William Diaz has a mantra: His only political party is his Venezuelan community.

He doesn’t abide by strict partisan rules, and doesn't believe in only voting for Democrats or Republicans. He supported Republicans Sen. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Marco Rubio when they were running for office in Florida, where Diaz has lived for 37 years.

For these midterm elections, however, the Orlando resident hopes to make a clear statement: He does not support President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and is unhappy with how Republican-backed initiatives have affected his community.

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“I voted already, and what I did when I was voting and when I was with my ballot, I was really thinking and praying for all those that has no voice, those that can not vote, those immigrants that are right now victim of actions on the streets,” Diaz tells TIME, referring to Trump’s mass deportation agenda and the expansive influence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “My people have been suffering that much.”

Diaz is one of more than 2.6 million people who have already cast ballots in Florida, either by mail or through in-person early voting, according to state figures released Sunday. In-person early voting began in some counties Oct. 19 and expanded statewide Oct. 24.

Diaz’s community is one part of a Florida Latino electorate with varied national origins and political loyalties. Taken together, however, Latino voters are a swing vote in several closely watched races statewide. They were key to Trump’s Florida victory in 2024, with 56% supporting him over Kamala Harris, according to the 2024 American Electorate Voter Poll.

But new polls ahead of Election Day suggest that Latino support for the GOP may be on shaky ground—a shift that could put Republicans to the test in Florida and shape the political landscape beyond November.

Why Florida’s Latino voters are frustrated with Trump

Dissatisfaction among Florida’s Latino voters reflects a broader national mood, according to Stephanie Valencia, a co-founder of Equis Research, an organization that studies Latino voting behavior.

Concerns about the economy and immigration enforcement tactics are fueling dissatisfaction among Latino voters, who “make up a huge part of the electorate in Florida,” she says, pointing out that both of these issues are “disproportionately impacting” them.

A Univision/YouGov poll, conducted Oct. 2–15, showed that 41% of registered Latino voters in Florida were “very or somewhat worried” that they, a family member, or someone close could be detained or otherwise directly affected by immigration enforcement, compared with 27% of Florida voters overall. 

The same poll showed that 4 in 10 Latino voters in the state felt that their finances had worsened over the past year, with 70% disapproving of Trump’s handling of the cost of living in the U.S. That stands in comparison to a 63% disapproval rate from Florida voters overall.

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For Johanna Chavez, a Dominican immigrant living in Kissimmee, Florida, the economy is top of mind.

“Many people are concerned about the economy and the price of gasoline … and then there’s the cost of rent, it’s become incredibly, overwhelmingly high,” Chavez, who speaks Spanish, tells TIME through a translator. “All the things they promised would be done—nothing has happened.”

In the past few years, Chavez says it has felt like the United States has started “regressing,” and the opportunities she was looking for when she arrived here have not materialized in the way she had hoped.

“It’s starting to feel just like the situation back in my home country, the Dominican Republic,” she says. “We all came here hoping for change, seeking a better life, but it’s ending up being the same thing all over again. Things just aren’t what they’re supposed to be.”

Jared Nordlund, the Florida State Advocacy Director at UnidosUS, the largest nonprofit Latino rights organization in the U.S., says this is a common refrain among Floridian Latinos; people are upset over how the economy has been affected by tariffs and the war in Iran. Florida was hit particularly hard by rising gas prices after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz squeezed the global energy supply, he says.

“Florida is not a state friendly for public transportation, so people are highly reliant on the cars, and so what they would be paying for food now is having to kind of get broke between … paying to get the gas and then going to get food,” Nordlund says.

The question now is whether that dissatisfaction will translate into votes against Republicans—and whether it will be enough to tip the state’s close races.

Trump’s declining Latino support puts Florida Republicans on notice

Trump’s approval rating has plummeted with Latino voters in Florida, dropping from 58% approval at the start of his term to 36% ahead of midterm elections, according to Equis Research.

According to an AP-NORC poll from October, about 6 in 10 Latino voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the presidency, and more than 7 in 10 disapprove of how he is handling the economy. 

A Pew Research Center poll found that Trump’s job approval rating among Latino voters dropped from 38% in February 2025 to 24% in September and October. Of those who backed him in the last election, approval dropped to 57%—down from 93% in early 2025.

The shift may be resonating with Republicans like Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who is seeking re-election in Florida’s 27th District in Miami-Dade—a majority Latino district that Trump carried by some 15 points in 2024. She publicly broke with Trump in her campaign and criticized his immigration policies.

