Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority

Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority
With 25 races yet to be called on Thursday, US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Democratic Party still had a chance to be in control of the chamber. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Updated 08 November 2024
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Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority

Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority
  • Seeing their options narrow, Democrats focused on flipping a handful of seats in Arizona, California and possibly Oregon to close the gap
  • Trump is consolidating power in Washington, returning to the White House a much more dominant force than in his first term

WASHINGTON: Republican leaders projected confidence Thursday that they will keep control of the US House as more races were decided in their favor, while Democrats insisted they still see a path toward the majority and sought assurances every vote will be counted.
The GOP picked up two more hard-fought seats in Pennsylvania, which became a stark battlefield of Democratic losses up and down the ticket. Democrats notched another win in New York, defeating a third Republican incumbent in that state.
Both parties in the House huddled privately on conference calls to assess the political landscape as Congress prepared to return next week to a changed Washington, where a sweep of MAGA-infused GOP power is within reach for President-elect Donald Trump.
“The latest data indicates that we will also hold — and likely grow — our Republican majority in the House,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a letter to colleagues, seeking their support to keep the gavel.
But Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said “it has yet to be decided” which party will control the House as several key races remained uncalled.
Seeing their options narrow, Democrats focused on flipping a handful of seats in Arizona, California and possibly Oregon to close the gap.
“We must count every vote,” Jeffries said.
A final tally in the House will almost certainly have to wait until next week, at the soonest, when Congress is back in session and prepares to elect its new leaders, including nominees for House speaker and the senator who will replace outgoing GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The election results were beyond what Republicans had even hoped for, including a majority in the Senate, where two races were still undecided — in Arizona between Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake and in Nevada between Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen and Republican Sam Brown.
The Associated Press called more races Thursday. In Pennsylvania, Republican Ryan Mackenzie defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild in the Allentown-area district, and Republican Robert Bresnahan dislodged Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in the Northeast part of the state.
Pennsylvania’s Senate race between Sen. Bob Casey and wealthy businessman Dave McCormick was decided in McCormick’s favor, giving Republicans a 53rd seat in the chamber.
Democrats made up some ground in New York, where Laura Gillen beat incumbent GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, the third flip for Democrats in Jeffries’ home state.
Attention increasingly focused on the West, where Democrats were eyeing what’s left of their path to the majority.
Democrats would need to sweep the most contested races, including two in Arizona and several in California, to win power. But tallies are expected to drag on as California, in particular, counts mail-in ballots that are arriving in the week after the election.
Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told lawmakers on a private call that he’s confident the GOP will hold the House majority, according to a Republican who is familiar with the call but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
Trump is consolidating power in Washington, returning to the White House a much more dominant force than in his first term, when Republicans split over their support for him and some were openly skeptical of if not opposed to his rise.
This time, Johnson and Senate GOP leaders have drawn closer to Trump, relying on his power for their own as they drive a common Republican agenda more aligned with his “Make America Great Again” priorities.
Johnson, in his letter to colleagues, used a football metaphor to say he’s “ready to take the field with all of you” to play “the biggest offense of our lives.”
While Johnson is in line to remain House speaker in the new Congress, if Republicans keep control, the question of who will replace McConnell, who led his party in flipping Senate control, is its own intense contest.
The choices facing Republican senators for a new leader are between the “Johns” — No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn — and a longshot, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who is favored by hard-right Senate conservatives who want Trump to weigh in on the race.
Cornyn and Thune, who both campaigned for Trump, are building support among senators in what is expected to be a close race on private ballots.
Thune has worked to mend a rocky relationship with Trump, and the two spoke as recently as Wednesday, according to another Republican familiar with the private conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it.
The South Dakota senator had been critical of Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election for stoking claims of fraudulent voting ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Thune and Trump have been in touch throughout the year, the person said.
Thune has suggested it might be best if Trump stayed out of the leadership race.
“It’s his prerogative to weigh in on that,” Thune said on Fox News. “Frankly, I think if he lets it play out, we’ll get the right person. I’ve had conversations with him and have told him that we want to get his team in place so that he can hit the ground running and get to work on an agenda to make sure that he and our team succeeds.”
The Republicans are eyeing quick action aligned with Trump’s day-one priorities, which revolve around cutting taxes, deporting immigrants who are in the country without certain legal status, and reducing federal regulations and operations.
But after the chaos of the past two years of GOP control of the House, it’s unclear how much Republicans will be able to accomplish, especially if they have another razor-thin majority with few seats to spare for dissent, in the face of resistance from Democrats.
 


