Elections dominated the hour. In the US, more than 51.3 million midterm early ballots had been cast by Saturday, beating the 2022 record of 45.9 million . Democrats made up 43.1% of early votes in 27 party-tracking states against 31.8% for Republicans, including 65% to 25% in Pennsylvania . The picture is not uniform: Republicans overtook Democrats in Florida early voting by three points, after a 6.4-point Democratic edge in 2022, and in Texas they were 45% of early voters despite being 36% of the electorate ¹. Early votes in Texas's Rio Grande Valley have also already passed 2022 levels ². Trump, 80, has held dozens of rallies to keep Republicans in control of Congress ³. Abroad, Bulgaria's presidential contest goes to a runoff between acting President Iliana Yotova and Andrey Gyurov after low first-round turnout ⁴. The vote is framed as a test of a government that has refused military aid to Ukraine and courted Moscow ⁵. In Tel Aviv, about 2,000 demonstrators called for a Jewish-Arab partnership government, while counterprotesters denounced the election as stolen ⁶. The second thread is European security posture toward Russia. Finnish President Alexander Stubb defended his first call with Vladimir Putin as president, held with Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Store and centered on Ukraine and Northern European and Baltic security . Danish PM Mette Frederiksen said the call was not coordinated with the rest of Europe . The Kremlin said Moscow and Kiev agreed to a fourth round of US-mediated talks expected in Abu Dhabi in November ⁷. In Germany, Bundeswehr Operational Command head Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank said a conventional surprise attack is unlikely, but in a crisis Germany would become a logistics hub for tens of thousands of NATO soldiers ⁸. Yemen is deteriorating. The UN demanded an investigation after staffer Mohammad el-Shami died in Houthi custody ⁹. Separately, Malaysia urged citizens to prepare to leave while commercial flights still operate ¹⁰. G20 foreign ministers ended their Atlanta meeting without consensus . In markets and tech, Binance will resume withdrawals after recovering the bulk of $6 billion in stolen funds ¹¹. DeepSeek launched an autonomous coding agent aimed at Anthropic's Claude Code ¹². China's upgraded free-trade deal with Peru took effect ¹³. Huawei-linked HIMA's October deliveries fell 50.84% year on year ¹⁴, and Macau gaming revenue fell for a fifth straight month despite Golden Week visitors ¹⁵.