiegando che ognuno dei quattro ragazzi della sua squadra è sotto la sua responsabilità. “Vi voglio un bene dell’anima – assicura, – mi piacete tutti e quattro tantissimo”. I cantanti del direttore artistico sono: Kashmere, Nicolò, Saitta e Tìaso.
Ma c’è una regola, e la regola vale per tutti: quella di avere un unico vocal coach, Lorenzo. Una scelta che Amadeus rivendica come un vantaggio “come un preparatore atletico conosce ogni muscolo del suo atleta”, spiega, così il vocal coach “conosce anatomicamente le corde vocali dei ragazzi”, sa dove possono migliorare e si confronta costantemente con lui. “Tutti i vocal coach di Amici sono bravissimi”, precisa, ma la linea è questa.
Poi il passaggio più netto. Amadeus assicura che non vieterà mai a Nicolò di provare altri insegnanti, ma per coerenza con la decisione presa e nei confronti degli altri tre ragazzi, la conseguenza sarebbe inevitabile: “Se mi dici che vuoi stare con tutti i vocal coach, sono costretto a dirti: Nicolò, mi devi dare la maglia”.
Il ragazzo potrebbe così proseguire con altri coach, ma non con Lorenzo e nemmeno con lui, con la maglia che passerebbe a Samurai Jay o a Rudy Zerbi e un percorso completamente diverso da quello immaginato. Il tutto, sottolinea, “senza nessun rancore e risentimento”: viene prima il desiderio dell’allievo.
Se invece Nicolò sceglie di restare, l’augurio è di arrivare fino in fondo: “Ti auguro di rimanere otto mesi, anche se non ne abbiamo la certezza, facciamo gli scongiuri“. Amadeus lascia al ragazzo tutto il tempo per decidere: può rispondere subito oppure riflettere e parlarne a quattro occhi durante la settimana.
Ad “Amici 26″, oggi 25 ottobre, il caso del cantante Erness ha posto il dilemma in diretta. Il ragazzo che stacca dalla cucina di un pub all’una di notte e ha un’ora al giorno per la musica ha portato come inediti brani che, secondo Samurai Jay, inediti non erano: stessa tonalità, stesso BPM, stesso giro armonico di un pezzo già esistente. Gli è stata data una seconda possibilità. Una settimana in studio, un nuovo brano sull’ossigeno e sugli amori che tolgono il fiato. Il pezzo ha convinto tutti. Non è bastato. Perché, quando “qualità ed etica prendono strade diverse, a decidere è l’etica”. E il banco è saltato.
Dopo una serie di ascolti, Samurai ha notato che tutti i brani proposti da Erness hanno come riferimento altri brani, per cui di inedito “non c’è quasi niente”. Il cantante prova a darsi una spiegazione e chiede a Erness che lavoro faccia. La risposta: lavora in cucina in un pub e stacca all’una, all’una e mezza. Alla musica può dedicare poco più di un’ora. Il direttore artistico ne deduce che l’unica spiegazione possibile sia la mancanza di tempo.
La decisione, a quel punto, è di sospenderlo. Erness resta lontano dalla scuola per una settimana, in studio con dei professionisti, per scrivere un inedito che sia davvero suo. Il banco resta al suo posto, ma Samurai gli lascia un avvertimento: deve evitare di farselo “strappare via”.
Vinay Prasad has been on both sides of the public health establishment. A physician, author, and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, he went from prominent COVID-era critic to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) insider when he was tapped to lead the agency's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in May 2025. His tenure there included an abrupt resignation in July 2025, a return a few weeks later, and his final departure in April 2026.
Prasad joined Reason's Zach Weissmueller in August to discuss what he learned from his time inside the FDA, what he was able—and unable—to change, and whether the agency can ever regain public trust. Their conversation ranges from Anthony Fauci and the origins of COVID-19 to vaccine policy, plus regulatory barriers, his growing sympathy for libertarian critiques of the FDA, and whether the agency is ready for an era of AI-driven medicine.
