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U.S. and Japanese maritime self-defense forces carried out military exercises, Monday, October 26, on Japan’s helicopter carrier. Japan and the U.S. began air, sea and land exercises around Japan in a show of force in the face of increased Chinese military activity in the region. The Keen Sword exercise is the first big drill since Yoshihide Suga became Japan’s prime minister last month with a vow to continue the military build-up aimed at countering China, which claims Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. Keen Sword, which is held every two years, involves dozens of warships, hundreds of aircraft and 46,000 soldiers, sailors and marines from Japan and the United States. Running until to Nov. 5 it will include cyber and electronic warfare training for the first time. Japan’s biggest helicopter carrier in waters south of Japan was accompanied by U.S. aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan and its escort destroyers. The 248 meter Kaga, which was returning from patrols in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, will be refitted as early as next year to carry F-35 stealth fighters. Suga this month visited Vietnam and Indonesia as part of Japan’s efforts to bolster ties with key Southeast Asian allies. That followed a meeting in Tokyo of the “Quad”, an informal grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the United States that Washington sees as a bulwark against China’s growing regional influence. Beijing as denounced it as a “mini-NATO” aimed at containing it. Japan has grown particularly concerned about an uptick in Chinese naval activity around the disputed islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo claims as the Senkaku and Diaoyu in Beijing. (Reuters) 
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The U.S. Senate confirmed federal appellate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a seat on the Supreme Court in a 52-48 vote late Monday.Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine  joined the entire Democratic caucus voting against Barrett’s confirmation. Collins said she would not vote for Barrett’s confirmation because of the proximity of the vote to next week’s presidential election. According to the AP, no other Supreme Court justice has been confirmed on a recorded vote with no support from the minority party in at least 150 years.Barrett is the third justice on the nine-member court to be nominated by President Donald Trump and significantly tip its ideological balance toward a 6-3 conservative majority.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is expected to swear Barrett in at a White House ceremony planned later Monday evening. Democrats argued that the decision of picking a nominee for the seat should have been left up to whichever candidate wins the presidential election, a stance Republicans held when there was an election-year vacancy in early 2016. Republicans then refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nomination of another appellate judge, Merrick Garland. “The Senate is doing the right thing” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday when advancing Barrett’s confirmation. “We’re moving this nomination forward.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the vote “illegitimate” and “the last gasp of a desperate party,” the AP reported.Barrett could potentially consider election disputes involving Trump, although it is unclear whether she might recuse herself since Trump named her to the court. She declined to say at her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee two weeks ago whether she will avoid hearing disputes over extended deadlines for voters to return mail-in ballots and other issues Republicans and Democrats are contesting. Barrett almost assuredly would be among the justices hearing a new challenge November 10 on whether to invalidate the country’s Affordable Care Act, which Trump has sought to overturn.  The law, popularly known as Obamacare after the former president who championed its passage in 2010, is a measure that helps provide health care to millions of Americans. Its fate is a crucial concern for many people amid the surging number of new coronavirus cases in the United States.  Republicans have long argued that Obamacare costs taxpayers too much and gives government too much control over health care. The Republican-led Congress in 2017 eliminated the law’s mandate requiring that people buy health insurance if they could afford to do so. They now want the Supreme Court to invalidate the entire statute, saying that without that key insurance provision, the rest of the legislation is invalid.
