Bambang Sofyan, an Indonesian Gojek driver, received a ticket to Kanye West's (now just Ye) concert in Jakarta after completing the lyrics of his song "Praise God".

The incident took place on Saturday, Oct. 24, when Australian content creator @off_wyatt (Wyatt) was looking for a Ye fan who did not have a ticket to the concert.

To win it, participants had to correctly continue the lyrics of a Ye song.

Wyatt then filmed himself approaching several ride-hailing drivers, but it was Bambang, who had sent the influencer to his destination, who completed the challenge (with some help).

In the Instagram reel, Bambang appeared overjoyed, smiling widely, raising his arms and jumping excitedly after receiving the ticket.

People around cheered him on, while Instagram users also expressed their happiness for him in the comments.

One comment read,

"[A] concert ticket is such a luxury for common Indonesian even for the middle class, thank you for the kind gesture 🙌"

Realised he hadn't gotten paid

According to Kompas, Bambang was resting when three foreigners approached him.

He offered to take them to the concert venue on his motorcycle.

The men agreed and asked how much the ride would cost.

As the destination was nearby, Bambang told them they could pay whatever amount they wanted.

"I was confused about how much to charge. The main thing was just getting a ride," Bambang told Kompas in a phone interview on Oct. 28.

Bambang said he did not realise Wyatt was filming him during the journey.

Upon arriving at the venue, Bambang noticed that two other Gojek drivers who had transported Wyatt's friends were each paid 50,000 rupiah (approximately S$3.52), while he had not received his fare.

He was confused as to why he had not been paid.

Wyatt then asked Bambang to follow him, saying he would pay him afterwards.

"Wyatt told me, 'You just need to continue the lyrics of a Kanye West song that I'm going to recite.'

"I asked him, 'What song?' and he replied, 'It cannot always be night.'"

"So I thought, 'Oh, okay, if that's all I have to do,'" Bambang told Kompas.

When Wyatt recited the lyrics from "Praise God", Bambang correctly continued them on his first attempt.

Bambang said Wyatt immediately handed him the ticket after he answered.

Surprised at ticket cost

A staff member later told Bambang the ticket was worth about 10 million rupiah, as seen in his Instagram reel.

“Wow, 10 million rupiah, bro?” he exclaimed.

According to Ye’s official Jakarta concert website, VIP East and VIP West tickets cost 9.85 million rupiah (approximately S$694.51).

Bambang was able to enter the VIP lounge, where food and drinks were provided for concertgoers.

Wyatt carried Bambang on his shoulders as the driver enjoyed the concert alongside the rest of the crowd.

Bambang later thanked Wyatt and his friends in a post on social media.

"Thanks to all the good people, Mr @off_wyatt and friends. I will always remember this moment. I am very, very, very happy. Amazing,"

Singapore and Malaysia simulated a fire on board a stranded Johor Bahru–Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link train on Oct. 27, to test how agencies from both countries would respond to a cross-border emergency.

The scenario put jointly developed emergency response protocols to the test, according to Second Minister for Foreign Affairs and Second Minister for Home Affairs Sim Ann, who spoke at the exercise’s closing ceremony at Wadi Hana Depot in Johor Bahru on Oct. 28.

Testing communication and deployment across the border

In her closing address, Sim said Malaysia’s Operations Centre at Bukit Chagar and Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) Integrated Operations Centre maintained real-time contact throughout the exercise.

This allowed both sides to develop a common understanding of the situation and share their response plans.

Officers and station operators on both sides also coordinated the deployment of fire and rescue, law enforcement and border control personnel.

Sim said the agencies demonstrated effective command and control, with officers showing a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

She noted that each RTS Link train will carry more than 600 passengers, with journeys taking about five minutes. An emergency could therefore affect many passengers at short notice while involving two countries with different laws, agencies and command structures.

“An emergency on board a crowded and fast-moving train leaves little room for error,” she said.

She urged participating agencies to study the exercise’s observations and discuss them with their counterparts to improve their joint response plans before an actual incident occurs.

Followed a tabletop exercise in September

Sim said agencies from both countries have been developing frameworks, laws and operational protocols for cross-border incidents since 2023.

