Mayfield (United States) (AFP) - Dozens of devastating tornadoes ripped through five US states overnight, leaving more than 70 people dead Saturday in Kentucky -- many of them workers at a candle factory -- and inflicting deadly damage at a sprawling Amazon warehouse in Illinois.
The western Kentucky town of Mayfield was reduced to "matchsticks," its mayor said.
Liverpool (AFP) - The West and its allies need to be united against authoritarianism, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Saturday, as she hosted G7 counterparts with concern about threats from Russia and China.
The two-day gathering of foreign ministers from the world's richest nations in Liverpool, northwest England, is the last in-person gathering of Britain's year-long G7 presidency, before it hands over the baton to Germany.
New York (AFP) - Joe Biden on Friday used his first late-night television talk show appearance as US president to highlight his infrastructure bill -- and laugh off his flagging approval ratings.
Biden's appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" is the first by a sitting president since Barack Obama, and comes as the White House seeks to highlight the recently passed bill for upgrading the nation's tattered transport networks.
Tuxtla Gutiérrez (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexico on Friday urged Washington to rethink its migration policy after a horror road accident killed 55 undocumented migrants in a truck on a major transit route to the United States.
Bodies draped in white sheets lined the roadside near Tuxtla Gutierrez in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, where a truck transporting some 160 migrants -- most from Central America -- overturned Thursday.
The lawsuit repeats claims of "pristine" ballots observed by a Republican monitor that investigators could not corroborate, includes debunked claims about ballots counted at State Farm Arena on election night and demands an inspection of absentee by mail ballots, after a Henry County judge dismissed a similar suit in October.
"You can't look forward without learning from the past; that's what I've been saying since November," Perdue said on Fetch Your News on Friday morning, discussing the suit before it was filed. "Look, I'm not trying to relitigate the 2020 election, but what I am trying to do is find the people who broke the law and bring them to justice. That's why I went to court in November. That's why I'm going to court now."
Perdue, who lost a January runoff to Sen. Jon Ossoff, was party to unsuccessful lawsuits that tried to change absentee signature matching rules for the runoff and segregate votes cast by newly registered voters since the general election.
The legal challenge also wants the court to fire any employees that committed or knew about alleged fraud — something a judge would be unlikely to do — and to command Fulton to "certify the correct vote total to the Secretary of State," which is impossible to do since the election is already certified.
Other claims made in the suit rehash arguments that have been made and fact-checked for months, including most recently in a lawsuit filed by election conspiracist Garland Favorito that was dismissed in October.
State investigators found no evidence to support GOP poll monitor and 6th Congressional District candidate Suzi Voyles' claim that batches of pristine ballots were included in the totals for Fulton County's election results.
Similarly, claims that batches of absentee ballots were scanned multiple times were investigated and found not to be true. The number of absentee by mail ballots counted in the election generally matches the number of voters who were given credit for voting by mail and the number of people in the absentee voter file listed as returning an absentee ballot.
Video of counting at State Farm Arena does show election workers passing stacks of ballots through scanners multiple times, but elections officials have explained that batches must be re-entered if there is a problem with how one is scanned.
In a Jan. 4 press conference, Gabriel Sterling with the Secretary of State's office explained what was seen on video was normal ballot processing.
"If there was a problem with a ballot, what it does is it stops, but before that, four or five will get through," he said. "So they delete that last batch and rescan it so they scan properly. That is the normal process that is done."
Elizabeth Grace Lennon, the second plaintiff in the suit, said that when she voted in person, a poll worker told her she requested an absentee ballot and had to sign an affidavit canceling the request and vote on a provisional ballot. But Lennon told a Georgia Senate committee that she was given a voter access card and she voted on a ballot-marking device.
Lennon claims someone voted the absentee ballot fraudulently in her name, but election records show that is not the case.
Georgia's absentee voter file indicates someone entered a request for an absentee by mail ballot attached to Lennon's name on October 7, but shows it was canceled. Georgia's voter history file shows Lennon was given credit for voting in the November 2020 election, and for voting absentee. But "absentee" in Georgia includes both early in person and absentee by mail, so the credit on her voter history report would reflect her voting in person and the election system working as intended.
This lawsuit, more than 13 months after the presidential election, is the latest in a concerted effort by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn his narrow defeat in Georgia and undermine faith in the election system.
Perdue's campaign to primary Gov. Brian Kemp comes with Trump's endorsement and encouragement after Kemp certified the election results that saw President Joe Biden win the state. Kemp spokesman Cody Hall blasted Perdue for the timing and message of the lawsuit.
“David Perdue is so concerned about election fraud that he waited a year to file a lawsuit that conveniently coincided with his disastrous campaign launch," Hall said. "Keep in mind that lawsuit after lawsuit regarding the 2020 election was dismissed in part because Perdue declined to be listed as a plaintiff. Instead of hiding for months from the fight to secure the ballot box - which Governor Kemp led - maybe next time Perdue should cancel his tee time.”
Despite claims Perdue and others have made about the potential for fraud with absentee ballots, records show Perdue voted by mail in the November 2020 election and has consistently voted absentee by mail in previous elections.
IN OTHER NEWS: Ex-cop gets prison time for Capitol riot charge after breaking down in tears at sentencing hearing
Ex-cop gets time for Capitol riot charge www.youtube.com
By Moira Warburton and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden highlighted Senator Bob Dole's concerns about U.S. democracy in a tribute on Friday to the former Republican presidential candidate, a World War II veteran Biden called a hero.
Dole, who died on Sunday at age 98, was heralded at a service at the Washington National Cathedral attended by Biden and his wife Jill, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Mike Pence, Republican and Democratic leaders from the U.S. House and Senate, as well as actor Tom Hanks.
Biden, who served with Dole in the Senate for many years, laid his hand on the casket before and after his speech, and clasped the hand of Dole's widow, former Senator Elizabeth Dole.
"Bob Dole was a man of his word. He loved his country, which he served his whole life," Biden said in his remarks, adding that Dole was a "proud Republican" who valued compromise and a "willingness to see the other side."
But, Biden said, "in his final days, Bob made it clear he's deeply concerned about the threat to American democracy. Not from foreign nations, but from the divisions tearing us apart from within. And this soldier reminded us, and I quote, 'Too many of us have sacrificed too much in defending freedom from foreign adversaries to allow our democracy to crumble.'"
Dole was a supporter of former President Donald Trump but did not share his false contention that the 2020 election Biden won was marred by massive fraud.
The funeral took place after Dole's body laid in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol beginning on Thursday, a tribute similar to those afforded U.S. presidents upon their deaths.
Dole passed after a lung cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
Dole represented his home state of Kansas for a combined 36 years in the House of Representatives and Senate, including stints as Republican Senate majority leader and chair of the Republican National Committee.
Dole was awarded two Purple Hearts from the U.S. military during World War Two for wounds suffered in combat.
He sought the presidency three times and was his party's nominee in 1996, when he lost to Clinton. He was also President Gerald Ford's running mate in the 1976 election won by Democrat Jimmy Carter.
In addition to his wife, Dole is survived by his daughter, Robin.
Dole, known for referring to himself in the third person, made a classic American journey from the poverty of the Great Depression of the 1930s, through World War Two battlefields to the corridors of power with a stoic Midwestern dignity.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone and Mark Porter)
