NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Coronavirus aid: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he’s scheduling a procedural vote on a GOP COVID19 relief bill next week, saying aid to hardhit businesses shouldn’t be held up by gridlock involving other aid proposals. The Kentucky Republican says the first item of Senate business when the chamber returns on Monday will be a procedural vote on a scaledback aid bill. But the COVID relief debate appears to have gone back to a phase in which the participants have largely given up and are devoting time and effort to political positioning ahead of the election.
2 Environmental prosecutions: Prosecutions of environmental crimes have “plummeted” during the Trump administration, according to a new report. The first two years of the Trump administration had a 70% decrease in criminal prosecutions under the Clean Water Act and a decrease of more than 50% under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan law school found. The research examined cases brought between 2005 and 2018, and the twoyear period starting in 2017 had “the worst pollution prosecution numbers in the 14 years covered by our study,” said David M. Uhlmann, author of the study.
3 Voting glitch: An accidentally severed fiber optic cable shut down Virginia’s online voter registration system for several hours Tuesday, the last day to register before the November general election, authorities said. The Virginia Department of Elections said in a statement on Twitter that a “fiber cut” affected connectivity for multiple agencies, including the department’s citizen portal and registrar’s offices. The cable was reportedly inadvertently cut during a roadside utilities project. Six hours later, the Department of Elections issued a statement saying the portal was back online.
4 Abuse lawsuits: Ohio State University will pay $ 5.8 million to settle lawsuits by about two dozen more survivors over decadesold sexual abuse by a nowdeceased team doctor, Richard Strauss — bringing the total settlements so far to $ 46.7 million for 185 survivors, the university announced Tuesday. Nearly 400 men have sued the university over its failure to stop Strauss during his twodecade tenure, despite students raising concerns with various school officials as far back as the late 1970s. The claims by more than half of those accusers remain pending in federal court. Many say they were groped during exams at campus athletic facilities, an offcampus men’s clinic or Strauss’ home. Top OSU officials have apologized for Strauss’ actions.
5 Space flight: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company launched a New Shepard rocket for a seventh time from a remote corner of Texas on Tuesday, testing new lunarlanding technology for NASA that could help put astronauts back on the moon. The entire flight — barely skimming space with a peak altitude of 66 miles — lasted just 10 minutes. The booster landed vertically back at the launch complex after liftoff, and the capsule followed, parachuting onto the desert floor. The capsule carried science experiments.