The intensity of President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration hasn’t just pushed the Republican Party rightward — it’s also moving Democrats in ways that are profoundly transforming the immigration debate.

Gone are hopes for a big, bipartisan immigration overhaul once envisioned in Congress. With dire conditions taking hold at the border, and deportations stoking fear in immigrant communities, groups on the left are no longer willing to engage in the trade-offs that had long been cornerstones to any deal. That’s pushing the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to increasingly say they’ll rely on executive action to undo Trump’s policies and revamp the system that lawmakers have been unable to fix.

“The brutality of this administration has pushed this conversation to happen,” said Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream Action.

The group formed around protecting young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, but now sees that issue as a starting point, or “floor,” in the debate as the nation confronts harsh images from the border, including the deaths of migrant children and adults in federal custody.

“The world is bearing witness,” Jimenez said. “You’re seeing the pressure of this moment is pushing the conversation.”

At their first televised debate, the Democratic presidential candidates gave voice to the enormous shift under way. Talk of reviving “comprehensive immigration reform” was largely absent, replaced by calls for unilateral action.

“Day One, we take out our executive order pen and we rescind every damn thing on this issue that Trump has done,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

California Sen. Kamala Harris said she would immediately use executive action as president to protect young immigrants by preserving the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — and by extending those deportation protections to parents and military veterans.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro want to do away with the law that makes illegal entry into the United States a criminal, rather than civil, offense.

And Sen. Cory Booker announced a plan Tuesday to use his presidential powers to orient the Department of Homeland Security away from immigration raids on schools or churches and end Trump’s travel ban to the U.S. by residents of certain majority-Muslim nations.

Longtime immigration advocate Frank Sharry said the urgency of the situation and the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s priorities is propelling Democrats in a new direction.

“Do we think comprehensive immigration reform would pass in 2021? It’s kind of hard to imagine,” he said.

For more than a decade, Congress has tried to broker an immigration compromise by marrying two different but related concepts — a pathway to citizenship for some of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, and beefed-up border security and enforcement to prevent a wave of new arrivals. The pairing was central to a 2007 effort from John McCain and Ted Kennedy, the former Senate lions, and to a sprawling 2013 bill that was approved overwhelmingly in the Senate only to be ignored by John Boehner’s GOP-controlled House.

But that calculus changed under Trump. He entered the campaign in 2016 decrying Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and seized control of the party with his promise to “build the wall.” One of Trump’s first actions as president was to shut down entry into the U.S. for immigrants from some Muslim countries. As president, his focus has been on enforcement — both limiting new arrivals seeking asylum and stepping up deportations of those immigrants already here, even longstanding residents whose only crime was illegal entry.

Even though Trump spoke privately early on of doing something “nice” for the Dreamers, groups on the right who favor tough enforcement never signed on. Nor did some of Trump’s more influential advisers, and Trump ultimately resisted bipartisan overtures from Congress.

Last week, as the border crisis worsened, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to add provisions to improve migrant care as part of a $4.6 billion emergency funding bill. But the White House threatened a veto, saying it would “hamstring” the administration’s ability at to enforce borders.

President Barack Obama’s administration also carried out tough enforcement policies as they tried to broker a broader immigration deal with Congress — there were so many removals under his watch that immigrant advocates labeled him the “deporter-in-chief.” But when no deal could be found, Obama decided to go it alone, establishing and then expanding the deportation protections for young Dreamers that Trump is seeking to end — a step that is now pending before the Supreme Court.

Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Tuesday he still wants Congress to “fix a broken system.”

The Texas congressman, the twin brother of the presidential candidate, led a delegation of lawmakers to visit border facilities Monday and posted stark videos of women, some of them grandmothers, being detained in cramped and potentially unsanitary conditions.

“I continue to hold out hope that we can work together on some kind of immigration reform legislation,” Castro said in an interview. “Part of the challenge is that for the president it is his No. 1 go-to political punching bag issue. That makes it very hard because, even for moderate Republicans, it moves everybody to the far right.”

Republicans say the problem is Democrats want “open borders,” government benefits for those here illegally and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the recent presidential debate, all the Democratic candidates onstage raised their hands when asked if they would provide health care for immigrants illegally in the U.S.

“All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!” Trump tweeted.

With the emotions around immigration so raw, longtime advocates see the gridlock as hard to overcome.

“The process of a McCain-Kennedy bipartisan breakthrough on immigration is hard to imagine,” said Sharry. He said even a more narrowly tailored bipartisan measure — linking funding to build Trump’s border wall to deportation protections for Dreamers — failed in the Senate in 2018 after the White House opposed it.

“The idea of a bipartisan deal with a Trumpian Republican Party is impossible to imagine for the short run,” he said.

