federal government

Attorneys general from 20 states have sued President Joe Biden's administration seeking to halt directives that extend federal sex discrimination protections to LGBTQ people, ranging from transgender girls participating in school sports to the use of school and workplace bathrooms that align with a person's gender identity. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Knoxville, arguing that legal interpretations by the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are based on a faulty view of U.S. Supreme Court case law. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Small towns in South Carolina are one step closer to getting $435 million in pandemic relief money. The state Department of Administration requested the funds from the federal government last week after a directive from Gov. Henry McMaster. The money is part of the nearly $8.9 billion flowing into the state through the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

The chief contractor at a failed multibillion-dollar project to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina has agreed to pay more than $20 million as part of a cooperation agreement with federal authorities probing the fiasco. Acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart said Monday that Westinghouse Electric Co. will contribute $21.25 million to a program intended to assist low-income ratepayers affected by the project's failure. The company will also be required to cooperate with federal investigators still probing the company's role in the 2017 debacle at the V.C. Summer plant, which cost ratepayers and investors billions and left nearly 6,000 people jobless. Three top-level executives have pleaded guilty as part of a multi-year federal fraud investigation.

States have begun to ramp up the amount of rental assistance reaching tenants but there are still millions of families facing eviction who haven't gotten help. The Treasury Department says just $5.1 billion of the estimated $46.5 billion in federal rental assistance, or only 11%, has been distributed by states and localities through July. Several states, including Virginia and Texas, have been praised for moving quickly to get the federal money out. But there are still plenty of states, from South Carolina to Arizona, who have distributed very little. The concerns about the slow pace intensified Thursday, after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a temporary eviction ban put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Watchdog groups sued the Biden administration Tuesday over its plans to produce plutonium cores for the U.S. nuclear stockpile, arguing federal agencies have failed to conduct a detailed environmental review of potential impacts around installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.