June 11, 2021: Child Labor Increasing Worldwide; California Fights Gun Control Ruling; US Image Rebounds Under Biden

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TODAY'S HEADLINES:


Child labor is on the rise, and the pandemic is making it worse.
A new report by the United Nations puts numbers on a problem that
is pervasive, yet hidden to many Americans.


Meanwhile, California’s Democratic leadership
gears up for a major courtroom fight over gun control. And Gavin
Newsom has nothing at all nice to say about the federal judge who
struck down the state’s assault weapons ban.


And lastly, new opinion polling reveals that the
world feels way better about the United States now that Donald
Trump is no longer in the picture. Can Joe Biden leverage these
warm fuzzies for diplomatic advantage on his big international
trip?


THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:


This concerning update on one of the most shameful practices in
global capitalism comes from CBS News. The world has marked the
first rise in child labor in two decades, the United Nations said
yesterday. And the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions
more youngsters into the same fate. In a joint report, the UN’s
International Labor Organization and the UN children’s agency
UNICEF said there were one hundred and sixty million children
laborers at the start of 2020 – an increase of eight point four
million in four years. The rise began before the pandemic hit. It
marks a dramatic reversal of a trend that had seen child labor
numbers shrink by ninety four million between 2000 and 2016, the
report said. Children and teens between five and seventeen years
old who are forced out of school and into working are considered
child laborers.


CBS reports that just as the Covid-19 crisis was beginning to
pick up steam, nearly one in ten children globally were stuck in
child labor, with sub-Saharan Africa affected most. Even in
regions where there has been some headway since 2016, such as
Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean,
Covid-19 is endangering that progress, the report said. The
agencies warned that unless urgent action is taken to help
ballooning numbers of families falling into poverty, nearly fifty
million more kids could be forced into child labor over the next
two years. Sometimes it feels like we’re racing back to the
nineteenth century.


California Fights Gun Control Ruling


This report on the struggle for safety from gun violence comes
from the Los Angeles Times. California Attorney General Rob Bonta
yesterday filed an appeal to a federal court decision that
overturned the state’s ban on assault weapons, arguing that the
law is needed to protect the safety of Californians. The appeal
seeks to reverse last Friday’s decision by US District Judge
Roger Benitez, who said the state’s three-decade ban on assault
weapons is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of
California gun owners. Newsom, who was elected on a platform that
included expanding gun control laws, said, "California’s assault
weapons ban has saved lives, and we refuse to let these weapons
of war back onto our streets." Newsom criticized Benitez, calling
his decision shameful. He said Benitez was a stone-cold ideologue
and "a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby."


The Times says the case has implications for gun laws beyond
California. Six other states and the District of Columbia
followed California in adopting their own assault weapons bans,
and Congress enacted a ban in 1994, although it expired ten years
later. Though other courts have upheld assault weapon bans,
supporters of the gun law worry Benitez’s decision is part of a
strategy by the gun lobby to get cases to the US Supreme Court,
where appointments by Donald Trump are seen as more sympathetic
to Second Amendment arguments. In the meantime, there was another
deadly shooting yesterday – three dead in a Florida Publix.


US Image Rebounds Under Biden


This check-up on the national image comes from the Washington
Post. President Joe Biden has promised the world that America is
back. As he takes his first trip abroad as president, a Pew
Research Center global survey released yesterday shows that many
believe it. Trust in the US president fell to historic lows in
most countries surveyed during Donald Trump’s presidency. Under
Biden, it has soared. In the twelve countries surveyed both this
year and last, a median of seventy five percent of respondents
expressed confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding
world affairs. That’s compared with seventeen percent for Trump
last year. Sixty-two percent of respondents now have a favorable
view of the United States, versus thirty four percent at the end
of Trump’s presidency.


The Post notes that the findings come a day after Biden touched
down in England on the first leg of a trip through Europe. On his
agenda: a meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Cornwall, a
NATO summit in Brussels, and meetings with British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian
President Vladimir Putin. The Pew findings suggest that he will
encounter leaders whose publics are confident in his leadership.
But skepticism about the United States’ dependability remains.
Among the sixteen publics Pew surveyed in 2021, the proportion of
respondents who said the US is very reliable was below twenty
percent in every place. Good vibes are always contingent on the
outcome of the next elections.


AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:


German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that police in
Frankfurt have decided to disband the city's Special Task Force,
or SEK, following the discovery of far-right extremist messages
in group chats. Seventeen officers were suspected of spreading
hatred-inciting texts and symbols of former Nazi organizations.
Hey, maybe they can find jobs in America?


The New York Times reports that famine has afflicted at least
three hundred and fifty thousand people in northern Ethiopia’s
conflict-ravaged Tigray region. It is a starvation calamity
bigger at the moment than anywhere else in the world, the UN and
international aid groups said yesterday. And it’s not at all
clear whether help is on the way.


CNN reports that the Senate yesterday voted to confirm Zahid
Quraishi to be a US District Judge for the District of New
Jersey, making him the first Muslim American federal judge in US
history. Prior to his confirmation, Quraishi has been serving as
a United States magistrate judge in New Jersey. How telling that
it took this long to mark such a first.


The Washington Post reports that the Labor Department released a
workplace safety standard for risks posed by the coronavirus
yesterday after more than a year of debate. The emergency
temporary standard will apply only to health-care facilities – a
much narrower purview than many advocates, labor unions and
Democrats had pushed for. This is a bust for the Biden
administration. Every worker deserves protection.


AM QUICKIE - JUNE 11, 2021


HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner


WRITER - Corey Pein


PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw


EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn