US falls billions short of climate mitigation funding ‘fair share’ | First Thing

Rich countries not upholding finance promises to developing states. Plus, Republicans expected to take Congress

Good morning.

Billions of dollars of promised to developing countries by the US, UK, Canada and Australia to aid carbon emission reduction plans and help make communities more resilient to more extreme weather have not yet been delivered.

Only Canada responded to requests for comment. A government spokesperson said it remained committed and would double its climate finance in order to overdeliver, despite appearing to so far have covered only a third.

“Hey, don’t ask us.Billionaires should not be expected to make up for climate finance gaps caused by failures to uphold promises to less developed states, the head of the Bezos Earth Fund has said.

Democrats are on the defensive. Even in places they thought were safe, like New York and Washington, while Biden’s low ratings continue to burden his party’s most vulnerable candidates.

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Karl Rove on the midterms: ‘Trump looms over this. No ifs or buts’

The veteran political strategist on why he believes his Republican party will benefit from dissatisfaction with the status quo

On the eve of a crucial midterms election that Joe Biden has warned “will preserve democracy or put us at risk”, veteran top Republican strategist Karl Rove says his party will benefit from dissatisfaction with the status quo, despite the specter of a Trump 2024 run and the end of federal abortion rights.

Rove, widely as a villain by the left for his orchestration of George W Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000, and for his senior role in Bush’s two terms as president, says American voters are being propelled by fears over inflation, the economy, crime in some areas, and feelings about the overall direction the country.

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Biden fights to stop midterms defeat as Republicans poised for sweeping gains

Momentum appears to be with Republicans capitalising on economic frustration as experts say party peaking at right time

Joe Biden is fighting a rearguard action to stave off defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections as Republicans look poised to make sweeping gains in the US Congress, setting up two years of political trench warfare.

The president, along with former president Barack Obama, has been criss-crossing America in a last-ditch bid to persuade voters that a Democratic victory is critical not only to Biden’s legislative agenda but the preservation of American democracy.

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Delaware woman wins two six-figure lottery prizes in several days

Woman, 70, won $100,000 on one scratch-off and when celebrating her win with more tickets, another $300,000

Whatever are the odds of winning two six-figure lottery prizes within just a few days of each other, a woman in Delaware recently beat them.

The 70-year-old woman at the center of a viral story coming out of the Delaware state lottery benefited from a stroke of good fortune when in the middle of October she went to a gasoline station and bought two scratch-off tickets. One of the Instant Game tickets was a $100,000 winner, according to a news release from state lottery officials.

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Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reports

Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.

A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.

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Iowa teen who killed alleged rapist escapes custody

Pieper Lewis could face up to two decades behind bars for violating probation she was ordered to serve at a correctional facility

An Iowa sex-trafficking victim who at age 15 killed her alleged rapist escaped custody on Friday, violating the probation she was ordered to serve at a correctional facility after pleading guilty to manslaughter, according to reports.

Pieper Lewis, who is now 18, could face up to two decades behind bars after this alleged probation violation. Authorities have issued a warrant for her arrest, the Des Moines Register newspaper reported.

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Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loom

Democrats frame election as referendum on US democracy while Republicans say they will better address economic woes

US political leaders from both sides of the aisle on Sunday made their closing arguments to voters two days before the hotly contested midterm elections, with several top Democrats framing the election as a referendum on American democracy.

President Joe Biden accused Republicans of reveling in political violence, saying hundreds of the party’s candidates for state, federal and local office were “election deniers, who say that I did not win the election, even though hundreds of attempts to challenge have all failed, even in Republican courts”.

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Elon Musk tries to lure YouTube stars on to Twitter

Platform’s new owner tells video-makers he’s planning ‘creator monetization for all forms of content’

The anarchic behaviour of YouTubers draws huge online audiences and has turned stars such as MrBeast and Logan Paul into the best-paid entertainers of the internet age. Now Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, wants a piece of this lucrative action and will attempt to lure video creators on to the social media platform.

In a series of messages, Musk engaged with video-makers, saying he was planning “creator monetization for all forms of content”, and that his company could “beat” the 55% cut of advertising revenue that YouTube gives its top entertainers.

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Kenyans sweep NYC Marathon but Do Nascimento collapses in record heat

  • Evans Chebet and Sharon Lokedi take titles for Kenya
  • Temperatures surpass previous record set in 1993

Evans Chebet of Kenya won the New York City Marathon men’s race and Sharon Lokedi of Kenya won the women’s race on Sunday, both of them making a splash in their debuts.

Daniel Do Nascimento, who had been leading the entire men’s race, collapsed around the 21-mile mark. Chebet finished in 2hr 8min 41sec, which was 13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Shura Kitata of Ethiopia.

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US far-right group sparks legal firestorm over drive to monitor drop-box voting

Melody Jennings of Clean Elections USA teamed up with True the Vote for project that echos Trump’s false claims about 2020

A far-right group run by a Christian pastor has sparked a legal firestorm by spearheading a drive to aggressively monitor drop-box voting for fraud in Arizona and other states, in an echo of Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election results were rigged.

Melody Jennings, who runs Clean Elections USA, has teamed up with the conservative group True the Vote, which has a track record for making debunked charges of voting fraud. Together they are promoting a project to hunt for alleged drop-box fraud, which Jennings boasted in multiple interviews on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room and the MG Show, a conspiratorial QAnon program.

