NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
Arrest settlement: A Utah nurse who was arrested for refusing to let a police officer draw blood from an unconscious patient said Tuesday that she was settling with Salt Lake City and the university that runs the hospital for $500,000. Nurse Alex Wubbels and her lawyer, Karra Porter, announced the move nearly two months after they released police body-camera video showing Detective Jeff Payne handcuffing Wubbels. The footage drew widespread attention online amid the ongoing national conversation about police use of force.
Inmates to be released: Hundreds of inmates are about to get early releases from Louisiana prisons and jails, a milestone in a push to reduce the nation’s highest incarceration rate. The early release of roughly 1,500 inmates on Wednesday is the product of a new package of laws overhauling the state’s criminal justice system. The legislation won bipartisan support from state lawmakers, but some elected officials have denounced the changes. Outrage has been stirred up by racially charged remarks by a sheriff who warned that “bad” prisoners will be freed from his north Louisiana jail and also complained that he’s losing free labor from the “good ones.”
Exxon Mobil lawsuit: The oil corporation is settling air pollution cases with the Trump administration by promising to spend about $300 million on pollution-control technology at several plants along the Gulf Coast. Federal officials said Tuesday that the settlement will prevent thousands of tons of future pollution, including cancer-causing benzene by installing the technology at eight petrochemical plants in Baytown, Beaumont and Mont Belvieu, Texas, and near Baton Rouge, La. The settlement ends allegations that Exxon violated the federal Clean Air Act by releasing excess emissions of harmful pollutants. Police shooting: Two Indianapolis police officers won’t face criminal charges for the June shooting death of an unarmed black motorist who crashed his car while fleeing from a traffic stop, a special prosecutor announced Tuesday. St. Joseph County Prosecutor Kenneth Cotter cited the claims of self-defense from the officers in deciding he wouldn’t file charges against them in the death of 45-year-old Aaron Bailey. He said there’s “insufficient evidence to refute” their claims “of subjective fear or the objective reasonableness of that fear.” Contraceptive coverage: Two national advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana on Tuesday challenging a rule change by President Trump’s administration allowing more employers to opt out of no-cost birth control for workers. The suit was filed on behalf of five women at risk of being denied birth control coverage, including three University of Notre Dame students. The Catholic university in South Bend, Ind., recently told staff and students that it planned to halt no-cost contraceptive coverage starting next year. Chronicle News Services