North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will aim to assert America’s global leadership during his upcoming trip to Southeast Asia that will be shadowed by a verdict on his presidency after Tuesday’s elections.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — 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.”

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Democratic Party’s most powerful voices warned Saturday that abortion, Social Security and democracy itself are at risk as they labored to overcome fierce political headwinds — and an ill-timed misstep from President Joe Biden — over the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections.

“Sulking and moping is not an option,” former President Barack Obama told several hundred voters on a blustery day in Pittsburgh. “On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years.”

LATROBE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is predicting America’s destruction if his fellow Republicans don’t deliver a massive electoral wave on Tuesday. Democrats, led by President Joe Biden and two other former presidents, are warning that abortion rights, Social Security and even democracy itself are at stake.

SAN FRANCISCO, November 5. /TASS/: An improvement of relations between Russia and the United States is not visible in the mid-term perspective, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Saturday.

"We do not see a possible improvement of the Russian-American relations at least in the mid-term perspective under the current diplomatic conditions," he told journalists.

The Russian ambassador said Moscow is seeking to restore a full-fledged mutual dialogue, which was in fact scrapped upon Washington’s initiative.

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - A train crossed from North Korea into Russia on Friday, two days after the United States said it had information indicating Pyongyang is covertly supplying Russia with artillery shells for its war in Ukraine, a Washington think tank said, citing commercial satellite imagery.

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - North Carolina officials have registered 14 instances of potential intimidation or interference with voters and election workers in the run-up to Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections, according to records provided to Reuters on Friday.

The alleged incidents come as grassroots poll observers, many recruited by prominent Republican Party figures and activists, fan out in the lead-up to Tuesday's vote, a trend that has worried experts and officials.

NEW YORK, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. dollar fell sharply in late trading on Friday as market participants digested the October U.S. employment figures.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, decreased 1.81 percent to 110.8770.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 0.9951 U.S. dollars from 0.9755 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound increased to 1.1368 U.S. dollars from 1.1165 dollars in the previous session.

POWDERLY, Texas (AP) — Residents in northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma began assessing weather damage Saturday, working to recover and thankful to have survived after tornadoes tore through the region, killing at least one, injuring others and leaving homes and buildings in ruins.

Shelbie Villalpando, 27, of Powderly, Texas, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to congregate first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.

(AP) --- He may be good with rockets and electric cars, but don’t turn to Elon Musk for public health predictions.

“Probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April,” the world’s richest man tweeted about COVID-19 in March 2020, just as the pandemic was ramping up.