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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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U.S. and Japanese maritime self-defense forces carried out military exercises, Monday, October 26, on Japan’s helicopter carrier. Japan and the U.S. began air, sea and land exercises around Japan in a show of force in the face of increased Chinese military activity in the region. The Keen Sword exercise is the first big drill since Yoshihide Suga became Japan’s prime minister last month with a vow to continue the military build-up aimed at countering China, which claims Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. Keen Sword, which is held every two years, involves dozens of warships, hundreds of aircraft and 46,000 soldiers, sailors and marines from Japan and the United States. Running until to Nov. 5 it will include cyber and electronic warfare training for the first time. Japan’s biggest helicopter carrier in waters south of Japan was accompanied by U.S. aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan and its escort destroyers. The 248 meter Kaga, which was returning from patrols in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, will be refitted as early as next year to carry F-35 stealth fighters. Suga this month visited Vietnam and Indonesia as part of Japan’s efforts to bolster ties with key Southeast Asian allies. That followed a meeting in Tokyo of the “Quad”, an informal grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the United States that Washington sees as a bulwark against China’s growing regional influence. Beijing as denounced it as a “mini-NATO” aimed at containing it. Japan has grown particularly concerned about an uptick in Chinese naval activity around the disputed islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo claims as the Senkaku and Diaoyu in Beijing. (Reuters) 
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The U.S. Senate confirmed federal appellate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a seat on the Supreme Court in a 52-48 vote late Monday.Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine  joined the entire Democratic caucus voting against Barrett’s confirmation. Collins said she would not vote for Barrett’s confirmation because of the proximity of the vote to next week’s presidential election. According to the AP, no other Supreme Court justice has been confirmed on a recorded vote with no support from the minority party in at least 150 years.Barrett is the third justice on the nine-member court to be nominated by President Donald Trump and significantly tip its ideological balance toward a 6-3 conservative majority.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is expected to swear Barrett in at a White House ceremony planned later Monday evening. Democrats argued that the decision of picking a nominee for the seat should have been left up to whichever candidate wins the presidential election, a stance Republicans held when there was an election-year vacancy in early 2016. Republicans then refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nomination of another appellate judge, Merrick Garland. “The Senate is doing the right thing” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday when advancing Barrett’s confirmation. “We’re moving this nomination forward.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the vote “illegitimate” and “the last gasp of a desperate party,” the AP reported.Barrett could potentially consider election disputes involving Trump, although it is unclear whether she might recuse herself since Trump named her to the court. She declined to say at her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee two weeks ago whether she will avoid hearing disputes over extended deadlines for voters to return mail-in ballots and other issues Republicans and Democrats are contesting. Barrett almost assuredly would be among the justices hearing a new challenge November 10 on whether to invalidate the country’s Affordable Care Act, which Trump has sought to overturn.  The law, popularly known as Obamacare after the former president who championed its passage in 2010, is a measure that helps provide health care to millions of Americans. Its fate is a crucial concern for many people amid the surging number of new coronavirus cases in the United States.  Republicans have long argued that Obamacare costs taxpayers too much and gives government too much control over health care. The Republican-led Congress in 2017 eliminated the law’s mandate requiring that people buy health insurance if they could afford to do so. They now want the Supreme Court to invalidate the entire statute, saying that without that key insurance provision, the rest of the legislation is invalid.
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British officials say a Liberian-registered oil tanker is docked safely in Southampton and its crew “safe and well” after British naval special forces stormed the ship following a report that stowaways threatened violence. In a statement, ship operator Navios Tanker Management, says the Nave Andromeda left Lagos, Nigeria, on October 6 and had been due to dock in Southampton on Sunday when the ship’s master became “concerned for the safety of the crew due to the increasingly hostile behavior of the stowaways.” A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation indicates the crew had been aware of the stowaways – believed to have been from Nigeria – but said they became unruly and even violent as the ship neared Britain. The ship was circling an area a few kilometers southeast of the Isle of Wight, south of Southampton, and when it failed to dock, local authorities were contacted. A statement on the British ministry of Defense’s Twitter account indicates police requested assistant from the military.  The coast guard was also called in and scrambled helicopters to reach the scene.  A nearly five-kilometer exclusion zone was established around the vessel.  After several hours, commandos from the Royal Navy Special Boat Service were lowered from helicopters onto the ship, whose crew had locked themselves in a secure area. Within minutes, the commandos had detained seven people and secured the vessel. Speaking to reporters Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked both the police and armed forces for what they did “to keep our shores safe.” 
