Donald Trump on Saturday said he had no interest in returning to Twitter even as a slim majority voted in favor of reinstating the former U.S. President, who was banned from the social media service for inciting violence, in a poll organized by new owner Elon Musk.

Slightly over 15 million Twitter users voted in the poll with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted.

Trump’s Twitter account, which had over 88 million followers before he was banned on Jan. 8, 2021, began accumulating followers and had nearly 100,000 followers by 10pm ET Saturday. Some users initially reported being unable to follow the reinstated account on Saturday evening.

Trump had appeared less than keen earlier in the day.

“I don’t see any reason for it,” the former president said via video when asked whether he planned to return to Twitter by a panel at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting.

He said he would stick with his new platform Truth Social, the app developed by his Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) startup, which he said had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing “phenomenally well”.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, who on Tuesday launched a bid to regain the White House in 2024, praised Musk and said he had always liked him. But Trump also said Twitter suffered from bots, fake accounts and that the problems it faced were “incredible”.

Musk first said in May he planned to reverse the ban on Trump, and the timing of any return by Trump was closely watched – and feared – by many of Twitter’s advertisers.

The billionaire has since sought to reassure users and advertisers that such a decision would be made with consideration by a content moderation council composed of people with “widely diverse viewpoints” and no account reinstatements would happen before the council convened.

He also said Twitter would not reinstate any banned users until there was a “clear process for doing so.” read more

But this week, Musk reinstated comedian Kathy Griffin, who had been banned for changing her profile name to “Elon Musk” which violated his new rule against impersonation without indicating it was a parody account. There has been no new information about process or the moderation council.

A no-show by Trump could reduce concerns among major advertisers, who are already rattled by Musk’s drastic reshaping of Twitter.

He has halved the workforce and severely cut the company’s trust and safety team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and harmful content.

These actions and Musk’s tweeting have pushed major companies to halt advertising on the site as they monitor how the platform handles hate speech.

On Saturday, Bloomberg reported Twitter could fire more employees in its sales and partnership divisions, citing unnamed sources, just days after a mass resignation of engineers.

If Trump returned to Twitter, the move would raise questions about his commitment to Truth Social, which launched on Apple’s App Store in February and Google’s Play Store in October. Trump has some 4.57 million followers on Truth Social.

Truth Social has been Trump’s main source of direct communication with his followers since he began posting on the app regularly in May. He has used Truth Social to promote his allies, criticize opponents and defend his reputation amid legal scrutiny from state, congressional and federal investigators.

His agreement with the company, however, opens the door for Trump to engage extensively on other platforms. Trump is obligated to give Truth Social a six-hour exclusive on any post – but is free to post “political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the vote efforts” on any site, at any time, according to a May SEC filing.

Countries agreed early Sunday at the COP27 climate summit to set up a fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters, but delayed approving a wider deal outlining global resolve to fight climate change.

After tense negotiations that ran through the night, the Egyptian COP27 presidency released a draft text for an overall agreement – and simultaneously called a plenary session to gavel it through as the final, overarching agreement for the U.N. summit.

The session approved the text’s provision to set up a “loss and damage” fund to help developing countries bear the immediate costs of climate-fuelled events such as storms and floods.

But it kicked many of the most controversial decisions on the fund into next year, when a “transitional committee” would make recommendations for countries to then adopt at the COP28 climate summit in November 2023.

Those recommendations would cover “identifying and expanding sources of funding” – referring to the vexed question of which countries should pay into the new fund.

Calls by developing countries for such a fund have dominated the two-week summit, pushing the talks past their scheduled Friday finish.

Immediately after the plenary approval for the loss and damage fund, however, Switzerland called for a 30-minute suspension for time to study the new text of the overall deal – specifically the language relating to national efforts to cut climate-warming emissions, the Swiss delegate said.

Negotiators late Saturday had worried about changes being discussed so late in the process.

The document, which forms the overall political deal for COP27, needs approval from the nearly 200 countries at the climate summit in Egypt.

