Waivers to allow new border gates
HOUSTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that it will waive environmental laws so it can build gates between border barriers in south Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
The waiver posted online lists 11 locations where the government plans to install gates in existing fencing. The Homeland Security Department has in recent months issued similar waivers of environmental laws for projects elsewhere on the southwest border.
In the waiver, department Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen writes that there is “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads” along the border. Nielsen waived regulations under the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and about two dozen other laws.
The U.S. government already has around 700 miles of fencing along the southwest border. In far south Texas, segments of fencing stop and start along the levee built next to the Rio Grande, the river separating the U.S. and Mexico. Many parts of the fencing are built a significant distance from the river, in some cases bisecting private property.
The proposed gates would seal some of those gaps in Cameron County. U.S. Customs and Border Protection typically grants affected residents access to the gates so they can get to the other side of their land.
Congress earlier this year approved $1.6 billion for new border wall spending.
Oklahoma storms flip cars, pour rain
OKLAHOMA CITY — Severe thunderstorms overturned cars in the Oklahoma City area Tuesday and also knocked out power for thousands of people stretching into the southern part of the state.
A line of strong thunderstorms rumbled Tuesday morning across Oklahoma, prompting the National Weather Service to issue tornado, thunderstorm and flood warnings.
Strong winds flipped vehicles in the parking lot of a department store in Midwest City where a tornado warning was in effect, but no injuries were reported. High water from heavy rainfall also closed roads in the area.
The storm cut power to more than 3,000 Oklahoma Gas & Electric customers including more than 1,100 in the Oklahoma City area. Officials at the Oklahoma City Zoo said the zoo was forced to temporarily close because of blackouts and minor wind damage.
State denies death by electric chair
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The state has denied the request by Tennessee inmate Edmund Zagorski to die in the electric chair, his attorney said, and plans to execute him Thursday by lethal injection.
Kelley Henry, Zagorski’s attorney, said she was considering legal options on Zagorski’s behalf.
Henry had asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay after announcing Monday that he had chosen to die by electrocution rather than lethal injection, stating he believed electrocution to be quicker and less painful.
Zagorski was sentenced in 1984 for the slayings of two men during a drug deal.
The last time Tennessee put someone to death in the electric chair was in 2007.
Henry said Zagorski’s decision to ask for electrocution was based on evidence that Tennessee’s lethal-injection method would cause him 10 to 18 minutes of mental and physical anguish.
Zagorski is one of 32 death-row inmates in Tennessee suing over the state’s three-drug method of lethal injection. They claim the first drug, midazolam, leaves prisoners unable to cry out as their lungs fill with fluid and they experience drowning, suffocation and chemical burning.
The Tennessee Supreme Court, in a split decision, ruled against the inmates Monday.