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The contest to be president of the US takes place across 50 states (and the District of Columbia) but it is generally won or lost in a handful of key battlegrounds.The road to the White House this year runs through seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With so much riding on perhaps as few as hundreds of thousands of voters in states like these, let's look at where they are.We will break down each state by how many Electoral College votes it awards (a candidate needs a total of 270 to win the presidency) how it voted in 2020 (election day was on 3 November 2020) and what time polls close (all times in eastern time).Arizona - 11 Electoral College votes - voted Democrat in 2020 Once considered a Republican stronghold, changing demograph...

Prince William has pledged to fight for better support for those who risk their lives to protect the world's wildlife.William was speaking at an event in Cape Town for his United for Wildlife organisation, set up by the Prince's charitable foundation in 2014 to help protect endangered species from the illegal wildlife trade. Passionately describing the day to day risks that wildlife rangers face he said: "Rangers are fundamental if we are to meet our global conservation targets for 2030 and prevent the dangerous tipping points that threaten our planet."These people do far more than protect wildlife. They are educators. They are community supporters. And they help regulate the sustainable use of natural resources."Yet, far too often, they lack sufficient support, with rangers in particular ...

Ukraine has begun firing on North Korean troops inside Russia for the first time since they were deployed in the conflict, a Kyiv official said.They added that Pyongyang's units were struck in the Kursk region of Russia following a deployment that was criticised by the US and Ukraine's other Western allies. US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments say up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops are being sent by Pyongyang to the war under a pact with Moscow.Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine's Security Council, wrote on Telegram: "The first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region."He provided no further details. Western governments had expected that the North Korean soldiers would be sent to Kursk border region i...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defence minister Yoav Gallant.The move comes 14 months into the Middle East war sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Mr Netanyahu said a "crisis of trust" had developed between him and Mr Gallant.He said there had been too many "significant gaps" between them over the management of Israel's wars."In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defence minister," Mr Netanyahu said. "Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defence minister."The two have regularly been at odds over the handling of the Gaza war.A previous attempt to fire Mr ...