AFP

Dozens of migrants wait in line outside a shelter in San Antonio, most of them young men but also women and children, hoping for a hot meal and a roof over their head.

Every year thousands like them pass through this Texas city on the frontline of America’s struggle to cope with waves of migrants seeking to escape poverty and violence and find a better life in the United States.

The city is 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the border with Mexico and is often the first stop on an odyssey across the country as migrants fight to remain in America and settle down to a new life.

This week it was also the scene of a horrific discovery that laid bare the price that some pay — 53 people died after being left inside a big-rig truck abandoned next to train tracks and junk yards in San Antonio.

One of those waiting outside the shelter after putting up with hours in the rain is Edwin Sanchez, 42, a Venezuelan who left home on May 12 and has been in San Antonio for five days.

He hopes to make it soon to New York, where he says an acquaintance has promised him a job.

“We are hoping to get a little help,” Sanchez said.

He got through a border crossing despite Title 42, a Covid-era rule still in place under which people arriving at the border can be turned back without being able to apply for asylum.

The policy is applied unevenly: it is rarely used against people from Venezuela or Cuba, which have leftist governments seen by US officials as authoritarian, but it is often applied against Mexicans and Central Americans.

No matter how people get in, if they traveled through northeast Mexico there is a good chance they stop off in San Antonio.

– ‘At the crossroads’-  

The city has an airport, a bus station and is well connected to the rest of the country, said Roger Enriquez, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

“It is at the crossroads of two major highways: the I-10, which links California to Florida, and the I-35, which runs from the southern border in Laredo all the way to Minnesota in the north. It is the perfect place to stop over,” said Enriquez.

But the location also suits people-smugglers who take advantage of the fact that most of the population of San Antonio is Latino, so migrants being brought in illegally can blend in, said Enriquez.

As many arrive with little but the clothes on their back, charities try to help them.

One of them is Corazon (Heart) Ministries, which runs the night shelter that Edwin Sanchez was waiting to enter.

It opens every evening at 7:00 pm and closes the next day at 8:00 am, offering people dinner and a place to sleep, said director Monica Sosa.

As she speaks, shortly before opening time, volunteers set up cots with the red logo of the American Red Cross.

The shelter supposedly has room for 150 people but there are always more to take care of, some times as many as 400. Many migrants end up sleeping on the floor or in a nearby park.

“Our resources are very limited. We need more support,” said Sosa.

– A city of smugglers – 

Austin Hernandez, a 20 year old Honduran, has been in San Antonio for four days and has not yet managed to land a bed in the shelter.

He says he wished he could get more help but does not lose hope of making it to the state capital Austin, which is only 130 kilometers away.

“The trip was very hard. I was robbed, I begged for food in the streets. I have endured cold, rain and slept in the rough,” Hernandez said of his trek.

He said he made the trip without the help of smugglers known as coyotes. But often, facing tight security at the border, migrants do put their lives in the hands of traffickers.

The discovery Monday of the abandoned tractor trailer in San Antonio highlighted that clandestine trips are highly lucrative for smugglers.

“It is estimated that the coyotes can charge from $8,000 to $10,000 per person, and they can put as many as 100 people in a truck. That’s a million dollars,” said Enriquez.

“I am surprised there are not more tragedies due the danger and the risks these people are taking.”

A bullish President Joe Biden on Thursday announced $800 million in new weapons for Ukraine and said the United States will support Kyiv “as long as it takes” in its war against Russia.

As Western-armed Ukrainian forces notched up a victory by recapturing strategic Snake Island in the Black Sea, and NATO leaders expressed strong unity during their Madrid summit, Biden made clear he intends to keep the pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

“Before the war started, I told Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, NATO would not only get stronger but would get more united,” an energised looking Biden told a press conference.

He spoke before returning to Washington after the NATO summit and a meeting of G7 leaders earlier in Germany, where he did not hold a press conference and kept a relatively low profile.

The Democrat announced yet another $800 million disbursement of US funding for Ukraine’s military in “the next few days”.

