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Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is undergoing medical examination at a German hospital, a day after the government announced he was admitted to an Algerian hospital after self-isolating because several of his senior aides tested positive for COVID-19.The 75-year-old president’s treatment in Germany comes days before Algeria’s critical Nov. 1 referendum on changes he has proposed to the constitution.A government statement announced on state television did not specify what Tebboune is being treated for, even though he had a coronavirus scare.There has been no government announcement that Tebboune tested positive for COVID-19.Tebboune replaced Algeria’s ousted longtime president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in January amid political unrest in the country.
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During every U.S. presidential election, hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots are discarded by election officials for a variety of reasons, from arriving too late to missing a proper signature on the outer envelope.But this year, with more than half of U.S. voters casting ballots early or by mail, even more absentee ballots are being tossed out, raising questions about voting rights and heightening the specter of post-election uncertainty in key battleground states.Consider Florida and Georgia, two Southern states where President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, have been running neck and neck ahead of the November 3 election.While Florida and Georgia don’t publish data on ballot rejections before the election, two academics — Dartmouth College professor Michael Herron and University of Florida professor Daniel Smith — have analyzed the states’ official mail-in data to tally the number of votes at risk of rejection.In Florida, out of 3.8 million mail-in ballots cast so far, more than 15,000 face dismissal, a rejection rate of 0.4 percent, according to Herron and Smith. In North Carolina, the rejection rate is even higher. As of October 25, out of more than 780,000 ballots mailed in the state, more than 10,000 face possible rejection, a disqualification rate of about 1.3%, their research found.Minority votersAs in some recent elections, more minority than white voters are facing ballot rejections. In North Carolina, for example, Black voters were three times more likely than white voters to have their ballots flagged, the researchers found. This is something the Democrats could use as an issue should they decide to challenge the results of close races.To be sure, not every ballot marked as deficient will be automatically rejected. In both states, as in many others, voters are given an opportunity to “cure” or correct mistakes on their ballots.“It would be premature at this juncture to conclude that those returned ballots have been rejected by the canvassing board and not counted,” said Mark Ard, interim communications director for the Florida Department of State.In North Carolina, officials have started contacting voters with erroneous ballots, said Patrick Gannon, public information director for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.“A voter who for any reason does not have time to cure the ballot may vote in person during the early voting period through October 31 or on Election Day,” Gannon said via email.At first glance, the number of Florida and Georgia ballots flagged for rejection appears modest. However, in Florida and Georgia, as in other states with historically close elections, 10,000 votes can sometimes be the difference between victory and defeat.The outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush, the ultimate victor, and Democrat Al Gore came down to 537 votes in Florida. And during the 2018 primary election for a U.S. Senate seat from Florida, Republican Rick Scott won by just 10,033 votes, the researchers noted.As more mail ballots arrive in the coming days, the number of rejected ballots is likely to grow, in some cases potentially surpassing the margin of victory between candidates in closely fought presidential, congressional, state or local races in battleground states.“That’s a really nightmarish scenario when an election is so close that the number of rejected ballots is greater than the margin,” Herron said in an interview.As of Wednesday, 49 million Americans had voted by mail, according to a tally by the U.S. Elections Project.Herron and Smith first published their findings in The Conversation, a research publication. They shared more up-to-date data from Florida and North Carolina with VOA.Court battlesThe issues of how to handle ballots with signature problems and how long past November 3 mail-in ballots can arrive and still be counted have been the subject of months-long court battles by Republicans and Democrats throughout the country.With more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail, Republicans have sought court intervention, with varying degrees of success, to prevent late-arriving ballots from being entered into the final tally.In recent weeks, the conservative-controlled U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against efforts to change election procedures, including ballot receipt deadlines, invoking a doctrine that holds election rules should not be changed close to a vote.On October 19, before Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed, the justices split 4-4 over Pennsylvania’s plan to count the votes until three days after Election Day, even if they don’t have a legible postmark. On Wednesday, the justices refused to fast-track a new Republican challenge to Pennsylvania’s extended vote-counting deadline.But earlier this week, in a ruling viewed as a major setback for the Democrats, the high court blocked a Wisconsin plan to count mail-in ballots for up to six days after the election.Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, said rejected mail-in ballots are ripe for post-election litigation.“I suspect we may have big delays in the counting of ballots if there is a significant increase in absentee ballots, and I think there may also be litigation over the rejection of absentee ballots that did not comply with state law,” von Spakovsky, a former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, said in a recent interview.Historically, less than 1% of absentee votes get rejected because of administrative errors. But with record numbers of people voting by mail this year, many of them first-time voters, at least 1 million ballots could be discarded, according to a recent projection by a joint investigation by USA Today, Columbia Journalism Investigations and the PBS series Frontline.During this year’s presidential primaries, more than 550,000 mail-in ballots were discarded in 30 states, far more than the total for the 2016 presidential election, according to an analysis by NPR in August. That happened in large part because states were unprepared for the surge in voting by mail during the pandemic, noted Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona election official now with the foundation Democracy Fund.In the months since the primaries, however, many states have adopted a number of voting-by-mail best practices, changes that will likely reduce the number of rejected ballots, Patrick said.“They have redone their voting instructions. They have redone the design of their ballot envelopes. They have adopted practices like ballot tracking,” Patrick said.Voters can now check their voting status online and in at least 19 states are notified when their mail ballots need to be corrected. In Colorado, voters with deficient ballots are notified by text message and allowed to correct the error on their smartphones.As a result, Patrick said, fewer ballots will ultimately be rejected during the general election.“It might be a little bit higher than a traditional presidential election because there still will be so many new voters, but I’m hopeful that we won’t see the same kind of numbers we saw in the primary,” Patrick said.One wild card, however, is the number of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. While some states have extended their ballot receipt deadlines, 32 states, including Florida, don’t accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, giving voters little time to cure their ballots. North Carolina accepts ballots up to six days after Election Day if they are postmarked on or before November 3. Republicans have asked the Supreme Court to block the plan.“I think the big, lurking question out there is how many ballots arrive after Election Day,” Herron said.
