NEWS OF THE DAY
Congressman resigns: Rep. Tim Murphy, an outspoken abortion opponent embattled by allegations that he encouraged his lover to terminate a pregnancy, announced Thursday that he would step down from his House seat on Oct. 21. Murphy faced an intensifying backlash over reports from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he encouraged the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to have an abortion during an unfounded pregnancy scare. Speaker Paul Ryan announced Murphy’s plans to resign. The decision comes less than 24 hours after Murphy said he would retire at the end of his term next year.
Black Lives Matter: A federal judge says he intends to dismiss a lawsuit that accuses Black Lives Matter and several movement leaders of inciting violence that led to a gunman’s deadly ambush of law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, La., last year. U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson issued that warning in an order this week, after ruling Black Lives Matter is a social movement that can’t be sued. Last Thursday, Jackson threw out a police officer’s lawsuit blaming Black Lives Matter and movement leader DeRay Mckesson for injuries he sustained during a protest over a deadly police shooting in Baton Rouge last year. The judge is also vowing to dismiss a separate suit filed on behalf of a sheriff ’s deputy wounded in the July 2016 attack that killed three other officers.
Space Station repair: Spacewalking astronauts worked at giving the International Space Station’s big robot arm a new hand Thursday, NASA officials announced at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Commander Randy Bresnik and Mark Vande Hei tackled the job on the first of three NASA spacewalks planned over the next two weeks. The latching mechanism on one end of the 58-foot robot arm malfunctioned in August. Within an hour-and-a-half, the spacewalkers had unbolted the degraded mechanism from the arm and turned their attention to the replacement part. Six men currently live at the 250-mile-high outpost: three Americans, two Russians and an Italian.
Budget plan: The House on Thursday passed a $4.1 trillion budget plan that promises deep cuts to social programs while paving the way for Republicans to rewrite the tax code later this year. The 2018 House GOP budget reprises a controversial plan to turn Medicare into a voucherlike program for future retirees as well as the party’s efforts to repeal the “Obamacare” health law. Republicans controlling Congress have no plans to actually implement those cuts while they pursue their tax overhaul. That’s especially so in the Senate, where the Budget Committee on Thursday gave party-line approval to a companion plan.
From Across the Nation