In line with earlier iterations, the draft did not contain a reference requested by India and some other delegations to phasing down use of “all fossil fuels”. It instead referred to a phase down of coal only, as agreed at last year’s summit.

For daily comprehensive coverage on COP27 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here.

A plenary session of the COP27 climate summit approved a deal on Sunday covering funding arrangements for loss and damage from climate change suffered by vulnerable countries.

Countries agreed early Sunday at the COP27 climate summit to set up a fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters, but paused before backing a wider deal outlining global resolve to fight climate change.

After tense negotiations that ran through the night, the Egyptian COP27 presidency released a text of the draft agreement – and simultaneously called a plenary session to gavel it through as a final, overarching agreement.

The session approved the text’s provision to set up a “loss and damage” fund to help developing countries bear the immediate costs of climate-fuelled events such as storms and floods.

But immediately after, Switzerland called for a 30-minute suspension to allow time to study the new text. Negotiators earlier had expressed worry about changes being negotiated and written so late in the process.

For daily comprehensive coverage on COP27 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here.

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — As Elon Musk polled Twitter users about whether he should reinstate Donald Trump’s account, the former president told Jewish Republicans Saturday that he saw “no reason” to go back to the platform, saying his competing social media outlet had “smart voices.” including pro-Israel voices.

The CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition had asked Trump, who was addressing the group’s conference via video from his Florida home, about the poll.

“I don’t know if you’ve been following. Twitter is blowing up today: Elon Musk posted a poll that had over 13 million respondents so far, asking whether or not you should be reinstated on on Twitter,” Brooks said. “My question to you is what do you think about Elon Musk buying Twitter? And if you are reinstated, will we see you back on Twitter again?”

Trump responded with something of a demurral.

“I don’t see any reason for it. There are a lot of problems in Twitter, you see what’s going on,” he said. “They may or may not make it but the problems are terrible. The engagements are negative. And you have a lot of bots and you have a lot of fake accounts.”

Trump said he liked Musk, but he preferred Truth Social, the platform he launched after Twitter banned him following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by Trump’s supporters.

Twitter had long made efforts to remove bots and hate speech, though watchdogs said it needed to do more. But after Musk took over the company in recent weeks, he fired thousands of workers and many others have quit, including the executives responsible for ensuring that the platform is free of hate. The social platform is seen as vulnerable to collapse.

“Truth Social is through the roof, it’s doing phenomenally well,” Trump said of his platform, which is also reportedly near collapse.

Trump also played up what he said were pro-Israel voices on the platform he owns.

“It’s taking care of voices that really want to be taken care of and really smart voices, brilliant voices voices that in many cases are both sides, but I can tell you there’s a lot of voice for Israel and power for Israel,” he said.

“Truth Social has taken its place for a lot of people and I don’t see them going back onto Twitter,” Trump said.

Hours later Musk announced that as a result of his poll, he would restore Trump to the platform.

“The people have spoken,” he said of his unscientific poll, in which more than 15 million Twitter accounts voted, 51.8% of them in favor of reinstating Trump. He added: “Vox populi, vox dei,” Latin for “voice of the people, voice of God.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post As Elon Musk polled users, Donald Trump tells Jewish Republicans he sees ‘no reason’ to go back to Twitter appeared first on The Forward.

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he would remove Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in part because of her criticism of Israel.

He also hinted that her personal criticism of him last year was a factor.

McCarthy, a California Republican whose party just won a narrow majority in the House, was speaking Saturday to the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas.

“I remember what she said about me,” he said. “I remember what she said about Israel. I remember what she said about the [U.S.-Israel] relationship,” he said. “I remembered it so much, I promised you last year she would no longer be on foreign affairs. I’m keeping that promise.” There was applause.

Omar has called for greater congressional oversight of the U.S.-Israel relationship. She has attacked parts of the pro-Israel lobby, at times appearing to invoke themes of Jewish control, which has drawn accusations of antisemitism from some Jewish groups, from Republicans and from some Democrats. (Omar has apologized for some but not all of the remarks that caused offense.) She also supports the movement to boycott Israel.

