Hawaii Sues

President Trump’s immigration policies faced a new challenge in court on Wednesday, as the attorney general of Hawaii alleged that President Trump had violated the Constitution with his redrawn executive order banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries. In the Hawaii case, the state attorney general, Doug Chin, a Democrat, claimed in a legal filing that the new order would damage the state’s educational institutions and private businesses, including its lucrative tourism industry, and discriminate against families with relatives overseas. The travel ban has stirred strong opposition in Hawaii, where people still recall federal policies that targeted Asian-Americans for discrimination, from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

In Other News After an 18-hour session, the House Ways and Means Committee has become the first to approve the Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill (known as the American Health Care Act). An outbreak of yellow fever in rural Brazil is raising concerns that the disease could spread across borders to the US, like Zika. While the likelihood of yellow fever outbreaks in the US is low, "travel-related cases of yellow fever could occur, with brief periods of local transmission in warmer regions such as the Gulf Coast states. Experts fear spread of the disease may resemble that of the Zika virus, which emerged in Brazil in 2015 and later spread to more than 60 countries including the US. Yellow fever spreads to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito, and outbreaks usually occur in South America and Africa. Symptoms are similar to the flu and could become severe to include fever, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and jaundice -- hence its name yellow fever. Thanks to better mosquito control and better sanitation practices, yellow fever has been virtually eliminated in the US and the Americas. But sporadic outbreaks occasionally pop up in tropical areas and cases can spread through travel. AT&T wireless customers in several states were unable to make calls to 911 on Wednesday. The outage was resolved by Wednesday night.