Ga. governor drops suit over masks
Kemp previously sued Atlanta mayor and the City Council over city imposing rule to wear masks in public.
ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday said he’s dropping a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta in a dispute over the city’s requirement to wear masks in public and other restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kemp had sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council to block them from implementing restrictions at the local level, even as case counts and hospitalizations in the state soared.
The Republican governor argued that local governments can’t impose measures that are more or less restrictive than those in his statewide executive orders, which have strongly urged people to wear masks but not required them.
Bottoms, a Democrat, made statements last month indicating the city would return to Phase One of its reopening plan, meaning people would have to return to sheltering at home and restaurants would have to return to takeout and delivery only. She later said those statements were recommendations.
A statement sent by Kemp’s office said the lawsuit is being dropped because of Bottoms’ “concession regarding the city’s Phase One roll-back plan and following her refusal in mediation to further negotiate a compromise.” A spokeswoman for Georgia’s attorney general declined to comment.
Yale discrimination: A Justice Department investigation has found Yale University is illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants, in violation of federal civil rights law, officials said
Thursday.
The two-year investigation concluded Yale “rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it otherwise would admit,” the Justice Department said. The investigation stemmed from a 2016 complaint against Yale, Brown and Dartmouth.
Prosecutors found Yale has been discriminating against applicants to its undergraduate program based on their race and national origin and “that race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year.” The investigation concluded that Asian American and white students have “only onetenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials,” the Justice Department said.
Yale denied the allegation, calling it “meritless” and “hasty.”
EPA rollback: President Donald Trump’s administration is undoing Obamaera rules designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas fields and pipelines, formalizing the changes Thursday in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Andrew Wheeler, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, signed the rollback of the 2016 methane emissions rule in Pittsburgh as the agency touted the administration’s efforts to “strengthen and promote American energy.”
The EPA first proposed the rollback last year, accusing the Obama administration of enacting a legally flawed rule, and agency officials said it would save companies tens of millions of dollars a year in compliance requirements without changing the trajectory of methane emissions.
But states, including California, and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups have warned that the changes would be illegal.
Cryptocurrency seizure: The Justice Department said Thursday it has seized millions of dollars from cryptocurrency accounts that militant organizations abroad, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, relied on to raise money for violent operations.
The Trump administration said the groups used the accounts to solicit donations for their causes, including through a scam officials say purported to sell protective gear for the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials described it as the largest seizure of digital currency funds related to terrorism.
The department said it has seized about $2 million and is seeking to seize more, in addition to more than 300 cryptocurrency accounts and four websites.
Persian Gulf tensions: The Iranian navy boarded and briefly seized a Liberian-flagged oil tanker near the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S., the American military said Thursday.
The U.S. military’s Central Command published a black-and-white video showing what appeared to be special forces fast-roping down a helicopter onto the MT Wila, whose last position appeared to be off the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates.
The Iranian navy held the vessel for some five hours before releasing it Wednesday, said a U.S. military official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public. The Wila made no distress calls before, during and after the seizure, the official said.
Iranian state television later acknowledged the seizure, referring to the operation as a routine inspection without elaborating.
Puerto Rico voting: Puerto Ricans prepared Thursday for a second consecutive weekend of primary elections after the U.S. territory’s Supreme Court ordered authorities to reopen polling centers where botched ballot supplies prevented people from voting in the first round.
The court’s ruling affects only centers that never opened or did not remain open for the required eight hours Sunday because of missing or delayed ballots.
The decision raised concerns among some that it leaves out thwarted voters who did not return to centers that opened late on Sunday but remained open for eight hours; some people weren’t able to come back or weren’t aware that voting had become possible.
The ruling was a response to five lawsuits filed after voting occurred in only about 60 of Puerto Rico’s 110 precincts Sunday.
Mauritius oil spill: Almost all the remaining oil has been pumped from a Japanese ship that ran aground off Mauritius, but its initial fuel spill of 1,000 tons has severely damaged the Indian Ocean island’s coral reefs and once pristine coast, environmental groups said Thursday.
Nagashiki Shipping is investigating why the MV Wakashio went off course. The ship was supposed to stay at least 10 miles from Mauritius but instead came within a mile and struck the coral reef on July 25.
Experts are working with local groups to remove oil from the Mahebourg Lagoon and waters around the Isle aux Aigrettes wildlife sanctuary, said Jean Hugue Gardenne of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.