Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items tagged cbs

Rss Feed Group items tagged

g-dragon

Zheng He's Treasure Ships of the Ming Dynasty - 0 views

  • Between 1405 and 1433, Ming China under the rule of Zhu Di, sent out enormous armadas of ships into the Indian Ocean commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He.
  • dwarfed European ships of that century — even Christopher Columbus's flagship, the "Santa Maria," was between 1/4 and 1/5 the size of Zheng He's.
  • Along with dozens of baoshan, each armada included hundreds of smaller ships.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Drastically changing the face of Indian Ocean trade and power, these fleets embarked on seven epic voyages under Zheng He's guidance, resulting in a rapid expansion of Ming China's control in the region, but also of their struggle to maintain it in years to come due to the financial burden of such endeavors.
  • The eight-masted ships, called "machuan" or "horse ships
  • Seven-masted "liangchuan" or grain ships carried rice and other food for the crew and soldiers in the fleet.
  • Finally, the small, five-masted warships or "zhanchuan," each about 165 feet long, were designed to be maneuverable in battle. Though tiny compared with the baochuan, the zhanchuan were more than twice as long as Christopher Columbus's flagship, the Santa Maria.
  • Why did Zheng He need so many huge ships? One reason, of course, was "shock and awe." The sight of these enormous ships appearing on the horizon one by one must have been truly incredible for the people all along the Indian Ocean's rim and would have enhanced Ming China's prestige immeasurably.
  • The other reason was that Zheng He traveled with an estimated 27,000 to 28,000 sailors, marines, translators and other crew members. Along with their horses, rice, drinking water and trade goods, that number of people required a staggering amount of room aboard ship. In addition, they had to make space for the emissaries, tribute goods and wild animals that went back to China.
  •  
    A history of Zheng He's fleet. It is intresting to see how enormus these ships were compared to Columbus' and how the Ming Dynasty used their massive navel power mainly to trade instead of colonize like the Europeans. It brings up the question, 'what if the Colombian exchange occurred by Zheng He instead of Columbus?'
g-dragon

The European Overseas Empires - Overview - 0 views

  • Europe is a relatively small continent, especially compared to Asia or Africa, but during the last five hundred years, European countries have controlled a huge part of the world, including almost all of Africa and the Americas
  • benign to the genocidal, and the reasons also differed, from country to country, from era to era, from simple greed to ideologies of racial and moral superiority such as 'The White Man's Burden
  • Pressure on land from the encroaching Ottoman Empire and a desire to find new trade routes through to the well-known Asian markets—the old routes being dominated by Ottomans and Venetians—gave Europe the push—that and the human desire to explore. Some sailors tried going around the bottom of Africa and up past India, others tried going across the Atlantic. Indeed, the vast majority of sailors who made western 'voyages of discovery' were actually after alternative routes to Asia—the new American continent in between was something of a surprise.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • There are three general phases in the history of Europe's colonial expansion, all including wars of ownership between the Europeans and indigenous people, as well as between the Europeans themselves.
  • During the same period, European nations also gained influence in Africa, India, Asia, and Australasia (England colonized the whole of Australia), especially the many islands and landmasses along the trading routes.
  • However, this second phase is characterized by the 'New Imperialism,' a renewed interest and desire for overseas land felt by many European nations which prompted 'The Scramble for Africa,' a race by many European countries to carve up the entirety of Africa between themselves.
  • In 1914, the First World War began, a conflict partly motivated by imperial ambition. The consequent changes in Europe and the world eroded many beliefs in Imperialism,
  • The Early Imperial Nations
  • England, France, Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands.
  • The Later Imperial Nations
  • England, France, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
  •  
    An intresting addition to the E-Hem reading on why the Europeans started to colonize other continents. Also gives some information about imperialism and how that ties in.
katherineharron

Trump's post-presidency: On the attack with the help of the Fox and Newsmax propaganda ... - 0 views

  • Former President Donald Trump was audible, if not visible, all day long on Monday — and the effect is to keep him front and center in the Republican Party conversation.
  • His unwillingness, or inability, to lay low is exactly what many Trump observers expected
  • "The code of the presidents club is to get out of the way and let the new commander in chief have a year or two," CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Lately Trump has been doing what comes naturally to him — dictating tweet-like statements, calling into conservative talk shows, and generally stirring up trouble. "I like this better than Twitter," he claimed on Newsmax. "Actually they did us a favor. This is better."
  • Trump has shown no courtesy to President Joe Biden since leaving the White House.
  • On the phone with one of his biggest sycophants, Newsmax's Greg Kelly, on Monday evening, Kelly speculated about Biden's mental faculties, prompting Trump to say "there's something" going on with Biden. Trump then questioned "whether or not he understands what he's signing" when bills cross his desk.
  • Trump is the first US president to lose re-election in nearly thirty years.
  • Trump, of course, proudly stands as the GOP antithesis of Bush 41. President 45, as some of his allies now call him, lest they identify him as "former," was uncharacteristically quiet upon leaving the White House. But he set up an office in Florida within days and began issuing statements that were widely picked up by the media — a cheap replacement for his account on Twitter, which banned him in the wake of the Capitol riot.
  • when broadcaster Rush Limbaugh died, Trump resumed his old habit of calling into TV networks, with two calls to Fox and one call each to Newsmax and One America News.
  • Since then, he has gradually increased his visibility, with emails to members of the media from "45 Office" so far in March, twice as many as in February
  • Trump seemed self-aware about his media approach during a podcast taping with Lisa Boothe, which was released on Monday morning. Trump was Boothe's inaugural guest — which means the podcast does not yet have a high profile or a massive following. Trump said in a statement that she has been doing "an outstanding job" on Fox, so perhaps he wanted to give her new podcast a boost.
  • Trump said "people have seen some silence" from him, "but actually, if you take a look at what's happened over the last period of time, we're sending out releases. They're getting picked up much better than any tweet."
  • Trump also teased plans for "our own platform,"
  • Trump told Boothe that he now believes official statements to the public are "much more elegant than a tweet, and I think it gets picked up better. You're seeing that."
  • "Picked up" was the key phrase. The need for pickup — meaning attention from the American news media — is at the heart of Trump's post-presidential actions.
  • And he is continuing to push the incendiary claims that led up to the January 6 riot, about winning the 2020 election and Biden stealing it from him, despite pleas even from within his own party to stop lying.
  • "Trump's unique in that he wants to make a lot of racket and garner attention after leaving the White House,"
  • Brinkley likened Trump to "an active political hand grenade, ready to blow up the US political system any way he can.
  • Last week Trump called into Fox for a live interview with Maria Bartiromo. The next day his comments to Bartiromo were in heavy rotation on other right-wing networks and outlets.
  • To Kelly, he hedged about the possibility of a new social platform, saying that "something will happen with social media if I want it to happen."
anonymous

A Year After Breonna Taylor's Killing, Family Says There's 'No Accountability' : NPR - 0 views

