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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday former President Donald Trump's name can appear on primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to hold him accountable for the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack. AP correspondent Sagar Meghani reports. The justices have ruled states cannot invoke a constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates off the ballots without action first from Congress. Their decision ends bids in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Trump off the ballot over his attempts to undo his 2020 election loss. This was the first time the High Court dealt with the 14th Amendment provision aimed at keeping former office holders who engaged in insurrection from holding office again. Colorado's Supreme Court was the first to apply the provision to a presidential candidate and had ruled Trump was ineligible for office. Sagar Meghani, Washington. [Israelis] Israel's military bombarded northern Gaza on Monday with tanks and helicopters seen near the border and explosions late into the night. U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks in Cairo on securing a cease-fire in Gaza despite an Israeli decision to not send a delegation. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has held a meeting with a member of Israel's wartime cabinet who came to Washington in defiance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting on Monday with Benny Gantz, a rival of Netanyahu's, played out as President Joe Biden's administration intensifies its efforts to push for more humanitarian aid into war-battered Gaza a day after Harris called for an immediate cease-fire. This is VOA News. The whereabouts of Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry was not known Monday three days after he signed a bilateral accord in Kenya. A fierce battle between police and armed gangs took place in Haiti over the weekend and a gang leader there has called for Henry's ouster. VOA's Nairobi bureau chief Mariama Diallo has this story. Henry traveled overseas last week to drum up support for an international security force to intervene in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. In Kenya, he and President Ruto signed a long-awaited bilateral accord that paves the way for 1,000 Kenyan police officers to lead a proposed multinational, U.N.-backed force that would help restore security in Haiti. The Kenyan government has not commented on Henry's whereabouts since the Friday signing ceremony even after repeated inquiries by VOA. Mariama Diallo, VOA News, Nairobi. An online protest campaign exposing corruption has rattled government officials and others in Uganda, where street protests are practically outlawed. The campaign which relies on leaks of official documents has been presented on the social media platform X as a, quote unquote, "exhibition" in a sequence of postings about controversial issues from failing hospitals to potholes in the streets of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. French lawmakers voted on Monday to include the right to abortion into the constitution, a world first welcomed by women's rights groups and criticized by anti-abortion groups. Reuters correspondent Angela Johnston has more. Abortion rights activists broke into cheers near the Eiffel Tower on Monday as France enshrined the right to abortion in its constitution in a world first. In a special joint vote of the two houses of parliament at the Versailles Palace, MPs and senators overwhelmingly backed the initiative. The final tally: 780 votes against 72. Article 34 in the French constitution will now read that "the law determines the conditions in which a woman has the guaranteed freedom to have recourse to an abortion." Mathilde Panot, a lawmaker from a far-left party, called the victory "historic." Reuters correspondent Angela Johnston. The first over-the-counter birth control pill will be available in U.S. stores later this month. The manufacturer said Monday it has begun shipping the medication to major retailers and pharmacies. It will also be available online. Birth control pills are available without a prescription across much of South America, Asia and Africa. Find more by downloading the VOA News mobile app. I'm Joe Ramsey. |