Source: Naples Daily News

TALLAHASSEE – Workers hired by a Florida environmental group submitted hundreds of voter registration forms with false and incomplete information, which led to voter confusion and a state recommendation to investigate some forms as possible election fraud.

Sixteen employees of the Florida Conservation Voters Education Fund were fired in September after submitting more than 200 voter registration forms with false or incomplete information to the Volusia County elections office, records obtained from the environmental group show.

“We were having an awful time,” said Lisa Lewis, Volusia's elections supervisor. “I later found out that they were being paid to collect these forms and I think they were just filling them out to get paid.”

In some cases, nonexistent addresses and birthdates that lacked digits were jotted down on forms, Lewis said. In other cases, signatures that did not match those of the person registering were scribbled on documents, she added.

Read more: https://amp.naplesnews.com/amp/2352762002?__twitter_impression=true

Source: The Daily Beast

A second alleged trafficking victim of financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has reportedly claimed the billionaire “directed” her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz—but the renowned lawyer has dismissed her claim as “delusional,” saying he’d never met her.

Sarah Ransome’s allegation against Dershowitz—who previously represented Epstein—is included in a public transcript in Manhattan federal court. Ransome has sued Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying they trafficked her for sex from 2006 to 2007.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/second-woman-says-jeffrey-epstein-directed-her-to-have-sex-with-alan-dershowitz

Amid President Trump’s push for tighter immigration policies, the United States deported more than 256,000 people in 2018 — the highest number since the Obama administration, new data shows.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Ronald D. Vitiello announced Friday that in the past fiscal year, which ended in September, ICE has detained “a record number” of people in the country illegally and that the number of those deported has risen about 13 percent since 2017. The data, which comes from a new agency report, shows that 145,262 of those deported were convicted criminals and that 22,796 had criminal charges pending against them.

In addition, 5,872 were reported as known or suspected gang members, and 42 were believed to be terrorists, according to the report.

The number of families and unaccompanied children who were deported also increased. ICE said that 2,711 who were traveling in families and 5,571 unaccompanied children were removed from U.S. soil.

more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/14/deportations-under-trump-are-rise-still-lower-than-obamas-ice-report-shows/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.90a421ee622a

Source: CNN

(CNN) A controversial statue of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi has been pulled down at the University of Ghana following protests and petitions for its removal.

The figure was removed between Tuesday night and Wednesday from where it had stood on a recreational area of the university campus in Ghana's capital of Accra since 2016.

Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration approved the statue's removal, university spokeswoman Stella Amoa told CNN on Friday, following petitions by the university's council to the government. CNN contacted the ministry for comment Friday but did not immediately receive a response.

After its unveiling two years ago, the monument sparked protests among students and faculty members, who claim that Gandhi was "racist" and African figures should be put up first, according to a Change.org petition.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/12/14/africa/gandhi-statue-ghana-intl/index.html

Source: The Independent

Lena Dunham has admitted she lied about the extent of her knowledge of a rape accusation by actor Aurora Perrineau against Girls writer Murray Miller.

Perrineau came forward last year to allege that in 2012, when she was 17 years old, Miller – whose production credits include King of the Hill and American Dad – took her and some friends to his home, where she later woke up with him "having sexual intercourse with me."

"At no time did I consent to any sexual contact with Murray", she told The Wrap, after filing a police report about the alleged assault.

Miller denied the allegations. Dunham and her co-show runner Jenni Konner issued a statement on the same day that the accusation against Miller emerged, which attempted to discredit Perrineau.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/lena-dunham-aurora-perrineau-apology-rape-murray-miller-hollywood-reporter-a8669846.html%3famp

Source: Politico

MIAMI — Before she could retire early in January, Gov. Rick Scott decided Friday to suspend Brenda Snipes, Broward County’s troubled election supervisor, from office following a series of voting and ballot controversies that culminated in the 2018 midterms when the Republican had to sue her to get public information.

“Every eligible voter in Florida deserves their vote to be counted and should have confidence in Florida’s elections process,” Scott said in a written statement to POLITICO. “After a series of inexcusable actions, it’s clear that there needs to be an immediate change in Broward County and taxpayers should no longer be burdened by paying a salary for a Supervisor of Elections who has already announced resignation.”

Snipes, an elected official whose term ends after the 2020 elections, will be replaced by Scott’s longtime fixer, attorney Pete Antonacci, Scott’s former general counsel who does not plan to run for the Broward elections position and who has been appointed by Scott to fill three other posts, including his current job as president and CEO of Enterprise Florida.

Snipes did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/30/scott-suspends-browards-controversial-election-chief-before-she-can-quit-early-721671

Source: The Jerusalem Post

CNN political commentator and Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill was reportedly fired from the news network on Thursday after he told the United Nations a day earlier that there needs to be “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” The comment is interpreted as meaning the removal and destruction of the State of Israel.

Hill accused Israel of denying “citizenship rights and due process to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish,” and expressed his support for the BDS movement. Hill stressed that, although peace is an ideal, “we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but cannot endorse narrow politics that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in ethnic cleansing.”

The Washington Examiner reported Thursday evening that Hill had been fired for the comment. It quoted a CNN spokesperson saying that: “Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) responded to Hill’s speech, calling his comment “divisive” and “destructive” in an email to the Jewish Journal.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/gaza-news/CNN-commentator-Free-Palestine-from-the-river-to-the-sea-573104/amp

Source: Sun-sentinel

Broward County’s ballot recount hit yet another snag Saturday with 2,040 ballots lost or misplaced.

The county’s eternally beleaguered Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said they either misplaced, misfiled or mixed in with another stack

One thing she said she was sure of: “The ballots are in this building.”

“There would be nowhere else for them to be,” Snipes said. “The ballots are in the building. The ballots are in the building.”

Read more: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-broward-manual-recount-agriculture-commissioner-20181117-story,amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

Source: Sun-sentinel

Democrat Andrew Gillum says he is ending his hard-fought race for Florida governor and has congratulated Republican Ron DeSantis.

Gillum posted a live video on Facebook on Saturday afternoon in which he congratulated DeSantis. Gillum had conceded to DeSantis on election night, but retracted it after the margin between the two candidates narrowed. The race went to a legally required recount, but after an initial machine recount DeSantis still led Gillum by more than 30,000 votes.

Gillum, who is Tallahassee's mayor, isn't saying what he plans to do next.

"Stay tuned," he said in his brief remarks. Nonetheless, Gillum says he will remain politically active, adding "the fight for Florida continues."

Read more: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/ct-florida-governor-senate-election-recount-20181117-story,amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

Source: The Miami Herald

Even with a late start to the morning, volunteers for Broward County finished the manual recount for the U.S. senate race Friday in under two hours — before the catered lunch even arrived.

Broward County Canvassing Board Attorney René Harrod announced the volunteers were done for the day at 10 a.m. Many will return Saturday to count the Agricultural Commission race and Sunday to count a local commission race.

While officials have given no official count or estimate on the number of under and over votes counted Friday, numbers reported to the state indicate there were about 32,000 in Broward.

Broward County’s lightning speed on counting the vote appears to be due to the hundreds of volunteers at work, as well as a large amount of undervotes — votes for neither senate candidate.

Read more: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article221762800.html