Former president Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts for mishandling classified documents. And Texas officials have deployed a new tactic at the U.S. Mexico border. A buoy border wall is now afloat. These stories and more highlight the daily rundown for June, 9, 2023.
Trump indicted on 7 counts for mishandling classified documents
For the first time in U.S. history, a former president has been indicted on federal charges. President Donald Trump has been charged by the Justice Department with seven counts for mishandling classified documents. Trump took to Truth Social to announce the indictment and proclaim his innocence.
“They go after a popular president, a president that got more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country, by far, and did much better the second time in the election than the first. and they go after him on a ‘boxes hoax,’” Trump wrote. “Just like the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax and all of the others, it’s been going on for seven years. They can’t stop, because it’s election interference at the highest level, there’s never been anything like what’s happened. I’m an innocent man, I’m an innocent person.”
He has been charged for the retention of national defense information, conspiracy, and obstruction among other things. The indictment has sparked fury in Republicans who claim the Justice Department is politically weaponized.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R), and Elon Musk were quick to come to the president’s defense.
Before the news broke of Trump’s charges, President Biden defended the Justice Department’s independence, saying he has no say so in what cases the DOJ pursues. The announcement comes as Trump leads the GOP field of 2024 presidential hopefuls and three months after he faced 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York.
President Trump’s staff and security will be meeting the U.S. Secret Service to arrange plans for his travel and arraignment which is expected to be Tuesday, June 13 in Miami federal court.
Texas deploys buoy border wall to prevent crossings
Texas has installed a floating border wall made up of buoys to prevent illegal crossings across the Rio Grande River along the Texas-Mexico border.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a number of bills on Thursday to boost border security and unveiled images of its buoy border wall that he said will be implemented “pretty much immediately.”
The buoys are military-grade, about 4-feet high, and equipped with weights and netting. They’re designed to rotate in order to keep people from scaling them. The state purchased 1,000 feet worth for $1 million. It is deploying the buoys in Eagle Pass, an area described as ground-zero for illegal border crossings.
This idea isn’t new. President Trump wanted buoys along the border back in 2020. This effort by Gov. Abbott and Texas officials is the latest at the state level to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Nobody needs to be coming between the ports of entry, it’s dangerous,” the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Steve McCraw said. “Family units that come across the border are risking themselves and family members, putting themselves in harm’s way, and the only ones enabled and enriched and empowered are the Mexican cartels when that happens.”
Gov. Abbott signed six border security bills on Thursday. One bill classifies Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorists. Another authorizes the Texas military department to use drones to help secure the border. And another helps Texas ranchers living in border communities, who have had their agriculture properties damaged by illegal immigrants, providing them up to $75,000 per incident.
It was also revealed yesterday that 11 states have now sent members of their National Guard to Texas to help secure the border.
NYC public schools switch to remote learning amid air quality concerns
New York City public schools, the largest school district in the U.S., will switch to remote learning today as a result of ongoing concerns over hazardous air quality in the area, according to the Department of Education.
This comes as smoke from wildfires in Canada has moved across the American northeast this week, prompting warnings from health officials about unhealthy air quality levels.
Meanwhile, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced today that local air quality had improved to moderate overnight for the first time since Monday.
Predicted heavy rainfall later this weekend is also expected to bring further relief, as the National Weather Service anticipates that will help dissipate much of the smoke choking the region.
President Biden has said the U.S. will “respond promptly” to any Canadian requests for more firefighters to further combat the situation.
Supreme Court rules Alabama violated voting rights act
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a surprising ruling Thursday that will force the state of Alabama to redraw district lines before next year’s election. The highest court found the state was in violation of the Voting Rights Act by not fairly representing its Black population.
In a 5-to-4 decision, with conservative Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh aligning with the court’s liberals, the court decided the state’s current Congressional map discriminates against voters. The justices struck down Alabama’s Republican-drawn map, which only included one majority-Black district out of seven, despite more than one-quarter of the state’s population being Black. The ruling means Alabama will have to redraw its Congressional map to include a second majority-Black district.
GM to use Tesla charging network for EVs
General Motors is now the second company to reach a deal with Tesla for access to 12,000 of its electric vehicle chargers in North America. GM plans to adopt Tesla’s charging port design in its future production of EVs and use adapters that fit Tesla chargers. Tesla and Ford came to a similar agreement last month. As a result of the deal, GM expects to save up to $400 million.
This move could influence the government to invest in Tesla’s charging technology as the Biden administration is investing billions in building out an EV charging network.
Most common text messages sent by scammers
Text messaging scams have cost Americans hundreds of millions of dollars. New data shows that scammers have doubled their profits off text-scams in one year and have quadrupled their earnings using this scheme in just three years.
A newly published FTC Scam Report revealed the most common type of text scams. The most common and costly to Amerians were texts that appeared to be sent from consumers’ banks.
Phony job offers came in third. And texts that appeared to be security alerts from Amazon came in fourth.
Even though scammers are making double-profits, the number of unsolicited texts has actually decreased year-over-year. But they still account for more than one-fifth of all fraud cases.
