Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Over the past two years, state-linked Russian hackers have repeatedly attacked Liverpool City Council — and it’s not because the Kremlin harbors a particular dislike toward the port city in northern England. Rather, these attacks are part of a strategy to hit cities, governments and businesses with large financial losses, and they strike far beyond cyberspace. In the Gulf of Finland, for example, the damage caused to undersea cables by the Eagle S shadow vessel in December incurred costs adding up to tens of millions of euros — and that’s just one incident. Russia has attacked shopping malls, airports, logistics companies and airlines, and these disruptions have all had one thing in common: They have a great cost to the targeted companies and their insurers. One can’t help but feel sorry for Liverpool City Council. In addition to looking after the city’s half-million or so residents, it also has to keep fighting Russia’s cyber gangs who, according to a recent report, have been attacking ceaselessly: “We have experienced many attacks from this group and their allies using their Distributed Botnet over the last two years,” the report noted, referring to the hacktivist group NoName057(16), which has been linked to the Russian state. “[Denial of Service attacks] for monetary or political reasons is a widespread risk for any company with a web presence or that relies on internet-based systems.” Indeed. Over the past decades, state-linked Russian hackers have targeted all manner of European municipalities, government agencies and businesses. This includes the 2017 NotPetya attack, which brought down “four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks, ATMs and card payment systems in retailers and transport, and practically every federal agency,” as well as a string of multinationals, causing staggering losses of around $10 billion. More recently, Russia has taken to targeting organizations and businesses in other ways as well. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” There have been parcel bombs delivered to DHL; fast-growing drone activity reported around European defense manufacturing facilities; and a string of suspicious incidents damaging or severing undersea cables and even a pipeline. The costly list goes on: Due to drone incursions into restricted airspace, Danish and German airports have been forced to temporarily close, diverting or cancelling dozens of flights. Russia’s GPS jamming and spoofing are affecting a large percentage of commercial flights all around the Baltic Sea. In the Red Sea, Houthi attacks are causing most ships owned by or flagged in Western countries to redirect along the much longer Cape of Good Hope route, which adds costs. The Houthis are not Russia, but Russia (and China) could easily aid Western efforts to stop these attacks — yet they don’t. They simply enjoy the enormous privilege of having their vessels sail through unassailed. The organizations and companies hit by Russia have so far managed to avert calamitous harm. But these attacks are so dangerous and reckless that people will, sooner or later, lose their lives. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” | Aleksander Kalka/Getty Images What’s more, their targets will continue losing a lot of money. The repairs of a subsea data cable alone typically costs up to a couple million euros. The owners of EstLink 2 — the undersea power cable hit by the Eagle S— incurred losses of nearly €60 million. Closing an airport for several hours is also incredibly expensive, as is cancelling or diverting flights. To be sure, most companies have insurance to cover them against cyber attacks or similar harm, but insurance is only viable if the harm is occasional. If it becomes systematic, underwriters can no longer afford to take on the risk — or they have to significantly increase their premiums. And there’s the kicker: An interested actor can make disruption systematic. That is, in fact, what Russia is doing. It is draining our resources, making it increasingly costly to be a business based in a Western country, or even a city council or government authority, for that matter. This is terrifying — and not just for the companies that may be hit. But while Russia appears far beyond the reach of any possible efforts to convince it to listen to its better angels, we can still put up a steely front. The armed forces put up the literal steel, of course, but businesses and civilian organizations can practice and prepare for any attacks that Russia, or other hostile countries, could decide to launch against them. Such preparation would limit the possible harm such attacks can lead to. It begs the question, if an attack causes minimal disruption, then what’s the point of instigating it in the first place? That’s why government-led gray-zone exercises that involve the private sector are so important. I’ve been proposing them for several years now, and for every month that passes, they become even more essential. Like the military, we shouldn’t just conduct these exercises — we should tell the whole world we’re doing so too. Demonstrating we’re ready could help dissuade sinister actors who believe they can empty our coffers. And it has a side benefit too: It helps companies show their customers and investors that they can, indeed, weather whatever Russia may dream up.