 
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Zimbabwe authorities are hailing a sustainable farming technique called “Pfumvudza” as a breakthrough to help end the country’s long-standing food insecurity.  But as Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, some critics point to its limits.Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe       Producer:  Marcus Harton  
 
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After more than three months under stifling restrictions imposed in response to a second wave of COVID-19 cases, life in Australia’s second-largest city is slowly about to return to normal. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews announced Monday that Melbourne’s five million citizens will be able to leave their homes effective Tuesday at midnight, and that all  cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and hotels will be allowed to reopen.   The announcement comes as Melbourne and the surrounding Victoria state recorded its first 24-hour period without any new coronavirus infections since June 9.  The state had been plagued by a dramatic spike of new COVID-19 cases, peaking in August when daily new cases rose above 700.  The resurgence of new cases has been blamed on security lapses at hotels where travelers were being quarantined after traveling overseas.   With zero new cases, Premier Andrews told reporters that “we are able to say that now is the time to open up. Now is the time to congratulate every single Victorian for staying the course.” Andrews also said that travel restrictions limiting people to no further than 25 kilometers from their home will end on November 8, which will allow people in Melbourne to travel to Victoria’s rural areas.   Testing in Kashgar, ChinaHealth authorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province have launched a widespread testing effort in Kashgar after 137 new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections were discovered. The new cases were detected after a 17-year-old girl was found to be asymptomatic.  The other asymptomatic cases have been traced to a factory where the girl’s parents work.  Authorities say nearly 3 million people in Kashgar have been tested since the outbreak was detected. Xinjiang was placed under a brief but tight lockdown period after a cluster of coronavirus cases was detected in August.   On the vaccine frontMeanwhile, British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced Monday that a vaccine it has developed in cooperation with the University of Oxford has produced a similar immune response in both younger and older adults, with adverse responses lower among the elderly.   The announcement by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant comes the same day The Financial Times newspaper said early reports from testing showed the experimental vaccine, dubbed AZD1222, produces a robust immune response in elderly people, who are among the highest risk from the disease. 
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October is breast cancer awareness month, but this year most health care facilities are focused on the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Anita Powell spoke to a breast cancer survivor in South Africa who is trying to protect against both COVID-19 and a cancer recurrence.Camera: Zaheer Cassim
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Chileans poured into the country’s main squares on Sunday night after voters gave a ringing endorsement to a plan to tear up the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in favor of a new charter drafted by citizens. In Santiago’s Plaza Italia, the focus of the massive and often violent social protests last year which sparked the demand for a new magna carta, fireworks rose above a crowd of tens of thousands of jubilant people singing in unison as the word “rebirth” was beamed onto a tower above.   With more than three quarters of the votes counted, 78.12% of voters had opted for a new charter. Many have expressed hopes that a new text will temper an unabashedly capitalist ethos with guarantees of more equal rights to healthcare, pensions and education.   “This triumph belongs to the people, it’s thanks to everyone’s efforts that we are at this moment of celebration,” Daniel, 37, told Reuters in Santiago’s Plaza Nunoa. “What makes me happiest is the participation of the youth, young people wanting to make changes.”   Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera said if the country had been divided by the protests and debate over whether to approve or reject plans for a new charter, from now on they should unite behind a new text that provided “a home for everyone.” The center-right leader, whose popularity ratings plummeted to record lows during the unrest and have remained in the doldrums, spoke to those who wanted to keep the present constitution credited with making Chile one of Latin America’s economic success stories.Referendum on a new Chilean constitution, in Santiago, Oct. 26, 2020.Any new draft must incorporate “the legacy of past generations, the will of present generations and the hopes of generations to come,” he said. He gave a nod to fears that the high expectations placed in a new charter cannot be met, saying: “This referendum is not the end, it is the start of a road we must walk towards a new constitution.” As votes were counted on live television around the country, spontaneous parties broke out on street corners and in squares around the country. Drivers honked car horns, some as revelers danced on their roofs, and others banged pots and pans. The flag of the country’s indigenous Mapuche people, who will seek greater recognition in the new charter, was ubiquitous.   Four fifths of voters said they wanted the new charter to be drafted by a specially-elected body of citizens – made up of half women and half men – over a mixed convention of lawmakers and citizens, highlighting general mistrust in Chile’s political class.   Members of a 155-seat constitutional convention will be voted in by April 2021 and have up to a year to agree a draft text, with proposals approved by a two-thirds majority. Among issues likely to be at the fore are recognition of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous population, powers of collective bargaining, water and land rights and privatized systems providing healthcare, education and pensions. Chileans will then vote again on whether they accept the text or want to revert to the previous constitution. The National Mining Society (Sonami), which groups the companies in the sector into the world’s largest copper producer, said it hoped for “broad agreement on the principles and norms” that determine the sector’s coexistence with Chilean citizens and that the regulatory certainty that have allowed the sector to flourish would continue. 
