200K Va. felons can vote in Nov.

200K Va. felons can vote in Nov.

RICHMOND, Va.

More than 200,000 convicted felons will be able to cast ballots in the swing state of Virginia in November under a sweeping executive order Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Friday.

The Democrat said restoring the rights of felons to vote and run for office will help undo the state’s long history of trying to prevent African-Americans from fully participating in our democracy.

Republicans called the order a bald-faced political move by McAuliffe – a close friend of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton – to help his party hold onto the White House.

175 nations sign climate agreement

UNITED NATIONS

The historic agreement on climate change marked a major milestone Friday with a record 175 countries signing on to it on opening day. But world leaders made clear more action is needed, and quickly, to fight a relentless rise in global temperatures.

With the planet heating up to record levels, sea levels rising and glaciers melting, the pressure to have the Paris Agreement enter into force and to have every country turn its words into deeds was palpable at the U.N. signing ceremony.

“The world is in a race against time,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his opening speech. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.”

Ex-reps send letters to support Hastert

CHICAGO

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, several other former congressmen and a onetime CIA chief were among 41 people who wrote letters asking for leniency for Dennis Hastert as the former U.S. House speaker heads to sentencing next week in his hush-money case.

The names of people who wrote to support Hastert, 74, were made public Friday in a defense filing in federal court in Chicago that included copies of the letters. Hastert will be sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty last year to breaking banking laws as the Illinois Republican sought to pay $3.5 million to someone referred to in filings only as “Individual A” to ensure that person didn’t divulge past misconduct by Hastert.

Airstrikes in Syria

BEIRUT

At least 18 people were killed Friday when airstrikes hit several rebel-held neighborhoods in Syria’s contested northern city of Aleppo, anti-government activists said, an escalation that placed added strain on a fragile cease-fire.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and former commercial center, has seen sporadic clashes since the cease-fire took effect in late February, as government troops have advanced, boxing in opposition-held areas from all sides except for a corridor from the northwestern edge of the city.

Cuba relents on historic cruises

MIAMI

Cuba has loosened a policy banning Cuban-born people from arriving by sea, allowing Carnival Corp. to go forward with the first U.S. cruise to the island in a half-century, the Cuban government and the Miami-based cruise line announced Friday.

The company at first barred Cuban-born Americans from buying tickets for the planned May 1 cruise to comply with Cuba’s ban, drawing complaints from the Cuban-American community in Miami and a discrimination lawsuit. Then, the company said it would sell tickets to Cuban-Americans but hold the cruise only if Cuba relented and changed its policy.

Associated Press