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Analysts say U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement this week of a landmark security agreement with India marks another step toward building closer ties to South Asia and countering China’s influence in the region. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more on Pompeo’s trip to India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia.
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Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is in the Ain Naadja Military Hospital in Algiers after reportedly contracting COVID-19. Tebboune was hospitalized Tuesday after reportedly contracting the disease several days ago. Algerian TV indicated in a terse statement that his health was “not a cause for worry.”The president’s hospitalization came days before a scheduled November 1 constitutional referendum that could give the country’s top leader more power, while at the same time limiting his tenure to two five-year terms.Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad, who announced the president’s hospitalization for “specialized treatment,” has been campaigning across the country in recent days to urge Algerians to approve the proposed constitutional changes.He said the amendments did not represent a break from the current Tebboune era, but rather a break from corruption.Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that the president’s illness was cause for worry, but that he didn’t think the country would fall apart because of it.Diab said that given Tebboune’s age (74), there is always some sort of risk with this kind of illness, but he said Algeria’s governmental institutions have shown themselves to be fairly solid and that the referendum would go ahead as planned Sunday.Several French and Algerian media outlets suggested there were underlying tensions between Tebboune and the country’s military over the referendum. The Algerian military is a major power broker in the country and played a key role in the transition in 2019 between Tebboune and former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
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Sudanese Muslim and Christian religious leaders have agreed to join forces and promote religious freedom in the country, now that the Islamist government of Omar al-Bashir is out of power and a recently signed peace deal includes language saying freedom of religion is a human right.At the end of a two-day conference this week, the religious leaders signed a declaration to promote peace and freedom of worship among all Sudanese communities and to encourage community dialogue among people of different faiths.Khartoum Catholic Archbishop Michael Didi said the declaration will help create space for more religious freedom in Sudan as the country embarks on a new era following the revolution that led to military leaders removing Bashir from power.Didi said three decades of religious oppression created social stigma among different communities across the country, and change will not happen overnight.“I think we are moving well but it will take some time because many things were planted for a long time and to uproot them and make things new, and the understanding and the change of heart, the change of thinking and the change of how to deal with one, maybe it will need some time,” Didi told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Juba pactJibril Bilal, a member of the Darfur-based rebel group Justice and Equality Movement, said the declaration’s resolutions are in line with the peace agreement mediated in Juba, which call for a secular system of governance in Sudan with equal rights for everyone.“The state and the government and the official bodies have to stand in the same level of the people of Sudan. The state and government have to look after the interests of the Sudanese, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, colors and all this stuff,” Bilal told South Sudan in Focus.William Delvin, co-chair of the Khartoum-based organization Unity International, said the declaration paves the way for religious freedom in Sudan after decades of strict Islamist rule.He called on Muslims and Christians to forget the past and work together to build a new Sudan where citizens are treated equally.Delvin praised the transitional government under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for enacting religious reforms.“I think that God providentially had us here at this time after the repeal of the apostasy law, the banning and criminalization of female genital mutilation, after the peace agreement [between the government and rebel groups] and the discussion of having a secular state, the separation of mosque, church and state,” he said.Raja Nichola Abdul Messih, a member of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, said the government is committed to reforming all oppressive laws and promoting social justice.Sudan can be a shining example to the world where multicultural groups can peacefully coexist, said Messih.“Sudan is known for multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious and multieconomic social and political activities. Therefore, its culture is a mixture of African and Arab features. They deal according to an interconnected social system through which it is easy to find suitable ground for the harmony of this hybrid of all their differences,” Messih told VOA.
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A landmark law passed this month in Indonesia will open the populous, impoverished country to labor-intensive industry like many of its Southeast Asian neighbors despite a hit to worker rights, people on the ground say. The 905-page Omnibus Bill on Job Creation bill will give millions of young people chances to work, including in formal jobs that can be hard to find because older Indonesian laws discouraged foreign investors from setting up factories, analysts believe. Indonesians are struggling to earn income during an unrelenting COVID-19 outbreak that prompted shutdowns from April. The nation with nearly 400,000 infections reported a sharp drop in retail sales from April through August and a fall in exports over the three months ending in September.   “With this new law, it is expected that the investment would come not only to the Indonesian economy, but also come to the labor-intensive part, and by getting more investment in that area it is expected that more jobs will be created, and those jobs are more of the quality jobs, not only informal jobs,” said Yose Rizal Damuri, economics department head with the Center for Strategic and International Studies research organization in Jakarta.   Indonesia’s government and House of Representatives passed the bill ahead of schedule on October 5, the Jakarta Post reported. The bill aims to cut bureaucracy and make it easier for investors to create jobs, said Richard Borsuk, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies adjunct senior fellow in Singapore.Protest against the government’s proposed labor reforms in Sukabumi, West Java, Oct. 7, 2020.President Joko Widodo’s government sees this bill as part of his “legacy” to stimulate the 270 million-person country’s economy, Rizal said. Minerals, oil and farming make up much of Indonesia’s $1 trillion-plus GDP today. “Labor-intensive” industry players find Indonesia too expensive now, Rizal said, explaining why that sub-sector makes up just 2% of the country’s total investment. Foreign manufacturers of garments, shoes and textiles normally pick other low-cost Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, over the past decade because of stiff pro-labor laws, economists say. Foreign investment eventually raises the living standards, as witnessed in China and eventually Vietnam. “It’s probably something that will be a long-term benefit, if this does go through,” said Rajiv Biswas, senior regional economist with IHS Markit, a London-based analysis firm. “It creates a better environment for foreign multinationals to hire, because from the perspective of foreign multinationals, it’s very restrictive labor laws there,” Biswas said. “They’re worried about hiring because it’s very hard to reduce the workforce later on.”   Foreign investors will consider the law a “step in the right” direction for making Indonesia friendlier, forecast Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of Malaysian bank CIMB.“This Omnibus Bill is part of something that Jokowi [was] looking to see how they can help sort of improve the investment landscape to make it a little bit more attractive in Indonesia, just to make sure Indonesia doesn’t get pushed down the investible list of countries,” Song said, using the Indonesian president’s nickname. But the law sparked staunch opposition. Some governors have asked Widodo to revoke the law and other people protested in the streets over three days, sometimes violently, Borsuk’s study says. The law effectively eliminates the power of labor unions, said Paramita Supamijoto, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in greater Jakarta. The October bill would roll back legal support for fair wages, safe working conditions and excessive overtime, U.S.-headquartered human rights advocacy group Amnesty International said in a statement in August. It called the bill’s preparation process “opaque.”   Severance pay for laid-off workers will also slip, Damuri said. For workers, the law means that “whatever you do, your life will be determined by your employers,” Supamijoto said.But the law could stoke enough investment to stop people from migrating overseas in search of work, she said. “Under our current president’s administration, they prefer to invite the investors rather than sending workers abroad, so it’s better to invite you to come here to spend money, to invest your money, then to help us to build the infrastructure,” she said. 
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Hurricane Zeta is due to make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday after bringing heavy rains to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could bring a storm surge of one to three meters as it comes ashore in southeastern Louisiana in the afternoon. Zeta is also expected to spawn some tornadoes as it pushes into the southeastern United States as well as bring the threat of flooding with its locally heavy rains. Wednesday morning, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of about 140 kilometers per hour and some strengthening was expected before it makes landfall. The governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have all declared emergencies in their states to speed aid efforts. FILE – Debris sits near a street after Hurricane Laura hit nearly a month ago ahead of Hurricane Delta, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Oct. 9, 2020.Louisiana has already been hit by two other hurricanes and two tropical storms in 2020. Zeta is the 27th named storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, and it is the 11th storm to reach hurricane strength.  
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One of America’s least populous states, North Dakota recently surged to the top of the list of new COVID-19 cases per capita, registering more than 6,000 active cases and nearly 40,000 overall among its residents who number fewer than 700,000.    “It’s obvious the state has a problem we haven’t been able to solve yet,” Travis Enders told VOA.   Enders owns a wine bar in western North Dakota called Medora Uncork’d nestled in the small tourist town of Medora, which according to the last census, has a local population of just 112 people.    The COVID-19 surge has refocused debate on mask-wearing in a region known for resisting government mandates.    “North Dakotans are a different breed,” said hotel and saloon owner Jim Bridger. “We live in lots of open space — on 40,000-acre ranches — and we’re kind of socially distanced our whole lives. The same rules that are required in New York City might not be required in more remote areas.”  North Dakotans, Bridger said, don’t love being told what to do. While he requires his staff wear masks at the hotel, he doesn’t have the same rule at the saloon. There, he prefers to keep tables distanced and to deep clean the establishment each night rather than imposing a mandate. “People like their freedom here,” he said. “If you’re a kid, and a parent tells you to be careful with that match, you might not listen. But if you burn yourself, you’ll learn your lesson. I think the governor’s correct to let business owners decide for themselves.”    By contrast, bicycle shop owner Jennifer Morlock believes the longer the state takes to require masks, the longer the current spike of COVID-19 cases will continue. Her shop is one of the few businesses in town that require masks be worn.   “People like to talk about freedom and liberty, but I think a lot of people in North Dakota are taking their cue on masks from the president,” she said. “To me, freedom means the freedom to keep my business open. If I get sick, I don’t have that freedom. I’ll have to shut down.”    Feeling normal  Medora has so far avoided the worst of an outbreak that is pushing North Dakota’s hospitals to their capacity. The town’s ability to sidestep the pandemic has saved its tourist-dependent economy, while also inviting potentially catastrophic health risks.  “We’re on the national park circuit,” Enders said. He noted that outdoor enthusiasts who visit world-famous Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming will often add a trip to North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the main section of which can be accessed from Medora.     And while the pandemic has caused many vacationers to shun crowded beaches and other common tourist destinations, both Medora and the national park have seen an increase in traffic this year.    “People are coming here because things are open and because they feel safe here,” Enders explained. “You have this huge wilderness where you don’t see too many people, and then you have a town where case numbers are low, and things feel kind of normal. The only time you really see a mask is when you walk into Walmart. That’s about it.”   Reasons for a spike  Despite repeated pleas from health officials in Washington, wearing a mask is far less common in America’s rural areas than its cities. Now, states like North Dakota, which never adopted a mask-wearing mandate, may be suffering the consequences.  COVID-19 trackers note that neighboring South Dakota hosted a 460,000-person motorcycle rally in August that is now widely regarded to have been a super-spreader event in the region.People congregates at One-Eyed Jack’s Saloon during the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Aug. 7, 2020, in Sturgis, South Dakota.Even so, many locals believe the rise in reported cases is partly due to North Dakota conducting some of the most rigorous COVID-19 testing in the country.  “Even in our little town, we have free weekly testing,” Bridger said. “When you increase testing, you’re more likely to find cases you wouldn’t have otherwise, and that’s happening all over the state.”  While Republican Gov. Doug Burgum has left enforcing safety measures to individual business owners during the recent spike, he did order the state to restrict businesses when the pandemic first reached the United States.    “Bars and restaurants across the state were only able to open for takeout back in April, and travel basically came to a halt,” Bridger said. “When Medora only has 100 locals, it’s impossible for businesses in this town to survive without tourists.”  Shutting down  North Dakota can get bitterly cold during the winter. Towns like Medora hunker down, as the national park’s 600,000 annual visitors disappear, at times leaving more buffalo in the park — and more deer in town — than humans. It makes business during the warmer months even more important.    “You’ve got to make a year’s worth of income between April and September,” Bridger explained. “So, it hurt when we had to stay closed through the first weeks of spring.”    Enders and his partner decided to delay the seasonal opening of his wine shop. But even when statewide restrictions were lifted in May, they opted to limit their hours to the weekend when most travelers were in town.  “I think it was the right decision given the circumstances,” he said. “A lot of local businesses had it worse than us. Places around here rely on seasonal international workers, but those temporary visas weren’t allowed this year, and a lot of businesses didn’t have the staff to operate.”    In addition to tourism, the oil industry has also struggled during the pandemic. North Dakota is the second largest oil producer in the United States. As global travel ground to a halt, the demand for oil also collapsed.  Before the coronavirus reached the United States, a vast operation involving as many as 55,000 workers produced 1.5 million barrels of oil each day from the Bakken — an energy-rich rock formation that extends through the western part of the state. Today, 80% of North Dakota’s drilling rigs remain offline, and thousands of industry employees are idle.  “Oil drilling and exploration requires a lot of jobs,” explained Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. “It’s people drilling wells and completing wells. People who bring out the equipment. Truckers who transport the water. Gravel haulers, dirt movers, high-tech engineers, geologists and more. When demand and prices drop as low as they did, it doesn’t make sense to drill, and those workers go looking for jobs elsewhere. But there aren’t jobs elsewhere, either.”    Uncertain crisis    As restrictions on bars and restaurants were lifted, many Medora businesses reported a busier year than normal.  “We saw more people than usual visiting the area,” said Morlock about her bike shop. “There have been tons of people escaping the dense cities of the East Coast or road-tripping in an RV. I think with the national park, they feel like parts of North Dakota can be a safe place to travel to that they’ve never been before.”  Residents like Enders, however, believe the uptick in tourism also brought health risks.    “It’s great for business, but it’s also a little bit of a worry,” he said. “You have people coming from other parts of the state or other parts of the country who are visiting because they want to go somewhere that’s safer than where they live. But that means they’re potentially bringing the virus with them.”  Enders said he was not originally in favor of a statewide mask mandate, but now believes it could help avoid confusion and help lower infection rates. “I usually vote Democrat, but I also admire that the state government here doesn’t meddle so much in our lives. At some point, though, we have laws for a reason,” he said. “You have to wear safety belts. You can’t smoke in bars. And until we can get this pandemic under control, maybe we should have to wear masks when we’re around other people, too.” 
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The Los Angeles Dodgers won their first Major League Baseball World Series in more than three decades Tuesday night, shaking off a slow offensive start to defeat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 in Game 6. For five innings, the Rays appeared to be in control in their bid to force a deciding seventh game in the series with pitcher Blake Snell allowing just one hit and zero runs. But the Dodgers rallied in the sixth inning, scoring a run on a wild pitch by Rays reliever Nick Anderson and a second run on a fielder’s choice one batter later. Star outfielder Mookie Betts, who came to the Dodgers in an offseason trade, pushed the lead to 3-1 with a home run in the eighth inning. Tampa Bay’s only run came by way of a first-inning home run by Randy Arozarena, who emerged as a star during the postseason with nine total home runs. The Rays had more chances early in the game with multiple runners on base in the first two innings.  But Dodgers pitchers were able to hold the Rays in check, striking out 16 total batters and allowing just two hits in the final eight innings.Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate after defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 to win the baseball World Series in Game 6 Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020, in Arlington, Texas.Reliever Julio Urías struck out Willy Adames to seal the victory for the Dodgers and send their players into a celebratory pile on the infield. Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager was named the World Series Most Valuable Player after compiling a .471 batting average with two home runs and seven runs scored in the series. The championship is a culmination of years of recent success for Los Angeles, which has won more regular season games than any other team since the 2010 season but suffered repeated heartbreak in the playoffs. The Dodgers lost the 2017 World Series in seven games to the Houston Astros, and a year later fell in the World Series to the Boston Red Sox.  Last season brought a first-round defeat at the hands of the eventual champion Washington Nationals. “This is our year,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the game. “We said it.  This is our year.” All of the 2020 World Series games were played in Arlington, Texas, one of the effects the coronavirus pandemic had on the Major League Baseball season.  The league postponed its usual start from the end of March to the end of July, with teams playing just 60 regular season games instead of 162.  No fans were allowed into stadiums until the last two rounds, when only a limited number were able to see games in person. The schedule was further thrown into chaos with multiple teams experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.  Tuesday night, Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner was removed in the eighth inning, and after the game it was announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19. “It’s a bittersweet night for us.  We’re glad to be done,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “I do think it’s a great accomplishment for our players to get this season completed.” 
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A possible challenge to Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973, has young people considering how it might impact their lives.Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative judge from Indiana who was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday evening, has previously disagreed with the decision, as well as the Affordable Care Act, which provides many women with free or low-cost contraception. Among 18- to 29-year-old Americans, 70% support abortion rights, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study. Among all ages, 60% of Americans support legalized abortions.  “I am scared, because a threat to Roe v. Wade means a threat to women’s rights over their own body,” Zoe Tishaev, a freshman at Duke University in North Carolina, told VOA. “It means a threat to the rights of women to make choices. For me, it is a direct threat to my autonomy to make choices.”   By comparison, 55% of Americans 65 and older support legal abortion.Kristi Hamrick, spokesperson for Students for Life of America, said in an email to VOA that she believes Roe v. Wade needs to be “reviewed, reversed and returned to the states.” “A flawed understanding of someone else’s humanity may have allowed a bad law to come into existence,” said Hamrick. “But later generations past put a stop to the injustice when they considered the impact of bad laws on real people. That will happen for the preborn, dehumanized by Roe.” Future of Roe Barrett publicly opposed abortion in 2006 in an anti-abortion letter and ad in the South Bend Tribune, calling for “an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade.” South Bend is in Barrett’s home state, Indiana.   In 2016, the most recent tally, 623,471 abortions were performed in the U.S. and reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Abortion rates in the U.S. fell to their lowest point that year since abortion was legalized in 1973, according to the CDC.    As contraceptive use among women increased from 2000 and 2019, abortion rates declined. “Personally, I think the ruling of Roe v. Wade was misguided in the first place, since it ignored the rights protected for all persons under the 14th Amendment,” said Sam Sparks, a student at Wheaton College, who said he was “very happy” with Barrett’s appointment.  “No one should be forced to carry the burden of a child they are unable to care for,” Tishaev, from Duke University, said. “Roe v. Wade was liberating for thousands and thousands of women across the United States. To take that away is not just regression, it is oppression, and a systemic stripping of rights.”  “As a Black woman, I view the potential challenge of Roe v. Wade as an attack on reproductive rights, and I feel that the government’s encroachment of our rights to bodily autonomy is disgusting,” said Adetoyosi Atewologun, a junior at Boston College.   Atewologun told VOA that overturning the law could have a “devastating psychological effect” on some young women and how they view themselves if abortion were not accessible.  Ginsburg’s viewBarrett was appointed to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September.  Ginsburg spent a career focusing on women’s rights and once said she found the Roe decision flawed. She said it should have been based on gender equality instead of privacy.  “The court wrote an opinion that made every abortion restriction in the country illegal in one fell swoop, and that was not the way that the court ordinarily operates,” Ginsburg said in an interview with Bloomberg in 2019. She believed the decision, as written, left the ruling open to attack by abortion opponents.  On Friday, the full Supreme Court of nine justices will decide whether to hear a Mississippi case that bans abortions after 15 weeks. It is seen as a case that could directly challenge the Roe v. Wade decision.   
