After two decades of defeats in rural America, Democrats are suddenly putting up a fight in farm country. The party is running competitive Senate races in Iowa, Kansas and other farm states, as well as House races in heavily rural districts that could help it regain control of Congress in January.

Credit (or blame, depending on your party) for this reversal of fortune lies with President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his war with Iran, which have battered farmers and pushed the rural economy into crisis. The Department of Agriculture’s analysts expect farmers’ net incomes to decline by 5.5% this year, as costs rise and receipts fall. The National Agricultural Law Center’s tally of farm bankruptcies jumped 45% last year, and is on pace to rise another 11% in 2026.

Higher costs for processed-food companies also have punishing consequences in rural communities more broadly.

Three different impacts have simultaneously hammered farmers and the agriculture industry.

First, the Trump administration’s tariff hikes raised costs. The president slapped import taxes as high as 50% on a range of products including hoes and plows, barbed wire, screws, wood, pesticides, irrigation equipment and harvesters. As a result, just about everything farmers do — from putting up a fence to spraying for weeds and bugs to harvesting crops — costs more. That has helped dent sales of farm equipment, according to Creighton University’s September Rural Mainstreet Index, meaning less business for local John Deere and Bobcat dealers this year and lower farm productivity in the years ahead.

Higher costs for processed-food companies also have punishing consequences in rural communities more broadly. Last year, after the Commerce Department put tariffs of 50% on tin cans, Del Monte closed its cannery in Modesta, California. Opened over a century ago, the cannery had been the main buyer of California peaches and pears. Its collapse cost 600 jobs at the cannery, vaporized $500 million in annual Central Valley farm sales and forced local farmers to uproot 420,000 peach trees this summer.

Second, U.S. farm exports have struggled as trade partners punch back. America is the world’s top agricultural exporter — 20% of farm receipts come from sales abroad. Last year’s $176 billion in exports included 156 tons of California grapes shipped to sunny Fiji in the South Pacific, and $10,000 worth of biscuits sent to the North Atlantic’s stormy Faroe Islands. This success has helped rural America prosper, but it also makes our farmers uniquely vulnerable targets for retaliation.

Three countries — China, Canada and Mexico — buy half of America’s annual farm exports. Sales to China fell 66% in 2025, with soybean shipments alone collapsing, from $12.6 billion to $3.0 billion, and have only somewhat rebounded during this year’s tariff “truce” with Beijing. Thanks to Trump’s mystifying economic assault on Canada, fresh produce sales to our second-biggest ag market are down 10% this year, while wines, beer and liquor have fallen by two-thirds.

The Republican Party’s hold on politics in rural America has shaped policy, government and law for 20 years. Trump’s decision to upend the farm economy has shaken it.

Third, this spring came Trump’s decision to launch a war with Iran. The consequent halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz first spiked global fertilizer prices — up 20% from when the president was inaugurated — and then hit diesel fuel even harder. Farmers need diesel to run tractors, harvesters and irrigation equipment; the trucking firms that move their grain and produce to market use it too. Diesel now costs $6.32 per gallon, up $2.50 from a year ago. The surge in normal gasoline prices hasn’t helped either: As Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook recently noted, transport accounts for a quarter of rural household expenses.

Trump’s policies have crunched agriculture in less direct ways, too. Both the tariffs and the Iran war have pushed up inflation, forcing the Fed to keep interest rates high — a major burden on farmers who borrow heavily to finance their supplies every year.

The administration’s response has been a series of Band-Aids, with improvised emergency aid packages culminating in $12 billion in transfers to farmers at the end of last year. But as rising bankruptcies show, these measures haven’t healed the wounds the administration’s policies have inflicted.

I don’t want to exaggerate the rural pickup opportunities for Democrats this year. Republicans control the vast majority of House districts dependent on agriculture, and will likely continue to do so after this midterm. The same goes for Senate seats for heavily rural states in the Great Plains and the South.

Still, to hazard an agriculture metaphor, some seeds of change might be sprouting. The Republican Party’s hold on politics in rural America has shaped policy, government and law for 20 years. Trump’s decision to upend the farm economy has shaken it. This doesn’t mean Democrats have yet won the affection of farm country voters. But they have their best opening in decades to win a hearing and, once in government, to act on the rural crisis. That means repealing Mr. Trump’s tariffs, stabilizing relations with Canada and Mexico, and passing the farm bill this administration has abandoned, which could have helped modernize rural infrastructure and restore nutrition programs that benefit low-income families and farmers alike. That might begin changing the political landscape for years to come.

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A top election official in Arizona’s most populous county appears dead-set on having the federal government intervene in the upcoming midterms.

County Recorder Justin Heap’s shameless support for pro-Trump election denialism, and his encouragement of President Donald Trump’s allies to meddle with the upcoming midterms, have been well documented. Media outlet VoteBeat obtained emails to the Department of Justice in which Heap egged on a bogus probe of his own county’s elections. And his efforts to wield control over Maricopa County’s election system have drawn condemnation from local Republicans including the GOP-controlled board of supervisors and the county’s top attorney, who has accused Heap of handing over control of his office to far-right idealogues.

Last week, NBC affiliate 12 News in Arizona reported on Heap’s attempt to sic the FBI on the board of supervisors using bogus accusations of wrongdoing promoted by a known election denier.

According to the report:

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap’s top staffers called in the FBI to investigate an election tampering claim leveled at Heap’s partner in overseeing the midterm vote, the Maricopa County Board. The investigator’s report, obtained by 12News through a public records request, says a prominent election denier and the Republican National Committee brought the claim to Heap’s office. The social media post alleging the wrongdoing in Maricopa County’s ballot tabulation center got 1 million views. Other feverish posts claimed there was “evidence of computer tampering.” But the investigator the FBI asked to look into the allegation concluded there was nothing to see there. There was no wrongdoing.

Right-wing influencers shared video of county officials working in an office and falsely suggested they had no authorization to be there. The Maricopa County Elections Department responded by explaining on social media that elections personnel were there working late.

pic.twitter.com/jRFrARTzN5

— Maricopa County Elections (@MaricopaVote) October 9, 2026

The context here is that for years Trump and allies like Kari Lake have promoted baseless claims of fraud in Arizona’s ballot tabulation systems. The 12 News investigation identified far-right activist Shelby Busch as the person who joined the Republican National Committee in raising the false claims to Heap’s office. Busch talked in 2024 about how she would “lynch” Heap’s predecessor, fellow Republican Stephen Richer, who was targeted by Trump allies for his refusal to promote pro-Trump election lies. (Busch subsequently said “the statement was a joke” and was “political hyperbole and no way meant as a threat of violence,” the Washington Post reported.)

Last week’s wild goose chase is typical of how MAGA election denial works: Right-wing influencers promote a lie, then right-wing officials pass it along to federal investigators, who can use the lie as a pretext for federal intervention in elections. It’s similar to what the Trump-friendly board of elections is doing in Georgia. And it’s something voters and officials who are interested in defending democracy need to beware of and on defense against in the weeks ahead.

The president’s polling has cratered to record lows, members of his administration appear to be resorting to authoritarian tactics as their primary means of maintaining power, and far too many Trump allies in positions of power are willing to lend credence to election deniers.

On that note, late last week, Heap told Arizona radio host Mike Broomhead that his office “did exactly what we should have done” in taking the bogus claims to the FBI.

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For years, the idea of speaking forthrightly to China would evoke an admonition from the US State Department and most of the American policymaking class: “We can’t do that. They won’t like it.” They’d often add, “China has red lines, don’t you know?” There are things you are told you just can’t say – questioning […]

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Spain’s Left has now missed its last chance to unite ahead of the country’s snap election on 29 November — a historic failure, not so much because the numbers don’t add up, but because it fails to offer an alternative.

The elections are seen as pivotal, with a real chance that the far-right Vox will enter the government for the first time since Spain’s return to democracy in 1978, in a coalition with the centre-right People’s Party (PP), which itself is expected to fall short of an absolute majority.

With that possibility on the horizon, the Spanish parties to the left of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), led by PM Pedro Sánchez, tried to agree on a nationwide joint list for the 29 November snap election.

But they failed because of a “war of egos”, as one political leader described it, and old grudges dating back to 2023. This has left many disillusioned and the left even more divided.

“These past few days have been very difficult … some people will be disappointed today, and for that I am sorry,” Ada Colau, former Barcelona mayor and leader of the Broad Front, said last week, as her alliance failed to reach an agreement on a joint electoral platform ahead of the election.