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British officials say a Liberian-registered oil tanker is docked safely in Southampton and its crew “safe and well” after British naval special forces stormed the ship following a report that stowaways threatened violence. In a statement, ship operator Navios Tanker Management, says the Nave Andromeda left Lagos, Nigeria, on October 6 and had been due to dock in Southampton on Sunday when the ship’s master became “concerned for the safety of the crew due to the increasingly hostile behavior of the stowaways.” A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation indicates the crew had been aware of the stowaways – believed to have been from Nigeria – but said they became unruly and even violent as the ship neared Britain. The ship was circling an area a few kilometers southeast of the Isle of Wight, south of Southampton, and when it failed to dock, local authorities were contacted. A statement on the British ministry of Defense’s Twitter account indicates police requested assistant from the military.  The coast guard was also called in and scrambled helicopters to reach the scene.  A nearly five-kilometer exclusion zone was established around the vessel.  After several hours, commandos from the Royal Navy Special Boat Service were lowered from helicopters onto the ship, whose crew had locked themselves in a secure area. Within minutes, the commandos had detained seven people and secured the vessel. Speaking to reporters Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked both the police and armed forces for what they did “to keep our shores safe.” 
 
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Zimbabwe authorities are hailing a sustainable farming technique called “Pfumvudza” as a breakthrough to help end the country’s long-standing food insecurity.  But as Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, some critics point to its limits.Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe       Producer:  Marcus Harton  
 
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After more than three months under stifling restrictions imposed in response to a second wave of COVID-19 cases, life in Australia’s second-largest city is slowly about to return to normal. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews announced Monday that Melbourne’s five million citizens will be able to leave their homes effective Tuesday at midnight, and that all  cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and hotels will be allowed to reopen.   The announcement comes as Melbourne and the surrounding Victoria state recorded its first 24-hour period without any new coronavirus infections since June 9.  The state had been plagued by a dramatic spike of new COVID-19 cases, peaking in August when daily new cases rose above 700.  The resurgence of new cases has been blamed on security lapses at hotels where travelers were being quarantined after traveling overseas.   With zero new cases, Premier Andrews told reporters that “we are able to say that now is the time to open up. Now is the time to congratulate every single Victorian for staying the course.” Andrews also said that travel restrictions limiting people to no further than 25 kilometers from their home will end on November 8, which will allow people in Melbourne to travel to Victoria’s rural areas.   Testing in Kashgar, ChinaHealth authorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province have launched a widespread testing effort in Kashgar after 137 new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections were discovered. The new cases were detected after a 17-year-old girl was found to be asymptomatic.  The other asymptomatic cases have been traced to a factory where the girl’s parents work.  Authorities say nearly 3 million people in Kashgar have been tested since the outbreak was detected. Xinjiang was placed under a brief but tight lockdown period after a cluster of coronavirus cases was detected in August.   On the vaccine frontMeanwhile, British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced Monday that a vaccine it has developed in cooperation with the University of Oxford has produced a similar immune response in both younger and older adults, with adverse responses lower among the elderly.   The announcement by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant comes the same day The Financial Times newspaper said early reports from testing showed the experimental vaccine, dubbed AZD1222, produces a robust immune response in elderly people, who are among the highest risk from the disease. 
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October is breast cancer awareness month, but this year most health care facilities are focused on the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Anita Powell spoke to a breast cancer survivor in South Africa who is trying to protect against both COVID-19 and a cancer recurrence.Camera: Zaheer Cassim
