International News Briefs for Wednesday, November 5, 2025
HAVANA TIMES – We bring you some of the top international news stories compiled by Democracy Now on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani Wins New York City Mayoral Race
Nov 05, 2025
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected New York’s mayor Tuesday, becoming the first person of South Asian descent and first Muslim — and the youngest in over a century — to hold the position. The election was marked by record voter turnout. Mamdani got more than a million votes, more than any mayor since the 1960s. President Trump had threatened to withhold funding from New York City if Mamdani won. On Election Day, Trump even posted that any Jewish person who votes for Mamdani is “stupid.” Last night at his victory party in Brooklyn, Mamdani directly addressed Donald Trump.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani: “This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up. … New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
Democrats Dominate First Major Elections of Trump’s Second Term
Nov 05, 2025
Mamdani’s victory comes as Democrats posted big wins across the country on Election Day. In California, voters approved a new congressional map that could help Democrats pick up five additional seats in Congress, in a move to counter Texas’s redistricting effort to gain five House seats. In New Jersey, Democratic Congressmember Mikie Sherrill won the governor’s race. In Virginia, Democrats reclaimed full control of the state’s executive branch as Abigail Spanberger flipped the governorship, becoming the state’s first female governor, and voters also chose Ghazala Hashmi to be Virginia’s lieutenant governor-elect, making her the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office anywhere in the U.S. Meanwhile, Democrat Jay Jones defeated Virginia’s incumbent Republican attorney general. In Pennsylvania, Democrats retained control of the state’s Supreme Court after three Democratic justices won their races. In Minneapolis, Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey led democratic socialist challenger Omar Fateh, but neither got more than half the vote, so the race moved to a second round of ranked-choice voting. We’ll have more on last night’s election results after the headlines.
Federal Shutdown Becomes Longest in U.S. History
Nov 05, 2025
The federal government shutdown has entered its 36th day, becoming the longest shutdown in U.S. history. On Tuesday, the Senate rejected a House-passed funding bill for the 14th time, as Democrats demand an extension to health insurance premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that allowing the subsidies to expire would more than double the average enrollee’s out-of-pocket premium payments, with some people seeing even larger increases of over 500%.
On Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned the U.S. could be forced to close vast swaths of U.S. airspace due to severe shortages of air traffic controllers, about 11,000 of whom have gone without pay throughout the shutdown. Duffy cautioned of “mass chaos” at airports if the shutdown continues for another week. Mere hours after Duffy’s comments, a UPS freight plane crashed at a Louisville, Kentucky, airport, killing at least nine people and leaving 11 others injured.
Meanwhile President Trump on Tuesday appeared to defy federal court orders in a social media post in which he proclaimed that SNAP food assistance benefits QUOTE, “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” UNQUOTE. That’s despite orders from two separate federal judges mandating that the administration keep funding SNAP – which helps some 42 million people purchase groceries each month. Press secretary Karoline Levitt later walked back Trump’s threat, saying the administration is following court orders to fund SNAP using a contingency fund. The White House says it’s only partially funding SNAP. On Tuesday lawyers for cities and nonprofits returned to court seeking an order forcing the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits rapidly and in full. This is Daletia Chung, a SNAP recipient in Maryland who predicted any further delays could lead to civil unrest.
Daletia Chung: “They’re asking for trouble, because people got children to feed, you know, and people know, people will go off on that. Now, I don’t know if anybody is trying to declare martial law under stuff like that, but you can set off a lot of huge problems. People have to eat.”
Israel Continues Striking Gaza Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire
Nov 05, 2025
In the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military is targeting eastern areas of Khan Younis and Gaza City with intense artillery fire, despite the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement that took effect nearly a month ago. The shelling is targeting farms, homes and other civilian areas. It comes as a U.N. official warned aid groups are in a “race against time” to get food and other necessities into Gaza. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, Israeli authorities have rejected 23 requests from nine aid groups to bring in millions of urgently needed non-food items that remain stuck in Jordan, Egypt and Israel awaiting approval. That includes some 4,000 pallets of shelter supplies such as tents, bedding and blankets. This is Manal Salem, a Palestinian mother of seven whose family is displaced and living in a tattered tent in Khan Younis.
bq. Manal Salem: “Winter, we do not want to talk about winter, because the fears are very big. Our tents are completely worn out. We are unable; we do not know what to do. It is not just me. Most of the tents at the school are worn out. We just say, ‘God have mercy on us for the winter.’ As much as we used to pray for rain to come, now we pray that rain does not come, so that we do not struggle.”
Earlier today, Israel handed over the remains of 15 Palestinians, a day after Hamas returned the body of an Israeli American soldier. That brings the total number of Palestinian bodies returned to Gaza as part of the ceasefire to 285 — just a fraction of the bodies held by Israel.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution seeking a mandate of at least two years for an international stabilization force to be deployed in Gaza. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned in response that any such force must have “full international legitimacy.”
U.N. Secretary-General Warns Sudan’s Civil War Is “Spiraling Out of Control”
Nov 05, 2025
The United Nations’ top official has warned Sudan’s civil war is spiraling out of control after the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group seized control of the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur region. On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped by fighting, with large numbers dying of malnutrition, disease and violence. Guterres cited reports of war crimes and human rights abuses, including summary executions and sexual assaults. Survivors who fled El Fasher reported mass killings following the RSF’s advance.
Abdallah Hassaballah: “Once you leave the gates, the bodies start. The bodies continue all the way to Garri. Some were killed by thirst, some by exhaustion, some by their injuries, the bleeding. Some were injured by the rockets in El Fasher. They hurt more than gunshots, the shrapnel. They get into your body. They cause your legs to swell, stop your blood flow. It exhausts you. It impacts you within two or three hours.”
Pentagon Announces Another Deadly Strike on Alleged Drug Boat
Nov 05, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. has bombed another boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean. On Tuesday, Hegseth claimed, without evidence, that the latest attack targeted a boat ferrying drugs, killing two people on board. If the Pentagon’s claims are accurate, that would bring the number of vessels attacked to 16 and the death toll to at least 67. This comes as the Pentagon is deploying its largest warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, to join a buildup of U.S. forces in the Caribbean.
NBC News: Trump Admin Looking into Possible U.S. Military Mission Inside Mexico
Nov 05, 2025
The Trump administration has drafted plans to deploy U.S. troops and intelligence officers to Mexico to attack drug labs and narcotrafficking leaders. That’s according to NBC News, citing current and former U.S. officials. On Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denied the reports, declaring “it’s not going to happen.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum: “First of all, it would be a violation of our sovereignty and our independence. And second, we can collaborate. We can coordinate. But it’s not about the United States coming to say or to intervene or to have their agents, because that didn’t work, either. And it’s not about coming to use war techniques in Mexico.”
U.N.: World Likely to Surpass 1.5 Degrees Celsius Climate Goal
Nov 05, 2025
A new U.N. environment report warns nations have made very little progress in the fight against climate change, putting the world on track toward dangerous global warming as greenhouse gas emissions remain too high. The U.N.’s annual emissions gap report suggests countries will not be able to prevent global warming from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is the main goal of the Paris Agreement that was brokered a decade ago. U.N. experts say warming is likely to reach between 2.3 and 2.5 degrees Celsius, with the possibility of even higher temperatures if countries don’t fulfill their current climate pledges. This is interim director of the U.N. Environment Programme Anne Olhoff.
Anne Olhoff: “Well, it’s a guarantee that unless we do things very differently from what we have been doing in the past many years, we will not see an overshoot of 1.5 degrees, we’ll see a permanent breach of 1.5 degrees. So it’s really about making as stringent and as quick cuts as possible overall.”