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Pope Francis greets the crowd during a short appearance at Gemelli hospital, in Rome, on Sunday, March 23, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Pope returns to Vatican, Canadian PM calls snap election, Trump targets legal entry migrants, South Korean PM reinstated, US auto importers hit the gas, Orlando cops recover swallowed earrings
5: Pope Francis is back home at the Vatican. On Sunday, the 88-year-old pontiff was discharged from hospital, where he has been fighting double pneumonia for five weeks. The pope, who looked frail as he made his first public appearance since Valentine’s Day, has been advised by doctors that he will need to continue to convalesce for the next two months.
37: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, leader of the Liberal Party, called a snap federal election on Sunday in Ottawa. The move launched a swift, five-week campaign — it will last just 37 days, the minimum duration required by law — in a bid to keep up the Liberals’ current momentum. The party is ahead of the Conservatives in some polls, having come back from a steep deficit just two months ago, but behind by a few points in others.
530,000: Washington has pulled the welcome mat out from under 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Migrants who came to the US under President Joe Biden’s legal entry parole program over the past two years learned on Friday that President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration will soon be retroactive. As of April 24, they will be stripped of legal status, and the administration is encouraging them to self-report – or face possible arrest and deportation.
7-1: South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo is no longer impeached. The country’s Constitutional Court overturned his impeachment on Monday, reinstating him in a 7-1 ruling. Observers do not see it as a sign that President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose brief imposition of martial law in December sparked these legal matters, will also see his impeachment overturned.
22: Carmakers have thrown their shipments of vehicles and automotive components into high gear in anticipation of the 25% tariffs to be imposed by the Trump administration on April 2 on imports from Mexico and Canada as well as reciprocal tariffs on other US trading partners. Many fear the tariff regime will upend auto supply chains, so manufacturers are sending more vehicles than normal, leading to a 22% year-on-year increase of such shipments from the EU to the US in February — and 14% and 15% increases from Japan and South Korea respectively.
769,500: We’ve all heard of swallowing one’s pride, but one’s crime? Jaythan Gilder, 32, allegedly swallowed two sets of Tiffany & Co. earrings worth $769,500 around the time of his arrest more than two weeks ago on robbery and grand theft charges. Gilder was monitored by detectives at an Orlando hospital until the jewels were, uh, expelled from his system. The earrings, which match the ones taken from an Orlando Tiffany store last month, have been returned to the retailer (and thoroughly cleaned).
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko take part in a signing ceremony following a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus in Minsk, Belarus, on Dec. 6, 2024.
Viewpoint: With Putin’s protection, is Lukashenko’s reelection in Belarus a foregone conclusion?
Ahead of Sunday’s election in Belarus, there is little doubt that Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, will win a new term in office. After the protests that erupted following the 2020 elections, threatening his grip on power for the first time, a government crackdown supported by Russia has eliminated any opposition to the president.
Yet a new term for the 70-year-old leader, who has complained about health problems, will likely raise questions about potential succession planning in his next term. Regardless of what comes next, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who considers neighboring Belarus a critical part of his country’s sphere of influence, will make sure its interests are protected.
We sat down with Eurasia Group expert Alex Brideau to learn more about the upcoming election.
What do we know about Lukashenko’s true level of support?
Lukashenko has been in power for more than 30 years, ever since he won Belarus’ first and only genuine democratic presidential election, held in 1994 a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, it has been hard to tell just how genuine Lukashenko’s public support is. He has routinely won reelection in votes that were neither free nor fair. Many of his challengers have been arrested for standing against him.
Lukashenko’s reelection in 2020, though, demonstrated that whatever popularity he previously enjoyed had eroded and that his hold on power looked shaky. Public outcry over manipulated results that showed another landslide victory against a credible opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, prompted major demonstrations that threatened Lukashenko’s hold on power for months. Major repression by the security forces and support from Russia allowed him to regain control of the situation.
Is there any chance of a repeat of the 2020 results or unrest?
This election is going to look very different from the anger of five years ago. Belarus’ security services continue to repress the formal opposition. Parties have been banned and their leaders have been arrested or forced to flee the country. Attempts to protest the results will be met with arrests and force, most likely. The regime may hope that holding the election in January instead of August, as happened in 2020, might limit the appetite for demonstrations. As for the election itself, there is little mystery as to who will win. Lukashenko won’t have a serious challenger, instead facing candidates who are considered to be loyal opposition.
What matters with this vote?
Given his age and past statements suggesting he is concerned about his health, there will be at least some question as to whether Lukashenko might consider a succession plan during his new term. Lukashenko has talked about stepping aside before, only to stay firmly in charge. And it’s doubtful that a succession plan would truly lead to him giving up his control. Lukashenko’s control of the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly gives him a way to exert power if he decided he wanted to transfer the presidency to a loyalist.
