Author: Reporter

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were abolished on August 1 from Walt Disney World’s governing district, now controlled by appointees of Governor Ron DeSantis, in an echo of the Florida governor’s agenda which has championed curtailing such programs in higher education and elsewhere. The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District said in a statement that its diversity, equity and inclusion committee would be eliminated, as would any job duties connected to it. Also axed were initiatives left over from when the district was controlled by Disney supporters, which awarded contracts based on goals of achieving racial or gender parity. Glenton...

After Ohio voters repealed a law pushed by Republicans that would have limited unions’ collective bargaining rights in 2011, then-GOP Governor John Kasich was contrite. “I’ve heard their voices, I understand their decision and, frankly, I respect what people have to say in an effort like this,” he told reporters after the defeat. The tone from Ohio Republicans was much different after voters resoundingly rejected their attempt to impose hurdles on passing amendments to the state constitution — a proposal that would have made it much more difficult to pass an abortion rights measure in November. During an election...

A day after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as the country was still reeling from the violent attempt to halt the transfer of presidential power, a local Republican Party official greeted a group of computer experts outside the election office in a rural county in south Georgia, where they were given access to voting equipment. Their intent was to copy software and data from the election systems in an attempt to prove claims by President Donald Trump and his allies that voting machines had been rigged to flip the 2020 election to his challenger, Democrat...

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened her investigation into Donald Trump after the release of a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. Trump suggested during the call that Raffensperger, a Republican and the state’s top elections official, could help “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden. More than two years later, the indictment brought on August 14 by a grand jury went far beyond that phone call, alleging a web of crimes committed by Trump and others. Willis used Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced...