Tag: General news

Texas stops providing new funding for border wall construction
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has stopped putting new money toward building a U.S.-Mexico border wall, shifting course after installing only a fraction of the hundreds of miles of potential barrier that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott set out to construct four years ago. State lawmakers this month approved a new Texas budget that does not include…

Officials arrest 1 of 2 detainees still missing from New Jersey immigration facility
One of the two detainees still missing after escaping from a New Jersey federal immigration detention center has been arrested, the FBI said Tuesday. Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes, from Honduras, has been taken into custody, FBI spokesperson Amy Thoreson said in an email. Andres Felipe Pineda-Mogollon, from Colombia, is still missing from Thursday night’s escape, the…

NAACP files intent to sue Elon Musk’s xAI company over supercomputer air pollution
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The NAACP filed an intent to sue Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI on Tuesday over concerns about air pollution generated by a supercomputer located near predominantly Black communities. The xAI data center began operating gas turbines last year, emitting air pollution, without first applying for a permit under an exemption that…

San Francisco court to hear case on National Guard deployment in LA
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court in San Francisco is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday on whether the Trump administration should return control of National Guard troops to California after they were deployed following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids. The hearing comes after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a…

Senate expected to pass crypto bill without addressing Trump’s investments
WASHINGTON — The Senate is expected to approve legislation Tuesday that would regulate a form of cryptocurrency known as stablecoins, the first of what is expected to be a wave of crypto legislation from Congress that the industry hopes will bolster its legitimacy and reassure consumers. The fast-moving legislation, which will be sent to the…

After Minnesota shooting, some states are more tightly guarding officials’ personal information
LOS ANGELES — Lawmakers in some states are moving to delete their home addresses from online directories and Wisconsin legislators are seeking added security for a session this week after one Minnesota legislator was killed and another wounded in their suburban Minneapolis homes last weekend in what Gov. Tim Walz described as a targeted political…

Supreme Court to hear appeal from Chevron in landmark coastal damage lawsuits
NEW ORLEANS — The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear an appeal from Chevron, Exxon and other oil and gas companies that lawsuits seeking compensation for coastal land loss and environmental degradation in Louisiana should be heard in federal court. The companies are appealing a 2024 decision by a federal appeals court that kept…

Anti-domestic violence groups sue Trump administration over grant requirements
Seventeen statewide anti-domestic and sexual violence coalitions are suing President Donald Trump’s administration over requirements in grant applications that they don’t promote “gender ideology” or run diversity, equity and inclusion programs or prioritize people in the country illegally. The groups say the requirements, which Trump ushered in with executive orders, put them in “an impossible…

Wisconsin farmer sues Trump admin. claiming discrimination against white farmers
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities. The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on…

A guide to what the Juneteenth holiday is and how to celebrate it
It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after the Civil War’s end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The resulting Juneteenth holiday — it’s name combining “June” and “nineteenth” — has only grown in one-and-a-half centuries. In 2021, President Joe Biden designated…