“As thousands of Native Americans watched online, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) was confirmed as secretary of the Interior Department by a 51-to-40 vote in the Senate, making her the first American Indian to lead an agency that manages a vast portfolio of federal land and the oil and mineral wealth that lies beneath it.
Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation in New Mexico and whose family ties in the country can be traced back 35 generations, will take control of a department that also oversees Indian Country, 574 federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native communities.
Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote for Haaland. The close vote reflected broad support from Democrats and overwhelming opposition from Republicans.
Many Republicans decried Haaland’s support for the Green New Deal, which calls for dramatically lowering fossil-fuel emissions, and her opposition to an expansion of oil and gas drilling on public land, saying the positions disqualified her to lead an agency that has traditionally promoted those ventures.” Read more at Washington Post
“The World Health Organization has scheduled a meeting with safety experts Tuesday to address AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine after Germany, France, Spain and Italy suspended its use . The WHO is urging countries to continue using the vaccine, saying there's no evidence of a connection to blood clots. The German Health Minister, Jens Spahn, said the suspension was a "purely precautionary measure'' pending further investigation. AstraZeneca has said there is no cause for concern and that there were fewer reported cases of clotting in those who received the shot than in the general population. An official said the vaccine could win U.S. authorization next month.
In more vaccine news: Mississippi on Tuesday will join Alaska in allowing all adults to get vaccinated. Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted: ‘Get your shot friends — and let’s get back to normal!’” Read more at USA Today
“Sluggish rollout. Any halt in vaccine distribution will slow an already sluggish rollout for EU member states, who were already at odds with AstraZeneca over delivery delays. Only 7.7 percent of the EU’s population has received a first vaccine dose, far behind the numbers receiving their first shots in the United Kingdom (36 percent) and the United States (21 percent).
A third wave? It also comes as Europe prepares for a third wave of infections. Cases are on an upward trajectory in the bloc, with roughly 126,000 new coronavirus cases daily—more than double the daily figure in the United States.
Although worries of fatally adverse side effects are so far unfounded, AstraZeneca does face some undisputed problems. Over the weekend, it emerged that the company may only deliver 100 million doses to the EU by the end of the second quarter of 2021, far short of the 300 million it had previously promised.
Any reputational dent will be felt far beyond the EU’s borders. African Union member states have placed a huge bet on the vaccine, ordering 500 million doses, a bigger order than the EU, United States, or the COVAX initiative. The vaccine is also the shot of choice for Latin America, with 150 million doses on order. As well as being easier to store, AstraZeneca’s vaccine is also much cheaper than rivals, at roughly $4 a dose versus around $20 for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.
Europe’s uncertainty has not deterred Mexico, whose government has asked the United States for a vaccine ‘loan’ of the AstraZeneca vaccines it already has in stock. Unlike their U.S. counterparts, Mexican authorities have already approved the vaccine.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“The American Red Cross reports about 1 in 5 blood donations from unvaccinated people have Covid-19 antibodies, meaning those donors had likely been infected with the coronavirus at some point.” Read more at CNN
“President Biden is facing growing political tension over his administration's strategy on the US-Mexico border. Republicans are calling the situation a failure of Biden's leadership, while some Democrats are suggesting that detaining families and children in temporary facilities is no better than how Trump handled migrant children while in office. More than 4,000 children have been stuck in Border Patrol-run facilities, which are akin to jail-like conditions, for extended periods because there is not enough shelter space to adequately care for them. There are a few factors behind the spike: devastation from two hurricanes last year, the toll of the pandemic and the perception that enforcement is now more relaxed. Still, CNN's Stephen Collinson writes, the issue is fast becoming a political emergency for the new President.” Read more at CNN
“Two men have been arrested and charged with assaulting US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after responding to hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Federal authorities said they were pursuing a murder investigation in the weeks after Sicknick's death. But they struggled to build a federal murder case as they pored over videos and images trying to determine the moment in which he suffered his fatal injuries. Neither of the alleged rioters ended up being charged with murder. In a separate case, a 16-year-old testified against her father in court about his resolve to take part in the Capitol insurrection. It's one of the most searing examples of how close family and friends have aided authorities in investigating the riot.” Read more at CNN
“MELBOURNE, Australia — Wearing black and holding signs reading ‘enough is enough,’ thousands took to the streets across Australia on Monday to protest violence and discrimination against women, as a reckoning in the country’s halls of power sparked by multiple accusations of rape continued to grow.
The marches in at least 40 cities represented an outpouring of anger from women about a problem that has gone unaddressed for too long, said the organizers, who estimated that 110,000 people attended the demonstrations nationwide.
