Xuxa Meneghel, Angélica e Eliana estão entre os destaques do Teleton 2026, que será realizado nos dias 6 e 7 de novembro no SBT. O programa acontece em prol da AACD (Associação de Assistência à Criança Deficiente).
Ainda não há informações sobre a divisão dos horários na programação, por isso não é possível confirmar seo trio de apresentadoras dividirá o palco no mesmo período.
A meta da campanha será arrecadar R$ 30 milhões, montante equivalente a 230 mil atendimentos pelo SUS a pessoas com deficiência física e mobilidade reduzida, além de viabilizar investimentos em estrutura, profissionais e tecnologia na AACD.
As madrinhas (Eliana e Maisa), os padrinhos (Celso Portiolli e Daniel), a embaixadora (Virginia Fonseca) da Campanha AACD Teleton e a família Abravanel marcarão presença no palco em diferentes horários ao longo da programação.
Além das apresentadoras, estão confirmados nomes como Tiago Abravanel, João Guilherme, Dedé Santana, Diego Hypólito, Kallyna Sabino, Cynthia Benini, Beto Marden, Ana Canosa, Angélica, Cariúcha, Sonia Abrão e Gloria Vanique.
Entre as atrações musicais, foram confirmados nomes como: Aline Barros, Ana Castela, Gustavo, Mariana Fagundes, Matheus & Kauan, Melody, Mumuzinho, Péricles, Priscilla e Yasmin Santos.
“Este ano o tema é ‘O que te move?’ Se pararmos para pensar, o Teleton dá uma resposta: o que me move, o que realmente me faz feliz nesta altura da minha vida é ajudar o próximo! O que move a gente é a solidariedade, poder fazer algo para alguém. O Teleton é uma grande maratona que une as pessoas, e essa união é que faz um grande resultado”, afirmou Celso Portiolli.
Durante uma coletiva realizada na terça-feira (20), Iris Abravanel relembrou a história do projeto. “O Teleton começou na sala de visitas da minha casa. A Hebe Camargo foi lá em casa e contou a respeito do Teleton para o meu marido e o sucesso que fazia ajudando as pessoas, colaborando. Ela estava muito animada e passou essa animação para a gente. O Silvio comprou a ideia em 1997 e, em 1998, foi lançado o primeiro Teleton. Nasceu na sala de casa e no coração de toda a família”, contou.
Nesta edição, os pacientes-símbolo serão Camila Vitória Nunes, 12 anos, adolescente que precisou amputar a perna devido a uma má-formação; Emily Nathieli, 23 anos, jovem que sofreu uma lesão encefálica após ser atropelada; e Jurcelei Tozzatti, 74 anos, idosa com histórico de complicações ortopédicas que precisou amputar a perna há quatro anos em decorrência de uma trombose severa.
The Trump administration agreed to drop its appeal of a ruling that blocked its plan to limit Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The Trump administration agreed to drop its appeal of a Public Service Loan Forgiveness ruling.
The ruling blocked Trump's plan to limit PSLF eligibility from taking effect.
An advocacy group said it's a victory for borrowers pursuing PSLF.
Student-loan borrowers pursuing a major forgiveness program got a rare legal win.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration agreed to drop two of its appeals of a June ruling that had blocked its plan to narrow eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years.
The EducationDepartment intended to implement a plan on July 1 to exclude employers from PSLF who did not align with the administration's definition of "public service," listing actions like assisting with gender-affirming care or 'acts of terrorism.
A judge ruled at the end of June that the plan was unlawful and would not take effect. This followed a series of lawsuits filed by advocacy groups and nonprofits, including Student Defense, which said the education secretary did not have the authority to roll out those changes.
The administration appealed the ruling at the end of August. With the appeal set to be dismissed, borrowers will not face any immediate changes to PSLF. Another appeal in a separate PSLF lawsuit is still pending.
"The Trump administration's attempt to weaponize public service loan forgiveness against organizations it disagrees with was anti-democratic and unlawful from the start," Dan Zibel, chief counsel at Student Defense, said in a statement. "This is a significant victory for millions of Americans who have dedicated their careers to public service."
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent previouslysaid that the rule had been intended to "ensure federal benefits go to our Nation's teachers, first responders, and civil servants who tirelessly serve their communities."
Borrowers pursuing PSLF are still facing challenges. The Education Department recently removed some borrowers' payments toward forgiveness, citing Biden-era coding errors. Others have reported delays getting their payments counted toward relief, leaving them in limbo.
A department spokesperson previously said that the agency "remains committed to ensuring that every qualifying payment is properly credited to a borrower's account."
Kemi Badenoch has said a "red warning light" is flashing on the economy as Britain's debt tops £3 trillion for the first time and inflation surges to 3.5% ahead of the Budget next week.
Speaking on a newly released episode of author Walter Isaacson's "The Builders" podcast, Musk said his 130-day stint as a special government employee in the second Trump administration led him to that view.
Musk, the world's richest person, served as the de facto leader of the White House DOGE office from January to May 2025, where he sought to slash federal spending.
"I came to the conclusion that the only way we're going to solve the national debt is with AI and robots. We're not going to solve it by trying to save our way there," Musk told Isaacson, calling the latter "impossible."
The US national debt load hit a record $40 trillion in August and has continued to climb, according to Treasury data.
"Maybe if the president made that his, you know, primary goal, we could do that, but the problem is if you try to solve the deficit and stop wasteful spending, you make a lot of enemies in that situation," Musk said.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said political leaders in Washington are mostly unwilling to rein in federal spending enough to significantly shrink the deficit.
"The appetite is not there, and it's not just at the presidency. The appetite is not there at the presidency, the House, the Senate, or the judiciary," Musk said.
He added, "Basically, no one in authority in the government whatsoever, really, with maybe a few rare exceptions of like the Rand Pauls of the world type of thing, actually wants to reduce spending — no, they don't."
Musk estimated that "digital superintelligence" could boost the global output of goods and services by 20% to 30% — an increase he estimated could add roughly $30 trillion a year to the world economy.
"If you have robots and you get to space and can do a mass driver on the moon, then you can get to, I think, potentially a million times the size of the Earth economy," he said.
This could ultimately make money "irrelevant," Musk said.
"There will still be currency, but I think currency will be measured in fundamental physics metrics like wattage and tonnage, mass and energy," he said, predicting, "Conventional currency will not matter."
During the interview, Musk also reflected on his chainsaw-wielding time with the Department of Government Efficiency, admitting he got "carried away."
"I think I should have been more in the background and probably only had it last for a month or two, because at that point you've sort of seen most of what there is to see," Musk told Isaacson.
Musk said he should have left and "focused on AI a little sooner than I did."
A new legal filing said that the Trump administration is failing its obligation to process debt relief for defrauded student-loan borrowers.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Student-loan borrowers are still waiting for the relief they're entitled to through a settlement, a new legal filing said.
A borrower advocacy group is asking a court to enforce compliance with the relief settlement.
The Education Department said it disagrees with the motion and is working to enact relief.
Student-loan borrowers are legally entitled to debt relief — but they're still waiting for it to arrive, an advocacy group contends in a new court filing.
The Project on Predatory Student Lending — a borrower advocacy group — filed a new motion in its years-long lawsuit to get relief for thousands of defrauded borrowers.
In July, a federal court denied the Trump administration's request to delay relief under the Sweet v. McMahon settlement, which has provided $23 billion in relief to over 500,000 borrowers. Now, PPSL says that over 1,000 members of the settlement class are still waiting for loan discharges or refunds that the Education Department "was legally required to provide by deadlines that have long since passed."
The group filed a motion asking the court to enforce the settlement and hold the department in contempt, in order to compel compliance with the settlement terms and process relief within the set deadlines. Specifically, the motion asks the department toresume weekly meetings with the plaintiffs' counsel forstatus updates on the processing of the relief, and asks the court to enforce penalties if the department does not comply.
The Education Department said in its response that the motions are "baseless."
Additionally, a declaration from the department's ombudsmansaid that borrowers still awaiting refunds are not due to department failure, but rather, that those borrowers' accounts "warranted further review."
"Although it has taken staff some time to understand all of the complexities, the current staff have been reviewing and resolving Sweet complaints since approximately April 2024 with some staff added in 2025," the ombudsman said. "They are all incredibly well-versed in Sweet complaint resolution."
A public hearing in the case is scheduled for November 5.
Student-loan borrowers first filed a lawsuit against the department in 2019, accusing it of failing to process their borrower defense to repayment applications — claims borrowers can file if they believe they were defrauded. If approved, their student debt from the school would be wiped out.
A settlement in the case was reached under the Biden administration in 2022, and while batches of borrowers have received relief, PPSL said that others who qualify are still waiting.
On Monday, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, released a report showing how President Donald Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul will affect bills and relief for millions of borrowers. The think tank shared the report exclusively with Business Insider.
The student-loan changes, signed into law in Trump's "big beautiful" spending legislation, took effect July 1 and included new income-driven repayment plans and borrowing caps. Borrowers moving from the Biden-era SAVE plan to the new Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, could see their student-loan bills increase by $2,163 annually on average, the report said.
For example, the report said a typical borrower with a bachelor's degree with earnings of about $68,615 annually would see their monthly payments increase from $136 to $343. That's a total increase of $2,482 annually, on average.
The findings are based on incomedata from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation, adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. CAP then estimated how much typical borrowers with different educational circumstances would have to pay under SAVE and RAP based on those plans' rules.
The SAVE plan allowed for lower payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief. The Trump administration eliminated the plan and is requiring borrowers to transition to a new plan, recommending RAP as an option. While the benefits of RAP include waiving unpaid monthly interest, borrowers must make on-time payments — meaning no grace period — to receive them.
Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education at CAP and a coauthor on the report, told Business Insider that while SAVE allowed zero-dollar monthly payments, RAP's minimum payment is $10. "Those $0 payments were a really important protection that many borrowers will struggle without," Partridge said.
For example, per the report, a single borrower without dependents earning $35,000 annually in 2026 would have $0 payments under SAVE. Under RAP, they would owe $88 monthly.
She added that these changes come "at a time when there is high inflation, stagnating wages, and people are generally feeling financially strained," making it more difficult for borrowers to fit a higher monthly bill into their budgets.
Parents and borrowers face increased risk of default
Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul also limits parents' options. Previously, the parent PLUS program allowed parents to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their kids. Now, parents who took out loans after July 1, 2026, face a lifetime borrowing cap of $65,000. Those new parent borrowers will be limited to the costlier tiered standard repayment plan and will lose access to the income-contingent repayment plan.
Along with higher payments, the repayment overhaul also eliminates all borrowers'ability to defer their loan payments in the event of economic hardship or unemployment, beginning next year.
"This is a tool that borrowers relied on to help them out during times when they were struggling," Partridge said. "And without those options, borrowers may be more likely to become delinquent on their loans or eventually default, which we know can come with some devastating consequences."
Defaulting on federal student loans, which typically occurs after 270 days of nonpayment, can lead to wage garnishment and the seizure of federal benefits, such as Social Security. The most recent data from Federal Student Aid showed that 9.3 million borrowers are in default, with another 1.5 million at risk of defaulting in the next six months.
The Trump administration has said that its changes are intended to simplify a complex repayment system and curb excessive borrowing.
