Illinois
Cop quits after uproar over Puerto Rico shirt
CHICAGO — A police officer has resigned amid an investigation into his response to a woman who said she was being harassed in a Chicago forest preserve for wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag.
The Forest Preserves of Cook County announced on Twitter that Officer Patrick Connor resigned late Wednesday.
A woman complained that a man at Caldwell Woods was questioning her citizenship and telling her she shouldn’t be wearing the shirt. Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth.
Video of the June 14 incident shows the officer didn’t respond. More officers eventually arrived and arrested the man.
California
Greenhouse gas goal reached 2 years early
LOS ANGELES — California greenhouse gas emissions fell below 1990 levels, meeting an early target years ahead of schedule and putting the state well on its way toward reaching long-term goals to fight climate change, officials said Wednesday.
The California Air Resources Board announced pollution levels were down 13 percent since their 2004 peak . The achievement was roughly equal to taking 12 million cars off the road or saving 6 billion gallons of gasoline a year, the board said.
Greenhouse gas emissions dropped 2.7 percent in 2016 — the latest year available — to about 430 million metric tons, the board said. That’s just below the 431 million metric tons produced in 1990.
California law requires that emissions return to 1990 levels by 2020 and reach 40 percent below that marker by 2030.
Palin: I was ‘duped’
by comedian Cohen
LOS ANGELES — Sarah Palin says she was “duped.”
The former Republican vice presidential candidate says she fell victim to British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen during an interview for his upcoming Showtime series, “Who Is America?”
In a Facebook post Tuesday, the former Alaska governor wrote she and a daughter traveled across the country for what she thought was a legitimate interview. But she says Baron Cohen had “heavily disguised himself” as a disabled U.S. veteran in a wheelchair.
Florida
Parkland students
file federal lawsuit
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward deputies at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School violated the constitutional rights of the survivors of February’s school massacre by failing to stop Nikolas Cruz when he showed up on campus with murder on his mind, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The lawsuit specifically names Broward County, retired school resource officer Scot Peterson, Broward Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jan Jordan and campus monitor Andrew Medina as defendants. The plaintiffs are all students who are referred to by their initials. The suit also doesn’t identify Cruz by name, referring to him simply as “the Shooter.”
A student who was searched and questioned hours before the shooting is accusing Peterson of illegally searching his backpack and questioning why he had so much money on him. The account stands in contrast to Peterson’s inaction while the shooting was taking place hours later, according to the suit.
Wire reports
