NewsHero (beta) Weekend Update Issue 8
Nov 30, 2019
Welcome to this edition of NewsHero for November 30, 2019
To our U.S. readers, we hope you had a peaceful Thanksgiving. The holiday week accounts for a slightly more brief version of our newsletter, though you’ll find our comprehensive weekend wrap-up included here as usual.
Weekly Brief
Health
A child receives free polio vaccine during a government-led mass vaccination program in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, October 14, 2019. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez
The World Health Organization has said that $2.6 billion was pledged by donors on Tuesday to help wipe out polio. The funding, almost half of which came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be used to immunize 450 million children annually.
At least four Ebola response workers were killed and six others injured following two attacks on health facilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola responders had been on lockdown after angry residents targeted a United Nations base to protest repeated rebel assaults, the World Health Organization said.
Non-Proliferation
South Korea’s military said North Korea fired two short-range projectiles on Thursday. The launches come three days after the North said its troops held artillery drills near its disputed sea boundary with South Korea.
London
Bystanders reportedly restrained a suspect wearing a fake explosive device as police rushed to the scene following a knife attack near London Bridge on Friday. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said, “What’s remarkable about the images we’ve seen is the breathtaking heroism of members of the public who literally ran toward danger, not knowing what confronted them.” Authorities say two people have been killed and three injured by a lone male attacker in what police are calling a terrorist incident.
Civil Rights
Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project
After spending 36 years in prison three Baltimore men were released on Monday as authorities said they had been wrongfully convicted. Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart were granted a writ of innocence after being convicted of first-degree murder in 1983.
Immigration
Immigration judges in San Diego are terminating cases at a significantly high rate, compared to other courts, that pertain to the Trump administration’s policy of sending asylum-seeking migrants back to Mexico.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon granted a preliminary injunction in Oregon on Tuesday blocking a Trump administration proclamation that would require immigrants to show proof of health insurance to get a visa.
Women’s Rights
Ximena Rueda, center, breastfeeds her daughter Julieta Ledesma Rueda during a protest outside the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2019. The women are protesting after a woman was expelled last week for breastfeeding inside the museum. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
The Baltimore Museum of Art has announced it will only be acquiring work by women artists next year. Currently women’s art makes up just four percent of the museum’s collection. At least twenty exhibitions featuring art by women are also part of the BMA’s plans for 2020.
Dozens of mothers gathered to breastfeed at Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art in protest after a patron had been kicked out of the museum for nursing her child.
Also in Mexico City protesters speaking out over violence against women gathered at the Angel of Independence monument. Demonstrators crocheted pink and purple hearts and painted the statue’s barricades. The monument was graffitied by feminist protestors last August.
Journalism
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that three journalists were arrested at a cafe in Giza by Egyptian security forces, and that, according to a local news website and Twitter posts from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the journalist’s whereabouts were unknown.
The CPJ also reported that Iraq’s media regulator, the Communications and Media Commission, ordered the shutdown of eight outlets that have covered the ongoing protests there and urged security forces to physically stop the outlets from broadcasting.
At least eight journalists and activists have been detained by Saudi Arabia as it clamps down on freedom of expression, according to London-based ALQST, a group which advocates for human rights in Saudi Arabia.
Humanitarian
Rescue workers carry the body of a victim in Thumane after an earthquake shook Albania, November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Stevo Vasiljevic
Search teams are working to rescue survivors of a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit Albania on Tuesday. The United Nations says it is sending two technical experts from the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination office to Albania. More than 40 people have been killed by the tremor.
Climate
Groups in the U.S. and around the world were expected to take part in climate strikes on Friday. The protests are connected to Fridays for Future, a youth-based movement that started with teen Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg skipping school on Fridays to hold sit-ins outside Swedish Parliament.
A new report from the United Nations released on Tuesday says that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously and that countries need to cut back to make up for lost time. The annual Emissions Gap Report puts the focus on G20 countries, especially China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, along with Russia and the European Union, which are not doing enough to take on the climate crisis.
