The Full Belmonte, 3/24/2022
In Kyiv today, pictures lie amid the rubble of former teacher Natalia's house, hit in a military strike. Photo: Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters
“The Biden administration formally accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine, Axios' Shawna Chen reports.
‘We've seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities,’ Secretary of State Tony Blinken said in a press statement.
The headline: ‘War Crimes by Russia’s Forces in Ukraine.’
The evidence: ‘Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded,’ the statement says.
‘Many of the sites Russia’s forces have hit have been clearly identifiable as in-use by civilians.’
What's next: Any country can investigate and prosecute war crimes, Axios deputy world editor Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath reports.
But accountability will be difficult: Neither Russia nor the U.S. recognizes the authority of the International Criminal Court, which adjudicates war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.” Read more at Axios
Covers: TIME
“A White House ‘Tiger Team’ of national security officials is sketching responses for the U.S. and allies if Putin "unleashes his stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons," The New York Times reports(subscription).
‘Meeting three times a week, in classified sessions, the team is also looking at responses if Russia seeks to extend the war to neighboring nations, including Moldova and Georgia, and how to prepare European countries for the refugees flowing in on a scale not seen in decades.’
Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said yesterday at a Defense Writers Group event that a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons attack in Ukraine could trigger a response from NATO if fallout from the attack drifted into a neighboring member, Defense One reports.
‘If a nuclear device is detonated and the radiation goes into an adjacent country, that could very well be perceived as an attack against NATO,’ Reed said.” Read more at Axios
Photo: Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images
“Dr. Madeleine Albright — a native of Prague who came to America as a refugee in 1948 and rose to be the first female secretary of state — died today of cancer at age 84, her family said in a statement.
President Bill Clinton chose the Georgetown professor as his ambassador to the UN — and later as secretary of state, which at the time made her the highest-ranking woman in U.S. history, AP writes.
Albright remained outspoken. After leaving office, she criticized President George W. Bush for using "the shock of force" rather than alliances to foster diplomacy.
But as a refugee from Czechoslovakia, she was not a dove. She played a leading role in pressing for the Clinton administration to get militarily involved in the conflict in Kosovo.
She advised women "to act in a more confident manner" and "to ask questions when they occur and don't wait to ask."
‘It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent,’ she said in an interview posted by Huffington Post in 2010.” Read more at Axios
“Brittney Griner, the American basketball player detained in Moscow, was found to be in good condition by a U.S. Embassy official who was granted access to her today, the State Department said.” [Axios} Read more at Reuters
“Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson concluded her two days of questioning late yesterday, having spent about 22 hours this week being grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Throughout the hearings, Jackson has defended her experience and credentials as she faced criticism from Republican senators on her judicial philosophy and legal record. No Democratic senators have signaled they will oppose Jackson, but many Republican senators are expected to oppose the nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to vote on Judge Jackson's Supreme Court nomination on Monday, April 4. In a 50-50 Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker to put Jackson on the high court.” Read more at CNN
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson completed her second day of questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, moving her closer to a confirmation vote by the full Senate in the coming weeks despite GOP attempts to score points during her hearings.
The tenor of Wednesday’s questions took on a nastier tone from Republicans on the dais as they relentlessly pressed Jackson over her handling of seven child pornography cases during her tenure as a district judge (The Hill). Leading the charge were Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), two lawmakers with presidential aspirations.
As The Hill’s Jordain Carney details, Hawley asked Jackson multiple times if she regretted a three-month sentence that she gave in one of the cases, saying that he viewed it as a ‘slap on the wrist.’
‘What I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences,’ Jackson said after Hawley asked multiple times if she regretted it.
Hawley was among a group of senators who asked about the subject, including Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). However, tensions were at their highest between the GOP and Democrats, with the latter accusing the minority party of using the hearings as campaign fodder ahead of the midterm elections and the 2024 presidential race.
On multiple occasions, Cruz tangled with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), with Durbin at one point cutting off the Texas senator after he attempted to go over his allotted 20 minutes to keep questioning Jackson.
‘You have to follow the rules,’ Durbin shot back (The Hill).
However, the GOP concerns over Jackson’s handling of the child pornography cases is not expected to go away. Ten Senate Republicans on the panel signed a letter to Durbin calling for copies of the pre-sentencing reports related to the relevant cases. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) was the lone GOP senator who did not sign on.
The Illinois Democrat declined the request, saying that obtaining the pre-sentencing reports would be unprecedented for the panel.
‘It’s merely a fishing expedition in dangerous territory. ... This has never happened in the history of this committee,’ Durbin said.
Cruz indicated to PBS News that he may boycott the committee’s vote if the reports are not provided. Durbin on Wednesday set a committee vote for April 4 (The Hill).
Barring any last-minute developments, today is set to be the final day of hearings for Jackson’s nomination and will feature a number of legal experts, chosen by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, to testify about her qualifications for the court (The Associated Press).
The Associated Press: Takeaways: Joy, tears, culture wars dominate Jackson hearing.
The Hill: Jackson tears up as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) addresses her historic nomination.
Politico: ‘It's bullshit’: Democrats reject that Jackson is soft on crime.
The Hill: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) knocks GOP attacks on Jackson: ‘There's no ‘there’ there.’” Read more at The Hill
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson at the confirmation hearing yesterday.Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Distorted reality
“Here are a few facts about Ketanji Brown Jackson:
She frequently associates herself with a patriotic narrative of American history. ‘The first of my many blessings,’ she told the Senate this week, ‘is the fact that I was born in this great nation.’
She is not an advocate of critical race theory or other progressive ideas about education. She has never taken a public position on hot-button school issues like whether young children should be taught about gender identity.
As a federal judge, she has a mainstream record, broadly typical of a Democratic nominee. She has often praised law enforcement, including her proud mention this week that her brother and two of her uncles worked as police officers.
You might not know any of this — you might well believe the opposite — if you spent the past few days listening to Republican senators or consuming many conservative media sources.
Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing has turned into a case study of how disconnected from reality large parts of the Republican ecosystem have become. I know that description sounds harsh and will bother some conservative readers. But I think the facts warrant it.
Birtherism to pornography
The debate over Jackson’s nomination has often had little to do with her. It has become an argument over a nominee who does not exist — one who does not respect America, is not truly religious, coddles child abusers and terrorists and has highly developed views about the importance of ‘woke’ education. Yesterday, conservative activists used this portrayal to pressure moderate Democratic senators to vote against Jackson.
Conspiracy theories and unfair accusations have a long history in American politics, of course. But they have often remained on the margins. Today, distortions and falsehoods have moved to the center of politics.
While neither party is entirely innocent, there is a fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. False claims regularly flow from the leaders of the Republican Party — including its most recent president, several of its likely future presidential candidates and the most influential media figures aligned with the party.
Donald Trump began his political career by claiming that Barack Obama was born in Africa and ended his presidency with false accusations of voter fraud. Prominent Republicans regularly cast doubt on the fact that greenhouse gases are warming the planet and contributing to extreme weather. Disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines has been so widespread that almost 40 percent of Republican adults have not received a shot, sometimes with fatal consequences.
There is no comparable list of false information coming from senior members of the Democratic Party.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, presenting details of Judge Jackson’s sentencing history.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times
The Jackson hearings have become the latest example. Several Republican senators — including Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz yesterday — have tried to portray her as soft on child pornographers. Their argument depends on a misleading cherry-picking of facts from cases she has heard.
A useful debunking appeared this week in National Review, the conservative magazine, written by Andrew McCarthy, a former prosecutor who noted that he disagreed with Jackson on many legal matters. McCarthy also wrote that Hawley’s accusations were ‘meritless to the point of demagoguery’ and ‘a smear.’ Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has pointed out that some Trump nominees had a similar record as Jackson in child-pornography cases, and that Hawley voted to confirm them.
Woke education has become another focus of the hearings, with Republicans like Cruz and Marsha Blackburn trying to portray Jackson as an advocate for it. In truth, she has not taken a position on the issues that fall under that category. Her sole — tenuous — connection to them is serving on the board of Georgetown Day School, an elite private school in Washington.
That was apparently enough for the Republican National Committee to tweet an image of her this week, with her initials — KBJ — crossed out and replaced with CRT, an abbreviation for critical race theory. (Much of the Republican criticism of Jackson probably would have applied to any nominee, regardless of race, but it is hard to imagine the same tweet about a white judge.)
The only time Jackson appears to have mentioned critical race theory publicly was in a 2015 speech. It was part of a list of disciplines that she said had an intellectual connection to criminal sentencing, including administrative law, philosophy, psychology and statistics.
A fairer critique
To be fair, Republicans are correct that many of the broader issues are legitimate matters of public debate. And on some of them, Republicans can make a credible case that progressive Democrats are to the left of public opinion (as Thomas Edsall, a Times Opinion columnist, explains).
Most Americans oppose cutting police budgets, for instance. Many believe that allowing all transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports can be unfair to other girls. Many voters — and not just white voters — think that liberals focus too much on racial identity. Most Americans feel proud of the country and its symbols, including those that some progressives consider racist, like Thanksgiving, the Constitution, the flag and George Washington.
But in trying to make Jackson a stand-in for these views, Republican senators are distorting reality. They are creating a caricature of a liberal Democrat that bears little resemblance to Jackson herself.
‘One thing that is striking about this hearing,’ Lori Ringhand, a legal scholar, told The Times, ‘is how little effort we are seeing to engage the nominee on her views about actual legal issues.’
More on the hearings
After hours of patiently responding to accusations, Jackson displayed some pique at Hawley’s focus on pornography and later dabbed her eyes as Senator Cory Booker praised her life story.
A few Republican senators, including John Cornyn and Mike Lee, took a different approach, turning down the temperature to ask substantive questions.” Read more at New York Times
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson plans to recuse herself, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, from a case that alleges that Harvard University's admissions process discriminates against Asian American applicants. Jackson serves on Harvard's board of overseers.” Read more at Axios
“Hours after former President Trump un-endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks in the Alabama Senate primary, Brooks said Trump had ‘asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency.’” Read more at Axios
“The CEOs of 10 airlines and cargo carriers are urging Biden to end mask mandates and Covid-19 testing requirements for international travelers. In a letter to the president, the CEOs argue that federal travel restrictions -- including international predeparture testing and the federal mask mandate -- ‘are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment.’ Earlier this month, the White House moved the end of the transportation mask mandate to April 18 and said government agencies would consult with the CDC to determine if the mandate could expire sooner. The CEOs of Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Atlas Air Worldwide, Delta Air Lines, FedEx Express, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and UPS Airlines all signed the letter.” Read more at CNN
“More than 80 officials from law enforcement and federal agencies have testified before the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Investigators believe this will be the most extensive review yet of security failures that led to the massive breach. While much of what the Democrat-led committee has made public so far has centered around the plotting by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election, aides and lawmakers say this behind-the-scenes review might lead to the bulk of their legislative recommendations and have the most lasting impact. At the same time, Republicans have launched their own investigation into security lapses on January 6, 2021, and plan to release their own recommendations.” Read more at CNN
“Two Michigan brothers, sentenced to life without parole in 1997, have had their murder convictions overturned.” Read more at New York Times
“A senior prosecutor who came out of retirement to work on the Trump investigation resigned after the Manhattan district attorney stopped pursuing an indictment.” Read more at New York Times
Brittainy Newman for The New York Times
“Moderna will seek authorization of its coronavirus vaccine for children younger than 6.” Read more at New York Times
“U.S. President Joe Biden is in Brussels today as he joins EU, G-7, and NATO leaders in taking stock of the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the conflict enters its fifth week.
Biden will spend part of the afternoon gathering with G-7 leaders, he then meets with European Council President Charles Michel before a full summit of EU leaders. He’s scheduled to finish the day with a press conference at NATO headquarters at 3 p.m. Washington time.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, stalemate near Kyiv masks some progress by Russian forces in the south, where the port city of Mariupol is still all that stands between completing a Russian ‘land bridge’ to Crimea. Russia did suffer an apparent naval setback in the area this morning when Ukrainian forces claimed to have destroyed the Russian landing ship Orsk in the nearby port of Berdyansk, which has been occupied by Russia since Feb. 27; photos from the harbor show a plume of black smoke and flames.
The United States raised the stakes of the conflict on Wednesday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken formally declared Russia’s forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing ‘credible reports’ of deliberate attacks on civilians, including those in schools and hospitals.
