Beijing has proposed banning exports of the technology used to make next-generation solar cells, a move that could complicate United States technology guru Elon Musk’s plan to expand into space solar power. The ban, which covers production technology for perovskite and tandem solar cell modules, is part of a proposal by China’s Ministry of Commerce […]

The post China next-gen solar tech curb to impact SpaceX AI computing plan appeared first on Asia Times.

Two weeks before the midterm elections, Trump’s approval rating has hit a two-term low. The war with Iran has driven up the cost of a tank of gas and a cart of groceries, millennials have turned away from him faster than the rest of the country, and part of his base plans to stay home.

Donald Trump’s name is not on any ballot on Nov. 3, yet much of the U.S. electorate will head to the polls with him in mind.

A national poll released Sunday, Oct. 18, and conducted Oct. 9-13, puts his approval rating at 33%, the lowest the series has recorded in either of his terms. Two in three adults disapprove of his performance, 52% strongly, and the same survey had him at 37% in both April and July.

RELATED: Trump Approval Falls to New Low of 33% Two Weeks Before Midterms

The poll also asked whether the next Congress should act as a check on the president or support his agenda. Fifty-eight percent preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress as a check on him, compared with 39% who want a Republican Congress aligned with the White House, a gap nearly twice as wide as a year ago. Neither party is calling this election a referendum, but the answer brings it close to one.

Almost six out of ten U.S. citizens want the next Congress to counterbalance Trump, a gap that has nearly doubled in one year. Graph: teleSUR

In the race for the House of Representatives, Democrats lead Republicans 52% to 44% among likely voters. Among registered voters the gap holds at eight points; in July it was three.

Other surveys tell the same story. An earlier Ipsos poll put him at 32% in September, and the Pew Research Center had him at 30% in early October. The slide deepened after February, when the war with Iran began.

Between the first bombings on Iran and the election, gasoline soared above 4 dollars and Trump’s approval rating plummeted. Graph: teleSUR

From Hormuz to the Gas Tank

The United States and Israel began bombing Iran in February, when a gallon of regular gasoline cost an average of $2.98, according to AAA. By late March it had topped $4 for the first time since 2022, and each new round of strikes pushed it back up. On Oct. 1, the national average hit $4.41.

At those prices, filling a 15-gallon tank costs about $21 more than before the war.

With Ormuz declared closed by Iran and no oil pipelines capable of replacing it, the gallon rose 48% in the US even with record crude production. Graph: teleSUR

In February, 7 in 10 U.S. citizens considered gasoline affordable. Eight months later, the same share says the opposite.

About a fifth of the oil the world consumes passes through the Strait of Hormuz. According to the official price index for September, consumer prices rose 3.7% over the year, energy 20.4% and gasoline 34.2%, while inflation excluding food and energy stood at 2.6%. Today, 65% of U.S. citizens believe attacking Iran was a mistake.

Tehran declared the strait closed in March and has reaffirmed that stance several times since. In October, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, chief of staff of Iran’s army, told the official IRNA news agency that the waterway remains closed and that all transit must be coordinated with the armed forces, and he blamed the closure for the rise in U.S. gasoline prices.

Washington says otherwise. On Oct. 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “the Straits of Hormuz are open,” that as much oil is flowing out now “as there was before this conflict began” and that Iran has “lost complete control of the straits.” Overland routes cannot replace the strait either. Before the war, the EIA estimated that the Saudi and Emirati pipelines that bypass Hormuz had only about 2.6 million barrels a day of spare capacity to divert crude, compared with the 20 million barrels a day that moved through the strait.

Ten days later, Vice President JD Vance revealed another side of the same administration. “I recognize that gas prices are too high right now,” he said Saturday night at a televised town hall. Asked why the war had not ended in a clear victory, he said that “in some ways we have won decisively,” though “the enemy gets a vote.” And he repeated that Iran, “the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world,” cannot have a nuclear weapon.

On the campaign trail, the fix being sold in Washington points elsewhere. In a poll of 1,000 likely voters taken in early October, four in five agreed that increasing U.S. energy production “can help make everyday life more affordable,” and 67% backed a proposal whose wording already promised the result, “updating federal permitting laws to reduce delays and lower costs.” It is the same reform the oil industry pitches as the key to affordability.

The government’s own energy agency supplies the missing piece. The United States has been the world’s largest crude oil producer since 2018 and is on track for a record of about 13.7 million barrels a day this year, while 84% of the crude that crossed Hormuz was bound for Asia. With output at record highs, gasoline has risen 48% since the bombing began. Crude is priced on a global market, and this year’s price spikes followed the calendar of the war, not the permitting calendar.

The price shock reached much of the world, and Latin American economies that import refined fuels absorbed it without having had any say in the decision to go to war. For those countries, the permitting fight in Washington is a distant concern; the price of their diesel depends on what happens in Hormuz. How much room Washington has to keep waging the war without congressional oversight will also be decided on Nov. 3.

For Latin American families living in the United States, the most visible face of the second term is immigration policy. At the start, half the country approved of it; now about 60% disapprove, and 56% say deportations have gone too far, eight points more than in April 2025. At the same town hall, Vance acknowledged that his rhetoric about immigrants had been “imperfect” and took the blame. “That’s on me,” he said. His goal, he insisted, is not “to dehumanize any immigrant.” “In fact, I love a number of immigrants,” he added.

An Economy Judged by Team Colors

The president’s approval on the economy has fallen to 28%, its lowest mark across his two presidencies. Forty-eight percent feel worse off than when Trump returned to the White House in 2025, the highest share in a series dating back to 1986, and for the first time in more than a decade, registered voters trust Democrats more to handle the economy, 40% to 33%. Before the 2022 midterms, the same series gave Republicans a double-digit edge on the issue.

That year, with Joe Biden in the White House, each party’s verdict on the economy was the mirror image of today’s, almost point for point, and independents stood at 16% in both surveys.

Democrats and Republicans reversed their judgment of the economy by changing government, meanwhile only independents stayed where they were. Graph: teleSUR

Voters who wear no team colors are moved by their wallets. In the October survey of likely voters, 37% said a candidate’s stance on affordability will decide their vote for Congress, more than double the 15% who put immigration first, an issue central to Trump’s 2024 campaign. That priority is shared by 43% of Democrats, 36% of independents and 32% of Republicans.

Among those who say they are worse off than in 2025, 78% lean toward Democrats, as do 71% of independents in that group.

The Generation that Turned Away Fastest

Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, are now 30 to 45 years old and make up the largest adult generation in the country. In 2024 they split almost evenly on Trump; exit polls showed voters ages 30 to 44 backing Kamala Harris over him 51% to 47%.

A YouGov poll conducted Aug. 28-31 found 27% approval and 70% disapproval in that age group, the group’s worst showing in the series. Its net rating went from minus 1 in January 2025 to minus 43 in August, a 42-point drop, compared with 30 points nationally.

The Economist makes the opposite case. It argues that millennials have turned their fortunes around and now earn more than any recent generation did at the same age, while narrowing the gap in homeownership. The magazine credits the recovery to markets rather than to a state-funded rescue. October’s polls show what that narrative leaves out.

In the House race, the Pew Research Center found voters ages 30 to 49 favoring the Democratic candidate 43% to 31%, with one in five still undecided.

October’s affordability survey, broken down by age, points in the same direction. Affordability will decide the vote of 45% of voters in their 30s and 44% of those in their 40s, above the 37% average. This is the cohort that entered the job market in the 2008 crisis, pays rent or a mortgage, raises children and fills the tank every day to get to work, and the tank is precisely where prices have climbed the most this year.

The cost of living defines the vote of almost half of voters aged 30-49, above the national average of 37%. Graph: teleSUR

The figures come from surveys with different age brackets and do not prove a single cause. Read together, though, they show the country’s largest generation turning away from Trump faster than everyone else, with the cost of living at the top of its priorities.

RELATED: U.S. Retail Sales Up in September Amid Surging Gas Prices

The Ones Who Stay Home

Among those who voted for Trump in 2024, 23% now disapprove of his performance and 38% reject his handling of inflation. Most of them still prefer Republicans for Congress, so the erosion does not take the form of a switch to the other party. What they have lost is the certainty that they will vote.

Seventy-five percent of registered Democrats say they are certain to vote, compared with 67% of Republicans. Within the Republican Party, certainty reaches 75% among supporters of the MAGA movement and falls to 57% among those who do not identify with it, and more than a quarter of the latter want Democrats to control the next Congress.

Only 39% of Republicans strongly approve of the president, down from 63% in February 2025.