  • Before Breonna Taylor's name became synonymous with police violence against Black Americans, she was an emergency medical technician in Louisville, Ky.The 26-year-old Black woman's friends and family say she was beloved, and relished the opportunity to brighten someone else's day.
  • Exactly one year ago, Louisville police gunned her down in her home. Now, her name is a ubiquitous rallying cry at protests calling for police reforms, and many social justice advocates point to her story as an example of how difficult it can be to hold police accountable for violent acts. The Louisville incident unfolded during a botched narcotics raid, when officers forced their way into her apartment in the early morning hours of March 13, 2020. Taylor was not the target of the raid and the suspect police were searching for was not at Taylor's home.
  • A year after Taylor's death, none of the officers who fired their service weapons — a total of 32 rounds — face criminal charges directly over Taylor's killing. At least three officers with connections to the raid have been terminated from the force.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Some advocates are calling for Kentucky's Republican-controlled legislature to pass "Breonna's Law," which would ban no-knock warrants statewide. The Kentucky Senate passed a bill late last month restricting such warrants in certain situations, which many activists and Democratic lawmakers say does not go far enough. They had introduced a similar bill in the House in August, called "Breonna's Law," but the House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to move forward with the Republican-sponsored proposal, according to WFPL.
  • But many advocates believe justice has not been done, citing the lack of criminal charges and saying they want to see broader criminal justice reform. Demonstrators plan to gather in downtown Louisville on Saturday to mark the anniversary of Taylor's death, member station WFPL reported. Activists say they hope to keep her memory alive and renew calls for justice, after the winter dampened on-the-ground protests.
  • In September, the city of Louisville announced a $12 million settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Taylor's family, which also included several police reforms.
  • Cameron, whose office took over as special prosecutor in the case in May, said at the press conference that both Mattingly and Cosgrove "were justified in their use of force."After the two officers forced their way into Taylor's apartment, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired on them. Walker, a licensed gun owner, has maintained that he did not hear the officers announce themselves before entering and mistook them for intruders. He fired a shot, which hit Mattingly in the leg.
  • Ju'Niyah Palmer, Taylor's sister, wrote on Instagram earlier this year that her heart was "heavy because we are only 2 months away from me not hearing, seeing or cuddling you for a whole year." Her mother, Tamika Palmer, recently filed complaints with the police department's professional standards unit against six officers for their role in the investigation that included the raid. In an Thursday interview with a Louisville CBS affiliate, Palmer expressed her frustration with the lack of accountability in the case and called on the community to continue demanding justice.
  • Last September, after months of protests in and around Louisville, the city was braced to hear whether a grand jury would hand down criminal indictments for LMPD officers Brett Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove. At a press briefing Sept. 23, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced no charges directly tied to Taylor's death. The grand jury handed down three criminal counts of wanton endangerment to Hankison, over shooting through Taylor's apartment into a neighboring residence.
  • The grand jury did not charge Mattingly, who shot six times, and Cosgrove, who fired a total of 16 rounds, including what federal investigators determined to be the round that ultimately killed Taylor.
  • Louisville Democratic Rep. Attica Scott, the primary sponsor of Breonna's Law, told NPR's All Things Considered on Friday that committee officials have said they will consider proposed amendments that would bring the two bills further into alignment.She also said she had written a letter to newly-confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, asking him to fully investigate Taylor's killing.
  • Cameron, Kentucky's first Black attorney general, told reporters that "evidence shows that officers both knocked and announced their presence at the apartment." He cited the officers' statements and one additional witness as evidence, but also acknowledged there is no video or body camera footage of the officers executing the search warrant.
  • Cameron's announcement sparked fresh outrage and demonstrations in Louisville, Atlanta, Denver, and Portland, among other cities. It added fuel to an already tense period in American society, where national protests focusing on racial justice inequities became a near-daily occurrence following high-profile police incidents with Black Americans, including George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Jacob Blake, Daniel Prude and others who were killed or seriously injured.
  • Days after Cameron's press conference, Taylor's mother, Palmer, said she was "reassured ... of why I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law. ... They are not made to protect us Black and brown people."
  • In that same press conference, Crump raised questions about what evidence Cameron presented on behalf of Taylor to the grand jury. He also publicly called for the release of the transcripts of the proceedings, something that is extremely rare in grand jury cases. The court did so several weeks later, after some jurors took issue with Cameron's explanation for why no officer was directly charged in Taylor's death.
  • Hankison was terminated from LMPD in June, after the department found he fired "wantonly and blindly" into Taylor's apartment. In January, some nine months after Taylor's killing, the department formally terminated Cosgrove and another officer connected to the incident.
  • Both Cosgrove and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who secured the warrant for the raid on Taylor's home, were found to have violated department protocols, according to the termination letters made public on Jan. 6.
  • LMPD officials said that for Jaynes, "the evidence in this case revealed a sustained untruthfulness violation based on information included in an affidavit completed by you and submitted to a judge."LMPD said Cosgrove violated the department's protocols on use of deadly force and failed to activate his officer-worn body camera.
  • In that same batch of documents, LMPD also said that Mattingly, who was shot during the raid, was exonerated on both counts of violating department procedures on use of deadly force and de-escalation. It added, "no disciplinary action taken and the complaint will be dismissed." The disciplinary documents were released the same day Fischer, the Louisville mayor, formally announced that Erika Shields would be the city's next permanent police chief.
  • Shields resigned her post as Atlanta's police chief in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot in the back during an encounter with white officers in a Wendy's parking lot in June.
rerobinson03

Far-Right Extremists Move From 'Stop the Steal' to Stop the Vaccine - The New York Times - 0 views

  • f the so-called Stop the Steal movement appeared to be chasing a lost cause once President Biden was inaugurated, its supporters among extremist organizations are now adopting a new agenda from the anti-vaccination campaign to try to undermine the government.
  • Bashing of the safety and efficacy of vaccines is occurring in chat rooms frequented by all manner of right-wing groups including the Proud Boys; the Boogaloo movement, a loose affiliation known for wanting to spark a second Civil War; and various paramilitary organizations.
  • One third of Republicans surveyed in a CBS News poll said that they would avoid getting vaccinated — compared with 10 percent of Democrats — and another 20 percent of Republicans said they were unsure. Other polls found similar trends.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In the months since inoculations started in December, the alliance grouping extremist organizations with the anti-vaccination movement has grown larger and more vocal, as conspiracy theories about vaccines proliferated while those about the presidential vote count receded
  • A new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University noted, however, that although the deplatforming of extremist groups made their campaigns harder to follow, the alliance has the potential to meld disparate factions into a large anti-government movement united around public health issues.“It increases the opportunity for a big tent enemy,” said Joel Finkelstein, a fellow at Rutgers who runs the institute. “If you are feeling dispossessed, like all these right-wing groups are, boy do I have a tent for you.”Ben Decker contributed research.
katherineharron

Georgia voting bill: Republicans speed sweeping elections bill restricting voting acces... - 0 views

  • Republicans in Georgia sped a sweeping elections bill into law Thursday, making it the first presidential battleground to impose new voting restrictions following President Joe Biden's victory in the state.
  • The bill passed both chambers of the legislature in the span of a few hours
  • Kemp, who is up for reelection next year, had refused to give in to former President Donald Trump's demands last year that he overturn Biden's victory -- earning Trump's public condemnation.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • He predicted critics of the new law "will threaten, boycott, sue, demonize and team up with their friends in the national media to call me everything in the book."
  • The new law imposes new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empowers state officials to take over local elections boards, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.
  • "It's like the Christmas tree of goodies for voter suppression," Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan said on the Senate floor
  • "In large part because of the racial disparities in areas outside of voting -- such as socioeconomic status, housing, and employment opportunities -- the Voter Suppression Bill disproportionately impacts Black voters, and interacts with these vestiges of discrimination in Georgia to deny Black voters (an) equal opportunity to participate in the political process and/or elect a candidate of their choice," the lawsuit states.
  • The package is part of a national Republican effort that aims to restrict access to the ballot box following record turnout in the election.
  • Advocates said they were alarmed by measures that will allow any Georgian to lodge an unlimited number of challenges to voter registrations and eligibility, saying it could put a target on voters of color. And Democrats in the Georgia Senate on Thursday lambasted measures that boot the secretary of state as chairman of the state elections board and allow lawmakers to install his replacement, giving lawmakers three of five appointments.
  • "Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights," she said in a statement.
  • Voting rights advocates say the state's rapid-fire action -- and plans in other Republican-controlled states to pass restrictions of their own -- underscores the need for federal legislation to set a national baseline for voting rules.
  • Another provision shortens the runoff cycle from the current nine weeks to just four weeks
  • Republicans scaled back some restrictive provisions from earlier iterations of the legislation, including a proposed repeal of no-excuse absentee voting.
  • As of February, state legislators in 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills with restrictive voting provisions, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
  • 20,000 conservative activists it said had lobbied lawmakers to pass the overhaul.
  • Last November, Biden became the first Democrat in nearly three decades to win the state. And strong voter turnout in January helped send two Democrats to the US Senate, flipping control of the chamber to their party. One of those new senators, Raphael Warnock, captured his seat in a special election and will be on the ballot again in 2022.
  • And voters who seek absentee ballots have to provide a copy of their identification or the number of their Georgia driver's license or state ID to both apply for and return the ballot. The also prohibits the secretary of state's office from sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications, as it did before the 2020 primaries due to the coronavirus pandemic.
aidenborst

Covid case and death rates were higher in GOP-led states in second half of 2020, study ... - 0 views

  • In the second half of 2020, Republican-led states had higher Covid-19 case rates and death rates than Democrat-led states, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on Tuesday.
  • States with Republican governors had higher case rates after June 3, and death rates tipped on July 4.
  • At their peak differences, case rates and deaths rates in Republican-led states were about 1.8 times higher than those in Democrat-led states.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Democrat-led states -- such as New York and California -- were early entry points for Covid-19, perhaps contributing to higher incidence rates early on, according to the study's authors. But the reversal in trends "may reflect policy difference that could have facilitated the spread of the virus," they said.
  • "Governors' party affiliation may have contributed to a range of policy decisions that, together, influenced the spread of the virus," Sara Benjamin-Neelon, senior study author and professor at Johns Hopkins University, said in a news release. "These findings underscore the need for state policy actions that are guided by public health considerations rather than by partisan politics."
  • However, the new study's findings do not imply that political affiliation of a state leader was a cause of Covid-19 case or death incidence, according to the study's authors.
  • While the analysis was adjusted for rurality, the study notes that "the findings could reflect the virus's spread from urban to rural areas."
aidenborst

Child tax credit: 5 ways the stimulus package is expected to reduce poverty - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • President Joe Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion relief package represents one of the largest federal efforts to reduce poverty in the last half century.
  • The massive legislation, which the President is expected to sign Friday, provides aid to low-income Americans in numerous ways. Attention has focused on the third round of direct stimulus payments, but the bill also offers parents a guaranteed stream of income and gives childless workers a bigger tax break.
  • The package's key measures are expected to slash the poverty rate by about a third and reduce the share of children in poverty by more than half, according to estimates from both Columbia University and the Urban Institute.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • The provisions would cut the poverty rate among Black Americans by 38%, Hispanic Americans by 43% and White and Asian Americans by around 24%
  • In total, 16 million fewer people will be living in poverty in 2021
  • The key change is that the tax credit will become fully refundable so that more low-income parents could take advantage of it.
  • "Getting this far is a huge win and a sign of progress in the conversation, as well as immediately putting money in people's pockets," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, director of the income and work supports team at The Center for Law and Social Policy, a left-leaning group.
  • "I certainly don't think it's a done deal, but I think there's a lot more opportunity than there has been in the time that I've been working on these issues," she continued.
  • The enhanced portion of the credit will be available for single parents with annual incomes up to $75,000 and joint filers making up to $150,000 a year.
  • But there's one big catch. The benefits are all temporary -- a mix of one-time infusions and assistance that lasts no longer than a year.
  • Families can receive a credit of $3,600 for each child under 6 and $3,000 for each one under age 18, up from the current credit of up to $2,000 per child under age 17.
  • It provides direct payments worth up to $1,400 per person to married couples earning less than $160,000 a year, heads of households making less than $120,000 and individuals with incomes below $80,000.
  • Those who have lost their jobs will continue to receive federal support through September 6. The relief package extends the $300 weekly boost to unemployment benefits and two key pandemic jobless benefits programs.
  • The bill also calls for making the first $10,200 of unemployment payments tax-free for households with annual incomes under $150,000.
  • Food stamp recipients will see a 15% increase in benefits continue through September, instead of having the enhancement expire at the end of June.
  • This amounts to about $25 more per person per month, or just under $100 per month for a family of four.
  • The package nearly triples the maximum credit childless workers can receive to $1,502, up from $543.
  • The minimum age to claim the childless credit will be reduced to 19, from 25, and the upper age limit will be eliminated.
  • This is the largest expansion to earned income tax credit since 2009.
anonymous