Spain’s electoral system disadvantages smaller parties, especially in less populated provinces. That means their votes are less likely to translate into seats. 

In Spain, a country where a two-party system was the norm until 2015, it is puzzling that the “new” left, born precisely to break that duopoly, has ended up too divided to even compete with the mainstream.

And that makes it harder for Sánchez to keep any leftwing coalition, which relies on these smaller forces.

So what’s the picture? On one side, the right is more aligned than ever: the PP and Vox are running separately, but the conservative party openly says it is willing to strike a deal with the far-right if needed. Liberalism is almost non-existent, even though Democracia 21 will run for the first time, but only in Madrid and Barcelona. And the left is divided. 

War of egos 

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Should this be seen as the Hans Christian Andersen story, in which the narcissistic emperor is finally exposed as a naked fool by a truth-telling child? Donald Trump is certainly all of these things: narcissistic, naked in his support for Putin and a fool. But the parallel doesn’t quite work because it hasn’t taken a […]

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On the night of Oct. 2, Russian drones struck Kyiv's Southern Bridge once again. The city closed it and Paton Bridge, restricted traffic on Metro Bridge, and was gridlocked by multi-kilometer traffic jams by morning.

On the same day, Oleksii Honcharenko, a member of parliament from the opposition

Recent media reports projecting South Korea’s per capita GDP to surpass Japan’s have generated considerable excitement across the regional countries that see Korea as a role model. According to the IMF’s October 2026 projections, South Korea’s nominal GDP per capita could reach approximately $49,000 in 2027, compared with Japan’s $37,000-38,000. Its achievements in semiconductors, advanced […]

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A majority of Ukrainians reject handing all of Donbas to Russia in exchange for US and European security guarantees. Some 62% are ready to endure the war for as long as it takes, a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology shows.

Russia has spent the fall hammering Ukrainian cities, and Washington has eased sanctions on Russian diesel and cut Ukraine’s intelligence and Starlink speed, both apparently aimed at wearing Ukrainians down toward a capitulation. Instead, the majority calls the withdrawal of troops from Donbas categorically unacceptable, with 35% willing to accept it and 4% undecided, a position essentially unchanged since late summer.

The pressure campaign tracked the other way. Among those polled on 8-9 October, before the diesel deal and the pressure that followed, 57% were categorically opposed. Among those polled on 10-16 October, the figure rose to 62% afterward, KIIS reports.

In every region, at least half reject the trade. Resistance is firmest in Kyiv, which has borne a relentless campaign of ballistic and jet-drone strikes, where 66% are categorically against, the highest figure of any region. Even in the east, around Kharkiv, where the most are open to a compromise at 45%, 51% still rule it out.

Bracing for a long war, and ready for it

Few Ukrainians expect a quick end. Only 10% think the war will end by the close of 2026 and 13% in the first half of 2027, while 56% expect it to run into the second half of 2027 or beyond, the institute reports.

Who Ukrainians blame for blocking peace

The poll also measured who is seen as the obstacle. Asked to choose, 78% said Russia’s drive to subjugate Ukraine is what blocks peace, against 12% who blamed an inflexible Ukrainian government, and 92% said Russia strikes economic sites to wreck the economy and force capitulation, not in retaliation.

“The enemy, with its vile strikes by ballistic missiles and drones, is unable to break the spirit and will of Ukrainians,” KIIS executive director Anton Hrushetskyi says.

He argues that what Ukraine needs is “packages of interceptors for Patriot systems,” not an election or one-sided concessions dressed up as peace. The survey polled 1,031 adults across government-controlled Ukraine from 8-16 October.

It is hard for European allies to know which is worse, hearing their sacrifice in the US-led war in Afghanistan mocked by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, seeing his State Department counterpart Marco Rubio dissembling about the interruption to Starlink service in Ukraine, or watching the commander-in-chief of the free world blithely end sanctions on Russia. 

One option is to sit tight and hope that next month’s mid-terms will bring deliverance.

Mid-term blues?

It is possible, perhaps, that a huge political defeat for Donald Trump will change American foreign policy, though those who sincerely hanker for the eras of Joe Biden and Barack Obama may need to adjust their rose-tinted filters.

More likely is that constitutional tussles will make the US even more distracted and unpredictable. Who really believes that a midnight phone call alerting the president to a surprise Russian incursion into Nato territory will gain a firmer response if the Democrats control Congress? 

