Hi everyone – wishing you the best with whatever is going on in your life right now. Here’s a quick news update for the morning of Tuesday, March 17th.
1. As Cuba faces a widespread blackout, amid a U.S. energy blockade, president Trump told reporters Monday he believes he will have “the honor of taking” the Caribbean nation.
2. As the U.S. and Israel continue their war against Iran, Israel now says it is expanding its offensive in Lebanon – with Israel’s defense minister saying hundreds of thousands of people there will remain forcibly displaced.
3. Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the federal government’s plan to deport over 300,000 Haitians and Syrians and who’d received Temporary Protected Status under previous administrations – expediting arguments on these cases to next month.
4. A new report from Human Rights Watch finds that El Salvador is forcibly disappearing and arbitrarily detaining Salvadoran nationals that the U.S. has deported.
5. Over the weekend, Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal became the 12th person reported to have died in ICE custody this year.
6. Columbia protester and Palestinian human rights advocate Leqaa Kordia, who had been held in ICE detention for over a year, was released on Monday.
7. Kenneth Windley, who spent almost 20 years in prison for a New York robbery he did not commit, was freed Monday after a judge threw out his conviction and dismissed the case.
8. A two-week strike over wages and unfair labor practices began Monday for thousands of workers at the Swift Beef Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado – owned by the world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS USA.
9. Monday, a federal judge granted a request by medical organizations to stay vaccine conspiracy theorist and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointments to a federal vaccination advisory panel, amid a legal battle over its attempted policy changes.
10. Today in Illinois, voters will cast ballots in primary elections which will determine candidates for a number of state and national seats in November’s midterms.
The News Focus 