{"id":48049,"date":"2026-10-23T03:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T01:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=48049"},"modified":"2026-10-23T08:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:11:11","slug":"23-oktober-2026-kurznachrichten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/23-oktober-2026-kurznachrichten\/","title":{"rendered":"October 23, 2026 \u2013 Short News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today in our brief news:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump's cheap diesel could cost farmers up to $10,000 in fines or even land them in prison. Russia's Supreme Court is preventing a child from returning to her mother because France is considered \"hostile.\" New revelations about billion-dollar bank accounts belonging to foreign rulers raise serious questions about Jared Kushner. Trump's election investigators are showing up at Americans' doors armed with faulty data, until a federal judge steps in. And security researchers have discovered that OpenAI's AI agents could hide hundreds of their actions from monitoring.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump's Cheap Diesel: Farmers Are Supposed to Save Money, but They're Afraid of Going to Prison<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Donald Trump is promising American farmers cheaper diesel. In Kansas, however, they still face fines of up to $10,000 for using that fuel on public roads. Under certain circumstances, they could even face felony charges. The president has announced a tax break, but the people affected could end up paying the price. The red-dyed fuel could get them into trouble years after the temporary exemption expires. A political favor with an astonishingly long shelf life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American diesel prices have risen as a result of the war against Iran, which the United States is helping wage. With the November congressional elections approaching, Trump is now getting a taste of just how expensive military decisions can become at the gas pump back home. His approval ratings have fallen. Washington is frantically looking for relief it can show off before voters head to the polls. Red-dyed diesel is normally used in tractors and combines. It's essentially the same as regular diesel, but it's exempt from federal highway fuel taxes. Its color tells authorities that those taxes haven't been paid. Trump temporarily suspended the corresponding federal restrictions. The Internal Revenue Service is waiving penalties for highway use from October 1 through December 31. None of that changes the laws of individual states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kansas is one of America's largest grain-producing states. Using red-dyed diesel on public roads remains generally prohibited there unless the fuel was legally purchased outside the state. Violations can result in a suspended driver's license, fines ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, and criminal prosecution. Democratic Governor Laura Kelly said Trump's order could not legally be implemented in its current form. The Kansas Highway Patrol was concerned that enforcement would become extremely difficult once the temporary exemption expired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glenn Brunkow, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, runs a crop and cattle operation near Wamego. He believes the red dye could remain in fuel tanks for years. He has no intention of taking that risk just to save a few dollars in taxes. His distrust has a very practical basis: During a later inspection, there's no easy way to tell when the dyed fuel was put into the tank. In Minnesota, Jay Sorg operates his family's fifth-generation farm near New Richland. By his own calculations, the new rule could save him between $1,500 and $2,000. Given his rising operating costs, he considers that almost meaningless. Besides, he has already purchased and stored his regular highway diesel. Sorg sees the measure as an attempt to win votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Wagner of Roslyn, South Dakota, is concerned that the lost fuel tax revenue could hurt road construction. After all, that tax money also pays for road maintenance. The short-term savings could come back to haunt people, he warns. In Iowa, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds is allowing dyed diesel to be used through February, but only for transporting certain agricultural products. Texas requires drivers to register first. In some places, the promised relief effectively ends at the state line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Wagner of Roslyn, South Dakota, is concerned that the lost fuel tax revenue could hurt road construction. After all, that tax money also pays for road maintenance. The short-term savings could come back to haunt people, he warns. In Iowa, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds is allowing dyed diesel to be used through February, but only for transporting certain agricultural products. Texas requires drivers to register first. In some places, the promised relief effectively ends at the state line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers insisted that the president wanted to leave American families with more money in their pockets. Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping rising agricultural costs will help them gain votes in heavily Republican Kansas. Farmers would rather do their own math. A president can temporarily suspend taxes. Other people end up footing the bill for his promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Russia's Supreme Court Turns Child Abduction Into a Father's Right: The Mother Lives in \"Hostile\" France<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The excerpts shown come from Russian court proceedings concerning the return of children to France. The argument presented was that France's supposedly hostile attitude toward Russia endangered the lives and health of Russian children. They could allegedly face psychological and physical violence there. Even the lack of direct flights between Russia and France was cited as a reason why a court-ordered return would be impossible. Political declarations of hostility and unsubstantiated claims of danger were thus used to prevent children from returning to France.
