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California voted overwhelmingly to redraw its electoral districts Tuesday, in a poll Democrats called to counter efforts by US President Donald Trump to gerrymander in Republican states.Early results showed a large majority in the traditionally liberal state voted in favor of a motion that was widely promoted as an opportunity to “stick it to Trump.”Voters approved of Proposition 50 by a margin of two-to-one, early official results showed, with major media outlets projecting it would retain a significant majority when the final tally is counted.The result is a big win for Governor Gavin Newsom, who is increasingly staking his claim to leadership of the Democratic Party on his willingness to stand up to Trump.”We’re proud of the work that the people of the state of California did tonight to send a powerful message to… the most historically unpopular president in modern history,” Newsom said as the results came in.Newsom and his allies asked voters to approve a temporary re-drawing of electoral districts that could give the Democratic Party five more seats in the scramble for control of the US Congress in next year’s midterm elections.Republicans complained it was a power grab that would disenfranchise the party’s voters in California.Democrats said they were simply trying to level the playing field after Texas Republicans pushed through their own redistricting — under White House pressure — to help maintain a narrow Congressional majority that has so far given Trump carte blanche.”Donald Trump is under water. He promised to make us healthier. He promised to make us wealthier. We’re sicker and poorer, and he understands that,” Newsom said.”Why else is he trying to rig the midterm elections before one single vote is even cast?”- ‘RIGGED’ -TV commercials for the “Yes” campaign gleefully imagined an irate Trump watching the results on television as he rambled incoherently and threw French fries at the screen.The president — whose enmity towards California has been a recurring theme in his decade in national politics — was clearly annoyed by the ballot initiative.”The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote on social media Tuesday, without offering any evidence.US electoral districts are traditionally drawn following the national census taken every 10 years, theoretically so the electoral map reflects the people who live there.In reality, most boundaries are party political decisions, so whichever grouping is in power at the time gets to set the rules for the next decade’s contests.California did away with such partisan gerrymandering under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving the power instead to an independent panel — one of a small number of states to do so.If Tuesday’s results are confirmed, politically drawn boundaries will take effect for all elections until the next census, when the panel will once again determine the maps.The vote is “a political ink-blot test,” Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barbarak wrote Monday.”A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.”What many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.”People at the polls in Los Angeles on Tuesday said the vote was about fighting back against Republican shenanigans elsewhere in the country.”I’ll take anything we can get, anything we can get. We got to sometimes use the methods they’re using, whatever will get us moving forward,” Casey Mason told AFP.Makela Yepez said he was not particularly pleased that the state’s independent boundary commission was taking a temporary back seat, but felt the ends justified the means.”I think we’re using the tools that are at our disposal, and I think we have to have faith that it’s going to work,” he said.

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether a wide swath of Donald Trump’s tariffs are lawful, in a landmark case that could uphold — or upend — the president’s economic agenda.Billions of dollars in customs revenue and a key lever in Trump’s trade wars are at stake, while the conservative-dominated court once again grapples with novel tests of presidential authority.Trump has hyped the case as “one of the most important” in US history and warned of calamity if his tariffs are overturned.This “case is, literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country,” he posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform.The high court’s nine justices will consider Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every US trade partner, as well as levies targeting Mexico, Canada and China over their alleged roles in illicit drug flows.Opponents argue that such broad tariffs are not permitted by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the law cited by Trump in issuing the levies.The court’s decision, which could take months to arrive, does not concern sector-specific tariffs Trump imposed, including on steel, aluminum and automobiles.Since returning to the White House, Trump has brought the overall average effective tariff rate to its highest since the 1930s.A lower court ruled in May that Trump exceeded his authority in imposing his global duties, a decision affirmed on appeal, prompting Trump to take the fight to the Supreme Court.”If a President was not able to quickly and nimbly use the power of Tariffs, we would be defenseless, leading perhaps even to the ruination of our Nation,” Trump argued Sunday on Truth Social.- ‘Ringside seat’ -The president floated the provocative idea of attending Wednesday’s hearing himself but ultimately decided against it, saying he did “not want to distract” from the decision’s importance.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent however told Fox News he plans to “have a ringside seat.”Asked if his presence could be seen as an intimidation attempt, Bessent said: “They can say what they want. I am there to emphasize that this is an economic emergency.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that the administration was fully confident in its legal arguments, but was nonetheless “always preparing for Plan B.”Trump’s administration argues that under the IEEPA, the president can “regulate” trade by unilaterally setting import tax rates at any level.But challengers note the words “tariff” or “tax” do not appear in the statute, and that the US Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to establish levies.Businesses, lawmakers and former US officials have filed around 40 legal briefs against the president’s global tariffs, while only a few briefs supported his actions.- The arguments -Although Trump’s tariffs have not sparked widespread inflation, companies and particularly small firms say they bear the brunt of higher import costs.The group of small businesses and states challenging Trump’s tariffs argue that even as the IEEPA allows the president to “regulate” imports in an emergency, it does not confer him power “to tax every corner of the economy that is subject to regulation.”Persistent US trade deficits, which Trump cited to launch his “reciprocal” tariffs, also do not meet the IEEPA’s requirement of an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” the opponents argued.Trump’s lawyers have countered that even longstanding issues can reach a “tipping point” necessitating an emergency declaration.Lawyers note that if the top court finds Trump’s global tariffs illegal, the government can tap other laws to impose up to 15 percent tariffs for 150 days, while pursuing investigations for more lasting duties.Countries that have already struck tariff deals with Trump may therefore prefer not to reopen negotiations.

Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York mayor caps an extraordinary rise for the leftist local lawmaker who emerged from relative obscurity to lead a supercharged campaign for the US megacity’s top job.Since his surprise victory in the Democratic Party primary in June, New Yorkers have become used to seeing his bearded, smiling face on television — and on badges proudly worn by his supporters. The 34-year-old election winner was born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin and has lived in the United States since he was seven, becoming a naturalized US citizen in 2018. He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding,” “Mississippi Masala”) and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor and respected Africa expert — leading some of his detractors to call him a “nepo baby.” He followed a path paved by other youngsters from elite liberal families, attending the elite Bronx High School of Science followed by Bowdoin College in Maine, a university seen as a bastion of progressive thought.Under the alias “Young Cardamom,” he ventured into the world of rap in 2015, influenced by hip-hop group “Das Racist,” which had two members of Indian origin who played with references and tropes from the subcontinent.Mamdani’s attempt to break into the competitive world of professional music did not last, with the performer-turned-politician calling himself a second-rate artist. He took an interest into politics when he learned that rapper Himanshu Suri, who performed under the alias Heems, was supporting a candidate for city council — and joined that campaign as an activist.Mamdani went on to become a foreclosure prevention counselor, helping financially struggling homeowners avoid losing their homes. He was elected in 2018 as a lawmaker from Queens, a melting pot of predominantly poor and migrant communities, representing the area in the New York State Assembly. – ‘Disaffected voters’ -The self-proclaimed socialist, who has been re-elected three times, forged an image that has become his trademark — a progressive Muslim just as comfortable at a Pride march as he is at an Eid banquet.He put the goal of making the city affordable for everyone who are not wealthy, the majority of its approximately 8.5 million residents, at the heart of his campaign. He has promised more rent control, free day care and buses, and city-run neighborhood grocery stores. Mamdani is also a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause, although his positions on Israel — which he has called an “apartheid regime” while branding the war in Gaza a “genocide” — have drawn the ire of some in the Jewish community. In recent months he has made a point of vocally denouncing antisemitism — as well as the Islamophobia he has suffered. Playing the race card, President Donald Trump, who calls Mamdani a “little communist,” denounced him as a “a proven and self professed JEW HATER” Tuesday as New Yorkers were heading to the polls. Mamdani is something of an establishment “outsider,” according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University. “He has managed to galvanize support from disaffected voters and others in New York City who are dissatisfied with the status quo and with an establishment that they perceive to be overlooking their needs and policy preferences,” he said.Mamdani, a keen soccer and cricket fan, recently married US illustrator Rama Duwaji, and put his experience of activism to work in a strategically coordinated canvassing and leaflet campaign that he has paired with an extensive and often humorous use of social media. “He really is a kind of an hybrid of a great 1970s campaign and a great 2025 campaign,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a Columbia University professor.