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As Americans prepare to go to polling stations on Election Day this Nov. 3, U.S. news organizations are preparing to report the count which will determine the winners of more than 7,000 races, including the White House, House and Senate seats, state offices, and local legislative positions.In the United States, news organizations observe the vote count in real time and use a variety of information to determine when they can declare a winner in each race, including overall vote totals, exit polling of voters, and the estimated number of votes still uncounted in each precinct.  Here’s how it works and what news organizations do to help ensure they do not make a mistake.Who announces winners in U.S. elections?State election officials are the ones who certify the vote count, but long before every ballot has been counted, the American news media use a variety of data sources and tools to project the winners. Using a collection of raw vote totals, statistical techniques, and projections, the news organizations, which have been covering American presidential elections continuously since 1848, have had an excellent – but not perfect – record of calling race winners.How do news organizations count the vote returns on election night?Votes are tabulated county by county by the Associated Press, a non-profit news agency which uses its national network of more than 4,000 reporters on election night to record the vote tallies from county clerks and other local officials. The AP also gathers information from state websites that post election returns. Reporters feed that information back to AP’s vote counting operation, where analysts make decisions about which races are ready to be called.Workers with the Philadelphia City Commissioners office sort election materials for the 2020 General Election in the United States at the city’s mail-in ballot sorting and counting center, in Philadelphia, Oct. 26, 2020.Who does the counting?Local election workers collect the ballot tallies in each precinct. How and when the ballots are counted is determined by local and state laws. For example, some states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin require that no ballots be counted until Election Day, even if they arrived at election offices weeks earlier. Once the votes from a precinct are counted, election workers pass the information to county and state officials, who then make the tallies available to reporters and the public.What do reporters do with the local tallies?AP reporters across the country phone the results to data entry people in specially set up election centers where they are entered into an electronic system. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the election centers are virtual in 2020. All vote counts are subject to a series of checks and verifications, including computer programs that set off alerts if there are inconsistencies with the vote count because of previous voting history or other data.Who decides the winners?At the AP, a team of race callers on the Decision Desk determines when they have enough information to declare a winner. The team is looking at more than just the overall vote total, taking into account the incoming vote as well as how many ballots are left to count and where those uncounted votes were cast.This election, the AP is not using exit polling data conducted by the National Election Pool as it has done in years past. This data is collected by pollsters who ask voters questions as they are leaving their polling places. AP says that it does not believe such data is effective when large numbers of people vote early.Other news media, including the major TV networks — ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC — continue to be a part of the National Election Pool and will have access to the exit polling data to help make election projections. The networks also use specially set up election desks to make calls on election night.This means that different media organizations may declare winners in elections at different times, using their own models and data.  A voter drops off her absentee ballot during early voting at the Park Slope Armory YMCA, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Oct. 27, 2020.How do they count ballots since so many people are voting early?Because of the coronavirus pandemic, many more Americans are voting early this year and many of those votes are being cast by mail. Mail ballots usually take longer to count than those cast in person. Election officials must open the ballots, make sure a voter is registered, and oftentimes verify their signature.Because of this, the AP is predicting, “extended vote counts” in more states than previous years, which could drag on for days or weeks. The AP developed its own survey in 2018 designed specifically to account for the rise in votes cast before Election Day. The survey, called AP VoteCast, captures the opinion of those who voted early as well as those who voted on Election Day and will help the AP to factor in the early vote when calling races.How accurate is the media at announcing results?The media have largely been accurate in calling election winners. However, their credibility was hugely damaged during the 2000 presidential race when most news outlets prematurely called the race for Al Gore around 8 p.m. on Election Day, then called it again for George W. Bush after 2 a.m. the following morning, then rescinded all calls as an automatic recount of the votes began in Florida.The AP has been counting votes for over 120 years and says that in 2016 it was 99.8% accurate in calling all U.S. races and 100% accurate in calling the presidential and congressional races for each state. AP declared Donald Trump the winner in 2016 at 2:29 a.m. on Wednesday, November 9. 
 
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: “COVID-19 is a type of flu and is not a pandemic; PCR tests are up to 94% false positive; only 98 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported in Ireland.” — World Doctors Alliance videoVerdict: FalseRead the full story at: Health FeedbackSocial Media DisinfoCirculating on social media: “Viral posts suggest that COVID-19 can’t be a serious disease if it hasn’t “wiped out the homeless.” But recent reports published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found high rates of homeless residents testing positive for the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2.”Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: FactCheck.org Factual Reads on CoronavirusConfronting Misinformation
How to protect society from fear, lies and division.
