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Cross-posted from https://lemmy.world/post/19924712

Trump-backed election officials in Georgia are rewriting the rules of how to certify elections in a way that would let Stop the Steal activists obstruct the results — and now, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State is getting involved to try to put a stop to it, New York Times reporter Nick Corasaniti told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday.

Brad Raffensperger, a dedicated conservative, has frequently clashed with former President Donald Trump over his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen. Trump's phone call demanding Raffensperger "find" extra votes for him is also a focus of multiple criminal cases against the former president.

"The State Election Board in Georgia, which has recently seen a 3-2 majority, right-wing majority take over the board, is passing new rules that are concerning, not just Democrats, but Republicans and election officials, and everyone from the county level to the state level in Georgia that could possibly disrupt the post-election period. We're talking about the certification, the counting of votes, the tallying of votes, and the sending off of electors to the Electoral College," (Corasaniti) said.

More than 100 Republican former national security and foreign policy officials on Wednesday endorsed Kamala Harris for president in a joint letter, calling Donald Trump “unfit to serve” another term in the White House.

Former officials from the presidential administrations of Republicans Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, George W Bush and Donald Trump, as well as Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama voiced their support for Harris, the Democratic nominee for president in this November’s election. They were joined by some former GOP members of Congress.

The letter said: “We believe that the president of the United States must be a principled, serious, and steady leader.”

It went on: “We expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues, but we believe that she possesses the essential qualities to serve as president and Donald Trump does not. We therefore support her election to be president.”

The Labour government has repeatedly stated its desire to strengthen ties with Europe, but diplomats have been saying for some weeks that they need to see this translated into specifics before they embark on a reset. They have also said there is no “à la carte” option.

As EU leaders question how much has changed in the UK despite the new government, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) has outlined a plan to bring the two sides closer after a series of reports that the EU doubted Keir Starmer’s commitment to a reset.

“Emotions around the UK’s departure from the EU are far from healed, and this scarring is damaging the prospects of both,” the plan’s author, David Henig, a former civil servant and trade policy expert, said.

Social media platform Twitter/X became accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday as an update to its communications network circumvented a block order by the country’s supreme court.

The X update used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing some Brazilian users to take a route outside of the country to reach X, even without a virtual private network, according to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers.

The number of Brazilians accessing X is unknown, according to Abrint. X did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

“I believe the change was probably intentional. Why would X use a third-party service that ends up being slower than its own?” said Basilio Perez, a board member at Abrint.

The worst drought on record has lowered the water level of the rivers in the Amazon basin to historic lows, in some cases drying up riverbeds that were previously navigable waterways.

The Solimoes, one of the main tributaries of the mighty Amazon River whose waters originate in the Peruvian Andes, has fallen to its lowest level on record in Tabatinga, the Brazilian town on the border with Colombia.

Downriver in Tefé, a branch of the Solimoes has dried up completely, as seen by Reuters reporters who flew over the river on Tuesday.

The nearby Lake Tefé, where more than 200 freshwater dolphins died in last year's drought, has also dried up, depriving the endangered pink mammals of a favorite habitat.

Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.

Last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326.5 million euros ($363.5 million), including military equipment and war weapons, a 10-fold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licences.

The Teamsters union on Wednesday said polling shows most of its members back Republican former President Donald Trump's bid for a new term in the White House over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

The 1.3 million-member union said its executive board plans to announce later on Wednesday who it is endorsing in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The union said a national electronic poll of its members from July 24-Sept. 15 showed rank-and-file Teamsters voted 59.6% to endorse Trump compared with 34% for Harris.

Former President Donald Trump has said he would cancel all unspent funds from President Joe Biden's signature climate law if he wins the presidential election on Nov. 5.

But the vast majority of grants will be spent by the time a new president takes office in January, and targeting what remains would be a massive legal challenge, according to Biden administration officials.

The Biden administration has awarded $90 billion in grants to climate, clean energy, and other projects so far under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which amounts to 70% of the law’s roughly $120 billion in total climate-focused grant money and over 80% of what the law made available before 2025, according to administration officials.

"Made in Italy: shame in Italy," a handful of migrant labourers who had travelled from Italy's famed leatherware region Tuscany chanted last week in Geneva outside the flagship store of luxury accessory maker Montblanc, holding placards with the slogan.

Standing about three kilometers from where Montblanc's $76 billion parent Richemont was meeting shareholders, the workers - flanked by more than a dozen Italian and Swiss union officials - accused the pen and watches maker of dropping its supplier Z Production last year because of rising costs.

The Chinese-owned contractor, based in Tuscany, had improved its working conditions in October 2022 after years of irregular contracts and long shifts, workers and union officials told Reuters.

"Montblanc ended the contract because we wanted to work eight hours a day, five days a week as legal workers," said 23-year-old Zain Ali, from Pakistan. He worked for Z Production for two and a half years, applying metal Montblanc logos to leather accessories: "They just wanted slaves."

A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.

Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.

But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.

The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.

The European Union on Wednesday began the process of clawing back hundreds of millions of euros in funds meant to go Hungary after its ant-migrant government refused to pay a huge fine for breaking the bloc’s asylum rules.

In June, the EU’s top court ordered Hungary to pay 200 million euros ($223 million) for persistently depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum. The court imposed an additional fine of 1 million euros for every day it failed to comply.

The European Court of Justice described Hungary’s actions as “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slammed its ruling as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his wife, La’Quetta, the city’s superintendent of schools, have been indicted on child endangerment and other charges for allegedly beating their teenage daughter on numerous occasions, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said the indictment was made Tuesday by a grand jury that accused the couple of child endangerment. Marty Small also was charged with assault and making terroristic threats.

Prosecutors said both parents hit and emotionally abused the girl, who was 15 to 16 years old, on multiple occasions in December and January.