Officers also took part in a tabletop exercise in September 2026 to work through procedures for natural hazards, medical emergencies, fires, and public order and security incidents.

The Oct. 27 field exercise then tested those plans under realistic conditions.

Passenger services expected to begin in February 2027

The exercise comes ahead of the rail link’s expected opening in February 2027.

In an Oct. 2 press release, train service operator RTS Operations Pte Ltd (RTSO) said it expected to complete all system tests and trial runs by Dec. 31 this year.

RTSO said the expected February 2027 start of passenger services took into account the remaining works, independent safety certification and approvals from both countries’ authorities.

In a separate joint news release on Oct. 2, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority and Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport said the revised opening timeline remained subject to independent safety certification and final regulatory approvals.

The RTS Link will connect Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru with Woodlands North in Singapore, with a peak capacity of up to 10,000 passengers per hour in each direction.

Passengers will undergo immigration clearance at their departure station, where both countries’ customs, immigration and quarantine facilities will be co-located.

A 28-year-old Malaysian man was sentenced to eight months' jail on Oct. 27 after he illegally accessed 17 bank accounts in Singapore.

The accused, Tan Kian Hoa, pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal conspiracy to commit unauthorised computer access under the Computer Misuse Act.

Job he applied for involved scam syndicate

He applied for a job he saw on Facebook in September 2025, CNA reported.

An unidentified person informed Tan on Telegram that he would be paid RM3,500 (S$1,102) a month.

Tan had to work at Taman Eko Botani in Iskandar Puteri, which is in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

The job was to work for an online gambling syndicate that was also involved in moving scam proceeds.

Syndicate moved gamblers' money

The syndicate moved money from gamblers to online casinos and paid customers their winnings.

Close to S$4 million were moved in and out of the accounts that Tan had accessed.

Some of it, over S$21,000, was traced to scam cases reported in Singapore.

Track movement of funds from customers

The syndicate tracked the movement of funds from gambling customers to syndicate bank accounts by using an in-house computer system.

Tan received alerts via the system when deposits were made to the syndicate-controlled bank accounts in Singapore.

He had to ensure the funds tallied and he did not know the people whose bank accounts he accessed.

When the bank transactions and the amounts in the in-house computer system did not match, Tan had to contact the online casino customer service.

He was assigned phones each day, which contained internet banking mobile applications and SIM cards.

Each phone had a sticker with the account name, account number, and log-in credentials of the respective bank accounts.

Tan logged into the accounts to confirm the deposits.

He would report the payment to the syndicate via screenshots sent to Telegram group chats.

A total of S$3,996,971, including money from scams, flowed through 17 accounts when Tan was working.

He was aware throughout his time there that the syndicate's activities were illegal in Malaysia and Singapore.

A total of 17 Maribank or GXS bank accounts under the syndicate's control were reported as scams to the Singapore police.

The losses in the accounts ranged from S$150 to S$2,968.

Tan was arrested by the Royal Malaysian Police on Jul. 20.

He was handed over to SPF on Jul. 21.

Caught during multi-nation enforcement op

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) revealed in July 2026 that Operation Frontier+ III disrupted the syndicate in March, following a joint two-month operation between 10 law enforcement agencies from different countries.

MariBank had provided information.

A 34-year-old Singaporean man, who sexually abused six boys as a youth between 2010 and 2014, was sentenced on Oct. 28 to a jail term of 19 years, one month, two weeks and 14 days.

His offences had gone undetected and only came to light in 2019 when he emailed police stating that he had committed crimes in the past, which he believed remained unsolved.

Charges

Court documents seen by Mothership stated that Chen Caijin will also receive the maximum 24 strokes of the cane.

He pleaded guilty to six charges, which include molestation, sexual penetration of a minor, voluntarily causing hurt, taking nude photos of a child, as well as relinquishing a bank account.

Another 16 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

A gag order was imposed to protect the victims' identities.

Offences

In 2010, Chen, who was 17 to 18 years old then, abused his first victim, who was 14 to 15 years old at the time.

He would pay for the victim when they gamed at LAN shops.

Court documents stated that the victim would push Chen away when he hugged the victim and tried to kiss him.

