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☆ Factbox: Top takeaways from the Biden-Xi meeting in Bali
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Xi too was explicit about Taiwan, calling it the "first red line" that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations. The White House said Biden and Xi agreed to "deepen constructive efforts" to address issues such as climate change, health and food security. But according to the White House statement, Biden and Xi "underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine". Biden told reporters after the meeting there was no need for concerns about a new Cold War between the United States and China. At the same time, Biden warned Xi that such actions by North Korea would result in bolstered U.S. and allied military capabilities in Northeast Asia.

Nov 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person on Monday for the first time since taking office, with U.S. concerns over Taiwan, Russia's war in Ukraine and North Korea's nuclear ambitions on top of his agenda. Biden and Xi, who have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021, last met in person during the Obama administration. Xi's government has also criticized the Biden administration's posture toward Taiwan as undermining China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Biden will also discuss Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and plans to be "unapologetic" in his defence of Ukraine, U.S. officials said last week. Biden will also warn Xi that North Korea's continued pursuit of weapons development will lead to an enhanced U.S. military presence in the region, the White House said.

☆ China-U.S. 'red lines' in focus ahead of expected Xi-Biden meet
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The United States should work together with China to avoid misunderstandings and misjudgments, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday, when asked about reports of the meeting. He wanted both leaders to lay out what their "red lines" were and resolve areas of conflict, including issues such as self-governed Taiwan, he added. No date or time has yet been made public for next week's expected meeting at the summit on the resort island of Bali. Tensions between the United States and China has run high over Taiwan, particularly after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit this year to the self-governing island claimed by China. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Writing by Martin Quin Pollard; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The 2022 election disaster that wasn't: The system worked and Trump-backed candidates are conceding
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The run-up to Election Day 2022 was marred by fears of chaos and refusals to concede. A slew of Trump-backed candidates who rejected the legitimacy of the 2020 election were on the ballot. Election Day went smoothly, and while there were minor issues in places like Maricopa County, Arizona, they were quickly identified and resolved and there were no broader infrastructure problems. Taking a lesson from the 2020 election, cybersecurity and election security officials also stepped up efforts to combat disinformation related to this year's midterms. Crucially, many of Trump's handpicked candidates conceded defeat when their races were called.

The White House said Biden will hold talks on Monday with Xi, China's president, on the sidelines of a Group of 20 nations summit in Indonesia, their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president in January 2021. China is Washington's main strategic rival and the world's second largest economy after the United States. The United States is looking to have stable relations with Beijing despite tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and a host of other issues. Washington believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing. "This is an area where China and the United States have had a history of working together ... there is a track record of being able to work together.

He'll hold his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20, where he hopes to explore Xi's "red lines", talk to allies about punishing Russia for its Ukraine invasion and discuss containing North Korea after a barrage of missile tests. On Wednesday, Biden said U.S. aid for Ukraine will continue uninterrupted and any territorial compromise between the two countries is up to Ukraine. Putin will not attend the G20 summit in person but is due join one of the meetings virtually, an Indonesian government official said. They will address North Korea's "unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," the official said. Biden will "continue to urge the Egyptian government to release political prisoners and undertake human rights related legal reforms," said one of the officials.

Less than 24 hours after implementing new gray "official" checkmark tags to some prominent Twitter accounts, platform owner Elon Musk has decided to remove them. But by noon on Wednesday, Musk tweeted to a user that he had decided to “kill” those checkmarks. The "official" checkmarks quickly disappeared. Crawford then clarified that the "official" checkmarks would still be used in the future but that they would be initially focused on adding them to "government and commercial entities." “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” Musk tweeted Wednesday.

[1/4] China's chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua speaks during a news conference at the COP27 climate summit in Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 9, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El GhanySHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 9 (Reuters) - China would be willing to contribute to a mechanism for compensating poorer countries for losses and damage caused by climate change, its climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said on Wednesday at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt. Xie said China had no obligation to participate, but stressed his solidarity with those calling for more action from wealthy nations on the issue, and outlined the damage China had suffered from climate-linked weather extremes. He added that China already contributed billions of yuan to developing countries to help with their mitigation efforts. "The door is absolutely closed by (the United States)," he said.

☆ Elon Musk tells Twitter advertisers he wants to stop fake accounts, pursue truth
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] Elon Musk's photo is seen through a Twitter logo in this illustration taken October 28, 2022. Days after Twitter rattled users and advertisers by cutting half its staff, over 100,000 listeners tuned in to hear Musk speak on Twitter's Spaces feature. In the week since Musk took over, GM, General Mills and Mondelez International Inc (MDLZ.O) have pulled ads off Twitter, concerned Musk could loosen content moderation rules. He told advertisers Twitter would move aggressively to suspend accounts that "engaged in trickery" or deception. Musk said in a tweet on Wednesday that he "killed" a new "official" label for Twitter accounts, on the same day that it began rolling out.

