United News of Bangladesh

Margins between Democrats and Republicans narrowed considerably Wednesday in key Arizona races as election officials chipped away at counting more than half a million mail ballots returned on Election Day and shortly before. Democrats maintained small but dwindling leads in key races for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state, while Republicans were optimistic the late-counted ballots would break heavily in their favor, as they did in 2020. It could take several days before it’s clear who won some of the closer contests. With Republicans still in the hunt, it remained unclear whether the stronger-than-expected showing for Democrats would extend to Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold that became a battleground during Donald Trump’s presidency. The GOP nominated a slate of candidates who earned Trump’s endorsement after falsely claiming his loss to President Joe Biden was tainted. Among them former television news anchor Kari Lake was about half a point behind Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the race for governor, a contest that centered heavily on Lake’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. The Republican candidate for attorney general also trailed narrowly. Democrats had more comfortable 5-point margins in the races for U.S. Senate and secretary of state, but with so many ballots outstanding, the races were too early to call. In the race for attorney general, Republican Abraham Hamadeh took the lead from Democrat Kris Mayes. Also read: GOP moves closer to winning the House; the Senate's fate may depend on a runoff Officials in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, said about 17,000 ballots were affected by a printing mishap that prevented vote-counters from reading some ballots, a problem that slowed voting in some locations and infuriated Republicans who were counting on strong Election Day turnout. County officials said all ballots will be counted but gave no timeline for doing so. They did not offer any new information about what caused the problem but promised a thorough review. “There is no perfect election. Yesterday was not a perfect election,” said Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the county board of supervisors. “We will learn from it and do better.” Lake repeated her pledge to immediately call lawmakers into special session upon being sworn in to make massive changes to Arizona election laws. She wants to significantly reduce early and mail voting, options chosen by at least 8 in 10 Arizona voters, and to count all ballots by hand, which election administrators say would be extremely time consuming. Also read: GOP, Democrats notch victories in competitive midterm races Ballots can have dozens of races on them. Maricopa County has more than 50 judges on the ballot, on top of state and local races and 10 ballot measures. “We’re going to go back to small precincts where it’s easier to detect problems and easier to fix them and it’ll be easier to hand count votes as well,” Lake told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Wednesday night. “These are some of the things I’d like to see happen. I’ll work with the Legislature.” A political urban-rural divide was evident among Arizona voters. Democrats Katie Hobbs and Sen. Mark Kelly each drew support from nearly two-thirds of urban voters, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,200 voters in Arizona. Suburban voters split about evenly between the two Democratic candidates and their GOP rivals, Kari Lake and Blake Masters. Small town and rural voters were more likely to favor Lake and Masters. In the Senate race, suburban men and women were divided in their candidate preferences. Suburban men clearly favored Masters, suburban women Kelly. In the race for governor, suburban men overwhelmingly backed Lake, while suburban women slightly favored Hobbs. Meanwhile, Republicans who control the three-member board of supervisors in southeastern Arizona’s GOP-heavy Cochise County voted Wednesday to appeal a judge’s decision that blocked them from hand-counting all the ballots, which are also being tabulated by machines. The efforts to hand-count ballots in the county and elsewhere across the nation are driven by unfounded concerns among some Republicans that problems with vote-counting machines or voter fraud led to Trump’s 2020 defeat. A judge said the plan ran afoul of state election law that limits hand counts to a small sample of ballots, a process meant to confirm the machine count was accurate.

Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday. The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic. Zuckerberg said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic lockdowns ended. “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter. Also read: Competition with TikTok: Facebook parent Meta reports revenue down Of particular concern to investors, Meta poured over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology. Spooked investors have sent company shares tumbling more than 71% since the beginning of the year and the stock now trades at levels last seen in 2015. An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta's woes as well. This summer, the company posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall. Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces. Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day," though did not provide details about the losses. Snap, the owner of Snapchat, also recently laid off 1,000 workers and online real estate broker Redfin said Wednesday it is cutting 862 employees. Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple's privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them. Although Meta has been hurt by broader economic trends that have curtailed spending on digital ads, the company’s challenges have been compounded by the rise of TikTok at the same time Zuckerberg is pouring billions into a metaverse that so far seems like a distant mirage, said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder. “They are making a big bet on something that may not happen for another five to 10 years,” Gownder said. “What they need to be doing is trying to solve some of their fundamental business problems. This (mass layoff) is only a stopgap.” Zuckerberg said Meta is cutting costs across its business, but he added that this alone won't big costs in line with its revenue growth. In addition to the layoffs, a hiring freeze at the company will be extended through the first quarter of 2023, Zuckerberg said. The company has also slashed its real estate footprint and he said that with so many employees working outside of the office, the company will transition to desk sharing for those that remain. More cost cuts at Meta will be rolled out in coming months, Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go. Access to most company systems will be cut off for people losing their jobs, he said, due to the sensitive nature of that information. “We’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell,” Zuckerberg said. Former employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year with the company, Zuckerberg said. Health insurance for those employees and their families will continue for six months. Even with Wednesday's reductions, Meta still has more than 75,000 workers around the globe. In fact, the company had 71,970 workers at the end of 2021, and less than 59,000 at the end of 2020. Brad Gerstner, the CEO of Meta shareholder Altimeter Capital, wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg last month urging him to tighten Meta's belt. “Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency,” Gerstner wrote. “This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.” Gerstner urged Zuckerberg to streamline costs and focus the company in an open letter posted on Medium. His suggestions include cutting 20% of the company’s workforce — which still would only set Meta back to 2021 levels of staffing, backing Gerstner’s point that the company has become bigger than it needs to be. Meta's Wednesday layoffs, while historic for the company, breaks no tech industry records. Hewlett Packard let go about 2/3 of its workforce between 2010 and 2021, going from 324,600 employees to 111,000 as of Oct. 31, 2021 for HP Inc. and HP Enterprises, which had been one company back in 2010. And its peak in 1986, IBM had about 400,000 employees worldwide. At the end of last year, IBM had about 282,000 full-time workers. It's not yet clear if Meta — and the social media economy — is on a similar trajectory. A decade ago, Facebook successfully pivoted its business from running a website on desktop computers to an app — then multiple apps — on smartphones. While it is possible that it will be able to make the switch again to a new communications platform in the metaverse, the world — and the company — have changed tremendously. “Meta has three huge problems to overcome: It is no longer an innovative groundbreaker; its grip on market domination is dwindling; and the promise of the metaverse, the centerpiece of Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of his company, has been diminished by a combination of consumer apathy, business skepticism, and the realities of a sinking worldwide economy,” Gerstner wrote. Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. added $5, or 5.2% to close at $101.47 on Wednesday.

Russia’s military said Wednesday it will withdraw from the only Ukrainian regional capital it captured, but Kyiv was skeptical and an analyst warned this could be a ruse to lure the country’s forces into a deadly trap. A forced pullout from the city of Kherson would mark one of Russia’s worst setbacks in the 8-month-old war. Ukrainian authorities cautioned against considering the announced plan to retreat from Kherson, a gateway to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, and nearby areas as a done deal. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the Russians were feigning a pullout from Kherson to lure the Ukrainian army into an entrenched battle in the strategic industrial port city. If confirmed, the withdrawal from Kherson — in a region of the same name that Moscow illegally annexed in September — would pile on another setback to Russia’s early failed attempt to capture the capital, Kyiv, and the chaotic and hasty retreat from the administrative region around Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which itself never fell to the Russians. Russian forces captured Kherson early in the invasion, which began Feb. 24. Kyiv’s forces have zeroed in on the city, whose prewar population was 280,000, and cut off supply lines in recent weeks as part of a larger counteroffensive in eastern and southern Ukraine that has pushed Russian troops out of wide swaths of territory. Recapturing Kherson could allow Ukraine to win back lost territory in the Zaporizhzhia region and other southern