Moderate Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to comfortable victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ elections on Tuesday, on an election night seen as a referendum on Donald Trump’s second presidential term.Pitting centrist Democrats against Trump-aligned Republicans, both elections were seen as signaling whether middle-of-the-road voters had made peace with the president’s radical cost-slashing agenda — or plan to give his party a bloody nose in 2026.Trump has driven a steamroller through the federal bureaucracy since returning to office in January, shuttering entire agencies and cutting an estimated 200,000 jobs even before the government shutdown.Spanberger’s win in Virginia — which is second only to California in the size of its federal workforce — was no surprise, as polls had shown her holding a steady lead of seven to 12 points throughout the campaign.The former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman was projected to beat Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Marine veteran and staunch Trump ally, by a comfortable margin that makes her Virginia’s first-ever female governor. “You all chose leadership that will focus relentlessly on what matters most — lowering costs, keeping our communities safe and strengthening our economy for every Virginian,” Spanberger said in her victory speech.- Pledge to stand against Trump -Casting herself as a bulwark against Trump’s aggressive federal downsizing, Spanberger vowed to be “a governor who will stand up” for the thousands of federal workers laid off by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.Earle-Sears ran a campaign aimed at firing up conservatives, mirroring the playbook of outgoing, term-limited Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin to focus on culture war issues such as transgender athletes and abortion.In New Jersey, Democratic former Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill was also seen as the favorite, although she was locked in a closer battle with Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli.The race became increasingly tight in the home stretch, with some polling showing it as a margin-of-error tussle that could go either way.But Trump’s decision to freeze funding for the Hudson Tunnel project — a vital link between New Jersey and New York — was seen as an important boost for Sherrill, who had built up a double-digit lead by the time her race was called. On a pivotal day in US democracy, with elections at various levels of government taking place across the country, Pennsylvanians were picking new state supreme court justices while California was delivering its verdict on redistricting measure Proposition 50.California Governor Gavin Newsom spearheaded the plan to redraw congressional districts in response to Trump pressuring Texas into a rare and contentious mid-decade redistricting.The Texas move, aimed at yielding five more Republican seats in the closely divided US Congress, would likely be canceled out by approval for Proposition 50 in left-leaning California. 

Opening arguments will begin in Chicago on Wednesday in the first civil trial against US aviation giant Boeing over the 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX aircraft, which killed 157 people, after a full day of jury selection.  Five women and three men will serve on the jury in the proceedings, which got underway Monday at a federal court. The jury will rule on the suits filed by family members of 155 victims between April 2019 and March 2021, alleging wrongful death and negligence, among other claims.On four prior occasions, attorneys reached last-minute settlements that averted a trial, and an out-of-court settlement remains possible even during the trial. Each side will have 90 minutes on Wednesday to present its case. Judge Jorge Alonso, who is overseeing all civil claims tied to the accident, allowed lawyers on Tuesday to participate in the process, Robert Clifford, lead counsel for one of the plaintiffs, told AFP. “I think his goal was to get as unbiased a jury as he could obtain,” he said. “Even if he asked a lot more questions than maybe would be normal… it wouldn’t have surprised me that a case as complex as this could easily have taken two days to select a jury.”- ‘Battle lines are drawn’ -Lawyers for Boeing and the families of victims of the fatal crash were originally expecting to give opening statements on Tuesday, but those were pushed to the next day because it took six hours to finish jury selection.As many as 50 potential jurors packed the courtroom on the 19th floor of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Tuesday, while the public filled the pews on the other side.With the jury selected, it is less likely that the two parties will settle the case, Clifford said, adding that the plaintiffs have not talked with the defendants about settling.”The battle lines are drawn and there’s no active negotiations going on,” the lawyer said.The eight-person jury that was picked will be hearing the case concerning the March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight that went down six minutes after departing Addis Ababa for Nairobi, killing all on board.The two principal plaintiffs in the trial are the families of Shikha Garg of New Delhi and Mercy Ndivo of Kenya.Garg had been a consultant for the United Nations Development Program who had been traveling to Nairobi for a UN Environment Assembly.She had gotten married three months earlier and had planned to travel with her husband, who canceled his flight at the last minute because of a professional meeting. Garg had attended the landmark 2015 UN climate talks in Paris.Ndivo and her husband, who also died in the crash, were parents of a girl who is now almost eight years old. She was returning from London, having attended a graduation ceremony after earning a Masters in Accountancy.Boeing has said it is “deeply sorry” for the Ethiopian Airlines crash and for a separate MAX crash on Lion Air that killed 189 people on a domestic flight in Indonesia in 2018.The American manufacturer has also stressed its commitment to settling cases when possible.The firm has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS… contributed to these events,” a Boeing lawyer said last October.The MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) flight stabilizing software was implicated in both the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes.Boeing also faced dozens of complaints from Lion Air family victims. Just one case remains open.

First pressuring South Africa, and now threatening Nigeria, President Donald Trump is letting US domestic politics steer his policy on Africa — boding ill for foreign governments hit with his fury.Trump last week said he would put Nigeria on a blacklist on religious freedom over treatment of Christians — a long-running demand of evangelicals who are one of his most loyal bases — but took a stunning turn by also threatening military action against Africa’s most populous nation.Trump’s sudden intervention comes despite otherwise showing limited interest in sub-Saharan Africa, which in his first term he was the first president in recent times not to visit.Trump has highlighted US diplomacy in securing a fragile peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but largely in the context of boasting that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize and of the United States securing mineral wealth.Nigeria has witnessed years of deadly clashes between mostly Christian farmers and Fulani Muslim herders.The violence centers on clashes over dwindling resources, although on the surface it falls along ethnic and religious lines.”It is incredibly irresponsible of President Trump to threaten military action,” said Representatives Gregory Meeks and Sara Jacobs, the top Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Africa subcommittee respectively.”Providing security support is one thing; threatening military intervention to ‘defend Christians’ is a reckless response to distorted facts which risks embroiling the United States in another war,” they said in a joint statement.Republicans who champion the evangelical movement applauded Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” on religious freedom, which can carry sanctions, although they steered clear of cheering on military intervention.The blacklisting is a “critical step in holding accountable and changing the behavior of Nigerian officials who have facilitated and created an environment conducive to the outrages in Nigeria,” Senator Ted Cruz said.- Evangelical narrative as ‘Gospel’ -Pauline Bax, an Africa expert at the International Crisis Group, which supports conflict resolution, said that pressure groups had been key in channeling information on Africa to the Trump administration, which has sidelined traditional diplomats.”In the US, there’s a surge of what you could call Christian nationalism, partly fueled by the Trump administration. So I think conflict in Africa risks being sometimes framed in that light,” she said.Cameron Hunter, a former Africa director on the National Security Council, said that Trump’s base has invested in the narrative of Christians as persecuted, both at home and abroad.”They’re applying a kind of parochial worldview to, in this case, Nigeria. But it could be Iraq tomorrow, or the Philippines, or any other country. It just so happens that they spun the wheel and it landed on Nigeria,” he said.”The problem is that this presidency isn’t questioning the analysis of the Christian Right. They’re literally taking their assessment of this conflict for Gospel.”Following South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu requested a meeting with Trump to clear the air.The White House visit went disastrously for Ramaphosa, who was played footage by Trump who alleged a “genocide” against the white minority by the post-apartheid government, a narrative promoted online by white nationalists.Hudson said meeting Trump would be the “absolute wrong move” for Tinubu, seeing that the US leader has shown he is not willing to accept explanations from others.Instead, Hudson said Nigeria could leverage Trump’s anger by asking for more security assistance to help fight Boko Haram militants.The United States is inching toward sending attack helicopters approved for Nigeria in 2022. The Trump administration in August approved another $346 million arms sale to Nigeria.Nigeria has “a very real interest in combating Boko Haram and extremist threats in the country,” Hudson said.”If the Nigerians were smart, they would look for ways to use these threats and turn them into a cooperative arrangement that actually helps them.”

At least three people died and 11 more were injured after a UPS cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday from Louisville International Airport in Kentucky, exploding into flames as it crashed into businesses adjacent to the airport, sending a massive plume of black smoke over the area. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 departing for Hawaii crashed at around 5:15 p.m. local time (2215 GMT). Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear told a press briefing that he expected the number of dead and injured was going to rise, with the current toll including only those on the ground that were currently accounted for.UPS said in a statement that three crew members were on board the aircraft, adding that “we have not confirmed any injuries/casualties.”Beshear said the status of the three crew members was unknown and said that he was “very concerned” for them.The cause of the crash was under investigation by the FAA and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Video shared by local broadcaster WLKY appears to show the aircraft’s left engine on fire as it tried to lift off.Louisville serves as the main US air hub for UPS, according to a company fact sheet. The package delivery giant travels to more than 200 countries via nearly 2,000 flights per day, with a fleet of 516 aircraft. UPS owns 294 of those planes and hires the rest through short-term leases or charters. Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters blasted water on the flames, with smoke billowing from the disaster area.Governor Beshear said the aircraft hit a petroleum recycling facility “pretty directly.”- Government shutdown -The crash comes amid one of the longest government shutdowns in US history, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning of “mass chaos” earlier Tuesday due to a lack of air traffic control staff. “You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers,” Duffy told reporters.In a statement on X, Duffy called footage of the crash “heartbreaking,” adding: “Please join me in prayer for the Louisville community and flight crew impacted by this horrific crash.”In January, an American Eagle airliner hit a military Black Hawk outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan airport, killing 67 people.That crash, which ended the United States’ 16-year streak of no fatal commercial air crashes, has added to concerns about the US air traffic control system, which some regard as an understaffed operation beset by problems with old equipment.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger will be the first woman to run the US state of Virginia after winning back the governor’s mansion from Republicans Tuesday, US media projected — in voters’ first verdict on Donald Trump’s return to office.  While the high-profile mayoral contest in New York City grabbed the headlines, the race in Virginia — alongside a gubernatorial election in New Jersey — was seen as offering a sharper critique of Trump 2.0 and a clearer preview of how next year’s midterm elections might play out.Pitting centrist Democrats against Trump-aligned Republicans, both elections were seen as signaling whether middle-of-the-road voters had made peace with the president’s radical cost-slashing agenda — or plan to give his party a bloody nose in 2026.Trump has driven a steamroller through the federal bureaucracy since returning to office in January, shuttering entire agencies and cutting an estimated 200,000 jobs even before the government shutdown.The result in Virginia — which is second only to California in the size of its federal workforce — was no surprise, as polls had shown Spanberger holding a steady lead of seven to 12 points throughout the campaign.The former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman was projected to beat Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Marine veteran and staunch Trump ally, by a comfortable margin that even threatened to end in double digits. “All year, Virginians have seen our economy come under attack, jobs get ripped away, and prices skyrocket,” Spanberger posted on social media before the polls closed.”They’re tired of the chaos. They’re ready for a Governor who will be laser-focused on growing our economy and lowering costs — a Governor who will put them first.”- Tighter race -Casting herself as a bulwark against Trump’s aggressive federal downsizing, Spanberger vowed to be “a governor who will stand up” for the thousands of federal workers laid off by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.Earle-Sears ran a campaign aimed at firing up conservatives, mirroring the playbook of outgoing, term-limited Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin to focus on culture war issues such as transgender athletes and abortion.In another first, Ghazala Hashmi was projected to beat Republican talk show host John Reid in the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race, becoming the first Muslim woman to win a statewide race in US history. In New Jersey — which was due to be called later Tuesday — Democratic former Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill was also seen as the favorite, but locked in a tighter battle with Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli. Trump’s decision to freeze funding for the Hudson Tunnel project — a vital link between New Jersey and New York — was seen as a boost for Sherrill, who has vowed to “fight this tooth and nail.” On a pivotal day in US democracy, with elections at various levels of government taking place across the country, Pennsylvanians were picking new state supreme court justices while California was delivering its verdict on redistricting measure Proposition 50.California Governor Gavin Newsom spearheaded the plan to redraw congressional districts in response to Trump pressuring Texas into a rare and contentious mid-decade redistricting.The Texas move, aimed at yielding five more Republican seats in the closely divided US Congress, would likely be canceled out by approval for Proposition 50 in left-leaning California. 

Californians were voting Tuesday in a ballot measure likely to further tilt the liberal state towards the Democrats, as the party seeks to neutralize gerrymandering ordered by President Donald Trump.Governor Gavin Newsom and his allies want voters to approve a temporary re-drawing of electoral districts that could give the Democratic Party five more seats in the scramble for control of the US Congress in next year’s midterm elections.They say they are only doing it to level the playing field after Texas Republicans pushed through their own redistricting — under White House pressure — to help maintain a narrow Congressional majority that has so far given Trump carte blanche.Republicans say it is a naked power grab that will disenfranchise the party’s voters in California, a state where they are heavily outnumbered by Democrats.Unsurprisingly in today’s America, one figure looms over the proceedings, with a finger perpetually hovering over the caps lock.”The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote on his social media site on Tuesday.That prompted a now-customary zinger from Newsom, who is staking his claim to Democratic leadership — and a likely White House shot — on standing up to Trump.”The ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE,” the governor wrote.- Gerrymandering -Electoral districts across the US are traditionally drawn following the national census taken every ten years, theoretically so the electoral map reflects the people who live there.In reality, most boundaries are party political decisions, so whichever grouping is in power at the time gets to set the rules for the next decade’s contests.California did away with such partisan gerrymandering under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving the power instead to an independent panel. But if “Proposition 50” passes on Tuesday, politically drawn boundaries will take effect for all elections until the next census, when the panel will once again determine the maps.The vote is “a political ink-blot test,” Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barbarak wrote Monday.”A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.”What many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.”People at the polls in Los Angeles on Tuesday said the vote was about fighting back against Republican shenanigans elsewhere in the country.”I’ll take anything we can get, anything we can get. We got to sometimes use the methods they’re using, whatever will get us moving forward,” Casey Mason told AFP.Makela Yepez said he wasn’t particularly pleased that the state’s independent boundary commission was taking a temporary back seat, but felt the ends justified the means.”I think we’re using the tools that are at our disposal, and I think we have to have faith that it’s going to work,” he said.

A new lawsuit alleges streaming giant Spotify turns a blind eye to vast networks of bots that inflate streaming figures to benefit megastars such as Drake at the expense of lesser-known artists.The legal action, filed in a US federal court on Sunday, claims the Canadian rapper gets millions of dollars in revenue from such fake streams, while Spotify garners significant commercial value from appearing to have more users than it really does.”This mass-scale fraudulent streaming causes massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers and other rightsholders,” says the lawsuit, filed by rapper RBX — Snoop Dogg’s cousin.Spotify uses a pro-rata model to pay artists from a central pot of income derived from subscriptions and advertising.Inflated streaming figures for high-profile performers would therefore diminish the proportion of money available for other artists.”Data analysis shows that billions of fraudulent streams have been generated with respect to songs of ‘the most streamed artist of all time,’…professionally known as Drake,” the suit says.”But while the streaming fraud with respect to Drake’s songs may be one example, it does not stand alone.”The class action suit — in which Drake is not named as a defendant and which does not allege any wrongdoing on the part of the “One Dance” hitmaker — is “brought on behalf of Plaintiff and a similarly situated class of music recording artists, song writers, performers, and other music rights holders.””Plaintiff gives a voice to more than one hundred thousand rightsholders who, among other things, may be unable or too afraid to challenge Spotify, a powerful force in the music business whose failure to act has caused significant problems and great financial harm.”Spotify is the only defendant named in the suit, which focuses on the company’s alleged unwillingness to clamp down on fraud.”To satisfy constant pressure from shareholders to grow the business and increase stock prices, Spotify needs an ever-expanding population of users to engage on its platform,” the suit says.”The more users (including fake users) Spotify has, the more advertisements it can sell, the more profits the company can report, all of which serves to increase the purported value delivered to shareholders.”The suspicion of streaming fraud has beset services like Spotify since they displaced downloads as the main way music is consumed.A company spokesperson told AFP that they were unable to comment on pending litigation, but denied Spotify benefited from such fraud.”We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties,” the spokesperson said.The lawsuit is not the first legal action on streaming fraud.Last year Drake accused record label Universal Music of conspiring to inflate streaming figures for a diss track by rival Kendrick Lamar.That case — part of a high-profile beef between the two men — was dismissed in October. Drake is appealing the decision.