Sunday News Roundup: Trump keeps losing in court

By Robert A. Vella

President Trump may have turned the Department of Justice (DOJ) into his own personal legal team, turned immigration and border enforcement into an ethnic cleansing apparatus, bullied congressional Republicans into becoming his political henchmen, and taken full advantage of a reticent Democratic Party opposition, but he keeps losing court cases at a staggering rate.  Here’s another example of his dismal record plus the rest of today’s news:

From:  Judge Orders Swift Action to Improve Conditions for Migrant Children in Texas

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has ordered a mediator to move swiftly to improve health and sanitation at Border Patrol facilities in Texas, where observers reported migrant children were subject to filthy conditions that imperiled their health.

Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California asked late on Friday that an independent monitor, whom she appointed last year, ensure that conditions in detention centers are promptly addressed. She set a deadline of July 12 for the government to report on what it has accomplished “post haste” to remedy them.

From:  Trump administration agrees to delay health care rule

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration has agreed to postpone implementing a rule allowing medical workers to decline performing abortions or other treatments on moral or religious grounds while the so-called “conscience” rule is challenged in a California court.

[…]

“The Trump administration is trying to systematically limit access to critical medical care for women, the LGBTQ community, and other vulnerable patients,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement announcing Friday’s decision. “Hospitals are no place to put personal beliefs above patient care.”

San Francisco would have faced losing about $1 billion in federal funding for health care-related programs if the rule took effect, according to the statement from his office.

From:  The Taylor oil spill is up to a thousand times worse than the company’s estimate, study says

For 15 years, oil from one particular spill has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

A new federal study estimates that each day, about 380 to 4,500 gallons of oil are flowing at the site where a company’s oil platform was damaged after a hurricane. That’s about a hundred to a thousand times worse than the company’s initial estimate, which put the amount of oil flowing into the ocean at less than three gallons a day.

The report, released this past week and written by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one at Florida State University, also contradicted assertions from the Taylor Energy Company about where the oil was coming from.

From:  ‘Chernobyl on ice:’ Russia plans to tow a nuclear power station to the Arctic

Next month, a floating nuclear power plant called the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed via the Northern Sea Route to its final destination in the Far East, after almost two decades in construction.

It’s part of Russia’s ambition to bring electric power to a mineral-rich region. The 144-meter (472 feet) long platform painted in the colors of the Russian flag is going to float next to a small Arctic port town of Pevek, some 4,000 miles away from Moscow. It will supply electricity to settlements and companies extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka region.

A larger agenda is at work too: aiding President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious Arctic expansion plans, which have raised geopolitical concerns in the United States.

From:  Sudan: Tens of thousands protest, demanding civilian rule

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Sunday in the largest mass demonstration since the deadly crackdown on a pro-democracy sit-in earlier in June.

From:  Taliban kills eight election commission employees in south Afghanistan-officials

KABUL, June 30 (Reuters) – Taliban fighters killed eight election commission employees on Saturday night inside a district center in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar, officials said.