Monday morning news: September 25, 2023

Mayorkas/border » Speaking near the southern border in Texas, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said the Biden administration is taking strong action to stem the border crisis.

MAYORKAS: We will work to remove as quickly as possible those who do not qualify for relief under our law.

Mayorkas heard there seated next to the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. She met with the secretary in the border town of McAllen, Texas to talk about who the two countries can work together to convince migrants not to make the dangerous trek to the U.S. border.

Border Patrol officials say migrants encounters are surging again … to near-record levels, more than 9,000 per day.

El Paso, Texas Mayor Oscar Leeser migrants are overwhelming his city like never before.

LEESER: This is something that we have been prepared for what these numbers have really escalated a lot quicker than we ever anticipated.

Mayorkas blamed Congress for not passing immigration reform. But Republican lawmakers say despite the secretary’s claims the Biden administration has invited the crisis by not enforcing the border.

Government funding » Back in Washington, the clock is ticking as lawmakers now have less than a week to pass legislation to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.

GOP Congressman Jim Jordan says that’s not enough time.

JORDAN: Everyone wants to get the total appropriations bills done. I’m all for that. That’s how we should operate, but frankly, we’re not going to get it done in the next six days. So there’s going to have to be some stop-the-gap measure.

If Congress wants to buy more time, they’ll have to pass that stop-gap measure by the end of the night on Saturday.

Israel-West Bank » In the Gaza Strip, flames poured from two buildings after Israeli missiles struck what Israel says were hideouts for Hamas militants.

The strike came on the heels of an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank that Palestinian officials said killed two people.

It was the latest bloodshed in a surge of violence during a sensitive Jewish holiday period. Palestinian militants recently launched incendiary balloons into Israel and threw an explosive at soldiers.

Nagorno-Karabakh » Meantime, 600 miles to the north, thousands of desperate ethnic Armenians are arriving in Armenia, forced from their homes by a bloody, decades-long conflict. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The first refugees from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region have arrived in Armenia with little more than the clothes on their backs.

That comes after the Muslim-majority nation of Azerbaijan imposed an almost yearlong blockade on 120,000 Armenian Christians, blocking food and other supplies from reaching them in an effort to starve them out.

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the mountainous border region was considered an autonomous part of Azerbaijan. For the last 35 years, ethnic Armenians in the region have battled Azerbaijan’s military for independence.

Persecution of Armenian Christians dates back more than a century. By the year 19-24, roughly one-and-a-half million people were killed in what’s known as the Armenian genocide.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Menendez challenge » A New Jersey Democrat is set to challenge embattled Sen. Bob Menendez in the next election.

Congressman Andy Kim announced his campaign over the weekend saying the state "deserves better."

Prosecutors accuse Menendez with taking bribes.

Republican Senator Mike Lee:

LEE: The allegations in the indictment are serious and if true, if proven, these are certainly criminal offenses. I don't know what's going to happen. He has yet to have the opportunity to present his case and to make his arguments. I look forward to hearing those.

Menendez and his wife are accused of illegally using his power as head of the Foreign Relations Committee to perform political favors.

The senator denies any wrongdoing.

And is forcefully rejecting growing calls for him to step down.

Six years ago, a separate Menendez corruption trial ended with a hung jury.

SOUND: Touchdown!

Asteroid samples » NASA officials celebrated as a very special delivery parachuted from the clouds to the floor of a Utah desert.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft launched the package from 60,000 miles away.

Earlier this year, NASA Recovery Manager Mike Moreau described the landing this way:

MOREAU: It has to hit a corridor in the atmosphere that's just about three miles wide, so that's like kicking like 120,000 yard foot field goal on the football field or something like that.

Inside the package: the first sample of a deep-space astroid ever to land on Earth.

Scientists hope the samples will teach us more about our solar system and about the building blocks of the asteroid itself.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: banking with cancel culture. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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