Up to 22,000 young aliens miss deadline
WASHINGTON — About 21,000-22,000 young illegal aliens who participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, including many who were brought to the country illegally as children, did not submit their status renewal applications in time, according to preliminary numbers released Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security.
Last month, President Donald Trump announced an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation.
But Trump said those whose authorizations were set to expire within six months could apply for renewals — so long as they did so by Oct. 5.
Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan says roughly 133,000 of the 154,000 people eligible for renewals submitted their paperwork by the deadline.
Insured losses in wildfires put at $1B
SAN FRANCISCO — The wildfires that devastated California this month caused at least $1 billion in damage to insured property, officials said Thursday, as authorities raised the number of homes and other buildings destroyed to nearly 7,000.
Both numbers were expected to rise as crews continue assessing areas scorched by the blazes that killed 42 people.
State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said the preliminary dollar valuation of losses came from claims filed with the eight largest insurance companies in the affected areas and did not include uninsured property.
He said most of the newly counted destroyed buildings burned on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9 — when the wildfires broke out in Northern California’s wine country and other nearby areas.
The initial insurance total covered 4,177 partial residential losses; 5,449 total residential losses; 35 rental and condominium losses; 601 commercial property losses; more than 3,000 vehicle losses; 150 farm or agricultural equipment losses; and 39 boats.
California Gov. Jerry Brown late Wednesday issued an executive order to speed up recovery efforts.
Obama campaigns for governor hopefuls
NEWARK, N.J. — Former President Barack Obama called on fellow Democrats to reject politics of “division” and “fear” while rallying Thursday with party candidates for governors in Virginia and New Jersey.
“Why are we deliberately trying to misunderstand each other, and be cruel to each other and put each other down? That’s not who we are,” Obama told several thousand people at the Virginia rally.
Obama did not mention Republican President Donald Trump in his speeches at Richmond’s convention center and at a Newark hotel. But he did tell crowds at both events that they could send a message to the rest of the country in future elections.
“Our democracy’s at stake, and it’s at stake right here in Virginia,” Obama said.
New Jersey Democrat Phil Murphy, Obama’s former ambassador to Germany, is facing Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, is running against Republican Ed Gillespie.
Obama never completely disappeared from public life, as he has defended policies Trump has sought to undo such as the Affordable Care Act and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for young aliens.
Alabama executes police officer’s killer
ATMORE, Ala. — A man convicted of killing a police officer in 1997 was put to death Thursday by lethal injection, despite his claim that the state’s execution method was cruel and unusual.
Torrey Twane McNabb, 40, used his last statement to tell his mother and sister that he was unafraid, and he cursed at the state, saying “I hate you … I hate you.”
As the procedure began, he raised his middle fingers before becoming still. He was pronounced dead at 9:38 p.m., authorities said.
McNabb was convicted of killing Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon in 1997. Prosecutors said McNabb shot Gordon five times as the officer sat in his patrol car after arriving at a traffic accident McNabb caused while fleeing a bail bondsman.
The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution for several hours to consider McNabb’s request for a stay, but ruled that the execution could go forward.
McNabb’s attorneys had unsuccessfully sought to stop the execution since he is one of several inmates in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the humaneness of the state’s lethal-injection procedure.
The state argued that the inmates are unlikely to prevail in their claims since the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed other executions, including four in Alabama, to proceed using the method.