More sanctions. Western powers are expected to announce further sanctions today, with hundreds of members of Russia’s State Duma—its lower house of parliament—reportedly in the crosshairs, as well as some defense companies. One Russian oligarch not likely to fall under U.S. sanctions is Roman Abramovich, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Biden to spare the soon-to-be-former Chelsea Football Club owner, citing his potential mediating role in Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
Whether the sanctions to date have changed the Kremlin’s calculus remains to be seen, Paul Stronski, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Foreign Policy. ‘We’re certainly seeing some pushback in the Russian elite, but it’s more elites resigning than being able to push change,’ Stronski said, citing the recent resignations of long-time Putin aide Anatoly Chubais and Arkady Dvorkovich, a former deputy prime minister.
The sanctions are only as effective as the coalition implementing them, Stroski said, with China and India’s absence a key factor. ‘Russia is clearly alienated from the West, but it’s not necessarily alienated from the rest of the world,’ Stronski said.
More leverage? Also soon to be announced, a plan to diversify Europe’s gas supply to reduce its reliance on Russian sources and begin replacing it with U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG). Speaking on Air Force One on Wednesday, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the United States was looking for ways ‘to increase LNG supplies—surge LNG supplies to Europe—not just over the course of years, but over the course of months as well.’
How much gas the United States has available to ship is an open question, as is how easily Europe can take on the more infrastructurally challenging LNG. There’s also the knock-on climate effects to consider, as any diversion in supplies already committed to Asia and other destinations may lead to more coal burning to make up for the shortfall.
More troops? As well as sanctions, NATO allies are expected to formally announce the deployment of additional troops to Eastern and Central Europe to shore up NATO’s eastern flank. Speaking on Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he expected leaders would agree to ‘strengthen NATO’s posture in all domains, with major increases to our forces in the eastern part of the alliance: on land, in the air and at sea.’
The plan includes four new NATO battlegroups, with one each for Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said on Wednesday the stationing of troops there could become permanent, a position that is sure to irk the Kremlin, which included a pledge for NATO not to deploy troops in Eastern Europe as part of its demands during negotiations with the United States back in December.
Russia counters. Even as the United States and its allies attempt to increase pressure, Russia is trying its own countermeasures. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced new rules that would force ‘unfriendly countries’ to buy Russian gas in rubles, a ploy designed to prop up the currency’s value as sanctions bite.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“War rebranding | Poland’s unflinching support for Ukrainians — it has taken in at least 2.1 million refugees from the war — has turned into a pivotalmoment for the eastern EU nation. The war effort is giving the country a chance to be a leader in Europe, and may, at least for now, shelve the bitter dispute between the country’s nationalist government and the rest of the bloc over democratic backsliding and the rule of law.” Read more at Bloomberg
“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed the Taliban for ditching its commitment to reopen Afghanistan’s high schools to girls, the latest setback for a regime struggling to gain a footing in the international community.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Biden plans to request $813.3 billion in national security spending — including $773 billion for the Pentagon — in the federal budget he will send to Congress on Monday, officials familiar with the plan said.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Nicaragua’s envoy to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, called President Daniel Ortega a dictator, adding more officials will begin to speak out against his ‘indefensible’ actions.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The World Bank said it has priced the world’s first wildlife bond, raising $150 million that will be partly used for the conservation of black rhinos in South Africa.” Read more at Bloomberg
A sign excoriating Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine is seen outside a partially destroyed church in Malyn, Ukraine, on March 22. (Nuno Veiga/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
“In the dark recesses of Gab.com, a social-media site popular with the far right in the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin is glorified as a conservative lion.
Users post under names such as ‘Rutin 4 Putin’ and ‘Call of Putin: Slavic Warfare.’ One of them who identifies himself as ‘an unvaccinated, pure blooded, non-complying, God fearing, gun owning, and liberty defending patriotic man’ who believes in ‘2 genders and only one God’ wrote that ‘there is more truth coming from Putin than from all of the leaders of western world countries combined.’
That rightist strain of support is built on one of the Russian leader’s lesser-known war tactics: His casting of a Christian catchall — ‘traditional values’ — as a weapon. To defend Russian aggression in Ukraine, he has lobbed disproved claims of U.S.-funded bioweapons labs and a neo-Nazi takeover of the government in Kyiv (both of which have found homes on gab.com as well). But even as Russian bombs kill scores of civilians, Putin has also sought to portray his war as righteous — describing Ukraine as a microcosm of the greater global tug of war between liberal and conservative thought.
