All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are being contested, as are 35 seats in the Senate. Democrats currently have a five-seat majority in the House and Vice President Kamala Harris is the deciding vote in the 50-50 Senate. Also at stake are the governorships of 36 out of 50 US states, with Republicans currently controlling 28 and the Democrats 22.

Poll aggregator Real Clear Politics has predicted the Republicans will end up with 227 seats in the House to the Democrats’ 174, and with a 53-47 Senate favoring the GOP.

Early voting turnout has seen a drastic increase from the 2018 midterms, with more than 42 million ballots already cast. Democrats and major US media outlets have already warned that the final results may not be known for weeks, depending on how long it takes to process all the mail-in votes.

The 14 seats held by the Religious Zionism-Otzma Yehudit alliance will give Ben Gvir and his allies leverage to push for increased Jewish rights on the Temple Mount. Ben Gvir said during his election campaign that Jews deserve equal rights to Muslims at the site. Critically, it is the Israel Police that largely determines policy on the Temple Mount regarding Jewish prayer and visiting hours. If Ben Gvir is awarded the public security ministry, which controls the Police, he will in effect have authority over such decisions.

Ahead of Tuesday’s general election, Ben Gvir repeated his call for equal Jewish rights on the Temple Mount. “There is a problem of racism on the Temple Mount, which violates the status quo,” he told The Times of Israel, pointing out the large discrepancy in visiting hours for Jews and Muslims. “A Jew who prays on the Temple Mount gets arrested,” he continued. “Why are Arabs allowed to pray and Jews are forbidden to pray? This is racism against Jews. I want equal rights. It can’t be that [the rights] of Jews are harmed just because they are Jews.”

Dramatically changing the status quo on the Temple Mount would create a severe diplomatic crisis with Jordan, whose informal status as custodian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem — and the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock sites in particular — is critical to the legitimacy of the Hashemite regime, which rules the country. Netanyahu will also be acutely aware that Israeli actions on the Temple Mount have on numerous occasions led to severe outbreaks of violence.

But the world's population growth rate, after a peak in the early 1960s, has decelerated dramatically to below 1 per cent in 2020, Rachel Snow of the UN Population Fund said. That figure could potentially fall to around 0.5 percent by 2050 due to a continued decline in fertility rates, the United Nations projects.

In passing, the pope also addressed concerns of alleged human rights abuses in the majority Sunni Muslim nation, especially of the country’s minority Shiite Muslim community. In recent years many Shiite activists have been imprisoned or deported, and the largest Shiite opposition group has been outlawed.

“I offer … my prayerful hope that the peace of the Most High may descend upon each of you … who desire to foster reconciliation in order to avoid divisions and conflicts in Muslim communities,” Francis said. “We, who believe in [God], are called to promote peace with tools of peace, such as encounter, patient negotiations and dialogue, which is the oxygen of peaceful coexistence,” he said.

“I’m exhausted all the time,” said Lewis. “On the one day I have off a week, I donate plasma for extra money. I’m literally selling my blood to eat because I have no choice.”

“All of my friends and family work multiple jobs as well, just trying to keep our heads above water. Nothing is affordable and the roadblocks set up to keep people in the cycle of poverty benefit the most wealthy members of our society,” added Lewis. “We aren’t living, we’re barely surviving and we have no choice but to keep doing it.”

Overall, when asked to identify what they viewed as the primary determinant of right and wrong in the US, a plurality of participants (42%) said: “what you feel in your heart.” An additional 29% cited majority rule as their desired method for determining right and wrong, while just 29% expressed a belief that the principles laid out in the Bible should determine the understanding of right and wrong in the US.

A marked increase in workplace discrimination cases in recent years makes it clear that woke corporate culture poses a serious threat to millions of people of faith. In a recent article, our team detailed the major and potentially landmark cases First Liberty is fighting right now to help defend religious employees and stop the wave of illegal discrimination. This means that defending religious liberty in the marketplace and at work is perhaps one of the most critical legal battlefronts today.

Scholz, the first Western leader to visit Beijing since Xi was given his third term as leader, urged Xi to put pressure on Putin to end attacks which have killed civilians and destroyed cities. 'President Xi and I agree: nuclear threats are irresponsible and incendiary,' Scholz said after the meeting. 'By using nuclear weapons, Russia would be crossing a line that the community of states has drawn together.'

Though Xi stopped short of criticising Putin directly, asking Russia to withdraw its troops, or blaming Moscow for the war - his comments none-the-less mark the biggest public rebuke yet delivered to the Kremlin. It comes after Putin warned the West that he is ready to use 'all means' to defend occupied territories in Ukraine, adding that he is 'not bluffing'.

While most of the world struggles to overcome common difficulties, it is a striking paradox that “a few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs,” he declared, without naming names.

“We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario,” he continued, where “in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs, weapons that bring sorrow and death, covering our common home with ashes and hatred.”

“Such will be the bitter consequences if we continue to accentuate conflict instead of understanding, if we persist in stubbornly imposing our own models and despotic, imperialist, nationalist and populist visions,” he asserted.

Israelis went to the ballot box for the fifth time in three years on Tuesday, paving the way towards another government headed by the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu. However, the return to power of the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister comes largely thanks to the rise of the infamous ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism alliance, with which Netanyahu had signed an agreement promising government positions in exchange for support.

Religious Zionism subsequently emerged as the third largest list elected to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. This means that Benjamin Netanyahu will be at the mercy of politicians that were once known as fringe and were labeled as a “danger to Israel” by the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post.

If we combine the policies which could be on the way for dealing with Palestinians under occupation, with the possible injustices that may be carried out against Palestinian citizens of Israel, the stage may well be set for a large-scale Palestinian uprising. Not only have the Israeli public voted for a radical right-wing government, but they may have just voted for a massive escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflict, too.

Published on Wednesday and titled ‘Endurance test for democracy: Pro-Russian conspiracy narratives and belief in disinformation in society’, the paper is based on opinion polls conducted at intervals of several months. The researchers noted that supporters of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) party are far more likely to espouse such views than the general population. They concluded by calling on the government to do more to counter the spread of what they consider to be ‘disinformation’, which the paper described as an “attack on democracy as such.”

Mr Sunak said he would do "absolutely everything" he could to "grip this problem" - but he made clear there was a limit to government intervention. "It's right we're honest about the trade-offs we face — everyone now talks about borrowing, everyone appreciates that the government cannot do everything," Sunak told the newspaper.

Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet still boast values greater than $1T – but these companies have not been immune to huge declines in their stock prices. Tesla dipped below $1T last November, just weeks after it reached the milestone.

Not only have the tech giants been devastated over this past year but the tech billionaires have been destroyed as well. The world’s wealthiest 20 tech billionaires have lost a staggering half a trillion dollars in 2022 alone due to the stock market’s sharp tumble, rocketing interest rates and record inflation. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos suffered the most damaging loss, losing $50 billion or about 25% of his net worth. He also lost the title of the wealthiest person in America, now sitting at #2 behind Elon Musk.

Inflation is at 40-year highs. The market is down at a record pace. The housing market is now declining as interest rates are at 20-year highs.