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(04/09/17 10:51pm)
By Cait Flynn
Staff Writer
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency after a section of the I-85 bridge collapsed due to a fire on March 30, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The collapse impacted more than 250,000 commuters in one of Atlanta’s main traffic arteries, according to USA Today.
Authorities arrested three people the next day in connection to the fire that caused the collapse.
Basil Eleby, 39, could face 25 years in prison if convicted of felony arson and criminal damage to property charges, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
According to the same source, witnesses Sophia Brauer and Barry Andrew Thomas were cited for criminal trespass.
Eleby, Thomas and Brauer had planned to meet under the I-85 bridge at 4 p.m. to smoke crack cocaine, but Eleby decided to smoke all of the drugs himself and then started the fire, according to an affidavit filed by the fire department lieutenant, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Atlanta residents will need to rely on alternative transportation routes to commute in and out of the city, as officials said repairs will take at least several months, USA Today reported.
Atlanta officials are looking back to 1996 Olympic plans to determine the most effective traffic plan for commuters.
“We handled the Olympics very nicely in Atlanta and I really think that is the closest comparison from a traffic standpoint with what we’re going to be going through over the next four to six weeks,” said Kasim Reed, the mayor of Atlanta, according to USA Today.
Newly appointed U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao authorized $10 million to replace the northbound and southbound bridge, with the federal and state governments jointly funding the permanent replacement, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Deal’s Chief of Staff Chris Riley stated that President Donald Trump made a call on March 30 to offer his full support, according to the same source.
Trump has vowed a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure, CNN reported.
According to the American Road and Transportation and Transportation Builders Association, Georgia has hundreds of structurally deficient bridges, but I-85 was considered sound, USA Today reported.
(03/06/17 12:38am)
By Cait Flynn
Staff Writer
Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected the new chair of the Democratic National Committee in an unusually narrow race, The Washington Post reported.
Perez, who served under former President Barack Obama, was an establishment favorite to win, garnering the support of former former Vice President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Eric Holder, according to The Washington Post.
Perez won after two rounds of voting, earning 213.5 in the first round, just one vote shy of the 214.5 votes needed to win. After the second round, Perez won 235 votes and Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota won 200, The New York Times reported.
Perez graduated from Harvard Law School and served as assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (envato elements).
According to the same source, Ellison, who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, is the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Congress and represents a more progressive sect of the Democratic Party.
After Perez’s nomination, the chant “Party of the people, not big money” rang out among Ellison supporters in protest, according to The New York Times.
Protests were so loud that outgoing Deputy Chair R. T. Ryback had to quiet the crowd for Perez to announce he would name Ellison deputy chair. The two have remained cordial with each other throughout the race in order to avoid repeating the vitriol felt during the 2016 primary between Hillary Clinton and Sanders, The New York Times reported.
“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided,” Ellison said after being named deputy chair, according to The New York Times.
The same source reported that the Democratic Party has many key elections coming up, including the gubernatorial race in New Jersey and 2018 midterm elections.
Perez is the first Latino elected to the position. The son of Dominican immigrants, Perez has held various state and federal jobs throughout his career rising to labor secretary under the Obama administration, The New York Times reported.
Perez graduated from Harvard Law School and served as assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, according to his official website.
“When we have these conversations, sometimes spirited, sometimes difficult, that’s not a sign of weakness, that’s a sign of strength as a party, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing,” Perez said in his acceptance speech delivered partially in Spanish, according to The New York Times.
(02/20/17 5:07pm)
By Cait Flynn
Staff Writer
At least 683 people living in the country illegally have been detained or deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement following a wave of raids and arrests enabled by President Donald Trump’s executive order last month, according to The Washington Post.
The executive order, signed on Jan. 25, expanded the criteria for enforcement of immigration laws as well as the initiation of construction on a border wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, The Washington Post reported.
According to the same source, the order changes the focus of ICE by prioritizing deportation efforts concerning those who have committed violent crimes instead of those who have committed a crime in general. The order also instructed Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to pursue means of stripping “sanctuary cities” of their federal funding.
Department of Homeland Security officials have denied any illegal actions or detainments since the executive order was signed. Kelly testified before Congress earlier last week, describing ICE as having its “hands tied behind (its) back” during the Obama administration, and hoping the new efforts to deport more than 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally will alleviate ICE’s frustrations, Fortune magazine reported.
However, the same source reported that the Trump administration officials describe ICE’s current actions as no different than that of what took place during the Obama administration. As many as 409,000 people were deported in 2012, leading critics to call former President Barrack Obama “Deporter-in-Chief.”
Anecdotal accounts of ICE agents waiting outside of schools, community centers, homeless shelters and parking lots have been unilaterally denied by the agency, according to The Washington Post.
A tweet from ICE on Friday, Feb. 17, reads, “Reports of ICE checkpoints, indiscriminate ‘raids’ & sweeps... are false, dangerous, and irresponsible.”
Top ICE officials met with Congress this week to discuss the enforcement efforts, concluding that as many as 186 of those arrested have no criminal record. In separate statements, the agency has only confirmed 20 cases in which the person arrested has committed a past violent or sexual crime, The Washington Post reported.
