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Press briefs reported that, in its latest editorial, Le Monde argued that the protests on Saturday, October 17 should not be reduced to looting and destruction. The newspaper claimed that the vast majority of the processions had been peaceful and made legitimate demands, with 800,000 participants according to the organizers and 550,000 according to the Interior Ministry. The editorial blamed Emmanuel Macron for a persistent deafness to social movements during his two terms. It reproached successive governments for sidelining unions since 2017, weakening their role as intermediaries, and ignoring the dissatisfaction of young people. Le Monde linked the movement of October 17 to the Yellow Vests, which emerged in December 2018 around purchasing power and the cost of living, and reminded that the 225,000 contributions from the grievance books had not led to a political translation. The newspaper estimated that the 2023 demonstrations against the pension reform, adopted by the Borne government without a parliamentary vote, had similarly been followed by a lack of political response. According to the editorial, this situation had fueled mistrust towards the head of state, and the executive could no longer dismiss the demands; social peace, it argued, depended on their consideration. #Macron #GiletsJaunes #France (translated)

Volkswagen plans to freeze the salaries of its more than 660,000 employees until 2030 and cut 100,000 jobs, which has generated strong opposition from unions warning about the loss of purchasing power and labor tensions in collective bargaining negotiations in Spain. #Volkswagen #congelaciónsalarial #sindicatos (translated)

Deltan Dallagnol stated that, during the Band debate, the marketer Sidônio Palmeira allegedly showed a notebook to Lula, pointed out excerpts, and made signals while the president responded. Dallagnol questioned whether Lula was "cheating" during the debate. He declared that the end of the Lula era was set for October 25 and said Flávio finished the first round in the lead. He also stated that the PT was counting on the relaxation of voters and asked for votes for Flávio Bolsonaro, number 22, in addition to encouraging the sharing of the video with people who did not vote or chose another candidate. #Debate #Lula #Eleições2023 (translated)

The agreement among the three ministries paves the way for public-private collaboration. "The agreement among the three ministries paves the way for public-private collaboration. It allows us to grant the subsidy to the company that wins the bid and for the price set by the operator of the housing to be truly social," explained the new president of the conference of rectors (CRUE), Julián Garde, in a conversation with this newspaper. #AlojamientoEstudiantil #ViviendaUniversitaria #EducaciónSuperior (translated)

𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 — 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗔𝗜, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 A newly exposed US political influence network appears to have been designed around a different target from most election propaganda. Its primary audience was not necessarily the voter reading a website, but the automated systems that search the web on behalf of AI chatbots. Threat-intelligence company VisionHeight initially identified 37 anonymous websites presenting themselves as state or local news organisations, opinion publications and national issue sites. By 15 October, the company's co-founder and chief technology officer, Nitsan Daniel, told CyberScoop that the investigation had expanded the observed footprint to 𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟰 𝗨𝗦 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟰𝟲𝟬 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀. The states identified were Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The infrastructure shows unusually strong signs of coordination. All 37 domains in the original dataset were registered during a single evening; 36 were registered within approximately eight minutes. On 30 September alone, the network published roughly 𝟭𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲-𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 using common templates and four recurring layouts. VisionHeight assesses that the scale and production pattern strongly suggest extensive automation, although that does not by itself prove which generative-AI system, if any, produced the text. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹. Candidate profiles can run to about 5,000 words, accompanied by similarly long voter guides containing 50 to 63 questions phrased in the style of queries someone might put to an AI assistant. Across the network, formulations such as a candidate being “the stronger choice” were repeated hundreds of times. One profile contained the phrase 34 times. In several voter guides examined by VisionHeight, the favoured candidate was named more than 110 times while an opponent appeared only six or seven times. The websites were also configured to make themselves unusually accessible to AI. Their crawler instructions explicitly welcomed 17 automated systems associated with companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, Meta, Amazon and Apple. Some pages were marked in machine-readable metadata as news articles, while apparently separate publications cited one another. The result is a manufactured ecosystem in which several apparently independent local sources can reinforce the same conclusion. That is the central technique. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. The more immediate objective appears to be manipulation of the retrieval and search layer: place highly optimised material online, make it easy for automated crawlers to index, create the appearance of corroboration, and increase the chance that an AI assistant retrieves those pages when answering a political question. There is evidence that the network crossed that boundary. VisionHeight says it confirmed that 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆 cited Tar Heel State Report as the first source in at least one response. Separately, one of the network's candidate pages reached third place in a Google search six days after publication, above Ballotpedia for the tested query. These findings demonstrate that the material can enter AI-relevant search and retrieval pipelines. They do 𝗻𝗼𝘁 demonstrate that the operation changed anyone's vote, nor establish how frequently major chatbots have used the network. The timing matters because AI has become part of the election-information environment. An AAPC Foundation survey of 1,568 likely US voters found that about one in five planned to use AI to investigate a race on their ballot, while 38 per cent reported having received election information through an AI-generated search summary. A separate NewsGuard audit found that leading chatbots frequently cited partisan websites disguised as local journalism without clearly identifying their political affiliations. The newly identified network appears to take that existing vulnerability one step further by constructing content specifically around the way machines search and summarise information. 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁? 𝗔𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿. VisionHeight has not attributed the operation to any individual, campaign, company, political party or foreign government. No confirmed name of an operator has been publicly established. Nitsan Daniel is the researcher who helped expose the network, not a person connected to its operation. Some components have explicitly partisan branding. VisionHeight's indicators include domains such as Affordability Democrats, Democratic Women House, Public Safety Democrats and Republican Incumbent Watch, while the live Affordability Democrats site promotes Democratic candidates across 11 competitive House races. That provides evidence about the political direction of some of the published material, but it does 𝗻𝗼𝘁 establish who commissioned, financed or operated the infrastructure, and it would be unjustified to attribute it to the Democratic Party or any particular campaign. The network also appears broader than congressional politics. The live Tar Heel State Report has carried material on county commission and judicial contests, illustrating why the method may be particularly effective in down-ballot races where established local reporting is thin. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲. Propaganda no longer has to persuade a human being directly. It can instead attempt to shape the information environment from which an apparently neutral machine constructs its answer. 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗦: Active / newly exposed and expanding as of 15–16 October 2026. 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗙𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘: High regarding coordinated infrastructure and AI-oriented design; moderate regarding the full current scale; attribution unknown. 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦 VisionHeight — primary investigation, “Someone Is Manipulating Your AI to Swing Your Vote” https://www.visionheight.com/resources/someone-is-manipulating-your-ai-to-swing-your-vote CyberScoop — Derek B. Johnson, 15 October 2026 https://cyberscoop.com/ai-chatbots-election-influence-hyperlocal-networks/ Tar Heel State Report — live network site used for OSINT verification https://tarheelstatereport.com/ Affordability Democrats — live network site https://affordabilitydemocrats.com/ AAPC Foundation — 2026 AI Voter Study https://theaapc.org/release-foundation-research/ NPR — reporting on voters using AI chatbots for the 2026 midterms https://www.wusf.org/2026-10-05/people-are-asking-chatgpt-to-help-them-decide-how-to-vote-in-the-midterms NewsGuard — “Pink Slime Is Infecting AI Chatbots Ahead of the Midterms” https://www.newsguardtech.com/press/pink-slime-is-infecting-ai-chatbots-ahead-of-the-midterms/ 𝗞𝗘𝗬𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗦 #Disinformed #Disinformation #Propaganda #InfluenceOperations #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIChatbots #ElectionSecurity #USMidterms #USElections #InformationWarfare #CognitiveWarfare #OSINT #ThreatIntelligence #CyberSecurity #DataPoisoning #RetrievalManipulation #SearchManipulation #GenerativeAI #LLM #AIManipulation #PoliticalInfluence #FakeNews #LocalNews #PinkSlime #Perplexity #ElectionIntegrity #InformationIntegrity #DigitalPropaganda #AIsecurity