With the next national election potentially coming as early as August, experts say it is something that the conservative government, which has come under stinging criticism for the way it has handled the accusations, ignores at its own peril.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The FBI is facing new scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justice, after a lawmaker suggested that the investigation may have been ‘fake.’
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate ‘proper oversight’ by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
The supreme court justice was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and faced several other allegations of misconduct following Ford’s harrowing testimony of an alleged assault when she and Kavanaugh were in high school.
Kavanaugh denied the claims.
The FBI was called to investigate the allegations during the Senate confirmation process but was later accused by some Democratic senators of conducting an incomplete background check. For example, two key witnesses – Ford and Kavanaugh – were never interviewed as part of the inquiry.
Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence.” Read more at The Guardian
“Purdue Pharma's owners increase their settlement offer. The family that owns the OxyContin maker agreed to pay roughly $4.28 billion—a larger sum than previously promised—to resolve lawsuits accusing it of helping to fuel the opioid epidemic.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Britain’s Prince Philip left a London hospital on Tuesday after being treated for an infection and undergoing a heart procedure.
Philip, 99, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, had been hospitalized since being admitted to the private King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Feb. 16, where he was treated for an infection.” Read more at USA Today
“The Democratic-led House hopes to revive a Clinton-era law to strengthen domestic violence and sexual violence protections for women . The Violence Against Women Act has been in a legislative limbo since it expired in 2018 over disputes from some Republican lawmakers. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., one of the only Republicans publicly supporting the legislation thus far, introduced the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 at the beginning of March, which is Women's History Month. It will be considered in committee on Tuesday morning. The act has been updated and reauthorized three times — in 2000, 2005 and 2013. Updates over the years have had bipartisan backing and included new programs to protect elderly women and women with disabilities; mandatory funding for rape prevention and education; and new protections for victims of trafficking.” Read more at USA Today
“The Vatican’s declaration that same-sex unions are a sin the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless was no surprise for LGBTQ Catholics in the United States — yet it stung deeply nonetheless.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said her organization’s membership includes same-sex couples who have been together for decades, persevering in their love for one another in the face of bias and family rejection.
‘The fact that our church at its highest levels cannot recognize the grace in that and cannot extend any sort of blessing to these couples is just tragic,’ she said.
She was responding to a formal statement Monday from the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying Roman Catholic clergy may not bless such unions since God ‘cannot bless sin.’ It was approved by Pope Francis.” Read more at Time
“A prominent order of Catholic priests has pledged to raise $100 millionto atone for the buying, selling and enslavement of Black people.” Read more at New York Times
“Brexit troubles. The European Union has initiated legal proceedings against the United Kingdom for unilaterally changing the terms of trading agreements between the two sides. Under the Brexit deal, a grace period for import checks on some goods arriving in Northern Ireland—which is part of the U.K. but remains in the EU single market for goods—is due to end in March. The British government’s decision to unilaterally extend that grace period to Oct. 1 led to the EU’s legal action.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Thunderstorms are expected to stall over the South on Tuesday, ‘leading to rounds of downpours from Louisiana to the Carolinas throughout the day,’ according to AccuWeather. At the same time, a snowstorm is pressing east in California and the Pacific Northwest. That system will bring more mountain snow and rain, and by Wednesday morning, ‘intensify over the southern Plains,’ the weather service warned. It said that could mean more thunderstorms, tornadoes and ‘torrential downpours’ by midweek in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. The weather follows a winter storm in the Rocky Mountains, which closed roads, canceled flights and prompted avalanche warnings over the weekend.” Read more at USA Today
“1.2 million — The number of HIV-positive people in the U.S. in 2018, according to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gilead and Merck, two pharmaceutical companies and longtime rivals in HIV drugs, said they would work together to develop a new therapy for the disease. Gilead and Merck will split sales of any drugs up to certain sales thresholds, after which Gilead will take 65% of sales, with Merck getting the remainder.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“$1.5 trillion — The collective equity in 2020 that U.S. homeowners gained from a year earlier. Homeowners have been the biggest winners in the pandemic-inspired housing boom that has driven median house prices to new records, as a glut of buyers compete for property in a market that can't keep up with demand. Homeowners have also managed to save money over the past year by refinancing their mortgages at record-low rates.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The musicians of the Metropolitan Opera House have not been paid in almost a year. One cellist has sold his prized 19th-century bow.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Nicknamed the Queen of Dreams, Dr. Rosalind D. Cartwright studied the role of dreaming in divorce-induced depression, worked with sleep apnea patients and helped open one of the first sleep disorder clinics. She died at 98.” Read more at New York Times
“After a pandemic year that shuttered movie theaters and upended the movie business, Academy Awards nominations on Monday went to two female filmmakers for the first time, to a historically diverse slate of actors and to David Fincher’s lead-nominee ‘Mank,’ a traditional kind of Oscar contender — an old Hollywood homage — in very untraditional year.
Fincher’s ‘Mank,’ a black-and-white, period drama about ‘Citizen Kane’ screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, easily topped nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards — delayed two months by the coronavirus pandemic — with 10 nominations, including best picture, best director, acting nods for Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, and a host of others for its lavish craft.
Nominations were spread among a wide variety of contenders. Six films, all of them also up for best picture, score six nods: ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ ‘Nomadland,’ ‘Minari,’ ‘Sound of Metal,’ ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ and ‘The Father.’ Also nominated for best picture was Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman.’
History was made in the best director category. Only five women have ever been nominated before. For the first time, two were this year. Chloé Zhao got a nod for her elegiac road-trip drama ‘Nomadland’ alongside first-time feature filmmaker Fennell for her pitch black #MeToo revenge comedy. ‘Never going to stop crying,’ Fennell, also nominated for best screenplay, said on Twitter.
Zhao, the first woman of color nominated for best director, is the most nominated woman in a single year in Oscar history. She was also tipped for the film’s adapted screenplay, editing and as a producer in the best picture category. The other directing nominees were Lee Isaac Chung for the tender family drama ‘Minari,’ Fincher for ‘Mank’ and Thomas Vinterberg for his heavy-drinking Danish tragicomedy ‘Another Round.’
For performers, it’s the most diverse group of nominees ever — and a far cry from the all-white acting nods that spawned the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag five years ago. Nine of the 20 acting nominees are people of color, including a posthumous best-actor nomination for Chadwick Boseman (‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’), as well as nods for Riz Ahmed (‘Sound of Metal’), Steven Yeun (‘Minari’), Viola Davis (‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’) and Andra Day (‘The People vs. Billie Holiday’) and supporting nominations for Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield (‘Judas and the Black Messiah’), Leslie Odom Jr. (‘One Night in Miami’) and Yuh-Jung Youn (‘Minari’)….
Davis, who won for her performance in 2016’s ‘Fences,’ landed her fourth Oscar nomination, making her the most nominated Black actress ever. Yeun is the first Asian American ever nominated for best actor. ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ Shaka King’s powerful Black Panther drama, is the first best-picture nominee with an all-Black producing team (King along with Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King). Overall, a record 70 women were nominated for 76 Oscars, the academy said.
The other nominees for best actress are: Carey Mulligan (‘Promising Young Woman’); Frances McDormand (‘Nomadland’); Vanessa Kirby (‘Pieces of a Woman’). The remaining nominee for best actor is Anthony Hopkins for the dementia drama ‘The Father.’
With moviegoing nearly snuffed out by the coronavirus, the best-picture nominees had hardly any box office to speak of: $14.1 million in U.S. and Canada ticket sales. For the first time, Hollywood’s biggest and most sough-after awards belong to movies that were almost entirely seen at home.
‘We learned a lot of hard lessons last year, but a nice one was that people will find a way to go to the movies, even if they can only go as far as their living rooms,’ said Aaron Sorkin, writer-director of ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7,’ in a statement.
Netflix, as expected, led all studios with 35 nominations. The streaming service is still hunting its first best-picture winner, and this year has two shots in ‘Mank’ and ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ — a movie Paramount Pictures sold off during the pandemic. Netflix led last year, too, with 24 nominations, but came away with just two wins.” Read more at AP
Israel Antiquities Authority conservator Tanya Bitler shows newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll fragments at the Dead Sea scrolls conservation lab in Jerusalem, Tuesday, March 16, 2021 (Sebastian Scheiner/AP)
“Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday revealed dozens of recently-discovered fragments of biblical texts, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which build on a collection of ancient Jewish religious manuscripts that was first discovered 60 years ago.
Israel’s Antiquities Authorities said that the pieces of parchment feature lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum which have been radiocarbon dated to the 2nd century A.D.
The discovery is the result of a years-long Israeli excavation in the Judean Desert and are believed to belong to a set known as ‘The Cave of Horror,’ named for the 40 human skeletons found during excavations in the 1960s. They bear a Greek rendition of the Twelve Minor Prophets.” Read more at Washington Post
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