LONDON — A woman who threw a milkshake over Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage has pled guilty to assault by beating and criminal damage. Victoria Thomas Bowen, 25, hurled the drink in Farage’s face during the U.K, general election campaign in June as he left a Wetherspoons pub in the Essex town of Clacton. The Brexiteer was launching his successful candidacy to represent the constituency. Thomas Bowen also caused £17.50 of damage to a jacket belonging to Mr Farage’s security officer James Woolfenden, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard. She previously denied the charges and was due to go on trial Monday but changed her pleas to guilty before proceedings began. Thomas Bowen has been granted unconditional bail ahead of her sentencing hearing on Dec. 16. In a witness statement read out in court, and reported on by the BBC, Farage said “this incident caused me concern, as I have only been going about my job” and trying to “have as much public engagement as possible.” He added: “I’m saddened that this has happened at a public campaign.” The Reform UK leader was also pelted with coffee cups that same month while campaigning in Barnsley. The perpetrator of that attack was handed a suspended prison sentence. Since entering parliament, Farage has not held in-person constituency surgeries, a fixture of British politics. He has said he is not “allowing the public to flow through the door with their knives in their pockets.”

As G7 defense ministers held talks on Saturday amid rising tensions in the Middle East, a drone was launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in the northern Israeli town of Caesare. Netanyahu was not in the area and there were no casualties, his spokesman said, according to media reports. The Israeli military said earlier that a drone launched from Lebanon had stuck a building; it was not immediately clear what the building was. Two more drones entering Israeli airspace were intercepted by the military, it said. The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this week had raised hopes for a de-escalation of the Mideast conflict, but there has been no lessening of tensions in the region.  An Israeli airstrike Friday on a refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least 33 people including 21 women, the BBC reported, citing the Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health authorities. Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya reiterated the Palestinian group’s position that no hostages would be released “unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops,” France24 reported.  Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Hamas was alive and will survive despite the death of Sinwar, Reuters reported. “His loss is undoubtedly painful for the Axis of Resistance, but this front did not cease advancing with the martyrdom of prominent figures,” Khamenei said. “Hamas is alive and will remain alive.” G7 defense ministers meeting in Naples, Italy, are expected to focus on escalations in the Middle East as well as the war in Ukraine.

BRUSSELS — As Volodymyr Zelenskyy walked into the NATO restaurant Thursday to dine with alliance boss Mark Rutte, there was one thing the Ukrainian president wouldn’t order: cold water. He came armed with a plan, billing it as the ultimate solution to defeat Moscow after 32 months of full-scale battle. Not only does it ask for permission to use long-range Western weapons to strike Russian targets, but it also calls for an immediate invitation to join NATO at a later date. Zelenskyy’s uphill battle to gain Europe’s support for his “victory plan” comes three weeks before a potential second term for former U.S. President Donald Trump, which could force the Ukrainian leader to negotiate with Moscow. On substance, the EU had little to offer Kyiv. With Hungary objecting, the bloc failed to unblock frozen Russian assets as loans for Ukraine. Zelenskyy also met with Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, another increasingly pro-Russia country like Hungary. His Brussels tour began in the European Council. Despite a worsening situation on the front lines — Zelenskyy said North Korea was preparing to send some 10,000 troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine — EU leaders glossed over Ukraine’s requests and turned their attention to the Middle East in the early afternoon. Hungary’s reaction was less of a surprise, as its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is known to be a staunch believer in keeping a friendly relationship with Moscow. “What he outlined yesterday in the Ukrainian parliament was more than frightening,” Orbán said of Zelenskyy. “The European Union went into this war with a badly organized, badly executed, badly calculated strategy, for which the president of the [European] Commission bears the main responsibility” Orbán said, referring to Ursula von der Leyen. “We are losing this war, so the strategy is not working.” Zelenskyy did receive some support after his plea for NATO membership, however. Denmark’s premier, Mette Frederiksen, reiterated her support for Ukraine’s membership, saying: “It’s the most important life insurance you can give a country.” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, meanwhile, signed a bilateral security defense cooperation agreement with Zelenskyy. The agreement paves the way for Greece’s participation in efforts to rebuild Ukraine, particularly the city of Odessa on the Black Sea. “Greece is ready to continue meeting Ukraine’s most urgent defense needs. It will also provide additional resources to accelerate F-16 training for our pilots and technicians,” Zelenskyy said. Even the far-right leader in the European Parliament, Jordan Bardella of France, posted a snap of himself shaking hands with Zelenskyy, who had been invited to the legislature by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. There, Zelenskyy had lunch with her and six of the eight leaders of the Parliament’s various factions. Then the Ukrainian leader moved to NATO headquarters, where the alliance’s 32 defense ministers were holding a meeting. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey was a sympathetic voice who said the victory plan would ensure that Kyiv “can, from a position of greater strength, deal with Russia for the future … We are ready to help accelerate that progress that they’re making toward membership [in NATO.]” Others weren’t willing to offer as much. “The victory plan from President Zelenskyy is on the table, but we can’t give an answer right now, or in a few hours or days,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. “I believe the important signal is that Ukraine will be in NATO.” When? Pistorius would only say there are many questions and issues that need to be resolved. Zelenskyy doubled down on his messaging. “If we [do] not lose unity in Ukraine, we will prevail. I am sure, 100 percent — but it depends on the unity of our partners,” Zelenskyy said. “If our partners [do] not lose their unity, we will not lose [it].” Rutte, the new chief of the 32-strong alliance who earlier in the day confusingly floated the possibility of another country joining NATO before Ukraine, appeared more forceful standing next to Zelenskyy in the pre-dinner press conference. “We will massively make sure Ukraine has what it needs to fight the war,” Rutte said, at times spontaneously interrupting Zelenskyy’s answers in order to pledge full support. “Ukraine will be a member of NATO. No doubt about it.” Zelenskyy offered a rare smile. “You see? We have unity,” he said. “We need 32 more.” Joshua Posaner, Csongor Körömi, Ketrin Jochecová and Nektaria Stamouli contributed to this report.

The new CEO and editorial director of Euronews stressed he’d never accept a job that would be subject to a political leader’s orders amid employees’ fears his hire is tied to the TV channel owner’s financial and personal ties to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Claus Strunz, who built his career with Bild, a German tabloid from Axel Springer group (which also owns POLITICO), was appointed mid-October after the brutal firing of Euronews CEO Guillaume Dubois. His sharing of pro-Israel and anti-immigrant tweets on social media soon led to questions about a new direction of the newsroom among Euronews journalists, according to five employees — all granted anonymity to speak openly about the matter as were others quoted in the story — who have met with him in the past two days. Concerns that the Euronews project could be turned into an EU-skeptic, right-leaning publication serving Orbán’s political interests have gone rampant since it was revealed that its owner Pedro Vargas David (CEO of the Alpac Capital fund, which acquired the network in 2022) has personal and financial ties with the Hungarian strongman and his close circle. Once tipped as Europe’s answer to CNN, Euronews is a pan-European TV news channel, reaching 145 million people worldwide.  The unexpected changes at the top of Euronews’ governance come as Euronews shifts toward a new strategy, according to 12 people familiar with the company, its owner Vargas David and the media landscape in Europe.  Both Vargas David and Strunz met with Euronews’ employees in Brussels and Lyon, where they were grilled over questions about maintaining editorial independence. “Strunz declarations on Twitter are worrying because this is not what you’d expect from the boss of Euronews, especially when he applauds [far right German party] AfD results as a sign of functioning democracy,” said Alexis Caraco, a staff representative employee from Lyon’s office. “But after meeting with him for two hours on Thursday afternoon, we feel reassured that he commits publicly to defend independent journalism… but we’ll wait and see.” According to Caraco, Strunz stressed he was into journalism — not politics — and that his tweets shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The conversation between Strunz and journalists from Brussels was described as frank, but not tense, by several attendees. Journalists who had dug into Strunz’ old tweets challenged him on potential bias around coverage of the conflict in Gaza and migration — to which Strunz responded he wouldn’t impose his personal views on programming. On Orbán, he said he didn’t know anything about transactions allegedly involving the Hungarian premier’s close circle. There is no evidence so far that Orbán is behind Dubois’ dismissal or Strunz’ appointment, nor that journalists have been ordered away from covering the Hungarian enfant terrible — their coverage is not particularly keen on Orban and many said they’ve never felt any pressure.  The European Commission, which partly funds Euronews, previously said it has hired an external consultant to check their content and so far, no issues have come out of it. “Euronews is committed to respect the highest journalistic standards in all our contracts, including on editorial governance aspects,” a Commission spokesperson said. Euronews, Strunz and Vargas David did not immediately reply to a request for comment.  MONEY MONEY MONEY The plan is to turn the media company into a more lucrative, niche and influential powerhouse headquartered right in front of the Commission, according to two former employees with knowledge of Euronews strategy. Vargas David, now chairman of the board of Euronews, put forward €170 million from his fund to buy the media in 2022 at a time of great financial difficulties. The son of a center-right European People’s Party lawmaker, he was described as someone with genuine interest in European affairs by three people who have worked closely with him. They also said he was first and foremost a businessman, marked by his years as a McKinsey consultant and as a manager trained at elite French business school INSEAD and the Harvard Kennedy School. As a fund manager, he takes losses seriously, surrounds himself with consultants on strategy (from McKinsey) or public affairs and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to making tough calls, according to three people who have worked with him.  In 2022, Euronews recorded losses of €15 million in a total revenue of €44 million. A big chunk of this came down to the progressive diminishing of EU subsidies: The Commission used to pour between €20 million to €23 million a year into the company until July 2024 as part of a three-year partnership. That support has dropped to €11 million a year and is now the subject of open competition through a public tender process. “The Commission’s cut in subsidies is a signal of doubts about Euronews,” a European senior executive from the media said. This created a hole in the company’s revenues, which also has €30 million in losses linked to firing its employees from its original Lyon headquarters, a former employee said. “At this stage, as a shareholder I would simply be asking myself, where the hell is growth going to come from?” said another senior executive working in the Brussels media world. “This reliance on EU money means that the company did not sufficiently diversify its sources of income,” a former senior manager from Euronews said. With TV audiences going down and EU-related news not proving widely popular, one method tried by Euronews to stay afloat is boosting its work as a content provider for state-sponsored outlets — resulting in special coverage on Azerbaijan tourism and the creation of a Qatar-based office. The network also seeks sponsorship from companies through events and looks for revenue from advertisers. Internally, Euronews’ business activities have at times created friction with the newsroom, a former and a current employee said, citing questions over editorial independence. Euronews previously denied any allegations in that sense.