How many of the 77 million people who voted for Trump in 2024 will return to the polls without his name on the ballot is a question no one can answer yet. Turnout models based on 2022 and 2024 favor Republicans; votes already cast or locked in, by contrast, favor Democrats.

The risk for Republicans is at home. Their MAGA-unaffiliated voters are the least confident of going to the polls. Graph: teleSUR

What is at Stake in the Senate

With the slim House majority Republicans are defending, losing a handful of seats would be enough to hand over control, and presidential approval is among the best predictors of midterm results. Even so, 58% of likely voters who “somewhat” disapprove of Trump still prefer the Republican in their district.

The Senate is split 53-47 in Republicans’ favor, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win back the majority. Of the 35 seats on the ballot, seven are rated toss-ups, and six of them — in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas — are held by Republicans. North Carolina, a Republican seat, is already rated as likely to go Democratic.

The seven states that decided the last presidential election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — offer an early clue about 2028. Trump carried all seven in 2024, and today his net approval is negative in every one of them, between 15 and 25 points underwater among registered voters, according to the Civiqs tracker. He cannot run in 2028, and those numbers measure a president, not his successor, but they map the terrain his party will inherit.

Six of the seven open Senate races are played in Republican seats, while their approval is now negative in the seven states that gave the White House to Trump in 2024. Graph: teleSUR

On Nov. 3, Trump’s name will still be missing from the ballot. The outcome will depend less on votes that switch parties than on the votes that are never cast, among them those of a generation that split almost evenly on him two years ago and in August disapproved of him by more than two to one.

The Arch and the Gas Pump

On Wednesday, Oct. 14, 20 days before the election, the new Air Force One flew low over the airport in Bullhead City, in the Arizona desert. It is the Boeing 747 that Qatar’s royal family gave Trump, now painted red, white, blue and gold. “When they give you a 747, you say two words, thank you,” he told supporters.

Arizona is one of the swing states that change hands from one presidential election to the next. Joe Biden won it in 2020 by about 10,500 votes, Trump took it back in 2024, and today his approval there is 18 points underwater. The state has no Senate race this year, but it does elect a governor and all nine of its House members. The president chose Mohave County, where he won more than 77% of the vote two years ago, with early voting already a week underway. He went looking for his base, the voters he needs at the polls, not at home.

From the plane he moved on to people who leak military information. “In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” he said, and he called the journalists covering him “almost as bad as a leaker.” He touted the ballroom he is building at the White House and the triumphal arch he plans for the capital. On Iran, whose leaders, he said, “are gone,” he let slip a confession. “I might have gone too far. I don’t know who the hell to deal with.” And he promised that once the war ends, “your gasoline is going to go down to even lower than it was before it started.”

He was addressing a country that fills its tank at wartime prices and pays rents 2.8% higher than a year ago, according to the official price index. Three days later, his vice president admitted on television what the gas pump was already saying. Trump, in Arizona, had preferred to talk about monuments.

The planned arch would stand 76 meters (250 feet) tall, about 26 meters (85 feet) taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and would rise at the foot of the bridge leading to Arlington National Cemetery, as part of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

Napoleon commissioned the Paris arch in 1806, after his victory at Austerlitz, to honor his armies. Construction dragged on for three decades. When it was inaugurated in 1836, the emperor had been dead in exile for 15 years, and he passed beneath the arch only once, in 1840, inside the coffin that brought his remains back to France.

Calls for justice and for the reopening of Nolan Wells’ case are mounting after a grand jury declined to bring criminal charges, despite the question of Wells’ cause of death remaining unanswered.

Wells, a young Black student at Southwest Mississippi Community College, went on a boating trip on July 4 to Horn Island, just off the coast of Mississippi, with several white friends. He never returned.

His friends, who returned to the mainland with Wells’ cell phone but without him, claimed he chose to stay behind. Wells’ body was found in the water near Horn Island two days later.

A state medical examiner declared the 18-year-old’s cause of death “undetermined.” The grand jury, however, claimed that the conditions of his death were “consistent with drowning.” When the autopsy reports were publicly released after the grand jury decision, they revealed that there were two contusions on the back of Wells’ head. The family’s attorney and others have described these injuries as blunt-force trauma, insisting that they do not believe Nolan drowned.

The autopsy also reported a lack of fluid or debris in his airways, and that his stomach was empty.

Read more: Nolan Wells, disputed Black deaths, and the legacy of racial violence in the US

The suspicion and confusion surrounding his death has only been amplified by recently released text messages between various friends of Wells.

Newly released messages between Wells’ friends fuel suspicions and calls for justice

A 292-page report of cell phone messages between Nolan Wells’ friends was released on October 15. In one group chat, the friends that returned to the mainland without Wells appear to be discussing the investigation by authorities.

“Don’t speculate about s— yall.” “Because they can try to get your a–.” “If you talk more,” said one user.

As information about the case became public, sparking calls for answers about Wells’ death, the messages appear to express frustration at the increasing suspicion toward this friend group.

One user said, “small minded individuals who are so full of hate towards themselves that they can’t help but try and push it onto other people.”

Another said, “lay low” “and pray I love yall but we don’t needa be texting ab this.”

In a different groupchat, presumably of several Black friends of Wells, users expressed suspicion toward the group of white friends that came back from Horn Island without Nolan.

“Ts weird af,” said one friend.

“Dem white n—- mane.”

“They did sum wit bra,” said another.

“i lowkey feel like they drugged his ahh assum icl,” said one friend.

“All them white —— was lying ——- was crying otw last night while we was just asking questions,” said another user.

“wtf,” responded another.

Returning to the majority-white group chat of friends that were with Wells on July 4, one user said:

“We need to go to Nolan’s funeral and get with all our other black friends to prove a statement for the media.”

“It would shut everyone down.”

The conversation then turned toward the Wells’ family attorney, Ben Crump, and the Wells’ funeral.

“Whoever paid for the funeral wants it to be some huge thing,” said one friend.

“it’s almost like their brainwashing Nolan’s parents and taking advantage of them while their overwhelmed with grief.” “it’s so evil.”

The group continued to exchange messages expressing frustration at what they described as “racism” being directed towards them by the public as questions around Wells’ death mounted.

An online fundraiser was reportedly set up on behalf of Wells’ white friends, titled “Stand With Nolan Wells’ Targeted Friends,” and included messages like, “Thank you for Standing with The Boys!” The fundraiser received over two hundred thousand dollars to “prosecute cases of defamation” so that “these Boys” can win lawsuits against “fanatical opponents who have unlimited resources.”

As more information comes out about the case, the unanswered questions are boiling over into anger and demands for accountability. A spontaneous movement is now demanding Wells’ case be reopened and investigated thoroughly until justice is served.

Movement for Nolan Wells surges across HBCUs

Following the grand jury decision, spontaneous student walkouts were seen across dozens of historically Black colleges and universities across the South.

“It was clear to us living here seeing the rage around the Nolan Wells case start to come to a boil,” said North Carolina-based organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation Prince Williams, speaking to BreakThrough News.

There was a walkout at Atlanta University Center on October 1, another at North Carolina Central October 6, and Prairie View A&M University on October 7. 

After these spontaneous walkouts, students at Jackson State University called a Southern Day of Action on October 15, demanding justice for Nolan Wells. Specifically, they called for the investigation into the death of Nolan Wells to be reopened immediately.

“The call spread like wildfire, especially in North Carolina,” said Williams. “Six schools called walkouts and demonstrations.”

In total, about a dozen schools across five states in the South answered the call from students in Jackson, he said. 

From an institutional perspective, the case is a settled matter after the grand jury decision. But organizers on the ground say the institutional legacy of racism, white supremacy, and Jim Crow, have not been forgotten. And neither has the historical tradition of Black resistance. 

Generations of resistance in the US South

“There has never been a moment in the history of the US where Black Americans could rely on the government to get justice for us,” said Williams.

Instead, he pointed to the countless ancestors who, through relentless struggle, freed themselves from slavery and broke the back of Jim Crow.

“That reality has created a generational responsibility for us to see our own power when we come together on one accord to find justice for ourselves.”

As suspicious deaths of young Black Americans are on the rise, Williams says there is little trust in law enforcement. “About 7 in 10 Black adults say prisons, policing, and the court system were designed to hold Black people back.” The recognition of a highly racist system enforced by these very institutions is widespread, he added. The suspicious deaths we are seeing today are a continuation of a long history, especially in Mississippi, where kidnappings of Black people are “written off as disappearances” and lynchings are ruled “accidental drownings.”

“We must stay vigilant and continue to raise this case in our daily lives with everyone we know.”

National solidarity in the call for justice for Nolan Wells

Organizers urge all students and communities across the United States to support the campaign for justice and accountability.