areas, including Crimea, which Russia illegally seized in 2014. A Russian retreat is almost certain to raise domestic pressure on the Kremlin to escalate the conflict. Also read: As winter approaches, Ukraine struggles with power outage Speaking in a stern tone and with a steely face on Russian TV, Moscow’s top military commander in Ukraine pointed to a blurred map as he reported to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday that it was impossible to supply the city of Kherson and that its defense would be “futile.” Gen. Sergei Surovikin said that 115,000 people had been relocated because their “lives are constantly in danger” and proposed a military retreat “in the near future” to the opposite bank of the Dnieper River from where Kherson lies. Shoigu agreed with Surovikin’s assessment and ordered him to “start with the withdrawal of troops and take all measures to ensure the safe transfer of personnel, weapons and equipment across the Dnieper River.” But Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told The Associated Press: “So far, we do not see any signs that Russia is completely leaving the city, which means that these statements may be disinformation.” Yaroslav Yanushevych, Kherson’s Ukrainian-appointed governor, called on residents “not to give in to euphoria” just yet. Another Ukrainian-appointed Kherson regional official, Serhii Khlan, told reporters that Russian forces had blown up five bridges to slow Kyiv’s forces. Military analyst Oleg Zhdanov told the AP Russia’s announced retreat “could very well be an ambush and a Russian trap to force the Ukrainians to go on the offensive, force them to penetrate the Russian defenses, and in response to strike with a powerful blow from the flanks.” Also read: Russia halts grain deal over Ukrainian drone attack After a day of his aides’ observations about the announced retreat and a meeting he held with his senior military staff in Kyiv, Zelenskyy didn’t directly comment, saying in his nightly video address, “Our emotions must be restrained — always during war. I will definitely not feed the enemy all the details of our operations. ,.. When we have our result, everyone will see it.” In addition to the largely successful counteroffensive, Ukrainian resistance fighters behind the front line have worked inside Kherson, with sabotage and assassinations of Moscow-appointed officials. With no indication of foul play but against that backdrop, reports surfaced Wednesday that the No. 2 official of the Moscow-installed Kherson regional government was killed in a car crash. The death of Kirill Stremousov — a prominent regional official who posted public updates about the war almost daily — was confirmed by his boss, Vladimir Saldo. The Russian Defense Ministry said months ago that Saldo himself had been poisoned and hospitalized. Speaking at a White House news conference, U.S. President Joe Biden said American officials had been expecting the Russian announcement. “It’s evidence of the fact that they have some real problems — the Russian military,” he said. Asked if a pullout might signal to Kyiv that it now had leverage to begin peace talks with Moscow, Biden said it would “at a minimum lead to time for everyone to recalibrate their positions over the winter period.” The Russian military appeared to have been preparing for an orderly pullout from Kherson — or an ambush — for months, contrasting with the haphazard retreat from the Kharkiv region when the invading force left behind a large amount of weapons and ammunition. In October, Surovikin appeared to set the stage for a withdrawal from Kherson, acknowledging the situation was “quite difficult.” Evacuations of civilians followed, as did symbolic moves, such as relocation of the remains of Grigory Potemkin, the Russian general who founded Kherson in the 18th century. In recent months, Ukraine used U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers to hit a key bridge on the Dnieper in Kherson and a large dam upstream that is also used as a crossing point. The strikes forced Russia to rely on pontoons and ferries that Ukraine also targeted. The attacks disrupted supply links to Kherson and made Russian forces on the Dnieper’s west bank vulnerable to encirclement. The shortages were exacerbated after an Oct. 8 truck bomb blew up part of the strategic Kerch Bridge linking Russia’s mainland to Crimea, which has served as a major supply hub for Russian forces. Russia wanted to hold onto Kherson and other positions west of the Dnieper so it could press an offensive to other areas and sever Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. That would damage Ukraine’s economy and enable Moscow to build a land corridor to the separatist Transnistria region of Moldova, home to a major Russian military base. The loss of Kherson could have painful consequences for Russian President Vladimir Putin: more criticism of Russia’s military command from hawks, a decline in troop morale, and stronger opposition to his troop mobilization. Abroad, China and India could see the loss as a sign of the Kremlin’s weakness just when it needs their support to soften the blow of crippling Western sanctions. Other Kremlin setbacks have included a chaotic and mistake-ridden troop mobilization, poor training and a shortage of weapons, clothing and other supplies for troops, increase in international sanctions, and intensified Western advanced weapons supplies to Kyiv. Fresh signs of Ukraine’s advance toward Kherson emerged Wednesday. Zhdanov, the analyst, said Ukrainians captured the city of Snihurivka, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kherson, opening a direct road to a Dnieper River crossing and Kherson’s suburbs. The Ukrainian Pravda news outlet cited Ukrainian armed forces intelligence as claiming that two other settlements in the Kherson region, Pravdyne and Kalynivske, had been captured, None of the reports could be independently confirmed. Nationwide, at least nine civilians were killed and 24 wounded in 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office said. It accused Russia of using explosive drones, rockets, heavy artillery and aircraft to attack eight regions in the southeast. The president’s office said widespread Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system continued. Two cities not far from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — Europe’s largest — were shelled overnight.

With the world on “a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,'' the United Nations chief on Monday told dozens of leaders to ”cooperate or perish," singling out the two biggest polluting countries, China and the United States. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wasn't alone in preaching with tones of fire and brimstone to try to shake up the world's sense of urgency at this year’s annual U.N. climate conference. “Choose life over death,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore urged. “It is not time for moral cowardice.” Some of the strongest pleas for action came from leaders of poor nations that caused little of the pollution but often get a larger share of the weather-related damage. Several called on developed nations for reparations, which in climate negotiations is called “loss and damage." “Africa should not pay for crimes they have not committed,” Central African Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera said, adding that rich nations were to blame for the climate problem. Also read: COP27: World leaders to discuss Earth’s biggest challenge, but observers don’t expect much “Climate change is directly threatening our people’s lives, health and future,” Kenyan President William K. Ruto said of the African continent, which he said is looking at $50 billion a year in climate change damage by 2050. Ruto said Kenya is choosing to not use many of its “dirty energy” resources even though it could help the poor nation financially, and has instead opted for cleaner fuels. Loss and damage “is our daily experience and the living nightmare of millions of Kenyans and hundreds of millions of Africans,” Ruto said. Seychelles President Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan said, “Like other islands, our contribution in the destruction of the planet is minimal. Yet we suffer the most.” He called on wealthier countries to assist in repairing the damage. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a massive overhaul of international development loans and a 10% tax on fossil fuel companies, which she said made “$200 billion in profits in the last three months.” “I don’t need to repeat the horror and the devastation wrecked upon this Earth over the course of the last 12 months since we met in Glasgow,” Mottley said. “Whether the apocalyptic floods in Pakistan or the heat waves from Europe to China or indeed in the last few days in my own region, the devastation caused in Belize by Tropical Storm Lisa or the torrential floods a few days ago in St. Lucia.” Also read: Amnesty warns COP27 could be dominated by jailed Egyptian-British activist's hunger strike Ahead of this year’s conference, known as COP27, leaders and experts have been ringing alarm bells that time is running out to avert catastrophic rises in temperature. But the warnings may not have the impact of past meetings because of multiple other challenges pulling leaders’ attention — from midterm elections in the U.S. to the Russia-Ukraine war. “In the fight for life on Earth, no one is a bystander,” said Jordan's King Abdullah. “Every contribution counts. COP27 has brought us together to link forces and stand our ground. We are at the beginning of a long, challenging and urgent transformation.” More than 100 world leaders will speak over the next days at the gathering in Egypt, most from developing countries demanding greater accountability from the richest, most polluting nations. Much of their focus will be on telling their stories of devastation by climate disasters, including a speech Tuesday by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan, where summer floods caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people. “Climate change will never stop without our intervention," the summit’s host, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, said. El-Sissi, who also called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, was gentle compared to a fiery U.N. chief Guterres, who said the world “is on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out coal by rich nations by 2030 and elsewhere by 2040. He called on the United States and China — the two biggest economies — to work together on climate, something they used to do until the last few years. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres said. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact — or a Collective Suicide Pact.” But bad timing and world events hang over the gathering. Most of the leaders are meeting Monday and Tuesday, just as the United States has a potentially policy-shifting midterm election. Then the leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will have their powerful-only club confab in Bali in Indonesia days later. Leaders of China and India — both among the biggest emitters — appear to be skipping the climate talks, although underlings are here negotiating. U.S. President Joe Biden is coming days later than most other leaders on his way to Bali. “There are big climate summits and little climate summits and this was never expected to be a big one,” said Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, a former U.S. negotiator. United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was initially going to skip the negotiations, but public pressure and predecessor Boris Johnson’s plans to come changed his mind. King Charles III, a longtime environment advocate, won’t attend because of his new role. And Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine created energy chaos that reverberates in the world of climate negotiations, won’t be here. Many European leaders who spoke Monday singled out Russia as the cause of the current energy and food crises, saying the war in Ukraine showed shifting to renewable energy was a matter of national security. “We always want more” leaders, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell told a Sunday news conference. “But I believe there is sufficient (leadership) right now for us to have a very productive outcome.” In addition to the leaders' speeches, the negotiations include “innovative’’ roundtable discussions that “we are confident, will generate some very powerful insights,” Stiell said. Still, “the historical polluters who caused climate change are not showing up,’’ said Mohammed Adow of Power Shift Africa. “Africa is the least responsible, the most vulnerable to the issue of climate change and it is a continent that is stepping up and providing leadership.” “The South is actually stepping up,” Adow told The Associated Press. “The North that historically caused the problem is failing.’’ For the first time, developing nations succeeded in getting onto the summit agenda the issue of “loss and damage” — demands that emitting countries pay for damage caused by climate-induced disasters. Nigeria’s Environment Minister Mohammed Abdullahi called for wealthy nations to show “positive and affirmative” commitments to help countries hardest hit by climate change. “Our priority is to be aggressive when it comes to climate funding to mitigate the challenges of loss and damage,” he said. Leaders of poorer nations, joined by French President Emmanuel Macron, talked about the issue as one of justice and fairness. “Our part of the world has to choose between life and death,’’ Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan said.  