This will include “advanced Western air defence systems for Ukraine, more artillery and ammunition, counter-battery radar, additional ammunition for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems that we’ve already given Ukraine and more HIMARS coming from other countries as well.”

The latest arms, which notably focus on the deadly and highly accurate HIMARS systems, come on top of a staggering list of weaponry that has already transformed Ukraine’s forces, allowing them to fight head-to-head with the Russian invaders.

Biden said international contributions now amounted to “nearly 140,000 anti-tank systems, more than 600 tanks, nearly 500 artillery systems, more than 600,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, as well as advanced multiple launch rocket systems, anti-ship systems and air defence systems”.

– ‘Stick with Ukraine’ –

With nearly $7 billion in donated arms, the US is “leading the way”, Biden declared.

The US president has encountered sporadic pressure in Western capitals and in the Washington foreign policy establishment to steer Ukraine to a compromise, given ever growing economic fallout for ordinary Americans and Europeans. 

The war is also causing dangerous disruptions to global food supplies with the Russian attack against Ukraine’s agricultural industry.

But Biden spurned any suggestion of easing off in his press conference, saying that Russia was already badly damaged and would never be allowed to win.

“We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the alliance are going to stick with Ukraine, as long as it takes to make sure they are not defeated by Russia,” he said.

“Ukraine has already dealt a severe blow to Russia,” Biden said.

He mentioned the recapture of Snake Island by Ukraine and said Russia is “paying a very, very heavy price” on the battlefield.

“I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine,” he said.

Declaring that Moscow “has already lost its international standing,” Biden also painted a dire picture of Russian economic prospects under the weight of Western sanctions, saying Moscow had defaulted on its debt and “they’ve lost 15 years of gains”.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday told vaccine makers that Covid boosters for this fall and winter should include components targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of Omicron.

Earlier this week, a panel of medical experts convened by the agency voted in favor of updating Covid vaccines against Omicron, with most indicating they would favor shots that target the latest iterations rather than its original form, BA.1, fearing the latter would be too out-of-date.

BA.4 and BA.5, which are more transmissible and immune evasive, now comprise more than 52 percent of US Covid cases, according to an official tracker.

“We have advised manufacturers seeking to update their Covid-19 vaccines that they should develop modified vaccines that add an omicron BA.4/5 spike protein component to the current vaccine composition to create a two component (bivalent) booster vaccine,” the FDA said in a statement.

These vaccines would also need to target the original Wuhan strain, in order to increase the breadth of immune response.

Pfizer and Moderna, which produce messenger RNA Covid vaccines, have developed and tested vaccines against BA.1, and representatives of both companies indicated during the experts’ meeting they would need around three months to produce BA.4 and BA.5 vaccines at scale. 

Pfizer shared early results showing its BA.4/5 vaccine produced a strong antibody response in mice, but it hasn’t yet been trialed in humans.

Novavax, which makes a protein subunit vaccine, said it could offer BA.4/5 vaccines by the end of the year.

The FDA said in its new statement that the companies would need to submit human data prior to authorization.

The “primary series” or first shots a person receives would remain against the original strain, the FDA added.

While previous “variants of concern” like Alpha and Delta eventually petered out, Omicron and its sublineages have dominated throughout 2022, to the point it comprises the vast majority of all Covid in the world, FDA official Jerry Weir told the expert meeting this week.

This makes it more likely that the virus’s future evolution will also occur along the Omicron branch of the Covid family tree, he added.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization also recommended the use of Omicron boosters after a primary series against the original strain.

Malta’s health minister said Thursday he had ordered a review of how the country’s abortion ban was applied, after the treatment of a pregnant American tourist sparked headlines worldwide.

“I have asked our staff to see whether we have parts of our law which preclude our doctors from giving treatment where it is needed in any instance,” Chris Fearne told reporters.

It was the first public comment by a Maltese government minister since the case of US tourist Andrea Prudente last week shone a spotlight on Malta’s total ban on terminations.

