Phoenix
State leader recalled: State Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, was voted out of office this week in an unprecedented recall election. His defeat was seen as a rebuke to supporters of the state’s harsh anti-immigrant policies, which many residents and the business community believed had embarrassed the state. Pearce, a Republican, outspent his Republican rival, Jerry Lewis, by 3 to 1, but lost, 53 to 45 percent. “If being recalled is the price for keeping these promises, then so be it,” said Pearce, who became the first state legislator in Arizona’s history to be removed through a recall election. Pearce’s signature law, S.B. 1070, mandates that immigrants carry documentation of their status at all times and requires police to stop and question anyone they suspect may be an illegal immigrant.
Oklahoma City
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Tornadoes follow earthquakes: Several tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma this week, just days after two earthquakes and more than a dozen aftershocks destroyed homes, damaged a highway, and gave residents the jitters. A storm system of powerful tornadoes arrived less than 48 hours after earthquakes damaged 14 buildings and buckled U.S. Highway 62 in at least two places. One man was injured escaping his home, but no deaths were reported. The larger of the pair of earthquakes—a record magnitude 5.6, the largest ever in Oklahoma—hit late Saturday night in a small town about 50 miles north of Oklahoma City. There were at least 10 aftershocks of magnitude 3.0 or more and “many, maybe hundreds, that are going unfelt,” said Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. The quake was felt as far away as Chicago.
Jackson, Mississippi
Personhood measure fails: Mississippi voters this week soundly rejected an amendment to their state constitution that would have declared that life begins at fertilization. The failed Amendment 26, the most stringent anti-abortion measure in the nation, would have banned abortions even in pregnancies conceived through rape or incest, and it outlawed certain kinds of contraception, such as IUDs and the “morning after” pill. Voters in Colorado have twice rejected similar amendments, in 2008 and 2010, but Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the union, was considered to be friendlier territory. Opponents of the measure characterized it as too extreme. “It was just a matter of making sure that the voters were informed,” said Felicia Brown Williams of Mississippians for Healthy Families. “And when they were, they came to our side.”
Columbus, Ohio
Victory for labor: Voters in Ohio this week overturned a state law that would have restricted collective-bargaining rights for police, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees. In a bitterly contested fight, the nation’s biggest labor unions spent about $30 million to roundly defeat the Republican-backed law, known as S.B. 5, which would have prohibited Ohio’s 350,000 public employees from striking and bargaining over health-care and pension benefits. Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said Gov. John Kasich had overreached in his quest for budget savings. “He literally thought he knew more than everyone else,” Redfern said. Kasich said he would take a breath and “spend some time reflecting on what happened here.” Ohio voters also rejected the insurance mandate in President Obama’s federal health-insurance overhaul.
State College, Pa.
Sex scandal fells football icon: Charges that a former Penn State assistant football coach sexually molested eight boys, some on campus grounds, rocked the university this week, and forced the retirement of legendary coach Joe Paterno. The scandal erupted when charges were filed against Jerry Sandusky, 67, alleging 40 criminal counts of child sex abuse from 1994 to 2009. In 2002, Paterno learned of an episode of abuse that allegedly took place in a locker room shower, and informed the school’s athletic director, Tim Curley, but neither man went to the police. Curley and Gary Schultz, the school’s vice president for finance and business, have been charged with perjury and failure to report the allegations. No charges have been filed against Paterno, 84, who will retire at the end of the season, his 46th as head coach. This tragedy “is one of the great sorrows of my life,” Paterno said. “I wish I had done more.”
Dover, Delaware
Investigation over missing remains: Senior officials at Dover Air Force Base displayed “gross mismanagement” in losing or mishandling the remains of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to an 18-month Air Force investigation. Three officials were reprimanded but not fired, even though the lapses appear to be “systemic issues,” said Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff. In a second report issued this week, the Office of Special Counsel, which handles federal whistle-blower complaints, criticized the Air Force’s handling of the problems at Dover. Both reports stem from allegations made last year by three civilian employees at Dover Port Mortuary that there had been 14 separate failures at the facility, including one instance in which employees sawed off a dead Marine’s arm to fit it in the casket without consulting his family.