His parlance speaks to the rise of Putin as a global touchstone of the far right. Building for years, his crafted image as a right-wing Christian leader is finding its most potent outlet in the horrific war in Ukraine. For the Christian right in the United States and Europe, Putin’s messaging is not so much a dog whistle as a blaring siren. The U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson has said that the Russian leader was ‘compelled by God’ to invade Ukraine. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke this month at a White nationalist event where the crowd was earlier heard chanting ‘Putin! Putin! Putin!’
Even if not embracing Putin the man, others seem to share a certain synergy with his causes. In Republican-dominated Florida, the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill passed this month carries overtones of Russia’s 2013 law banning ‘propaganda for non-traditional sexual relationships’ among minors.
In the world view he espouses, Ukraine’s push to link up with NATO and the European Union is not just a military threat but also a moral one. His war is a holy mission, one meant to stop a brother nation from moving too close to the vice-ridden, atheistic, LBGT-supporting, gender-rights loving West that wants to corrupt Orthodox, conservative Christian mores.
‘They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature,’ Putin said in his prelude to war on Feb. 24. ‘This is not going to happen. No one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now.’
Within Russia, now swirling with the Orwellian propaganda of state media and a law that criminalizes even calling the invasion a ‘war,’ the Kremlin is partly harking back to Soviet portrayals of the decadent West and the dangers of its sinful prescripts. Russian parents, Al Jazeera reported, have recently received letters from schools warning them to watch their children’s use of social media — not only to ensure that they are not lured to ‘unsafe’ antiwar protests, but to also make sure they are not exposed to ‘detailed instructions on gender reassignment, and promotion of same-sex relationships.’
In Moscow, Putin appears to have coordinated the public selling of the war with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Kirill, according to Religion News Service (RNS), spoke to Russian military leaders just hours before the assault on Ukraine began, and hailed Putin for his ‘high and responsible service to the people of Russia.’
‘This religious ramp-up to war was the culmination of a decade-long effort to wrap Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in faith — specifically, the flowing vestments of the Russian Orthodox Church,’ the RNS’s Jack Jenkins wrote. ‘Fusing religion, nationalism, a defense of conservative values that likens same-sex marriage to Nazism, and a version of history that seeks to define Ukraine and other nearby nations as mere subsets of a greater ‘Russkiy mir,’ or Russian world, the partnership of Putin and Kirill laid the ideological and theological groundwork for the invasion.’
Putin’s gradual move to cloak himself in religion and traditional values goes back to at least the mid-2000s, said Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
‘After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, he tried to present himself as the alternative to the liberal and progress West, with Russia as the fortress for supposedly traditional family values,’ Lutsevych said. ‘He was fascinated by Orthodox veneration, and he wanted to create his own system of veneration built on his personality and his preaching of conservative values.’
In Ukraine, she added, Putin’s pull didn’t work. ‘Compared to Russia, Ukraine is super liberal,’ she said. ‘There is a certain mobilization of the right. But over the last 15 years, it has established quite pluralistic rights for minorities, who are protected by law.’
Still, like many of his ilk, Putin’s message can be what the Atlantic Council’s Lukas Andriukaitis described to me as ‘schizophrenic.’ He alternately rails against progressive thought, while leaving pragmatic room for Russian elites who embrace the decadent Wst to still be accepted — as long as they remain unquestionably loyal.
In his recent tirade against the Russian ‘scum’ and ‘traitors’ who do not support his war, Putin said he was not there to judge his countrymen who ‘cannot live without foie gras and mussels or so-called gender-based rights.’ That is, as long as they are ‘mentally’ with Mother Russia.
