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      Musk Wins Appeal Over Tweet He Had to Delete About Union Push

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      The Fifth Circuit court ruled that the 2018 post was protected speech. It also vacated an order to reinstate a pro-union Tesla worker who was fired.A federal appeals court handed Elon Musk a victory in a freedom-of-speech case on Friday by overturning an earlier ruling in a dispute between the billionaire and the National Labor Relations Board.In March last year, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans affirmed the board’s finding that Tesla illegally fired an employee involved in union organizing, and that Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, had illegally threatened workers’ stock options in a post on Twitter if they chose to unionize. The opinion allowed the labor board to enforce its 2021 order requiring Tesla to reinstate, with back pay, the employee, Richard Ortiz, and Mr. Musk to delete the 2018 post.Mr. Musk challenged the panel’s ruling, and on Friday the full court ruled, 9 to 8, that the labor board had improperly ordered him to delete the social media post. “The agency exceeded its authority,” the 11-page ruling said. “We hold that Musk’s tweets are constitutionally protected speech.”“Deleting the speech of private citizens on topics of public concern is not a remedy traditionally countenanced by American law,” the ruling added.The court sent the matter of Mr. Ortiz’s firing back to the labor board to review, saying the board had failed “to consider the fact that the actual decision maker in Ortiz’s firing harbored no anti-union animus.”The judges did not rule on whether Mr. Musk’s online comment constituted a National Labor Relations Act violation for illegally threatening workers. (The board has held that it did.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Republican Legal Challenges to Voting Rules Hit a Rough Patch

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      The legal wars over election rules are raging even as voters around the country cast ballots. And several recent efforts by groups aligned with former President Donald J. Trump to challenge voting rules have been coming up short in federal and state courts.Judges in a number of political battlegrounds and other states have rejected legal challenges this month to voter rolls and procedures by Republicans and their allies.The Nebraska State Supreme Court ruled that election officials cannot bar people with felony convictions from voting after their sentences are served.A Michigan state judge rejected a Republican attempt to prevent certain citizens living abroad, including military members, from being eligible to cast an absentee ballot in that swing state.And a federal judge in Arizona rejected a last-minute push by a conservative group to run citizenship checks on tens of thousands of voters.“They are hitting quite a losing streak,” said David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who advises both Democratic and Republican election officials on rules and procedures and has been tracking election-related litigation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pennsylvania Supreme Court Allows Provisional Votes After Mail Ballot Rejections

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      The decision is likely to affect thousands of mail-in ballots among the millions that will be cast in Pennsylvania, a pivotal 2024 swing state.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that voters who submit mail-in ballots that are rejected for not following procedural directions can still cast provisional ballots.The decision is likely to affect thousands of mail-in ballots among the millions that will be cast in Pennsylvania, the swing state that holds the most electoral votes and is set to be the most consequential in the presidential election.The court ruled 4 to 3 that the Butler County board of elections must count provisional ballots cast by several voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected for lacking mandatory secrecy envelopes.Secrecy envelopes are commonly used to protect the privacy of a person’s vote. In Pennsylvania, voters must accurately sign and date this outer envelope before sending in their ballots.Under the new ruling, voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for being “naked ballots,” lacking the secrecy envelope, or for bearing inaccurate or missing information on the envelope will be given the chance to cast a provisional vote at their polling place. The ruling makes the practice available statewide.Provisional ballots are counted only when the voter’s registration is confirmed after voting — and the rejected ballot will not count. Many counties in the state will notify voters if their mail-in ballots are rejected for not following technical procedures and will give them the opportunity for a provisional vote.The court’s majority argued that allowing people a provisional vote helps ensure voter access while preventing double voting.The Republican litigants argued that the Butler County elections board had initially correctly voided the provisional ballots cast by the voters whose mail-in ballots had been rejected on procedural grounds. The ruling is a blow to the Republican National Committee and the state G.O.P., which brought the appeal to the state’s highest court.A spokeswoman for the R.N.C. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Pennsylvania Democratic Party, which had participated in appealing the case, considered the ruling a victory.“While Republicans try to block your vote, Democrats are protecting it and standing up for the principle that every eligible voter has a right to make their voice heard, no matter how they vote,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesman for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, and Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a joint statement. “This ruling reaffirms that principle.” More

