AP News Abstract at 9:55 a.m. EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — State-level regulation enforcement items created after the 2020 presidential election to analyze voter fraud are wanting into scattered complaints greater than two weeks after the midterms however have offered no indication of systemic issues. That’s simply what election specialists had anticipated and led critics to counsel that the brand new items have been extra about politics than rooting out widespread abuses. Most election-related fraud circumstances already are investigated and prosecuted on the native degree. The absence of widespread fraud is vital as a result of the lies surrounding the 2020 election unfold by former President Donald Trump and his allies have penetrated deeply into the Republican Social gathering and eroded belief in elections.

Ukraine works to revive water, energy after Russian strikes

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities are endeavoring to revive electrical energy and water providers after latest pummeling by Russian navy strikes that vastly broken infrastructure. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated hundreds of thousands have seen their energy restored since blackouts swept throughout the war-battered nation days in the past. Skirmishes continued Saturday within the east and residents from the southern metropolis of Kherson have headed north and west to flee after punishing, lethal bombardments by Russian forces in latest days. The strikes have been seen as makes an attempt at Russian retribution in opposition to Ukraine’s beleaguered however defiant folks after Ukrainian troops over two weeks in the past liberated town that had been in Russian palms for a lot of months.

Sober or vivid? Europe faces holidays throughout power crunch

VERONA, Italy (AP) — In cities throughout Europe, officers are wrestling with a alternative this Christmas. They might dim festive lighting to ship a message of power conservation and solidarity with residents squeezed by greater power prices and inflation. Or they might let the lights blaze in a message of defiance after two years of pandemic-suppressed Christmas seasons, making a temper that retailers hope loosen vacation purse strings. Fewer lights will sparkle from the centerpiece tree at France’s famed Strasbourg Christmas market, and lights on Paris’ Champs-Elysees and London’s Oxford Avenue are decreasing hours. However the vacation will shine brightly in Germany, and the Spanish port metropolis of Vigo is maintaining its custom of staging the nation’s most extravagant Christmas mild show.

Landslide leaves as much as a dozen lacking on Italian island

MILAN (AP) — Heavy rainfall triggered landslides early Saturday on the southern Italian island of Ischia that collapsed buildings and left as many as 12 lacking. The mayor of Naples was quoted by the information company ANSA as saying one physique had been recovered on the island. He was talking on the margins of a metropolis occasion. There was earlier confusion over the loss of life toll after Italian Vice Premier Matteo Salvini stated in Milan that eight had been confirmed useless. The inside minister later stated that no deaths had but been confirmed, whereas 10-12 have been lacking. The minister, Matteo Piantedosi, instructed RAI state TV that “most likely a few of these individuals are beneath the mud.”

On outskirts of Doha, laborers watch World Cup they constructed

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Removed from Doha’s luxurious motels and sprawling new World Cup stadiums, scores of South Asian staff poured right into a cricket floor within the metropolis’s sandy outskirts to benefit from the event they helped create. Their remedy has been the controversial backstory of the 2022 World Cup, ever since Qatar gained the bid to host the soccer championship. Headlines have been crammed with experiences of their low wages, inhospitable circumstances and lengthy hours, usually within the scorching warmth. However on Friday evening because the Netherlands performed Ecuador, the bleachers of the cricket stadium heaved with staff reveling on their someday off of the week.

Flashes of Arab unity at World Cup after years of discontent

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — For a quick second after Saudi Arabia’s Salem Aldawsari fired a soccer ball from simply contained in the penalty field into the again of the online to seal a win in opposition to Argentina, Arabs throughout the divided Center East discovered one thing to have a good time. Such Arab unity is difficult to come back by and fleeting when it arrives. However Qatar’s internet hosting of the World Cup has offered a second the place many within the Arab world have rallied by Doha and the Saudi crew’s win. Whether or not that momentum continues might be examined on Saturday as Saudi Arabia faces Poland — and as regional tensions, spiritual variations and renewed financial competitors between nations resume.

Taiwan president resigns as celebration chief after election loss

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has resigned as head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Social gathering following native election losses suffered by her celebration. Tsai supplied her resignation on Saturday night, a practice after a serious loss, in a brief speech through which she additionally thanked supporters. She stated she is going to shoulder the accountability as she had hand-picked candidates in Saturday’s elections. Voters in Taiwan overwhelmingly selected the opposition Nationalist celebration in a number of main races throughout the self-ruled island. Chiang Wan-an, the Nationalist celebration’s mayoral candidate, gained the carefully watched seat in capital Taipei. Lingering issues about threats from rival China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, took a backseat to extra native points.

Xinjiang loosens some restrictions after lockdown protests

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Authorities in China’s western Xinjiang area have opened up some neighborhoods within the capital of Urumqi after residents held extraordinary late-night demonstrations in opposition to town’s draconian “zero-COVID” lockdown that had lasted greater than three months. The shows of public defiance have been fanned by anger over a hearth in an residence compound that had killed 10, in response to the official loss of life toll. Emergency staff took three hours to extinguish the blaze in a delay many attributed to obstacles brought on by anti-virus measures. Some Urumqi residents had their doorways chained bodily shut. Many within the metropolis imagine such brute-force ways could have prevented residents from escaping in Friday’s hearth and that the official loss of life toll is an undercount.

Iran chief praises power tasked with quashing protests

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a televised deal with has praised paramilitary volunteers tasked with quashing dissent. In the meantime, a pro-reform Iranian information website stated Saturday that 140 ophthalmologists have expressed concern over a rising variety of folks blinded after being shot by safety forces with metallic pellets. Khamenei met with the paramilitary Basij group and reiterated unsupported claims that the mass anti-government protests are a overseas plot devised by the U.S. to destabilize Iran. He stated the protesters have been mercenaries. Khamenei’s feedback got here a day after Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi met with the Basij and praised their efforts to take care of safety.

Wildlife convention boosts safety for sharks, turtles

PANAMA CITY (AP) — A world wildlife convention has moved to enact among the most vital safety for shark species focused within the fin commerce and scores of turtles, lizards and frogs whose numbers are being decimated by the pet commerce. The Conference on Worldwide Commerce in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, recognized by its initials as CITES, ended Friday in Panama. Together with protections for over 500 species, delegates on the United Nations wildlife convention rejected a proposal to reopen ivory commerce. An ivory ban was enacted in 1989.