【AZ】 AP News Summary at 1:34 p.m. EST – Arizona News

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president says that special military units have entered the city of Kherson. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the announcement Friday in a video address hours after Russia said it had completed withdrawing troops from the strategically key city. Zelenskyy said that “as of now, our defenders are approaching the city. In quite a bit, we are going to enter. But special units are already in the city.”

Dems maintain narrow leads in Arizona Senate, governor races

PHOENIX (AP) — Democrats are holding on to narrow leads in key Arizona contests, but the races for U.S. Senate and governor are still too early to call. About a fifth of the total ballots are left to be counted. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly led Republican Blake Masters by 5.6 percentage points late Thursday, while Democrat Katie Hobbs was 1.4 points ahead of Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race. Election officials in populous Maricopa County expected to begin reporting results Friday from nearly 300,000 mail ballots that were returned on Election Day. That crucial group of ballots will provide clues about how remaining votes will fall.

In election, support for abortion rights was about much more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Support for abortion rights drove women to the polls in Tuesday’s elections. But for many, the issue took on higher meaning, part of an overarching concern about the future of democracy. Women, especially Democratic women, were more likely than men to say the Roe v. Wade reversal was a top factor in their vote. That was according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 94,000 voters in the midterm elections. More women also said the reversal made them angry, and said abortion had a major impact on their decision to turn out and which candidate they supported. In interviews with AP reporters, many women linked their concerns about abortion to fears for the country.

AP sources: US border agency leader is being forced out

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is being forced out of his job leading the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, according to two people familiar with the matter. Chris Magnus has been on the job less than a year. He was told to resign or be fired, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly and Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. The ultimatum comes after Republican gains in midterm elections are likely to lead to more congressional scrutiny.

Biden says climate efforts ‘more urgent than ever’ at summit

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt” (AP) — President Joe Biden says “it’s more urgent than ever” to increase commitments to fighting global warming. He says new spending on clean energy initiatives has cemented the United States’ role in the effort. Biden commented Friday in a speech at the annual United Nations climate conference being held in Egypt. Biden is likely to face questions about how far the U.S. will go to pull along other large greenhouse gas emitters. The Democratic president’s attendance at the conference was his first stop on an around-the-world trip. He’s also going to Cambodia for a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders and to Indonesia for a Group of 20 summit meeting.

Dubbed torture, ID policies leave transgender people sterile

SINGAPORE (AP) — Across the world, scores of countries still require transgender people to submit to sterilizing surgeries before their genders are legally recognized. It’s a practice international human rights bodies have condemned as torture. These policies have left untold numbers of transgender people with an agonizing choice between their fertility and their identity.  For those who opt against surgery, the policies’ consequences can be severe, limiting their prospects for jobs, housing, marriage and safe passage through the world. Since their identification documents list their genders as the opposite of how they present in public, they can easily be outed. And that can lead to everything from bureaucratic hassles to life-threatening confrontations.

Pelosi faces uncertain future weeks after attack on husband

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived at a crossroads. She could be forced to relinquish the gavel if Republicans win majority control of the House. Pelosi is the nation’s first and only woman to become speaker. The uncertainty surrounding her future comes just weeks after her husband, Paul Pelosi, was brutally attacked when an intruder broke into the family home in California looking for the speaker. She was in Washington at the time. Speaker Pelosi has said the attack will affect her decision about whether to remain in Congress. She won her own re-election representing San Francisco. She has served for 35 years.

Many vets are landing jobs, but the transition can be tough

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The U.S. is celebrating Veterans Day at a time when the nation is experiencing some of its lowest monthly veteran unemployment rates on record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the seasonally adjusted veteran jobless rate was 2.7% in October. Experts say the low numbers are due in part to the tight labor market. But they also credit significant efforts in recent years by the federal government and veteran service organizations to provide assistance to former service members. Leaving the military can be one of the most difficult transitions a person can make. The transformation sometimes takes years of working unfulfilling jobs, while finding a new purpose beyond serving one’s country.

Twitter Blue signups unavailable after raft of fake accounts

Twitter’s relaunched premium service — which grants blue-check “verification” labels to anyone willing to pay $8 a month — is unavailable after the social media platform was flooded by a wave of imposter accounts approved by Twitter. Before billionaire Elon Musk took control of the social media platform two weeks ago the blue check was granted to celebrities, journalists and verified by the platform — precisely to prevent impersonation. Now, anyone can get one as long as they have a phone, a credit card and $8 a month. Eli Lilly, Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, Musk’s own Tesla and SpaceX were impersonated as well as the accounts of various professional sports figures.

Embattled crypto exchange FTX files for bankruptcy

NEW YORK (AP) — Embattled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, short billions of dollars, is seeking bankruptcy protection following its collapse this week. FTX Trading said its CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned. FTX, an affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research, and dozens of other companies filed a bankruptcy petition in Delaware on Friday morning. FTX had agreed earlier this week to sell itself to bigger rival Binance after experiencing the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run, but the deal fell through. Customers fled the exchange after becoming concerned about whether FTX had sufficient capital.