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British police clash with mourners honoring slain London woman despite covid restrictions

InternationalMar 14. 2021Sarah Everard

By The Washington Post · Karla Adam, Miriam Berger

LONDON – London police clashed with mourners attending a vigil on Saturday to honor the memory of Sarah Everard, a young British woman whose kidnapping and killing shocked a nation.

“Shame on you” and “Arrest your own,” some in the crowd shouted, referring to police officer Wayne Couzens, 48, who earlier Saturday was charged with kidnapping and murdering Everard.

Gatherings for Everard in London were officially canceled after talks between organizers and the police broke down over disagreements about legality and the safety of groups of people meeting amid covid-19 restrictions. But people came to the memorial in Clapham Common anyway. By nightfall, police said the gathering was “unsafe” and called on people to leave as tensions rose. A number of people were arrested.

As scenes of tussles circulated online, some female politicians criticized the Metropolitan police’s handling.

If police had put the same resources into holding “the covid-secure vigil originally planned that they put into stopping any collective show of grief and solidarity (both through the courts and a heavy-handed physical response), we’d all be in a better place,” tweeted Charlotte Nichols, the shadow minister for women and equalities.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan echoed the calls. “The scenes from Clapham Common are unacceptable,” he wrote on Twitter. “The police have a responsibility to enforce Covid laws but from images I’ve seen it’s clear the response was at times neither appropriate nor proportionate.”

Throughout the day, hundreds of people poured into Clapham Common, a large urban park, to pay their respects, lay flowers and pause for a moment of silence. Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was last seen March 3 and is thought to have been abducted nearby. Her body was formally identified Friday.

People gathered in socially distanced fashion around a bandstand in the center of the park. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, briefly joined the crowd and was among those who stood silently before a sea of floral tributes and handwritten notes.

One read: “It could have been any one of us – I’m so sorry it was you.” Another read: “Men, do better, protect all women.”

Yet another: “How can we feel safe when the police are to blame?”

Reclaim These Streets, the organizers of the canceled vigil, encouraged people to shine a light, candle, torch or phone at 9:30 p.m., the last time Everard was seen alive. Other vigils took place around the country.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was among the first politicians to share a picture of a candle in Everard’s honor on Twitter.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet that he’d be taking part along with his fiancee. “Tonight Carrie and I will be lighting a candle for Sarah Everard and thinking of her family and friends. I cannot imagine how unbearable their pain and grief is. We must work fast to find all the answers to this horrifying crime.”

The case has stunned the nation, not least because the man charged with killing Everard is a serving police officer. Couzens appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Saturday to hear his charges of kidnapping and murder.

The case has also caused a national reckoning over women’s safety and prompted a discussion among women about what it’s like to walk alone, particularly at night. Many have demanded change and called for an end to victim blaming.

For residents of Clapham, it feels especially personal: They have walked along the same streets Everard did, through the same park that’s popular with exercisers, past the bandstand, the largest in London, that hosts open-air concerts in the summer. It could have been them.

“It touched a nerve, really, that it really could have just been me,” said Lucy Davies, 24, who once lived on the road where Everard was last seen. Davies said she takes precautions when traveling alone at night: She texts friends when she’s leaving and uses “Find My Friends” on her phone. But now she wonders whether more can be done.

“Today is important for all the days following to stop girls from feeling unsafe in areas, and maybe what men can do to help us feel a bit safer,” she said.

Another local resident, Emily Ramsey, 28, said she’s now rethinking how she travels at night. “You go for dinner, after work, get on the tube, it’s 10 p.m. and you walk home for 10, 15 minutes. You don’t think anything of it. Now, I’d probably ask my boyfriend to meet me and walk with me.”

She said the suggestion floated by some commentators that men should have a curfew was wrong. “I don’t think that’s the right solution. It’s no one’s fault, but maybe some men don’t appreciate we’re always glancing over our shoulder, you just have to hear footsteps a bit close and you automatically freeze. Hopefully this has made men a bit more aware,” she said.

Sophie Johnson, 28, who lives nearby, said that since Everard’s disappearance, she hasn’t walked outside at night by herself. She added that it wasn’t fair to place the onus on women. “We’re already doing all the right things. We walk in sensible shoes, have our keys out, don’t listen to music with both earphones, we’re already doing all those things.”

She said that the case has prompted a larger discussion among her male friends about what more they can do, like “cross the street or fake a phone call to seem noisy and you’re not sneaking up – it’s prompted a lot more conversation.”