“Put pressure on local, state, and federal officials to reopen Wells’ case,” said Williams. However, he emphasized that this can’t be done effectively in isolation.

“We need to join organizations of like-minded people that are sustaining these campaigns who can take this movement far beyond the Southern day of Action on October 15.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated that his country’s proposal to end the war with the US and to restart nuclear negotiations is “still on the table,” claiming the Iranian conditions are “completely clear” and “unchanging.”

Talking to Iranian state media on the sidelines of the 52nd session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Baghdad on Sunday, October 18, Araghchi also said that Iran is currently studying the US response to its proposals.

If the US meets its conditions, “the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened on the sixth day, and negotiations will resume on the seventh,” Araghchi said. 

Though Araghchi did not talk about them explicitly, he reiterated that the Iranian conditions are the same as what the US had agreed to under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed in June.

On several previous occasions Iran has made clear that if the US lifts its naval blockade, releases Iran’s foreign frozen assets, and ends the war on all fronts in the region, it will allow the Strait of Hormuz to open.

As per the MoU, in the first 60 days after the deal took effect both sides were to initiate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. However, the MoU expired in August after hostilities were resumed within weeks of its signing.

The US resumed its military strikes on Iran in July, leading the Iranians to reimpose their blockade in the Strait of Hormuz in response, reversing its decision to open it for navigation as per the MoU.

Tehran had claimed that it presented a plan to reopen the Strait to the US in September, in a brief meeting with its delegation during the annual session of the UN General Assembly. However, US President Donald Trump later declared he had rejected the Iranian proposals.

Beware of Israeli provocations

Araghchi also rejected the repeated threats of new strikes and economic isolation against his country, claiming that Iran will not bow to threats and will defend its strategic and economic interests.

Last week it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a tough election at home, apart from planning to escalate war against Palestinians in the West Bank, also pressured Trump to resume the military strikes on Iran.

Read more: Netanyahu presses Trump to renew aggression on Iran ahead of Israeli elections

On the same day, Trump claimed that the US may attack some specific targets in Iran in order to disrupt its nuclear program. Media reports also claimed that the US is preparing to use the so-called “mother of all bombs” to again target Iran’s energy and nuclear infrastructure.

This is despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly boasted about “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program during the joint US and Israeli airstrikes in June 2025.

Reacting to those reports, Araghchi warned both the US and Israel to learn from their mistakes and stay away from Iran to avoid consequences more severe than during the earlier wars.

“Last time you wanted to “finish the job” Iran emerged even stronger. Want to try your luck again? Be our guest. But be careful; we have unfinished jobs too,” Araghchi said in a post on X on Monday.

He claimed that Netanyahu is pressing for a fresh war simply because he wants to stay in power and out of jail over corruption charges he has been facing for years now, without thinking about consequences to Israel or the US.

In a similar reaction, the head of the Iranian armed forces Ali Abdollahi also claimed on Sunday that his country was waiting for their [the US and Israel’s] foolish decision and miscalculation. Any attack by them would invite “a response war more severe, distinct, and devastating than in the past,” Abdollahi claimed.

Abdollahi’s warnings were relayed by several other Iranian officials on Sunday.

It is reported that the US has spent billions of dollars in the last eight months of war on Iran. It has lost most of its military infrastructure in the Gulf countries in Iranian responses, with over a dozen of its soldiers killed and several dozen of its aircraft lost. The US also faced a severe shortage of crucial ammunition due to the war on Iran, forcing it to suspend the strikes midway.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has yet to approve the transfer of a significant batch of Patriot interceptor missiles for Ukraine, Ukrainian officials and military officers told the Kyiv Independent, raising suspicions in Kyiv that Washington is deliberately withholding the weapons to pressure Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on

By Peter VAN BUREN

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Critics of Trump’s diplomatic staffing don’t address why it’s important to have a top man on the ground in the Zoom era.

During my more than two decades at the State Department as a diplomat, my well-meaning mother often asked what I’d have to do to make ambassador. The answer was simple: Dad would have to die young, and Mom would then have to donate the whole estate to the winner of the next presidential election. Then I’d get appointed ambassador to a small, unimportant country. For so many reasons, I am glad Dad lived to a ripe old age, and that Mom looks forward to taking care of the Humane Society in her will instead. I would have made a terrible ambassador.

Since 1960, 72 percent of America’s ambassadors to desirable posts in Western Europe and the Caribbean have been political appointees like the recently departed Kimberly Guilfoyle, as I might have been if the plan with Mom had worked out. Their primary and often only qualification is spending big on the guy who won the presidency. Career diplomats on the other hand are often promoted as ambassador into politically less important hardship posts, no donation required. All must be confirmed by the Senate. The United States is unusual among developed democracies in the scale of political ambassadorial appointments. Unlike the U.S., most developed democracies, including Britain, Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, reserve ambassadorships almost entirely for career diplomats.

So while the debate over political ambassadors versus career diplomats has gone on for more than a century, in 2026 the more interesting question may be whether we need ambassadors in every capital at all. What useful and productive thing was Guilfoyle doing in Greece anyway?

It is important to have a good person in the role; he acts as the personal representative of his country’s leader, in America’s case, answerable to the Oval Office. He receives confidential instructions from the White House before taking up his job abroad, and for many political ambassadors, can often pick up the phone and call the president and cabinet officials directly. I was in the room as a subject matter expert when ambassador Howard Baker simply picked up the phone and dialed Vice President Dick Cheney at his ranch in Wyoming and untied a significant bureaucratic knot that was burdening our relationship with Japan. This demonstrates something well-connected political ambassadors can uniquely do. On the other hand, communication inside an embassy can be problematic for political appointees; many Foreign Service Officers (FSO) see them as outsiders come to mess up their way of doing things and slow-walk ambassadorial initiatives because they are sure they know better. Political appointees, especially those taking leave from large businesses to serve, also tend to spend a lot of their time back in the U.S., creating friction with the staff.

In the American system, because most career ambassadors owe their own bottom-line allegiance (and pension) to the State Department, communication is often not that close and friendly with the Executive under most circumstances. A White House unsure of whether the State Department is even on its side will be unlikely to be reassured by a career ambassador in place, not to mention State’s long-standing institutional resistance to too many political appointees in general. Careerists usually do have strong host-country knowledge and maybe language skills. Some, however, can get too deep into the weeds on administrative, visa, or personnel matters a political appointee usually leaves to subordinates, and some use their new-found authority to settle old scores or pursue personal projects adjacent to core foreign policy.

The ambassadorial title remains the profession’s highest achievement. It would be surprising if ambitious FSOs did not aspire to it. But just being the most qualified for anything inside State is rarely enough. That leaves plenty of careerist yes-men around looking to get into an ambassador’s chair.

The struggle over who is better at the job, political appointees or careerists, will never conclusively end. It has been a factor of American diplomacy for decades, under all flavors of administrations. The mainstream media negatively focus on some of Trump’s ambassadorial choices, but to anyone familiar with diplomacy it is nothing more than another round in a century-old political argument.

The new question, unique to the second Trump administration, is whether or not the president should appoint anyone at all, career or political, to a particular ambassadorial job. Trump currently has 92 ambassadorial seats empty, with either the candidate stuck in the Senatorial confirmation process or the chair simply left vacant by Trump’s choice. The same number of empty offices at comparable points of their presidencies was only 54 under Biden, and 55 under the first Trump administration. A lot of the empties are in smaller countries of lesser political importance, but a few larger embassies stand out, including Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. Some have pending nominees, some do not. Senate intransigence aside, this seems to be by choice. The real question is, however, how much it matters.

Any American embassy without an ambassador is led by a charge, someone temporarily in the ambassadorial role, typically the embassy’s deputy chief of mission (DCM). The DCM is usually a State Department career FSO, typically the most experienced and senior one at post, and often has done multiple tours in the country in subordinate roles. This seems like the kind of person State would want in charge, yet the American Foreign Service Association and most rank-and-file FSOs curiously complain about not having enough career officers in leadership roles. One wonders whether for some critics the temporary nature of the title itself has become too much the issue.

Things are complicated by the fact that until something goes wrong, most ambassadors work without real oversight. One of the criticisms in Dennis Jett’s excellent book American Ambassadors is the lack of standards and definitions of success for an ambassador. They report to the president after all, who is usually too busy to pay much attention to things on a day-to-day basis in Lesotho, no matter who the ambassador is. Underlings in the embassy by culture and negative experience tend to be sparse in their suggestions upward, and State has little of the military’s tradition of after-action summaries, tough lessons-learned reports, and sincere historical evaluation of mistakes. Ambassadors tend to choose their own path. Some try to be local celebrities, scoring photo-ops and ribbon-cuttings and hosting VIPs. Others focus near-exclusively on American business promotion abroad, while others remember their own days in the bureaucracy and dive deep into political or economic reporting. This all further complicates what is and is not a “good” ambassador. So do we really need them?