India set to launch Earth-mapping satellite with NASA in March 2025

India set to launch Earth-mapping satellite with NASA in March 2025
Updated 22 sec ago
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India set to launch Earth-mapping satellite with NASA in March 2025

India set to launch Earth-mapping satellite with NASA in March 2025
  • $1.5 billion NISAR mission will track the Earth’s changing surface
  • Satellite to scan nearly all of the planet’s land and ice surfaces

NEW DELHI: A new US-Indian satellite is set to be launched in March next year, India’s science minister said in parliament, updating lawmakers on the first Earth-mapping joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization.

A collaboration agreement between ISRO and NASA was signed in 2014, with a targeted launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR, project in 2024.

The satellite’s reflector, however, which is one of the main NASA contributions to the joint mission, had to undergo corrections, Science Minister Jitendra Singh told Parliament members on Wednesday.

“The Radar Antenna Reflector was delivered to ISRO by NASA in October 2024, which is reintegrated with the satellite and currently undergoing necessary tests,” Singh said in a written reply to a parliamentary query.

“Also, due to the eclipse season, the conditions are not conducive for deployment of NISAR’s boom and the Radar Antenna Reflector. In view of the aforementioned factors, NISAR is now likely to be launched during March 2025.”

The reflector is a key component of NISAR, and at 12m in diameter it will be the largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.

It will focus transmitted and received microwave signals to and from the Earth’s surface, allowing the satellite to scan nearly all of the planet’s land and ice surfaces every week.

The data will provide a picture of how Earth’s surface moves horizontally and vertically.

“The information will be crucial to better understanding everything from the mechanics of Earth’s crust to which parts of the world are prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions,” the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which leads the US component of the project, said in last month’s mission update.

“The mission will be able to detect surface motions down to fractions of an inch. In addition to monitoring changes to Earth’s surface, the satellite will be able to track the motion of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and map changes to vegetation.”

The data is expected to help researchers better understand changes in the Earth’s surface and will also capture changes in its forest and wetland ecosystems.

Estimated to cost $1.5 billion, the NISAR mission is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO, with the US providing also the mission’s L-band radar, while the S-band radar is made in India.

The S-band radar is useful for monitoring crop structure and the roughness of land and ice surfaces, while the L-band instrument can penetrate denser forest canopies. Both sensors can see through clouds and collect data day and night.

The NISAR project marks the first time the Indian and US space agencies have cooperated on hardware development for Earth mapping.

Its launch will further add to India’s status as an emerging space superpower, following last year’s successful launch of Aditya-L1 — the country’s first solar observation mission, and the world’s second after the US Parker Solar Probe launched in 2021.

Also in 2023, ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 moon rover made history by landing on the lunar surface, making India the first country to land near the lunar south pole and the fourth to land on the moon — after the US, the Soviet Union and China.


Afghan economy shows modest signs of growth but recovery remains fragile — World Bank

Afghan economy shows modest signs of growth but recovery remains fragile — World Bank
Updated 35 min 36 sec ago
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Afghan economy shows modest signs of growth but recovery remains fragile — World Bank

Afghan economy shows modest signs of growth but recovery remains fragile — World Bank
  • Financial institution says modest GDP growth of 2.7 percent was driven by private consumption
  • Partial recovery, coupled with falling food prices, helped to gradually improve household welfare

WASHINGTON: Afghanistan’s economy is showing modest signs of growth after two years of severe contraction, the World Bank said this week. 

In its latest development update issued late Wednesday, the financial institution said modest GDP growth of 2.7 percent was driven by private consumption. The partial recovery, coupled with falling food prices, helped to gradually improve household welfare.

Before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy relied heavily on foreign aid and corruption was rife. Their takeover three years ago sent the economy into a tailspin, as billions in international funds were frozen, and tens of thousands of highly skilled Afghans fled the country and took their money with them.

Afghan’s exports remained stable in 2023-24 but imports surged, creating a widening trade deficit, according to the World Bank. This deficit, exacerbated by dependence on imports for essential goods like fuel, food and machinery, could pose a risk to the country’s economic stability.

Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank’s country director for Afghanistan, said long-term growth prospects required tapping into the substantial potential of the domestic private sector and improving the overall business environment.

“Key to this is increased investment, providing access to finance to small businesses, and supporting educated and skilled women entrepreneurs so their businesses can thrive,” said Hadad-Zervos. “Without this, the country risks prolonged stagnation with limited prospects for sustainable development.”

The update comes days after media reports that the Taliban have ordered educational institutions to stop providing medical training to women and girls. The Taliban have neither confirmed the order nor responded to the reports.

