Digital surveillance and data leaks may seem far removed from everyday life, but they are becoming increasingly common. In Venezuela, for example, authorities blocked messaging apps and social media platforms including Signal, X, TikTok and Telegram, as well as YouTube, VPN services and websites. In Nicaragua, independent media outlets had their domains blocked. In Paraguay, a leak from the electoral authorities exposed the data of nearly seven million people. And in Argentina, more than 665,000 medical records were put up for sale.

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White Nights, a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in 1848, is the latest literary discovery of Generation Z. TikTok users seem to be talking about little else.

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Ten years ago, a 92-foot banner hung from the rooftop of an Art Deco building in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro’s iconic beachfront neighborhood. “Fora Cunha” (“Cunha Out”), it read in white letters against a black background.

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The music industry has once again been forced to dance to a tune set by drug trafficking. Ismael Zambada Sicairos, the subject of several narcocorridos (a subgenre of corrido, a type of Mexican ballad, that glorifies or narrates the lives of drug traffickers and organized crime), is now accused of being the head of a sophisticated criminal network that, through organizing concerts in Baja California and other front-business activities, allegedly served to launder money generated illicitly across the border by Los Mayos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction he has led for two years.

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The Japanese apparel group Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo chain, continues to grow at a rapid pace and could finish 2026 as the world’s second-largest fashion retailer. On Thursday, the company reported record annual results, with double-digit increases in both revenue and profit.

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The Colombian city of Medellín woke up on October 1 to good news. According to official figures from the city administration, September recorded the lowest number of murders in 50 years: just five homicides in the city of 2.5 million inhabitants, 22 fewer than in September 2025.

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When the U.S. tabloid The New York Post published images showing Democratic congressional candidate Christopher Gallant wearing various bondage accessories, his lawyer, Sara Azari, rushed to clarify that the photos “were taken during a private, consensual photo session involving Chris and his then-partner, with whom he was in a committed four-year relationship.” The accessories included a leather face mask and a collar fastened with a padlock. In some shots he was also pictured inside a cage, participating in an intimate encounter on all fours. Azari said that because Gallant was friends with the owner of the bondage apparel shop Mr. S Leather, he took part in a session intended to be “fun and personal, with the understanding that Mr. S could use select images in connection with certain products.”

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A powerful explosion shook Colonita, a small village in the municipality of Chișinău, at 4.20 a.m. on September 18. Residents saw a blinding flash and heard a terrifying blast that made houses tremble. Six hours later, emergency teams found the remains of a Russian drone — including its engine — scattered across agricultural land. The device had fallen about four miles from the center of the Moldovan capital, which is home to more than 700,000 people. It had not been detected by surveillance systems, which the Defense Ministry attributed to the speed and low altitude at which it was flying.

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Eliminate the death penalty for 563 inmates in California and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The proposal now being considered by Governor Gavin Newsom has been put to a statewide vote twice and came very close to passing.

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The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The award recognizes “a person who with exceptional courage and integrity has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order,” the committee stated. The laureate, the committee continued, “has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”

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At an emergency shelter in central Nepal, Chhiring Mhendo Tamang stares at a photograph of her six-year-old daughter. She fears she will never see her again after the school bus she was on was swept away by a flash flood. A glacier collapsed on August 26, causing an avalanche of mud, rocks and water to rush into a river on the border between Nepal and Tibet. The flood has so far caused 1,451 deaths with 5,745 people missing, mainly in the districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading, where homes, schools, electrical infrastructure and roads have been decimated, according to Nepal’s National Authority for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (NDRRMA).

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Bazilian senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro starts the runoff race with an advantage for the October 25 second round. A Datafolha poll, the first since Brazilians voted last Sunday, gives him 52% of valid votes. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is four points behind, at 48%. That gap lies outside the margin of error, which is two points either way.

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A man was shot and wounded during an arrest operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in New York on Thursday. The shooting occurred in the Marble Hill neighborhood of the Bronx at about 4.00 p.m. local time, the police said. Besides the wounded man, there was a five-year-old child inside the vehicle who was reportedly unharmed.

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The Pentagon plans to broadcast a firing-squad execution live, a practice that might seem more characteristic of terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State than of governments that are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to a senior Defense Department official, the institution plans to stream online the execution of former military psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan on December 3; Hasan killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

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The leader of the Venezuelan opposition in exile, María Corina Machado, has decided to intervene in the United States midterm elections. She did so by publicly endorsing Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who is seeking a fourth term in the House of Representatives for Florida’s 27th District. The statement, released Wednesday via video, comes at a particularly sensitive moment for the Cuban-American lawmaker, who has clashed with Donald Trump over her criticism of the White House’s immigration policy and who faces an increasingly tight race in Miami.

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