10 things you need to know today: November 5, 2022

1. North Korea fires additional missiles into sea

North Korea continued its recent barrage of threats on Saturday by launching at least four ballistic missiles into the sea toward the South Korean coast. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the short-range missiles were fired from a North Korean base, and ended up flying around 80 miles in the direction of South Korea's western sea. The launch prompted the U.S. to send a pair of supersonic bomber planes soaring across the region, in an effort to show up the North Korean military strategy. It is believed that the North Koreans launched the missiles in response to a recent joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise.

Associated Press

2. Trio of presidents descend on Pennsylvania in final midterm push

President Biden was joined by former President Barack Obama on Saturday, as the two powerhouse names in the Democratic Party descended on Pennsylvania in a last-ditch effort to push for Senate candidate John Fetterman. The closely-watched race, in which Fetterman is facing Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, could go a long way toward deciding the makeup of the Senate, and the two candidates appear neck-and-neck in the polls. Pennsylvania also saw additional presidential power over the weekend, as former President Donald Trump was in the Keystone State to stump for Oz. Trump was also slated to campaign for the GOP gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano.

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3. Continued Russian shelling causes blackouts across Ukraine

Ukrainian state officials announced Saturday that the country would be undergoing a series of scheduled blackouts in Kyiv, along with several other regions of the country, as Russian shelling continues to wreak havoc on the Ukrainian power grid. The Russian strikes have targeted significant portions of infrastructure, including power plants, water supplies, and other areas that have crucially cut off needed supplies for Ukrainian civilians. Ukrenergo, the company operating Ukraine's high-voltage power lines, said the scheduled blackouts will occur "in accordance with a specific schedule drawn up by operators of distribution networks for each region." The blackouts are expected to last for at least six hours each day.

Associated Press

4. Supreme Court declines additional motion to block student loan forgiveness

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an additional request to block President Biden's student debt relief program. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, notably a Trump-appointed Republican, sided with the Biden administration in blocking an emergency application filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative group based in Indiana. The foundation's application had sought to prevent the implementation of Biden's program on behalf of a pair of Indiana borrowers who claimed the state's taxes would leave them worse off than they were before the president's debt relief. However, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already placed a temporary hold on the program while an ongoing challenge is considered.

CNBC Politico

5. Nike suspends ties with Kyrie Irving following antisemitism controversy

Athletic icon Nike suspended its partnership with Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving after he shared a link on Twitter to a documentary film that contained antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. In a statement on Friday, Nike said, "We believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism. To that end, we've made the decision to suspend our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer launch the Kyrie 8." Though Irving has apologized for the antisemitism, the fallout and backlash have been swift, and the Brooklyn Nets suspended their star player for five games.

BBC News Yahoo! Sports

6. Twitter finalizes job cuts as Musk blames ad revenue

Twitter on Friday formally announced that it had laid off at least half its workforce, a move that had been widely anticipated since tech mogul and billionaire Elon Musk's recent takeover of the company. Tweets from staff across the brand reportedly confirmed that the employees that were fired were responsible for a variety of roles within Twitter, including communications, content curation, human rights, and machine learning ethics. While Musk said the teams had not cut as many people in the division responsible for fighting misinformation, Twitter's new owner has blamed the massive drop in revenue from ad spending as the primary reason for the layoffs.

Reuters

7. Market remains strong as U.S. adds 261,000 jobs in October

While concerns about the economy remain strong, the U.S. job market added 261,000 new payrolls in October, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. This was significantly higher than the Dow Jones estimate, which had predicted just 205,000 additional jobs to come in October. Hourly earnings were also up an average of 4.7 percent from the previous year. However, the Labor Department said unemployment had also risen to 3.7 percent, worse than the Dow Jones estimate of 3.5 percent. While this number was significantly higher than expected, the job additions still marked the slowest pace of job gains since December 2020, according to CNBC.

CNBC

8. Tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma destroy dozens of homes

A series of tornadoes carved a path of destruction across parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Friday, with officials saying the storms destroyed dozens of homes and injured swaths of people. The Lamar County Sheriff's Office in northern Texas said at least 50 homes in the county had been destroyed or damaged by a tornado, with towns across the northern border in Oklahoma seeing similar carnage. It was reported that at least one person in Oklahoma had been confirmed dead from the storms, and multiple people were also missing. Rescue crews continue to search for survivors and begin a cleanup effort.

NBC News Axios

9. Grisly discovery as 5 found dead inside Maryland home

A grisly discovery was made on Friday, as five adults were found shot to death inside a Maryland home, law enforcement said. Officers from the Charles County Sheriff's Office and La Plata Police Department responded to a shooting report in La Plata around 4 p.m. that day. The officers found five bodies inside, and investigators said they were working to "establish the identities and the relationships between everyone involved." An unidentified homeowner was speaking to law enforcement, NBC reported, who was reportedly the one that had discovered the bodies. La Plata officials said they believed the murders were likely an isolated incident.

NBC News

10. Powerball set for drawing on world’s largest-ever lotto prize

Millions of people across the United States rushed to try their luck at the Powerball lottery, with Saturday's $1.6 billion jackpot set to be the largest in world history. The California lottery, which participates in Powerball, tweeted that the jackpot "breaks the world record for the Largest National Lottery Jackpot in the Guinness World Records." The massive prize offers a lump sum prize estimated at $782.4 million. The previous largest jackpot in a national U.S. lottery was set by Powerball in 2016, when three tickets snagged a $1.586 billon grand prize. The next Powerball drawing will take place Saturday evening at 10:59 p.m. ET, with the massive jackpot already having rolled over twice.

CNN