“Authorities on Wednesday said Robert Aaron Long, who is suspected of killing eight people, six of whom were Asian women, at three spas in Georgia on Tuesday was officially charged by authorities with eight counts of murder. Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, will appear in court for his arraignment Thursday. Four of the counts against Long are related to shootings at a spa in Acworth, which is in Cherokee County. The other four counts are related to shootings at two spas in Atlanta. Rodney Bryant, Atlanta's police chief, said it was too soon in the investigation to say whether the shootings were a hate crime. Reynolds said Long told authorities that his actions were not racially motivated and that he had a sex addiction. Long had been in rehab for sex addiction and was wracked with guilt about his sexual urges, according to two people who lived with him in transitional housing. Grace Kao, an expert on Asian American studies and the sociology department chair at Yale University, said it was hard to disentangle race from the killings.” Read more at USA Today
“Experts and activists say the disproportionate toll on Asian women was no coincidence and that the suspect's remarks are rooted in a history of misogyny and stereotypes directed at Asian women. The attacks are heightening the fear many Asian Americans were already feeling over a rising tide of hate and violence. The suspect faces charges of murder and aggravated assault, and Atlanta's mayor said a hate crime charge would be ‘appropriate.’” Read more at CNN
“Canada is expanding its use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to seniors, even as other countries pause their rollouts. Europe, meanwhile, is trying to calm the panic around that shot. A French hospitals official said the AstraZeneca vaccine is as effective as the Pfizer one, while Italy's health minister said vaccines are the way to end this pandemic. The Biden administration is considering sending some stockpiled AstraZeneca doses that are waiting for official approval in the US to Canada and Mexico. Despite the promising progress on vaccinations, some experts worry the US could be headed for another surge. And Brazil reported its highest daily increase of infections since the pandemic began, a day after its daily Covid-19 death toll hit a new high.” Read more at CNN
“‘Amazon brags it pays workers above the minimum wage. What they don't tell you is what those jobs are really like.’ That's one of the searing lines delivered by an Amazon warehouse employee who testified yesterday before a Senate committee. She described intense 10-hour shifts with just two 30-minute breaks that she said weren't enough to get adequate rest. Her testimony came as a milestone vote on whether Amazon workers in central Alabama should unionize is underway. The union efforts have garnered support from leaders including Biden and Stacey Abrams. Amazon, though, has waged an aggressive anti-union campaign leading up to the vote.” Read more at CNN
“Americans will have until May 17 to file their federal taxes because of the pandemic.” Read more at New York Times
“The House voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act. Senate Republicans object to new provisions that would make it harder for domestic abusers to buy guns.” Read more at New York Times
“The House voted to award congressional gold medals to police officers who protected the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack. Twelve Republicans voted no.” Read more at New York Times
“Scientists grew mouse embryos inside an artificial womb, raising the possibility that other animals — even humans — could someday be cultured outside a living uterus.” Read more at New York Times
“House Republicans passed a resolution during their conference meeting on Wednesday in support of restoring earmarks.
The House GOP's 102-84 vote comes as Democrats gear up to revive the practice, which allows members to secure federal funding for specific projects.
Republicans in the lower chamber stopped the practice in 2011, citing a number of controversies stemming from earmarks including the so-called Bridge to Nowhere and the Jack Abramoff scandal.
The effort to support their restoration with a number of reforms — including a requirement that they must be publicly disclosed with written justification and members can't have a financial interest — was led by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.).
