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After a landmark provincial election in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, the sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ) has claimed a narrow minority victory, catapulting party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon into the role of incoming premier. The win marks the PQ’s return to provincial power for the first time in more than a decade, ending the eight-year rule of the former Coalition Avenir Québec government and setting the stage for a new period of political friction between Quebec City and Canada’s federal government in Ottawa.

The outcome of Monday’s vote is already being framed as a major early test for sitting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who will now have to navigate rising tensions over divisive priorities that Plamondon’s party has laid out in its campaign platform. Most notably, the PQ has pledged to hold a third provincial referendum on Quebec’s full independence from Canada, following unsuccessful votes on separation in 1980 and 1995. Plamondon has confirmed that the vote will not be scheduled until U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office, which is currently set for 2027, putting the potential plebiscite on track to take place between 2029 and 2030. Public opinion polling shows only around 30 percent of Quebec voters currently support full sovereignty, but the pledge remains the PQ’s core ideological commitment.

The prospect of an independence vote in Quebec comes as a second separatist vote is set to be held in the province of Alberta later this month, meaning Carney could soon face simultaneous national unity crises in two separate regions of the country. Beyond the sovereignty question, Plamondon has made clear he is prepared to confront the federal government on a wide range of policy issues where he believes Ottawa has overstepped Quebec’s provincial jurisdiction. A key flashpoint is immigration: during the election campaign, Plamondon vowed to aggressively push back against any federally mandated increases to Quebec’s immigration intake.

One of the most controversial policy pledges from the incoming PQ government is its plan to remove the British monarchy from Quebec’s provincial governance structure. Plamondon has committed to cutting public funding for the office of Quebec’s lieutenant-governor, the position that formally represents King Charles III in the province, and redirecting the funds to social programs — primarily to expand services to address chronic homelessness in the province. “We are going to do what we have to do to get the monarchy out of Quebec, repatriate those funds, and send them to social causes,” Plamondon told reporters in late September.

This plan is not without its steep legal and political barriers. Under Canada’s constitution, the monarchy holds a formal role in national and provincial governance, and the lieutenant-governor’s core responsibility is to grant royal assent to any new legislation passed by the Quebec National Assembly to bring it into force. Removing funding for the office could throw the legitimacy of future Quebec laws into legal doubt, and Plamondon’s proposal is almost certain to face major court challenges. When pressed on these obstacles during the campaign, the incoming premier reaffirmed he is fully prepared to wage a protracted legal battle against the federal government to advance the policy. The plan builds on prior action Plamondon took in 2022, when he was among a group of Quebec lawmakers who refused to take the required oath of allegiance to King Charles, a stand that ultimately led to provincial legislation making the oath optional for elected representatives.

Political analysts attribute the PQ’s election win in large part to widespread public fatigue with the outgoing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government. The CAQ, which made protecting Quebec’s unique cultural identity and French language the centerpiece of its two terms in office, saw its support collapse under its long-time leader François Legault. An 11th-hour effort to revitalize the party by replacing Legault with new leader Christine Fréchette, the outgoing premier, failed to reverse its fortunes. Fréchette even conceded her own race for a seat in the riding of Trois-Rivières shortly before 10 p.m. local time on election night. In a concession speech, she pledged to cooperate with Plamondon on a smooth transition of power, saying, “Governing Quebec is the greatest honour I have ever had. I have Quebec tattooed on my heart.”

In the final seat count, the Quebec Liberal Party took the second-largest number of seats in the National Assembly, while the Quebec Conservative Party made modest gains in representation. Carney, who leads the federal Liberal Party, has retained broad popularity across Quebec in recent years, though his support has slipped in recent months after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs on Canadian goods in August, following a breakdown in bilateral trade negotiations. Quebec is one of the Canadian provinces hardest hit by the new tariffs, with economic analysts from Oxford Economics projecting the province will suffer a C$2 billion hit to its economy from the trade measures.

Late Monday night, Carney issued a formal statement congratulating Plamondon on his election victory and pledged to work collaboratively with the incoming PQ government. “Building a stronger Québec is core to our mission of building a stronger Canada,” Carney wrote in a social media post. “I look forward to working with you to support Québec’s businesses and workers impacted by tariffs, create more good jobs, work to end homelessness, and get more homes built across Québec.”