Chen also molested the victim.

On one occasion, Chen pulled down the victim's pants and sexually assaulted him when the victim fell asleep at the void deck.

Other friends who were present laughed, and the victim did not dare to confront Chen despite being confused as Chen had been paying for his games.

Chen also molested the victim while they rode an e-scooter together, and later sexually assaulted the victim, who was asleep.

After performing sex acts on another victim, Chen shared nude pictures he took of the victim with three mutual friends without the victim's consent.

In addition, at least one victim allowed Chen to continue with his sexual abuse as he was worried that Chen would no longer pay for his meals and gaming.

Emailed police

According to court documents, Chen's offences came to light in 2019 when he sent an email to the police on Nov. 1, 2019.

He stated that he had committed serious crimes in the past but had not been caught, and wanted to "ask some question[s]" before deciding whether to admit to those crimes.

Chen added that he wanted to "negotiate a certain type of punishment (not liniency [sic])" if he confessed, but did not provide other details of what these crimes were.

A few days later on Nov. 4, 2019, Chen sent another email to the police from a different email address.

In reiterating that he had committed some crimes in the past which he believed remained unsolved, Chen stated that he "deserve[d] to be punished".

He also posed various questions to the police, which included how he could be sentenced to the maximum number of strokes of the cane.

Told police

The police then invited him to provide a statement in person.

On Nov. 8, 2019, Chen provided a statement to the police, where he admitted to having previously molested several individuals and having sex with underage victims.

However, as he did not want to be arrested or detained, he refused to reveal the victims' identities or the details of the offences he had committed.

The police were only able to begin identifying suspected victims of Chen's sexual crimes after seizing his phone, obtaining a forensic extraction of its contents and reviewing Chen's messages with his contacts.

Through extensive investigations, the police discovered that Chen had engaged in at least 22 sexual offences between 2010 and 2014.

According to court documents, Chen was largely cooperative throughout investigations and willingly disclosed information related to his sexual crimes to the police.

He was arrested on Apr. 15, 2024, and has been in remand to date.

Examined by psychiatrist

Upon examining Chen, an Institute of Mental Health (IMH) psychiatrist said he had personality disorder with prominent masochistic and antisocial traits.

Chen was also found to have paraphilic disorder, with an extensive history of childhood sexual trauma.

Though the psychiatrist said Chen's main sexual interest was in teenage boys aged 11 to 16, he also had strong paedophilic tendencies as he displayed sexual interest in males under 13 years of age.

The psychiatrist was also of the opinion that Chen would have been aware of the nature and wrongness of his actions at the time of the offences, and that there was no direct contributory link from any of his psychiatric conditions.

This is because neither his judgment nor self-control would have been impaired.

Prosecution submissions

The prosecution sought a sentence of 18 to 20 years and four months' jail, plus 14 days' jail for breach of remission order and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane.

According to court documents, the prosecution accepted that some mitigating weight should be given to Chen's youth and admissions to the police, as well as his subsequent cooperation during investigations.

They said it was Chen's initial act of coming forward that resulted in criminal investigations, without which the offences may never have come to light.

The prosecution noted, however, that Chen's cooperativeness was conditional and limited.

This is because he initially wanted to "ask some question[s]" before deciding whether to admit to his crimes and claimed that he wanted to "negotiate a certain type of punishment" if he confessed.

Chen also refused to reveal the identities of his victims or details of his crimes as he did not want to be arrested or detained.

As such, Chen's acceptance of responsibility for his actions went only so far as his ability to dictate the terms of his punishment, the prosecution said.

They added that while some credit should be given for coming forward to the police, he should not be placed on the same footing as an offender who offered a full confession or voluntarily surrendered to custody.

"His conduct was both harmful and deplorable and the sentence imposed should send a clear signal that preying on the young will not be tolerated."

Defence

CNA reported that the defence argued that Chen did not present as a "typical sexual offender".

Noting that Chen committed the offences when he was 17 to 20 years old, they said that he was sincerely remorseful.

He had demonstrated this through a voluntary confession, and proactively sought treatment at IMH.

The defence said Chen was prescribed injections to lower his testosterone levels and manage his sexual urges, which doctors described as "a form of chemical castration".

Chen also asked for the dosage to be increased to manage his urges, according to CNA.

The defence added that Chen wished to see his 71-year-old mother, who has stomach cancer, again before she dies.

'Disturbing' pattern of conduct: Judge

Calling it a "disturbing" pattern of conduct, CNA reported Justice Mavis Chionh as saying that Chen made friends with a victim and initiated physical contact afterwards, which escalated into sexual acts.

As such, she said it would not be accurate for his offences to be attributed solely to a lack of self-restraint, or his youth or youthful folly.

However, she accepted that Chen had displayed genuine remorse as he voluntarily underwent chemical castration.

For sexual penetration of a minor, Chen could have been given up to 20 years' jail and fined or caned.

A delivery rider, 51, who is permanently blind in his right eye and suffers from a serious heart condition has failed in his bid to obtain S$500 in monthly maintenance from his ex-wife.

The Family Justice Courts dismissed his application after finding that he had not proven that his medical conditions prevented him from earning a livelihood entirely, or that he was unable to maintain himself.

According to a judgement dated Oct. 23, District Judge Kow Keng Siong acknowledged the man's serious medical conditions but found that he did not qualify as an incapacitated former husband under the Women's Charter.

The man, identified as YKM in court documents, had been married to his former wife, YKN, for 28 years before their divorce was finalised on Jan. 1, 2026.

Permanently blind in right eye, suffers from heart condition

Following the divorce, the man sought S$500 in monthly maintenance from his former wife, citing his serious medical conditions.

He was certified permanently blind in his right eye in February 2025.

According to court documents, the man said his impaired vision made it difficult for him to see kerbs and obstacles in poor lighting, preventing him from working evening and night shifts.

He also suffered a heart attack in June 2025 and was hospitalised for six days.

In February 2026, medical examinations found that his heart function was severely impaired. The following month, doctors advised him to avoid strenuous activities and driving taxis.

The man expressed concerns that continuing to work as a delivery rider could put his health at risk due to his impaired vision and heart condition.

However, his former wife opposed the application, arguing that he had not shown that his medical conditions prevented him from earning a livelihood or supporting himself.

Earns around S$2,725 monthly as delivery rider

The court noted that despite his medical conditions, the man continued to work as a delivery rider, earning a net monthly income of approximately S$2,725.

This exceeded the S$2,190 he said he needed for basic living expenses, including food, transport, utilities, telephone and internet bills, and rent.

Kow acknowledged that the man's health conditions restricted the types of work he could safely undertake.

However, he said the medical evidence did not establish that the man was incapable of earning a livelihood.

"The law cannot turn an apprehension into an incapacity," the judge said.

Medical concerns

The court noted the question was not whether the man indeed has a disability or illness, but whether that prevented him from earning a livelihood. "Clear and objective medical evidence is needed", it stated.

The court also noted that the man's medical reports advised him to avoid strenuous activities and driving taxis, but did not establish that he was permanently unfit for work.

The court further noted that while the man's concerns about future hardship are understandable, they cannot be a basis for ordering the woman to pay maintenance today.

"The definition of “incapacitated former husband” in s 2 requires the Husband to show, among others, that (a) he is presently incapacitated from earning a livelihood and (b) he is presently unable to maintain himself.

These requirements are not met merely because he may, at some future date, become incapacitated and unable to support himself."

Claimed S$500 monthly for necessities and cigarettes

The man claimed monthly expenses of around S$3,819 against a total monthly income of approximately S$3,245, including S$520 in rental income, leaving a shortfall of S$574.

However, the court found that the man had failed to adequately explain or justify some of his claimed expenses.

These included S$500 a month for amenities, necessities and cigarettes, although he had already listed separate expenses for food, transport, utilities, telephone and internet bills, debt repayments and rent.

Kow also found it unreasonable to require his former wife to pay for cigarettes, which he described as a matter of personal choice.

The court also questioned a claimed S$100 monthly maintenance expense, as the man had not explained whom the payment was intended for.

Kow noted that the couple's four children were working adults and found that his former wife should not be required to fund payments to them if the money was intended for their benefit.

