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Category: Law/Crime

Election skeptics are running some county election boards in Georgia. A new rule could allow them to exclude decisive votes

Election skeptics are running some county election boards in Georgia. A new rule could allow them to exclude decisive votes

By Doug Bock Clark and Heather Vogell This story was originally published by ProPublica An examination of a new election rule in Georgia passed by the state’s Republican-controlled election board suggests that local officials in just a handful of rural counties could exclude enough votes to affect the outcome of the presidential race. The rule was backed by national groups allied with former President Donald Trump. It gives county boards the power to investigate irregularities and exclude entire precincts from…

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Investigating war crimes in Gaza

Investigating war crimes in Gaza

  This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict. The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear. The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of…

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Former county clerk gets 9 years in prison for tampering with voting machines

Former county clerk gets 9 years in prison for tampering with voting machines

The New York Times reports: Tina Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., was sentenced on Thursday to nine years in prison after being found guilty in August of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald J. Trump. At a hearing in Grand Junction, Colo., Judge Matthew D. Barrett scolded Ms. Peters sternly from the bench, telling her he…

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23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?

23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?

NPR reports: Last month, Chenedy Wiles finally got around to it. The 27-year-old traveling nurse spit into a tube and mailed it to 23andMe, where the genetic testing company’s lab examined her DNA and generated a glimpse of her ancestry. “One of the reasons I decided to get the test is that as an African American, it’s very common for our heritage to get lost,” said Wiles, who lives in Chicago. Once her results arrived in the mail, it revealed…

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‘Make them riot’ — Trump election case judge unseals special counsel motion on immunity

‘Make them riot’ — Trump election case judge unseals special counsel motion on immunity

CNBC reports: A federal judge on Wednesday unsealed a redacted motion by Special Counsel Jack Smith detailing evidence against former President Donald Trump in his criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C. The 165-page document was filed by Smith as part of his argument that Trump can still be prosecuted for efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss despite a Supreme Court ruling in July that he has presumptive presidential immunity for official acts. Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the filing…

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U.S. gov’t agencies found Israel was blocking Gaza aid. Blinken ignored them to keep weapons flowing

U.S. gov’t agencies found Israel was blocking Gaza aid. Blinken ignored them to keep weapons flowing

  We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporter behind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded earlier this year that Israeli authorities routinely impeded delivery of food and medicine into the devastated Palestinian territory, where hunger, disease and displacement have wreaked…

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Raffensperger: Election board ‘destroying voter confidence’ in Georgia

Raffensperger: Election board ‘destroying voter confidence’ in Georgia

Christian Science Monitor interviews Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: Do you feel like the members who make up the majority governing Georgia’s State Election Board understand how elections work? No, I don’t think they do. And the only way to understand how elections work is to volunteer to be a poll worker. It’s as easy as that. Once you’ve worked one election, you start understanding, ‘oh, they’ve got this procedure to close that gate [to potential voting fraud].’…

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Secret Service agent accused of sexually assaulting Harris aide

Secret Service agent accused of sexually assaulting Harris aide

RealClear Politics reports: A Secret Service agent has been accused of sexually assaulting a staffer who works for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to four sources in the Secret Service community. The incident in question took place sometime over the last week during a trip devoted to providing advance security work and planning for a Harris campaign event in Wisconsin that ultimately did not take place. Several Harris staffers and Secret Service agents were in Green Bay to provide advance…

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Haitian group in Springfield, Ohio, files citizen criminal charges against Trump and Vance

Haitian group in Springfield, Ohio, files citizen criminal charges against Trump and Vance

The Associated Press reports: The leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community invoked a private-citizen right to file charges Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, over the chaos and threats experienced by Springfield, Ohio, since Trump first spread false claims about legal immigrants there during a presidential debate. The Haitian Bridge Alliance made the move after inaction by the local prosecutor, said their attorney, Subodh Chandra of the Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm. Charges…

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Hundreds of pregnant women prosecuted the year after Roe v. Wade fell

Hundreds of pregnant women prosecuted the year after Roe v. Wade fell

Rolling Stone reports: At least 210 women faced criminal charges related to pregnancy, abortion, pregnancy loss, or birth in the year after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion, according to a new report from the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. In most of the cases — 121 of the 210 — the information later used against the women was obtained or disclosed in a medical setting, researchers found. The period examined — from June 2022, when the court’s…

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Key Nebraska Republican rejects Trump’s push to shake up electoral map

Key Nebraska Republican rejects Trump’s push to shake up electoral map

The New York Times reports: The Nebraska state senator who Republicans hoped would help ease former President Donald J. Trump’s path to the White House by agreeing to change how the state allocates its Electoral College votes said on Monday that he would not do so, ending a brief but intense lobbying effort from allies of Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The state legislator, Mike McDonnell, a Democrat turned Republican from Omaha, said that he would not agree…

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As president, Trump demanded investigations of foes. He often got them

As president, Trump demanded investigations of foes. He often got them

The New York Times reports: It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies. In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr….

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MAGA Republicans pass new election rules in Georgia that could rig the state for Trump

MAGA Republicans pass new election rules in Georgia that could rig the state for Trump

Mother Jones reports: Less than two months before the election, the Trump-aligned majority on the Georgia State Election Board passed a new set of eleventh-hour rule changes on Friday that could plunge the vote counting process into chaos and give Republicans yet another pretext not to certify the results if Kamala Harris wins the state. During a highly contentious meeting, the state board voted 3-2 to require county election boards to hand count ballots cast on Election Day and then…

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A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

Ishaan Tharoor writes: On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war against Hezbollah had entered a “new phase” and that Israel would be concentrating more of its efforts against the group. “The center of gravity is moving north. We are diverting forces, resources, and energy toward the north,” Gallant told Israeli Air Force personnel at an air base. By the next day, dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit alleged Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, the group’s leader Hasan Nasrallah…

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One man’s stand against Donald Trump’s election conspiracies

One man’s stand against Donald Trump’s election conspiracies

  After Trump claimed the 2020 Presidential election was “rigged,” a short documentary shows the effect of election conspiracies in the crucial jurisdiction of Maricopa County, Arizona, through the experience of one elected official. The New York Times reports: Donald J. Trump’s escalating calls to investigate and prosecute election officials he sees as “corrupt” are sounding alarms among democracy experts and the local and state workers preparing to run elections and tally millions of votes across the country. In recent…

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Biden’s arms transfers to Israel under internal investigation

Biden’s arms transfers to Israel under internal investigation

The Washington Post reports: Government watchdogs with jurisdiction over the State Department and Pentagon are preparing to publish the results of multiple investigations scrutinizing the Biden administration’s provision of U.S. weapons to Israel for its military campaign in Gaza, and “several” related inquiries are either underway or planned, their offices told The Washington Post. The forthcoming inspector general reports, which are not yet public, follow complaints from within the U.S. government that the export of billions of dollars in arms…

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