Evening Brief: Israel's exit polls show no majority; Supreme Court refuses to revive deportation-pause rule; U.S. pulls staff from Saudi Arabia
Plus the IAEA's warning on Iran's uranium, Putin hosts Iran's president, the Kherson truce widens, and Trump's Corpus Christi rally.
5 PM CT video brief · 1:43Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 5 PM World Brief for Tuesday, October 27. Exit polls: Likud largest, but no bloc reaches 61 seats. U.S. pulls staff from Saudi Arabia; IAEA can't verify Iran's 440 kg of enriched uranium. Putin hosts Iran's president; says Bushehr work continues. Kherson truce widens and holds; evacuation set for Friday. Trump touts 1 million barrels of Venezuelan oil; says Iran war ends 'very soon.' Supreme Court won't revive rule letting judges pause deportation cases. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Unsettled weather continues across the Northwest with mountain snow and winter travel impacts through Thursday. Prolonged coastal flooding, hazardous surf, and life-threatening rip currents persist along the Southeast Atlantic coast. Our opinion. Judges should decide cases, not shelve them. Iran's uranium is the real danger. Full stories and sources at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale.
Exit polls from Israel's three main TV networks after polls closed at 10 p.m. local time showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud as the largest party with 24 to 25 seats, ahead of Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar with 21 to 23, Fox News and Axios reported. By bloc, Netanyahu's camp has 50 seats, Eisenkot's 52 to 53 and Arab parties 17 to 18, leaving no side with the 61 needed to govern; Axios noted that would mean Netanyahu's coalition shed 14 of the 64 seats it won in 2022. Eisenkot said the results point to "an unequivocal lack of confidence in Netanyahu" and vowed to form a government quickly, while Fox News reported turnout was exceptionally high.
The State Department ordered non-emergency U.S. government personnel and their families to leave Saudi Arabia after Iran-backed Houthi missile and drone strikes on airports and infrastructure, warning the hostilities could "escalate rapidly," Fox News reported. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told the U.N. Security Council the agency cannot verify that Iran has not diverted nuclear material, including 440 kg of highly enriched uranium, and that Tehran keeps refusing access to its Isfahan enrichment plant. Iran's navy said a tanker struck mines in the Strait of Hormuz and declared the strait closed to uncoordinated traffic, while CENTCOM called Iranian claims of a U.S. pullback "false," Fox reported.
Vladimir Putin met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at the Kremlin on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum summit, the Kremlin said. Putin said Russian-Iranian trade grew 10.4% in the first eight months of the year and that construction of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant continues, and Pezeshkian thanked Russia for its political and economic support. Iran International reported Pezeshkian said Tehran approved an office in Iran for Russia's state broadcaster.
The ceasefire that began Tuesday to get food and medicine into Russian-occupied Oleshky has been extended across the wider Kherson region, and no breaches had been reported, the BBC said. First Lady Melania Trump, who helped broker the truce with Pope Leo XIV, said the area was expanded to give humanitarian convoys safe passage; Ukrainian lawmaker David Arakhamia said it runs until 22:59 Ukrainian time on Sunday, Nov. 1. Aid deliveries are to come first, with an evacuation planned for Friday for the estimated 1,700 to 2,000 people still in Oleshky.
At a rally at the Port of Corpus Christi for Senate nominee Ken Paxton, President Trump pointed to a tanker carrying 1 million barrels of Venezuelan oil he said came at no cost to taxpayers and floated making Venezuela "the 51st state," Fox News and USA Today reported. He called striking Iran "one of the greatest things I ever did," said the war would end "very soon," and brought Alexis Nungaray, mother of murdered 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, to the stage to highlight his deportation policy. Trump was to rally next in Lubbock at 6 p.m. CT, where Democrat James Talarico planned a competing event; a Fox News poll has the Senate race tied at 49%.
Regular gasoline has averaged $3.472 a gallon in President Trump's second term, just above the $3.471 average of Joe Biden's presidency, according to AAA data reported by Fox News. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said "once this conflict comes to an end, gas prices will drop drastically," and that more oil is now flowing out of the Persian Gulf than before the conflict began. Vice President JD Vance told a Michigan rally that gas prices rise "each time a foreign leader in the Middle East throws a tantrum."
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied the application by Baltimore and others in City of Baltimore v. Texas (No. 26A500), leaving in place a Texas-Justice Department agreement that threw out the 2024 "administrative closure" rule, the Court's docket shows. SCOTUSblog reported the unsigned order had no noted dissents; Baltimore, New Haven, Columbus and Centro Legal de la Raza had called the agreement "egregious collusion," while Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to leave it alone. Next: responses on the administration's request to resume border-wall work in the Big Bend region are due Thursday, and the November sitting opens Monday, Nov. 2.
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Analysis labeled. Our point of view appears only in the Our Opinion box under each story, never mixed into the facts.
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