It's Election Day in the United States.
The pivotal midterm elections will determine who controls the House and Senate, as well
as many statehouses.
A record 43 million people cast their ballots early.
The Pennsylvania Senate race between Democrat John Fetterman and the Trump-backed Mehmet
Oz is one of today's most closely watched contests.
On Monday, Fetterman filed a federal lawsuit in an effort to have mail-in ballots be counted
even if they are undated or improperly dated.
Meanwhile, Republicans have sued to disqualify thousands of mail-in ballots in key swing
states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
On Monday, President Biden warned the future of democracy is at risk.
"Today we face an inflection point, one of those moments that comes around every three
or four generations.
We know in our bones that our democracy is at risk, and we know that this is your moment
to defend it, preserve or protect it, choose it."
In news from the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, several leaders of the African
Union said today that their countries can't afford the cost of adapting to the impacts
of the climate crisis.
In their remarks at COP27, they urged richer nations to fulfill their promise of paying
climate reparations for disproportionately fueling the climate catastrophe.
This comes as a new report finds the United States is falling far short of contributing
its fair share to U.N.-backed climate finance goals.
The analysis by the U.K.-based climate news source Carbon Brief found the U.S. should
be paying nearly $40 billion annually toward the U.N.'s $100 billion climate finance target.
Instead, the U.S. has paid less than $8 billion.
A major report published Monday warns global warming has pushed the planet's stores of
ice to a widespread collapse that was "unthinkable just a decade ago," with some level of Arctic
sea ice certain to vanish in summer months before the year 2050, even as countries drastically
reduce their fossil fuel emissions.
Climate scientists say the only way to avoid further catastrophe is to take urgent steps
now.
If fossil fuel pollution is allowed to continue to grow, the Arctic could lose most of its
sea ice by 2030.
In more news from Egypt, fear over the deteriorating health of British Egyptian human rights activist
and political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah is mounting as his family says they don't
know if he's still alive.
On Monday, his mother, Laila Soueif, waited for 10 hours outside the gates of the desert
prison where her son is being held, hoping to receive his weekly letter that never arrived.
His family believes prison authorities may be force-feeding Abd El-Fattah.
They're now demanding proof of life as Abd El-Fattah intensified his six-month hunger
strike by giving up water altogether over 50 hours ago — on Sunday, the opening day
of the U.N. climate summit, COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh.
This is his sister, Sanaa Seif, speaking from Sharm el-Sheikh Monday.
"I'm really scared.
It's now been over 24 hours where he stopped water.
And I read online, like, what happens to the body, and it's — for a normal body, he can
endure maximum a week.
Alaa's body is not normal; he's very frail.
So I don't know if we're talking about hours or days.
I'm really, really scared."
In the Netherlands, Dutch border guards arrested more than 100 climate activists on Saturday
after over 500 demonstrators spread out across Amsterdam's main airport and blocked private
jets from taking off.
The protesters are demanding a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and the widespread use
of highly polluting private aircraft by wealthy elites.
They also want authorities to cancel a planned expansion of Amsterdam's airport.
In Ukraine, Russian-appointed officials say they've completed a mass evacuation of Kherson
ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian assault to recapture the city.
Ukraine has called the evacuation a forced deportation and a war crime, and accused Russian
forces of looting abandoned homes and quartering soldiers inside.
Meanwhile, Russia has blamed Ukraine for destroying power lines to Kherson, leading to widespread
blackouts and the loss of tap water beginning on Sunday.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday sought to dampen growing anger inside Russia over
recent battlefield losses in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
On Monday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said hundreds of Russian troops — many of
them recent conscripts — were being killed there each day.
"The Donetsk region remains the epicenter of the greatest madness of the occupiers.
Hundreds die daily.
The ground before the Ukraine positions is littered with bodies of the occupiers."
The U.S. Air Force has carried out joint air drills with South Korea that included a flyover
by a pair of supersonic, nuclear-capable B-1B bombers.
The weekend military exercises came as the U.S. and South Korea agreed to extend war
games involving hundreds of warplanes and thousands of troops.
The drills came as North Korea test-fired more than 30 missiles over the past week,
including an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday that triggered evacuation alerts
in Japan.
In Italy, at least 89 asylum seekers on board a German humanitarian aid rescue ship were
allowed to disembark in the coastal city of Reggio Calabria early Tuesday, after days
of being stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.
Another Norwegian-run rescue ship with some 250 asylum seekers is still stuck in the Sicilian
coast as Italian officials have for days blocked its passengers from disembarking.
Three people jumped off the boat in desperation as they attempted to reach safety, while others
screamed for help.
"Help us!
Help us!
Help us!"
Back in the United States, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has rejected another challenge
to the Biden administration's student debt relief plan.
The Education Department has approved 16 million borrowers for up to $20,000 of relief, but
it's unclear when they will actually see their loans canceled or reduced, thanks to a Republican-led
lawsuit which has put Biden's plan on hold while an appeals court weighs its merits.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily suspended a four-month prison sentence and
$6,500 fine for Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, pending an appeal.
Bannon was sentenced for criminal contempt of Congress last month after he refused to
comply with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 committee.
The judge who suspended Bannon's sentence, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, was nominated
to the federal bench in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump.
Twitter's new billionaire owner is using the social media platform to call on U.S. voters
to elect Republicans to Congress.
Musk's endorsement to his 115 million Twitter followers came a day ahead of the U.S. midterm
elections — the same day the League of Women Voters of California said Twitter unexpectedly
suspended the account of its executive director, Stephanie Doute.
The League's San Francisco chapter tweeted, "No warning.
No explanation.
No way to appeal.
What is next?"
Doute's account came back online overnight.
She said Twitter informed her it had mistakenly taken her offline along with a batch of spam
accounts.
In an email to volunteers, Doute wrote, "We should all be concerned.
Not for me, but for how this impedes access to democracy and silences a source of trustworthy
election information."