On Thursday, the head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF said she was deeply alarmed by the reported restrictions.

UNICEF was determining the veracity of these differing accounts and welcomed efforts to address the issue, said the agency’s executive director Catherine Russell.

If confirmed, this ban was expected to immediately halt the medical education of thousands of women and jeopardize women and girls’ access to health care, she added.

“It would not only further limit the ability of women to contribute to society and earn an income but would also have far-reaching consequences for the health of the Afghan population. Lives would be lost,” she warned.


Philippine police checking reports that a kidnapped American has died after being shot

Philippine police checking reports that a kidnapped American has died after being shot
Updated 05 December 2024
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Philippine police checking reports that a kidnapped American has died after being shot

Philippine police checking reports that a kidnapped American has died after being shot
  • Criminal complaints of kidnapping have been filed against several suspects
  • Security problems have long hounded the southern Philippines

MANILA, Philippines: Philippine police officials said Thursday they are checking reports that a kidnapped American died after being shot twice while resisting his Oct. 17 abduction by gunmen in the country’s south.
Elliot Onil Eastman, 26, from Vermont, was shot twice with an M16 rifle while trying to fight off his four kidnappers, who posed as police officers, in the coastal town of Sibuco in Zamboanga del Norte province, police said.
The kidnappers dragged him to a motorboat and sped off, according to earlier police reports.
A massive search for Eastman and his abductors led to the arrest of a number of suspects, but he has not been found. Three suspects were killed in a gunbattle with police in the south last month.
Regional police spokesperson Lt. Col. Ramoncelio Sawan said investigators received information from a relative of one of the suspects that Eastman died due to gunshot wounds in the thigh and abdomen while being taken away by his abductors.
The kidnappers decided to throw his body into the sea after he died, the relative said. The information about Eastman’s death was later corroborated by a key suspect in the kidnapping who was arrested recently, and his sworn statement has been submitted to government prosecutors, Sawan said.
Criminal complaints of kidnapping have been filed against several suspects, he said.
“We are constrained to believe that he has died. All of the information that we have points to that,” Sawan said. But he added that without the victim’s body, “we’re still leaving a little bit of hope that it may not be the case” and police would continue their investigation.
Philippine police have informed Eastman’s Filipino wife and the US Embassy in Manila about his reported death, Sawan said.
The embassy said it’s aware of the police report and is coordinating with Philippine authorities, but did not comment further due to privacy considerations.
Eastman traveled out of the Philippines and returned to Sibuco to attend his wife’s graduation when he was kidnapped. He had been posting Facebook videos of his life in Sibuco, a poor, remote coastal town, where the suspects spotted him, police earlier said.
They said the suspects appeared to be common criminals who did not belong to any Muslim rebel groups which have been accused of ransom kidnappings in the past.
Security problems have long hounded the southern Philippines, the homeland of a Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The southern third of the Philippines has bountiful resources but has long been hamstrung by poverty, insurgencies and outlaws.
A 2014 peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, has considerably eased widespread fighting in the south. Relentless military offensives have weakened smaller armed groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, reducing kidnappings, bombings and other violence.
The Abu Sayyaf has targeted Americans and other Western tourists and missionaries, most of whom were freed after ransoms were paid. A few were killed, including American Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded on the southern island of Basilan, and a US missionary, Martin Burnham, who was killed while Philippine army forces were trying to rescue him and his wife, Gracia Burnham, in 2002 in a rainforest near Sibuco.


French PM meets Macron to resign after no-confidence vote

French PM meets Macron to resign after no-confidence vote
Updated 05 December 2024
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French PM meets Macron to resign after no-confidence vote

French PM meets Macron to resign after no-confidence vote

PARIS: French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Thursday was meeting Emmanuel Macron to submit his resignation after losing a vote of no confidence in parliament, with the president urgently seeking ways to halt growing political and financial chaos.
Poised to be contemporary France’s shortest-serving premier, Barnier arrived at the Elysee Palace just after 0900 GMT for the resignation formality, with the outgoing premier and government constitutionally obliged to step down after the defeat in parliament.
A majority of lawmakers on Wednesday supported the no-confidence vote proposed by the hard left and backed by the far right headed by Marine Le Pen.
Barnier’s record-quick ejection comes after snap parliamentary elections this summer, which resulted in a hung parliament with no political force able to form an overall majority and the far right holding the key to the government’s survival.
The trigger for Barnier’s ouster was his 2025 budget plan including austerity measures that were unacceptable to a majority in parliament, but that he argued were necessary to stabilize France’s finances.
On Monday he had forced through a social security financing bill without a vote.
The successful no-confidence motion canceled the government’s entire financing plan, leading to an automatic renewal of the current budget into next year, unless any new government can somehow rush through approval of a new budget by Christmas — an unlikely scenario.


