US court upholds British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking conviction

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. court on Tuesday upheld disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction on sex trafficking charges for helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls. The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida didn’t bar federal prosecutors in New York from bringing a case. They also found that Maxwell’s indictment was within the statute of limitations.

North Carolina’s coast has been deluged by the fifth historic flood in 25 years

(AP) — Parts of southeastern North Carolina have been deluged by another historic flood. Highways in Brunswick County remained underwater Tuesday, a day after about 18 inches of rain fell at nearby Carolina Beach in 12 hours. Emergency workers brought food and water to people as they waited for the flooding to recede. But the same area has seen four other floods of a lifetime in the past 25 years from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, unnamed storms in 2010 and 2015, and the benchmark flood with 30 inches of rain from Hurricane Florence in 2018. Meteorologists says warmer temperatures from climate change allows the air to hold more moisture and heavier rains to fall.

Speaker Johnson sets House vote on government funding bill after a one-week postponement

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson will move ahead with a temporary spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1, despite the headwinds that prompted him to pull the bill from consideration last week. The bill includes a requirement that people registering to vote must provide proof of citizenship. The requirement has become a leading election-year priority for Republicans who are raising the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. even though it’s already illegal to do so and research shows that such voting is rare. The legislation faces an uphill climb in the House and has no chance in the Senate.

Railroads and regulators must address the dangers of long trains, report says

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new report says the number of derailments related to the forces created when railcars push and pull against each other has increased as freight trains have gotten longer. The National Academies of Sciences on Tuesday released a long-awaited report. It says that regulators, Congress and the industry should reexamine the risks associated with long trains and make sure they are addressed. The report said there is a clear correlation between the number of derailments related to in-train forces and the long trains that routinely measure more than a mile long. That means railroads must take special care in the way they assemble long trains.