Bhinneka News Online: Tuesday Morning Briefing: U.S. won't prosecute illegal immigrant parents for now

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Tuesday Morning Briefing: U.S. won't prosecute illegal immigrant parents for now

United States

Parents who cross illegally from Mexico to the United States with their children will not face prosecution for the time being because the government is running short of space to house them, officials said. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration was not dropping its policy of “zero-tolerance” of illegal immigration but it needed a “temporary solution” until it can house migrant families.

Commentary: Carlos Ponce was smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border when he was 12. Today he’s a Harvard-trained neuroscientist. He writes for Reuters about how family separation affects the brain. “I am now a citizen and I love this country deeply, so I want to believe that the children will somehow be fine,” Ponce writes. “The neuroscientist in me is skeptical. Let me tell you why.”

A bitterly personal matchup in New York between a convicted felon seeking to reclaim his congressional seat from a former prosecutor is among dozens of key races in seven U.S. states, as voters pick candidates for November elections that will determine control of Congress.

The U.S. health regulator approved GW Pharmaceuticals’ epilepsy treatment, making it the first cannabis-based drug to win approval in the country and opening floodgates for more research into the medicinal properties of cannabis.

World

President Hassan Rouhani promised Iranians the government would be able to handle the economic pressure of new U.S. sanctions, a day after traders massed outside parliament to protest at a sharp fall in the value of the national currency.

When the founder of France’s Qwant search engine went to his local tax office to catch up on business, an agent there had to look up the firm using U.S. rival Google. When she did, Qwant’s home page was blocked – by the government tax office’s firewall. To Qwant's founder, the episode illustrated a French paradox: startups are benefiting from President Macron’s support, but so are global tech giants, and competing with them is proving a problem. Reuters graphics measures Macron's performance.

As a year of local and then national elections begins this week in Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, some Islamic leaders have emerged as the most vocal opponents of President Joko Widodo, who is expected to seek a second term next year.

Sponsored by Barclays: Job security in the robot economy As machine learning and AI become more commercially viable, will humans be replaced in the workplace? We don’t think so. Find out why.

Commentary: Turkey is no longer a democracy, says Howard Eissenstat. President Recept Tayyip Erdogan's election win has consolidated "an authoritarianism that was already in place." While Turkey remains a NATO ally, "there will be no reboot to the old days of close friendship" with Europe and the United States.