Wednesday morning news - March 10, 2021

Republicans sound alarms on border surge » Republicans are taking aim at President Biden’s immigration and border policies, as traffic on the U.S. southern border continues to surge. 

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Tuesday…

SCALISE: Today we’re seeing 3-or-4,000 illegal crossings a day at our southern border. It is a national crisis, and it needs to be confronted by President Biden, and he refuses to acknowledge this. 

Reuters reports that last month, U.S. border agents detained nearly 100,000 migrants at the southern border. That’s the highest monthly total since a border surge in 2019. 

And officials in the Rio Grande Valley Sector say they just detained more than 2,000 migrants in that sector alone in a single 24-hour period. 

Republican Arizona Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the Biden administration’s rush to reverse the Trump administration policies is creating a crisis. 

HUTCHINSON: And they need to do something very quickly to change course, because right now it’s a humanitarian crisis, but it’s only going to get worse with the unaccompanied minors that are increasing the flow across the border. 

But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that  former President Trump is to blame.

PSAKI: We are still digging our way out of a dismantled, immoral and ineffective immigration policy that was being implemented by the last administration that was largely based around funding for a border wall. It’s going to take us some time.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other administration officials visited the border over the weekend and were expected to provide a status report to the president this week. 

U.S. prosecutors allege Honduras president helped move drugs » U.S. prosecutors say a witness has accused the president of Honduras of helping to traffic drugs to the United States. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more. 

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Federal prosecutors in New York said Tuesday an accountant witnessed meetings between Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández and a drug trafficker.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig said the accountant was present when Hernández allegedly said he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’.”

The meetings allegedly occurred in 2013 and 2014. Hernández has previously denied any involvement with drug traffickers, and he has not been charged. But U.S. authorities have been investigating him, and prosecutors believe he has taken bribes from traffickers. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown. 

Jury selection begins in Chauvin trial » Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd. 

CAHILL: You have been summoned as potential jurors in the case of the state of Minnesota vs Derek Chauvin, which is a criminal case. 

Judge Peter Cahill addressed potential jurors…

CAHILL: The attorneys will have the right to excuse some of you from this jury, and I may excuse others of you for what we call cause. In either case, it does not mean that you are not a fair person, and you should not take offense in being excused. 

The judge acknowledged that finding jurors with no prior knowledge of such a highly public case is almost impossible. And with that in mind, Chauvin’s defense attorney Eric Nelson asked potential jurors…

NELSON: The opinion that you had before when you first saw the video, would you be willing to change that opinion if you find other information out later? 

Judge Cahill set aside three weeks for the jury selection process, but it could go longer. 

Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death in May of last year. 

Twitter sues Texas AG, claiming retaliation for Trump ban » Twitter is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claiming he used his office to retaliate against Twitter after it banned former President Trump’s account in January. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Paxton last month announced an investigation into Twitter and four other major tech companies for what he called “the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the president.” 

The Republican attorney general’s office demanded the companies produce a variety of records and internal communications.

Twitter’s lawsuit claims Paxton is seeking to punish it for taking Trump’s account offline. The company said the decision to ban Donald Trump is protected free speech. 

The lawsuit essentially asks the judge to halt Paxton’s investigation.

Republican officials in roughly two dozen states have also introduced bills that would allow for civil lawsuits against platforms for censorship of posts. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

RZIM plans name change » The ministry named after apologist Ravi Zacharias is removing all his content from its platforms. CEO Sarah Davis made the announcement Monday. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries also intends to change its name. 

An investigation by an Atlanta law firm found Zacharias engaged in significant sexual misconduct before his death in May of last year. Since investigators announced their findings, the organization’s branch in Canada said it would shut down. The ministry’s branch in Africa took down its website, and the U.K. ministry cut ties with the Zacharias organization.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) In this Aug. 13, 2019 file photo, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks to the reporters as he leaves a meeting at the Organization of American States, in Washington. 

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