In short:

The Democratic Party has captured control of Congress at the midterm elections, after a string of victories that reached deep into Republican strongholds.

Seven Senate seats and two dozen in the House flipped toward the Democrats, paving the way for the opposition to take over the Republicans' slim majorities in both chambers.

What's next?

US President Donald Trump has said he will accept the results while claiming the Democrats are "really not in control" because he can veto some legislation.

The US president will face hurdles during his next two years in office, where he will no longer have the numbers to advance his legislative agenda without bipartisan support.

A Democrat-controlled House is also likely to bring more aggressive oversight of the Trump administration, with more investigations, subpoenas and congressional hearings.

A major upset was also seen in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton.

Mr Talarico became the first blue candidate to win statewide in Texas since 1994, and the first to be elected to the Senate in 38 years.

The article mentions a large student demonstration in Australia on 12 November. If anyone knows about it please post any details as I can't get through the paywall for The Advertiser in the link.

In short:

Spanish authorities say they have identified 69 victims of the crash between two high-speed trains in Spain, including two Australians.

The accident was Spain's second high-speed train collision this year and raised fresh questions about the country's rail safety, after a crash in the southern region of Andalusia in January killed 46 people.

What's next?

DFAT says it is providing consular assistance to the families of the two Australians.

Many of these companies are hoping to capitalize on gen Z’s growing weariness about the devices and social media platforms they grew up with. Nearly 60% of gen Z respondents identified as having a social media addiction in an April poll, and a third of the generation said they had deleted some of those apps, according to a 2025 survey.

The shift has also been driven by growing anger at tech platforms that have left some in gen Z feeling as if they are being exploited for profit.

Gen Z “was basically optimized for dopamine by very smart systems”, said Kenneth Schlenker, 39, a former product marketer at Google and co-founder of Opal. “But this generation is also realizing what they don’t want and are trying to change how the system impacts them.”

On election day, Netanyahu repeatedly attacked Palestinian-Israeli voters in posts on social media. He accused them of "stealing the election" because they had turned up to vote in record numbers. He accused the "Arab parties" of "serious criminal offences of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilise voters".

In Israel, the parties that predominantly represent Palestinian Israeli citizens are referred to as Arab parties.

Election officials and the police dismissed the claims.

In attacking the legitimacy of the Palestinian vote, Benjamin Netanyahu is maximising the pressure on the Eisenkot bloc not to change its position on doing deals with the Palestinians.

In a political system where the disdain for Palestinian-Israelis is such that they are usually just ignored in the reporting of political events, it would be an exceptionally high-risk move for the opposition parties to change their stance. But the anti-Netanyahu bloc is also aware that the majority of Israelis — Jewish and Palestinian — voted against Netanyahu.

If they do not find a way of forming a government, the veteran Likud leader will win by default: yet another election will have to be called with Netanyahu remaining caretaker prime minister until that happens.

In short:

Australian authorities are working to confirm the wellbeing of two Australians after the deadly train crash in Spain.

A statement from DFAT says consular assistance is being provided to the family of two Australians in connection to the collision.

The crash in central Spain has killed at least 69 people.

In short:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to mount a major offensive to "destroy" parts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

It comes after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint.

What's next?

Mr Netanyahu has also threatened to broaden the assault across the West Bank.

Interesting to see in 3D graphic form how the top 500 listed companies in the US are placed and how the Tech industry giants are becoming sort of incestuous. Also after reading what is going on I feel like I've gluttonised on lollies and now it's chunder time

DE-PAYWALLED ARCHIVE LINK: https://archive.is/mAObP

World’s worst measles outbreak a ‘warning’ to other nations

Ruma Paul, Jennifer Rigby, Sam Jahan and Zia Chowdhury
October 17, 2026 — 1:00pm

Sylhet: Bangladesh is battling to contain the world’s worst measles outbreak, a crisis exacerbated by weak data, inadequate outreach and vaccination gaps that experts say offers a warning to other nations about the deadly risk of falling immunisation rates.

Bangladesh, whose routine vaccination programme faltered in 2025, reported 202,000 suspected measles cases – 22,000 of them laboratory-confirmed – since the start of the outbreak in mid-March to October 9, the World Health Organization said. That’s more suspected cases than any other country this year.

A child infected with measles receives treatment at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in April. NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

So far, 1147 people have died of the highly contagious disease, with 94 per cent of reported deaths among children under five years old, the WHO said.

Bangladesh’s experience shows the challenge of containing an outbreak when vaccination coverage falls below 95 per cent, a level the WHO says is needed to prevent outbreaks. Bangladesh almost achieved that in recent years, but in 2025 coverage dropped.

A Reuters review of WHO documents, alongside interviews with more than a dozen scientists, health workers and officials, shows Bangladesh was also hampered in its emergency response by data that left out millions of children, shortcomings in preparation and a failure to reach enough parents.

“This is a real warning to every country,” said Mark Jit, a WHO vaccine adviser and professor at the School of Global Public Health at New York University. Preventing an outbreak through vaccinations was easier, cheaper and safer than responding to an emergency, he said.

“The response will stop the outbreak eventually, but in the meantime, many will have had measles, and some will have died,” he said.

Ziauddin Hyder, special assistant on health affairs to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, told Reuters in September the government was doing everything it could to end the outbreak. The government did not respond to further questions sent in October for this article.

In the north-east Sylhet region, one of the worst-hit areas in the nation of 178 million people, two-year-old Arman Hossain died unvaccinated in July, 24 hours after admission to hospital for treatment paid for by selling the family’s three-wheeled auto rickshaw. His unvaccinated four-year-old sister survived.

His father Amin Mia, 26, said no health workers came to their remote village in Sylhet to offer vaccinations in time. “They came only after I buried my son,” he said.

Children receive treatment for measles at Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute in Dhaka. NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Measles usually kills two or three people in every 1000 cases, the WHO says, but the disease can be more deadly in poorer nations because of factors such as malnutrition.

In the town of Chhatak, also in the Sylhet region, the daughter of 30-year-old carpenter Humayun Rashid died unvaccinated in June aged nine months. Labiba Akter could have received an inoculation in April when an emergency program lowered the vaccination age to six months from nine. “No health worker came to tell us,” her father said.

In May, Health Minister Sardar Md. Sakhawat Husain said the emergency drive had brought cases in hotspots “almost to zero” and the outbreak was under control.

Yet in September, Bangladesh reported a daily average of 1198 new cases of measles, which causes a high fever, cough and telltale rash. That was the highest total since May.

The Bangladesh outbreak comes as vaccine hesitancy is rising, particularly in wealthier nations, amid scepticism championed by figures such as US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Until recently, Bangladesh had been a vaccination success story. The WHO and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimated that in 2024 it achieved 96 per cent coverage for the first vaccine dose and 93 per cent for the second, which is given to capture the small percentage of children who don’t develop immunity after one shot.

But that same year, protests erupted that ended 15 years of rule by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In the ensuing political turmoil, health workers went on strike, vaccine orders were delayed and follow-up vaccinations that usually accompany routine programmes were disrupted.

In a report published in July this year, WHO and UNICEF estimated first-dose coverage in 2025 had fallen to 90 per cent, while second-dose coverage was 86 per cent, several percentage points below the 95 per cent needed for herd immunity.

Still, when the measles outbreak erupted, Bangladesh responded swiftly and initially seemed to be winning the battle. An emergency program was followed by an initial slowdown in new cases after almost 20 million children received a vaccination in April and May. The government said it had covered every child in the target age group of six months to five years.

But in reality the program fell short. This emerged when another routine health intervention in June had a target list with 4 million more children than the measles campaign despite covering the same age group.

“There is a gap,” prime ministerial adviser Hyder told Reuters on September 14, as measles cases rose again, blaming vaccine hesitancy by parents or child illnesses for keeping kids away.

“When preparedness checks are not done properly, it is often the poorest and hardest-to-reach children who miss out on vaccination and pay the price,” said Professor Mahmudur Rahman, an epidemiologist and chair of Bangladesh’s National Verification Committee for Measles and Rubella Elimination.

In Sylhet, where official records show 180 children have died, eigth of 16 families Reuters interviewed in September said they had not seen health workers offering vaccinations. At least six families said health workers visited only after a child had died from measles in their community.

At the end of September, the government launched a new campaign to target 3.4 million children previously missed. “We will involve people across villages so that no child is left behind,” the health minister told a news conference.

Yet reaching every child remains a challenge. UNICEF and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics say as many as 40 per cent of children go unregistered, while government data showed about a third of health worker posts are unfilled.

Reuters

[There are] structural flaws in the online advertising system, which essentially failed to detect or prevent the abuse.

Discover-Tech advertisements have popped up on devices used by personnel in national-security-sensitive networks around the world, including those of various ministries of defence, armed forces, national cyber agencies, intergovernmental organisations and media outlets, Citizen Lab found.

