First Thing: Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stock - The Guardian US

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Good morning.

While the equilibrium of powerfulness successful the US House of Representatives remains unresolved, Democrats are celebrating the projection that they person won power of the Senate, marking a important triumph for Joe Biden, arsenic Republicans backed by his statesmanlike predecessor, Donald Trump, underperformed successful cardinal battleground states.

While elder Democrats remained guarded yesterday astir the chances of keeping power of some chambers of Congress, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hailed the party’s show successful the midterms aft months of projections indicating dense losses.

“Who would person thought 2 months agone that this reddish question would crook into a small tiny trickle, if that astatine all,” Pelosi told CNN. “We’re inactive live [for power of the House] but again the races are close. We don’t commune for triumph … but you commune that God’s volition will beryllium done.”

As of Sunday greeting Republicans remained 7 seats shy of the 218 needed to triumph power of the House, with Democrats requiring 14, an denotation that a bulk connected either broadside volition beryllium slim.

  • Have the US midterms yet loosened Trump’s grip connected the Republican party? Some successful the enactment are ready to state it so. Referring to Governor Ron DeSantis’s triumph successful Florida, David Urban, a longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Post: “It is wide the halfway of gravity of the Republican enactment is successful the authorities of Florida, and I don’t mean Mar-a-Lago.”

  • What does the aboriginal of the Democrat enactment look like? From the archetypal openly lesbian governors successful the US and archetypal Black politician of Maryland, to the archetypal Generation Z subordinate of Congress, arsenic good arsenic battle-hardened young politicians successful captious plaything states specified arsenic Michigan and Pennsylvania, a caller slate of Democratic leaders is coming into view aft Tuesday’s elections.

Zelenskiy accuses Russia of Kherson warfare crimes

Ukrainian forces acceptable   up   outer  receivers to supply  transportation  for civilians astatine  Independence Square aft  the withdrawal of the Russian army
Ukrainian forces acceptable up outer receivers to supply transportation for civilians astatine Independence Square aft the withdrawal of the Russian army. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

After 2 nights of jubilation aft the liberation of their city, the radical of Kherson yesterday began to measure the grade of the harm wreaked by 8 agelong months of Russian occupation, with residents inactive without energy and water.

On Sunday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused Russian soldiers of warfare crimes and sidesplitting civilians successful Kherson. “Investigators person already documented much than 400 Russian warfare crimes. Bodies of dormant civilians and servicemen person been found. The Russian service near down the aforesaid savagery it did successful different regions of the state it entered,” helium said.

He besides said Russian forces had destroyed cardinal infrastructure earlier retreating, portion the politician of Kherson said the humanitarian concern was “severe” due to the fact that of a deficiency of medicine and bread.

Thousands of mines, tripwires and unexploded shells person been near by the troops.

  • Kherson fell quickly. Will Ukraine’s advancement eastbound of the Dnipro River beryllium arsenic straightforward? Ukraine’s occurrence successful Kherson – and marque nary mistake, forcing Russia retired with minimal civilian casualties is simply a large accomplishment – was a triumph achieved by smashing the Russian proviso chain. But captious besides was favourable geography – the isolated presumption of Kherson connected the westbound of the Dnipro. Russia has much advantages to the east, which volition marque it harder.

  • What other is happening successful Ukraine? Here’s what we cognize connected time 264 of the invasion.

Taiwan looms ample arsenic Joe Biden prepares to conscionable Xi Jinping successful Bali

The US president, Joe Biden, arrives successful  Bali for the G20.
The US president, Joe Biden, arrives successful Bali for the G20. Photograph: Made Nagi/EPA

Joe Biden volition marque wide that the US is not seeking a struggle with Beijing during his gathering with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, successful Bali, but volition property Washington’s committedness to maintaining bid and stableness successful the Taiwan strait, according to elder White House officials.

The acme is the leaders’ archetypal face-to-face gathering since Biden took bureau successful January 2021. It volition instrumentality spot connected the Indonesian land connected Monday and comes amid rising tensions implicit Taiwan, a self-governing ideology that China claims arsenic its territory and has vowed to “reunify”, by unit if necessary.

Biden volition laic retired US priorities connected China’s “provocative” subject actions adjacent Taiwan, 1 of the officials said, adding that the main nonsubjective of the acme was to “reduce misunderstanding and misperceptions and enactment successful spot steps that we judge volition found the rules of the road”.

Increased practice would not needfully pb to substantive advancement connected “thornier issues” specified arsenic Taiwan, the authoritative said. The extremity is to “find ways to communicate” connected those tougher areas, “because the lone happening worse than … having contentious conversations is not having conversations astatine all.”

In different quality …

Donald Trump
Former US president Donald Trump retained documents bearing classification markings astatine his spot successful Florida. Photograph: Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
  • Donald Trump retained documents bearing classification markings, on with communications from aft his presidency, according to tribunal filings describing the materials seized by the FBI arsenic portion of the ongoing transgression probe into whether helium mishandled nationalist information information.

  • Turkey’s interior curate has accused Kurdish militants successful bluish Syria of work for a bombing successful a engaged Istanbul buying thoroughfare that killed six people, and said that a fishy had been arrested, portion 21 others were antecedently detained.

  • Tributes person poured successful for pilots who were among the six killed erstwhile 2 historical subject planes collided successful midair during a amusement successful Dallas connected Saturday afternoon, with radical saying they were heartbroken that the aerialists died portion engaging successful what they loved.

  • Nasa is readying a rocket motorboat to the satellite adjacent week arsenic it aims to adjacent the 50-year-long spread successful moon-walking missions. Barring method issues and Florida’s weather, Artemis 1 volition motorboat aft midnight Wednesday connected a 15-day, 1.3m-mile journey. No humans volition beryllium onboard successful this trial mission.

  • In the lead-up to the midterm elections, the punditocracy of commentators and pollsters were astir united: a “red wave” of Republican gains was connected the cards. But 1 dissenting dependable stood out: that of leftist film-maker Michael Moore. He talks to the Guardian astir wherefore helium ne'er doubted his prediction.

Stat of the day: India faces deepening demographic disagreement arsenic it prepares to overtake China arsenic the world’s astir populous country

People locomotion  done  a marketplace  for past  infinitesimal  buying  up  of Diwali successful  Mumbai
India is poised to go the world’s astir populous country. Composite: Guardian Design/ AFP/Getty Images

India is presently location to much than 1.39 cardinal radical – 4 times that of the US and much than 20 times the UK – portion 1.41 cardinal unrecorded successful China. But with 86,000 babies calved successful India each day, and 49,400 successful China, India is connected people to instrumentality the pb successful 2023 and deed 1.65 cardinal radical by 2060. On 15 November the world’s colonisation volition scope a full of 8 cardinal people. Between present and 2050, implicit fractional of the projected summation successful the planetary colonisation volition hap successful conscionable 8 countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Republic of Tanzania – and India.

Don’t miss this: why we each request to beryllium a batch little hesitant astir being kind

Claudia Hammond photographed astatine  location  successful  southbound  London
Hesitant helper: Claudia Hammond, similar galore of us, feels held backmost by ‘a fearfulness an connection of assistance mightiness not beryllium welcome’. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian

In my book, The Keys to Kindness, I gully connected the world’s largest in-depth survey into kindness, the Kindness Test, which I worked connected with a squad astatine the University of Sussex, writes Claudia Hammond. More than 60,000 radical from 144 countries chose to instrumentality part. One of the findings that astir intrigued maine was that the main obstacle to america carrying retired much benignant acts is not that we don’t care, but that our actions mightiness beryllium misinterpreted. I’d categorise myself arsenic a hesitant helper. I privation to beryllium benignant if I tin and yet interest my connection of assistance mightiness not beryllium welcome. But portion researching the book, I recovered that being benignant enhances the temper of not conscionable the receiver – but the giver, too.

… Or this: the apprehension that shocked the firefighting satellite – and threatens a captious practice

Wildfires adjacent   Las Vegas, New MexicoA firefighter conducts a prescribed pain  to combat the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires, adjacent   Las Vegas, New Mexico, U.S. May 4, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
A firefighter sets a prescribed pain connected 4 May to combat the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires, adjacent Las Vegas, New Mexico. Photograph: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

Hours earlier Rick Snodgrass was arrested, he’d called the sheriff himself. The United States Forest Service pain brag had requested the assistance of section instrumentality enforcement successful Grant county, Oregon, reporting his unit was being harassed portion conducting a controlled burn. It was the 2nd pain that crews had conducted successful the country successful 2 weeks. But that lukewarm October afternoon, the attraction did not spell according to plan. The apprehension of a occurrence main implicit a pain gone incorrect – an unprecedented event, according to radical successful the wildland firefighting strategy – has sent shockwaves done the field and sparked fears that increasing nationalist pushback volition hamper this indispensable work.

Climate check: Ukraine uses Cop27 to item biology outgo of Russia’s war

Smoke rises from an lipid  refinery aft  an onslaught  extracurricular  the metropolis  of Lysychansk successful  eastbound   Ukraine successful  May.
Smoke rises from an lipid refinery aft an onslaught extracurricular the metropolis of Lysychansk successful eastbound Ukraine successful May. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Ukraine has utilized the Cop27 clime talks to marque the lawsuit that Russia’s penetration is causing an biology arsenic good arsenic humanitarian catastrophe, with fossil fuels a cardinal catalyst of the country’s destruction. Ukraine has dispatched 2 twelve officials to the acme successful Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to spell retired the links betwixt the warfare launched by Russia successful February, the soaring outgo of vigor owed to Russia’s presumption arsenic a cardinal state supplier, and the planet-heating emissions expelled by the offensive. Heavy shelling and the question of troops and tanks has polluted the air, h2o and land, said Svitlana Grynchuk, Ukraine’s adjunct situation minister.

Last Thing: amazing heavy oversea animals recovered adjacent Cocos Islands

A viperfish attacking a lanternfish
A viperfish attacking a lanternfish: scientists exploring the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean uncover a multitude of dazzling oversea creatures. Photograph: Minden Pictures/Alamy

A shipload of scientists has conscionable returned from exploring the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean, wherever they mapped elephantine underwater mountains and encountered a multitude of deep-sea animals decked retired successful twinkling lights, with velvety achromatic tegument and mouths afloat of needle-sharp, glassy fangs. “The existent stars of the amusement are the fish,” says the expedition’s main scientist, Dr Tim O’Hara. “There are unsighted eels and tripod fish, hatchetfish and dragonfish, with each of these bioluminescent organs connected them and lures coming retired of their heads. They’re conscionable extraordinary.”

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