Tuesday, Nov 26th
Last update09:24:43 PM GMT
Domestic Glance
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that for the first time it will hear cases argued by teleconference rather than in the courtroom due to the coronavirus pandemic including a dispute over whether President Donald Trump’s tax and financial records should be disclosed.
The announcement represented the latest way the pandemic has forced changes in American society, with the nine justices set to embrace teleconferencing like countless other shuttered workplaces that have struggled to continue functioning.
The court will hear arguments next month by teleconference in 10 cases, with the justices and lawyers for the litigants set to participate remotely in light of “public health guidance” in response to the pandemic, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.
Gov. Tate Reeves signed an executive order early this evening superseding a patchwork of local bans on public gatherings in Mississippi and other heightened restrictions that several municipalities across the state have ordered or considered in the wake of COVID-19’s spread inside Mississippi. The state reached 320 official cases today, up 300 percent since 80 known cases on Friday.
#The order seems to declare that most types of businesses in Mississippi are "essential" and thus exempt from social-distancing requirements suggested in the order. "The uninterrupted delivery of essential services and functions is vital to infrastructure viability, critical to maintain continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national security, and is crucial to community resilience, continuity of essential functions and to promote the security and safety of Mississippi residents even as the nation limits human interaction and engages in social distancing," the order stated.
#Notably, Reeves' executive order supersedes any orders by local mayors or other governing body in Mississippi that conflict with the businesses and organizations he deems exempt as "essential" businesses.
Five people including a police officer and a gunman died at a Missouri gas station after the gunman went inside and opened fire, police said on Monday.
Three citizens were also killed, Springfield police chief Paul Williams announced. One officer was injured, and another citizen.
Williams said police received reports of “multiple shooting calls throughout the city” late on Sunday. As officers were responding, witnesses reported that a vehicle crashed into a Kum & Go gas station and convenience store and the gunman ran inside and began shooting customers and employees, Williams added.
The first two officers who arrived were shot. Other officers pulled the injured officers from the store then went inside, finding three citizens dead. The gunman was also dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, Williams said.
The stinging travel fallout from the coronavirus outbreak continues.
American Airlines early Tuesday announced sweeping flight cutbacks due a steep drop in travel demand. And unlike the significant cuts announced by United last week, they extend into the peak summer travel season.
Airlines started cutting flights to China in late January and have had to take a series of even more aggressive cuts since then as the virus spread around the globe and travelers grew anxious about flying.
American said it is reducing international seat capacity by 10% this summer, including a 55% reduction in flights across the Pacific.
Federal prosecutors have charged Gary Jones, the former head of the UAW, in the corruption probe.
The charges, which accuse Jones, among other things, of conspiring to embezzle union funds and aiding racketeering activity, were unsealed Thursday. They were filed as an information in U.S. District Court in Detroit, meaning Jones is expected to plead guilty.
Jones resigned in disgrace last year after he was implicated in federal court papers which said he was one of several top union officials who had embezzled more than a million dollars and spent it on meals, cigars and other lavish goodies.
Tornadoes killed at least 21 people in Tennessee as violent storms roared through the state late Monday and early Tuesday morning, part of a sprawling system that threatened more severe weather all the way from Texas to North Carolina.
A powerful and deadly storm moving through Middle Tennessee spawned a tornado that touched down in Nashville early Tuesday morning, cutting a swath of destruction that stretched through the city for miles.
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