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Chileans poured into the country’s main squares on Sunday night after voters gave a ringing endorsement to a plan to tear up the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in favor of a new charter drafted by citizens. In Santiago’s Plaza Italia, the focus of the massive and often violent social protests last year which sparked the demand for a new magna carta, fireworks rose above a crowd of tens of thousands of jubilant people singing in unison as the word “rebirth” was beamed onto a tower above.   With more than three quarters of the votes counted, 78.12% of voters had opted for a new charter. Many have expressed hopes that a new text will temper an unabashedly capitalist ethos with guarantees of more equal rights to healthcare, pensions and education.   “This triumph belongs to the people, it’s thanks to everyone’s efforts that we are at this moment of celebration,” Daniel, 37, told Reuters in Santiago’s Plaza Nunoa. “What makes me happiest is the participation of the youth, young people wanting to make changes.”   Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera said if the country had been divided by the protests and debate over whether to approve or reject plans for a new charter, from now on they should unite behind a new text that provided “a home for everyone.” The center-right leader, whose popularity ratings plummeted to record lows during the unrest and have remained in the doldrums, spoke to those who wanted to keep the present constitution credited with making Chile one of Latin America’s economic success stories.Referendum on a new Chilean constitution, in Santiago, Oct. 26, 2020.Any new draft must incorporate “the legacy of past generations, the will of present generations and the hopes of generations to come,” he said. He gave a nod to fears that the high expectations placed in a new charter cannot be met, saying: “This referendum is not the end, it is the start of a road we must walk towards a new constitution.” As votes were counted on live television around the country, spontaneous parties broke out on street corners and in squares around the country. Drivers honked car horns, some as revelers danced on their roofs, and others banged pots and pans. The flag of the country’s indigenous Mapuche people, who will seek greater recognition in the new charter, was ubiquitous.   Four fifths of voters said they wanted the new charter to be drafted by a specially-elected body of citizens – made up of half women and half men – over a mixed convention of lawmakers and citizens, highlighting general mistrust in Chile’s political class.   Members of a 155-seat constitutional convention will be voted in by April 2021 and have up to a year to agree a draft text, with proposals approved by a two-thirds majority. Among issues likely to be at the fore are recognition of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous population, powers of collective bargaining, water and land rights and privatized systems providing healthcare, education and pensions. Chileans will then vote again on whether they accept the text or want to revert to the previous constitution. The National Mining Society (Sonami), which groups the companies in the sector into the world’s largest copper producer, said it hoped for “broad agreement on the principles and norms” that determine the sector’s coexistence with Chilean citizens and that the regulatory certainty that have allowed the sector to flourish would continue. 
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The U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a seat on the Supreme Court in a vote late Monday. If confirmed, Barrett would be the third justice on the nine-member court to be nominated by President Donald Trump and significantly tip its ideological balance toward a 6-3 conservative majority.  Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Senator Susan Collins is the only Republican to indicate she would not vote on Barrett’s nomination due to the close proximity to next week’s presidential election. Democrats have opposed Barrett’s nomination both objecting to her credentials and to the process of filling the seat of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in such rapid fashion.Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett testifies during the third day of her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 14, 2020.The Democrats have argued that the decision of picking a nominee for the seat should have been left up to whichever candidate wins the presidential election, a position Republicans held when there was an election-year vacancy in early 2016. “The Senate is doing the right thing,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday.“We’re moving this nomination forward.” The Senate voted 51-48 Sunday to end Democrats’ filibuster on Barrett’s nomination, starting a period of 30 hours of debate before the final vote. “Senate Democrats are taking over the floor all night to fight this sham process by Senate Republicans,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.  “We will not stop fighting.” Barrett almost assuredly would be among the justices hearing a new challenge Nov. 10 on whether to invalidate the country’s Affordable Care Act, which Trump has sought to overturn.  The law, popularly known as Obamacare after former President Barack Obama who championed its passage in 2010, is a measure that helps provide health care to millions of Americans. Its fate is a crucial concern for many people amid the surging number of new coronavirus cases in the United States.  Republicans have long argued that Obamacare costs taxpayers too much and gives government too much control over health care. The Republican-led Congress in 2017 eliminated the Act’s mandate that people who could afford to buy health insurance do so. They now want the Supreme Court to invalidate the entire Act, saying that without that key provision, the rest of the legislation is invalid. 
