FEDERAL JUDGE DISMISSES EMOLUMENTS LAWSUIT
YORK» A federal judge NEW dismissed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that President Donald Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause because his hotels and restaurants do business with foreign governments while he is in office.
The plaintiffs argued that because Trump properties rent out hotel rooms and meeting spaces to other governments, the president was violating a constitutional provision that bans the acceptance of foreign emoluments, or gifts from foreign powers.
But Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York ruled that the plaintiffs, led by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, lacked standing to bring such a case, saying it was up to Congress to prevent the president from accepting emoluments.
Catalan separatists regain majority in regional election.
BARCELONA,
Catalonia’s secessionist parties won enough votes Thursday to regain a slim majority in the regional parliament and give new momentum to their political struggle for independence from Spain. It was hardly an emphatic victory, however, as the separatists lost support compared with the previous vote in 2015, and a pro-unity party for the first time became Catalonia’s biggest single force in parliament.
Conductor withdraws from concerts.
The New York Philharmonic says conductor Charles Dutoit has withdrawn from concerts scheduled for next month in the wake of “very serious” sexual misconduct allegations. The Philharmonic said Dutoit said Thursday he was withdrawing from conducting a series of concerts scheduled for Jan. 17-20. The statement came after The Associated Press reported that three opera singers and one classical musician accused Dutoit of sexual assault and provided detailed accounts of alleged incidents between 1985 and 2010 in five U.S. cities.
25 years in mental hospital for Slender Man stabbing.
WIS.» One MADISON, of two Wisconsin girls who tried to kill a classmate to win favor with a fictional horror character named Slender Man was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in a mental hospital, the maximum punishment possible. Anissa Weier, 16, pleaded guilty in August to being a party to attempted second-degree intentional homicide, but she claimed she wasn’t responsible for her actions because she was mentally ill. In September, a jury agreed.
Coroner says gunfire killed all 58 victims in shooting.
VEGAS» All LAS
58 victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting died of gunshot wounds, a coroner said Thursday, revealing that no one was trampled to death trying to escape from an outdoor concert that turned into a massacre. The only wound to the shooter, Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, was a self-inflicted gunshot to the mouth.
California population nears 40 million.
California’s population is approaching 40 million after growing by nearly 300,000 people during the year ending July 1, 2017. That puts the state’s total population at 39.6 million.