Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of September 19

Massachusetts seeks human trafficking probe targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over migrants

Insurers force change on police departments long resistant to it (Washington Post)

Where community activists, use-of-force victims and city officials have failed to persuade police departments to change dangerous and sometimes deadly policing practices, insurers are successfully dictating changes to tactics and policies, mostly at small to medium-size departments throughout the nation.

The movement is driven by the increasingly large jury awards and settlements that cities and their insurers are paying in police use-of-force cases, especially since the 2020 deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Those cases led to settlements of $12 million and $27 million, respectively. Insurance companies are passing the costs — and potential future costs — on to their law enforcement clients.

Biden Says the Pandemic Is Over. But at Least 400 People Are Dying Daily.

Judge Cannon’s Latest Mar-a-Lago Ruling Just Got Benchslapped

the district court abused its discretion in exercising jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s motion as it concerns the classified documents

This distinction is untenable.

The United States also argues that allowing the special master and Plaintiff’s counsel to examine the classified records would separately impose irreparable harm. We agree.

The documents at issue contain information “the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."

Dang.

Border Wall Construction Resumes Under President Biden (The Intercept)

In an online presentation Wednesday, CBP — the largest division of the Department of Homeland Security and home to the Border Patrol — detailed plans to address environmental damage brought on by the former president’s signature campaign promise and confirmed that the wall will remain a permanent fixture of the Southwest for generations to come.

The resumed operations will range from repairing gates and roads to filling gaps in the wall that were left following the pause on construction that Biden initiated in January 2021. The wall’s environmental harms have been particularly acute in southern Arizona, where CBP used explosives to blast through large swaths of protected land — including sacred Native American burial grounds and one-of-a-kind wildlife habitats — in service of Trump’s most expansive border wall extensions.

[…]

In the plans laid out last week, CBP said it would finish drainages and low-water crossings in southern Arizona and in some cases reengineer border wall designs to allow for water flow. Two contracts have already been awarded for work in the state, the agency said, adding that the work in Arizona would include filling “small gaps” in the border wall that remained following Biden’s pause. CBP described similar operations along the border in other states.

When asked if CBP envisioned a day when the barriers might be removed, the agency said it did not.