NEWS OF THE DAY
Racial justice: A commission at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has voted to rename four campus buildings that have ties to slaveholders or white supremacists. The recommendation will go to school’s chancellor, who can then decide to forward it to the Board of Trustees. The board, scheduled to meet Thursday, is expected to discuss a policy to change the names of facilities on campus. The four buildings at issue are named after men who “used their positions to impose and maintain violent systems of racial subjugation,” said history professor Jim Leloudis, who cochairs the commission.
Border wall: President Trump on Sunday criticized a privately built border wall in southern Texas that’s showing signs of erosion months after going up, saying it was “only done to make me look bad.” The group that raised more than $25 million for the barrier, called We Build the Wall, promoted itself as supporting the president. Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon joined the group’s board. The section in question is a roughly 3mile fence of steel posts near Mission, Texas, just 35 feet from the Rio Grande, which is much closer to the river than the government ordinarily builds border barriers because of concerns about erosion. Trump tweeted Sunday in response to a ProPublicaTexas Tribune report that the riverbank has started to erode.
Pump prices: The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has increased by 2 cents over the past two weeks to $2.24 per gallon, which is 59 cents below the average pump price compared with a year ago. Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday that the increase comes as crude oil prices rise. The highest average price in the nation for regular gas is $3.20 per gallon in the Bay Area. The lowest average is $1.79 in Houston.
Execution: A federal appeals court ruled Sunday that the first federal execution in nearly two decades can proceed as scheduled Monday. The ruling from the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court order that had put the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, on hold. Lee was scheduled to die by lethal injection at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8yearold daughter, Sarah Powell. The lower court judge had ruled Friday that the execution would be put on hold because of concerns from the family of the victims that they would be at high risk for the coronavirus if they had to travel to attend the execution.
Church attack: A man accused of setting a church in Ocala, Fla., on fire was being held without bail Sunday on charges that include attempted murder and arson. Steven Shields, 23, was charged Saturday, hours after detectives say he plowed a minivan through the front door of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, doused the foyer with gasoline and set it on fire, causing extensive damage. Several people were inside, but no one was hurt. According to court documents, Shields told detectives he is mentally ill but had stopped taking his medication.
Chronicle News Services