Rachel Phillips, Staff

Texas may soon lose its status as the state with the most restrictive abortion law. As of Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021, Republican lawmakers in Ohio have proposed an abortion bill with a severity that could overshadow the current “Heartbeat Bill” in Texas. The potential bill, also known as the 2363 act, a name that according to Ohio lawmakers reflects the number of daily abortions performed in the U.S., will ultimately place a total ban on abortion. If passed, the legislation will not include exceptions for rape or incest, nor will it allow for an abortion prior to the detection of a fetal heartbeat. In addition, similar to the social repercussion of the Texas bill, the 2363 Act will allow any civilian to file lawsuits of at least $10,000 to those caught receiving, aiding, or performing an abortion. Furthermore, if enacted, the bill will also ban defendants of civil suits from skirting prosecution based on claims of ignorance of the law or personal belief that it is unconstitutional.

In addition, it seems the arrival of the 2363 Act has prompted other states to consider similar copycat bills. Several states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana, have publicly announced interest in an abortion ban and may attempt to initiate reform as early as January of 2022.

Current Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes has slammed the potential bill, labeling it “an egregious assault on women, a dangerous attack on healthcare rights and an embarrassment for the state.” However, despite the ongoing criticism of Sykes and the outrage from both healthcare providers and recipients, the 2363 Act has already been signed by 33 lawmakers, more than half of the House GOP caucus. While this does not guarantee a victory for the bill or Republican leaders, the early momentum does suggest an increased likelihood of passage.

Adrienne Kimmel, current president of Pro-Choice America, is one of many women who believe that the outcome in Ohio will be a decisive vote for the country and the future of healthcare freedom for women. She states, “The domino effect is well under way and will only continue to escalate in cruelty, as long as the Supreme Court allows legislation like Texas’ blatantly unconstitutional law to stand.”

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, where thousands of students K-12 were forced to learn from home, we see parents becoming more and more involved in their child’s education, as the average American home has transformed into both the work space for the parent and the school for the child. While parents defend their interest in their children’s education as looking to ensure the education their children are receiving is quality, the overinvolvement in curriculum has rather the opposite effect. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a concept parents in recent months have been avidly protesting against teaching to K-12 students. Contrary to this opposition, however, Critical Race Theory is not being taught in K-12 at all.

In a 17 year Google Trends highlight, search results for “Critical Race Theory” have only exploded in interest since June of 2021. This implies that people are ill-informed about what CRT is in the first place. 

CRT refers to a theorem practiced in law concerning the intersection of race and law and further explorations of a racially biased justice system. While this theorem may be controversial to some parents, it is not actually being taught in K-12 schools, as it is a high level law theorem discussed in law school. Thus, this begs the question — if parents are not protesting the teaching of CRT in their child’s school… what are they protesting?

What parents are protesting is the blaming of one specific racial or ethnic group in teaching history as they believe it is the political-division of America today. The Idaho State law bill NO. 377 entitled “Dignity and Nondiscrimination in Public Education Act” bans teaching in history that, “individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin.” This law, similar to others being introduced across the country, asserts that educators are banned from teaching students history from a specific perspective or describing how this history involves race, ethnicity, gender and religion.

Nevertheless, this is not what the law is being used to ban in practice, as there is a gray area of what educators are permitted to say about historical issues involving race, religion and ethnicity. Slavery and the Holocaust fall within this area. For example, the statement “white people have contributed to slavery because of the racial hierarchy of the time, which has effects on racial relations today,” would be banned as a result of the Idaho bill, as this statement discusses a racial group heading an action and furthermore that the historical action has effects on society to this day. The bill seeks to avoid involving discussions of race, ethnicity, gender and religion in teaching topics that concern these very concepts, such as slavery.

The bill also impacts the teaching of ethnicity-related historical events such as the Holocaust. In one Texas school district, the executive director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District, Gina Peddy, was recorded on tape as saying “Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979… And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.” The application of the House bill in which Peddy was referencing is being used to teach America’s children an unbiased view of underlined racial events in world history such as the Holocaust, however, “unbiased” and “Holocaust” in the same sentance does not seem to make much sense ethically to some protestors, and neither does avoiding discussions of race in inherentley race-related topics such as that of slavery.

 Discussions surrounding race-related history may be uncomfortable for some, however, there is no sugarcoating history, and race is impossible to remove from events such as slavery and the Holocaust. Several bills like Idaho’s have been passed throughout the country since September, which raises questions surrounding what type of history will be taught to the younger generations. States including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Tennessee have passed similar legislation which bans the teaching of CRT. With curriculum surrounding race-related events in history being controlled in certain aspects, it begs the question of whether this will improve the quality of education and, furthermore, the wellness of our society, or worsen it.

Kylie McGovern, Editor

On Thursday, Oct. 14, the Philadelphia City Council passed a bill to affect the way police make traffic stops. This bill is called the Driving Equality bill and its goal is to close racial inequities in a city where people of color are 3.4 times as likely to be pulled over than white people. The Driving Equality Bill was passed by a large 14-2 by the City Council. 

The bill categorizes certain code violations as “primary violations,” so officers can pull people over in the name of public safety, and “secondary violations” that don’t meet the criteria for a lawful traffic stop. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ office wrote the bill making Philadelphia one of the first major U.S. cities to ban police from stopping drivers for low-level traffic violations. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas was motivated to draft the Driving Equality bill to combat the racial profiling he has both witnessed and personally experienced on the streets of Philadelphia. 

Thomas says, “being pulled over by law enforcement is a rite of passage for Black men. It’s something we all know that we’re gonna have to go through. I’ve been pulled over so many times that I’ve actually lost count.” Once, Thomas was pulled over because his tail light was out. However, when Thomas took his car to be fixed the next morning, the mechanic told him there was nothing wrong with the tail light. 

The Driving Equality bill will take effect 120 days after Philadelphia Mayor and La Salle University alum Jim Kenney signs it into law. Kenney’s office reported that the bills were signed on Oct. 27. The mayor’s administration plans to implement the legislation through executive action by Nov. 3. Once the Driving Equality Bill is officially signed into law, the Philadelphia police will work on amendments and necessary training to implement the new law. Max Weisman, a spokesperson for Council Member Thomas, said the police department has exhibited support for the bill and has negotiated in “good faith.”

Rachel Phillips, Staff

Upon entering the White House, Joe Biden’s approval rating of 53% reflected a widespread optimism of most Americans, particularly regarding vaccination rollout and economic recovery. In the following months, his administration encouraged such optimism by passing a 1.9 trillion-dollar aid package that provided most American families with a 1400-dollar stimulus package and extended unemployment benefits. It was these popular policies that allowed Biden’s approval rating to remain largely unscathed well into the summer months. However, following the American exit from Afghanistan and increasing concerns over the Delta variant, Bidens most recent approval rating sits at 44.2%, just 6 percentage points higher than Donald Trump’s final weeks in office.  In a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 10,371 Americans were surveyed to evaluate the Biden administration in categories of public issues, international handlings, economic revival and personal competency. Much like the national poll, the Pew survey reflected a decrease in Biden’s approval ratings in nearly every sector of his presidency since July. Support of his ability to handle the physical and economic setbacks of Covid-19 have decreased from 65% to 51%, with the largest declines occurring from polled independent voters. Similarly, belief in his ability to unify the country has dropped 14 percentage points and now sits at just 34%. The polls also reflect increased scrutiny regarding Biden’s age and mental sharpness. Skepticism in both categories has steadily climbed since the summer and now indicate that fewer than half of the poll participants find the president fit for the position. However, the poll does suggest one potential light at the end of the dark and seemingly unending tunnel of 2021. The most positive feedback from the survey reflects widespread support for Biden’s political agenda. His recently passed infrastructure bill which included increased funding for roads, bridges and the power grid, as well as renewed interest in clean energy, polled at 51% in favor of. In addition, polls reflected 49% support for the Build Back Better Agenda, a plan that would expand Medicare, increase taxes on the wealthy and reduce Carbon Emissions. Although it has yet to be passed, Build Back Better has the potential and popularity to curb Biden’s downward spiral and save his first year in office. 

Jakob Eiseman, Editor-in-Chief

Forbes

On Friday, Oct. 8, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Texas Senate Bill Eight (SB 8) be placed in effect while further litigation on its legality be conducted. SB 8 is the controversial bill posed by the Texas State Senate which would impose an effective ban on abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy by allowing individuals to take legal action against abortion clinics and physicians.

