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      8 Supreme Court Justices in Mexico to Resign Ahead of Contentious Election

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      All but three of the country’s Supreme Court justices announced they would quit rather than partake in the controversial elections mandated by a judicial overhaul.In a series of terse resignation letters released Wednesday, eight of Mexico’s 11 Supreme Court justices said they would step down from their posts instead of participating in a contentious election of thousands of judges next year. The justices will all serve the remainder of their terms, most of which conclude in August.The announcements were the latest volley in an ongoing battle over a judicial overhaul, passed by the ruling party and its allies in September, that promises to upend the system by which Mexico’s judges are chosen and how they operate.The resignations follow a spate of attacks on the courts by President Claudia Sheinbaum and prominent members of her Morena party, who have said the response to the overhaul by the country’s justices is motivated by their desire to protect their own privileges. “This is a political message being sent not just by the Supreme Court, but the entire judiciary,” said Fernanda Caso, a political analyst in Mexico City. “These resignations and decisions not to participate, as a matter of dignity, are a response to the attacks and the way they have been treated.”Among other changes, the redesign of the judiciary requires that all of the nation’s judges be elected and will subject them to review by a disciplinary tribunal made up of elected officials, who will have the power to investigate and impeach judges.Supporters say the measure will help curb corruption within the judicial system. Critics say it will undermine judicial independence and give the Morena party control over a key check on its power. It has been met with more than 500 legal challenges by federal judges and other critics, some of whom say it violates the Constitution.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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      UK Budget: Labour Party to Raise Capital Gains and Inheritance Taxes

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      Rachel Reeves, the new finance minister, announced substantial tax increases in her first budget as she sought to strengthen public finances and services.The new British government, led by the Labour Party, said it would substantially raise taxes and borrow more for investment as it sought to steer the country out of a long run of economic stagnation.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered her first budget — and the first one ever by a woman — in Parliament on Wednesday. In a nearly 80-minute speech, Ms. Reeves announced about 40 billion pounds ($51.8 billion) in tax increases, more than half of which would come from higher taxes that employers pay on their workers’ salaries. She also increased capital gains and inheritance taxes.“The choices that I have made today are the right choices for our country,” Ms. Reeves said. “That doesn’t mean these choices are easy.”The budget was the first big opportunity for the Labour Party to set Britain’s economic agenda after it was swept into office with a large majority in July’s general election after 14 years out of power.But after a turbulent few months in office for the Labour Party, the budget has been seen as a reset moment for the party itself. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said this week that the budget would “light the way” toward the government’s priorities of ensuring financial stability, improving public services and encouraging investment.For months, Ms. Reeves has warned that this budget would include “difficult” choices, signaling that Britons will have to swallow pain now for a bigger payoff later. These choices, government officials have said, will help the government achieve its goal of making Britain the fastest-growing economy in the Group of 7.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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      As Trump Sows Doubt on Pennsylvania Voting, Officials Say the System Is Working

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      With about a week to go before Election Day, officials from two Pennsylvania counties announced that they had found large batches of suspicious voter registration forms. While at least some of the documents appeared to be fraudulent, there is no indication that any of them are ballots, though officials clarified that they were continuing to investigate.To hear former President Donald J. Trump’s telling, Pennsylvania’s election system was already melting down.“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster,” he said at a rally on Tuesday night in Allentown, Pa. “Every vote was written by the same person.” He made similar allegations about York County, building on claims that he made on social media earlier in the day about “Really bad ‘stuff,’” in the two counties. “Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!!”, he insisted.But contrary to Mr. Trump’s incendiary claim that fake ballots had been cast, there were no reports of actual ballots being among the two batches of documents. And on the ground, away from the high-strung channels of social media, law enforcement was already doing its job.Neither a representative for the Trump campaign nor the state G.O.P. immediately responded to requests for comment.Thousands of voter registration forms, as well as some mail-in ballot applications, were submitted in large batches by out-of-state canvassing groups. Some of the paperwork raised suspicions among county election workers, and officials from both counties said any forms that appeared to be fraudulent would be turned over to local prosecutors.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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      Japan Election: Asia’s Most Stable Democracy Is Sent Into Chaos

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      Deep-seated grievance among Japanese voters has put the Liberal Democrats, longstanding custodians of the status quo, on notice.For years, Japan has managed to resist the populist waves that have swept Europe and the United States as disaffected electorates have demanded radical change.But as voters handed the longtime governing party of Japan a resounding blow in snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, there were signs that their frustration could convert one of the region’s most stable democracies into a much more chaotic one.On the surface, it appeared that the center had held. Even though the Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics for most of the postwar era, lost its majority in the lower house of Parliament, the Constitutional Democrats, who won the second-most seats behind the L.D.P., are another relatively centrist party.But minority parties on the far left and far right both gained seats. And while Shigeru Ishiba, who was selected by the Liberal Democrats as prime minister only a month ago, blamed the party’s dismal showing on a protracted political finance scandal, analysts said the sense of grievance among voters went far deeper.“The last 30 years of stagnation and the deterioration of the living standards, especially for young people — the frustration is there,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat who is now a special adviser at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo.Election results reflected voter discontent over flat wages, labor shortages and a rapidly aging population.Eugene Hoshiko/Associated PressWe 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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      What Japan’s Political Uncertainty Means for Its Market Rally

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      The long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party has lost its parliamentary majority, raising questions about the policy stability that has lured investors.The steady course of the Japanese economy and business environment that has helped attract a torrent of investment in the past two years could be undercut by the political turmoil resulting from the country’s parliamentary elections on Sunday.Japan’s economy, though not growing by leaps and bounds, has inched back from the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic. The emergence of long-sought inflation has given the Bank of Japan room to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly two decades.Following moves by Warren Buffett last year to increase his holdings in some of Japan’s biggest trading firms, investors have shifted their money to Japan from China, which has economic and geopolitical risks. Corporate earnings in Japan have remained solid and government-led changes, such as guidelines recommending takeover offers be given serious consideration, have prompted companies to take steps to enhance their appeal to investors.Stocks in Japan have experienced one of their strongest rallies in decades. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index is up nearly 50 percent since the beginning of 2023.Now, the Liberal Democrats — the political party that has governed Japan for all but four years since 1955 — has lost its majority in the powerful lower chamber of Parliament, leaving the future structure of the government and direction of its economic policies uncertain.“The reasons that Warren Buffett and others got excited about Japan are not lost, but you need the background that is a stable macro environment,” said Jesper Koll, a director at Monex Group, a financial services firm. “For now, the bastion of stability element that has made Japan attractive is not going to be working.”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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      Republic of Georgia Election

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      The ruling Georgia Dream party won a majority in the vote. The opposition, which fears the country is moving away from the West, says the voting was not fair and that it will not appear in Parliament.Georgia, a strategically-located republic at the center of the Caucasus, plunged into political crisis on Sunday as the ruling party celebrated victory in a pivotal election that the pro-Western opposition declared as falsified, vowing to boycott the new parliament.The shaky situation further polarized a political struggle between Georgian Dream, which has governed Georgia for 12 years, increasingly steering it away from its decades-long path to join NATO and the European Union, and the four political groups that aimed to keep it moving toward the West.The crisis will likely push Georgia further away from the West, with European observers criticizing the conduct of the election on Sunday. Zlatko Vujovic, the head of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, characterized the election as “not good.”“They were not conducted in the proper way as should be expected from a country that has a E.U. candidate status,” Mr. Vujovic said at a briefing with journalists.Critical violations included violence against opposition members, voter intimidation, smear campaigns targeting observers, and extensive misuse of administrative resources, he said.The Election Administration of Georgia, the body that oversees elections in the country, reported on Sunday that the ruling party garnered more than 54 percent of the vote with the four main opposition groups receiving 37.5 percent. That means that Georgian Dream will have 89 seats in Parliament with the remaining 61 occupied by the opposition.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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      For First Time in Decades, Japan Votes in a Knife-Edge Election

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      The Japanese electorate seemed poised to punish the Liberal Democrats, even if it does not go so far as to hand power to the opposition.Japanese voters are not accustomed to nail-biter elections.But as the country holds parliamentary elections on Sunday, the party that has governed Japan for all but four years since 1955 is facing the possibility that it could lose its majority in the body’s lower chamber, the House of Representatives.Just one month after a leadership vote by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party anointed Shigeru Ishiba as the new prime minister, the party entered the election under considerable pressure from a public angered by a long-simmering political finance scandal, rising inflation and the burdens of raising families.That does not necessarily mean that Japanese voters are ready to hand the government to a divided and enfeebled political opposition, which last won a general election 15 years ago. Analysts said it was likely that the incumbent party would either eke out just enough seats to retain parliamentary power or would be forced to bring on new coalition partners to remain in charge.“What is most interesting about this election is its uncertainty,” said Masaru Kohno, a political scientist at Waseda University in Tokyo.Unlike in other countries, where the electorate is divided over ideology and vastly different policy platforms, Japanese voters are frustrated by a sense that all options are uninspiring and that the governing party has grown complacent.On the eve of the election, Mr. Ishiba stopped at a rally for a Liberal Democratic candidate near the Tokyo Dome, a baseball stadium in the northern part of the city. Acknowledging the instability in his party, he appealed to the undecided voters standing in the crowd of about 500 that had gathered on the edge of a playground.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