Biden assigning Harris to lead diplomatic efforts in Central America to address immigra... - 0 views

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Joe Biden is tasking Vice President Kamala Harris with overseeing efforts with Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants to the US southern border, the first major issue Biden has assigned directly to his No. 2.
  • The task mimics Biden's own efforts in 2014 and 2015, when he was asked by then-President Barack Obama to lead diplomatic efforts in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador after a surge of unaccompanied minors from those countries began arriving in the US.Migrants are again arriving at the border at increased levels, causing a scramble by the administration to accommodate them and a political problem for the White House.
  • Officials said Harris would focus her efforts on stemming the current flow of migrants and on developing a larger strategic partnership with Central American countries based on respect and shared values.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The vice president, until now, had not been tasked with a key portfolio issue distinct from Biden. Instead, she acted as a "full partner" to Biden, appearing often physically alongside him on all the administration's efforts, including their self-proclaimed top priority of managing the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Those close to Harris said foreign policy and national security are key areas she wants to develop in her portfolio, and she's taken steps to beef up her experience since taking office, including by speaking with foreign foreign leaders.
  • During her own presidential run, Harris said she would expand the use of deferred action immigration programs and utilize executive actions to remove the threat of deportation of millions of undocumented people in the US if elected president.She said earlier Wednesday in an interview with CBS News that the White House was frustrated by the current situation.
  • Officials said Harris would rely on her experience as attorney general and senator from California, a border state, to inform her diplomatic efforts.
  • They said she would be supported by officials from the Cabinet, including the State Department and USAID, and was likely speak with the leaders of key countries, though did not have specific phone calls to preview.Officials said Biden brought Harris into the new role because of an inherent level of trust.
  • Still, a separate official said Harris would approach the matter differently than Biden, who traveled to Guatemala City in 2015 for a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in part to develop solutions to issue of migrants from those countries coming en masse to the United States.
cartergramiak

Opinion | Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Pandemics fade. Racism does not. And when a president like Donald Trump unfairly blames an entire ethnic group for the coronavirus pandemic crisis, it can embolden discrimination and violence.
  • On a recent January morning, Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old from Thailand, was walking in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the police say, a 19-year-old man slammed into Mr. Vicha, knocking him down. He died two days later in the hospital.
  • “The rhetoric spurred by the previous administration when the pandemic started — using ‘China virus,’ ‘kung flu’ and all that kind of stuff — has made Asian-Americans a target to basically people who are racist,” Daniel Wu, star of the television series “Into the Badlands,” told me in a recent interview. Mr. Wu was born in Berkeley, Calif., worked as an actor in Hong Kong for many years and is now active in the campaign to prevent attacks against Asian-Americans.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • By 2044, America’s white population may no longer represent a majority of the country, according to the Census Bureau’s calculations. And what we’ve been witnessing in the United States — on the streets of the nation’s Chinatowns, in the Capitol on Jan. 6 and in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 — is the resentment and incomprehension of a small yet aggressive segment of the population that refuses to accept that the country is changing, that it is increasingly made up of people from many different backgrounds.
leilamulveny

Travel guidance won't come until more people are vaccinated, CDC says - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • "What we have seen is that we have surges after people start traveling, we saw it after July 4, we saw it after Labor Day, we saw it after the Christmas holidays," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday in response to a question from CNN's Kaitlan Collins during a Covid-19 briefing.
  • The issue of air travel for the vaccinated has become a hot-button issue, with the industry pushing back against the new CDC guidelines, according to CNN reporting.Read More
  • The new CDC guidance says fully vaccinated people can visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing, visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease, and skip quarantine and testing if exposed to someone who has Covid-19 but are asymptomatic but should monitor for symptoms for 14 days.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The CDC defines people who are fully vaccinated as those who are two weeks past their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines or two weeks past a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
  • "That was a determination made by the CDC. It wasn't driven by or directed by the White House," Psaki said of the CDC guidelines when asked if Biden agreed on not issuing new guidance on travel for people who are fully vaccinated.
  • Wen, who is also a CNN medical analyst, added that she thinks people who are fully vaccinated should be able to travel "and that's one of those incentives that we can give as a way for restoring freedoms" for those who get vaccinated.
  • The Biden administration is ramping up vaccination efforts, and as of Wednesday afternoon nearly 93.7 million vaccines had been administered, according to the CDC. About 9.7% of the population is fully vaccinated, the CDC says.
lmunch

Opinion: The first minimum wage and the battle for $15 - CNN - 0 views

  • Raising the federal minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25, has become a flashpoint among Democrats, many of whom rightly feel the issue demands urgent action.
  • Moderates argued that they wanted a slower implementation of a higher wage. And some, such as Sen. Joe Manchin, also wanted a smaller increase to the minimum wage.
  • The recent attempt to raise the minimum wage through budget reconciliation misses a key point from the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the first bill to establish a minimum wage: compromise.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The landmark Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect in October 1938 and included provisions to raise the wage and cap working hours over the ensuing years. Since then, the minimum wage has been raised 22 times by 12 different presidents, the last being made in 2007 with an effective start date of 2009.
  • However, these various increases have recently failed to keep pace with inflation, such that the inflation-adjusted wage actually peaked back in 1968 ($11.55 in today's dollars). By comparison, today's $7.25 minimum offers significantly less purchasing power in inflation-adjusted dollars. Accordingly, US senators, like Bernie Sanders, propose to index, or tie further increases, of the minimum wage to data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  • Minimum wage, in other words, could be the next step of the most transformative presidency since Roosevelt.
katherineharron

Pelosi says women should be believed but stops short of calling for Cuomo resignation -... - 0 views

  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview Sunday morning that women should be believed but stopped short of calling for New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's resignation amid sexual harassment allegations against him.
  • "The governor should look inside his heart, he loves New York, to see if he can govern effectively," Pelosi said
  • Cuomo, facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted advances, is also the subject of an impeachment investigation after the speaker of the New York State Assembly authorized the judiciary committee to begin the probe this week.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • I said what these women have said must be treated with respect. They are credible and serious charges, and then I called for an investigation. I have confidence in the Attorney General of New York,
  • While Cuomo has apologized for "making anyone feel uncomfortable," the Democrat has maintained that he "never touched anyone inappropriately."
  • Pushed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos about whether she was calling for Cuomo to resign, the California Democrat responded: "I think we should see the results (of the investigation), but he may decide -- and hopefully this result will be soon -- and what I'm saying is the governor should look inside his heart, he loves New York, to see if he can govern effectively."
  • A majority of New York's congressional Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, have called on Cuomo to resign in the wake of the sexual harassment allegations and his handling of Covid-19 deaths at nursing homes.
  • "I salute the brave women who came forward," Schumer said Sunday morning. "There are multiple, serious, credible allegations of abuse so that Gov. Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and so many New Yorkers, so for the good of the state, he should resign." When asked whom Cuomo would listen to within the New York delegation, Schumer responded: "Look, I'm not going to speculate on the future, he should resign, he should resign."
  • Asked if her decision to call for Cuomo's resignation is "reminiscent" of her move to call for then-Sen. Al Franken to step down in 2017, when the Minnesota Democrat faced sexual harassment allegations, the New York senator pointed to the pandemic. "The thing that is very different about this moment in time is we are in the middle of the worst crisis of our lifetimes... and focused leadership is needed, and you need the support of your governing partners."
  • "I am not going to resign. I was not elected by the politicians, I was elected by the people," he said, insisting that "New Yorkers know me."
aleija

Opinion | Elise Stefanik and the Young Republicans Who Sold Out Their Generation - The ... - 0 views