BRUSSELS — Paris is rapidly running out of both the time and political clout required to halt a European Union trade deal with South America, only adding to the woes of President Emmanuel Macron, who is likely to face a vitriolic backlash from France’s all-powerful farmers. The European Commission and EU heavyweights such Germany and Spain make little secret of their desire to close a deal before the end of the year with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and newcomer Bolivia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says the deal should be done “quickly.” France has long been the most dogged holdout on the accord, fearing that a deluge of beef and other agricultural imports from giant Latin American producers will undermine French farmers, one of the country’s most politically powerful groups. In previous years, Paris had sufficient political capital in the EU to hold an effective veto over the pact, but this influence is now waning after Macron’s thumping defeats in this year’s EU and national elections. The danger for Paris is that other EU countries will now simply enact the accord over France’s head, and the political impact of that will be explosive. “It is hard to see how the French government and its weak political support in the French parliament could survive a Mercosur trade agreement,” said François Chimits, an economist at the French research center CEPII.  “It’s a casus belli for French public opinion, which is specifically not fond of free trade, to say the least, and extremely protective of its agricultural sector. Any measures mixing the two produce political kryptonite for French leaders,” he added.  AGAINST THE CLOCK The time window for French officials to stem the pro-Mercosur momentum is narrowing fast. EU and Mercosur chief negotiators met from Oct. 7-9 in Brazil in a bid to drive the talks forward. Proponents of the deal reckon progress is also likely at a summit of the G20 group of leading economies in Rio de Janeiro in November, setting the stage for an endgame by the end of the year, or early 2025. Up against the clock, French officials in Brussels — long used to steering the EU agenda — are finding their options are unusually limited. Realizing they will no longer be able to block the deal single-handedly or build a coalition to stop the agreement, they are instead focusing on influencing the endgame. “I don’t think France is trying to bring more countries together. There’s a lot of pressure from the Commission; [the agreement] continues to move forward,” said a French official, granted anonymity to discuss the highly sensitive topic. In recent briefings, top French diplomats told French officials from the European Parliament that the country was becoming increasingly isolated, according to three people briefed on the meetings. They also hinted at an expectation the deal would be sealed early next year.  In previous years, Paris had sufficient political capital in the EU to hold an effective veto over the pact, but this influence is now waning after Emmanuel Macron’s thumping defeats in this year’s EU and national elections. | Pool photo by Teresa Suarez via AFP/Getty Images “There has been an acceleration in [EU-Mercosur] negotiations which has underlined France’s isolation on the Mercosur issue,” said one of the people briefed on the meetings.  The French Permanent Representation in Brussels denied such meetings took place. MACRON VERSUS VON DER LEYEN The trade agreement — covering more than 800 million people and accounting for a fifth of global economic output — has been a top priority of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But it eluded her in her first mandate after Macron stood in the way of a successful conclusion to the talks earlier this year.  The French Permanent Representation, representing France at the EU level in Brussels, said Paris was continuing to argue that the deal was unacceptable.  “The Permanent Representation is constantly reminding all its interlocutors of the French position, which is that the text is not acceptable as it stands. It recalls that other member states share this position,” said a spokesperson. Although the EU and Mercosur closed formal negotiations in 2019, the EU has put off signing the agreement in order to add extra conditions to address deforestation and climate concerns and to assuage French farmers’ worries about a glut of Latin American produce. France insists that it is not against the free-trade deal per se, but simply wants its environmental and agricultural demands to be met. Indeed, much of the French manufacturing industry — in stark contrast to farmers — supports the deal. A French diplomat pushed back against what he called “the caricaturing the French position.” “We are not against free trade in itself. We need a good deal with all the guarantees,” said the French diplomat. “We ask that the Commission includes in the negotiation robust elements on climate, deforestation,and mirror-clauses that protects our farming interests, fair competition conditions as well as access to critical primary resources.” But the worrying fact for the French is that the rest of the EU just isn’t as scared of standing up to Paris as it used to be. “We’ve set our red lines, but the French influence is reduced; [the Commission] continues to negotiate without being paralyzed by the fear of France,” said the French official cited above.  These tensions over Mercosur are symptomatic of the loss of French influence in Brussels, and support comes from relatively small EU countries such as Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands. The Elysée did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. Camille Gjis reported from Brussels, Clea Caulcutt reported from Paris.