How do outside powers view the election?
Russia will recognize the election results, allowing it to maintain its influence over Belarus. Lukashenko isn’t exactly liked in Moscow. His leadership has been considered erratic, and he has thumbed his nose at Moscow’s interests at times when it either helped him at home or when he tried (and failed) to cozy up to the West. But he has become even more dependent on Russian economic and military support since 2020, as Western governments imposed heavier sanctions and even restricted air travel from Belarus. Putin’s policies have treated Belarus much the same way he has approached Ukraine, seeing it as an integral part of Russia’s sphere of influence. Russia has used a bilateral “Union State” treaty from 1999 to boost its role in the country. If there were a crisis stemming from the election, Moscow could very well intervene to ensure that its control was intact.
How about the West?
The US and EU members, meanwhile, will not consider the election legitimate. But so far they aren’t saying all that much. Having already imposed a large number of sanctions against the economy and Belarusian leaders both before and after the 2020 crackdown, there is only so much they are able to do to affect Lukashenko’s control.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor of Eurasia Group.
Heavily armed police officers secure the scene. A car has crashed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg. Several people are killed and many injured.
Germany grapples with extremism after Christmas market attack
The Saudi doctor accused of killing 5 people in the Magdeburg Christmas market on Friday appeared in a German court on Saturday.Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was charged with five counts of murder, multiple attempted murder and multiple counts of dangerous bodily harm in an attack which also wounded over 200 people. One of those killed was9-year old André Gleißner, described by his mother in a social media post as “my little teddy bear”. A GoFundMe for the family has raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Anger is growing over missed opportunities to prevent the attack. Riyadhhad flagged the suspect to German authorities last summer,citing a post where he threatened that Germany would “pay a price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees. At the same time, al-Abdulmohsen called himself a“Saudi atheist” and evinced sympathies for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
On Friday, the AfD held a 2000-person rally at a memorial site near the market, calling for “Remigration”, and chanting “Migration Kills.” The incident has putmigration and national security front and center in Germany’s upcoming national election, anticipated for February 23. The AfD is currently polling at around 19%, second only to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at around 33%, but all other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with them.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives to address the media ahead of the commencement of the Winter Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on Monday, Nov. 25.
Modi’s party posts landslide election victories
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party scored a big political win over the weekend. After losing its parliamentary majority in national elections in June, the BJP posted a landslide victory in a state election inMaharashtra, India’s wealthiest state and home to Mumbai, the country’s financial capital. The BJP ran in this election as the head of an alliance that includes two smaller parties.
This victory in India’s second most populous state, combined with a victory last month in the northern state of Haryana, will reduce the reliance of Modi’s BJP on unpredictable allies to move legislation forward at the national level.
Modi also notched a political victory by holding peaceful elections in the violence-plagued territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Though his party didn’t win there, the elections themselves helped to legitimize Modi’s 2019 controversial decision to downgrade the troubled province’s status from state to “union territory,” a move that revoked its previous autonomy and allowed for it to be ruled directly from Delhi.
How did Modi’s BJP-led alliance win big in a year that has seen incumbent parties take political losses in South Africa, France, the UK, Japan, the US, and India itself? In part, the win was secured with cash payments and increased subsidies from the government, politically motivated decisions that will threaten the longer-term fiscal health of these states.
File Photo: Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Simon Harris speaks to reporters after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 9, 2024.
Ireland preps for an election sprint
Thankfully, not every election campaign lasts for two years. On Tuesday, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said he will call aparliamentary election later this week, and the vote will likely be held on or about Nov. 29.
The timing comes as no surprise. Last month, Harris’ government gave voters a package of tax cuts and new spending that totals more than 10 billion euros, andFine Gael, his center-right party, is now polling in first place. It’s also important thatFianna Fail, his coalition partner, is now polling in second place.
When Irish voters have gone to the polls in recent years, the popularity of Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition and a nationalist party with historic ties to the Irish Republican Army, a terrorist group, has been the focus of poll and election analysis. For now,Sinn Fein is polling in third place, but election campaigns can quickly shake up the political dynamic. In recent years, Sinn Fein’s leadership has played down the issue of reunification with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, to focus its message instead on economic and healthcare issues.
US Capitol building at in the morning sun. Washington DC, USA The US Capitol building in the early morning at sunrise.
Election Countdown: The 6 congressional races to watch
While eyes around the globe will be on the US presidency this Election Day, there are consequential races further down the ballot that will determine how much power Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will wield. A handful of Senate and House races will decide which party has the power to advance or stymie the next president’s agenda.