In one ad in September, Salazar said that Trump has “gone too far" with his deportation agenda.

“In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record,” she notes in the ad.

“Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy,” Salazar continues, addressing Trump. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

Why Latino frustration may not translate into Democratic votes

Guillermo Grenier, a Cuban American professor of sociology at Florida International University (FIU), agrees that many Latino voters are “ticked off” at Trump.

“The population, if you look at the whole Latino conglomerate, is turned off pretty strongly with Trump,” he says.

But South Florida’s Latino electorate is unique; Grenier points out that the state is home to 1.9 million Cuban Americans—the largest concentration in the United States. 

As a voting bloc, the community has significant sway. In 2024, FIU’s Cuba poll found that 68% of likely Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County supported Trump, compared to 23% for Harris—representing his highest-recorded support level in the poll's history.

A shift away from Republicans among Cuban American voters could therefore have significant consequences in South Florida. But disillusionment doesn’t always turn into action, according to Grenier. 

“I think a lot of Cubans are pissed off at Trump, but they're still Republicans,” he says.

The Democratic Party’s response to this potential opening may unfold over several election cycles.

“Democrats are going to be in a probationary period with Latinos and with all voters, quite frankly, on whether they can deliver or not,” Valencia says. “One election is not durable support among a particular group.”

The electorate’s age also matters to its long-term political influence, says Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. “Latinos are much younger than the rest of the population in the United States.”

He points out that voter turnout “is highly correlated with age” and expects Latino participation to increase as younger voters grow older. In his assessment, that could reshape the electoral map beyond Florida.

“Hispanics are getting old enough so that their turnout rates are going to start increasing, and that's going to have like profound consequences on American politics,” he says. “A state like Texas is now going to be purple, and some other states with large Hispanic populations are going to start trending even further away from the Republicans.”

Both Valencia and Grenier suggest that it will come down to Democrats proving that they are willing to reinvest in Florida.

What are the key races to watch in Florida?

There are several key races at stake in Florida. Although the state has leaned reliably red for the past three election cycles, Democrats are investing late in the race through campaigning and financing. 

Florida Democrats posted a larger monthly net gain in active registered voters than Republicans, according to figures the party highlighted Oct. 1. The Florida Democratic Party touted the gains as a sign of its growing base in the state.

“We’ve spent years rebuilding this party from the ground up. Our organizers are in communities year-round, our volunteers are knocking doors across this state, and Democrats are having real conversations with Floridians about what’s at stake,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in an October statement. “The momentum is real.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited and cannot run for re-election, leaving the role open for Byron Donalds, the Republican candidate who has been endorsed by Trump, and David Jolly, who is running as a Democrat after leaving the GOP in 2018. 

A poll released Oct. 21 by the Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) at the University of North Florida (UNF) found that Donalds leads 49% to 47%—within the poll's almost 3-percentage-point margin of error.

Latino voters could be important to Jolly’s chances. The Univision/YouGov poll found that they favored him over Donalds, 48% to 43%, even as Donalds led 50% to 42% among Florida voters overall.

Democrats are taking note. Weeks after Jolly beseeched the Democratic Party to send money to his campaign, the Democratic Governors Association announced Oct. 20 that it will invest $1 million to help close the narrowing gap in the weeks before Election Day.

That trend follows in certain congressional races downballot. 

A September poll found Salazar leading Democratic challenger Eliott Rodriguez, a former local news anchor, by just 1 point.

Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is an underdog for Senate, taking on Republican incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody. A recent UNF poll has Moody leading by 49% to 45%, halving the advantage she had in July.

National Democratic leaders and allies have made the trip to Florida to bolster these close races. 

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic ally, rallied in Tampa for Nixon on Oct. 17. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries campaigned with Rodriguez on Oct. 16; they held a campaign event at a Cuban coffee shop and bakery.

The decision received some blowback, with one conservative Cuban influencer taking to Instagram to slam the business for hosting Jeffries. He argued that associating with the Democrats equated to supporting socialism.

For Grenier, the incident shows that Democrats have some serious work to do to gain trust in Florida—and while it might be “too late” to invest in candidates in this election, the party can lay the groundwork for 2028 and beyond.

He said that if Democrats want to build on the momentum after the midterms, they can’t get “gun shy.”

“This new beachhead that [Democrats] are trying to establish is the way to go for the next elections,” Grenier says. 