Reason: The FDA saw a clearing out of the old guard and a replacement with a new one—COVID dissidents such as yourself, former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. What was that like? Did you have any misgivings about stepping away from academia and your role as an outside critic to join the public health bureaucracy?
Prasad: Maybe we changed 4 percent, 2 percent of the FDA. The FDA is an 18,000-person agency. There's tens of thousands of people still there. Before Marty, the commissioner, and I got there, DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency] had just struck and they got rid of a couple thousand people. But the system is largely the same as it's always been.
There are critics of the COVID pandemic response and then there are critics. Although Marty, Jay, and I are critics of many aspects of the response, we don't go as far as some of the most extreme critics out there.
Am I glad I did it? Yes, I'm glad I did it. It was an adventure. It was a learning experience. I learned more in one year than I'd learned in the prior decade about how the world works. I'm glad to have improved some aspects of government, which I think will be enduring, and at least tried to improve other aspects of government, which may not be enduring.
Anthony Fauci personified the old guard. He's recently been in the news because he appeared before Congress and pleaded the Fifth after Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) published his diary. What did those diary entries reveal to you about Fauci's character and about the way he operated?
Probably the greatest news story is that the mainstream media refuses to be honest about his legacy. Fauci was in his late 70s when the pandemic began. Had he retired at a ripe old age of 75, he'd be leaving behind a stellar legacy. But he continued. He pushed it. He stayed through the whole pandemic. He was the face of many things that his diaries get into, what he privately thought while he was publicly saying different things.
Fauci has not only been a proponent that the only answer to where the virus came from is a natural spillover event. He's gone further than that. He orchestrated a paper published in Nature Medicine called the "Proximal Origin" paper, written by a bunch of people who bolstered that point of view. He edited that paper before it was published. Then in public, he pretended like he didn't know those people; it was an independent group that validated what he was saying. Whereas in many respects, he puppeted that paper. The people who wrote that paper—Rand Paul has released their Slack channel messages showing they didn't really even believe what they were writing. Their messages reveal considerable ambiguity about lab leak vs. natural spillover event.
Photo: Paul Alexander
In terms of the origin, he also funded EcoHealth Alliance, which had a subcontract to Wuhan. He had a huge role in the origins and trying to frame the narrative, making lab leak—you couldn't even discuss it. Facebook put a ban on even talking about the topic. Then masking 2-year-olds. He played a huge role in that. Lockdowns, school closure. He said he didn't close any schools. In his own diary, he says, "I told [Mayor] Bill de Blasio, you need to close schools in New York City."
At some point, the man's got to take ownership over the decisions he did make and advocated for. When [Gov. Ron] DeSantis in Florida reopened schools in 2020, he went on every television show to say what a bad idea that was. Now, it's very clear—many of us said so at the time—school reopening was always the right decision. Maybe it could have been closed for a week or two, but certainly not beyond that. Fauci kept it closed much longer.
Vaccines make a lot of sense for elderly people who had not yet had COVID. But do they need to be given to a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 22-year-old who'd already had COVID? This is where considerable ambiguity exists. But for Fauci, the answer was clear: You need all the shots. You need the initial series. You need a yearly booster. It doesn't matter how young you are or how many times you've had COVID. Fauci was wrong about almost every single pandemic policy he advanced.
Some of his defenders say to me, "At least he didn't tell people to drink bleach." And I said, "Is that the bar for a guy who's a doctor and a scientist?" Drinking bleach is not a good idea, but that's not the bar for a Fauci-level figure. He should be saying things that are correct. If they're not correct, he should be collecting evidence to weigh in. He did none of that.
Fauci's pardon stretches back to 2014, when he was authorizing funding in contravention of U.S. policy on gain-of-function research. Do you think he actually committed a crime?