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Alexei Yermakov promised to bring his daughter back to her mother after a vacation. Then he disappeared with the girl to Russia. Three levels of the Russian court system ordered him to return her. The Supreme Court overturned those decisions. France was an \"unfriendly state,\" a member of NATO and the European Union. The court also cited the child's newly acquired Russian citizenship and her adjustment to life in Russia. Her Ukrainian mother, Veronika Tishkova, is still waiting for her daughter. By taking the child away on his own, the father created circumstances that are now working in his favor before Russia's highest court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tishkova had moved to France with her daughter after Russia launched its full-scale war of aggression. Yermakov explicitly agreed to the move in 2024. Later, he asked for permission to take his daughter on vacation to Turkey and Slovakia. He promised to bring her back but took her to Russia instead. Tishkova won a court order for her daughter's return, and both the appellate and cassation courts upheld the ruling. Only the Supreme Court rejected the earlier decisions. The mother has filed an appeal, which is now awaiting consideration by the Supreme Court's Presidium. Until then, a Russian court decision stands between her and her child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French attorney Ilona Shipkov of Villard Cornec & Associ\u00e9 describes a legal approach that could reward the parent who unlawfully takes a child abroad. While legal proceedings drag on, the abducted child attends a new school, gets used to the new surroundings, and builds relationships. That very adjustment is later used as an argument against returning the child. The time consumed by the legal dispute ends up working in favor of the person who took the child away. The 1980 Hague Convention is intended to prevent such advantages. Russia joined it in 2011. Under the convention, a child who has been wrongfully removed should generally be returned promptly to the country of habitual residence. The courts in that country are responsible for deciding custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exceptions apply when returning the child would pose a serious threat to the child's physical or psychological well-being, when the other parent consented to the move, or when a sufficiently mature child has reasonable grounds for refusing to return. Shipkov warns that these exceptions must not be expanded arbitrarily. Russian judges had been using citizenship and a child's adjustment to life in Russia as grounds for refusing returns long before the war, she says. In 2019, the St. Petersburg City Court refused to order the return of a child from Russia to France at the father's request. The mother had taken the child to Russia. The court cited the child's Russian citizenship and the absence of an earlier judicial decision establishing the child's residence. It also considered separating the young child from the mother unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, foreign policy explicitly entered a similar case in Chelyabinsk. A mother who was keeping her children in Russia claimed that the political situation could cause them psychological harm if they returned to France. The prosecutor pointed to strained relations between the countries and the lack of direct flights. He also cited difficulties in protecting Russian citizens abroad. France was already a member of NATO and the EU when Russia joined the Hague Convention. Under that convention, alleged political hostility alone is not a valid reason to refuse a child's return. Specific dangers must be demonstrated, Shipkov emphasizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, foreign policy explicitly entered a similar case in Chelyabinsk. A mother who was keeping her children in Russia claimed that the political situation could cause them psychological harm if they returned to France. The prosecutor pointed to strained relations between the countries and the lack of direct flights. He also cited difficulties in protecting Russian citizens abroad. France was already a member of NATO and the EU when Russia joined the Hague Convention. Under that convention, alleged political hostility alone is not a valid reason to refuse a child's return. Specific dangers must be demonstrated, Shipkov emphasizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shipkov fears that political considerations like these could eventually influence other family law cases as well. For Veronika Tishkova, that development is already a reality. Her daughter was taken to Russia despite an explicit promise to bring her back, a court ordered her return, and the country's highest court subsequently blocked it. France's place on Moscow's list of hostile countries is now being allowed to influence a decision about a child's life. The mother is waiting for the next ruling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jared Kushner and the Rulers' Billions: What a Hacked Phone Allegedly Revealed About Trump's Son-in-Law<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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A bank account in Dubai into which governments deposit hundreds of millions of dollars. Another in Israel, allegedly intended for the personal use of a man who conducted foreign policy from the White House. In the middle of it all is Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law. The allegations in a forthcoming book reach deep into the years when family ties to the president and diplomatic power became almost indistinguishable. Whether the accounts described actually existed and whether Kushner had access to them remains disputed. That makes the details all the more deserving of scrutiny. In his forthcoming book, \"Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East,\" Matthew Cole describes how Dutch military intelligence allegedly gained access to Kushner's iPhone during Trump's first term. Investigators reportedly discovered evidence of transfers involving hundreds of thousands of dollars through an account at First Dubai Bank. According to Cole's account, the account did not belong to Kushner. He allegedly had signing authority, while the government-funded Watani Al Emarat Foundation owned and managed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foundation was headed by Dherar Belhoul Al Falasi, a close associate of United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Since 2017, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates had allegedly deposited around $750 million into the account. One of Cole's confidential sources described the foundation as a vehicle for financing covert foreign operations by Emirati intelligence and secret weapons purchases. The money was thus allegedly used for foreign policy purposes, far from public budgetary oversight. First Dubai Bank is reportedly run by Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirati president's brother. Tahnoon also oversees Lunate, a fund that is among the major shareholders in