Wisconsin
Conservative law firm demands ministers see prisoners
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative law firm wants state corrections officials to relax COVID-19 safety protocols and allow volunteer ministers to visit prison inmates.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty sent a letter Thursday to Department of Corrections Secretary Kevin Carr complaining about the no-visitor policy the department adopted in March 2020 as the pandemic was taking hold. The firm argued that the policy bars volunteer ministers from visiting inmates, amounting to a violation of state law that gives clergy the right to visit inmates at least weekly and is likely unconstitutional.
The firm demands the department restore the inmates’ rights or face a lawsuit.
“In sum, the DOC’s policy is illegal and the DOC must act now to restore the rights of Wisconsin’s inmates to freely exercise their religion,” the letter said. “One year of violations is enough.”
DOC media officials didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday morning.
Nevada
Wynn Resorts paying $5.6M to settle 8-year dealer tips fight
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Wynn Resorts Ltd. has settled an eight-year federal wage-and-tips dispute, agreeing to pay $5.6 million to settle a court fight with about 1,000 current and former table games dealers.
The company said Wednesday it was pleased with what it called it “an amiable conclusion.”
U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon on Friday approved the agreement and dismissed the case stemming from a tip-sharing policy that former CEO Steve Wynn began in 2006 at the company’s Wynn and Encore resorts.
Matt Maddox, who succeeded Wynn as CEO in 2018, sought shortly after he took the top post to end the dispute.
Other Las Vegas Strip casinos did not adopt the requirement that dealers share with what Wynn termed “casino service team” leaders about 12% of pooled tips, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Dealers filed federal lawsuits in 2013 and 2018 seeking to recoup as much as $50 million in lost tips, the newspaper said.
The settlement was reached with the help of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mediator.
Court documents said $10,000 will go to original plaintiffs Joseph Cesarz and Quy Ngoc Tang and $1.4 million to attorneys. The Review-Journal said less than $4,200 will go to other current and former dealers involved in the case.
Alaska
Judge: US didn’t properly weigh oil impact on beluga whales
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. agency did not properly consider how tugboat noise tied to planned oil and gas drilling in Alaska could affect endangered beluga whales, a judge has ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s decision Tuesday came in a lawsuit filed by conservation groups Cook Inletkeeper and the Center for Biological Diversity.
Oil and gas company Hilcorp applied in 2018 for authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service for activities related to an exploratory drilling program in Cook Inlet through 2024 that could disrupt beluga whales and other marine mammals with loud noise, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The federal agency’s recovery plan for the whales identified noise from tugboats as a major threat, but the National Marine Fisheries Service did not properly consider the impact of that noise when it approved Hilcorp’s request, the judge said.
The estimated number of beluga whales that stay year-round in Cook Inlet, a waterway connecting Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska, has dropped from about 1,300 in 1979 to about 279 in 2018.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has listed diminishing food supply, habitat loss, pollution and human-caused noise among the threats to the whales but also has said it does not know why the population is not recovering.
NOAA has said pervasive noise could inhibit the ability of beluga whales to hear, communicate and find food.
Gleason ordered the sides to propose an “appropriate remedy” within two weeks.
Luke Miller, a Hilcorp spokesperson, had no immediate comment Wednesday. Julie Fair, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, said the agency was reviewing the decision.
The ruling could affect Hilcorp’s plans for oil and gas exploration in federal and state waters, but it would not affect existing production, said Bob Shavelson with Cook Inletkeeper.
California
School board member sues over tweet response
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The former vice president of San Francisco’s school board is suing the district and her colleagues after they voted to strip her of the position because of tweets she wrote in 2016 that said Asian Americans used ‘’white supremacist” thinking.
Alison Collins filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court, alleging violation of her constitutional rights including free speech, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
She is seeking to have the board restore her lost positions and also is seeking nearly $90 million in damages from the school district and five school board members who supported the vote.
At a Wednesday evening rally, Collins said she has been the focus of a “targeted smear campaign to label me as a racist,” KGO-TV reported.
Collins, who is Black, came under fire after critics unearthed tweets she wrote in 2016. Many Asian Americans, she wrote, “believe they benefit from the ‘model minority’ BS’” and “use white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’”
Near the end of the thread, Collins called for Asian Americans to speak out against then-President Donald Trump’s policies, saying that her daughter stepped in to stop Asian American boys who were bullying a Latino student.
“Don’t Asian Americans know they are on his list as well?” Collins wrote, using asterisks in place of a racial slur. “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled?
beaten? Being a house n(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)r is still being a n(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)r. You’re still considered ‘the help.’”
Collins has said her words were taken out of context and apologized “for the pain my words may have caused.”
In a 5-2 no-confidence vote last week, the school board stripped Collins of her vice presidency and removed her from committees.
In her lawsuit, Collins alleges that instead of taking actions to protect “Black and Brown children from racist harassment and racist bullying, defendants opted to ‘burn’ the messenger, using a pretzel-twisted redirection of Ms. Collins’ seasoned social metaphors.”
