Supreme Court rejects Maine’s ban on aid to religious schools
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Maine may not exclude religious schools from a state tuition program, the latest decision by a conservative majority that has increasingly favored the role of religion in public life. The vote was 6-3, with the court’s three liberal justices in dissent. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said the ruling did not require states to support religious education but that states that subsidize private schools may not exclude religious ones. In separate dissents, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Stephen G. Breyer expressed dismay at the direction of the court.
Head of Texas state police calls response to Uvalde shooting an ‘abject failure’
The head of the Texas state police on Tuesday offered an emphatic rebuke of the response to a shooting last month in Uvalde, Texas, calling it “an abject failure” that ran counter to decades of training. Speaking before a special state Senate committee in Austin, Steven McCraw, director of the Department of Public Safety, provided the most complete account yet of his agency’s month-old investigation and a forceful argument that officers could have confronted the gunman. “The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander,” McCraw said.
South Korea launches satellite with its own rocket for the first time
South Korea said it launched a small satellite into orbit using its first homemade rocket Tuesday, bringing the country closer to its dream of becoming a player in the space industry and deploying its own spy satellites to better monitor North Korea. The Nuri rocket, built by the government’s Korea Aerospace Research Institute together with hundreds of local companies, blasted off from the Naro Space Center at 4 p.m. Seventy minutes after the liftoff, South Korea announced that Nuri had succeeded in its mission of thrusting a 357-pound working satellite, as well as a 1.3-ton dummy satellite, into orbit.
Garland names prosecutor to investigate Russian war crimes
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that a prosecutor known for investigating former Nazis would lead U.S. efforts in tracking Russian war criminals. Eli Rosenbaum, former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, would create a war crimes accountability team that would work with Ukraine and international law enforcement groups. Rosenbaum is best known for his work for the World Jewish Congress in the 1980s investigating the history of Kurt Waldheim, a former United Nations secretary-general whose army unit was implicated in war crimes against Jews and Yugoslavian partisans during World War II.
FDA aims to cut down on smoking by slashing nicotine levels in cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration is planning to require tobacco companies to slash the amount of nicotine in traditional cigarettes to make them less addictive and reduce the toll of smoking that claims 480,000 lives each year. The proposal, which could take years to go into effect, would put the United States at the forefront of global anti-smoking efforts. Only one other nation, New Zealand, has such a plan. Tobacco companies have indicated that any plan with significant reductions in nicotine would violate the law. And some conservative lawmakers might consider such a policy another example of government overreach.
US pools close, go without lifeguards amid labor shortage
Indianapolis typically fills 17 pools each year, but with a national lifeguard shortage exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, just five are open this summer. The American Lifeguard Association estimates one-third of pools in the United States are impacted by the shortage. It comes as much of the nation is hit by a second heat wave in as many weeks. Summer shortages aren’t unusual, but U.S. pools are also dealing with fallout from earlier in the pandemic when they closed and lifeguard certification stopped. Starting pay also lags behind many other jobs. In Chicago, Park District Superintendent Rosa Escareño attributes the scarcity in part to post-pandemic labor shortages as workers push for better hours, wages, and opportunities.
Bill Cosby loses sex assault lawsuit and must pay damages
A jury on Tuesday found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth in 1975, when as a 16-year-old she accepted his invitation to join him at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. The jury’s decision again tarnished the reputation of a man whose standing as one of America’s most beloved entertainers dissolved as dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. The jury awarded Huth $500,000 in compensatory damages but declined to award punitive damages. The verdict offered a degree of satisfaction for many of the women who for years have accused Cosby of similar abuse.
Ukraine urges civilians to flee occupied south before counteroffensive
A top Ukrainian government official has made an urgent plea for hundreds of thousands of people living in Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine to evacuate in advance of a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive. “Please, go, because our army will definitely de-occupy these lands,” said Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. She indicated that civilians might first have to flee to Crimea, which was seized by Russia in 2014 and has been a key staging ground for Moscow’s invasion. From Crimea, she urged people to make their way to another country where they can reach out to the local Ukrainian consulate.
By wire sources