Friday morning, the Associated Press reported the interception of a memo by the Department of Homeland Security in which a plan was formulated to deploy as many as 100,000 National Guard members to 11 states to aid local officials and ICE agents in enforcement efforts.
The executive order on immigration did not include plans regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that was signed by Obama, which allows immigrants living in the country illegally to apply for legal work visas that are valid for two years.
DACA was repeatedly threatened on the campaign trail by Trump, who called it a “horrible order” and promised it would be ended immediately, according to The Hill.
Carlos Garcia, director of the human rights group Puente Arizona, told The Washington Post that legally questionable arrests will likely lead to the retreat and hiding of the immigrant community.
“If what’s going to happen when people come to check-in (is that) they are going to get detained and deported, I would assume most people will not turn themselves in,” Garcia said.
(02/14/17 2:00am)
By Cait Flynn
Staff Writer
Northern provinces in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been hit with nearly 10 feet of snow in the past week that has killed 106 people and injured scores more on both sides of the border.
The snow closed down highways and airports and spurred avalanches across the mountainous region.
“Avalanches have buried two entire villages,” a representative of Afghanistan’s Ministry of State Natural Disasters said, according to a BBC report.
After one avalanche, 53 died in the province of Nuristan in northeast Afghanistan, according to BBC. The same source reported that there were 13 deaths after an avalanche near the town of Chitral in Pakistan.
The death toll is expected to rise as continued snowfall has blocked access to remote towns, forcing the rescue efforts to rely on helicopters to search for survivors and deliver aid, according to Time magazine.
Hamid Karzai International Airport, the largest in Afghanistan, was forced to shut down after 2 feet of snow accumulated on the runway, according to NPR.
Likewise, snowfall on Kabul-Kandahar highway has stranded upwards of 250 vehicles. Motorists are trapped without food on the highway — at least two motorists froze to death in their cars, BBC reported.
"Most affected are women and children,” said Hafiz Abdul Qayyom, Nuristan Province Governor. “The area is completely blocked because of snow, so it is very difficult for us to send support, but we are trying our best," according to Al Jazeera.
American intelligence agencies and upwards of 13,000 NATO troops are currently in Afghanistan aiding in a so-called train, advise, assist mission, though it is unclear yet if they will be playing a role in recovery efforts, NPR reported.
(01/29/17 4:45pm)
By Cait Flynn
Staff Writer
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, Jan. 23, that initiates an immediate federal hiring freeze, fulfilling a promise he made, according to his “Contract with the American Voter” on his website.
The memorandum prohibits the filling of all open federal positions as well as the creation of any new positions, with the exception of military personnel.
The directive also provides an exception to any position that is necessary for national security or public safety, according to Washington Post.
A hiring freeze is not an unprecedented measure for curbing federal spending, as both former President Jimmy Carter, a democrat, and former President Ronald Reagan, a republican, instituted similar freezes when they took office, according to both The New York Times and Washington Post.
Carter established a hiring practice in which the federal government could only fill a position for every two workers that were let go, according to The New York Times.
Reagan went a step further by enacting a total freeze, similar to Trump’s, just hours after his inauguration, according to Washington Post .
Hours after the directive was signed, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer described the order as an effort to apply greater care to America’s tax money.
“What the president’s showing through the hiring freeze, first and foremost today, is that we’ve got to respect the American taxpayer,” Spicer said, according to The New York Times.
Spicer further defended the freeze by describing the strain on U.S. taxpayers.
“Some people are working two, three jobs just to get by. And to see money get wasted in Washington on a job that is duplicative is insulting to the hard work that they do to pay their taxes,” Spicer saif, according to The New York Times.
Similar hiring freezes in the past have resulted in an increase in government spending as opposed to its objective aims to save taxpayer money.
More than 85 percent of all federal employees are outside of the beltway, leaving smaller and rural towns with vacancies, Washington Post reported.
A 1982 report by the Government Accountability Office showed that in order to maintain operations, many government agencies required contracted workers, which are more expensive than federal employees, according to Washington Post.
Although the president’s order forbids contracted workers, this halt in hiring practices leaves many government agencies frozen in already precarious operations.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, for instance, currently has 45,000 openings and is not exempt from the president’s memorandum, according to NPR.
Both the acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Synder, as well as Trump’s own nominee for the position, David Shulkin, disagree with the freeze, according to NPR.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs intends to exempt anyone it deems necessary for public safety, including front-line caregivers,” Snyder said in a statement, reported by NPR .
The necessity for a well-staffed Department of Veterans Affairs is growing with the assured repeal of the Affordable Care Act by the Trump administration, NBC reported.
A hiring freeze is likely to impact minority communities, as well. Black workers currently account for 18 percent of the federal workforce, whereas they account for 13 percent of the population, according to Washington Post.
Minority communities have historically benefitted from federal hiring practices since former President John F. Kennedy aimed to depict the federal government as a model of fair hiring practices. Previous freezes have disproportionately affected those communities, Washington Post reported.
The impediment to federal hiring is set to end once Trump’s budget director proposes a long-term solution to federal inefficiency, according to The New York Times.