☆ U.S. climate envoy Kerry: Climate relations with China not yet working after Taiwan visit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 9 (Reuters) - U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said the relationship on climate with China is not yet working again, and a "major negotiating session" ahead of COP27 was called off after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan froze diplomatic ties. "We've had some informal talks, but we're not in any formal negotiation at this point in time," Kerry told a Bloomberg side event at the summit in Egypt. "We were poised to deploy a major negotiating session around doing something for Sharm el-Sheikh and that did get interrupted by the trip to Taiwan." Reporting by Sarah MacFarlane, writing by William James. Editing by Jane MerrimanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Midterm election unfolds amid backdrop of assault of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband and increased threats against lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( C. Ryan Barber | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

On the eve of Election Day, Donald Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an "animal." Trump's comment came two weeks after Pelosi's husband was violently assaulted inside his home. The assault of Pelosi's husband, Paul, early in the morning of October 28 thrust to the fore the remarkable rise in threats to lawmakers and their families in recent years. In court papers, prosecutors alleged that DePape broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco and shouted, "Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?" Threats against public officials have increased amid a rise in violent political speech.

☆ Nancy Pelosi discusses the trauma of the attack on her husband while Trump calls to 'end crazy Nancy Pelosi's career once and for all'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Nancy Pelosi on Monday discussed with CNN her husband's recovery from a violent political attack. "[A]ny revisiting of it is really traumatizing," Pelosi told Anderson Cooper. "You're going to vote for an incredible slate of American-first Republicans up and down the ballot," Trump told his audience in Ohio. MAGA politicians have been doing all three," Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and expert on political violence, told Insider. Representatives for Nancy Pelosi and Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

☆ Stochastic terrorism appears to be on the rise globally. Extremism experts explain how this form of violence has gone mainstream.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Acts of stochastic terrorism appear to be on the rise, according to extremism experts. The "lone-wolf" nature of the assault in conjunction with the suspect's stated motivation suggests the incident could be an example of stochastic terrorism, according to extremism experts. While stochastic terrorism is not a new phenomenon, its stark prevalence in global society at the moment is a more recent development, he added. "It's quite mainstream," Spaaij said, of stochastic terrorism. But what makes the violence stochastic, he added, is "we don't know where or when."

☆ Elon Musk wistfully shared a meme on Twitter with an image of a Nazi soldier carrying messenger pigeons
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk shared a meme to Twitter on Monday that included a photo of a Nazi soldier. "How times have changed," the billionaire wrote above the edited photo which showed notification bubbles near a box of messenger pigeonsThe picture was taken of a German soldier in May 1940 in France, according to Getty Images. "How times have changed," the billionaire wrote in his tweet. "Back when birds were real," Musk later wrote in a follow-up tweet, before adding additional commentary with a head-exploding emoji. The photo that Musk shared was of a German soldier and his pigeons captured in May 1940 in France, according to Getty Images.

☆ Trump and his far-right allies have stoked a dangerous climate that increases the likelihood of violence far beyond midterms, extremism experts warn
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Political violence experts warn that Trump and his allies are fomenting a dangerous climate. "Republican campaign ads have been riven with violent language and imagery," an expert on political violence said. Pelosi is one of the Democrats most vilified by former President Donald Trump and his far-right allies. Experts on extremism and political violence warn that Trump and his MAGA compatriots are fomenting a dangerous climate that increases the likelihood that opponents of the GOP will be targeted with violence, underscoring that the threat extends well beyond midterms. "This form of political violence is here to stay.

☆ Musk says Twitter needs to become the 'most accurate source of information' about the world, but critics point out a now-deleted tweet he shared about Pelosi attack
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Twitter owner Elon Musk said the social platform needs to become "the most accurate source of information." Critics pointed out that Musk shared an inaccurate story about the attack on Paul Pelosi last week. "Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. Musk tweeted Sunday evening. On Friday, users added context to a tweet Musk had shared about "activist groups pressuring advertisers" to pause their ads on Twitter.

[1/3] Eliza Luna, a ballot designer with the Maricopa County Elections Department, counts ballots for the Arizona Presidential Preference Election at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., March 17, 2020. Between July 11 and Aug. 22, the county election office documented at least 140 threats and other hostile communications, the records show. Maricopa officials appeared at times overwhelmed by threatening posts on social media and right-wing message boards calling for workers to be executed or hung. Eight people face federal charges for threats, including two who targeted Maricopa County officials. The county election director had instructed him to shut down the server for delivery to the Arizona State Senate in response to a subpoena.

☆ Elon Musk could be what makes diehard Twitter users finally rethink their habit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It also still remains to be seen whether Musk will lead to a meaningful surge in Twitter exits, or if his changes could attract more users. Even before Musk announced planned changes to the platform, some people threatened to quit Twitter over his ownership. "After some introspection, I've made the decision to focus my time and energy elsewhere and move on from Twitter," Nibel tweeted. Producer Shonda Rhimes, who joined Twitter in 2008, tweeted on Saturday, two days after Musk's acquisition was final, "Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Critics have said they're worried, however, about a potential rise in misinformation on Twitter under Musk.

