Israel’s exit polls point to a hung Knesset, Flávio Bolsonaro turns up missing and the U.S. says it will give him a visa, and the little Oleshky truce gets bigger. Ten stories as of Tuesday evening, October 27.
1. Jerusalem / Israel. Polls are closed, and nobody won outright. TV exit polls show neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor former army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s getting anywhere near the 61 seats needed to govern. Al Jazeera’s tally has them tied at 51 each, with Arab parties projected to win 18, per Al Jazeera. The Guardian has Eisenkot’s bloc slightly ahead, with Likud still the largest single party, on the highest turnout in 50 years. Eisenkot called it a vote of “no-confidence in Netanyahu.” Yair Lapid called it “a total collapse.” Eisenkot ruled out governing with the Arab parties before the vote, which makes them kingmakers without a seat at the table, and it points to long coalition talks, with Netanyahu able to stay on as caretaker while they drag on. Final official results are due by November 4.
2. Brasília / Brazil. This morning Flávio Bolsonaro was grounded. By tonight he’s apparently gone. He missed a Tuesday 11 a.m. deadline to hand his passports to federal police, and CNN Brasil reports he left for the U.S. with his wife and two daughters in the early hours, The Guardian reports. Folha de S.Paulo says allies were told he went to Argentina first, and Argentina’s Todo Noticias says he crossed the border on foot. A senior U.S. official says the State Department will issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family. His whereabouts haven’t been independently confirmed, NPR notes. Lula, celebrating his 81st birthday in Brasília, said “the act of leaving Brazil is shameful.” Lawmakers from Lula’s Workers’ Party have asked the Supreme Court to order Bolsonaro’s arrest and put his name on Interpol’s Red Notice list. In Washington, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro wants the administration to tell Congress whether it had any role in his exit, per Al Jazeera.
3. Kherson / Ukraine. Day one of the Oleshky truce went quietly, and the truce has now been widened. Melania Trump, who helped broker it with Pope Leo XIV, said on X that it now covers more of the Kherson region to give humanitarian convoys “safe passage.” Kherson’s deputy head said Russian shelling had stopped both in Kherson city and in the wider region, BBC News reports. No breaches have been reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says it’s going “according to plan.” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, says it could “pave the way for other steps in the peace process.” David Arakhamia, a senior figure in Zelenskyy’s party, says the truce runs until 22:59 Ukrainian time on November 1 and called it the “largest de-escalation since 2022.” Roads are being cleared of mines so supplies can get in, possibly Thursday, and an evacuation is planned for Friday. An estimated 1,700 to 2,000 people are still in Oleshky.
4. Corpus Christi, Texas / United States. One week from the midterms, Trump pointed to a tanker off the Texas coast that he said held “one million barrels of oil” from Venezuela and called it “the greatest oil victory in history,” The Guardian reports. He also floated Venezuela becoming “a prosperous 51st state.” The point of the rally was Ken Paxton’s Senate race. Democrat James Talarico leads him by 1.7 points in the RealClearPolitics average, which is inside the margin of error, Al Jazeera notes.
5. Eastern Pacific. U.S. Southern Command says a strike on an alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday killed five people. Using the WOLA tracker’s count of 238 earlier deaths, that brings the reported toll of the boat-strike campaign to 243 since September 2025, Al Jazeera reports. Legal scholars and rights groups call the strikes extrajudicial killings. Here’s SOUTHCOM’s own announcement:
6. Nassau / The Bahamas. King Charles has started a nine-day Caribbean tour, his first visit to the region as monarch, taking in the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda. At a youth rally in Clifford Park, he said it is “only right” to “acknowledge the great suffering and injustices of the past,” BBC News reports. In line with the UK government’s position, Buckingham Palace says he won’t apologise for Britain’s role in the slave trade or offer reparations. Up in Canada, Olivia Chow was re-elected Toronto mayor, beating Brad Bradford 54% to 41% on record turnout, per The Guardian.
7. Cairo / Egypt. A New Cairo court ordered the closure of Mada Masr, one of Egypt’s last prominent independent news outlets. It fined editor-in-chief Lina Attalah 3 million Egyptian pounds (about $53,400), the maximum, for running a website without a licence, and ordered the outlet’s equipment confiscated, Al Jazeera reports. She was held for several hours and released once the fine was paid. Amnesty International called it “a crushing blow to press freedom,” BBC News reports. According to a media watchdog quoted by the BBC, Mada Masr had applied for a licence repeatedly since the 2018 media law, and its applications were rejected or went unanswered. During her release, Attalah also learned of a 2024 in-absentia sentence of one year in prison, and a retrial hearing is set for November 11.
8. Katsina / Nigeria and Nairobi / Kenya. Yahaya Masussuka, a controversial Islamic cleric, was shot dead outside his home in Dutsin-Ma by two gunmen on a motorcycle on Monday evening, and one of his guests was also killed, BBC News reports. It isn’t clear why he was targeted. The 47-year-old had received death threats on social media over teachings that questioned some of the hadiths, and he spoke out against violent extremism and for interfaith dialogue. In East Africa, Kenya has released the first 20 contacts of its first Ebola patient from quarantine. Confirmed cases stand at nine, with two deaths, and 98 people remain in quarantine, BBC News reports. The DR Congo outbreak driving it has topped 10,000 cases.
9. Shanghai / China. China’s AI boom is losing air. The STAR 50 tech index in Shanghai is down 40% since June, and about $2.4 trillion has been wiped off Chinese stocks since May, according to Bloomberg figures cited by The Guardian. Behind it are thin profits, reluctant consumers and the threat of more U.S. bans on Chinese technology. Meanwhile Kylian Mbappé apologised for an “ill-judged” remark about a meme of Mao Zedong, made over a meme on a French talk show, after several Chinese brands dropped him, BBC News reports.
10. Tarawa / Kiribati and Arrival Heights / Antarctica. Kiribati fishermen found 18-year-old Luka Rahan alone and badly dehydrated between Tarawa and Maiana, 41 days after he and his cousin left northern Bougainville in Papua New Guinea on a fishing trip and the boat’s engine gave out. The ABC understands that his cousin died at sea, ABC News reports. Rahan is recovering in hospital in Tarawa. Far to the south, Earth Sciences New Zealand has retired Dobson #17, the spectrophotometer that has measured ozone from Arrival Heights near Scott Base since 1988. It could even take readings by moonlight during the 24-hour darkness of the polar winter. Scientist Sylvia Nichol made both its first and its last measurements, Earth Sciences New Zealand says. The result is a 38-year record that helped track the ozone hole’s recovery.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates on The Watch: the Fed wraps its meeting in Washington on October 28. November 1, Bulgaria’s presidential runoff (Iotova vs Gyurov), and the Oleshky truce’s scheduled end. November 3, U.S. midterms. November 4, Israel’s final official results. November 6, Pope Leo XIV sets off for Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. November 7, New Zealand votes. Full board at the link.
