USA - A far-left progressive in the style of New York City’s Zohran Mamdani is projected to win the Seattle mayoral race. Her victory comes just over a week after Zohran Mamdani’s landslide win in New York City, where he defeated former governor Andrew Cuomo, another result that underscores the Democratic Party’s alarming shift toward openly socialist candidates.

USA - Anyone who thinks gold’s surge into the stratosphere represents irrational exuberance isn’t paying attention to the wretched state of the Group of Seven (G7) economies. US government debt is topping US$37 trillion, giving ratings agencies cause to reassess the world’s largest economy’s underlying health. France’s dueling political and debt crises have the International Monetary Fund gauging its available reserves. Germany is skirting recession, with industrial output plunging 4.3% in August from July. Over in London, some commentators wonder how long the UK can avoid a 1970s-style date with the IMF, three years after the Liz Truss debacle. $5,000 gold: logic, not lunacy, in a de-dollarizing world.

USA - Warnings have been issued for portions of the United States’ electric power grid amid a forecasted severe geomagnetic storm. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued the forecast on Tuesday, saying a geomagnetic storm at a strength of category G4 would cause issues with electrical grids for states poleward of the 45th parallel. States north of that latitude include Oregon, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It could bring auroras to half the US on Wednesday.

ISRAEL - In a land that has been turned from a desert into lush croplands, a first-of-its-kind project is taking place: Israeli officials are replenishing a depleted water level in the freshwater Sea of Galilee with washed ocean water. Precipitation in the drainage has been scarce in recent years, only 40% of what was expected last year, and the location provides water to vast regions around it. So, according to a report in the Times of Israel, the lake with the “dangerously low” level was being raised as desalinated water is being pumped into it by the nation’s Water Authority. It is the first ever attempt in the world for such a project, the report said. The report said Israel now desalinates enough water to supply most of its own population, with leftovers for nearby nations.

BRAZIL - Two UN security staff injured in violent clashes with indigenous group in Belem. Dozens of indigenous protesters brandishing batons stormed the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, demanding greater protection for forests. “They cannot decide for us without us,” the protesters chanted angrily as they demanded access to the compound. Others carried flags and signs declaring: “Our land is not for sale.” There have been growing tensions over the lack of involvement of indigenous people in the conference taking place in a city known as the “gateway to the Amazon”.

USA - Masayoshi Son, one of tech's most–watched investors, is making a gigantic bet - and it's sending shivers through Wall Street. The Japanese billionaire and SoftBank founder quietly sold off all his Nvidia shares and most of his stake in T-Mobile last month, unloading roughly $15 billion worth of stock in total. The move by Son - dubbed the Warren Buffett of tech investment - has rattled traders already spooked by a growing chorus of warnings about the overheated AI market. Son's sale is being read as a warning sign that the AI boom - the same one that has powered record stock gains for companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Palantir - might finally be wobbling. SoftBank says the move is not about losing faith in Nvidia or T-Mobile. Instead, it is about freeing up cash for a massive new wager: a $34.7 billion investment in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

ISRAEL - Until Washington recognizes that ideology, not economics, drives the Middle East, its diplomacy will remain blind to the forces shaping the region. For all the good the Trump administration has done in the Middle East – restoring “Peace through Strength”-style deterrence, rebuilding alliances, and rejecting the Obama-era tilt toward Iran – it is now making a number of mistakes that stem from two fundamental errors that threaten to undermine much of that progress. Both stem from Western misunderstandings of the region’s political and religious realities.

USA - Hardliners and conservative commentators in Iran celebrated Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York’s first Muslim mayor as a symbolic victory for Islam over the West and a sign of America’s decline. State-affiliated outlets such as the conservative daily Hamshahri and Nour News framed the win as “America Against America,” interpreting it as proof of deep divisions within the US establishment and the “collapse of the old order” marking the beginning of the end of “Trumpism.” Conservative and state-run media emphasized that Mamdani’s win reflected both a moral and political defeat for America and Israel, with Asr-e Iran describing the election as a “crossing of the mental barriers” created after 9/11 and the erosion of the “Jewish lobby’s” power over US politics. The IRGC Qods Force Telegram channel called it “the defeat of Trump and Zionism” and “a joyful event” marking America’s changing identity.

