Biden says separated kids’ families deserve some compensation
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Saturday that the families of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration should be compensated, as his Department of Justice is in settlement talks with affected families.
Biden said that regardless of the circumstances, people who had their children taken from them under the Trump administration’s family separation policy, meant to deter families from crossing into the U.S. illegally, should be remunerated.
“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child — You lost your child. It’s gone — you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said. “What that will be I have no idea. I have no idea.”
Shortly after taking office Biden created a task force to attempt to reunify hundreds of children and parents affected by the policy, which was in place for several months during 2018 and sparked a domestic and international outcry.
The government was considering payments of around $450,000 to each person affected but has since changed the figure, though not dramatically, a person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.
The discussions continue, and there is no guarantee the two sides will strike agreement.
About 5,500 children were split from their parents under President Donald
Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, under which parents were separated from their children to face criminal prosecution for crossing the border illegally, according to court filings in a federal case in San Diego. Inadequate tracking systems caused many to be apart for an extended time. The payments are intended to compensate for the psychological trauma.
Attorneys for the families are also seeking permanent legal status in the United States for those separated under the practice, which a judge halted in June 2018, six days after Trump stopped it under international pressure.
Iraq PM survives assassination attempt:
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with an armed drone that targeted his residence early Sunday, and is unharmed, officials said.
Two Iraqi officials said seven of his security guards were injured in the attack which occurred in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone area.
The prime minister tweeted shortly after the attack: “The rockets of treason will not shake one bit of the steadfastness and determination of the heroic security forces.”
In a statement, the government said the drone tried to hit al-Kadhimi’s home, adding that he was “unharmed and in good health.”
The statement released by state-run media said the failed assassination attempt was with “a booby-trapped drone that tried to target his residence in the Green Zone.”
It was not clear who was behind the attack, nor did anyone immediately claim
responsibility.
Germany knife attack: A knife attack on a high-speed train in Germany left three people severely wounded, the Bavarian Red Cross said Saturday. Police said a man has been arrested in connection with the morning attack.
The train, one of Germany’s high-speed ICE trains, was traveling between the Bavarian cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg at the time of the attack. A spokesperson for the Bavarian Red Cross, which had 110 responders at the scene, said the organization processed three “severely injured” people.
A 27-year-old Syrian man was arrested in Seubersdorf, where the train stopped after the attack, Bavarian state police told The Associated Press. In addition, 200 to 300 other people from the train were taken off and brought to a nearby location, the Bavarian Red Cross spokesperson said.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the background behind the “terrible” attack was “still unclear.” He said people in Seubersdorf, a municipality 294 miles south of Berlin, faced no “acute danger.”
Harvey Milk ship: A Navy ship named for slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk, who served four years in the Navy before being forced out, was christened and launched in San Diego Bay on Saturday.
The replenishment oiler USNS Harvey Milk slid down the shipyard ways after a bottle of Champagne was smashed on the bow by former Navy officer Paula M. Neira, clinical program director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender Health.
Milk was one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office. He was serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 when a former political colleague, Dan White,
assassinated him and Mayor George Moscone at City Hall.
In 2016, then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus decided that six new oilers scheduled to be built would be named after civil and human rights leaders. In addition to Milk, they include Sojourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Robert F. Kennedy, suffragist Lucy Stone and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.
Iran nuclear pact: Russia and Iran’s foreign ministers called for the nuclear accord with Tehran to be restored, with Iran saying it was ready to comply if the U.S. doesn’t add additional demands.
Sergei Lavrov and Hossein Amir Abdollahian discussed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action by telephone on Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, before the latest round of negotiations kick off this month.
The agreement was signed with Iran in 2015 by the permanent “five” of the
U.N. Security Council and Germany in order to overcome the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. Former President Donald Trump abandoned the initiative, but his successor, Joe Biden, has promised to revive the agreement.
FBI raid: Federal authorities on Saturday searched the home of James O’Keefe, founder of the conservative group Project Veritas, according to witnesses and people briefed on the matter, a day after O’Keefe acknowledged the group was under investigation by the Justice Department in connection with a diary reported to have been stolen from Ashley Biden, President Joe Biden’s daughter.
The FBI carried out a court-ordered search of O’Keefe’s apartment in Mamaroneck, New York, early Saturday, after having searched the homes of two associates of O’Keefe on Thursday as part of the investigation.