Morning Headlines - Friday, Jun. 23, 2023 | Recent News

U.S. and World Headlines

Debris From OceanGate Sub Found 1,600 Feet From Titanic After 'Catastrophic Implosion'

Five people who were on a sub that went missing during a voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic did not survive, the company that planned the trip said Thursday, as the U.S. Coast Guard said the OceanGate vessel experienced a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," and confirmed that the debris found on the sea floor were pieces of the missing sub.

"This is a incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel," Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger told reporters.

Starbucks Workers At 150 Stores Go On Strike Over Pride Decorations

Workers at about 150 unionized Starbucks stores in the United States are going on strike Friday over the coffee chain’s policy for Pride decorations in stores.

Starbucks Workers United, the union representing organized stores, has claimed that Starbucks has restricted decorations celebrating Pride month in some locations, demonstrating a “hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers.” Starbucks has forcefully denied this claim.

IRS Whistleblowers Allege Sweeping Political Interference In Hunter Biden Case

The Justice Department and Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office went out of their way to hamper an IRS investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes by consistently slow walking the case, preventing enforcement actions by the IRS and tipping off actions related to the investigation to Biden’s attorneys in advance, according to new whistleblower testimony released Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Following a closed executive session Thursday morning, the Republican-controlled committee led by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) exercised its unique authority to publicly release information in the five-year federal investigation into his failure to pay about $1 million in federal taxes.

GOP's Field For President Is Historically Diverse

Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd may be a long shot to be the Republican nominee for president, but his entry into the race Thursday was a benchmark: Of the 12 major GOP candidates, half are people of color.

It's a historic turn for Republicans, who in recent years have made a point of trying to recruit more minorities for public office — and have made slight gains among minority voters in recent elections.

Is Restaurant Tipping Getting Out Of Hand?

American diners may be reaching a tipping point.

Not long ago, a restaurant tip was a 15 percent gratuity for the server, calculated on a napkin and scrawled on a credit-card receipt at the end of a sit-down meal. The server didn’t know the sum until the diner had departed.

In 2023, tipping, or choosing not to, has expanded into a near-universal ritual of food service. Customers at a humble takeout joint might face a choice among three double-digit gratuities on a touch screen, under the penetrating gaze of a cashier.

Two societal forces, the COVID-19 pandemic and touch-screen point-of-sale tablets, have conspired to transform American tipping culture. The gratuity has colonized the food-service universe, from fast-food restaurants to food trucks to farmers markets.

Wisconsin Republicans Pass Plan To Cut Income Taxes By 15% On Average

Income taxes would be cut across the board by $3.5 billion under a plan passed Thursday by Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature's budget-writing committee, a proposal that Democrats assailed as being skewed to benefit the wealthy.

Under the income tax cut, which is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023, the average reduction would be 15% for all filers or $573, Republicans said. The state would still go from four to three brackets, with the lowest rate dropping to 3.5% and the highest rate being 6.5%.

Republicans Vote To Cut University Of Wisconsin System's Budget By $32M In Diversity Programs Spat

Republican lawmakers voted to cut the University of Wisconsin System's budget by $32 million on Thursday despite a projected record-high $7 billion state budget surplus, leaving the university nearly half a billion dollars short of what it requested.

The cut comes in reaction to Republican anger over diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs on the system's 13 universities. Republican leaders have said the $32 million is what they estimated would be spent on those programs over the next two years.

Dnr Review Of Enbridge Plan To Reroute Line 5 Is Progressing As Judge Orders Partial Shutdown

State regulators say they’re making progress on an environmental review of Enbridge’s plans to relocate Line 5 as a federal judge has ordered a partial shutdown of the oil and gas pipeline on the Bad River reservation.

In 2020, the Canadian energy firm proposed rerouting its Line 5 pipeline after the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa sued the company in 2019 to shut down and remove the pipeline from tribal lands. Enbridge wants to build a new 30-inch segment that would run 41 miles around the tribe’s reservation in Ashland and Iron counties, a project estimated to cost at least $450 million.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is revising its draft environmental impact statement for the rerouting plan, as well as analyzing the company’s application for waterway and wetland permits.

Seven Sentenced To Federal Prison For Child Sex Trafficking In Green Lake County

Gregory J. Haanstad, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, announced today that seven federal defendants have been sentenced to prison terms for their involvement in the commercial sexual exploitation of a child in Green Lake County, Wisconsin. All seven pled guilty to the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking.

According to court documents, on multiple dates between June and November 2019, one of the defendants, Julio “Cesar” Veleta Veleta, transported the victim, a 16-year-old girl who was in foster care in Madison, between Dane County and Green Lake County for her to perform commercial sex acts for dairy farm workers. Another defendant, Evis Garcia Rivera, both paid for sex with the victim and promoted her availability for commercial sex within the Guatemalan national farm worker community in Green Lake County. Eventually, the victim began living with Garcia Rivera and several of the other defendants, who would “loan” the victim to other groups of farm workers in the area for her sexual services.

DNR Student Diversity Internship Program Wins Award

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today announced that the agency recently received the Outstanding Internship Program Award from the Milwaukee Area College Internship Consortium (MACIC) for the implementation of the State of Wisconsin Student Diversity Internship Program.

The State of Wisconsin Student Diversity Internship Program is administered by the Department of Administration. The DNR's implementation of the program provides opportunities for students to participate in policy initiatives, natural resource education classes, public safety outreach and land management planning.