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Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta strengthened Sunday in the western Caribbean and will probably become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast in coming days.Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.The system was centered about 275 miles (445 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane Monday.Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek. The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.The government is still handing out aid, including sheet roofing, to Yucatan residents hit by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said. “It just needs anything to move.”When a storm gets stuck, it can unload dangerous downpours over one place, which causes flooding when a storm is over or near land. That happened in 2017 over Houston with Harvey, when more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain fell and 2019 over the Bahamas with a Category 5 Dorian, which was the worst-case scenario of a stationary storm, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.While Zeta was over open ocean Sunday, Jamaica and Honduras were getting heavy rains because the system is so large and South Florida was under a flood watch, McNoldy said.But once Zeta eventually gets moving, it won’t be stalling over landfall, Klotzbach said.The Hurricane Center said Zeta could bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain to parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Florida and the Keys before drenching parts of the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.A 2018 study said storms, especially in the Atlantic basin, are slowing down and stalling more. Atlantic storms that made landfall moved 2.9 mph (4.7 kph) slower than 60 years ago, the study found. Study author James Kossin, a government climate scientist, said the trend has signs of human-caused climate change.Zeta is also in a dangerous place to stall. The western Caribbean is “where storms can cook” and rapidly intensify because of the deep, warm waters, like 2005’s Wilma, Klotzbach said. However, the National Hurricane Center was not forecasting rapid intensification for Zeta.The lack of steering currents also meant wide spread of possible landfalls when Zeta eventually heads north to the Gulf Coast. The hurricane center said it could make landfall anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards urged his state’s citizens to monitor the storm, and the state activated its Crisis Action Team.On Sunday, a hurricane warning was called for the Yucatan Peninsula from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cancun and Cozumel, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Pinar del Rio, Cuba.Zeta broke the record of the previous earliest 27th Atlantic named storm that formed Nov. 29, 2005, according to Klotzbach.This year’s season has so many storms that the hurricane center has turned to the Greek alphabet after running out of official names.Zeta is the furthest into the Greek alphabet the Atlantic season has gone. There was also a Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005, but that year had 28 storms because meteorologists later went back and found they missed one, which then became a “unnamed named storm,” Klotzbach said.Additionally, Hurricane Epsilon was moving quickly through the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters said it would become a post-tropical cyclone later Sunday. Large ocean swells generated by the hurricane could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.
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Amid a year of contagion and turmoil, Chileans turned out Sunday to vote on whether to draft a new constitution for their nation to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under a military dictatorship, and early returns gave the “yes” forces a big lead.The country’s conservative government agreed with the center-left opposition to allow the plebiscite after the outbreak of vast street protests that erupted a year ago in frustration over inequality in pensions, education and health care in what has long been one of South America’s most developed nations.The Electoral Service said Sunday evening that of the first 1.3 million ballots counted, 77.5% favored a new charter and less than 22.5% were opposed. Among the 60,000 Chileans living abroad who voted in 65 nations, the vote was 86% for a new constitution and 13% against, officials said. About 15 million Chileans were eligible to vote.Recent polls indicated heavy backing for a new constitution despite opposition from conservative groups., and center-right President Sebastián Piñera said after voting that he assumed the measure would be approved.“I believe the immense majority of Chileans want to change, modify our constitution,” he said.If the measure is approved, a special convention would begin drafting a new constitution that would be submitted to voters in mid-2022.Chile’s current constitution was drafted by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and was sent to voters at a time where political parties had been banned and the country was subject to heavy censorship.It was approved by a 66%-30% margin in a 1980 plebiscite, but critics say many voters were cowed into acceptance by a regime that had arrested, tortured and killed thousands of suspected leftist opponents following the overthrow of an elected socialist government.“I think that many people went to vote out of fear,” said political scientist Claudio Fuentes, who wrote a book about that plebiscite titled, “The Fraud.”