Human Rights
United Nations investigators have so far identified 160 ISIS militants accused of massacres of Yazidis in northern Iraq in 2014. The UN investigative team, created by the UN Security Council, began work last year to gather evidence for future prosecution of acts by the Islamic State in Iraq that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
China
A sample of classified Chinese government documents leaked to a consortium of news organizations, is displayed for a picture in New York, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Beijing has detained more than a million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities for what it calls voluntary job training. The confidential documents lay out the Chinese government's deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities to rewire their thoughts and even the language they speak. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has obtained classified Chinese government documents that reveal the operations manual for running the detention camps for Uighurs in Xinjiang and expose mass surveillance and “predictive policing.” Experts say the China Cables illustrate a wide system that targets, surveils and grades entire ethnicities to forcibly assimilate and subdue them.
Animal Welfare
Cruelty to animals is now a federal crime after President Trump signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act with bipartisan support. Animal Wellness Action, one of the groups involved in the bill’s passage, issued a statement after the law was signed on Monday, saying: “The PACT Act will allow federal authorities to crack down on the most egregious of animal abusers and help keep American pets safe from harm.”
Hong Kong
Supporters of pro-democracy candidate Angus Wong celebrate after he won in district council elections in Hong Kong, early Monday, Nov. 25, 2019. Vote counting was underway in Hong Kong early Monday after a massive turnout in district council elections seen as a barometer of public support for pro-democracy protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for more than five months. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Protesters prevailed in an historic Hong Kong election as massive voter turnout saw pro-democracy candidates take seats in 18 district council races.
Last week both houses of Congress approved the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, backing protesters in Hong Kong despite angry objections from Beijing. President Trump signed into law the congressional legislation which requires the State Department to certify, at least annually, that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favorable U.S. trading terms that have helped it maintain its position as a world financial center. The law also threatens sanctions for human rights violations.
White House - Impeachment
American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in a briefing that Russia had engaged in a campaign to frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
A lawyer for ex-national security adviser John Bolton says the court ruling compelling former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee has no bearing on whether Bolton is compelled to testify. Charles Cooper, who represents Bolton, maintains that McGahn's case doesn't apply to his client’s.
Former White House counsel Don McGahn won't have to testify to the House of Representatives just yet. After McGahn appealed a judge's ruling from earlier this week that he must speak to the House, the judge gave McGahn a temporary pause on his case on Wednesday.
Two officials at the White House budget office resigned this year partially over their concerns about President Trump’s decision to withhold security assistance to Ukraine, revealing dissent within the key agency.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that President Trump was informed of a whistleblower's complaint about his dealings with Ukraine before he released aid that had been withheld from the country.
According to a newly released transcript, Mark Sandy, a career official in the Office of Management and Budget, undercut one of the White House's arguments for freezing $400 million in security aid to Ukraine. Sandy said that the White House did not tell his office that the aid was being frozen over concerns about other countries' contributions until months after the hold was put in place.
A Ukrainian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin told the New York Times that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani used indicted associates to offer to assist him in fighting extradition to the U.S. in exchange for help finding damaging information on former Vice President Joe Biden. Those associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, are currently being investigated by federal prosecutors for accusations including wire fraud and failure to register as a foreign agent.
In an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, President Trump denied sending Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political rivals.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Rudy Giuliani privately sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from Ukrainian officials while trying to get information regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
White House - Taxes
Despite a subpoena from Democrats to President Trump’s accounting firm, the House of Representatives will not get his financial records just yet. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to temporarily stay the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruling that Trump’s financial records be handed over.
The Brooklyn-based nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy Action and the city of Newburgh, New York are part of a new lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of starving funding from the U.S. Census Bureau needed to avert an undercount of racial and ethnic minorities in the 2020 census.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday sued Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for refusing to produce subpoenaed documents regarding President Trump’s failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
White House - DOJ Report
The Justice Department's inspector general has found no evidence to support President Trump's claim that the FBI spied on his 2016 presidential campaign while investigating whether the campaign was conspiring with the Russian government to interfere in the election.
White House - Navy
Two days after the Pentagon forced out Navy Secretary Richard Spencer over his handling of a case involving a SEAL who had been convicted of misconduct, the secretary of the Army emphasized the importance of process and deliberation Tuesday when he was asked about President Trump’s intervention in the controversial case. The Washington Post published Spencer’s comments on Wednesday. Spencer said Trump called him twice over the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, and he referred to Trump’s intervention as “shocking and unprecedented.”
NewsHero Editorial:
When sensational reporting gets so bad the commercials feel like a welcome break—then you realize the commercials pay for more sensational reporting...
Art by Mark Minnig
