Sen. Cornyn wants Senate to OK keeping DACA recipients in the US
WASHINGTON – Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, wants the Senate to permit people brought to the U.S. as children to stay in this country permanently.
Cornyn joined Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in a letter this week asking Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to consider a bill that would give permanent legal status to temporary residents allowed to stay in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.
DACA began as an Obama-era policy that allows children brought to the U.S. unlawfully to acquire work permits and avoid deportation. The Trump administration announced its plans to end the policy in 2017 but was blocked from doing so by court rulings.
Cornyn and Tillis asked Durbin to focus on DACA instead of another bill, the American Dream and Promise Act, that would provide a citizenship path for children brought into the U.S. The two Republicans said, “There is no clear and politically viable path forward for such legislation in Congress.”
Cornyn’s proposal of “permanent legal status” is vague and could refer to a number of things from green cards to full-blown citizenship. Cornyn’s office did not clarify what it meant by “permanent legal status.”
The other bill the committee is considering, the American Dream and Promise Act, passed the House in March on a party-line vote.
Durbin could not be reached for comment.
—McClatchy Washington Bureau
Magnitude 5.9 earthquake rattles Central California, Sierra communities
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An earthquake jolted Central California on Thursday afternoon, shaking up residents of the Sierra Nevada foothills and the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys.
The shaking, registering magnitude 5.9, was centered in the Little Antelope Valley about four miles south of Coleville in Mono County, about 150 miles east of Sacramento.
Preliminary reports had indicated two earthquakes striking 25 seconds but 100 miles apart — but the U.S. Geological Survey revised the shaking and removed the report of a magnitude 4.8 quake in Farmington, about five miles southeast of Stockton.
A swarm of at least 10 quakes in the Sierra followed — most of the aftershocks were between 4.2 and 3.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“While there are no preliminary reports of damage or injuries, this is a rapidly evolving situation & more details will emerge in the coming hours.” the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services tweeted. “We are working closely with local officials to ensure they have the resources and support to rapidly respond to these earthquakes.”
Shaking was felt widely in Sacramento, Stockton and Nevada City, according to journalists from The Sacramento Bee. The shaking was also felt in the Bay Area, according to KRON-TV, which reported feeling “light shaking” in its San Francisco studio.
—The Sacramento Bee
Lawyer Michael Avenatti to spend 30 months in prison for Nike shakedown
NEW YORK — Bulldog lawyer Michael Avenatti has lost his bark.
The once-famous attorney choked up Thursday, saying he was ashamed of himself before being sentenced to two years and six months for trying to shake down Nike of more than $20 million.
“I lost my way. I betrayed my own values, my friends, my family and myself. I betrayed my profession. I became driven by the things that don’t matter in life,” Avenatti said in Manhattan Federal Court.
“All the fame, notoriety and money in the world is meaningless. TV and Twitter, Your Honor, mean nothing. Everyone wants to ride in a limo with you but very few are willing to sit next to you on the bus. Even fewer are willing to take your calls from prison.”
Avenatti had only himself to blame for his downfall. His hyperaggressive style, which made him a liberal resistance hero and Trump-world villain, led him to cross a legal line into extortion during negotiations with Nike in 2019.
Avenatti, 50, represented an elite youth basketball coach who claimed that Nike secretly paid the families of top prospects. Avenatti told Nike lawyers the shoe giant should pay more than $20 million to keep the coach quiet, or he’d go public with allegations that would send the company’s stock price plummeting.
—New York Daily News
Fans banned at Olympics after Tokyo institutes a state of emergency
With coronavirus cases surging in Tokyo — and the government instituting a new state of emergency — officials have declared that spectators will be barred from the Summer Olympics.
The announcement Thursday marks another unfortunate, historic moment for these Games, the first to be postponed for a year and now the first to be held in empty stadiums and arenas.
A joint statement from the organizing committee, the government and the International Olympic Committee offered “regret for the athletes and for the spectators that this measure had to be put in place.”
“I’m a little bit heartbroken,” U.S. diver Krysta Palmer said. “I also feel heartbroken for Tokyo and the country of Japan.It’s tough for them not being able to hold a normal Olympics.”
Tokyo officials had previously suggested they would not move forward without fans but changed their minds on the same day IOC President Thomas Bach arrived in the city. Bach was expected to self-isolate in his hotel for three days and then attend meetings to discuss the issue.
Those plans were accelerated after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared that a state of emergency would go into effect Monday and continue through late August, a timeline that envelopes the Games, which are scheduled for July 23 through Aug. 8.
—Los Angeles Times