Ryan Salisbury, 29, an art director, traveled 40 minutes in from Hampshire to pay his respects. He said it was “important that there is a visual presence of people today to show that this kind of thing is not acceptable.”

“My heart goes out to every women who has experienced that, even on a daily basis, that misogyny and discrimination,” he said. “I want to be here to represent that’s not okay, that’s not 2021.”

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U.S. joins Asian countries in pledging up to 1 billion doses to other nations

InternationalMar 13. 2021

By The Washington Post, Anne Gearan

The United States, India, Japan and Australia pledged Friday to jointly manufacture and distribute up to 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine before the end of next year, as the Biden administration comes under increased pressure to provide more vaccine help to poorer nations.

The vaccine would be supplied to Southeast Asian nations and potentially elsewhere as act of charity that represents a workaround for President Joe Biden, who has said he cannot yet divert any U.S. supply despite a projected surplus, given that many Americans are still urgently awaiting their immunizations.

The announcement, which came out of the first summit among leaders of the four democracies informally called “the Quad,” also hints at the Biden administration’s larger aim of linking like-minded governments to counter Chinese expansionism, including using pandemic aid as a springboard.

“At this moment, it’s a purpose that I think we all are concerned about,” Biden said as he welcomed the three leaders via video call. “A free and open Indo-Pacific is essential to each of our futures, our countries.”

They leaders also pledged to meet in person by the end of the year.

The vaccine would be produced by India, with additional funding provided by the United States and Japan and distributed with logistical help from Australia, the White House said.

China, however, has a head start, since it is already passing out free vaccine doses in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Its initiative amounts to a campaign of “vaccine diplomacy” that experts say is part of its broader effort to bind poorer nations to China through trade or dependency.

America’s union with the three Asian democracies is a priority for the Biden administration, which sees it as a bulwark against China on several fronts.

“We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion,” said a joint statement issued after the meeting by Biden and prime ministers Narenrda Modi of India, Scott Morrison of Australia and Yoshihide Suga of Japan.

The grouping first formed following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but Friday marked the first gathering of heads of state, albeit a virtual one, a sign of Biden’s concern with Asia generally and China more specifically.

“That’s on purpose,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday. “It reflects his view that we have to rally Democratic allies and partners in common cause and his belief in the centrality of the Indo-Pacific to the national security of the United States.”

The Biden administration has set a near-term goal of repairing European alliances ruptured by President Donald Trump and a longer-term aim of repositioning U.S. engagement toward Asia.

Trump regularly challenged traditional alliances, including the European Union and NATO, while taking a relatively friendly approach to such longtime U.S. adversaries such as Russia and North Korea. His relations with China were uneven, initially praising Chinese President Xi Jinping but later referring to the coronavirus as “the China virus” and blaming the country for its spread.

Trump in the end failed to get the massive trade agreement that he sought with China. Xi emerged from the Trump era stronger at home – having secured an indefinite hold on power – and emboldened abroad with a $1 trillion international development project known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Friday’s agreement was an early effort by Biden to push back against those efforts by Beijing to expand its international influence.

The president “believes that we are going to end up in a stiff competition with China, and we intend to prevail in that competition,” Sullivan told reporters. “He is amassing the sources of strength we need to be able to prevail.” Biden is better positioned now than when he took office, Sullivan said.

President Barack Obama had also attempted a “pivot to Asia,” as it was called at the time, only to see much of the effort subsumed by conflict in the Middle East.

Biden’s version of the pivot includes military, economic and diplomatic actions meant to blunt Chinese influence. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are both traveling to Asia in coming days to visit Japan and South Korea in their first foreign trips as Cabinet secretaries.

China is involved in territorial and other disputes with both of those U.S. allies, and it helps to prop up the nuclear-armed regime in North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has threatened military action against both South Korea and Japan.

Austin is also visiting India, which last year skirmished with Chinese soldiers along the Himalayan border.

Japan’s Suga will be the first foreign leader to visit Biden in person sometime this year, the White House announced. Next week, Blinken and Sullivan will meet their Chinese counterparts in Alaska.

In the brief portion of Friday’s meeting viewed by reporters, neither Biden nor the other leaders directly discussed an array of other challenges presented by China, including threats to maritime movement, aggressive economic expansion and violation of intellectual property rights. Each of the four nations has a complicated relationship with China, and those tensions formed the subtext of the gathering.

“The Quad has come of age,” Modi said.

