The Monday Briefing is back after a long midterm hiatus, with a great focus on elections around the world. In Israel, a deadlocked parliament leaves the country at a crossroads; in Serbia, students show their force; in Brazil, the far-right is defeated; and in the US, we look ahead to decisive midterms. In other news, we discuss the effects of student protests across Europe (including here in Milan), a UN withdrawal from Western Sahara, and groundbreaking EU legislation.

The Monday Briefing welcomes some fresh faces this week, in which we highlight the protest movement sweeping France. Still in France, we discuss Mistral, Europe’s leading LLM model. Elsewhere, we talk about the three-year anniversary of the October 7th attacks, the Nobel Peace Prize, a deal between Putin and Trump, and oil in Trinidad and Tobago. In economic news, we cover the sale of British retailer Boots, a billionaire tax in California, and apocalyptic warnings on AI.

In today’s Monday Briefing, we highlight the Spanish housing crisis and how European countries have been unable to resolve the continent’s increasingly dire real-estate situation. We then cover Andy Burnham’s vision for the UK, Brazil’s general election results, and Israeli presence in East Africa. Finally, we discuss Cornell’s sexual assault case.