‘The problem does not lie in this, but I repeat, the fact that many of these people inherently, mentally live elsewhere and not here with us, with our people, with Russia,’ Putin said.” Read more at Washington Post
“Britain's Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are on a weeklong royal tour of the Caribbean, having arrived Tuesday hours after protests were held calling on the monarchy to apologize and pay reparations for its historical role in the slave trade. Prince William and Kate are visiting Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas for a series of engagements to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee year, marking 70 years on the throne. However, protests have overshadowed the trip and a royal engagement was cancelled amid reported opposition from local residents. Britain and Jamaica's relationship stretches back centuries. The island was seized by the British in 1655 and remained under its rule until it gained independence in 1962 but has stayed under the Queen as head of state. The majority of Jamaicans are of African ancestry and are the descendants of slaves trafficked to the country by European colonists.” Read more at CNN
“The NCAA men's basketball tournament picks back up Thursday with the Sweet 16 and a pair of No. 1 seeds and two No. 2 seeds are among the eight teams in action.Gonzaga, the No. 1 overall seed, gets the evening's slate of games started when the Bulldogs face off against No. 4 seed Arkansas (7:09 p.m. ET, CBS).Staying in the West Region, No. 2 seed Duke will look to extend Mike Krzyzewski's coaching career the Blue Devils face No. 3 Texas Tech (9:39 p.m. ET, CBS). Both games will be played in San Francisco. In the South Region, No. 2 seed Villanova will look to end No. 11 seed Michigan's surprise run in the tournament, as the two teams square off for the chance to advance (7:29 p.m. ET, TBS). And in the final game of the evening, Arizona, the top seed in the South Region, will take on No. 5 Houston (9:59 p.m. ET, TBS). Both of those games will be played in San Antonio, Texas.” Read more at USA Today
“New York City mayor Eric Adams plans to lift the private-sector COVID-19 vaccine mandate for professional athletes Thursday, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports. The Associated Press reports the mandate will be lifted for performers as well. This will pave the way for unvaccinated NBA star Kyrie Irving to play in home games for the Brooklyn Nets and for unvaccinated New York Yankees and Mets players to also play in home games when the MLB season begins next month. The city's sweeping vaccine mandate for workers will still apply to people with other types of jobs, including government employees. Adams had said he felt the vaccine rule was unfair when it came to athletes and performers because a loophole in the measure, imposed under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, allowed visiting players and performers who don't work in New York to still play or perform even if they are unvaccinated. ‘We're going to make the right decision,’ Adams said Wednesday.” Read more at USA Today
“New forever home: A dog abandoned at a North Carolina animal shelter for being 'gay' gets adopted by a gay couple.” Read more at USA Today
“Another huge NFL trade: The Kansas City Chiefs have traded six-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins for five draft picks.” Read more at USA Today
“A judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship that for the better part of a decade has governed the life of Amanda Bynes, who shot to fame as a child star on Nickelodeon and went on to have highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.
A court in California first ordered that Ms. Bynes be put in a conservatorship — a legal arrangement typically reserved for people who are older, ailing or have disabilities — in 2013, after erratic public behavior and a series of arrests. Over the years, Ms. Bynes’s parents have overseen her life, taking control of medical and mental health decisions and, for a time, her finances.
The conservatorship system has come under intense scrutiny in the last year, after Britney Spears condemned her own as abusive and accused her father and others of exploiting her and seeking to capitalize off her wealth and stardom. A judge agreed to terminate Spears’s conservatorship in November.
But Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship appeared to reach a smoother ending. Her mother, Lynn Bynes, who had acted as her conservator, told the court that she agreed that her daughter was now ready to live without that level of oversight, and a psychiatrist signed off, writing that Ms. Bynes had ‘no apparent impairment in alertness and attention, information and processing, or ability to modulate mood and affect.’ Ms. Bynes’s lawyer, David A. Esquibias, held her case up as an example of how a conservatorship could be effective in rehabilitating a person while allowing them a degree of autonomy.” Read more at New York Times
Image: Apple
“Apple's quest to let you leave your wallet at home has taken a leap forward: Arizona has become the first state to let people store their official driver's license or ID on their iPhone, Axios' Ina Fried reports.
Why it matters: Payments via phone, once rare, have become widely accepted. Until now, though, there has been no electronic option for government-issued identification.
Apple announced yesterday that Arizonans can now store their driver's licenses on their phone.
Apple said Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, Ohio, and Puerto Rico plan to bring this feature to their residents.
That's in addition to seven states that Apple had announced last year would support the feature — Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah.
How it works: An Arizonan can scan the front and back of their driver's license or ID, and take a video selfie to authenticate they're the person on the license.
That image is sent to the state motor-vehicle department for verification.
Apple said the electronic version can be used at TSA checkpoints at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
But you'll need your physical ID to fly back to Arizona. Apple says it's working with the TSA to get the digital IDs accepted at more airports.” Read more at Axios