Proponents argue that Congress handed too much power to the executive branch by eliminating earmarks, arguing they are needed to restore the power of the purse.” Read more at The Hill
“President Joe Biden's top national security advisers will meet with Chinese diplomats Thursday in a high-stakes showdown that could determine whether Washington and Beijing are headed for a new ‘cold war’ or a diplomatic thaw. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will lead the two days of talks in Anchorage, Alaska, which come a day after the U.S. sanctioned 24 Chinese officials over Beijing's crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong. The administration has signaled it will take a hard line on Hong Kong, as well as on China's mass internment of Uyghur Muslims, aggression toward Taiwan and trade coercion against Australia.” Read more at USA Today
“Jury selection is scheduled to resume Thursday morning in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man. The incident sparked protests worldwide. Two more jurors were chosen Wednesday, replacing two who were cut because they said they couldn't be impartial after hearing about the city's historic $27 million settlement with Floyd's family . ‘We're back where we started this morning, but it's better than being behind,’ Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said. No jurors were selected Tuesday. Nine of 12 jurors have been seated so far; two alternates also will be selected. Five of the nine jurors identify as white, one as multiracial and three as Black, according to the court.” Read more at USA Today
“There will be a continued threat of widespread severe storms across the Southeast into Thursday, Weather.com reported. School systems in Alabama and Mississippi canceled classes, planned online sessions or announced early dismissals because of the threat. On Wednesday afternoon, a tornado reportedly damaged homes in Wayne County, Mississippi, the National Weather Service said. At least nine tornadoes were reported across the South on Wednesday, the weather service's Storm Prediction Center said: Six in Alabama, two in Mississippi and one in Louisiana. No injuries were reported. The weather service also issued more than 50 tornado warnings in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. Nearly 22,000 homes and businesses in Mississippi and Alabama were still without power Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us.” Read more at USA Today
“ Legislation creating an independent, bipartisan panel to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is stalled, for now, with Democrats and Republicans split over the scope and structure of a review that would revisit the deadly attack and assess former President Donald Trump’s role.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pushed for the commission, which would be modeled after the panel that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. But unlike 9/11, which engendered some unity in Congress almost two decades ago, the insurrection by Trump’s supporters has pulled Democrats and Republicans further apart, even on the basic question of what should be investigated.” Read more at AP
“Americans on the right half of the political spectrum have tended to underplay the risk of Covid-19. They have been less willing to wear masks or avoid indoor gatherings and have been more hesitant to get vaccinated.
These attitudes are part of a larger pattern in which American conservatives are often skeptical of public-health warnings from scientists — on climate change, air pollution, gun violence, school lunches and more. In the case of Covid, Republican politicians and media figures have encouraged risky behavior by making false statements about the virus.
To many liberals, Covid has become another example of the modern Republican Party’s hostility to facts and evidence. And that charge certainly has some truth to it. Yet the particular story with Covid is also more complicated — because conservatives aren’t the only ones misinterpreting scientific evidence in systematic ways. Americans on the left half of the political spectrum are doing it, too.
That’s a central finding from a survey of 35,000 Americans by Gallup and Franklin Templeton. It finds that both liberals and conservatives suffer from misperceptions about the pandemic — in opposite directions. ‘Republicans consistently underestimate risks, while Democrats consistently overestimate them,’ Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist, and Sonal Desai, a Franklin Templeton executive, write.
The mistakes people make
More than one-third of Republican voters, for example, said that people without Covid symptoms could not spread the virus. Similar shares said that Covid was killing fewer people than either the seasonal flu or vehicle crashes. All of those beliefs are wrong, and badly so. Asymptomatic spread is a major source of transmission, and Covid has killed about 15 times more Americans than either the flu or vehicle crashes do in a typical year.
Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is about 1 percent.
Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.
It’s true that some of these misperceptions reflect the fact that most people are not epidemiologists and that estimating medical statistics is difficult. Still, the errors do have a connection to real-world behavior, Rothwell told me.
Republicans’ underestimation of Covid risks helps explain their resistance to wearing a mask — even though doing so could save their own life or that of a family member. And Democrats’ overestimation of risks explains why so many have accepted school closures — despite the damage being done to children, in lost learning, lost social connections and, in the case of poorer children, missed meals.
The states with the highest share of closed schools are all blue states: California, Oregon, Maryland, New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada, Massachusetts and New Jersey. ‘I think in many ways it’s based on the fact that these voters are misinformed about the risks to young people and they’re misinformed about the risks generally,’ Rothwell said.
