Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond
East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact.
A recent sampling:
Reuters recently reported that close to two-thirds of lawyers at the Dept. of Justice, whose job was to defend Trump Administration policies, have quit. One attorney said they came to defend “aspects” of the Constitution, adding “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”
DOGE staff will use artificial intelligence to eliminate half of the government regulations by next January, The Washington Post reported.
The Supreme Court has handed “unprecedented” power to President Donald Trump, Slate reported, when conservative justices said he could fire 1,400 Dept. of Education employees, as part of the plan to abolish DOE. The ruling came through the shadow docket, and shared no legal justification, thereby accelerating “this administration’s lawless seizure of duties...expressly assigned to Congress.”
In contrast, when Joe Biden was president, conservative justices repeatedly limited his authority.
NBC says as of late June the U.S. was holding more than 56,000 people in detention centers, of which nearly 72% had no criminal history. As well, the Texas Tribune says the Dept. of Defense awarded a $12.6 billion contract to build the nation’s largest detention facility, to “house” 5,000 people in tents at Fort Bliss.
And, U.S. detainees released from El Salvador’s CECOT prison have shared details of their four-month stay: beatings, sexual assault, being told to “commit suicide,” lack of due process, torture.
Immigration headlines: Immigrants at Florida detention facilities faced life-threatening medical delays [such as no insulin access, being shackled for long periods during transportation -- without food, water or functioning toilets; held in overcrowded cells, forced to sleep on concrete floors, even being forced to eat “like dogs”]; ICE secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost his Green Card; Masked ICE agents shatter car window to arrest man outside grandchild's daycare; State, local officials, want to ban ICE masks [and require them to wear ID when making arrests], and, Appeals court finds Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship unconstitutional, upholds block.
For the first time since 1923 Paris recently opened the Seine to swimming, The Week said. It took $1.6 billion to clean the river of pollutants, which included upgrading old water treatment plants and connecting 20,000 homes to sewer systems, instead of flushing directly into the river.
The Justice Department has 100,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein files it refuses to release to the public, The New York Times stated. Recent Epstein headlines: "It's not a hoax": Speaker Mike Johnson bluntly breaks with Trump on Epstein files; Newly discovered photos and video shed fresh light on Trump’s ties to Epstein; House subcommittee [supported by three Republicans] votes to subpoena Justice Department for Epstein [sex trafficking] files.
A new analysis of health studies, pooling 200 million people from 24 studies, shows regular marijuana users have a 29% higher risk of heart attack and a 20% higher risk of stroke as compared to abstainers -- whether using edibles or smoking.
A University of California epidemiologist told CNN that those at risk of heart disease should be “very cautious about using cannibas.”
Since 2020 median CEO pay has increased 31% (worker pay increased 13%), to $16 million annually, the Lever reports. Translated: CEOs get 216 times more than their workers. And still more headlines: Alzheimer's may be delayed through lifestyle changes, new studies show, and, Wall Street gets a Trump tax break to fire workers.
Blast from the past: The Trump Administration just published 230,000 Martin L. King Jr. documents related to his assassination, sealed since 1977. The release has been regarded an attempt to distract from Epstein headlines.