Going into election night, 538 forecasters give Republicans a 92% chance of winning the Senate, but experts say the House could be anyone’s game. The Senate is likely to be called on election night, but because of slow counting in California, the results in the House are unlikely to be called before the end of the week at the earliest.
Here are the key races to watch.
Senate
Democrats currently hold a narrow 51-49 majority but are facing an almost certain loss in West Virginia. That means that Republicans only need to capture one more race to win the majority. This is a pretty comfortable spot for the GOP to be in. Meanwhile, Democrats rely on dramatically outperforming in the polls or performing miracles and expanding their map by winning states like Texas or Florida.
Thirty-four seats are up for grabs, and 10 races are expected to determine the balance of power: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Nebraska, Maryland, and Texas.
Arizona offers a race of political extremes. Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is stepping down, and progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego and Trump-darling Kari Lake are vying to take her spot. Lake, who lost the governor’s race in 2022 and continues to insist the election was “stolen,” has been encroaching on Gallego’s lead in the polls in recent days. Gallego’s slight edge is being attributed to his popularity among Latino voters, who make up 25% of the electorate.
Michigan, meanwhile, is a competition between centrists. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is retiring, and mainstream Republican Mike Rogers – a former Trump critic who has since embraced him – is facing outgoing Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is using her national security background to win over centrists in and around Detroit.
The race has been tied in the final weeks of the election, and some of the biggest issues are reproductive rights and the candidates’ support for electric vehicles – a hot topic in a state that is home to the Big Three auto manufacturers.
In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, is fighting to keep his seat in the solidly red state against Trump-backed Bernie Moreno. Brown has lost what was once a commanding lead in recent weeks and is now polling behind Moreno by one point. The race has drawn $500 million in ad spending, more than any Senate race in history.
Control of the Senate could very well hinge on this state, which has voted twice for Trump and is likely to do so for a third time this year. Brown has held on to power in the past by focusing on local issues and evading questions about national political figures but has suffered from attack ads framing him as being far-left on transgender issues. But Democrats need this state if they have any chance of keeping their majority.
House of Representatives
Control of the House, like everything in this election, is expected to be incredibly close. All 435 seats are on the line, and, likely, whichever party wins control will do so by just a few seats. The Republicans are on the defense and need to control their slim majority, while Democrats need to gain four seats to flip the chamber. Democrat’s lead has declined as the election approached, with their margin slipping to just 0.5 points over the Republicans, down from 2.6 in early September.
New York’s 19th district is one of the most expensive House races in the 2024 election, with Democrats seeing flipping the seat as key to their efforts to regain control of the House. Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro faces a rematch against Democrat Josh Riley in this swing district that stretches across all or parts of the 11 upstate counties. It is expected to be a bellwether for how the parties are performing in the suburbs of New York and New Jersey, where Democrats saw disappointing turnout in the 2022 midterms, which led to them losing the seat.
Molinaro, once known as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, has veered to the right this cycle, with his campaign drawing on fears about immigration and crime, while Riley has focused on abortion and reproductive rights.
Virginia’s 7th district is worth watching because it is expected to be an early bellwether of how the parties are fairing in a mixed district that spans from the DC suburbs to the rural Piedmont region. Republican Derrick Anderson is currently down four points against Democrat Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who led the whistleblower account of the quid-quo-pro phone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky that became the basis of the first impeachment case against Trump.
In Nebraska’s 2nd district, incumbent Republican Don Bacon is currently beating Democrat Tony Vargas by just two points. That's the same margin the GOP won by in 2022, and the Dems have had their eyes on winning it back ever since.
The district is one of 16 Republican-held seats in places that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. It is also known as the “blue dot” because it often sends one of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the Democrats even as the rest of the states’ votes go to Republicans.
Check out more of our recent election coverage:
- Everything you need to know about the 7 swing states
- The 15 counties to watch on election night
- The Disinformation Election: How conspiracy theories are impacting the vote
- How the 2024 presidential election could define the future of the Supreme Court
- Each presidential candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election. As the results come in, keep track of them with our handy map! Download it here
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A photo shows music and entertainment arena facility “Sphere” displays messages of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris prior to the Presidential election in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America on October 30, 2024.
The US election: Down to the wire
Welcome to the final sprint of the 2024 US presidential election! As the clock ticks, Democrats are celebrating an Iowa poll that shows Republican candidate Donald Trump trailing Democrat Kamala Harris 44-47 among likely voters in the supposedly safe red state.