“The current constitution has a flaw of origin, which is that it was created during the military dictatorship in an undemocratic process,” said Monica Salinero, a 40-year-old sociologist who supports drafting a new charter.The free-market principles embodied in that document led to a booming economy that continued after the return to democracy in 1990, but not all Chileans shared.A minority was able to take advantage of good, privatized education, health and social security services, while others were forced to rely on sometimes meager public alternatives. Public pensions for the poorest are just over $200 a month, roughly half the minimum wage.Luisa Fuentes Rivera, a 59-year-old food vendor, said hopes that “with a new constitution we will have better work, health, pensions and a better quality of life for older people, and a better education.”But historian Felipe Navarrete warned, “It’s important to say that the constitution won’t resolve the concrete problems. It will determine which state we want to solve the problems.”Claudia Heiss, head of the political science department at the University of Chile, said it would send a signal about people’s desires for change, and for a sort of politics that would “allow greater inclusion of sectors that have been marginalized from politics.”Conservative groups fear the revamp could go too far, and endanger parts of the constitution that have helped the country prosper.“The people have demonstrated saying they want better pensions, better health, better education. and the response of the political class” is a process that won’t solve the problems and will open a period of uncertainty,” said Felipe Lyon, 28-year-old lawyer and spokesman for the group “No, Thanks” that opposes the change.The decision to allow the vote came after hundreds of thousands of Chileans repeatedly took to the streets in protests that often turned violent.The vote was initially scheduled for April, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed some 13,800 Chileans, with more than 500,000 people infected by the new coronavirus.Officials trying to ensure voters felt safe barred infected persons or those close to them from the polls, and long lines formed at voting places. Voters had to wear masks — dipping them only briefly for identification purposes — and brought their own pencils.The manner of drafting a new constitution was also on the ballot. Voters were choosing between a body of 155 citizens who would be elected just for that purpose in April, or a somewhat larger convention split equally between elected delegates and members of Congress.
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U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to carry out raids targeting militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terror group in eastern Syria.“Last night, the Syrian Democratic Forces arrested members of a Daesh cell that was responsible for attacks in Deir al-Zour,” the Deir al-Zour Media Center said on Sunday, using an Arabic acronym for IS.Three IS members arrested in Saturday’s raid were from the Shuhail area of the eastern province, according to the media group.In a separate operation, SDF fighters carried out a “combing campaign” against remnants of IS in the neighboring province of Raqqa, SDF’s press office said in a video released on Sunday.The SDF, a military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against IS in Syria, said more than two dozen IS militants were arrested in recent raids in October.Since its territorial defeat in March 2019, IS has carried out terror attacks against civilians and SDF forces in Deir al-Zour and other parts of eastern Syria.U.S. military officials said the U.S.-led coalition against IS remains committed to combating the terror group in Syria and Iraq.“In the last 7 days, our partners completed 28 #DefeatDaesh operations, preventing 38 more #Daesh terrorists and henchmen from committing acts of terrorism against Iraqi and Syrian communities, businesses and families,” Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesman for anti-IS global coalition, said in a tweet Friday.In recent weeks, IS militants have also launched attacks against Syrian government troops in the central provinces of Hama and Homs. About a dozen Syrian soldiers were killed in recent IS attacks, local reports said.Experts say while IS currently has no capability to hold territory in Syria or Iraq, the militant group will likely continue to wage major attacks against other forces in both countries.
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The West African nation of Guinea is bracing for more post-election unrest after the electoral commission Thursday declared preliminary results showing President Alpha Conde was reelected for a third term.  As Marco Simoncelli reports from Conakry.Videographer: Davide Lemmi 
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Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, and their running mates looked Sunday to fire up their supporters and sway the last remaining undecided voters nine days ahead of the Nov. 3 national election. Trump headed to rallies in the small northeastern states of New Hampshire and Maine, whose small numbers of electoral votes could prove crucial in a close election. He and Biden are continuing their search for the 270-vote majority in the country’s all-important 538-member Electoral College, where the outcome is determined by the individual state-by-state winners, not the national popular vote. Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire and its four electoral votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and, according to statewide polls, trails Biden by more than 11 percentage points. But Trump won one of Maine’s four electoral votes in its rural northern congressional district four years ago and is locked in a tight race with Biden this time for the single elector. But the president trails by a wide margin in statewide polls for two electors awarded to the overall winner in the state and for the other congressional district elector in Maine, which is situated along the country’s northern Atlantic coastline. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a drive-in campaign stop at Bucks County Community College in Bristol, Pa., Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020.Meanwhile, Biden on Sunday night is speaking virtually at an “I will vote” concert. While Trump has continued to stage large outdoor rallies of supporters, often at airport hangars, in the face of the surging coronavirus pandemic in the United States, Biden has adopted a more measured approach to campaigning. He has appeared at small gatherings, or often, as he is Sunday, via a computer livestream. Vice President Mike Pence speaks to supporters, Oct. 24, 2020, in Tallahassee, Fla.Trump’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence, has also appeared at rallies and is planning an appearance Sunday night in Kinston, North Carolina, another closely contested battleground state. Trump won the state in 2016 but polls show Biden holding a narrow edge this time. FILE – Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks to supporters at a campaign event in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 19, 2020. (AP)Senator Kamala Harris of California, Biden’s running mate, is in yet another crucial state, Michigan in the Midwest heartland, for appearances in Detroit, Troy and Pontiac.  Trump captured an upset 2016 win in Michigan, a traditionally Democratic state, which along with victories in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, handed him a four-year term in the White House. But polls show Trump falling nearly 8 percentage points behind in Michigan and trailing by smaller margins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well. All three states are crucial to the 2020 outcome, as are several other battleground states that Trump won in 2016 but where he now trails. In the national popular vote, aggregations of polls show Biden ahead by 8 or 9 percentage points. FILE – Voters wait in line to enter a polling place and cast their ballots on the first day of the state’s in-person early voting for the general elections in Durham, North Carolina, Oct. 15, 2020.More than 58 million Americans have already voted, about two-thirds of them by mail and about a third in person, with many of them saying they wanted to do so ahead of Election Day to avoid coming face to face with other people amid the coronavirus pandemic in long voting lines that are expected.  Polls show that perhaps less than 5% of voters have not decided on voting for Trump or Biden, making it especially imperative for their two campaigns to identify their existing supporters and make sure they cast ballots.  Many early Democratic supporters of Biden have told news reporters they wanted to be among the first to vote against Trump, to try to help ensure he is the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for re-election after a single term. Meanwhile, many Republicans say they plan to vote on Election Day, as has been the norm for decades in the U.S.             
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Iraqi security forces clashed with anti-government demonstrators in Baghdad on Sunday with at least 39 people, most of them police officers, injured by projectiles unleashed from each side, security officials said. Police sources said tear gas canisters being fired by security forces had injured at least seven people. A separate statement from a military spokesman said at least 32 members of the security forces were injured by hand grenades thrown by a group he suggested had hidden among otherwise peaceful protesters, without elaborating. Politicians have expressed concern at the possibility of peaceful protests being hijacked by rioters, which could set off a spiral of violence such as that witnessed last year. Renewed anti-government rallies converged on Sunday to mark a year since mass unrest over corruption and widespread deprivation in oil-rich Iraq. More than 500 people have been killed in the disturbances. Threats, killings and abductions of activists, as well as fatigue and lockdown restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, took the steam out of months-long protests earlier this year. Demonstrators numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands on Sunday. Earlier in the day, police fired water cannon and tear gas at protesters to prevent them crossing barricades on a bridge leading towards government buildings. “We will not stop protesting to demand our stolen rights. We are the victims of corrupted governments,” said Najim Abdullah, a protester standing near the Jumhuriya bridge in the capital. Security forces had deployed in force to control protests that began in the morning, and to stop demonstrators crossing Jumhuriya bridge, which leads to the fortified Green Zone that houses government buildings and foreign missions. Sunday’s protests were more subdued than demonstrations last year where thousands rallied in Baghdad and the south, facing off against security forces and militiamen in clashes that maimed and killed mostly young, jobless demonstrators. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who took office in May after his predecessor was driven out by last year’s unrest, has painted himself as a leader who supports demonstrators. In a televised address on Saturday he pledged to hold early and fair elections, a demand of many pro-democracy activists, and said security forces would this time around not harm any peaceful protesters. Security forces and unidentified gunmen carried out a fierce crackdown on anti-government disturbances that erupted in October 2019, killing hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters using live gunfire and tear gas. Protesters accuse the entrenched ruling elite, especially Iranian-backed parties and militia groups, of fueling endemic graft that kept large swathes of the country in ruins even during times of relative peace.  
