Protesters calling for an end to military rule taking cover during a clash with police officers in Yangon, Myanmar, on Sunday. Credit...Reuters
At least 18 people were killed during protests in Myanmar on Sunday, the United Nations reported, as the military began its toughest crackdown yet on the daily demonstrations against its month-old coup.
As large protests took place across the country, the security forces were taking a more aggressive approach, resorting more quickly to gunfire and rounding up groups of demonstrators before their marches could begin.
‘We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters,’ said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman with the U.N. human rights office.
In the southern city of Dawei, the police opened fire on a crowd of hundreds, witnesses told The New York Times. At least three people were killed and more than 50 wounded, said Dr. Tun Min, who was treating the injured at a hospital. A second doctor, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, confirmed those numbers.
Doctors in Mandalay confirmed three fatal shootings there, and killings also took place in Yangon and the city of Mawlamyine. The United Nations statement said it had reports of deaths “as a result of live ammunition fired into crowds” in Yangon, Mandalay and Dawei, as well as in the cities of Myeik, Bago and Pokokku.
It was the largest single-day toll since the protests began after the Feb. 1 coup, which ousted the civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most popular politician. Before Sunday, just three deaths at the hands of the security forces had been widely reported, though two other deaths recently came to light in interviews with bereaved family members.
The Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, has ruled the country for most of the past 70 years. But over the past decade it yielded some power to civilian leaders, before seizing control again in the coup. Notorious for its brutality, the Tatmadaw crushed democracy movements in 1988 and 2007 by shooting peaceful protesters.
Since the coup, the junta led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing had been comparatively restrained in its response to the protests and organized civil disobedience that have swept the nation. But as the demonstrations, marches and work stoppages continue, fear of another bloody, full-scale crackdown has been ever-present.” Read more at New York Times
“A third Covid-19 vaccine has been approved.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine for emergency use on Saturday, making a third vaccine available in the U.S. Above, a drive-through vaccine clinic in Scranton, Pa., on Friday.
It’s the first approved vaccine to require one dose instead of two. Shipments are expected to start within days, on top of the millions of doses being churned out by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
The country’s vaccination numbers have started to increase again after a decline caused by severe weather. But federal health officials warned governors against relaxing pandemic restrictions, saying that the recent drop in cases and deaths could be leveling off.
Roughly one-third of active-duty troops and National Guard members — mostly younger personnel — have declined to take the vaccine, another potential hole in the broad-scale immunity that health experts say is needed for Americans to reclaim their lives.” Read more at New York Times
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
“The $1.9 trillion pandemic aid bill passed in the House and must now maneuver through a procedural and political thicket in the Senate.
Every House Republican voted against the measure early Saturday, underscoring the depth of the partisan division it has provoked. The road ahead in the Senate is far bumpier.
Already, President Biden’s effort to include an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 has run aground because of arcane rules that accompany the fast-track process Democrats are using. Above, showing support for a $15 minimum wage in Washington last week.
With unemployment benefits set to begin lapsing on March 14, Democrats have only two weeks to finish the package in the Senate, resend it to the House for final adjustments and deliver it to Mr. Biden’s desk.
Here’s a look at what’s in the stimulus plan. We fact-checked misleading claims about the bill.” Read more at New York Times
“The United States Soccer Federation voted on Saturday to repeal a controversial 2017 policy that had required players stand for the national anthem, then issued a statement hours later condemning the ‘offensive comments’ of a dissenting delegate who downplayed the impact of slavery and dismissed police brutality against African Americans as a media-hyped ‘statistical anomaly’ in remarks from the floor.
Stand or kneel? How Megan Rapinoe helped US Soccer change its tune
More than 70% of the members of US Soccer’s ruling body voted to repeal Policy 604-1, which stated all national team members must ‘stand respectfully’ during the song.
About 30% voted to keep the policy in place, none more vocally than Seth Jahn, a US Paralympian and current member of the US Soccer Athlete Council who delivered a seven-minute rebuke of the proposal that rehashed a number of familiar right-wing talking points, including an indictment of the media for not reporting about black-on-black crime, spurious correlations between the ‘politicalization of sport’ and declining TV ratings, gross minimizations of the horrors of slavery and disparaging references to ‘social justice warriors’ and ‘identity politics’.
