President Biden is defending his decision to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas in order to speed construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Biden’s move to advance a central policy of former President Trump’s platform has prompted condemnation from immigrant rights, environmental and Indigenous activists. At the White House Thursday, a reporter asked Biden why he reversed his campaign pledge that “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”

President Joe Biden: “I’ll answer one question on the border wall. The border wall — the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get to them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that.”

Reporter: “Do you believe the border wall works?”

President Joe Biden: “No.”

Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Biden’s decision, writing, “A wall does nothing to deter people who are fleeing poverty and violence from coming to the United States. You do not risk your life or your children’s lives going through the Darién Gap or traversing hundreds of miles of desert if you have any other options. Walls only serve to push migrants into more remote areas, increasing their chances of death.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland were in Mexico City Thursday meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who condemned the border wall.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: “This authorization for the construction of the wall is a step backward. It doesn’t solve the problem. It doesn’t solve the problem. We have to address the causes.”

Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas announced the U.S. will resume deportation flights directly to Venezuela, threatening Venezuelan asylum seekers with harsher consequences if they cross the U.S.-Mexico border. For years the U.S. government did not regularly deport Venezuelans because of tensions between Washington and Caracas. Thousands continue to flee Venezuela due to an economic catastrophe that’s been largely worsened by U.S. sanctions.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is on a four-day Latin American tour to discourage would-be asylum seekers from trying to reach New York. Speaking from Mexico City Thursday, Adams warned the American dream could turn into a “nightmare.”

Mayor Eric Adams: “We are at capacity. And many people believe when you enter New York City, you’re going to automatically have a job, you automatically are going to be living in a hotel. And there’s just a climate that’s there that’s just not a reality.”

Adams will also travel to Ecuador and Colombia and visit the treacherous Darién Gap, that many migrants are forced to brave on their journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. Adams’s trip comes two days after he asked a judge to suspend New York City’s 42-year-old policy of providing shelter to anyone who seeks it. Immigrant rights groups blasted the move, with the Legal Aid Society warning, “Street homelessness would balloon to a level unseen in our city since the Great Depression.” Asylum seekers in New York have already been facing barriers getting basic assistance.

Jimmy Morales: “I come from Honduras, and I came here because they killed a brother and a nephew of mine. So I was afraid, and I came here. … The truth is, I was waiting 24 hours for them to give me some clothes, but ultimately nothing came of it.”

Ukraine says 51 people were killed and six others wounded Thursday as a Russian missile struck a store and cafe in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian assault was no accident.

President Volodymyr Zelensky: “The Russian military could not have been unaware of where they were hitting. And it was not a blind strike. People gathered there for a wake, a Christian memorial dinner. Who could launch a missile at them? Who? Only absolute evil. More than 50 people died. Among them was a child, a boy, 6 years old.”’

Separately, officials said a Russian strike on residential buildings in Kharkiv killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother, while injuring 26 others. And Russian drones attacked a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region early Friday, damaging a grain silo near the Danube River. 

Syria’s Health Ministry says 89 people were killed and nearly 300 others wounded Thursday as a drone packed with explosives struck a military college graduation ceremony in the city of Homs. It was one of the deadliest strikes against Syrian forces in more than 12 years of civil war. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which Syria’s government blamed on unspecified terrorist groups.

Kurdish fighters say recent Turkish airstrikes have killed at least 11 people across Kurdish-controlled parts of northeastern Syria, with five civilians among the dead. Turkey has intensified cross-border raids since Sunday, when a pair of attackers detonated a bomb outside government buildings in Ankara. Turkey blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the closely affiliated Kurdish YPG militia, which is allied with the U.S. in its fight against ISIS.

On Thursday, the Pentagon said one of its F-16 fighter jets shot down an armed Turkish military drone as it approached U.S. forces in Syria and ignored commands to change course. It was an unprecedented direct military exchange between Turkey and the U.S. — two NATO allies.

In Iran, activists are demanding justice for 16-year-old Armita Geravand, who remains in a coma after an unexplained incident Sunday aboard a metro train car in Tehran. Officials say Geravand suffered a medical episode, causing her to collapse and bump her head on the train door. Her friends and other eyewitnesses say members of the so-called Guardians of Hijab force entered into an altercation with Geravand for not complying with Iran’s strict dress code. This comes one year after the death of Mahsa Amini while in custody of Iran’s morality police, which set off a nationwide uprising.

The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran.” We’ll have more on the Nobel Prize after headlines.

Here in New York, a prisoner at the notorious Rikers Island jail was declared dead after he was found unresponsive in his cell Thursday morning. Manish Kunwar was just 27 years old. He is at least the ninth person to die in the custody of the New York City Department of Correction this year.

In other news from New York, Frank James, who opened fire on a crowded subway train in Brooklyn in April of last year, received 10 life sentences Thursday. Each life sentence corresponds to an injured victim. No passengers were killed in the shooting. The judge said as he delivered the sentence, “Each mass shooting constitutes an act of raw evil.”

In a victory for voting rights, a federal court has selected a new congressional map in Alabama, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican-gerrymandered map that diluted Black votes. The voting-age population of the new district is nearly 49% Black and could send another Democrat to the U.S. Congress.

Actor Julia Ormond is suing Harvey Weinstein for sexual assault. She is also suing Disney, Miramax and her former talent agency CAA for negligence. Ormond, whose lawsuit comes as part of the Adult Survivors Act, says Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. When she told her talent agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane about the rape, they told her reporting it would damage her career and that she would not be believed. The CAA went on to drop her as a client. Ormond accuses Miramax and Disney of enabling and covering for Weinstein. Julia Ormond headlined major films in the 1990s, but her career waned in the years after the assault and her complaint to her agents.

Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York for rape. Earlier this year, he was sentenced to 16 years for separate rape and sexual assault charges in California.