NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
_1 Russia probe:
The Democrat-led House voted Tuesday to authorize the Judiciary Committee to go to court to enforce two subpoenas related to Robert Mueller’s investigative findings and to empower other panels to move more quickly to court in future disputes. The resolution grants the Judiciary Committee the power to petition a federal judge to force Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with subpoenas that they have either completely or partly defied. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi framed the vote as a step to uphold the principle that Congress is “constitutionally obligated and legally entitled to access and review materials from the executive branch.”
_2 Marine life threatened:
The world’s oceans will likely lose about one-sixth of their fish and other marine life by the end of the century if climate change continues on its current path, a new study says. Every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit that the world’s oceans warm, the total mass of sea animals is projected to drop by 5%, according to a comprehensive computer-based study by an international team of marine biologists. And that does not include effects of fishing. If the world’s greenhouse gas emissions stay at the present rate, that means a 17% loss of biomass — the total weight of all the marine animal life — by the year 2100, according to Tuesday’s study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
3_ Religious schools:
The U.S. Department of Justice is backing three families who are suing to force the state of Maine to pay tuition for some students to attend religious high schools. The “Statement of Interest” filed Monday supports a lawsuit that targets the state’s long-standing tuition policy for students in districts that don’t have a high school. In those cases, the state will pay for tuition to a private school, but not a religious school.
_4 Obama center:
Plans to build former President Barack Obama’s presidential center in a lakefront Chicago park can move forward, a federal judge said Tuesday, adding that a written ruling dismissing a park advocacy group’s lawsuit would follow. Protect Our Parks argued the that city illegally transferred land for a park to the private Obama Foundation.
_5 Border case:
A jury could not reach a verdict Tuesday against a border activist charged with conspiracy to transport and harbor migrants in a trial that humanitarian aid groups said would have wide implications on their work. Defense attorneys argued that Scott Daniel Warren, 36, was simply being kind by providing two migrants with water, food and lodging when he was arrested in early 2018. He faced up to 20 years in prison. But prosecutors maintained the men were not in distress and Warren conspired to transport and harbor them at a property used for providing aid to migrants in an Arizona town near the U.S.-Mexico border. Jurors said Monday that they couldn’t reach a consensus, but a federal judge told them to keep deliberating.