Belgium’s June election winners bolstered their positions in local elections on Sunday. Belgians went to the polls to vote for mayors and local councilors, as well as for provincial councils, just four months after votes that reshuffled the country’s national and regional power configurations. Since the June election, new governments have been formed in Belgium’s French-speaking Wallonia region in the south and in Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north. But talks on a Brussels regional government and a new national government have stalled amid complaints that parties were unwilling to compromise as they campaigned for local elections, which they counted on to strengthen their hands. As the first results of the local elections trickled in, June’s election winners appeared to have held their ground. The Flemish-Nationalist N-VA was once more confirmed “the largest party of Flanders, by far,” said the party’s President Bart De Wever, mayor of Antwerp and possibly Belgium’s next prime minister. In Antwerp De Wever’s list had a comfortable lead over its main challenger, the far-left PVDA.  De Wever is in difficult and long-winded talks to lay the groundwork for a national government of his N-VA party together with the Dutch- and French-speaking centrists of CD&V and Les Engagés, the French-speaking liberals of the Reformist Movement (MR), and Dutch-speaking socialist party Vooruit. With the local elections out of the way, those negotiations could now resume at full speed. In Wallonia, MR and Les Engagés, which won the June election and have since formed a governing coalition in the French-speaking region, booked strong results. The party’s Brussels head, David Leisterh, scored a major win in his own commune. | Hatim Kaghat and Belga Mag/Getty Images Les Engagés President Maxime Prévot successfully defended his position as Namur’s mayor, according to initial results. First results also suggested that MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez had failed to dethrone the socialist mayor in Mons. But the party’s Brussels head, David Leisterh, scored a major win in his own commune, Watermael-Boitsfort, with a joint list with Les Engagés. The party also booked big wins elsewhere in the capital region, though not across the board. Leisterh, who is in pole position to become minister president of the next regional Brussels government, had hoped Sunday’s results would “underpin the June results and therefore confirm there’s a demand for change,” he told POLITICO ahead of the election. After a poor showing for French-speaking Ecolo in June, the Greens also took a hit at the local level in Brussels, although they curbed their losses in some communes. Lead Greens negotiator Elke Van den Brandt, of the Dutch-speaking Greens, had hoped for strong local results in Brussels amid tough regional coalition talks marked by clashes with the MR. Meanwhile, Flanders’ anti-migration and Flemish-Nationalist Vlaams Belang party claimed wins as well.  In the small city of Ninove, west of Brussels, the far-right party won an absolute majority, giving Vlaams Belang its first-ever mayor in local lead Guy D’Haeseleer. The party had made headway in “almost every commune,” making it “one of the winners of these elections,” the party’s president, Tom Van Grieken, said on Sunday. The election was marked by lackluster participation — particularly in Flanders, where turnout dropped to around 60 percent in many communes as it held local elections without an obligation to vote.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday pushed back against the idea that there was a peaceful transfer of power in 2021, a line that has been repeated by Trump-supporters in recent interviews and at campaign events. Former President Donald Trump “sat and watched for over three hours while our Capitol was brutally attacked by a mob that he sent there while police officers were brutally beaten. And Donald Trump refused to tell them to go home for over three hours,” Cheney (R-Wyo.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker. “So anybody who is interested in the truth ought to go look at those videos. We did not have a peaceful transfer of power in 2021.” Cheney, a life-long conservative and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has been a vocal opponent of Trump since he tried to overturn the 2020 election. She endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in September and has been campaigning for Harris in recent weeks. The notion that the 2021 transfer of power was peaceful has been a popular Republican talking point since Ohio Sen. JD Vance said it in the vice Presidential debate. “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250, years in this country,” Vance told his opponent, Gov. Tim Walz and the debate moderators. It was echoed most recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press” by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who made an appearance immediately prior to Cheney. When asked if he will certify the election results no matter who wins, Johnson told Welker that “we will have a peaceful transfer of power. We did in 2020.” Cheney explicitly said that she does not believe Johnson will fulfill his constitutional obligation to certify the election if Trump does not win. She referenced an amicus Supreme Court brief that Johnson signed in 2020 alleging four states had defied the Constitution by violating their own election rules despite conversations between Johnson and Cheney where he implied that he knew Trump’s claims were false. “He has a record, repeatedly, of doing things that he knows to be wrong, he knows to be unconstitutional, in order to placate Donald Trump,” Cheney said. She added that leaders of the Republican Party are afraid of Trump and in the grips of “cowardice.” “That they are willing to perpetuate his lies at the expense of their duty to the Constitution tells you something about the real damage that’s been done to the Republican Party,” she said. Cheney herself was ousted from Republican Party leadership for serving as vice chair of the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection. She warned that if Trump is elected, he will only appoint those who enabled him to claim election fraud and try to overturn the 2020 election. “He will appoint people like [former national security adviser] Mike Flynn,” Cheney said. “36 hours ago, Mike Flynn was at an event where he was asked whether or not the president’s opponent should be executed. And he basically said, ‘Listen, yes, I’m going to unleash the gates of hell.’ These are the kinds of people that Donald Trump will be putting in place.”

