Headings for the weekend of 2022 November 06-07

What was in the news this weekend

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian acknowledged for the first time on Nov. 5 that his country had provided drones to Russia, but claimed that it happened before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Iran exploits Russia’s dependence on kamikaze drone supplies. The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that Iran is likely already using Russia’s dependence on the supply of kamikaze drones

“to request Russian assistance with its nuclear program.”

“The nuclear assistance requests and the recognition of the drone shipments are both indicators that Iranian officials may intend to more clearly establish an explicit bilateral security relationship with Russia in which they are more equal partners,”

the ISW reports.

Russia kidnaps 34 children from Kherson Oblast. Russian forces took 34 children from the Preobrazhenka village in the Myrne community to Russia’s Anapa, Kherson Oblast Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said, citing Valentyna Holovata, the head of the Myrne community military administration.

“The parents were promised that their children would be returned by the end of this week, but then the time of stay was extended again for another week,”

Yanushevych said in a Telegram post on Nov. 5.

The Untold Story of ‘Russiagate’ and the Road to War in Ukraine

Russia’s meddling in Trump-era politics was more directly connected to the current war than previously understood.

On the night of 5-6 November Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gathered to discuss the headline policies of the Autumn Statement.

Middle-class workers face paying up to £10bn more in income tax as Jeremy Hunt considers drastically reducing the relief they enjoy on their pension contributions. The Chancellor is in discussions over changing tax rules designed to encourage employees to save into their pensions pots. Whitehall correspondent Tony Diver has the full story.

Hours after she was crowned the Republican candidate in Arizona’s governor’s race, Kari Lake stormed on to stage wielding a sledgehammer. Lifting it high above her head, she vowed to take it to the state’s electronic voting machines, which she blames for Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. Her newfound Republican stardom has made her a favourite to be Mr Trump’s running mate should he run in 2024. Others have speculated she could even lead the ticket in a future White House run.

In Arizona, running alongside Lake is Mark Finchem, a member of the far-Right extremist group the Oath Keepers, who wants to become the state’s chief election official. Michigan features the duo of Tudor Dixon and Kristina Karamo, and in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, election denier Doug Mastriano will appoint the next secretary of state if he wins the governor’s mansion. The prospect of officials who do not recognise the legitimacy of the last election holding sway over the next has prompted alarm among both Democrats and some Republicans.

Florida Restricts Doctors From Providing Gender Treatments to Minors

The state’s medical board, whose members are appointed by the governor, has barred doctors from prescribing gender care to new adolescent patients.

From Yale to Newsmax, Usha Vance Has Helped J.D. Vance Chart His Path

The Ohio Senate candidate’s wife, an accomplished lawyer, remains ensconced in the milieu he now rails against.

The Democrats’ Last Stand in Wisconsin

With the G.O.P. in control of a majority of statehouses, Democrats are fighting for seats in battleground states. Is it too late?

Oz Could Be the First Muslim U.S. Senator, but Some Muslim Americans Are Ambivalent

Unlike most Americans of his faith, Dr. Mehmet Oz is a Republican. His distance from their communities and some of his comments about Islam have unnerved fellow Muslims.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has issued a blistering public attack on President Joe Biden after he called for coal plants across the US to be shuttered, suggesting it’s “time he learn a lesson.”

Mr Biden, while speaking at a stop in Carlsbad, California, on Friday about the CHIPS and Science Act, said, “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar also providing tax credit to help families buy energy-efficient appliances.”

The White House quickly backtracked on Saturday, saying Mr Biden’s words have been “twisted.”

Barack Obama spoke on Saturday from swing-state Pennsylvania in support of Democratic Senate hopeful John Fetterman days before voting concludes in high-stakes midterm elections across the country.

Mr Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor who represents his party’s best chance to flip a Republican-held Senate seat on Tuesday. Obama and Fetterman will appear alongside President Joe Biden and gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro later in the day in Philadelphia.

The Eden Project’s Sir Tim Smit: ‘We need to stop lecturing people about climate change’ Tim Smit is searching for a way to sum up how the Cop27 summit can appease both fat cats and the green lobby – two camps which rarely agree. + “If the West is worried about 1,000 people a day in rubber boats, just wait till there are 30 million on that French border.” + He wants conservation to be about the tangible, the breathable: air, soil, water. “Those should be our birthright. It should be treasonous for people to pollute those. Shut the f— up about climate.”