News briefs

Tribune News Service on Aug 7, 2025

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Trump gives the Confederacy more to celebrate

WASHINGTON — There may not be another president in recent memory who has delivered more victories for the Confederacy than Donald Trump.

After getting rid of new names for U.S. military bases originally named after Confederate soldiers, the Trump administration this week delivered two more victories for the Old South.

On Monday, the National Park Service said it would bring back a statue in Washington, D.C., of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, which was toppled during the Black Lives Matters riots of 2020.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it would restore a Confederate statue to Arlington National Cemetery which features a Black “mammy” holding a white soldier’s baby and an enslaved man following his master into battle. “It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Remains of 3 more 9/11 Twin Towers victims identified through new DNA technology

NEW YORK — The remains of three more of the thousands of victims killed during the 9/11 attacks have been identified, nearly 25 years after terrorists flew commercial airliners into Manhattan’s iconic Twin Towers.

Using advancements in DNA technology, forensic scientists in the city Medical Examiner’s office gave some measure of closure to several families still reeling from the deadly attack in 2001.

Added to the roster of identified victims were Ryan Fitzgerald of Floral Park, L.I., Barbara Keating of Palm Springs, Calif., and a woman whose name is being withheld at the request of family.

“The pain of losing a loved one in the September 11th terror attacks echoes across the decades,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “But with these three new identifications, we take a step forward in comforting the family members still aching from that day.”

—New York Daily News

Judge grants injunction on NY radioactive waste at Michigan landfill

DETROIT — A Wayne County judge has granted four communities a preliminary injunction to keep hazardous waste from New York out of a Van Buren Township landfill.

County Circuit Court Judge Kevin Cox granted the injunction on Wednesday to the cities of Belleville and Romulus and townships of Canton and Van Buren, and Wayne County, according to officials and court records.

"The court finds (the plaintiffs) have sufficiently demonstrated the necessity and propriety of preliminary injunctive relief enjoining Wayne Disposal Inc. from accepting radioactive waste from the Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, N.Y., and Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program material from other sites," Cox wrote in his decision. "The public interest would be harmed if this injunctive relief is not granted."

Officials with the municipalities that sought the injunction praised the judge's decision. "I am pleased with today's ruling from Judge Cox, stopping radioactive waste from coming to Michigan," Canton Township Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak said in a statement.

—The Detroit News

Cambodia, Thailand agree to ceasefire monitors after clashes

Cambodia and Thailand agreed to maintain a ceasefire and allow neutral monitors, as the U.S. cited a “high level of distrust” between the Southeast Asian neighbors after their deadliest border clashes in decades.

A meeting of senior security officials from the two nations held in Kuala Lumpur approved a set of measures to strictly enforce the truce and ease border tensions, including ceasefire monitoring by an interim team of Asean defense attaches stationed in Bangkok and Phnom Penh. The teams would be led by Malaysian attaches.

The so-called General Border Committee meeting also agreed not to move or reinforce troops and weapons along their roughly 800-kilometer (500-mile) disputed border, Cambodian and Thai officials said at separate briefings on Thursday. Representatives of Malaysia, China and the U.S. attended the border talks as observers.

The latest measures to de-escalate tensions may help hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by five days of clashes on either side of the border to return home. Even after the July 29 ceasefire, both countries have continued to station troops and weaponry along the frontier after the clashes left more than 40 dead and scores more injured.

—Bloomberg News