The group also agreed to increase cooperation on climate change and technology issues, as officials sought to portray the meeting’s aims as broader than just countering Beijing.

“The four leaders did discuss the challenge posed by China, and they have made clear that none of them have any illusions about China,” Sullivan said. “But today was not fundamentally about China.”

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Sports broadcaster caught on hot mic directing racial slur at girls’ basketball team

InternationalMar 13. 2021

By The Washington Post, Glynn A. Hill

An Oklahoma sports commentator is under investigation after he was heard on a live microphone Thursday night directing a racial slur at a girls’ high school basketball team.

Norman High girls’ basketball coach Frankie Parks tweeted a clip Friday where the broadcaster from the National Federation of High School Networks, can be heard berating players and using a racist slur as they knelt for the playing of the national anthem before a state playoff game.

The broadcaster, identified by The Frontier as Matt Rowan, owns OSPN, the live-streaming platform that broadcast Thursday’s game.

“I hope Norman gets their ass kicked,” he said before launching into a tirade that involved several profanities and the racist comment.

The broadcaster’s remarks drew condemnation from school officials, Norman Mayor Breea Clark, a Democrat, and former University of Oklahoma football stars Kenny Stills and Gerald McCoy. Norman High players also received broad support on social media, with some rallying around the Twitter hashtag #ThisIsWhyWeKneel.

Norman guard Myka Perry, a Florida recruit, called the comments “disrespectful and disgusting” in a social media post, adding, “This is why we kneel. I love my sisters, and this makes us that much stronger. You are part of the problem.”

The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA), the state athletic organization which contracted the announcers through NFHS for the state tournament, said it was “made aware that some very offensive, inappropriate comments were made during the NFHS livestream broadcast” and that it had pulled the broadcast team.

“On behalf of the NFHS Network and the OSSAA, we sincerely apologize that this happened at one of our events. While we are currently investigating the incident, this crew will not be doing any more games for the remainder of our championships,” executive director David Jackson said in a statement. “This kind of behavior will never be tolerated by anyone representing the NFHS or OSSAA. State tournament playoffs are a special time for our schools, their students, and their communities [sic], and anything that is counter-productive to education-based activities will be addressed immediately and appropriately. We will make further comments as we finish our investigation.”

The NFHS Network said it is “aggressively investigating the incident and will ensure that any individuals responsible will have no relationship with the NFHS Network moving forward.” In response to questions regarding the identity of the broadcaster who made the comments, it referred The Washington Post to its earlier statement.

In a statement, Rowan blamed his comments in part on having diabetes.

“I made inappropriate and racist comments believing that the microphone was off; however, let me state immediately that is no excuse, such comments should have never been uttered,” Rowan said in the statement.

“I will state that I suffer Type 1 Diabetes and during the game my sugar was spiking. While not excusing my remarks, it is not unusual when my sugar spikes that I become disoriented and often say things that are not appropriate as well as hurtful.

“I offer my most sincere apologies for the inappropriate comments made and hope that I can obtain forgiveness. I specifically apologize to the Norman High School girls basketball team, their families, their coaches and their entire school system.”

Norman High went on to defeat Midwest City in Thursday’s quarterfinal. Its semifinal against Tulsa Union will be live-streamed through Norman Sports TV.

Rick Cobb, the superintendent of Mid-Del Public Schools, which includes Midwest City, said in a statement he is hopeful OSSAA will review “any future contracts [NFHS] have for broadcasting school activities” in Oklahoma.

Clark said she has been in contact with players’ parents and is planning a town hall with “the youth of Norman, so we can learn how this incident has impacted them and hear directly from our kids how we can improve our community going forward.”

Norman Public Schools superintendent Nick Migliorino reiterated support for players in a statement on Friday.

“We condemn and will not tolerate the disgusting words and attitudes of these announcers. This type of hate speech has no place in our society and we are outraged that it would be directed at any human being, and particularly at our students,” he said.

“We fully support our students’ right to freedom of expression and our immediate focus is to support these girls and their coaches and families, particularly our Black students and coaching staff. It is tragic that the hard work and skill of this team is being overshadowed by the vile, malignant words of these individuals. We will do everything in our power to support and uplift our team and everyone affected by this incident.”

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ICE has no clear plan to vaccinate thousands of detainees

InternationalMar 13. 2021

By The Washington Post, Maria Sacchetti

The coronavirus has been running rampant for months through Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s network of jails holding civil immigration detainees fighting deportation – but the agency has no vaccination program and, unlike the Bureau of Prisons, is relying on state and local health departments to procure vaccine doses. Nobody can say how many detainees have been vaccinated.

