Reuters World News - Israel votes, Maine's tight Senate race and Harry Kane is crowned

Episode Date: October 27, 2026

Israelis go to the polls for the first time since the October 7 attacks to decide Benjamin Netanyahu's future. Susan Collins is vying for a 6th term as Maine's US Senator and facing one of her toughest battles yet. AI giant Anthropic is warning of "existential risks to humanity" as it launches its IPO. And England's Harry Kane wins soccer's most prestigious individual award, the Ballon d'Or. Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download the Reuters app here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Tuesday, October 27th. Today, Israelis head to the polls as Netanyahu fights for his political survival. Maine's Republican Senate incumbent Susan Collins faces her biggest challenge at the polls in almost 30 years. And Marina Corina Machado pushes for elections in Venezuela, while the U.S. calls for a slugust. lower approach. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Israel heads to the polls today in what's expected to be a dead heat between Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc and the opposition bloc, led by former General Gardi Eisencott. It's a fight for survival for Netanyahu, with voters for the first time giving their verdict on his leadership after the October 7th Hamas attacks, wars in Gaza and with Iran, and Israel's deepening international isolation. No block is expected to earn enough support to form a government outright, and Jerusalem Bureau Chief Rami Ayub says a lot will come down to turnout. There are two main voting blocks for whom turnout could be decisive for Netanyahu or for Eisencoat. The first are Arab voters. Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about a fifth of the country's population.

If they turn out in big numbers, that could mean that neither side can really form a majority. The other block would be what Israelis are calling the swing vote, which are mainly disenchanted Netanyahu voters who are looking for a new home. There's also a third block that could prove interesting, and that is Israelis who are flying into Israel from overseas to cast their ballots. and in Israel's system that's very fragmented and where every vote really matters, those votes could also prove decisive. The main expectation is that there could be a Netanyahu-led block, which looks like the current government that he has now of the Lakut Party, far-right partners, and ultra-Orthodox parties, or an Eisencott-led block, which consists of Isaacat's new upstart Yashar party with right-wing partners, a centrist partner, and a left-wing partner. It also could be that after the vote, Netanyahu and Eisenkott would try to form a unity government, where the two of them would join forces, and if they did that, and it's a big F, they would be able to jettison the far right and leave out the ultra-Orthodox.

The other possibility would be for Eisenkott if he's close to that magic number of 61, which is a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, but not quite there, he could try to form a minority government with the Arab-Palestinian parties propping him up from the outside. There is, of course, another big election looming, the U.S. midterms. And in Maine, Republican Senator Susan Collins is in the toughest race of her career. She is the only Republican incumbent defending a Senate seat in a Democratic-leaning state, and she's locked neck and neck with Democrat Troy Giac. Jackson. Reporter Andy Sullivan is in Portland, where voters have been flooded with attack ads, in what is also one of the country's most expensive Senate races. Now, Democrats have repeatedly

tried and failed to unseat Collins many times before. She's won re-election easily over the past 30 years, even as the state has backed Democrats in presidential elections. But this year, she faces powerful headwinds. Trump is not popular here, and his war with Iran has driven up the cost of heating oil, which people need to warm their homes through the long, frigid winters. Trump's trade war with Canada has also hammered iconic industries like lobstering and blueberry farming. Running against Collins is Troy Jackson, who is emphasizing his opponent's allegiance to Trump in the hope that may swing Republicans tired of the president. Political insiders here in Maine tell me that they're seeing fewer of the independent,

persuadable voters than they have in years past, the kind of people who helped get Collins elected. They say that people are now firmly in one camp or another. I've spoken to several voters who say that they backed Collins in years past but may not vote for her this time. Their distaste for Trump is just too strong. Trump has told people to pretend that he's on the ballot in this year's election. That may not help here in Maine. Anthropic has unveiled the paperwork for its highly anticipated IPO. On the one hand, the company filing, unsurprisingly, outlines how the company expects demand for advanced AI to continue to skyrocket. But it also lays out the risks, and there's a lot of them, almost 100 pages worth, including, quote, existential risks to humanity. Deals editor Echo Wang

says the IPO will put the AI frenzy to the test, given the company as spent. much more than it's making. The net loss, the company booked for the six months is that this year was over $80 billion, and the revenue was a little bit over $16 billion. So you do the mass. That doesn't only speak to anthropic. It speaks to the broader AI lab universe

where the competitors, for example, Open AI and some of the other hypers they all spent so much money because to achieve the height rows, to achieve the more sophisticated advanced model that it requires a lot of compute, and that is very, very costly. Both Meta and Microsoft are also making big moves as part of their massive bets on AI.

Meta is launching what could become its biggest equity raise ever, hoping to raise as much as $95 billion to pay for the expansion of data centers, chips, and other. AI infrastructure. Microsoft, meanwhile, is offering voluntary buyouts to some 60,000 employees, or more than a quarter of its workforce, trying to contain costs and help fund its massive AI investments. For more Markets News, check out our sister markets podcast MorningBid wherever you get your podcasts. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corrilla Machado's return home is raising questions about

how quickly the country's US-backed political transition to democracy could move. Matado is pushing for presidential elections as soon as next year. But the Trump administration, which through its support behind now interim president, Delci Rodriguez, after removing Nicolas Maduro, wants a more gradual process. And it doesn't want Matado involved at all. Here's Reuters' Andean bureau chief, Julia Sims Cobb. So the Trump administration has been focused on a three-phase plan for Venezuela since January. That's stabilization, recovery, and transition.

And as part of this effort, they are backing negotiations between the ruling party and a faction of the opposition. Machalo's movement is not included in these negotiations. And the negotiations are meant to reform both the top court and the electoral council in a bid to make election conditions fair in future. Matalo wants elections next year and has said so publicly. And so we expect that her return will put a little bit of pressure on these negotiations, especially because we've seen how much support she has from normal Venezuelans who are really eager for change to come as soon as possible.

Ballandoor winner is Harry Kane. Harry Kane receiving the Ballandoor, football's highest individual honor. after a record-breaking season for Bayern Munich and England. I can imagine it was really tough this year, some of the incredible players. I was up against some of my teammates, some world-class players in the room tonight. So thank you to everyone who voted for me.

Kane scored 61 goals in 51 games for Bayern, helping them to a league and cup double. Known for his relentless consistency and clinical finishing, Kane is the first Englishman to win the award since Michael Owen in 2001. Spain's Alexia Puteus won the women's Ballandor for a third time, after helping Barcelona win the treble in addition to the Spanish Supercup. She's since moved to the London City Lionesses. For more on any of the stories from today,

as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back later with an update.