More than 100 world leaders are about to discuss a worsening problem that scientists’ call Earth’s biggest challenge, yet observers don’t expect much from it, maybe not even a lot of attention. Nearly 50 heads of states or governments on Monday will take the stage in the first day of “high-level” international climate talks in Egypt with more to come in the following days. Much of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters, culminating on Tuesday with a speech by Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif, whose country’s summer flood caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people. But it may not quite have the drama or headlines that past such meetings have had. Why? Because of bad timing and who isn’t showing up, is coming late or are dithering about it. Most of the leaders are meeting Monday and Tuesday, just as the United States has a potentially policy-shifting midterm election. Then the leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will have their powerful-only club confab in Bali in Indonesia days later. Add to that, “there are big climate summits and little climate summits and this was never expected to be a big one,” said Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, a former U.S. negotiator. Read: Amnesty warns COP27 could be dominated by jailed Egyptian-British activist's hunger strike Leaders of two of the three biggest carbon polluting nations — China and India — appear to be skipping the climate talks, although underlings are here negotiating. The leader of the other top polluting country — U.S. President Joe Biden — is coming days later than most of the other presidents and prime ministers on his way to Bali. United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was initially going to avoid the negotiations, but public pressure and predecessor Boris Johnson’s plans to come changed his mind. New King Charles III, a longtime environment advocate, won’t attend because of his new role. And Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine created energy chaos that reverberates in the world of climate negotiations, won’t be here. “We always want more” leaders, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said in a Sunday news conference. “But I believe there is sufficient (leadership) right now for us to have a very productive outcome.” In addition to speeches given by the leaders, the negotiations include “innovative” roundtable discussions that “we are confident, will generate some very powerful insights,” Stiell said. The leaders showing up in droves are from the host continent Africa.“The historical polluters who caused climate change are not showing up,” said Mohammed Adow of Power Shift Africa. “Africa is the least responsible, the most vulnerable to the issue of climate change and it is a continent that is stepping up and providing leadership.” “The South is actually stepping up,” Adow told The Associated Press. “The North that historically caused the problem is failing.” Read: COP27 climate talks begin as world grapples with multiple crises Monday will be heavily dominated by leaders of nations victimized by climate change — not those that have created the problem of heat-trapping gases warming up the atmosphere( ?) from the burning of fossil fuel. It will be mostly African nations and small island nations and other vulnerable nations that will be telling their stories. And they are dramatic ones, droughts in Africa and floods in Pakistan, in places that could least afford it. For the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations, the summit “should focus its attention on the severe climate impacts we’re already seeing,” said World Resources International’s David Waskow. “We can’t discount an entire continent that has over a billion people living here and has some of the most severe impacts,” Waskow said. “It’s pretty clear that Africa will be at risk in a very severe way.’’ Host leader, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will kick off the leaders’ speeches. Guterres keeps ratcheting up his rhetoric about how little time is left with each public talk. Leaders come “to share the progress they’ve made at home and to accelerate action,” Purvis said. In this case, with the passage of the first major climate legislation and $375 billion in spending, Biden has a lot to share, he said. While it’s impressive that so many leaders are coming to the summit, “my expectations for ambitious climate targets in these two days are very low,” said Climate Analytics’ scientist Niklas Hohne. That’s because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine which caused energy and food crises that took away from climate action, he said. Read: Health must be at the centre in COP27 climate change negotiations: WHO

The first monarch butterflies have appeared in the mountaintop forests of central Mexico where they spend the winter, Mexico’s Environment Department said Saturday. The first butterflies have been seen exploring the mountaintop reserves in th states of Mexico and Michoacan, apparently trying to decide where to settle this year. The monarchs have shown up a few days late this year. Normally they arrive for the Day of the Dead observances on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Mountainside communities long associated the orange-and-black butterflies with the returning souls of the dead. The department said the butterflies were seen around their three largest traditional wintering grounds — Sierra Chincua, El Rosario and Cerro Pelón in Michoacan state. The main group of butterflies is expected to arrive in the coming weeks, depending on weather conditions, the department said in a statement. Read: Mexico questions police over disappeared butterfly activist It is too early to say how big this year’s annual migration from the United States and Canada will be. Those counts are usually made in January, when the butterflies have settled into clumps on the boughs of fir and pine trees. The annual butterfly count doesn’t calculate the individual number of butterflies, but rather the number of acres they cover when