Strike on Ukrainian school kills at least 33 with 50 unnaccounted for
Zaporizhzhia Gov. Mykhailo Semikin said the sheer force of the blasts in the strike on Monday demolished a specially hardened basement, which was only constructed in 2025 with European Union funding, and set it on fire.
No classes were being held at the school in Komyshuvakha, 20 miles southeast of Zaporizhzhia, the building having been turned over to use as a shelter and center for distributing humanitarian assistance as more and more of the civilian population fled advancing Russian forces, according to Semikin.
Posting footage from the scene of a large bomb crater, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the "utterly horrific" attack was one of the most deadly of the war and that there were still people "under the rubble."
Zelensky said it was impossible that the Russians didn't know that Monday was the day "that the local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there [at the school] every week."
"It is very telling that all of this is happening on the day of the U.S. congressional elections. The Russians believe that America will not notice this signal from them. But such terror must be noticed and stopped," Zelensky said.
The attack came amid an intensification of Russia's airborne campaign against civilian and infrastructure targets -- particularly energy facilities -- as the conflict enters its fifth winter with 14 people killed and 14 injured Thursday in a drone strike that hit a train at Dnipro's main train station and at least 33 killed and 18 injured in an Oct. 8 strike on two buses in Kramatorsk in Donetsk.
A shortage of air defense missiles, including U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air interceptors, to shoot down incoming Russian missiles has been blamed in part for a jump in the number of civilian casualties in Kyiv and across the country.
U.S.-mediated peace talks stalled since February are due to resume next week when Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiators meet Nov. 10 in Abu Dhabi for "working level" talks, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X.
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Trump says US will end $4B in annual aid to Israel: ‘They don’t need it’
President Trump announced Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop US aid to Israel after the end of the year. “They don’t need it,” Trump said on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning.
“We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years. I’ve been doing it, but Israel is a very thriving country. They don’t need it. If they did need it, I would say keep it going.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, talks to U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 7, 2025.Getty ImagesThe president said the idea came from Netanyahu himself, suggesting that the agreement was also made to stop Democrats from using US funding to Israel as ammunition to criticize Republicans.
“He brought it up. He brought it up,” Trump said of the Israeli leader.
“He said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
Trump called the roughly $4 billion in aid “the best talking point that these lunatics on the left have.”
“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed?” he asked, referring to Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. who has made Israel aid a flagship issue of his campaign.
“You take that off the table,” Trump said.
A campaign billboard depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump in Tel Aviv, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026.AFP via Getty ImagesTrump said the two leaders struck the deal “months ago.”
Netanyahu has been publicly pushing to end the aid since at least January, when he told The Economist he hoped Israel could stop relying on American military funding entirely within a decade. By May, he was telling CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he didn’t “want to wait for the next Congress.”
Days before Israel’s Oct. 27 election, he went further, telling Israel’s Channel 10 that the aid “won’t keep coming because America has changed, not because Israel has. It’s over and it will be over; it’s just a question of time.”
President Donald Trump, left, greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.AP Photo/Evan VucciHowever, the president insisted that the Jewish state will still be able to buy American weapons.
Asked whether arms sales were also ending, Trump said, “Oh yes, they can buy whatever they want.”
He also touted new US Patriot and Tomahawk factories in the Tuesday interview, as voters head to the polls to decide control of Congress.
The US gives Israel $3.8 billion a year under a 10-year agreement signed in 2016 that runs through fiscal year 2028.
Trump did not clarify whether “the end of the year” means the deal will end early.
A giant electoral poster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party with the slogan “no surrender” is displayed on the facade of a building in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026.AFP via Getty ImagesOn the Iran war, Trump claimed the US had left the country with no navy, no air force and no anti-aircraft defenses.
He confirmed an overnight US strike on an Iranian air-defense site, which he said Iran had spent about two months building.
“As soon as it was completed, we hit it last night very nicely,” he said. “Just a minor attack. It wasn’t war.”
Iranians wave flags by an anti-US billboard of President Trump in Tehran’s Enghelab Square, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.AFP via Getty ImagesUS officials told CNN the limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, were defensive, with one saying they came in response to Iran firing on an American aircraft.
Asked what comes after Election Day, Trump said, “I’m not looking to, you know, kill lots of people, but if we have to, we’ll have to.”