Nicholas Kent, the department's undersecretary, said in a statement that the changes "will ensure students continue to have the access that they need for federal student loans, while helping prevent borrowers from taking on unmanageable debt levels that they may never be able to repay."
Donald Knierim is fighting to get his Public Service Loan Forgiveness restored.
Vanessa Valadez for BI
Donald Knierim planned his retirement around student-loan forgiveness.
He spent most of his career designing financial data systems for major companies. At the age of 60, he took a pay cut and moved to the public sector, working for Metra, Chicago's commuter railway. His primary draw to the job was lower stress, and an added bonus was that it qualified for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which erases student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years.
Knierim had a $62,000 balance remaining on the student loans he took out to send his kids to college. If all went according to plan, a decade at Metra would wipe that clean.
In November 2025, the now-71-year-old logged on to his Federal Student Aid dashboard. It read "Congratulations! You've satisfied your obligation, and no additional payments are required for this loan." That tracked — Knierim said he had never missed a payment, always verifying that his payments were counting toward his forgiveness progress. So he put in his notice and retired.
Knierim retired after thinking his student-loan payments were done.
Vanessa Valadez for BI
Months later, he received an update: 15 payments that had previously counted toward forgiveness were changed to "non-qualifying." The notice said his payments were below the amount required under his income-driven repayment plan, but did not specify the proper amount. That means he has at least another year and a half of payments — about $470 monthly — to achieve PSLF.
"If I have to restore that payment, it's going to put my wife and me in a bad situation," Knierim said. "We're too tight in retirement to be shelling out money for stuff that we can't afford."
Since 2023, Business Insider has heard from student-loan borrowers whose loan forgiveness was rescinded. Over the past few months, issues with PSLF have become more widespread, with borrowers reporting challenges in receiving accurate payment counts. Some had their payments toward forgiveness removed after the Department of Education said it was correcting accounts following Biden-era coding errors.
An Education Department spokesperson said that the agency "remains committed to ensuring that every qualifying payment is properly credited to a borrower's account."
For years, Knierim said he made sure his payments were counting toward his forgiveness progress.
Vanessa Valadez for BI
Knierim said that even if he could land a new public service job, he wouldn't be able to take it. Caring for his wife, who is facing serious health issues, is a full-time job. He has reached out to his servicer and filed multiple complaints with Federal Student Aid, requesting his payments to be returned to a qualifying status. Meanwhile, he has not made the new payments his servicer said were due, which has lowered his credit score by more than 200 points. He recently received a notice that his account is delinquent and at risk of default, putting him at risk of seizure of federal benefits, like the Social Security he relies on to stay afloat.
Now, he's asking for the initial communication he received from his student-loan servicer to be honored.
"I thought I was done, they gave me that notification that I was done, and then they clawed it back," Knierim said. "I didn't know where that came from, or what to do."
An error-riddled student-loan forgiveness program
There are a few reasons a borrower might get their PSLF notices rescinded. An internal Education Department memo from 2023, reviewed by Business Insider, said that servicer MOHELA erroneously discharged loans for 64 student-loan borrowers "due to inadequate staff training." The memo recommended that MOHELA send notices to affected borrowers explaining what had happened.
In 2023, one borrower received a notice that his loans had been discharged under PSLF. Nine months later, he received a notice that the forgiveness was a mistake, and his payments were restarted. Between those two notices, the borrower said he had bought a home and paid for his son's preschool. The reversal required him to reconfigure his family's budget.
Some student-loan borrowers have seen their PSLF payments rescinded, which the Trump administration attributed to Biden-era errors.
Vanessa Valadez for BI
More recently, the Trump administration removed some PSLF borrowers' qualifying payments, with the Education Department citing Biden-era code errors that "resulted in inaccurate payment counts for some borrowers."
Bonnie Latrielle, an official in the Education Department's Federal Student Aid office under former President Joe Biden, said PSLF errors often arise during communication between the Education Department and servicers; servicers report qualifying PSLF payments to the department, and the department matches that information with a borrower's employment records to determine if the borrower is PSLF eligible.
"Those are all things that are outside of the borrower's control," Latrielle said.
Knierim said his servicer told him that some of the payments he made toward the Temporary Expanded PSLF program — a Biden-era program that allowed payments previously deemed ineligible to count toward forgiveness — did not qualify because they were below the required amount. He said he did not receive any further explanation as to why his payment amounts did not qualify, despite following his servicer's guidance on reaching forgiveness.
"I have a flawless payment history," Knierim said. "I have never missed a payment, and I paid what they told me to pay."
From relief to repayment
The Education Department has a "stated policy of holding borrowers harmless," Latrielle said, and borrowers have the right to submit complaints to the department's ombudsman if they have been harmed by their servicer.
However, amid staffing cuts in the department as part of the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the agency, it has stopped monitoring servicer performance and routine borrower complaints. Latrielle said a growing number of states have student-loan ombudsmen and a borrower bill of rights, offering resources and protections for borrowers within the state. Borrowers can also file lawsuits against their servicer if it violates state law, Latreille said.
Knierim, with the help of his daughter, an attorney, sent a letter to his servicer offering to pay the shortfall in his monthly payments. He said the letter was never acknowledged. He does not want to resume payments or switch repayment plans if doing so could further complicate his progress toward forgiveness. Still, his account is also inching toward default, and finding a resolution is becoming more urgent.
Knierim is hoping that his forgiveness denial will be reconsidered so he can continue retirement without a student-loan payment burden.
Vanessa Valadez for BI
In September, eight state student-loan ombudsman offices, including those from Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, where Knierim lives, sent a letter to the Education Department and congressional leaders calling for stronger oversight of PSLF. They cited an example of a public service worker who had more than the required number of payments for forgiveness, but his progress tracker was reset to zero.