UK - The Corporation is certainly not the most trusted news brand, Tim Davie. The seemingly endless succession of scandals involving the BBC’s coverage of international issues completely undermines the Corporation’s claim to be the world’s most trusted news brand. It is a reflection of the parallel universe inhabited by the BBC’s senior executives that, at the same time that they are being forced to apologise for further “mistakes” in the body’s news output, they continue to insist their coverage of key events represents a “gold standard”. As Director-General Tim Davie wrote in his resignation letter, “the BBC remains the most trusted news brand globally”. Davie’s comments certainly stand in stark contrast to the realities of the BBC’s recent coverage of world affairs.

UK - The BBC is a "conveyor belt of propaganda" and should be defunded, according to a Reform member. Belinda De Lucy, Reform UK's Education and Families spokesperson, slammed the public broadcaster on the Daily Expresso podcast speaking to host JJ Anisiobi, claiming they sat on the truth about Trump's altered speech for months before it was exposed. Highlighting Trump's message on Truth Social, which condemned the behaviour from an "ally", Ms De Lucy said the BBC has "not only shamed that wonderful national treasure we used to have, but it's shamed our country." She said the stories the BBC "churns out are so anti-British" that it was either time for them to "return to their roots", or be defunded.

UK - Our nation is in the midst of an identity crisis. The institutions that define us, that make us different, are all under attack. The BBC is just the latest. The monarchy, the Armed Forces, Parliament, the judiciary, the police, the National Trust, the Church of England, the Civil Service, the Conservative Party and the NHS are either fraying at the edges or are in terminal decline. All are architects of their own difficulties. The BBC and its cheerleaders are trying to make out that a cabal of Right-wing newspapers and governors intent on destroying the Corporation orchestrated the coverage that led to the resignation of its director general and head of news. We are constantly being told, not least by the BBC, that it is the world’s most trustworthy news source. But if the great number of your journalists hold pretty much the same worldview – liberal, soft Left, anti-Tory, Brexit-hating, Trump-loathing and Farage-excoriating – then you are not providing an unbiased news output.

UK - As we fell silent for two minutes on Tuesday, I found myself wondering what the fallen would make of the dangers now facing the country they loved and gave their lives to protect. The threat of looming tragedy jostles uneasily with a mounting sense of farce. Carry On Across the Channel continued to play to full boats as a second migrant removed to France under the Government’s “one in, one out” deal returned to the UK. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said that the swift detection of the migrant “is evidence of the system working”. You may well wonder what the system would look like if it wasn’t working. As Nigel Farage says, this is now a national security emergency. From Epping to Lands End, we see how the main concern is to hide the scale of the threat from the people. I don’t say this lightly, but my fear is what we are seeing could rapidly become a Grooming Gangs 2 where sexual predators go unchecked. Will it really take the rape or murder of a child by an asylum seeker to force the Government to begin deportations? The fallen would not recognise such a country; they did not give their lives for this.

USA - Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion (£760 million), accusing it of a “reckless disregard for the truth”. The US president turned the screw on the corporation as it was reeling from the resignation of director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness over the selective editing of Mr Trump’s speech on the day of the Capitol Hill riot. A senior official in the Trump administration suggested it “may consider” removing the BBC’s White House passes as a result of the row. Mr Trump’s lawyers said a “failure to comply will leave President Trump with no choice than to pursue” the broadcaster for damages for the “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”. The US president gave the BBC a deadline of Friday to comply, or face a legal claim for $1 billion in the Florida courts.

UK - The spliced together version of Trump's comments aired by Panorama MADE IT SEEM THAT HE SAID: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore.” Fifteen minutes into the speech, Trump actually said: “We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building TO PEACEFULLY AND PATRIOTICALLY MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD.” It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it. The fact that he did not explicitly exhort supporters to go down and fight at Capitol Hill was one of the reasons there were no federal charges for incitement to riot.

UK - BBC chairman Samir Shah finally issued an apology over the doctored footage of Donald Trump yesterday as a blame game within the corporation broke out into the public domain. A civil war between the BBC's board and its news division erupted following the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, on Sunday. So it was left to Mr Shah to address the most egregious claim that footage of the President had been spliced together so it appeared that he told supporters to 'walk down to the Capitol' and 'fight like hell' during his speech on January 6, 2021. The two sections that were edited together were actually delivered by Mr Trump more than 50 minutes apart. Mr Shah conceded that the editing gave the impression 'of a direct call for violent action' from the US President and had led to more than 500 complaints since the report, by former editorial adviser Michael Prescott, emerged last week. The corporation's chairman wrote: 'The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgment.' Yesterday, as she turned up for work, Ms Turness denied that her news team was 'institutionally biased', arguing that 'it is the most trusted news provider'.