New polls show California Senator and Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris surging after her performance in last week’s first Democratic candidates’ debate.

The surveys also show Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gaining ground while the current Democratic frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, is slipping. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has also lost ground, according to the new surveys.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed Biden still leading the Democratic primary field at 22 percent, followed closely by Harris at 20 percent. Warren is in third place with 14 percent followed by Sanders at 13 percent.

Harris also saw dramatic movement in a new CNN/SRSS poll that found her moving into second place among the Democratic contenders with 17 percent support, narrowly trailing Biden who leads with 22 percent.

Warren placed third with 15 percent followed by Sanders at 14 percent.  Trailing behind the top tier in the CNN poll were South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 4 percent, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke both with 3 percent, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at 2 percent.

Iowa shift

Similar trends were evident in a national poll by Morning Consult/Politico and in a survey in the early voting state of Iowa by Suffolk University and USA Today.

In the Iowa poll, Biden continues to lead the Democratic pack with 24 percent support, but Harris has hurtled into second place with 16 percent following the debate, ahead of Warren with 13 percent and Sanders at 9 percent.

Iowa begins the caucus and primary season to choose a Democratic nominee with its caucus vote on Feb. 3, 2020.

Debate impact

The new polling data confirms that Harris was able to capitalize on her direct challenge of Biden during last week’s debate in Miami.

Harris told Biden in the debate that his defense of having worked with segregationist senators decades earlier was “hurtful.” She also took him to task for his opposition to government-mandated busing efforts to desegregate public schools in the 1970s.

“You also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris said in the debate televised by NBC.  “And there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her schools and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

Biden appeared stung by the criticism and launched into a defense of his own civil rights record during his lengthy career as a senator and vice president.

“I am the guy who extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years! We got to a place where we got 98 out of 98 votes in the United States Senate doing it. I have also argued very strongly that deal with the notion of denying people access to the ballot box,” Biden said in his response.

Harris jolt

Prior to the debate, Harris had been stuck in the high single-digits in most polls, well behind the top-tier contenders of Biden, Sanders and Warren.

But analysts say the first debate has clearly given the Harris campaign a jolt.

“I think Kamala Harris really did come out of this debate pretty well,” said John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “Joe Biden is a frontrunner but holds a lot of support that is, perhaps, weak. The African American community is very with Joe Biden in the polls today. I think Kamala Harris really made a play for that in the debate and she would be a candidate who would speak to that group that is 25 percent of the electorate of the Democratic Party.”

Biden impact

Biden has been the Democratic frontrunner since he entered the race earlier this year.  University of Virginia analyst Kyle Kondik told VOA that some of Biden’s vulnerabilities are beginning to show and he can expect more scrutiny in the debates to come.

“And it will be a test for Biden as to whether he can maintain his level of support. Is his level of support just based on generic goodwill from the Obama years, his vice presidential tenure and his name identification? Or is there something deeper about Biden’s level of support that will help him withstand what is to come?” he said.

There are some bits of good news for Biden in the CNN poll. He still leads the Democratic field, though with a sharply reduced margin. And Biden also retains strong support from African American voters, a key voting bloc within the Democratic Party. Biden still leads among black voters with 36 percent support, but Harris has closed the gap at 24 percent.

The polls also show that many Democrats still see Biden as a moderate and regard him as perhaps the strongest candidate to take on President Donald Trump next year.

The CNN poll found that 43 percent of Democrats see Biden as the strongest challenger to Trump, with Sanders a distant second.

Quinnipiac found that 42 percent believe Biden has the best chance of beating Trump, while Harris was second at 14 percent.

Beating Trump

Previous polling has shown that defeating Trump in 2020 remains the top priority for most Democratic voters, according to Emory University expert Andra Gillespie.

“What Biden is kind of banking on is the fact that there are lots of moderate primary voters in particular who may be liberal on some things but are not as liberal as, say, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would be in the election. And so there might be a higher comfort level with him,” Gillespie told VOA via Skype.

The next Democratic debate will be held over two nights later this month in Detroit, Michigan.  The same qualifying standards apply as the first debate, which means that in order to appear on the debate stage, a candidate must register at least 1 percent in the polls and document campaign contributions from at least 65,000 individual donors.

The qualifications get tougher for the third debate in September. Contenders will have to register 2 percent in the polls and demonstrate 130,000 individual donors in order to qualify, standards that likely will leave some of the candidates out of the debate and scrambling to save their campaigns.

A major armed group in Syria has committed to identifying and releasing young boys and girls currently within its ranks, and put in place preventative, protection and disciplinary measures related to child recruitment and use, according to the the United Nations.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military alliance that has played a significant role in defeating the Islamic State (IS) terror group, signed an action plan with the U.N. to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children under the age of 18.

