Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s headlines. If you’d like to receive this briefing by email, sign up here.
Top story: US border agents fire teargas to repel migrants
Mexico has said it will deport up to 500 migrants who the country’s interior ministry claims tried to “violently” and “illegally” cross the US-Mexican border. US border officers fired teargas after several people attempted to breach the border fence between Tijuana and San Ysidro, California, on Sunday. Women and young children were among those seen fleeing the gas. All traffic was suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry for several hours.
Truth amid tensions. Tensions are high in Tijuana since the arrival of the Central American migrant caravan demonised by Donald Trump. Bryan Mealer travelled with some of the most vulnerable asylum seekers and heard their stories of hope and despair.
Whitaker advocated for hardline anti-abortion policies
The Guardian has gone back through previously unreported remarks by the acting US attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, and found that he supports strict anti-abortion policies that would drastically reshape women’s reproductive rights. A conservative Christian and a veteran of the “culture wars”, Whitaker has said he is “100% pro-life” and argued that judges ought to take a “biblical view of justice”.
Face Act. Whitaker has raised personal objections to a law that prohibits the use of force and intimidation to stop women using reproductive health services – a law passed in 1994 following the murder of a Florida doctor by an anti-abortion extremist.
Nato calls for calm amid Russia-Ukraine tensions
Nato has joined a chorus of western calls for Russia and Ukraine to show restraint after Russian forces seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in the Black Sea, sparking protests at the Russian embassy in Kiev and a proposal by the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to impose martial law.
‘Acts of aggression’. Russian and Ukrainian officials have each accused the other of deliberately ramping up tensions in the region, with the Russian FSB claiming the presence of the Ukrainian boats was intended to “create a conflict situation”.
Poultry workers face restricted bathroom breaks
Workers at Sanderson Farms, America’s third largest poultry provider, have revealed exclusively to the Guardian that their bathroom breaks are restricted by supervisors, who themselves claim to have been encouraged to enforce the rule by management. Vivian Valadez, 36, said she and fellow workers were given just two scheduled breaks during their eight-hour shifts at the plant in Texas, and that she was reprimanded for leaving the poultry line to relieve herself at other times.
Union rep. Brandon Hopkins of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said this was a common issue for poultry workers, who are often left “living in fear” by the industry’s notoriously harsh culture.
Company line. A spokesman for Sanderson told the Guardian it was a “violation of our policies” and that any supervisor found restricting bathroom breaks would be “terminated immediately”.
Crib sheet
The man who allegedly rammed his car into protesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, will go on trial for murder on Monday.
Senior Democrats have accused Trump of lying about the CIA’s findings regarding the involvement of the Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Bernardo Bertolucci, the Oscar-winning Italian director of Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor, has died aged 77.
Weeks after the world’s tallest statue was unveiled in Gujarat another Indian state, Uttar Pradesh, plans to break the record with a 221m-high effigy of the Hindu god Ram.
Must-reads
Carl Jones: ‘It’s very easy to save a species’
When Carl Jones got to Mauritius in the 1970s, there were just four Mauritius kestrels left in the wild. He increased the bird’s numbers 100-fold, before going on to save eight more species, probably more than any other individual. He tells Patrick Barkham how.
Can an app guarantee a good night’s sleep?
Laura Barton has tried everything from warm baths to acupuncture in the pursuit of a decent night’s sleep. Could one of the proliferation of smartphone sleep apps soothe her into unconsciousness?
A photographer fights addiction in New Mexico’s ‘war zone’
Soon after Frank Blazquez moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2010, he found himself sliding into addiction. Photographing others embroiled in the the city’s infamous drug “war zone” helped him finally to get clean.
Killer Robots: The year’s most terrifying documentary
In his new film, The Truth About Killer Robots, Maxim Pozdorovkin studies the dangers posed by automatons and finds them far more pervasive than simple Terminator tropes. “The things happening – de-skilling, the loss of human dignity associated with traditional labor – will have a devastating effect much sooner than that long-distance threat of unchecked AI,” he tells Zach Vasquez.
Opinion
In Europe, the US and Brazil, authoritarian nationalists are riding to power on the backs of negative emotion and elite connivance, says Paul Mason. To fight back, liberal centrists must offer an inspirational message of economic hope.
The centre has to make a strategic choice: to side with the left against the right. All discussions of populism that avoid that conclusion are worthless.
Sport
The 12th and final game of the 2018 World Chess Championship takes place on Monday, with the world’s two top-ranked players, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, still tied after 11 straight draws. If they draw again, the contest goes to a tiebreak.
Roy Hodgson said a visit to Old Trafford still comes with a “fear factor”, yet Manchester United could muster no more than a 0-0 draw with Hodgson’s Crystal Palace on Saturday. That’s one of 10 talking points from the weekend’s Premier League action.
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