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      José Rubén Zamora Will Leave Prison After Nearly Two Years

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      The case against José Rubén Zamora became a sign of crumbling democracy in Guatemala and a symbol of threats against press freedom across Latin America.After spending more than 810 days in a cramped cell with little more than his books to keep him company, one of Guatemala’s most renowned journalists will be released to house detention this weekend as he waits to find out whether he will be granted a new trial.The decision comes after a judge ruled Friday that José Rubén Zamora, the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that aggressively investigated government corruption, had spent too much time in prison without a trial and that he was not likely to flee. “I have never wanted to flee Guatemala, which is also my country, not just the country of the authorities in power,” Mr. Zamora, 68, told the judge. “If you place your trust in me, I will honor it.”Mr. Zamora was convicted last year of money laundering, sentenced to as many as six years in prison and fined about $40,000. He called the charges politically motivated and said they were retaliation for his newspaper’s focus on public corruption.As part of his detention outside jail, he will be required to report periodically to the authorities and remain confined in his home.His trial was plagued with irregularities and was broadly seen as fundamentally unfair — another move to undermine democracy and target critical press coverage during the administration of former President Alejandro Giammattei.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nebraska Supreme Court Upholds Voting Rights for Felons

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      The Nebraska Supreme Court ordered the secretary of state on Wednesday to allow people with felony convictions to vote after finishing their sentences, resolving confusion about who can participate in this year’s election and rejecting an argument by the state attorney general that lawmakers overstepped in extending voting rights to those with convictions.The ruling, issued with early balloting in the state already underway and voter registration deadlines approaching quickly, will help shape the state’s electorate, which can carry special importance in presidential races because of the way Nebraska splits its Electoral College votes by congressional district rather than using the winner-takes-all approach of most states. Nebraska also has a competitive U.S. Senate race this year, as well as a tightly contested U.S. House race in the Omaha area. The ruling on Wednesday was expected to affect thousands of potential voters.Nebraska, which usually votes Republican in statewide races, was part of a national trend in loosening voting rules for people with criminal records. In 2005, lawmakers in the state abolished a lifetime voting ban for people convicted of felonies, but continued to require people to wait two years to vote after finishing their sentences. This year, in a bipartisan vote, lawmakers got rid of that waiting period, clearing the way for people to cast ballots immediately after finishing prison and parole terms.Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, allowed the bill to become law without his signature, but the measure attracted skepticism from Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Secretary of State Bob Evnen, both Republicans.Just before the new measure was set to take effect this summer, Mr. Hilgers released a written opinion saying that both the new law and the 2005 law were improper. He argued that under the Nebraska Constitution, only the state’s Board of Pardons could restore voting rights to someone with a felony conviction. Mr. Evnen then instructed county election officials to stop registering voters with felony convictions. The Board of Pardons is made up of Mr. Pillen, Mr. Hilgers and Mr. Evnen.Reached on Wednesday morning, Cindi Allen, a deputy secretary of state, said Mr. Evnen’s office planned to comment on the ruling on Wednesday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Mr. Hilgers said they were reviewing the ruling.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Georgia Judge Blocks Hand-Counting of Election Ballots