Late Saturday night, US Soccer issued a statement distancing itself from Jahn’s remarks.
‘The offensive comments made from the floor by a delegate during today’s annual general meeting do not represent the views of US Soccer,’ the statement read. ‘As we reflect on a successful AGM, we also want to underline the importance of US Soccer’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the federation and across our membership. An important step forward in this process was the repeal of Policy 601-4 today during the national countil meeting. As US Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone said after the AGM, there is never a place for racist comments in any form.’” Read more at The Guardian
“Donald Trump returns to the political stage on Sunday determined to show that he is still a majorin the Republican party.
In his first post-presidential speech, Trump will address the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives in Orlando, Florida, immediately after a poll is expected to show he is most attendees’ first choice for the Republican nomination in 2024.
‘We’re looking forward to Sunday,’ Trump’s son, Don Jr, told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). ‘I imagine it will not be what we call a low energy speech, and I assure you that it will solidify Donald Trump and all of your feelings about the Maga [Make America great again] movement as the future of the Republican party.’
‘The base is solidly behind him’: Trumpism expected to thrive at CPAC
CPAC has always offered a glimpse of tectonic plates shifting beneath the conservative movement. In 2009 the conference disavowed the presidency of George W Bush, which had led to the Iraq war and ended in financial catastrophe. In 2016 it was wary of Trump, who cancelled his speech, but a year later it had fully embraced him and his administration.
In 2021 the conference seems to offer proof that the Republican party is no longer in the political mainstream but has veered into far-right extremism. Speakers have raged against ‘cancel culture’, radical socialism and ‘big tech’ companies while pushing Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud and denying he has any culpability for the subsequent insurrection at the US Capitol.
CPAC is also working doubly hard to shore up Trump’s position as Republican standard bearer even after he lost the trifecta of White House, House of Representatives and Senate and was twice impeached.
Matt Schlapp, the president of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, told the Washington Post: ‘Even though Donald Trump is a one-term president, there’s this feeling among Republicans that he was a huge, smashing success.’
A statue of Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, 26 February 2021. Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters
‘That doesn’t mean that every moment of every day, of every news cycle, was pleasurable. What it means is that from a policy perspective, he basically ticked through the list of things that he said he would do.’” Read more at The Guardian
“Virginia is on the path to legalizing recreational marijuana under a regulated market by 2024, under contentious legislation that cleared the legislature Saturday night.
The measure would set up a new state agency to rule over the eventual legal marijuana market. But lawmakers punted to next year key decisions on the regulatory framework for the market and the new criminal penalties that would go into effect when marijuana is legalized.
Seven Democrats in the House and one in the Senate broke ranks with their party and did not support the measure. In the House, several lawmakers said a delay to legalize simple possession until there is a legal market in 2024 unjustly continues the disparate criminalization of Virginians of color.
Republicans broadly opposed the measure in both chambers, arguing that the eleventh-hour deal between House and Senate Democrats on a behemoth bill they didn’t fully understand was a disservice to Virginians.
The measure now heads to the desk of Gov. Ralph Northam, who has been adamant in talks with legislators that marijuana legalization is a top priority for his administration. On Saturday and through negotiations, Northam was personally involved in cementing a deal between the chambers.
The bill’s journey through the General Assembly was fraught up until its final passage, and it appears that further debate awaits. Key Democrats on Saturday said they anticipated Northam would issue amendments on the bill to address concerns.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo was accused Saturday by a second former female aide of sexual harassment.
The ex-aide, Charlotte Bennett, told The New York Times that she was repeatedly made to feel uncomfortable by Cuomo after she was hired in 2019 in the governor's office.
In particular, the 25-year-old woman said the governor had asked her questions about her personal life, such as whether age makes a difference in a relationship.
She told the paper that while the Democratic governor never tried to touch her, she felt he was being inappropriate, especially after a June 5 exchange in his state Capitol office in Albany as she worked on the staff's COVID-19 response.
She left the administration in November and had previously made her concerns known to her supervisors, the paper reported.” Read more at USA Today
“A screaming man with his fist raised, a Byzantine cross emblazoned in red on his T-shirt. A white flag with a lone green pine tree and the words ‘An Appeal to Heaven’ fluttering over the angry crowd. The Christian flag whipping in the wind from a parked pickup.