The National Police, in collaboration with the Italian State Police, has arrested 34 people belonging to criminal networks dedicated to the theft of luxury watches in tourist areas of Spain, managing to clarify 28 thefts and recover six watches valued at more than 450,000 euros. #RobosDeLujo #PolicíaNacional #SeguridadTurística (translated)

The Electoral Board has dismissed the appeals from Junts against two acts of the municipal government of Collboni, ruling that the opening of a sports center and the management of street lighting do not violate the electoral silence period. #Junts #Collboni #JuntaElectoral (translated)

Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone, and Deutsche Telekom are exploring a collaboration to offer satellite mobile connectivity services in Europe, in order to strengthen the sovereignty and security of European infrastructures in a market dominated by companies like Starlink. #Telecomunicaciones #ConexiónSatélite #SoberaníaDigital (translated)

The Royal House reported that the Princess of Orange was promoted to sergeant aboard the Norwegian ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl in Den Helder. According to the Royal House, she was working at that time as a military working student with the Royal Navy, as part of Defensity College. https://t.co/UbUW89Y8Di https://t.co/A58FdMLzFH #Defensie #KoninklijkeMarine #PrinsesVanOranje (translated)

SHADES reported SCH's comments on the weekend protests. The rapper said he was proud to see a majority of politically engaged young people and believed that violence had causes that needed to be examined, even when condemning it. According to him, history showed that no change had been achieved without revolt. He expressed his support for the protesters as well as for the merchants affected by the damage, calling for the two issues not to be confused. #Politique #Manifestations #Jeunesse (translated)

I want to direct a message to the people affected by the flood. This is the message launched by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez today at the Palace of Moncloa, during the opening of an event for the presentation of the signing of the Statute of university students. #Alluvioni #DanaAdam #EmergenzaClimatica (translated)

Meta is developing Petal, the longest and most powerful underwater fiber optic internet cable in the world, which will connect the United States and France for 7,000 kilometers and will be completed in 2029, offering a transmission capacity of 1 million gigabits per second. #CavoSottomarino #FibraOttica #Meta (translated)

JH Fonseca stated that Flávio Bolsonaro's remarks about combating crime with firmness and concrete measures had resonated among voters. He said he received comments from undecided voters about the debate and that, in their assessment, that was the only concrete proposal presented by the two that they were able to understand and appreciate. Fonseca thought that Flávio had gained a point. #FlávioBolsonaro #política #debate (translated)

The author alluded to the Holocaust, colonization, genocides, looting, and devastation. He argued that the far-right sectors participating in the so-called cultural battle had not invented anything and had been repeating a supremacist slogan for centuries to justify a world put at their service. (translated)

The defendant, who traveled from Australia, a former classmate of the murdered student, denies the allegations of murdering the 19-year-old, who was stabbed to death in a phone booth 21 years ago, while the prosecutor points to DNA traces that strongly indicate his guilt. #Innsbruck #ColdCase #Mordprozess (translated)