Las Notis is a daily news column that gets you up to speed on the political, media + other goings-on in the United States, Latin America, and the diaspora—all in one quick digest.
Here’s your glimpse at what’s going on today:
- With his numbers lagging in Florida’s Latino community, Joe Biden held an event to coincide with Hispanic Heritage Month, where he told voters that Trump has “insulted the dignity of Hispanic families over and over and over again.” After being introduced at the event by Luis Fonsi, Biden took out his phone and played “Despacito.” This morning, Trump tweeted a manipulated video that shows Biden playing N.W.A’s “Fuck The Police.” [WaPo]
- The Lincoln Project—an anti-Trump group formed by Republicans—is teaming up with grassroots groups for a multi-million dollar effort to reach out to Latino communities, which many people feel have been overlooked by the Biden campaign. The initiative will include launching at least six bilingual television and digital ads while focusing on swing states with large Latino populations. [Newsweek]
- Democrats have demanded a probe into a nurse’s whistleblower complaint that detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia had been denied basic medical care and were subjected to hysterectomies without their informed consent. ICE has said only two such procedures have been performed on detainees at the facility since 2018, but the complaint includes conversations with more women who say they received and know of other women who received hysterectomies. [WaPo]
- Senators have introduced bipartisan legislation as a last-ditch effort to give the Census Bureau more time to finish its 2020 population survey after delays because of the pandemic and insistence from the Trump administration to end the count early to meet end-of-year deadlines. Leaders fear a severe undercount of minority, rural, and Native areas, which could lead to underrepresentation in Congress and a loss of federal money to those communities. [HuffPo]
- Investigators from the UN say that the Venezuelan government has “committed egregious violations” that amount to crimes against humanity. The UN Human Rights Council investigated cases of killings, torture, violence, and disappearances that they say implicate President Nicolás Maduro and other top officials in the country’s government. [BBC]
- Chile’s largest Indigenous group the Mapuche has urged cultural recognition and land rights for years. After tensions spilled over in recent weeks, their demands have topped the country’s political agenda, and as the country prepares for a referendum on a new constitution, they could finally receive the rights they have been asking for. [NYT]