USPS must process mail-in ballots on time, judge declares
NEW YORK — For the second time in a week, a federal judge said a nationwide order is necessary to ensure mail for November's election is delivered on time, and he is threatening to demand weekly updates on efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to process election mail.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan largely sided with several people across the country, including candidates for public office, who claimed in a lawsuit that President Donald Trump, the Postal Service and the new postmaster general were endangering election mail.
“The right to vote is too vital a value in our democracy to be left in a state of suspense in the minds of voters weeks before a presidential election, raising doubts as to whether their votes will ultimately be counted,” Marrero said. He ruled after conducting a hearing Wednesday.
Officials at the Postal Service are reviewing the ruling, spokesperson Marti Johnson said in a statement.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, ordered an end to postal practices nationwide that slowed mail delivery since July, saying 14 states had made a “strong showing” that the Trump administration was using the Postal Service “as a tool in partisan politics.”
Like Bastian, Marrero said the agency's workers must treat election mail as First Class Mail.
Marrero gave both sides until noon Friday to settle the case in a manner consistent with his findings.
If they fail, Marrero said, he will impose an order that requires weekly reports to himself and the plaintiffs and ensures postal workers can make late and extra delivery trips, as well as work overtime from Oct. 26 through Nov. 6.
Wisconsin ballots: A federal judge ruled Monday that absentee ballots in battleground Wisconsin can be counted up to six days after the Nov. 3 presidential election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
The highly anticipated ruling, unless overturned, means that the outcome of the presidential race in Wisconsin might not be known for days after polls close. Under current law, the deadline for returning an absentee ballot to have it counted is 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Democrats and their allies sued to extend the deadline in the key swing state.
U. S. Distri c t Judge William Conley granted a large portion of their requests, issuing a preliminary injunction that was expected to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He put the ruling on hold for seven days to give the other side a chance to seek an emergency appeal.
The Republican National Committee, the Wisconsin GOP and Wisconsin's Republican legislators argued that current absentee voting regulations should be left in place, saying people have plenty of time to obtain ballots and get them back to clerks by Election Day.
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr says the federal government is awarding more than $100
Human trafficking:
million in grants to target human trafficking.
The money will go to task forces combating human trafficking, to victim services and victim housing.
“This is one of the top enforcement priorities of the department, and we're on the forefront of this fight,” Barr said.
President Donald Trump's administration in August awarded $35 million in Justice Department grants to organizations that provide safe housing for victims of human trafficking.
Western wildfires: An enormous wildfire that churned through mountains northeast of Los Angeles and into the Mojave Desert was still threatening homes Monday, but officials said calmer winds could help crews corral the flames.
At 165 square miles, the Bobcat Fire is one of the largest ever in Los Angeles County, and it has burned for more than two weeks. It's just 15% contained.
Firefighters fought back against another flareup near Mount Wilson, which overlooks greater Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains and has a historic observatory founded more than a century ago and numerous broadcast antennas serving Southern California.
In Wyoming, officials warned that gusty winds on Monday could cause more growth of a wildfire burning toward cabins and an important water supply reservoir that's a major source of water for the state's capital city, Cheyenne. The fire in the Medicine Bow National Forest is burning in heavily forested, rugged terrain that would usually would be busy now with hunters at the start of elk hunting season.
More than 9,000 firefighters continue to battle 27 large wildfires across Oregon and Washington, where thousands of residences have been destroyed, the Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service said.
Born out of World War II's devas
U.N. milestone:
tation to prevent the scourge of conflict, the United Nations marked its 75th anniversary Monday with an appeal from Secretary- General Antonio Guterres to preserve the longest period in modern history without a military confrontation between the world's most powerful nations.
The U.N. chief told the mainly virtual official commemoration that “it took two world wars, millions of deaths and the horrors of the Holocaust for world leaders to commit to international cooperation and the rule of law,” and that commitment produced results.
“A Third World War — which so many had feared — has been avoided,” Guterres said. “This is a major achievement of which member states can be proud — and which we must all strive to preserve.”
Guterres cited other major U.N. achievements over 75 years: peace treaties and peacekeeping missions, decolonization, setting human rights standards, “the triumph over apartheid” in South Africa, eradication of diseases, a steady reduction in hunger, development of international law and landmark pacts to protect the environment.
Russian opposition leader: Alexei Navalny demanded Monday that Russia return the clothes he was wearing on the day he fell into a coma in Siberia, calling the articles “a crucial piece of evidence” in the nerve agent poisoning he is being treated for at a German hospital.
In a blog post Monday, Navalny, 44, said the Novichok nerve agent was found “in and on” his body, and said the clothes taken off him when he was hospitalized in Siberia a month ago after collapsing on a Russian flight are “very important material evidence.”
Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critic, fell ill on a domestic flight to Moscow on Aug. 20, was brought to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk and was transferred to Germany for treatment.