ATLANTA — Atlanta-area voters looking to return their ballots using a drop box in next year’s gubernatorial election will have to do some searching. Just eight boxes will be spread across Fulton County’s nearly 529 square miles — or about one for every 100,000 registered voters. That’s down from the 38 drop boxes that were available to voters last fall. It’s the result of a broad new law pushed by Georgia Republicans in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. Georgia is one of several states controlled politically by Republicans that are seeking additional restrictions on voting, citing security concerns. A favorite target is ballot drop boxes, which have been used for years in states with expansive mail voting and which millions of voters used last year as a way to avoid polling places during the pandemic. Democrats say the boxes are more secure than regular mailboxes, and their use was largely trouble-free last fall. Even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who signed the restrictive bill into law, posted a video on his Twitter account that showed him using a drop box to cast his ballot last year, flashing a thumbs up sign afterward. “They loved ballot drop boxes until Trump and the Republicans started losing,” said state Rep. Erica Thomas, a Democrat from metro Atlanta. For election officials and voters across the country, drop boxes seemed like an ideal solution to two major problems in 2020: a coronavirus pandemic that raised fears about crowded polling places and reports of mail delays that threatened on-time delivery of ballots. The boxes were targeted a few times by vandals, but few other problems were reported across the country. Even so, Republicans say they want to ensure the boxes will be a secure way to cast a ballot. “It’s a continued narrative where you try to pit security against accessibility, and you have to choose one or the other,” said Hillary Hall, a former county elections clerk in ...
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‘A Thrill To Be Back,’ Des Linden To Run 2021 Boston Marathon In October
BOSTON (CBS) – Des Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon champion, will be back to run the race when it’s expected to return this fall. Linden made the announcement Monday morning at the finish line at the inaugural running of the Patriots’ Day mile on Boylston Street. READ MORE: Vaccinating Kids Essential To Reaching Herd Immunity, Doctors Say “Honestly, it wasn’t a lot of thought. I’ve fallen in love with this race and I’m always excited to be here. So it was just waiting for the opportunity to announce it because my schedule is always lined up to be ready to run Boston. And yeah, it’s a thrill to be back and get that out there so I can talk about it now,” she told WBZ-TV’s Nick Giovanni. “I watched the replays last year from home and we sat around and felt uncertain and uncomfortable about the future and where we were at. And to be able to get on a plane and travel here and feel comfortable and feel safe, and the BAA has put the right things in place, it all feels very optimistic. That’s a feeling that has been missing for a while, and this is, to me, the first step in moving forward and seeing things return and feel like, “Hey, there is something to look forward down the line and things are getting back to normal.’” Linden crossed the finish line with a group of front-line workers, who now have the chance to run the Boston Marathon as well. “It feels really great to be given this opportunity by the B.A.A. to be able to run in the fall and represent the city of Boston and healthcare workers,” one said. The Doug Floutie Jr. Foundation held their Patriot’s Day Mile as well. They recently expanded their longstanding relationship with the B.A.A. and are the presenting sponsor for the marathon’s adaptive programs. READ MORE: Massachusetts Opens COVID-19 Vaccine Eligibility To Everyone 16 And Older The 125th Boston Marathon is scheduled for Columbus Day, Monday, October 11, as long as Massachusetts allows road races this fall. No other elite runners ...