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      The ruling was confined to the current election, halting the measure from going into effect for 2024 while the judge further weighs its merits in the future.A county judge in Georgia on Tuesday blocked a new rule mandating a hand count of election ballots across the state. Enacting such a sweeping change for the November election, he said, was “too much, too late.”Judge Robert C.I. McBurney did not, however, knock down the rule outright; his decision was confined to the current election, halting the rule from taking effect for 2024 while he further weighs its merits.The rule, passed last month by the State Election Board, would have required poll workers across Georgia to break open sealed containers of ballots and count them by hand to ensure that the total number of ballots matched the total counted by tabulating machines. (It would not have required officials to tally for whom the ballots were cast.)But Judge McBurney agreed with challenges from several county election boards that the rule was made too close to the election.“Clearly the S.E.B. believes that the hand count rule is smart election policy — and it may be right,” Judge McBurney said, using shorthand for State Election Board. “But the timing of its passage makes implementation now quite wrong.”The rule was one of many new election provisions approved in Georgia since summer that hewed closely to policy goals of right-wing election activists. It was a key achievement of the State Election Board, which has recently been governed by a 3-2 right-wing majority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      50 Years After Killing, a Berlin Court Convicts a Stasi Officer of Murder

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      The court handed down a guilty verdict and a 10-year sentence to a former officer of East Germany’s dreaded secret police, in a case straight out of the Cold War.It was a brutal act from another time, almost another world, when the Cold War was hot and Germany was divided: An officer of East Germany’s feared secret police shot and killed a man trying to cross into the West.Half a century later, a German court on Monday found the 80-year-old former officer, Manfred Naumann, guilty of murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, one of the harshest penalties meted out for the reign of terror by the secret police, known as the Stasi.Over several days in March and April of this year, the only known living witnesses to the shooting faced the defendant in a high-security courtroom in Berlin, testifying to what they saw on March 29, 1974.The witnesses — then schoolgirls, now retired women — all said that seeing a killing so young affected them for the rest of their lives. Trim and neatly dressed, Mr. Naumann, who lived for years in comfortable anonymity in a house in Leipzig, Germany, looked on in silence.The trial, almost 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was a reminder of the pervasiveness and impunity of the dreaded Stasi, and of the dark sides of the oppressive Communist regime, which many people in the East now view with some nostalgia.In November 1989, when the wall fell, the Stasi had an estimated 91,000 employees and 180,000 part-time spies, using coercion and violence to keep the Communists in power for four decades. It pressed ordinary people into spying on their co-workers, neighbors, friends, even their families, and building dossiers on millions of people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Ruling Means Italy’s ‘Bunga Bunga’ Saga Is Not Over

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      The ruling sets the stage for yet another trial related to the scandal involving Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who died last year.After 14 years, the 21 women accused of helping to cover up Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s evening bacchanals had hoped that their long legal saga over the so-called “Bunga Bunga” scandal might be over.But Italy’s Supreme Court overturned their acquittals, ruling on Monday that the women could be retried, according to the general prosecutor on the case — a setback for the women and an indication of how large the shadow of Mr. Berlusconi, who died last year, still looms in Italy.The court decision sets the stage for yet another trial related to a scandal that gripped Italy and set off an international tabloid frenzy in 2010, when news emerged about parties Mr. Berlusconi was hosting at his villa near Milan.In the first trial, Mr. Berlusconi was accused of paying for sex with a 17-year-old woman at one of the parties and abusing his office to cover it up. Both the woman and Mr. Berlusconi denied it. Mr. Berlusconi was initially found guilty, but was later acquitted because of a lack of evidence that he was aware at the time that the teen was underage. In the second trial, several of Mr. Berlusconi’s associates were convicted of aiding and abetting prostitution by procuring women for the bacchanals, which became known as the “Bunga Bunga parties.”The third trial involved 21 women accused of accepting hush money to lie and protect Mr. Berlusconi in the earlier court proceedings. A lower court had acquitted them on procedural grounds, but prosecutors in Milan appealed the verdict.The deputy prosecutor general at the Supreme Court, Roberto Aniello, confirmed that Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome had ruled on Monday that the 21 women could be retried. The court has not yet explained its decision; that typically follows in a statement.An appeals court in Milan is set to take up the case, though it was not immediately clear when that would take place.The New York Times reached out to several of the women, who were not immediately available for comment. Some of the 21 have, in the past, admitted to taking money or expensive gifts from Mr. Berlusconi, but said it was not intended to buy their silence. More