A woman held a banner reading, in Spanish, ‘Legal, safe, and free abortion, legalize and decriminalize abortion now, for the independence and autonomy of our bodies,’ as abortion-rights protesters demonstrated in front of the National Congress on the ‘Day for Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean,’ in Mexico City in September 2020.REBECCA BLACKWELL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Mexico’s abortion stance. Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in the country on Tuesday, ruling that penalizing the procedure was unconstitutional. The ruling comes on the heels of Argentina’s historic legalization earlier this year and a recent decisionby the neighboring U.S. state of Texas to effectively ban abortion. Before Tuesday’s decision, only four of Mexico’s 32 regions had decriminalized the procedure.” Read more at Foreign Policy
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, conducted a news conference to announce an acting Cabinet for the new Taliban government in Kabul on Tuesday.VICTOR J. BLUE/NYT
“The Taliban announced the formation of a hard-line interim government for Afghanistan, filling top posts with veterans of the militant group who oversaw the 20-year fight against the US-led military coalition. No women or members of Afghanistan's ousted leadership were selected for acting cabinet positions, in spite of the Taliban's promises of an inclusive government and a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when it was last in power, from 1996 to 2001. The lineup of senior leaders includes former Guantanamo inmates, members of a US-designated terror group and subjects of international sanctions lists. Sirajuddin Haqqani, who will be the acting interior minister, is on the FBI's ‘most-wanted’ list, with a $10 million bounty on his head. The leadership announcement came on the same day that the Taliban used gunfire, detentions and beatings to crush dissent, as scores of Afghan protesters marched through the capital, Kabul.” Read more at CNN
“Islamic State on trial. The trial of 20 people charged in connection with the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks begins today, in a case that include the sole surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam, among the accused. The trial is the largest France has ever held, taking two years to prepare, and is expected to conclude within nine months.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“A powerful earthquake struck near the Pacific resort city of Acapulco on Tuesday night, killing at least one person and causing buildings to rock and sway in Mexico City hundreds of kilometers away.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7 and was centered 17 kilometers (about 10 miles) northeast of Acapulco.” Read more at Boston Globe
“NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Louisiana, most of them outside New Orleans, still didn’t have power Tuesday and more than half of the gas stations in two major cities were without fuel nine days after Hurricane Ida slammed into the state, splintering homes and toppling electric lines.
There were also persistent signs of recovery, however, as the total number of people without electricity has fallen from more than a million at its peak, while hundreds of thousands of people have had their water restored. AT&T, which suffered widespread cellphone outages after the storm, reported that its wireless network now is operating normally in Louisiana.” Read more at Boston Globe
BOISE — Idaho public health leaders revealed Tuesday that they activated ‘crisis standards of care’ allowing health care rationing for the state’s northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare quietly enacted the move Monday and publicly announced it in a statement Tuesday morning — warning residents that they may not get the care they would normally expect if they need to be hospitalized.
The move came as the state’s confirmed coronavirus cases skyrocketed in recent weeks. Idaho has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation.
The state health agency cited ‘a severe shortage of staffing and available beds in the northern area of the state caused by a massive increase in patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization.’” Read more at Boston Globe
Jack Kingsley R.N. attended to a COVID-19 patient in the medical intensive care unit at St. Luke's Boise Medical Center on Aug. 31 in Boise, Idaho. Idaho public health leaders have activated ‘crisis standards of care’ for the state's northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare made the announcement Tuesday, Sept. 7.KYLE GREEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Only 20% of adults in Bulgaria, which has a population of 7 million, have so far been fully vaccinated. That puts it last in the EU, which has an average of 69 % fully vaccinated.” Read more at AP News
“The World Health Organization is keeping up the pressure on wealthy nations not to hoard vaccines.
‘Less than 2% of adults are fully vaccinated in most low-income countries compared to almost 50% in high‑income countries,’ the WHO says.
‘These countries, the majority of which are in Africa, simply cannot access sufficient vaccine to meet even the global goals of 10% coverage in all countries by September.’” Read more at Axios
“An editorial from more than 200 scientific journals called rising temperatures the world’s greatest public health threat.” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden warned Americans on Tuesday that Hurricane Ida’s lethal destruction was a sure sign of a nation and world “in peril” from climate change, and said drastic action would be needed to prevent extreme weather patterns from worsening.
