There is still over an hour before the protagonist appears, but the line already wraps around the block. Dozens of people wait patiently for their turn to see the man who has become the great hope of the Democratic left wing. When he begins to speak, pandemonium breaks out: “My name is Abdul El‑Sayed and I am going to be your next senator in Washington.” Over the next hour, the hundreds gathered in this venue will applaud, laugh, and cheer every word from the mouth of the new star of American politics, who has already made a fitted black T‑shirt and jeans his trademark look. We are in Lansing, Michigan’s capital, where one of the most gripping battles of the midterm elections — just over two weeks away — is being fought.

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On November 3, voters will head to the polls for the midterm elections, which will determine whether Donald Trump’s Republicans retain a friendly Congress or whether Democrats take control of one or both chambers, enabling them to mount a more aggressive opposition by blocking legislation, budgets and appointments during the final two years of his term.

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Most of the planet with incomes equivalent to €5,000 a month (nearly $5,600) by 2100. Average temperatures only 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Less meat, industry and mining. More health care and education. And who would lose out? The world’s Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellisons and Elon Musks. A tiny group of billionaires representing 0.001% of the population would see their share of global wealth fall from the current 6.4% to 0.05%, while the poorest 50% of the planet would rise from holding just 2% to 30%.

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It is 2022. In a neighborhood in western Caracas, Yolanda (a fictitious name) walks through a checkpoint manned by hooded police officers. In her pocket, she carries a small transparent bag containing several misoprostol pills – the second part of the treatment recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for a safe medical abortion.

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He has a noose tattooed on his left arm. He paints pictures of gallows. He named his publishing house and record label “Hangman.” And he has songs titled One Day You Die (2007) and You Make Me Die (1986). But there’s nothing macabre about him. In fact, he laughs at everything… and at everyone.

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Alistair Boxall, 58, is a chemist and professor of environmental science at the University of York. In 2022, he helped lead the largest study ever conducted on pharmaceutical pollution in rivers around the world. Boxall is now leading a new monitoring project covering 93 rivers in 31 European countries. Among them are the Manzanares, Jarama, Henares and Pantueña streams in the Madrid region, as well as the Zadorra and Nervión rivers in Álava.

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Anyone on social media will find infinite references to horoscopes, mediums, tarot and other practices. This seems to contrast with the era in which we live which is hyperconnected and technologically advanced.

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At midday in the summer, Avenida Oriental — a central boulevard in Medellín — is usually congested in both directions. The sidewalks are crowded with street vendors, hawking food and clothing. Amidst the heat, drivers and pedestrians seek shade under the trees that form three long rows along the sides and down the center of this avenue, which is one of the main streets in the downtown core.

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday fired his brand new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, just five days into the job. The story broke right after Trump told reporters that he had asked Zacharia to reconsider whether she wanted to remain in the job after her bumpy first briefing on Monday.

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Number 116 on Rue Réaumur in Paris sits at the crossroads of the two worlds that define Revolut. On one side lies the historic financial district centered around the stock exchange; on the other, the Sentier neighborhood, home to much of the French capital’s technology ecosystem. It is at this intersection of finance and technology that the bank is preparing its new headquarters for Western Europe.

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The race to succeed António Guterres as head of the United Nations (UN) from next January 1 is a long-distance one with very few certainties. Among the seven current candidates, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, a former minister of Guyana and that country’s ambassador to the United Nations, stands out alongside Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and, to a lesser extent, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi. Rodrigues-Birkett, who received EL PAÍS in her New York office last Tuesday, avoids speculation but does speak of a campaign against her that caused her to lose ground in the last vote.

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The fact that Spain is swimming against the tide on European immigration issues became more evident than ever on Friday, when several EU leaders led by the prime ministers of Denmark and Italy — Mette Frederiksen and Giorgia Meloni — strongly criticized the Spanish government’s decision earlier this year to grant legal status to potentially hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants.

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“The growth sucks.” That’s how Alex Karp, the CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, described the company’s performance in Europe. He said this on August 3 to shareholders, while his colleagues defended an “incredible” quarter in the United States.

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Palantir's response

Follow The Money and its media partners presented Palantir with the findings of this investigation, along with 14 detailed questions. Palantir has not responded to any of them. Instead, the firm forwarded a statement from a spokesperson: “A serious debate is needed on how Europe safeguards its technological sovereignty. Technological sovereignty must ultimately be measured by who controls the data, the decisions and the mission: not just by the nationality of the software provider.” According to Palantir, control over data (and what is done with it) belongs to the customer.

The statement adds: “Since 2011, Palantir has been working with democratically-elected European governments and institutions to increase hospital capacity, accelerate cancer diagnoses, safely resettle refugees, combat organized crime, protect victims of domestic violence, and respond more quickly to floods and other emergencies.” It also notes that more than 20% of Palantir’s employees work in Europe and that the company helps European businesses compete and grow in various sectors, such as aerospace, manufacturing and life sciences. Palantir further states that it supports European governments in protecting their national security, including in Ukraine.

In a previous response to this same media consortium, Palantir denied accusations of its involvement in human rights violations.

On September 1, the small town of Almazán, in Spain’s Soria province, found itself robbed of a large portion of its heritage. A section of the palace of the Hurtado de Mendoza family collapsed. Twenty days later a further section fell into ruin, prompting an emergency intervention. The disintegration of part of the façade, the gallery and the roof has affected the interior of the 15th-century Gothic building in which the Catholic Monarchs once temporarily took up residence. It is not the only palace that has crumbled. Its decline flags up an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in Spain.

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Maricopa County, in Arizona, has emerged as the “main epicenter” of illegal arms trafficking into Mexico, according to John Lindsay-Poland, coordinator of Stop US Arms to Mexico, an initiative that studies the illicit flow of weapons between the two countries.

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Amid the internecine war within the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the factions to have suffered the heaviest blows has been Los Chapitos, led by the sons of former cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. On the other side stands La Mayiza, headed by the successors to former kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Unlike their more aggressive and media-savvy rivals, La Mayiza’s leaders have generally operated with a lower profile and less direct exposure.

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“We came here four decades ago chasing a dream, but we lost hope,” whispers Tanya Jo, dark circles etched beneath her eyes as she holds a pumpkin-shaped decoration. Halloween is only a few weeks away, and she is getting her house ready in Fort Madison, a small town in Lee County, in southeastern Iowa. The state, known for its vast cornfields, is one of the battlegrounds in this year’s fiercely contested midterm elections, which will be held on the first Tuesday of November.

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Donald Trump is a man of loyalties and, above all, grudges. If there is one community for which the U.S. president has repeatedly shown contempt, it is the Somali community. And if there is one political rival who has borne the brunt of his hostility, it is Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia 44 years ago.

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The trailer for GTA VI, the latest installment in the acclaimed Grand Theft Auto video game series, introduces Lucía Caminos, a Latina woman, as one of the protagonists alongside her partner, Jason Duval. Criticism from some fans of the franchise quickly surfaced online. Beyond comments about Caminos’s appearance, some users have labelled her “too dominant” because of her personality and questioned her weapons skills, which they deem “unrealistic for a woman,” even comparing them to those of a U.S. Marine.

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The clearest example concerns Ukraine’s air defenses. One of the biggest challenges currently facing Ukraine’s air-defense units, whether mobile teams or surface-to-air missile systems, is Russia’s jet-powered Geran drones. These can now exceed speeds of 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour, although they do not always fly at the same speed. Bringing them down requires munitions fast enough to intercept such targets and guided by highly accurate tracking data. That is why Ukraine’s access to the satellite network operated by Starlink, the company owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, is so critical.

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