"Borrowers have received no clear explanations for individual reductions, making it difficult to verify the accuracy of the new totals, even though these retroactive adjustments can delay forgiveness by years," the letter said.
Knierim is still searching for clarity on where his student-loan forgiveness stands. He said he recently spoke with a Federal Student Aid representative who told him that a "reconsideration request" for the payment denial is in progress. That process could take up to two months, Knierim said he was told, and in the meantime, he's seeking to put his loans on forbearance until he gets a final answer.
"I kept getting different answers," Knierim said. "I can't go back and work. I have no recourse here."
The site where Project Jupiter, an artificial intelligence data center, is under construction in Santa Teresa, N.M. Oracle is having trouble obtaining state permits for its energy needs.
Ahead of election, former central bank deputy governor Zvi Eckstein says outgoing government's decisions have impacted country's growth, with economy at risk unless changes are made
The UK economy will grow 1.3% in 2026, according to the IMF. But will it really, asks David Craig. With unemployment rising, it's just an illusion of out-of-control borrowing. But try getting an economist to admit it.
The federal government just closed fiscal year 2026 with a deficit of nearly $2 trillion, according to figures the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released last Thursday. Only the two pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were worse. Today, though, there is no recession and no emergency. These enormous budget deficits are the new normal.
The usual response to a deficit warning is that the government just needs more money. It doesn't. Thanks to the remarkable strength of the private sector, federal revenue rose by 3 percent, to more than $5.4 trillion, over the fiscal year. But spending rose by 6 percent, reaching $7.4 trillion.
Some will blame the Supreme Court for striking down most of President Donald Trump's tariffs and forcing the government to issue refunds. But even if Washington had kept the $130 billion in illegal levies, it would cover less than one-tenth of the gap. Tariffs were never a serious revenue source at our insanely high level of spending.
Look at where the money went. Spending on the three main entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—grew by 7 percent. That's faster than total spending growth. Defense grew by 5 percent. Interest on the debt rose by 11 percent, exceeding $1.1 trillion. That last figure is the bill for every earlier year of borrowing—years when Washington was sending clear signals that it isn't serious about fiscal responsibility.
If you want to see where such irresponsibility can lead, look at France. The country that big spenders from Paul Krugman to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) have cited as proof that big government is viable and full of upsides is now on the brink of a serious crisis. France's debt equals 120 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), and interest payments are rising quickly. Slow growth and social unrest aren't helping.
The U.S., of course, has some advantages that France doesn't, largely because we're a country of innovators with a private sector unmatched at creating wealth. Nonetheless, debt that is swelling out of control should still worry us. First, the same anti-wealth and anti-growth forces that brought France to where it is now are gaining popularity here. Second, we too will see debt reach 120 percent of GDP in a few years, and our interest payments are already consuming an alarming share of resources.
A wise Congress would put us on safer footing if only because debt raises interest rates for everyone, from homebuyers to small businesses. This operates as a drag on growth, and hence on wages. In other words, controlling debt should be part of an affordability agenda in the same way as streamlining regulation.
When legislators decide to take affordability seriously, I recommend looking at a September Advancing American Freedom (AAF) report on this topic. Its section on fiscal restraint offers a useful menu of reforms, including targeting the programs that most drive the debt.
Start with Social Security. Under current law, benefits will be cut by roughly 20 percent when the program's trust fund runs dry in the early 2030s. Nobody believes Congress will actually let that happen, but we'd better hope its answer isn't to double down by borrowing the difference between payroll taxes and benefits.
Nor are tax increases an option. The payroll tax meant to fund entitlements is now 12.4 percent of wages. It began at 2 percent when Social Security was first rolled out. It is also the most burdensome tax for many Americans. Enough already. The fixes AAF fellow Rachel Greszler proposes are worth considering: Index the retirement age to life expectancy, use an accurate inflation measure for cost-of-living adjustments, and move gradually toward a flat universal benefit that protects lower-income retirees while ending Social Security's de facto welfare for the wealthiest.
Next is Medicare. More than 40 percent of its financing already comes from general revenue rather than from payroll taxes. The report recommends converting the program to premium support, giving beneficiaries a fixed contribution to spend on traditional Medicare or on competing private plans. It would also raise the eligibility age to 67, matching Social Security, and trim subsidies for well-off seniors. That's a start.
As for Medicaid, the problem is one of pricing. And yet competition based on price—the best cost-control tool—has never been seriously tried. Washington covers 90 percent of the cost of states' expanded Medicaid programs for adults. A state can buy a dollar of spending with just a dime of its own money. Changing the states' incentives would be key here. Implementing risk-adjusted per-capita caps, through which the federal government would give states a fixed amount per enrollee, would do just that. States would pay for their own inefficiencies or would be able to use every dollar they save by becoming more efficient.
The same logic supports returning more welfare programs to states, starting with the federal share of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. State governments have to balance their budgets in some form.
None of these reforms are painless. But the alternatives will prove far more painful. The U.S. will either continue paying a slow, unlegislated tax called inflation or face a fast, ugly fiscal crisis when bond buyers stop giving Washington the benefit of the doubt.
The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the global economy faces serious risks from Big Tech firms taking on massive debt to fund the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers worldwide. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report outlines a number of risks to economic growth in the coming years, including a reliance on AI […]
BT Business unveiled a managed security service aimed at increasing protection against AI-enhanced attacks for enterprises and public sector organisations, combining its technology and know-how with that of partner Microsoft.
Announcing the Security Operations Centre-as-a-Service (SOCaaS) product for the Microsoft Sentinel platform, the operator noted the launch was the result of an extended relationship with its partner across AI, security and cloud.
