10 things you need to know today: May 12, 2023

Migrants stand in line at the Southern border

Migrants have surged to the border as the pandemic-era Title 42 policy comes to an end

(Image credit: Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Jump to category:

1. Migrant surge hits as pandemic asylum restrictions end
2. U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency expires
3. Pakistan Supreme Court rules former PM's arrest illegal
4. Democrats advance judicial nominees after Feinstein's return
5. Israel kills 2 Islamic Jihad commanders
6. FDA eases blood-donation ban on gay, bisexual men
7. Federal judge rules laws against gun sales to 18- to 20-year-olds unconstitutional
8. UNICEF says Haiti gang violence increases risk of starvation for children
9. Federal judge in Florida blocks part of Biden immigration plan
10. Marine who put Jordan Neely in fatal chokehold to be charged

By Harold Maass, The Week US

published 12 May 2023

1. Migrant surge hits as pandemic asylum restrictions end

A surge of migrants overwhelmed officials at the U.S.-Mexico border as Title 42 pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired on Thursday. U.S. border agents confronted about 10,000 migrants a day as the end of the program loomed and migrants from several countries who traveled through Mexico to reach the U.S. made last minute attempts to wade or swim across the Rio Grande to enter the United States before new restrictions took effect. "Our buses are full. Our planes are full," said Pedro Cardenas, a city commissioner in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, just north of Matamoros, Mexico. The Biden administration unveiled new restrictions to replace Title 42 requiring asylum seekers to apply using a new app or to seek protection in countries they pass through.

The United States' COVID-19 public health emergency expired Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer require information from hospitals or testing labs about coronavirus cases, and it will stop tallying community infection levels. Official case counts will become harder to track as free testing programs are cut back and Americans increase reliance on home testing. The change marks a landmark in the nation's fight against a pandemic that has resulted in 1.1 million deaths in the U.S. "There's no real mechanism to declare an end to the pandemic, but it is an end to the emergency phase, both in the U.S. and globally," said Crystal Watson, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the dramatic arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was dragged out of an Islamabad court by paramilitary troops, was illegal. The court ordered police to immediately release Khan, although he was appearing Friday before the court where he was arrested earlier this week for a hearing on whether he would be taken back into custody. At least 10 people died and 2,000 were arrested in violent protests that erupted after Khan's arrest on charges he illegally acquired land to build a university, and sold gifts he received from foreign leaders while in office. He denies the corruption allegations, and says they are politically motivated.

Senate Democrats took advantage of the return of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to advance six judicial nominees through the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The nominations had been stalled since she was diagnosed with shingles in February and the committee was left evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, allowing Republicans to block President Biden's judicial nominees. Feinstein had faced mounting calls from some Democrats to step aside. Three of the judicial nominees were moved forward in party-line votes, meaning they couldn't have advanced without Feinstein's vote. There was bipartisan support for the other three nominees.

Israel on Thursday killed the head of Islamic Jihad's rocket force, Ali Ghali, and his deputy, Ahmed Abu Daqqa, while Palestinian rocket fire claimed its first fatality in Israel since a recent surge of violence began. Egypt pressed mediation efforts for a third day, aiming to end the worst outbreak of violence since August. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government's campaign against Palestinian militants was at its height, "both offensive and defensive." "Whoever comes to harm us — his blood is forfeit," he said. The Israeli operation that started early Tuesday in the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip has left 28 people dead, including women, children, and five senior members of the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad.

The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it would end its prohibition on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. The longstanding policy, which had prompted allegations of discrimination, required men who have sex with men to abstain for three months before donating blood. The FDA is finalizing a recommendation to replace the policy with a series of "individual risk-based questions" for all donors, which will clear the way for gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships to donate blood. Potential donors who have had recent sex with new or multiple partners, or engaged in other behavior increasing risk of HIV infection, would still be turned away. The changes are expected to increase blood supply safely, the FDA said.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne in Virginia has blocked laws and regulations barring federally licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to 18- to 20-year-olds, calling the prohibition unconstitutional, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The rules "cannot stand," Payne wrote, because they "are not consistent with our Nation's history and tradition." The Justice Department is expected to appeal and ask for a stay to prevent the ruling from taking effect until higher courts consider the challenge. Young adults could previously buy handguns privately but not through licensed dealers. Attorney William T. Clark of the Giffords Law Center, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said "there is compelling scientific evidence showing that teenagers are more impulsive and face unique elevated dangers from firearms."

The United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Thursday that gang violence in Haiti threatened to expose more children in the Caribbean nation to severe wasting from malnutrition this year, and worsen a cholera outbreak. UNICEF said more than 115,600 children in Haiti could face starvation, a 30 percent increase from the 87,500 children who suffered from the condition last year. Heavily armed gangs now control more than 80 percent of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the U.N., and an estimated 600 people were killed in gang violence in April alone. Frustrated residents have taken the law into their own hands and lynched dozens of gang members in recent weeks, sparking lethal retaliation from some gangs.

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday temporarily blocked parts of the Biden administration's latest immigration plan. Tens of thousands of migrants have gathered at the southern border waiting for a chance to cross as pandemic-era Title 42 restrictions expired. U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell sided with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' government and ordered the Biden administration not to "parole" some migrants crossing into Texas from Mexico. Wetherell, appointed by former President Donald Trump, said he "fails to see a material difference" between the rules and those a judge ruled unconstitutional in March. "In both instances, aliens are being released into the country on an expedited basis without being placed in removal proceedings and with little to no vetting" or monitoring, Wetherell wrote.

Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran shown in a video putting Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train last week, will be charged Friday over Neely's death, the Manhattan district attorney's office said. Penny, 24, will be charged with second-degree manslaughter, and is expected to surrender on Friday. Witnesses said Neely, 30, was acting aggressively but hadn't attacked any other subway passengers when Penny restrained him. Immediately after the incident, police questioned Penny and released him. Neely's death sparked protests calling for Penny's arrest. His lawyers said Penny and other passengers didn't mean to harm Neely but tried "to protect themselves, until help arrived," when Neely acted aggressively, apparently due to "ongoing and untreated, mental illness."

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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.