Ex-wife's maintenance application also dismissed

The former wife had separately sought nominal maintenance of S$1 per month, citing a pre-existing lumbar slipped-disc condition.

However, the court also dismissed her application.

She earned approximately S$7,903.55 a month, around 2.6 times her former husband's gross monthly earnings of S$2,986.33.

Kow found that the medical evidence did not sufficiently establish the severity of her slipped-disc condition or how it might affect her ability to work in the future.

The court also considered their respective financial circumstances, noting that the man earned significantly less than his former wife and suffered from serious health conditions.

Ex-wife awarded 75 per cent of matrimonial assets

The court ordered that the couple's matrimonial assets, valued at S$568,985.22, be divided 25:75 in favour of the former wife.

The woman was allocated approximately S$426,738, while the man was allocated approximately S$142,246.

In reaching the decision, Kow found that the former wife had contributed more to household expenses and taken on greater childcare responsibilities throughout their 28-year marriage, including returning to work as a flight stewardess after the man's business folded, he became a bankrupt and worked as a driver.

The judge also acknowledged the man's contributions, including being the family's sole breadwinner during the early years of their marriage and helping to care for their children.

A construction company in Singapore and its general manager have been charged for allegedly operating an unlicensed foreign worker dormitory.

According to a media release by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), LBD Engineering Pte Ltd and general manager Alvin Lim Yee Hong, 35, were charged in court under the Foreign Employee Dormitories Act 2015 (FEDA).

MOM inspected LBD's factory premises at 58A Sungei Kadut Loop, and found about 300 bed spaces there.

An investigation revealed that LBD had converted parts of the premises into a dormitory, housing 173 migrant workers from four different companies.

Lim was allegedly aware that the company did not hold a valid FEDA licence, but allowed the operation of the dormitory regardless.

Penalties

Under the FEDA, the offence of operating a foreign employee dormitory without a valid licence carries a fine of up to $500,000, imprisonment of up to two years or both.

MOM stated that it takes "a serious view of the operation of unlicensed foreign employee dormitories."

The ministry also reiterated that licensing requirements are necessary to ensure that dormitories provide safe and proper living conditions for migrant workers. Operating a dormitory without a valid license circumvents these safeguards and may put the well-being of workers at risk.

It will not hesitate to take firm enforcement action against those who operate foreign employee accommodation without a valid FEDA licence.

Employers are also responsible for ensuring that their migrant workers' accommodation complies with regulations, it said.

Members of the public who are aware of suspected unlicensed foreign employee dormitories or other infringements involving migrant worker accommodation should report the matter to MOM through its “Report an Infringement” eService.

All information provided will be kept strictly confidential.

A high-speed train collision in Toledo, Spain, killed at least 68 people and injured more than 100 people.

The incident occurred on Oct. 28 just before 9am local time, AFP and Reuters reported.

In a video released by the Spanish Civil Guard, derailed carriages were seen laying on their sides, with debris strewn across the incident site.

‼️Accidente tren

🚨 La Guardia Civil ha desplegado en la zona personal de Seguridad Ciudadana de la provincia de Toledo, OMAC (Oficinas Móviles de Atención a la Ciudadanía) así como agentes del SEPRONA y de la Jefatura de Tráfico.

✔️ También se desplazan a la zona en este momento unidades de Seguridad Ciudadana de Ciudad Real y Albacete, de los Grupos de Reserva y Seguridad (GRS), del Servicio Aéreo, de drones, grupo de Caballería y el Equipo de Grandes Catástrofes del Servicio de Criminalística, del Servicio Cinológico y de Policía Judicial.

— Guardia Civil (@guardiacivil) October 28, 2026

Casualties

According to local authorities, an Iryo express train and a Renfe high-speed train were involved in the collision.

The Iryo train had 147 passengers, including a baby on board, while the Renfe train carried 497 passengers at the time of the incident.

One passenger, Rafael Barcelo, claimed he was drinking coffee when they “felt ⁠a very strong impact and we were sent flying”.

The passengers, who were seen splattered with blood or bandaged, were evacuated from the incident site after the collision.