McCarthy’s reference to what Omar said about him apparently referred to her calling him “a liar and a coward” last year after he refused to discipline a Republican congresswoman, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, for calling her a member of a “jihad squad” and joking that she feared Omar, a Somali American Muslim, carried a bomb.

A spokesman for Omar did not return a request for comment.

In a rare move in 2021, Democrats, who controlled the House, stripped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, of her committee memberships in part for her past embrace of QAnon, a conspiracy movement that has spurred violence. McCarthy then said he would retaliate should he be elected speaker.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker at the time, declined a compromise from McCarthy that would have removed Greene from sensitive committees but allow her to remain on other committees. Saying that Omar “would no longer be on foreign affairs” and not banned from committees suggests that McCarthy may be thinking of the same sort of outcome for Omar.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Addressing Jewish Republicans, Kevin McCarthy promises to yank Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee appeared first on The Forward.

Nepalis were voting on Sunday in a general election that few expect to bring drastic change – or a government able to quickly revive one of the slowest-growing economies in South Asia.

The election pits the ruling alliance of the Nepali Congress party, led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and some former Maoist rebels, against the Nepal Communist Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party.

There are no pre-election polls, but political analysts expect the ruling alliance to retain power.

Polls close at 5 p.m. (1115 GMT), the Election Commission said. It could take up to two weeks to declare final results.

About 18 million people are eligible to vote for the 275-member parliament and the 550 members of seven provincial assemblies through a mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation systems.

In a video message, Deuba said voting would strengthen the nascent democracy. “Let us celebrate democracy by participating in voting,” Deuba said.

Political stability has proven elusive for the poor nation, wedged between China and India, discouraging many investors. Nepal has had 10 governments since the abolition of a 239-year-old monarchy in 2008.

Political parties promised to bring down prices, create jobs and boost the economy at nationwide rallies.

A #nonotagain campaign was trending on social media, urging voters not to reelect many party leaders over their alleged failure to fulfil promises. Several young and independent candidates, including medical and IT professionals, are challenging them.

The Election Commission has urged voters to cast their secret votes without fear of threat, intimidation and obstacle.

“Voting is not only their right but also their duty to choose representatives through the secret ballot,” Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thapalia told Reuters.

Analysts said a new government would face the challenge of reviving the economy and curbing high prices.

There are fears that a global recession might reduce remittances, which account for about a quarter of GDP.

Tourism, which contributed 4% to GDP before the pandemic, has yet to fully recover. In the first 10 months of this year, more than 450,000 tourists visited Nepal, less than half the number of pre-COVID visitors in all of 2019.

Foreign reserves are shrinking and retail inflation has been hovering at six-year highs of about 8% in the Himalayan nation, where one in five people live on less than $2 a day.

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LAS VEGAS (NewsNation) — New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said if the GOP wants to have any shot at winning future elections, they will need to start backing candidates who can “close the deal in November.”

In an interview with “NewsNation Prime,” Sununu blasted some members of his party for supporting candidates he dubbed “crazy” and “unelectable.”

“There were a lot of folks across the board that were very extreme,” he said. “It’s not about being more conservative or not, but just very extreme in their unwillingness — apparently — to work across party lines.”

Sununu did not name any Republican candidates or lawmakers in particular. He did, however, give credit to the Democrats and their risky strategy of funding and elevating GOP candidates who refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Unfortunately, they did a very good job spending a lot of money early on defining our candidates before they could introduce themselves to the electorate,” he said. “It’s a very important point, they spent a lot of money early in these primaries.”

Dozens of GOP candidates who cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election results lost their midterm races, and others won by smaller margins than expected in red territory.

And as far as former President Donald Trump announcing another run for the White House in 2024, Sununu isn’t all that interested.

“It’s just not going to matter,” he said. “Look, you have a former president — and and I’m not pro-Trump, I’m not anti-Trump — but we’re just moving on.”