The Biden administration says it wants to make every adult in the United States eligible for vaccination by May – and immigration agents have said they would not interfere with efforts to vaccinate undocumented immigrants outside of detention. But lawyers for immigrants who are detained say there is no urgency to vaccinate those in federal custody against a deadly pathogen that can spread fast in confined spaces.

“ICE has no plan to provide vaccines on a systemwide basis,” said Melissa Riess, a staff attorney for Disability Rights Advocates in California, one of several nonprofits that filed a federal lawsuit in California seeking the release of detainees with high-risk health conditions. “That’s having horrendous consequences. It seems like they’re doing nothing.”

The California case is one of dozens of legal battles riveted on the immigration agency’s treatment of civil immigration detainees during the pandemic. The coronavirus has ripped through many of ICE’s detention facilities, infecting nearly 10,000 detainees and killing nine. At least 370 detainees are currently positive for the virus, according to agency records.

Prisons and detention centers – like nursing homes, college dorms and other communal living settings – are places where the virus has spread rapidly because their shared spaces can make it difficult to stay apart. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended vaccinations for people in prisons and jails, but the limited supply so far has led to debates at the state and local levels over who should get them first.

Unlike ICE, the Bureau of Prisons has a program to vaccinate federal inmates imprisoned for criminal cases, and vaccine doses are shipped directly from manufacturers to the prisons. Since staffers come and go, they get the shots first, followed by prisoners. Approximately 14,700 of the 152,000 inmates have gotten the injections so far – a small but growing share that the BOP updates each weekday online.

No similar system exists at ICE, and a Business Insider investigation last monthfound that the agency had no vaccination plan.

Dr. Ada Rivera, a top medical official at ICE, said in the federal lawsuit in California last month that officials told the Department of Homeland Security earlier in the pandemic that they needed thousands of vaccine doses for detainees, and DHS officials relayed that information to those running Operation Warp Speed. But ICE has not received any vaccine doses directly and is relying on state and local health departments to deliver them, an ICE spokeswoman said. Most have not provided any doses.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody,” spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said. “A limited number of ICE detainees have begun to receive the coronavirus vaccine based on availability and priorities for vaccinating individuals in the state where they are currently detained.”

DHS declined to comment, and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.

ICE runs a network of more than 200 public and privately run facilities and county jails, which at one point during the Trump administration held an average of more than 50,000 people a day, a record high. The agency is now detaining fewer than 14,000 people a day, its lowest average in decades, in keeping with CDC recommendations and court orders. Unlike convicted criminals in federal BOP prisons, immigrants are held for the civil purpose of attempting to carry out their deportations.

Records show that the virus has spread through ICE facilities over the last year, with hundreds infected in states such as Texas, Georgia, Arizona and Virginia.

Eloy Detention Center, in the Arizona desert, is monitoring 47 active coronavirus infections, according to ICE. The South Texas ICE Processing Center outside San Antonio has 38 active cases, while a facility in Batavia, N.Y., has 51 cases.

In Batavia, a small federal detention facility near the Canadian border, detainees said in interviews that they can hear sick immigrants coughing in their bunks. Some moan with headaches.

“I’m trying to stay alive. Right now this place is infested with the virus,” Aldwin Brathwaite, 59, a grandfather from Trinidad and Tobago who came to the United States in 1979 with a green card, said in a phone interview this week.

Brathwaite said he has cancer and has been detained since January 2019, longer than he spent in state prison for felony identity theft and other nonviolent crimes. ICE did not respond to his claims. He remains negative for the virus, his lawyer said.

“Honestly, I’m scared,” he added. “I don’t want to be the first one to die here.”

Elvin Minaya Rodriguez, 38, said he is facing deportation to the Dominican Republic because he has a state drug conviction, which he is appealing. He said he is married to a U.S. citizen, has a green card, and has spent two years in detention trying to keep it.

Rodriguez said he wears a mask and tried to stay away from others to avoid becoming infected, though he has a low-paid prison job serving food to other detainees. In late February, his head and limbs throbbed with pain. Phlegm filled his lungs. His pale skin turned red.

“The virus got me,” he said in Spanish from detention, where he recovered. “I thought I was going to die.”

Without a vaccination, he fears he will catch the virus again. He said he has high blood pressure.

