Mexico’s top court decriminalizes abortion in sweeping case
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously declared that criminalizing early-term abortion is unconstitutional, a historic decision that loosens limits on the procedure in a region where few countries offer access without restriction.
The court was considering a provision in the state of Coahuila’s criminal code that punished women for all abortions before 12 weeks, threatening them with one to three years in prison, no matter the reason.
“No one gets pregnant, exercising their autonomy, so they can later get an abortion,” said Justice Margarita Rios Farjat. “In the name of life, women are penalized, for being ignorant, or promiscuous or for being ‘bad’ and not carrying the pregnancy to term in order to give the baby up for adoption.”
Mexico, a largely Catholic and conservative country of about 130 million people, is following Argentina, where elective abortion was declared legal late last year.
Mexico’s decision came days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a law in neighboring Texas that bans abortions after six weeks and deputizes citizens to sue people who perform or aid in the procedure.
Mexico City and Oaxaca state are the only places where early-term abortion is completely decriminalized. Hidalgo and Veracruz states have also recently passed legislation but with certain restrictions.
The precedent set Tuesday will prevent courts all around the country from prosecuting women accused of voluntarily ending a pregnancy before three months of gestation.
—Bloomberg News
Dixie fire expands as crews battle blazes across California
As crews turned a corner on the Caldor fire near South Lake Tahoe, the Dixie fire in Northern California continued to rage, surpassing yet another worrisome milestone this week as it grew to more than 900,000 acres.
The fire ignited 54 days ago in the dense forest of Plumas County. In the days and weeks that followed, it garnered several ominous designations — including the second largest wildfire in California history, and the first of two to burn from one side of the Sierra to the other.
Now it is on the brink of joining 2020’s August Complex in infamy: That fire was the first in California to surpass 1 million acres, and the Dixie may soon join it. As of Tuesday, the fire had burned 917,579 acres and was 59% contained.
Officials said conditions are primed for the Dixie fire to continue to burn.
“For the next seven days, we expect no precipitation at all, which is what this fire really needs,” incident meteorologist Jack Messick said Monday evening. “It’s not there.”
Additional property loss has been reported in the north end of Dixie Valley, bringing the total number of structures destroyed by the fire to 1,282, officials said. Nearly 6,000 structures remain threatened by the fire.
A massive expansion of the venerable San Manuel Casino property, just an hour east of downtown Los Angeles, brings a brand-new, all-inclusive resort with Vegas-like amenities to the region.
—Los Angeles Times
Competency of accused Colorado supermarket shooter to be tested
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The man accused of killing 10 people, including a police officer, in a Boulder supermarket will undergo an evaluation of his mental competence to stand trial, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 22, faces 115 charges in connection with the March 22 attack, including 10 counts of first-degree murder, dozens counts of attempted murder and several weapons charges related to possessing banned high-capacity magazines.
Chief Judge Ingrid Bakke ordered the competence evaluation and report be completed within 21 days at the Boulder County jail.
Alissa’s public defenders filed a notice of raising competence last week, and the accompanying motion remains sealed.
The next day, Bakke granted a motion to vacate an already scheduled probable cause hearing set for Tuesday and converted it to a competence advisement.
In Tuesday’s hearing she reset the preliminary hearing for Oct. 19, pending the competence evaluation.
—The Gazette
Cuba to reopen borders in November, hoping vaccines curb virus
Despite an ongoing COVID-19 surge that has overwhelmed its health system, Cuban authorities will reopen the country’s borders starting in mid-November, saying that the country will have vaccinated 90% of its population by the beginning of the high season for tourism.
COVID-related measures at airports will be relaxed and “focused on symptomatic patients and taking the temperature,” Granma, the Communist Party’s newspaper, said this week in a brief note citing information provided by the Ministry of Tourism.
Travelers will no longer be required to show a recent PCR test, and “vaccination certificates will be recognized,” the paper said. It is unclear if this means certificates are mandatory. The borders will start reopening “gradually” on Nov. 15. Authorities will also allow domestic tourism.
Currently, all travelers are tested for COVID and must comply with a mandatory quarantine in government hotels.
According to Granma, authorities weighed “the progress in the vaccination process in Cuba, its demonstrated effectiveness, and the perspective that more than 90% of the entire population will conclude the vaccination schedules in November.” To reach that goal, the country will need to ramp up the speed of vaccination significantly. Since April, when trials for Cuba’s locally produced vaccines started, to now only 30% of the population has been fully immunized.
“Starting today, the acceleration that we are going to give to the vaccination process will be something historic,” said a Ministry of Health official, Ileana Morales Suárez, in the “Mesa Redonda” TV news show Monday.
The announcement comes after a year and a half in which the pandemic has halted most tourism to the cash-strapped Caribbean island.
—Miami Herald