“It is an important day for the protection of children in Syria and it marks the beginning of a process as it demonstrates a significant commitment by the SDF to ensure that no child is recruited and used by any entity operating under its umbrella,” said Virginia Gamba, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main group within the SDF, has been listed in the U.N. Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict for the recruitment and use of children since 2014.

In its 2018 annual report on children in armed conflict, the U.N. found 224 cases of child recruitment by the YPG and its women’s unit in 2017.

The 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War prohibits the use of children under the age of 15 as soldiers.

Reforming the SDF

But Kurdish military officials charge that they have been taking serious measures to address the issue of child soldiers in recent years.

“We are the only non-state group in Syria that adheres to international standards when it comes to recruitment of children and the conduct of war in general,” an SDF commander who declined to be identified told VOA.

Experts said the U.S.-backed SDF is under pressure from its international patrons to reform in terms of ethnic and sectarian norms.

“The SDF has a mandate to institutionalize and become a ‘normal’ security force, not just an umbrella coalition of militias, and this step is one of the important ways that it can achieve this goal,” said Nicholas Heras, a Syria expert at the Center for a New American Security.

Turkish response

Turkey has criticized the U.N. for signing such an agreement with a group it deems as terrorist.

Turkey views the SDF as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

“The signing of an agreement by the U.N., which should be at the forefront in the fight against terror, with a terrorist organization cannot be explained in any way,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

In March 2018, Turkish military and allied Syrian rebels took control of the SDF-held city of Afrin in northwestern Syria after a two-month-long battle against Kurdish fighters.

Ankara has also threatened to carry out attacks against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.

But U.S. President Donald Trump said recently that he has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to make such a move.

Erdogan “had 65,000 men, army, on the border and he was going to wipe out Kurds… I called him, and asked him not to do it. I guess, they [Kurds] are natural enemies of his, or Turkey’s, and he has not done it. Then I said he [Erdogan] cannot do it,” Trump said over the weekend during a press conference in Osaka, Japan, where he attended the G-20 summit.

The U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday it will triple the number of people it is providing food and cash assistance to in northeastern Congo’s Ituri province, which is facing inter-ethnic violence and an Ebola epidemic.

WFP said a resurgence of clashes between ethnic groups has claimed at least 160 lives in recent weeks and has forced tens of thousands of additional people — many of whom are malnourished — to flee their homes.

Ituri is one of two provinces in the grip of Congo’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which has claimed more than 1,400 lives.

The U.N. food agency said it intends to expand the number of displaced people it is assisting in Ituri every month from 116,000 to 300,000.

“Our hearts go out to the latest victims of this senseless cruelty, most of them rural villagers who have had to run for their lives, with little or nothing, right at harvest time,” WFP’s Congo representative Claude Jibidar said in a statement. “Our ongoing relief operation in Ituri … means we are ready and able to quickly scale up.”

According to WFP, Congo is “the world’s second-largest hunger crisis,” with 13 million people not having a secure supply of food. This includes 5 million children “who are acutely malnourished,” the agency said.

WFP said it plans to assist 5.2 million Congolese this year, the same number it helped in 2018.
 

In a stinging defeat for President Donald Trump, his administration has ended its effort to add a citizenship  question to the 2020 U.S. census, saying that it will begin printing forms that do not include the contentious query.

White House and Justice Department officials confirmed the decision, which came in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling on June 27 that faulted the Trump administration for its original attempt to add the question.

Although the court left open the possibility of the administration adding the question, there was little time left for the government to come up with a new rationale.

The government had said in court filings that it needed to finalize the details of the questionnaire by the end of June.

Trump had suggested delaying the census so that the question could be added.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned Tuesday that the British economy is barely growing in the wake of mounting Brexit uncertainties and intensified trade tensions.

Carney said in a wide-ranging speech that a “sea change” has taken place in financial markets in recent months largely related to worries over the global economy. Trade tensions, particularly those involving the U.S. and China, have the potential to “shipwreck the global economy” and that’s a fear that’s taken root across financial markets.

“Reflecting the more febrile atmosphere, a trade war has shot to the top of the risks most worrying investors and measures of global economic policy uncertainty have reached record highs,” he said.

Though some of those tensions were eased over the weekend when U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed to resume trade negotiations, Carney said it would be wise for investors not to get too carried away.

“Progress today is no guarantee of progress tomorrow,” he said. 
 
Carney, who is set to leave the bank at the end of January after seven years at the helm, said the British economy is having to cope with all these trade tensions at a time of acute uncertainty over the country’s departure from the European Union.

