“WASHINGTON — The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation on Thursday aimed at strengthening federal efforts to address hate crimes directed at Asian-Americans amid a sharp increase in discrimination and violence against Asian communities in the United States.
The bipartisan vote, 94 to 1, was the first legislative action either chamber of Congress has taken to bolster law enforcement’s response to attacks on people of Asian descent, which have intensified during the coronavirus pandemic.
‘By passing this bill, the Senate makes it very clear that hate and discrimination against any group has no place in America,’ said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. ‘By passing this bill, we say to the Asian-American community that their government is paying attention to them, has heard their concerns and will respond to protect them.’
The measure, sponsored by Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, would establish a position at the Justice Department to expedite the agency’s review of hate crimes and expand the channels to report them. It would also encourage the creation of state-run hate crime hotlines, provide grant money to law enforcement agencies that train their officers to identify hate crimes and introduce a series of public education campaigns around bias against people of Asian descent.
The legislation will next go to the House, where lawmakers passed a resolution last year condemning anti-Asian discrimination related to the pandemic. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California pledged on Thursday shortly after the bill’s passage to put it to a vote on the House floor next month, calling it a catalyst for ‘robust, impactful action.’…
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, was the lone opponent of the legislation, arguing that it mandated an overly expansive collection of data around hate crimes that could slide into government overreach.
Democrats defeated a roster of amendments proposed by Republicans, including one aimed at banning federal funds for universities that discriminate against Asian-Americans — something that is already unlawful. Another would have required a report on how the government had enforced restrictions on gatherings for religious worship during the pandemic, and a third would have prohibited the Justice Department from tracking cases of discrimination that did not rise to the level of a crime. Ms. Hirono dismissed the amendments as ‘damaging’ and partisan.
Legislative efforts and debates around the spike of violence targeting Asian-Americans have not always proceeded with such bipartisan comity. In sometimes heated exchanges, some Democratic lawmakers have accused Republicans of supporting and echoing President Donald J. Trump’s racist talk around the pandemic, including calling the coronavirus ‘Kung Flu.’ Republicans, in turn, have accused Democrats of engaging in overreaching political correctness, and said that they are more interested in attacking rhetoric than in addressing violence.” Read more at New York Times
India reported a global record number of daily COVID-19 cases early Friday morning, the second time in as many days that the country has posted more than 300,000 new cases as the country’s healthcare system collapses.
A national record 2,263 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported on Friday. However, much like the number of cases, the figure is likely far higher as many COVID-19 deaths go uncertified.
Oxygen is in short supply across the country, with one hospital network in New Delhi refusing new patients until more oxygen can be sourced. Overcrowding in other hospitals has led to further tragedy: 13 people were killed on Friday after a fire broke out at a hospital near Mumbai. If follows the deaths of 22 COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra state on Wednesday after a leaking oxygen tank ran out.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with chief ministers of the worst-affected states today to discuss the crisis as criticism rises over his government’s handling of the pandemic.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Russia’s Defense Ministry ordered a partial pullback of troops from the border with Ukraine on Thursday, signaling a possible deescalation in a military standoff that had raised alarm that a new war in Europe could be looming.
The order came a day after President Vladimir Putin, in an annual state of the nation address, rattled off a list of grievances against Western nations, including threats of new sanctions. Putin warned against crossing a Russian ‘red line’ with additional pressure on Moscow. The huge buildup on the Ukrainian border was in place while he spoke.
That mobilization had increasingly worried the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, European capitals, and Washington, and was seen as an early foreign policy challenge for the Biden administration.” Read more at Boston Globe
“More than 40% of Americans have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, ranking the U.S. near the top in vaccination rates. Also, Michigan's case rate has begun to fall, dropping 12.5% over the last week, suggesting the worst surge in the U.S. may be waning.” Read more at USA Today
“The halt on using the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be lifted by this Friday, although some restrictions may be required, Dr. Anthony Fauci said last weekend. States stopped using the company's vaccine last week after federal health officials recommended a pause ‘out of an abundance of caution’ because of rare but dangerous blood clots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will review any additional evidence about the vaccine in a meeting Friday. Earlier this week, the European Medicines Agency – the European Union's drug regulator – ruled that a warning about unusual blood clots associated with low levels of blood platelets should be added to the product information, but concluded that the vaccine's benefits outweigh the risk.” Read more at USA Today
“The Pfizer and Moderna shots appear to work against the variants found in New York, Britain and South Africa.” Read more at New York Times
“Louisiana has stopped asking the federal government for its full allotment of COVID-19 vaccine. About three-quarters of Kansas counties have turned down new shipments of the vaccine at least once over the past month. And in Mississippi, officials asked the federal government to ship vials in smaller packages so they don’t go to waste.
As the supply of coronavirus vaccine doses in the U.S. outpaces demand, some places around the country are finding there’s such little interest in the shots, they need to turn down shipments.
‘It is kind of stalling. Some people just don’t want it,’ said Stacey Hileman, a nurse with the health department in rural Kansas’ Decatur County, where less than a third of the county’s 2,900 residents have received at least one vaccine dose.
The dwindling demand for vaccines illustrates the challenge that the U.S. faces in trying to conquer the pandemic while at the same time dealing with the optics of tens of thousands of doses sitting on shelves when countries like India and Brazil are in the midst of full-blown medical emergencies.” Read more at AP
“Women in the U.S. are getting vaccinated at a higher rate than men.” Read more at New York Times
“Covid patients who weren’t hospitalized had an increased risk of death months later, a study found.” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden will seek new taxes on the rich, including a near doubling of the capital gains tax for people earning more than $1 million a year, to pay for the next phase in his $4 trillion plan to reshape the American economy.
Mr. Biden will also propose raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, the level it was cut to by President Donald J. Trump’s tax overhaul in 2017. The proposals are in line with Mr. Biden’s campaign promises to raise taxes on the wealthy but not on households earning less than $400,000.
The president will lay out the full proposal, which he calls the American Family Plan, next week. It will include about $1.5 trillion in new spending and tax credits meant to fight poverty, reduce child care costs for families, make prekindergarten and community college free to all, and establish a national paid leave program, according to people familiar with the proposal. It is not yet final and could change before next week.
The plan will not include an up to $700 billion effort to expand health coverage or reduce government spending on prescription drugs. Officials have decided to instead pursue health care as a separate initiative, a move that sidesteps a fight among liberals on Capitol Hill but that risks upsetting some progressive groups.” Read more at New York Times
“After one of the most prosperous decades in history for U.S. investors, President Joe Biden is ready to make the richest share their wealth.
He plans to propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for those who earn $1 million or more, ending a century-old precedent of taxing investments less relative to wages and salaries, Laura Davison and Allyson Versprille report.
The move, which would hit 3 out of every 1,000 people, would also help address 50 years of inequality in the U.S., with the gap widening because of the coronavirus pandemic.
After his multi-trillion dollar spending packages to revive the economy and provide Covid-19 relief for millions of Americans, Biden’s move signals another step away from the trickle-down economics that dominated politics for decades since the era of Ronald Reagan.
The richest 1% of U.S. households saw their net worth rise by some $4 trillion in 2020, about 35% of the national total. Most of the gains came in stock and mutual fund investments — 90% of which are owned by White households.
Biden is expected to release his proposal next week and will detail plans for new spending on children and education on April 28. That’s in addition to an initiative to raise corporate taxes to fund his $2.25 trillion infrastructure-focused package.
The president is betting the plan will be popular enough with the American public to win passage in Congress. But with Republicans likely to be united in opposition, he can only lose a handful of Democrat votes in the House — and not a single one in the Senate.
For many wealthy Democrats who’ve enjoyed a decade of wild market gains, the idea may also be a step too far.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Two days after the streets of Minneapolis were filled with people celebrating the conviction of a police officer for the murder of George Floyd, the city returned to a period of mourning on Thursday for another Black man killed by a police officer.
Packed into a church for the funeral of Daunte Wright were politicians, faith leaders and relatives of other people killed by the police, including the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor and the families of Philando Castile and Oscar Grant. Many had come from across the country to pay respects to Mr. Wright, the 20-year-old man who was fatally shot by an officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center last week during a traffic stop.” Read more at New York Times
“Violence in Jerusalem. Dozens were injured in Jerusalem on Thursday night as anti-Arab protests led by far-right Jewish activists turned violent. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 105 people injured in the clashes as Haaretz reported more than 30 were arrests. The violence follows a week of assaults on Arab Israelis and Palestinians by Jewish Israeli residents. Tensions rose between the communities last week after videos of Palestinians assaulting Jews were posted on TikTok.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“President Biden’s ambitious new climate goal -- to cut US carbon emissions in half by 2030 -- is the latest big-ticket item on his progressive agenda. It could also complicate relations with China. The countries are the world’s biggest carbon polluters, and assuming Biden can sell his emissions plan when he addresses Congress next week, they’ll both be on an aggressive short-term course to reduce that pollution. While the climate crisis has always been an opportunity for countries to work together, there are concerns such collaboration might not be able to entirely escape the fallout from other areas of the US and China’s heated bilateral relationship.” Read more at CNN
“Four astronauts strapped into a Crew Dragon capsule vaulted off their pad at Kennedy Space Center early Friday, kicking off NASA and SpaceX's second full-duration mission to the International Space Station.
Astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide and Thomas Pesquet took flight at 5:49 a.m. on Crew-2, a NASA-purchased mission part of the human spaceflight-focused Commercial Crew Program. The team will spend about a day in the capsule named Endeavour before docking with the orbiting outpost at 5:10 a.m. Saturday.” Read more at USA Today
“The Supreme Court on Thursday curbed the Federal Trade Commission’s longtime practice of seeking to recover ill-gotten gains in court from companies and individuals who cheat or mislead consumers, upending a central enforcement tool the agency has relied on for decades.
The court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, ruled unanimously that a 1973 law, which gives the FTC the right to seek court injunctions to stop fraudulent or deceptive commercial activity, doesn’t grant the commission the power to seek financial judgments as well.
The court said if the FTC wants to seek financial recoveries on behalf of defrauded consumers, it needs to rely on other, more-limited legal provisions that require it to go through detailed administrative proceedings aimed first at identifying and halting the fraudulent conduct.
The commission had argued such an approach would be slow and ineffective. Relying on those means alone, it said, would leave the commission only able to stop future fraudulent conduct while allowing defendants to keep the profits they already made at consumers’ expense….
Aside from the FTC’s future enforcement approach, Thursday’s ruling could undermine scores of investigations currently pending at the agency as well as cases pending in court. It’s unclear whether any previous defendants in now-final cases might attempt to use Thursday’s ruling to try to reopen consideration of financial penalties they paid previously.
The FTC brings an array of consumer-protection and antitrust-enforcement actions, targeting everything from financial scams and false advertising to more sophisticated unlawful or deceptive practices involving large, well-known companies.
It has used the 1973 law to recoup billions of dollars from defendants alleged to have engaged in deceptive or unfair business practices. Recent notable cases include settlements and refunds involving Volkswagen AG, Western Union Co. and the University of Phoenix. Those settlements included neither an admission nor denial of wrongdoing.
In testimony submitted to Congress this week, the commission said it had used its cases to return $11.2 billion in ill-gotten gains to consumers in the last five years. Not all money it has collected goes back to victims.
Critics have called the FTC’s longstanding approach heavy-handed and excessively punitive against companies whose conduct wasn’t egregious or clearly unlawful. Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the trade association for the pharmaceutical industry filed briefs with the high court supporting the challenge to the FTC’s authority.
The case stemmed from a multibillion-dollar payday-loan scheme operated by businessman and race-car driver Scott Tucker.
Mr. Tucker was convicted in 2017 for charging illegally high interest rates and lying to consumers about the costs of their loans, and later sentenced to more than 16 years in prison.
In civil proceedings, the FTC secured a judgment ordering Mr. Tucker and several corporate defendants to pay $1.3 billion, the largest litigated award it had ever obtained. Mr. Tucker challenged the FTC’s powers to pursue the monetary judgment on behalf of consumers, arguing the commission didn’t have unbridled authority to extract monetary payments in court….
Thursday’s ruling effectively wiped out the civil judgment against Mr. Tucker and the related defendants, though other funds connected to the criminal proceedings—about $500 million—have been distributed to consumers, and prosecutors last year auctioned off exotic sports cars seized from Mr. Tucker as another way to return money to victims.
The commission had been making contingency plans for a loss at the Supreme Court, but FTC officials had warned that losing their long-assumed authority would undermine their mission. Thursday’s ruling could put pressure on Congress to consider new measures to boost the agency’s powers.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation that would have banned transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports, calling the bill "a devastating message" to families. Conservative activists have vowed to lobby members to support a potential override vote.” Read more at USA Today
“President Biden’s three nominees to the US Postal Service’s governing board faced their first big test Thursday on Capitol Hill, where a Senate panel pressed them to maintain service levels and rein in parts of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan for the agency.
If the two Democrats and one independent win approval from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, their nominations will advance to the full chamber for a confirmation vote, which could come in a matter of weeks.
Their ascent would give Democrats a 5-4 majority bloc and control of the board for the first time since 2016. But that coalition may not be in sync when it comes to DeJoy — unseating him is a priority for many congressional Democrats — or the postal chief’s cost-cutting agenda: board Chairman Ron Bloom proclaimed his support for DeJoy as recently as Wednesday, while the board’s other Democrat, Donald Moak, has stayed mum.
