Legislature told to finalize budget
As the state government shutdown threatened to close Atlantic City’s casinos, Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday said New Jersey lawmakers must report to the Statehouse on July Fourth and stay there until they adopt a budget.
Corzine called for a special session of the Legislature after Monday afternoon negotiations with the lawmaker leading opposition to the governor’s proposed sales tax increase failed yet again.
Barring a breakthrough in Trenton, the state planned to force the 12 casinos to stop taking bets as of 8 a.m. Wednesday because they cannot operate without state gambling monitors.
NEW HAVEN, Conn.
Agencies question Yale’s spending
Federal authorities are investigating how Yale University accounts for millions of dollars in government research grants, school officials said Monday.
Yale received three subpoenas last week from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Defense Department and National Science Foundation seeking grant documents dating back as far as 10 years.
The subpoenas cover 47 grants valued at about $45 million, the school said. The university received about $2 billion in grants during the past decade.
The three agencies issuing subpoenas funded about 90 percent of Yale’s research in recent years, the school said.
SAN DIEGO
High court bars cross’s removal
The U.S. Supreme Court intervened Monday to stop, at least for now, the removal of a large cross from city property in Southern California.
A lower court judge had ordered the city of San Diego to remove the cross or be fined $5,000 a day.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, acting for the high court, issued a stay while the legal fight continues.
The 29-foot cross, on a scenic perch in the upscale La Jolla area, was contested in 1989 by Philip Paulson, a Vietnam veteran and atheist.
LOS ANGELES
Judge bans use of harmful sonar
A federal judge on Monday temporarily barred the Navy from using a high-intensity sonar that could harm marine mammals during war games that began last week in the Pacific Ocean.
The temporary restraining order, sought by environmentalists, came three days after the Defense Department granted the Navy a six-month exemption from certain federal laws protecting marine species to allow use of the “mid-frequency active sonar.”
Environmentalists argued that the exemption was aimed at circumventing a lawsuit they filed last week to stop the Navy’s use of the sonar in the Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercise off Hawaii. The use of sonar in the war games was set to start Thursday.
WASHINGTON
Gorilla with heart disease dies at zoo
Another western lowland gorilla died at the National Zoo on Monday, days after the zoo’s only other adult male died.
Mopie, a 34-year-old male, collapsed and died Monday at the Great Ape House. The animal was found in 1998 to have a chronic disease of the heart muscle that decreased its ability to pump blood.
A 23-year-old gorilla named Kuja died Saturday while veterinary specialists tried to implant a cardiac device.
Zoo officials have said one of the leading causes of death among adult male gorillas, which are endangered, is heart disease.