“You know, it was 10 years of investing before Republicans flipped the state in 1996,” he continues. “So, they need to just keep it up, and have national leaders support local leaders.”

McDonald observes a "shifting democracy" and believes the GOP will continue to face new challenges when it comes to remaining competitive with Latino voters. He says: “The Republican Party is going to have to adjust.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week filed a lawsuit that intends to weigh in on the results of the Senate race in Alaska. It seeks to block certification of the election results under certain conditions if Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses. 

Experts question whether it has the legal basis to do so—and if this intervention is a preview of how the Trump Administration might respond to unfavorable midterm results across the U.S.

The DOJ, in its Oct. 22 filing, expressed concern that there might be “voter confusion” stemming from the fact that two candidates on the ballot are named Dan Sullivan. Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan is currently seeking re-election, and one of his challengers is Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. (a Republican whose party affiliation does not appear beside his name on the general-election ballot).

The GOP first raised concerns in May, prompting a proposal to add “incumbent” beside the sitting senator’s name on the ballot. But the party continued to warn that voters could split their votes between the two Sullivans, opening the door for Democrat Mary Peltola.

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Alaska has traditionally been a state that leans Republican: Trump won the state by 13 points in 2024, and the state has not had a Democratic governor since 2002. 

But the race is closer than analysts first expected. October polls from The New York Times/Siena, Alaska Survey Research, and Data for Progress show Peltola leading Dan S. Sullivan by between 2 and 7 points.

The DOJ lawsuit claims that the “sole purpose” of Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy is to benefit Peltola. Therefore, it seeks to block certification if the incumbent loses but would have won with all of Daniel J. Sullivan’s votes. To determine that, it proposes recalculating the ranked-choice count as though those votes had gone to the incumbent instead.

Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, voters rank candidates by preference. If no candidate initially wins a majority, the lowest-ranking candidates are eliminated in successive rounds and their ballots transfer to the next remaining choice.

In a Truth Social post on Oct. 21, Trump said he was “very concerned” about the race and described the situation as “totally confusing.”

“Even 1, 2, or 3% could make the difference,” he wrote of the potential outcomes.

The DOJ said there would need to be an “investigation” to determine which vote was meant for which Sullivan. The DOJ said an “investigation” would be needed to determine which Sullivan voters intended to support. 

Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that voters’ rankings could provide clues: “There are a number of scenarios where it could be obvious that a voter was confused by the way they wrote down candidates.” He did not elaborate on what those scenarios might look like within the parameters of a formal investigation. 

Neither the DOJ nor the candidates’ campaigns responded to TIME’s requests for comment.

On Oct. 23, Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asked to join the DOJ’s case as defendants, writing: “Alaskans, apparently, must elect Senator Dan S. Sullivan or the President will not let them elect anyone at all.”

On Sunday, Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC asked the court for permission to seek dismissal and requested an expedited ruling this week. They proposed requiring a DOJ response by Tuesday afternoon, arguing that the pending lawsuit could undermine confidence in the election.

Voting rights experts are calling it a “garbage lawsuit” and “an unprecedented intervention by the federal government.” 

Lisa Murkowski, the state’s other Republican Senator who is not up for re-election, endorsed the incumbent Sullivan in January. Last week, however, she condemned the DOJ’s efforts to intervene.

“Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates,” she wrote Oct. 23 in a post on X. “The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.”

Trump responded to her comments with a scathing post on Truth Social on Oct. 24, calling Murkowski “Republicans’ Worst Senator, by far” and “a DISGRACE to Alaska and our country.”

He also criticized the state’s ranked-choice voting system, writing: “Ranked Choice Voting Ballot is a TOTAL DEMOCRAT SCAM meant to confuse the Voter.”

Asked to comment on the DOJ filing the next day, Trump told reporters: "I'm the one that said do it." 

Blanche declined to confirm whether the Justice Department acted at the behest of the President during his appearance on CNN on Sunday. 

He denied that the Trump Administration was laying the groundwork to overturn election results, arguing that the lawsuit would allow Alaska officials and courts to address any unlawful voter confusion after the election.

“It is an obligation of the states to avoid confusion, among other things, confusion in the minds of voters in the election process,” he said. “So the question is whether Alaska, by allowing this to happen, is violating the law and the federal law and the constitution by allowing confusion in the ballot.”  

Why experts question the DOJ’s Alaska election lawsuit

Prior to the DOJ lawsuit, Republicans sought to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot in June. 

When he decided to run, Republicans sent complaints to Carol Beecher, the director of Alaska’s Division of Elections. She wrote a letter to Sullivan in June saying that election officials had determined that he would be removed, claiming his candidacy was not filed “in good faith for the purpose of genuinely pursuing” leadership. 

Sullivan challenged the decision and sued the state. Judge Thomas Matthews of Alaska’s Third District Superior Court ruled in June that he could remain on the ballot beside the other candidates. He wrote in a 32-page decision that elections officials were introducing a “new, previously unstated ‘good faith’ criteria” and said that this requirement is not present in state law or the Constitution. 

That decision was upheld by the Alaska Supreme Court on June 29.

It was later determined that a “mitigating remedy” would be to present each candidate’s name with the middle initial and to add “incumbent” to the sitting senator’s name. 

The Alaska Supreme Court ruling did not end scrutiny of Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy. In August, Reuters reported that the DOJ had issued grand jury subpoenas while investigating whether he entered the race to confuse voters.

The DOJ then filed its new lawsuit amid October polling that showed Peltola ahead.

The department justifies the move using language in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) that says its purpose is to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.” 

Experts, however, dispute whether that language authorizes the intervention.

Derek Muller, a professor of election law at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in a blog post after the filing that the proposed investigation is “essentially impossible.” But succeeding is not the point, he continues. 

“The legal claim is so absurdly thin, there’s essentially no likelihood of success,” he wrote, adding that the real purpose of litigation is to signal to the press and public that the Trump Administration is “ready” if the result goes against the GOP’s interests in Alaska.

The Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), a nonpartisan nonprofit working to inform voters, called the move “unprecedented” in a statement that also said the lawsuit “raises serious concerns about political interference.”

“I cannot recall an administration ever attempting to stop the certification of an election—and certainly not 11 days before polls close,” CEIR Executive Director David Becker said in the statement. 

“Furthermore, this issue has already been fully litigated by Alaska’s courts,” he continued. “Alaska election officials are following state law, as the Constitution requires, and the courts will uphold that.”

Richard Hasen, a professor of law at UCLA, called the move a “desperate and unprofessional assault” on the American elections system.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization represented by the ACLU, filed a motion on Oct. 23 seeking to join the case to oppose the DOJ’s effort. Its president and CEO, Virginia Kase Solomon, said in a statement Oct. 24: “Politicians don’t dictate election outcomes; the people do.”

Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Dan S. Sullivan’s campaign, expressed confidence in his candidate’s re-election but told local media outlet KFSK last week: “We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course.”

How has the federal government used the National Voter Registration Act?

The National Voter Registration Act was enacted in 1993 to address barriers to voter registration that depressed participation and disproportionately affected racial minorities. It was predicated upon the fundamental right of every eligible citizen to vote, as well as the duty of local and federal governments to protect that participation in the democratic process.

In the past 30-plus years, it has been used to sue states that fail to maintain their voter rolls or enforce registration requirements.

The Biden Administration also reckoned with Alaska in 2022, finding that the state wasn’t consistently letting residents register to vote—or update their voter registration—as part of their routine paperwork at the Department of Motor Vehicles. An agreement reached that June required Alaska to bring those procedures into compliance with the NVRA.

In 2012, the Obama Administration sued the state of Florida over a program intended to identify and remove suspected noncitizens from its voter-registration rolls too close to the elections. The parties agreed to dismiss the case in January 2013. 

The George W. Bush Administration also sued several states under the NVRA to enforce requirements for offering voter registration and maintaining accurate voter rolls. 

The DOJ’s Alaska lawsuit goes further than those earlier cases. Experts say the NVRA does not expressly authorize blocking election certification over suspected voter confusion.

If courts accept the DOJ’s argument, the consequences could extend beyond Alaska, warns Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. It could give the federal government a new basis to challenge how states design ballots, determine which candidates qualify, and certify election results—all in the name of protecting election integrity.

“[The lawsuit] attempts to stretch a federal statute, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), beyond recognition by snipping language from the law’s preamble and treating it as if it creates vast and open-ended new duties that the federal government can enforce on states,” Olson said in a statement Oct. 23. “If accepted, it would suddenly federalize many issues of local election administration.”

The legal battle over the Trump Administration’s plans to redevelop a golf course in Washington, D.C., escalated Monday after President Donald Trump said the Department of the Interior’s work would start “immediately”—despite a court order to temporarily halt tree removal.