Yes. The other thing about it is people will say, did that money go directly for this research? The money went for viral genomic research at a Chinese institute, very similar to the sorts of things we would be worried about. That was a crime for which he's been pardoned. It's not just my assessment. That's what Joe Biden's autopen thought, or whoever signed that pardon, that he committed a crime. That's why he has a pardon that goes that far back. It was a crime. Now that he's been pardoned for it, I don't know what you can do about it.
You rode in on this wave of anti-Faucism. What was your biggest hope for what a new version of public health might look like, or for the kinds of changes that could be made?
I had a very narrow mandate because I was just in charge of biologics at the FDA. The hope continues, which is that public health could aspire to be honest, to use its powers proportionately and judiciously, to exercise humility. Public health is far from these things. Public health could actually aspire to be bipartisan. Public health is not. It's becoming an increasingly entrenched left-wing discipline run by left-wing ideologues, reaching even more and more absurd conclusions. What public health can be and what it is are still light-years apart.
You don't think that has changed very much?
Not much at all. Changing an entrenched organization with tens of thousands of people is very difficult. There have been some changes. The pandemic has been a catalyst. But I don't think a real reform is possible. I suspect it'll splinter into different public health groups.
Your role was at the part of the FDA that oversees biologics, such as vaccines and gene therapies. Vaccines became an increasingly polarized and politicized issue during COVID. What was your goal specifically pertaining to vaccines when you took over after the pandemic?
The right drug given to the right person at the right time is lifesaving, but the wrong drug given to the wrong person at the wrong time can be harmful. Vaccines are the same way. You can't say anything about all vaccines, just like you can't say anything about Tylenol, aspirin, and Plavix all in the same breath. They're all very different drugs.
Is this the same phenomenon we observed during COVID, where you're either for the vaccine or you're against it, for a medicine or against it, without breaking things down by age, health, or other individual factors? Everything has to be flattened or compressed.
Same phenomenon. One-size-fits-all public health—where the shoe doesn't fit the guy with the big foot or the person with the small foot—is a completely wrong view of public health. COVID is a great example. An 80-year-old who's never had COVID, and we're talking about February of 2021, should they get a vaccine? Absolutely. A 7-year-old who's had COVID and we're talking about 2022? No, a healthy 7-year-old makes no sense. Public health is, in this country, so broken. It cannot appreciate these distinctions.
Something you've been writing about for a long time is poor experimental design in drug trials. Was that something you wanted to change when you came into the FDA? Do you feel like you made any progress toward that goal?
In one year, we did more than what our predecessors have done in a decade. You can look at just the sheer number of announcements and policy changes we made. We're talking a lot about one side of the coin, which is where the companies are not doing the right study to inform the American public. We're not talking about the other side of the coin, where the FDA is asking them to do things that don't make any sense at all, that burden them, that cost money, and that are wasteful. We did a lot of work in that space too. The FDA makes both errors. They also do a lot of things right, but they make both errors and they can get better.
You mentioned there were two sides of this FDA reform. One was raising standards for things like vaccines. The other was acknowledging how expensive and cumbersome it can be to get something approved in the United States. What were the biggest barriers you saw at the FDA on that side of the equation?
So many. During my time at the FDA, I was often sympathetic to the people who work at companies who told me about the hurdles they were forced to jump through. The FDA does two things: We regulate what's approved and can be marketed and sold on the U.S. market, but also what you can study.
Imagine you're a researcher and you want to study something. We're not talking about approving. You want to gather people together who may be interested in trying something new, have an informed consent, get them to volunteer, but they know that we don't know for sure it's going to work. We do so many things in that space, regulating what you can study and how you can study it, that I think are sensible. You don't want to let people sign up for something that's going to blind them or maim them. But some things that aren't sensible, that are overly burdensome, that are quality controls that don't make sense for small companies and super-rare diseases that don't have a huge budget to study these things. The regulation in this early side of research is tremendous in the United States. A lot of it is well-intentioned, but not all of it is fit for purpose.
