Headline

8-year-old Migrant Girl Dies In US Custody

Published

2 years ago

May 18, 2023

An eight-year-old migrant girl died in US custody in Texas on Wednesday, a tragedy that tempered news of a sharp drop in attempted illegal crossings of the southern US border.

The girl died in Harlingen, a Texas border city near the Gulf of Mexico.

“The child and her family were in custody at the Harlingen Station where she experienced a medical emergency,” US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement.

“Emergency Medical Services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead,” the statement said, adding that an investigation was opened into the death.

The agency did not give the migrant girl’s identity or nationality.

A 17-year-old Honduran boy who arrived in the US without a parent or guardian died last week in government custody in Safety Harbor, Florida.

Separately, new policies that came into effect last week to deal with undocumented migrants appear to have slashed US entries.

The Border Patrol counted less than 4,000 “encounters” — apprehensions and expulsions — with people crossing without permission each of the past two days, said Blas Nunez-Neto, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

That compared with 10,100 per day in the week before the lifting of Title 42, the Covid-19 health emergency rule used for three years to swiftly expel a wide array of migrants, he told reporters.

Replacing Title 42 was a policy package anchored on immigration law Title 8, which provides for strict penalties for those crossing who do not qualify, including five-year bans on US entry and possible criminal charges.

That was combined with an expansion of formal avenues to migrate to the United States, focused especially on refugees and asylum applicants.

The aim was to stem pressure at the border, where more than 200,000 migrant encounters occurred in most months over the last year, creating a political crisis for President Joe Biden.

–Crossing numbers drop-

Nunez-Neto said last week’s policy change appeared to be achieving the goal of reducing illegal immigration.

The number of Mexicans encountered fell from 1,900 daily to 1,000 and Colombians from 1,400 to 510 a day.

The number of Venezuelan migrants had also plunged to 50 per day, after hitting 2,400 before the policy change.

The 4,000 a day was also lower than the average of 7,000 encounters a day in April.

In addition, there were signs that the northward movement of migrants from South and Central America to the Mexico-US frontier has slowed, said Nunez-Neto.

“We are also seeing some early promising signs that entries into the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama have been declining in recent days,” he said, referring to a particularly treacherous section of the main route for migrants heading north.

Instead, “tens of thousands” have been applying for immigration interviews with US Customs and Border Protection, and over 5,000 have been “processed” in their appointments since May 12, Nunez-Neto said.

And many Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans are taking advantage of a special program to migrate as refugees that requires them to apply from abroad, he added.

“I want to stress once again that it is still too soon to draw any firm conclusions here about where these trends will go in the coming days and weeks,” said Nunez-Neto.

“We continue to monitor the situation on our border and in Mexico and along the transit routes in real-time,” he said.

Headline

UK To Ban Sale Of Energy Drinks To Children

Published

24 minutes ago

September 3, 2025

Editor

The United Kingdom government has unveiled plans to prohibit the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks, including popular brands such as Red Bull, to anyone under the age of 16 in England.

Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, announcing the move on Wednesday, said the step was aimed at safeguarding young people’s wellbeing.

“By stopping children from buying these drinks, we’re laying the groundwork for healthier and happier generations,” he explained.

Government figures suggest that up to one in three teenagers aged 13 to 16 regularly consume energy drinks, many of which contain more caffeine than two cups of coffee.

While most major supermarkets already enforce a voluntary restriction, the new policy would make it a nationwide rule.

“How can we expect pupils to thrive in the classroom if they’re running on the equivalent of a double espresso every day?” Streeting asked, stressing that the government was responding to concerns raised by parents and teachers. “We’re determined to address the root causes of poor health and educational struggles head-on.”

Headline

Indian Man Gets Death Sentence For Burning Wife Alive Over Skin Colour

Published

49 minutes ago

September 3, 2025

Editor

A court in India recently sentenced a man to death for setting his wife, Lakshmi, ablaze alive due to her dark skin colour. This harsh punishment reflects the gravity of the crime and its impact on society.

As reported by BBC on Wednesday, the attack on Lakshmi took place on the night of 24 June 2017, the murder dates eight years back, and the judgment, delivered at the weekend, has made headlines in a country where public obsession with colourism is well documented.

The attack on Lakshmi took place on the night of 24 June 2017, according to the court order seen by the BBC.

