Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Texas election officials said Thursday night they were auditing the 2020 results in four large counties hours after former U.S. President Donald Trump, continuing to falsely claim the election was stolen, pressed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for a ballot review.
Trump won Texas last year by 5.5 percentage points, the closest margin of victory by a GOP presidential nominee in decades.
The Texas Secretary of State's Office did not say what prompted the announcement in an evening news release. Earlier this year, Keith Ingram, the office's elections administrator, said the 2020 elections in Texas were "safe and secure."
The audited counties will include the major Democratic strongholds around Houston and Dallas, as well as Tarrant County, which for years has been the largest GOP-controlled county in Texas but went for President Joe Biden last year.
"Under existing Texas laws, the Secretary of State has the authority to conduct a full and comprehensive forensic audit of any election and has already begun the process in Texas' two largest Democrat counties and two largest Republican counties," the statement read.
It went on to say the office expects the Legislature to provide funding for the audit. It was not clear who would conduct the review, and a spokesman for the office did not return a message late Thursday.
The Secretary of State is appointed by the governor in Texas but has remained vacant since Ruth Ruggero Hughs stepped down in May. An Abbott spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the announcement late Thursday.
Trump called on Abbott to conduct an audit of the Texas election in a statement earlier Thursday, saying "your citizens don't trust the election system." Trump has falsely claimed that voting fraud and irregularities cost him electoral votes in Arizona, where on Friday his supporters hired to review the 2020 vote count are expected to deliver their findings.
The other county in the Texas review is booming Collin County, in suburban Dallas, which went for Trump last year.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat and the county's top elected official, swiftly criticized the move. "Donald Trump ordered Gov. Abbott to audit the 2020 Texas election and, like clockwork, TX just initiated an audit of Harris County voters. Democracy isn't a game," she tweeted.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.