Among the injured, 58 of them had been conveyed to the hospital, while 15 of them are reportedly in critical condition.

Computer communications failure

Óscar Puente, Spain’s transport minister, said the Renfe service train was authorised to restart its journey, despite an active red signal as a train ahead was stationary.

Traffic should have automatically stopped.

However, an “erroneous” decision was made to allow the train to proceed.

This could have been due to a computer communications failure.

"The decision to resume traffic, while that system had not been restored, belongs to the control centre," Puente said.

"In circumstances that, from our point of view, are inexplicable,” he added.

According to Puente, the Renfe train travelled about 25km before colliding with the stationary train at a speed that could have reached "up to 200km per hour”.

Suspension

In a press release on Oct. 28, Renfe confirmed the incident and activated assistance for those affected.

The railway operator also said it had suspended the main high-speed line from Madrid to southern Spain.

Investigations are ongoing.

Deadliest

This incident is the deadliest train collision in Spain since 2013.

It is also the second fatal high-speed train collision on the same line in 2026, following a previous high-speed train crash in January 2026 that killed 46 people.

Australian Hyrox athlete Joanna Wietrzyk faced backlash after she soiled herself during a race in Beijing on Sep. 12.

In a video posted on her Instagram account on Oct. 28, the athlete offered another apology and announced her comeback.

She is competing in the Hyrox Elite 15 race in Hamburg, Germany, on Oct. 30.

This marks her first race since the incident.

Apology

Wietrzyk said that she has spent the last eight weeks reflecting on what happened in Beijing.

“I’m truly, truly so sorry to everyone I affected,” she said.

She apologised for her decision to continue competing despite soiling herself, and said that she had learnt a lot from the experience.

The athlete expressed her gratitude for those who supported her through the controversy.

She said it had been a “very confronting” situation, which was difficult to navigate both personally and publicly.

Despite the backlash, she said she is excited to return to competitions.

"I'm super excited to go back doing what I love," she said.

Withdrew from previous race

On Sep. 12, Wietrzyk soiled herself during a Hyrox race in Beijing but continued the race, using communal equipment.

She finished first in the women's Pro event.

Videos of the incident went viral online, drawing criticism over hygiene and safety risks to other competitors.

Wietrzyk posted her first public apology on Sep. 17, agreeing that she should have stopped racing.

"Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track," she said.

She subsequently withdrew from the race, forfeiting the points she had earned.

Hyrox organisers also apologised for not intervening and updated their rules, allowing race directors to withdraw participants should bodily fluids pose a contamination or welfare risk.

Related stories

A routine shower turned into a nightmare for a 19-year-old woman in Singapore when she caught a phone recording her through the bathroom window.

The woman screamed, and the suspect immediately fled.

Police investigations later revealed that a 20-year-old man had previously filmed both her and her mother on multiple occasions.

The victims are the 19-year-old woman and her 55-year-old mother.

The court issued a gag order to protect the victims' identities.

The man pleaded guilty on Oct. 27 to two counts of voyeurism, reported Shin Min Daily News.

One other charge for voyeurism will be taken into consideration during sentencing.

His sentencing has been adjourned to Dec. 17.

Peered into flat from fitness corner

On Apr. 8, 2026, the man had gone to a fitness corner in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) estate at around 9:20pm.

As he walked past the victim's flat, he climbed onto a ledge to peer into the room, Shin Min reported.

As the curtains were drawn, he was not able to see anyone inside and returned to the fitness corner.

About 30 minutes later, he heard the sound of someone showering coming from the unit.

He walked over to the exterior of the bathroom and slid his phone through the bathroom window to secretly record the woman showering.

He fled after hearing the woman scream.

Recorded both mother and daughter previously

The victim's mother subsequently called the police.

Authorities later established the man's identity and found more illicit recordings on his phone, including one taken on Mar. 22 of the mother in the bathroom.

Between Mar. 30 and Apr. 8, he also recorded 10 videos of the young woman showering, changing, or using the toilet.

The court reportedly heard that the young woman felt distressed, vulnerable, and unsafe in her own home following the incident.

The family now ensure that their bathroom window is shut before taking a shower.

Abdul El-Sayed is a very qualified individual.

