“Georgia lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to impose sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state that make it harder to vote by mail and give the state legislature more power over elections.
The measure was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday evening. ‘Significant reforms to our state elections were needed. There’s no doubt there were many alarming issues with how the election was handled, and those problems, understandably, led to a crisis of confidence,’ Kemp said during prepared remarks shortly after signing the bill.
Pictures showed him signing the bill watched by six white men, despite criticism that the legislation adds up to voter suppression targeting Black communities whose ballots helped Democrats win the state and its two US Senate seats in the 2020 election.
It requires voters to submit ID information with both an absentee ballot request and the ballot itself. It limits the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, allows for unlimited challenges to a voter’s qualifications, cuts the runoff election period from nine to four weeks, and significantly shortens the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot.
The legislation also empowers the state legislature, currently dominated by Republicans, to appoint a majority of members on the five-person state election board. That provision would strip Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who stood up to Trump after the election, from his current role as chairman of the board. The bill creates a mechanism for the board to strip local election boards of their power.
Gloria Butler, a Democratic state senator, said the bill would make it harder to vote, especially for poor and disabled people. ‘We are witnessing a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,’ she said just before the bill passed.” Read more at The Guardian
“Georgia Democratic state Rep. Park Cannon was arrested by Capitol police after knocking on the door of Gov. Brian Kemp's office as he signed into law a sweeping Republican-sponsored overhaul of state elections. The controversial legislation includes new restrictions on voting by mail and greater legislative control over how elections are run.” Read more at USA Today
Photo: Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP
“Dominion Voting Systems, a voting technology company that was the target of baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the right-wing channel Fox News on Friday.” Read more at CNN
“At least five people died Thursday as multiple tornadoes touched down in Alabama, the second line of severe storms to slam the state in two weeks. The tornadoes moved across Alabama and neighboring Georgia, the National Weather Service said, and there were reports of homes destroyed, trees knocked over, and people injured and trapped. Some storms may occur Friday as well.” Read more at USA Today
“President Joe Biden is planning to introduce his administration's next major legislative effort in Pittsburgh on Friday, alluding to it during his first White House news conference a day earlier. Although Biden wasn't directly asked about the planned legislation, he addressed it, pivoting from a question about gun control to describe a sweeping economic recovery bill. ‘The next major initiative … is to rebuild the infrastructure, both physical and technological infrastructure of this country, so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good paying jobs, really good paying jobs,’ he said. ‘There's so much we can do.’” Read more at USA Today
“President Biden used his first formal presidential news conference on Thursday to put major players on notice in ways new chief executives with wins under their belts like to do.
The newsy headlines — he expects to seek a second term; the filibuster needs a major fix (or deep six) — did not quite capture Biden’s equanimity about publicly tangling with adversaries, even those he needs while governing.
Once a smiling, glad-handing creature of the Senate who assured voters he knew how to cut deals and overcome the venom in the Capitol, Biden in the East Room rebuked ‘my Republican friends’ over their lockstep opposition to his $1.9 trillion relief bill, eagerness to ‘posture for a while’ over a surge of migrants at the border, their ‘un-American’ and ‘sick’ moves in some states to try to block voting rights, their ‘newfound concern’ over government spending and what he called the GOP’s tolerance for ‘feathering the nest of the wealthy.’
‘I have not been able to unite the Congress, but I’ve been uniting the country,’ Biden said during his hour-long event at which he fielded questions from 10 news outlets.
Riding high on his job approval and the accomplishment of seeing his signature on a mammoth relief law, the president repeated messages that poll well: Americans need help, and if it takes Senate rule changes, executive actions, deficit spending or turning his back on the minority party to deliver that help, it’s worth it. ‘I got elected to solve problems,’ the president said.” Read more at The Hill
The Hill: Five takeaways from Biden’s news conference.
The Washington Post: Four takeaways from the president’s first formal news conference.
“The Biden administration faces other foreign policy challenges too. During his news conference, Biden expressed uncertainty at meeting the May 1 deadline for a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. A six-month extension is being considered, and Biden said he ‘can’t picture’ US troops still being in Afghanistan next year. Meanwhile, the US will resume diplomatic ties with Palestinians that were cut under the prior administration. Trump cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, bringing diplomatic contact to a virtual halt. US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the Biden team will work toward a negotiated two-state solution that ensures Israel's future as a democratic and Jewish state while upholding Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for a state of their own.” Read more at CNN
“The US has now surpassed 30 million total infections in the pandemic. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky again warned that, despite reopenings and a growing desire to get back to normal, the US is still seeing about 1,000 deaths a day and facing the growing threat of coronavirus variants. She also said vaccination efforts are helping the situation. The Biden administration says it will dedicate another $10 billion to expand Covid-19 vaccine access and boost vaccine confidence. The Senate voted to extend the application deadline for the Paycheck Protection Program, the key federal relief effort for small businesses, to May 31. Oh, and good news for new moms: New research shows the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are effective in pregnant and lactating women, who can pass protective antibodies to newborns.” Read more at CNN
“Boulder police will hold a news conference Friday morning to discuss the latest in their investigation of the March 22 supermarket shooting that left 10 people dead. A judge on Thursday ordered the suspect, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, to be held without bail pending an assessment ‘to address his mental illness.’ Researchers and advocates earlier said any rush to cast blame on a mental illness is misplaced. ‘There's no psychotic illness whose symptom is shooting other people,’ said Dr. Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University. Meanwhile, the shooter’s Ruger AR-556 pistol has stirred an ongoing national debate on guns — with experts concerned that the rifle-looking weapon is helping people skirt firearm laws. The Ruger looks like a rifle and operates like one, but is not — at least, not under current gun laws.” Read more at USA Today
Yesterday's virtual hearing. Photos: House Energy and Commerce Committee via Reuters
During a virtual hearing, House members warned the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google that a legislative hammer is about to land, Axios' Kim Hart, Ashley Gold and Margaret Harding McGill report.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told the CEOs that their businesses prioritize ad revenue and engagement over rooting out content that harms users, especially children.
Why it matters: The relatively consistent lines of questioning, sometimes crossing party lines, displayed a new unity among members of Congress in their concern about the companies — and a stronger likelihood that they might pass punitive laws.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg disputed the claims: ‘While it may be true that people might be more likely to click on it in the short term, it's not good for our business or our product or our community for this content to be there ... [W]e run the company for the long term.’” Read more at Axios
“The University of Southern California will pay $1.1 billion to the former patients of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually preying on them.” Read more at New York Times
“New York lawmakers reached a deal to legalize recreational marijuana. It could permit retail sales, home delivery and pot lounges.” Read more at New York Times
Rod Bradshaw stands in a field of wheat on his farm near Jetmore, Kansas. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP
“For the first time in US history, members of the House agriculture committee heard from Black farmers on the impact of systemic discrimination by the department of agriculture (USDA).
Thursday’s hearing came on the heels of $5bn being allocated to socially disadvantaged farmers of color earlier this month as part of the coronavirus relief and economic stimulus package. The funding – $4bn for debt forgiveness, $1bn for other forms of support – is meant to account for generations of mistreatment of farmers of color by the USDA.
‘This festering wound on the soul of agriculture must be healed,’ said congressman David Scott of Georgia, who was born on a farm in South Carolina owned by his grandparents and now serves as the first ever Black person to chair the committee.
Black farmers offered familiar testimonies of racism in the industry and from the USDA. Sedrick Rowe, an organic peanut farmer in Georgia, spoke of crop buyers telling him they are done buying peanuts for the day when he shows up. PJ Haynie of the National Black Growers Council told of Black farmers getting by on non-irrigated land while their white neighbors used USDA assistance to irrigate theirs.
Once making up about 14% of US farmers, Black farmers make up less than 2% today. Many were forced out by racist lending practices by the agriculture department that led to vast losses of land, income, profits and generation wealth.
That wealth cannot be regained. Black farmers will never get the land they lost back. But the USDA seems to be trying to foster a renewed trust in the department.” Read more at The Guardian
“Donald Trump has defended some of his supporters who rioted at the US Capitol on 6 January, saying they posed ‘zero threat’ to the lawmakers who had assembled there to certify the electoral college vote that confirmed Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump complained to Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that law enforcement was ‘persecuting’ the Capitol rioters, while ‘nothing happens’ to leftwing protesters. Five people, including a police officer, died in the riot.
