Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Perry sending Guard to border
AUSTIN, Texas
Gov. Rick Perry is deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border over the next month to combat what he said Monday were criminals exploiting a surge of children pouring into the U.S. illegally.
Perry, a vocal critic of the White House’s response to the border crisis who is mulling a second presidential run, said the state has a responsibility to act after “lip service and empty promises” from Washington.
“I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor,” the governor said.
The deployment of National Guard troops, which may act in a law-enforcement capacity under state authority, will cost Texas an estimated $12 million per month.
Typhoon kills 11 in Vietnam, 33 in China
HANOI, Vietnam
A typhoon that barreled into northern Vietnam killed at least 11 people and left several missing, state media said, while in China the death toll from the strongest storm to strike the country’s south in four decades rose to 33.
Typhoon Rammasun made landfall in Vietnam over the weekend, triggering heavy floods, destroying homes and crops, and blocking roads with landslides, said the Vietnam News, an English-language daily published by the official Vietnam News Agency.
Gay, transgender workers protected
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama on Monday ordered employment protection for gay and transgender employees who work for the federal government or for companies holding federal contracts, telling advocates he embraced the “irrefutable rightness of your cause.”
Obama said it was unacceptable that being gay is still a firing offense in many places in the United States, and he called on Congress to extend the ban to all employers. But legislation that would extend the ban has become embroiled in a dispute over whether religious groups should get exemptions.
Hospital pays $190M over ‘rogue’ doctor
BALTIMORE
A “rogue” gynecologist who used tiny cameras to secretly record videos and photos of his patients has forced one of the world’s top medical centers to pay $190 million to 8,000 women and girls.
Dr. Nikita Levy was fired after 25 years with the Johns Hopkins Health System in Baltimore in February 2013 after a female co-worker spotted the penlike camera he wore around his neck and alerted authorities.
Levy committed suicide days later, as a federal investigation led to roughly 1,200 videos and 140 images stored on computers in his home.
Execution-drug case heads to high court
PHOENIX
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Arizona cannot execute a death-row inmate without providing detailed information about the drugs intended for his lethal injection, a decision that prompted state officials to say they will take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dispute centers on whether a man convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend and her father should have access to information the state of Arizona has refused to provide, and it comes amid nationwide scrutiny surrounding capital punishment and whether condemned inmates unduly suffer.
Associated Press