The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS 7
New Orleans
Unsaintly: The New Orleans Saints
are fighting the release of hundreds of
emails that allegedly show team execu-
tives helping the Archdiocese of New
Orleans spin the news of a sexual abuse
scandal, the Associated Press reported
last week. Attorneys for about two dozen
men suing the archdiocese say the NFL
team aided the church in “concealing
its crimes.” The Saints admit to offering
church officials advice in 2018 on how
to announce that more than 50 clergy
members had been “credibly accused” of
sexual abuse, but the team says it advo-
cated transparency, not a cover-up. The
Saints are owned by Gayle Benson, who
inherited the team when her husband,
Tom, died in 2018. Archbishop Gregory
Aymond accompanied Gayle at Tom’s
funeral procession. She has given millions
to Catholic institutions around New
Orleans, and Aymond is a frequent guest
of hers at Saints games.Washington, D.C.
Means test: The Supreme Court voted
this week to let the Trump administration
apply stricter scrutiny to poor immigrants
and deny them green cards if they’re
likely to use public-assistance programs.
In a 5-4 decision, the conservative jus-
tices lifted a nationwide injunction,
imposed by a federal judge in New York
last year, that blocked the White House
from expanding “public charge” rules to
penalize immigrants who use safety-net
programs such as Medicaid, food stamps,
or housing assistance. Lawsuits over the
means test will continue to go forward,
but immigration authorities can apply
the new rules as the suits continue. Neil
Gorsuch, one of the court’s conservative
justices, used the case to lambaste lower
courts for issuing “‘nationwide,’ ‘univer-
sal,’ or ‘cosmic’” injunctions such as the
one used to stop the means test, arguing
that in effect they’ve let individual courts
set national policy.Batesville, Ark.
Owning up: Hunter Biden agreed to pay
child support to an Arkansas woman
after a DNA test showed
“with near scientific cer-
tainty” that he fathered
her child born in August- Biden, the
son of former
Vice President Joe
Biden, had been
adamant in insist-
ing that he’d never had sex with Lunden
Alexis Roberts, who says she met Biden
in Washington, D.C., while studying
at George Washington University. She
also performed under the stage name
“Dallas” at a D.C. strip club that Biden
frequented, the New York Post reported.
Biden, who’s married, claimed he couldn’t
afford the payments, but he’s now agreed
to pay retroactive child support as well
as Roberts’ attorney fees. Reaching the
child support agreement lets
Biden avoid an appearance at an
Arkansas court hearing sched-
uled for this week—especially
awkward timing amid the
Senate impeachment trial,
which centers on Trump’s
push for an investigation into
Biden’s work in Ukraine.
Boston
Hidden ‘Talents’: A distinguished
Harvard University scientist was
arrested this week and charged
with lying about his lucrative
work helping China gather for-
eign research, talent, and intel-
lectual property. Charles Lieber,
chair of Harvard’s department of
chemistry and chemical biology,
is accused of hiding from inves-
tigators and the university that
he earned more than $1.7 mil-
lion from China for participat-
ing in its Thousand Talents
Plan, a government-funded
research program that report-
edly aims to exploit foreign
research. Lieber, 60, was allegedly hired
at a salary of up to $50,000 a month to
work on projects that would aid China
in its “national strategic development
requirements.” Prosecutors say Lieber
set up a lab at the Wuhan University of
Technology and claimed it was
a joint venture with Harvard.
Lieber, a nanoscience expert,
led a Harvard research group
that collected more than $15 mil-
lion in federal grants.Phoenix
Voting discrimination: Arizona
violated the Voting Rights Act by craft-
ing election laws to suppress minority
turnout, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled this week.
The Republican-
controlled state
legislature banned
“ballot harvesting”
in 2016, prohibit-
ing voters from
letting campaign
workers or other
nonfamily members
deliver their early ballots. Lawmakers
said the change would prevent fraud, but
the 9th Circuit ruled 7-4 that Arizona
had “contrived” that rationale to out-
law a practice used overwhelmingly by
Democrats in a state that has become
increasingly competitive. The judges ruled
that Arizona’s “long history of race-based
voting discrimination” and legislators’
implausible claims about their motives
demonstrated that the true intent of the
state’s regulation was to disenfranchise
Latinos, Native Americans, and African-
Americans. The court also struck down a
law that made ballots cast in the wrong
precinct invalid, a rule that dispropor-
tionately affected nonwhite voters.Richmond, Va.
Too late? Virginia became the 38th state
to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment
this week,
setting up a
long-shot legal
fight to enact a
constitutional
amendment
outlawing
discrimination
“on account of
sex.” Congress
passed the ERA
in 1972 and set a 10-year deadline for the
required 38 states to ratify. Only 35 states
did so in time; since then, five states
have rescinded their approval. However,
Nevada approved the ERA in 2017, and
Illinois in 2018. Supporters of the amend-
ment say states lack the constitutional
authority to rescind their ratification.
Last month, the Justice Department said
the resolution “has expired,” and the
National Archives, which certifies amend-
ments, said it would follow that opinion.
Virginia lawmakers refused to call the
vote on the amendment, which was first
proposed in 1923, merely symbolic. The
27th Amendment, which deals with con-
gressional pay, was introduced in 1789
Ne and finally ratified only in 1992.
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Hunter BidenLieberNavajo Nation voterA new ERA?