Under questioning from Ohio Senator Rob Portman, the committee’s top Republican, all three nominees said they had not been subject to any ‘outside pressure’ to fire DeJoy, and had not made any commitments about planning his dismissal.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The US Postal Service has reportedly been monitoring social media posts, with a focus on people planning protests.
The surveillance procedure, known as the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), tracks social media activity that it describes as “inflammatory” and shares that information to government agencies, according to a government bulletin from 16 March obtained by Yahoo News. The program is part of the efforts of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the law enforcement arm of the USPS.
The USPIS monitored social media accounts regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on 20 March, when the World Wide Rally for Freedom and Democracy was scheduled to take place, according to the bulletin.
The information regarding the demonstrations against lockdown measures was distributed through Department of Homeland Security facilities. The agency collected information from Facebook, as well as other platforms used by rightwing extremist groups, such as Parler and Telegram.” Read more at The Guardian
“As the pandemic decimated travel a year ago, a top industry executive predicted that a major U.S. airline would go bankrupt and the carriers themselves warned of painful cuts to come.
Now, with demand for tickets rebounding, airlines are predicting the summer will be almost normal, and some companies even say they could turn a profit.
It amounts to a stunning turnaround for an industry that many people had written off and that had to go hat in hand to Washington for three bailouts, which provided tens of billions of dollars that helped to prevent painful layoffs.
With passenger traffic still down more than 40 percent compared with 2019, airline executives are so confident that demand is coming back that they plan to call back thousands of employees and hire hundreds of pilots.” Read more at New York Times
“The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that judges need not determine that juvenile offenders are beyond hope of rehabilitation before sentencing them to die in prison. The decision, concerning a teenager who killed his grandfather, appeared to signal the end of a trend that had limited the availability of severe punishments for youths who commit crimes before they turn 18.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling, said it was enough that the sentencing judge exercised discretion rather than automatically imposing a sentence of life without parole.
‘In a case involving an individual who was under 18 when he or she committed a homicide,’ he wrote, ‘a state’s discretionary sentencing system is both constitutionally necessary and constitutionally sufficient.’
No specific finding concerning the defendant’s maturity or capacity for change was required, he wrote.” Read more at New York Times
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that a team of scientists hauled 47.2 tons of marine debris out of the Marine National Monument in the Pacific Ocean. The 94,400-pound haul was made up of derelict fishing gear — so-called ghost nets — and ocean plastics.” Read more at USA Today
“Former Kentucky basketball guard Terrence Clarke died Thursday in a car accident. He was 19 years old. Clarke was projected to be selected in the NBA Draft this summer.” Read more at USA Today
“Crews are working frantically to locate a missing Indonesian submarine with 53 crew members on board before it's expected to run out of oxygen tomorrow. An Indonesian naval vessel has detected an object within the search range of the submarine, but officials aren’t sure what the object is yet. The German-made submarine lost contact Wednesday during a military exercise in the Bali Strait, which connects the Indian Ocean and the Bali Sea. Australia, Singapore and the United States are sending support for the search. Indonesia’s military says it suspects an oil spill seen in aerial surveillance near Wednesday’s dive point came from the craft, which could mean it was leaking fuel or it released fluid in an attempt to surface.” Read more at CNN
“$568 billion — The cost of an infrastructure plan released by Republican senators, their alternative to President Biden's $2.3 trillion proposal. The GOP plan would allocate $299 billion toward roads and bridges, $61 billion to public-transit systems, $20 billion to rail and $65 billion for broadband.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“72% — The percentage of U.S. workers who are somewhat or very confident in their ability to live comfortably in retirement, according to a survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. That's up from 63% last March. At the same time, 39% of workers said their households had experienced a negative change in income because of the pandemic, and around 33% said the pandemic had made it more difficult to save for retirement.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“80,000-100,000 — The estimated number of troops Russia had stationed near Ukraine's border, more than it deployed when it seized Crimea in 2014. Russia's Defense Ministry ordered some of its troops to begin withdrawing after the buildup had raised fears that a full-scale war could be imminent between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. President Biden had previously called on Russia to dial down tensions, and NATO said Russia should end its military buildup.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Lives Lived: Gregory Edward Jacobs, known as Shock G, was the frontman of Digital Underground, a hip-hop group that had a string of hits in the early 1990s and introduced its audience to Tupac Shakur. Shock G died at 57.” Read more at New York Times
“Sales of U.S. homes fell in March for the second consecutive month because so few are on the market. For the listings that exist, fierce competition is pushing prices to new highs, AP reports.
Homes typically sold in 18 days — a record low.
The U.S. median home price surged 17.2% from a year earlier to $329,100, an all-time high.” Read more at Axios