they clump together. Last year, 35% more monarch butterflies arrived compared to the previous season. The rise may reflect the butterflies’ ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought by varying the date when they leave Mexico. Each year, generally in March, the monarchs migrate back to the United States and Canada. Drought, severe weather and loss of habitat north of the border — especially of the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs — as well as pesticide and herbicide use and climate change all pose threats to the species’ migration. Illegal logging and loss of tree cover due to disease, drought and storms plague the reserves in Mexico. Read: Butterfly on a bomb range: Endangered Species Act at work This year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct. The group estimates the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method. The monarchs’ migration is the longest of any insect species known to science. After wintering in Mexico, the butterflies fly north, breeding multiple generations along the way for thousands of miles. The offspring that reach southern Canada begin the trip back to Mexico at the end of summer.

Envoys from around the globe gathered Sunday in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on tackling climate change amid a multitude of competing crises, including the war in Ukraine, high inflation, food shortages and an energy crunch. Negotiators spent a frantic two days ahead of the meeting discussing whether to formally consider the issue of loss and damage, or reparations, to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change. The issue, which has weighed on the talks for years, was agreed just hours before the meeting officially opened. In an opening speech, the head of the U.N.’s panel of climate scientist highlighted the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of global warming. “This is a once in a generation opportunity to save our planet and our livelihoods,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The outgoing chair of the talks, British official Alok Sharma, said countries had made considerable progress at their last meeting in Glasgow, including on setting more ambitious targets for cutting emissions, finalizing the rules of the 2015 Paris agreement and pledging to begin phasing out the use of coal — the most heavily polluting fossil fuel. “We kept 1.5 degrees (2.7 Fahrenheit) alive,” he said, referring to the most ambitious goal of the Paris pact, to keep temperature increase since pre-industrial times under that threshold. Read: Health must be at the centre in COP27 climate change negotiations: WHO Yet now those efforts were being “buffeted by global headwinds,” he warned. “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crisis, energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures and spiraling debt,” said Sharma. “These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities and the scarring effects of the pandemic.” However even the most optimistic scenarios assuming countries do everything they have pledged put the world on course for 1.7 C of warming (3.1 F), he warned. “As challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe,” said Sharma. “We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.” “How many more wake up calls does the world to world leaders actually need,” he said, citing recent devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, and historic droughts in Europe, the United States and China. His successor, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, said his office would “spare no effort” to achieve the goals of the Paris accord. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi wrote on Twitter that Egypt, as host country, was seeking to move from the “pledges phase to the implantation phase with concrete measures on the ground.” The U.N.’s top climate official also appealed to countries both to engage constructively in the negotiations and take the necessary action back home. “Here in Sharm el-Sheikh, we have a duty to speed up our international efforts to turn words into action,” he said, adding that “every corner of human activity must align with our Paris commitment and pursue our efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.” More than 40,000 participants have been registered for this year’s talks, reflecting the sense of urgency as major weather events around the world impact many people and cost billions of dollars in repairs. Egypt said over 120 world leaders will attend, many of them speaking at a high-level event on Nov. 7-8, while U.S. President Joe Biden was expected to arrive later in the week. But many top figures including China’s President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India were not planning to come, casting doubt on whether the talks in Egypt could result in any major deals to cut emissions without two of the world’s biggest polluters. Read: Is it too late to prevent climate change? Rights groups criticized Egypt on Sunday for restricting protests and stepping up surveillance during the summit. New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing Egyptian media, said authorities had also arrested dozens of people for calling for protests. “It is becoming clear that Egypt’s government has no intention of easing its abusive security measures and allowing for free speech and assembly,” Adam Coogle, the group’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. Human Rights Watch said it had had joined about 1,400 groups from around the world urging Egypt to lift the restrictions on civil society groups. Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent imprisoned pro-democracy activist from Egypt, escalated his hunger strike Sunday in the first day of the COP27, according to his family. Abdel-Fattah’s aunt, award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif, said he went into a “full hunger strike,” and stopped drinking water at 10 a.m. local time. Concerned that he could die without water, she was calling for authorities to release him in response to local and international calls.

