Top Stories Today – July 11, 2019
Top Stories Today – July 11, 2019
Migrant whose daughter died slams cruelty of US detention
A Guatemalan woman whose infant daughter died after being held by US immigration authorities denounced the “cruelty” of the country’s migrant detention centers Wednesday. Yazmin Juarez spoke out at “Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border,” a congressional hearing staged amid a series of scandals over poor conditions suffered by detained migrants that has rocked Washington.
Juarez said she fled to the United States last year with her 19-month-old Mariee “because I feared for our lives in Guatemala.” She crossed the border and claimed asylum but says she and Mariee were “locked in a freezing cold cage for a few days,” then moved to an ICE detention center, when her daughter became ill. “I begged the doctors and medical staff to give her the care I knew she needed but they didn’t,” Juarez said. “When ICE finally released us, I took Mariee … to a doctor and then to the emergency room. But it was too late. Mariee never left the hospital,” she said. The Voice of America
France passes tax on tech firms despite US threats
France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by the US, which argues that it unfairly targets American tech giants. The 3% tax will be levied on sales generated in France by multinational firms like Google and Facebook. The French government has argued that such firms headquartered outside the country pay little or no tax.
The US administration has ordered an inquiry into the move – which could result in retaliatory tariffs. The new tax was approved by the French senate on Thursday, a week after it was passed by the lower house, the National Assembly. Any digital company with revenue of more than €750m ($850m; £670m) – of which at least €25m is generated in France – would be subject to the levy. It will be retroactively applied from early 2019, and is expected to raise about €400m this year. BBC
Trump criticizes Fox News
Trump on Sunday night wrote that watching Fox on the weekend was worse than watching CNN and MSNBC, outlets he frequently attacks. He said Fox is “loading up with Democrats” and criticized the network for using The New York Times as a source for a story. He also attacked Fox for hiring former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile as a contributor and poked at afternoon host Shepard Smith’s ratings. “Fox News is changing fast, but they forgot the people who got them there,” Trump wrote. Fox did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While it was not clear what Trump was specifically responding to, he was particularly annoyed by Fox correspondent Greg Palkot’s live report from a sports bar in France, where patrons erupted in a “F— Trump” chant, according to two advisers not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions. Fox also aired two segments about immigration Sunday that used as a hook a Times story that said workers at a child detention center in Texas are “grappling with the stuff of nightmares,” according to Matthew Gertz of the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America. The Associated Press
Iranian vessels try to block tanker in Gulf
The British navy said it prevented three Iranian paramilitary vessels from impeding the passage of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Thursday, a day after Iran’s president warned of repercussions for the seizure of its own supertanker. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard denied the allegations, saying if it had received orders to seize any ships it would have done so immediately.
The incident came at a time of heightened tensions over Iran’s unraveling nuclear agreement with world powers. Iran recently began breaching uranium enrichment limits in response to the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the agreement last year and its imposition of sweeping sanctions. In recent months, the US has dispatched thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, bombers and advanced fighter jets to the region. The Associated Press
Joint Chiefs nominee accused of sexual misconduct
A senior military officer has accused the Air Force general tapped to be the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of sexual misconduct, potentially jeopardizing his nomination. Members of Congress have raised questions about the allegations and the military investigation that found insufficient evidence to charge him.
The officer told The Associated Press that Gen. John Hyten subjected her to a series of unwanted sexual advances by kissing, hugging and rubbing up against her in 2017 while she was one of his aides. She said that he tried to derail her military career after she rebuffed him. The Air Force investigated the woman’s allegations, which she reported days after Hyten’s nomination was announced in April, and found there was insufficient evidence to charge the general or recommend any administrative punishment. The alleged victim remains in the military but has moved to a different job. “My life was ruined by this,” she told the AP. The woman asked to not be identified by name. The AP routinely does not name victims of sexual assault. The Voice of America
Possible hurricane looms in New Orleans
A storm swamped New Orleans streets and paralyzed traffic Wednesday as concerns grew that even worse weather was on the way: a possible hurricane that could strike the Gulf Coast and raise the Mississippi River to the brim of the city’s protective levees. The storm was associated with a broad area of disturbed weather in the Gulf that forecasters said was on track to strengthen into a hurricane by the weekend.
The system was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday morning, a tropical storm by Thursday night and a hurricane late Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. The system was likely to be named Barry, and it would be the second named Atlantic storm this year. As of 11 p.m. ET Wednesday, it had maximum sustained winds of 30 mph, according to the hurricane center. Tropical storms have maximum sustained winds of at least 39 mph. CBS News
Biden still remains at the top
The Democratic presidential field continues to shift as one candidate drops out and another joins a crowded group hoping to oust President Donald Trump from office next year. Former Vice President Joe Biden remains the leading contender but finds himself fending off increasingly strong challenges from two senators—Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The Voice of America
Ocasio-Cortez says she wants to see the DHS abolished
She’s long called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished, but now, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wants its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, eliminated as well. During an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick, Ocasio-Cortez said that the Department of Homeland Security, which was established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, is one of several “large threats to American civil liberties.”
People “sounded the alarm back then that these agencies are extrajudicial, that they lack effective oversight, and it is baked into the core foundational structure of these agencies.” She believes “we need to undo a lot of the egregious mistakes that the Bush administration did,” and there is the “argument that we never should have created DHS” in the first place. The New Yorker via The The Week
210,000-year-old human skull found in Greek
Researchers who used modern technology to study two skulls found 41 years ago in Greece have dated one of the skulls to 210,000 years ago, and believe this is the earliest evidence of modern humans in Eurasia. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the researchers write that one skull, called Apidima 1, is 210,000 years old, which is 160,000 years older than previous discoveries.
The other skull, dubbed Apidima 2, was more complete than Apidima 1, and belonged to a Neanderthal who lived in the area 170,000 years ago. Because the skulls were found in the same cave, this shows there were multiple early migrations out of Africa, the researchers said, and they will continue to investigate what caused these treks. The oldest recovered fossils of early humans go back to 315,000 years ago, and were found in Morocco. CNN via The Week