Accenture is laying people off as Wall Street braces for big cuts next year

Business Insider•June 27, 2020


Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week.

Accenture is cutting US staff, and top execs just warned of more pain to come as the consulting giant promotes fewer people and looks to control costs, Meghan Morris and Dakin Campbell first reported. Their story got a lot of attention this week, and for good reason. It could be an indicator for how the firm's own clients are weathering a downturn, and consulting likely won't be the only industry to feel the crunch.

We also took a look at who's most at risk once Wall Street kicks off the tidal wave of layoffs many banks had put on pause — and why boutique firms without a strong restructuring practice could be "dead in the water," as one recruiter put it.

Dakin along with Casey Sullivan got an inside look at Egon Durban, who became co-CEO of Silver Lake Partners in December. They spoke with more than 40 people who have worked with Durban, or across from him on deals, to understand his rise at the tech-focused private-equity firm he joined as a young banker in 1999.

Read the full story here:
40 insiders reveal the meteoric rise of Silver Lake's Egon Durban, the tech-focused PE firm's No. 1 dealmaker who strong-armed his way to the top and is about to get $18 billion more to invest

Keep reading for a look at why one of the earliest forms of alt-data is breaking down; a rundown of Amazon's rapid-fire moves to scoop up warehouses; and a deep dive into the culture at BTIG.

Inside BTIG

btig wall street sexual discrimination eeoc investigation 2x1

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

The financial-services industry has tried to clean up its image in recent years, but shades of an earlier era on Wall Street have lingered at the firm BTIG, a Business Insider investigation by Nicole Einbinder and Rebecca Ungarino has found.

Read the full story here:
Former employees say BTIG had a toxic party culture that was stuck in the '80s

California shakes up auto industry, says all vans and trucks must be electric by 2024

Paul A. Eisenstein,NBC News•June 26, 2020


California regulators have approved new rules that would see a massive shift from conventional gas and diesel trucks and vans to ones powered by batteries and zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells.

The first-of-their-kind guidelines, which take effect in 2024, cover a broad range of truck segments, from medium-duty models up to the "big rigs" that move vast amount of goods throughout California and across the country. Current guidelines from the California Air Resources Board already press manufacturers to add electric and hydrogen trucks to light-duty segments.

California’s push to reduce truck emissions could lead to some major changes in a traditionally staid automotive industry. Among other things, it could encourage the emergence of new competitors such as Nikola Motors, which is producing an array of hydrogen-powered heavy-duty trucks, and Detroit-based start-up Rivian, which has a contract to produce around 100,000 all-electric delivery vans for Amazon.

"California is once again leading the nation in the fight to make our air cleaner, becoming the first place in the world to mandate zero-emission trucks by 2045," Governor Gavin Newsom said in a Thursday statement. "Communities and children of color are often forced to breathe our most polluted air, and today's vote moves us closer toward a healthier future for all of our kids."

California has long pressed auto and truck manufacturers to reduce emissions. The state has considerable sway, not only because of the size of its market but also because of a waiver enacted under the federal Clean Air Act.



Under guidelines approved Thursday, at least 40 percent of the tractor trailers sold in California would have to be powered by some form of zero-emissions technology by 2024. Medium-duty trucks, such as the Ford F-250 or Chevrolet Silverado HD, would be required to switch over 55 percent of their sales by 2035; and 75 percent of delivery trucks and vans would have to use zero-emissions powertrain technology by 2035, a point by which fully 100 percent of government fleets and last-mile delivery trucks would have to meet the target.

During a hearing, regulators received mixed feedback on their proposals, with clean air advocates arguing that such a shift is critical in addressing the state’s endemic air pollution problems, as well as broader climate change concerns.

That was echoed by CARB Chair Mary Nichols, who said, "It's the only way we think we can make significant progress on the most stubborn air pollution problems.”

But industry officials were far more skeptical. Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, warned that there was a variety of reasons why hydrogen and electric trucks aren’t the answer. "They cost more than traditional fuel trucks, because there's no charging infrastructure and developing one is very expensive,” he said during testimony.

That is changing rapidly, however, countered Andy Schwartz, a policy adviser for Tesla who said, "Charging infrastructure can and will be built.”

