NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Immigrants program ends: The Trump administration on Wednesday formally terminated an Obama-era program that granted Central American minors temporary legal residence in the United States, shutting the door on 2,714 people who had won conditional approval to enter the country. President Barack Obama’s administration established the “CAM parole” program in 2014 to respond to a massive spike in the number of unaccompanied minors and families entering the country illegally. Homeland Security’s termination announcement means that the agency will begin the process of notifying families that the minors who had been approved for entry would have to reapply through other immigration channels that could be more difficult.
2 Bathroom bill dies: A bill to restrict which bathroom transgender people can use in public buildings and schools died in the Texas Legislature on Tuesday evening, a rare defeat for social conservatives in a state they usually dominate. The failure of the socalled bathroom bill at the end of a special legislative session in Austin was the second time in three months that the bill had fallen short, and it deepened the ideological discord within the Texas Republican Party. But it did not kill the issue entirely. The Republican lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who pushed for the bill’s North Carolina-style restrictions on transgender bathroom use, virtually guaranteed that the issue would arise again in future legislative sessions.
_ Polanski accuser: A third woman has come forward to accuse film director Roman Polanski of sexual abuse when she was a minor. The woman, who was identified only as Robin, held a news conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday with attorney Gloria Allred. She said that Polanski “sexually victimized” her in 1973, when she was 16. She is now 59. In 1977, Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer when she was 13. He fled the country before his sentencing in 1978.
4 Helicopter crash: A multi-agency team scoured the ocean off Hawaii on Wednesday for five soldiers aboard an Army helicopter that went down during a Tuesday night training exercise. The UH-60 Black Hawk went missing when another Army helicopter training with it lost visual and radio contact about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, said a spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division.
5 Plea for mercy: A man charged with plotting to kill military members in the U.S. after receiving overseas training is asking for leniency at sentencing, saying he abandoned his plans for the attack. In making his argument, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud acknowledges that he became radicalized after traveling to Syria in the spring of 2014 and that he recruited others on his return home, according to a court filing this week. Back in the U.S., Mohamud “realized the immoral and illegal nature of terrorist ideology,” his attorney, Sam Shamansky, said in the Monday court filing Columbus, Ohio.
Chronicle News Services