Government moves migrant kids after AP exposes bad treatment
The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
Just 30 children remained at the station outside El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection.
Most of the infants, toddlers and teens who were held at the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, would be moved to shelters and other facilities run by a separate federal agency by Tuesday, the Office of Refugee Resettlement said Monday.
Attorneys who visited Clint last week said older children were trying to take care of infants and toddlers, The Associated Press first reported Thursday. They described a 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine.
“How is it possible that you both were unaware of the inhumane conditions for children, especially tender-age children at the Clint Station?” asked Escobar in a letter sent Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost.
Trump the unreliable partner confounds both foes and allies
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision against military strikes may have prevented open military conflict with Iran, but it also showed him anew to be an unpredictable, unreliable, partner at home and abroad.
Trump won his job partly on his claims to be a great dealmaker. But the celebrity businessman-turned-president’s negotiating style — repeatedly pushing toward a brink only to pull back at the moment of action — leaves the U.S. lurching from crisis to crisis. On trade tariffs, immigration raids and now the standoff with Iran, his course reversals confound allies as well as adversaries, and his own party in Congress.
As fallout from Trump’s actions reverberated around the globe on Monday, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to the Middle East in search of a coalition of allies against Iran, the president offered a fresh round of equivocation, defending his decision not to attack Iran even while issuing new threats.
“I think a lot of restraint has been shown by us. A lot of restraint. And that doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future, but I felt that we want to give him this chance,” Trump said.
“We would love to be able to negotiate a deal if they want to. If they don’t want to that’s fine too.”
Special prosecutor requested in South Bend police shooting
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A special prosecutor was requested Monday to investigate the fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer in a case that has inflamed tensions between the black community and law enforcement and roiled the Democratic presidential campaign of Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Kenneth Cotter filed a petition asking a judge to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the June 16 shooting of 54-year-old Eric Logan by South Bend police Sgt. Ryan O’Neill. It comes a day after Buttigieg said he would write the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and notify Cotter that he’d like an independent investigator appointed.
Cotter’s petition also revealed that O’Neill had been accused of making “inappropriate racial remarks” as a patrol officer 11 years ago. The South Bend Fraternal Order of Police, which represents local officers including O’Neill, issued a statement Monday saying that it supports O’Neill and accusing Buttigieg of “driving a wedge between law enforcement officers and the community they took an oath to serve.”
Buttigieg, who has surged from obscurity to become a top-tier 2020 presidential candidate, left the campaign trail for several days to deal with fallout from the June 16 shooting. He faced criticism Sunday from angry residents of South Bend at an emotional town hall meeting, where some community members questioned whether he had done enough to reform the police department in his two terms as mayor. Buttigieg created controversy during his first term when he fired the city’s black police chief.
The mayor praised the prosecutor’s decision to request an independent investigator.
4 border deaths in Texas could be a preview of the summer
Two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead near the U.S.-Mexican border, overcome by the sweltering heat in a glimpse of what could lie ahead this summer as record numbers of migrant families try to get into the United States.
Authorities believe the four may have been dead for days before the bodies were discovered on Sunday in the Rio Grande Valley. No details were released on the victims’ relationship.
It was the latest grim discovery of migrants who died while trying to cross the perilous desert and the swollen Rio Grande.
A law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press the four were overcome by the heat after fording the river. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Migrant families have been coming over the border in unprecedented numbers in recent months, reaching a peak in May, when 84,000 adults and children traveling together were apprehended. Nearly 500,000 immigrants have been detained at the border since the start of the year, resulting in dangerous overcrowding in U.S. holding centers.
Hidden oil spill: New study contradicts owner’s claims
NEW ORLEANS — A new federally led study of oil seeping from a platform toppled off Louisiana’s coast 14½ years ago found releases lower than other recent estimates, but contradicts the well owner’s assertions about the amount and source of oil.
Oil and gas have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico since a subsea mudslide caused by Hurricane Ivan on Sept. 15, 2004, knocked over a Taylor Energy Co. production platform, which dragged and broke a bundle of well pipes. Taylor capped nine wells but said it couldn’t cap 16.
The company contends oil sheens on the water’s surface indicate there’s only a dribble of 2.4 to 4 gallons (9 to 15 liters) of oil and gas a day. Taylor Energy, which is fighting a federal order to stop the seepage, also says any oil rising from the site is from oil-soaked sediment and any gas is produced by living organisms.
“The results of this study contradict these conclusions,” said the report paid for by the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling, and written by two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists and one from Florida State University.
Taylor said in an emailed statement that it wants verifiable scientific data about the leak and a scientifically and environmentally sound solution. The company has said remaining pipes are buried under so much oily and treacherous silt that stopping any leaks would do more environmental damage than letting them be.
Blurred lines: Trump’s UN choice and her coal magnate spouse
WASHINGTON — The email went out from senior Environmental Protection Agency officials to Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, responding to questions she had about a funding matter.
But the acknowledgment email the EPA got back a few hours later wasn’t from the ambassador. It was from her husband, coal magnate Joseph Craft, a wealthy GOP donor who had been taking part in a months-long press by the coal industry for access and regulatory relief from the EPA and the Trump administration in general.
The blurring of roles — and email accounts — by the Crafts this time and others since she began representing the U.S. is raising questions as senators consider her nomination by President Donald Trump to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. That post would give her a prime seat at international talks to fight climate change, in part by encouraging limits on the burning of coal, with its heat-trapping emissions.
“Thanks!!” the coal baron replied to the December 2017 email from EPA officials, which had been addressed to “Ambassador Craft.” The agency was following up on a briefing she had gotten from then-EPA head Scott Pruitt on federal funding for cleaning up the Great Lakes, an issue of great interest to Canada.
Joseph Craft sent the acknowledgment on his work email for his Tulsa, Oklahoma-based coal company, Alliance Resource Partners LP.
Florida woman charged after giving husband’s guns to police
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida woman’s effort to protect herself from domestic violence has become a flashpoint in the debate over gun rights and victims’ safety.
Courtney Irby gave her estranged husband’s guns to police after he was charged with domestic violence-aggravated battery, only to find herself arrested for theft.
Now a Florida lawmaker and gun safety advocates are championing her cause, asking a state attorney on Monday drop the charges, while gun rights advocates want her prosecuted.
Courtney Irby spent six days in jail on charges of armed burglary and grand theft after she retrieved the assault rifle and handgun from her husband’s apartment and gave them to the Lakeland Police. Joseph Irby was spending one day in jail at the time, accused of ramming into her car after a June 14 divorce hearing.
After her husband’s arrest, Courtney Irby petitioned for a temporary injunction for protection, which was granted. Federal law prohibits people under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing guns, but it’s up to local law enforcement to enforce it, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
High court strikes down ‘scandalous’ part of trademark law
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down a section of federal law Monday that prevented businesses from registering trademarks seen as scandalous or immoral, handing a victory to California fashion brand FUCT.
The high court ruled that the century-old provision is an unconstitutional restriction on speech. Between 2005 and 2015, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ultimately refused about 150 trademark applications a year as a result of the provision. Those who were turned away could still use the words they were seeking to register, but they didn’t get the benefits that come with trademark registration. Going after counterfeiters was also difficult as a result.
The Trump administration had defended the provision, arguing that it encouraged trademarks that are appropriate for all audiences.
The high court’s ruling means that the people and companies behind applications that previously failed as a result of the scandalous or immoral provision can re-submit them for approval. And new trademark applications cannot be refused on the grounds they are scandalous or immoral.
Justice Elena Kagan said in reading her majority opinion that the most fundamental principle of free speech law is that the government can’t penalize or discriminate against expression based on the ideas or viewpoints they convey. She said Lanham Act’s ban on “immoral or scandalous” trademarks does just that.
Trump signs order that aims to reveal real health care costs
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that calls for upfront disclosure by hospitals of actual prices for common tests and procedures to help keep costs down .
The idea is to give patients practical information that they can use to save money. For example, if a hospital charges your insurer $3,500 for a type of echocardiogram and the same test costs $550 in a doctor’s office, you might go for the lower-price procedure to save on copays.
But insurers said the idea could backfire, prompting hospitals that now give deeper discounts to try to raise their own negotiated prices to match what high earners are getting. Hospitals were skeptical of the move.
Trump’s order also requires that patients be told ahead of time what their out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and copays will be for many procedures.
Little will change right away. The executive order calls for a rule-making process by federal agencies, which typically takes months or even years. The details of what information will have to be disclosed and how it will be made available to patients must be worked out as part of writing the regulations. That will involve a complex give-and-take with hospitals, insurers and others affected.
Driver with record charged with 7 homicides in biker crash
CONCORD, N.H. — The driver of a pickup truck in a fiery collision on a rural New Hampshire highway that killed seven motorcyclists was charged Monday with seven counts of negligent homicide, and records show he was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving last month and in 2013.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, was arrested Monday morning at his home in West Springfield, Massachusetts, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office said. He will be arraigned Tuesday in Lancaster, New Hampshire, authorities said.
He was handed over to New Hampshire authorities after a brief court appearance Monday in Springfield, Massachusetts. Zhukovskyy looked down at his feet as he was led into the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Connecticut prosecutors say he was arrested May 11 in an East Windsor Walmart parking lot after failing a sobriety test. Officers had responded to a complaint about a man who was revving his truck engine and jumping up and down outside the vehicle.
Zhukovskyy’s lawyer in that case, John O’Brien, said he denies being intoxicated and will fight the charge. Zhukovskyy refused to submit to a blood test, prosecutors said.