Brazilian voters have denied Latin America’s resurgent right its ultimate prize, snapping a streak of seven straight conservative presidential victories in 18 months.

The stunning triumph of leftist incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Flávio Bolsonaro on Sunday, with 51.8% of the vote to 48.2%, limits U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to tighten his grip on the Western Hemisphere and cements Latin America’s most populous country and largest economy as a counterweight to Washington. A Bolsonaro victory would have left Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum as the only progressive president among the region’s powerhouses.

For the Trump administration, which has wielded punishing tariffs, severe sanctions and military force to reassert its dominance in the region, Lula’s victory complicates its campaign to enlist Brazil in its military coalition against cartels and to gain preferential access to the country’s critical minerals, analysts say.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/1414754

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes -- 51.8% of the total vote -- over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro. The announcement capped an evening of chaos at polling places across Brazil, following a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours. That decision by a Supreme Court justice may trigger legal action by Bolsonaro.

His triumph bucks a trend in Latin America where increasing numbers of right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump have been winning. Lula’s victory leaves Mexico and Brazil, Latin America’s two most populous nations, with left-of-center leaders. It also positions Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, to remain independent of the U.S., despite the pressure of increased tariffs imposed by Trump.

Reporting Highlights

• Deadly Outbreak: A bird flu outbreak has been raging uncontrolled on a Utah mink farm for two months. Flu experts fear it could spark a devastating human pandemic.
• Government Failures: State officials didn’t order the mink to be killed, which other countries with outbreaks have done. They are prioritizing the financial interests of the fur trade.
• Silent Risks: Despite CDC guidance urging officials to monitor workers, they actively chose not to and declined to test workers — including one with a symptom experts said would warrant testing.

Four planeloads of soldiers from El Salvador landed in Haiti on Friday, days after the Central American nation’s president angrily threatened Haitian gangs that ambushed a group of Salvadoran soldiers over the past weekend who remain missing.

The four flights carrying 350 Salvadoran military landed a day after El Salvador sent 100 special forces troops to Haiti in response to the gang attack. One of the aircraft carrying the Salvadorans on Friday was a U.S. military plane. Two flights from the United States arrived in Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport on Friday as well, originating from Washington Dulles International Airport.

The flights were first reported by Haiti analyst Jake Johnston, an international researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The Miami Herald has learned that one of the aircraft carrying the Salvadoran troops, a U.S. C-130 military transport, was provided by the Pentagon at the request of the U.S. State Department. It was unclear Friday evening if the other three chartered flights carrying Salvadoran military, including a Boeing 737 that turned up unannounced before 10 p.m., had been provided by the U.S. government.

The arrival of the flights and the participation of U.S. military aircraft raises questions about whether the reaction of the president of El Salvador — a strategic economic and security partner of the United States — to the ambush of his troops is drawing Washington deeper into the armed crisis in Haiti.

Another round of heavy showers and thunderstorms were expected to hit the south-west US on Sunday after the region endured days of rain that forced evacuations, water rescues and multi-million-dollar damage.

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of the Four Corners – the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah – even as local officials forecast further receding of swollen rivers that surged since rains picked up on Wednesday.

About 4ft (1 meter) of water flooded the home of Shane Ferrari, the sheriff of San Juan county, New Mexico. He said the area’s situation was stable on Sunday, but he and other residents were trying to clean up and deal with damage.

The election was seen as a referendum on Vučić’s political dominance and the political system that had been in place in Serbia for more than a decade.

Serbia has entered a new political era. The Student List has won the country's parliamentary election, marking a dramatic breakthrough for a movement that emerged from months of student protests and rapidly transformed itself into the country's most important political force.

In a brief statement to the nation, outgoing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat and declared that the Student List has won the majority in parliament.

Vučić said that “based on the stratified sample, it is clear that we have lost the election,” adding that “the Student List has won and will have between 135 and 140 seats, while we will have around 105.

“No one else has entered parliament. The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) has won three seats, the Albanians one, and I think the SDA has also secured a seat,” he added.

The Serbian Progressive Party received around 1.72 million votes, admitted Vučić. The Student List won 2.2 million, giving it a majority of 52% to 32.3 %.

This gives the company an advantage in tracking objects in orbit, raising national security concerns and fears of greater control over the space industry

The US military has given Elon Musk’s SpaceX access to restricted space tracking data, raising a new round of questions about whether the Trump administration is attempting to hand over traffic control in Earth’s orbit to a controversial donor.

The access also raises new national security questions, industry observers say.

The move comes after Musk’s Doge in 2025 fired many of the federal government’s nascent space traffic control program’s staff, and the administration has twice attempted to financially gut the department, called the Traffic Coordination System for Space (Traccs).

Stakeholders concerned more people at risk of food insecurity after One Big Beautiful Act took effect

Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has decreased significantly over the past year in the US following restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which has forced more people to seek help from food banks or go hungry, stakeholders say.

The number of people who receive food stamps has dropped from 41.6 million in July 2025, before the One Big Beautiful Act took effect, to 36.5 million in June 2026, a 13% decrease, according to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the program.

While Donald Trump and other Republicans have said the changes incentivize people to find jobs, elected officials, non-profit leaders and people with food insecurity say the changes simply make it harder for Americans to feed their families.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Utah’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, that sought Utah voters’ sensitive private information.

Henderson announced the ruling on social media, writing “0-27” with a heart emoji, referring to the number of times the U.S. Department of Justice has lost similar lawsuits.

U.S. District Court Judge David Barlow issued the order Friday, determining Henderson does not need to make voters’ private information available for the Department of Justice.

The chief executive of Six Flags says the company will install seat belts on the Georgia roller coaster from which a rider fell to his death earlier this month. The company’s rides with similar restraints will also get the safety upgrade.

The theme park operator announced the extra safeguard less than two weeks after 42-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem of Atlanta died after being ejected from his seat on the Goliath coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia.

Federal agents documented a mystery “black triangle” flying at speed near a sensitive US site earlier this year, new Pentagon UFO files reveal.

The claimed sighting of the “matte black triangular shape of extremely low aspect ratio” took place at an undisclosed location near a “national security site” in the western United States in June, according to newly-released documents.

A FBI observation report said that two federal agents were stationed at an observation post several miles to the west of the location when they were alerted to the supposed sighting.

I find it a bit surprising that his death never popped up on any of my instances on Lemmy.

A new Trump administration rule allows hunters to bait bears on federal lands in Alaska with bacon, doughnuts, meat scraps or other human foods typically used to help kill the trophy animals at close range.

Opponents say the practice will cause bears to be more aggressive around humans, and allege that the rule change is a political gift to largely rightwing trophy hunters. The rule replaces a 2024 Biden administration rule that banned the practice, and environmental groups criticized the move as “indefensible and inexcusable”.

“We are discouraged to see this rule come back, specifically the bear baiting piece which is cruel and dangerous, not only to wildlife but the public as well,” said Drew Robertson, senior regulatory specialist for Humane World for Animals.

The US interior department on Friday published the rule on the federal register, and it will take effect in mid-November. It marks the latest in a series of rule changes at the state and federal levels since 2023 that allow trophy hunters to use what critics say are barbaric and unethical practices to kill animals.

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New details of IV team’s attempts to find a vein shared by Pike’s lawyer ‘shocked and disturbed’ practitioners

Medical experts have expressed shock at the apparent incompetence shown by Tennessee’s execution team during the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike, the prisoner who survived a normally fatal dose of pentobarbital, which they say would be considered medical malpractice in any other setting.

New details emerged on Thursday of how Tennessee’s intravenous (IV) team struggled for almost an hour to set up a line into Pike’s arms through which she would be administered the fatal dose of sedative. A blow-by-blow account was released in legal proceedings from Pike’s lawyer, Randy Spivey, who was present inside the death chamber at her 30 September failed execution.

The technical procedures attempted by the four unidentified members of the IV team as they tried to find a vein, as described by Spivey, provoked alarm among medical experts. They said the standards applied appeared to fall glaringly short of anything that would be deemed acceptable in a medical environment.

Agreement with more than 1,300 victims of clergy members and lay leaders would resolve long legal fight

The Catholic archdiocese of New York is finalizing a settlement for at least $800m with more than 1,300 people who said they were sexually abused by clergy members and lay leaders, according to one of the plaintiff’s attorneys.

The agreement would resolve a long legal fight, as well as reportedly reduce the risk of the diocese going bankrupt.

While the parties have not reached a final deal, just a few details remain, according to attorney Paul Mones, who represents some of the plaintiffs.