ICE officials say they are taking precautions inside the centers, testing immigrants for the coronavirus and quarantining them upon arrival, and isolating and caring for those who test positive.

“Detainees who test positive for COVID-19 receive appropriate medical care to manage the disease,” ICE said in a statement.

But lawyers say immigration officials are still holding too many immigrants at high risk of the disease, making the lack of vaccinations even more pressing.

U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal ruled Wednesday that he would appoint a special monitor to oversee ICE’s compliance with his order last year to consider releasing detainees with serious medical conditions or disabilities, calling ICE’s latest efforts “exceedingly slow.”

“This is particularly concerning as the public health emergency rages on,” he wrote.

Other lawsuits are fighting for detainees’ health in county jails or federal facilities.

In western New York, lawyers have begged a federal judge for weeks to make sure 85 detainees with medical conditions at the Batavia detention center get vaccinated.

Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo in New York has warned officials that “this is life-threatening stuff,” and he told lawyers at a hearing Thursday to vaccinate detainees.

“Guys, this is not rocket science,” said Vilardo, who criticized the agency last week for doing “zero” to get vaccine doses. “We can get this done.”

Government lawyers said they would abide the court’s orders, but in court filings they suggested that the immigrants sue the New York state government to secure vaccine doses instead.

“If we had unlimited resources, we would vaccinate everybody,” Justice Department lawyer Adam Khalil said during the hearing Thursday. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case.”

He said detainees were also spreading the virus by not wearing masks or social distancing.

“You have to take some self-responsibility,” Khalil said.

John Peng, a lawyer with Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York who is representing the immigrants at the Batavia facility with the New York American Civil Liberties Union, said ICE should ensure that the detainees are protected.

“This is ICE’s responsibility,” he said in an interview. “The government is choosing to detain someone.”

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Alleged organizer in Capitol riot freed from jail as he awaits trial

InternationalMar 13. 2021Thomas Caldwell

By The Washington Post, Tom Jackman

WASHINGTON – A Virginia man accused of being an organizer of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was ordered released from jail Friday by a federal judge, who said the man did not enter the Capitol and “there’s no direct evidence that he was planning to do so that day.”

Thomas Caldwell, 66, of Berryville, had been in jail since an FBI raid on his home on Jan. 19, and U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta had refused to release him after a hearing on Feb. 12. But Caldwell’s lawyer said the government still had no evidence that Caldwell planned an invasion of the Capitol, he didn’t physically enter the building, and he noted that Caldwell fully cooperated with FBI agents. That included providing them the passwords to his computers and sitting for a two-hour interview, which seemed to convince Mehta that Caldwell had not destroyed evidence after the Jan. 6 siege.

Caldwell also suffers from severe back pain as a result of injuries received during his 20-year Naval career, his attorney, David Fischer, said, and was unable to receive treatment for that in the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange. Mehta said he took that into account, as well as Caldwell’s military service, his former top secret security clearance, and his lack of a prior criminal history.

During the hearing in Washington, prosecutors asked Mehta to delay Caldwell’s release until Monday while they considered whether to appeal his order, but Mehta declined.

Caldwell is indicted, along with eight others from around the country, with conspiring to block Congress from confirming the winner of the U.S. presidential election, destroying government property, entering a restricted building and destroying evidence. The FBI said it found messages that Caldwell sent to members of the conservative Oath Keepers group lining up their arrival in Washington, and seemingly establishing a “quick reaction force” with weapons, staged outside the city, to summon during the siege if needed.

Caldwell then sent messages and photos from the Capitol on Facebook on Jan. 6 which the government interpreted as his narration of joining the crowd of rioters, while Fischer said they were merely reports to his friends watching from afar. Comments by Caldwell such as “We must smite them now and drive them down” were actually harmless hyperbole from an amateur screenwriter, Fischer said.

Fischer said Caldwell and others were planning to provide protection for Trump supporters from a feared antifa attack. He said the Oath Keepers had traveled around the country to help local police defend against violent protesters.

“Who deputized the Oath Keepers to come in and help the local police?” Mehta asked. “This notion that they are a roving band, ready and willing to step in just in case Antifa shows up seems fanciful.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy noted that some of Caldwell’s messages referenced more than protection. “Let them try to certify some crud on capitol hill,” Caldwell wrote on Dec. 31 on Facebook, “with a million or more patriots in the streets. This kettle is set to boil.”