You said that your time within the FDA made you somewhat more sympathetic to the libertarian critiques of the FDA.
I'm really sympathetic in one way: We tax people a lot of money to pay for healthcare in America—trillions of dollars. We're taking trillions of dollars from people's paychecks, from taxation, and we're taking it for this thing that we think is a benefit to people, which is we're going to offer a service that's maybe a human right, a societal good. Surely, the service we offer, we do have some of that stuff in there. If you have a heart attack, you go to the doctor here with or without insurance, they're going to open up that blockage. That's a great thing. But along with that package deal, we're going to insert a few things that may or may not work, that cost a lot of money. All that's doing is taking lots of money from taxpayers and redistributing it to the shareholders of those companies.
It's a huge financial system with the rare adverse event of helping someone's health. The libertarian comes along and says, "I'd rather not pay the tax—have more skin in the game, decide what's right for me. I'm the best person to decide how to use my own money." I do feel a sympathy to that point of view, because this system has so many places where it can be taken advantage of, where people get something that doesn't help that much, that only may kill without any possibility of benefit. And we take a lot of other people's money to pay for that.
Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, recently called out the FDA, and I'm wondering what you think of this. He wrote, "Regulatory systems were designed for a slower pace of innovation and we are not prepared for the deluge of new products and advances that AI will bring. AI may also make these downstream technologies safer and more predictable in a way that violates the skeptical assumptions of regulatory agencies like the FDA."
If Amodei is right about the effect AI is going to have on the field, do you think the FDA will be able to adapt?
I see kernels of truth in what he's saying, but maybe I don't go all the way he goes. Where I see the big core truth is the FDA tries to regulate AI itself, medical AI. You wear a watch that's supposed to give you information and the FDA wants to do a lot of that regulation. That's a very tough thing to regulate, because this technology is changing so much faster than our ability to judge it. I do agree with Marty and others who think that that's probably not the best role for regulating all the potential aspects of digital health and health AI. For instance, you can imagine the absurdity where I'm a doctor, I'm seeing a patient later this afternoon, should government regulate the apps I can use to learn about the disease or ask questions? Should it regulate open evidence? I don't think it should.
I spoke to a company called Doctronic that is acting as an AI prescriber in Utah, where AI is being allowed to refill prescriptions. That's another example of where these questions are going to have to be answered: Where does the government step in, and where does it step back?
Government is much more likely to get in the way of these kinds of innovations. It's changing so quickly. It's going to be very difficult for government to regulate that. You talk about drug discovery and drug science and those kinds of aspects of AI. If I was a pharmaceutical firm, I would definitely invest in AI. There's so many things around running clinical trials that we can do better with AI, help us run them cheaper and faster and more efficiently.
But when it comes to molecule discovery and basic science, I'm not as optimistic as Dario for a couple of reasons. One, a lot of the information that is fed into models about cancer biology is basically as close to fraudulent research as you can imagine. We're talking about like the Stanford president whose Western blots look Photoshopped kind of research. You got research that's not reproducible. It's not just my opinion. Many companies have taken samples of the literature and they tried to replicate it in their own labs and they have massive strikeout rates. If you train AI on garbage, what can it learn? It's only trained on inaccurate information. That's a challenge it faces.
The second challenge is AI will be happy to give you hypotheses to study, but you'll still need to run it with a few people to validate those hypotheses. I suspect the limiting reactant is not coming up with ideas; we have more ideas than we can study with people. The limiting reactant is getting the people to consent and manufacturing the products and those kinds of things.
I hope he's right. If he is right, it sounds like a great future. But I'm a little bit skeptical that he's totally right, because I think the biology of it is a lot harder.
Do you think enough has happened for people to start regaining trust in public health?
No way. I wouldn't trust it at all.
What still needs to happen for public health to legitimately earn back the trust of the public?
