Seattle police cuts at hand; chief to quit
SEATTLE -- Seattle's police chief said she is stepping down, a move made public the same day the City Council approved reducing the department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.
Carmen Best, the first Black woman to hold the top policing job in the city, said in a message to the Police Department that she would retire next month and was "confident the department will make it through these difficult times."
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Best said that that her retirement will be effective Sept. 2 and the mayor has appointed Deputy Chief Adrian Diaz as the interim chief. On Monday, the council approved measures that would cut less than $4 million of the department's $400 million annual budget this year.
In an email to police, Mayor Jenny Durkan said she accepted Best's decision "with a very heavy heart." Durkan appointed Best to the post in 2018.
"I regret deeply that she concluded that the best way to serve the city and help the department was a change in leadership, in the hope that would change the dynamics to move forward with the City Council," Durkan wrote.
Cuts to the department have been supported by demonstrators who have marched in the city after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis but strongly opposed by Durkan and Best.
2 deaths confirmed in Baltimore blast
BALTIMORE -- Two people are now confirmed dead in a natural-gas explosion that destroyed three row houses in Baltimore and sent seven people to the hospital, authorities said Tuesday.
A man was pulled from the debris shortly before 1 a.m. Baltimore Fire Department spokeswoman Blair Adams said at a morning news conference. Family members identified him as Joseph Graham, 20, a Morgan State University student who had attended a party at one of the row homes that was destroyed.
Monday's natural-gas explosion leveled three row houses and ripped open a fourth, trapping people in the debris and scattering shards of glass and other rubble over the neighborhood. Dozens of firefighters converged on the scene to free the injured.
Meanwhile, authorities have not identified a woman who was pronounced dead at the scene. Seven others were hospitalized, five in critical condition, said Adams.
The exact cause remains unknown, and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. appealed for patience as it investigates.
Threats cited in Secret Service shooting
WASHINGTON -- The man shot and wounded Monday by a uniformed Secret Service officer, prompting President Donald Trump to be abruptly escorted out of a briefing room during a televised news conference, had been threatening to kill people near the White House, two officials familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
However, the man, Myron Basil Berryman, 51, of Forestville, Md., apparently was unarmed. He was arrested on a charge of assaulting a law enforcement officer, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. He remained hospitalized with critical injuries on Tuesday, according to authorities.
Berryman had approached the uniformed officer just before 6 p.m. Monday at the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the White House, and told the officer he had a weapon, Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Tom Sullivan said. He then moved aggressively toward the officer and appeared ready to fire before the officer shot him once, Sullivan said.
Stamps ruled out as poll tax in Georgia
ATLANTA -- A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an argument that requiring voters to provide their own stamps for mail-in ballots and ballot applications amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.
A lawsuit filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Georgia chapter alleged that the postage requirement effectively imposes a poll tax and is an unjustifiable burden on the right to vote. The challenge was lodged on behalf of voters and the Black Votes Matter Fund, a group seeking to empower minority-group communities.
The lawsuit asked a judge to find the requirement unconstitutional and to order the state to stop requiring voters to provide their own stamps to vote by mail-in ballot.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg in Atlanta had already declined to order the state to provide postage-paid envelopes for the June primary and Tuesday's primary runoff election. But she had held off on making a decision about the November general election to give her time to review additional filings.
"The fact that any registered voter may vote in Georgia on election day without purchasing a stamp, and without undertaking any 'extra steps' besides showing up at the voting precinct and complying with generally applicable election regulations, necessitates a conclusion that stamps are not poll taxes," Totenberg wrote in her order Tuesday.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports