NEWS

On election night 2020, then-President Donald Trump prematurely declared hours after polls had closed: “We already have won.”

He hadn’t, and we rated that “Pants on Fire”. When Trump began to speak in the early morning of November 4, at 2:21am ET, states were still following normal procedures to count ballots. It was not until Saturday, November 7, that The Associated Press had sufficient unofficial results available to call the race for Joe Biden.

In the past, when polls closed, politicians and social media influencers spread falsehoods about voting and the ballot-counting process. It’s likely that as the votes are being counted this year, we will see falsehoods similar to those in 2020.

Voters who are seeking credible sources for election results information can follow reports from state election officials nationwide, compiled by the National Association of State Election Directors. The AP is among the news outlets that will call projected winners based on unofficial results, but in many states that will not take place on election night.

Here are some falsehoods that might surface after the polls close.

Claims about thousands of dead voters

It’s a zombie claim we see during every election cycle: huge numbers of dead people are voting! And they are all Democrats! Neither is true.

As ballot counting was under way in November 2020, X posts falsely said that more than 14,000 dead people voted in Wayne County, Michigan.

Typically when voters die, it’s rare that their relatives contact local elections offices to ask that their names be removed from voter rolls. But election offices routinely receive death records from state and federal sources and then remove dead voters’ names from voter rolls. Some still end up on the rolls.

Occasionally, people illegally cast mail ballots in dead relatives’ names, as a Republican did in 2020 in Nevada. That voter was charged with felonies.

Claims that ballot errors and election site mishaps equal fraud

Although election officials spend years preparing for presidential elections, errors sometimes occur.

They are not a sign of fraud.

So far this year, we have seen a limited number of ballots with errors, such as a typo in some ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida. County officials said 257 overseas voters opened an email with a ballot that said “Tom” Walz instead of Tim Walz, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

Some election sites have mishaps, such as a 6am water leak on Election Day in 2020 at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, where election workers were counting absentee ballots. Arena staff repaired the leak in about two hours and no ballots or machines were damaged. State and county election officials debunked the claim that election officials used the event to circumvent processes and pull out ballots stored in “suitcases” that were “all for Biden”.

Claims of thousands of fake votes in Pennsylvania

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, officials said in an initial October 25 statement that they were investigating 2,500 “ballots”, but a county spokesperson later said that word was a mistake and the investigation was into voter registration applications.

Days later, Trump falsely said at an Allentown, Pennsylvania, rally: “We caught them with 2,600 votes. … And every vote was written by the same person.” He made similar comments on X about “fake ballots and forms” in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry, a Democrat, said in an October 31 statement: “The investigations regard voter registration forms, not ballots” and were under way in four counties.

Officials do not place people on voter rolls if their registration is suspect, so that means that there were not thousands of fake votes.

Claims about machines flipping votes

As Kentucky’s Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams wrote on November 2 on X: “Gentle reminder that vote-switching is fiction.” He linked to a 2008 video of Homer Simpson trying to vote for Barack Obama but repeatedly voting for former Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.

Election officials facing reports of “flipped” or “switched” votes have said that sometimes that is user error and, when voters bring it to their attention, officials make sure voters can cast ballots with their desired choices.

That is what happened in Tarrant County, Texas, when one person out of more than 100,000 voters reported having a vote for Trump changed to Harris when the ballot was printed. Local election officials said the voting machines were not flipping candidates and suggested the voter made a mistake when selecting preferred candidates. That ballot was destroyed and the voter was allowed to vote again.

An October Instagram post said voting machines in Shelby County, Tennessee, were swapping votes from Harris to Trump. Election officials said there were no voting machine malfunctions. Voters had inadvertently touched the wrong area of the ballot when using the touchscreen voting machines.

Rampant non-citizen voting does not occur

Trump and his supporters have falsely claimed that Democrats are behind a scheme to lure non-citizens to the US to vote in federal elections. That’s not happening.

Federal law bans non-citizens from voting in federal elections.

Non-citizens sometimes land on voter rolls, often by accident when getting driver’s licences. However, voting by non-citizens in federal elections is rare. The largest case with convictions we found was in 2020 in North Carolina, when federal prosecutors charged 19 people with voter fraud after they cast ballots, mostly in the 2016 election. For context, more than 4.5 million people in North Carolina voted in the 2016 presidential election.

Claims that election officials rip up or trash ballots

If you’re an election worker committing election fraud, you probably wouldn’t film yourself opening mail ballot envelopes, calling out the votes in those ballots, cursing against one candidate and ripping up ballots marked for that candidate.

But that’s what one ridiculous viral video appears to show, leading X users to claim that mail ballots with votes for Trump are being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Federal officials said Russian actors manufactured and amplified the video.

Claims in 2020 about large numbers of ballots found in the rubbish were either made up or were about spoiled ballots that were legally destroyed.

Claims that election officials sneak in ‘ballot dumps’ late at night

It is common for one candidate to take the lead in early results but not be the winner as more ballots are counted. For example, in Pennsylvania, if it takes longer to count votes in left-leaning Philadelphia than in a more right-leaning part of the state, it’s possible that Trump could lead the state early in the night but see the margins shift later.

Trump tweeted the claim on November 4 2020: “Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost all instances Democrat run and controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.”

In some states, Trump did initially lead, only to see Biden eventually take the lead. But in other states, Biden led and Trump came back to take the lead.

There is nothing nefarious about local election officials updating results in the hours and days after polls close. In fact, it means they are counting all legitimate ballots. State laws dictate the process, including when officials can start opening mail ballots. That means it takes time to finish the count. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, do not allow election workers to begin processing mail ballots until Election Day, while other states allow that to begin weeks earlier.

Claims that mass voter fraud in 2020 affected the election’s outcome

After the polls closed in 2020, a cascade of social media images and photos claimed to show poll workers and others committing voter fraud. But the posts mostly showed election officials doing their jobs.

The election system in our country makes such a heist both unlikely and impossibly elaborate.

“We should call this what it is: Trump laying the groundwork so he can cast doubt on the 2024 results if he does not win,” Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, told PolitiFact in early October.

To build a sufficient Electoral College margin, bad actors would have to collaborate across battleground states in a coordinated but secret way, with hundreds of people risking felonies for the same goal.

Pulling this off would require thousands of illegal votes. A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation shows about 1,300 convictions for voter fraud over decades. During that period, billions of votes were cast.

Claims of early victory

Speaking at the White House hours after the polls closed in 2020, Trump said: “We want all voting to stop. We do not want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list, OK? It’s a very sad moment. … And we will win this.”

There is no state or federal law that says vote counting must stop a few hours after the polls close. Election officials would have violated laws if they simply stopped counting legitimate ballots.

State laws set the certification deadline in November or December, so the official results will not be known for weeks after Election Day. However, media outlets are likely to project a winner far earlier than that.

In honor of its 25th anniversary (and seeking some political solace), I spent the last two months rewatching “The West Wing” in its seven-season entirety.

At least I thought I was rewatching. In its early years I was a devoted fan of the Josiah Bartlet administration and am on record as such. Yet as I made my way through the sixth and seventh seasons of the Emmy-winning NBC drama, I began to have a sneaking suspicion that I was watching these episodes for the first time. I have no memory of giving up on “The West Wing,” though when it began I had just had my first child and by the time it ended I had three. Something had to give and apparently that was it.

So there was joy in discovering “new” storylines, many of which revolved around the final months of Bartlet’s (Martin Sheen) presidency and the campaigns of Congressman Matt Santos (D-Texas), played by Jimmy Smits, and Sen. Arnold Vinick (R-Calif.), played by Alan Alda.

But there was much bitterness and sorrow too.

Imagine a world in which the two candidates for president of the United States both rigorously refuse to engage in negative campaigning. Who use their one debate to explain, in impassioned detail, their differing thoughts on tax policy and international leadership. Who, as the election comes down to Nevada and its electoral college votes, make it clear they will not get lawyers involved.

“I will be a winner or a loser,” Vinick says as political consultant Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver), in Mephistophelean mode, tries to persuade him to demand a recount if he loses. “I won’t be a sore loser.”

In the other camp, campaign manager Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) tells Santos: “You take it to court, you’re the guy who screams at the ump because you don’t like the call at the plate. Nobody votes for that guy again.”

In 2006, when the episode premiered, these responses might have been read as a reference to the drawn-out, many-lawyers-involved Florida recount in 2000. Or they might simply have functioned as a convenient plot device on a long-running TV show.

Then President Trump filed multiple court cases in hopes of reversing his 2020 loss to Vice President Joe Biden. And directed an armed mob to the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. And ginned up more false allegations of widespread voter fraud this time around, sparking fears of similar if not worse violence around the 2024 election. After all that, “The West Wing’s” nobility of purpose is enough to make one weep.

Even more copiously than when Barlet’s beloved assistant Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) died.

“The West Wing” was always Aaron Sorkin’s highly romanticized, often preachy, deeply personal and (mostly) progressive vision of presidential politics. (Though after 25 years its often patronizing yet somehow self-congratulatory treatment of some of its female characters seems jarring.) The race to replace Bartlet, which began more than a year after Sorkin left the show, is no different. Santos appears to be a near-perfect man of the people, with a resolute voting record and skeleton-free closet. Vinick believes in tax cuts, small government and school vouchers, but he is beloved on both sides of the aisle and is such a liberal Republican that he is loudly pro-choice.

The Santos and Vinick campaigns’ notion of “attack ads” focuses on voting records, military service and Vinick’s support of nuclear power — not lies, conspiracy theories or ad hominem attacks. The dirtiest the campaign gets involves a leak that Santos’ running mate, former Bartlet Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), is struggling in debate prep (it turns out McGarry leaked the info himself) and an ad that mischaracterizes Santos’ position on abortion, which Vinick repeatedly demands be taken down.

Though the storylines echo voters’ spoken (if not actual) desire for elections to be about policy rather than mud-slinging, the civility of the Santos/Vinick campaign is so clearly aspirational it borders at times on the ridiculous: Only TV writers could believe that a single speech is capable of lifting a primary candidate from the brink of dropping out to winning the nomination.

But now those aspirations appear heart-breaking rather than absurd. For nearly a decade now, Donald Trump, sexual predator and now convicted felon, has trampled even the loosest definition of civility into the ground. Choosing invective over inspiration, he campaigns almost exclusively ongrievance, regularly saying and doing things that would have ended the campaign of any other candidate in American history before him.

It is not remotely partisan to say he has divided this country in a way no other modern party nominee has ever even attempted to do.

If the writers of “The West Wing” had created such a bogeyman, a Republican candidate who regularly mocked, belittled and physically threatened so many parts of the electorate, who based his campaign on the authoritarian premise that unless he wins, the election is a fraud, TV audiences, Republican and Democrat, would not just have stopped watching the show. They (myself included) would have boycotted the network.

Instead, they went the other way. Sure, there was tension when the election came down to the wire, but no one felt the future of democracy was at stake. Now my children, too young to remember when Barack Obama was elected, view “The West Wing” and the tone of the Santos/Vinick campaign not as progressive idealism but as full-blown fantasy. Trump has turned each of their first voting experiences into a fight not for the direction of the republic but for its survival.

There are many emotional moments in the final episodes of “The West Wing,” but given the stakes and realities of this election day, it’s not the end of Bartlet’s presidency or even the death of Leo McGarry — made requisite by Spencer’s own tragic death — that forces the viewer’s throat to close with real grief. It’s the scenes in which President-elect Santos reaches out to Vinick, asking him to become secretary of State. Not because Santos wants to check some bipartisan box but because he admires and values his former opponent and because he believes that, despite their disagreements, he and Vinick want the country to improve for all Americans.

What seemed a bit pie-in-the-sky in 2006 seems literally impossible in 2024. Never in recent memory have two presidential candidates and their supporters been so politically and existentially at odds.

You don’t have to be a “West Wing” fan to feel despair, to wonder how it came to this. And, more importantly, to worry — no matter who becomes the 47th president — about how on earth we’re going to fix it.

Former United States President Donald Trump has delivered a final pitch to the American people, making four stops in three different states to denounce his opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, as a “disaster”.

“You know she’s been exposed,” Trump said at his final campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a rally that lasted so long it slipped into the early hours of Election Day.

“She’s a radical lunatic who destroyed San Francisco,” he said of the city where Harris spent the formative years of her career. “But we don’t have to settle for weakness and incompetence and decline.”

Ever since he announced in November 2022 that he would make a second re-election bid, his campaign has focused on immigration, the economy and a desire for retribution against his perceived political adversaries.

Trump has long maintained that his 2020 election defeat was the result of a “stolen” election, a false claim.

And in his final rally of the election, he applied similar language to his former Democratic adversary, President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race in July due to concerns over his age.

“They stole the election from a president,” Trump said of the circumstances of Biden’s withdrawal. “They use the word ‘coup’. I think it’s worse than a coup in a sense because in a coup there’s a little back and forth.”

Trump stumps heavily on economy

Polls show Democrats like Biden, 81, and Harris, 60, as being vulnerable on issues such as the economy and immigration.

For example, a survey in late October from The New York Times and Siena College found that more voters trusted Trump than Harris to address the economy, at a rate of 52 percent to 45.

Trump has often invoked the economy in his appeal to voters. It was no different on Monday night, when he opened his rally in Grand Rapids with a familiar question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

He proceeded to muse at length about “groceries” being an old term — before promising to bring food prices down.

“They say my groceries are so much more [expensive],” Trump said of voters. “The term is just like an old term. And it’s a beautiful [term], but they say about my groceries were so expensive. They’ll be cheaper. Your paycheques will be higher. Your streets will be safer and clear.”

Campaign fatigue

During the rally, the 78-year-old Trump also acknowledged the toll the nonstop campaign schedule has taken on him.

“This is the last one we will have to do,” he said of the Grand Rapids rally. “Doing four of these in one day is a little difficult, but not really. Because the love at every one of them has been incredible.”

The Grand Rapids appearance came at the end of a busy day of campaigning. Earlier on Monday, Trump gave speeches in Raleigh, North Carolina; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Pittsburgh, also in Pennsylvania.

But making his final appeal in Grand Rapids has become a Trump team tradition. Grand Rapids was the site of his final event in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles.

The question of Trump’s fatigue and fitness on the campaign trail has been an issue the Harris campaign has sought to weaponise.

Harris has positioned herself as a “new generation” of leader, compared with the older Trump, and her campaign recently released footage of Trump on social media appearing to nod off at a campaign event.

“Being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world,” Harris told reporters earlier this month. “And we really do need to ask: If he’s exhausted on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?”

Both candidates have sought to paint the other as incapable of weathering the stresses of the White House.

Navigating controversy

In the waning days of his campaign, Trump has also had to navigate controversy over his rhetoric and that of his allies.

For instance, he faced outcry after suggesting that longtime critic, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, ought to know what it was like to have guns trained on her since her family is known for its hawkish approach to foreign policy.

On Sunday, he also said he would not “mind so much” if someone shot the media to get at him. And at a rally at Madison Square Garden a week earlier, his campaign ignited a firestorm when one of the speakers described the US island territory of Puerto Rico as “garbage”.

Trump has since sought to redirect any criticism to President Biden, who appeared to call the Republican’s supporters “garbage” in response to the Puerto Rico comment.

“I came in a sanitation uniform last week, and that worked out pretty good,” Trump told the crowd in Grand Rapids. “Because Joe Biden in one of his crazy moments said that we were all garbage.”

The crowd booed Biden in response.

Trump also returned to a talking point that earned him backlash during the June presidential debate: that migrants were stealing “Black jobs”, a phrase many critics viewed as racist.

The former president nevertheless doubled down on the assertion in his Grand Rapids rally, reverting to hyped-up rhetoric about the threat of migration.

“One hundred percent of the jobs that were created went to migrants, not to people. And I’ll tell you what. Your Black population is being devastated by these people. They’re taking all the Black population jobs away,” he said.

“You’re going to see some bad things happen. They’re taking their jobs. The Hispanic population is going to be next.”

‘We’ve been waiting four years for this’

Polls show Trump continues to be neck and neck with Harris in the final hours before Americans cast their ballots.

But in his final campaign appearances of the 2024 election cycle, Trump sought to create a false narrative that his popularity far exceeded Harris’s — and that there was no way he could lose.

“When we win the election, look, the ball’s in our hands. All we have to do is get out the vote tomorrow. You get out the vote. They can’t do anything about it. We win,” he said.

He also described his presidential bid — and his near-death experience in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July — as providential experiences.

“Just a few months ago, in a beautiful field in Pennsylvania, an assassin tried to stop our great movement. The greatest movement in history,” Trump told the Grand Rapids audience. “That was not a pleasant day. But many people say that God saved me in order to save America.”

Earlier, in Pittsburgh, Trump appeared before a large crowd and offered a closing message to voters whose support might still be undecided in the key swing state.

“We’ve been waiting four years for this,” said Trump. “We’re going to win the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and it’s going to be over.”

While on stage, he announced he had received the endorsement of Joe Rogan, the hugely influential podcaster who interviewed Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

“F- around and find out.” The lead prosecutor for the US city of Philadelphia in the important battleground state of Pennsylvania issued a warning to anyone considering interfering with the election or intimidating voters on election day.

NOW that the weather is getting colder, if you’re looking for simple ways to battle the chill, you’ve come to the right place.

With energy costs continuing to rise, if you’re reluctant to turn on your central heating this winter, don’t worry, we’ve got a quick and easy hack that is sure to keep you feeling cosy this season.

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And if you’ve tried a hot water bottle, foot warmer or cosy jumper and nothing is working, this might just be the thing for you.

For just £4.99, B&Q claims to have the answer to battling ‘nagging draughts’.

Thanks to the 5m Self Adhesive Draft Excluder Weatherstrip For Doors And Windows, which you can order online from B&Q, you’ll be able to keep your home warm with barely any faff involved.

According to the retailer, this Weatherstrip Seal will ensure your pad is toasty warm and ‘safe from cold temperatures or wind’.

This bargain buy is made from long-lasting polypropylene and polypropylene fibre material, making it a great choice for your doors and windows.

If that wasn’t enough, it’s also ‘windproof and waterproof’ too.

It has a strong adhesive backing which provides ‘durable’ protection for your doors.

Not only this, but this anti-corrosion super seal is ‘very stable and tough’ and will fill any empty gaps.

It’s super easy and flexible to apply – all you need to do is simply peel and stick it.

You can cut the strip to the measured size, clean any debris or trapped dust between doors and windows and peel away the backing slowly.

After this, you can then cut off any access strip. 

And with five metres of the stuff, you’re sure to have enough to add to windows and doors all over your home, ensuring your pad is winter-ready in no time at all. 

It will stick immediately to windows and door frames and can be applied in a matter of seconds, making it the perfect pick this winter.

Shoppers flocked to the B&Q website to share their rave reviews of the cheap product, which now has an average rating of 4.5 out of five.

This product is perfect for those nagging draughts

B&Q shopper

Shoppers stressed the value of the product and its ease of use.

One person said: “Great for filling in those draughty gaps in windows. Easy to apply.” 

Whilst another praised the product and added: “This product is perfect for those nagging draughts.

“Did what I needed on a draught coming in a window, stocks well and the brush stops the draught coming in.” 

Ministers must act to ensure Britain’s public broadcasting landscape does not become a thing of the past, the BBC’s chair is to warn.

Dr Samir Shah is expected to say “the fight is on” for the future of public service broadcasting in his first major speech since taking the role.

Dr Shah will say public service broadcasters like the BBC are a “very British success story” when he speaks to a group of TV industry figures in Leeds on Tuesday.

But amid the rise of streaming, Dr Shah, who became chair in March, will warn: “Action is needed now to future-proof public service broadcasters, otherwise our very British success story will be part of our halcyon past.”

He will question the “sense of almost perpetual government review over the BBC” and is expected to add: “No other country has anything like this. Public service broadcasters lie at the heart of our social and cultural life, and they are worth fighting for. And, to be frank, the fight is on.”

Dr Shah will float the idea of a permanent BBC charter, which would bring the BBC in line with other institutions such as the British Council, the Bank of England and UK Sport.

The current system means the BBC’s royal charter is renewed every 10 years.

The current charter runs out in 2027, and the government published the conclusions of a mid-term review in January.

The charter sets out the purposes of the BBC and outlines its governance and regulatory arrangements, including the role of the BBC board.

Discussions with the government ahead of the next charter renewal will be approached “constructively and with an open mind”, he will say, and “reforming the licence fee, replacing it, or coming up with a whole new mechanism” all remain on the table.

The BBC chair will also say he doesn’t support subscription and advertising as possible future funding models because neither “pass the test” for a universal, public service BBC as they shift the priority from serving audiences to profiting from them.

ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C are also classed as public service broadcasters.

Although it hasn’t always been pop-u-lar with the public, Ariana Grande’s relationship with her “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater is now Instagram-official.

The “Eternal Sunshine” singer on Monday celebrated the Jon M. Chu-directed movie musical’s upcoming release with a carousel of photos from its Australian premiere. Among them is a candid shot of Slater — who plays Boq, of Munchkinland — carrying the train of Grande’s Glinda-inspired Vivienne Westwood gown as she makes her way down the stairs at Sydney’s State Theatre. (Slater shared the same photo on his account.)

Slater’s appearance on the Sunday premiere’s red (yellow) carpet also swept across social media after a fan filmed the Tony Award nominee accepting a friendship bracelet on Grande’s behalf.

“Is it possible for you to give this to Ari for me?” the fan asks in the video, to which Slater replies, “I’m pretty sure she’s coming if you want [to give it to her], but I can do that.” He also reassured the fan, saying, “I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Footage of the interaction went viral shortly after it was re-shared by a “Wicked” fan account, whose owner wrote, “Ethan Slater seems like the kindest and most genuine person. The world owes him an apology.”

Slater and Grande, who met on the “Wicked” set, came under scrutiny when they first sparked dating rumors in 2023 — after their respective (and highly publicized) splits from previous partners. At the time of the coinciding divorce filings, Slater’s ex-wife, singer Lilly Jay, with whom he shares a 2-year-old son, told Page Six, “My family is collateral damage.”

The pair has since kept mum about their romance. But that changed in September, when Grande addressed the media stir surrounding her relationship with Slater in a Vanity Fair cover story.

While declining to delve into “certain details,” the Grammy-winning songstress said, “It definitely doesn’t get any easier, seeing some of the negativity that was birthed by disreputable tabloids.”

She continued to say that, like many other “Wicked” cast members, she “went through a lot of life changes during the filming of this movie.”

“The most disappointing part,” Grande said, “was to see so many people believe the worst version of it. … There couldn’t be a less accurate depiction of a human being than the one that the tabloids spread about [Slater]. No one on this earth tries harder or spreads themselves thinner to be there for the people that he loves and cares about.”

Slater echoed Grande’s comments in his October GQ cover story, saying the blowback was difficult to manage.

“There were a lot of big changes in private lives that were really happening,” he said, “so it’s really hard to see people who don’t know anything about what’s happening commenting on it and speculating, and then getting things wrong about the people you love.”

“But, of course,” he conceded, “it was an amazing year and a really beautiful thing, and I’m just really excited.”

Slater added that he’s “really, really proud of Ari and the work she’s done” on “Wicked.”

“She’s poured herself into it,” he said, “and I’m really excited to be there for this next step of it when the world gets to see the amazing thing that she did.”

The Journey Through Oz press tour will continue across four more cities around the world, with stops scheduled in Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York and London before “Wicked” opens in U.S. theaters Nov. 22.

And when the credits roll, Grande will be listed with her full name, Ariana Grande-Butera — which incorporates the last names of her mother, Joan Grande, and her father, Edward Butera.

“Technically, it’s little Ari’s name,” she said, explaining the decision in a recent interview with Australian radio station Hit 104.7 Canberra. “I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba, and you know, that was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old — and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that.”

On the eve of Election Day in the United States, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris blitzed through battleground states while trying to drive home key promises to supporters and voters still on the fence.

Vice President Harris zoned in on cities across Pennsylvania while former President Trump made stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The Democratic candidate was joined by pop culture figures including Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey, while Trump called to stage his sons and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, with whom he once had a contentious relationship.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

The race continues to remain tight according to the latest polls, with key swing states presenting narrow leads for both candidates.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily tracker, Harris has a 1.2-point lead over Trump nationally, a margin that has remained fairly static in recent days, though it has shrunk compared with a month ago.

In swing states, Harris has a one-point advantage in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lead in Georgia and North Carolina has shrivelled to under one point, while he is ahead by 2.2 points in Arizona.

In Pennsylvania and Nevada, less than half a point separates the two: Harris has sneaked ahead in the former, though only marginally, after trailing Trump narrowly for the past two weeks; while the Republican candidate is barely ahead in Nevada.

Yet, the gap between the two candidates remains within the margin of error of polls in all seven swing states.

Pennsylvania has 19 Electoral College votes, the most among the battleground states, while Nevada has the fewest – six.

Still, Al Jazeera correspondent John Holman said that Nevada could prove to be crucial because of how close the race is. Key election issues resonate strongly here, with Nevada facing one of the highest unemployment rates and costs of living in the US.

More than 82 million Americans have already voted this year, according to a tally by the Election Lab at the University of Florida. The figure represents more than half of the total votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.

What was Kamala Harris up to on Monday?

Harris spent the final day campaigning in Pennsylvania.

The Democratic candidate started off with an event in Scranton, the hometown of President Joe Biden. She continued touting a message of unity while stating that the country is ready to move on from the Trump era.

Between rallies, Harris stopped by the Old San Juan Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading, Pennsylvania, trying to woo a community that has a large electoral presence in the state and that has come into focus after a comedian made racist comments about the US territory at a Trump event recently.

In the afternoon, Harris made her way to the steel city of Pittsburgh where she pledged to sign into law a national reproductive rights bill if passed by Congress.

Harris capped off the day with a big rally in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which featured music stars Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, as well as influential media personality Oprah Winfrey.

What was Donald Trump up to on Monday?

Donald Trump continued his campaign with a whirlwind tour through North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

In his first stop at Raleigh, North Carolina, the Republican candidate claimed a decisive advantage in the presidential race, which he said was “ours to lose”.