☆ 'Twitter as we know it is dead': Why Elon Musk's plans risk more scams and misinformation
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

He has announced plans to make verified users pay $8 a month for blue checks. Social media experts warned the plans could risk allowing more scams and misinformation on Twitter. But his push to improve Twitter's finances has prompted social media experts to warn he risks allowing more scams and disinformation on the platform. There is no other example of a mainstream social media company that's owned and controlled by one person." "Social media is rife with coded language, false accounts set up to spread disinformation, and cunning use of free-speech to misdirect and derail honest debate."

☆ Hate in America is on the rise. It's making it more dangerous for everyone from politicians to librarians to do their jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Marguerite Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Politicians, poll workers, and even librarians report growing harassment, threats, and attacks. "I'm scared for this country," Ringer told Insider. B-A-D," George Rattay, the chair of the Democratic Party in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, told Insider. Poll workers and even librarians face violenceThere have been multiple reports of increasing threats and violence targeting poll workers. The breadth of the threats to politicians, poll workers, and other civic employees like librarians indicates hate in America has become prolific.

☆ Election officials combat voter intimidation across U.S. as extremist groups post armed militia at some polls
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Rocio Fabbro | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Instead they are leading to voter intimidation complaints," Maricopa County election officials Bill Gates and Stephen Richer said in a joint statement the next day. But its presence caused unease among Maricopa County voters, who saw these "drop box watchers" as a blatant attempt at voter intimidation. Fears about voter intimidation and suppression have been brewing nationwide since the 2020 presidential election, when Trump refused to accept his loss and accused several states of voter fraud. Two in five U.S. voters said they were worried about threats of violence or voter intimidation at the polls, according to a new Reuters/Ipso poll. "There's an alarming rise in the number of people in this country condoning political violence or simply remaining silent," Biden said.

☆ Security threat prompts shutdown of Kari Lake campaign headquarters in Phoenix
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The disruption came at a critical moment for the Lake campaign, locked in a tight race for governor with the Democratic nominee, Katie Hobbs, currently serving as Arizona's secretary of state. "Just two days before Election Day, our campaign headquarters remains shut down," the Lake campaign statement said. The FBI's field office in Phoenix said its agents and local law enforcement responded on Sunday morning to "a report of suspicious letters" at the location of the Phoenix campaign headquarters. Neither the FBI statement, nor the Phoenix police, referred to Lake or her campaign by name. The incident came nearly two weeks after a burglary of Hobbs' campaign headquarters.

PHILADELPHIA/LATROBE, Pa., Nov 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden told voters in Pennsylvania that a Democratic loss in Tuesday's midterm elections would have "decades" of consequences, while Republican candidates for Congress predicted a sweeping victory. Still, opinion polls show a significant number of Republican voters accept the claim, as do many candidates for Congress, governor and state offices overseeing election administration. Speaking before Trump at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Representative Glenn Thompson told supporters that Republicans were headed for major gains on Tuesday. TRUMP READIES ANOTHER RUNTrump is set to gin up support for his handpicked Republican Senate nominee, Oz, and Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano at a rally in Latrobe, southeast of Pittsburgh. Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls show Republicans are heavy favorites to win control of the House, with the Senate a toss-up.

PITTSBURGH/LATROBE, Pa., Nov 5 (Reuters) - Former President Barack Obama warned about divisions fueling a "dangerous climate" in U.S. politics as he stumped for Democratic candidates on Saturday three days ahead of midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. "This habit we have of demonizing political opponents, of saying crazy stuff, it creates a dangerous climate," Obama said, without referencing Republicans directly. Republicans contend that Democrats have also engaged in political violence, citing the widespread anti-racism protests that rocked the country in 2020. They have criticized Democrats for failing to keep their focus on inflation and crime, two of voters' principal concerns, according to most opinion polls. Scott Flaherty, a 53-year-old mechanic from Pittsburgh who was heading to the Trump rally, said he is tired of Democrats calling Republicans extreme.

☆ Marjorie Taylor Greene gets rally to boo Paul Pelosi, says he should have had a gun and shot his attacker
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at a rally in Iowa on Thursday ahead of the mid-term elections. She told the crowd that Paul Pelosi "should have been a gun owner and shot his attacker." But the only crime victim you hear about from Democrats in the media is Paul Pelosi," Greene said, drawing boos from the crowd. "Paul Pelosi was brutally attacked by a drugged-out illegal alien that should have been deported," she said, adding that he "should have been a gun owner and shot his attacker." Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 3, 2022Pelosi, 82, was attacked last week by a man who broke into the couple's San Francisco home and hit him in the head with a hammer.

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