Associated Press news briefing at 9:04 p.m. ET

Meloni’s far-right coalition leads in Italian elections

ROME (AP) — The meteoric rise of Georgia Meloni and her nationalist party appears capable of making Italy the first far-right-led government since World War II, according to a partial tally of votes in Monday’s parliamentary election.

“Italy moves to the right,” Italian daily La Stampa headlined the front page of its publication earlier Monday.

Forming Italy’s next governing coalition with the help of right-wing allies could take weeks. But if Meloni is successful, she will be the first woman to hold the country’s premiership.

Her main campaign allies and possible coalition partners are anti-immigration coalition leader Matteo Salvini and conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Predictions based on more than a fifth of the votes cast in Sunday’s poll suggest that Meloni’s Italian brother, a party with neo-fascist roots, will win about 25 percent of the vote. That compares with about 19 percent for the center-left Democratic Party of the closest challenger, former Prime Minister Enricoleta. Italian state TV’s forecasts have a margin of error of 2-5 percentage points.

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Russia’s call-up splits EU; Ukraine says it shows weakness

Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s eagerness to mobilize hundreds of thousands of recruits to stem Ukraine’s tragic losses was a tacit agreement that its “army cannot fight”, Ukraine’s president said on Sunday, as divisions intensified in Europe over whether to act. Welcome or reject Russians fleeing conscription.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said in an interview with CBS that he is bracing for Russia’s takeover of Ukraine’s power base as the weather cools and the Kremlin tries to increase pressure on Ukraine and its Western backers. More raids on facilities. Zelensky warned that this winter “will be very difficult.”

“They’re going to fire missiles, they’re going to target our grid. It’s a challenge, but we’re not afraid,” he said on “Face the Nation.”

He described Russia’s mobilization — the first call-up since World War II — as a signal of weakness rather than strength, saying: “They admit that their troops can no longer fight Ukraine.”

Zelensky also said that Ukraine has acquired the NASAMS air defense system from the United States, which uses surface-to-air missiles to track and shoot down incoming missiles or aircraft. Zelensky did not say how much Ukraine received.

Canada struggles to restore power after storm; bodies found

TORONTO (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people in Atlantic Canada remained without power on Sunday, officials said, after former Hurricane Fiona washed away homes, stripped roofs and blocked roads in the country’s Atlantic province. They found the body of a woman swept into the sea. .

After soaring north from the Caribbean Sea, Fiona made landfall as a tropical cyclone before dawn Saturday, hitting Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec with hurricane-strength winds, rain and waves.

Defence Minister Anita Anand said the military would help clear fallen trees, restore transport links and do whatever else was needed if needed.

Fiona has been blamed for at least five deaths in the Caribbean and one in Canada. Authorities found the body of a 73-year-old woman missing in the water in the town of Channel-Port Aux Basques on Newfoundland’s southern coast.

Waves hit her residence Saturday morning, tearing apart part of the basement, police said. Her body was recovered late Sunday afternoon with the assistance of the Canadian Coast Guard and other rescue teams, the RCMP said in a release posted on social media.

Texas vows to ‘eliminate all rapists’ clinic’s empty ring

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Texas’ new abortion law makes no exceptions in rape cases, the Republican governor. Greg Abbott defended it, promising: Texas will work to eliminate rape.

A year later, Lindsey LeBlanc is as busy as ever helping rape victims in a college town outside Houston.

“That number has been high,” said LeBron, executive director of the Sexual Assault Resource Center in Bryan, near Texas A&M University. Despite adding two counselors in the past six months, she still has a waiting list of victims.

“We’re trying to keep up with demand,” she said.

Texas’ continued caseload is another example of how Republicans are struggling to defend zero-exception abortion bans unpopular on public votes that have caused uproar in high-profile cases and ended in November. political risk in the midterm elections. A year since the Texas law went into effect in September 2021, at least a dozen states have also enacted bans, including in rape or incest cases.

After rocky start, hopes for drug legalization in Oregon

Salem, Ore. (AP) — Two years after Oregon residents voted to legalize hard drugs and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment, there have been few calls for services, and the state has been slow to provide funding.

When voters pass the state’s groundbreaking Drug Addiction Treatment and Rehabilitation Act in 2020, the focus will be on treatment and legalizing possession of personal use quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs.

But Oregon still has one of the highest addiction rates in the country. Fatal overdose increased by nearly 20% from the previous year, with more than 1,000 deaths. According to testimony before lawmakers, more than half of the state’s addiction treatment programs lack the capacity to meet demand because they don’t have enough staff and funding.

Supporters want more states to follow Oregon’s lead, saying decriminalization reduces the stigma of addiction and frees addicts from jail time and criminal records. If another state were to consider decriminalization, Oregon’s situation would almost certainly be taken into account.

Steve Allen, director of behavioral health at the Oregon Department of Health, acknowledged that it wasn’t a smooth start, though he announced that a “real milestone” had been reached, with more than $302 million being sent to facilities to help people get off drugs or at least use their better drugs. Safety.

