Trump’s election lawsuits - States legalize drugs - Ethiopian civil unrest

The Trump campaign said that its Michigan lawsuit demands that the campaign be allowed to “review those ballots” ... “which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access.” A spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in response to the lawsuit, “Michigan’s elections have been conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately.”
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Separately in Pennsylvania, the campaign is filing two legal actions: one aimed at stopping what the campaign called the “hiding” by Democratic officials of “ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers” and another that seeks to undo an order extending the deadline for absentee and mail-in voters to provide missing proof of identification.
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Later Wednesday, the Trump campaign said it had filed suit in Georgia seeking to require all counties there to separate ballots that arrive after the voting deadline from other, “legally cast ballots.” The campaign said the suit was spurred by a Republican poll observer who reportedly witnessed 53 late-arriving absentee ballots “illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County.”

New Jersey's approval of marijuana legalization was expected. Preelection surveys consistently put public support above 60 percent, although the actual margin of victory was a few points bigger than the polls suggested. Arizona, where voters rejected legalization in 2016, was iffier. In the end, legalization won by nearly 20 points.
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Oregon, meanwhile, became the first jurisdiction in the United States to legalize psilocybin and the first to decriminalize possession of all drugs. Oregon's decriminalization initiative, which covers notorious substances such as heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine as well as psychedelics such as LSD, shows voters can be persuaded that it is wrong to treat drug users as criminals. The initiative's backers estimate that it will reduce possession arrests by more than 90 percent.
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Yesterday's returns confirm that marijuana prohibition, which is opposed by two-thirds of Americans, is on its way out. Fifteen states have now approved legalization, up from 11 the day before yesterday. As of next year, about one in three Americans will live in states where recreational use is legal.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia made his move against the region, Tigray, early Wednesday as the world’s attention was focused on vote-counting in the U.S. presidential election. Soon after Tigray’s internet and phone links went down, Mr. Abiy announced that he was deploying the military and imposing a state of emergency in the region, effectively isolating it from rest of Ethiopia.
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Mr. Abiy said his hand had been forced by Tigrayan leaders who brazenly defied his authority for months, accusing them of “crossing the last red line.” Analysts and diplomats warned that Mr. Abiy’s attempt to consolidate his power constituted a high-stakes gamble that, if it goes wrong, risks plunging Ethiopia — an emerging regional powerhouse and the fulcrum of the Horn of Africa — into a period of uncertainty and violent tumult with potentially catastrophic outcomes.
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In power, Mr. Abiy has struggled greatly with long-suppressed demands from Ethiopia’s patchwork of ethnic groups, many of whom have demanded greater autonomy from the central government. Barely a year ago Abiy Ahmed was globally acclaimed as a peacemaker, a youthful African leader awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after just 18 months in power for introducing democratic reforms after decades of repression.

Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and California’s other gig companies emerged victorious Tuesday night, as voters endorsed a ballot measure that allows them to continue to treat hundreds of thousands of workers as independent contractors. Fifty-eight percent of the state’s voters approved Proposition 22, which repudiated a recent state labor law that would have required the companies to hire their drivers and delivery people as employees—and pay them traditional benefits, including health care, sick pay, and workers’ compensation.
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One Barclays analysis estimated that shifting Uber and Lyft drivers to employee status in California would cost the companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The companies had threatened to leave California, or at least temporarily shut down service in the state, if they had lost.
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The California results likely will embolden the gig economy companies to mount similar campaigns in other states and cities where their business model is at risk. In a statement, Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin called the ballot measure “a groundbreaking step toward the creation of a ‘third way,’” a reference to workers who aren’t quite employees and aren’t quite independent contractors, either. Proposition 22’s “third way” does not qualify gig workers for traditional benefits like sick pay, unemployment insurance, or paid family leave.

President Trump originally announced his intention to withdraw from the landmark agreement in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations last year. A mandatory yearlong waiting period ends on Wednesday, a coincidence that nonetheless highlights the Trump administration's commitment to derailing efforts that address climate change.
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The U.S. could choose to return, and Democratic nominee Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the agreement "on day one" if he wins the election. If that happens, the U.S. will have a lot of ground to make up. Under the Paris Agreement, the U.S. promised to reduce its emissions by about 25% by 2025 compared with 2005 levels, but the country is only on track to achieve about a 17% reduction, according to analysts.
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The American departure from the Paris Agreement also means the end of U.S. contributions to a global fund to help smaller and poorer countries that bear disproportionate costs of climate change. The United States originally pledged $3 billion to help such nations transition from fossil fuels and adapt to a hotter Earth — the largest amount of any country, but still far less than America's fair share, given its cumulative carbon emissions.