Tuesday, September 21 top stories
It is Tuesday, September 21. Here are today’s top stories.
News videos and images showed U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback aggressively confronting Haitian migrants while they attempted to cross the Rio Grande carrying food. Some agents used a long leather horse rein as a whip and attacked the migrants. Here is a video from Al Jazeera.
[Video clip]
A reporter with the El Paso Times said after a few minutes, the agents retreated, and the migrants ended up returning to the temporary camp under the international bridge, where there are at least 10,000 migrants hoping to enter the U.S.
The White House said the footage of the agents acting aggressively was unacceptable. Here is a clip from CNN.
[Video clip]
The Sec. of Homeland Security said any mistreatment or abuse of a migrant is unacceptable and that they would investigate.
News reports explain that most of the Haitians under the bridge have been living in South America after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Many made the trek through Central America and Mexico with the hopes of being allowed entry in the U.S. It is a very long and deadly journey.
U.S. and Mexican officials are now warning those in the camp that they will be removed and sent back to Haiti. 307 migrants were removed via flight on Sunday. There are now daily flights from Texas to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
The Biden administration said it has no choice at this point but to increase the removal flights.
A doctor in San Antonio, Dr. Alan Braid, wrote a column in the Washington Post on Sunday to announce that on September 6, he provided an abortion to a woman who was pregnant beyond six weeks, which would violate the new strict Texas law banning abortions if a heartbeat is detected. The law allows anyone to sue those who assisted in an abortion after six weeks. The doctor said he’s practiced ob/gyn medicine for 45 years and feels like we’re headed in the wrong direction. Braid said he provided the abortion because he had a duty to care for the patient and also wanted to test Texas’ new law.
A former lawyer from Arkansas named Oscar Stilley filed a civil suit against the doctor for providing the abortion. Stilley said he does not personally oppose abortion but wanted to test whether the law is constitutional or not. Stilley is a disbarred lawyer who is in home confinement serving a 15-year federal sentence for tax evasion. The suit was filed in Bexar County, Texas.
The lawsuit is the first test of the Texas law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. A few weeks ago the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to not intervene.
In separate but related news, the Supreme Court said it will, on December 1, hear a case about whether a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional. Mississippi’s attorney general will ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court decision in 1973 that gave Americans the right to have an abortion.
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New Zealand police announced they arrested two suspected gang members for violating strict coronavirus lockdown policies by trying to drive a car into Auckland with its trunk full of KFC chicken and mashed potatoes. The city of Auckland is under the most strict level of Covid-19 lockdowns with restaurants and takeout services closed, while the rest of New Zealand have more relaxed Covid-19 restrictions. Police said they were patrolling back roads when they noticed a suspicious looking vehicle. The vehicle did a U-turn and sped away, but then pulled over. In it were two men aged 23 and 30. They were traveling from a city 75 miles south of Auckland. Police searched the car and found the KFC food and also found $100,000 New Zealand dollars. The men face up to six months in prison.
President Joe Biden gave an address to the United Nations General Assembly today for the first time in his presidency. Biden said the U.S. military withdrawal in Afghanistan showed that the era of “relentless war” would end. He said bombs and bullets cannot defend against Covid-19 or its future variants. Biden said the U.S. has sent more than 160 million vaccine doses to other countries and would announce new vaccine commitments on Wednesday.
On climate change, Biden said the U.S. would double public financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to impacts of global warming. Biden said if we don't do something about climate change, we will suffer ever worsening droughts and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes, longer heatwaves and rising seas.
News analysts said there was a lot of tension because many world leaders have strong opinions about the Afghanistan pullout and there is still a crisis in the relationship between the U.S. and France over the U.S.’s deal with Australia to share nuclear submarine technology. Australia cancelled a major defense deal with France. Biden has been trying to set up a phone call with the French President Emmanuel Macron.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government was reelected to a third term, but they did not win a majority of seats in Parliament. They needed 170 out of 338 seats in the House of Commons, but only won 158. The Conservative Party, led by Erin O’Toole, won 119 seats. The election exposed political divisions within Canada on issues such as Covid-19, gun control, and abortion rights.
The New York Times said the new Taliban government in Afghanistan has made it clear that it intends to “severely restrict the educational freedoms (that benefited) women and girls the past 20 years.” Schools reopened on Saturday for grades seven through 12, but only male students were told to show up. The Taliban hasn’t made any announcements about girls, so they stayed home. A Taliban spokesman said classes for girls will resume soon. At the university level, male and female students are separated and women are required to wear face coverings.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/border-patrol-haitian-immigrants-viral-video
https://www.axios.com/texas-abortion-violation-lawsuit-e50f72d5-7be5-42bb-bcb1-a93f6c91ebff.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/18/texas-abortion-provider-alan-braid/
https://www.axios.com/texas-abortion-violation-lawsuit-e50f72d5-7be5-42bb-bcb1-a93f6c91ebff.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/americas/canada-election-results-trudeau-o-toole-intl/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/world/asia/afghan-girls-schools-taliban.html
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-kfc-arrest-men-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.axios.com/biden-unga-speech-war-afghanistan-5b3b79e4-100b-4b3f-9432-9211d20814ab.html