Seven of Caldwell’s alleged co-conspirators composed the “stack” of Oath Keepers who marched up the Capitol steps and into the building, prosecutors allege, but the judge agreed that Caldwell was not one of them. “There is an absence of direct evidence of planning by Mr. Caldwell to enter the Capitol building,” Mehta said.

Mehta placed Caldwell on 24-hour home confinement with electronic monitoring, with no access to guns, computers or smartphones, to stay away from the District and to have no contact with anyone affiliated with the Oath Keepers.

“Believe me Mr. Caldwell,” Mehta told the defendant, “if there’s any hint of violation of these conditions, you’ll be right back where you are.”

“Yes your honor, I understand,” said Caldwell, who attended the hearing through a video link from the jail in Virginia.

Separately Friday, prosecutors unsealed charges filed Wednesday accusing alleged Florida Proud Boys member Christopher John Worrell of spraying pepper-spray gel toward police at West Capitol front. At an initial appearance in the afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Mac McCoy of Fort Myers ordered Worrell’s release, but Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington stayed an order to hear a government appeal for detention.

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British tabloid claims Oprah Winfrey ‘seriously misled’ viewers in royal interview

InternationalMar 13. 2021

By The Washington Post, Paul Farhi

The owner of the Daily Mail has requested that Oprah Winfrey’s production company and CBS alter a widely viewed interview with Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – specifically that they stop using the British tabloid’s headlines to demonstrate racist coverage of the royal couple.

“Many of the headlines have been either taken out of context or deliberately edited and displayed as supporting evidence for the program’s claim that [Meghan] was subjected to racist coverage by the British press,” Elizabeth Hartley, the chief legal officer for the Mail’s parent company, Associated Newspapers, wrote to CBS on Friday.

She cited three instances in which Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions, “seriously misled” viewers during the two-hour interview, which featured allegations by the duchess and her husband that racism had driven them to leave Britain for the United States. The program has been seen by tens of millions of people since it first aired Sunday, and was reran on CBS on Friday.

Meghan is an unusual figure in the British royal family: An American actress, the child of a Black mother and White father, and a divorcée before she married Harry, who is sixth in line for the throne. The British media’s obsession over their relationship has been shadowed by claims of racism and double standards from the beginning.

Some of the coverage has been overtly racist. “Harry to marry into gangster royalty? New love ‘from crime-ridden neighborhood,’ ” read a 2016 headline in the Daily Star, a competitor to the Mail, which is one of Britain’s top-selling newspapers.

Associated Newspapers claims that Winfrey’s interview with the couple misled viewers by including Daily Mail headlines in a montage of offensive coverage that periodically flashed across the screen.

One of the tabloid’s headlines that was used read, “Meghan’s seed will taint our royal family.” It was in fact a direct quote of a text sent by the girlfriend of the leader of a far-right British party. She was suspended from the party after the Mail reported on her texts.

At another point, CBS showed an excerpt from a 2016 Daily Mail column written by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel Johnson. As presented on screen it read, “Miss Markle’s mother is a dreadlocked African-American lady from the wrong side of the tracks . . . ” underneath the Daily Mail logo.

In the complaint letter, Hartley wrote that the comment was intended to praise Markle for bringing diversity to the insular, overwhelmingly White royal family. In the sentence before the excerpt, Hartley noted, Johnson had written: “If there is issue from her alleged union with Prince Harry, the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA.” (Exotifying multiracial people and relationships is itself an offensive stereotype.)

The third instance involves the blurring of a single word in a Mail headline from 2017 that was shown during in the interview. As presented by Winfrey, the headline reads, “Yes, they’re joyfully in love. So why do I have a [word obscured] worry about this engagement picture?”

The word in question is “niggling,” a commonly used adjective in Britain (and The Washington Post) that means petty or trivial. By blurring out the word and including the altered headline in the montage, Hartley wrote, the producers “invited audiences to speculate on what word had been used and, in the context of the program, to reach a false and damaging conclusion that it was racist.”

The demand letter asked that all three headlines be removed from reruns of the interview. It did not threaten legal action, and so far neither Winfrey nor CBS has shown much inclination to comply with the request.

In a statement Friday, a spokeswoman for Harpo said no changes are planned. The royal couple “shared in the interview their personal story,” she said. “We stand by the broadcast in its entirety.”

