Good morning.
The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, yesterday signed a bill giving all police in the state sweeping new powers to arrest migrants deemed to have entered the US illegally as well as empowering local judges to order their expulsion back across the US-Mexico border.
The hard-right Republican’s actions represent a brazen challenge to the federal government’s authority over the enforcement of US immigration law.
The law passed the Republican-dominated Texas legislature last month, over the angry objections of Democratic lawmakers.
Legal experts have previously said the legislation defies US law – and Abbott can almost certainly expect a court challenge from the federal authorities. The law is due to take effect next March.
What do critics say about the new law? Critics say that apart from racial profiling, the law could prompt the wrongful arrest of US citizens and immigrants who are in the country legally. Democrats have also said it would make immigrants who are victims of crime afraid to contact police. Mexico’s government had also criticized the measure when it was being debated in the Texas legislature, warning it would result in family separations and racial profiling.
UN delays vote calling for Gaza ceasefire as US objects to resolution wording
The UN security council has postponed a vote calling for a sustainable cessation of hostilities in Gaza to give more time for diplomats to meet US objections to the wording of the draft resolution.
The vote had been due yesterday in New York but the US said it could not support a reference to a “cessation of hostilities” but may accept a call for a “suspension of hostilities”.
The Arab countries negotiating the text said they had been encouraged to see that the White House was apparently trying to find wording that it could support – as opposed simply to vetoing resolutions, the position it adopted on the call for a humanitarian pause on 18 October and for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire on 9 December.
Divisions within the US administration have been growing, with some officials saying the US is misunderstanding the scale of disillusionment in the global south over its perceived hypocrisy in calling out Russian war crimes in Ukraine, but finding a multitude of reasons to justify the large-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
What has the US been doing to help the situation? A range of US diplomats have visited Jerusalem to urge the Israeli government to adopt different military tactics, but with only limited success. US support for a suspension of hostilities at the UN, if it happened, would be a clear signal of its frustration with the Israeli government.
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In other news …
A volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in south-west Iceland has erupted after weeks of intense earthquake activity, spewing glowing orange jets of lava surrounded by billowing clouds of red smoke. The eruption began at about 10.17pm local time after a series of small earthquakes, the met office said.
Marvel Studios and the Walt Disney corporation have ended their relationships with the actor Jonathan Majors shortly after he was convicted of assaulting and harassing Grace Jabbari, his then girlfriend. He was convicted yesterday of third degree assault and second degree aggravated assault.
At least 118 people have been killed and more than 500 injured in an earthquake in China’s north-west Gansu and Qinghai provinces, state media have reported. The strong, shallow earthquake struck shortly before midnight yesterday, sending residents fleeing outside, into below-freezing temperatures.
Donald Trump’s lawyer asked a judge yesterday to throw out the Georgia criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, contending the indictment violated the former president’s first amendment rights by charging him for so-called core political speech.
Stat of the day: Google agrees to pay $700m after antitrust settlement with consumers and US states
Google has agreed to pay $700m and to allow for greater competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers disclosed in a San Francisco federal court. Google was accused of overcharging consumers through unlawful restrictions on the distribution of apps on Android devices and unnecessary fees for in-app transactions. It did not admit wrongdoing. The company will pay $630m into a settlement fund for consumers and $70m into a fund that will be used by states, according to the settlement, which still requires a judge’s final approval.
Don’t miss this: ‘It’s totally unhinged’ – is the book world turning against Goodreads?
For Bethany Baptiste, Molly X Chang, KM Enright, Thea Guanzon, Danielle L Jensen, Akure Phénix, RM Virtues and Frances White, it must have been brutal reading. All received scathing reviews on Goodreads, an online platform that reputedly has the power to make or break new authors. But the verdicts were not delivered by an esteemed literary critic. They were the work of Cait Corrain, a debut author who used fake accounts to “review bomb” her perceived rivals. The literary scandal led to Corrain posting an apology, being dropped by her agent and having her book deal cancelled. It also uncovered deeper questions about Goodreads, arguably the most popular site on which readers post book reviews, and its outsized impact on the publishing industry.
… or this: ‘I’m not a toy’ – how an antiquated tradition of forced marriage wrecked one girl’s life
Despite a ban on ghag forced marriages, a man laid claim to Inteha Bibi when she was 12 years old. Although Bibi and her family rejected his proposal when she was a child, she cannot marry anyone else, according to the custom. Now she lives in fear as her family fights for her right to marry the man of her choice.
“I have no life,” says Bibi. “I am traumatised, I have anxiety and can’t sleep without medication. I am a human, and I have all rights to get engaged and married to whoever I want. I am a woman, not a toy, and I don’t want to be married to someone forcibly.”
Last Thing: What does it mean to be likable – and who has to abide by those rules?
Being liked is core to some of our most central fears. We want to feel like we belong and are accepted. But likability is hardly an objective measure. It’s a vague idea at best, mired in all sorts of gendered, racialized and political connotations. In a society still full of myriad disparities, likability is a trait we demand of some people – women and people of color – more than others. And the effort to meet those expectations of likability can be taxing and unfruitful.
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