In a historic and highly consequential announcement, the U.S. Pentagon has confirmed that former U.S. Army major Nidal Malik Hasan will be executed by firing squad, marking the first military execution carried out via this method in more than six decades. The 2009 mass shooting Hasan carried out at Fort Hood, Texas, remains the deadliest non-combat attack ever recorded on a domestic U.S. military installation, leaving an indelible mark on the American military community and national conversations about capital punishment.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist stationed at the base, opened fire on November 5, 2009, inside a crowded medical facility where deploying troops were undergoing pre-deployment health screenings and receiving vaccinations. The attack killed 13 unarmed soldiers and wounded 32 more. During his 2013 court-martial, Hasan openly admitted he was the gunman, acknowledged he carried out the attack to protect Muslims and the Taliban amid the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and offered only a vague apology for “any mistakes” he made. A military jury of 13 officers ultimately convicted him on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the final approval on social media Monday, confirming that Secretary of the Army Pete Hegseth had recommended moving forward with the execution, and President Donald Trump granted formal approval. The U.S. Army will soon finalize the specific time and location for the sentence to be carried out. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote in a post on X.

Under U.S. military law, any military execution requires explicit presidential approval, along with complete appellate review and a final ruling on the legality of the sentence before it can proceed. Capital punishment has had a turbulent legal history in the U.S. military: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled the military death penalty unconstitutional in 1983, but then-President Ronald Reagan reinstated it via executive order just one year later. This execution will be the first military firing squad execution the U.S. has carried out since the conclusion of World War II.

Currently, Hasan is one of only four inmates held on the U.S. military’s death row. The method of execution chosen for his sentence — death by firing squad — is an extremely rare practice in modern U.S. capital punishment. The last firing squad execution carried out in the U.S. occurred last year in South Carolina, marking the first time the method had been used anywhere in the country in 15 years, and that was a state-level execution. Only four other U.S. states currently allow firing squads as a legal method of execution: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah.

The final approval of Hasan’s execution comes as part of a broader shift in federal capital punishment policy under the second Trump administration. Trump, a longstanding supporter of the federal death penalty, issued an executive order reinstating federal capital punishment on his first day in office in January 2025, reversing the moratorium on federal executions put in place by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. The executive order Trump signed frames capital punishment as “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens.” Today, 27 U.S. states, the federal government, and the U.S. military all retain capital punishment as a legal sentencing option, with the vast majority of executions carried out at the state rather than federal or military level.

Weeks of growing cross-party criticism over the use of public funds to produce pro-Donald Trump television advertisements has forced the former president to reverse course, announcing he will cover the cost of the spots through his own fundraising and the MAGA Inc super PAC. The controversy erupted in September 2026, after more than a dozen ads fronted by Trump hit airwaves across the U.S., touting his past policy achievements including tax cuts and manufacturing growth, while attacking perceived political opponents. The hard-hitting spots included inflammatory language, with Trump promising to “cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists,” oust what he called the “sick political class that hates our country,” defeat the “fake news media,” and “liberate America from these villains once and for all.”

The push for taxpayer funding for the ads ran afoul of longstanding U.S. laws barring the use of government money for overtly political promotional content, drawing condemnation from lawmakers in both major parties. As questions mounted over the legality and ethics of the spending, the White House defended the campaign, framing the spots not as political propaganda, but as educational public service announcements. Administration officials pointed to past government ad campaigns from prior administrations, including former Democratic President Barack Obama’s outreach for the Affordable Care Act and incumbent President Joe Biden’s public health ads urging COVID-19 vaccination. But legal experts pushed back on that comparison, noting that previous government-sponsored ads focused exclusively on legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health guidance and emergency information.

“It’s difficult to see what legitimate government purpose is served by spending taxpayer dollars on ads whose only apparent purpose is to promote the president,” Margaret Dylus-Yukins, a leading legal ethics expert, told the BBC. Democratic New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan introduced a Senate resolution formally denouncing the Trump administration’s use of public funds for the ads, which explicitly carried the line “paid for by the U.S. Government.” The measure was ultimately blocked by a Republican senator, but the criticism continued to build even within Trump’s own party.

Top Senate Republican Leader John Thune acknowledged Monday that he supported the message of the ads, but agreed that public dollars should not cover the cost. “I like the message … it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Thune told reporters. Another prominent Republican Senator, John Kennedy of Louisiana, echoed that sentiment in an interview with CBS News over the weekend, arguing that no elected official, regardless of party, should use public money for self-promotional content. “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Kennedy said.

The controversy comes just weeks ahead of the pivotal November 2026 midterm elections, which will determine control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Democrats are widely expected to flip one or both chambers from Republican control, as polling continues to show Trump’s national approval rating hovering near historic lows. Midterm elections typically function as a referendum on the sitting president’s performance, and history shows the president’s party almost always loses congressional seats in the midterm cycle. Following days of intensifying bipartisan pressure, Trump took to social media Monday to announce his change in policy. He argued that the ads were a “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” and claimed the use of public funds for such spots was “a rather standard thing to do.” Nonetheless, he said he would now cover the cost of the “Patriotic Ads” himself, alongside funding from his MAGA Inc super PAC, ending the use of taxpayer money for the campaign.