BT added the product combined the tech giant’s “leading security technology” with its scale, security and network operations.
Pointing to the need for beefed-up security in the AI era given accelerated attack timelines, BT positioned the offering as helping customers cut complexity of security operations, control costs and “improve detection, response and resilience”.
BT Business CEO Jon James explained “AI is transforming the cyber threat landscape at unprecedented speed, and our customers need protection that stays one step ahead”.
“By extending our partnership with Microsoft, we’re combining cutting-edge security technology with BT’s cyber expertise and threat intelligence to deliver stronger, more proactive protection”.
The managed service launch is the latest enterprise-focused offering promoted as helping UK organisations battle the ever-increasing tide of cybercrime.
In May, it unveiled what it called industrial-grade security products for small and medium sized businesses using technology from specialist CrowdStrike.
France faces growing pressure from eurozone governments and financial markets to secure its 2027 budget as borrowing costs climb towards levels not seen for more than two decades, raising questions about Paris’s ability to restore control over its public finances.
France is coming under increasingly direct pressure from its eurozone partners to resolve the political dispute surrounding its 2027 budget, with European finance ministers warning that continued uncertainty threatens confidence in the country’s public finances.
The warning follows a sharp increase in French government borrowing costs. Yields on ten-year sovereign bonds have risen by nearly 80 basis points since September, reaching levels last recorded in 2002. Investors are demanding higher returns to finance a government whose debt continues to increase while its capacity to impose spending restraint remains constrained by parliamentary divisions.
At the Eurogroup’s October discussions, finance ministers and European Central Bank officials pressed Paris to demonstrate that it can adopt a credible budget and comply with its commitments under the EU’s fiscal framework.
France’s difficulties have implications beyond its domestic politics. As the eurozone’s second-largest economy, France occupies a position fundamentally different from smaller countries that experienced sovereign debt crises during the previous decade.
Borrowing costs expose political weakness
The French government expects to borrow approximately €340 billion in 2027, making continued access to financial markets at sustainable rates an essential element of its fiscal strategy.
That financing requirement reflects both the need to cover the annual deficit and to refinance existing debt as government securities mature.
France’s public debt is already approaching 120 per cent of gross domestic product. As EU Today previously reported, official projections indicated that the debt ratio could reach 121.7 per cent in 2027, up from 115.7 per cent at the end of 2025.
The latest increase in yields adds another complication. Higher interest costs do not affect the entire stock of debt immediately because much of it was issued at earlier rates. They do, however, increase the cost of new borrowing and refinancing, progressively reducing the money available for other government commitments.
France also faces a difficult political timetable. With the presidential election approaching in 2027, parties are reluctant to accept measures involving spending reductions, higher taxation or changes to public services.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government has been attempting to reduce the deficit from an estimated 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2026 towards five per cent. Even that objective remains substantially above the EU’s three per cent reference value.
Brussels has limited room to compromise
Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has emphasised the importance of predictable fiscal policy and credible deficit reduction.
France is already subject to the EU’s excessive deficit procedure, under which member states must demonstrate progress towards agreed fiscal objectives.
The reformed European fiscal framework permits certain deviations from expenditure commitments in exceptional circumstances, but it does not provide an unrestricted exemption from debt sustainability requirements.
Paris therefore faces a double constraint. It must convince domestic political forces to support a budget while demonstrating to Brussels that its spending plans are sufficiently credible.
The danger is not necessarily an immediate financing crisis. France retains a large, diversified economy, deep financial markets and substantial tax-raising capacity.
The more immediate risk is that prolonged political deadlock produces progressively higher borrowing costs, making future fiscal adjustments more expensive.
Why the ECB cannot simply intervene
The European Central Bank has instruments designed to counter destabilising market conditions, but these are not intended to finance governments that are unwilling or unable to implement sustainable fiscal policies.
Bank of France Governor Emmanuel Moulin said on 7 October that France did not currently require ECB assistance. He argued that the solution lay in adopting a credible budget rather than expecting monetary intervention.
His position follows increasing speculation about whether the ECB could intervene if French bond yields continue rising.
Such intervention would raise difficult questions about the relationship between monetary policy and national fiscal responsibility. The ECB must consider financial stability across the entire eurozone, but it cannot remove the political obligations of individual governments.
France’s existing excessive deficit procedure also complicates its eligibility for certain forms of exceptional support.
The wider European consequences
France’s problems are developing at a particularly difficult moment for European public finances.
Governments are confronting higher defence commitments, expensive measures to protect households against energy inflation and demands for greater investment in industrial competitiveness.
Italy, another heavily indebted eurozone economy, is facing related pressures. The combination places additional importance on the credibility of the EU’s fiscal rules.
Those competing programmes illustrate the difficulty of securing a parliamentary consensus capable of reassuring markets.
The approaching presidential election reduces the likelihood of a durable settlement before voters choose France’s next head of state.
Eurozone partners cannot resolve that impasse from Brussels or Frankfurt. They can insist on fiscal commitments and provide a framework for adjustment, but the political decisions remain with Paris.
France’s immediate challenge is to prevent its budget dispute from becoming a broader loss of confidence in the government’s capacity to manage its finances.
Sete políticos autodenominados “mulheres trans” foram eleitos para cargos legislativos nas eleições gerais ocorridas no último domingo (04) no Brasil.
Erika Hilton (PSOL) e Duda Salabert (PSOL) foram reeleitas, enquanto Thabatta Pimenta (PSOL) estreará na Câmara Federal. Por sua vez, nos estados foram reeleitas Linda Brasil (PSOL) em Sergipe e Dani Balbi (PCdoB) no Rio de Janeiro, enquanto Sofia Favero (PSOL) foi eleita pela primeira vez para a Assembleia Legislativa de São Paulo e Natasha Ferreira (PT) também estreará na Assembleia Legislativa do Rio Grande do Sul.