Some Democrats think so. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, accused the administration of retreating from the world stage by leaving ambassadorial postings vacant. “China has ambassadors in nearly every country it has diplomatic relationships with, advancing its interests at the expense of America’s,” she said in a statement. Yet she and others rarely provide specific examples of what America’s ambassadors are doing or might be doing. Critics rarely identify policy outcomes that required a Senate-confirmed ambassador rather than a competent charge. That is the problem in these discussions, an unwavering belief that diplomatic presence is inherently valuable, even when its measurable effects are difficult to identify, and that if we’re not careful China will do it better. Remember of course the exact argument was made during the Cold War about the Soviet Union, leading the U.S. to open embassies in countries with little global importance, only to close them when priorities changed.

Ambassadors are increasingly curiosities left over from the 19th century, a past when Washington, DC, needed trusted representatives empowered to make decisions a world away. Embassies as they exist today were created for a world without Zoom, encrypted messaging, presidential and cabinet travel, celebrity special envoys, global media reporting, and easy direct leader-to-leader calls. It raises the question in 2026 that few people are willing to ask: If 92 embassies can function for months without ambassadors, how indispensable were those ambassadors in the first place?

Original article:  www.theamericanconservative.com

By Jonathan COOK

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Andy Burnham’s government is rolling out a new “Centre for Information Defence”. But the outside actors most aggressively undermining what little remains of British democracy are nowhere in its sights

Russia “interfered” in the 2016 Brexit vote by running some “anti-EU” articles on its RT channel and promoting a few internet trolls. Even MI5 has to admit that this activity had no tangible impact on the referendum campaign.

No matter. British prime minister Andy Burnham has once again revived the incendiary claim that Russian disinformation is an especial threat to British democracy. At the United Nations a few weeks ago he announced plans for a National Centre for Information Defence “to detect, attribute and disrupt these kinds of hostile state information attacks”.

For the new British prime minister, as for his predecessors, this is all about Moscow and the UK’s favourite bogeyman, Vladimir Putin. At the UN, Burnham promised British expertise to other European nations to protect them from Kremlin disinformation.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that another foreign actor is meddling even more aggressively in British politics – and neither Burnham nor MI5 have a word to say about it.

Any evidence of Russia disinformation-peddling in the UK pales in comparison to Israeli influence operations – and that’s just the ones we know about. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, noted that Russian disinformation was neither sophisticated nor successful. The same cannot be said for Israel’s handiwork.

Israel has been using “hasbara” trolls on social media platforms to manipulate public debates in Britain for years – the thrust of the accusation against Russia. But in Israel’s case, it goes much further than that.

This year the Israeli state massively increased its public diplomacy budget to $730 million to expand its influence operations. That includes flying even more politicians, clergy, academics and influencers to bombard them with pro-Israel propaganda they are then likely to spread back home. According to foreign minister Gideon Saar, Israeli advocacy should be treated “like investing in jets, bombs, and missile interceptors”.

There was already plenty of evidence through the late 2010s, as I reported at the time, that Israel was helping to organise, stoke and amplify a campaign to smear its arch-critic, Jeremy Corbyn, as an antisemite, in order to prevent him from reaching No 10 Downing Street.

Not least, Israel did so by advancing a new, bogus definition of Jew hatred through the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Usefully, for Israel, that definition largely ignores hatred of Jews to focus instead on criticism of Israel.

That was the most blatant meddling possible in what remains of Britain’s democratic processes. UK politicians and media not only failed to oppose it, but actively sought to amplify the smears.

Civil war

Chris Menahan 🇺🇸@infolibnews

🚨 ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reveals in Israel that he’s been working with all the top AI Frontier Labs to push them to suppress “anti-Semitism.” “We’ve been working with the Frontier Labs—OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta, who runs Muse, …

10:32 PM · Oct 13, 2026 · 447 ТЫС. Views

CEO Jonathan Greenblatt observed: “We’ve had excellent collaboration with Silicon Valley.” The platforms, he said, would tackle content the ADL doesn’t like “right in the source code” – that is, before users can see it.

That is likely not only to remove criticism of Israeli atrocities and criticism of western governments, such as the UK’s, for colluding in Israel’s genocide but turn social media into a playground for bots and Israel apologists, giving them free reign to spread their propaganda without challenge.

We also know, thanks to the work of the French security services – maybe MI5 was too busy chasing Russian bots to notice – that an Israeli cyber agency called Blackcore targeted the SNP in May’s Scottish elections, as well as meddling in elections in France and New York.

Israeli tech firms, especially those dealing in spyware, intelligence and influence operations, are typically closely aligned with the Israeli state and its military. Most of the founders of tech start-ups are alumnae of the Israeli army’s 8200 intelligence unit.

Alongside the SNP, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and a leftwing French party headed by Jean-Luc Melenchon were targeted. Why? Because, unlike their political rivals, all had dared to speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

With echoes of what happened to Corbyn, Blackcore’s campaigns were designed to smear candidates. In the case of the French elections, fake accounts were created to accuse one candidate of rape and another of paedophilia.

A new documentary, NAZA, shows how Israel has paved the way in using AI in pioneering new ways to kill on a mass scale in Gaza. It selected banks of targets for assassination, often by murdering those “suspects” when they are in family compounds, slaughtering large numbers of bystanders in the process.

It is therefore hardly surprising that tech firms in Israel have been caught using AI in similarly innovative and indiscriminate ways online, to target western publics with disinformation.

In the summer it emerged that the Israeli government had created a website for a fake “scholarly” think-tank. In a short period of time, it produced prodigious quantities of AI-generated content on Israel, optimised for common search terms, that promoted Israeli talking points and constantly suggested criticism of Israel risked fuelling antisemitism.

It was set up not only to influence internet chatbots into echoing its pro-Israel disinformation but also to integrate its content into what experts call the “underlying training data”: that is, the unquestioned assumptions on which chatbots operate.

Back in May 2024 Meta identified fake Israel-based accounts, “posing as Jewish students, African Americans and other concerned citizens”, peddling pro-Israel content in the US and Canada in support of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Two months ago, Meta again found the same kind of dirty tricks emanating from Israel, this time targeting Britain, France and Australia among other countries. The AI-generated accounts posed “as local, civically-engaged brands, news sources, religious organizations, and political activists”.

Notably in the case of the UK and France, the influence campaigns were designed to stoke “anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim” sentiment. Israel has been critically involved in advancing Islamophobic content, fuelling fears of a supposed “Muslim takeover” of Europe to mobilise support for Israel as a bulwark in the Middle East against Islam, and thereby encourage sympathy for its genocidal attacks on Gaza.

As a consequence, the political landscape in Britain has been disfigured. Support for the far-right has been artificially inflated, polarising British society. The path is being paved towards deeper authoritarianism and the possibility of civil war.

Death knell

But it isn’t just the influence of Israel we should be worried about. The problem runs much deeper, with a host of other noxious outside actors trying to warp and disfigure British politics in ways that closely accord with Israel’s malign intent. Burnham’s Centre for Information Defence will do precisely nothing to tackle any of it.

Here are two other powerful external actors aligned with Israel in distorting British politics.

The billionaire class, a transnational elite that has no loyalty to Britain, interfere in our politics by making our political parties dependent on their donations. They use their money to buy influence with the main parties – which is why for decades it has made little difference whether we vote for the Conservatives or Labour. We get austerity either way, while the billionaires get permission for their forever wars, directing public wealth away from public services into the arms industries and resource grabs.

Jeremy Corbyn tried to break with this model by funding Labour with small donations from ordinary people instead of the billionaires. As a result, he was destroyed by a confected campaign run by the billionaires, in association with Israel and its trolls, to smear him as an antisemite.

Sir Keir Starmer, Corbyn’s successor, went right back to begging for money from Big Business, got the billionaires behind him, and rolled on with the austerity programme.

Is Nigel Farage’s Reform different? Of course, not. Even before reaching power, he’s dependent on crypto-billionaires living in Thailand and Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, the sometime US trillionaire Elon Musk is busy rallying Britain’s new blackshirts, led by serial fraudster Tommy Robinson, to chase after a few “illegal” migrants rather than identifying the real criminals tearing apart Britain: the super-rich like Musk.