Twitter has announced a subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check now given only to verified accounts as new owner Elon Musk works to overhaul the platform’s verification system just ahead of U.S. midterm elections. In an update to Apple iOS devices available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K., Twitter said users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can receive the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.” But Twitter employee Esther Crawford tweeted Saturday that the “new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time.” Verified accounts did not appear to be losing their checks so far. It was not immediately clear when the subscription would go live. Crawford told The Associated Press in a Twitter message that it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.” Twitter did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Anyone being able to get the blue check could lead to confusion and the rise of disinformation ahead of Tuesday’s elections, but Musk tweeted Saturday in response to a question about the risk of impostors impersonating verified profiles — such as politicians and election officials — that “Twitter will suspend the account attempting impersonation and keep the money!” “So if scammers want to do this a million times, that’s just a whole bunch of free money,” he said. But many fear widespread layoffs that began Friday could gut the guardrails of content moderation and verification on the social platform that public agencies, election boards, police departments and news outlets use to keep people reliably informed. The change will end Twitter’s current verification system, which was launched in 2009 to prevent impersonations of high-profile accounts such as celebrities and politicians. Twitter now has about 423,000 verified accounts, many of them rank-and-file journalists from around the globe that the company verified regardless of how many followers they had. Experts have raised grave concerns about upending the platform’s verification system that, while not perfect, has helped Twitter’s 238 million daily users determine whether accounts they get information from are authentic. Current verified accounts include celebrities, athletes and influencers, along with government agencies and politicians worldwide, journalists and news outlets, activists, businesses and brands, and Musk himself. “He knows the blue check has value, and he’s trying to exploit it quickly,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a social media expert and associate professor of communications at Syracuse University. “He needs to earn the trust of the people before he can sell them anything. Why would you buy a car from a salesman that you know has essentially proved to be chaotic?” The update Twitter made to the iOS version of its app does not mention verification as part of the new blue check system. So far, the update is not available on Android devices. Musk, who had earlier said he wants to “verify all humans” on Twitter, has floated that public figures would be identified in ways other than the blue check. Currently, for instance, government officials are identified with text under names stating they are posting from an official government account. President Joe Biden’s @POTUS account, for example, says in gray letters it belongs to a “United States government official.” Seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, who has 7.8 million Twitter followers, told the AP, “I could actually just delete my Twitter account, I never use it. I find it really healthy to delete social media from my phone for periods of time.” “But it’s also a really powerful tool to connect with people, so I appreciate that and I try to use it as that and not as something that’s veering me off course of the journey that I’m on in life,” he said. The announcement comes a day after Twitter began laying off workers to cut costs and as more companies are pausing advertising on the platform as a cautious corporate world waits to see how the platform will operate under its new owner. About half of the company’s staff of 7,500 was let go, tweeted Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity. He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group the least affected by the job cuts and that “efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.” Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey took blame for the job losses. “I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly,” he tweeted Saturday. “I apologize for that.” Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance. He also said Twitter has already seen “a massive drop in revenue” as advertisers face pressure from activists to get off the platform, which heavily relies on advertising to make money. United Airlines on Saturday became the latest major brand to pause advertising on Twitter, joining companies including General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi. Musk tried to reassure advertisers last week, saying Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” because of what he calls his commitment to free speech. But concerns remain about whether a lighter touch on content moderation at Twitter will result in users sending out more offensive tweets. That could hurt companies’ brands if their advertisements appear next to them. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Saturday urged Musk to “ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter.” In an open letter, Türk said reports that the company’s whole human rights team and much of the ethical AI team were laid off was not “an encouraging start.” “Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” Türk said. “Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution.” Meanwhile, Twitter cannot simply cut costs to grow profits, and Musk needs to find ways to raise more revenue, said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush. But that may be easier said than done with the new subscription program for blue checks. “Users have gotten this for free,” Ives said. “There may be massive pushback.” He expects 20% to 25% of Twitter’s verified users to sign up initially. The stakes are high for Musk and Twitter to get this right early and for signups to work smoothly, he added. “You don’t have a second chance to make a first impression,” Ives said. “It’s been a train-wreck first week for Musk owning the Twitter platform. Now you’ve cut 50% (of the workforce). There are questions about just the stability of the platform, and advertisers are watching this with a keen eye.”

Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead Saturday at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carter’s family confirmed the singer’s death. His fiance, Melanie Martin, asked for privacy as the family grieves. “We are still in the process of accepting this unfortunate reality,” Martin said in a statement Saturday. “Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.” Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brother’s boy band, and recorded several hits including “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” and “I Want Candy.” Deputies responded around 11 a.m. following reports of a medical emergency at the home in Lancaster, a desert city about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles, said Deputy Alejandra Parra with the LA County Sheriff’s Department. Parra said the deputies found a deceased person at the residence, but she could not immediately confirm it was Carter. Authorities later said a house sitter found a man in the bathtub in the home and resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. Carter opened for the Backstreet Boys tour in 1997 — the same year his gold-selling debut self-titled album released. He reached triple-platinum status with his sophomore album, 2000′s “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” which produced hit singles including the title song and “I Want Candy.” His videos received regular airplay on Disney and Nickelodeon. The singer earned acting credits through his appearance on television shows including “Lizzie McGuire.” He starred alongside his brother, Nick, and their siblings B.J., Leslie and Angel Carter on the E! unscripted series “House of Carters” in 2006. Carter made his Broadway debut in 2001 as JoJo in the musical “Seussical.” In 2009, he appeared on the ABC competition show “Dancing with the Stars,” finishing in fifth place with partner Karina Smirnoff. He was featured on the Food Network cooking show “Rachel vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off” in 2012. In 2017, Carter opened up about his substance abuse on an episode of “The Doctors.” He was in rehab that same year after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and marijuana charges. He checked himself in for treatment on a few occasions in an effort to regain custody of his son Prince. Carter’s fifth and final studio album, “LOVE,” was released in 2018.

Some of the world's most iconic glaciers are set to vanish by 2050 due to carbon emissions warming the planet, said a new study by UNESCO. Fifty UNESCO World Heritage sites are home to glaciers, representing about 10 percent of the world's glacier areas, including some of the world's best-known glaciers. They include the highest (next to Mount Everest), the longest (in Alaska), and the last remaining glaciers in Africa. Glaciers in a third of sites are under threat. However, UNESCO said, the rest can still be saved if global temperatures do not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times. The UNESCO study shows that these glaciers have been retreating at an accelerated rate since 2000 due to CO2 emissions. World Heritage glaciers lose on average some 58 billion tons of ice every year – equivalent to the total annual volume of water used in France and Spain together – and are responsible for nearly five percent of observed global sea-level rise. The glaciers under threat are in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania. "Only a rapid reduction in our CO2 emissions levels can save glaciers and the exceptional biodiversity that depends on them. COP27 will have a crucial role to help find solutions to this issue," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said. Also, UNESCO is advocating for the creation of a new international fund for glacier monitoring and preservation – such a fund would support comprehensive research, promote exchange networks between all stakeholders and implement early warning and disaster risk reduction measures. Read more: Melting ice imperils 98% of Emperor penguin colonies by 2100 Half of humanity depends directly or indirectly on glaciers as their water source for domestic use, agriculture, and power. Glaciers are also pillars of biodiversity, feeding many ecosystems. "When glaciers melt rapidly, millions of people face water scarcity and the increased risk of natural disasters such as flooding, and millions more may be displaced by the resulting rise in sea levels," said International Union for Conservation of Nature Director General Bruno Oberle.