US President Donald Trump admitted that the federal government shutdown hurt Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, saying it was time for his party to eliminate the Senate filibuster to prevent further losses.
In 2019, a Sudanese team of jiu-jitsu athletes set out on an extraordinary quest: to travel by land from Sudan to Kenya, despite having no funding and limited resources, to compete in the LionHeart Nairobi Open.
Together members of the Muqatel Training Center for martial arts travelled across three countries, carrying not just their hopes and dreams, but the spirit of a revolution that reshaped Sudan.
Journey to Kenya is a documentary short about resilience, unity and determination — a powerful reminder that dreams can transcend borders.
A film by Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmed, produced by In Deep Visions.
Zohran Mamdani has won the election to be the next mayor of New York City, knocking out political heavyweight Andrew Cuomo. In less than a year, Mamdani has gone from being a little-known state assemblyman to becoming one of the most high-profile politicians in the United States.
How did he do it, and what could happen now? Start Here with Sandra Gathmann explains.
This episode features:
Joseph Stepansky | US reporter, Al Jazeera Digital
Christina Greer | associate professor of political science at Fordham University and cohost of the FAQ NYC podcast
Andres Bernal | lecturer at the School of Labor and Urban Studies of the City University of New York
The US government shutdown has now lasted for 36 days, making it the longest on record. Some welfare payments, including those that allow low-income families to buy food, have been halted. The shutdown means more than a million government employees are not being paid.
The secretary-general of the United Nations has described the latest wave of atrocities reportedly committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s city of el-Fasher as “a nightmare of violence and a horrifying crisis”.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed, and many more displaced, after the paramilitary group took over the army headquarters and other key installations in el-Fasher last month.
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The United States says that Sudan’s warring sides have agreed, in principle, to work towards a three-month humanitarian truce.
But with violence spreading to other areas beyond North Darfur, can Washington’s plan succeed?
Presenter:
Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Amgad Fareid – executive director, Fikra for Studies and Development
Mathilde Vu – advocacy manager for Sudan, Norwegian Refugee Council
Susan Page – former assistant of the US special envoy for Sudan
Promoting policies like the “Global War on Terror”, former US Vice President Dick Cheney became the symbol of an outdated Republican Party that US voters would eventually reject. Cheney died at the age of 84.
Independent New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo said President Donald Trump would cut through Democratic rival Zohran Mamdani “like a hot knife through butter” after voting in Manhattan on Tuesday. Cuomo, trailing in polls, warned of a “civil war” in the Democratic Party.
Police in Australia broke up a protest against Israeli companies taking part in a defence show in Sydney. At least one pro-Palestinian protester was seen dragged along the ground by officers.
Tanzanian activists say graphic videos offer proof government forces killed dozens of people protesting over alleged election rigging. Incumbent President Samia Suluhu was named the winner of the October 29 vote in controversial circumstances.
Cars and shipping containers were washed away by floods caused by Typhoon Kalmaegi in the Philippines, where thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate their homes.
At his final rally on Monday New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani vowed to resist US President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold federal funds if the 34-year-old wins, framing the vote as a stand against intimidation and political bullying.
Video shows part of Rome’s medieval Torre dei Conti collapse for a second time during a restoration near the Colosseum. One seriously injured worker remained trapped Monday evening with firefighters continuing a high-risk rescue as the tower’s stability is assessed.
Israel is holding a record 360 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank in its prisons, many without charge or trial, in what rights groups call a system of control and abuse. Families say the detentions, marked by torture and neglect, are meant to crush Palestinians.
US President Donald Trump has appeared on the CBS News programme 60 Minutes just months after he won a $16m settlement from the broadcaster for alleged “deceptive editing”.
In the interview with CBS host Norah O’Donnell, which was filmed last Friday at his Mar-a-Lago residence and aired on Sunday, Trump touched on several topics, including the ongoing government shutdown, his administration’s unprecedented crackdowns on undocumented migrants, the US’s decision to restart nuclear testing, and the trade war with China.