The billionaires both wield and conceal their influence through their ownership of the corporate media. They use the media to aggressively promote their own causes – political and economic policies ensuring their further enrichment – by normalising the extreme ideology of neoliberal capitalism, with its promotion of endless resource extraction through forever wars and the fuelling of needless consumption.

The consequence is the destruction of the conditions for human life on the planet. The billionaires hope they can ride out the catastrophe in their bunkers, or cryogenically freeze their bodies until a point in the future when they can be uploaded to the cloud.

One of the media’s most important jobs is to use smear campaigns to destroy anyone, such as Corbyn and now Zack Polanski, who threatens the billionaires’ privileged position by offering a mildly socialist programme of wealth redistribution.

Vassal state

The recent claims of a supposed “terrorist plot” outside RAF Fairford – really a US airforce base pretending to be a British base and one from which the US has waged an illegal war of aggression against Iran – should have reminded us that the Pentagon is largely in charge of UK foreign policy.

The US has some 15 major military bases on British soil, plus half a dozen smaller intelligence sites. As the rightwing US podcaster Tucker Carlson recently observed, the fact that Britain has foreign troops crawling all over it makes us little more than an occupied “vassal state”.

The US recently announced a $4 billion upgrade of its UK bases, including establishing storage sites for its nuclear arsenal. The plan caused barely a ripple of interest among British politicians or the media .

Although our political and media class pretend the UK is an equal partner in a western defence alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the reality is very different. Nato takes its orders from the US, doing Washington’s bidding. That’s why Nato has been pivoting towards America’s biggest economic rival, China, which is, of course, nowhere near the North Atlantic.

When the US snaps its fingers, Britain stands to attention and hikes its spending on the war industries. Along with European governments, the UK is willing to drain its national coffers and scythe through public spending with yet more austerity cuts to support Washington’s military agenda for “full-spectrum global dominance”.

Hidden influence

In the early 2010s, the US was desperately seeking a pretext to extradite Julian Assange from the UK and lock him up in a super-max jail, hiding him out of sight after his organisation Wikileaks revealed US and British war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was during this period that Starmer, as the director of public prosecutions, repeatedly jetted off to Washington for secret meetings with US officials.

We will never know what was discussed. Freedom of information requests discovered that his own officials destroyed all records of those meetings.

Once he became a politician, Starmer was recruited to the shadowy Trilateral Commission, originally founded in the 1970s by officials in Jimmy Carter’s administration to deal with the supposed problem of “an excess of democracy” in the US. The commission’s view was that voters were becoming dangerously less passive, at that time over the Vietnam war, and ways needed to be found to return them to docility.

There are a plethora of other “respected’ think-tanks and organisations whose chief role is to embed US policy ideas, especially those relating to foreign policy, in the thinking of British elites. They include the Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council, The British-American Parliamentary Group, and BritishAmerican Business.

The US uses its financial muscle through these organisations and many others to manufacture consent for its extreme neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies. The latest example are massive grants to organisations willing to export Trump’s MAGA ideology to the UK, masquerading as a “public education” initiative.

There is plenty of evidence to show that it was pressure from the Trump administration that led to the unprecedented decision by Starmer’s government to proscribe a civil disobedience group, Palestine Action, for the first time in Britain’s history as a terrorist organisation.

Palestine Action had incensed Israel by targeting its weapons factories on UK soil, highlighting another aspect of British collusion in the Gaza genocide, and had infuriated Trump personally by spraying one of his golf courses in Scotland with the words “Gaza is not 4 sale”.

In truth, the ways that the US meddles directly in British politics are so numerous it is virtually impossible to quantify them. Britain is little more than a colony of the US, receiving diktats on important foreign policy issues – especially regarding US and Israeli interests – that the UK is invariably too frightened to oppose.

Burnham is already rolling over to reverse the UK’s decision to honour a ruling from the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals that Britain has no claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and must return them to Mauritius. The UK has faced a temper tantrum from Trump on the matter because the US operates an illegal military base on one of the islands.

Disobedience by the UK is the exception, not the rule. Which makes Burnham’s exclusive focus on Russian influence almost laughably beside the point. This furious finger-pointing at the Kremlin is designed with one purpose in mind only: to distract the British public from where the real external meddling in our politics is coming from.

Original article:  jonathancook.substack.com

• The annual salaries of state governors vary, with the lowest being $70,000 in Maine.
• Josh Shapiro, Kathy Hochul, and Spencer Cox are among the highest-paid US governors.
• The average annual salary for a state governor is $174,479 in 2026.

In some states, being the governor doesn't automatically make you a top earner.

With voters in 36 states heading to the polls to elect governors in November's midterm elections, the annual salaries attached to the job vary dramatically across the country — from $70,000 in Maine to over $250,000 in Pennsylvania.

Across all 50 states, governors earn an average official annual salary of $174,479 and are subject to federal and state income taxes — except in states without income tax, such as Florida and Texas.

By comparison, the top 1% of US earners each make at least $731,492 a year, placing the average governor below the ultrarich but also well above the average US wage of $69,846 in 2024, according to the Social Security Administration.

While governors across all 50 states are generally allowed to earn income beyond their state salaries through investments, book deals, and other sources, the income they may take in is closely regulated, and rules vary by state.

Some, like Florida's Ron DeSantis, have brought in yearly incomes of over $1 million thanks to book royalties, while others, like Illinois' JB Pritzker, earn eight figures due to investment gains and even gambling wins.

As such, some governors, like Pritzker and Connecticut's Ned Lamont, who are independently wealthy, have chosen to forgo their six-figure state salaries.

Beyond the salary, other financial perks of being governor may include living in the governor's mansion, receiving private transportation from the state, and having access to security and staff.

See how much your governor makes each year, based on the most recent available state records, salary commissions, legislation, and public payroll data.

50. Maine

Governor: Janet Mills (Democrat)

Salary: $70,000

With a salary of $70,000, Maine Governor Janet Mills is the lowest-paid governor in the US.

The salary for Maine's next governor is set to rise to $125,000 in 2027 under new legislation, marking the first raise in the governor's salary in the state since 1987.

After two terms, Mills is now term-limited. Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles are facing off to become the state's next governor in the November midterm election.

49. Arizona

Governor: Katie Hobbs (Democrat)

Salary: $95,000

The Arizona governor, who has the second-lowest salary among US governors, will be eligible to receive a salary of $165,000 starting in 2027, per the state legislature.

Democrat Katie Hobbs is running for a second term in the November midterm election.

48. Oregon

Governor: Tina Kotek (Democrat)

Salary: $98,600

Oregon law sets the governor's annual salary at $98,600 and provides a separate $1,000 monthly expense payment. The salary is one of the lowest for any governor in the US.

Democrat Tina Kotek is up for reelection during the November midterms, seeking a second term.

47. Nebraska

Governor: Jim Pillen (Republican)

Salary: $105,000

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen, who earned $105,000 a year in 2025, per the state legislature, is the fourth-lowest-paid governor in the US.

Republican Jim Pillen is up for reelection, seeking a second term in the November midterm elections.

46. South Carolina

Governor: Henry McMaster (Republican)

Salary: $106,078

With a salary of $106,078 in 2025, per state records, the South Carolina governor is the fifth-lowest-paid governor in the US.

After two full terms, McMaster is now term-limited. Republican Alan Wilson and Democrat Jermaine Johnson are facing off in the race to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

45. New Mexico

Governor: Michelle Lujan Grisham (Democrat)

Salary: $110,000

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is the sixth-lowest-paid governor in the US. New Mexico's next governor will receive a salary of $169,714 starting with the next gubernatorial term in 2027.

Lujan Grisham is term-limited after serving two terms. Democrat Deb Haaland and Republican Gregg Hull are competing to succeed her in the November midterm election.

43. (tie) Louisiana

Governor: Jeff Landry (Republican)

Salary: $130,000

Louisiana law set the governor's salary at $130,000 in 2026. The salary has remained unchanged since January 2008.

43. (tie) Iowa

Governor: Kim Reynolds (Republican)

Salary: $130,000

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds earns an annual salary of $130,000, according to the state's official employee salary records.

Reynolds is not running for reelection, leaving Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn competing for the open governor seat in the November midterms.

42. Colorado

Governor: Jared Polis (Democrat)

Salary: $134,632

The Colorado governor, previously one of the lowest-paid governors in the nation, has received a $134,632 salary since 2023, as outlined by state law.

After nearly eight years in office, Polis is now term-limited.

Democrat Phil Weiser and Republican Victor Marx are competing to become Colorado's next governor in the November midterm.

41. Alabama

Governor: Kay Ivey (Republican)

Salary: $134,780

In fiscal year 2026, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey had a salary of $134,780, per the state's Department of Finance.