Those images on display at the Jan. 5-6 rally and riot in Washington, D.C., have raised concerns that some of former President Donald Trump's most ardent and dangerous supporters, including groups such as the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, QAnon, 3 Percenters and America Firsters, are cloaking themselves in Biblical language to justify their actions.
The flags and other displays are the latest examples of how white terrorists throughout history, including the KKK, have cited Christianity to justify what they claim is their god-given right to control races and ethnic groups, experts said.
The displays — including a prayer from the Senate rostrum by a QAnon shaman who broke into the Capitol — have so alarmed some faith leaders that they published an open letter Friday signed by more than 1,400 pastors and church leaders condemning the "perversion" of their faith.
‘The use of Christian symbols, iconography, scripture in efforts to dominate and exclude are as old the republic itself,’ said the Rev. Fred Davie, executive vice president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. ‘It's deeply baked into our nation. It's deep, but it's also been proven time and time again to be wrong.’
Davie, who served as a faith liaison in the Obama White House, said evangelicalism, in particular, has become associated with American nationalism, specifically white nationalism. Online, some hard-right Christians find acceptance for their racist beliefs from white nationalists, most of whom don't share their faith but are united in their hatred.
‘We're talking about a minority within a minority, but it is a powerful minority,’ Davie said. ‘But they do not represent the essence of white Christians in America — or Christians in America overall.’
Some of the people who display Christian symbols or invoke the Bible to justify their actions are doing it in a largely cynical way, several experts said: They're sending a signal to fellow racists.
‘For them, it's just shorthand for identity,’ said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a former prosecutor in Georgia. ‘There absolutely is a connection between far-right political extremism and far-right religious extremism, but I doubt these people are showing up at church every Sunday and reading their Bibles.’” Read more at USA Today
“Led by loyalists who embrace former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election, Republicans in state legislatures nationwide are mounting extraordinary efforts to change the rules of voting and representation — and enhance their own political clout.
At the top of those efforts is a slew of bills raising new barriers to casting votes, particularly the mail ballots that Democrats flocked to in the 2020 election. But other measures go well beyond that, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules for the benefit of Republicans; clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives; and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections, which were crucial to the smooth November vote.
And although the decennial redrawing of political maps has been pushed to the fall because of delays in delivering 2020 census totals, there are already signs of an aggressive drive to further gerrymander political districts, particularly in states under complete Republican control.
The national Republican Party joined the movement this past week by setting up a Committee on Election Integrity to scrutinize state election laws, echoing similar moves by Republicans in a number of state legislatures.” Read more at New York Times
“A civil case against Anne Sacoolas resumes Wednesday in Virginia. She's accused of driving on the wrong side of the road in England and killing Harry Dunn, 19. She claimed diplomatic immunity and fled to the US after the August 2019 deadly collision outside RAF Croughton, a military base used as a global intelligence gathering station by the CIA.” Read more at CNN
“Online chatter suggests QAnon supporters believe former President Trump could still be inaugurated Thursday. National Guard troops will remain in Washington through mid-March over concerns about potential violence. ‘Some of these people figured out that apparently 75 years ago, the President used to be inaugurated on March 4. Okay, now why that's relevant, God knows,’ said Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee.” Read more at CNN
“The Golden Globe Awards ceremony airs at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, kicking off this year's socially distanced awards season. This year's ceremony will be different with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting it from different coasts. It also comes after a bombshell report alleging questionable ethical practices.” Read more at CNN
Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times
“These gummies will get you high, and may even be legal.
A once-ignored derivative of hemp called Delta-8-THC has become a hot seller for people looking for a loophole around marijuana laws.
Delta 8 is an only slightly chemically different form of Delta 9, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. But it wasn’t mentioned in the 2018 Farm Bill, an enormous piece of federal legislation that, among many other things, legalized widespread hemp farming and distribution.
So entrepreneurs began extracting and packaging it, and, as one Austin-based entrepreneur said, the number of customers ‘coming into Delta 8 is staggering.’” Read more at New York Times