World Brief: November 3, 2026

America votes, with a Supreme Court order on California ballots already in the books. The US hits Iran’s Qeshm Island on the eve of the vote, and Tehran says the ball is in Washington’s court. Trump says US aid to Israel ends this year as Israel’s opposition lines up behind Eisenkot. Russia throws 365 drones and missiles at Ukraine’s power grid and hits a Kharkiv hospital, while Zelensky says three-way talks resume next week. Plus Europe’s week of freezer hacks, flight bomb threats and a Polish border scare, the King on slavery in Antigua, South Africa and Rwanda cut from AGOA, Rubio presses Venezuela on prisoners, North Korea denies the Binance heist and Australia’s teen social media ban goes to the High Court. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, November 3.

1. Washington / United States. Polls are open in the US midterms, with all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships on the ballot and more than 57 million early ballots already cast, Al Jazeera reported. Republicans hold the Senate 53–47 and a narrow four-seat House majority. Early hiccups were local: scanners malfunctioned in Westchester County, New York, where Attorney General Letitia James said her office is monitoring. On the eve of the vote the Supreme Court, in a one-line order, refused a Justice Department request to set aside 20,000 California ballots. California has about 23 million registered voters and had received more than six million mail ballots, BBC News reported. The AP has the running Election Day picture.

2. Qeshm Island / Iran; Doha / Qatar. The US struck Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, US officials told CBS, describing the strikes as limited and defensive after the Revolutionary Guards fired on a US aircraft, BBC News reported. Iranian state news agency Irna reported explosions on the island, and the IRGC said it shot down two US MQM-170 drones and an MQ-9. Trump said he is in “no rush” to ramp up strikes, though he floated going after the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site. AP cited regional officials as saying Netanyahu pushed for a new wave of strikes after the midterms. On Tuesday parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, said: “The ball is now in America’s court to prevent war.” In Doha, Qatar’s Majed al-Ansari said both sides are “reviewing the ideas and proposals we have presented.”

3. Washington / United States; Herzliya / Israel. Trump told Fox News the US will stop paying Israel at the end of the year under a deal struck with Netanyahu “months ago.” “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel,” he said. “Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.” It is not clear which money he meant: the current memorandum of understanding, worth $3.8bn a year in military aid, runs to the end of 2028, and Congress appropriates the funds. The Israeli prime minister’s office had not commented, BBC News reported. In Israel, the five opposition party leaders met in Herzliya and agreed to recommend former army chief Gadi Eisenkot as prime minister, promising a “national emergency government,” a day before President Isaac Herzog starts consultations, Al Jazeera reported. They are still split over working with Arab-led parties, which hold 19 seats.

4. Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia / Ukraine; Berlin / Germany. Russia launched 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles overnight at energy sites in nine regions. A strike on a Kharkiv hospital injured 73 people and damaged the cardiology ward, 17 were hurt in Dnipro and DTEK lost three of its five thermal plants, Al Jazeera reported. “It is very telling that all of this is happening on the day of the US congressional elections,” Zelensky said. The death toll from Russia’s attack on an aid distribution centre in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region, has risen to at least 31, with three days of mourning declared, BBC News reported. In Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said of a Russian readiness for a ceasefire, “I have not seen any sign of this so far,” DW reported. Zelensky then said the Ukraine–US–Russia talks resume at team level on November 10–11.

5. Brussels / European Union; Warsaw / Poland. The cyber-attacks on supermarket freezers have now spread to at least 10 countries, among them Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Sweden, and the European Commission is treating them as a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply. “These are not isolated incidents,” spokesman Thomas Regnier said, BBC News reported. Separately, bomb threats hit seven flights to Rome, Murcia, Warsaw and Sofia. A Heathrow flight bound for Warsaw was diverted to Modlin, a Dublin–Rome Ryanair flight got an Italian air force escort, and no explosives were found, BBC News reported. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a provocation on the Kaliningrad border was prevented overnight after allied warnings, AP reported.

6. St John’s / Antigua and Barbuda. Opening the Commonwealth summit, King Charles told the leaders of 56 countries that the transatlantic slave trade is a “shameful chapter of history” that fills him “with the most profound personal sorrow,” but he stopped short of an apology. “We cannot change the actions of those who came before us,” he said. “We can, however, learn from the past.” UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he is open to an apology, and officials are discussing with leaders what form it could take. He also announced £40m for Caribbean infrastructure over three years, France 24 reported.

7. Pretoria / South Africa; Kigali / Rwanda. The US will drop South Africa and Rwanda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade programme from January 1, 2027, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said. South Africa’s Trade Minister Parks Tau called it “unfortunate,” BBC News reported. South African exports under AGOA fell to $1.7bn in 2025 from $4bn, and total two-way trade is about $28.8bn, AP also reported. The news lands a day before South Africans vote in local elections.

8. Caracas / Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco and pressed for the release of the remaining political prisoners, BBC News reported. Rights group Foro Penal counts 322 still held, though more than 1,000 have been freed since Nicolás Maduro was seized on January 3. Delcy Rodríguez is interim president, and opposition leader María Corina Machado returned to the country on October 25.

9. Pyongyang / North Korea. Kim Yo Jong denied North Korea was behind the $6.3bn Binance hack, which the FBI blames on the North Korean group TraderTraitor, BBC News reported. Binance said on Tuesday the attack began with a bogus job interview: a software engineer downloaded a “malicious code repository” as a coding assignment, and the attackers then used an internal AI tool to reach the wallet team’s systems before draining the funds on October 29, Reuters (via NBC News) reported. “This should not have happened,” the exchange said. It says it is repaying all affected customers.

10. Canberra / Australia. Australia’s ban on social media for under-16s faced its big test in the High Court, where the Digital Freedom Project, led by New South Wales MP John Ruddick, and the online forum company Reddit argued it is unconstitutional, BBC News reported. Reddit’s lawyer Perry Herzfeld called the law “ill thought out” and said it breaches the implied freedom of political expression. Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government was there to defend a child’s right “to be free from harm.” Government lawyer Joanna Davidson SC continues on Wednesday. The ban covers ten platforms, with fines of up to A$99m.

Sources: BBC (Iran; Israel aid; Ukraine; cyber-attacks; flights; AGOA; Venezuela; Binance; Australia; California ballots), Al Jazeera (midterms; Israel; Ukraine), AP (Poland; AGOA; midterms), DW (Berlin), France 24 (Commonwealth), Reuters via NBC News (Binance).