US election systems more secure, but voting problems persist
ATLANTA — Today’s midterm elections will mark the first nationwide voting since Russia targeted state election systems in the 2016 presidential race, with federal, state and local officials seeking to reassure the public their voting systems are secure.
There have been no signs so far that Russia or any other foreign actor has tried to launch cyberattacks against voting systems in any state, according to federal authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security has been working over the last year to improve communication and intelligence-sharing with state and local election officials who were largely left in the dark about Russian activities in 2016. Federal agencies including Homeland Security and the FBI have opened a command center to help state or local election offices with any major cybersecurity problems that arise.
“Things are running pretty smoothly around the country,” said Matt Masterson, senior cybersecurity adviser with the Department of Homeland Security.
The same can’t be said about early voting and the voter registration process in some states.
Voters casting ballots early have encountered faulty machines in Texas and North Carolina, inaccurate mailers in Missouri and Montana, and voter registration problems in Tennessee and Georgia. In other states, including Kansas, Election Day polling places have been closed or consolidated.
Some of the problems have prompted lawsuits, and there is concern that last-minute court rulings on voter ID requirements in a handful of states will sow confusion among voters and poll workers.
The challenges come amid a surge of interest, with registrations and turnout running well ahead of what is typically seen during a midterm election.
Fox, NBC and Facebook turn down Trump ad deemed racist
NEW YORK — NBC, Fox News Channel and Facebook all said Monday they will stop airing President Donald Trump’s campaign advertisement that featured an immigrant convicted of killing two police officers.
CNN had rejected the same ad, declaring it racist.
Asked before leaving for campaign rallies if he thought the advertisement was offensive, Trump said, “a lot of things are offensive. Your questions are offensive a lot of times.”
The ad has already likely been seen by more people than it would if it kept running. NBC aired it on the “Sunday Night Football” game between the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers, which drew the highest overnight ratings of the franchise’s history. During football season, it’s usually the most-watched show on television, often with around 20 million viewers.
MSNBC also aired it on “Morning Joe” on Monday.
Caravan migrants arrive in Mexico City, bed down in stadium
MEXICO CITY — Thousands of Central American migrants traveling in a caravan arrived in the Mexican capital Monday and began to fill up a sports stadium, still hundreds of miles from their goal of reaching the U.S. a day before midterm elections in which President Donald Trump has made their journey a central campaign issue.
By afternoon 2,000 or more had arrived at the Jesus Martinez stadium, which has a capacity of about three times that, and eagerly began sifting through donations of clothes, gave themselves sponge baths, lunched on chicken and rice under the shade of tents and picked up thin mattresses to hunker down for the night.
Many went to medical tents to get treatment for blistered and aching feet, illness and other maladies. “Since we got here, we have not stopped,” said Tania Escobar, a nurse with Mexico City’s public health department.
Melvin Figueroa, a 32-year-old from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, was traveling with his pregnant wife and two children, 6 and 8. He brought the 6-year-old girl to the tent because her eyes were irritated and “she throws up everything she eats.”
Several thousand more migrants were trudging along the highway between the city of Puebla and the capital, catching a lift from passing vehicles when possible.
USOC moves to shut down USA Gymnastics after Nassar scandal
The U.S. Olympic Committee is moving to revoke USA Gymnastics’ status as the governing body for the sport at the Olympic level, meting out the nuclear option to an organization that has botched its own reorganization in the wake of a sex-abuse scandal involving former team doctor Larry Nassar.
In an open letter to the gymnastics community Monday, USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland said “you deserve better,” and that the challenges facing USA Gymnastics are more than it is capable of overcoming as currently constructed.
The organization, even with a newly constructed board of directors, made repeated mistakes after the revelations Nassar molested Olympians while working as a volunteer.
They included the botched hiring of a program coordinator and an interim CEO to replace Kerry Perry, who lasted less than a year on the job after replacing Steve Penny.
Iran president warns of ‘war situation’ as sanctions resume
TEHRAN, Iran — The U.S. re-imposed all sanctions Monday on Iran that once were lifted under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, grinding further down on the Islamic Republic’s already-ailing economy in what President Hassan Rouhani described as a “war situation” now facing Tehran.
Iran ran televised air defense drills showing soldiers cheering the downing of a drone, but otherwise held back from any military response over U.S. efforts to curtail what Washington calls its “malign activities” across the Middle East. While previously warning it could ramp up its nuclear program, Iran still honors the atomic accord now limiting its enrichment of uranium, according to the United Nations.
As Iranian officials struck a martial tone, the strain could be felt on the streets of Tehran. It lurked in shops emptied by the country’s rapidly depreciating currency. It could be felt in the lines at currency exchange shops. And it could be heard in the stress of the voices of people struggling to buy medicine.
“When the dollar rate went up, prices for medicine went up by 80 percent,” said a man who identified himself only as Amidi, who suffers from mental illness and has a son with cancer. “I can’t buy my own medicine anymore. I haven’t taken my medicine for two months, because I can’t afford it.”
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed penalties on more than 700 Iranian and Iranian-linked individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels in the new sanctions. Among those are 50 Iranian banks and subsidiaries, more than 200 people and ships, Iran’s state-run airline Iran Air and more than 65 of its planes.
Iowa winner claims huge Powerball jackpot
CLIVE, Iowa — After hearing someone from Iowa had won half of a nearly $700 million Powerball jackpot, Lerynne West couldn’t find the ticket she’d bought the day before so asked her sister to check her pickup truck.
There it was, on the pickup floor — a scrap of paper worth a share of $688 million.
The win was a shock to the single mom, who struggled to persuade her three daughters and other relatives that it was for real.
“Nobody believed me,” West said Monday after submitting her winning ticket at lottery headquarters in suburban Des Moines. “They thought I was crazy.”
West will share the $688 million jackpot drawn Oct. 27 with someone who bought the other winning ticket in New York City but hasn’t claimed the prize.
Aretha Franklin doc ‘Amazing Grace’ to finally see the light
NEW YORK — More than 46 years after it was shot, the Aretha Franklin concert film “Amazing Grace” will finally be released, ending one of the most tortured and long-running sagas in documentary film.
The late gospel singer’s estate and film producers said Monday that “Amazing Grace” will premiere Nov. 12 at the DOC NYC film festival with the full support of Franklin’s estate. The film, largely shot by Sydney Pollack, captures Franklin’s performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood in January 1972.
The music from the two performances was released as a landmark double live album in 1972. But Pollack’s footage proved virtually impossible to edit because the filmmaker failed to sync the sound. After acquiring the film’s rights from Pollack in 2007, producer Alan Elliott brought in a team to construct the film, which Elliott calls “a labor of love.”
“Aretha’s fans will be enthralled by every moment of the film as her genius, her devotion to God and her spirit are present in every frame,” Elliot said in a statement.
Franklin first sued Elliott in 2011 for planning to release the film without her permission. “Amazing Grace” nearly saw the light of day in 2015, but it was yanked at the last minute from the Telluride and Toronto film festivals after Franklin’s attorneys obtained an injunction against its release. They argued the film was “the functional equivalent of replaying an entire Aretha Franklin concert,” and couldn’t be screened without her consent.