Trump went on to attack Harris on crime and immigration, arguing that “you’ll have open borders the very first day” if she is elected.

The stop marked Trump’s third consecutive day in the state while Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle reported an unusually low turnout in Raleigh, describing the venue as “only half full”, with empty seats visible around the edges.

Later, Trump went to Reading, Pennsylvania, where he again suggested that he would carry out mass deportations by invoking an antiquated law, and to get Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters to battle migrants.

Trump said he told UFC CEO Dana White – a backer of the former president – to set up a league. “At the end, I want the migrant to go against the champion, and I think the migrant might actually win, that’s how nasty some of these guys are,” Trump said. “But I don’t know, I doubt that,” he added, trailing off.

He also reiterated unfounded election fraud claims.

Trump also said Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who could siphon votes from Democrats in some swing states, particularly those outraged by the war in Gaza, “may be my favourite politician”.

He ended his day in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a final appeal to voters.

What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?

Hailing from California, Harris has voted absentee by mail. Her home state, which carries 54 Electoral College votes, is anticipated to vote Democratic this year, continuing a trend that has lasted for the past 36 years.

According to the NPR radio network, Harris will host a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, DC. The District of Columbia, with its three Electoral votes, is expected to support the Democratic candidate, consistent with its historical backing in every presidential election.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign announced plans last week to host an election watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center instead of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Despite previously indicating he would vote early, Trump has decided to cast his ballot in Florida on Election Day. Throughout this election cycle, he has encouraged Americans to vote early, even while expressing doubts about the integrity of the electoral process.

Florida, with its 30 Electoral votes, was for many years a swing state, won by former President Barack Obama twice and by Trump in 2016 and 2020. This year, however, Trump is favoured to secure a comfortable victory in the state.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry calls for ‘urgent action’ from the UN to stop ‘Israeli aggression’ against civilians.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called on the United Nations to act following Israeli air strikes south of the Syrian capital Damascus, which a human rights monitor said have killed two people and left five others wounded.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA, citing a military source, said the attack on Monday evening at about 5:18pm local time (14:18 GMT) involved Israeli warplanes hitting “a number of civilian sites south of Damascus, resulting in material losses”.

“The Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan” heights, the military source told SANA.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the latest attack, calling the Israeli missile strikes on civilian areas “criminal” and urged UN members to take swift action in “halting Israeli aggression” and holding it accountable.

“The Syrian Arab Republic condemns the aggression launched by the Zionist entity this evening,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Syria calls on member states of the United Nations to take urgent action and firm measures to stop the Israeli aggression and hold its perpetrators accountable for their crimes.”

According to reports, Israeli jet fighters carried out three strikes in the Sayyidah Zaynab area, located about 10km (6 miles) south of Damascus.

The first strike hit the Kaou Sudan junction near Sayyidah Zaynab, which was crowded with displaced people who had fled Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. The second strike was in the vicinity of a hotel, located to the southeast of Sayyidah Zaynab, and the third attack targeted farmhouses in the area.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said two members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement were reported killed and five were seriously injured in Israeli air strikes on a farm in the area.

In a rare admission, the Israeli Air Force claimed early on Tuesday morning that it had hit “targets” in Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the “Syrian region”.

“Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters operates a branch in Syria, which includes a collection and assessment system”, the Israeli Air Force said in a post on social media.

“The attack on the assets of the military intelligence headquarters in Syria joins the attacks in Lebanon in damaging the intelligence capabilities of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” the air force said.

Sayyidah Zaynab, considered a Hezbollah stronghold and the site of an important Shia shrine, has been the target of previous Israeli strikes.

Sources say it remains high on Israel’s list of targets due to the presence of members of the Lebanese movement who have fled to Syria.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in Syria for years, mostly without admitting responsibility, and has intensified those attacks since the October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas fighters.

SUPERMODEL Irina Shayk is a sheer delight as she sparkles on arrival at a bash.

The 38-year-old Russian was at a Milan party thrown by vegan beauty brand d’Alba Piedmont — but she may not be a shining example for going entirely animal-free.

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She has previously admitted her favourite food is a “huge burger with cheese”.

Irina Valeryevna Shaykhlislamova – professionally known as Irina Shayk – was born in Russia on January 6, 1986.

She is a model and television personality best known for being one of the faces of Victoria’s Secret and, more recently, Rihanna’s buzzing lingerie brand, Savage X Fenty.

However, the model has grown globally and walked the runway for fashion brands including Fendi, Chanel, Tory Burch, Vivienne Westwood, and more.

She also never fails to grace the covers of magazines like Vogue, Bazaar, and Allure.

Due to her high success in the fashion world, Shayk has accumulated quite a fortune.

Her net worth is believed to be around $25million, as per Celebrity Net Worth.

Irina had a high profile romance with NFL star Tom Brady, 46, last summer, but friends said they split at the start of this year and she is on the hunt for a new man.

Sources recently claimed action hero Tom Cruise, 61, could be on her list of potential suitors.

She previously dated Hollywood star Bradley Cooper, 49, and they have daughter Lea, seven.

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The late Quincy Jones’ life spanned the entirety of modern American pop music — a tradition he absorbed, influenced and reinvented for generations. It’s remarkable to look back on the composer, arranger and producer’s life and hear him speak on his friendships and work with Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur, among hundreds more.

Over the years, The Times spoke to Jones — who died Sunday at 91 — at many junctures in his career, where he recalled being a Black composer in Hollywood in a less-enlightened mid-century climate; making perhaps the biggest pop album of the century with Michael Jackson, and his heartbreak over gangsta rap’s real world violence that touched his family.

Jones’ philosophy on music was cosmopolitan and curious from the start. He traveled widely, and as a composer, he learned from European classical and folk traditions, pairing them with the innovations of Black art forms like American jazz.

Traditional music “enhances your soul,” he told The Times in 2001. “Because you see that most countries, the evolution of their music is based on the roots of their folk music, like ours is. [Béla] Bartók came out of Hungarian folk music. The Scandinavian folklore is awesome. All those tunes that Miles [Davis] and Stan Getz played, ‘Dear Old Stockholm,’ beautiful folk music, you can’t believe how beautiful it is. Traveling is the best education there is. You’re experiencing their food that they like to eat and their language and their music. And that’s the soul. That’s the real stuff. They would tell us: Don’t go to the souk [a marketplace or bazaar]! Don’t go to the casbah! That’s just where we went. That’s like going to the ‘hood! I’m right up in there in a minute, baby.”