The 41-year-old, who is running to become a U.S. senator to represent the state of Michigan in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, is a trained medical doctor, but also has a PhD from Oxford.

He also has a history of public service, having served as a health director for the city of Detroit when he was only 30.

If elected, he would be one of the youngest members of a Senate where the majority are over the age of 65.

He would also be the first Muslim senator in U.S. history, and is one of only two to have attempted to win the role.

Naming distractions

Ever since he won the Democratic nomination for senator for Michigan in August, he has faced discrimination that specifically targets his religion through ads, U.S. President Donald Trump mocking him from the rally stages, and being confronted at events for things that happened before he was born.

So whether he wanted it to be or not, El-Sayed’s religion has been put front and center, and his contest against Republican Mike Rogers has become as much about how he deals with it as it has been about his policy positions.

Over the past month, he has faced two distinct strands of attack regarding his religion: one from President Trump and another regarding purported links to an Egyptian fundamentalist religious group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Trump has insulted El-Sayed on multiple occasions throughout October, including in a Truth Social post where he misnames him as Mohamed El-Sayed, only to "correct'"himself at a later rally by mocking his name again from the rally podium.

El-Sayed bit back, issuing a statement saying “He (Trump) knows my name is Abdul,” but that Trump was pretending to forget in order to distract voters from Trump’s own bad policies that had led to increased energy prices, grocery prices, and medical costs.

Muslim Brotherhood

He has also faced accusations of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The claims centre on social media posts from 2012 and 2013 by his half-sister, who wrote that their mother was active in the Brotherhood in the early 1970s, before El-Sayed was born.

Reports say there is no evidence he was personally involved. He has denied any ties, and said he wasn’t raised by his mother.

El-Sayed was also the target of a Republican audience member who challenged him to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood at a town hall. The exchange quickly went viral, with El-Sayed praised for the nature of his takedown.

CNN quotes him as telling the man that “You assume… that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution.”

In his rebuttal, he referenced the reply of John F. Kennedy, who, as a Catholic, was accused of having a dual loyalty to the Vatican.

Kennedy had said at the time that he was not running to be a Catholic president; he was running for president and happened to be Catholic.

El-Sayed said that he was not running to be “a Muslim senator; I am running for Senate and happen to be Muslim.”

Polling...

But whether he wants religion to be front and centre for his campaign, it is.

As election day looms and early voting in much of the U.S. has started, he continues to be a target for Republican figures like Trump.

El-Sayed, as of Oct. 28, is leading his race by 3.3 percentage points at 48.8 per cent according to the Silver Bulletin, just outside the margin of error, although it should be noted that Michigan voted for Trump over Kamala Harris in 2024.

This is in an environment where a generic Democrat is more popular than their Republican counterpart by 9.2 percentage points, implying that El-Sayed is lagging in popularity.

... and policy positions

He has, on numerous occasions, said that he should be judged on his actions rather than his religion.

His main campaign policy is a call for universal healthcare, or “Medicare-for-all”, complaining about the dismal state of public healthcare in the U.S.

He is labelled a progressive and is often accused of being a socialist, but the latter is a label he rejects.

El-Sayed has been endorsed by several figures on the Democratic Party’s left, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but he has called himself a “capitalist”, although he has said that the U.S. is not a capitalist economy, but a "corporatist" one.

In his view, corporatism has eliminated competition in the U.S., locking in consumers to a mere handful of different options, essentially forming an oligopoly.

He has also called for a wealth tax, saying that he’d rather have an economy of “1,000 millionaires than one billionaire.”

He is also, like many progressive Democrats, critical of U.S. support for Israel, although he said he would support any outcome that "a free Palestinian people and a free Jewish Israeli people decide is the right outcome."

Religious attacks

These are positions that would single him out for attack as a socialist by Republicans, and indeed many others with similar positions have been.

But for El-Sayed, the dominating narratives are about his religion, and to a lesser extent, his ethnic background.

His response has been consistent throughout, saying that attacks on his faith are distractions from economic policy failure.

Trump, in recent days, has renewed his verbal assaults, calling him a jihadist who would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go in the Senate, as quoted by the BBC.