Information can help
The reasons for these ideological biases aren’t completely clear, but they are not shocking. Conservatives tend to be more hostile to behavior restrictions and to scientific research. And liberals sometimes overreact to social problems. (A classic example was the overpopulation scare of the 1960s and ’70s, when people on the left wrongly predicted that the world would run out of food.)
Covid, of course, represents a real crisis, one that has already killed more than a half-million Americans and continues to kill more than 1,000 per day. As in the case of many crises, underreaction has been the bigger problem with Covid — but it has not been the only problem.
Perhaps the best news from the Gallup survey was that some people were willing to revisit their beliefs when given new information. Republicans took the pandemic more seriously after being told that the number of new cases was rising, and Democrats were more favorable to in-person schooling after hearing that the American Academy of Pediatrics supports it.
‘That’s very encouraging,’ Rothwell told me. ‘It’s discouraging that people didn’t already know it.’ Read more at New York Times
“Supply woes slam global manufacturing. Everywhere you look, including a recovering Texas and crammed U.S. ports, the global supply chain is a mess. The disruptions underscore how several forces are coming together to squeeze the world’s supply chains.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Fed holds steady. Central bank officials highlighted an improved outlook for growth as the Federal Reserve kept its easy-money policies in place and vowed to maintain them until the U.S. economy recovers further from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Army has rejected an appeal to return medals for valor to retired Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a Special Forces soldier former President Donald Trump pardoned for alleged murder in Afghanistan. It was one of three high-profile cases in which Trump interceded on behalf of troops accused of war crimes.” Read more at USA Today
“House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy will introduce a resolution today calling for Democrats to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee, Punchbowl News scoops. In December, Axios reported Swalwell's ties to a suspected Chinese spy.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: James Levine was the guiding maestro of New York’s Metropolitan Opera for more than 40 years, until allegations of sexual abuse ended his career in 2017. He died at 77.” Read more at New York Times
“Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Kobe Bryant, has revealed the names of four Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies she accuses of improperly sharing photos of her late husband's remains at the site of his fatal helicopter crash last year. She is suing the deputies, the sheriff’s department, the L.A. County Fire Department and the County of Los Angeles, accusing them of invasion of privacy and negligence.” Read more at USA Today
“Sad news out of Utah as former NBA center Shawn Bradley is paralyzed after he was struck by a vehicle while riding his bike on Jan. 20 near his home in St. George, the Dallas Mavericks said in a statement. He sustained a traumatic spinal cord injury, and after neck fusion surgery, he has spent the past eight weeks in the hospital and undergoing rehab.” Read more at USA Today
“Boeing faces a new hurdle in delivering Dreamliners. Federal air-safety regulators have stripped the plane maker's authority to inspect and sign off on several newly produced 787 Dreamliners, part of heightened scrutiny of production problems that have halted deliveries of the popular wide-body jets.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“$10 billion — The approximate value of unused travel credits that American, United, Delta and Southwest—the four biggest U.S. airlines—had on their books at the end of 2020. Many of those credits have complicated terms that can make them difficult to use, and they are due to expire soon as the CDC continues to advise against flying and many travelers remain hesitant. Some borders are also still closed to U.S. fliers.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
The unfinished border wall at the Coronado National Memorial. The border wall is already one of the costliest megaprojects in United States history, with an estimated eventual price tag of more than $15 billion.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
“The sweeping view of undefiled wilderness on the border with Mexico long rewarded hikers who completed the Arizona Trail, an 800-mile route winding through deserts, canyons and forests.
Then something else came into focus a few weeks ago at the forbidding site in the Huachuca Mountains: a lonely segment of border wall, connected to nothing at all, in an area where migrants rarely even try to cross into the United States.
“There it was, this unfinished piece of completely pointless wall, right in this magical place,” said Julia Sheehan, 31, a nurse and former Air Force mechanic who trekked to the site with three other military veterans who are hiking the Arizona Trail. “It’s one of the most senseless things I’ve ever seen.”
The quarter-mile fragment of wall is part of an array of new barrier segments along the border, some of them bizarre in appearance and of no apparent utility, that contractors rushed to build in the waning days of the Trump administration — well after President Biden made it clear that he would halt border wall construction.