It is also tempting simply to wallow in outrage.

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An initial report of the events at the Atlantic Convergence conference, which ended three days of activity in Lisbon on October 1, shows that the focus of attention this year

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Democrats have been here before. The polls look good — no, incredible; if the numbers are to be believed, red states and districts are now in the party’s sights. But many Democrats are scarred by President Donald Trump beating his polls in 2016, 2020 and 2024. I have heard from friends and family who, after 10 years of MAGA dominance, are scared to get their hopes up, lest they be dashed. The same worries may be held by people you know, or perhaps yourself.

There’s an easy way to reduce that stress: Don’t follow the polls. Follow the money.

More specifically, follow where the money is being spent. Most people who track the latest polls and other data do so to stay informed. But political operatives are using a much larger amount of data, including private polling, to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on ads and other expenditures.

Without a crystal ball, we cannot know whether to believe the polls this year. But the Republicans who are paid to know this stuff are behaving as if they believe the polls.

Sometimes, campaigns or groups see things that may not be visible in the public data. In 2016, for instance, Trump went on a blue-state swing in the campaign’s final days because, as his pollster Tony Fabrizio put it, “through the end, we saw [the polls] closing” even more than the public polling showed.

There’s no such aggression coming from the GOP this year. First came the Senate cuts, with GOP groups pulling out of the races in North Carolina and Georgia. And rather than shift the money to target Democratic-held seats, Republicans have moved that money to states where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in 18 years (Iowa), 38 years (Texas) and 94 years (Kansas).

Then came the House cuts. Last week the House Majority PAC and the Congressional Leadership Fund pulled advertising in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, where Rep. Don Bacon is retiring. This week, they retreated from two more districts, this time with GOP incumbents: New Jersey’s 7th District and Iowa’s 1st District. In the 2024 elections, voters gave Republicans a three-seat majority. With two weeks to go, the House GOP has already given up on that many seats. At the same time, Republican groups also pulled back from efforts to oust a half-dozen Democratic representatives in swing districts, including Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet, Greg Landsmann, Tom Suozzi, and Henry Cuellar.

And as with the Senate, House GOP groups are almost entirely on the back foot elsewhere.

There are plenty of other reasons for Democrats to reject a doomer view of the midterm polls.

“Major Republican outside groups are airing ads in about 40 districts this week,” Punchbowl News reported Thursday. “They’re on defense in all but 11 of those districts. Seven of the 11 were redrawn by Republicans to strongly favor the GOP. Trump won 18 of these districts by 10 points or more.” As MS NOW’s Kevin Frey reported last month, Republicans are spending millions “in a dozen districts that the GOP redrew to favor Trump by at least nine percentage points.”

Without a crystal ball, we cannot know whether to believe the polls this year. But the Republicans who are paid to know this stuff are behaving as if they believe the polls.

Recent history suggests that cutting nearly a dozen candidates loose within weeks of an election doesn’t just augur poorly for those candidates, but for their fellow Republicans as well. At roughly this point in 2022, Republicans had pulled money out of Senate races in Arizona and New Hampshire but only one House race; Democrats lost the latter chamber but expanded their margin in the Senate. 2018 saw the reverse: The GOP cut back in a handful of House races but stayed in all the Senate contests until the final week of the campaign, and on Election Day, Democrats flipped the House but lost ground in the Senate.

There are plenty of other reasons for Democrats to reject a doomer view of the midterm polls. While polls underestimated Republicans by a handful of points in each of Trump’s presidential campaigns, they were not biased toward either party in the intervening midterms (and they slightly overestimated Republicans in special elections). As polling analyst G. Elliott Morris wrote over the summer, past polling bias does not predict future performance. Other metrics like the president’s approval rating, primary turnout and the share of Americans who identify as Democrats all correlate with a good night for Trump’s foes.

For many Democratic partisans, however, no data can calm the fears of midterm disappointment. But endlessly fretting about that possibility is no way for any of us to spend the Halloween season. So, the next time you’re worried about the polls, just remember: Republicans are, too.

The post Don’t just follow the polls. Follow the money. appeared first on MS NOW.

A sense of deja vu is likely washing over Republican lawmakers. Many of the struggles GOP candidates are facing in 2026 eerily mirror their plight in 2018. Ahead of that year’s midterms, voters were similarly unhappy with President Donald Trump and unimpressed by the massive tax cuts passed the previous year. The conditions this time around, however, are much more dire, emphasizing how few lessons Republicans learned from their last midterm defeat.

Eight years ago, GOP candidates under House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had hoped to campaign hard on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, also known as the Trump tax cuts. The $1.5 trillion bill was the biggest legislative package passed by that Congress, with the GOP trifecta having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare as promised. But voters weren’t very interested in hearing about the bill once it passed, and its popularity cratered as 2018 continued.

Many of the struggles GOP candidates are facing in 2026 eerily mirror their plight in 2018.

Things aren’t faring much better this time around. As previously mentioned, lawmakers have been having a tough time selling the megabill that Trump dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill. The White House briefed House Republicans last year on rebranding the package as the “working families tax cut.” A new poll from Politico released Wednesday confirmed that while respondents prefer the new name, taxes are near the bottom of voters’ list of top issues.

The congressional Republicans of yesteryear originally planned to follow up their tax cuts with another round in 2018. (Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who insisted that a third reconciliation bill was possible long after it seemed plausible, must relate.) Those goals swiftly fell apart in the face of a fractured caucus and no real vision for what a new middle-class tax cut would look like. By September, the GOP was far behind in the general ballot against Democrats and looking for a way to catch up.

As The Washington Post reported at the time, Trump led the way in Republicans making “a hard pivot away from economics and into nationalism, a debate with heavy racial overtones meant to energize the conservative base.” In the weeks leading up to the midterms, the president, Fox News and many GOP candidates flooded the airwaves with warnings about a caravan of migrants making its way from Central America to Mexico. But the GOP’s caravan-forward strategy didn’t work. Democrats still gained a net of 40 seats, more than a dozen more than needed to win the majority. Republicans held control of the Senate, but the odds of that happening again are less certain.

Which brings us to the biggest differences weighing down the GOP this time around, presaging what could be an even more brutal potential loss. In short, the party’s lack of interest in any policy beyond tax cuts and nationalism has caught up with it. MAGA has hollowed out the Republican Party to place Trump at its center, leaving it intensely vulnerable without his coattails support its candidates. But Trump was already a hindrance in 2018 to more moderate Republicans trying to brace themselves against the oncoming blue wave. Today, he’s an anchor dragging down everyone with an “R” next to their name, prompting the “red undertow” effect that has conservatives prepared to stay home on Election Day.

It is only right that in failing to learn from the past, Republicans seem doomed to repeat it.

The president already wasn’t very keen on selling the 2017 tax cuts to voters himself. At a May 2018 tax roundtable, Trump instead spent time talking about “China, North Korea, Syria, immigration, the mayor of Oakland, Calif., Congress’s budget deal, his own poll numbers and the media’s coverage of his presidency.” He’s grown much worse at staying on topic in the intervening years, preventing him from providing a coherent message for rank-and-file members to rally around.

A repeat of the anti-immigrant play would also likely backfire in 2026. Democrats have mobilized heavily around Trump’s detention strategy and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics. Conservative voters poised to stay home are unlikely to find a sudden burst of enthusiasm, not when more pressing matters are weighing on them.

Rising prices, inflation and other economic concerns have become the focal point of this year’s midterms. There is no avoiding how much the blame for each falls at Trump’s feat, try as candidates might to split the difference. And blame for Trump’s return to the White House — a choice the GOP had every opportunity to avoid — falls at the feet of all those who backed him when his stock was higher. It is only right that in failing to learn from the past, Republicans seem doomed to repeat it.

The post The GOP’s midterm deja vu should make them very, very worried appeared first on MS NOW.

Berlin and Paris spent months negotiating over the future of Europe’s auto industry.

Germany wanted to keep selling new combustion-engine cars beyond 2035. In return, France wanted strict “Made in Europe” rules: public money spent on electric vehicle (EV) purchase incentives, subsidies and government contracts should benefit cars genuinely made in Europe, not simply assembled here. 

One concession in exchange for the other. French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz have now sealed the deal.

Both can claim victory at home, and both say they want the same thing: to strengthen Europe’s auto industry against Chinese competition. 

But the trade-off undermines that very goal. It rightly pushes for more European production, but pays for it with less ambition for electric vehicles.

