Researchers in the
UK are seeking hundreds of people to take part in the first large study into whether outdoor swimming can reduce symptoms of depression. Open water bathing has been praised as a way to improve well-being in the last few years, with emerging evidence that it can have a positive impact on mental health, experts said. The number of adults experiencing moderate to severe depression in the UK doubled to nearly one in five between March and June 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, compared to one in 10 before the crisis. This article was originally published by Votebeat , a nonprofit news organization covering local
election administration and voting access. Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for its free newsletters here. A federal appeals court decision upholding Pennsylvania’s rules for voting by mail could mean that tens of thousands of ballots are rejected in this year’s election because they lack a date or are misdated. But the full impact of the ruling is still up in the air while the parties who brought the case decide whether to appeal. A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Wednesday that a
Pennsylvania law requiring mail voters to handwrite a date on the return envelope did not violate a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that’s meant to protect voters from being denied the right to register to vote. The decision could have broad implications: If plaintiffs appeal to the
Supreme Court and justices uphold it, it could become precedent for the entire country, rather than just the jurisdictions in the 3rd Circuit. Such a ruling could limit how the Civil Rights Act applies to requirements for casting a ballot. And some conservative justices already hinted in an earlier ruling that they’re skeptical of the argument that the date requirement violates the Act. When the court nullified a previous opinion from the 3rd Circuit that ruled such ballots should be counted, three of the court’s conservatives wrote that the lower court’s opinion was “likely wrong.” The plaintiffs will now need to make a choice about whether it is worth pushing this case forward, or containing the decision to the 3rd Circuit, said Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame Law School, said. “I think there’s a lot of challenges raising it with the Supreme Court if you are the plaintiffs,” he said. “You’ve already got three justices who sketched out a preliminary position against your position, so I just think it’s an uphill battle to go to the court and make that claim now.” Andy Hoover, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which represented the plaintiffs, said, “We are analyzing the ruling and have not made a decision about next steps.” The Department of State, which was a defendant in the case but took the view that the ballots should not be rejected, said in a statement that it was “reviewing potential next steps” and highlighted recent changes it made to the return envelopes that it hopes will reduce the number of ballots rejected this year. Even if it is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court — given where we are in the court’s current term — Muller thinks any decision would be unlikely to come before 2025. “My guess is this rule will be in place for 2024.” There may be other action in the courts in the meantime. Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based attorney who regularly works with
Democratic candidates, is currently representing a township supervisor candidate in a case tangentially related to the 3rd Circuit appeal. “I think the majority got it wrong here,” said Bonin, who was also involved in a 2021 case from Lehigh County on the same issue. “This was a remedial statute intended to remove all sorts of barriers to the right to vote. I thought that
Congress was very clear that this goes to all the steps” that involve ensuring a vote is counted. The three-judge panel’s ruling can still be appealed to the full 3rd Circuit by April 10. For their part,
Republicans are embracing the decision as a victory. “The Court ruling is a gigantic win for Pennsylvania, the nation, and election integrity,” said Chairman Lawrence Tabas of the Pennsylvania GOP, which was one of the intervening defendants in the case. Wednesday’s ruling, from a three judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, centered on whether the date requirement under Pennsylvania election law violated a part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act known as the “materiality provision.” That provision says a person cannot be denied the right to vote because of “an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote.” The majority on the panel ruled that the provision only applies when the state is determining who may vote. “In other words, its role stops at the door of the voting place,” Judge Thomas Ambro, an appointee of former Democratic President
Bill Clinton, wrote for the majority. “The Provision does not apply to rules, like the date requirement, that govern how a qualified voter must cast his ballot for it to be counted.” Mike Lee, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement that if the decision stands, thousands of Pennsylvanians could lose their vote over a “meaningless paperwork error.” “The ballots in question in this case come from voters who are eligible and who met the submission deadline,” Lee said. “In passing the Civil Rights Act, Congress put a guardrail in place to be sure that states don’t erect unnecessary barriers that disenfranchise voters. It’s unfortunate that the court failed to recognize that principle. Voters lose as a result of this ruling.” Ruling distinguishes registration barriers from voting rules Unlike the last time this question was before the 3rd Circuit, the court split on the issue, voting 2-1 against the plaintiffs. Ambro, along with Judge Cindy Chung — an appointee of Democratic President