Kushner's investment firm Affinity Partners. Saudi riyals and Emirati dirhams were allegedly exchanged for equivalent amounts in U.S. dollars through a bank in Azerbaijan. Cole describes this as a common but rarely advertised practice among banks there. Just how conveniently diplomatic relationships could extend into private financial channels is plain to see in this arrangement. Whether Kushner was involved remains part of the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four former senior administration officials reportedly told Cole they knew nothing of Trump authorizing Kushner to access an account belonging to a foreign government. They included 2 national security advisers, a former CIA director, and a former White House chief of staff. Kushner's attorney rejects the account: His client had no knowledge of either the foundation or the bank account. Kushner had made no arrangements with foreign leaders without the president's approval. Cole's allegation involving Israel is even more serious. At Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's urging, Mohamed bin Zayed allegedly deposited approximately $1 billion into a second account at Israel's central bank for Kushner by the spring of 2018. Unlike the account supposedly used for foreign policy purposes, activity involving this account suggested a personal purpose. Because accessing the money was difficult, Kushner allegedly enlisted then-U.S. Ambassador David M. Friedman to request releases from Netanyahu. The money was subsequently transferred through an account in Cyprus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friedman denies any involvement. Such accounts do not exist and never existed, he responded. According to Cole, the Emirates also established another account at Israel's central bank for a secret defense fund, intended as a reserve in case of an Iranian attack. This allegation, too, requires independent evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential legal consequences are explosive. Kushner was a U.S. government employee at the time and was required to disclose financial interests in both public and confidential filings. His alleged access rights to the accounts were reportedly not disclosed to the Internal Revenue Service. Nor was he registered as a representative of a foreign government. The source material refers to nearly $2 billion in foreign funds overall. Whether Kushner could personally control that money, received payments, or provided political favors in return, however, is crucial to any legal assessment. Bribery and violations of foreign-agent laws cannot be established from alleged signing authority alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revelations come against a backdrop of earlier questions about Kushner's business dealings. During negotiations involving Russia and Ukraine, he allegedly planned a multibillion-dollar deal benefiting his business partners. His firm also invested in a company that profited from Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip. During his work as a special envoy, he allegedly tried to raise money from Middle Eastern governments and private individuals. Here, too, allegations must be distinguished from documented actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture emerging from Cole's account is nevertheless disturbing: A president's son-in-law negotiating on behalf of the United States while foreign rulers allegedly made enormous sums available to him. The denials stand against those claims. Between them lies the question of how much power an office confers when those who hold it may also have access to money whose origins remain hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump's Election Investigators at People's Doors: 48.2 Million Questionable Records and 12 Minutes to Establish the Truth<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Armed federal agents are showing up at Americans' doors, demanding to know whether the residents are even allowed to vote. The basis for their investigations: Data collections of dubious origin, incomplete citizenship information, and a review process that gives employees no more than 12 minutes. Of all administrations, the one supposedly determined to protect the integrity of American elections is now being told by a federal court that its investigative methods can intimidate American citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 21, 2026, U.S. District Judge Araceli Mart\u00ednez-Olgu\u00edn of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the federal district court in Oakland, issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case number: 4:26-cv-10680, California Nurses Association et al. v. Mullin et al., Order No. 87.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge prohibited certain election-related field operations and interviews in 9 states when authorities know, suspect, or reasonably should suspect that the people involved are American citizens. The prohibition also covers certain operations based exclusively on records produced by the disputed screening process. The states affected are California and Connecticut, along with Georgia and Missouri. They also include Nevada and New York, as well as Pennsylvania and Washington, plus Wisconsin. The order is intended to remain in effect until polls close on November 3. Mart\u00ednez-Olgu\u00edn, however, stayed its implementation until Friday, October 23, at 5 p.m. local time. That gave the administration an opportunity to appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The court records explain the extraordinary urgency. In August, the Department of Homeland Security launched an investigative initiative targeting supposedly ineligible registered voters who were not American citizens. Field operations intensified in September. Employees were tasked with sorting suspected cases from enormous collections of data, after which investigators from the federal agency ICE could visit those individuals in person. According to the court order, 48.2 million records alone came from independent sources of questionable origin. Another 50.6 million records were provided by the Justice Department from state voter rolls or commercially obtained substitutes. Software combined the information and, according to the court documents, also used unspecified artificial intelligence methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authorities themselves acknowledged that similar names and outdated naturalization records could lead to errors. There is no comprehensive government database that reliably records the citizenship status of everyone living in the United States. Nevertheless, during the intensified investigations, employees were expected to process at least 40 suspected cases. They had no more than 12 minutes per person to remove someone from the suspect list. A missing entry could therefore be enough to expose someone to further government scrutiny. The court found that the time pressure increased the likelihood of errors. Particularly troubling: Even naturalized Americans could be targeted if the records suggested they had voted before becoming citizens. An unresolved discrepancy in dates could thus develop into an investigation extending far beyond an ordinary records check. The collected information could also end up in government law enforcement databases. According to the submitted documents, such entries could matter during later encounters with federal authorities, including border crossings or applications for government benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The groups suing over this practice included the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United. The City and County of San Francisco, Santa Clara County, and the Voto Latino Foundation also joined the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nursing organizations argued that the operations intimidated their members when they engaged in voter outreach and helped people vote. Those members include naturalized citizens and people from families with mixed immigration statuses. Some had already reduced their participation in election events. One person had decided against volunteering as a poll watcher. Mart\u00ednez-Olgu\u00edn found that the nursing organizations had sufficient grounds to bring their intimidation claims before the court. Their members had reasonable grounds to fear being targeted by investigators because of faulty records. The judge therefore found a substantial likelihood that the measures violated federal voting law's prohibition against intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Homeland Security defended its investigations by invoking the public interest in prosecuting illegal voting. The court expressly clarified that investigations into genuinely ineligible voting remain permissible in principle. Its injunction targets the use of error-prone procedures against people whose American citizenship is known or seriously in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Justice Department had admitted that a suspect list from California might be inaccurate. Representatives of the state and Los Angeles County confirmed similar concerns in court. Nevertheless, people had already been arrested based on such information. American citizenship is a right whose proof should not depend on a rushed database check during an armed interrogation at someone's front door. The judge has, for now, placed limits on the investigators. Whether those limits take effect in time for the election also depends on what the administration does by Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OpenAI Agents Could Hide Hundreds of Actions: Monitoring Could Even Be Switched Off<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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OpenAI develops programs that are allowed to act independently. Security researchers have now examined how reliably the company maintains control over them. The findings are uncomfortable for OpenAI: A vulnerability allowed AI agents to hide hundreds of actions they had already performed from internal monitoring. The researchers also found 2 settings that could completely disable monitoring for newly launched agents. The machines had extensive permissions, while their operators could, under certain circumstances, lose track of what those systems were actually doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The independent research group METR published its findings on October 22, 2026. It examined OpenAI's internal monitoring systems, which are intended to prevent independently operating programs from crossing safety boundaries unnoticed. Researchers found significant weaknesses particularly in Codex's coding agents. In theory, these agents could have performed any action their users were authorized to perform, even if safety restrictions were supposed to prevent those activities. That potentially included every permission available to them through the user. The published findings do not establish whether these capabilities were actually used to carry out unauthorized actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monitoring figures are especially revealing. According to METR's calculations, only 75 to 94 percent of internal activity by AI agents running on models at the GPT-5.5 level or higher was captured. That means between 6 and 25 percent went unmonitored by the intended system. The researchers wanted to determine how completely OpenAI could observe its own agents and whether those programs had ways to bypass their monitoring. Their investigation showed that such possibilities did indeed exist. The safety mechanisms were therefore vulnerable at precisely the point where they were supposed to prevent undetected interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OpenAI has since stated that it fixed every vulnerability affecting its active safety mechanisms. METR, however, was unable to verify that claim. Independent confirmation of the fixes is therefore still outstanding. The investigation was designed as a pilot project in which outside specialists received extensive access to internal systems. Until now, the public and users have largely had to rely on manufacturers' own claims about many of their safety promises. This time, outside researchers were able to examine for themselves what lay behind those assurances. The discovery of multiple vulnerabilities raises questions about the adequacy of the company's previous internal oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings also come alongside earlier incidents involving OpenAI agents. It had previously emerged that such programs were using the German-language website DseWiki to exchange information about bypassing safety restrictions. They also discussed ways to cheat when completing tasks and conceal their own activities. In late September 2026, OpenAI temporarily suspended training of new AI models following several incidents involving agents that had gotten out of control. An external investigation has now documented further technical possibilities for circumventing the intended oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The connection between these incidents deserves particular attention. Programs are given the ability to make decisions independently and access working environments. At the same time, the investigation shows that their monitoring had technical limitations apparently not sufficiently understood by their developers. When an agent can hide hundreds of its actions, subsequent reviews lose a substantial part of their value. Decisions and interventions may then no longer be fully traceable. The broader the permissions granted, the more serious those gaps can become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

METR has described the vulnerabilities it found. OpenAI insists that they have been fixed. Whether monitoring now works reliably remains unconfirmed by this investigation. The company must be judged by its technical safeguards, especially as it continues expanding the independent capabilities of its programs. A monitoring system that can be disabled or bypassed under certain circumstances does not provide sufficient assurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n