On Friday, Electrify America announced it had completed a network of chargers spanning the first of two cross-country routes it expects to power up this year alone, this one running 2,700 miles and passing through 11 states.

EA, which was set up by Volkswagen using $2 billion in funds included in its settlement of its diesel emissions scandal, is planning more than 10,000 public charging stations across the country, with competitors such as ChargePoint and EVGo laying out similar plans.

Tesla, meanwhile, has already energized an extensive charging grid across North America, with plans to beef up the Supercharger network as it prepares to roll out both its Cybertruck pickup and big Semi truck.

The push for electric trucks is expected to open the door to new manufacturers, though traditional marques aren’t ready to walk away.

Along with Tesla, Nikola Motors hopes to gain traction thanks to the CARB ruling on zero-emissions trucks. The Phoenix-based start-up — which recently went public and now has a larger market capitalization than Ford — is focusing on hydrogen fuel-cell semi trucks, such as the Nikola One. The company hopes to mitigate concerns about finding fuel by setting up its own network of hydrogen stations across the country.

Other start-ups that could benefit from the new California standards and existing EV rules include the likes of Detroit-based Bollinger, Lordstown Motors — which plans to start building electric pickups at the old General Motors plant — and Rivian.

The latter company has received billions of dollars of investments over the past several years from players as diverse as Ford, Cox Automotive and Amazon. The e-commerce giant led a consortium pumping $700 million into Rivian and has placed an order for 100,000 all-electric delivery trucks through 2024.

Conventional truck and automotive manufacturers are laying out major plans of their own. General Motors CEO Mary Barra this month announced plans to build electric delivery vans, in addition to the all-electric Hummer pickup to debut in 2021. The various subsidiaries of Daimler AG, such as Freightliner, have already launched an assortment of electric vans and heavy trucks, with more in the works. And Toyota is partnering with truck giant Kenworth to develop hydrogen-powered Class 8 semi prototypes that could lead to production models later this decade.

In terms of light-duty vehicles, as many as eight, and possibly 10, start-ups and conventional manufacturers are expected to be producing all-electric pickups by 2023, including the Hummer, the Cybertruck and an all-electric version of the Ford F-150.

‘Leadership Matters.’ Researcher Says Rate of Fatal Police Shootings Is Lower in Cities With Black Police Chiefs
Melissa Chan,Time•June 26, 2020


A police chief’s race may significantly impact how often officers fatally shoot people, a new analysis says.

In cities with Black police commanders, the per-capita rate of fatal shootings by police officers is about 70% lower than in cities with white police leaders, according to Stephen Wu, the study’s author, who analyzed data from the 60 largest U.S cities between 2015 and the first half of 2020. The rate of deadly shootings is also lower in Latino-led police forces, he says.

“A lot of people will talk about training and the racial makeup of officers,” says Wu, 47, an economics professor in New York’s Hamilton College, who has written extensively on how economic and social factors affect human behavior and well-being. “It’s not just about the overall police force. Leadership matters.”

The study, which has not yet been published, comes amid heightened scrutiny of the nation’s police forces following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died on May 25 after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The incident reignited national backlash over incidents of police brutality against Black people and prompted a flurry of local and federal reform proposals, including defunding and dismantling the police.

Wu’s research does not include data on police killings that weren’t gun deaths, but it suggests diversifying the highest levels of leadership may be a logical way forward in at least reducing fatal police shootings.

Using the Washington Post’s widely cited database on lethal shootings by on-duty police officers, Wu analyzed incidents in each city between Jan. 1, 2015 and June 1, 2020 and generated per-capita rates using 2020 Census Bureau estimates. He accounted for other possible contributing factors, including differences in crime rates across cities, the racial makeup of police departments and leadership turnovers that occurred before June 1.

His study found that out of the top 20 cities with the highest rates of fatal police shootings—including Las Vegas, Kansas City and Albuquerque—16 are led by white police leaders. But 14 out of the 20 cities with the lowest rates are led by Black leaders.

For a city of 1 million people, Wu says the disparity roughly translates to the difference between having 21 deadly police shootings in a five-year period compared with 35. “That was a pretty striking finding,” he says.

