Cincunri Sakia

Rabu, 09 November 2022

Republican wave fails to materialise as US midterm results roll in - Financial Times

Democrats put up an unexpectedly strong fight as results rolled in from US midterm elections that will decide which party controls Congress, even as Republicans led by governor Ron DeSantis notched up a string of convincing victories in Florida.

The early tallies from the midterm elections on Tuesday showed many battleground races across the country were too close to call, with control of the Senate remaining in the balance and Republicans struggling to secure widespread victories in swing districts in the House of Representatives.

“It’s not a wave for sure,” said Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, referring to the “red wave” that many pollsters had predicted heading into election day. However, Graham said his party was on course for a “very good night” and predicted it would win a majority in the lower chamber of Congress.

Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, told the Financial Times: “This is not a tsunami . . . I think that Republicans got ahead of themselves.”

The best early result for Republicans was in Florida, where DeSantis, seen as a probable contender for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, was quickly projected to win re-election along with senator Marco Rubio.

“I look forward to the road ahead,” DeSantis said. “We have accomplished more than anybody thought possible four years ago. But we have got so much more to do, and I have only begun to fight.”

Luntz called DeSantis “the real winner” of Tuesday night. “He has turned a successful governorship into a nationwide movement. I think he is going to give [Donald] Trump a run for his money.”

However, despite the strong showing in Florida — which had until recently been seen as a swing state — the results were more mixed in other battleground contests. Pivotal Senate races in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada remained exceedingly tight, with highly uncertain outcomes.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat John Fetterman won the Senate seat being vacated by the Republican Pat Toomey, despite having been hampered on the campaign trail by his recent stroke.

The White House said President Joe Biden had sent Fetterman his congratulations by text message.

Fetterman campaigned as a working-class progressive, wearing a goatee beard and almost always appearing in a hoodie and shorts. “This race is for the future of every community all across Pennsylvania,” he told supporters. “For every small town or person that ever felt left behind.”

Democrats held on to several bellwether House districts on the east coast where their candidates were seen as vulnerable, with victories for Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Seth Magaziner in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, New York governor Kathy Hochul was re-elected after holding off Republican challenger Lee Zeldin. The result will bring Democrats some relief after polls showed Zeldin closing a yawning gap in recent weeks with a relentless focus on crime.

Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to win a majority in the House and still have the edge in the lower chamber but they may assume control with a smaller margin than they hoped.

In a delayed victory speech delivered at 2am, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, said: “When you wake up tomorrow we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority.”

The White House, which had been bracing itself for heavy losses in the House, said Biden had started to call Democrats including Spanberger and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to congratulate them on winning their races.

Even a small majority in the House for the Republicans threatens to stymie the next two years of Biden’s presidency. Republican leaders have suggested they will use the debt ceiling as leverage to push through their own policy priorities, such as cuts to federal spending.

They have also indicated they will disband Democrat-led investigations, including the special committee probing Trump’s role in the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and launch their own inquests into everything from the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak to the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

Republicans notched a number of high-profile wins outside of Florida too, with Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, winning re-election, and JD Vance, the former venture capitalist and author backed by Trump, winning his Senate race in Ohio.

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2022-11-09 08:10:44Z
1647219929

Selasa, 08 November 2022

US midterms: There's a sense of dread about America's future - and we should all worry - Sky News

America's midterms don't normally grip us. Wake us up when you choose another president.

But these should, and for all the wrong reasons. Anyone who has covered a few of them knows they are very different this year.

The mood is dark in America. There is a sense of dread about the future. And if Americans are fearful, we should be too. The reverse Vegas rule applies here. What happens in America does not stay in America.

Those who thought the Donald Trump years were an aberration are in for a shock. Look at the candidates.

Almost 300 were endorsed by Mr Trump. Two-hundred of them have peddled his anti-democratic lie that he won the last election or its results were seriously flawed.

Some are Q Anon supporters to boot, subscribing to a movement that believes a cabal of paedophiles runs the US government.

Donald Trump is expected to declare his candidacy soon after these midterms. Looking at the polls, his second coming looks increasingly likely, with all that means for the world that we live in.

An atmosphere of fear

The atmosphere out on the campaign trail is one of fear, among voters who tell you this great country, an ally, and inspiration for all the free world is, to put it bluntly, on the brink.

It's not just the fear of the other side winning. It is more powerful, more visceral than that.

Democrats are terrified that US democracy is about to be subverted. People who claim the electoral system is rigged are running for key positions that will give them power over that system. And Democrats fear they'll use that power next time to twist votes in their favour.

A president who we now know seriously considered seizing voting machines and tried to bully officials to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election may be the frontrunner to win back the White House next time.

Think about that.

America tearing itself apart

If he fails to do so fairly next time he will now have allies in place as governors or state officials who could help him do so in other ways, should they win as seems likely in this week's votes.

But Republican voters are equally passionate in their fear the country is being taken in the wrong direction by elites that are unaware how much the ordinary American is hurting.

Voters of all stripes fear recession, inflation, crime and rising costs, and see a government not doing enough to help.

But the fear is more existential than that. America, the country and idea, voters will tell you, is under threat and tearing itself apart.

Americans have stopped doing what they have always done best, talking to themselves and listening. They have retreated to opposing camps, losing themselves in echo chambers on the left and right.

'It's on the brink of disaster'

One mother in a town in New York state summed it up like this: "It's divided and angry and hostile and corrupt, and it's on the brink of disaster, I think.

"I think it's incredibly discouraging. People believe what they want to believe and there's no changing minds, and I don't know how we'll ever turn back from it either."

She was no conspiracy theorist, just a middle class mother picking up pizza for her children.

Visit the US nowadays, and friends will tell you they believe violence or unrest is on its way.

Sober-minded reasonable people talk in all honesty of a reckoning, unrest and even civil war.

In better days, the midterm elections were a carnival of democracy.

From the highest governor down to the town dog catcher, the people get to choose who runs their lives in a system they've been told since childhood is the best form of government the world has ever known.

But there is no sense of celebration this time.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

The mood has soured. Entrenched in polarised corners, Americans are suspicious of each other's intentions and full of foreboding about what comes next. That should have all of us worried.

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2022-11-08 12:36:25Z
1637963646

US midterms: There's a sense of dread about America's future - and we should all worry - Sky News

America's midterms don't normally grip us. Wake us up when you choose another president.

But these should, and for all the wrong reasons. Anyone who has covered a few of them knows they are very different this year.

Those who thought the Donald Trump years were an aberration are in for a shock. Look at the candidates.

Almost 300 were endorsed by Mr Trump. Two-hundred of them have peddled his anti-democratic lie that he won the last election or its results were seriously flawed.

Some are Q Anon supporters to boot, subscribing to a movement that believes a cabal of paedophiles runs the US government.

Donald Trump is expected to declare his candidacy soon after these midterms. Looking at the polls, his second coming looks increasingly likely, with all that means for the world that we live in.

An atmosphere of fear

The atmosphere out on the campaign trail is one of fear, among voters who tell you this great country, an ally, and inspiration for all the free world is, to put it bluntly, on the brink.

It's not just the fear of the other side winning. It is more powerful, more visceral than that.

Think about that.

America tearing itself apart

If he fails to do so fairly next time he will now have allies in place as governors or state officials who could help him do so in other ways, should they win as seems likely in this week's votes.

But Republican voters are equally passionate in their fear the country is being taken in the wrong direction by elites that are unaware how much the ordinary American is hurting.

Voters of all stripes fear recession, inflation, crime and rising costs, and see a government not doing enough to help.

But the fear is more existential than that. America, the country and idea, voters will tell you, is under threat and tearing itself apart.

Americans have stopped doing what they have always done best, talking to themselves and listening. They have retreated to opposing camps, losing themselves in echo chambers on the left and right.

'It's on the brink of disaster'

One mother in a town in New York state summed it up like this: "It's divided and angry and hostile and corrupt, and it's on the brink of disaster, I think.

"I think it's incredibly discouraging. People believe what they want to believe and there's no changing minds, and I don't know how we'll ever turn back from it either."

She was no conspiracy theorist, just a middle class mother picking up pizza for her children.

Visit the US nowadays, and friends will tell you they believe violence or unrest is on its way.

Sober-minded reasonable people talk in all honesty of a reckoning, unrest and even civil war.

In better days, the midterm elections were a carnival of democracy.

But there is no sense of celebration this time.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

The mood has soured. Entrenched in polarised corners, Americans are suspicious of each other's intentions and full of foreboding about what comes next. That should have all of us worried.

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Minggu, 06 November 2022

Elon Musk bans Twitter accounts that impersonate others - as comedian falls victim to new rule - Sky News

Elon Musk says Twitter will permanently suspend any account that impersonates another - unless it clearly states it is a "parody".

The social media platform's new owner issued the warning after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names - not their account names - to "Elon Musk" in reaction to the billionaire's decision to offer verified accounts to all users for $8 month.

Comedian Kathy Griffin had her account suspended on Sunday for switching her display name to Musk's.