A principal pauta dessas candidaturas é o transativismo. É a típica política identitária: defender seus próprios interesses, interesses de um setor minúsculo da classe média, contra os interesses da maioria dos explorados e oprimidos. Os transativistas vêm se destacando no Brasil por sua oposição aos direitos básicos das mulheres e pela utilização do aparato repressivo do Estado (Judiciário e polícia) para perseguir os cidadãos comuns, geralmente trabalhadores humildes, tachados de “transfóbicos”.
Tal empreitada não é feita através de um trabalho de conscientização política, nem muito menos é fruto de esforços dos oprimidos que, organizados de forma independente, conseguem criar um movimento social contra os interesses dos poderosos. Não. É um movimento integralmente artificial e financiado pelos mais poderosos entre os poderosos.
As Open Society Foundations, do especulador financeiro multibilionário George Soros, admitem abertamentem há dez anos que “há muito tempo apoiam organizações trans e intersexo em todo o mundo”. Ainda em 2013, as OSF apresentavam seu ponto de vista sobre a transexualidade: “a identidade de gênero é o sentido interno de uma pessoa de ser um homem, uma mulher ou outro gênero.”
As OSF são a ponta de um guarda-chuva, pelo qual repassam fundos para organizações captadoras de forma hierárquica. Assim, a organização mãe originada da iniciativa de George Soros ainda na década de 1980 para derrubar a União Soviética e seus aliados consegue levar financiamento a um número incontável de ONGs.
No Brasil, a Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (ANTRA) recebe financiamento indireto das OSF. Estas repassaram 25,8 milhões de reais ao Fundo Brasil de Direitos Humanos entre 2016 e 2024. O Fundo Brasil, por sua vez, aportou 400 mil reais à ANTRA em 2024.
Além disso, Bruna Benevides, presidente da ANTRA, é integrante do conselho deliberativo da Conectas Direitos Humanos, ONG que é a maior receptora de fundos das OSF (34 milhões de reais até 2024).
Em relatório com mapeamento e lista de candidaturas para as eleições deste ano, a ANTRA assegura ter um “compromisso inegociável de eleger pessoas trans”. No total, foram 116 candidaturas registradas como “trans” pelo Brasil.
Após o resultado eleitoral, a organização comemorou a eleição das sete “mulheres trans” para cargos legislativos: “estávamos ansiosas por este resultado! Ampliamos nossas presenças com votações extremamente expressivas e demos uma bela resposta à transfobia!”
Quem também celebrou o resultado foi a Associação Brasileira de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis, Transexuais e Intersexos (ABGLT): “as pessoas LGBTQIA+ ampliaram sua participação política e demonstraram, nas urnas, a força que construímos”, destacando a eleição de “mulheres trans” para a Câmara Federal. A publicação foi feita nas redes sociais, em parceria com a ANTRA e Bruna Benevides.
A ABGLT é afiliada ao Washington Brazil Office, entidade de lobby sediada na capital dos Estados Unidos e que recebeu 300 mil dólares de financiamento das Open Society Foundations em 2023. Ela também é parceira institucional da Associação Brasileira de Organizações Não Governamentais (Abong), que recebeu R$ 4,3 milhões de financiamento das OSF entre 2016 e 2024.
A Abong também recebeu, no ano passado, R$ 1,5 milhão em recursos de emendas parlamentares de Erika Hilton, que é presidente da Frente Parlamentar Mista por Cidadania e Direitos LGBTI+ do Congresso Nacional. Esse montante era destinado a ações de “empoderamento e capacitação da comunidade LGBTQIA+”, “fortalecimento das paradas LGBTQIA+” e “advocacy e colaboração com a Frente Parlamentar LGBT+” da própria Hilton.
Hilton tem relações mais profundas com o guarda-chuva de George Soros. Um documentário biográfico de Hilton recebeu financiamento do William Greaves Research & Development Fund. Dirigido por Chica Andrade, que é um dos organizadores da Associação de Profissionais Audiovisuais Trans, o filme aparentemente ainda não foi concluído, ou ao menos ainda não foi lançado – embora a previsão de lançamento fosse para o início deste ano. O Fundo William Greaves contemplou o documentário em seu programa de financiamento de 2023-2024 com 25 mil dólares. O Fundo pertence à Firelight Media, uma organização sem fins lucrativos sediada em Nova Iorque que tem entre seus apoiadores as Open Society Foundations.
Hilton também é profundamente relacionada com a ANTRA e com Bruna Benevides. Em 2024, a deputada indicou Benevides para receber a Medalha do Mérito Legislativo da Câmara Federal e deu apoio institucional ao Guia para Migrantes Trans nos EUA, elaborado pela ANTRA. Em 2025, a associação enviou à deputada uma proposta legislativa para alterar o Código Penal e aumentar as penas por crimes cometidos contra “mulheres trans”. Em setembro deste ano, a ANTRA apresentou uma representação à Procuradoria-Geral Eleitoral pedindo apuração de “possíveis episódios de violência política de gênero” contra Hilton – Benevides foi quem apresentou publicamente a posição da entidade.
Duda Salabert também deu apoio institucional ao guia da ANTRA. Thabatta Pimenta participou, ao lado de Benevides, do XX Seminário LGBTQIA+ do Congresso Nacional em 2023, bem como do EleiTrans, encontro de transexuais famosos que se apresentam como lideranças que foi promovido pelo Projeto Pajubá e que contou com a colaboração da ANTRA, ABGLT e Abong.
