In Other News: 30 cases in a month: Abortion, guns top justices’ to-do list; 2 more shootings put Macon on pace to top homicide record

Published 12:00 am Friday, June 10, 2022

30 cases in a month: Abortion, guns top justices’ to-do list

Curbing abortion rights and expanding the right to be armed in public are long-sought goals of the conservative legal movement that the Supreme Court seems poised to deliver within the next month. The justices also could ease the use of public funds for religious schooling and constrain Biden administration efforts to fight climate change. These disputes are among 30 cases the court still has to resolve before it takes an extended summer break, typically around the end of June. That’s a large, though not unprecedented, haul for the court at this point in its term. June typically is a tense time at the court, where justices are racing to put the final touches on the most controversial cases. But this year, the tension seems to be even greater, with a potentially historic abortion ruling and in the aftermath of a leaked draft opinion that seems to have led to discord inside the court and heightened security concerns. At least one of the 30 remaining cases will be decided on Wednesday, the court indicated on its website.

2 more shootings put Macon on pace to top homicide recordMacon is again on track to break its yearly record for homicides after a Monday shooting at a convenience store left two 19-year-old men dead and a third man wounded. The Telegraph of Macon reports that Roderick A. Felton and Braxton Cole were inside a convenience store when they fatally shot each other. The third victim, 23-year-old Deroderick Collins, was hospitalized with injuries. Bibb County sheriff’s investigators said Tuesday that security footage shows Cole approached Felton in the parking lot and followed him into the store before getting into an argument, pulling a gun and shooting at Felton. Security footage shows Felton then pulled a gun and shot back. Investigators characterized Collins as a bystander. A 16-year-old boy, Kymelo Early, died after a May 9 shooting in the parking lot of the same store. A 21-year-old was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Early’s death.

US sees heightened extremist threat heading into midtermsThe Department of Homeland Security says a looming Supreme Court decision on abortion, an increase of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and the midterm elections are potential triggers for extremist violence over the next six months. DHS said Tuesday in the National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin that the U.S. was in a “heightened threat environment” already. It’s the latest attempt by DHS to draw attention to the threat posed by domestic violent extremism. That’s a shift from alerts about international terrorism that were a hallmark of DHS following its creation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.