Politics
- Oak View Group CEO Leiweke charged with bid rigging in U. of Texas arena project
Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke has been indicted on a federal criminal conspiracy charge related to his alleged role in rigging the bidding to develop, manage and operate the University of Texas’ basketball arena in Austin.
Leiweke, 68, is accused in the indictment of conspiring with another would-be bidder on the $338 million Moody Center arena project to induce that second company to drop out of the competition with Oak View Group in exchange for receiving lucrative sub-contracts at the arena.
- Giant bugs, heat and a hospital visit: Inside Alligator Alcatraz’s first days
The calls from Alligator Alcatraz’s first detainees brought distressing news: Toilets that didn’t flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. A hospital visit. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys.
The stories, relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in Florida’s makeshift detention center for migrants in the Everglades, offer the first snapshots of the conditions inside the newly opened facility, which began accepting detainees on July 2. They reveal detainees who are frightened not just about being deported, but also about how they are being treated by the government, which is saying little about what is taking place inside.
“Why would we treat a human like that?” a woman whose Venezuelan husband is housed in Alligator Alcatraz told the Miami Herald. “They come here for a better life. I don’t understand. We are supposed to be the greatest nation under God, but we forget that we’re under God.”
- Supreme Court allows Trump to resume mass federal layoffs for now
The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had blocked President Trump's executive order requiring government agencies to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
The order was unsigned. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed to the court by President Biden, dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a fellow liberal, concurred with the court's decision. The order did not make clear how the other justices voted, but they did say, "we express no view on the legality of any" plans to shrink the federal workforce, and it left open the possibility that the issue could return to the Supreme Court.
