The most important stories of the day. That’s all. #TheShortList
Standing. Kneeling. Dividing. Uniting. It started Friday night with a charged statement by President Trump. No, wait. It started more than a year ago when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem during the 2016 preseason. He knelt to call attention to racial inequality and police brutality. Some call it a first amendment right. Others call it disrespectful to our country. Kaepernick was alone at first. Now he has the National Football League behind him. (And major stars in the NBA .) If you need to catch up:
Thousands of sweating, hopeful passengers thronged inside San Juan’s major airport Monday, desperate to catch a flight off storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. It’s the new front in this island’s growing humanitarian crisis after Hurricane Maria. « It’s like the end of the world, » said Andrew Arteaga, who spent five nights at the airport with his wife and 8-month-old daughter. Airlines began commercial flights out of San Juan on Sunday, starting with just two flights a day per airline. The control tower’s radar system is still down. Airline employees checked IDs by camping light. Mothers sprinkled water on the sweaty heads of babies. « None of this is right, » Arteaga said. And no one will disagree.
The Department of Veterans Affairs — already reeling from reports of inaccurate wait times and bureaucratic incompetence — is making headlines for its controversial program of conducting painful medical experiments on dogs, including 6-month-old Beagle puppies, before killing them. The VA says research on dogs has led to important breakthroughs, including the development of an implantable cardiac pacemaker. Opponents say those examples are decades old, and most research hasn’t translated to humans. The House of Representatives quietly passed legislation in July eliminating funding for such research. But the VA is now tapping veterans groups to persuade senators not to go along with the measure.
For migrants from Central America fleeing violence and poverty, there’s no way to make it across the U. S.-Mexico border without a human smuggler. That’s expensive and dangerous. But one Honduran man, waiting to cross the border from Mexico, said nothing will stop people from pursuing a better life in the U. S. — not a more dangerous route, not being kidnapped by a cartel and certainly not a border wall. Learn more about the untold stories of the U. S.-Mexico border, and follow The Wall on Facebook to watch a series of documentaries.
We knew Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are an item. Markle already told us they are in love. But Monday we saw the couple together for the first time in an official, non-paparazzi way. The British prince, 33, and the American actress, 36, were snapped together at Harry’s Invictus Games for wounded warriors in Toronto. Yep, we are dusting off our royal baby name generator. Too soon?
