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Culling of Georgia's voter rolls moves forward

Stacey Abrams

Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group associated with former Senate candidate Stacey Abrams, failed to stop the state of Georgia from removing more than 120,000 people from the voter rolls.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

More than 300,000 people were on course to get dropped from Georgia's voter rolls after a federal judge on Monday rebuffed an emergency request to exempt almost half of them.

Fair Fight Action — the voting rights group affiliated with the state's Democratic candidate for governor last year, Stacey Abrams — sought a court order blocking the state from removing about 120,000 people who hadn't cast a ballot since 2012 and failed to return two notices seeking to confirm their addresses.

The fight over the registration lists is part of a long run of voting rights disputes in one of the country's newest and biggest politically competitive states.


The second culling of the state's voter rolls this decade was announced in October by the Republican secretary of state's office, which sent out notices to those targeted for removal.

The purge comes amid a lawsuit filed by Fair Fight Action alleging that Georgia's elections are rigged against minority voters, with precinct closures, long lines and malfunctioning voting equipment blunting the black electorate's potential impact on Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones declined to grant the emergency request in part because he could still order the state to reverse the canceled registrations in time for the next election.

"It appears that any voter registration cancellations can be undone at a later date," wrote Jones, who planned to reconsider the issue in a hearing Thursday. "The court's ruling is based largely on defense counsel's statement that any voter registration that is canceled today can be restored within 24 to 48 hours."

After Abrams lost a nail-biter last year — amid widespread charges of voter suppression — Democrats are working to make ballot access as open as possible for next year. They are hoping that boosts their chances for ending the GOP's hold on every statewide office, including both Senate seats, and also making a run at Georgia's 16 electoral votes. But the party's chances rest heavily on a huge turnout, especially by African-Americans and people who only think about voting in presidential years.


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From Colombia to Connecticut: The urgent need to end FGM in the Americas

Journalists gather in front of the Connecticut State Capitol Building during a press conference on SB259 and an anti-FGM art installation

Bryna Subherwal, Equality Now

From Colombia to Connecticut: The urgent need to end FGM in the Americas

Across the Americas, hundreds of thousands of women and girls are living with or have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). These affected populations are citizens and residents of countries where protections are incomplete, entirely focused on criminalisation, inconsistently enforced, or entirely absent.

FGM is not a “foreign” issue. It is a human rights violation unfolding within national borders, one that all governments in the Americas have the legal and moral responsibility to address.

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Person holding a sign in front of the U.S. capitol that reads, "We The People."

The nation has reached a divide in the road—a moment when Americans must decide whether to accept a slow weakening of the Republic or insist on the principles that have held it together for more than two centuries

Getty Images

A Republic Under Strain—And a Choice Ahead

Americans feel something shifting beneath their feet — quieter than crisis but unmistakably a strain. Many live with a steady sense of uncertainty, conflict, and the emotional weight of issues that seem impossible to escape. They feel unheard, unsafe, or unsure whether the Republic they trust is fading. Friends, relatives, and former colleagues say they’ve tried to look away just to cope, hoping the turmoil will pass. And they ask the same thing: if the framers made the people the primary control on government, how will they help set the Republic back on a steadier path?

Understanding the strain Americans are experiencing is essential, but so is recognizing the choice we still have. Madison’s warning offers the answer the framers left us: when trust erodes and power concentrates, the Constitution turns back to the people—not as a slogan, but as a structural reality.

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Metula: A Border on the Brink

Debris from a missile‑struck home in Metula, Israel

Hugo Balta

Metula: A Border on the Brink

METULA — In the historic border town of Metula, the stillness of a fragile ceasefire is often punctured by the sounds of war drifting across the Lebanese border. After U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel in early March in what it described as retaliation. Israel answered with a wave of airstrikes across Lebanon, and within days, Israeli forces had re‑entered southern Lebanon.

Founded more than 130 years ago, Israel’s northernmost community is famously surrounded on three sides by Lebanon. The town looks directly onto the remains of Lebanese Shiite villages that Hezbollah has used as launch sites throughout its campaign. Since October 8, 2023, enduring repeated barrages of anti‑tank missiles and explosive drones, leaving homes in ruins and most families displaced. Hezbollah began its attacks that day, calling it a “war of support” for Hamas following the October 7 assault in southern Israel.

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Senate Committee advances bill banning AI companions for children

Sen. Josh Hawley addresses the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary during a debate over the AI chatbot regulation bill he introduced in October, known as the GUARD Act. April 30, 2026.

Wisdom Howell // Medill News Service.

Senate Committee advances bill banning AI companions for children

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan bill that would ban minors from using AI companions, require all chatbots to verify a user’s age, and allow AI companies to be prosecuted for harming children was unanimously advanced to the Senate floor Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. introduced “the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act,” (GUARD Act) in October as the Senate’s response to the rise in cases of children being groomed and driven to commit suicide by chatbots designed to replicate human interactions known as AI companions.

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