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Kenya's Supreme Court invalidates the results of last month's presidential election; Trump could issue two big policy changes next week; the Cherokee freedmen score a huge win in court.
Kenya is going to need to hold another election
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- In a new twist in the ongoing presidential election saga in Kenya, the country’s Supreme Court threw out the result of last month’s election and ordered a new one, on a 4-2 vote. [NYT / Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura]
- This is a big win for opposition party leader Raila Odinga, who asked the court to reconsider the election results, alleging they were fraudulent. [The Guardian / Jason Burke]
- And it’s a stunning and historic blow to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta; the ruling marks the first time any court in Africa has invalidated the election of a sitting president. [CNN / Laura Smith-Spark and Farai Sevenzo]
- Since the election was held, Odinga and his supporters have been insisting there was malfeasance. The court basically agreed with them, saying there were too many irregularities during the election to ignore, including missing watermarks on some voting forms. [NPR / Bill Chappell]
- However, independent arbiters who observed the election, including former US Secretary of State John Kerry, said they didn’t witness vote tampering on election day. Some outside observers have since said the process of transmitting votes electronically could have gone awry. [Associated Press]
- Kenyatta’s message has wavered between saying he respects the outcome of the ruling and calling members of the Supreme Court “crooks.” [BBC]
- American and European diplomats praised the ruling and said it has big implications for the democratic process in Kenya, as well as on the entire continent, which is known for suspect elections. [Washington Post / Rael Ombuor and Paul Schemm]
Trump's DACA decision is imminent
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- President Donald Trump is reportedly on the verge of announcing two big decisions that could undo two key pieces of President Barack Obama’s legacy.
- The White House said Trump will announce his decision Tuesday on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (also known as DACA), which allows unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as children to stay and work here. [Vox / Dara Lind]
- Trump is widely expected to end DACA, but there's still some uncertainty — in the past he’s expressed support for letting DREAMers stay. [NBC News / Patricia Guadalupe]
- The fate of about 800,000 unauthorized immigrants is in his hands; many are now young adults with children of their own who fear deportation if the president ends the program. [Vox / Alexia Fernández Campbell]
- Meanwhile, in health care, a long-expected regulation could weaken Obamacare's requirement that employers cover birth control. There have been rumblings about Trump rolling back the birth control mandate since late May, when a draft regulation leaked showing the administration was working on an overhaul. [Vox / Sarah Kliff and Dylan Scott]
- The Trump administration’s move means that employers can opt out of covering birth control for any reason. [Vox / Sarah Kliff]
- Right now, most of the companies getting waivers from that requirement aren't religious — they include a lumber company in Pennsylvania and an apartment rental business in Florida. [Vox / Sarah Kliff]
- The two decisions, on DACA and immigration, aren't tied together by anything but timing. But they're yet another example of how Trump can roll back Obama's legacy on his own. The Washington Post has been tracking other examples. [Washington Post / Juliet Eilperin and Darla Cameron]
Cherokee freedmen are back in the tribe
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- Descendants of former slaves owned by the Cherokee Nation can once again have tribal citizenship, a federal judge ruled this week. [Tahlequah Daily Press / Grant Crawford]
- It’s the final decision in a long-standing dispute between tribal members and the so-called freedmen who were descended from the former slaves of wealthy Cherokee. The freedmen had enjoyed tribal citizenship for decades, but were expelled in recent years. [NPR / Alex Kellogg]
- Freedmen had tribal status since the end of the American Civil War, when slaves were freed. But in the 1990s and 2000s, tribes decided to exclude freedmen, saying they had to prove they were blood relations in order to belong. [NPR / Alex Kellogg]
- Much of the fight around who was and wasn’t part of the tribe had to do with money, and wanting to bar access from tribal services, as well as benefits from tribal casinos. [Washington Post / Ellen Knickmeyer]
- The ruling immediately impacts about 2,800 freedmen, but their attorney told reporters that it may have wider-reaching implications, allowing thousands more to be able to apply for citizenship. [Associated Press / Sean Murphy]
- Cherokee nation officials said they don’t plan to appeal the latest ruling. [PRI / Alison Herrera]
Miscellaneous
- Johns Hopkins researchers and other groups are studying whether gaps in student reading proficiency could have a simple fix: giving students eyeglasses.
- [Politico / Sarah Gamard]
- Harriet Tubman’s image may not be replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, after Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said it’s currently not a high priority for his team. [CBS News / Rebecca Shabad]
- For people who are imprisoned, there are immense logistical and financial barriers to sorting out other legal problems like divorce and child custody. One court in Chicago is trying to make it easier, giving inmates pro bono legal representation and allowing them to virtually “visit” court. [The Atlantic / Kim Bellware]
- A love letter to the Pacific Northwest razor clam — as well as the act of digging them up and eating them. [The Seattle Times / David Berger]
- A Utah police officer aggressively arrested a nurse who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient (an unconstitutional act, in this situation). She was not charged and later released. [NBC News / Eric Ortiz]
Verbatim
- "A tractor can never love you. There's something about working with animals that imparts a pleasure I've never derived from working with machines."
- [Karl Hammer to Seven Days / Suzanne Podhaizer]
- ‘‘I remember staying up for an hour and a half debating this man to the ground, telling him that beauty and fashion journalism is journalism.” [Elaine Welteroth to NYT / Jazmine Hughes]
- “I never knew there was such a thing as a dad joke. I guess it has something to do with benign obliviousness, which I plead guilty to.” [Virginia Senator and celebrity dad Tim Kaine to Washington Post / Ben Terris]
- “It’s not just an ‘ugly’ shoe anymore. So for people who want to look baseline fashionable, if not necessarily hip, there's a Birkenstock for them too.” [Laura Portwood-Stacer to Racked / Jessica Furseth]
- “During the 2010 campaign, a worker was booted from a staff meeting and instructed to clean Rokita’s vehicle, which included scrubbing the carpets, according to two people with direct knowledge of the incident. The reason? A volunteer driver had body odor the night before, they say.” [Associated Press / Brian Slodysko]
Watch this:
The fade out is underrated. It should come back. [Vox / Estelle Caswell]
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