Jobless claims drop to 712,000, near pandemic low
Initial jobless claims for the first week of March dropped to a seasonally adjusted 712,000, just 1,000 more than the pandemic low in November. The figure remains extraordinarily high, as it has now stood above pre-pandemic weekly totals for every week for nearly a year. But the 42,000-claim drop represents a move in the right direction for the economy and beat Wall Street's expectations of 725,000 new claims. ADVERTISEMENT That figure does not include 478,000 people who applied for claims under Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, an emergency program set to be renewed when President Biden Joe Biden Graham: 'I could not disagree more' with Trump support of Afghanistan troop withdrawal Obama, Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley team up to urge communities of color to get coronavirus vaccine Biden to hold second meeting with bipartisan lawmakers on infrastructure MORE signs the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill the House approved Wednesday. The combined total of new claims amounts to 1.2 million. The relief plan will also extend the length of benefit programs and an added $300 supplement to all recipients through the beginning of September. “Continued aid is vital because new applications for unemployment assistance are still coming in at far too high of levels," said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. "While the volume remains concerningly high, the trend, especially when it comes to state claims, is moving in the right direction," he added. Overall claims for all unemployment programs came in at 20 million for the week ending Feb. 20, the last week for which data is available. February saw an unexpected spike in new job creation, with the economy adding 379,000 new jobs, while the unemployment rate dropped to 6.2 percent. But supporters of further government intervention noted that even at that rate, which would normally be seen as breakneck levels of improvement in the labor market, it would ...
Why Sikh Americans again feel targeted after the Indianapolis shooting
Simran Jeet Singh ( @simran ) is a scholar and historian of South Asia, a senior fellow for the Sikh Coalition , the author of a guide for reporters covering Sikhism and a 2020 Equality Fellow for the Open Society Foundations. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN. (CNN) On Thursday night, a gunman killed eight people and injured several others before killing himself at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis. Four of the eight dead identified as Sikh and the facility was known to employ a significant number of members of the Sikh community. Simran Jeet Singh The shooting came just days after Sikhs, who comprise the world's fifth-largest religious community, celebrated Vaisakhi, the most significant holiday of our calendar, and also as the state of Indiana was honoring its Sikh residents with an awareness and appreciation month -- one of several states to do so. The FBI has not determined the killer's motives -- and may never do so given that he turned the gun on himself and is now deceased. Sikh Americans once again feel targeted. As we come upon 20 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the racist backlash that ensued, we cannot ignore the long history of hate violence against Sikhs in this country. FBI hate crime data shows Sikhs to be one of the most commonly targeted religious groups -- behind Jews and Muslims -- in modern America. We also know that much of the violence that Sikhs face has to do with the cultural and religious illiteracy of others. Despite being one of the world's largest religions, most Americans do not know who Sikhs are. A 2013 study led by the Stanford Innovation Lab and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that 70% of Americans misidentified Sikhs when shown a Sikh man in a picture, with many believing they were Muslim. Read More The distinctive Sikh appearance -- which often includes ...
Joe Biden’s audacious gambles
Sign up to get our new weekly column as a newsletter. We're looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. (CNN) Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," begins with the two minor characters from "Hamlet" betting on the toss of a coin. It comes up heads ... and heads ... and heads -- 92 times in a row -- and Guildenstern has to keep handing over his money. "I'm afraid it isn't your day," says Rosencrantz. "Life is a gamble, at terrible odds," says another character near the end of the 1966 play , "if it was a bet you wouldn't take it." This week President Joe Biden continued taking some hard bets, hoping the coins will land his way. He set the pattern in January, days before he took office, by outlining a huge Covid relief package amounting to $1.9 trillion and then topped it last month with a proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. On Wednesday he made another consequential gamble by announcing he would pull all US troops out of Afghanistan , a decision his predecessors were tempted to make, but didn't. Along with new tensions with Russia and China, Biden is facing leadership challenges in the wake of the mass shooting in Indianapolis, police violence in Minnesota, Chicago and elsewhere and the stubbornly high rate of Covid-19 cases. The White House revealed that he would speak to a joint session of Congress on April 28 -- ratcheting up the stakes of the prime-time presidential ritual by scheduling it just two days before his 100th day in office, a milestone that shapes perceptions of new presidents. Read More When Biden goes to the Capitol that was overrun by rioters enraged that he, and not Donald Trump would be certified as the winner of the 2020 election -- and when he enters the House chamber that had to be defended at gunpoint on that chaotic January 6 -- it will be a defining moment, either an opportunity to show that he ...
