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While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Oct 28, 2026
· The Straits TimesIsraeli exit polls show deadlock, setback for Netanyahu
Israel’s wartime election appeared deadlocked on Oct 27, exit polls showed, a potential setback for veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the projections hold, with neither side having a clear path to power but rival Gadi Eisenkot’s larger bloc potentially giving him the first chance to form a government.
The stalemate could yet work in Netanyahu’s favour, allowing the prime minister to remain in power in a caretaker capacity while parties try to forge a governing coalition.
Turnout was 77.7%, Israel’s Central Elections Committee said, the highest in more than two decades and around 7 percentage points higher than in the previous election in 2022.
Israel’s three major networks updated their exit polls, giving Eisenkot’s bloc a two-seat edge over Netanyahu’s Likud-led camp, at 52-50 respectively. The remaining 18 seats were allocated to unaligned Arab parties in the exit polls.
Trump will respect US midterm results ‘if they’re honest’
President Donald Trump said on Oct 27 he would respect the results of the US midterm elections “if they’re honest,” in what appeared to be a fresh bid to sow doubt ahead of next week’s crucial vote.
Trump has ramped up his baseless, years-old claims of mass voter fraud as polls show Republicans could lose control of Congress in the Nov 3 elections.
“I will, if they’re honest elections,” Trump told reporters when asked if he would respect the results of the midterms, as he headed on a campaign trip to Texas.
Flavio Bolsonaro, family to receive US visas after leaving Brazil
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has left the country for the United States after losing the Oct 25 presidential election, three sources said on Oct 27, with the US State Department due to grant him and his family entry visas.
Bolsonaro, who has yet to concede to leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left Brazil after refusing to comply with a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports.
The ruling relates to a money laundering probe in which he denies wrongdoing.
Ukraine, Russia say US-brokered Oleshky truce holding
A local truce between Ukraine and Russia aimed at allowing humanitarian aid into the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky appeared to be holding on Oct 27, with neither side reporting any violations after several hours.
Both sides said they began observing the truce at 3am local time (9am in Singapore).
The war-ravaged city in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region had been caught in the middle of fighting between the two sides since 2022, when it was seized by Russian forces at the start of their invasion.
Pope’s cancer a ‘gamechanger’ for papacy
Pope Leo’s lung cancer diagnosis and surgery has affected how Catholics view his health and papacy, the Vatican’s foreign minister said on Oct 27.
“It’s a bit of a gamechanger,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher told journalists at an event in Rome.
Leo, 71, had part of one lung removed in surgery on Oct 13. His doctors have said the cancer was localised and had not spread, and the pope will not require further treatment.