Jazz, one of his first loves, imbued everything he did in film scores, pop and education. “[Count] Basie, Clark Terry, it was an amazing education,” he said. “I talk a lot now. But I used to sit down and shut up and listen to them. Because old people know what they are talking about, they’ve been there. All of the young brothers that call Louis Armstrong a ‘Tom’ and all that stuff. This is the man who invented our music. He had no samples, he has no radio station or nothing to listen to. He’s just inventing it. Art Blakey told Branford Marsalis, ‘We had to take a lot so you can do your little flip stuff.’ It’s true. There is a lot of blood out there.”

“Before I die, I want to be a part of a way for Americans to know their own music,” he added. “They don’t get it. We’ve got the greatest mother ship on the planet. We’ve got to talk to the administration. We need a minister of culture — I don’t want to do it, but we need one. Everyone’s got one. This country’s culture is the Esperanto of the world. It’s the first thing that they cut from schools, but if they had it, [there] would be a better spirit in the country.”

Jones came to early renown as a film composer, where he wrote the scores to Oscar-winning “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Wiz,” “In Cold Blood” and “The Color Purple,” among many others. But breaking that ground was an often lonely endeavor for a Black artist in mid-century Hollywood.

“Sidney Poitier and I were the only ones out there,” said Jones, who scored several films starring Poitier, a close friend. “He handed me the baton for composers.”

As recording technology evolved away from simply documenting live performances to an artistic craft of its own, Jones adapted his methods for a new era. But he always tried to emphasize the human qualities of being in a room together with a band, reading each other.

“The essence of the music is designed to interact. Synthesizers and drum machines? That’s not interaction,” he said in 2001. “When I recorded with [Frank] Sinatra, Sinatra sitting right there in the booth, looking me, the rhythm section and the trumpet section straight in the eye. That was the only way we knew. And I can handle it any different way. Because I’ve worked with all the generations. It keeps moving. A lot of the guys didn’t want to change. … Now it’s modular and layers and overdubs and all of that.”

Yet Jones was quick to see the potential in new electronic instruments, and used a then-nascent Moog synthesizer to write his theme for 1967’s “Ironside.”

“Robert Moog said to me, ‘Quincy, why don’t the brothers use my instrument?’ ” he recalled in 2017. “I said, ’Cause, man, No. 1: we sculpt an electronic signal into a sine wave that’s smooth, or a sawtooth, which is rough. The problem with it, though, is it doesn’t bend. And if it doesn’t bend, it can’t get funky. And if it can’t get funky, brother, you don’t touch it.’ So he came up with a pitch-bender and a portamento on it … and I got it, real quick.”

In the world of pop music, Jones’ work with Jackson, especially on the era-dominating LP “Thriller,” changed everything . “It was the perfect convergence of forces,” he said, in 2009’s moving reminiscence after Jackson’s death. ”In the music business, every decade you have a phenomenon. In the ‘40s you had Sinatra, in the ‘50s Elvis [Presley], in the ‘60s the Beatles. …In the ‘80s you had Michael Jackson.”

Jones discussed how he refined the gifts that made Jackson such a potent performer. “We owned the ‘80s and our souls would be connected forever,” he said. “Evoking Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr. and James Brown all at once, he’d work for hours, perfecting every kick, gesture and movement so that they came together precisely the way they were intended to. We tried all kinds of tricks that I’d learned over the years to help him with his artistic growth, like dropping keys just a minor third to give him flexibility and a more mature range in the upper and lower registers, and more than a few tempo changes. I also tried to steer him to songs with more depth, some of them about real relationships…

“At one point during the session, the right speaker burst into flames. How’s that for a sign?” He asked. “It’s no accident that almost three decades later, no matter where I go in the world, in every club and karaoke bar, like clockwork, you hear ‘Billie Jean,’ ‘Beat It,’ ‘Wanna Be Starting Something,’ ‘Rock With You’ and ‘Thriller.’ ”

After Jackson’s ‘80s peak, as hip-hop became the dominant commercial force in pop music, he spoke with sadness and insight about how music designed to reflect real-world pain and neglect could also succumb to it. Jones, the founder and chairman of Vibe magazine whose daughter Kidada was engaged to Shakur at the time of his death, and Jones said for “the rest of my life” he’d pursuing peace within Black music.

“We need a coalition of the hip-hop nation,” he said. “I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we’ve had in a long time. It’s sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America. If you read the musicology books, you don’t always get the full story.”

If major labels “participate in the profits of the music” suffering under violence, he added, “They have a responsibility for it. You’ve got to keep going, man. What else do you do? Go under? I wouldn’t be devoting my time to this if I didn’t think positively. The community has got to get it together. We want to help these young people survive and live out their talents and dreams.”

Looking back on his career, Jones bristled at the idea that his later achievements were due to his stature and connections rather than consistently inventive musicianship.

“What bothers me, people young and old try to minimize you by saying, ‘Well, Quincy’s strongest suit is that he’s got a strong telephone book … and he can just call up anybody!’ ” he said in 2001. “Now that’s the funniest thing. I spent most of my life perfecting my skills. I wanted to be a great arranger, great orchestrator and great composer. That was it from 13. I did my thing. And then I was able to apply all of the elements. They see you sitting at a console holding your head like this, thinking, people don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve done 40,000 arrangements, 40 movies, I’ve worked with every singer on the planet, Black or white, Nana Mouskouri, Charles Aznavour, Stevie [Wonder]. That’s a lot of work. Like you don’t have to do anything. You just have a telephone book and call a bunch of great guys up. Please, man! That will get you two inches.”

Jones was never short on words when it came to setting the record straight about critics who tried to paint him as a sellout. By staying true to the craft of music in whatever shape or form he could, Jones may not have sold out, but his work made an indisputable mark and sold immensely.

“I started as an arranger first. That’s how I became a producer,” he said in 2001. “It’s a path you go through as an arranger that opens up a lot of doors of understanding. You work with all kinds of different people from Dinah Washington and Billy Eckstine, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Sinatra, Aretha [Franklin], Sarah [Vaughan], Ella [Fitzgerald], Carmen McRae. You learn so much by that school. That school doesn’t exist now, so it’s hard for them to understand what that gives you. Seven hundred miles a night for years. Traveling on that band bus. Seventy gigs in just the Carolinas. Twenty-seven in California. Everywhere. It’s ridiculous. And get stranded with a big band in Europe, and some sucker is gonna come talk to me about sellin’ out. Please. Give me a break. Yo mama!”

The South China Sea (SCS) is located in the Western Pacific region, with most of its area surrounded by Southeast Asian countries. With an area of about 3.5 million square kilometers, the SCS is considered a “half-enclosed” sea as it is surrounded by land on almost all sides. From the west to the south, the LCS is bordered by Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and western Malaysia, while in the east it is bordered by the Philippines. To the south, it borders Indonesia and eastern Malaysia. Outside of Southeast Asian countries, there are only two countries directly bordering the LCS: the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan in the north. There are four main islands in the LCS: Paracel, Spratly, Pratas, and Macclesfield. Of the four, the Paracels and Spratlys are the two most frequently disputed islands, with the largest conflict centered on the Spratlys. This is due to claims made by six countries: the PRC, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. (Amer, 2002).