The research unit said these advertisements have also appeared on networks used by the United Nations, NATO, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union’s General Secretariat.

Government networks have also been targeted in at least 24 countries, including the United States, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Russia, Mexico and Israel itself. Networks of media organisations have also been targeted, mainly in Australia, Denmark and Sweden, according to Citizen Lab.

In a separate report, New York-based advertising security firm Confiant said its own investigations had found that some of Discover-Tech’s advertisements also appeared in critical networks used by the Pentagon, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Criminal Court.

What an effing relief. Yet,

In a social media post, Mr Trump said publicly airing the execution "might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan".

How does America deal with those that murder children in the thousands? Oh, right, you give them even more weapons. The hipocrIsy is nauseating.

In short:

Thousands of students, teachers and parents have taken to the streets across France on the biggest day of action against understaffed and dilapidated classrooms.

In Strasbourg, Lyon and Rennes, the demonstrations at times have turned violent.

What's next?

The interior ministry says 256,000 people have taken part across the country, while union organisers put the figure at 450,000.

The interior ministry said 256,000 people protested nationwide, while union organisers put the figure at 450,000.

More than two weeks of class boycotts and school blockades, and policing that has led to more than 6,100 arrests, mostly of minors, have become a flashpoint in the early days of the presidential election campaign.

Classes were totally or partially suspended on Tuesday at 891 schools, according to the Education Ministry.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez defended policing methods used against high-schoolers, despite a growing list of gruesome injuries blamed on officers' riot-control weapons.

The latest was a 15-year-old boy who lost a hand on Monday in an incident involving a police stun grenade.

In short:

Protesters camped out in Madrid's iconic Sol square held a minute of silence after hearing the news of Maricarmen Abascal's passing.

She had been evicted from the apartment she had lived in for 70 years.

What's next?

The protests prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to call an early election for November 29.

The 87-year-old Spanish woman whose eviction sparked nationwide protest has died.

Maricarmen Abascal was hospitalised after she was evicted from the apartment she had lived in for seven decades.

America and China are locked in a race for AI dominance. As the warnings about an AI catastrophe get louder, whether the two countries can work together is becoming an increasingly pressing issue.

... Kevin Rudd who is now president of Asia Society, has spent decades studying how Xi Jinping thinks. As Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Mr Rudd also watched Donald Trump’s White House at close quarters. He joins David Rennie, The Economist’s geopolitics editor, to assess the recent summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump and examine what it means...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4wrmRXyxlE

In short:

G7 countries are set to release up to 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil reserves.

It comes amid soaring fuel prices and after clashes between European leaders and Donald Trump.

The US president is under political pressure in America over rising energy costs, which have been sparked by the US-Israeli war with Iran.

...Fossil fuel interests have funded all the anti-trans hysteria in the US for this exact reason. They don't have to win the argument on climate if they can just angertainment.

I didn't know there was certainty around the funding for this attack campaign against our trans minorities.

Does anyone have anymore information backing this claim he makes about fossil fuel interests funding it?

In short:

Hundreds of wheelchairs, donated by two Australian charities to help injured children in Gaza, are stuck in warehouses in Jordan due to Israeli restrictions.

The shipments are sitting in storage facilities managed by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization.

What's next?

Israel says it has approved the entry of thousands of wheelchairs into Gaza "without any quantitative restrictions".

US President Donald Trump labelled concerns about AI "a hoax" during a speech to the UNGA.

Professor Yoshua Bengio, one of the 'Godfathers' of AI has pushed back against those comments.

Professor Bengio will address the UN Security Council.

I saw Bengio interviewed tonight on 7.30. I thought what he has to say is worth listening to.

She fit perfectly the description that George W. Bush gave of his countrymen in his second acceptance speech:

"... sturdy and honest, and hopeful as the break of day."

With innocent delight she told me about her wonderful luck in business. She and her husband lived in Florida; they owned a furniture factory in the Caribbean which earned them extraordinary amounts of money. They were very rich. God had guided and protected them all the way.

...

"It’s amazing!" she marvelled. "We are so blessed! You know, we hardly have to pay the workers anything!"

It seems that, like the powerful all through history, we in the prosperous West have been blind to the most fundamental of truths: that all human beings truly are of equal worth. Without this knowledge rooted in blood and sinew and bone, we’ve taken it for granted that somehow, we matter more than the rest.

So we’ve fallen into what is, in fact, exploitation