Britain was originally set to leave the EU on March 29 but because of the British Parliament’s failure to back a deal with the EU, it has been granted an extension until Oct. 31. Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson, who are fighting it out to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party and to become the next prime minister, have indicated that they’d be prepared to back a “no-deal” Brexit on that date if no revised agreement with the EU is struck.

Most economists think such an outcome will lead to a deep recession in Britain as tariffs and other restrictions to trade are imposed. Carney said markets now think the betting odds for a no-deal Brexit has risen to one-in-three.

“Recent data also raise the possibility that the negative spillovers to the U.K. from a weaker world economy are increasing and the drag from Brexit uncertainties on underlying growth here could be intensifying,” he said. “The latest surveys point to no growth in U.K. output.”

In the first quarter of the year, the British economy grew by 0.5% from the previous three-month period, though that was largely due to companies bringing forward production to build stocks before the original Brexit date. 
 
“Growth in the second quarter will be considerably weaker, in part due to the absence of that stock building effect and Brexit-related, temporary shutdowns by several major car manufacturers,” Carney said. “Looking across the first half of the year, in my view, underlying growth in the U.K. is currently running below its potential.” 

Nike is pulling a flag-themed tennis shoe after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick complained to the shoemaker, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The shoe’s heel has a U.S. flag with 13 white stars in a circle on it, known as the Betsy Ross flag. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the Journal said that Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, told the company he and others found the flag symbol offensive because of its connection to slavery.

The Air Max 1 USA shoe had already been sent to retailers to go on sale this week for the July Fourth holiday, the Journal reports.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey lashed out at Nike’s decision to yank the sneaker, tweeting that he is asking the state’s Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentives for the company to locate there.

“Arizona’s economy is doing just fine without Nike. We don’t need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation’s history,” he wrote.

The chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released video and photos of migrant women being held at a border facility in Texas.

This moment captures what it’s like for women in CBP custody to share a cramped cell—some held for 50 days—for them to be denied showers for up to 15 days and life-saving medication. For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1. pic.twitter.com/OmCAlGxDt8

— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) July 1, 2019

Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro posted the images after touring a station in El Paso. Women held at the facility were “crammed into a prison-like cell with one toilet, but no running water to drink from or wash their hands,” Castro tweeted. Some had been separated from their children and held for more than 50 days, he said.

Castro said the women asked lawmakers to take down their names, shown in the video, to “let everyone know they need help.” He said the women feared retribution.

Officials had asked lawmakers touring the facility to leave their cell phones behind. After the visit, Democrats decried the conditions inside.

Japan’s trade minister says the kimono belongs to Japan _ not to Kim Kardashian West’s shapewear brand.

West announced the line, Kimono Solutionwear, last week. But some Japanese critics on social media said the name, which the reality TV star, makeup mogul and budding lawyer trademarked, is an inappropriate take on centuries-old kimono clothing.

On Monday, West tweeted that she would launch her brand under a new name following careful thought and consideration.

Japan’s trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, said Tuesday that the kimono is globally known as belonging to Japan, and urged U.S. trademark officials to examine the case appropriately.
 
 “Kimono is Japan’s cultural pride that we boast to the world. Even in the United States, kimono is highly recognized as a Japanese thing,” Seko told reporters. “We hope the case is examined appropriately to reflect the purpose of the trademark system.”

Seko said he will dispatch senior officials to Washington next week for talks with U.S. trademark officials.  
 
The planned kimono brand also triggered a backlash in Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto, home to many kimono makers and a popular tourist destination.

Kyoto Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa, who wears a kimono at work, said in a June 28 letter to West that kimono are not only part of Japan’s cultural heritage but also the “fruit of craftsmanship and truly symbolize the sense of beauty, spirit and values of Japanese,” and that she should perhaps visit the city to “experience the essence of kimono culture.
 
“We think that the name for kimono is an asset shared with all humanity who love kimono and its culture, therefore it should not be monopolized,” said Kadokawa, who is campaigning to register kimono as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
 

 

Ethiopia has begun restoring internet access 10 days after it was cut following the assassinations of six top government officials.

The internet shutdown affected the entire country but in recent days a few locations were able to function.  

No official explanation has been given for the internet cut but many Ethiopians suspect it was aimed at preventing government critics from communicating to wide audiences and to protect the country from fake news and disinformation. 

Ethio Telecom, the country’s state-owned monopoly of telecommunications services, also cut internet access two weeks ago during the national school exams. 

NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, estimated Ethiopia was losing a minimum of $4.5 million a day during the internet cut.

Monsoon rains caused wall collapses that killed 27 people in India Tuesday, as a second day of bad weather disrupted rail and air traffic in the financial capital Mumbai, prompting officials to shut schools and offices, though markets were open.