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AstraZeneca vaccine’s benefits outweigh risks, says EMA, as probe launched into blood clotting cases

InternationalMar 12. 2021

By THE NATION

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Thursday that it is aware that Denmark has paused the administering of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines. This step was taken as a precaution while a full investigation is ongoing into reports of blood clots in people who received the vaccine, including one case in Denmark where the person died.

Some other European countries have also paused the use of this vaccine.

“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine,” said the agency. “The position of EMA’s safety committee PRAC [Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee] is that the vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks and the vaccine can continue to be administered while an investigation of cases of thromboembolic events is ongoing. PRAC is already reviewing all cases of thromboembolic events, and other conditions related to blood clots reported post-vaccination with AstraZeneca vaccine.”

EMA also added that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than the number seen in the general population. As of Wednesday, 30 cases of thromboembolic events had been reported among close to 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe.

EMA said it will provide updates as the assessment progresses.

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EU regulator clears Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine

InternationalMar 12. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Suzi Ring, Nikos Chrysoloras

Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine won clearance from the European Union’s drugs regulator, paving the way for the first single-injection shot to help bolster the region’s sluggish vaccination campaign.

The European Medicines Agency recommended that the EU grant the vaccine conditional approval for all adults in a statement Thursday. The European Commission said it will move quickly to rubber-stamp the decision.

The newcomer could help the bloc ramp up its immunization effort because it can be stored in a refrigerator for long periods — unlike two of the other three vaccines available in the EU — and the logistics of injecting a single dose are far simpler. The shot protected all volunteers in clinical trials against hospitalization and death from covid-19.

The EU has purchased 200 million doses of the vaccine, with an option for 200 million more. The Commission had said previously deliveries were expected to begin in early April, but officials are now bracing for delays, two people with knowledge of the process said earlier this week. At a meeting of EU ambassadors Wednesday, diplomats were told J&J has yet to provide a delivery schedule for the shot.

The vaccine is the fourth to be cleared in the region after those made by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford, Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE, and Moderna Inc.

The EMA’s “recommendation is a landmark moment for Johnson & Johnson and for the world,” said Paul Stoffels, the drugmaker’s chief scientific officer, in a statement.

The EU’s vaccination program has faced criticism for its slow rollout, prompting Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to lash out earlier this week, saying the bloc’s executive arm is “tired of being the scapegoat.” Instead she refocused the blame on manufacturers like Astra, which has delivered fewer vaccines than promised.

The J&J vaccine was found to be 67% effective against symptomatic covid-19 in trials, a number that was affected by the prevalence of new variants of the virus at some study sites such as South Africa. In the U.S. arm of the studies, the vaccine prevented 72% of infections.

That’s less protection than what vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna offer, but its ease of use makes up for that, especially since it affords protection against severe disease. Side effects include headaches, tiredness and pain at the injection site.

“As a cheap, easily shipped and stored vaccine, it will play a key role,” Sam Fazeli, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note after the shot won clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month.

Like the Astra vaccine, the J&J shot uses an adenovirus, similar to the virus that causes the common cold, to deliver the genetic material into the body to provoke a defense against covid-19. The Oxford-Astra vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus to do this, while J&J’s is derived from humans.

The U.S. began rolling out the shot last week, following the FDA’s emergency-use authorization. Through Operation Warp Speed the U.S. has provided about $1.5 billion in funding for the vaccine in exchange for 100 million doses, with the option to purchase more. The company is also conducting a two-dose trial of its shot.

The U.K., where some of J&J’s advanced trials were conducted, has purchased 30 million doses of the vaccine, but hasn’t yet cleared it for use.

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Denmark, Norway temporarily suspend AstraZeneca vaccine, even as European regulator maintains it is safe

InternationalMar 12. 2021

By The Washington Post · Rick Noack

BERLIN – Danish and Norwegian authorities said Thursday that they have temporarily suspended the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, citing concerns over a possible association with blot clots, even as the European Union’s regulator found no evidence that the vaccine is unsafe.

“We are engaged in the largest and most important vaccination rollout in Danish history. And right now, we need all the vaccine doses we can get,” said Soren Brostrom, director of the Danish National Board of Health, in a statement on Thursday. “It is, therefore, not an easy decision to pause vaccination with one of the vaccines. However, because we vaccinate so many people, we also need to react with due diligence when we learn of possible and severe side effects.”

Danish authorities said that one death in Denmark is being investigated.

None of the coronavirus vaccines authorized in Europe or the United States have yet been linked to deaths, in clinical trials or real-world settings.

