The nation in brief

City to remit legal fees in abortion suit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A Tennessee city that tried to outlaw surgical abortions has agreed to pay $225,000 in legal fees to attorneys representing an abortion clinic, according to an order entered Thursday in federal court in Nashville.

As part of the order, the city of Mt. Juliet also has agreed to let the carafem abortion clinic operate anywhere in the city that is zoned for professional medical services or physicians offices.

Carafem opened its Mt. Juliet office on March 1, 2019. Less than 48 hours later, the city commissioners held a specially called Sunday meeting where they introduced an ordinance requiring businesses providing surgical abortions to be located in industrial zones.

The ordinance also included a provision that would not allow those businesses to operate within 1,000 feet of churches, parks, schools, libraries, child care facilities or residential areas. In practice, it covered the entire city, according to a lawsuit filed in December by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The clinic claimed in its suit that the city acted illegally by targeting the constitutional right to an abortion. Commissioners and the mayor openly stated that they were motivated by their personal opposition to abortion, according to the lawsuit.

In May, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the ordinance after determining that carafem was likely to prevail at trial.

School apologizes for segregated 'cafes'

DEARBORN, Mich. -- The University of Michigan-Dearborn has apologized for creating segregated online student "cafes," one for white people and another for people of color, that it says were intended to promote discussions about race and diversity.

A statement by the university near Detroit was issued Wednesday after two virtual "cafe" events were held Tuesday, with one advertised as a "non-POC Cafe" for non-people of color to "gather and discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world."

The other, dubbed "BIOPIC Cafe" was for Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and described as a space for "marginalized racial/ethnic/cultural communities to gather and to relate with one another to discuss their experience as students on campus" and in the world.

The use of "cafe" was the cause of much confusion as people online thought the university was building two separate, physical cafes to serve students, said Vice Chancellor Ken Kettenbeil. While the sessions were one-time events, he said he anticipated the dialogue to continue.

In its statement, UM-Dearborn apologized for referring to the online gatherings as "cafes," saying they weren't intended to be exclusive or exclusionary for individuals of a certain race.

Drone in prison net leads to 2 arrests

JACKSON, Miss. -- A drone carrying marijuana, cigarette lighters and cellphones got caught in a net above a Mississippi prison fence, resulting in the arrest of two men, state corrections officials said.

John Travis Ross, 33, of Vicksburg and Joshua Ray Corban, 18, of Utica, were charged with conspiracy and attempting to smuggle contraband into the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said.

The drone, caught Aug. 26, carried 2 ounces of marijuana buds, a cellphone, phone chargers, headphones, and several cigarette lighters, the corrections department said.

The two were identified after Rankin County sheriff's investigators traced the drone's flights -- and then investigators turned up security video of them launching the drone, officials said. Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said the two confessed.

The drone is the third intercepted at a state prison in recent years, said John Hunt, the department's director of Investigations.

Judge: Park officials lax in 2016 wildfire

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- U.S. park officials have failed to show enough was done to keep the public updated as a deadly wildfire spread from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2016, a federal judge ruled.

The decision this week by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer in Knoxville keeps lawsuits by survivors of the blaze on track for a potential trial, though the U.S. Justice Department can still appeal.

Greer denied the government's motion to dismiss the case, writing that officials didn't provide sufficient evidence to show that they met the notification obligations under their own fire management plan. The fire killed 14 people and caused an estimated $2 billion in losses, including about 2,500 buildings that were damaged or destroyed.

Earlier, a different judge declined an initial motion to dismiss the case after the Justice Department argued that citizens don't have the legal right to challenge how government workers chose to handle the fire, because those decisions are "discretionary." That judge ruled that the National Park Service's own plan made warning residents and leaders mandatory, not discretionary.

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