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An apartment building collapse in Mumbai leaves dozens dead amid heavy rain; a federal judge finds Texas's punishment of its so-called "sanctuary cities" to be unconstitutional; Wells Fargo finds even more of those fraudulent bank accounts.
Mumbai’s apartment buildings are crumbling
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- At least 23 people are dead after a three-story building collapsed in the Western Indian city of Mumbai today during a heavy rainstorm. [NYT / Suhasini Raj and Austin Ramzy]
- More people are trapped in the rubble, and rescue efforts have been complicated by a fire that broke out soon after. [CNN / Liz Neisloss, Sanjiv Talreja, Sugam Pokharel, and Joshua Berlinger]
- A spokesperson for the city’s municipal association said the building was more than 100 years old, and had been listed unsafe by the city government. Some families were continuing to live there because rents are too expensive elsewhere. [Al Jazeera]
- A few years prior, a private group in the city had been tasked with relocating residents so that the building could be made safe again, but that work did not happen in time. [Mumbai Mirror / Sharmeen Hakim, Iram Sidiqque, and Lata Mishra]
- Officials said there are probably many more such buildings around the city. Building collapses happen often in Mumbai; this is the third one to collapse in less than a month. [BBC]
- The city is dealing with twin crises; it is currently being inundated with heavy rain and flooding, although authorities did not say whether the inclement weather caused the building to collapse. [The Guardian / Amrit Dhillon]
Texas cities notch a win against the state
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- Late Wednesday night, a federal judge struck down parts of a Texas law that would have punished cities that limited how much local police cooperate with federal immigration agents. [Associated Press / Paul Weber and Will Weissert]
- The ruling, delivered by Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the Western District of Texas, found that the law was unconstitutional. Police in Texas cities can still ask anyone they arrest about their immigration status, but legally don’t have to do anything other than share that information with the feds. [Vox / Dara Lind]
- The original intent of the state law — known as SB4 — would have made it a criminal offense for city officials to not turn over suspected illegal immigrants to federal agents, leaving local law enforcement officials at risk of steep fines and jail time. [Texas Tribune / Julian Aguilar]
- Beyond being a win for immigration advocates, the ruling is also a win for cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin, which went to court over the new state law. It’s a loss for the state and for the federal government. [NYT / Manny Fernandez]
- It is also a blow to Trump’s executive order that threatened to keep money away from so-called "sanctuary cities" that choose not to turn over suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities; it gives these cities even more ammunition to fight back. [Washington Post / Jennifer Rubin]
- The ruling came just a day before the law was slated to go into effect, but the state could still appeal to an appeals court in New Orleans, which is considered one of the more conservative in the country. [San Antonio Express-News / Jason Buch and Guillermo Contreras]
Double the fraud, double the fun
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- A new internal review at Wells Fargo found that the bank fraudulently opened 3.5 million potentially unauthorized accounts that customers didn’t ask for, double the amount previously uncovered. [WSJ / Emily Glazer]
- This latest news comes a year after the bank’s CEO stepped down amid a massive scandal revolving around a scheme where bank employees issued hundreds of thousands of credit cards without customers knowing, and signed customers up for online accounts by creating fake emails. [CNN Money / Matt Egan]
- Wells Fargo’s internal review also revealed that some customers were enrolled in an online payment service without realizing it, incurring fees for services they never asked for. [NYT / Stacy Cowley]
- Initially, the bank said that 1.5 million potentially unauthorized accounts were created, then revised its estimate to 2 million. The latest number is 3.5 million because the review widened its scope of its investigation as far back as 2009. [CNBC / Tae Kim]
- The expanded number also means the bank will have to pay more to the consumers who had accounts opened up in their names — $2.8 million more, to be precise. [NPR / Uri Berliner]
- The government fined Wells Fargo $185 million last year when the wrongdoing was initially uncovered; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued it a $100 million fine, the largest it had ever slapped on a bank. [NYT / Michael Corkery]
- Many customers only found about the sham accounts and emails after they started getting notices about fees. [MSNBC / Steve Benen]
Miscellaneous
- The hot spots in London’s music scene aren’t just clubs or coffee shops; buskers also have to audition in order to play in the subway. [NPR / Frank Langfitt]
- Nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas) is making a comeback in emergency medicine. [Associated Press / Lisa Rathke]
- The person Betsy DeVos has tapped to lead the US Department of Education’s unit investigating fraudulent colleges is the former head of for-profit DeVry University, stoking fears about the department’s ability to conduct independent investigations. [Politico / Michael Stratford]
- A couple of filmmakers want to make a Lord of the Flies adaptation starring all women ... which (as many people have pointed out) seems entirely beside the point. [The Guardian / Steph Harmon]
- For just over $2 million and a little bit of TLC, you, too, could be the proud owner of a European castle. [WSJ / Ruth Bloomfield]
Verbatim
- “I was going to have dermal implants done with diamond tips, so I could have nipples of steel that could cut glass.”
- [Adam Roberts to the Washington Post / Justin Jouvenal]
- “I made that episode for an audience of one: myself ... And for people to embrace it the way they have, it feels like the world is embracing, not just me, this queer brown girl from the South Side of Chicago, but they’re also embracing my voice.” [Lena Waithe to the Atlantic / Adrienne Green]
- “For some reason, one particular Maine fisherman, he was a mean, ornery son-of-a-gun and he called the state of Maine down to establish a line.” [Jack Newick to NHPR / Jason Moon]
- “Diana was a counter to everything the royals, ruined by their stiff upper lip among other things, represented. She was warm where they were cold, a flesh-and-blood human instead of a robot. It was clean, rich white ladyhood, but the type aunties could relate to and get behind.”[BuzzFeed / Bim Adewunmi]
- “I can no longer count on being an anonymous person when I’m walking down the street.” [Joseph Atick to Center for Public Integrity / Jared Bennett]
Watch this:
According the data, winter has arrived indeed. [Vox / Carlos Waters and Kavya Sukumar]
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