“France probably won’t have a 2025 budget,” said ING Economics in a note, predicting that the country “is entering a new era of political instability.”
Moody’s, a ratings agency, warned that Barnier’s fall “deepens the country’s political stalemate” and “reduces the probability of a consolidation of public finances.”
The Paris stock exchange fell at the opening on Thursday before recovering to show small gains, while the yields on French government bonds were again under upward pressure in debt markets.
Macron now has the unenviable task of picking a viable successor.
The president will address the nation at 8:00 p.m. (1900 GMT), his office said.
Macron has more than two years of his presidential term left, but some opponents are calling on him to resign.


National Assembly Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet on Thursday urged Macron to waste no time in choosing a new premier, saying that France could not be allowed to “drift” for any length of time.
There was no indication early on Thursday of how quickly Macron would appoint Barnier’s successor, nor what their political leanings might be.
Loyalist Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Macron’s centrist ally Francois Bayrou have been touted as possible contenders, as has former Socialist premier and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
With the support of the far right, a majority of 331 MPs in the 577-member chamber voted to oust the government on Wednesday night.
It was the first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.
Macron flew back into Paris just ahead of the vote after wrapping up a three-day state visit to Saudi Arabia, an apparent world away from the domestic crisis.



“We are now calling on Macron to go,” Mathilde Panot, head of the parliamentary faction of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, told reporters.
She urged “early presidential elections” to solve the deepening political crisis.
But taking care not to crow over the government’s fall, Le Pen said in a television interview that her party — once a new premier is appointed — “would let them work” and help create a “budget that is acceptable for everyone.”
Laurent Wauquiez, the head of right-wing deputies in parliament, said the far right and hard left bore the responsibility for a no-confidence vote.
Barnier is the fifth prime minister to serve under Macron since he came to power in 2017, with every premier serving a successively shorter period.
Given the composition of the National Assembly, there is no guarantee that Barnier’s successor would last any longer.
Strike calls across transport, education and other public sector services were kept in place on Thursday despite the disappearance of the austerity budget that has prompted anger.
The plunge into more uncertainty comes ahead of the reopening of the Notre-Dame cathedral on Saturday after a 2019 fire, a major international event hosted by Macron.
Guests include Donald Trump on his first foreign trip since he was elected US president.


US’s Blinken, Russia’s Lavrov to face off at OSCE meeting in Malta

US’s Blinken, Russia’s Lavrov to face off at OSCE meeting in Malta
Updated 05 December 2024
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US’s Blinken, Russia’s Lavrov to face off at OSCE meeting in Malta

US’s Blinken, Russia’s Lavrov to face off at OSCE meeting in Malta

VIENNA: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his outgoing US counterpart Antony Blinken are due to face off over the war in Ukraine on Thursday at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Malta.

Lavrov on Thursday arrived at an OSCE summit in Malta, on his first visit to an EU state since his country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The diplomat did not comment to reporters as he made his way into the meeting of ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ta’Qali, near Valetta.

While Ukraine will be the dominant political issue, the meeting is due to formally approve last-minute agreements reached on issues including senior staff positions at the security and rights body where Western powers often accuse Russia of flouting human rights and other international norms.
The gathering of foreign ministers and other officials from 57 participating states in North America, Europe and Central Asia is overshadowed this year by the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, whose advisers are floating proposals to end the war that would cede large parts of Ukraine to Russia.
With Trump due to take office in just over a month, Western powers plan to reiterate their support for Ukraine while Russia is likely to renew its criticism of the organization. Lavrov said last year the OSCE was “essentially being turned into an appendage of NATO and the European Union.”
It is Lavrov’s first trip to the European Union since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The OSCE is the successor to a body set up during the Cold War for the east and west to engage with each other. In recent years, however, and especially since it invaded Ukraine, Russia has used what is effectively a veto each country has to block many key decisions, often crippling the organization.
This year, however, the countries blocking agreement on the OSCE budget are Armenia and Azerbaijan rather than Russia, diplomats say, over issues related to their conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Diplomats say a deal was reached this week to fill four senior OSCE positions including that of secretary general, which will be taken up by Turkiye’s Feridun Sinirlioglu, who was foreign minister in a caretaker government in 2015.
The most important annual decision at the OSCE — which country will next hold its annually rotating chairmanship — has long been settled, since Finland will hold it for the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act that lay the foundation for the current OSCE.