Arizona Senate liaison to ballot audit raises transparency concerns, threatens to quit
CBSN
Ken Bennett, the former Arizona GOP secretary of state serving as the Arizona Senate Republicans' liaison to an ongoing audit of ballots, raised concerns about the audit contractors' lack of transparency in two radio interviews on Monday.
Bennett has been one of the public faces of the Arizona Senate GOP's audit of Maricopa County's election since it began in April, but he suggested on Monday that he might quit. Bennett's comments came after he said he was blocked from entering the audit on Friday. "I cannot be a part of a process that I am kept out of critical aspects along the way that make the audit legitimate and have integrity when we produce the final report," Bennett told conservative talk show host James Harris. "And unfortunately, there have been too many of those situations. And the tip of the iceberg kind of came out last Friday when I was denied access to the audit."President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were honored at a state dinner in Paris at the Presidential Elysee Palace on Saturday, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and first lady Brigitte Macron marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day two days prior and the strength of the countries' long alliance.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.