Senate hopeful OK after hernia surgery
MINNEAPOLIS -- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis of Minnesota underwent successful emergency surgery for a severe internal hernia on Monday, just eight days before Election Day, his campaign announced.
The campaign said the condition could have been life-threatening if not treated quickly. An internal hernia is a bulge or protrusion of an organ -- often the bowel into the abdomen. It can cause an obstruction or other problems.
Campaign manager Tom Szymanski said in a statement that the surgery was "successful and minimally invasive. Provided that his recovery continues on a positive trajectory, doctors anticipate that Lewis is likely to be released from the hospital in the next couple of days."
Lewis, a one-term former congressman best known to Minnesota voters from his days as a conservative talk radio host, is challenging incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith.
Lewis experienced severe abdominal pain early Monday morning and was taken to an emergency room, Szymanski said in the first announcement. Prior to surgery, Szymanski said Lewis was in good spirits and "speculating about when he could resume campaigning, eager to continue fighting for his fellow Minnesotans."
Smith tweeted well-wishes to Lewis for "a successful surgery and a speedy recovery."
NYC sued over protesters' treatment
NEW YORK -- Two civil-rights organizations are suing New York City on behalf of protesters who said they were assaulted and abused by police officers because they expressed anti-police views during nightly demonstrations in the spring in the wake of George Floyd's killing.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, also accuses city leadership of doing little to curtail police conduct that included trapping protesters with a technique called kettling, hitting them with pepper spray, inflicting violence and detaining them for hours. One plaintiff suffered a broken arm as a result of the police department's conduct, the lawsuit said.
The organizations, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society, are seeking monetary damages for 11 named plaintiffs, as well as training reforms and swift discipline for officers who used excessive force.
The city is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, as well as Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, Chief of Department Terence Monahan and several police officers and sergeants.
De Blasio declined to comment Monday on the lawsuit's specific complaints, but said there have been fundamental changes in police strategies in recent years aimed at avoiding confrontations.
Detroit district regains school control
DETROIT -- A commission on Monday released the 47,000-student Detroit Public Schools from more than a decade of state financial oversight, releasing full control of the district's finances to the city's elected school board.
The Detroit Financial Review Commission voted approved the district's waiver in a public meeting. The last time the district was fully in charge was in 2009, before a series of state-appointed emergency managers were installed with a directive to fix a district neck-deep in red ink whose students routinely scored at or near the bottom on standardized tests.
Michigan deemed Detroit schools to be high-risk after the federal government in 2008 raised questions about $53 million in spending.
In recent years, control slowly was returned to the school board and district superintendent.
In 2013, the state Education Department dropped its "high-risk status" for the district and eased some financial oversight which gave the district more discretion over its spending, and the state no longer had to approve its improvement plan.
Enrollment in Detroit has dropped by more than 100,000 since 1993 when it served about 183,000 students. The plummeting enrollment meant a loss of millions of dollars in state per-pupil funding and mirrored the city's massive population decline.
Wisconsin governor recall petition fails
MADISON, Wis. -- An effort to recall Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over his response to racial injustice protests and the coronavirus has failed, the recall's organizer told supporters on Monday.
Misty Polewczynski of Burlington posted on the "Recall Evers Petition" Facebook page on Monday that not enough signatures were collected in time for today's filing deadline. She did not say how close the group came to collecting the nearly 670,000 signatures needed for a recall vote and she did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Polewczynski said that no petitions would be submitted, in part to prevent the names of those who signed the petitions from becoming public, and that all petitions would be destroyed.
Polewczynski launched the recall effort in August, saying Evers had not done enough in response to the destruction of businesses and arson in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports