Nwexx

Posts

Federal judge terminates consent decree for Tutwiler Prison for Women

A person behind bars. A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections over allegations of sexual assault and sexual abuse at the state's only women's prison. (Getty Images) A federal judge Thursday dismissed a consent decree between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice over sexual abuse at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson dismissed the case, filed in 2015, after the state and the DOJ reached an agreement to terminate the remaining issues in the consent decree. “Over the past decade, the Alabama Department of Corrections has made real, measurable progress in strengthening oversight and safety at Tutwiler, and this judgment reflects that work,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. Justice Department officials filed the lawsuit in May 2015 after the agency’s civil rights division released a scathing report on sexual abuse and harassment of women incarcerated at Tutwil...

Alabamian tests positive for measles; no exposure in state, says ADPH

A woman scratches a measles rash. An Alabamian living and working outside the state tested positive for measles, the Alabama Department of Public Health reported Thursday. (Getty Images) An Alabamian living and working outside the state has tested positive for measles, but is not related to any known exposures in the state, the Alabama Department of Public Health said Thursday. The individual was unvaccinated, according to ADPH. The department was unable to release any other identifying information on Thursday afternoon. “However, it serves as a reminder that unvaccinated individuals can be exposed to measles while traveling within the United States or internationally and may unknowingly bring the virus home, where it can be spread to others,” a statement from the department said Thursday. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE As of Frid...

US Senate Judiciary holds over vote on Blanche nomination for AG as Grassley slams Dems

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday, July 23, 2026 criticized committee Democrats opposed to the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general. (Screenshot from committee webcast) WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote one week. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Republican and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used the time that had been allocated for the vote to comment at length on Blanche’s nomination. Grassley then recessed the session because too many Republicans were absent, which he described as “kind of rude.” Grassley praised the selection of Blanche and said the Jus...

As national death rate dips, some states did better than others

A person walks into University Hospital in Newark, N.J. New Jersey has had one of the largest drops in deaths rates since 2015, according to a Stateline analysis. (Photo by Terrence McDonald/New Jersey Monitor) The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics. States have not shared equally in the success, though, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional data by state. And the low ebb may reflect the effects of past health care expansion efforts that are threatened by today’s Trump administration moves to curtail Medicaid expansion and cut funding for rural hospitals. Some states in the Northeast have seen death rates drop by the most between 2015 and 2025 — led by New Jersey (down 8.3%), Rhode Island (down 8%), New York (down 7.9%), Massachusetts (down 7.4%) and the District of Columbia (down...

US Senate Dems press Mullin to ensure all immigration agents have body cameras

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer watches a crowd of protesters at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, on May 25, 2026. (Photo by Ben Ackman/New Jersey Monitor) WASHINGTON — A supermajority of the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus has asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to deploy body cameras to all federal immigration officers, following deadly shootings of immigrants in Texas and Maine. In a July 19 letter addressed to Mullin, 38 Senate Democrats and Maine’s Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, requested information about the shootings this month in Houston of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and in Biddeford, Maine, of 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Neither man was the initial enforcement target when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stopped their vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security has said. “The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands immediate, thorough, independent, and transpar...

Onetime acting FEMA chief fired by Trump now on track to be confirmed to head agency

FEMA nominee Cameron Hamilton testifies before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 17, 2026. (Screenshot from committee webcast) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday moved one step closer to confirming the first administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency since President Donald Trump took office last year. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-4 to send Cameron Hamilton’s nomination to the floor, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether the full Senate would vote before it breaks for its August recess. Hamilton led FEMA in an acting role at the beginning of 2025 but was fired that May after testifying before Congress that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Trump has said repeatedly during his second administration he would like to reduce the size and scope of the federal government’s disaster...