— Scientific American, November 1, 2020 
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The lives of thousands of children under the age of five in war-torn Yemen are at risk because of acute malnutrition, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund.A UNICEF press release said Tuesday that is particularly true in southern parts of the country, where more than half-a-million cases have been reported, and about one in five children are suffering from acute malnutrition. The analysis shows a 10 percent increase in cases of malnutrition and a 15.5 percent rise in acute cases in 2020. The report said that leaves at least 98,000 children at risk of dying if they don’t receive urgent intervention.Apart from children, at least a quarter-million pregnant or breastfeeding women also are in need of treatment for malnutrition, according to the statement.“The lives of thousands of children and women are at stake. Acute malnutrition can be treated and prevented with a package of key services, but for that, we need urgent action and support. A great sense of urgency should prevail in making the necessary financial resources available and ensuring access to children and women in dire need of assistance,” said Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF Yemen Representative.A woman uses a syringe to feed her malnourished daughter at a malnutrition treatment ward of al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, Oct. 27, 2020.Yemen has long been regarded as unsafe for children and women because of insufficient and poor-quality diet, a high prevalence of communicable diseases, and elevated levels of food insecurity. Yemeni children also have limited access to nutrition and health services, poor sanitation and hygiene, and little or no access to vaccines such as measles and polio.In the worst-hit areas, such as the Hodeidah lowlands, at least one in four children is severely malnourished. Other deeply affected areas include Abyan, and the Lahj and Taiz lowlands. Data for northern Yemen is still being analyzed, although the situation is expected to be same.Pushed to the brinkU.N. experts cautioned that the actual number could be higher because the causes of malnutrition in Yemen have worsened in 2020. This year, the improvements in the lives of Yemeni women and children have been reversed because of a combination of factors. Escalating conflict and economic decline, coupled with the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, have pushed an already exhausted population to the brink.“The vicious cycle of conflict and hunger in Yemen is exacting a terrible toll on those who are already the most vulnerable. Rising rates of acute malnutrition put too many women and children at risk while the consequences will be felt by Yemen for generations to come,” said Laurent Bukera, World Food Program Country Director in Yemen.The experts also say this is the highest number of malnutrition cases since Yemen’s civil war began in 2015.Lack of fundingFunding shortfalls have disrupted the implementation of many aid projects, including emergency food assistance. Malnutrition treatment programs also could be curtailed if funds are not received soon. As of mid-October, only $1.43 billion of the $3.2 billion needed in 2020 had been received, the UNICEF press release said.U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Lisa Grande said the inability to increase humanitarian efforts in Yemen because of insufficient funding is “heartbreaking.”More than 24 million Yemenis require some form of humanitarian assistance and protection.“This means building, restoring and sustaining food systems in Yemen by immediately expanding efforts to protect people’s livelihoods and enabling them to produce, sell and consume diverse and nutritious foods even during times of extreme crisis,” said Dr. Hussein Gadain, a U.N. Food and Agriculture representative in Yemen.
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Street protests broke out on Monday night in the western part of the U.S. city of Philadelphia, injuring four police, after police had shot and killed a Black man they said had been armed with a knife.
 
The violence is the latest in months of anti-racism protests across the United States since the May death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
 
Four officers were hit with bricks when Monday’s protest outside a police station in Philadelphia turned violent and they had to be taken to hospital, broadcaster NBC said.
 
Earlier, a man identified by officials as Walter Wallace, 27, had approached two police officers who drew their guns after warning him to put down the knife, video of the afternoon’s shooting on social media showed.
 
The incident raised questions and was being investigated, Mayor Jim Kenny and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said in separate statements.
 
“The Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Unit of the Philadelphia police department will conduct a full investigation,” Kenney said.
 
Outlaw said she heard “the anger of the community” after Wallace’s death.
 
Reuters could not immediately verify the video on social media, recorded by a bystander, which showed the two officers point their guns at Wallace as he walked in the street.
 
He approached them as they backed away, with guns still aimed at him, while yelling to him to put down his knife.
 
Both then fired several shots and Wallace collapsed in the street, according to the video.
 
Tension rose as the death of Wallace sparked clashes between protesters and local police.
 
Since the incident in Minneapolis, demonstrators have turned out nationwide to demand racial equality and an end to police brutality, with protests sometimes turning violent.
 
Activist groups reiterated a demand to defund the police, with the American Civil Liberties Union saying state violence could not be the answer to society’s problems.
 
“It is time to divest in police and invest in community programs, including the kind of mental health services that allow intervention that may have prevented Mr. Wallace’s killing,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the Pennsylvania ACLU.
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One of the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdowns is coming to an end in the Australian city of Melbourne. Beginning Tuesday, all shops, cafes and restaurants can re-open, and strict-stay-at home orders will be lifted. The lockdown was imposed in early July in response to a deadly second wave of infections.  Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state, has for a second consecutive day recorded no new coronavirus infections or fatalities. A sustained fall in daily cases has allowed the authorities to end one of the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdowns in the city of Melbourne.  Starting on Tuesday, the retail and hospitality industries can reopen, although conditions still apply. Face coverings remain mandatory, and cafes and restaurants can serve a maximum of 20 people inside and 50 people outdoors. Weddings can now proceed with up to 10 guests and funerals with 20 mourners. Strict stay-at-home orders imposed on Melbourne’s five million residents will end. Victoria premier Daniel Andrews says now is the time to bring the lockdown to an end.“We are able to say that now is the time to open up.  This belongs to every single Victorian, every single Victorian who has followed the rules, stayed the course, worked with me and my team to bring this second wave to an end.  But it is not over.  This virus is not going away.  It is going to continue to be a feature of our lives every day until a vaccine turns up. These are big steps,” Andrews said.Men queue for a haircut outside a barber shop in Melbourne on October 19, 2020, as some of the city’s three-month-old stay-at-home restrictions due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak were further eased on falling infection rates.Victoria state has been at the center of Australia’s COVID-19 crisis.  It has had the majority of infections and almost 90 per cent of the nation’s virus fatalities.    The lockdown has not been universally popular.   Two people have been charged over an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne last week, including a woman who allegedly kicked a police horse.    The state government has been accused of being too cautious while jobs were lost and there are concerns that the mental health consequences will be dire.    Victoria’s conservative opposition leader is Michael O’Brien. “There will be scars on the psyche of this state that will not heal.  There are many, many people whose lives have changed permanently because of what they have had to endure over the last few months,” O’Brien said.More than 27,500 coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in Australia, and 905 people have died.  The federal government has said there have been four critical parts to the nation’s response to the pandemic: the closure of its international borders to foreign travelers, widespread testing, reliable contact tracing and community respect for hygiene and physical distancing protocols.     Victoria’s state government has indicated it plans to ease other restrictions in early November that are likely to include reopening gyms and allowing residents to travel more than 25 kilometers from home. As Melbourne’s lockdown comes to an end, there is immense relief and celebration among residents, or as local media have put it, there have been “cheers, tears and beers.” 
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Some 60,000 people fled their homes near Los Angeles on Monday as a fast-spreading wildfire raged across more than 7,200 acres (3,000 hectares), blocking key roadways and critically injuring two firefighters. The so-called Silverado Fire erupted early in the morning in the foothills of Irvine, about 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, and quickly spread with no containment, fueled by dry conditions and erratic winds that prevented firefighting aircraft from flying. “It’s nuts — even inside the car, my eyes, my nose and my throat stung,” said Frederic Tournadre, a French man whose company in Irvine sent all its employees home. The inferno nearly quadrupled in size by afternoon, jumping a highway and covering the area with a huge plume of smoke and ash.   About 20,000 homes were evacuated along with several public schools that were set to remain shut on Tuesday.  The National Weather Service warned that the combination of low humidity, dry vegetation and strong winds had created “the most dangerous fire weather conditions” this year.   It said the region will remain under a red flag warning — signifying a high risk of wildfire — through Tuesday evening. “New fire ignitions in Los Angeles and Ventura counties will likely have very rapid-fire growth, extreme fire behavior, and long-range spotting, resulting in a significant threat to life and property,” the Weather Service said.   Officials said the two injured firefighters sustained second- and third-degree burns and both had to be intubated at an area hospital.   “I got an opportunity to talk to members of their families and spend time with both firefighters in the emergency room while they were being treated, but they were not in a position where they could speak with me,” Orange County Fire Authority chief Brian Fennesy told reporters.   He added that winds of 20 to 40 miles per hour (mph), with gusts up to 60 mph, had made it extremely difficult for the 500 firefighters trying to control the flames. Dry conditions, high winds”Any time winds are that bad you can’t fly, and that certainly has an impact on both hand crews and bulldozers and firefighters at the end of those hose lines,” he said.   Meanwhile another blaze in Yorba Linda, located about 17 miles north of Irvine and dubbed the Blue Ridge Fire, erupted in early afternoon Monday, scorching more than 1,100 acres and also forcing evacuations.   The Silverado and Blue Ridge fires were burning as California and much of the US west are under major fire risk because of dry conditions and strong seasonal winds.   More than four million acres have been devoured this season by flames in California alone, where 31 people have died in some of the largest fires in the state’s history. Evacuations have been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic which has hit the Golden State hard and hampered the work of firefighters. The state fire agency Cal Fire said Monday that more than 4,000 firefighters are battling 22 wildfires, with 34 million people under red flag warnings. It said that wind gusts upwards of 80 miles (130 kilometers) an hour were expected in mountain areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The critical fire weather prompted Southern California Edison to shut off power to hundreds of customers in the two counties in a precautionary move to avert any electrical equipment from sparking blazes. 
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that voters in the U.S. state of Wisconsin need to return their ballots to election officials by the time polls close on November 3 in order to be counted. The court sided with Republicans who challenged an earlier decision by a lower court judge to extend the deadline to accept any ballots that were postmarked by November 3 but arrived by November 9. Ballot deadlines vary by state, and as legal challenges have played out in recent weeks, the courts have generally supported rules put in place by state legislatures or election officials. “No one doubts that conducting a national election amid a pandemic poses serious challenges,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion. “But none of that means individual judges may improvise with their own election rules in place of those the people’s representatives have adopted.”Signs for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump mark neighboring properties in a middle-class neighborhood of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Sept. 29, 2020.Republicans in multiple cases have argued there is enough time for voters to return their ballots by November 3, while Democrats argued extensions are necessary with historic numbers of people casting mail-in ballots in order to avoid gathering at polling sites on election day due to the coronavirus pandemic. Justice Elena Kagan, one of three liberals on the Supreme Court who dissented in the 5-3 decision, wrote that the ruling “will disenfranchise large numbers of responsible voters in the midst of hazardous pandemic conditions.” The Wisconsin Elections Commission reported Monday that 1.7 million people had requested to vote by absentee ballot, and that 1.34 million had either cast a ballot by mail or voted absentee in person. Nationwide, more than 64 million people had either cast mail-in ballots or voted early in person as of Monday night, according to the U.S. Elections Project. About 20 of the 50 U.S. states currently allow ballots to come in after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by November 3. 
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