During every monsoon season, which runs from June to September, India experiences fatal incidents of building and wall collapses as rainfall weakens the foundations of poorly built structures.

Heavy rain brought a wall crashing down on shanties built on a slope in Malad, a western suburb of Mumbai, a fire brigade official said, killing 18 people.

“Rescue work is still going on,” the official added. “So far we have rescued more than two dozen people.”

Three people died when a school wall collapsed in the city of Kalyan, 42 km (26 miles) north of Mumbai.

In the nearby western city of Pune, six people were killed in a wall collapse Tuesday, a fire brigade official said, after a similar incident Saturday killed 15.

India’s financial hub

Mumbai is looking to turn itself into a global financial hub, but large parts of the city struggle to cope with annual monsoon rains, as widespread construction and garbage-clogged drains and waterways make it increasingly vulnerable to chaos.

More than 300 mm (11.8 inches) of rain fell in 24 hours in some areas of Mumbai, flooding streets and railway tracks, forcing the suspension of some suburban train services, which millions of commuters ride to work each day.

About 1,000 people stranded in low-lying areas of the city were rescued after a swollen river began to overflow, municipal authorities said.

More rain

As weather officials forecast intermittent heavy showers and isolated extremely heavy rainfall, authorities called a holiday for government offices and educational institutions.

“Rain is expected to remain intense even today,” city authorities said on Twitter. “We request you to stay indoors unless there’s an emergency.”

Markets open, airport closed

Financial markets were open Tuesday, though trading volumes were expected to be lower than normal. Many firms asked employees to work from home. The main runway at Mumbai airport, India’s second biggest, was closed from midnight after a SpiceJet flight overshot the runway while landing, an airport spokeswoman said.

The secondary runway is operational, but 55 flights were diverted and another 52 were canceled because of bad weather, she said.

In 2005, floods killed more than 500 people in Mumbai, the majority in shantytown slums home to more than half the city’s population.

Asylum-seekers forced to wait in Mexico are increasingly facing violence and dire conditions, stranded in purgatory with no means to survive, according to an upcoming report from Human Rights Watch.

The international rights group called on the Trump administration to end the practice of preventing asylum-seekers from living in the United States while their cases are being considered.

As of last week, Mexico reported 15,079 people, mostly from Central America, had been sent back to Mexico after reaching the U.S. That number includes 4,780 children and at least 13 pregnant women, according to the report, which was obtained by The Associated Press and will be released Tuesday.

Attacked, kidnapped, assaulted

Several asylum-seekers interviewed by the group were attacked, kidnapped or sexually assaulted in Mexico while waiting for court hearings. When some go to the U.S. for their hearings, they lose their shelter in Mexico and have no place upon return.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment about the report.

The policy is one of the only border crackdown efforts by Trump that has not been shut down by courts. Homeland Security officials claim it is a necessary effort to stop the unmanageable flow of migrants streaming into the U.S. But there is growing outcry from humanitarian groups, lawyers and even asylum officers over the policy and what it means for safety and security, especially amid a rapid expansion following an allowance by Mexico to appease the Trump administration and avoid threatened tariffs.

Asylum-seekers have up to a year to file a claim. From October through March 31, there were 103,658 cases filed. There are tens of thousands of people crossing the border each month.

Belongings, papers taken by agents

The report also found that many asylum-seekers said their belongings, including their documents, were confiscated by Border Patrol agents. Homeland Security’s watchdog has also found that agents routinely dumped asylum-seekers’ backpacks, handbags and suitcases.

One 23-year-old asylum-seeker from Honduras, a mother, said agents took all her documents and now she has no proof that her daughter is even hers. In another case, a father said his government-issued ID was taken and he couldn’t get it back, despite needing to return to El Salvador to be with his gravely ill child. He ended up traveling to a Salvadoran consulate about 700 miles (1,120 kilometers) away and then leaving.

Another woman traveling with her 6-year-old and 3-year-old sons from Honduras said she is no longer permitted to stay in a shelter — it’s unclear why — and her court date is five months from now. She said she’s thinking of crossing illegally but is afraid the government will take her children.

The report was based on interviews and court monitoring done by the watchdog group in Mexico and the U.S. in May.

For almost two weeks, a 12-year-old migrant girl said she and her 6-year-old sister were held inside a Border Patrol station in Texas where they slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents.
 
She was one of hundreds of migrant children who have been held this year in holding cells at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station near El Paso that has come under fire for holding children in squalid and unsanitary conditions.
 
In a video obtained by The Associated Press, the girl — speaking in Spanish — tells her Minnesota-based attorney Alison Griffith children were “treated badly” and were not allowed to play or bathe. The girl’s face is not visible on the video to protect her privacy and not jeopardize her immigration case.
 
El Paso, Texas, attorney Taylor Levy, who worked with the girl’s family, said she and her sister were separated from their aunt when they arrived in the U.S. on May 23. The children, from Central America, were put in the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, Levy said. Their aunt is still being detained.
 
Levy said the girls’ mother fled an abusive husband and arrived in the U.S. four years ago. She has applied for asylum. The girls stayed behind with their aunt, but the three headed north in May after the girls’ father threatened them, Levy said.
 
In the video, the girl says that inside the Clint station, she was given pudding, juice and a burrito she could not eat “because it tasted very bad.”
 
“There are some children, like the age of my sister, they cried for their mother or their father. They cried for their aunt. They missed them,” she said. “They cried and they were locked up.”
 
The attorneys discussed the case on the condition that the AP not release the girl’s name or her country of origin out of concern for her family’s safety.
 
Lawyers who visited the Clint facility last month after the girls had already been released said the conditions were perilous, with more than 250 children trying to take care of each other, passing toddlers between them, with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
 
Customs and Border Protection officials have repeatedly said the agency is “in a crisis mode” with too many immigrants and not enough resources.
 
Customs gave journalists a tour of the Clint Border Station on June 26, and a congressional delegation visited Monday.
 
In a facility designed to temporarily hold 100 adults, there were 117 children when AP visited, well below the 700 children Border Patrol said were detained there at one point earlier this year.
 
On Friday, a federal judge ordered that an independent monitor appointed last year move “post haste” to improve conditions at Border Patrol stations, where children are supposed to be held just 72 hours. In the Clint station, some had been held almost a month.
 
Levy said she helped reunite the 12-year-old girl and her sister with their mother. The mother flew to Texas from Minnesota to pick them up on June 3 after a Border Patrol official told her the girls had been repeatedly hospitalized with the flu.
 
“It was an incredibly difficult reunification. The kids were just highly, highly traumatized,” Levy said.

Costa Rica’s education minister Edgar Mora resigned Monday following protests against policies including his support for gender-neutral bathrooms, in a sign the cultural issues that dominated last year’s presidential election remain divisive.

Protesters included members of the Pentecostal Christian-aligned opposition party, as well as transportation and education groups. They criticized Mora on multiple fronts, including his proposal to allow transgender students to use the bathroom according to the gender with which they identify.

Catholic, Evangelical opposition

The 2018 election cycle was marked by clashes between Pentecostal Christian candidate Fabricio Alvarado Munoz over his criticism of same-sex marriage and what he called “gender ideology” that he said was promoted by the center-left ruling party.

Though the center-left candidate prevailed, with the election of President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, nearly 40% of the final vote went to its conservative opponent.

Costa Rica is famed for its laid-back way of life and progressive environmental policies. But it is also a bastion of traditional Catholic values, with a fast-growing evangelical community. Former minister Mora identifies as an atheist.

Port blockaded

The protest against Mora’s policies included blockades that cut off access to one of Costa Rica’s Caribbean ports, creating up to $10 million in daily losses, according to Laura Bonilla, spokeswoman for the Chamber of Exporters business group.

Protests began last week. At the time, Alvarado Quesada refused to push Mora out. The minister walked away from his role Monday after the news of the blockades.

“I hope that after my resignation, an avenue of dialogue will open,” Mora said in a press conference Monday afternoon.

But leaders who had taken to the streets said Mora’s departure would not be enough to end the protests.

The blockades were carried out by transport groups who joined with educators and students. Elected members of the opposition who took office in 2018 also supported the movement, which also opposed Mora’s policies to change the way students were evaluated.

A leader of the truck drivers, Quirico Alpizar, told the press that Mora’s ideology violated Christian doctrine.

Sri Lanka’s police chief and the nation’s former defense secretary should be charged with crimes against humanity as a result of their inability to prevent the Easter bombings that killed 258 people, the state’s prosecutor said Monday. 

According to Attorney General Dappula de Livera, the Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and Defense Secretary Hemasiri Fernando ignored intelligence information forecasting the attack. 

“The two officials should be brought before a magistrate for their criminal negligence to prevent the April 21 attacks,” wrote de Livera to the acting police chief.  

“Their negligence amounts to what is known under international law to be grave crimes against humanity.” 

Fernando has since resigned his position and Jayasundara was suspended. 

Indian Intelligence shared a report of targets for an attack with Sri Lankan officials on April 4, over two weeks in advance of the attacks on April 21. President Maithripala Sirisena alleged that the police chief and defense minister failed to act on the intelligence.  

Both Fernando and Jayasundara have denied the allegations that they were negligent in the weeks leading up to the attacks.  
  
Jayasundara told a parliamentary committee that the president offered him a diplomatic job if he were to take the blame for bombings. 