For Europe’s automakers to compete, two things need to happen: More of the value generated by car manufacturing must stay in Europe, and the transition to electric vehicles must remain on track. Trading one for the other weakens both. 

Value creation is already moving elsewhere 

On one point, France is right: a growing EV market alone won’t protect European jobs. Many of the most important components in electric cars already come from China, especially batteries.

Meanwhile, Chinese automakers are building factories in Hungary and Spain, securing direct access to the European market. 

The risk is clear: cars assembled in Europe from imported components qualify as European products, benefit from purchase incentives and win public contracts.

Final assembly stays in Europe, but much of the economic value is created elsewhere. European auto suppliers have already cut more than 100,000 jobs in two years, and the European Commission warns that up to 600,000 more could disappear over the next five to 10 years. 

That’s where the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act comes in. It would link public spending on subsidies, purchase incentives and government procurement to production in Europe.

This isn’t just about shutting out foreign competition. It steers demand to where it strengthens Europe’s industrial base.

To work, the rules must target the components that will shape the industry’s future: battery cells, software, electric drivetrains and power electronics.

“Made in Europe” can’t simply mean attaching the wheels here. 

That doesn’t mean every nut and bolt must come from the EU.  The auto industry relies on global supply chains and trusted trading partners.

But a law riddled with exemptions would be little better than no law at all: It would create more red tape without bringing a single new factory to Europe. 

Factories need customers 

Even the best industrial policy will fail without buyers. A battery factory can only make money if it produces enough batteries. Yet Europe’s battery plants are running well below capacity because they don’t have enough orders. Every battery that goes unproduced drives up the cost of those that are made. Factories, machinery and workers still have to be paid for. 

Since 2022, roughly a quarter of announced battery projects in the EU have been canceled or put on hold. 

This is why Germany’s push to delay the phaseout of combustion-engine cars is so damaging. Every combustion-engine car sold instead of an EV means one fewer battery that could be made in Europe. The very factories meant to make “Made in Europe” a reality would lose potential customers. 

The best way to boost demand for European batteries is to build more small, affordable EVs in Europe. That’s where the biggest sales volumes are. Yet German automakers in particular have been slow to embrace this market, despite significant demand potential in Germany itself. Delaying the combustion-engine phaseout would only give them another reason to hold back.  

Slow down, lose out

For European automakers, the stakes go far beyond their home market. Sell fewer EVs at home, and manufacturers will launch fewer new models, produce fewer cars and face higher costs. That will make it harder to compete abroad, too. Giving combustion engines more time won’t close the gap with China. It could make it wider. 

Political uncertainty only makes matters worse. Automakers plan new models, factories and supplier contracts years in advance. Every fresh debate over exemptions gives investors and consumers another reason to hesitate. 

Companies investing billions in EVs and batteries – and consumers considering buying an electric car – need to know that policymakers won’t change direction tomorrow.  

The Franco-German bargain ignores economic reality. The future of the car is electric, and China figured that out long ago.

Beijing is doing everything it can to build an unbeatable lead in EVs, including through unfair practices such as massive government subsidies.

And Europe? It’s haggling over more time for yesterday’s technology. At stake is nothing less than the auto industry – the backbone of Europe’s industrial economy and a major source of jobs.

This deal is not yet law. A better deal would be simple: Europe should pursue electric vehicles with the same determination as China while making sure the jobs, factories and economic benefits stay in Europe. 

Western governments are rebuilding ties with India even as they accuse it of foreign interference and of running intelligence operations against people on their soil. The contradiction was on display October 13, when Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney and India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reaffirmed plans to expand trade and security cooperation, though underlying security […]

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In our fast-paced, instant-gratification world where waiting an extra 10 seconds for our video to load seems like an eternity, the difficult ministry of making disciples seems antiquated, unproductive, and inefficient. Similar to parenting, the daily grind seems endless even as the behaviour of our children seems to be regressing. The harder we try, the... Continue Reading

Durante demasiado tiempo, la Formación Profesional fue considerada una alternativa secundaria dentro del sistema educativo. Afortunadamente, esa percepción social ha cambiado. Hoy la FP se ha convertido en una pieza esencial para responder a uno de los principales retos de nuestra economía: conectar la formación de los jóvenes con las necesidades reales del mercado laboral.

