Reuters World News - Inside a UK Haredi Jewish school and new asylum rules on Mexico-US border

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

A U.S. federal judge has restricted some agencies and officials from communicating with social media companies to moderate their content. The Biden administration are appealing. Migrants say they are stuck in northern Mexico because of new U.S. border rules. Plus, religious schools in England wary of state intrusion in education. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, America at the crossroads of misinformation and free speech, after a judge bars the Biden administration from contacting social media companies, just as Mark Zuckerberg's meta launches a rival to Twitter. The effects of new asylum rules begin to show on the U.S.-Mexico border, and England braces for a culture clash inside the classroom. We go inside a heredity Jewish school fearing government checks could outlaw some of of their teachings. It's Thursday, July 6th. This is Reuters World News, with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. Every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal. And I'm David Spencer in London.

We start with the latest breaking news from around the world. Belarussian president, Alexander Lukashenko says that Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Pragojin is no longer in Belarus. He said reporters that Progojin is back in Russia and added that President Vladimir Putin will not wipe him out. Thousands of people on the streets of Tel Aviv, some chanting democracy after the dramatic resignation of the city's police chief. In a televised statement, District Commander Ami Eshed said he was quitting because of political interference.

He said members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet wanted excessive force used against against anti-government protesters. The cocaine discovered in the White House on Sunday was found in a cubby hole in a West Wing entry area, a sources told Reuters. They said it's where visitors place belongings before going on tours there. The White House says the Secret Service is now checking visitor logs and camera footage. An Australian minister has called Donald Trump Jr. a big baby after he cancelled a planned speaking tour. The younger Trump said it was called off due to visa issues, but Home Minister Claire O'Neill posted

on social media that the son of the former US president had actually cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Mark Zuckerberg launched his direct challenge to Twitter with new app threads gaining millions of users in the first few hours. Those quick to join the new meta platform included Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez, as well as prominent politicians. Much like Twitter, The app features short text posts that users can like, repost and reply to. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's June meeting offer a peek into the central bank's plans for future rate hikes. Howard Schneider is here to help us read the tea leaves. Howard, what are the takeaways here? This is all about optionality now, and the ministry affirmed this,

that they're not going to say ahead of time too much that they're going to go at the next meeting or not, but it's pretty hard lean towards a rate hike in July. that's what they all kind of indicated. Yes, there's a debate underway, whether more rate hikes will be needed or not. Inflation's still a problem. Nothing in the data kind of undercut that. This is more about controlling the pace now. Instead of moving in big chunks at every meeting, they're going to go every other meeting

or something like that and try to fine-tune that landing point. How a market's reacting? The market reaction to all this is kind of baked up already after the meeting. So it wasn't much coming out of the meeting's left process. us. Everybody expected a hawkish lane and they got a little bit of that indicating that rates will still need to rise a little bit. I think after the July meeting, the jobs report coming up, for example, is going to be a pretty big piece of that puzzle. If employment stays hot, wages continue to rise, that's going to reaffirm the idea that they will move again in July.

The Biden administration being blocked from contacting social media companies about disinformation could have a huge impact on the 2024 election. Here to talk us through the implications is Brendan Pearson in New York. Brandon, this seems like a surprising ruling. I think it's surprising in that we haven't seen an injunction exactly like this before. It is quite broad in that it bars a whole categories of Biden administration officials from contacting social media companies outside of very narrow circumstances. for example, if there's a national security interest, something like that.

But it does seem to block the kinds of efforts that some administration officials were undertaking after the 2020 election and during the COVID-19 pandemic to get social media companies to kind of filter or limit the spread of false information. What ramifications could this have on the 2024 election? There are a number of legal issues that will need to be resolved. where we don't really have a clear precedent of which way it could go, the final outcome will determine what the administration is able to do or limited from doing when we really get into election season.

So I think it's too early to say. But as you say, this isn't the last word on the matter. This being a conservative judge, I guess this ruling could whipsaw back and forth, right? This particular judge has been favored by conservative activists and conservative plaintiffs in the past because he's known to have a very conservative reputation, the appeal could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. So it will be a long time before we know the final outcome of this case. Now to the Mexico-U.S. border, where migrants are stranded waiting for asylum.

Reuters has visited a camp in Metamaros, where people face poor conditions in sweltering heat. Many are families and say the Biden administration's new border rules have made the situation worse. Laura Gottesdina spoke to some of those affected. According to U.S. government officials, there are approximately 100,000 people waiting and 1,450 appointments issued a day. Our team analyzed a whole bunch of different data,

and we found an incredibly sharp drop in the number of people passing their initial asylum screenings. In Matamotos, we spent a few days with a family of, asylum seekers from Venezuela. And I spent a lot of time with one of their daughters, 11-year-old Natalia. When I asked her, what would she say to President Biden if she were given the opportunity?

Suddenly, she burst into tears. She said, get us out of here. This is no way for us to live. The vast majority of people we spoke to in Matamoros all said they were trying to do everything the quote unquote right way. But the result was for them to spend weeks trying to snag an appointment on this application and they haven't been able to yet. In the UK, an increase in homeschooling since the pandemic has led to concerns about the extent of education for a generation of children.

In England, new rules are being put forward to register all children who are home educated. Some fear that the traditions they abide by will be outlawed. Jonathan Saul's been to one such school to find out more. The children in this high school aged between 11 to 16, which is lower than their secular counterparts, which usually graduated 18. But they say that they cram a lot more intense study in that period before their students go on to higher learning,

particularly studying the Holy Jewish texts. One of the people I met who's very, very passionate about his learning, but also about his future and his education, is a student at the school called Yossie Hamilton. Yossi is 15 years old. It's very good that the government are trying to raise the standards of education. But instead of looking at what they think we should be doing, they should look at the results. The boys that come out, are they good, are they emotionally healthy? Can they join the workforce? are they enjoying what they're doing?

There is something good to what we're doing. Obviously we're doing something right. So I think it's very good to what they're doing and definitely some things need to be pruned by doing that everything needs to be changed. This is part of a broader clash that seems to be emerging between faith-based communities and what they see is increasing intervention

by the state. In many ways, the secular state. Certainly this is building up into a potential culture, clash between regulators, in this case either the government or local authorities and faith-based communities, which include not just the strictly Orthodox Jewish community, but Christians and Muslims as well. Jonathan Saul in London for Reuters. That's it for today's edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily news

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