The Selzer poll, considered one of the most reliable in the nation, found that women are driving the shift toward Harris in the Hawkeye State. It comes in the wakeof Trump’s promise this week to protect women “whether they like it or not” as well asracist and misogynistic comments by speakers at the Republicans’ Madison Square Garden rally last Sunday that Trump later termeda “lovefest.”
Not to be outdone, Trump managed to hit a new low on Friday,simulating oral sex on a malfunctioning microphone in Milwaukee. On Sunday, he held rallies in three swing states: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.
Meanwhile, Harris appeared on “Saturday Night Live” to lean into her “joyful warrior” persona, mirroring herself against Maya Rudolph, the comedian who famously impersonates her. Offscreen, she made multiple stops in Michigan.
On Monday, the campaigns will make their final efforts to rally voters in key swing states. Trump will hold rallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Harris is scheduled to appear in both Philadelphia, where she will be joined byOprah Winfrey, and Pittsburgh. Clearly, we’re all watching Pennsylvania.
Democratic Presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a campaign speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on Tuesday,.
Election Countdown: Kamala Harris pledges unity in Ellipse speech
Kamala Harris made her closing arguments at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night, where more than 75,000 supporters turned out to support the vice president.
The speech took place where Donald Trump addressed his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before they stormed the US Capitol.
Huge lines curved through the streets near the White House and Washington Monument as supporters hoped to catch a glimpse of the presidential candidate. Maggie Moetell, 55, a rally attendee from Falls Church, VA, said it was “the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. This is democracy in the making. It’s history. It’s amazing to see all these people here.”
Harris reminded supporters of Trump’s actions on that fateful day, focusing on the former president’s authoritarian leanings, calling him a “petty tyrant” and “wannabe dictator.”
She contrasted herself to the “chaos” of the first Trump administration and promised to compromise with those who disagreed with her and to work for all Americans. She pledged to preserve Obamacare while cutting taxes for middle-class households. Meanwhile, she warned that Trump’s tariff plan would effectively amount to taxes paid by consumers. Harris also pledged to have Medicare cover home health care for the elderly to help alleviate the burden on sandwich-generation caregivers of both young families and their parents.
Noting that one in three American women live in states with Trump abortion bans in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Harris promised to sign a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide.
Sanjana Shashikumar, 24, who moved to Washington, DC, from New York, said she was happy to attend because she has a lot of anxiety about the election. “I really like the idea of being around people who are also voting for Harris.” As an Indian American woman, she said – while noting it wasn’t the primary reason for her support – that “to be able to see an Indian American in that White House would be really, really awesome.” Shashikumar said women’s access to abortion and right to privacy were important to her and that as a nuclear regulatory analyst she cares about renewables and green energy — and is encouraged that Harris is pro-nuclear.
Harris during her speech also acknowledged concerns about border controls and promised to pass the bipartisan border bill that Trump urged Republicans to block. But she also acknowledged that the US is “a nation of immigrants,” and pledged to support legal immigrants.
Brian C, 25, from Maryland, says our allies in Ukraine weigh heavily on his mind, pointing to the decline in bipartisan support for sending US support to Kyiv. “I have so many friends and family in Ukraine,” he said, contending that the US shouldn't "just leave them to be invaded.”
Harris has been criticized on the campaign trail for not addressing her foreign policy plans more fully, but Brian says he’s confident in Harris’ approach to global affairs.
“I will strengthen, not surrender, America’s global leadership,” Harris told the crowd. “And I will stand with our friends because I know our alliances keep American people safe and make America stronger and more secure.”
She said we must ensure that the “US remains, as we must forever be, a champion of liberty around the world.”
Meanwhile, Trump held a rally in majority-Latino Allentown, Pennsylvania, home to 34,000 Puerto Ricans. He asked Pennsylvanians to tell Harris “You’re fired” at the polls, and at a panel earlier in the day said “no president has done more for Puerto Rico than I have.”
The comments and rally come as the Trump campaign tries to walk back racist comments against Puerto Ricans made by comedian Tony Hinchliffe at his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College estimates that 3.1% of voters in Pennsylvania are Puerto Rican, a key demographic to lose in a swing state that is likely to be decided by just a few thousand votes.
Meanwhile, Harris is trying to “lose by less” in deep-red areas of Pennsylvania by holding events in universities in rural parts of the state.
Barbara Bush, daughter of Republican President George W. Bush, endorsed Harris on Tuesday, joining her father’s former vice president, Dick Cheney, and his daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, in backing the Democratic nominee for president.
Beyond winning key Republican endorsements, polls are showing that Harris is gaining with Black men, a group that Trump’s campaign has tried hard to court this election cycle. In an NPR poll of younger black men, nearly 60% said they backed Harris.