Nos encontramos ante una aparente contradicción: más del 75% de las empresas reconoce tener dificultades para encontrar determinados perfiles profesionales, mientras que la tasa de desempleo juvenil en España supera el 23%. No hablamos únicamente de una escasez de trabajadores, sino de un creciente desajuste entre las competencias que demandan las empresas y las disponibles en el mercado laboral. Y es precisamente ahí donde la Formación Profesional desempeña un papel decisivo, cada vez más valorado por empresas, jóvenes y familias.

La transformación tecnológica, la economía verde, la digitalización o la inteligencia artificial están acelerando las necesidades de talento de numerosos sectores productivos, y no solo de perfiles tecnológicos. Las empresas necesitan cada vez más profesionales en ámbitos como el mantenimiento industrial, la automatización, la fabricación mecánica, la electricidad, las energías renovables, la logística o los cuidados. Faltan electricistas, soldadores, instaladores, especialistas en climatización, técnicos de mantenimiento o técnicos de atención socio-sanitaria. Son profesionales imprescindibles para el funcionamiento de nuestras ciudades, nuestras industrias y muchos de los servicios que utilizamos a diario.

A este respecto, es revelador que en España tengamos prácticamente la mitad de perfiles técnicos que la Unión Europea (22,9% frente al 44,3%). Este desajuste tiene consecuencias directas sobre la competitividad de nuestras empresas y las oportunidades profesionales de muchos jóvenes.

Por eso la FP está ganando protagonismo: permite acercar la educación al empleo. Además, la formación en empresa que caracteriza estos estudios se ha convertido en una parte esencial del aprendizaje, acercando a los estudiantes a entornos reales de trabajo y facilitando la adquisición de competencias técnicas y transversales que demanda actualmente el tejido productivo.

Sin embargo, fortalecer la Formación Profesional no consiste únicamente en aumentar plazas o matriculaciones. También exige reforzar la conexión entre los centros educativos y las empresas. El objetivo común que debemos tener empresas, centros educativos y administraciones públicas es facilitar a los jóvenes el acceso a las oportunidades reales del mercado laboral. Debemos colaborar para adelantarnos a un futuro cada vez más exigente, cambiante y competitivo.

Este reto es especialmente relevante para las pymes, que generan más del 70% del empleo privado, pero a menudo encuentran dificultades para participar en el sistema por desconocimiento o falta de recursos. Sin ellas resulta imposible construir una Formación Profesional plenamente conectada con la realidad económica y ofrecer a todos los jóvenes la oportunidad de desarrollar la fase de formación en empresa necesaria para titular.

Necesitamos mecanismos de intermediación, asesoramiento y acompañamiento que faciliten la conexión entre las empresas y los centros educativos. Por ello, CEIM junto a sus asociaciones empresariales, impulsan la iniciativa FYP Madrid precisamente para avanzar con ese objetivo: conectar empresas y FP, conectar empresas y futuros profesionales.

Porque tanto los jóvenes como las empresas necesitan de la Formación Profesional. Tenemos la oportunidad de convertirla en uno de los principales puentes entre educación y empleo, en una vía de crecimiento y desarrollo profesional para los jóvenes y en una herramienta decisiva para mejorar la competitividad de nuestras empresas. Apostemos por ello.

Estos días me he acordado del escritor, periodista y muchas cosas más Leo Longanesi, todo un personaje italiano, por algunas frases suyas. Escribió en 1938, en pleno fascismo: “Dentro de veinte años nadie imaginará los tiempos en los que vivimos. Los historiadores futuros leerán periódicos, libros, consultarán documentos, pero ninguno sabrá comprender lo que ha pasado. ¿Cómo transmitir a la posteridad la cara de F. cuando está de uniforme de jerarca y baja del coche?”.

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© Adnan Farzat (NurPhoto / Getty Images) (EL PAÍS)

In recent days, a Ukrainian drone strike hit Russia’s largest data center, owned by bank and technology company Sberbank. The strike came after Ukraine hit three data centers belonging to the tech giant Yandex, which is often referred to as “Russia’s Google.” After those attacks, Yandex’s traffic dropped 94%. Its users experienced heavy disruption to […]

The post Data centers in the line of fire of Ukraine war appeared first on Asia Times.

Según un sondeo de Ipsos, The Washington Post y ABC News, solo un 33% aprueba la gestión de Trump, frente a un 66% que la desaprueba. Un 72% estima que el país avanza en la dirección equivocada.