North America

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Tight races for governor unfolded in Virginia and New Jersey late Tuesday with the Democratic candidates narrowly trailing their Republican rivals in states that President Joe Biden easily captured a year ago.

Near midnight, the elections were still too early to call. As the vote count progressed, both races looked to be tight.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Climate change caused overwhelmingly by human activity is the primary source of the unprecedented forest fires regularly ravaging the western United States, according to a study.

  Fires destroyed an average of 13,500 square kilometers per year in the American west between 2001 and 2018 — twice as much as between 1984-2000.

  “It’s happened so much faster than we previously anticipated,” Rong Fu, who led the study published by the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), told the Los Angeles Times.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Voters in Minneapolis were deciding Tuesday whether to replace the city’s police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after George Floyd’s death under the knee of a white police officer launched a movement to defund or abolish police across the country.

ATLANTA (AP) — Voters headed to the polls across the U.S. on Tuesday in the first wave of elections testing new Republican restrictions on access to ballots.

For election officials, it’s a chance to counter a year’s worth of misinformation about voting security and restore faith in democracy for those who still have doubts about last year’s presidential election.

“It is a great dress rehearsal for 2022,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.

02 Nov 2021; MEMO: At least 200 members of Congress have signed a letter opposing the reopening of the US Consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, Israel's i24 News reported yesterday.

New York Representative Lee Zeldin led the letter, which was signed by all of the House Republican leadership.

The letter said that reopening the consulate goes against the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 "by promoting division of Jerusalem."

01 Nov 2021; MEMO: A group of US military officers is urging that the Pakistani man sentenced to prison should now be freed after he detailed the torture he faced from the CIA.

Last week, Majid Khan became the first detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to publicly outline the kind of torture he received at one of the CIA's so-called "black sites", during the war on terror and the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is launching a wide-ranging plan to reduce methane emissions, targeting a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming and packs a stronger short-term punch than even carbon dioxide.

The plan was being announced Tuesday as President Joe Biden wraps up a two-day appearance at a United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden pledged during the summit to work with the European Union and other nations to reduce overall methane emissions worldwide by 30% by 2030.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Voters in New Mexico’s largest city and the state capital of Santa Fe were deciding Tuesday whether to reelect progressive mayors or to back more conservative challengers within the Democratic Party.

Tuesday’s local elections are a preamble to statewide and congressional contests in 2022, when Democrats hope to prolong their hold on all statewide offices, including governor and majorities in the Legislature.

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in an appeal of a court ruling that found new laws banning schools from requiring masks and a series of other measures were unconstitutional.

Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich wants the court to overturn that ruling and allow provisions in state budget legislation that were blocked be to take effect. The high court will hear 40 minutes of arguments at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kobe Bryant’s widow won’t have to undergo psychiatric testing for her lawsuit over graphic photos of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed the basketball star, her 13-year-old daughter and others, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Los Angeles County sought to compel psychiatric evaluations for Vanessa Bryant and others to determine if they truly suffered emotional distress over photos of the crash scene and bodies that her lawsuit said were taken and shared by county sheriff’s deputies and firefighters.