Feds Investigate N.C. Thirst Death; California Egg Lawsuit Tossed
Konstantin L / Shutterstock.com
Also in our State & Local roundup: Stories from Dallas, Wyoming and Bucksport, Maine.
Here is today’s State & Local roundup for Friday, October 3, 2014 ...
DALLAS, Texas: Federal, state and local officials are trying to track down at least 100 people who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who tested positive for Ebola after traveling from Liberia to Texas, mandating that four adults in his Dallas apartment remain isolated. “Our approach is to cast a wide net to reach out to as many people who may have had contact,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said, according to Sherry Jacobson of the Dallas Morning News.
RALEIGH, North Carolina: A federal criminal investigation is examining the circumstances that lead to the dehydration death of a mentally ill prisoner kept in solitary confinement for 35 days by North Carolina prison officials. Michael Biesecker of The Associated Press reports that the FBI is now "conducting an investigation of suspected criminal activity," according to subpoenas issued this week.
CASPER, Wyoming: A report commissioned by Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality says that efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to mitigate groundwater contamination from an Atlas missile site near the state capital is inadequate. As Trevor Graff of the Casper Star-Tribune reports, Intera Geoscience and Engineering Solutions engineers say “the current practice won’t fully treat a miles-long plume of groundwater pollution from the site.”
BUCKSPORT, Maine: It was no secret that the Verso Paper Corp. mill was in financial trouble, but this town of 5,000 people near Bangor “is just starting to come to grips with the reality that the mill, its largest employer and taxpayer, is scheduled to close for good on Dec. 1, putting about 500 people out of work,” Tom Bell of the Portland Press-Herald reports.
SACRAMENTO, California: A U.S. district court judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the states of Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky and Iowa against the state of California over its ban on the sale of out-of-state eggs that come from hens that are kept in cages smaller than what’s allowed in California. Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the judge dismissed the lawsuit based on the states’ legal standing, not on the merits of the lawsuit, which accused California’s ban of interfering with interstate commerce.
(Top image via Konstantin L / Shutterstock.com; second image via tukkata / Shutterstock.com)