Text: Favre also seeks welfare funds for football facilities

Miss Jackson. (AP) — Retired NFL quarterback after spending millions of dollars in welfare funds for Brett Favre’s pet project — college volleyball hall — in Mississippi, new court documents show Wei tried two years later to get extra cash from the state’s welfare agency for another sports facility.

Then-governor Republican Phil Bryant texted in 2019 with Favre, who wanted to build an indoor practice facility for the University of Southern Mississippi football team. Bryant told him that federal funding for children and low-income adults is “strictly controlled” and that “improper use may result in a violation of federal law.”

The text messages between Bryant and Favre appeared in court documents filed Friday by Bryant’s lawyers that were meant to show the governor’s willingness to help Favre raise private money for the volleyball facility starting in 2017 and for more than two years. It was never known that benefit money was flowing into the program.

Several people have been implicated in Mississippi’s largest-ever public corruption case, including a professional wrestler whose drug rehab facility was funded on welfare.

The state has filed a civil lawsuit against Favre and others to recover more than $20 million in misused benefit funds meant to help people in need in one of the country’s poorest states. Bryant and Favre are not facing criminal charges, and Bryant is not listed in the state’s civil lawsuit.

AP Top 25: Vols, Wolfpack in top 10; Florida returns

Tennessee and North Carolina rounded out the top 10 in Sunday’s Associated Press college football poll, and Florida returned to the list for the first time in four years.

Georgia remains at No. 1. 1 and 55 out of 63 first places in the top 25 offered by regional banks. Do not. 2 Alabama (first place with four votes), no. 3 Ohio State University (first place with four votes), 3rd. 4 Michigan and no. 5 Clemson all occupy their spots.

Oklahoma’s loss to Kansas State created room for upside, such as Southern California’s move to No. 1. 6, Kentucky ranked 6th. 7.

Tennessee moved up three places to No. 1. 8, the best ranking since 2006 and the first top 10 since Week 9 in the first half of 2016. That was the last time the Volunteers started 4-0. Walls knocked Florida State out of the competition by losing five straight.

Oklahoma remained at No. 9 and North Carolina moved up two places to No. 1. 10. Wolfpack has the best ranking since No. 10 in 2002.

Musk faces Twitter testimony ahead of October trial

WILMINGTON, Delaware (AP) – Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to join Twitter’s lawyers in the next few days to answer questions ahead of the October trial that will decide Whether he has to fulfill his $44 billion deal to buy the social platform after trying to back it up.

The testimony, which was scheduled for a possible adjournment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, will not be made public. As of Sunday night, it was unclear whether Musk would appear in person or via video. The trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 17 in Delaware Chancery Court and is expected to last just five days.

Musk, the world’s richest man, agreed in April to buy Twitter and take it private for $54.20 a share, vowing to loosen the company’s regulations on content and root out fake accounts. Twitter shares closed at $41.58 on Friday.

Musk said in July he wanted to back out of the deal, prompting Twitter to file a lawsuit that forced him to go ahead with the acquisition.

Explainer: Mexican Army’s Role in Student Disappearance

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican military’s role in the disappearance of 43 college students, its involvement in a cover-up and alleged links to organized crime are now at the heart of a case that has shocked the nation. The government’s truth commission declared the incident a “national crime” in August.

With the recent arrests of three military members and a former federal attorney general in the case, few now believe the government’s initial claims that local drug gangs and allied local officials were solely to blame for the seizure and killing of students on July 26, 2014, and then Burn their bodies – most of which are never found.

Despite years of investigation, key details remain unclear.

But Reform, which obtained parts of the truth commission report shared with the attorney general’s office, has released details of messages between members of drug gangs and the military that appear to indicate that at least some of the students’ bodies were sent to the local army bosses. Advocates for students’ families fear that leaking sensitive details of suspects could jeopardize prosecutions.

Here are some questions and answers about kidnapping.

Rihanna will headline the next Super Bowl halftime show

NEW YORK (AP) — Rihanna will take center stage at the Super Bowl halftime show in February.

The NFL announced Sunday along with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Apple Music that the singer, who turned down the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, will star in the 2023 Super Bowl. Rihanna posted a photo on Instagram of an NFL football with outstretched arms.

“Rihanna was a generational genius, a woman of humble origins, who exceeded expectations at every turn,” Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, the show’s executive producer, said in a statement. “A man born on the island of Barbados became one of the greatest artists of all time. From scratch in business and entertainment.”

The Super Bowl will take place on February 2 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 12. After years of sponsorship by Pepsi, the upcoming halftime show will be sponsored by Apple Music.

Rihanna said earlier that she turned down a similar chance at the 2019 Super Bowl, which ended up being headlined by Maroon 5. At the time, many artists expressed support for former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Kaepernick, who took a knee during the 2016 national anthem in protest of police brutality against blacks and minorities.

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