Outside in

March 02, 2016 - Daily News Briefing

Primaries, outsiders, and the upending of party orthodoxy.

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Salt Lake City police have refused to release officers' body cam videos of the Saturday shooting of a 17-year-old immigrant now in critical condition, despite protesters' calls to reform police accountability. Abdi Mohamed was shot twice in the torso by police intervening in his fight with an older man, whom Mr. Mohamed and another person were attacking with metal rods. Mohamed, who Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell said is a gang member, is now being investigated for the attack. The beating victim did not require medical attention.

The Ku Klux Klan "have a right to their views and beliefs, but that doesn't mean they're welcomed here," Anaheim, Calif., Mayor Tom Tait told hundreds of peace protesters Monday night. In the wake of a Saturday rally that turned violent, members of the white supremacist group criticized police for insufficient protection. A lawyer for counter-protesters arrested at the melee has also blamed police, alleging that thin police presence hurt his clients. Twelve people were arrested near Anaheim's Pearson Park on Saturday afternoon after three counter-protesters at a planned KKK rally were stabbed by Klansmen. Police later released all five Klan members taken into custody, saying they were acting in self-defense after counter-protesters attacked them.

Two Roman Catholic bishops were involved in covering up extensive sexual child abuse in their central Pennsylvania diocese over four decades, according to a grand jury report made public Tuesday. The 147-page report reveals that the two bishops helped hide the abuse by moving offending priests to different parishes, mandating counseling and paying off victims. Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec led the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese for consecutive terms, Hogan from 1966 to 1986 and Adamec until 2011. During those years, hundreds of children were sexually abused by more than 50 religious leaders in the eight-county diocese.

A federal judge has blocked Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's order to prevent state agencies from helping Syrian refugees, calling the strategy unconstitutional discrimination that does not improve Hoosiers' safety. The ruling may set precedent for more than two dozen states attempting to block refugee resettlement. US District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled in favor of Exodus Refugee Immigration, which provides services such as language classes and job training for newcomers from around the world, including Syrians. The organization plans to resettle about 200 refugees in 2016, including a family of four who arrived in January and were welcomed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

There's been a surge in illegal immigration to the United States in recent months. And it may be thanks to Donald Trump's vow to build a humongous wall on the US-Mexico border. With Mr. Trump's success in the Republican primaries, those considering migrating from Mexico or Central America may feel that it's now or never. According to US Customs and Border Protection records, 150,304 people were detained at the US-Mexico border from October to February for trying to come into the United States illegally. That's an increase of 24 percent from the same window in 2014 to 2015.

A bill requiring Virginia schools to inform parents if literature contains "sexually explicit content" and to allow them to excuse their children from such curriculum will likely become the first law of its kind in the nation, after the state Senate approved it 22-17 on Tuesday. The measure unanimously passed in the Virginia House of Delegates in January. Many schools across the country already alert parents to controversial content in the classroom. But the Virginia bill could become the first to legislate that teachers must inform parents of sexual content, and that parents would then be able to exempt their children from reading the books with that content. Educators would be required to provide an alternate text.

A Catholic leader's comments against the Girl Scouts made some supporters hungry. After St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson encouraged Catholics to dissociate from the organization, The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri broke records at their annual fundraising event, where donors munched on various sweet treats inspired by Girl Scout cookies. The event brought in over $350,000, which tops every previous fundraiser the regional group has held, including the one that celebrated the organization's 100th anniversary.

Millions of monarch butterflies settled in Mexico for the winter this year. Forming a 10-acre carpet of black-and-orange striped winged insects in their wintering grounds, this year's migration represents a significant uptick in numbers for the majestic butterflies. Because the monarch butterflies cluster on trees by the thousand, lepidopterists keep count of the insects by the area they cover. This winter saw a the butterflies blanket an area more than 3.5 times greater than the previous season, which saw 2.8 acres of butterflies. This is also up from the record low of 1.66 acres in 2013.

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