Fernando told parliament that the president had ordered him to keep a member off Sri Lanka’s security council. 

Both men also accused Sirisena of not doing enough to prevent the attacks. 

Following the testimonies by Fernando and Jayasundara, the president has said that he would not accept the committee’s conclusion.

When Viola Davis started her production company nearly a decade ago, she was determined to bring about change in Hollywood with a strategic mandate: Normalize people of color on screen.

“We’re not social statements. We’re not mythical creatures all the time … you can literally put pen to paper and write a great story that includes people of color, and it could actually sell,” the Oscar winner said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
 
Now, in the era of Time’s Up and #MeToo, the call for diversity on all levels has been amplified. Some actors and directors have publicly called for 50-50 inclusion riders, contractual stipulations for the diversity of a film’s cast and crew. But Davis says she doesn’t need a piece of paper to do the right thing, and her projects don’t try to replicate diversity simply based on statistics.

“Maybe that’s narcissistic of me, but I don’t want to tell my daughter that because she’s 12 percent of the population, she only deserves 12 percent of the pie,” Davis said.

She calls her JuVee Productions a “walking metaphor” of inclusion, noting that she has people of color and members of the LGBTQ community on staff at every level. 
 
“Women are at the forefront of just about every project,” she added.

She started JuVee Productions with her husband, Julius Tennon, in 2011 so she could have more of a voice in her own career, as well as provide more diversity on set. Before that, Davis says, she often felt left out of the conversation.  

Davis spoke to the AP while promoting a documentary on diabetes, “A Touch of Sugar.” The actress, who has an early form of the disease and has lost family members to it, wants to use her celebrity to help raise awareness.

“That’s what I can do. I’m not a politician. I’m not a senator. I’m not in the House of Representatives. I’m not in Congress. What I am is an artist. That’s how I provoke change,” Davis said.

Earlier this month, she signed on to Netflix’s adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” to be produced by Denzel Washington and co-starring Chadwick Boseman.

And JuVee has a slate of films on the horizon, including “Emanuel,” a documentary released this month that explores life in a Charleston, South Carolina, community after a self-avowed white supremacist killed nine African Americans at a church there in 2015. The story focuses on the victims’ family members, friends and community, and their efforts to heal through faith and forgiveness after the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Church. Dylann Roof was convicted of federal hate-crime and obstruction-of-religion charges and sentenced to death.

Davis also has a feature film in development, “The Personal History of Rachel Dupree,” in which she stars. It is based on the Ann Weisgarber novel about a pregnant woman struggling to survive with her homesteading family in the early 1900s.
 

The solid economy is doing little to bolster support for President Donald Trump.

Americans give Trump mixed reviews for his economic stewardship despite the growth achieved during this presidency, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Nearly two-thirds describe as “good” an economy that appears to have set a record for the longest expansion in U.S. history, with decade-long growth that began under Barack Obama. More people consider the economy to be good today than did at the start of the year.

But significantly fewer approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, even as it remains a relative strength compared with other issues. The survey indicates that most Americans do not believe they’re personally benefiting from his trade policies. And only 17% said they received a tax cut, despite government and private sector figures showing that a clear majority of taxpayers owed less after the president’s tax overhaul passed in 2017.

These doubts create a possible vulnerability as Trump highlights the economy’s solid performance in his campaign for re-election in 2020. During two nights of debates last week, almost every Democratic presidential candidate found ways to criticize the president by decrying the wealth gap.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it was evidence of “corruption.” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders railed against the concentration of wealth in the three richest Americans, while former Vice President Joe Biden said Trump thinks Wall Street, not the middle class, built America.

Christel Bastida, 39, a neuroscience researcher, was active in Democratic politics last year during the Senate race in Texas and plans to run for Houston City Council.

“I personally don’t feel more secure financially and I think that’s the case for a lot of people who are middle class,” she said. “A lot of working-class people are not comfortable now. I know there were tax breaks that were supposed to be helpful to people, but it turns out they’re helpful to billionaires and corporations and I’m neither.”

Nearly half of Americans, 47%, approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, but his overall approval rating – 38% – is low compared with what past presidents have enjoyed in strong economic conditions. Only about 4 in 10 Americans approve of his handling of taxes and trade negotiations.
The public skepticism has persisted even as the president routinely congratulates himself on the economy, including the 3.6% unemployment rate and stock market gains.

He tweeted last week: “The Stock Market went up massively from the day after I won the Election, all the way up to the day that I took office, because of the enthusiasm for the fact that I was going to be President. That big Stock Market increase must be credited to me.”

