Justice Alito defends private jet travel to luxury fishing trip
Justice Samuel Alito took the unusual step late Tuesday of responding to questions about his travel with a billionaire who frequently has cases before the Supreme Court hours before an article detailing their ties had even been published. In an extraordinary salvo in a favored forum, Alito defended himself in a preemptive article in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal before the news organization ProPublica posted its account of a luxury fishing trip in 2008. His response comes as the justices face mounting scrutiny over their ethical obligations to report gifts and to recuse themselves from cases involving their benefactors.
Senate Democrats seek to highlight GOP opposition to abortion rights
Senate Democrats on Wednesday forced consideration of measures intended to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom, using the upcoming anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade to remind voters of Republican opposition to measures with broad voter approval. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, brought to the floor four bills that would protect a woman’s right to abortion access and contraception — under a procedure that requires unanimous consent of the Senate, meaning that an objection from a single Republican lawmaker would result in their failure. And that was the point: to force Republicans to block what Democrats described as common-sense bills that protect existing rights.
Undersea noises become focus of submersible rescue effort
Unexplained noises detected beneath the waves of the North Atlantic became the focus Wednesday of an urgent search for five people inside a submersible that disappeared three days earlier during a dive to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. The possibility that the sounds might lead to the lost craft offered a slender line of hope to rescuers who have been scouring a patch of the North Atlantic twice the size of Connecticut and 2 1/2 miles deep. A growing international force of planes, ships and underwater robots was racing to find the vessel and bring it to the surface before its pilot and four passengers run out of oxygen.
Harsh new fentanyl laws ignite debate over how to combat overdose crisis
Three teenage girls were found slumped in a car in the parking lot of a rural Tennessee high school last month, hours before graduation ceremonies. Two were dead from fentanyl overdoses. The third, a 17-year-old, was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Two days later, she was charged with the girls’ murders. Prosecutors cited a Tennessee law that permits homicide charges to be brought against someone who gives fentanyl to a person who dies from it. Dozens of states, devastated by unrelenting overdose deaths, have been enacting similar legislation and other laws to severely ratchet up penalties for a drug that can kill with just a few milligrams.
Maxine Waters proposes billions to expand low-income housing
In a sweeping effort to expand affordable housing and combat homelessness, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., introduced a package of three bills Wednesday aimed at narrowing the country’s racial wealth gap. Waters is seeking $100 billion in direct assistance to first-time homebuyers; more than $150 billion in fair and affordable housing investments; and the expansion of the housing voucher program, commonly known as Section 8, into a federal entitlement that is accessible to every American family that qualifies. Under one of the bills, the Department of Housing and Urban Development would allocate $10 billion to create affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness, and permanently authorize the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Biden administration moves to restore endangered species protections
The Biden administration moved Wednesday to make it easier to protect wildlife from climate disruptions and other threats, restoring protections to the Endangered Species Act that former President Donald Trump had removed. Three separate regulations proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service would make it harder to remove a species from the endangered list and restore a provision that strengthens protections for threatened species, the classification one step below endangered. The rules also eliminate a Trump-era policy that would have allowed regulators to factor in economic assessments when deciding whether a species warrants protection.
A superyacht gave a lifeline to 100 migrants thrown into the sea
The superyacht Mayan Queen IV was sailing through Mediterranean early June 14 when it received a call about a migrant ship in distress 4 nautical miles away. About 20 minutes later, shortly before 3 a.m., the towering $175 million yacht, owned by the family of a Mexican silver magnate, arrived at the scene. The distressed boat had already sunk. In a few hours, the 305-foot Mayan Queen was filled with 100 desperate, dehydrated and sea-soaked Pakistani, Syrian, Palestinian and Egyptian men, as it played an unexpected role in one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in decades. As many as 650 men, women and children drowned.
Why is Narendra Modi so popular? Tune in to find out.
Once a month, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, walks into a studio set up at his government bungalow and begins his radio show. What follows — about 30 minutes of Modi playing on-air host to the world’s most populous nation — is one way he has made himself omnipresent across India’s vastness. His presence on the airwaves is crucial to understanding his overwhelming grip on India’s information landscape. At its core is a transformation of Modi’s image that will be on display this week as President Joe Biden hosts him for a state visit, part of an effort to court India as a rising economic power and counterweight to China.
Attack by Palestinian gunmen prompts building plan and settler violence
Israeli extremists launched attacks on Palestinian towns that lasted from Tuesday night until Wednesday night in revenge for the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen outside a West Bank settlement. Israeli arsonists entered the Palestinian communities closest to the shooting site, setting fires that damaged cars, buildings and farmland. At least one Palestinian was fatally shot, and 12 others were injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attacks unacceptable but, to assuage his hard-line allies, he announced that he would immediately advance plans to build 1,000 new homes in Eli, the West Bank settlement close to the attack Tuesday by Palestinian gunmen.
In Iran, some are chasing the last drops of water
Summer has come to Sistan and Baluchistan province in Iran, and all people there can talk about is how to get water. For weeks now, taps in cities like Zahedan have yielded nothing but a salty, weakening trickle. In the villages that water pipes have never reached, the few residents who remain say people can barely find enough water to do the laundry or bathe themselves. Drought has stalked Iran for centuries, but the threat intensified in recent years as political priorities trumped sound water management, experts say. Climate change has only made things worse in an area that typically gets no rainfall for seven months of the year.
Odesa was ready to reclaim its beaches. Then a dam broke.
Last summer, the beaches around Odesa in southern Ukraine were crowded with volunteers packing sandbags under bluffs as the threat of a Russian amphibious assault still loomed. This year, many Ukrainians were already packing the beaches despite an official ban on swimming. Then the Kakhovka dam was destroyed. The dam’s destruction may mean another summer cut off from the sea in a city already suffering from periodic Russian missile strikes. Igor Oks, creative director of a new international cultural center in Odesa, said the city without its port was like a body without limbs. Not being able to enjoy the sea, he said, is like cutting out the heart.
By wire sources
