Situation still developing

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/27061000

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10758148

In the past several weeks, I have watched dozens of sleek U.S. military planes descend over Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where I live. They were the first flights to land since gangs blockaded and halted commercial air traffic in March. U.S. news reports suggest that the aircraft contained civilian contractors and supplies to pave the way for the deployment of a Kenyan-led security mission to Haiti, which is expected to begin any day now.

But no one has informed Haitians who or what was on board. Even the members of Haiti’s new transitional government told me that they did not know precisely what the United States was flying into the country. Although the Haitian members of the presidential council have met with Kenyan and Haitian officials to discuss the force, they said they have not provided input to U.S. officials. Aides to newly installed Prime Minister Garry Conille confirmed that he has had no say on decisions related to the mission. It remains unclear what the force’s specific goals are or how it can contribute to rebuilding the Haitian state.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10718064

Gift link, but registration required.

archived copy of the article

And things work again when sharing good news

Sorry for the poor headline. Lemm.ee cross post and title generator is broken (for me at least) and no idea when it will be fixed. Brainworms has not shut down, just gone into hibernation. We do this in recognition of the comrade in RFK jr.s head

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16128511

In a bizarre mixed ruling combining several challenges to a 2021 election law, Kansas’s supreme court has ruled that its residents have no right to vote enshrined in the state’s constitution.

The opinion centering on a ballot signature-verification measure elicited fiery dissent from three of the court’s seven justices. But the majority held that the court failed to identify a “fundamental right to vote” within the state.

The measure in question requires election officials to match the signatures on advance mail ballots to a person’s voter registration record. The state supreme court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged that. The majority of justices on the state supreme court then rejected arguments from voting rights groups that the measure violates state constitutional voting rights.

…

Justice Eric Rosen, one of the three who dissented, wrote: “It staggers my imagination to conclude Kansas citizens have no fundamental right to vote under their state constitution.

“I cannot and will not condone this betrayal of our constitutional duty to safeguard the foundational rights of Kansans.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15917987

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15907509

Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral changes that would lock Democrats out of statewide office

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15610251

Weeds have punctured through the vacant parking lot of Martin General Hospital’s emergency room. A makeshift blue tarp covering the hospital’s sign is worn down from flapping in the wind. The hospital doors are locked, many in this county of 22,000 fear permanently.

Some residents worry the hospital’s sudden closure last August could cost them their life.

“I know we all have to die, but it seems like since the hospital closed, there’s a lot more people dying,” Linda Gibson, a lifelong resident of Williamston, North Carolina, said on a recent afternoon while preparing snacks for children in a nearby elementary school kitchen.

More than 100 hospitals have downsized services or closed altogether over the past decade in rural communities like Williamston, where people openly wonder if they’d survive the 25-minute ambulance ride to the nearest hospital if they were in a serious car crash.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9595878

The idea is to make it effectively legal to kill anybody deemed left-of-center

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/15519721

Amazon already faces a major antitrust challenge from the FTC.