10 things you need to know today: March 24, 2023

(Image credit: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

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1. U.S., Canada agree to let each other turn away asylum seekers
2. World Athletics bans transgender women from competing as females
3. Prosecutors say Trump indictment claim was misleading
4. House GOP fails to override Biden's veto preserving ESG rule
5. Denver students protest at Colorado Capitol after school shooting
6. Another mass protest in France after Macron doubles down on pension reforms
7. House committee grills TikTok CEO over alleged security threat
8. Appeals court says parents must stand trial for school shooting by son
9. Trump lawyers say he should be immune from Jan. 6 lawsuits
10. Judge orders anonymous jury in Trump civil rape trial

published 24 March 2023

1. U.S., Canada agree to let each other turn away asylum seekers

The U.S. and Canada have reached a deal allowing both countries to turn back asylum seekers trying to cross their land border without proper paperwork, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, citing internal documents and a source familiar with the negotiations. The agreement, expected to be announced Friday as President Biden visits Canada for the first time as president, concerns anyone without U.S. or Canadian citizenship caught within two weeks of crossing the northern U.S. border in either direction. The deal updates the two countries' Safe Third Country Agreement, which has required migrants entering at official entry ports to apply for asylum in the country they are traveling through. A loophole has let people reaching unofficial border crossings remain.

World Athletics, the governing body of track and field, announced Thursday it was banning transgender women from competing as females in international competitions. The organization's president, Lord Coe, said transgender athletes who have gone through male puberty will be barred from female world ranking events starting March 31. Coe said World Athletics wasn't "saying no forever," and planned to establish a working group to consider long-term transgender eligibility guidelines. Previous rules required transgender women to stay below a maximum blood testosterone level. Coe noted that no transgender athletes are competing internationally in track and field, but said World Athletics would "maintain fairness for female athletes" while being sensitive when the rights of different groups collide.

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Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday said former President Donald Trump misled the public by saying he would be arrested Tuesday. The Manhattan District Attorney's office is investigating hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels during Trump's 2016 campaign after she said she had an affair with Trump years earlier, which he denied. Trump's claim his arrest was looming prompted three Republican House committee chairs to accuse District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of abusing prosecutorial authority in a partisan attack against Trump, now a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The Republicans demanded documents from Bragg, who accused them of interfering in his investigation. The grand jury weighing possible charges against Trump won't look at the matter again until Monday or later.

House Republicans tried Thursday to override President Biden's first veto but fell short. The GOP-led House voted 219-200 in favor of overcoming Biden's veto of a resolution seeking to retract his rule allowing retirement fund managers to take into account environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when selecting investments. Overriding the veto would take a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate. Critics call ESG "woke capitalism," and argue it is bad for investors and unfair to some companies, including oil giants. Supporters argue that it gives fund managers the option of investing in companies that are taking stands on important issues that help society and can pay off down the road.

More than 1,000 Denver students and parents rallied at the Colorado Capitol on Thursday to demand increased school security and tighter gun laws a day after a 17-year-old student shot and wounded two administrators at the city's East High School. The shooting came as the school was still reeling from the shooting of a student in his car just weeks ago. That student later died. School board members backed the district superintendent's decision to allow armed officers in city schools, reversing the previous policy. This week's shooting occurred while the administrators were searching the suspect, Austin Lyle, for weapons. The searches were routine due to past behavior issues. Lyle was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the mountains outside Denver.

French workers held the latest in a series of massive national strikes on Thursday to protest a plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. President Emmanuel Macron pushed the plan through using executive powers. More than a million protesters clogged streets as a shortage of rail workers brought trains to a halt. Police made dozens of arrests. Riot police clashed with demonstrators in several cities, including Bordeaux, Rennes, and Nantes. Protesters in Paris were largely peaceful, but some set fires and smashed store windows. Someone set the front of Bordeaux's historic town hall on fire. Macron stoked fresh anger a day earlier by saying in a television interview that the reforms were unpopular but necessary to keep the pension system financially sound.

House lawmakers on the Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about concerns China could use the popular video-sharing app to gather data on users and spread misinformation, posing a security threat. "To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and manipulate what you see and exploit for future generations," said Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash). Chew said TikTok is "free from any manipulation from any government." Days earlier, the White House said TikTok's China-based parent, ByteDance, would have to sell its stake in TikTok's U.S. operations or face punishment, possibly including a ban.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday there is sufficient evidence to require James and Jennifer Crumbley to stand trial for a 2021 school shooting by their son, Ethan Crumbley, that killed four students at Oxford High School. "The record squarely supports that 'but for' (the Crumbleys') acts and omissions, (Ethan Crumbley) would not have killed the victims that day," the court said in an unprecedented ruling. The Crumbleys face involuntary manslaughter charges because their son, who pleaded guilty in October and awaits sentencing, used a gun they bought him for. The parents were called to the school the morning of the shooting because their son had been found with a drawing of a gun with the words, "The thoughts won't stop, help me."

Former President Donald Trump's lawyers on Thursday told an appeals court he should be immune from three civil lawsuits accusing him of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Trump lawyer Jesse Binnall told a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that Trump's call for his supporters to "fight" was a call for political pressure, not a riot, and that his speech falls under the scope of immunity presidents have in office. DOJ says nothing that provoked violence is protected. Also on Thursday, a Pennsylvania woman, Riley June Williams, 23, was sentenced to three years in prison for storming the Capitol, although the jury deadlocked on a charge she helped steal a laptop from Nancy Pelosi's office.

U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday ordered the use of an "anonymous" jury in an upcoming New York civil trial over writer E. Jean Carroll's allegation that Donald Trump raped her in a Manhattan department dressing room years before he was elected president. Following Trump's recent call for his supporters to protest his potential arrest in a case relating to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, Kaplan said there was "a very strong risk that jurors will fear harassment" in the civil suit over the alleged mid-1990s rape. This level of secrecy surrounding juries is typically only used in trials of alleged mafia or drug kingpins, Politico reported.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.