====================================================================Germany can’t spare more Patriots for Ukraine – defense minister
Further donations of the US-made air defense systems would create critical shortages in Berlin’s own stocks, Boris Pistorius has saidPublished 7 Nov, 2026 20:59 | Updated 7 Nov, 2026 22:00
Germany can’t provide Ukraine with any more US-made Patriot air defense systems because it would dangerously deplete its own stocks, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said.In an interview with the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost published on Friday, Pistorius noted that Berlin had already delivered several Patriot systems and large numbers of guided missiles to Kiev.
“We cannot provide any more at this moment,” the German defense chief stated, explaining that anything Germany supplied now would not be replaced “for the foreseeable future.”
Pistorius urged other Western nations, whom he accused of having “contributed significantly less,” to step up deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine.
Pistorius had already warned in January that Germany could not send any more Patriot systems, saying it had already handed over more than a third of its capabilities to Ukraine.
Germany, one of Kiev’s key Western backers, has launched a massive rearmament drive since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz setting the goal of building Europe’s strongest conventional army. Berlin has cited a perceived threat from Russia, while Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as “nonsense” claims that it intends to attack NATO.
Apart from a shortage of Patriot air defense systems themselves, Ukraine has experienced significant shortages of modern PAC-3 missiles capable of intercepting ballistic rockets. The deficit intensified after Russia stepped up its long-range missile and drone strikes on military-related targets across Ukraine. Moscow has described its strikes as retaliation for Kiev’s UAV attacks on energy facilities and other civilian infrastructure inside Russia.
Intercepting ballistic missiles can require launching two Patriot interceptors at a single target, with each missile costing between $3.5 and $5 million. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly launched large-scale strikes involving dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones.
The US and its allies are also reportedly facing severe shortages of Patriot interceptors after Washington expended large quantities of air defense ammunition during its war against Iran earlier this year. The shortages have reportedly forced Washington to delay contracted deliveries of PAC-3 interceptors to some customers in Europe and Asia.
Nevertheless, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly demanded that Western backers provide Kiev with more interceptors.
Late last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Evgeny Khmara asked France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Poland to donate 10% of their respective interceptor stockpiles to Kiev.
However, the Netherlands and Poland had previously indicated that they had no Patriot missiles to spare, while other European countries are reportedly holding back their own PAC-3 reserves as well.
Moscow has consistently denounced Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that they only serve to unnecessarily prolong the bloodshed without changing the conflict’s ultimate outcome, while increasing the risk ofa direct clash between Russia and NATO.====================================================================
Airstrikes in Yemen have killed
more than 50 people in 24 hoursA man carries a wounded child at a hospital following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes in Sana'a, Yemen, Saturday. The Houthi-held Ministry of Health reported that at least 22 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 30 others wounded in alleged Saudi-led airstrikes on houses east of Sanaa, amid growing hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Photo by Yahya Arhab/EPANov. 7 (UPI) -- More than 50 people have died in airstrikes in Yemen, believed to be launched by Saudi Arabia.
Houthi officials said one airstrike hit the village of al-Shariya in the Bani Hushaysh district east of Sanaa, Yemen's capital that has been under Houthi control since 2014.
Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said at least 27 people were killed and 30 others wounded in Saturday's attack, most of them women and children, The New York Times reported. He blamed Saudi warplanes. The Saudi government has not spoken about the attacks.
The Houthis are fighting a civil war with Yemen's government. Iran backs the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, along with many other countries, backs Yemen. There was a cease-fire in 2022, but fighting picked up again in August.
The Houthis and Saudi Arabia have been trading strikes as the Houthis are trying to block the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which would cut off access to the Red Sea, while the United States and Iran have blocked the Strait of Hormuz.
On Friday, strikes in the government-run Taiz province on a crowded market killed at least 30 people. The Yemeni government blames the Houthis, but the Houthis blame Saudi Arabia.Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council has said the government will continue working to dismantle Houthi military capacity and restore sovereignty, Al-Jazeera reported.
For the past month, the Yemeni government has waged a "Dawn of Yemen" offensive against the Houthis after they claimed territory on the Red Sea coast. The mission is to recapture Houthi-controlled areas including Sanaa.
By the end of October, almost 1,800 people have been killed since August, and more than 300,000 people have been displaced, the World Health Organization said. Hospitals in Yemen are running low on medical supplies, aid agencies have reported.
Houthi officials said they will retaliate for the latest deaths. Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, said the group would avenge their dead "against the killer of children and women."
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