“The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday morning. 

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He went on to attack Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying that she is a “crazed lunatic” and “may be insane.”

About 430 trees had been cleared from the site as of Oct. 13. Reyes said that additional removals must halt while the case, filed by the DC Preservation League and two golfers earlier this year in hopes of stopping the renovation, underwent further review. The suspension is in place through Oct. 26.

On Sunday, Trump announced a plan to close the “old, broken, dilapidated” golf course and said that work would begin Nov. 15. He claimed that a new golf course would open in approximately 15 months. 

The golf course redevelopment is the latest project that Trump has taken on during his second term as he looks to leave his stamp on the nation’s capital. But the precedent of past legal disputes and rising tension between the President and Reyes leave some experts wondering if this project will advance.

Why Trump is clashing with a federal district judge over East Potomac Park

The Trump Administration filed a motion on Oct. 16 looking to disqualify Reyes, accusing her of “conduct [that] continues a pattern of animus against the Trump administration.” 

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. accused Reyes of having “repeatedly belittled and shouted at” a Justice Department lawyer during a heated hearing on Oct. 12 in which Reyes sought to understand who had instructed employees to begin the tree removal process despite her earlier demands for advance notice of significant changes at the site.

Reyes refused to recuse herself, writing in a 13-page opinion filed Sunday that it’s “easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion.”

“But it is much harder to meet the demanding legal standard against a full record,” she continued. 

On Monday, Reyes grilled Trump Administration officials about the government’s plans. She accused officials of failure to communicate with the court amid ongoing proceedings and said they were acting in “bad faith.” 

The Administration, however, claimed the removal had nothing to do with renovating the golf course; it pointed to a 2019 Cultural Landscape Report calling for the removal of dead and hazardous trees in the park.

“There is no universe in which all of this just coincidentally happened at the same time,” she told the lawyers on Monday according to The New York Times. “There just isn’t.”

Why is Trump’s golf course renovation being challenged?

The legal battle began on Feb. 13, when the DC Preservation League and two local golfers sued the Administration over its redevelopment plans for East Potomac Park. They alleged that the government had dumped potentially hazardous debris at the site and begun pursuing the overhaul without legally required reviews of its environmental impact and effects on the park’s historic character.

The golf course is 106 years old, and its miniature golf course, which opened later in 1931, is one of the oldest continually operating miniature golf courses in the United States. It is currently open to guests of all income levels, and some golfers have rebuked Trump’s plans to turn the site into a luxury golf course.

“The finished product will be World Class, and bring income and great prestige back to D.C.,” Trump said in his Truth Social post on Monday, repeating sentiments he has shared since the renovation plan was announced. 

In May, Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy nonprofit representing the plaintiffs challenging the plan, filed an emergency motion asking Reyes to block the Administration from beginning work while the lawsuit was pending. 

At the time, Reyes declined to issue a temporary restraining order on the project, since the golf course remained open and the government had not announced any closures. She told the government’s lawyers that she was giving them the “benefit of the doubt that we’re not gonna be in a situation where we have bulldozers bulldozing down trees and no one has alerted me first.”

The Trump Administration felled over 400 trees at the East Potomac Golf Links on Oct. 10. 

Marissa Piropato, an attorney for the government, said it had given notice in a court filing shortly before 5 p.m. on Oct. 9. 

Reyes called the Trump Administration’s actions “inexcusable.”

“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility,” Reyes said at the Oct. 12 hearing according to NBC News. 

David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, tells TIME that Reyes had done the Trump Administration a “favor” by not issuing a temporary restraining order in May. 

“Out of respect for the Executive Branch, because the Justice Department told her that no action was planned imminently, she only ordered them to give enough notice for her to decide the legal questions before they did irreplaceable damage,” Super says.

He adds: “I suspect judges in future cases will just enter injunctions, rather than trusting the Administration to keep their word.”

How the lawsuit echoes other Trump projects in D.C.

The golf course renovation is the latest Trump Administration project to land in court. 

According to The New York Times, Trump has undertaken at least 18 renovation projects in the city with the potential to cost over $1.2 billion. That includes plans for a ballroom at the former site of the White House East Wing, restoring and renaming the Kennedy Center, and constructing a towering Triumphal Arch.

The Administration has invoked national security in defending other projects. In the case involving the Triumphal Arch, it said that construction came at the “request” of the U.S. military “for National Security purposes.” The Administration similarly argued that the ballroom at the White House will be part of a military complex that is “vital” to national security.

Peter Byrne, a property and land use expert and a professor at the Georgetown Law Center, tells TIME that he would not rule out the possibility of repeating that strategy with the golf course.

“I'm sure the golf course will be important for national security in some way,” Byrne predicts. He says that judges are reluctant to dismiss outright claims of national security, so it has become a catchall for projects seeking latitude in the courts.

Trump has already said the golf course is “dangerous”—implying that it requires immediate intervention for safety purposes.

In a June Truth Social post, Trump described the course as “dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous and outdated.” Then, in his Monday morning post, he reiterated that it was a “very unsafe golf course.”

Plaintiffs in the case have expressed concern that the planned renovation will introduce more issues than it would solve.

To bring a case like this in federal court, plaintiffs must show that the proposed renovation has harmed them or poses an imminent threat of concrete harm. They must also show that a favorable court ruling would likely remedy that harm—despite Trump’s claims that they have “ZERO STANDING.”

“In this case, you have all kinds of people who are suffering direct harm in the golf course case, you have golfers, you have bikers, you know, you have people who use the park and won’t be able to use it,” Byrne says. 

Those alleged harms could help distinguish the golf course case from the challenge to the White House ballroom. In August, the Supreme Court allowed construction to continue, finding that the preservation group likely lacked the right to sue based solely on its objections to the ballroom’s appearance.

After Trump’s announcement on Sunday, Democracy Forward said the course is a “national park and golf course for everyone to enjoy.”

“Our litigation is intended to protect this community jewel for the people and communities it serves,” the statement continued, “and we will continue to work with our plaintiffs to defend it from unlawful and harmful intrusion.”

Four service members died in a fire that broke out at one of Canada’s main military bases on Oct. 17, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney. Officials are continuing to assess the damage and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the deadly blaze.

Carney made a statement at midday Sunday about what he described as a “violent, fast-moving fire” that occurred during a routine training exercise. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith later confirmed that 39 people had been killed with at least 19 in critical condition, saying that some were recovering from severe burns and would require long-term treatment.

“What followed was one of the worst tragedies for forces on Canadian soil in peacetime,” Carney said. 

Read More: What Happens When the World Is on Fire

Canada Defense Minister David McGuinty similarly underscored the severity of the incident in a video statement on Oct. 17. “I cannot recall an incident like this,” he said, describing the event as “very active and delicate.” 

On Sunday, the military said there is no indication that this was an act of terrorism. TIME has reached out to Canada’s Department of National Defence for more information.

Here’s what to know about the event as it unfolds.

What is known about the fire incident at CFB Wainwright

A fire “ignited” within the training area of Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Wainwright in the late afternoon on Oct. 17, according to a statement from the Canadian Armed Forces. 

The flames eventually “spread rapidly due to high winds,” the district said in a Facebook post that evening. The fire extended beyond the base and toward the adjacent Municipal District of Wainwright.

In a subsequent update, the district said that the fire was being held. The Canadian Armed Forces said that additional details would be confirmed after next-of-kin have been notified.

McGuinty did not provide details about what might have started the blaze; however, he said that an investigation would be launched.

The Defense Minister is currently en route to Edmonton. He said he had spoken with Carney and Smith. 

Carney had recently returned to Ottawa after a visit to Alberta, where he is from, as the province prepares to vote on Monday about whether they want to begin the legal process of potentially separating from Canada.

What is CFB Wainwright?

CFB Wainwright is one of the country’s “busiest” army bases, located over 100 miles southeast of the Alberta province capital Edmonton. 

The base hosts the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre and the 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre, and it is the “preferred” training ground for army field force units based in Western Canada.

“Our country depends on the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces,” Carney said on Sunday, “and CFB Wainwright is where the women and men of our armed forces learn to do the hardest things this country can ask of anyone.”

Retired Major-General Denis Thompson spoke to CBC on Sunday about the training he had experienced at Wainwright, which included “large formations … bringing together infantry, foot soldiers, with artillery” in large-scale live-fire training that sometimes include air-dropped munitions.

“You're trying to put that together in order to conduct complex operations in as safe an environment as possible, but remember we're talking about live fire, here, to do things like breaching obstacles, which are extremely difficult,” Thompson said.

Wainwright Mayor Bruce Pugh told CBC on Sunday that, prior to the incident, he could hear cannon fire and weapons firing, though he noted that the sounds were not unusual for the training base. He said that the base went quiet and then the fire department was activated, and he realized then that something might have happened. 

He also explained that weather conditions were a contributing factor. “October has been dry,” he observed, while acknowledging the impact of high winds.

The base employed around 1,300 military and civilian personnel, including roughly 1,070 military members, according to October 2025 figures published by the Town of Wainwright.  Wainwright is home to over 6,600 people. That excludes personnel living on the base.

“We have neighbors who are either serving or former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. We’re integrated, our kids playing the same hockey teams, attend the same schools,” Pugh told CBC.

Hospitals declare ‘Code Orange’

According to CBC, Edmonton hospitals have called a code orange alert. The designation is reserved for an external disaster or mass casualty incident.

"This would be the largest mass casualty event that we have seen in this community," Push confirmed to CBC.

He went on to praise first responders working at the local hospital, which served as the initial triage point. 

“Our local health care facility was the reception area for those casualties,” he said. 

Of the first responders at the scene, Pugh said: “They were witness to things that you would pray that you never see, or that if you do, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience of service.”

Alberta Health Services responded to a request from TIME on midday Sunday, saying: "We are working to gather additional information and will provide an update as soon as we can."

“Canadians come together in crisis,” Carney said on Sunday, commending the fast and coordinated response on the ground as the incident unfolded. 

The Prime Minister Carney said he is expecting an official statement from leadership in Wainwright by Sunday afternoon.

This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that waives many of the sanctions in the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which Congress passed in the late senator’s name last month. The waiver, coming a week after Trump announced a diesel deal with Russia, also underscores fraying relations between the U.S. and Ukraine.

The law, which was set to take effect Oct. 18, called for sanctions targeting Russian officials, financial institutions, and other entities, alongside tariffs of up to 100% on goods imported into the U.S. from major buyers of Russian crude oil or natural gas. Those measures were intended to restrict the financial resources supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.

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The U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office estimated in June 2025 that international sanctions had deprived the Russian state of at least $450 billion in war funds since February 2022, including through lost oil tax revenues and immobilized central-bank reserves.

While Trump’s waiver leaves existing sanctions in place, it blocks the additional pressure the new measures were intended to exert.

Trump has also pushed Ukraine to scale back its own campaign against Russia’s energy sector, repeatedly urging Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian fuel infrastructure and suggesting that those attacks are driving up U.S. fuel prices. But Ukrainian strikes are only one factor affecting fuel prices; disruptions linked to the war with Iran are largely responsible for constraining global supplies, while reduced Russian refinery activity has added pressure to diesel markets.

On Oct. 11, Trump claimed that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire.” But Ukrainian officials reported Russian strikes on energy infrastructure hours after his announcement, and Zelensky said the purported agreement was news to him.

That same day, Trump called for Ukraine to replace President Volodymyr Zelensky. Withdrawing sanctions within a week of those statements, and thereby improving Russia’s financial position,  points to an increasingly uneven display of support from the U.S.

Jeff Colgan, a professor of political science at Brown University, tells TIME that the decision is basically “is like trading [Ukrainian] democracy for diesel.”

A diesel deal with Russia, announced Oct. 9, is one of the many recent actions Trump has taken in an effort to reduce fuel prices for Americans ahead of midterm elections on Nov. 3. The deal came with an easing of sanctions as the Treasury Department issued a temporary license authorizing transactions involving Russian diesel, including imports into the U.S., through April 7, 2027.

In his announcement of the deal on Truth Social, Trump said that Russia had agreed to supply global markets with more than 4.8 million tons of diesel, claiming  that it would bring diesel prices down “IN RECORD NUMBERS.”

But experts question whether the deal would actually have any material impact on the price of fuel for American consumers.

“There could be a modest short-term effect on wholesale prices, but only a small and delayed benefit, if any, would reach consumers at the pump,” says Tatiana Mitrova, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

The waiver signed Friday, in comparison, could potentially prevent additional disruption to the global energy market. It allows Russian oil to continue flowing to importers like China and India, preventing further market volatility.

“The broader sanctions waiver may prevent additional market disruptions, but it does not itself create new supply,” Mitrova says. “The potential economic benefit to American consumers looks rather modest compared with the geopolitical cost of weakening sanctions pressure.”

Reducing that pressure—which has widely been interpreted as a component of the diesel deal, though it has not been explicitly identified as such—likely benefits Russia more than the monetary value of the diesel deal itself, Mitrova points out. 

“The much bigger financial benefit for Moscow is avoiding additional sanctions that could have undermined its much larger crude oil export revenues,” she says. 

And while Trump has touted the benefits of the deal, Colgan questions whether they will be tangible to any country other than Russia itself.

“Easing the sanctions probably won't move global prices very much (big market), but could mean substantial extra revenue for Russia,” he says. 

But the potential consequences extend beyond Russia’s balance sheet. The waiver also raises questions about Washington’s commitment to Ukraine as relations between the two countries deteriorate.

How might the sanctions waiver affect Ukraine?

Beyond its impact on global diesel prices, Trump’s sanctions waiver could deepen a growing rift between the U.S. and Ukraine—raising further questions about Washington’s support for Kyiv.

Konstantin Sonin, a Russian economist and a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, reads the move as a symbolic gesture of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He suggests that it could send a message to U.S. allies that extends beyond economic considerations. 

“I think this will be read by Ukraine and Ukraine leadership—and European leadership—as another step in the United States withdrawing from being an active European player,” he tells TIME.

In addition to bolstering Russia’s finances and giving it latitude in its invasion of Ukraine, Sonin says that the waiver of additional sanctions could also “boost morale” for Putin.

“It’s another bit of signaling that the United States is not as supportive of Ukraine as they were historically,” he adds. “You still cannot say that the United States is on Putin's side, but it is another bit of diminishing support for Ukraine.”

Mitrova agrees that the biggest benefit to Russia might be more strategic than financial.

“For Putin, the most valuable outcome may not be additional diesel revenues but the perception that Washington is increasingly prioritizing domestic energy prices over sustained pressure on Russia,” she says. “That could reinforce the Kremlin’s belief that it can outlast Western support rather than make meaningful concessions.”

Zelensky criticized the decision to block the new sanctions.

“The decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me,” the Ukrainian President wrote on X on Saturday. “And it definitely helps only the Russians. It only fuels their satisfaction and their desire to keep killing people. This certainly does not stop the war.”

Mitrova argues that in easing sanctions, the U.S. also compromises its position with European leadership that has continued to align closely with Zelensky and Ukraine.

“Europe is still tightening sanctions against Russia, while Washington is now moving in the opposite direction,” she says. “By suspending sanctions that were designed to discourage major countries from buying Russian energy, Washington risks undermining a central pillar of the Western strategy toward Russia.”

Why Republicans and Democrats are criticizing the waiver

Trump’s waiver earned a flood of criticism from both sides of the aisle, particularly since it undermined a widely supported act of Congress. The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 cleared Congress on Sept. 16 with overwhelming bipartisan support: a vote of 86-11 in the Senate and a vote of 262-159 in the House.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is leaving office in January, called the decision “beyond irresponsible” on Saturday.

Suggesting that the Trump Administration is overtly snubbing the will of the legislative branch, Tillis wrote on X: “It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine.”

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn reacted by saying “Lindsey would be appalled,” referencing the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham—a staunch Ukraine supporter after whom the sanctions act was named. Graham had spent over a year petitioning for the move before his death on July 11.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, said in a statement that Trump was “enabling Vladimir Putin to continue his war of aggression.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement Saturday saying that “by giving the Russian economy life support, Trump’s deal with the devil keeps getting dirtier.”

Trump was able to waive the sanctions through a safety valve provision embedded in the legislation. The law allowed Trump to waive its sanctions and tariffs after submitting a written certification to Congress that doing so was in the national interest, along with a report explaining that determination. In Friday’s order, Trump said he had submitted both.

“I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act,” Trump wrote in the order. “I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States.”

A White House spokesperson tells TIME that enforcing the sanctions would impede U.S. efforts to negotiate peace, but did not elaborate.

"Enforcing the sanctions provisions now would impede ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate a durable and comprehensive peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia," the spokesperson says. "The President retains the ability to exercise these authorities at any time if he determines that doing so would advance national interests.”

Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister who was appointed to fill his seat in South Carolina and is running for election this November to keep it, said at a campaign stop on Saturday that the decision was Trump’s to make; however, she voiced disapproval, saying that she would prefer to “keep the pressure on Russia.”

“I don’t trust Putin and I don’t trust Russia,” she said.