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Trump, who regularly appears on Fox News, a right-wing media outlet, has an uneasy relationship with CBS, which is considered centrist.
In October 2020, the president walked out of a 60 Minutes interview in the lead-up to the 2020 election he lost, claiming that the host, Lesley Stahl, was “biased”.
Here are some key takeaways from the interview:
The interview took place one year to the day after Trump sued CBS
The president’s lawyers sued CBS owner Paramount in October 2024 for “mental anguish” over a pre-election interview with rival candidate Kamala Harris that Trump claimed had been deceptively edited to favour Democrats and thus affected his campaign.
CBS had aired two different versions of an answer Harris gave to a question on Israel’s war on Gaza, posed by host Bill Whitaker. One version aired on 60 Minutes while the other appeared on the programme Face the Nation.
Asked whether Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, listened to US advice, Harris answered: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States – to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
In an alternative edit, featured in earlier pre-broadcast promotions, Harris had given a longer, more rambling response that did not sound as concise.
The network argued the answer was edited differently for the two shows due to time restrictions, but Trump’s team claimed CBS “distorted” its broadcasts and “helped” Harris, thereby affecting his campaign. Trump asked for an initial $10bn in damages before upping it to $20bn in February 2025.
Paramount, in July 2025, chose to settle with Trump’s team to the tune of $16m in the form of a donation to a planned Trump presidential library. That move angered journalist unions and rights groups, which argued it set a bad precedent for press freedom.
Paramount executives said the company would not apologise for the editing of its programmes, but had decided to settle to put the matter to rest.
The company was at the time trying to secure federal approval from Trump’s government for a proposed merger with Skydance, owned by Trump ally Larry Ellison. The Federal Communications Commission has since approved the merger that gives Ellison’s Skydance controlling rights.
On October 19, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, were interviewed on 60 Minutes regarding the Israel-Gaza war.
President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025 [Mark Schiefelbein/AP]
He solved rare-earth metals issue with China
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last Thursday, Trump praised his counterpart as a “strong man, a very powerful leader” and said their relationship was on an even keel despite the trade war. However, he blamed China for “ripping off” the US through its dominance of crucial rare earth materials.
Trump told 60 Minutes he had cut a favourable trade agreement with China and that “we got – no rare-earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone”, referring to Chinese export restrictions on critical rare-earth metals needed to manufacture a wide range of items including defence equipment, smartphones and electric vehicles.
However, Beijing actually only said it would delay introducing export controls for five rare-earth metals it announced in October, and did not mention restrictions on a further seven it announced in April this year. Those restrictions remain in place.
Xi ‘knows what will happen’ if China attacks Taiwan
Trump said President Xi did not say anything about whether Beijing planned to attack autonomous Taiwan.
However, he referred to past assurances from Xi, saying: “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president’, because they know the consequences.”
Asked whether he would order US forces to action if China moved militarily on Taiwan, Trump demurred, saying: “You’ll find out if it happens, and he understands the answer to that … I can’t give away my secrets. The other side knows.”
There are mounting fears in the US that China could attack Taiwan. Washington’s stance of “strategic ambiguity” has always kept observers speculating about whether the US would defend Taiwan against Beijing. Ahead of the last elections, Trump said Taiwan should “pay” for protection.
He doesn’t know who the crypto boss he pardoned is
When asked why he pardoned cryptocurrency multibillionaire and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao last month, Trump said: “I don’t know who he is.”
The president said he had never met Zhao, but had been told he was the victim of a “witch hunt” by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Zhao pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in connection with child sex abuse and “terrorism” on his crypto platform in 2023. He served four months in prison until September 2024, and stepped down as chief executive of Binance.
Binance has been linked to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, and many have questioned if the case is a conflict of interest.
In March 2025, World Liberty Financial launched its own dollar-pegged cryptocoin, USD1, on Binance’s blockchain and the company promoted it to its 275 million users. The coin was also supported by an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates, MGX Fund Management Limited, which used $2bn worth of the World Liberty stablecoin to buy a stake in Binance.
