RUSSIAN and Iranian groups are accused of trying to interfere in the 2024 presidential election (Flickr/Don Henkins).

Two groups connected to efforts by Russia and Iran to influence the 2024 elections have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

According to the Associated Press, the groups are accused of seeking to spark divisions in the voting public by using fake videos, news stories and posts on social media platforms.

In addition to creating fake websites intended to look like authentic news organizations and in some cases they paid U.S. companies to disseminate the false information.

The Iranian—based group reportedly worked to encourage protests in the U.S. over Israel’s conflict with Hamas and hacked into the personal accounts of Donald Trump’s election campaign staff.

The Russia-backed organization sought to persuade voters to choose Trump, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested cutting assistance to Ukraine.

Roberts on “judicial independence”

In his year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts warned about the status of the U.S. national court system.

UNITED STATES Supreme Court building (Flickr/Geoff Livingston).

The New York Times reports that Robert wrote, “Violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable.”

He noted that violence is increasingly aimed at judges for their actions in court and that there has been a rise in the number of judges or their relatives killed because of rulings issued from the bench.

Roberts also criticized proposals to expand the high court or place age or term limits on the service of Supreme Court justices and warned against the effects of elected officials defying court rulings.

Puerto Rico without electric power

ELECTRIC POWER is out for most of Puerto Rico (Flicker/Tom Taker).

An estimated 80 percent of the population of Puerto Rico is without electrical power in the face of an outage Monday and continuing into Tuesday.

United Press International is reporting that energy officials say that it may take 48 hours or more to restore electricity on the island.

Unlike previous blackouts, this loss of power doesn’t stem from the effects of hurricane weather. One theory is there was a failure in an underground power line leading to a “cascade” of failures at other power plants.

Islanders are seeking to cope with the outage with the use of generators.

Weather: Warmer and then cooler

If you like variety, you’ll be getting it this week in our West Orange County cities. Wednesday will be cooler with a daytime high of 65 and an overnight low of 48 under partly cloudy skies. Thursday will warm to 71 (49) with sunny skies, followed by a dive to 64 (50) on Friday with clouds. Saturday will be cooler still at 62 (48).

Great Thoughts

“American will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
– Abraham Lincoln