Trump acknowledged that those who stormed the Capitol ‘went in and they shouldn’t have done it.’ But he added: ‘Some of them went in and they’re, they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in and then they walked in and they walked out.’
More than 300 people have been charged in connection with the riot. Authorities have said they believe at least 100 more could face charges.
The attack followed a fiery Trump rally outside the White House in which he urged a group of his supporters to ‘fight like hell’ for him at the Capitol. A week later, the House of Representatives impeached Trump for a second time, but the Senate eventually acquitted him of inciting the attack.
During the interview on Fox News, Trump also criticised Dr Anthony Fauci, the US infectious disease expert. ‘I frankly didn’t listen to him too much,’ he said.
Fauci was one of Trump’s key advisers at the start of the pandemic, but later fell out with the former president over the handling of the crisis. In January Fauci described the ‘liberating feeling’ of being able to speak scientific truth about the coronavirus without fear of “repercussions” from Trump.” Read more at The Guardian
“Ship operators have started rerouting tankers and containers away from the Suez Canal—in some cases sending them on a two-week extended voyage around the southern tip of Africa—as they increasingly bet on a prolonged closing of the key waterway….
Dredgers were working again Friday morning to remove hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of sand around the bow of the 1,300-foot Ever Given, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, in order to reach a water depth of roughly 50 feet needed to remove the ship, according to the Suez Canal Authority.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“NCAA hires law firm to examine gender-equity gaps. The firm will review the association’s championships in all classifications across Divisions I-III, a response to sharp criticism of inferior treatment it gives its women’s basketball tournament compared with its men’s competition.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes exchanged a 97-second call with someone helping to lead a helmeted formation of Oath Keepers members and associates six minutes before the group pushed past police and broken doors to force its way into the Capitol on Jan. 6, US prosecutors alleged for the first time.
In a court filing, prosecutors said the call and other direct communications by Rhodes that day indicates ‘substantial evidence’ of a conspiracy to stop Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election by Oath Keepers members and others.
A timeline submitted by the government in a court filing just before midnight Thursday opposing the release of Ohio Oath Keepers member Jessica Watkins disputes her assertions that the actions of a charged 10-member group at the Capitol were nonviolent. The filing also appears to dispute some of Rhodes’ previous explanations of his communications.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Airlines add routes as they compete for Americans ready to travel again. Carriers have in recent weeks announced plans to fly more than 150 new domestic routes as they try to ferret out pockets of demand and stimulate new markets.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“102.3% — The expected U.S. federal debt as a share of gross domestic product by the end of this fiscal year. In an interview with NPR, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that U.S. government debt isn’t at unsustainable levels and that now isn’t the time to worry about reducing it, though he did warn that policy makers should seek to slow its growth once the economy is on firmer footing.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“There's a growing push among federal lawmakers for a road user fee to fund highway repairs, Axios' Joann Muller writes from Detroit.
Why it matters: The existing federal gas tax isn't enough to meet rising costs, and the budget gap will only grow wider as cleaner cars burn less fuel.
One area of potential agreement between the parties is a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) system that would charge drivers a penny or two for each mile logged behind the wheel.
Drivers would report their mileage electronically, using a plug-in device in their cars or a smartphone app.
Supporters say it's a way to ensure that electric vehicle owners — who currently pay no fuel taxes — chip in their fair share for road maintenance.” Read more at Axios
“Actor Jessica Walter has died at the age of 80.
Walter, best known for her Emmy-winning role as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, died in her sleep at her New York home.” Read more at The Guardian
“China has launched more retaliatory measures in response to international sanctions over human rights concerns in Xinjiang. The Chinese government announced sanctions against UK lawmakers, academics and entities, barring them from entering China and freezing their assets there. The UK's ambassador to China has also been summoned by Beijing. H&M, Nike and other big Western apparel brands have expressed concern in recent months over the alleged use of forced labor to produce cotton in Xinjiang, one of the types of human rights violations China is accused of in the region. Now, those retailers are facing heavy criticism, including threats of boycott and terminated contracts with some Chinese celebrities.” Read more at CNN
“Israel’s election. Israel’s political future remains up in the air as final vote counts show neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents have won enough seats to form a governing coalition. There is still room for either side to prevail, as the undecided leader of the United Arab List could be persuaded to join a coalition, although divisions within both pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs could prevent that from happening.” Read more at Foreign Policy
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