NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
_1 ‘Reset’ urged: Six former Environmental Protection Agency chiefs called Wednesday for a “reset” at the agency after President Trump’s regulationchopping, industryminded first term, backing a detailed plan by former EPA staffers that ranges from renouncing political influence in regulation to boosting climatefriendly electric vehicles. The current administrator, Andrew Wheeler, immediately rejected the recommendations, and his spokesman James Hewitt accused Wheeler’s predecessors of having “botched” environmental matters during their tenures. Most living former EPA heads signed on.
_2 R. Kelly case: Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., announced charges Wednesday against three men accused of threatening and intimidating women who have accused R&B singer R. Kelly of abuse, including one man suspected of setting fire to a vehicle in Florida. A longtime friend of the indicted singer offered to pay a victim $500,000 to keep her from cooperating in Kelly’s prosecution, authorities said, while a manager and adviser of Kelly threatened to release sexually explicit photographs of a woman who sued Kelly. A Kelly defense attorney said he had “no involvement whatsoever” in any attempt to silence witnesses.
_3 Border wall suit: A California tribe whose ancestral lands span across the U.S.Mexico border is suing the Trump administration to block construction of a section of border wall that the Kumeyaay people say is desecrating sacred burial sites. The La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Diego on Tuesday asking for an injunction to temporarily halt the installation of a towering metal wall until the tribe can protect its religious and cultural heritage. The tribe wants its members to be able to monitor work and interrupt it to recover human remains and cultural items.
_4 Storm damage: Hundreds of thousands of households in Iowa and Illinois remained without electricity Wednesday, two days after a rare windstorm that hit the Midwest devastated parts of the power grid, flattened valuable corn fields and killed two people. Much of Iowa and parts of several other states suffered outages Monday as straightline winds toppled trees, snapped poles and downed power lines. The storm, known as a derecho, had winds of up to 112 mph near Cedar Rapids, as powerful as a hurricane, as it tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and into Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. The derecho produced seven tornadoes in the Chicago metropolitan area, including an EF1 tornado with 110 mph winds. _5 Woodward book: Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s new book about President Trump is titled “Rage” and will be released Sept. 15, less than two months before Election Day, according to Amazon.com. Publisher Simon & Schuster says the book follows “Trump’s moves as he faces a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest.” It says Woodward conducted a series of exclusive interviews with the president. The listing also notes that Woodward obtained 25 personal letters between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.