Courting upgrades: County eyes $100K in courthouse repairs

Advocates say schools increasingly are removing children with disabilities from the classroom because of behavior issues related to their disability but not recording the actions as suspension. The practice is known as informal removal, which advocates say amounts to a form of off-the-books, de facto denial of education that evades accountability. Because the removals aren’t recorded, there’s no way to quantify how often they happen. But the assistant secretary for the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, Catherine E. Lhamon, says the practice has "taken hold in a way that is dangerous for students and needs to be addressed.”

A Delaware judge says cigarette manufacturer ITG Brands assumed liability for tobacco settlement payments to the state of Florida when it acquired four brands from Reynolds American in 2015. Vice Chancellor Lori Will also said in Friday's ruling that ITG must compensate Reynolds American for losses due to that assumed liability. Reynolds sold the Kool, Winston, Salem and Maverick brands to ITG in 2014 to gain federal regulators' approval of Reynolds’ acquisition of Lorillard Inc. Before the sale closed, Reynolds American affiliate R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was making payments under a preexisting settlement agreement with Florida for reimbursement of smoking-related health care costs.

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections is directing county election officials not to engage in signature matching when reviewing absentee ballot envelopes this fall after a judge rejected the GOP appeal of a state board ruling prohibiting the practice. According to a directive sent to county election directors from the board’s legal counsel Paul Cox, the judge’s ruling maintains the status quo outlined in state law. Superior Court Judge Stephan Futrell ruled from the bench Monday afternoon, denying the party’s motion for a temporary restraining order and preventing the use of signature matching in the 2022 general election, state board spokesperson Pat Gannon said.

Emergency responders are seeking to evacuate residents from the largest barrier island off Florida's Gulf Coast, and survivors there spoke of the terror of riding out Hurricane Ian in flooded homes and howling winds. A volunteer group, Medic Corps, was flying residents off Pine island by helicopter on Saturday. The bridge to Pine Island was heavily damaged by the hurricane, leaving it reachable only by boat or air. Some residents said they hadn’t seen anyone from outside the island for days and spoke of being trapped in flooded homes as boats and other debris crashed around their houses in the storm surge. Some feared they wouldn't make it.

Elon Musk’s monthslong tussle with Twitter took another twist this week after the Tesla billionaire seemed to return to where he started in April — offering to buy the company for $44 billion. But it’s not over yet. Twitter says it intends to close the deal at the agreed-upon price, but the two sides are still booked for an Oct. 17 trial in Delaware over Musk’s earlier attempts to terminate the deal. On Wednesday, the judge presiding over the case said she will continue to press on toward the trial because neither side has formally moved to stop it. Twitter’s deposition of Musk is set to begin Thursday.

Widespread drought that dried up large parts of Europe, the United States and China this past summer was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only hit the Northern Hemisphere once every 400 years, if not for human-caused climate change. Now droughts like this are likely hit once every 20 years. With additional warming, expected by many climate scientists, these types of droughts could come every year.

The family of a cinematographer who was shot and killed by Alec Baldwin on the set of the film “Rust” has agreed to settle a lawsuit against Baldwin and the movie's producers. Filming could resume in January. The husband of deceased cinematographer Halyna Hutchins said Wednesday in a statement that he will act as executive producer of “Rust” under terms of the settlement. Widower Matthew Hutchins says filming will resume on “Rust” in January. New Mexico workplace regulators say the production company is disputing a fine for safety violations. Baldwin, Halyna Hutchins and others were rehearsing inside a chapel in October 2021 when the gun Baldwin held went off.

Stocks ended slightly lower on Wall Street as a gangbuster two-day rally ran out of gas. The S&P 500 ended 0.2% lower Wednesday after briefly heading into the green late in the day. Its rally early this week was the biggest since the spring of 2020, spurred in part by hopes a softening economy may convince central banks to take it easier on interest rate hikes. Analysts have said such hopes may be premature. Other major U.S. indexes including the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq also lost ground. Oil prices rose after the OPEC+ cartel ordered production cuts.