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The U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a seat on the Supreme Court in a vote late Monday. If confirmed, Barrett would be the third justice on the nine-member court to be nominated by President Donald Trump and significantly tip its ideological balance toward a 6-3 conservative majority.  Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Senator Susan Collins is the only Republican to indicate she would not vote on Barrett’s nomination due to the close proximity to next week’s presidential election. Democrats have opposed Barrett’s nomination both objecting to her credentials and to the process of filling the seat of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in such rapid fashion.Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett testifies during the third day of her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 14, 2020.The Democrats have argued that the decision of picking a nominee for the seat should have been left up to whichever candidate wins the presidential election, a position Republicans held when there was an election-year vacancy in early 2016. “The Senate is doing the right thing,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday.“We’re moving this nomination forward.” The Senate voted 51-48 Sunday to end Democrats’ filibuster on Barrett’s nomination, starting a period of 30 hours of debate before the final vote. “Senate Democrats are taking over the floor all night to fight this sham process by Senate Republicans,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.  “We will not stop fighting.” Barrett almost assuredly would be among the justices hearing a new challenge Nov. 10 on whether to invalidate the country’s Affordable Care Act, which Trump has sought to overturn.  The law, popularly known as Obamacare after former President Barack Obama who championed its passage in 2010, is a measure that helps provide health care to millions of Americans. Its fate is a crucial concern for many people amid the surging number of new coronavirus cases in the United States.  Republicans have long argued that Obamacare costs taxpayers too much and gives government too much control over health care. The Republican-led Congress in 2017 eliminated the Act’s mandate that people who could afford to buy health insurance do so. They now want the Supreme Court to invalidate the entire Act, saying that without that key provision, the rest of the legislation is invalid. 
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Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta strengthened Sunday in the western Caribbean and will probably become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast in coming days.Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.The system was centered about 275 miles (445 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane Monday.Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek. The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.The government is still handing out aid, including sheet roofing, to Yucatan residents hit by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said. “It just needs anything to move.”When a storm gets stuck, it can unload dangerous downpours over one place, which causes flooding when a storm is over or near land. That happened in 2017 over Houston with Harvey, when more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain fell and 2019 over the Bahamas with a Category 5 Dorian, which was the worst-case scenario of a stationary storm, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.While Zeta was over open ocean Sunday, Jamaica and Honduras were getting heavy rains because the system is so large and South Florida was under a flood watch, McNoldy said.But once Zeta eventually gets moving, it won’t be stalling over landfall, Klotzbach said.The Hurricane Center said Zeta could bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain to parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Florida and the Keys before drenching parts of the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.A 2018 study said storms, especially in the Atlantic basin, are slowing down and stalling more. Atlantic storms that made landfall moved 2.9 mph (4.7 kph) slower than 60 years ago, the study found. Study author James Kossin, a government climate scientist, said the trend has signs of human-caused climate change.Zeta is also in a dangerous place to stall. The western Caribbean is “where storms can cook” and rapidly intensify because of the deep, warm waters, like 2005’s Wilma, Klotzbach said. However, the National Hurricane Center was not forecasting rapid intensification for Zeta.The lack of steering currents also meant wide spread of possible landfalls when Zeta eventually heads north to the Gulf Coast. The hurricane center said it could make landfall anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards urged his state’s citizens to monitor the storm, and the state activated its Crisis Action Team.On Sunday, a hurricane warning was called for the Yucatan Peninsula from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cancun and Cozumel, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Pinar del Rio, Cuba.Zeta broke the record of the previous earliest 27th Atlantic named storm that formed Nov. 29, 2005, according to Klotzbach.This year’s season has so many storms that the hurricane center has turned to the Greek alphabet after running out of official names.Zeta is the furthest into the Greek alphabet the Atlantic season has gone. There was also a Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005, but that year had 28 storms because meteorologists later went back and found they missed one, which then became a “unnamed named storm,” Klotzbach said.Additionally, Hurricane Epsilon was moving quickly through the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters said it would become a post-tropical cyclone later Sunday. Large ocean swells generated by the hurricane could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.
