North America

MIAMI (AP) — Many people evacuated from vulnerable locations in the northwestern Bahamas as Tropical Storm Nicole approached Wednesday and residents of Florida braced for the storm, which could strengthen to a hurricane.

Nicole was expected to be the first storm to make landfall in the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a devastating Category 5 storm that hit the archipelago in 2019, before hitting storm-weary Florida on Wednesday night and moving into Georgia on Thursday.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas inmate whose lawyers say has a history of mental illness faces execution on Wednesday for killing his mother and burying her body in her backyard nearly 20 years ago.

Tracy Beatty, 61, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was sentenced to death for strangling his mother, Carolyn Click, after they argued in November 2003 in her East Texas home.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Six-term Republican Rep. Mark Amodei has defeated Elizabeth Mercedes Krause, as expected, in Nevada’s rural northern district where no Democrat has ever won.

The 2nd Congressional District was considered the only safe seat for either party among the four in the western battleground of Nevada, where three incumbent Democrats faced stiff challenges. All three of those races were too early to call early Wednesday.

(AP) --- Twitter’s new owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, sold 19.5 million shares of the electric car company from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, according to Tuesday’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

(AP) --- 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 as well said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic ended.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks, Republicans predicted a “red wave” would carry them to power in Congress, as voters repudiated majority Democrats for failing to tame skyrocketing inflation and address worries about rising crime.

The reality appeared far different early Wednesday.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of President Joe Biden and his party, the results were far more mixed as returns from Tuesday’s midterms trickled in.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Control of Congress hung in the balance early Wednesday as Democrats showed surprising strength, defeating Republicans in a series of competitive races and defying expectations that high inflation and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings would drag the party down.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 08 (APP): The Paris-based NGO devoted to press freedom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Tuesday called for a United Nations investigation into the brutal murder in Kenya of the well-known Pakistani journalist, Arshad Sharif.

“The information currently emerging from the Kenyan wing of the investigation is contradictory, and all independent attempts to get information are met with a wall of silence,” said Sadibou Marong, the director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau, according to the organization’s press release distributed worldwide.

Nov 8 (Reuters) - Days after Twitter Inc fired half its staff and new owner Elon Musk tweeted a recommendation to vote for Republican candidates, election experts are anxiously bracing for a surge in online misinformation as Americans head to the polls on Tuesday.

Researchers who study election misinformation say threats, offensive language and false rumors of election fraud have been circulating widely ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov 7 (Reuters) - U.S. chip maker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) is offering a new advanced chip in China that meets recent export control rules aimed at keeping cutting-edge technology out of China's hands, the company confirmed on Monday.

Nvidia responded to Reuters' reporting that Chinese computer sellers are advertising products with the new chip.