She suffered a partial miscarriage while on holiday and the foetus was given no chance of survival. But because it still had a heartbeat, she was denied an abortion despite fears she could contract a life-threatening infection.

In the end, she and her partner flew to Spain where Prudente was given an abortion, but not before the case sparked headlines around the world and protests in Malta, the only EU nation with a total prohibition.

Her partner Jay Weeldreyer told AFP that doctors were “playing chicken” with her life.

“Certainly there shouldn’t be any part of Maltese law which precludes or interferes with our doctors and professionals from saving lives,” Fearne, who was formerly a surgeon, said when asked about the case.  

“That is clear, and I have asked our technical and legal staff to see whether this is the case with Maltese law in its entirety.”

Currently doctors who administer abortions can be jailed for up to four years and banned from practising medicine for life.

“I have assurances from the State Advocate (Malta’s highest legal officer) that, in cases like this, they do not take any action against medical professionals giving treatment and doing their utmost to save lives,” Fearne said.

He added: “This is not an isolated case… it has happened before and it will happen again.”

However, there was no suggestion from his comments that the review would lead to changes in the law.

Abortion is a thorny issue in Catholic-majority Malta, and is rarely discussed among politicians.

Only one of Malta’s 79 MPs — Rosianne Cutajar, a backbench lawmaker with the governing Labour party — has spoken out about the case, telling parliament this week that no woman should risk losing her life in Malta because of the abortion law.

More than 130 doctors in Malta filed a legal protest Monday against the abortion ban, warning it represented an obstacle to proper medical care.

Sonny Barger, a founding member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club who spent decades as the public face of the notorious biker gang, has died at the age of 83, according to his Facebook page.

With their leather vests and the roar of their engines as they cruised in packs on the open road, for many years the Hells Angels were a symbol — a frightening one for some Americans — of counterculture living.

Barger founded the now-international motorcycle club’s original group, based out of Oakland, California in 1957.

As sanctioned offshoots of the club were established around the United States, and controversies around the group’s activities compounded, Barger acted as a de-facto spokesperson, defending their outlaw lifestyle.

Barger was present at a notorious 1969 Rolling Stones concert in California, for which the Hells Angels had been hired as security, using their bikes as a makeshift barrier in front of the stage.

The unruly gathering at the Altamont Speedway is remembered for the death of Meredith Hunter, who was beaten and stabbed to death by members of the Hells Angels, after he brandished a handgun near the stage.

By that point, the biker gang had already entered popular culture as a rough-and-tumble fraternity, through films, such as the 1967 “Hells Angels on Wheels” starring Jack Nicholson, and an in-depth 1966 profile written by journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who spent a year living with the group.

In 2019, the Netherlands became the first country to ban the Hells Angels nationwide, saying the group had a “culture of lawlessness,” and was “a danger to the public order.” 

– ‘Ride free with the angels’ –

For various gun and weapons charges, as well as a 1988 conviction for conspiring to kill rival gang members, Barger spent over a decade of his life in prison, according to The Washington Post.

In addition to several on-screen performances, including in the 1967 “Hells Angels” film, Barger worked as a consultant on multiple other biker-related projects.

More recently, he played a character named Lenny “The Pimp” Janowitz in the hit TV series “Sons of Anarchy” about a fictional biker gang.

Barger also wrote multiple novels and memoirs about the biker gang lifestyle, including a bestselling autobiography.

“He’s smart and he’s crafty, and he has a kind of wild animal cunning,” Thompson told The Washington Post in 2000.

Due to a bout with throat cancer, Barger had his vocal cords removed later in life and used an electronic device to speak.

“If you are reading this message, you’ll know that I’m gone,” his Facebook account said Thursday morning, adding he died after a battle with cancer.

The post had garnered more than 20,000 comments by noon Thursday.

“You will forever now have the sun in your face, the wind at your back. Ride free with the angels,” wrote one poster, named Dia Edinger Nickelsen.