I don't know if it's even possible. It's so fragmented now. People tell you with a straight face, people I know, "Anthony Fauci, he made no mistakes. Literally, did the best job he could with the information he had." Then I said, let's just focus on one tiny thing. He did say you should take your 24-month-old kid and put a cloth mask on that kid all day in daycare. He said that. You don't think he had any clues at the time that that was a dumb idea? It's so obviously dumb, right? That's their position on every issue.
Public health is so myopic. It doesn't understand that you have to look at the whole issue. Isn't that a perfect analogy for COVID? Don't go outside. Just stay in your house all day. As if human beings don't need contact with other people and see face to face as if that doesn't matter at all.
Public health has not learned its lesson. The problem with public health is that they're completely politically captured now. Public health and the far left wing of the Democratic Party are synonyms. There's no political balance there. A little balance would go a long way. A little bit of open-mindedness would go a long way in public health. A little bit of humility to just admit a few things we got wrong in the pandemic.
The federal public health apparatus is still staffed with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the top and Jay Bhattacharya is still head of the National Institutes of Health. Is that not having some sort of trickle-down effect or creating a countercurrent within the system?
I don't know.
Don't get me wrong, I love Jay and I think Jay's heart's in the right place. He's already made some really important changes. I agree a lot with the kernel of Bobby's ideas. I agree with the kernel. I always say the kernel because I can think of a way that makes sense and I can sometimes think of ways it doesn't make sense.
But before I went to government, people told me that there is a fourth branch of government and it's the career state employees. I never believed that to be true, but now I'm certain that it's true. You have a lot of people who are in government. They tend to be in just three or four counties in one area, the blue pocket of America. They have strong views, and they really do a lot of the governance of this country. They make the decisions that regulate all of us in a way that's unaccountable to Congress and unaccountable to the president. I suspect they'll continue to stay. The COVID pandemic revealed to so many people that we made mistakes and that distrust in medicine and public health will just continue to grow and that there will continue to be more of these reckonings in the years to come.
How did working at the FDA affect your own confidence as a consumer in the regulatory system?
It gives me a little bit of pause sometimes. I like to trust but verify. I am cautious always with new therapies and particularly cautious that some safety information is being missed. It also makes me a bit more libertarian. I can imagine a system where we give people in America greater flexibility in what kind of products they can try. Maybe there's some third-party agencies, Consumer Reports–style agencies, that give different levels of quality and seals of approval of different products, and people can choose what they want and also have a little bit more skin in the game and use their own money. The moment you start to use your own money, suddenly tiny changes in surrogate biomarkers and elevated liver enzymes take on greater importance in a way that might not exist if you're using commercial insurance to pay for it.
Is it that you saw something inherent to the process that creates problems, holes, or gaps?
The fundamental idea that there's this one-size-fits-all balance where safety and efficacy is acceptable. What might be acceptable to you and acceptable to me might be different. I might want a little bit more efficacy information, a little bit more safety validation, and you might be willing to try more. The idea that a single monolithic government agency in the suburbs of D.C. can set that bar for every single person in America, that to me is a tougher pill to swallow now.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.
Ukraine's military satellite links work at full speed again after a cap that hobbled its drones, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on 24 October. Hours later, SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who earlier pointed at Washington, said his company had enforced its own rules. A Ukrainian presidential adviser and a drone volunteer replied that civilian Starlink could not fly such missions.
Ukraine holds off Russia with American tools it doesn't control, so any pause decided abroad, like stalled Patriot deliveries or the Starlink cap, opens gaps in its defense. With no stated rule on what Ukraine's forces may do, the next cutoff could again come unannounced and unexplained.
Kyiv records full speed again
The ministry recorded stable connections above 400 km/h (250 mph). Before, Kyiv said, links on Starlink and its military version, Starshield, cut out above 161 km/h (100 mph).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the restoration began overnight. "The speeds are now where they need to be," he said, citing defense against jet-powered Shahed drones. He thanked US lawmakers, the media, the State Department, and the US President, but not Musk or SpaceX.