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Australian researchers are investigating how gender stereotypes can make female sports coaches feel like “imposters” and cost them elite jobs. Funded by the International Olympic Committee, the University of Newcastle in New South Wales study will investigate why women made up only 11% of accredited coaches at the Rio Games in 2016.Researchers in Australia believe that, in general, sports have a culture that marginalizes female coaches. It enforces stereotypes and can be corrosive, causing talented individuals to doubt their skills and themselves. Previous research has found that women appointed to high-level coaching positions have been derided by media and fans.Heather Douglas, a psychology lecturer at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, is working on the study to help the International Olympic Committee increase the number of women in elite coaching positions.She said it is a problem that goes far beyond professional sports.“This feeling of inauthenticity comes along with a fear of failure and of being exposed as a fraud,” Douglas said. “Imposter feelings are created by being in a situation where we think we do not deserve to be. This could be a woman in sport, in science or in engineering. It could be an ethnic minority student at university or even a man in nursing. Imposter feelings often come along with depression and anxiety. In workplace settings, it has been associated with hesitant career planning, impaired job performance, lower job satisfaction and a higher incidence of workplace burnout.”The Australian research first will involve participants in community sports, then high-performance Olympic-level female coaches from all continents. The aim is to determine the factors causing women to leave coaching.Australia has done much to encourage women and girls to participate in sports.Rugby, cricket and Australian Rules Football all have successful elite competitions for women. Arguably, the Matildas, the national women’s soccer team, are the most popular athletes in Australia, which will co-host the 2023 World Cup with New Zealand.Female sport may be booming, but attitudes in sections of society have not caught up. Women appointed as referees in men’s football and rugby matches here complain of sexism and online trolling.
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An international treaty to ban nuclear weapons has been ratified by 50 United Nations member countries, the world body said Saturday.With Honduras being the 50th nation to ratify it, the historic document enters into force in 90 days, on Jan. 22.In a statement U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres commended the efforts of the 50 countries and of civil society’s anti-nuclear activists for such “instrumental work.”The treaty is the culmination of a worldwide movement “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons,” Guterres said in the statement issued by U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, adding it “is a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for this treaty.”The movement had been strongly opposed by the United States and other major nuclear powers.The treaty “represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations,” Dujarric quoted Guterres as stating.The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross saluted the treaty, saying in a statement “today is a victory for humanity, and a promise of a safer future.”Since the 75th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August, several countries, including Nigeria, Malaysia, Ireland, Malta and Tuvalu, have ratified the treaty.
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A team of entomologists in full-body protective gear vacuumed Asian giant hornets out of a tree in Washington state on Saturday, eradicating the first nest of the so-called murder hornets found in the United States.The state’s agricultural department said it had spent weeks searching for and trapping the hornets, which attack honeybee hives and could pose a threat to humans, because they can sting repeatedly with venom that is stronger than a honeybee’s.The state’s entomologists succeeded by attaching radio trackers to three hornets they had trapped earlier in the week, one of which they followed to the nest, located in a tree near Blaine, Washington, on Thursday.They returned on Saturday to make the extraction.”Got ’em. Vacuumed out several #AsianGiantHornets from a tree cavity near Blaine this morning,” the agriculture department said on Twitter, adding that more details would be provided at a news conference on Monday.The stinging hornet, the world’s largest, can grow as large as 6.4 centimeters in length and is native to Southeast Asia, China and Taiwan. It was first discovered in the United States in December by a homeowner in Blaine.Aside from the danger to humans, the hornet presents a threat to agriculture and the apiary industry, officials have said, because it is a known predator of honeybees, with a few of the hornets capable of wiping out an entire hive in hours.
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