French police repressed protesters in Paris on Saturday, detaining dozens during unauthorized demonstrations demanding better education conditions and opposing budget cuts and the high cost of living, authorities reported.
The Paris police prefecture said law enforcement forces intervened to disperse two unauthorized demonstrations that had formed mid-morning.
By 11:00 local time, 61 people had been detained, 589 preventive checks had been carried out and four fines imposed under the security operations, an official report stated.
The first protest consisted of a union gathering of about 100 people in the Gare du Nord area, while the second was made up of high school students on rue de Rennes.
The PSOE’s Federal Committee on Saturday unanimously proclaimed Pedro Sánchez as its candidate for reelection and ratified its candidacies for the Nov. 29 elections.
Territorial leaders showed unity and confidence that they can defeat the polls’ bad omens at the meeting, according to EFE.
For the first time, more women than men will head the lists for the Congress of Deputies, at 52%, and in the Senate the party is also moving toward parity by increasing ten points the percentage of women leading candidacies compared with 2023.
The party’s federal leadership introduced few changes this time to the candidacies submitted by the territories, and the noise generated was much lower than in 2023.
The Federal Committee met shaken by the resignation of its spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, who on Friday decided to leave all her posts after the controversy generated by her partner’s real estate businesses.
Sánchez revealed at a press conference in Brussels that he had asked Mínguez not to resign, but that she was “broken,” and he called her an extraordinary spokesperson and an immense politician. He lamented that politics sometimes mistreats good people.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday temporarily suspending the application of a broad package of sanctions against Russia, arguing before Congress that the measure responds to the national interest.
The decision affects a law named after the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which seeks to toughen sanctions against the Russian economy and limit the flow of financial resources.
Trump had enacted that legislation on September 18 but has now temporarily exempted the application of several of its provisions, according to the order.
The order exempts sanctions against persons and entities linked to the Russian government; financial and trade restrictions and tariffs planned for Russian products, and those from certain countries that buy Russian hydrocarbons, according to the order.
The decision does not eliminate the sanctions the United States had already imposed on Russia through previous executive orders.
The exemptions from the new law will remain in force until Trump or the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative,
BIG: Trump waived sanctions targeting Russian fossil fuel sales just days before they were due to take effect.
The measures would have imposed tariffs of up to 100% on goods from major importers of Russian oil and gas.
The decision comes after Washington temporarily authorized commercial operations with Russian-origin diesel until April 7, 2027, including its import into the United States, despite the sanctions in force against Moscow.
Trump announced on October 9 that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on the supply of diesel to international markets, with the aim of easing energy and fuel prices.
The Republican president said Russia would initially deliver more than 300,000 tons of fuel and would later supply additional quantities, conditioned in part on the state of its refineries, he said.
The agreement has drawn criticism from lawmakers of both parties, who question its possible effects on economic pressure against Moscow and its compatibility with U.S. legislation, according to the critics.
Detractors warn that revenue from the sale of Russian fuel could help finance the war against Ukraine, while the Administration defends the need to contain energy costs, according to the critics and the Administration.
The Global South Academic Forum is being held in Shanghai this Saturday and Sunday, bringing together prominent political leaders, academics, researchers and media representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Inspired by the spirit of the historic Tricontinental Conference held in Havana in 1966, the forum commemorates that legacy six decades on and warns that the task of decolonizing the Global South has not yet been completed, according to the forum.
The event’s debates will focus on how to strengthen state governance capacity, social mobilization and institutional innovation through party organizations, according to the forum.
Today in Shanghai, China, I addressed the 2026 Global South Academic Forum, convened under the theme “Global South Political Parties: Governance and Modernisation.”
At the opening, I reflected on the historical struggles that shaped the Global South, particularly the pursuit of… pic.twitter.com/T54hZxJ91R
— Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang (@NJOAgyemang) October 17, 2026
The official program includes a rigorous analysis structured around various high-level panels, including Governance and Institution Building, highlighting the importance of state capacity and institutional strength as cornerstones of national development in the Global South, according to the program.
TVBrics and Cuba’s Canal Habana signed a cooperation agreement today to expand their joint content library, Prensa Latina reported.
Under the agreement, the two outlets will exchange content on BRICS countries, develop joint projects and promote quality journalism to strengthen the objective international news agenda of Global South media.
“For the channel it is a real pleasure to begin collaborative work with TVBrics. It is a way to show part of the dynamics of the Cuban capital as a partner of this important association, the BRICS,” Canal Habana director Erduy Varela said. He added that his expectations are to share experiences and ways of doing and communicating television in this new multimedia era.
TVBrics general director Janna Tolstikova said information cooperation between BRICS countries and states sharing the association’s values is important, adding that constructive dialogue between media helps lay the foundations for fruitful cooperation at the highest state level and favors the stability of international relations. She added that TVBrics is open to all countries willing to cooperate on the basis of equality, mutual respect, consideration of national interests and recognition of global diversity.
Tolstikova congratulated Canal Habana on the start of the collaboration, which she said will make Cuba’s cultural richness known to an international audience and offer the channel’s viewers audiovisual content of interest about BRICS and other Global South countries.
Canal Habana, founded in 2006, is part of the state-run Televisión Cubana system. It broadcasts in Spanish throughout Cuba and reports on political, economic, social, cultural and sports news in Havana, as well as major national and international events.
In Cuba, Prensa Latina and Canal Caribe already participate in content exchange through TVBrics. In Latin America, the network also collaborates with media from Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay. Among BRICS partner countries, media from Belarus, Bolivia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria participate.
U.S. photojournalist Heidi Levine, a contributor to The Washington Post, was hospitalized Friday after being violently attacked by about 80 masked Israeli settlers while covering the olive harvest in the West Bank village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.
The attackers beat Levine with sticks, kicked her while she was on the ground and stripped her of her cameras, phone and belongings, despite her wearing a marked press vest, according to accounts of the assault.
Speaking from the Ramallah hospital where she was in stable condition, Levine said the attackers pushed her to the ground and kept kicking her, and that her bulletproof vest and helmet likely saved her life.
Reporters at the scene denounced that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not intervene to stop the assault and backed the extremists.
Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers on Friday, setting olive groves on fire and slinging rocks.
The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed it assisted six people injured during the incursion in Abu Falah, including a Palestinian hit by shots from armed settlers.
The rescue of the reporters and farmers was possible thanks to the resistance of the village’s young people, who responded to the attacks with stones, according to accounts from the scene.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia resigned Friday after just five days in the job, following President Donald Trump’s advice.
Zacharia’s departure came barely a week after she was named to the post, succeeding Karoline Leavitt, and after a heavily questioned first press briefing before the media.
The crisis was directly linked to doubts about her legal training. After initially announcing her and publicly describing her as a lawyer, questions arose over the past week as to whether she had actually passed the bar exam to practice as such, despite being a graduate of Pepperdine University’s law school in California.
Definitive confirmation of the suspicions came last Thursday, when Zacharia admitted in an interview with Fox News that she had not passed the bar exam. The revelation intensified media criticism and opened an intense debate about vetting and background-check processes at the White House.
Facing the media siege, Trump chose to intervene publicly Friday morning. Leaving the White House, Trump told reporters that he had directly advised Zacharia to reconsider remaining in the job given the hostility of the environment.
President Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man. I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to.
The escalation between the Saudis and the rebels in neighboring Yemen has exposed the kingdom's challenges in intercepting the attacks in the latest front in the Iran war, while further rattling global markets.
For today’s high schoolers, a typical school day from a decade ago must seem like something from the Dark Ages. These days, students are issued digital textbooks instead of physical ones, they learn how to conduct chemistry experiments through apps that simulate a science lab, and they take standardized tests on a Chromebook. All of this is the result of many years of frenzied investment in ed tech, capped by a pandemic that forced virtual learning. The overwhelming majority of schools nationwide provide each student with their own laptop or tablet.
All of these screens have changed the dynamic of the classroom. When a student is supposed to be using their school-issued iPad to diligently take notes during math class, they might instead be messaging a friend. Across the country, some parents and teachers are mounting a backlash against screens in the classroom. In April, the Los Angeles school board voted to stop giving devices to its youngest students and implemented screen-time limits for all grades.
But other schools are pulling back on ed tech for an entirely different reason. Chromebooks, like essentially all other consumer electronics, need RAM, or random-access memory. So do the data centers that power every conversation with a chatbot. The AI industry is using so many memory chips that it’s led to a global shortage, making gadgets much more expensive. For an individual consumer, the memory crunch—RAMageddon, if you will—means having to spend a few hundred dollars more on a new computer. But school districts, many of which are already cash-strapped, buy hundreds or thousands of computers every year. The administrators I spoke with for this story told me that they have had to scramble to acquire all the electronics they now need. As RAMageddon drags on, they said, something has got to give.
Schools started picking up on the memory shortage last winter, months before most of the country. They have to figure out bulk orders for laptops and tablets long before the academic year begins. Many of them turn to third-party vendors, which have typically provided quotes that are locked in for a month, giving technology directors time to secure the funds from their districts to make purchases that can run millions of dollars. As memory prices have soared, Mark Samberg, the chief technology officer of Chatham County Schools in North Carolina, is hearing a different message from his vendors. “Now quotes are going to be good for 48 hours, a week, or 14 days,” he told me.
Samberg scooped up the Chromebooks he could find. Other districts have been less lucky. In March, a Chromebook vendor warned Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Illinois that its prices would be going up soon. Steve Richardson, the district’s IT director, quickly placed an order, only to be eventually told it couldn’t be fulfilled because memory chips were on back order. “We were kind of in dire straits,” Richardson told me. In 2023, Chromebooks cost the school $353 a piece. The price rose to $400, then $412, and then $427. The most recent batch that Richardson purchased, in August, cost $508 each. But the district needed them to ensure that every student had a Chromebook ahead of the PSAT, which is now entirely digital.
So far, schools have been willing to stomach the costs to continue giving every student a device. Districts initially decided to implement “one to one” policies on the premise that technology can be an equalizing force in the classroom; many educators and administrators still believe that. Dorann Avey, the board chair of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, told me that she is concerned that RAMageddon will widen the digital divide. Devices are not for “just writing papers,” she said. “We’re trying to prepare students to learn different software that is workplace- and workforce-appropriate.”
That has meant making difficult trade-offs. Because of the extra spending on laptops for students, Homewood-Flossmoor didn’t buy any new smart whiteboards or computers for teachers this year. In Texas, the Paradise Independent School District has considered asking students to bring in their own laptop or tablet, Director of Technology Doug Bryant told me.
A common solution has been to extend the lifetime of a laptop. Instead of replacing a device every four years, schools are opting for seven or eight to reduce how many units they need to purchase in a given year. But that introduces new problems: Older computers sometimes aren’t able to update to the latest operating system, which could create cybersecurity risks. Schools are already a top target for hackers, because they store lots of sensitive personal information but have limited resources. Plus, as a device gets older, its battery degrades and may ultimately need to be replaced. That costs “time and money,” Avey said. “But it’s still less money than buying brand-new devices.”
All of this may not be enough. Multiple administrators told me that they are already considering rolling back their one-to-one device policies because of RAMageddon, and the challenges for schools are poised to mount. Heading into this school year, some districts were able to skirt the worst of the memory shortage by buying Chromebooks before prices really started to soar. Aaron Smith, the CTO of Loudoun County Public Schools, told me that he sought special permission from his school board to commit to purchasing nearly 24,400 Chromebooks in February instead of May. Memory prices jumped so quickly over that time span that the decision ultimately saved the district $1.66 million, he said. But Smith and other technology directors may not have the same luck as they begin looking to purchase gadgets for the next school year. An executive at Micron, one of the world’s largest RAM manufacturers, recently warned that there’s “no line of sight” to the end of the memory shortage. If schools wait to buy, prices could end up going up even more. But buying early might mean devices will languish in storage for months as the warranty clock ticks away.
RAMageddon will force schools to scrutinize which tech purchases actually improve learning, and which don’t. The fallout will reach far beyond Chromebooks. “We’re not going to be able to afford the servers that we thought we were,” said Samberg, the Chatham County Schools CTO. Those servers power functions such as security cameras, badge readers, and account logins—and every one of them needs RAM.
A segunda tentativa falhada para executar esta mulher do Estado americano do Tennessee deu novo fôlego ao debate sobre a pena de morte. Este caso começa por colocar muitas dúvidas até sobre a metodologia usada, que alguns asseguram que é eficaz e indolor, mas na verdade não resultou assim. Não foi eficaz e poderá ter causado sofrimento extremo à vítima. E depois de uma primeira tentativa falhada, voltou-se a sujeitar a condenada ao mesmo suplício com o mesmo resultado. É altamente questionável tudo o que se passou.
Os bispos católicos do Estado do Tennessee, juntamente com os bispos da Comunhão Anglicana, apressaram-se a pedir uma comutação da pena e que não se procedesse a uma nova tentativa de execução, não desvalorizando a gravidade do crime que foi cometido e o sofrimento da família da vítima, que ela foi acusada de matar. Os bispos sublinham, sobretudo, que a necessária atribuição de responsabilidade por um crime muito grave não deveria exigir outra morte. Na base deste entendimento está a dignidade que pertence a cada pessoa, criada à imagem de Deus. A vida humana é sagrada. Nem mesmo os crimes mais graves podem anular essa dignidade ou excluir definitivamente a possibilidade de arrependimento e redenção. A justiça não é vingança. Como é que se compreende que uma sociedade condene alguém por ter tirado a vida a uma pessoa e depois essa mesma sociedade pratica o que condena?
Para a Igreja Católica a pena de morte é inadmissível e defende a sua abolição em todo o mundo, porque é um ataque à dignidade da pessoa humana e não é protetora da sociedade. A dignidade da pessoa não se perde após a prática de crimes muito graves. Além do mais, os Estados atuais já têm formas de detenção eficazes, sem necessidade de tirar a vida e que não anulam a possibilidade de redenção aos culpados. O Estado deve defender a vida sempre e em todos os casos. Os países que a defendem e praticam alegam que a pena de morte é dissuasora, mas, na verdade, não há provas claras de que assim seja e apesar de praticarem a pena de morte, continuam a registar altos índices de criminalidade.
O Papa Francisco apelou a “todos os cristãos e homens de boa vontade” que lutem, “não só pela abolição da pena de morte, legal ou ilegal, em todas as suas formas, mas também para melhorar as condições carcerárias, no respeito pela dignidade humana das pessoas privadas da liberdade”.
A mais importante rota de travessia terrestre entre a China e a Coreia do Norte foi aberta nesta quinta-feira (15) após atrasos nas obras. O objetivo principal da chamada Ponte Nova do Rio Yalu, que tem cerca de 3 km de extensão, é facilitar o transporte e aumentar as trocas comerciais entre os países.
Leia mais (10/15/2026 - 13h13)
Militares de alta patente ouvidos sob reserva pela Folha demonstram apreensão com a possibilidade de que, se o senador Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) confirmar seu favoritismo e vencer o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) no segundo turno das eleições, o Brasil passe a integrar o Escudo das Américas, iniciativa contra o crime organizado liderada pelos Estados Unidos de Donald Trump.
Leia mais (10/14/2026 - 23h00)
An Argentinian family of four now needs 1,632,505 pesos ($1,057) to avoid being considered poor, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec).
To avoid falling into indigence, the same family requires at least 738,690 pesos ($478), according to the total basic basket (CBT) and basic food basket (CBA) figures in Indec’s most recent report.
So far this year, the CBT grew 24.7% and the CBA 25.3%, both above accumulated inflation of 23.6% through September, when it rose to 1.9%, according to the report. Year-on-year, the CBA rose 38.7% and the CBT 40%, both above the 33.4% year-on-year inflation, the report said.
Julián Neufeld, an economist at the Fundación Libertad y Progreso cited by the newspaper Perfil, said the prices that weigh most heavily on lower-income households “have been rising above the general index, and that erodes purchasing power precisely in the most exposed segment.”
Neufeld explained that since wages adjust by the Consumer Price Index when collective labor agreements allow, and poverty levels are set by the baskets, a substantial inflation gap between the two strongly conditions poverty and indigence levels, he said.
According to the economist, in the first half of this year, with the inflationary shock concentrated in meat and fuels—goods with great weight in the baskets—these rose above the general level, pushing many families below the poverty line, he said.
🥬 Las verduras aumentaron 23,8% en septiembre en el Mercado Central y más que duplicaron su precio en un año
Un informe del Centro de Economía Política Argentina (CEPA) reveló una fuerte aceleración en los precios mayoristas de las hortalizas durante septiembre: la canasta… pic.twitter.com/iiDBCfzgh8
China is seeks to maintain dialogue with the European Union to bring “greater stability” to their economic and trade relations, Vice Premier He Lifeng said during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser in Beijing.