Four weeks out from the 2026 US midterm elections, the national political landscape is bracing for a vote that will shape the remaining three years of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. On November 3, American voters will head to the polls to elect all members of the US Congress, the federal legislative branch made up of the lower-chamber House of Representatives and upper-chamber Senate. Held every two years, these elections fall in the middle of a president’s four-year term, earning them the “midterm” moniker.

Congress holds the core constitutional responsibility of drafting and passing federal laws that apply across the entire country. The election’s outcome will determine whether Trump’s Republican Party or the opposing Democratic Party holds control of the legislature, directly shaping how easily the White House can advance its policy agenda. Results are also widely interpreted as a referendum on voter satisfaction with Trump’s performance in office to date.

This cycle, all 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives are up for election; House members serve fixed two-year terms, and the chamber is where all new federal legislation is first introduced and debated. Meanwhile, 35 of the 100 Senate seats are contested this cycle. Senators serve six-year staggered terms, and their duties include reviewing, approving or blocking legislation passed by the House, alongside confirming presidential executive and judicial nominees. Beyond federal offices, voters across most states will also elect state-level officials, with high-profile gubernatorial races in key swing states including California, Florida, Georgia and Michigan drawing particular national attention.

Three top issues are dominating voter priorities this cycle. First, the US economy sits at the top of most voters’ agendas, with households across the country still struggling with soaring costs for fuel, groceries, housing and healthcare. Inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s target rate, a trend partially attributed by many analysts to the ongoing regional conflict sparked by the US-Israeli military operation against Iran launched in February 2026. Democrats have also argued that Trump’s existing trade tariff agenda has further driven up consumer prices for American households. Second, immigration remains a deeply polarizing key issue: Republicans frame Trump’s 2024 campaign promise delivery on border security, pointing to his tightened border controls and broad, controversial crackdown on unauthorized immigration. Third, concerns over unregulated artificial intelligence have surged in urgency in recent weeks, with senior lawmakers from both parties backing new regulatory rules – a position that puts them at odds with Trump, who has rejected any federal legislation to limit AI development.

Currently, Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress. In the House, the GOP holds 219 seats (just one above the 218-seat minimum needed for control, including one independent who caucuses with the party), while in the Senate Republicans hold 53 seats, two above the 51-seat threshold. A Democratic takeover of even one chamber would give the opposition party the power to advance its own legislative priorities and block most of Trump’s domestic policy proposals, effectively grinding his domestic agenda to a halt – though Trump has already shown a willingness to exercise executive power independent of congressional approval. Democratic control would also open the door to aggressive congressional investigations into multiple aspects of the Trump presidency, including corruption allegations, the controversial construction of a new White House ballroom, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement tactics. Some Democratic factions have also already raised discussion of initiating a new impeachment process against Trump, which would result in a congressional political trial rather than criminal proceedings. If Republicans retain control of both chambers, by contrast, Trump will face little institutional barrier to advancing his policy agenda for the rest of his term.

Historically, the sitting president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections, and current polling does not buck that trend. Trump’s approval rating has dropped sharply since he began his second term: after opening with just over 50% approval, polling aggregated by Silver Bulletin put his approval at 37% in early October 2026, with 61% of voters holding a disapproving view of his performance. That said, not all congressional seats are competitive; many districts are drawn to be safe seats for one party or the other. CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, has identified nine competitive Senate races (in states including Iowa and New Hampshire) and 42 competitive House races (across Arizona, Ohio and other battleground states) that will decide control of Congress. This cycle has added unpredictability, however, as both parties have engaged in aggressive partisan gerrymandering after the latest round of census redistricting, each working to draw district maps that favor their own candidates.

Notably, the president’s name does not appear on the midterm ballot, but Trump has repeatedly urged Republican voters to treat the election as a de facto referendum on his presidency, framing a vote for any Republican candidate as an endorsement of his record. Regardless of the final outcome, political analysts will universally interpret the results as a marker of public opinion on the trajectory of the country under Trump’s leadership. Beyond the immediate legislative impacts, the midterm results will also set the stage for the 2028 presidential election: since Trump is barred by the 22nd Amendment from running for a third term, speculation over potential Republican nominees to succeed him, and potential Democratic challengers, will begin almost immediately after votes are counted.