Linda Brasil, por sua vez, participou de atividades institucionais da ANTRA. Em janeiro de 2025, por exemplo, esteve na cerimônia do acordo entre o Ministério das Mulheres e a ANTRA, ao lado de Benevides. A deputada estadual do PSOL foi uma das principais figuras políticas transexuais a participar da “Marsha Trans Brasil” deste ano, organizada pela ANTRA e pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Transmasculinidades (Ibrat).
Dani Balbi esteve junto com Linda na manifestação. Em 2023, Balbi apresentou na Assembleia Legislativa do Rio de Janeiro um projeto concedendo a Benevides o Prêmio Cidadania, Direito e Respeito à Diversidade
Natasha Ferreira também participou do EleiTrans e da “Marsha Trans Brasil”.
A councillor has been punished for raising safeguarding concerns about an LGBTQ stall displaying a large purple dildo next to a children’s colouring area at a family library. With the help of the FSU, he's fighting back.
Mobile World Live (MWL) brings you our top three picks of the week as Indian authorities rejected Elon Musk’s allegations about Starlink’s regulatory roadblocks, BT rescued TalkTalk in a £400 million deal and Deutsche Telekom (DT) looked to capitalise on sovereign AI demand.
India hits back at Musk over Starlink oligarch claims
What happened: India’s Ministry of Communications rebuked Elon Musk’s accusation that Indian oligarchs were blocking Starlink’s launch in the country and seeking to preserve a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”, stressing its satellite communications framework is “fair and non-discriminatory”.
Why it matters: The watchdog explained Starlink, along with Indian telecom incumbents Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, are all at the same stage of the regulatory process. Each operator must complete security assessments before they can seek spectrum, with final clearances pending. Musk has previously clashed with Reliance Jio owner Mukesh Ambani over satellite spectrum access in the country. Starlink’s protracted approval process in India has lasted four years, with security requirements and spectrum access among key issues. Its presence in the country has also been complicated by reports that Starlink equipment was recovered across parts of the country, claims Musk said do not indicate an illegal active service in India.
Manas Mody, founder of business consultancy FX & Float, said the regulatory debate was “broader than a contest between Musk and operators” because “there could be legitimate regulatory and security considerations behind the resistance”, adding India “has done considerable work to secure its critical digital infrastructure”. “While Musk’s concerns may have some merit, I believe there’s likely more to this than just a conspiracy involving oligarchs,” he argued, adding Starlink is “unlikely to make a significant dent in India’s consumer telecom market” at its planned pricing as its “real opportunity lies in improving connectivity in underserved regions and remote hubs”.
What happened: BT Group agreed a £400 million deal to acquire TalkTalk’s consumer and wholesale businesses out of administration, bringing 2.5 million customers and around 900 employees under its ownership.
Why it matters: The acquisition prevents the UK broadband provider from folding and potentially disrupting services for millions of customers. TalkTalk reported £1.2 billion in revenue in the past 12 months but was loss-making following a prolonged, unsuccessful sales process. BT CEO Allison Kirkby called the situation “genuinely unprecedented”, warning millions of citizens, businesses and public services were at risk if TalkTalk collapsed. She said the acquisition was “the only viable option to keep millions of customers connected and supported”, with the BT adding the business can become value accretive if it is stabilised.
Kester Mann, director of consumer and connectivity at FDM CCS Insight, said the deal “will inevitably also evoke scrutiny from regulators keen to ensure a fair and competitive playing field”, given BT’s “strong position in the broadband market”. He added that this was particularly relevant after competition authorities raised concerns over Nexfibre’s planned acquisition of fellow broadband player Netomnia.
For TalkTalk, Mann said the deal “cements a painful decline” as the company “failed to respond sufficiently to a fast-changing and increasingly competitive market”. Its demise, he warned, should be “a stark warning to any value-focused telecom provider”.
What happened: DT set out plans to turn rising demand for sovereign AI into a new revenue stream, targeting around €250 million in non-US AI-related revenue this year and approximately €800 million by 2030.
Why it matters: The German operator noted European businesses and public institutions seeking AI capabilities while retaining control of data and operations presented a key opportunity, describing sovereign AI as a “growth business”.To that end, DT said it is developing an automation platform for SMEs and expanding AI customer service offerings. CEO Timotheus Hoettges stressed it is crucial AI “delivers measurable value” across the business.
Jamie Escott, account director at Vodafone Business Security Enhanced, said DT’s projected €2.5 billion reduction in indirect costs by 2030 highlights “the growing importance of AI moving beyond experimentation and into large-scale operational deployment”. He added organisations are increasingly focusing on “measurable outcomes such as productivity, efficiency and service quality”. Meanwhile, Jean-Philippe Romieu, executive director for cloud and AI professional services at Microsoft Germany, described DT’s strategy as a “telco blueprint”, pointing to use cases included network integrated AI, autonomous infrastructure and AI-assisted operations. However, he flagged issues including volatile compute costs and market adoption, warning DT’s success “relies heavily on European enterprises prioritising data localisation over hyperscaler pricing and performance”.
France’s borrowing costs have risen to levels last seen more than two decades ago as investors shift towards German, Dutch and other lower-risk European debt, placing Paris at the centre of renewed concern over eurozone public finances.
France is emerging as the principal source of concern in Europe’s government bond market as investors reassess the fiscal strength of eurozone states and increasingly move money towards Germany and other countries regarded as safer borrowers.
The yield on French ten-year government debt has reached its highest level since 2002 after rising by about 70 basis points during September. The difference between French and equivalent German borrowing costs approached 160 basis points last week, its widest since 2012, according to market reporting on the sell-off.
The shift represents a sharp reversal in how investors view French sovereign debt. France has traditionally traded close to Germany and benefited from its status as one of the eurozone’s largest and most liquid bond markets. It is now being treated increasingly as a country whose political and fiscal outlook warrants a substantial premium.
The immediate concern is the French budget.
Paris said in September that this year’s deficit would exceed the government’s five per cent target, while the country faces the additional challenge of issuing a record €340 billion of government bonds in 2027. The money will be needed both to finance current expenditure and refinance debt accumulated during the Covid period.
Bond markets, however, are responding to France’s present position rather than promises extending into the next presidential term.
The movement is also beginning to alter longstanding assumptions about which European sovereign borrowers are considered risky.
Italy remains vulnerable. Its ten-year bond spread over Germany rose to about 130 basis points last week, compared with roughly 80 basis points a month earlier. Italian public debt stands at around 138.6 per cent of GDP, and Rome expects its deficit to move above the EU’s three per cent ceiling.
Yet French debt has recently come under greater pressure than Italian debt.
Spain provides an even more striking contrast. During the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis in 2012, Spanish ten-year bonds yielded around five percentage points more than French debt. Spain’s ten-year yield is now approximately 75 basis points below France’s.
The difference reflects stronger Spanish growth and improved confidence in Madrid’s finances, although investors are watching Spanish and Portuguese debt for evidence that the French sell-off is spreading elsewhere in the currency union.
So far, the movement is not comparable with the eurozone crisis of the early 2010s. At that time, Italian bond spreads above Germany exceeded 500 basis points and Greece’s reached thousands of basis points. Current differences remain far smaller.
The direction of capital flows is nevertheless notable. Germany has re-established itself as Europe’s principal bond-market safe haven despite questions earlier this year about Berlin’s increased spending on defence and infrastructure. German ten-year yields fell as investors bought Bunds during the recent turbulence.
Higher sovereign yields feed into the interest costs faced by governments when refinancing debt and can affect borrowing throughout an economy. For a country already running a large deficit, rising yields make efforts to restore the public finances more difficult because an increasing share of expenditure must eventually be devoted to debt servicing.
TOKYO – For decades, the US enjoyed a remarkable luxury: its two biggest creditors, Japan and China, kept showing up at Treasury auctions with checkbooks open. Now, Donald Trump’s trade wars, tariff threats and widening geopolitical confrontations raise an uncomfortable question: what happens if Washington’s most reliable bankers decide they’ve had enough? Granted, global investors […]
Marine Le Pen has set out plans to cut French public spending by €140 billion by 2032, reduce the deficit and impose a constitutional constraint on future borrowing, placing France’s deteriorating public finances at the centre of the campaign for the 2027 presidential election.
Marine Le Pen has presented a five-year fiscal programme under which a National Rally administration would seek €140 billion in net savings by 2032, restore France’s primary budget balance within 18 months and bring the headline deficit back below the European Union’s three per cent threshold by 2030.
The scale of the problem was underlined on the same day by France’s Directorate-General of the Treasury. Its latest report on public debt projects the debt ratio at 119.3 per cent of GDP this year before rising to 121.7 per cent in 2027. Debt stood at 115.7 per cent at the end of 2025.
Le Pen’s programme is therefore aimed not only at French voters but at financial markets increasingly focused on whether Paris can prevent debt from continuing to rise.
According to the proposals outlined on Tuesday, spending reductions would be concentrated heavily in the first three years of a Le Pen presidency. She would also seek to introduce what she calls a constitutional “golden rule”, requiring successive governments to reduce the budget deficit each year.
The measure would be put to a referendum and is intended to make deficit reduction binding beyond an individual government’s annual budget decisions.
Le Pen has also proposed reducing France’s public debt to around 112 per cent of GDP by 2032. That would reverse the trajectory currently expected by the French government, although the National Rally’s assumptions would depend on its ability to deliver the proposed savings and on economic growth during the next presidential term.
Among the most politically significant proposals is a plan to restrict France’s net contribution to the EU budget to €5 billion. The party argues that some European spending should instead be financed through harmonised taxes on products such as tobacco and alcohol.
Le Pen also expects substantial savings from tighter immigration controls and the introduction of the National Rally’s proposed “national preference” rules for access to parts of the welfare system. Her programme estimates that measures connected with immigration could eventually produce savings of as much as €29 billion annually.
Other elements include changes to pension policy, reductions in corporate and energy taxation, measures against VAT fraud, the abolition of more than 120 taxes and a reduction in the number of state agencies.
The programme marks an attempt by Le Pen to make fiscal policy a central part of a campaign that has until now been dominated largely by immigration, security and questions surrounding France’s political fragmentation.
The timing is significant. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government has itself introduced a difficult fiscal consolidation programme. The 2027 budget presented by the Finance Ministry envisages €54 billion in measures to improve the public finances, including €43 billion contained directly in the state and social-security budgets.
The government expects the deficit to fall from 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2026 to five per cent next year. It forecasts growth of only 0.5 per cent this year before a recovery to one per cent in 2027.
The debt burden is becoming increasingly costly. Interest payments are expected to reach €91.2 billion in 2027, up from €79.2 billion this year, according to the Finance Ministry. By 2030, total public-sector interest costs are projected to reach 3.7 per cent of GDP.
That gives the presidential campaign an economic dimension that is difficult to separate from France’s relationship with Brussels. Paris remains subject to EU fiscal rules requiring a gradual reduction in its deficit, while any attempt to reduce the French contribution to the EU budget would require negotiations with the other member states.
Her latest intervention shifts part of the campaign onto terrain traditionally associated with the centre-right: public spending, debt and the credibility of France’s finances.
With the government attempting to secure parliamentary support for its own austerity measures and French borrowing costs under closer scrutiny, the question of how the country pays for the state is now moving towards the centre of the contest to succeed Emmanuel Macron.
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