Federal election monitors traditionally focused on protecting voter rights are tapped to tackle fraud. Police arrest an armed man suspected of lunging at an Ohio gubernatorial candidate. And five people are dead after an Amazon-branded cargo plane crashes at Miami’s main airport.
Here’s what to know today.
DOJ civil rights unit retooled to focus on voter fraud
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has for decades sent election monitors to polling sites to protect voters from discrimination based on race, disability or language.
Now, the Trump administration is giving it a new focus: voter fraud.
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Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican who co-chaired Lawyers for Trump during the 2020 election, helms the division. She emailed employees asking them to serve among the 1,000 monitors she wants in place for the midterms, a person familiar with the matter said.
The division has solicited staff lawyers to serve as monitors before. But the number nationwide has never reached 1,000 and it’s unusual for fraud to be on the agenda.
Many employees have also been replaced by conservative hires, some of whom back the president’s false claim that he won in 2020.
NBC News spoke with a half-dozen Justice Department veterans. Some worry the monitors could be used to help undermine confidence in elections if Trump is unhappy with the results.
Related news:
- Exclusive: As Trump pushes for data centers, voters in key midterm races say they don’t want them.
- Poll: Most Americans are using AI, but they’re not happy about it.
Alarm in Europe after far-right’s historic German victory
A regional election victory put the far-right on the brink of holding power in a German state for the first time since the Nazis. The Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, crushed its mainstream rivals but fell just short of a majority in the eastern Saxony-Anhalt region.
The pro-Russia, anti-immigration AfD is now seeking outside support in its bid to become the first far-right party to govern a state since World War II.
As those high-stakes talks began, the shockwaves of Sunday’s vote were being felt across the continent.
“It clearly sends out a very, very worrying signal,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told RTL radio, according to Reuters. “This shows that we face a major challenge in the face of a populist wave which is spreading around the world today and which we must resist,” he said.
In Poland, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also said the regional election was “a very worrying sign,” according to Reuters. “Only idiots and traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the AfD,” Poland’s center-right Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Suspect arrested after armed man confronts Ohio gubernatorial candidate
A suspect was arrested after an armed man lunged at Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic nominee for governor, and injured several people at a fair.
Acton was speaking at the event when Patrick Havas, 38, “started pushing his way through the crowd,” a spokesperson for the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office said. Security confronted him, and two people were knocked to the ground in the process.
After law enforcement officials arrested Havas, they recovered two handguns and a set of brass knuckles, the spokesperson added.
Acton, a physician, was not hurt, and she remained on-site to attend to one of the injured people, according to a photo an attendee shared with NBC News.
Five dead after Amazon cargo plane crashes in Miami
Five people were killed and five others injured after an Amazon-branded cargo plane crashed just outside Miami International Airport yesterday, officials said.
The Boeing 767-300 aircraft overran the runway while it was landing, struck multiple vehicles and came to rest at a field, according to officials. It took off from San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Three people were in critical condition, the Miami-Dade fire chief said. A hotline has been set up for relatives of people who may have been involved in the accident.
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Staff Pick: The U.K.’s approach to postpartum psychosis may be saving lives
Lindsay Clancy’s devastating trial over the killing of her three children has sparked an important dialogue around maternal mental healthcare and how cases of postpartum psychosis are treated in the U.S.
We looked at an approach across the Atlantic that prioritizes the treatment of mothers alongside their babies through specialist inpatient care facilities called Mother and Baby Units, or MBUs.
While the United Kingdom is not the only country to provide care that keeps mothers and babies together during treatment, the scale of its MBU program is “pretty unique to the U.K.,” Dr. Sally Wilson, the National Training Coordinator for Action on Postpartum Psychosis, a British charity supporting women and families affected by the condition, told me. My reporting highlights how that trailblazing effort may very well be saving lives, including that of one mom, Sofii Lewis, who says she and her daughter Evie, now 3, might not be alive today had it not been for the care she received in an MBU.
— Chantal Da Silva, world news reporter
Read All About It
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- Israel’s air force carried out two airstrikes on a southern Lebanese village early this morning, killing at least nine people and wounding others, including women and children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
- Andrew Williams, the guitarist for metalcore band Every Time I Die, who went by “The Butcher” in his other career as a professional wrestler, died at 48.
- A fireworks explosion at a festival in Mexico killed at least 10 people and injured more than 60.
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