After two full terms in office, Ivey is now term-limited. Republican Tommy Tuberville and Democrat Doug Jones are facing off to become the state's next governor in the upcoming midterm election.

40. Wyoming

Governor: Mark Gordon (Republican)

Salary: $140,000

Wyoming law sets the governor's salary at $140,000 in 2026.

Mark Gordon is term-limited after two terms, leaving Republican Eric Barlow and Democrat Kenneth Casner competing for governor in the November midterm election.

39. Florida

Governor: Ron DeSantis (Republican)

Salary: $141,400

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earns $141,400 per year, according to state records.

DeSantis is term-limited after two terms in office. Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly are competing for governor in the November midterms.

38. Montana

Governor: Greg Gianforte (Republican)

Salary: $141,517

Gianforte, who made his fortune in tech, donates his salary to Montana nonprofits. In 2025, his office said he had donated his entire gubernatorial salary to organizations supporting Montanans in need.

37. Missouri

Governor: Mike Kehoe (Republican)

Salary: $145,095

Missouri law sets the governor's salary at $145,095 as of 2026.

36. Oklahoma

Governor: Kevin Stitt (Republican)

Salary: $147,000

While the current Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt, has a salary of $147,000 in 2026, his successor will see a raise to $185,000, per Oklahoma's Journal Record.

After nearly eight years in office, Stitt is now term-limited. Republican Mike Mazzei and Democrat Cyndi Munson are facing off to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

35. South Dakota

Governor: Larry Rhoden (Republican)

Salary: $148,522

South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden earns $148,522 a year in 2026, per the state's pay transparency website.

Republican Larry Rhoden, who took office last year following Kristi Noem's resignation, is up for election in November, seeking a full term.

34. Idaho

Governor: Brad Little (Republican)

Salary: $151,400

Idaho Governor Brad Little makes $151,400 in 2026, per state records.

Little is seeking a third term in the midterm elections this November.

33. Texas

Governor: Greg Abbott (Republican)

Salary: $153,750

As of 2026, Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes $153,750 a year, per state records.

Abbott is seeking a fourth term in the midterm election this November.

32. Michigan

Governor: Gretchen Whitmer (Democrat)

Salary: $159,300

Michigan law sets the governor's salary at $159,300. Governor Gretchen Whitmer also receives a $54,000 annual expense allowance, according to the State Officers Compensation Commission.

After nearly eight years in office, Whitmer is now term-limited.

Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James are facing off to become Michigan's next governor in the November midterm election.

31. Mississippi

Governor: Tate Reeves (Republican)

Salary: $160,000

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves earns a salary of $160,000 in 2026, according to the state's personnel board.

30. Rhode Island

Governor: Daniel McKee (Democrat)

Salary: $163,295

Rhode Island's governor, Daniel McKee, earns a salary of $163,295, according to the state's pay transparency portal.

After losing the Democratic primary, incumbent Dan McKee will not be on the ballot. Democrat Helena Foulkes and Republican Aaron Guckian are facing off to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

29. New Hampshire

Governor: Kelly Ayotte (Republican)

Salary: $165,027

New Hampshire law sets the governor's salary at $165,027.

Republican Kelly Ayotte is up for reelection this November, seeking a second two-year term in the midterm election.

28. Wisconsin

Governor: Tony Evers (Democrat)

Salary: $165,568

Wisconsin law bans salary changes for a governor during their term in office. Gov. Tony Evers has received an annual salary of $165,568 since beginning his second term in January 2023, up from $152,756 during his first term.

Evers is not seeking reelection. The state's next governor is slated to receive an annual salary of $184,684 when they take office in January 2027, according to Wisconsin's official compensation plan.

Democrat David Crowley and Republican Tom Tiffany are facing off in the November midterm election.

27. North Dakota

Governor: Kelly Armstrong (Republican)

Salary: $168,000

North Dakota's governor's salary is $168,000 following a July raise, per state legislation.

26. Nevada

Governor: Joe Lombardo (Republican)

Salary: $170,062

The Reno Gazette Journal reported in May that Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo makes $170,062 a year.

Lombardo is up for reelection in the November midterm elections, seeking a second term.

25. Arkansas

Governor: Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican)

Salary: $171,808

In October, an independent commission in Arkansas voted to raise Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' salary to $171,808 annually.

Sanders is running for a second term in the November midterm election.

24. Kansas

Governor: Laura Kelly (Democrat)

Salary: $174,000

In 2023, Kansas raised the governor's annual salary starting January 1, 2025, tying the office's pay to the salary of a non-leadership member of Congress, according to state legislation.

Kelly is term-limited after two terms, leaving Democrat Cindy Holscher and Republican Ty Masterson competing for the governor's seat in the November midterm elections.

23. Virginia

Governor: Abigail Spanberger (Democrat)

Salary: $175,000

Virginia law sets the governor's salary at $175,000 in 2026.

22. Ohio

Governor: Mike DeWine (Republican)

Salary: $180,203

Ohio set the governor's salary in a 2018 law that established yearly pay increases for statewide elected officials through 2028, per state law. After the 2026 increase, Gov. Mike DeWine's salary is about $180,203.

DeWine is term-limited after two terms. Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy are competing for the governor's seat in the midterm elections.

21. Alaska

Governor: Mike Dunleavy (Republican)

Salary: $182,787

In 2025, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy had a salary of $182,787, per the state's Department of Administration.

After two terms in the governor's seat, Dunleavy is now term-limited.

Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Republicans David Bronson, Treg Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson are facing off to become the state's next governor in the November midterm election.

20. Georgia

Governor: Brian Kemp (Republican)

Salary: $185,000

In fiscal year 2025, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp earned a salary of $185,000 and also received over $56,506 in travel reimbursements during the year, according to the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts' financial transparency portal.

After two terms in office, Kemp is term-limited. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson are running to be the state's next governor in the midterm election.

19. Delaware

Governor: Matt Meyer (Democrat)

Salary: $185,096

From July 2025 until 2029, the salary for the governor of Delaware is $185,096, per the state legislature.

18. Kentucky

Governor: Andy Beshear (Democrat)

Salary: $188,523

Kentucky's governor, Andy Beshear, has a salary of $188,523, per the state's pay transparency portal.

17. West Virginia

Governor: Patrick Morrisey (Republican)

Salary: $190,424

Since 2025, the West Virginia governor's salary has been set to match the US Office of Personnel Management's locality pay area for the rest of the US, per the state legislature. That puts current governor Patrick Morrisey's salary at $190,424.

16. Maryland

Governor: Wes Moore (Democrat)

Salary: $192,000

As of his third year as Maryland governor, per the state legislature, Wes Moore's salary was $192,000 in 2025. The governor's salary will increase during the next term, starting at $195,000 in 2027 and reaching $210,000 by the fourth year, according to Maryland's Governor's Salary Commission.

Moore is running for a second term in the November midterm elections.

15. Minnesota

Governor: Tim Walz (Democrat)

Salary: $200,000

The Minnesota governor's official salary is $200,000 after a July raise, per the Minnesota Legislature. Tim Walz previously declined salary raises while in office and accepted only a $127,629 salary. But during his last six months in office, he accepted his full salary, as reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

After two terms as governor, Walz is not running for reelection.

Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth will face off in November in a race to become the state's next governor.

14. Illinois

Governor: Jay Robert "JB" Pritzker (Democrat)

Salary: $205,700 (foregone)

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a member of the Pritzker family that founded the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, has chosen to forgo his salary. The state has set the governor's salary at $205,700 as of 2023, per the Illinois General Assembly.

Pritzker is up for reelection this November, seeking a third term in the midterm elections.

13. North Carolina

Governor: Josh Stein (Democrat)

Salary: $209,165

North Carolina state law sets the governor's salary at $209,165 in 2026.

12. New Jersey

Governor: Mikie Sherrill (Democrat)

Salary: $210,000

State law sets New Jersey's governor's salary at $210,000 after a 2023 increase.

11. Indiana

Governor: Mike Braun (Republican)

Salary: $220,418

Indiana Governor Mike Braun, who earns $220,418 a year, according to the Indiana state government, is the 11th-highest-paid governor in the US.

10. Hawaii

Governor: Josh Green (Democrat)

Salary: $226,620

Hawaii's governor, Josh Green, is now the 10th-highest-paid following a July raise passed by the state legislature.

Green is running for a second term in the midterm elections

9. Connecticut

Governor: Ned Lamont (Democrat)

Salary: $226,711 (forgone)

Although the State of Connecticut sets the governor's salary at $226,711, the independently wealthy Ned Lamont has chosen to forgo the salary while in office.

Lamont made his money in telecommunications and investments. He's also the great-grandson of Thomas W. Lamont, a former chair of J. P. Morgan & Co. who built substantial wealth in banking.

Lamont is up for reelection this November, seeking a third term in the midterm elections.

8. Washington

Governor: Bob Ferguson (Democrat)

Salary: $234,275

Washington's governor earns $234,275 following a July raise, making Bob Ferguson the eighth-highest paid governor in the US.

7. Massachusetts

Governor: Maura Healey (Democrat)

Salary: $243,493

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey received a salary of $243,493 in 2025, per the Office of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, making hers the seventh-highest governor's salary in the US.

Healey is seeking a second term in the November midterm elections.

6. Vermont

Governor: Phil Scott (Republican)

Salary: $243,520

Vermont law lists the governor's salary at $243,520 following a July raise, making the office the sixth-highest paid in the country.

Gov. Phil Scott is running for a sixth term in the midterm elections.

5. California

Governor: Gavin Newsom (Democrat)

Salary: $245,929

As of May 2026, the California Department of Human Resources listed the governor's salary as $245,929, making Gavin Newsom the fifth-highest-paid governor in the US.

After two terms, Newsom is now term-limited. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are facing off in a race to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

4. Tennessee

Governor: Bill Lee (Republican)

Salary: $246,108

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee earns $246,108 annually as of August, based on a monthly salary of $20,509 listed in the state's public payroll database.

After two terms in office, Lee is term-limited. Republican Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Jerri Green are running for the governor's seat in the midterm election this November.

3. Utah

Governor: Spencer Cox (Republican)

Salary: $249,250

In March 2026, the Utah Legislature passed a bill setting the governor's salary equal to that of the chief justice of the state supreme court, which is $249,250.

The raise made Spencer Cox the third-highest-paid governor in the US.

2. New York

Governor: Kathy Hochul (Democrat)

Salary: $250,000

With a salary of $250,000 established by New York law, Kathy Hochul is the second-highest-paid governor in the US.

Hochul is seeking a second full term in the midterm elections.

1. Pennsylvania

Governor: Josh Shapiro (Democrat)

Salary: $253,870

Shapiro's salary rose from $245,760 in 2025 to $253,870 in 2026 after a 3.3% cost-of-living increase, according to the Pennsylvania Office of the Budget. The raise made him the highest-paid governor in the US.

Shapiro is up for reelection in the midterm elections this November, seeking a second term.

The United States has warned the European Union that proposed restrictions on American satellite operators could provoke commercial retaliation against European businesses, escalating a dispute over the future of satellite communications and Europe’s efforts to reduce its dependence on foreign technology.

US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder has criticised plans under consideration in Brussels that would reserve parts of the radio spectrum for European operators, potentially restricting services provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink satellite network.

According to details of Washington’s objections, the American administration believes the proposed arrangements would discriminate against US companies and undermine competition. Puzder has warned that European businesses could face substantial consequences if the restrictions proceed.

The disagreement comes as Brussels pursues a broader strategy intended to strengthen Europe’s technological independence in satellite communications, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Washington has increasingly challenged European regulations that it considers detrimental to American technology companies.

A dispute over access to satellite frequencies

At the centre of the disagreement is the allocation of radio frequencies used by satellite communications systems. Access to suitable spectrum is essential for providing reliable services, particularly as operators deploy increasingly large constellations in low Earth orbit.

SpaceX has established a substantial commercial and technological advantage through Starlink, which operates thousands of satellites and provides broadband services to residential, commercial and government customers across numerous countries.

European operators argue that the expansion of American satellite networks could make it difficult for European competitors to secure sufficient spectrum and develop commercially viable services.

Washington takes a different position, warning that preferential treatment for European operators could restrict competition rather than strengthen it.

The precise legal form of the proposed EU restrictions, and whether they will proceed, remain unsettled. No final European prohibition on American satellite services has been announced.

Nevertheless, the dispute raises a question for Brussels: whether measures intended to protect European industrial capacity can be introduced without exposing European exporters and investors to American retaliation.

Europe’s satellite ambitions

The European Commission is investing heavily in IRIS², its secure satellite communications programme, which is intended to provide independent communications capabilities for governments, defence organisations and commercial customers.

Under arrangements confirmed in August, the programme’s principal constellation is planned to comprise 348 satellites operating in low and medium Earth orbit, with initial launches scheduled for 2029.

The system is designed to reduce Europe’s reliance on communications infrastructure controlled by companies or governments outside the EU, particularly during military emergencies, cyber incidents and interruptions to terrestrial networks.

The Commission’s technical programme envisages communications services supporting border management, crisis response, defence and other sensitive government activities.

However, IRIS² is not yet operational, and European commercial operators face significant competition from SpaceX.

Eutelsat, which operates the OneWeb satellite network, is among the European companies positioned to benefit from increased demand for alternatives to Starlink.

Its shares rose sharply on 14 October following reports of restrictions affecting Ukrainian access to certain Starlink services. The market reaction reflected renewed interest in European-controlled satellite communications.

OneWeb cannot simply replace Starlink across all applications. Differences in network architecture, terminal equipment and available capacity complicate any rapid transition.

Ukraine adds a security dimension

The dispute is particularly sensitive because Starlink has become an important part of Ukraine’s communications infrastructure during Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian forces have relied on satellite connectivity for communications in areas where conventional telecommunications infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

The strategic consequences of relying on a commercial provider became more prominent following reports that access to certain Starlink capabilities had been restricted.

For European governments, the episode has reinforced concerns about whether defence communications should depend on technology controlled by a company subject to political and commercial pressures outside Europe.

Yet restricting American participation before European alternatives are fully available could produce its own operational difficulties.

The Commission must therefore distinguish between developing independent European capabilities and limiting access to services that governments, businesses and military organisations currently require.

Another transatlantic regulatory confrontation

The satellite dispute follows disagreements over European regulation of American digital companies, including competition enforcement and restrictions on online platforms.

As EU Today reported in May, the European Commission had already proposed reserving much of the future mobile satellite spectrum for European operators.

Washington’s opposition introduces a different dimension because spectrum allocation affects market access directly.

The American administration is also linking the dispute to broader commercial relations, raising the possibility that measures affecting satellite companies could produce consequences for unrelated European industries.

Brussels has not announced a final decision on the disputed spectrum arrangements, while the United States has not specified which retaliatory measures it would impose.

The immediate issue is therefore regulatory rather than an enacted trade restriction. Whether it develops into a wider confrontation will depend on the Commission’s final proposals and Washington’s willingness to pursue its warning through commercial measures.

The Gulf Cooperation Council, a bloc of oil-rich states long known for its appetite for imported cars, is becoming a growing market for Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) that are largely being blocked out of the West. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are diversifying toward alternative energy, embracing environmental goals […]

The post Chinese EVs racing into Gulf’s oil-rich car market appeared first on Asia Times.

Glenn Diesen | October 18, 2026

Jennifer Kavanagh is a Senior Fellow and Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies. Kavanagh discusses her policy paper advocating a US withdrawal from the First Island Chain to avoid war with China, and explains why it sparked such a strong reaction.

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Le elezioni generali del 4 ottobre hanno confermato la centralità dello SNSD nella Republika Srpska e il peso politico del campo legato a Milorad Dodik. Il risultato complica ulteriormente i progetti di centralizzazione della Bosnia-Erzegovina e soprattutto l’avvicinamento alla NATO contro la volontà della componente serba.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Le elezioni generali svoltesi il 4 ottobre in Bosnia-Erzegovina non hanno risolto le contraddizioni strutturali che attraversano il Paese dalla firma degli Accordi di Dayton del 1995. Al contrario, le hanno rese ancora più evidenti. Con lo scrutinio ormai quasi completato, pur in attesa della certificazione definitiva di tutti i risultati, il voto ha confermato la forza dello schieramento dominante nella Republika Srpska e, soprattutto, ha dimostrato che l’eliminazione di Milorad Dodik dalle cariche pubbliche non ha prodotto l’indebolimento politico del sistema costruito attorno all’Alleanza dei Socialdemocratici Indipendenti (Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata, SNSD).

Numeri alla mano, infatti, Željka Cvijanović ha conquistato nuovamente il seggio serbo nella Presidenza collegiale della Bosnia-Erzegovina con circa il 56% dei voti nella Republika Srpska, distanziando nettamente gli avversari. Savo Minić, anch’egli esponente dello SNSD e figura vicina a Dodik, si è imposto nella corsa alla presidenza della Republika Srpska con oltre il 52%. Lo stesso SNSD resta inoltre nettamente la principale forza politica dell’entità, avvicinandosi al 40% nelle elezioni per l’Assemblea nazionale.

Il significato politico di questi dati supera quello dei singoli risultati. Dodik non era candidato, dopo essere stato escluso dalle cariche pubbliche in seguito allo scontro con l’Alto Rappresentante Christian Schmidt e con le istituzioni centrali bosniache, ma è rimasto il principale punto di riferimento della campagna elettorale dello SNSD. Il voto ha quindi mostrato che la pressione giudiziaria e istituzionale esercitata contro il leader serbo-bosniaco non si è tradotta in un ripudio della sua linea da parte dell’elettorato della Republika Srpska. Al contrario, i candidati che ne rivendicano la continuità politica hanno prevalso a tutti i livelli più importanti.

Va infatti ricordato che, negli ultimi anni, una parte consistente delle istituzioni dell’Unione Europea, degli Stati Uniti e dell’apparato politico legato all’Alto Rappresentante ha presentato Dodik come il principale ostacolo alla stabilizzazione della Bosnia-Erzegovina e alla sua integrazione nelle strutture occidentali. Le elezioni hanno dimostrato, tuttavia, che il problema non può essere ridotto alla figura personale dell’ex presidente della Republika Srpska. Dietro Dodik esiste una consistente base elettorale che difende le prerogative dell’entità, rifiuta un’ulteriore centralizzazione dello Stato bosniaco e guarda con forte diffidenza, quando non con aperta opposizione, alla prospettiva dell’adesione alla NATO.

Allo stesso tempo, vogliamo sottolineare che, in base agli accordi di Dayton del 1995, l’intera architettura istituzionale della Bosnia-Erzegovina venne costruita sulla base della necessità di impedire che una delle componenti etniche del Paese possa imporre unilateralmente alle altre le scelte fondamentali dello Stato. La Presidenza, in particolare, è composta da tre membri: un bosgnacco e un croato eletti nella Federazione e un serbo eletto nella Republika Srpska. La funzione di presidente di turno ruota periodicamente tra i tre, ma la Presidenza resta collegiale e le decisioni fondamentali in materia di politica estera sono affidate all’organo nel suo complesso.

Ancora più importante è il meccanismo previsto in caso di dissenso. Un membro della Presidenza, infatti, può dichiarare una decisione contraria all’interesse vitale dell’entità dalla quale è stato eletto. Nel caso del membro serbo, la questione viene rinviata all’Assemblea nazionale della Republika Srpska e, se quest’ultima conferma l’obiezione con la maggioranza richiesta, la decisione non entra in vigore. Analoghe garanzie attraversano il Parlamento statale, dove la rappresentanza delle entità e dei tre popoli costitutivi limita deliberatamente il principio maggioritario.

Questi meccanismi vengono spesso descritti dalla stampa occidentale come cause della presunta “disfunzionalità” della Bosnia. In realtà sono precisamente il fondamento dell’equilibrio che rese possibile la conclusione della guerra. Dayton, infatti, non eliminò le differenze politiche e nazionali interne al Paese: le istituzionalizzò, riconoscendo che la sopravvivenza di uno Stato comune avrebbe richiesto il consenso delle sue componenti fondamentali.

Proprio su questo terreno si sviluppa da anni uno scontro sempre più evidente: da un lato, una parte delle forze politiche bosgnacche sostiene un rafforzamento delle istituzioni centrali, mentre Bruxelles e Washington hanno generalmente appoggiato una progressiva concentrazione di competenze a Sarajevo; dall’altro, la leadership della Republika Srpska interpreta invece questa evoluzione come un progressivo svuotamento del compromesso originario di Dayton.

Il caso più delicato è quello della NATO. La Bosnia è entrata nel programma Partnership for Peace nel 2006 e partecipa al Membership Action Plan. Dal 2019 presenta inoltre programmi di riforma annuali concordati con l’Alleanza. Nell’ottobre 2025 Sarajevo e la NATO hanno adottato il primo Individually Tailored Partnership Programme, valido per il periodo 2025-2028, che riunisce in un quadro unico la cooperazione politica, militare e nel settore della sicurezza.

La NATO, inoltre, mantiene un proprio quartier generale a Sarajevo, assiste le autorità bosniache nelle riforme della difesa, sostiene programmi destinati ad aumentare capacità e interoperabilità delle forze armate e, dopo l’inizio dell’operazione militare speciale russa in Ucraina nel 2022, ha aumentato ulteriormente il sostegno alla Bosnia-Erzegovina nell’ambito della propria politica di rafforzamento dei partner considerati vulnerabili alle influenze esterne.

Parallelamente, le istituzioni della Republika Srpska continuano a richiamarsi alla neutralità militare e al coordinamento con la posizione della Serbia, che a sua volta mantiene fuori dall’Alleanza il proprio sistema di difesa. Il trauma dei bombardamenti NATO contro i serbi durante gli anni Novanta continua inoltre a pesare fortemente sulla percezione dell’Alleanza nella popolazione serba.

Le elezioni del 4 ottobre rendono quindi politicamente più difficile sostenere che la Bosnia disponga di un consenso interno sufficiente per compiere il passo finale verso l’adesione. Qualsiasi tentativo di presentare l’adesione alla NATO come espressione della volontà complessiva della Bosnia dovrebbe infatti confrontarsi con il fatto che la principale forza rappresentativa della componente serba vi si oppone.

Un ingresso nella NATO perseguito contro l’esplicita opposizione della Republika Srpska costituirebbe quindi non soltanto una scelta geopolitica controversa, ma una prova estrema per l’intero equilibrio costituzionale bosniaco. Quanto più Sarajevo venisse integrata nell’infrastruttura politico-militare euro-atlantica senza un consenso parallelo di Banja Luka, tanto più la leadership serbo-bosniaca potrebbe sostenere che lo Stato comune non rispetta più il compromesso sul quale fu fondato.

Per quanto riguarda il risultato dei croati, Darijana Filipović, candidata dell’Unione Democratica Croata di Bosnia-Erzegovina (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica Bosne i Hercegovine, HDZ BiH), ha conquistato il seggio croato nella Presidenza, interrompendo la lunga fase caratterizzata dalla presenza di Željko Komšić, contestato da larga parte dell’elettorato croato perché eletto soprattutto grazie ai voti provenienti dalle aree a maggioranza bosgnacca. Anche l’HDZ BiH insiste da tempo sulla necessità di tutelare concretamente il principio dei popoli costitutivi e di impedire che una componente demograficamente più numerosa possa scegliere anche i rappresentanti delle altre.

Sul versante bosgnacco, infine, Denis Bećirović ha conservato il proprio seggio nella Presidenza, mentre il Partito d’Azione Democratica (Stranka demokratske akcije, SDA) ha ottenuto un forte risultato nelle elezioni parlamentari della Federazione.

Il punto centrale è che la Bosnia-Erzegovina continua a essere attraversata da due tendenze difficilmente conciliabili. Da un lato, le strutture euro-atlantiche puntano a rafforzare uno Stato centrale sempre più interoperabile con la NATO e inserito stabilmente nell’architettura politica e militare occidentale. Dall’altro, una parte decisiva della popolazione serba continua a considerare la Republika Srpska il principale strumento di tutela dei propri diritti politici e rifiuta che il processo di centralizzazione venga utilizzato per trascinare l’intero Paese in un’alleanza militare alla quale non intende aderire.

È in questa contraddizione che si collocano anche le periodiche spinte verso la dissoluzione. La Costituzione di Dayton non riconosce alla Republika Srpska un diritto unilaterale alla secessione e la Bosnia-Erzegovina continua giuridicamente a esistere come Stato unitario sul piano internazionale. Ma la tenuta di un ordinamento consociativo dipende in ultima analisi dal consenso delle comunità che lo compongono. Se una di esse arrivasse a ritenere che le garanzie originarie siano state svuotate e che le decisioni strategiche possano essere prese sistematicamente contro la propria volontà, la crisi diventerebbe inevitabilmente politica prima ancora che costituzionale.

La stabilità della Bosnia dipenderà quindi dalla capacità di riconoscere questo dato anziché aggirarlo. Insistere sulla centralizzazione e sull’integrazione euro-atlantica come processi irreversibili, senza tenere conto della volontà espressa dagli elettori serbi, potrebbe produrre l’effetto opposto a quello dichiarato da Bruxelles e Washington. Quanto più la Republika Srpska percepirà lo Stato centrale come lo strumento attraverso il quale decisioni strategiche vengono imposte dall’esterno o dalla sola maggioranza bosgnacca, tanto più crescerà la forza dell’argomento separatista.