Pennsylvania court says state’s mail voting law is unconstitutional
A state court on Friday struck down Pennsylvania’s landmark election law as unconstitutional, dealing a temporary blow to voting access in one of the nation’s most critical battleground states. In a 3-2 decision, the state court sided with 14 Republican lawmakers who sued last year. Pennsylvania filed an appeal to its Supreme Court Friday afternoon, triggering an automatic stay that keeps the law in place during the appeal process. The law, Act 77, permitted no-excuse absentee voting, created a permanent mail-in voter list, reduced the voter registration deadline from 30 days to 15 and provided for $90 million in election infrastructure upgrades. It also eliminated straight ticket voting.
Jan. 6 committee subpoenas fake Trump electors
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack issued 14 subpoenas Friday to people who falsely claimed to be electors for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election in states that were actually won by Joe Biden, digging deeper into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results. The subpoenas target individuals who met and submitted false Electoral College certificates in seven states won by Biden: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The so-called alternate electors met Dec. 14, 2020, in seven states that Trump lost and submitted bogus slates of Electoral College votes for him, the committee said.
Two Army veterans awarded $110M in 3M earplug lawsuit
A federal jury Thursday awarded $110 million to two U.S. Army veterans who said they had hearing damage because of combat earplugs produced by multinational manufacturer 3M. It is the latest decision in a network of hundreds of thousands of lawsuits that accuse 3M of knowingly selling defective earplugs to the military. 3M has maintained that the since-discontinued product, which was marketed as Combat Arms earplugs, Version 2, was effective and safe to use. The veterans, Ronald Sloan and William Wayman, were each awarded $15 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Joe Exotic resentenced to 21 years for ‘Tiger King’ murder-for-hire plot
Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who was the central figure in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was resentenced Friday to 21 years in prison for the failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Carole Baskin, a self-proclaimed animal welfare activist who had criticized his zoo’s treatment of animals, his lawyers said. The new sentence reduces his punishment by one year. The original sentence, for 22 years in prison, was vacated as improper by a federal appeals court last summer. John M. Phillips, a lawyer for Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, said in a statement, “We are unsatisfied with the court’s decision and will appeal.”
IS fighters receive surrender-or-die ultimatum in Syria prison standoff
A U.S.-backed militia in Syria delivered a surrender-or-die ultimatum Friday to Islamic State fighters holding out in a prison a week after they attacked it, saying they would face an all-out military assault if they did not give themselves up. The Islamic State group assaulted the Sinaa prison in Hasaka in an attempt to free thousands of former Islamic State fighters, according to the militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces. Friday’s ultimatum underscored that Islamic State forces still controlled at least part of the prison complex, despite a claim earlier in the week that the siege had been ended.
US blocks $130M in aid for Egypt over rights abuses
Citing human rights concerns, the United States will not give Egypt $130 million in annual security assistance, officials said Friday. The aid was temporarily frozen in the fall as the State Department demanded that Egypt do more to protect the rights of political critics, journalists, women and members of civil society. Since then, Egypt has failed to convince the Biden administration that steps the country has taken were enough to protect human rights. The Egyptian government has not officially responded. The blocked funding is just a fraction of an estimated $1.3 billion in aid the United States generally gives Egypt each year.
World surpasses 10 billion vaccine doses administered, but gaps persist in who gets shots
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel rolled up his sleeve in December 2020 to receive a dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, he declared that it marked “the beginning of the end” of the pandemic. Thirteen months later, his prediction has proved far from true, but 10 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally. The milestone, reached Friday, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford, has not been arrived at equitably. In the wealthiest countries, 77% of people have received at least one dose, whereas in low-income countries the figure is less than 10%.
North Korean defector charged under new propaganda law
A North Korean defector has been indicted on charges of breaking a South Korean law banning the spread of propaganda leaflets along the inter-Korean border, prosecutors and attorneys said Friday. Park Sang Hak is the first person to be indicted under the new law, which critics say puts a policy of engagement with North Korea above human rights. Park defied the ban in April by launching 10 balloons carrying a half-million leaflets. In July, police formally asked prosecutors to indict Park under the law, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in has vowed to strictly enforce.
By wire sources