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Amid a year of contagion and turmoil, Chileans turned out Sunday to vote on whether to draft a new constitution for their nation to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under a military dictatorship, and early returns gave the “yes” forces a big lead.The country’s conservative government agreed with the center-left opposition to allow the plebiscite after the outbreak of vast street protests that erupted a year ago in frustration over inequality in pensions, education and health care in what has long been one of South America’s most developed nations.The Electoral Service said Sunday evening that of the first 1.3 million ballots counted, 77.5% favored a new charter and less than 22.5% were opposed. Among the 60,000 Chileans living abroad who voted in 65 nations, the vote was 86% for a new constitution and 13% against, officials said. About 15 million Chileans were eligible to vote.Recent polls indicated heavy backing for a new constitution despite opposition from conservative groups., and center-right President Sebastián Piñera said after voting that he assumed the measure would be approved.“I believe the immense majority of Chileans want to change, modify our constitution,” he said.If the measure is approved, a special convention would begin drafting a new constitution that would be submitted to voters in mid-2022.Chile’s current constitution was drafted by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and was sent to voters at a time where political parties had been banned and the country was subject to heavy censorship.It was approved by a 66%-30% margin in a 1980 plebiscite, but critics say many voters were cowed into acceptance by a regime that had arrested, tortured and killed thousands of suspected leftist opponents following the overthrow of an elected socialist government.“I think that many people went to vote out of fear,” said political scientist Claudio Fuentes, who wrote a book about that plebiscite titled, “The Fraud.”“The current constitution has a flaw of origin, which is that it was created during the military dictatorship in an undemocratic process,” said Monica Salinero, a 40-year-old sociologist who supports drafting a new charter.The free-market principles embodied in that document led to a booming economy that continued after the return to democracy in 1990, but not all Chileans shared.A minority was able to take advantage of good, privatized education, health and social security services, while others were forced to rely on sometimes meager public alternatives. Public pensions for the poorest are just over $200 a month, roughly half the minimum wage.Luisa Fuentes Rivera, a 59-year-old food vendor, said hopes that “with a new constitution we will have better work, health, pensions and a better quality of life for older people, and a better education.”But historian Felipe Navarrete warned, “It’s important to say that the constitution won’t resolve the concrete problems. It will determine which state we want to solve the problems.”Claudia Heiss, head of the political science department at the University of Chile, said it would send a signal about people’s desires for change, and for a sort of politics that would “allow greater inclusion of sectors that have been marginalized from politics.”Conservative groups fear the revamp could go too far, and endanger parts of the constitution that have helped the country prosper.“The people have demonstrated saying they want better pensions, better health, better education. and the response of the political class” is a process that won’t solve the problems and will open a period of uncertainty,” said Felipe Lyon, 28-year-old lawyer and spokesman for the group “No, Thanks” that opposes the change.The decision to allow the vote came after hundreds of thousands of Chileans repeatedly took to the streets in protests that often turned violent.The vote was initially scheduled for April, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed some 13,800 Chileans, with more than 500,000 people infected by the new coronavirus.Officials trying to ensure voters felt safe barred infected persons or those close to them from the polls, and long lines formed at voting places. Voters had to wear masks — dipping them only briefly for identification purposes — and brought their own pencils.The manner of drafting a new constitution was also on the ballot. Voters were choosing between a body of 155 citizens who would be elected just for that purpose in April, or a somewhat larger convention split equally between elected delegates and members of Congress.
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U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to carry out raids targeting militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terror group in eastern Syria.“Last night, the Syrian Democratic Forces arrested members of a Daesh cell that was responsible for attacks in Deir al-Zour,” the Deir al-Zour Media Center said on Sunday, using an Arabic acronym for IS.Three IS members arrested in Saturday’s raid were from the Shuhail area of the eastern province, according to the media group.In a separate operation, SDF fighters carried out a “combing campaign” against remnants of IS in the neighboring province of Raqqa, SDF’s press office said in a video released on Sunday.The SDF, a military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against IS in Syria, said more than two dozen IS militants were arrested in recent raids in October.Since its territorial defeat in March 2019, IS has carried out terror attacks against civilians and SDF forces in Deir al-Zour and other parts of eastern Syria.U.S. military officials said the U.S.-led coalition against IS remains committed to combating the terror group in Syria and Iraq.“In the last 7 days, our partners completed 28 #DefeatDaesh operations, preventing 38 more #Daesh terrorists and henchmen from committing acts of terrorism against Iraqi and Syrian communities, businesses and families,” Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesman for anti-IS global coalition, said in a tweet Friday.In recent weeks, IS militants have also launched attacks against Syrian government troops in the central provinces of Hama and Homs. About a dozen Syrian soldiers were killed in recent IS attacks, local reports said.Experts say while IS currently has no capability to hold territory in Syria or Iraq, the militant group will likely continue to wage major attacks against other forces in both countries.
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The West African nation of Guinea is bracing for more post-election unrest after the electoral commission Thursday declared preliminary results showing President Alpha Conde was reelected for a third term.  As Marco Simoncelli reports from Conakry.Videographer: Davide Lemmi 
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Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, and their running mates looked Sunday to fire up their supporters and sway the last remaining undecided voters nine days ahead of the Nov. 3 national election. Trump headed to rallies in the small northeastern states of New Hampshire and Maine, whose small numbers of electoral votes could prove crucial in a close election. He and Biden are continuing their search for the 270-vote majority in the country’s all-important 538-member Electoral College, where the outcome is determined by the individual state-by-state winners, not the national popular vote. Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire and its four electoral votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and, according to statewide polls, trails Biden by more than 11 percentage points. But Trump won one of Maine’s four electoral votes in its rural northern congressional district four years ago and is locked in a tight race with Biden this time for the single elector. But the president trails by a wide margin in statewide polls for two electors awarded to the overall winner in the state and for the other congressional district elector in Maine, which is situated along the country’s northern Atlantic coastline. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a drive-in campaign stop at Bucks County Community College in Bristol, Pa., Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020.Meanwhile, Biden on Sunday night is speaking virtually at an “I will vote” concert. While Trump has continued to stage large outdoor rallies of supporters, often at airport hangars, in the face of the surging coronavirus pandemic in the United States, Biden has adopted a more measured approach to campaigning. He has appeared at small gatherings, or often, as he is Sunday, via a computer livestream. Vice President Mike Pence speaks to supporters, Oct. 24, 2020, in Tallahassee, Fla.Trump’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence, has also appeared at rallies and is planning an appearance Sunday night in Kinston, North Carolina, another closely contested battleground state. Trump won the state in 2016 but polls show Biden holding a narrow edge this time. FILE – Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks to supporters at a campaign event in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 19, 2020. (AP)Senator Kamala Harris of California, Biden’s running mate, is in yet another crucial state, Michigan in the Midwest heartland, for appearances in Detroit, Troy and Pontiac.  Trump captured an upset 2016 win in Michigan, a traditionally Democratic state, which along with victories in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, handed him a four-year term in the White House. But polls show Trump falling nearly 8 percentage points behind in Michigan and trailing by smaller margins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well. All three states are crucial to the 2020 outcome, as are several other battleground states that Trump won in 2016 but where he now trails. In the national popular vote, aggregations of polls show Biden ahead by 8 or 9 percentage points. FILE – Voters wait in line to enter a polling place and cast their ballots on the first day of the state’s in-person early voting for the general elections in Durham, North Carolina, Oct. 15, 2020.More than 58 million Americans have already voted, about two-thirds of them by mail and about a third in person, with many of them saying they wanted to do so ahead of Election Day to avoid coming face to face with other people amid the coronavirus pandemic in long voting lines that are expected.  Polls show that perhaps less than 5% of voters have not decided on voting for Trump or Biden, making it especially imperative for their two campaigns to identify their existing supporters and make sure they cast ballots.  Many early Democratic supporters of Biden have told news reporters they wanted to be among the first to vote against Trump, to try to help ensure he is the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for re-election after a single term. Meanwhile, many Republicans say they plan to vote on Election Day, as has been the norm for decades in the U.S.             
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