USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has notched an envious record on jobs, with 10.3 million gained during his tenure. But voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections are far more focused on inflation hovering near 40-year highs.

That’s left the president trying to convince the public that the job gains mean better days are ahead, even as fears of a recession build.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court looks more like America than it ever has. The lawyers who argue at the nation’s highest court? Not so much.

The current two-week session of arguments features 25 men and just two women, an imbalance so stark that the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer made a point of it in her defense of race-conscious college admissions Monday.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued to the court that extreme racial or gender disparities between certain groups “can cause people to wonder whether the path to leadership is open.”

(AP) --- Twitter began widespread layoffs Friday as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the company, raising grave concerns about chaos enveloping the platform as a source of reliable information just days ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

The speed and size of the cuts also opened Musk and Twitter to lawsuits. At least one was filed Thursday in San Francisco alleging that Twitter intends to lay off more workers and has violated federal law by not providing the required notice.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes took the witness stand Friday in his seditious conspiracy trial, telling jurors he is a patriotic American as he tries to counter allegations that his far-right extremist group planned an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power.

Rhodes mostly appeared relaxed, but at times seemed to choke up, as he began his testimony after prosecutors spent weeks laying out evidence they say proves Rhodes was behind a violent plot to keep Democrat Joe Biden out of the White House and Republican Donald Trump in.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s inaugural committee chair, Tom Barrack, was acquitted of all counts Friday at a federal trial in which he was accused of using his personal access to the former president to secretly promote the interests of the United Arab Emirates.

The jury in Brooklyn deliberated three days before finding Barrack not guilty of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, obstruction of justice and making false statements. Barrack had vehemently denied the charges.

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers kept hiring vigorously in October, adding 261,000 positions, a sign that as Election Day nears, the economy remains a picture of solid job growth and painful inflation.

Friday’s report from the government showed that hiring was brisk across industries last month, though the overall gain declined from 315,000 in September. The unemployment rate rose from a five-decade low of 3.5% to a still-healthy 3.7%.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — As complaints about elections, many of them unfounded, pile up around the country, investigators tasked with dealing with them find themselves on the front line of defending the integrity of America’s system for choosing local, state and national leaders.

In blue states like Oregon and red states like Idaho, elections officials say investigating the complaints is critical for maintaining voter confidence. Many are dealing with a sharp increase of complaints in the runup to the 2022 midterm election after unfounded claims of rampant voter fraud in 2020.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 03 (APP): Reaffirming its commitment to the Global Compact on Refugees, which calls for greater support for refugees and the countries that welcome them, Pakistan told a UN panel Wednesday about its “unparalleled” hospitality in hosting Afghan refugees for four decades while adhering to the highest standards of protection, which continued during the pandemic.

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The United States is not in a recession, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said on Thursday, adding that economic data showed the nation's economy was solid.

"We are not in a recession," U.S. President Joe Biden's top aide told MSNBC in an interview following the release of weekly U.S. jobless data earlier on Thursday. "Unemployment claims remain at a historical low... The economy is growing. It is strong. It is creating jobs."

HOUSTON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- As many as 24 more unmarked graves have been unearthed Wednesday in the continuous investigation of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in south central U.S. state Oklahoma, according to the city authorities.

At an excavation site in the Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, researchers uncovered 17 adult-sized graves last week, another four including two child-sized burials on Tuesday and three additional child-size graves on Wednesday, reported local newspaper the Tulsa World.