AP PA Headlines 6/16/20
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Two bills to change how police are hired and trained are moving ahead in the Pennsylvania Legislature after unanimous committee votes. The House Judiciary Committee OK’d the proposals on Monday, a week after black state representatives commandeered the speaker’s dais to pressure majority Republicans to take action on stalled bills involving how police interact with people.
The committee voted to mandate thorough background checks for law enforcement officers and require applicants’ former employers to provide information on their job history. The committee also approved a measure that would mandate training in how to interact with people of various racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds.
An energy company faces felony charges that it polluted residential water wells in a Pennsylvania community that has long been a battleground in the national debate over natural gas drilling and fracking. Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. was charged Monday following a grand jury investigation that found the company failed to fix faulty gas wells in Dimock and surrounding communities that leaked methane into residential water supplies. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office charged Cabot with a total of 15 criminal counts. The company has long insisted the gas in Dimock’s aquifer is naturally occurring,
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A challenger to a longtime Democratic lawmaker from west Philadelphia is declaring victory in a four-way primary contest for a state legislative seat. Rick Krajewski, a community organizer who was endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, led Rep. James Roebuck by nearly 2,600 votes with counting just about finished Monday in Philadelphia in the June 2 primary election. Roebuck would become the sixth incumbent to lose in the primary. Roebuck, first elected in 1985, is the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee. Krajewski would have no Republican opposition in November’s general election. A spokesperson for Philadelphia’s elections office estimates that fewer than 2,500 ballots remain to be counted.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday will extend legal protection to gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination at certain workplaces across all of Pennsylvania, but a years-long fight in the state Legislature isn’t over. LGBT rights advocates in Pennsylvania said the court’s ruling doesn’t cover people who work for smaller employers, and it doesn’t extend legal protection against discrimination to housing or public services.
Advocates want to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to a state law that empowers the state Human Relations Commission to investigate complaints of discrimination in employment, housing and public services because of someone’s race, sex, religion, age or disability. The commission can impose civil penalties.
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Features
WASHINGTON — Embracing a new priority, President Donald Trump is set to announce executive actions on police procedures and Senate Republicans are preparing a package of policing changes as the GOP rushes to respond to mass demonstrations over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans. It’s a sudden shift for the Republican Party, one Democrats are watching warily, and a crush of activity that shows how quickly the mass protests over police violence and racial prejudice are transforming national politics.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declared that Republicans are developing “a serious proposal to reform law enforcement.” The Senate Judiciary Committee will gavel in Tuesday afternoon for an extensive hearing on “Police Use of Force and Community Relations,” drawing testimony from the nation’s leading civil rights and law enforcement leaders.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A panel has voted to remove a plaque from Maryland’s Capitol that honors the Civil War’s Union and Confederate soldiers and until recently showed the U.S. flag and Confederate flag crossed. The four members of the State House Trust, which oversees the Maryland State House and its grounds voted to remove the plaque after Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones renewed her push to get rid of it — after the panel decided last year to cover the flags with an image of Maryland’s state flag. Jones continued pushing for complete removal because of the sign’s language.
“I want to thank the State House Trust for this important vote today to remove this confederate-sympathizing plaque,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “We have made great strides to reflect the importance of African-Americans in our State’s history over the past year.” In February, Maryland unveiled bronze statues of famed abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom were born slaves on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Those statues are now in the Capitol’s Old House Chamber, the room where slavery was abolished in the state in 1864. Jones, a Democrat who is Maryland’s first black and first female House speaker, renewed her push to remove the Civil War plaque last week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Driven by a swift-moving national debate, Senate Republicans are on the brink of introducing an extensive package of policing changes. It’s expected to include new restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices as Congress rushes to respond to mass demonstrations over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans. Expected Wednesday, it’s a sudden shift of GOP priorities, with President Donald Trump signaling support. The White House is set to announce its own executive actions on law enforcement procedures on Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on policing changes.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A statue honoring the man who laid claim to the land that sparked the California Gold Rush has been removed outside a hospital bearing his name in the state capital. Several dozen people cheered Monday as a work crew lifted the statue of John Sutter off its pedestal outside Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento. Sutter was a 19th century European colonizer of California who enslaved Native Americans. Across the U.S. and Europe, statues of Confederate officers and colonial figures are being toppled, sometimes forcibly by protesters, as the uproar over racism spreads after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council has voted unanimously to bar police from using tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd control devices after officers repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators protesting racism and police brutality. The 9-0 vote Monday came amid frustration with the Seattle Police Department, which used tear gas to disperse protesters in the city’s densest neighborhood, Capitol Hill, just days after Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best promised not to.
The council heard repeated complaints from residents forced out of their homes by the gas even though they weren’t protesting; one resident said his wife doused their child’s eyes with breast milk. A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary order banning Seattle police from using tear gas, pepper spray, foam-tipped projectiles or other force against protesters, finding that the department had used less-lethal weapons “disproportionately and without provocation,” chilling free speech in the process.
UNDATED (AP) — For the fourth time in its history, the Oscars are being postponed. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Monday that the 93rd Academy Awards will now be held on April 25, 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned because of the pandemic’s effects on the movie industry. The Academy’s Board of Governors also decided to extend the eligibility window beyond the calendar year to Feb. 28, 2021. Other entertainment industry awards shows are also in flux, like the Tony Awards. The 74th Tony Awards, originally set for June 7, has been postponed indefinitely.
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