News & Current Events

Governor Patrick Morrisey issued a 30-day statewide emergency declaration Tuesday following flash floods, landslides, and road closures, with Lewis, Pleasants, and Upshur counties sustaining the heaviest damage. A water gauge near Buckhannon crested at 10.63 feet, surpassing a 40-year record of 8.34 feet, while roughly 300 National Guard members were deployed for swift-water rescues. Casualty figures for West Virginia had not been published at the time of reporting, and a reported Kentucky tornado remains pending formal National Weather Service survey confirmation.

Yemen's Houthi movement announced a maritime navigation ban against Saudi Arabia on July 20, 2026, prohibiting vessels from calling at Saudi ports and threatening to target violators, but no confirmed attacks on commercial shipping occurred in the following 48 hours. Several tankers carrying Saudi crude reversed course as a precaution, though Yanbu continued loading ships already in the Red Sea. Under the San Remo Manual's criteria, the declaration lacks defined duration, geographic extent, and demonstrated effectiveness, making it a targeting threat rather than a legally or operationally valid naval blockade.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division launched a compliance review on July 20, 2026, examining whether Harvard University's financial-aid programs funded by China-based donors unlawfully exclude American-citizen students based on national origin. Harvard has been ordered to produce records on donor restrictions and student nationalities by July 31, 2026, though the department has made no finding of wrongdoing. The legal theory that a federally funded university violates Title VI by honoring privately funded scholarships with country-preference restrictions has not previously been tested in this context.