Supreme Court declines to hear gay rights case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a lower-court ruling that a federal employment discrimination law doesn’t protect a person against discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

The case involved Jameka Evans, a gay woman who worked as a hospital security officer in Georgia. Lower courts said she couldn’t use the law to sue for discrimination.

The court didn’t explain Monday why it declined to take up the question, but the hospital where Evans worked, Georgia Regional Hospital, told the court there were technical legal problems with the case. flown on a previous space station supply run.

NASA’s International Space Station manager, Kirk Shireman, said the risk of launching a recycled rocket is about the same as for a brand new one. He expects to be just as anxious as he always is at every launch.

“It’s still a dangerous business,” he told reporters Monday. Although NASA’s best rocket experts conducted an extensive review of the recycled and meticulously inspected booster, there is never “zero risk,” he pointed out.

Jordan Hamlett, 32, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court. Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump’s tax information through a U.S. Department of Education financial aid website.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns, bucking an American tradition honored by every president since Jimmy Carter. Beijing of using social media to target more than 10,000 citizens, including lawmakers and other government employees.

In Beijing on Monday, Lu Kang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called the investigation ‘‘complete hearsay and groundless.’’ He urged German officials to ‘‘speak and act more responsibly.’’