NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Senator won’t run: Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced in Washington on Tuesday that he will not seek re-election next year, a move that is likely to set off a scramble pitting mainstream Republicans against President Trump’s populist wing. Corker, 65, an establishment Republican who joined the Senate in 2007, likely would have drawn a primary challenge from the right . Corker’s decision not to run again creates the first open Senate seat of the 2018 election cycle. Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political report, predicted Republicans would retain the seat. But, she said, they “will have a free-for-all in terms of the nomination.”
2 DEA chief quitting: The acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration will resign at the end of the week, according to law enforcement officials in Washington, who said he had become convinced that President Trump had little respect for the law. The official, Chuck Rosenberg, who twice served as chief of staff to former FBI Director James Comey and remains a close confidant, had grown disillusioned with Trump. The president fired Comey in May, and then in July told law enforcement officers “please don’t be too nice” when handling crime suspects. Rosenberg forcefully rejected Trump’s comment, sending an email to all DEA employees to tell them that they should not mistreat suspects.
3 Officers cleared: A North Carolina prosecutor says he isn’t going to charge any of the officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man. Durham District Attorney Roger Echols said in a statement Tuesday that he had determined that the officers fired at 24-year-old Kenneth Lee Bailey because they were afraid for their lives.
4 Asylum seeker released: A teenage blogger from Singapore was released from U.S. custody in Chicago on Tuesday following an immigration appeals court’s decision to uphold his bid for asylum. Amos Yee, whose online posts mocking and criticizing the Singapore government twice landed him in jail there, left his homeland in December with the intention of seeking U.S. asylum. But federal immigration agents detained the 18-year-old at O’Hare International Airport and he had been behind bars since. 5 Pregnant detainees: Immigrants’ rights advocates in Houston filed a complaint Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over what they say is the inhumane treatment of pregnant women being held in detention, including one who had a miscarriage. The complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups asks DHS to investigate the cases of 10 women who were held at facilities in California, Texas and Washington state. Lawyers and advocates for immigrants being held in detention facilities have long argued that the detention sites cause physical and psychological harm.