The bill, also referred to as The Heartbeat Act, claims to prevent the disposal of human life after a heartbeat can be detected within a fetus. As many women may not even be aware of their pregnancy until after the sixth week, the bill has come under heavy political, social and legal scrutiny since its proposition in September.

When the Supreme Court voted not to block the bill’s implementation on Sept. 8, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit swiftly, charging the bill as impeding the rights of Texans. Attorney General Merrick Garland referred to the bill in a press release as “clearly unconstitutional under long standing Supreme Court precedent.”

A month later on Wednesday, Oct. 6, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman nullified SB 8 temporarily, meaning it could not be enforced and suits could not be filed against abortion clinics as the DOJ’s suit moved through the court system. This current rulling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals means that the bill is now in effect again, and in addition, means that any abortion clinics or doctors which helped terminate pregnancies involving a fetus with a heartbeat from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8 can be taken to court for up to $10,000 in damages. Several women’s rights groups and pro-choice non-profits have begun mobilizing resources and lawyers to aid in possible lawsuits filed against these clinics for abortions performed in that 48-hour window.

The Fifth Circuit Court is statistically one of the most conservative courts in the U.S., and has blocked similar rulings in the past which would nullify SB 8 and other similar bills. The Biden administration has already announced their plans to appeal and continue challenging rulings on SB 8 meaning the last stop for this case will likely be back in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Only one doctor thus far has been sued as a result of SB 8, but protests such as the Women’s March and similar assemblies around Texas government buildings and in Texas cities have kept the bill relevant in public discourse. Texas state Senator Byran Hughes, the author of SB 8, said in a statement that the bill was designed with one main tenet in mind: “if there is a heartbeat detected, that little baby will be protected.”

Hughes also said “The law does not ban abortions after six weeks. It requires that a physician performing an abortion first check for a fetal heartbeat. If there is a heartbeat, the physician may not abort the child.”

Hughes’s statement is somewhat disconnected from his own bill, however, as the legal phrasing of the bill was purposely designed not to outwardly block abortions at the state level, but to allow private citizens to enforce the law through lawsuits. This caveat is what was announced as the reasoning for the initial Supreme Court ruling. In the Supreme Court’s September filing, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the state from responsibility for implementing and enforcing the regulatory regime.”

 The Biden administration pointed out that the use of private citizens as “state actors” could be used in other similar bills to undermine some of the most important precedent cases from the history of the Supreme Court, but there have not been any filings to the court of this type since.

Danielle O’Brien, Editor

Within the past month the United States has seen an increased number of migrants at the Texan border from Haiti following Haiti’s 7.2 earthquakes in August and the assassination of their president in July. Nevertheless, the manner in which the issue has been addressed raises concerns about the message America is putting forth about who is welcome in the U.S.

More than 15,000 migrants, especially Haitians, had started camping since September just beside the border in Del Rio, Texas as they waited for their asylum petitions to be processed. 12,000 of those migrants were admitted into the U.S. to have had petitions evaluated while two thousand were deported back to Haiti, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Of those two thousand migrants deported back to Haiti, several of them hadn’t lived in their home country for over a decade but rightly belonged to countries such as Chile, Brazil, and Panama where they had built lives for themselves. They, too, had ventured north to the U.S. looking for opportunity or to be reunited with their families, but instead found themselves deported without question of their real homes or of how they would get there after their plane landed in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. According to NPR, many migrants describe that they were misled to believe by U.S. border agents that the plane they we’re taking would relocate them to Florida. It was only until they stepped foot in the Port-Au-Prince airport in Haiti that they realized they had been deported.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security stated on Sept. 8 that the United States extended the protection for Haitians who had arrived before July 29 to receive temporary asylum, while those who arrived after were not covered. 

As stated by Mayorkas, “We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open or that temporary protected status is available… I want to make sure that it is known that this is not the way to come to the United States. Trying to enter the United States illegally is not worth the tragedy, the money or the effort”.

But what Mayorkas fails to describe in his statement is what exactly is the right way to come to the U.S. There is a specific source from which comes the misinformation on the proper way to come to the U.S . During the Trump administration, those seeking a life in the U.S. were instructed to wait in Mexico for a court date to review their case through the “Remain in Mexico Policy”. And since this policy was deemed a violation of International Law by the Supreme Court, there has not been a clear path put forth by the current administration concerning how to apply for asylum within the U.S.