Before her death, Lakshmi revealed that her husband, Kishandas, frequently mocked her for being dark-skinned, calling her “kali” and body-shaming her since their marriage in 2016.

On the night of her attack, Kishandas brought a plastic bottle containing a brown liquid, purportedly a skin-lightening medicine.

According to Lakshmi’s statements, he applied the liquid on her body, and when she complained about a strong acid-like smell, he set her on fire with an incense stick.

Adding to the cruelty, Kishandas poured the remaining liquid on her while she was burning and then fled. Her family rushed her to the hospital, but she later died from her injuries.

The judge, Rahul Choudhary, condemned the act as not only a murder but “a crime against humanity,” stressing that Kishandas “broke her trust” and showed “excessive cruelty in throwing the remaining liquid on her” while she burned.

He described the case as fitting the “rarest of the rare” category, saying, “It will not be an exaggeration to say that this heart-rending brutal crime was not just against Lakshmi, but it’s a crime against humanity.”

He added, “It’s a crime that shocks the conscience of humanity, which cannot even be imagined in a healthy and civilised society.”

The public prosecutor called the verdict “historic,” hoping it would serve as “a lesson for others in society.”

He said, “A young woman in her early 20s was brutally murdered. She was someone’s sister, someone’s daughter; there were people who loved her. If we don’t save our daughters, then who would?”

This tragic story highlights the deep-rooted issue of colourism, where darker-skinned women face widespread discrimination and abuse.

Despite ongoing campaigns to challenge these prejudices, the preference for fair skin remains strongly embedded in many areas of life, continuing to cause immense harm. Until societal attitudes change, such heartbreaking incidents are likely to persist.

Headline

Rumours Of Trump’s Ill Health Spread Online Despite Denial

Published

54 minutes ago

September 3, 2025

Editor

From manipulated images to out-of-context photos, false claims that Donald Trump is seriously ill — or even dead — have swirled online, with the misinformation persisting even after the US president publicly rejected it on Tuesday.

At a White House press conference, Trump dismissed social media rumours about his health as “fake news,” following the 79-year-old’s noticeable absence from public appearances and press events last week.

Since last Friday, there were around 104,000 mentions of the hashtag “Trump dead” on the Elon Musk-owned platform X, generating a cumulative 35.3 million views, according to an analysis from the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard.

Some social media users cited online maps purportedly showing road closures near Maryland’s Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre as evidence that Trump was being treated for a serious ailment at the facility.

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But there were no credible reports of road closures around the medical facility.

Other social media users shared an image of an ambulance parked outside the White House, claiming it was taken last month and citing it as evidence of a health crisis involving Trump.

It was actually an old photo posted by a journalist on X in April 2023 — while Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was still in office, according to NewsGuard.

Some users claiming that Trump was dead shared an out-of-context image of the White House flag flying at half-staff, a traditional gesture used to honour the death of a prominent official.

In reality, Trump had issued a proclamation last week ordering flags at the White House, military posts, and naval stations across the country to be lowered in honour of the victims of a school shooting in Minneapolis.

Some users also posted a zoomed-in image of Trump’s face, claiming it showed a deep line above his eye that indicated a recent stroke.

But NewsGuard found that the original image was out of focus and showed no signs of a line over Trump’s eye. The image used in the false posts was digitally enhanced using an AI tool.

The misinformation — which appeared to originate from liberal anti-Trump accounts on X, Bluesky, and Instagram — persisted even after Trump stated on Truth Social over the weekend: “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE.”

The falsehoods continued to circulate following Trump’s press conference on Tuesday, where he publicly dismissed the health rumours.

Shortly after the conference, one Bluesky account falsely claimed that the “White House just announced” the president was dead.

The falsehoods highlight how facts are increasingly under assault on a misinformation-filled internet landscape, an issue exacerbated by public distrust of institutions and traditional media.

The health of US presidents has always been closely watched, but with the White House seeing its two oldest ever occupants since 2017, the scrutiny is now heavier than ever.

Trump — the oldest man ever to be elected US president — has alleged that Democrats covered up the mental and physical decline of Biden, who was 82 when he left office in January.

Biden’s health was a key issue in the 2024 election, and the then-president was forced to drop his campaign for a second term after a disastrous debate performance against Trump.

AFP