The 2017 tax overhaul was sold by the administration as a way to return more income to everyday Americans. But the poll shows nearly half say they think their taxes stayed the same or are unsure; 33% said they increased. This suggests the tax cuts may have been too modest to notice or were eaten up by daily expenses, or that people were disappointed with their refunds.

That feeling of being left behind has energized Democrats seeking to turn out the vote next year. The tax overhaul disproportionately favored corporations and the wealthy, allowing Democrats to say the tax cuts were fundamentally unfair.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the amount they paid in taxes increased in the last year, 42% versus 25%, while more Republicans say their taxes decreased, 25% versus 10%.

Nor are tariffs popular.

Trump has imposed a tax on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, part of an effort to force the world’s second-largest economy to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. China retaliated with their own tariffs that hit the U.S. agricultural sector, causing the Trump administration to provide aid to farmers with lost profits.

The president has also threatened tariffs on Mexico in order to get that country to reduce the border-crossings into the United States and has mused about hitting European autos with import taxes as well.

A mere 15% of Americans said the tariffs will help them and their family.

With regards to the national economy, just 26% said the tariffs will help, a sharp decline from 40% who said that last August. About half said the tariffs will be harmful.

Republicans, in particular, are less optimistic: Half think Trump’s tariffs will help the economy, down from 7 in 10 in August.

Ryan Brueggemann, 37, of New Berlin, Wisconsin, runs a dairy farm with his brother. He supports Trump but dislikes the tariffs, though he understands why the president has deployed them so frequently.

“I don’t believe it’s a great business practice to use them,” Brueggemann said. “But it came down to the point where our country is being taken advantage of unfairly and that the only way other nations were going to listen to what we wanted to renegotiate and even get them to the table to think about it was to get their attention by putting some tariffs on products.”

Paul Miller, 81, a retired shoe factory foreman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said he still intends to vote for Trump, since he hasn’t seen anyone better yet in the Democratic field.

Living off his pension and Social Security, Miller said the tax cuts were basically irrelevant for him.  And he doesn’t agree with the president’s claim that China is paying for the tariffs, rather than U.S. consumers and companies.

“I sort of have mixed feelings about the tariffs,” he said. “Of course, I don’t believe it when Trump says we won’t have to pay them. We will.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,116 adults was conducted June 13-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and were interviewed later online or by phone.
 

Democrat Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he took in $24.8 million during the second fundraising quarter, more than triple what the South Bend, Indiana, mayor raised during the first three months of the year for his surprise hit presidential campaign.

Buttigieg was the first White House contender to announce his fundraising numbers for the quarter, which ended at midnight. His haul amounts to a show of force at a critical early juncture in the race where fundraising figures, and the number of people giving to a campaign, aren’t just indicators of viability but criteria for qualifying for the debate stage in September.

“Pete has proved why he is a top-tier candidate for the nomination,” campaign manager Mike Schmuhl wrote in an email to supporters. “From town halls on MSNBC, CNN, and FOX News to last week’s debate, he’s shown the country what I’ve known for a long time: Pete is the best person to bring a new generation of leadership to Washington.”

Buttigieg, 37, surprised many people with a first-quarter haul of roughly $7 million that topped many of his better-known rivals and helped place him in the upper echelon of a crowded 2020 field that has drawn more than 20 contenders. His latest numbers further cement him as a leading candidate and are sure to draw notice from rival campaigns, many of whom have struggled to raise money.

The $24.8 million sum tops the $18 million raised last quarter by Bernie Sanders, who led the Democratic field in fundraising during that period.   

More importantly, Buttigieg is doing well enough in public opinion polls and has received contributions from more than 400,000 people, which secured his spot in the September debates.

Democratic National Committee requires participants to hit 2% in multiple polls and 130,000 individual donors. Though many campaigns are worried, DNC Chairman Tom Perez has resisted pressure to relax the requirements.

Currently, the only other locks for the fall debates are former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Buttigieg’s campaign says he has $22.6 million cash on hand and received money from donors from all 50 states, as well as U.S. territories, with an average contribution of about $47.

But his fundraising figures could come with caveats. For example, Buttigieg may be accepting donations that he could only spend during the general election. That would allow him to inflate his totals by allowing donors to give a $2,800 check for the primary, as well as an additional $2,800 for the general.

Buttigieg’s campaign has not said how much general election money is included in the total, though spokesman Chris Meagher said they do accept those donations when they are given.

So far, none of Buttigieg’s rivals have released their quarterly fundraising figures, which don’t have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission until July 15.

Last month, however, Biden hinted that he had raised a similar amount.

Biden said at a New York fundraiser that his campaign had amassed 360,000 donors, who gave an average of $55 apiece. The math suggests he collected about $19.8 million since entering the race in April, but his campaign declined to confirm the figure at the time.