Republican candidate Sarah Palin has lost her special election for Alaska's only House of Representatives seat to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, blunting the former vice presidential candidate's hopes of a political comeback.
Ms Peltola will become the first Alaska Native and woman to hold the state's seat in the House and the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1972.
“I don’t think there will be another birthday like today,” said Ms Peltola, who turned 49 on Wednesday.
Her victory is a boost for Democrats, who have fared well in special elections in the months since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
Ms Peltola, a former state politician, characterised herself as a “regular Alaskan” during the campaign.
“I’m not a millionaire,” she said. "I’m not an international celebrity."
Ms Palin as former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate to the late John McCain in 2008, had widespread name recognition in the state, as well as the backing of former president Donald Trump.
“Though we’re disappointed in this outcome, Alaskans know I’m the last one who’ll ever retreat,” Ms Palin said in a statement.
Questions surrounded Ms Palin's commitment to Alaska in the run-up to the special election, citing her decision to resign as governor part of the way through her term in 2009. The Republican would go on to appear in reality TV programmes and become a conservative political commentator.
Before the special election, Ms Palin said she had “signed up for the long haul”.
Alaska voters in 2020 approved a new election process that replaced party primaries with open primaries.
Under the ranked-voting system, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright if they receive more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round. If that threshold is not met, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voting rounds continue until two candidates remain and whoever has the most votes wins.
Ms Palin called the ranked voting system “crazy convoluted, [and] confusing”.
Ms Peltola will serve the remaining four months of the term of Republican US Representative Don Young.
On November 8, she, Ms Palin and Republican Nick Begich III will compete in an election to fill the Alaska seat in Congress for the next two years.
'Manmarziyaan' (Colour Yellow Productions, Phantom Films)
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 620hp from 5,750-7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm from 3,000-5,750rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh1.05 million ($286,000)
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Tori Amos
Native Invader
Decca
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
