Voter Registration in Virginia Inadvertently Halted by Severed Optic Cable

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The government elections agency in the U.S. state of Virginia said Tuesday its voter registration system was shut down by a fiber optic cable that had been accidentally severed on the last day of registration before the Nov. 3 general election. The shutdown affected connectivity for the citizens’ registration portal, the election registrar’s office and multiple other state agencies, the Virginia Department of Elections said in a statement. The agency said technicians were working to repair the cable that the Virginia Information Technologies Agency said was cut during a utilities project in Chesterfield County. The state did not say when connectivity would bemore

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Youth Voting Trends Vary by Race

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Voters under 30 are a keenly watched voting bloc in the United States, with race being a top issue for many young people.  “There are huge differences in who young people support, candidate-wise, by race and gender,” Abby Kiesa, director of impact at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) based at Tufts University, told VOA. “For example, for a huge portion of young people of color, we are much more likely to see use of color, especially young Black and Latino young people, vote for Democratic candidates. However, when we look at white youth, wemore

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Trump, Biden Trade Verbal Volleys in Battleground States

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With three weeks until Election Day, a handful of swing states is expected to determine if former Vice President Joe Biden can deny President Donald Trump a second term. That has the rival campaigns focusing on Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania at the start of a critical week.  “The corrupt political class is desperate to regain their power by any means necessary,” Trump said Monday night in Sanford, Florida. “We’re the ones standing in their way.”  Trump accused Biden of being owned by “radical globalists” and having handed control of the Democratic Party to “the socialists, the Marxists and the left-wingmore

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US Senate Kicks Off Sprint to Confirm Barrett Before Election Day

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U.S. Senate Republicans kicked off a sprint Monday to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Just three weeks before Election Day, Senate Judiciary Committee hearings began amid continuing concerns about the impact coronavirus infections will have on Barrett’s final nomination vote. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.Produced by: Katherine Gypson, Taameen Mohammed, Tressie Rhodes                                Camera: Adam Greenbaum   …

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Senators Question Supreme Court Nominee Barrett

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Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are questioning U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on a range of issues Tuesday during the second day of her confirmation hearings. Expected topics include health care, her approach to legal precedent and the court’s potential role in sorting out any legal challenges that may arise from the November election. Senators will have 30 minutes each to ask their questions Tuesday, with a similar session to follow Wednesday.Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 12, 2020.Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has set an initialmore

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Trump Remains Popular in Israel as US Election Looms

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Israelis and Palestinians are closely following the U.S. elections. For many in Israel, incumbent Donald Trump is the most pro-Israeli U.S. president in history. Some in the Jewish state fear that a Joe Biden victory could mean a change in U.S. foreign policy – one that Palestinians would welcome. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.Videographer: Ricki Rosen …

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Senators Set to Question Supreme Court Nominee Barrett

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Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are set to question U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on a range of issues Tuesday during the second day of her confirmation hearings. Expected topics include health care, her approach to legal precedent and the court’s potential role in sorting out any legal challenges that may arise from the November election. Senators will have 30 minutes each to ask their questions Tuesday, with a similar session to follow Wednesday.Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 12, 2020.Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has setmore

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Election Day Sprint to Confirm Barrett Kicks Off on Capitol Hill

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U.S. Senate Republicans kicked off a sprint Monday to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Just three weeks before Election Day, Senate Judiciary Committee hearings began amid continuing concerns about the impact coronavirus infections will have on Barrett’s final nomination vote. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.Produced by: Katherine Gypson, Taameen Mohammed, Tressie Rhodes                                Camera: Adam Greenbaum   …

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Trump, Biden Fire Verbal Volleys at Each Other in Battleground States

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With three weeks until Election Day, a handful of swing states is expected to determine if former Vice President Joe Biden can deny President Donald Trump a second term. That has the rival campaigns focusing on Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania at the start of a critical week.  “The corrupt political class is desperate to regain their power by any means necessary,” Trump said Monday night in Sanford, Florida. “We’re the ones standing in their way.”  Trump accused Biden of being owned by “radical globalists” and having handed control of the Democratic Party to “the socialists, the Marxists and the left-wingmore

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Supreme Court Nominee Barrett: Courts ‘Should Not Try’ to Make Policy

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Confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett opened Monday in Washington, with Barrett set to tell senators that courts “should not try” to make policy and should leave that to American presidents and Congress. In an advance release of her opening statement, Barrett lays out a strict interpretation of the high court’s role, saying it is “not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the lead Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, immediately signaled that the minority Democrats plan to sharply question Barrett about one major policy dispute — hermore

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How a Winner is Declared in US Presidential Election 

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Many people assume the winner of the U.S. presidential contest is determined once the media calls the race and the losing candidate delivers a concession speech. But the truth is that formally declaring a presidential winner is a months-long process that won’t be completed until January.   That process essentially involves Americans voting for electors, the electors voting for the president, and then Congress declaring the winner.  FILE – Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, signs an official tally to count Electoral College votes, certifying Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Jan. 6, 2017.“There’s Election Day, where those electors are elected; there’s the date in December where the electorsmore

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Ballot Box Restriction Stays in Place in Texas

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Texas voters are back to facing limits on places to drop off their absentee ballots while a federal appeals court considers whether Republican Gov. Greg Abbot violated voting rights by his decision to provide Texas voters with only one ballot drop-off location per county for the Nov. 3 presidential election.Late Saturday the appeals court lifted an injunction granted Friday by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman.Abbott said the limit on ballot boxes was meant to discourage voter fraud. His order was issued after multiple ballot box locations had been set up and the dropping off of ballots had begun.Pitman wrote inmore

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Judge Throws Out Trump Campaign’s Pennsylvania Lawsuit

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A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and its efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted.The ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan — who was appointed by Trump — in Pittsburgh also poured cold water on Trump’s election fraud claims.Trump’s campaign said it would appeal at least one element of the decision, with barely three weeks to go until Election Day in a state hotly contested by Trump and Democraticmore

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Former Trump Fundraiser Charged with Illicit Lobbying on 1MDB, China

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A former leading fundraiser for President Donald Trump has been indicted on a charge that he illegally lobbied the U.S. government to drop its probe into the Malaysia 1MDB corruption scandal and to deport an exiled Chinese billionaire.Elliott Broidy was charged in Washington federal court with one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent after allegedly agreeing to take millions of dollars to lobby the Trump administration.The indictment, made public Thursday, said Broidy was recruited in 2017 by an unnamed foreign national, understood to be Malaysian Low Taek Jho, to pressure U.S. officials to end their investigationmore

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Trump to Host White House Event Despite COVID-19 Questions

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President Donald Trump is scheduled to host hundreds of people Saturday on the South Lawn of the White House and deliver remarks, a senior administration official confirmed to VOA. This would be the president’s first in-person event since he announced a week ago that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, triggering a multiday hospital visit and aggressive medical treatments for COVID-19.As first reported by ABC News, the event will feature “remarks to peaceful protesters for law and order” by the president. Trump is expected to deliver his speech from one of the balconies of the White House.The latest updatemore

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Trump to Host White House Event Despite COVID Questions

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President Donald Trump is scheduled to host hundreds of people Saturday on the South Lawn of the White House and deliver remarks, a senior administration official confirmed to VOA. This would be the president’s first in-person event since he announced a week ago that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, triggering a multiday hospital visit and aggressive medical treatments for COVID-19. As first reported by ABC News, the event will feature “remarks to peaceful protesters for law and order” by the president. Trump is expected to deliver his speech from one of the balconies of the White House.The latestmore

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Plot Puts Focus on Governors’ Safety Amid Threats, Protests

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An alleged plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor has put a focus on the security of governors who have faced protests and threats over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. While the alleged plot against Gretchen Whitmer is the most specific and highest profile to come to light, it’s far from the first threat against state officials, particularly Democrats who imposed business closures and restrictions on social gatherings. In New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said this week that news of the arrest of 13 men accused of planning the overthrow of Michigan’s government rattled members of her family. “I started to get callsmore

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Lawsuit Calls for Immediate Relief from USAGM CEO’s Actions

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From the start of his tenure as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media in June, Michael Pack and his team of political appointees aggressively sought “to fundamentally remake USAGM into state sponsored media,” according to a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington on Thursday.   The FILE – Michael Pack, CEO the U.S. Agency for Global Media, is seen at his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019.Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee have flagged several concerns about Pack’s decisions regarding the Open Technology Fund, the firing of network heads and his failuremore

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Pelosi Introduces 25th Amendment Measure After Questioning Trump’s Fitness to Serve

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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin unveiled legislation Friday to create a commission that would be empowered by the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to act in concert with the Vice President Mike Pence to strip the president of his duties.     Pelosi announced the legislation after she called on the Trump administration earlier this week to disclose more information about the health of President Donald Trump, who was recently diagnosed with COVID-19.   “Clearly he is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state,” Pelosi told reportersmore

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Illinois Farmers Voice Support for Trump Despite Hardships

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When he set out to plant his crops earlier this year, Illinois farmer Ron Moore was preparing for another year of trade uncertainty with China, one of the largest purchasers of the more than 300 hectares of soybeans he grows on a family farm he has tilled since 1977.The year 2020 would prove to be unlike any growing season Moore had witnessed. A global pandemic upended the food supply chain, pushing down wholesale prices for livestock and the foodstuffs they consume.“They [thinned herds] are not going to eat a lot of corn and they’re not going to eat a lotmore

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Foreign Actors Focused on US Elections and Spreading COVID-19 Lies, Official Says

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U.S. officials who analyze and combat disinformation aimed at undermining democracies say foreign actors are now focusing on two topics: spreading falsehoods about coronavirus vaccine development and the U.S. elections.In an interview with VOA, the State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Global Engagement Center Lea Gabrielle said President Donald Trump’s health also is an active topic of online discussion among overseas audiences.“When we see the trending narratives, we are seeing that news of the president being infected with COVID is trending in the online information space,” Gabrielle told VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching on Wednesday during a Skypemore

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US Farmers Prepare to Vote after Receiving Billions in Federal Aid

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When he set out to plant his crops earlier this year, Illinois farmer Ron Moore was preparing for another year of trade uncertainty with China, one of the largest purchasers of the more than 300 hectares of soybeans he grows on a family farm he has tilled since 1977.The year 2020 would prove to be unlike any growing season Moore had witnessed. A global pandemic upended the food supply chain, pushing down wholesale prices for livestock and the foodstuffs they consume.“They [thinned herds] are not going to eat a lot of corn and they’re not going to eat a lotmore

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Q&A: Foreign Disinformation Campaigns, COVID-19 and the US Election

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U.S. officials who analyze and combat disinformation aimed at undermining democracies say foreign actors are now focusing on two topics: spreading falsehoods about coronavirus vaccine development and the U.S. elections.In an interview with VOA, the State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Global Engagement Center Lea Gabrielle said President Donald Trump’s health also is an active topic of online discussion among overseas audiences.“When we see the trending narratives, we are seeing that news of the president being infected with COVID is trending in the online information space,” Gabrielle told VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching on Wednesday during a Skypemore

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Neurological, Cardiac Issues Linger in COVID-19 Youth

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Young people have suffered less under the COVID-19 virus than older people medically, but experts say the gap has narrowed, and so-called superspreading among the young is a factor.“The FILE – A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Sept. 30, 2014.A woman wearing face mask walks on a street in Hong Kong, Feb. 18, 2020. COVID-19 viral illness has sickened millions of people in China since December.In December 2019, as COVID-19 was emerging in China, colleges and universities worldwide released hundreds of thousands of students home for winter break. Many ofmore

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