He Lifeng conveyed the message to Emmanuel Bonne during a meeting held Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday. Both discussed bilateral cooperation and trade relations between Beijing and Brussels, Xinhua reported.
The official also highlighted the possibilities of expanding economic cooperation with France and expressed Beijing’s willingness to implement the consensus reached by the presidents of both countries.
Bonne, for his part, conveyed Paris’s readiness to continue promoting positive results in trade and investment consultations between China and the EU.
The French adviser had already defended last Friday, during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, that Europe does not want a trade war with China nor seeks economic decoupling, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“Europe’s development needs China,” Bonne said at that meeting, according to the version released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
EU-CN trade needs real rebalancing. With Minister Wang Wentao we've reached a shared understanding to:⁰🔹halve HEV, PHEV exports⁰🔹improve access to China's market⁰🔹further ease rare earths export licensing. A first step. I welcome the genuine engagement. We reconvene by Jan. pic.twitter.com/SiKiZYLC8N
The contacts come after the agreement reached last week between Beijing and Brussels, which contemplates limiting Chinese exports of hybrid vehicles to the EU bloc, facilitating European access to rare earths and reducing tariffs on certain European products.
Katie Zacharia made her debut as White House press secretary on Tuesday, replacing Karoline Leavitt, who left the position in August to allegedly spend more time with her family.
In her first briefing, which lasted 14 minutes and took only three questions, Zacharia announced the dismissal of U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, who has been embroiled in several scandals.
Zacharia, a lawyer and mother of four, was until her appointment a senior communications adviser for Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. She also briefly served as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security during Kristi Noem’s tenure and has been a commentator on conservative outlets Fox News and Newsmax.
During the briefing, she appeared visibly nervous, repeatedly consulting her notes, in contrast to her predecessor. She also faced criticism for failing to clarify where she passed the bar exam to practice law.
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia visibly nervous at her first briefing
Her appointment coincides with a new escalation in Trump’s offensive against critical media. He tried to ban White House access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, a measure temporarily halted in the courts. The Department of Justice is investigating ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC for possible antitrust violations for boycotting joint coverage of presidential events in solidarity with the banned outlets.
Zacharia takes office amid the campaign for the November 3 legislative elections, where Trump has held nearly daily rallies to prevent the Republican Party from losing its congressional majority amid low popularity of his administration.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in a phone call on Tuesday to protect El Salvador’s critical infrastructure from what the State Department framed as malign foreign influences, which, EFE points out, potentially reference China (though the statement did not explicitly mention Beijing), and to vote against the Cuban government at the United Nations.
The Department of Sate also urged El Salvador to join the United States and like-minded partners to promote shared priorities at the UN.
On October 28, the UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on the resolution Cuba presents each year calling for an end to the U.S. blockade. In 2025, the measure passed with 165 votes in favor, 7 against and 12 abstentions. El Salvador was absent from that vote.
Bukele has been one of the main Latin American allies of the Donald Trump administration since the start of Trump’s second term. Both governments even reached an agreement to deport migrants from the United States to El Salvador’s mega-prison, the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot).
El Secretario de Estado, @SecRubio, y el presidente salvadoreño, @nayibbukele, sostuvieron hoy una importante llamada telefónica para reafirmar la sólida alianza entre Estados Unidos y El Salvador. Lea el resumen de la llamada aquí: https://t.co/YRikGkKL6r
Rubio also maintains an intense strategy to reduce China’s influence in Latin America, a region where Beijing has made large infrastructure investments. His first trip as secretary of state, in 2025, took him to Panama, where he pressured the government to separate the canal from Chinese companies.
Africa has reiterated its demand for two permanent seats with full rights, including veto power, and five non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, according to the “Tripoli Document 2026” adopted by the African Union’s Committee of Ten (C-10) at its 14th ministerial meeting in Libya.
The document reaffirms the principles of the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, adopted in 2005 and considered the basis of the African position. The African Union also claims the right to select African candidates for those seats, seeking to ensure that the continent’s representation responds to its own criteria and priorities.
The C-10 is made up of Libya, Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia. Sierra Leone has coordinated its work since the committee’s creation in 2005.
UN Secretary-General Guterres:
When the UN was founded, most of Africa was still under colonial rule. Today, Africa still has no permanent representation on the Council.
A 21st-century Security Council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible.
At a joint press conference, the official in charge of managing Libya’s Foreign Ministry affairs, Taher Al-Baour, and Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister and C-10 coordinator, Timothy Musa Kabba, defended continued diplomatic efforts to increase Africa’s presence in international institutions. Both said the reform must correct imbalances in geographic representation and give the continent greater weight in decisions on international security and stability.
The Security Council has 15 members: five permanent with veto power and 10 non-permanent. Africa has no permanent representation and occupies three rotating seats in 2026 through Somalia, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For African countries, this structure does not reflect the world’s political and demographic transformations or the continent’s participation in the Council’s work.
The meeting concluded on Sunday with the ratification of the African common position, according to Libya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ministers and representatives of the 10 committee countries attended, along with the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council reform.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced on Tuesday at the Planalto Palace a package of economic measures under the “Prospera MEI” program aimed at rescuing the country’s individual microentrepreneurs.
The package seeks to provide financial breathing room to the sector through mass debt relief, access to new credit and expanded annual income limits, and comes 12 days before the runoff election in which Lula will face far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro.
The centerpiece is a supplementary bill providing for total amnesty and exoneration of 12.6 billion reais in tax debts owed by 3.6 million microentrepreneurs on the Union’s active debtor list. Formal implementation is planned for 2027, pending approval by Congress.
Complementing the tax relief, the federal government will include bank debts linked to the entrepreneurs’ CNPJ, estimated at about 6 billion reais, in the Desenrola 3.0 program, guaranteeing minimum discounts of 90% in auctions for the State’s acquisition of these obligations.
📢 O governo Lula anunciou o Prospera MEI!
💰 R$ 12,6 bilhões em dívidas públicas com previsão de perdão 💸 Pix de até R$ 5 mil para investimentos 📈 Teto do MEI pode chegar a R$ 140 mil em 2028 🏦 Negociação de dívidas bancárias com descontos de pelo menos 90%
The program also includes the Pix/MEI project, which will allocate up to 5 billion reais between 2027 and 2030 for financial support of up to 5,000 reais (about 1,000 dollars) for equipment purchases and productive investments, directly prioritizing low-income women. These funds will function as a direct subsidy and will not require repayment.
Another measure presented to the Chamber of Deputies through Complementary Bill 186/2026 would substantially raise the annual revenue cap for MEIs, progressively increasing from the current 81,000 reais to 110,000 reais in 2027 and 140,000 reais in 2028 (approximately 28,000 dollars), allowing more entrepreneurs to grow without losing access to the simplified tax regime and social security.
To boost commercial activity, the package prioritizes small taxpayers in direct public contracts of up to 25,000 reais through the Contrata+Brasil platform and raises the exclusive bidding limit for micro and small businesses from 80,000 to 100,000 reais.
Newly declassified court documents have revealed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used Palantir Technologies to store personal information on citizens and civil rights observers, and used confidential medical records to guide immigration operations, raising alarms over mass surveillance and potential constitutional violations.
The revelations stem from a lawsuit filed by four observers who reported being surveilled, harassed and intimidated during immigration raids in Maine in January. Case records document how an ICE agent entered the personal data of six individuals into an Investigative Case Management system. The records also describe the surreptitious collection of photographs, vehicle license plates and the use of facial recognition tools without consent or transparent legal justification.
Two protesters were formally classified as threats to law enforcement while they were peacefully present in a Home Depot parking lot. In one specific case, plaintiff Polyxenia Pantos had her vehicle and driving history investigated by a federal agent after she photographed an arrest in Portland, evidencing a pattern of institutional harassment against citizen oversight and independent journalism.
The surveillance of U.S. citizens is linked to the deployment of the ELITE application, developed by Palantir and adopted by ICE in late September. The tool consolidates multiple information sources, creates profiles, identifies targets, generates location routes and assigns confidence scores to data. Its implementation coincided with an accelerated hiring process that brought in more than 12,000 new agents with significant cuts to training programs, increasing the risk of operational abuses.
One of the most legally questioned aspects is the use of protected healthcare data. An investigation found that ELITE processes records from the Department of Health and Human Services, combining them with public and commercial databases. The tool analyzes medical records—including names, addresses and photographs—to guide agents on where to conduct operations and raids, as recently happened in Oregon with the arrest of thirty people.
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