While the Danish suspension is expected to last two weeks, Norwegian authorities did not immediately provide a timeline for their review of the vaccine.

Concerns were first prompted by a case in Austria of a person who was diagnosed with blood clots and died 10 days after vaccination. At least three other people who received AstraZeneca vaccines from the same batch also developed serious conditions, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Wednesday.

But the EMA concluded there “is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine.” It added that the prevalence of blood clots in vaccinated people “is no higher than that seen in the general population.”

In its release, the EMA said “although a quality defect is considered unlikely at this stage,” it would investigate the quality of the relevant batch of vaccines – a shipment of 1 million AstraZeneca doses distributed to 17 European countries.

Several affected nations had already said they would not use the batch’s doses until further notice. Thursday’s announcement by Denmark appeared to go further, as it applied to all AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine doses in the country of 5.8 million people.

Norway did not receive doses from the batch that is under scrutiny, according to the EMA.

In Britain, where more than 11 million doses of the vaccine have already been administered, the country’s regulator reassured people on Thursday that they “should still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”

“It has not been confirmed that the report of a blood clot, in Denmark, was caused by the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca,” said Phil Bryan, a senior official with the British regulator, according to the statement. “Blood clots can occur naturally and are not uncommon.”

In a statement of its own, AstraZeneca said “the safety of the vaccine has been extensively studied in Phase III clinical trials and Peer-reviewed data confirms the vaccine has been generally well tolerated.”

Denmark’s response to the pandemic has at times been more cautious than that of other E.U. members. The country’s government ordered the culling of millions of minks last year amid concerns that animals infected with the coronavirus could prompt the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants.

Still, the Danish and Norwegian moves could put pressure on other European nations to impose similar temporary suspensions, which may throw into further disarray the bloc’s vaccination strategy that has already been mired by backlogs and mixed political messaging.

The chief epidemiologist of Iceland, which like Norway is not a member of the E.U., said Thursday that the country would also temporarily suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to a spokesman for the Icelandic Foreign Ministry. But the spokesman could not immediately say whether that suspension would only apply to the batch under scrutiny or to all AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines in the country.

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https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403600

Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus bill

InternationalMar 12. 2021

President Joe Biden

By The Washington Post · Tony Romm

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package into law on Thursday, setting in motion a vast effort on the part of his administration to implement one of the largest stimulus measures in U.S. history, and some stimulus payments could be delivered this weekend.

“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” the president said during the bill signing.

The first round of stimulus payments of up to $1,400 could go out this weekend to Americans whose direct deposit bank account information is already on hand at the IRS, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday.

The bill, known as the American Rescue Package, authorizes a third round of one-time stimulus payments up to $1,400 for most Americans; extends additional unemployment support to millions still out of work; and makes major changes to the tax code to benefit families with children. It also sets aside new federal money to help schools reopen, aid cities and states facing budget shortfalls, and assist in the distribution of coronavirus vaccine doses.

Democrats have pledged to promote the bill heavily in the coming months, touting it as one of the most significant anti-poverty proposals that Congress has adopted in a generation. Biden, meanwhile, is expected to embark on a cross-country tour to sell the rescue plan to voters, including a trip to Pennsylvania scheduled for Tuesday. Vice President Harris and her husband are set to deliver the same message out west, although details of the trip are not yet clear.

For now, Biden’s signature on the law puts the U.S. government on track to start delivering some of the total $1.9 trillion in new coronavirus support, including stimulus checks. Administration officials have said a large number of Americans could receive their checks before the end of the month since the IRS, which is tasked with implementing the program, has delivered such aid in the past.

Other elements of the sweeping law may prove much tougher to implement, as the U.S. government must grapple with complex new mandates to deliver it in a tight time frame. That includes some of the changes to unemployment benefits and the new payments to be provided to Americans who have children, meaning it could be weeks or months before some families start to see the full scope of support authorized under the law. The White House said this week it would task an official to oversee stimulus spending across government.

Its passage offered an early economic jolt: Two airline giants, United Airlines and American Airlines, said this week they would cancel tens of thousands of layoffs as a result of aid they are set to receive under the stimulus law. The Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York, which oversees the city’s buses and trains, said the money would help stave off layoffs and other service cuts in the face of a rapidly dwindling budget situation.

Biden had initially intended to sign the bill on Friday, but White House aides said they received a copy of the legislation from Congress earlier than anticipated, allowing the president to put his signature on the proposal hours before he is set to deliver his first-ever prime time television address.