In the news today: A judge counters Georgia’s state election board on certification and hand counts; Israel launches deadly strikes in Lebanon’s Christian heartland; and cellphone chats have become death sentences for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. Also, scientists have uncovered animal life thriving beneath the seafloor. |
Elections workers process absentee ballots for a Senate runoff election in Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
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Judge blocks hand-counting of election ballots in Georgia
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In a ruling late Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that the so-called hand count rule “is too much, too late,” after the State Election Board passed a rule in September requiring that three poll workers each count the paper ballots by hand after the polls close. McBurney blocked its enforcement while he considered the merits of the case. Read more.
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Israel launches deadly strikes in Lebanon’s Christian heartland
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On Monday, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations on Tuesday called for an independent investigation. Read more.
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In the village of Aito, in Lebanon’s Christian heartland, rescue workers on Tuesday found more bodies and remains in the rubble, including the body of a child. Aito is far from Hezbollah’s main areas of influence in Lebanon’s south and east. The strike was a shock to residents, and it exacerbated fears that Israel would expand its offensive deeper into Lebanon.
The day after the deadly Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon, the militant group’s acting leader said it would aim rockets into more areas of Israel. Naim Kassem said Hezbollah is focused on “hurting the enemy,” and he signaled it would ramp up attacks further south in Israel, mentioning the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, which have already been targets of attacks.
- Some 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon, where the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been concentrated. Several villages in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley saw intensified airstrikes Tuesday.
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For Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, the old ways have changed and violence rages
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Cellphone chats have become death sentences in the bloody factional war inside Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. Cartel gunmen stop youths on the street or in their cars and demand their phones. If they find a contact who’s a member of a rival faction, a chat with the wrong word, or a photo with the wrong person, the phone owner is dead. Then, they’ll go after everyone on that person’s contact list, forming a potential chain of kidnapping, torture and death. Read more.
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In Culiacan, the presence of the Sinaloa cartel is woven into everyday life and people know to stay indoors when they see the convoys of double-cab pickups racing through the streets. Residents had long been accustomed to a day or two of violence, until they saw the solid month of fighting that broke out Sept. 9 between factions of the Sinaloa cartel after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were apprehended in the United States on July 25.
The State Council on Public Safety, a civic group, estimates that in the past month there have been an average of six killings and seven disappearances or kidnappings in and around the city every day. The group said about 200 families have fled their homes in outlying communities because of the violence.
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An eelpout swims by a tower of tubeworms at the Tica Vent, a site on the East Pacific Rise. (Schmidt Ocean Institute via AP)
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Tubeworms, snails and other weird creatures found under the seafloor
Scientists for the first time have uncovered an underworld of animal life thriving beneath the seafloor. An expedition to a volcanically active ridge in the Pacific off South America has revealed worms, snails, giant tubeworms and other strange creatures lurking below steamy underwater hot springs. |
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Please let us know what you think of this newsletter. You can sign up for more and invite a friend here. For news in real time visit APNews.com. - Sarah
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