“They all tell us this is code red,” Biden said from a neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., referencing growing scientific research that suggests more Americans are vulnerable to extreme-weather events. “The nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”
The trip gave Biden another opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the federal government’s storm response and to build support for an infrastructure package that he has promised would help safeguard against future storms. Flanked by New York’s senators, Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Kirsten Gillibrand, Biden said that the bipartisan deal would include funds to repair roads and bridges but would also invest in climate resilience.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The Dixie Fire in Northern California is on its way to becoming the largest wildfire in the state's history, officials say. Meanwhile outside the US, a dangerous weather system is heading toward Taiwan and China. Typhoon Chanthu rapidly intensified in the past 36 hours and is expected to make landfall this week. Additionally, Europe experienced its hottest summer on record this year, and temperatures in the Mediterranean smashed records by large margins.” Read more at CNN
“Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on Tuesday signed a sweeping bill overhauling the state’s elections, capping a dramatic, monthslong national saga over voting rights with a new Republican-led law that will sharply restrict voting across the nation’s second-biggest state.
Appearing in deeply red Tyler in East Texas, Mr. Abbott proclaimed the law a ‘paradigm’ for other states looking to pass election bills. He declared that it would be ‘harder to cheat at the ballot box’ and claimed that the law would ‘make it easier than ever before for anybody to go cast a ballot,’ referring, in part, to provisions that add an extra hour to early voting on weekdays.
But the legislation, in fact, contains numerous measures that will make voting harder. In particular, it bans balloting methods that Harris County, which includes the Democratic bastion of Houston, introduced last year to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic, including drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting.
The law, which will apply to next year’s elections in the state, will further restrict absentee voting. One provision bars election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote by mail, and another further limits the use of drop boxes.” Read more at New York Times
“Nearly a quarter of highly educated women in their mid-30s had their first babies outside marriage, according to new research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University sociologist Andrew Cherlin, found that nonmarital childbearing has increased significantly among women of all educational levels over the past quarter-century. Yet the sharpest increase has been among women who hold a bachelor’s degree or more. About 24.5% of them ages 32 to 38 weren’t married when they had their first babies, according to surveys from 2017-2018. That is a sixfold increase from 1996, when the share was 4% for that group.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Britney Spears’s father filed a petition Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court to end the conservatorship controlling his daughter’s life and finances, according to the Associated Press. The news arrives nearly a month after Jamie Spears agreed to vacate his role of 13 years as the pop star’s conservator.
The filing marks a major development in court proceedings over the conservatorship, a legal structure that exists to protect the monetary and personal interests of elderly and seriously ill people. Britney Spears’s conservatorship was established in 2008 as she publicly struggled with her mental health in the face of intense, unrelenting scrutiny from the news media and paparazzi.
Jamie Spears’s petition must be approved by Judge Brenda Penny before it goes into effect. At the next hearing, scheduled for Sept. 29, Penny was set to hear a petition from Britney Spears’s counsel that would also have advocated to remove Jamie Spears from the conservator position.” Read more at Washington Post
“Jill Biden, who teaches English at a community college, returned to her classroom. (She’s the first presidential spouse to balance her career with public-facing duties.)” Read more at New York Times
“Adlai Stevenson, former U.S. senator for Illinois, has died at 90.” Read more at New York Times
“Opening statements are set to begin today in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the disgraced biotech company Theranos. Once the darling of Silicon Valley, Holmes faces fraud charges and up to 20 years in prison. Here’s what you need to know before the trial.
Holmes dropped out of Stanford at 19 to launch Theranos. By the time she was 31, Forbes had listed her as the youngest self-made female billionaire and her face was plastered on magazine covers (including our own). But Theranos’s blood-testing technology didn’t work as advertised, and it all came crashing down after a series of Wall Street Journal reports in 2015 and 2016 detailed the company’s deceptions.
Her story is an extreme version of the ‘fake it till you make it’ culture in Silicon Valley, The Times’s Erin Griffith has written, where companies often over-promise to generate interest from investors.” Read more at New York Times
“RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Crews are set to remove one of the country’s largest remaining monuments to the Confederacy, a towering statute of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia.
The 21-foot-tall (6.4-meter) bronze likeness of Lee on a horse will be hoisted off its 40-foot (12- meter) pedestal Wednesday, 131 years after it was erected in the former capital of the Confederacy as a tribute to the Civil War leader.