A Ukrainian soldier installs a Starlink terminal. Illustrative photo: Armed Forces of Ukraine
Musk: "That loophole was closed last week"
Musk replied "Correct" to an X user who called Starlink "not a weapons system." "Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week," he wrote.
Correct.
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.
Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.
He called Starshield "a different system" the US government controls, and warned: "Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact."
Musk named no evidence, cases, or time frames. Overnight, he answered a headline on the US financial blog ZeroHedge saying he "admits" SpaceX throttled Starlink.
"We simply enforced our terms of service when they were bypassed. There has been no change to our terms of service," Musk wrote.
Explore further
Who capped Ukraine’s Starlink? “Ultimately POTUS,” Musk said. Ultimately Musk, reports now say
When the cap hit on 14 October, Musk wrote that the US government owns and controls Starshield and that the US military and "ultimately POTUS" decide any limits. US President Donald Trump, who credited Musk with the fix while Kyiv still saw the cap, said on 24 October he had spoken to Musk about Ukraine but gave no details.
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk in the Oval Office on 11 February 2025. Photo: White House / Daniel Torok
Ukrainians note contradiction to reality
Ukrainian presidential adviser on defense technology Serhii Beskrestnov, known by the callsign Flash, wrote:
"It is very strange that Elon Musk doesn't know about the restrictions on Starlink operations in Ukraine."
Since winter 2026, every Starlink terminal over Ukraine, occupied areas included, has been limited to 70–90 km/h (43–56 mph), he said, and over Russia, Starlink does not work. "So we PHYSICALLY CANNOT USE COMMERCIAL STARLINK for deep strikes and mid-range strikes," Beskrestnov wrote. Deep strikes hit targets far inside Russia, mid-range ones targets closer to the front.
Ukrainian activist and drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko called Musk's claim untrue. He said Ukraine introduced whitelists of terminals in February, and any terminal used on the move had to be listed and connected to Starshield.
"So using civilian Starlink for drone missions was technically impossible. All drone missions that needed satellite communication could be carried out only with Starshield," Sternenko added.
European governments help pay for Ukraine's Starlink service. Germany funds it under a contract that runs until April 2027. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, whose country pays around $50 million a year for the service, said on 23 October: "Mixing business with politics usually ends badly, especially when we talk about Elon Musk."
Former US president Barack Obama delivered scathing criticisms of his successor, Donald Trump, at rallies in Ohio and Michigan to support Democratic candidates ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.
Der Kaukasus ist ein geopolitisch genauso komplizierte, wie wichtige Region, in der das kleine Land Armenien mit seinen nur etwa 3 Millionen Einwohnern, das wohl nur wenige Menschen in Deutschland und Europa auf Anhieb auf der Landkarte finden würden, eine sehr wichtige Rolle spielt. Wie wichtig Armenien ist, sieht man beispielsweise daran, dass die USA […]
Hay portadas sobre temas de los que todos hablan; otras, de asuntos de los que nadie se atreve a discutir. También están aquellas que dan que hablar, las que tratan cuestiones sobre las que jamás pensaste que podrías tener una opinión y las que dan voz a alguien para que cuente lo que nadie ha contado. Las 219 portadas aquí recopiladas contienen todas estas categorías. Desde el primer número, que abordaba el tema del aborto cuando pocos se atrevían a hacerlo, hasta el relato de aquellas horas que Antonio Muñoz Molina compartió con Salman Rushdie, a quien el integrismo quería silenciar para siempre. También están las portadas publicadas en plena pandemia de la covid, que aportaban contenido a la conversación que todos queríamos tener. Y luego está Millás y su biografía de una mosca. Jamás pensamos que su vida nos llegaría a interesar tanto. Así es El País Semanal, la parte del periódico que es revista y la revista que más se asemeja a un periódico.
Former US president Barack Obama delivered scathing criticisms of his successor, Donald Trump, at rallies in Ohio and Michigan to support Democratic candidates ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.
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