LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge was asked Monday to strike down several restrictions on the Arkansas initiative process in a lawsuit that accused the state of violating voters' constitutional rights.
The League of Women Voters of Arkansas filed the lawsuit challenging four new laws on the initiative process as well as existing restrictions that the group says pose significant hurdles for citizens trying to put proposals on the ballot.
“These laws interfere, restrict, hamper, and impair the freedom of the people in circulating and procuring petitions,” the group said in the lawsuit. “The laws do not facilitate the operation of the initiative and referendum process.”
Arkansas is among several Republican-led states where lawmakers have been pushing for restrictions on the ballot initiative process. The new laws in Arkansas being challenged include requirements that someone read the text of a ballot initiative and show photo identification before signing a petition.
The groups are also challenging existing restrictions, including a ban on paying canvassers per signature collected and a requirement that canvassers be residents of the state.
Attorney General Tim Griffin's office was reviewing the lawsuit and standing "ready to defend the state,” spokesperson Jeff LeMaster said. Secretary of State Cole Jester vowed to protect the measures, claiming the "petition system has been filled with fraud and bad actors for too long.
“These laws are basic, common-sense protections, and we look forward to fighting for them,” Jester said in a statement.
The lawsuit argues that the measures attempt to circumvent the protections for the initiative process that are enshrined in the state's constitution. The complaint also notes that voters rejected proposed restrictions on the process that went before them in the 2020 and 2022 elections.
The restrictions come after abortion rights supporters were unable to get a proposal on the ballot in Arkansas last year after election officials rejected petitions submitted in favor of them. The state Supreme Court upheld the decision.
The lawsuit's plaintiffs include Save AR Democracy, a group formed to try and propose a constitutional amendment that would add protections to the initiative process.
FILE - Boxes containing signatures supporting a proposed ballot measure to scale back Arkansas' abortion ban are delivered to a room in the state Capitol, on July 5, 2024, in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — The United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator urged Israel on Thursday to lift its blockade of aid into the Gaza Strip, saying the halting of humanitarian aid amounts to “cruel collective punishment.”
The U.N. said thousands of Palestinians had breached a humanitarian field office in Gaza late Wednesday looking for aid. They took medicine and damaged vehicles in the melee but caused no injuries to staff.
Israel has blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory since the end of a ceasefire in March, throwing Gaza into what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 19 months of war. Israel has said the blockade and its renewed military campaign are intended to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages it still holds and to disarm.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
As Israel continued its strikes on the Palestinian enclave, another 18 people were killed and dozens more were wounded, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
A United Nations aid group said its staff were safely evacuated after thousands of Palestinians breached its Gaza field office Wednesday evening and took medications. An official with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, called the looting “the direct result of unbearable and prolonged deprivation.”
”The looting, while devastating, is not surprising in the face of total systemic collapse. We are witnessing the consequences of a society brought to its knees by prolonged siege and violence,” said Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer at the agency.
The breach, which took place at an UNWRA training center and field office, also caused damage to agency trucks and buses, she said. No injuries were reported among the staff.
Israel’s war against Hamas has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, including more than 2,200 in the six weeks since Israel shattered the ceasefire on March 18. Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks which started the war.
The United Nations says that more than 3,000 aid trucks with lifesaving supplies are backed up at the border outside Gaza. UNRWA said Thursday that the Israeli blockade means their trucks can't reach the 1 million children whose lives are in danger without them.
The agency also said that about 660,000 Palestinian children are out of school because of the ongoing war. UNRWA said in an X post that “the crossings must reopen, and the siege must be lifted.”
Israel has been striking homes, shelters and public areas daily since ending a ceasefire in March. It also has cut off the territory’s 2 million Palestinians from all imports, including food and medicine, for nearly two months.
U.N. food stockpiles have run out and aid groups say thousands of Palestinian children are malnourished. Israel says its blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release hostages. However, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights warned this week that starving civilians as a military tactic constitutes a war crime.
Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said Thursday that while the hostages should be released and should never have been taken in the first place, international law mandates that Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip,” he said in a statement. “Blocking aid starves civilians. It leaves them without basic medical support. It strips them of dignity and hope. It inflicts a cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid kills.”
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, has described severe shortages of food, water and medicine in Gaza as medical services collapse and charity kitchens shut down because of a lack of supplies. Hospitals have reported that cases of malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women are rising sharply, and most newborns are now being born underweight.
Fletcher stressed that “the humanitarian movement is independent, impartial and neutral. We believe that all civilians are equally worthy of protection.”
He said that a recent proposal by Israeli authorities regarding ways to distribute aid “does not meet the minimum bar for principled humanitarian support.” Israel has proposed taking over aid distribution in Gaza or using private companies for the distribution.
The United Kingdom joined calls for aid to be allowed into Gaza.
“The healthcare system in Gaza is near collapse,” the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office posted on X. “Aid supplies must be allowed in, medical workers protected, and the sick and wounded allowed to temporarily leave Gaza for treatment.”
Israeli strikes in Gaza killed more than two dozen people from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday, bringing the overall death toll since the war started to more than 52,400 people, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. More than 2,300 of the deaths have occurred since the ceasefire collapsed on March 18, it said.
The ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and militant deaths, but says more than half the dead have been women and children. Israel says it has killed more than 20,000 militants, without providing details on those deaths.
On Thursday afternoon, the ministry said the bodies of 18 people and 77 wounded people had arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours.
Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.
Palestinians search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed at least five people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Islam Abu Sahloul mourns the death of her sister Lamia, 32, who was killed when an Israeli army strike hit a house killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A boy looks as Palestinians search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed at least five people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Islam Abu Sahloul mourns the death of her sister Lamia, 32, who was killed when an Israeli army strike hit a house killing at least five people, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A wounded man and a child are taken into the Nasser hospital after an Israeli army strike hit a house killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian children search for belongings in a house damaged by an Israeli army strike that killed at least five people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed at least five people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Relatives mourn over the body of Osama Abu Sahloul, who was killed when an Israeli army strike hit a house in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A wounded man sits inside an ambulance at the Nasser hospital after an Israeli army strike hit a house killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian women look as residents search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A child and a woman look as Palestinians search the rubble of a house targeted by an Israeli army strike that killed killing at least five members of the Abu Sahloul family in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Islam Abu Sahloul, center, mourns the death of her sister Lamia, 32, who was killed when an Israeli army strike hit a house killing at least five people, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