SpaceX successfully completed a Starship rocket test flight, managing to catch the returning booster at the pad with mechanical arms — a crucial step in the quest to make fully reusable rockets. The Starship rocket took off from a base in Texas at 7:25 a.m. local time. SpaceX then returned the rocket’s first-stage booster — which propels the craft off the ground — back to the launch site and caught it in midair using mechanical “chopsticks.” The upper-stage spacecraft coasted through space for around 20 minutes before reentering the atmosphere and starting a downward trajectory toward the Indian Ocean, where it exploded upon landing. Starship’s previous four test flights occurred in April and November of 2023 and March and June of this year. This has been the most ambitious so far. During the last test flight in June, both the booster and the main body of the rocket survived and landed in their designated splashdown zones — though the latter suffered heat damage. Standing 121 meters tall, the giant Starship rocket is designed to fulfill SpaceX’s — and founder and CEO Elon Musk’s — ambition to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually, to Mars. Musk celebrated the event on X, saying it was a “big step towards making life multiplanetary.”

ATHENS — Greece’s Syriza party is heading for another splintering and potentially the loss of its status as the country’s main opposition. Syriza’s Central Committee decided late Saturday that its recently deposed leader, Stefanos Kasselakis, cannot be a candidate in the party’s upcoming leadership battle. The overwhelming vote against Kasselakis came in a session full of tensions, verbal attacks, booing and boycott efforts. The socialist Pasok party is also in the process of electing a new leader, in what could be a moment of reckoning for the future of the country’s center left. The left-wing Syriza, which governed Greece from 2015 to 2019, has been facing an existential crisis since it was crushed in last year’s election by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. That defeat sparked the resignation of Syriza’s charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras. In September 2023, U.S. expat and former Goldman Sachs trader Stefanos Kasselakis was elected from nowhere to head Syriza, since which time the party has been mired in toxic infighting. Last November, dozens of members left Syriza and created the New Left party. The discord has swelled since the party’s poor performance in June’s EU election, and has seen court threats, verbal assaults and even the police summoned to provide security at party headquarters. Kasselakis has maintained an aggressive stance against the majority of the party’s members and particularly toward his predecessor, Tsipras. Last month Kasselakis was ousted by the party’s leadership via a motion of no confidence, amid accusations of authoritarian behavior and of not aligning ideologically with the party. He was later blocked from standing as a candidate for the Syriza leadership after he sent a legal threat to the party last week, calling for an investigation into how parts of his wealth declaration had been leaked to the press. Stefanos Kasselakis, cannot be a candidate in the party’s upcoming leadership battle. | Nick Paleologos/Getty Images Following Saturday’s vote, Kasselakis said he would confront his detractors next month at an extraordinary party congress set for Nov. 8-10 to take a final decision on Syriza’s leadership candidates. The first round of the contest will take place on Nov. 24, with a runoff set for Dec. 1 if necessary. In the Pasok party contest, incumbent leader Nikos Androulakis is facing off against Athens Mayor Haris Doukas. Androulakis currently holds a significant lead, with an eight-point advantage over Doukas. Whoever wins the leadership race will aim to capitalize on Syriza’s implosion and build on the attention generated by the elections. Pasok has already cemented second place in voter polls, while the looming splinter within Syriza means it could become the main opposition in the parliament as well if Syriza loses at least five MPs.