San Francisco Chronicle

NEWS OF THE DAY

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Mining ban: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday approved a 20-year ban on new mining claims in the towering mountains north of Yellowston­e National Park. Two proposed gold mines in Montana had raised concerns that an area drawing tourists from the around the globe could be spoiled. Zinke’s order extends a temporary ban imposed under former President Barack Obama on new claims for gold, silver and other minerals on public lands in the Paradise Valley and Gardiner Basin. Most of the land is within the Custer Gallatin National Forest, but the undergroun­d minerals are overseen by the Interior Department.

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Racial profiling: The Los Angeles County inspector general is investigat­ing whether sheriff ’s deputies racially profiled drivers when they stopped thousands of innocent Latinos in search of drugs on a major freeway, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. The investigat­ion began after the newspaper reported that 69 percent of drivers who were stopped between 2012 and 2017 as part of an enforcemen­t operation on a stretch of Interstate 5 in northern Los Angeles County were Latino. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said the report “warrants a deeper investigat­ion” and asked the inspector general and a civilian oversight commission to review the enforcemen­t team, made up of four white male deputies. The sheriff ’s department said the team stopped people based on impartial factors.

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Telescope idled: The Hubble Space Telescope has been sidelined by a serious aiming problem. NASA announced Monday that one of Hubble’s gyroscopes failed last week. When ground controller­s tried to bring a backup gyroscope online, it behaved erraticall­y, said Ken Sembach, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates the telescope. Sembach said a review board is evaluating how to repair the issue. Hubble can operate with just two gyroscopes if necessary, as it did from 2005 to 2009 while waiting for astronauts to fix it. Even one gyroscope will do in a pinch.

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Gas lines: A utility company shut off gas to about 300 customers in Massachuse­tts after a worker doing routine maintenanc­e inadverten­tly overpressu­rized the system. National Grid said the situation Monday in Woburn was quickly corrected and there were no reports of damage. Overpressu­rization is thought to have been the cause of natural gas fires and explosions in an area about 20 miles away last month that killed one and injured about 25.

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Officer’s funeral: Hundreds of friends, family and fellow officers gathered in South Carolina to remember the love, and courage of police Sgt. Terrence Carraway, who died trying to save other wounded officers in a barrage of gunfire. Carraway, 52, was shot last Wednesday in an ambush in Florence by the father of a man officers wanted to question about a sex assault on a child. Carraway was killed and six other officers were wounded. Frederick Hopkins, 74, has been charged with murder. Chronicle News Services

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