The nation in brief: Port city eases shipping container rules

Port city eases shipping container rules

Officials in Long Beach, Calif., relaxed restrictions on storing shipping containers in a bid to ease a bottleneck that's left nearly 80 vessels waiting offshore to enter the biggest U.S. gateway for ocean freight.

The city manager, in a statement late Friday, said the temporary zoning rule, effective immediately and set to last for 90 days, will allow stacks of four containers high compared with the longtime limit of two. The note posted online cited "a national emergency related to the supply and distribution of imported goods arriving in our nation's ports."

The Southern California ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are struggling to handle record volumes of inbound cargo amid shortages of truck drivers and equipment such as trailers to haul containers from the docks to inland warehouses, rail hubs and distribution centers.

At L.A.-Long Beach, the amount of time a container stays on a marine terminal between unloading from a ship and removal by a truck rose to a record in September of 5.94 days. Before the pandemic, the so-called dwell time was usually under three days, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

States push for ruling on reservations

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Tulsa and Owasso, Okla., state law enforcement and business groups and the states of Texas, Kansas, Louisiana and Nebraska have filed briefs supporting Oklahoma's request that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn its ruling that some tribal reservations were never disestablished.

The briefs filed Thursday allege that crimes such as domestic violence have not been prosecuted because of what is known as the McGirt decision.

Acting U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson in Tulsa and Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. dispute the claims.

"The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma has reviewed almost 3,000 cases since the McGirt ... decision," Johnson said in a statement to the Tulsa World. "My office has opened over 900 of those cases -- 450 of which have been indicted thus far."

Hoskin said the tribes have coordinated with law enforcement.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has called the McGirt decision the biggest issue facing the state and praised the filings.

"Each of these briefs factually demonstrates the chaos created by McGirt as well as the dire consequences for all Oklahomans if the ruling is not overturned," Stitt said.

The McGirt decision found that Oklahoma has no jurisdiction over crimes committed by or against American Indians on tribal reservations.

Idea floated to melt Lee statue, create art

A Black museum has proposed melting down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was recently taken down in Charlottesville, Va., and using the bronze material to create new artwork.

The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center's bid comes after Charlottesville officials said in September that they were seeking new owners for statues of Lee and Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Donors have committed $500,000 for the museum's proposal, said Executive Director Andrea Douglas.

The Lee monument, which has been a rallying symbol for white supremacists, was at the center of a deadly weekend of violence in 2017. It was finally removed in July.

Arts groups and historical societies have offered to pay as much as $100,000 for the two statues.

Gregory Downs, a historian at the University of California at Davis, praised the Jefferson School's proposal as a creative way to "confront the past and help people better understand the past."

While some advocate for putting Confederate iconography in a museum, he said there are too many such monuments for institutions to hold. "There's also the danger that a museum or park holding Confederate statues could turn into a shrine" for extremists, Downs said.

Officer in fatal shooting in Texas fired

ARLINGTON, Texas -- An Arlington, Texas, police officer who fatally shot a man has been fired for violating department policy, Police Chief Al Jones said.

Jones on Friday announced the firing of officer Robert Phillips, two days after he shot Jesse Fischer on a city street.

Fischer had twice driven away from officers during traffic stops when he drove onto a dead-end street, then turned his vehicle around, police said. Phillips then stopped his patrol vehicle on the street, got out and fired as Fischer drove toward him.

Phillips violated policy that limits when officers may put themselves in the path of a moving vehicle or shoot at it, Jones said.

Phillips "could have backed up behind (his) vehicle and allowed the vehicle to go by," Jones said. "He could have stayed in his vehicle so he didn't put himself in a situation where he had to use deadly force," or he could have used the vehicle to block Fischer.

Arlington Police Association President J.P. Mason called the firing "hasty."

The dismissal came quickly, Jones conceded. However, "the facts as we know them today are not going to change."

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