Joe Biden — took the view that the materiality provision is limited to documents related to a voter registering to vote, which would “restrict who may vote.” “It does not preempt state requirements on how qualified voters may cast a valid ballot, regardless what (if any) purpose those rules serve,” the opinion read. Much of the decision came down to whether the provision deals only with documents related to registering to vote, or whether its reference to “other acts requisite to voting” applies to other documents voters may encounter when trying to cast a ballot. Ambro and Chung argued that when the materiality provision is read in context with the sentences around it, along with the discussion among legislators who wrote it, it was clear that it related only to registration documents. They also argued that rejecting undated or improperly dated ballots did not take away the voter’s ability to vote and that states had the freedom to make rules concerning how votes are to be cast, such as rejecting mail ballots that have identifiable markings on the secrecy envelope. “A voter who fails to abide by state rules prescribing how to make a vote effective is not “den[ied] the right . . . to vote” when his ballot is not counted,” Ambro wrote. “If state law provides that ballots completed in different colored inks, or secrecy envelopes containing improper markings, or envelopes missing a date, must be discounted, that is a legislative choice that federal courts might review if there is unequal application, but they have no power to review under the Materiality Provision.” Judge Patty Schwartz — an appointee of former Democratic President
Barack Obama — disagreed, noting that the date on the mail ballot return envelope is in relation to a declaration that states “I hereby declare that I am qualified to vote in this election,” which makes it fall under the provision. She also pointed out that the 1964 Civil Rights Act defines “voting” as “all action necessary to make a vote effective including, but not limited to, registration or other action required by State law prerequisite to voting, casting a ballot, and having such ballot counted and included in the appropriate totals of votes cast.” When this section is read in conjunction with the materiality provision, she argued, the dating requirement becomes subject to that provision. How we got here Wednesday’s decision came as part of an appeal of a November 2023 ruling from U.S. District Judge Susan Baxter in the Western District of Pennsylvania. Shortly after the 2023 election, she ruled that the whether the ballot envelope had a date was “immaterial” to a voter’s eligibility, and that ballots should not be rejected over what is essentially a technicality. “There are many reasons to date a document,” Baxter wrote at the time , adding, “Dates may also be wholly irrelevant, as in this case. The requirement at issue here is irrelevant in determining when the voter signed their declaration.”Her ruling was just part of a string of disputes over whether to count undated or incorrectly dated mail ballots that have been before the courts since the state’s no-excuse mail voting law, Act 77 , passed in 2019. That law required that voters sign and date the outer return envelope. A 2021 case out of Lehigh County challenged the provision, citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s materiality provision. In 2022, a separate three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed in the Lehigh case that the date issue was immaterial, but the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the ruling later that year, after one of the candidates in the race in question conceded. That left the question up in the air again ahead of the 2022 midterm election, until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Nov. 1 that counties should not count the ballots if they were missing a date. The court defined an incorrectly dated ballot as one that fell outside of the time range for acceptable ballots, Sept. 19 through Nov. 8, 2022, the first day mail ballots were sent out through the day of the election. In practice, this has often led to counties rejecting ballots that they know were cast in the correct time period. Roughly 8,000 ballots were rejected during the 2022 midterm election for lacking a proper date or signature on the outer return envelope, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. A Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis of data from three counties in 2022 — Philadelphia, Allegheny, and Erie — found voters submitting the flawed ballots were more likely to come from communities with higher than average non-white populations compared with the overall voting population in the county.The department began being able to track rejections specifically for dating issues in 2023, and said in last November’s election the issue accounted for roughly 2,500 rejections. Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org . CONTINUE READING Show less Oscar best picture winner "Oppenheimer" was finally released on Friday in Japan, where its subject -- the man who masterminded the creation of the atomic
bomb -- is a highly sensitive and emotional topic. The US blockbuster hit screens in the
United States and many other countries in July at the same time as "Barbie", inspiring a viral phenomenon dubbed "Barbenheimer" by moviegoers. But while "Barbie" was released in
Japan in August, "Oppenheimer" was conspicuously absent from cinemas for months. No official explanation was offered at the time, fueling speculation the film was too controversial to be shown in Japan -- the only country to have ever suffered a wartime nuclear attack. Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities in August 1945, days before the end of World War II. At a large cinema in central Tokyo where "Oppenheimer" was showing on Friday, there was none of the prominent promotional material that might be expected for a global megahit. Instead only one small poster advertised the film, which was shot on a $100 million budget and collected nearly $1 billion at box offices worldwide. "It is a long, three-hour movie, but I watched it attentively, because it was so powerful," audience member Masayuki Hayashi, 51, told AFP after the film. Japanese distributors may have chosen to avoid a summer release close to the bombings' anniversary, said 65-year-old Tatsuhisa Yue. But "it would have been unthinkable if a movie which describes how the weapon was developed didn't show here", he said. "The movie arrived late, but I think it was good that it finally opened in Japan." - 'America-centric' - The film tells the story of US physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the bomb's invention. It drew rave reviews and was the most decorated title at this month's
Oscars, scooping seven awards including best director for Christopher Nolan and best
Actor for star Cillian Murphy. But in Hiroshima, the city devastated by the first nuclear bomb, the biopic's
Academy Awards success met a mixed reaction. Kyoko Heya, president of the city's international film festival, told AFP after the awards ceremony that she had found Nolan's movie "very America-centric". "Is this really a movie that people in Hiroshima can bear to watch?" she asked. Today the city is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million people, but the ruins of a domed building still stand as a stark reminder of the horrors of the attack, along with a museum and other sombre memorials. Heya said that after much reflection, "I now want many people to watch the movie." "I'd be happy to see Hiroshima, Nagasaki and atomic weapons become the subject of discussions thanks to this movie," she said. Last year, viral "Barbenheimer" memes sparked anger online in Japan, where media reports have highlighted critics who say the film does not show the harm caused by the bombs. "There could have been much more description and depiction of the horror of atomic weapons," bomb survivor and former Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka, 96, said at a special screening in the city earlier this month. "Oppenheimer" was also shown at a preview event in Nagasaki, where survivor Masao Tomonaga, 80, said he had been impressed by the movie. "I had thought the film's lack of... images of atomic bomb survivors was a weakness," said Tomonaga, who was two when the second bomb was dropped and later became a professor studying leukaemia caused by the attacks. "But in fact, Oppenheimer's lines in dozens of scenes showed his shock at the reality of the atomic bombing. That was enough for me." CONTINUE READING Show less Kicked out of other prayer services, members of Bangladesh's transgender hijra community have been welcomed at a new mosque in the Muslim-majority nation with the promise of worship without discrimination. The humble structure -- a single-room shed with walls and a roof clad in tin -- is a new community hub for the minority, who have enjoyed greater legal and political recognition in recent years but still suffer from entrenched prejudice. "From now on, no one can deny a hijra from praying in our mosque," community leader Joyita Tonu said in a speech to the packed congregation. "No one can mock us," added the visibly emotional 28-year-old, a white scarf covering her hair. The mosque near Mymensingh, north of the capital Dhaka on the banks of the Brahmaputra river, was built on land donated by the government after the city's hijra community were expelled from an established congregation. "I never dreamt I could pray at a mosque again in my lifetime," said Sonia, 42, who as a child loved to recite the Koran and studied at an Islamic seminary. But when she came out as hijra, as transgender
Women in South Asia are commonly known, she was blocked from praying in a mosque. "People would tell us: 'Why are you hijra people here at the mosques? You should pray at home. Don't come to the mosques,'" Sonia, who uses only one name, told AFP. "It was shameful for us, so we didn't go," she added. "Now, this is our mosque. Now, no one can say no." - 'Like any other people' - Hijra have been the beneficiaries of growing legal recognition in Bangladesh, which since 2013 has officially allowed members of the community to identify as a third gender. Several have entered Bangladeshi politics, with one transgender woman elected mayor of a rural town in 2021. But hijra still struggle for basic recognition and acceptance, lacking property and marriage rights. They are also often discriminated against in employment and are much more likely to be victims of violent crime and poverty than the average Bangladeshi. Hardline Islamist groups have also lashed out at the recognition of transgender Bangladeshis in school textbooks, leading rallies to demand the government abandon its push to include them in the curriculum. Mufti Abdur Rahman Azad, founder of a hijra charity, told AFP that the new mosque was the first of its kind in the country. A similar endeavor planned in another city was stopped last month after a protest by locals, he added. Dozens of local hijra women donated time and money to build the Dakshin Char Kalibari Masjid for the Third Gender, which opened this month. It also has a graveyard, after a local Muslim cemetery last year refused to bury a young hijra woman inside its grounds. The mosque's imam, Abdul Motaleb, 65, said that the persecution of the hijra community was against the teachings of his faith. "They are like any other people created by Allah", the cleric told AFP. - 'No one can be denied' - "We all are human beings. Maybe some are men, some are women, but all are human. Allah revealed the Holy Koran for all, so everyone has the right to pray, no one can be denied." Motaleb said that other Bangladeshis could learn from the faith and strength of the hijra. "Since I have been here at this mosque, I have been impressed by their character and deeds," he said. The new mosque is already tackling prejudice. Local resident Tofazzal Hossain, 53, has offered Friday prayers there for a second week in a row. He said living and praying with the hijra community has changed his "misconceptions" about them. "When they started to live with us, many people said many things," he told AFP. "But we've realized what people say isn't right. They live righteously like other Muslims". Tonu hopes to expand the simple mosque to be big enough to cater for more people. "God willing, we will do it very soon," she told AFP. "Hundreds of people can offer prayers together." CONTINUE READING Show less