Now the incomplete border wall, already one of the costliest megaprojects in United States history, with an estimated eventual price tag of more than $15 billion, is igniting tensions again as critics urge Mr. Biden to tear down parts of the wall and Republican leaders call on him to finish it.
The latest controversy over the wall comes amid a significant increase in migration across the border that is prompting U.S. authorities to search for extra places to hold new arrivals, especially unaccompanied children and teenagers. More than 9,400 young migrants arrived along the border without parents in February, a nearly threefold increase over last year at the same time, creating a serious humanitarian challenge.
The Biden administration suspended construction on the border wall on Jan. 20, the president’s first day in office, announcing a 60-day period during which officials are determining how to proceed.
Donald J. Trump made the wall a symbol of his administration’s efforts to slash immigration. While many stretches of the 1,954-mile border already had some low-level barriers built by previous administrations, the project was mired in controversy from the start.
Only a few miles were built in South Texas, the area most prone to illegal crossings. Instead, much of the construction, especially in the Trump administration’s closing days, has taken place in remote parts of Arizona where crossings in recent years have been relatively uncommon.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency responsible for selecting border wall construction sites, contended in a statement last week that locations chosen for new border barriers are ‘areas of high illegal entry.’
‘Border barriers slow and stop illegal activity,’ said Matthew Dyman, a C.B.P. spokesman.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Mr. Biden’s homeland security secretary, has been directed to decide whether to ‘resume, modify, or terminate’ projects when the 60-day suspension ends this month. But the last-minute construction efforts, with much of the rushed building activity taking place in the days between the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump loyalists and Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, have left a curious tableau for the new administration to evaluate.
Some stretches of the border, especially on federal lands that are relatively flat, now have long, continuous segments of 30-foot high steel barriers that could endure in the desert for decades to come.
But in other areas, border-crossers can easily tiptoe around far-flung islands of wall, some of which look more like conceptual art pieces than imposing barriers to entry.
There are half-dynamited mountaintops where work crews put down their tools in January, leaving a heightened risk of rapid erosion and even dangerous landslides as the summer monsoon season approaches.
In some areas, colossal piles of unused steel bollards linger at deserted work sites, next to idled bulldozers and water-hauling trucks. In Arizona, ranchers are complaining that rough roads carved by work crews into hillsides near uncompleted segments of wall now serve as easy access points for smugglers and others seeking to enter the once-remote areas along the border….
Altogether, the Trump administration completed about 453 miles of border wall since 2017. Billions of dollars for the wall were diverted from funding originally appropriated to the Defense Department.
Most of the construction involved upgrading smaller existing barriers. In places where no barriers previously existed, such as the rugged terrain where the Arizona Trail winds to its terminus, the Trump administration built a total of 47 miles of new primary wall.” Read more at New York Times
“Rutte wins in the Netherlands. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is on course for reelection as exit polls predict his People’s Party for Freedom & Democracy (VVD) made a two seat improvement on its 2017 result, while the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is projected to lose three seats. The pro-European D-66 party, a junior partner in Rutte’s previous coalition, looks to have won the highest number of seats in its history, coming a strong second behind the VVD.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Tanzania’s political future. Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan is in line to become the country’s first female leader following the death of President John Magufuli.
Hassan made the surprise announcement on Tuesday, saying Magufuli had died of heart failure. Opposition leader Tundu Lissu alleged last week that the president had contracted COVID-19 and had received treatment in Kenya and India. Magufuli, who made headlines over the past year for his dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, had just won a second five-year term in last October’s election. If Hassan does assume the presidency, she would be the first Zanzibari to hold the position.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“An exceptionally rare 15th century porcelain bowl made in China that somehow turned up at a Connecticut yard sale and sold for just $35 was auctioned off Wednesday for nearly $722,000.
The small white bowl adorned with cobalt blue paintings of flowers and other designs — one of only seven such bowls known to exist in the world — was among a variety of Chinese works of art sold by Sotheby’s as part of its Asia Week events. The names of the seller and buyer were not disclosed.”
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