Many consider the statue’s place of honor on Monument Avenue to be an offensive glorification of the South’s slave-holding past. Others argued that taking it down would amount to erasing history. Public officials resisted calls to remove it until the death of George Floyd under a police officer’s knee.
Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans for its removal in June 2020, 10 days after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. The plans then stalled until the Supreme Court of Virginia last week ruled against two lawsuits opposing its removal, clearing the way for Wednesday’s event.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats always knew their battle plan for raising taxes on corporations, large inheritances and the superwealthy would not survive initial contact with the enemy.
They just didn’t realize that enemy would be North Dakota-nice Heidi Heitkamp.
The Democratic former senator has emerged as the smiling face of a well-financed effort to defeat a proposed tax increase that is crucial to funding the $3.5 trillion social spending bill at the heart of President Biden’s agenda. Her effort is indicative of the difficult slog ahead as the business lobby mobilizes to chip away at Democrats’ tax-raising ambitions, which some lawmakers say will have to be scaled back to maintain party unity, an assessment the White House has disputed.
On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee is set to begin formally drafting its voluminous piece of the 10-year measure to combat climate change and reweave the nation’s social safety net, with paid family and medical leave, expanded public education, new Medicare benefits and more. The committee’s purview includes much of that social policy, but also the tax increases needed to pay for it.
Democrats had hoped that the tax side would be more than notations on an accounting ledger. They regard it as an opportunity to fundamentally change policies to address growing income inequality, reduce incentives for corporations to move jobs and profits overseas, and slow the amassing of huge fortunes that pass through generations untaxed.
But corporate interests, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and Americans for Tax Reform, have mobilized a multifaceted lobbying and advertising blitz to stop the tax increases — or at least mitigate them.” Read more at New York Times
“Turkey’s decision to pull out of the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty to combat violence against women, has raised concern about safety and female participation in the economy and is seen as another sign of a shift to a brand of conservatism out of sync with Western neighbors. As Burhan Yuksekkas and Donna Abu-Nasr report, the withdrawal sparked protests across Turkey, where stories of violence including honor killings of women have for years been front-page news.” Read more at Bloomberg
“In N.F.L. parlance, Keith McCants was a “can’t miss.” A relentless and powerful athlete, he was a first-team all-American linebacker at Alabama and drafted fourth overall in 1990 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His success seemingly guaranteed, the team made him the highest-paid defensive player in the league.
But McCants soon became known by a less flattering N.F.L. moniker: “draft bust.” Days after being chosen by the Buccaneers, he had knee surgery. A year later, he had to learn a new position when he was moved from linebacker to defensive end. The injuries and frustrations mounted as he tried to meet people’s expectations.
His promise unfulfilled, the Buccaneers released McCants after three years. He spent three more seasons with the Houston Oilers and Arizona Cardinals before he left the league, his money and celebrity diminished. What remained was an overpowering addiction to painkillers, and eventually to other drugs, that consumed the rest of McCants’s life and turned him into a cautionary tale.
After decades of drug abuse, numerous arrests, dozens of surgeries and years living on the street — all punctuated by brief stretches of sobriety — McCants was found dead early Thursday morning at his home in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 53.” Read more at New York Times
“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Technology companies that led the charge into remote work as the pandemic unfurled are confronting a new challenge: how, when and even whether they should bring long-isolated employees back to offices that have been designed for teamwork….
That transition has been complicated by the rapid spread of the delta variant, which has scrambled the plans many tech companies had for bringing back most of their workers near or after Labor Day weekend. Microsoft has pushed those dates back to October while Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and a growing list of others have already decided wait until next year.” Read more at AP News
“Singapore has begun trialing robots to patrol public areas to deter anti-social behavior in a surveillance push that includes doubling the number of police cameras to 200,000 by 2030. The two robots, both called Xavier, have been programmed to recognize unsavory behavior, such as those disobeying COVID-19 restrictions, smoking in banned areas, and poor bicycle parking jobs according to a statement from Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency. As well as providing surveillance, officials say the robots will display public education messages during the three-week trial.
Xavier(s) will hope to have better luck than ‘Steve,’ a security patrol robot which famously met its demise by plunging into a Washington, D.C. water fountain in 2017.” Read more at Foreign Policy