Published Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021 | 9 p.m.
Updated 8 hours, 17 minutes ago
ABOARD THE OCEAN WARRIOR in the eastern Pacific Ocean (AP) — It’s 3 a.m., and after five days plying through the high seas, the Ocean Warrior is surrounded by an atoll of blazing lights that overtakes the nighttime sky. “Welcome to the party!” says third officer Filippo Marini as the spectacle floods the ship’s bridge and interrupts his overnight watch. It’s the conservationists’ first glimpse of the world’s largest fishing fleet: an armada of nearly 300 Chinese vessels that have sailed halfway across the globe to lure the elusive Humboldt squid from the Pacific Ocean’s inky depths. As Italian hip hop blares across the bridge, Marini furiously scribbles the electronic IDs of 37 fishing vessels that pop up as green triangles on the Ocean Warrior’s radar onto a sheet of paper, before they disappear.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The right-wing populist government in Hungary is attracting conservative thinkers from the United States who admire its approaches to migration, LGBT issues and national sovereignty — all matters that have put the country at odds with its European partners, who see not a conservative haven but a worrying erosion of democratic institutions on multiple fronts. Hungary’s top diplomat has a few things to say about that. In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not cede ground on policies that have caused the European Union to impose financial penalties and start legal proceedings against it over violations of the bloc’s values.
President Joe Biden on Friday urged those now eligible for boosters of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to get the added protection a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the extra doses for millions of older or otherwise vulnerable Americans. Now public health officials must clear up confusion over exactly who should get a booster, and why — as they juggle vaccinating the unvaccinated who still make up the vast majority of the nation’s coronavirus cases. People 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 and up who have chronic health problems such as diabetes should be offered a booster once they’re six months past their last Pfizer dose, CDC Director Dr.
DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — No migrants remained Friday at the Texas border encampment where almost 15,000 people — most of them Haitians — had converged just days earlier seeking asylum, local and federal officials said. It’s a dramatic change from last Saturday, when the number peaked as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing connecting Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. At a news conference, Del Rio Mayor Buno Lozano called it “phenomenal news.” Many face expulsion because they are not covered by protections recently extended by the Biden administration to the more than 100,000 Haitian migrants already in the U.S., citing security concerns and social unrest in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Friday that talks over his $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan have hit a “stalemate” in Congress as he made the case for his expansive effort to recast the nation’s tax and spending programs and make what he sees as sweeping, overdue investments. Biden spoke at the White House as Democrats in the House and Senate are laboring to finish drafts and overcome differences between the party’s centrist and moderate factions. Despite efforts by the president and congressional leaders to show progress, Biden cast the road ahead as long and potentially cumbersome, even with upcoming deadlines.
NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ live interview on “The View” was abruptly delayed Friday after two hosts of the talk show learned they had tested positive for COVID-19 moments before Harris was to join them on the set. Co-host Sunny Hostin and guest host Ana Navarro were at the table for the start of the show, but then were told to step off the set. Hostin and Navarro had been vaccinated, their colleagues said. Harris, who was to be seated there as well, instead was later interviewed remotely from a different room in the ABC studio in New York.
NEW YORK (AP) — A top executive of Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies has resolved criminal charges against her as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that could pave the way for her to return to China and that concludes a case that roiled relations between Washington and Beijing. The deal with Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, was disclosed in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday. It calls for the Justice Department to dismiss the case next December, or four years after her arrest, if she complies with certain conditions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mystery solved. President Joe Biden sat down with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday for important talks about the Indo-Pacific region. But first, the leaders caught up on the president’s own family ties to the subcontinent. Biden recalled that soon after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, he got a letter from a man in Mumbai who said his last name was also Biden. The president said he never had the chance to follow up. Later, as vice president, Biden was in India and recalled being asked by local press if he had any Indian relatives.
Almost four years ago, a group of high-profile Hollywood women — producers, agents, movie stars — formed Time’s Up, an ambitious initiative to fight sexual harassment in their own industry and beyond, as the #MeToo reckoning was taking hold. “It’s very hard for us to speak righteously about the rest of anything if we haven’t cleaned our own house,” s aid producer Shonda Rhimes, one of those powerful women, at the time. She was speaking about Hollywood. But now, Time’s Up itself is on a mission to clean its own house — and salvage its very existence — after a damaging scandal that forced the departure of its chief executive, Tina Tchen, over revelations the group’s leaders advised former New York Gov.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts: ___ Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on COVID-19 vaccines or ‘universal vaccination’ CLAIM: After a legal challenge from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a group of scientists, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and “canceled universal vaccination.” THE FACTS: The Supreme Court has not issued any rulings regarding the safety of coronavirus vaccines and Kennedy, a lawyer who has advocated against vaccines, called articles sharing the claim “misinformation.” Dozens of posts making the false claim link to blogs that regularly publish hoaxes and misinformation.