1 in 5 voters ready to use mail-in ballots. Is the Postal Service prepared?

Roughly a fifth of voters are expected to vote by mail in the 2024 election, according to recent polls, meaning millions of ballots will be in the hands of postal workers.

Is the U.S. Postal Service prepared to process and deliver that kind of volume in a timely manner? In short, yes, according to officials and election experts.

But they stressed that voters — particularly those living in specific areas — should take certain common sense steps to ensure their ballots are counted.

“The U.S. Postal Service is committed to the secure, timely delivery of the nation’s election mail,” Debra Fetterly, a USPS spokesperson, told McClatchy News. “We are employing robust and proven processes to ensure proper handling and delivery of all election mail, including ballots.”

—McClatchy Washington Bureau

'This is not a speech ban': UM board adopts neutrality policy to rein in leaders' stances

The University of Michigan Board of Regents has joined a growing list of universities that that are not allowing public officials to take a stance on political or social issues unless they are related to the internal governance of the university.

The Board of Regents on Thursday voted unanimously to adopt an institutional neutrality bylaw, which is controversial among critics while supporters say it will make the campus more welcoming to students, faculty and staff with a wider range of political and social viewpoints that don't match the stances taken by public officials in the past. One opponent said it creates "unnecessary free speech and academic freedom issues."

All of the regents disagreed, adopting the bylaw after a six-month study by UM representatives from the three campuses that included 32 faculty members, several staff, two students and over 4,000 comments from the UM community and the public. A town hall meeting also was convened earlier this week by the university Faculty Senate.

"This institution should start discussions about the consequential issues of our time, not end them," said board Vice Chair Mark Bernstein, who was among the regents who pushed the university to examine the issue.

—The Detroit News

Cannabis on the mind: UTD study finds connection between sleep, memory and marijuana use

DALLAS — As public support for marijuana decriminalization grows in North Texas, new research is shedding light on the drug’s impact on sleep and memory.

In a recent study published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas found that adults with cannabis use disorder tended to experience poorer sleep than those without the condition. They also performed more poorly on tests assessing visuospatial memory, or the ability to retain and process information about an object’s appearance and location.

“What this paper does is provide a bridge between the two things” — sleep and memory — “and helps establish that perhaps some of the memory impairment associated with cannabis use is indeed due to poor sleep quality,” said Christopher Verrico, an associate professor of psychiatry research at Baylor College of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

The study also underscores the many unknowns surrounding marijuana’s impact on the human body and the need to be cautious when using it, said Ashley Garling, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy who was not involved in the study.

—The Dallas Morning News

Ukraine, South Korea warn of Pyongyang troops aiding Russia

South Korea and Ukraine warned that North Korea is preparing to send a sizable number of troops to help Russia’s war on Ukraine in a sign of deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in Brussels on Thursday that Pyongyang is preparing to send 10,000 troops even as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said there was no evidence North Korean soldiers are involved in the fight.

President Yoon Suk Yeol convened an emergency security meeting Friday to discuss the latest development, with a statement from his office calling it “serious security threat” to South Korea and the international community.

The meeting “shared information on the recent movement of North Korean troops into Russia and their support for the war,” the president’s office said. It didn’t specify how many personnel were sent or what their roles were.

—Bloomberg News