Monday, October 19, 2026 · Evening Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The sharpest news is on the streets: strikes and mass protests are spreading from Mexico to Chile, workers rising against austerity, war and unpopular right-wing governments installed with Washington's backing. How such disliked administrations came to power at all runs back to the imperial center now straining to hold its periphery in line.

That strain is open in Kyiv, where Zelenskyy accused Trump of trying to pressure Ukraine into surrendering to Russia, escalating a weeklong row. Ukraine has lost access to Starshield, the military version of SpaceX's Starlink, and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick vowed to hold any U.S. officials who limited it "fully accountable". Meanwhile Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took a secret trip to Israel to meet Netanyahu ahead of that country's elections, per Axios.

At home the cruelty is the policy. More than 100,000 people from Ukraine and Sudan can stay without immediate risk of deportation — the exception that proves the rule. A man denied his medicine died in ICE custody in Laredo, his daughter says, while officials insist he got proper care. And Democratic senators [accuse the administration of a scheme that strips unaccompanied immigrant children of their rights and exposes them to deportation](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/10/democratic-senators-duckworth-durbin-warren-markey-schiff-wyden-letter-rfk-trump-attorneys-deportation-unaccompanied-minors-legal-conflict-interest).

The spending that does flow runs upward: Michigan Senate hopeful Mike Rogers burned $100,000 of campaign money on private jets, a Miami car service and BMW repairs. The same state power that guards capital falls hardest on Black and poor communities: Mississippi's attorney general ruled the officer who fatally shot one-year-old Kohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot "justified", Hampton Roads police saturated Black and low-income neighborhoods with Flock-style cameras, and five Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers resigned amid a probe into alleged racist texts.