It was only after the deportation of thousands of Haitain migrants that the Department of Homeland Security announced its cancellation of the border wall contracts, angering Republican counterparts who remark that this will not solve the crisis the U.S. is experiencing at its border.

The Biden Administration’s reputation remains up in the air with approval ratings further demonstrating this, part of the cause being the administration’s handling of the border, criticism coming from both sides of the political spectrum. 

In September, after the Taliban took over Afghanistan following the evacuation of U.S. troops, over 65,000 Afghans were evacuated from the country. The U.S. was quick in aiding those in peril in Afghanistan to act as a sanctuary. Thus this hypocritical response raises the question: why does Haiti differ? With Haiti’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake which hit the country this last August, one of the worst earthquakes in Haitian history, as well as the political turbulence Haiti has experienced following the assassination of President Moise this past July, what other country perfectly meets the “asylum seeker” qualifications than Haiti? Does America pick and choose who they will give asylum to and if so how? Disturbing images of Haitians being corralled by border patrol agents on horseback may describe the difference in which the U.S treats its neighbors. The long reins of the photo below captured by Paul Ratje can easily be mistaken for that of whips. Ratje makes it clear, “I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” Ratje said. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture”. Nevertheless, this controversial photo has sparked investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into possible misconduct by border patrol agents against migrants refugees. As of October 27th, a suspension of the usage of horses at the border has been put in place as the investigation by the DHS remains ongoing of whether said reins were weaponized against refugees.

The disturbing image of using whips which the picture below may resemble has shocked many Americans at first glance, reminding them of a dark time in American history.

Kylie McGovern, News Editor

A United States delegation met with Taliban representatives in Doha on Saturday, Oct. 10, and Sunday, Oct. 11 — in the first in-person meeting since American forces were pulled out of Afghanistan. This meeting was to discuss humanitarian assistance and efforts to help American citizens out of Afghanistan while keeping the Taliban accountable for its commitment to not allowing terrorists to use Afghan soil to threaten the security of the U.S. or its allies. 

In addition, according to the State Department, the United States urges the Taliban “to respect the rights of all Afghans, including women and girls, and to form an inclusive government with broad support.” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has explained the Taliban’s goals for these meetings in that  “[our] aim is to have further meetings with the Americans and also with European delegates in the days to come so that we can discuss and have their views and suggestions about the current situation in Afghanistan. We have told them time and again that a weak and an unstable government in Afghanistan is not in the interest of no one.” 

The U.S. representatives included the State Department’s Deputy Special Representative Tom West and USAID humanitarian official Sarah Charles. On the Taliban’s side, cabinet officials attended the meeting. American spokesperson Ned Price explained that the two sides also discussed the U.S.’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance directly to the Afghan people. The discussions were candid and professional with the U.S. delegation reiterating that the Taliban will be judged on its actions, not only its words.

Elizabeth Boyle, Staff

When you look up at the sky on a sunny day you may see airplanes flying above and they seem to be traveling at such a high speed. You are most likely looking at a commercial airline and not an F-35 fighter jet, which the U.S. recently activated in Europe. 

In early October the US Air Force, working with the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, transported its first squadron of F-35 jets to the Royal Air Force Laken-heath Airbase. By the end of this year, the U.S. is hoping to have up to 27 jets in England. This is an important moment because it is the first time F-35 jets have been permanently stationed in Europe. 

A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet is an American model all-weather stealth fighter. The jet has one seat and one engine and is a multifunctional aircraft that can be used in airstrikes, reconnaissance missions, and electronic warfare. This jet is different from your average commercial airline not only in size and speed but how it is able to take off and land. 

It can do a conventional take-off and landing using a traditional runway and if it is not carrying a heavy payload, it also has the capability to take off and land without a runway using short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) technology. The plane is used in the U.S., several North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) partners, as well as Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.

The plan for the F-35s in the U.K. is for the U.S. and Royal Air Force to work together in training missions. The U.K. will also be able to use this squadron of F-35s and needed by their Air Force, in preparation for receiving up to 48 F-35s of their own in the next year. 

The U.S. is continuing its initiative from 2019 when it brought a squadron of F-35s to Italy in order to work on the European Deterrence Initiative. This initiative was meant to strengthen U.S. relationships and counter aggression from potential enemies.