Actor Valerie Bertinelli did the same before switching it back to her real name. But first, she posted a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates.

Comedian Sarah Silverman also appeared to have her account locked as she shared a screenshot of her Twitter page with the display name "Sarah K Silverman".

Musk said Twitter previously issued a warning before suspension, but as the social media giant is rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning as well as "no exceptions."

"This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue," Musk said, adding any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.

On Saturday Twitter updated its app in Apple's App Store to begin charging $8 for sought-after blue check verification marks, in Musk's first major revision of the social media platform.

Tesla Inc boss Musk, who also will serve as chief executive of Twitter, last month said the social media platform will be forming a content moderation council with "widely diverse viewpoints".

"No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes," he added.

On the topic of banned accounts, Musk last week said they will not be allowed back onto Twitter until the social media platform has "a clear process for doing so."

Creating such a process would take at least a few more weeks, Musk had tweeted, giving more clarity about the potential return of Twitter's most famous banned user, former US President Donald Trump.

The new timeline implies Trump will not return in time for the midterm elections on 8 November.

Earlier on Sunday, the New York Times reported Twitter is delaying the rollout of verification check marks to subscribers
of its new service until after Tuesday's midterm elections.

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2022-11-07 05:34:26Z
1640141824

US midterms: Trump and Biden fire up voters as election looms - BBC

By Max Matza

BBC News, Washington

President Joe Biden and ex-President Donald Trump held duelling rallies as the election to reshape Congress entered its final campaign day.

Mr Biden and Mr Trump made their last-minute pleas to voters in New York and Florida respectively.

Momentum has shifted recently towards Republicans, who are trying to wrestle both chambers from Democratic control.

They are favourites to win control of the House of Representatives but the Senate is a toss-up, polling suggests.

Winning one chamber would severely hinder President Biden's legislative agenda.

With the campaign in its final day on Monday, his party is braced for losses even in parts of the country where Democrats usually do well.

He spoke at a rally in New York on Sunday to support Governor Kathy Hochul, who is fending off an unexpectedly stiff challenge from Trump-backed Republican candidate Lee Zeldin.

She has received last-minute help from some Democratic star names - former President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In his speech, Mr Biden called the election "an inflection point" that will determine the next 20 years. He told voters at Sarah Lawrence College that they are choosing between two "fundamentally different visions of America".

Meanwhile his predecessor in the White House, Mr Trump, was in Miami where he spoke for over an hour, hammering Democrats for leading the country towards "communism".

"Democrats want to turn America into communist Cuba or socialist Venezuela," Mr Trump told the audience members.

"To every Hispanic American in Florida and across the land, we welcome you with open open open arms to our [Republican] party," he continued.

Mr Trump also continued to hint that he may run for president again in 2024, telling voters to "stay tuned" for his rally on Monday in Ohio.

Polls suggest that Democrats are likely to lose their majority in the House of Representatives.

Control of the Senate will probably rely on the results of extremely tight races in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada.

Over 40 million votes have already been cast during the early-voting period so far, experts say, overtaking the total number of early votes in 2018.

Mail-in ballots normally take longer to tally than votes taken in person, leading to a high likelihood that several races will be too close to call on Tuesday night.

Several key battleground states, like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, ban election officials from beginning the count until election day.

What's happening on Monday?

Mr Biden will appear at a rally in Maryland, a state normally considered a Democratic stronghold
Mr Trump is holding an evening rally in Ohio for JD Vance, an author and former Trump critic
First Lady Jill Biden is headed to Virginia to support incumbent Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, considered to be a possible Trump White House rival in 2024, is in Miami

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2022-11-07 01:41:02Z
CBMiM2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jby51ay9uZXdzL3dvcmxkLXVzLWNhbmFkYS02MzUzNzY4NNIBN2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jby51ay9uZXdzL3dvcmxkLXVzLWNhbmFkYS02MzUzNzY4NC5hbXA

Russian-occupied Kherson loses power after alleged ‘sabotage’ - Al Jazeera English

The Russian-installed administration of Kherson blamed the outage on Ukraine, accusing it of attacking the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam.

The Russian-installed administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region has said that Kherson city lost water and power supplies after what it called an act of “sabotage”.

In a statement on Telegram, the Russian-installed administration of Kherson said a “terrorist attack” damaged three power lines in the region.

It said that the attack had been carried out by Ukraine, though it provided no evidence.

The outages are a “result of an attack organised by the Ukrainian side on the Berislav-Kakhovka highway that saw three concrete poles of high-voltage power lines damaged,” it said.

It is the first time that Kherson – which fell to Russian forces within days of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February – has seen such a power cut.

Kherson is one of four regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month.

Russian state-owned news agency TASS quoted Kherson’s Moscow-appointed governor Vladimir Saldo as saying that there were plans for the city’s power supply to be restored by the end of the day.

Energy specialists were working to “quickly” resolve the issue, the Russian-backed authorities said as they called on people to “remain calm”.

TASS separately cited emergency services in the region as saying that 10 settlements, including Kherson city, which had a pre-war population of 280,000, had been left without electricity.

Russian officials have in recent weeks repeatedly warned civilians to leave Kherson, amid what they say are preparations for a Ukrainian offensive against the city, the only regional capital that Russia has captured since invading Ukraine on February 24.

[embedded content]

News of the outage followed reports that the Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled region of Kherson was “damaged” by a Ukrainian strike.

“Today at 10:00 (08:00 GMT) there was a hit of six HIMARS rockets. Air defence units shot down five missiles, one hit a lock of the Kakhovka dam, which was damaged,” Russian news agencies quoted local emergency services as saying.

The RIA Novosti news agency quoted a local Moscow-backed official saying the damage was not “critical”.

Flooding threat

The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine was captured by Moscow’s forces at the start of their offensive. It supplies Russian-annexed Crimea with water.

Both warring sides have been trading accusations over the Russian-held dam for weeks, Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett said.

“Ukrainians have been saying that the Russians have mined it and intended to blow it, while Russia said that Ukrainian forces were planning to fire a missile at it,” Fawcett said, reporting from Kyiv.

But if the dam was to be breached, Fawcett said, it would be a major catastrophe for both sides, “so there are still a lot of doubts as to whether either one would really want to do it”.

The dam holds back 19 million cubic metres of water and it is located at a short distance from Kherson, Fawcett said.

Ukraine has been warning in recent weeks that Moscow’s forces intended to blow up the strategic facility to cause flooding.

Russian strikes over the past month have destroyed around a third of Ukraine’s power stations and the government has urged Ukrainians to conserve electricity as much as possible.

But until now, Ukraine had only rarely struck Russian-held civilian energy infrastructure in territory annexed by Moscow, preferring to target Russian army supply lines.

Saldo said the dam’s destruction would lead to flooding of the left bank of the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month that Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up.

Its destruction could cause flash flooding for hundreds of thousands of people, he warned.

He said cutting water supplies to the south could also impact the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

[embedded content]

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2022-11-06 19:39:26Z
1629876676

Sabtu, 05 November 2022

One dead and dozens hurt as tornadoes strike Texas and Oklahoma - Sky News

At least one person has been killed and dozens were injured after tornadoes tore through parts of Oklahoma and Texas, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

Search and rescue teams have been sent to the worst-hit areas with people trapped in ruined buildings.

Storms have also caused flash flooding in some parts.

Two towns to bear the brunt of the tornadoes were Powderly in Texas and Idabel in Oklahoma which both lie close to the border between the two states.

Idabel is located in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, in the southeastern corner of the state, where the authorities confirmed one fatality.

The town saw a church, medical centre and school torn apart.

'Total destruction'

Steven Carter, an emergency management coordinator for McCurtain County, said: "There was total destruction on the south and east sides of Idabel."

Emergency workers equipped with generators have been sent to the area to search for missing residents.

Governor Kevin Stitt tweeted: "Praying for Oklahomans impacted by today's tornadoes."

Keli Cain, of the state's emergency management office, said at least three other counties were also hit by storms, causing flooding.

The National Weather Service said tornadoes were also reported in Texas and Arkansas and a storm system was heading towards Louisiana.

In Texas, authorities in Lamar County said at least 50 homes were wrecked and 10 people were treated at one hospital, including two with critical injuries.

No deaths have currently been reported.

'Heartbreaking to see'

County official Judge Brandon Bell declared a disaster in the area, paving the way for federal assistance and funding.

He said at least two dozen people were injured across the county.

After touching down, a tornado travelled north through the communities of Hopewell, Caviness, Beaver Creek and Powderly, the county sheriff's office said.

Randi Johnson, chief of the Powderly volunteer fire department, said: "It's going to take a long time to get this cleaned up, but the community came together.

"It's really heartbreaking to see."

The town is about 45 miles west of Idabel and some 119 miles northeast of Dallas.

Meanwhile, at least five tornadoes have been confirmed along the Mississippi and Alabama coastline.

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2022-11-05 12:09:49Z
1641592985

Rabu, 09 November 2022

Selasa, 08 November 2022

More on Us Midterms 2022

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