Disputes in the South China Sea began when China claimed around 95% of the sea area and small islands in the region as part of its territory. Tensions escalated when China strengthened its military power through the construction of 1,300 hectares of infrastructure, which aims to strengthen defenses in the region (Cobus, 2019). China’s claim is based on a historical argument in which it rejects the rules of international law set out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Since its adoption in 1982, around 100 countries have ratified UNCLOS, which regulates countries’ maritime boundaries based on their coastlines, including Indonesia’s border with the South China Sea (BBC Indonesia, 2023). Several armed incidents have occurred in the South China Sea, such as the conflict between China and Vietnam at Johnson South Reef in 1988, the Chinese occupation of Mischief Reef in 1995, and the shootout between Chinese and Philippine warships near Campones Island in 1996. These incidents indicate that disputes in the South China Sea can easily turn into open conflict at any time.

The South China Sea is a very strategic water area with natural resources. With an area of around 3.5 million square kilometers, the SCS is one-third of the world’s sea traffic. Living natural resources such as coral reefs and diverse fish species, as well as non-living natural resources such as oil and natural gas, make the South China Sea a highly valuable area. Estimates of oil and natural gas reserves in the region reach 2.5 billion barrels and 190 trillion cubic feet, making it one of the regions with significant hydrocarbon potential. These natural resources are not only important for the economic growth of the countries that claim the region but also have a major impact on energy independence and political influence in the region. Efficient management of these natural resources can support strong and sustainable economic growth and contribute significantly to international trade. However, this wealth of resources is also at the center of geopolitical tensions, with many countries vying to claim rights to the region.

Tensions in the South China Sea (SCS) have become one of the most complicated geopolitical issues in the Asian region. Various countries, such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei, claim the resource-rich waters. This has led to tensions involving not only the countries bordering the region but also global powers such as the United States, which actively supports freedom of navigation in the region. Amidst the escalating rivalry, opinions have emerged as to whether it is better to resolve these tensions through diplomacy or to resort to confrontation.

 Diplomacy: The Path to Sustainable Peace

Diplomacy is an approach that focuses on negotiation, dialogue, and non-violent conflict resolution. In the context of the LCS, diplomacy is a more rational choice, given the destructive impact of military confrontation. ASEAN, as a regional organization, has long played an important role in mediating disputes through forums such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and other cooperation. ASEAN promotes the concept of the “ASEAN Way,” which emphasizes consultation, consensus, and a non-interventionist approach. This approach has proven effective in maintaining regional stability, although it does not fully address the root of the conflict in the LCS. However, this diplomacy is not without obstacles. China, as the country with the largest claim, often takes actions that contradict the principles of diplomacy, such as building artificial islands and placing military installations in disputed waters.

Despite diplomatic efforts, such as the Code of Conduct (CoC) being negotiated between ASEAN and China, the outcome is still nil. The challenge is how to strike a balance between maintaining territorial integrity and ensuring regional stability without offending the great power of China. Diplomacy is also supported by international mechanisms, such as the International Court of Arbitration, which ruled in 2016 that China’s claim to most of the South China Sea based on the “Nine-Dash Line” was invalid. However, this decision is not recognized by China, creating a major dilemma for countries seeking to resolve disputes through legal channels.

“Confrontation: The Path to Escalation”

On the other hand, military confrontation is often an option considered in situations where diplomacy fails to achieve satisfactory results. Provocative actions in the LCS, such as military patrols, warship deployments, and the construction of military bases by some parties, have increased the risk of armed conflict. In this context, the United States often gets involved by conducting freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) to challenge China’s perceived excessive territorial claims. This muddies the waters and increases the likelihood of confrontation. A confrontation in the region would have serious consequences. Not only for the countries directly involved, but also for global stability, given that the LCS is one of the busiest sea trade routes in the world. A military conflict would disrupt the flow of goods, trigger economic instability, and could lead to a wider conflict between global powers such as the US and China. The potential for uncontrolled escalation could lead to a disaster that not only damages the region but also creates a negative impact on world peace.

“Diplomacy as a Primary Option, but Challenges Remain”

Although confrontation seems to be getting closer with increasing military activity in the LCS, diplomacy remains the most realistic path to reach a sustainable settlement. Efforts such as bilateral dialog, multilateral negotiations, and international law approaches should continue to be encouraged. ASEAN, with its ASEAN Way approach, plays an important role in creating a space for dialogue where states can communicate without having to compromise their territorial integrity. However, diplomacy must also be accompanied by strengthening regional security mechanisms. ASEAN needs to stand united in the face of a great power like China while maintaining good relations with the United States to balance power dynamics in the region. However, China must also be more open to dialogue and respect international law to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris rallied her supporters in the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania on the eve of the US presidential election.

A WORLD War One nurse’s album which reveals information about the 1914 Christmas Day truce was found in a box of old books.

Voluntary Aid nurse Maude Alice Lineham’s album contains thoughts, poems and drawings from 90 servicemen from numerous regiments of the British Army.

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She encouraged soldiers to provide first-hand accounts of their experiences.

Her book details the famous football match in No Man’s Land and describes the “laughing and talking of men whom only a few hours earlier were trying to kill each other”.

One of the major accounts in the album, found at a bungalow in Derby, is that of Scottish soldier John J Ferguson from the Seaforth Highlanders.

John was wounded at Messines, Belgium, on December 26, 1914.

His account highlights the truce of Christmas Day 1914 and the famous football match in the break of fighting.

Another page of the album contains a fragment of white German surrender flag taken from Sgt Jones of the 1/5 Kings Liverpool Regiment.

There is also a description of the sinking of hospital ship Anglia on November 17, 1915, which later was declared as a war grave.

Maude worked in Derby’s Spondon House Hospital, Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and Leicester Royal Infirmary during the war.

John J Ferguson wrote: “It was almost dark and being only 100 yards from the German trenches it was almost possible to listen to the conversations … very little sniping had been done by either side, we thought they were exceptionally quiet.

“We gave them three cheers when they sang ‘God Save The King’ in English.

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“We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas and were soon talking like old pals, standing in front of their wire entanglements and surrounded by Germans.

“They kept their word and neither of us fired for two days. It was like being in a different world. Here we were, Christmas Day in the trenches and able to walk about with our heads up.

“Some of our men even left the trench to play football – a party from our ‘B’ went over and were photographed with the Germans.

“We had made friends with the enemy and all day kept calling and joking across the trenches.”

John was killed in April 1917 and is buried at the Roclincourt Military Cemetery and the Arras Memorial in northern France.

The 75-year-old vendor from Derby, who is unrelated to Maude, said: “I came across it in a box of old books when we were clearing her bungalow.

“Maude’s album is particularly delightful as it is so complete and she showed such diligence in making sure the young men in her charge recorded something, either by the written word or a beautiful picture.

“I was so impressed by how articulate and talented they all were.”

The album is estimated to bring £600 when it comes up for sale at Hansons Auctioneers in Derbyshire.

Matt Crowson, Head of Militaria at Hansons Auctioneers, said: “The festive truce is world-famous and, thanks to the discovery of this unique album, we have a news, detailed version of the event.

“This moving account underlines the futility of war.”

Maude, an accomplished pianist, lived with her sister in Derby after the war and died in 1965.

The sale takes place on November 13.

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The state’s top Democratic legal official says the giveaway in states likely to decide the US election is a ‘scam’.

A $1m-a-day voter sweepstakes operated by a political group established by billionaire Elon Musk can continue, a judge in the state of Pennsylvania has ruled.

Last month, the world’s richest man announced he would start the giveaway in seven battleground states likely to decide the outcome of the United States 2024 election.

Musk’s giveaway has widely been seen by many as an unsubtle attempt to secure extra votes for Republican candidate Donald Trump, who Musk has thrown his vocal and financial support behind.

Musk has given $75m to America PAC, a political action committee that has been funding various Republican candidates, including former President Trump.

Winners ‘not chosen  by chance’

The Tesla CEO has already gifted $16m to registered swing-state voters who qualified for the giveaway by signing his political petition.

Pennsylvania‘s Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta’s decision on Monday came after a surprising day of testimony in a state court in which Musk’s aides acknowledged hand-picking the winners of the contest based on who would be the best spokespeople for his super PAC’s agenda.

Previously, the 53-year-old billionaire had claimed the winners would be chosen at random.

District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, called the process a scam “designed to actually influence a national election” and asked that it be shut down.

As it was, the judge ruled in favour of Musk and his America PAC.

Musk’s lawyer, Chris Gober, said the final two recipients before the presidential election would be announced in Arizona on Monday and Michigan on Tuesday.

“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” said Gober.

“We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”

‘They were scammed’

Chris Young, the director and treasurer of America PAC, testified that the recipients were vetted ahead of time, to “feel out their personality, [and] make sure they were someone whose values aligned” with the group.

Musk’s lawyers, defending the effort, called it “core political speech” given that participants were asked to sign a petition endorsing the US Constitution.

More than 1 million people from the seven battleground states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan – have registered for the sweepstakes by signing a petition saying they support the right to free speech and to bear arms, the first two amendments to the US Constitution.

District Attorney Krasner has questioned how the PAC might use their data, which it will have on hand well past the election.

“They were scammed for their information,” Krasner said. “It has almost unlimited use.”

Former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Teddi Mellencamp is calling quits on her marriage with Edwin Arroyave.

The reality TV star and podcast host filed her petition for divorce Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, The Times confirmed. Mellencamp and Arroyave, a home security executive, went their separate ways last month after more than 13 years of marriage, according to legal documents.

Mellencamp, 43, cites “irreconcilable differences” and is seeking physical and legal custody over the three minor children she shares with Arroyave, according to court documents. The “Two Ts in a Pod” co-host announced her divorce on social media over the weekend.

“My priority is my children and ensuring that every care is taken with their privacy and wellbeing throughout this new chapter,” she said on Instagram. “Making a public statement is not something I wanted to do but in an effort to protect my family from undue speculation and rumors, I felt being open, honest and vulnerable was the best path forward.”

A representative for Mellencamp, daughter of singer John Mellencamp, did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for additional comment.

Mellencamp married Arroyave, 47, on July 4, 2011. She starred in Bravo’s “RHOBH” as part of its main cast from 2017 to 2020 and later appeared as a guest star in following seasons. In addition to seeking custody over her children, Mellencamp is asking the court to allocate visitation time for Arroyave.

On their anniversary this year, both Mellencamp and Arroyave celebrated their marriage on social media. In her post, Mellencamp wrote that their relationship had “been years of discovery, laughter, tears, growth, and companionship.” She also acknowledged that their marriage was not perfect, but said they both put in the effort to make it work.

In his post, Arroyave celebrated Mellencamp as more than just the woman of his dreams: “She’s also the mother of my dreams, the wife of my dreams, and the love of my life.”

He added: “Thank you for all that you do for me and our family. I love you.”

Legal documents say Mellencamp and Arroyave officially separated Oct. 20, four days before they appeared together at the Plaza Hotel in New York City for an annual gala benefiting the Melanoma Research Foundation. Mellencamp, who has been vocal about her experiences with the type of skin cancer, served as the event’s emcee.

The gala, Arroyave said on Instagram, “was a beautiful reminder of what [Mellencamp] is capable of.”

Times researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.

The dispute between port foremen and their employers could disrupt crucial international shipments.

Employers at Canada’s largest port have said they would lock out their workers after a negotiating deadline with the union had passed, potentially disrupting key shipments of the country’s coal, potash and beef.

The BC Maritime Employers Association said it would lock out more than 700 foremen at the Port of Vancouver at 4.30pm local time (00:30 GMT) on Monday because negotiations with their union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514, had broken down.

The threatened lockout in Vancouver, on Canada’s west coast, comes at the same time as an ongoing strike at the Port of Montreal, the largest port in eastern Canada.

The employers association, which includes private-sector waterfront employers, said the lockout in Vancouver was preventative because the union had issued a strike notice for Monday. It said this was to “facilitate a safe and orderly wind down of operations” in anticipation of a strike.

But the union’s president, Frank Morena, said in a statement that workers had started their shifts and the union had only planned “limited job action” such as refusing overtime. The workers are also refusing to participate with “technological change implementation” connected to automation, according to the Canadian Press news agency.

The two sides have been in lengthy negotiations over a new labour deal with the help of a federal mediator. The issues include pay, working conditions and increased automation with each side accusing the other of bargaining in bad faith.

Crucial exports affected

The lockout will not affect bulk grain shipments, but it could halt coal, potash, forestry products and products shipped in containers such as pulse crops and meats.

The work stoppage would also affect the Port of Prince Rupert on the northern coast of British Columbia.

Reuters said a 13-day strike last year disrupted more than 6 billion Canadian dollars ($4.32bn) in trade at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert.

It has alarmed regions and industries in landlocked parts of Canada.

The government of Saskatchewan, which exports grains, petroleum products and fertilisers, has asked the federal government to intervene and resolve the dispute. In the past, the government has resisted calls to interfere in collective bargaining.