This part of the interview appeared in a full transcript of the 90-minute interview, but does not appear in either the 28-minute televised version or the 73-minute extended online video version. CBS said in a note on the YouTube version that it was “condensed for clarity”.
Other countries ‘are testing nuclear weapons’
Trump justified last week’s decision by his government to resume nuclear testing for the first time in 33 years, saying that other countries – besides North Korea – are already doing it.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said, also mentioning Pakistan. “You know, we’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it, because otherwise you people are gonna report – they don’t have reporters that gonna be writing about it. We do.”
Russia, China, and Pakistan have not openly conducted tests in recent years. Analyst Georgia Cole of UK think tank Chatham House told Al Jazeera that “there is no indication” the three countries have resumed testing.
He’s not worried about Hamas disarming
The president claimed the US-negotiated ceasefire and peace plan between Israel and Hamas was “very solid” despite Israeli strikes killing 236 Gazans since the ceasefire went into effect. It is also unclear whether or when the Palestinian armed group, Hamas, has agreed it will disarm.
However, Trump said he was not worried about Hamas disarming as the US would force the armed group to do so. “Hamas could be taken out immediately if they don’t behave,” he said.
Venezuela’s Maduro’s ‘days are numbered’
Trump denied the US was going to war with Venezuela despite a US military build-up off the country’s coast and deadly air strikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking ships in the country’s waters. The United Nations has said the strikes are a violation of international law.
Responding to a question about whether the strikes were really about unseating Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, Trump said they weren’t. However, when asked if Maduro’s days in office were numbered, the president answered: “I would say, yeah.”
A closed sign is displayed outside the National Gallery of Art nearly a week into a partial government shutdown in Washington, DC, the US, October 7, 2025 [Annabelle Gordon/Reuters]
US government shutdown is all the Democrats’ fault
Trump, a member of the Republican Party, blamed Democrats for what is now close to the longest government shutdown in US history, which has been ongoing since October 1.
Senators from the Democratic Party have refused to approve a new budget unless it extends expiring tax credits that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans and unless Trump reverses healthcare cuts made in his tax-and-spending bill, passed earlier this year.
The US president made it clear that he would not negotiate with Democrats, and did not give clear plans for ending the shutdown affecting 1.4 million governent employees.
US will become ‘third-world nation’ if tariffs disallowed
Referring to a US Supreme Court hearing brought by businesses arguing that the Trump government’s tariff war on other countries is illegal and has caused domestic inflation, Trump said the US “would go to hell” and be a “third world nation” if the court ordered tariffs to be removed.
He said the tariffs are necessary for “national security” and that they have increased respect from other countries for the US.
ICE raids ‘don’t go far enough’
Trump defended his government’s unprecedented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and surveillance on people perceived to be undocumented migrants.
When asked if the raids had gone too far, he responded: “No. I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by [former US Presidents Joe] Biden and [Barack] Obama.”
Zohran Mamdani is a ‘communist’
Regarding the New York City mayoral race scheduled for November 4, Trump said he would not back democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, and called him a “communist”. He said if Mamdani wins, it will be hard for him to “give a lot of money to New York”.
Cricket fans have been celebrating across India after the women’s team claimed their first ever World Cup, defeating South Africa in the final in Mumbai.
Video shows damage to Afghanistan’s shrine of Mazar-i-Sharif, also known as The Blue Mosque, after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Officials in the area say at least seven people have been killed and 150 injured.
Briahna Joy Gray tells Marc Lamont Hill why New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is ‘too good’ for the US Democratic Party.
As inequality deepens and dissent is punished, many are looking to new voices like Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist running for New York City mayor on a platform of rent freezes, free public transit, and taxing the rich. Can candidates like him revive the Democratic Party in the United States, or is real reform from within impossible?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with journalist and former Bernie Sanders Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray.