California’s reparations task force began voting Saturday on recommendations for how the state may compensate and apologize to Black Californians for generations of harm caused by discriminatory policies.

The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, was giving final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of proposals that will then go to state lawmakers to consider for reparations legislation.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who is cosponsoring a bill in Congress to study restitution proposals for African Americans, at the meeting called on states and the federal government to pass reparations legislation.

“Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address longstanding racial disparities and inequalities,” Lee said.

The panel’s first vote approved a detailed account of historical discrimination against Black Californians in areas such as voting, housing, education, disproportionate policing and incarceration and others.

Other recommendations on the table ranged from the creation of a new agency to provide services to descendants of enslaved people to calculations on what the state owes them in compensation.

Panel: Expel lawmaker for sexual misconduct

A Texas legislative committee recommended Saturday that GOP Rep. Bryan Slaton be expelled for inappropriate sexual conduct with a 19-year-old intern. Slaton, from Royse City, could face an expulsion vote by the full House as early as Tuesday.

Slaton, 45, has declined to comment on the allegations, but his attorney last month called the claims “outrageous” and “false.”

In the written investigation report, the committee said Slaton gave the 19-year-old intern and another young staffer alcohol at his home, that he had sex with the intern after she was intoxicated, and that he later showed the intern a threatening email but said everything would be fine if the incident was kept quiet. Slaton also asked a fellow lawmaker to keep his behavior secret, the committee said.

Slaton’s legislative biography describes him as, “a proud East Texan with values and principles that represent the great people of East Texas” that were formed by his participation in church and family gatherings.

Elevated cancer rates found near spill

Kansas health officials have identified elevated levels of liver cancer among people living in several historically Black neighborhoods in Wichita where groundwater was polluted by a rail yard chemical spill.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a study Friday that found a liver and biliary tract cancer diagnosis rate of 15.7 per 100,000 people in the contamination zone, which was more than double the statewide rate of 6.4 per 100,000, The Wichita Eagle reports.

Among non-Hispanic Black residents, the diagnosis rate was even higher, at 23.9 per 100,000.

Experts believe that the spill of trichloroethene (TCE), a common solvent that is used to clean off paint and remove grease, could have happened as early as the 1970s, although it wasn’t identified until 1994. It created a plume of polluted groundwater that runs for 2.9 miles from the Union Pacific Railroad rail yard site.

TCE can cause cancer in humans — “especially kidney cancer and possibly liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Tips surge after nurse practitioner charged

More than 70 tips have poured in after an Iowa nurse practitioner who is accused of photographing a teen’s genitals during an exam was arrested on sex crime charges, police say.

Several districts and one university also have issued alerts that Carl Markley, 44, performed school physicals for their students, although none of the charges against him allege that crimes occurred during those exams.

Markley, who is free on bond, is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor, pimping, prostitution and human trafficking. The charges were filed in two batches, and police in Ames arrested him the second time Monday.

According to the affidavit, several electronic devices, a hidden camera clock and pen were seized from Markley’s residence.

Girl, 17, killed in party shooting that wounds 5

A 17-year-old girl was killed and five other people were wounded in a shooting early Saturday at a party near a college campus in Northern California, police said.

Officers responding around 3:30 a.m. to reports of gunfire found six people shot at an apartment building in Chico, police Chief Billy Aldridge said.

All the victims were taken to hospitals, and the teenager died at a hospital, he said.

Two men, ages 21 and 19, and a 17-year-old girl remained hospitalized in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, the chief said. Two other men, ages 18 and 20, were treated at the hospital and released, Aldridge said.

Brazil’s Lula calls for efforts to free Assange

After attending the coronation of King Charles III in London, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison.

“It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him,” Lula told reporters. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist.”

Lula offered the remarks in response to a question about Assange, who is a native Australian.

Assange has been fighting extradition to the United States, and Lula’s comments come at a moment that he has shown little reluctance to voice his differences of opinion with Washington regarding geopolitical matters.

Congo floods leave 200 dead, many missing

The death toll from flash floods and landslides in eastern Congo has risen beyond 200, with many more people still missing, according to local authorities in the province of South Kivu.

Thomas Bakenge, administrator of Kalehe, the worst-hit territory, told reporters on the scene Saturday that 203 bodies had been recovered so far, but that efforts to find others were continuing.

In the village of Nyamukubi, where hundreds of homes were washed away, rescue workers and survivors dug through the ruins Saturday looking for more bodies in the mud.

S. Korean, Japanese leaders to meet again

The leaders of South Korea and Japan are to meet Sunday for their second summit in less than two months, as they push to bolster cooperation following years of fraught ties over historical issues.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is to arrive in South Korea on Sunday for a two-day visit, which reciprocates a mid-March trip to Tokyo by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The exchange of visits between the leaders of the Asian neighbors, the first of its kind in 12 years, signals that both nations are serious about strengthening ties in the face of shared regional challenges such as North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal and China’s increasing assertiveness.

Yoon’s spokesperson, Lee Do-woon, told reporters that Sunday’s summit was expected to focus on security, economic and cultural cooperation. He earlier said North Korea, overall South Korea-Japan relations and unspecified international issues would be on the agenda.

— From news services