Senate to begin debate this week on bill to protect same-sex marriage
WASHINGTON — The Senate will begin debate this week on legislation protecting same-sex marriage, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, after the bill’s sponsors made changes aimed at drawing enough Republican votes to win passage.
The first procedural vote will be Wednesday on “an extremely important and much-needed bill,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday on the Senate floor. “No American should ever be discriminated against because of who they love. Passing this bill would secure much-needed safeguards into federal law.”
The legislation would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That law defined marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman and was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill would give federal recognition to same-sex and interracial marriages and require interstate recognition of marriages. States could still refuse to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.
Negotiators said Monday they reached an agreement on an amendment designed to build more GOP support for the bill. The new language ensures the bill will not diminish religious and conscience protections unrelated to marriage. It also clarifies the bill does not authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriages.
—Bloomberg News
Think tank: Trump in legal peril in Georgia as he preps White House bid
ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump is “extremely exposed” to criminal liability in Fulton County as he prepares to announce his third campaign for the nation’s top office. That’s according to an author of a report analyzing the local investigation into whether Trump or his allies illegally interfered in Georgia’s 2020 elections.
Among the “overwhelming evidence” of Trump’s culpability in Georgia is the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call he placed to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the appointment of a slate of 16 fake GOP electors in Georgia, said Norm Eisen of the Washington-based Brookings Institution in an interview.
“I don’t see how he does not get criminally charged together with others who were involved in both of those schemes,” said Eisen, who previously served as former President Barack Obama’s ethics czar and special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment.
Eisen is a co-author of an updated 304-page report from Brookings being released Monday that analyzes the publicly available evidence in the criminal investigation launched by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in February 2021. A special grand jury armed with subpoena power has been helping the DA gather evidence since May.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Strike by 48,000 University of California academic workers causes systemwide disruptions
LOS ANGELES — About 48,000 unionized academic workers across the University of California’s 10 campuses — who perform the majority of teaching and research at the state’s premier higher education system — walked off the job Monday morning, calling for better pay and benefits.
The systemwide strike includes teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student researchers, tutors and fellows, as well as workers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and it has already caused multiple disruptions to scheduled classes, just weeks before final exams.
The strike marks the largest work stoppage of the year so far, and union leaders say it will also be the biggest at any academic institution in history. UCLA workers joined the picket line at 8 a.m., demonstrating with signs, T-shirts and chants at multiple locations across campus, as did groups at UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced.
UC Irvine strikers began demonstrating on campus at 8:30 a.m., while walkouts at some other campuses were set for 9 a.m., including UC Davis and UC San Francisco. The 48,000 workers, represented by four UAW bargaining units, have demanded base salaries of $54,000, a wage increase that would more than double their average current pay of about $24,000 annually.
—Los Angeles Times
Zelenskyy visits liberated Kherson as EU war support continues
BRUSSELS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the southern city of Kherson on Monday, only days after Russian troops withdrew from the region, according to confirmed witness reports from the internet newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda.
His visit, of which few details had been disclosed, came on the same day as the first U.N. humanitarian convoy reached Kherson's liberated people, of whom only 80,000 of the usual 280,000 remain.
Supplies of food, drinking water, hygiene products, kitchen utensils as well as bedding, warm blankets and solar lamps were provided to 6,000 people, according to a statement by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva.
It was the first U.N. convoy to reach the people of Kherson since Russia invaded and captured the city in early March. More convoys are planned as the U.N. reported that the city is lacking electricity, water, food and medicine.
—dpa