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US Powerball jackpot jumps to record-breaking $1.9bn after no one wins

The prize keeps getting bigger because no one can overcome the long odds – 1 in 292.2m – to snag it

A record Powerball jackpot grew to an even larger $1.9bn (£1.67bn) after no one won the lottery drawing on Saturday night.

The numbers for the drawing were: white balls 28, 45, 53, 56, 69 and red Powerball 20. The next chance for someone to get lucky will be Monday night.

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‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump

Part Trump rally, part religious service, and much conspiracy theory thrown in – on the eve of the midterms, Ed Pilkington visits the ReAwaken America tour

“There is a man by the name of Donald,” the voice on the recording says. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.”

Three thousand people are packed into an overflowing auditorium, many with arms raised and eyes closed in prayer. The recording to which they are listening is from April 2013 and of Kim Clement, a late South African preacher, as he prophesies the first coming of Donald Trump.

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Trump speeds down runway of presidential bid as he stumps for midterm election picks

Ex-president strikes familiar notes at Pennsylvania rally as he swipes at potential rival ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ and effectively kicks off another run for White House

A Boeing 757 plane halted on the runway with “Trump” emblazoned on the side in giant gold letters. Loudspeakers boomed Elvis Presley’s Dixie, Village People’s YMCA and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA. Donald Trump descended stairs to rapturous cheers and whistles from thousands of supporters.

Officially, the former US president was rallying at a regional airport to support Republicans candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Unofficially, he was already accelerating down the runway of a 2024 campaign for the White House.

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White Milwaukee man charged after allegedly attacking disabled Black man

Video shows Robert Walczykowski wrapping hand around neck of 24-year-old and accusing him of stealing neighbor’s bike

A white Milwaukee man has pleaded not guilty to a criminal charge filed against him after video captured him with his hand around the neck of a Black man with special needs in a case many are calling an example of racial profiling.

Robert Walczykowski, 62, recently pleaded not guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor charge after video went viral of him wrapping his hand around the neck of 24-year-old Trevon Burks, who is Black and has a disability.

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Former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey issues apology amid mass layoffs

As anger builds, Dorsey says ‘I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation – I grew the company too quickly’

Former Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey has gone on the platform recently acquired by billionaire Elon Musk to apologize for the state of the site, which has laid off thousands of workers.

On Saturday Dorsey published a series of tweets in response to the layoffs across Twitter’s workforce, which began on Friday. As many as half of the company’s 7,500 staffers could be axed since Musk acquired the company for $44bn last week.

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One dead, dozens injured after tornadoes rip through Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma

‘Total destruction’ and dozens of people still unaccounted for in Texas town while Arkansas and Oklahoma also hit by tornadoes

At least two people have died and dozens more are injured after tornadoes ravaged parts of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Several twisters caused property damage and physical injury across the various states on Friday. Tornado warnings had still been in effect as of late Friday in parts of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed reporting.

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New Orleans priest accused of child rape now under scrutiny for financial crimes

Audit details potential irregularities in which nearly $400,000 of church congregants’ funds were allegedly misused

A Catholic priest who led one of New Orleans’ best-known inner-city churches until being accused of sexually molesting a child has been reported to federal authorities for possible financial crimes after an audit found he spent nearly $400,000 of his congregants’ money in questionable ways.

John Asare-Dankwah ran the St Peter Claver church in New Orleans’ historic Treme neighborhood from 2014 until early 2021, when a lawsuit alleging that he raped a boy on an out-of-state overnight trip years earlier prompted church officials to indefinitely suspend him from his role.

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‘I’m selling my blood’: millions in US can’t make ends meet with two jobs

More Americans have been working two or more jobs over the past few decades, census data shows

Millions of Americans are currently working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet, as global inflation and corporations jacking up prices have sent prices of food, gas, housing, health insurance and other necessities soaring in the past year.

Cashe Lewis, 31, of Denver, Colorado works two jobs and is currently trying to find a third job to cover the recent $200 monthly rent increase to her apartment. She works days as a barista at Starbucks, but claims it’s been difficult to get enough hours even with taking extra shifts whenever she can due to scheduling cuts as part of the crackdown on union organizing by management.

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Ohio’s partisan supreme court election could decide abortion’s future in state

The midterms include key elections to the state’s highest court as the judicial system becomes increasingly politicized

In Ohio, a highly partisan fight over three state supreme court seats could determine the political direction of the court on a slew of important issues – particularly abortion.

With the US supreme court increasingly handing issues such as voting rights, abortion, gun rights and gerrymandering back to the states, state supreme court races are becoming more important than ever.

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We need serious public policy, not more printed money – the US economy is in tatters

Decades of bailouts have convinced some that the Fed will always come to the rescue – but this only papers over the fundamental flaws of the US economy

With the Federal Reserve leading the world’s central banks in a tightening cycle of interest rate rises, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2006, commentators across the political spectrum are noting the fondness of the Fed chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, for his legendary predecessor, Paul Volcker. On the left, the comparison is fearful; on the center and on the right, it’s one of admiration. But circumstances don’t really support the comparison.

On taking office in October 1979, Volcker declared “the standard of living of the average American has to decline” as a consequence of the war against the chronic inflation of the 1970s. He quickly set to work making that happen by driving interest rates up towards 20% and creating the deepest US recession since the 1930s.

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