Lexington, Ky., led by a Black police chief, had the lowest per-capita rate of fatal police shootings: zero in the last five years. Las Vegas, led by the elected sheriff of Clark County, who is white, had the highest.

Andrew Walsh, Deputy Chief at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, says the analysis “may be flawed” because it does not take into account the roughly 45 million annual tourists who visit the city. The city of Las Vegas, he adds, makes up only a portion of the department’s policed jurisdiction, which spans 7,000 square miles.

He said the department in the last decade has made many changes to become a “model agency” when it comes to leadership and deadly force reforms, including partnering with the Justice Department to improve use-of-force polices, implementing input from the community and giving officers low-lethal options to use like rubber bullets.

Walsh said the use of deadly force is a last resort for officers who have to make split-second decisions in life or death situations. “We recognize the need for this conversation, and our agency is not perfect,” Walsh said in a statement, “but there are citizens and officers who are alive today because a police officer had to make the decision to use deadly force.”

Wu says he did not factor in the number of annual visitors to each city, but that it did not take away from the overall finding of his research, which looks at trends across 60 cities. “Las Vegas has many tourists, but so do many other cities,” he says.

There are other caveats though, and a police leader’s race is not a perfect predictor, Wu says. Lexington’s police department, with its zero fatal shooting incidents, is headed by a Black chief who took over in March 2018, but his predecessor was white. And some police departments led by white police chiefs, such as Nashville and San Diego, have relatively low rates of fatal police shootings. But Wu says the overall effect a Black police leader has on fatal shootings is “large and significant.”

Advocates agree. National Black Police Association Chair Sonia Pruitt says minority leaders have a powerful effect on changing a police department’s culture and subsequent behavior of its rank-and-file.

“Leadership tends to be top-down,” says Pruitt, whose group represents 80,000 police officers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. “Black chiefs, they generally come from communities where we’re having the most conflict, so there’s some understanding of the issues.”

When protests erupted in Houston after Floyd’s death, more than 10 million people watched the city’s police chief, Art Acevedo—a Cuban immigrant and the first Latino to lead the department—become emotional on video as he related to the hardships and discrimination that Black and brown minorities face. In an address to demonstrators, his voice cracked as he pledged to march with them “until I can’t stand no more.”

“Your upbringing does inform you as a person, as a police officer, as a leader,” he tells TIME. “It makes you more sensitive because you understand the plight of communities of lower-income working families.”

Cities benefit in many ways, including improved trust within communities, when there’s both racial and gender diversity in top leadership levels, says Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Randal Taylor, who is Black.

“If it’s not at least the chief,” Taylor says, “then I hope there are people in high-ranking positions who have a seat at the table who can help make those decisions.”

That’s easier said than done, says Pruitt, when minorities remain underrepresented in many police forces across the country.

Within the New York Police Department—the nation’s largest police force, which has been led by a white commissioner since 1992—almost half of its 36,000 members are white, about 15% are Black and 29% are Latino, according to the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. New York City’s population is about 43% white, 24% Black and 29% Latino, the latest Census Bureau figures show.

Of the 5,300-member police force in Houston, 41% are white, 30% are Latino and 21% are Black. Houston is about 58% white, 45% Latino and nearly 23% Black. In Indianapolis, about 14% of the police department’s 1,650 members are Black, compared with 28% in the city. The police chiefs in both cities say it’s important for police forces to be reflective of the communities they serve.

Many departments have made efforts to close the gap in the last few years, but Pruitt blames systemic racism for the lack of diversity within all levels of police forces.

“Minority officers are woefully underrepresented in police departments around the country,” she says. “It’s doing a huge disservice to the country.”

In the last few weeks, a handful of police agencies have made leadership changes.

On Tuesday, Donny Williams, who is Black, was named chief of the Wilmington Police Department in North Carolina after the former chief retired. That same day, Williams fired three longtime police officers who were recorded making a series of racist remarks on one of their patrol car cameras. One of the officers says he “can’t wait” to start “slaughtering” Black people if a civil war breaks out, according to an internal investigation report. The same officer says a civil war is necessary to “wipe” Black people “off the f—— map.”

White police chiefs in Atlanta, Louisville, Richmond, Tucson and Portland have either resigned, offered to resign or have been fired, following scrutiny over heated race-related situations. The resignations have made room for high-ranking Black leaders to take over, at least temporarily, in Atlanta, Portland and Richmond.

When Portland’s former chief quit after facing scrutiny over her department’s lack of diversity, she recommended Chuck Lovell, a Black lieutenant, to replace her. As Lovell was sworn in as chief on June 11, he acknowledged it was a “tumultuous time,” but one, he said, “that is also filled with opportunity for change.”

Antibiotic use on crops isn't being monitored in most countries

New research suggests antibiotic use on crops is more widespread than previously estimated. Photo by Rob Reeder/CABI
June 23 (UPI) -- Though antibiotics have been used for decades to combat bacterial diseases among various crop varieties, including apples and pears, the practice isn't closely monitored.

New research -- published Tuesday in the journal CABI Agriculture and Bioscience -- suggests the use of antibiotics on crops is more widespread than previously suspected.

For the study, scientists surveyed how antibiotic usage is tracked in 158 countries. Though more than a quarter of the surveyed countries have developed antibiotic monitoring programs for human use and animal health, just 3 percent currently track antibiotic use on crops.

To get a better sense of how frequently antibiotics are deployed against crop pathogens, researchers analyzed 36,000 records collected at Plantwise plant clinics in 32 countries between 2012 and 2018.

RELATED Intensive farming makes epidemics more likely

Plantwise is a global program created by CABI, the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International, to help small-scale and family farmers sustainably combat crop pests and diseases.

The analysis revealed antibiotic applications are recommended for more than 100 crops, sometimes in large amounts and for non-bacterial pathogens. The data showed that in Southeast Asia, an average of 63 tons of streptomycin and 7 tons of tetracycline are sprayed on rice crops each year.

Most application recommendations call for the use of antibiotics against bacteria pathogens. In some places, however, antibiotics are being prescribed for other kinds of crop diseases, for which the treatment will have no effect.

RELATED Bangladesh's water teeming with drugs, chemicals, study says

"There is a considerable proportion of crop advisors recommending antibiotics against insect pests -- either the advisors are unaware that they will have no impact on insect pests, or they are recommending antibiotics as a preventative measure against bacterial diseases," Philip Taylor, lead study author and CABI researcher, said in a news release.

Records showed 11 antibiotics -- frequently, blended together -- are commonly applied to crops on farms throughout the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim nations. The ratios in antibiotic mixtures and the recommended amounts varied from country to country, region to region. Researchers found little evidence of antibiotic use on crops in Africa.

"It is very interesting that there are no records from Africa," Taylor said. "You may suspect that this was due to price, yet that does not appear to be the reason."

RELATED Taking more antibiotics could increase odds for hospitalization

Though the amounts of antibiotics deployed on crops pales in comparison to the amounts used for human and animal health, research suggests bacteria strains developed antibiotic resistance up to 100,000 times faster when exposed to antibiotics in combination with other agricultural chemicals.

Authors of the latest report suggest antibiotic use on crops warrants further study, as it could provide a new avenue for bacteria strains to develop antibiotic resistance in humans.

"Some evidence suggests that crops are a potential vehicle for resistant bacteria to enter the human gut, and is an area where further research is needed," Taylor said. "It is hoped that the data presented in this paper will increase the debate regarding the use of antibiotics against crop pathogens and that crop production will be included under the one health umbrella."

RELATED New drug prevents bacteria from acquiring antibiotic resistance genes


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Antarctic sea ice loss is good news for the continent's penguins


Researchers equipped Adelie penguins with GPS trackers, accelerometers and video cameras. Photo by Yuuki Watanabe/National Institute of Polar Research

June 25 (UPI) -- While climate scientists worry about the loss of sea ice in Antarctica, penguins are flapping their flippers in applause. According to a new study, published this week in the journal Science Advances, many penguins prefer the Southern Ocean unfrozen -- the less sea ice, the better.

Researchers had previously illuminated a link between sea ice extent in Antarctica and breeding success among Adelie penguin colonies, but a correlation doesn't prove causation, and so scientists decided to investigate further

To find out what might explain the positive impact of reduced sea ice coverage on breeding success, scientists strapped a trio of instruments to several dozen penguins. The combination of GPS trackers, accelerometers and video cameras helped scientists track how the movements and behaviors changed over the course of several years, as sea ice extents waxed and waned.

"What is new in this study is that we used a variety of electronic tags to record penguin foraging behavior in the greatest detail yet, and found mechanistic link among sea ice, foraging behavior, and breeding success," lead researcher Yuuki Watanabe, scientist at the National Institute of Polar Research, told UPI in an email.

RELATED Seal behavior helps scientists predict changes in Antarctic krill distribution

The novel data revealed the ways in which ice coverage in Antarctica affects the way penguins move across their environs and access food resources.

"In the ice-covered seasons, penguins traveled slowly by walking and needed to find cracks in the ice, where they dived repeatedly," Watanabe said. "They were able to dive only through cracks, which also means that the competition among penguins was severe."

The data also showed that, not surprisingly, penguins move much more efficiently in the water than on ice. Adelie penguins travel four times faster by swimming than by walking.

RELATED Study reveals where marine species are moving as oceans warm

When sea extent was minimal, data showed the penguins were able to travel more easily, swimming and diving wherever they pleased.

"They came back to the nest quickly, which means that chicks waiting at the nest had food more often," Watanabe said. "Overall, foraging conditions improved by the loss of sea ice, which directly linked to improved breeding success. Put very simply, penguins are happier with less sea ice because they swim."

Less sea ice also allows more sunlight to enter the ocean, fueling larger krill blooms. Krill serve as the main source of food for Adelie penguins.

RELATED Picky penguins are more vulnerable to impacts of climate change

The latest findings don't hold for all of Antarctica, and in future studies, researchers hope to explore the effects of sea ice extent on different penguin species living in different parts of the continent.

"The relationship between sea ice and penguin reproductive success is apparently different in maritime Antarctica (e.g. Antarctic Peninsula) where sea ice is normally sparse," Watanabe said. "There, penguins look happier with more sea ice, but mechanics are unclear. I would like to conduct research in that region to understand the general patterns over the whole Antarctica."

Early peoples in Pacific Northwest were smoking smooth sumac


Researchers in Washington state found the residues of multiple strains of tobacco and the chemical signatures of smooth sumac in ancient pipes smoked by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. Photo by Washington State University
June 26 (UPI) -- Some 1,400 years ago, people living in what is now Washington state were smoking smooth sumac, Rhus glabra. Scientists found residues of the native plant in an ancient pipe.

The discovery, described this week in the journal Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, marks the first time researchers have recovered non-tobacco residues from an ancient pipe.

Scientists also identified the chemical signatures of N. quadrivalvis, a species of tobacco paleobotanists and archaeologists estimate was once widely cultivated in the Americas, but is no longer grown in the region.

"Smoking often played a religious or ceremonial role for Native American tribes and our research shows these specific plants were important to these communities in the past," lead study author Korey Brownstein, a former doctoral student at Washington State University, now at the University of Chicago, said in a news release. "We think the Rhus glabra may have been mixed with tobacco for its medicinal qualities and to improve the flavor of smoke."

RELATED Ancient plant foods found in northern Australia

Researchers used a novel chemical analysis technique that allows scientists to isolate and identify thousands of plant compounds, or metabolites, from residues in a variety of artifacts, including pipes and bowls.

"Not only does it tell you, yes, you found the plant you're interested in, but it also can tell you what else was being smoked," said study co-author David Gang, a professor in Washington State's Institute of Biological Chemistry. "It wouldn't be hyperbole to say that this technology represents a new frontier in archaeo-chemistry."

Previous analysis methods only targeted a small number of biological compounds, such as nicotine, anabasine, cotinine and caffeine. Early analysis methods weren't precise enough to identify different strains of tobacco or isolate the metabolites of specific plants.

RELATED Earliest evidence of cheese-making in the Mediterranean found along Croatian coast

In a second pipe recovered from an archaeological site in Washington state, scientists found the residue of a different strain of tobacco, N. rustica, grown by native populations on the other side of the country.

"Our findings show Native American communities interacted widely with one another within and between ecological regions, including the trade of tobacco seeds and materials," said study co-author Shannon Tushingham, an assistant professor of anthropology at Washington State. "The research also casts doubt on the commonly held view that trade tobacco grown by Europeans overtook the use of natively-grown smoke plants after Euro-American contact."

Authors of the newly published study are currently working with modern indigenous communities such as the Nez Perce to rediscover ancient plant management practices.

RELATED Hunter-gatherers in Africa were dairying as early as first millennium AD

At a greenhouse managed by the Nez Perce, tribe members are growing pre-contact tobacco, with hopes of smoking the same strains of tobacco that their ancestors smoked.

"We took over an entire greenhouse to grow these plants and collected millions of seeds so that the Nez Perce people could reintroduce these native plants back onto their land," Brownstein said. "I think these kinds of projects are so important because they help build trust between us and tribal communities and show that we can work together to make discoveries."

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Earth has been recycling crust for most of its history

To better understand the movement and distribution of recycled crust in the mantle, researchers analyzed the ratios of certain minerals in mid ocean basalts. Photo by James St. John/Flickr

June 26 (UPI) -- New research suggests roughly 5 to 6 percent of the Earth's mantle is made up of recycled crust.

The discovery, detailed Friday in the journal Science Advances, suggests Earth has been producing new crust at a similar rate for most of the planet's history.

Geologists knew that some of Earth's crust regularly sinks back into the mantle, but until now, they weren't sure how much gets recycled -- a key to understanding the history of crustal formation and subduction.

To better understand the trajectory of crust that gets swallowed back into the mantle, scientists collected 500 samples of basalt from mid-ocean ridges all over the world.

RELATED Mars' magnetic field emerged earlier and lasted longer than previously thought

"The chemical composition of oceanic basalt -- Mid-Oceanic Ridge Basalt, or MORB -- that erupted along the 40,000-kilometer long oceanic ridge system is systematically depleted in elements -- termed incompatible elements -- that are concentrated in the continental crust: elements like potassium, thorium, uranium and lead," study co-author Munir Humayun told UPI in an email.

What has long perplexed scientists is that MORB comes in three flavors, each with different concentrations of incompatible elements.

"Normal MORB is depleted to an extent sufficient to explain extraction of the continental crust from the mantle, but there are basalts that are more depleted than Normal MORB (depleted-MORB) and basalts that are more enriched than Normal-MORB (enriched-MORB), and both are present in significant abundances," Humayun, a professor and geochemist at the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, said.

RELATED Tectonic plates began shifting much earlier than geologists thought

Until now, researchers weren't sure what accounted for the differences in the amounts of incompatible elements found in basalt. Scientists surmised that recycled crust might help explain the formation of the three types of basalt.

"Recycled oceanic crust that melts at ridges produces melts that are lower in the ratio of the element germanium (Ge) to the element silicon (Si), two elements that are geochemically very similar in their behavior during melting," Humayun said.

"We developed a way of measuring small variations in the Ge/Si ratio and used this to show that enriched basalts have lower Ge/Si ratios consistent with the addition of melts from subducted recycled crust," he said.

RELATED Mantle, not core, may have produced Earth's earliest magnetic field

Researchers found that lower Ge/Si ratios were present in enriched basalts from all of the 30 different regions -- scattered across the globe -- from which the samples were sourced. This, they say, is evidence of a globally and historically consistent rate of crust recycling.

Many scientists have hypothesized that the crust that gets pulled back into the mantle sinks deep into the mantle's bottom layers and remains there -- with only small plumes floating back toward the upper mantle.

Others have estimated that recycled crust gets evenly distributed throughout the mantle, like a chocolate swirl in a vanilla cake -- the "marble cake" theory.

The latest findings support the latter theory. The findings have implications for the history of crustal formation and subduction.

"We were most surprised to confirm the theory of professor Alex Sobolev of the University of Grenoble that the mantle under ridges has an average of about 5 percent recycled crust," Humayun said.

"It could only have that much recycled crust if the vigor of subduction has been similar throughout most of Earth's history and that most of the recycled crust is not ponded in 'subduction graveyards' at the bottom of the mantle," he said.


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Judge orders ICE to release children in custody, citing COVID-19

Protesters hold up signs as they walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on June 30, 2018, in New York City. On Friday, a federal judge said immigration officials must release detained migrant children because they aren't being protected against coronavirus. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

June 27 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ordered immigration officials to release certain children held in U.S. detention facilities since they failed to provide health protections against COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California issued the order Friday in response to reports earlier this month from independent monitors on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The reports were filed in accordance with the court's order in April to enforce the Flores Settlement Agreement, which limits detention of children to 20 days.

As of June 8, ICE had 124 children at three detention facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania, court documents show. Another 507 children were in ORR shelters as of June 7.

RELATED CBP chief Morgan defends expulsion of migrants at border during pandemic

Gee said that while she appreciated that ICE and ORR made efforts to reduce the number of children in custody, the ICE Family Residential Centers and ORR facilities still lack enough protection from the novel coronavirus.

"Although progress has been made, the court is not surprised that COVID-19 has arrived at both the FRCs and ORR facilities, as health professionals have warned all along," Gee wrote.

Gee said ICE FRCs were "on fire" and "there is no time for half measures," since independent monitor Dr. Paul Wise said the FRCs lacked basic health protections from COVID-19. Wise told the court the facilities needed improvement in social distancing, masking and testing.

RELATED Appeals court rules Trump can expand expedited deportation policies

As of Thursday, at least 11 people detained at a FRC in Karnes City, Texas, have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and four employees at another FRC in Dilley, Texas, have tested positive.

No COVID-19 cases have been reported at Berks FRC in Pennsylvania, but six children had viral stomatitis, an infection in children which produces sores around the mouth, in or around April, "demonstrating the ease with which contagion can spread in the congregate settings," Gee said.

Under the order, children are to be released to available sponsors, or other COVID-19-free, non-congregate settings with consent of their guardians or parents, or released to guardians or parents.

Trump signs executive order protecting federal monumentsTRUMP DEFENDS SLAVE HOLDING TRAITORS

The Andrew Jackson statue is seen vandalized after protesters attempted to tear it down overnight Tuesday in Lafayette Park near the White House. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
VANDALISM OR CRIMES AGAINST PROPERTY ARE NOT VIOLENCE
June 26 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Friday said he signed an executive order protecting U.S. monuments like those toppled in recent weeks for having connections to racism or slavery.

Trump hinted at such an order earlier in the week.

"I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues - and combatting recent Criminal Violence. Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!" he tweeted.

On Tuesday, he said he authorized police to arrest and prosecute anyone who vandalizes statues or monuments on federal property. He tweeted then that prison terms for such offenses would be up to 10 years.

A statement from the office of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the order authorities the federal government to withhold "certain federal support" from state and local governments that fail to protect public monuments from vandalism.

"President Trump will never allow violence to control our streets, rewrite our history or harm the American way of life," her statement said.

Trump's order comes as protesters across the nation have pulled down statues, particularly those honoring Confederate leaders because of their support for slavery.

On Monday, demonstrators attempted to topple a statue of President Andrew Jackson -- who owned slaves and forcibly removed Native Americans from their lands -- in Lafayette Park near the White House.

In some places, local leaders have approved the official removal of such statues, including a Confederate monument in Denton, Texas.

17 Rikers officers face discipline for death of transgender woman

By Danielle Haynes

June 27 (UPI) -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced 17 uniformed jail staffers at Rikers Island will face disciplinary action for the death of a transgender woman there last year.

He said the Department of Correction staff members will face charges for the death of Layleen Polanco, 27. Three officers were suspended without pay.

Polanco died in June 2019 after guards put her in solitary confinement against doctor's advice. She had a history of epileptic seizures, and had one while in solitary confinement.

She was found dead in her cell June 7, 2019, and an autopsy revealed she died from a seizure.

"The death of Layleen Polanco was an incredibly painful moment for our city," de Blasio said Friday. "What happened to Layleen was absolutely unacceptable and it is critical that there is accountability."

Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark declined to file criminal charges in the case on June 5, saying that investigators were unable to prove officers committed any crime that led to Polanco's death.

"We are committed to ensuring that all of our facilities are safe and humane. Even one death in our custody is one too many and this swift and fair determination on internal discipline makes clear that the safety and well-being of people in our custody remains our top priority," New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann said.