  • Once upon a time, a shiny new trio of young conservatives — Ryan Costello, Carlos Curbelo and Elise Stefanik — wanted to help build a modern, millennial Republican Party. The 30-somethings, all sworn into Congress in 2015, understood that millennials often agreed on many of the nation’s core problems, and believed it was up to them to offer conservative solutions. They were out to create a new G.O.P. for the 21st century.
  • Of course, the road to political obsolescence is littered with the bones of political analysts like me who predicted that demographics would be destiny. But Mr. Trump didn’t just devastate the G.O.P.’s fledgling class of up-and-coming talent. He also rattled the already precarious loyalty of young Republican voters; from December 2015 to March 2017, nearly half of Republicans under 30 left the party, according to Pew. Many returned, but by 2017, nearly a quarter of young conservatives had defected.
  • Ms. Stefanik is one of the few of this set who survived, but only by transforming into a MAGA warrior. By 2020, she was co-chairing Mr. Trump’s campaign and embracing his conspiracy theories about a stolen election. Her pivot paid off: This month, she was elected to the No. 3 position in the House Republican Party. She is now the highest-ranking woman and most powerful millennial in the House G.O.P.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “The G.O.P. needs to prioritize reaching out to younger voters,” she told me. “Millennials bring a sense of bipartisanship and really rolling up our sleeves and getting things done.” Now she has tied her political career to the man who has perhaps done more than any other Republican to drive young voters away from her party, resulting in surging youth turnout for Democrats in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
  • The G.O.P. has embraced a political form of youth sacrifice, immolating their hopes for young supporters in order to appease an ancient, vengeful power.
  • It was clear, even then, that millennial voters across the political spectrum cared more about issues like racial diversity, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and college affordability than their parents did. Polls showed that young Republicans were more moderate on some issues than older ones, particularly on questions of immigration and climate change.
  • Millennials and Gen Zers were already skeptical of the G.O.P., but Mr. Trump alienated them even further. His campaign of white grievance held little appeal for the two most racially diverse generations in U.S. history. Youth voter turnout was higher in 2020 than it was in 2016, with 60 percent of young voters picking Joe Biden.
  • And anti-Trumpism may now be one of the most durable political values of Americans under 50. By the end of Mr. Trump’s presidency, after the Jan. 6 insurrection, almost three-quarters of Americans under 50 said they strongly disapproved of him. Even young Republicans were cooling off: According to a new CBS poll, Republicans under 30 were more than twice as likely as those older than 44 to believe that Mr. Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election and roughly twice as likely to believe the party shouldn’t follow Mr. Trump’s lead on race issues.
  • “Younger conservatives aren’t focused on the election being stolen or the cultural sound bites,”
  • It’s clear that this version of the Republican Party is firmly the party of old people: Mr. Gaetz and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene kicked off their America First tour with a Trumpian rally at the Villages, Florida’s famous retirement community.
  • Once, the young leaders of the G.O.P. were trying to present next-generation solutions to next-generation problems. Now they’ve traded their claim on the future for an obsession with the past.
saberal

Washington Post issues 'correction' on 2020 Tom Cotton story claiming COVID lab-leak th... - 0 views

  • The Washington Post issued a correction 15 months after alleging Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was peddling a "debunked" "conspiracy theory" about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. 
  • "Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus," the correction read at the top of the report. "The term 'debunked' and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus."
  • Associated Press White House reporter Jonathan Lemire accused former President Trump and his allies of "practicing revisionist history," while New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman blamed him and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for casting doubt within the media for withholding evidence to back their claims. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler similarly raised eyebrows for declaring that the theory is "suddenly credible." 
mattrenz16

Ambassador Motaz Zahran: Let this be the last Israel-Gaza ceasefire - Opinion - CNN - 0 views

  • Egypt worked around the clock over the past two weeks to end the deadly fighting between our Palestinian and Israeli neighbors. Since the early hours of the conflict, Egyptian mediators led de-escalation talks with both Hamas and Israeli leadership. We supported humanitarian efforts on the ground, including by opening the Rafah border crossing for the provision of immediate medical care to the injured in Gaza. Ultimately, in close partnership with the United States and others, we were able to broker a ceasefire.
  • However, we will also never accept the notion that this cycle of bloodshed is inevitable. That is why we refuse to let this issue recede in international priorities -- as it has in the past -- until the next crisis emerges and imposes.
  • In turn, Cairo and Washington must impress on Palestinians the need to work for peace. While having the militants lay down their arms for good might seem a long way off, stopping further attacks is essential to move forward. Those factions rejecting peace efforts and seeking instability, whatever their name or affiliation is, have to be contained, including by undermining their international network of support and finance. After all, armed attacks and military operations, whatever their cause is, never serve the path towards peace and only sets back the ultimate objective of a two state solution.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • We must work to uphold and enable the Palestinian National Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has a crucial role in furthering any future peace negotiations. His role as a national leader has been overshadowed by Hamas' recent conflict with Israel, yet he has all the credentials and willingness to return to the table for serious and meaningful discussions. Elevating Abbas in the eyes of the world will bring him back into his historic role as chief negotiator for the Palestinian people; after all, no one on the Palestinian side has worked more on the vision of a two state solution than President Abbas.
carolinehayter

Senate vote delayed for January 6 commission after Republicans bog down the floor - CNN... - 0 views

  • A crucial Senate vote on a bill to create an independent inquiry to investigate the deadly January 6 Capitol Hill riot has been delayed due to Republican objections to unrelated legislation, following an emotional and tumultuous week where the bill to create a 9/11-style commission seems on track to fail in the coming hours.
  • The likely filibuster from GOP senators underlines Republicans' desires to move on from the deadly insurrection at their workplace which left five people dead and more than 140 police officers injured. Their opposition also highlights the hold former President Donald Trump still holds on most of his party.
  • Supporters of the January 6 commission -- including the mother of a Capitol Police officer who died the day after the riot -- pleaded with GOP senators throughout the week in order to convince at least 10 Republicans to back the plan. So far, only three -- Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine -- have indicated they plan to join Democrats and support the bill.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Murkowski, took aim at her GOP colleagues Thursday night for moving to block the measure -- and was critical of the rationale by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that such a commission could prove politically problematic for the GOP ahead of the 2022 midterms.
  • The meetings highlighted the emotional toll that the riot has taken on the Capitol Hill community.
  • At least eight Republicans requested time to speak on the floor overnight -- for up to an hour each — to voice their objections to the legislative package aimed at China, known as "the US Innovation and Competition Act," and those GOP senators slammed what they said is a rushed process to make last-minute changes they have yet to review.
  • The bill aimed at China and US competitive would invest over $200 billion in American technology, science and research and had broad bipartisan support. Its struggles to advance highlight the difficulty Democrats will have to advance any legislation through the narrowly divided Senate, as several major issues are in negotiations among lawmakers.
  • The commission would attempt to find bipartisan consensus. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate evenly split the selection of its 10 members. A subpoena can only be issued to compel witness testimony if it has the support of the majority of members, or if the commission's chairperson, chosen by Democrats, and the vice-chairperson, chosen by Republicans, come to an agreement.The commission is also required to submit to the President and Congress a final report by the end of 2021 and dissolve 60 days thereafter -- about nine months before the 2022 elections.
carolinehayter

Rising seas are turning Miami's high ground into hot property | CNN - 0 views

  • In a city where “sunny day floods” increased 400% in a decade, rising seas are changing the old real estate mantra of “location, location, location.” In Miami these days, it’s all about elevation, elevation, elevation.
  • While some scientific models predict enough polar ice melt to bring at least 10 feet of sea level rise to South Florida by 2100, just a modest 12 inches would make 15% of Miami uninhabitable, and much of that beachside property is among America’s most valuable.
  • The fickle undulations between city blocks could mean the difference between survival and retreat, and the rising cost of altitude is sparking a noticeable shift in community activism and municipal budgets.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Miami Beach is spending millions elevating roads, upgrading pumps and changing building codes to allow residents to raise their mansions by five feet. But in working-class, immigrant neighborhoods like Little Haiti, year-to-year sea level rise gets lost in the day-to-day struggle, and most had no idea that they live a lofty three feet higher than the wealthy folks on Miami Beach.
  • They found out when developers started calling, from everywhere.
  • “We used to think that the allure of Little Haiti was the fact that it’s close to downtown, close to both airports and close to the beach. Unbeknownst to us, it’s because we are positioned at a higher altitude.”
  • After her community center and day school were priced out of three different buildings, she caught wind of plans to build the sprawling $1 billion Magic City development on the edge of Little Haiti, featuring a promenade, high-end retail stores, high rise apartments and imagined by a consortium of local investors, including the founder of Cirque du Soleil.
  • They promised to preserve the soul of Little Haiti and give $31 million to the community for affordable housing and other programs, but it wasn’t enough for Bastien. “This is a plan to actually erase Little Haiti,” she says. “Because this is the one place where immigration and climate gentrification collide.”
  • What’s happening in Little Haiti could be just one example of a “climate apartheid” that the United Nations warns is ahead, where there will be a gulf between the rich who can protect themselves from the impact of climate change and the poor who are left behind.
carolinehayter

How Belarus 'hijacking' will affect flights in Europe | CNN Travel - 0 views

  • In the week since Ryanair flight FR4978 from Athens to Vilnius was forcibly diverted to Minsk, travel in Europe already looks very different.
  • The directive, issued Wednesday by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) under the form of a Safety Information Bulletin (SIB), called on all airlines "with their principle place of business in one of the EASA member states" to avoid Belarusian airspace. They advised that all other airlines should do the same, wherever they are based.
  • There were other implications, with Russia -- an ally of Belarus -- taking several days to grant Air France and Austrian Airlines flights to Moscow the clearance to use Russian airspace to divert around Belarus, prompting cancelations.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • So how big a deal is this? Huge, say industry insiders -- big enough to have already shaken the aviation map of Europe, and big enough to have knock-on effects beyond the continent -- particularly if the situation escalates further.
  • If it did, passengers could see their flight times increased, a rise in fares across the networks, and even long-haul, nonstop flights needing to make refueling stops along the way.
  • "Now that they're not flying over its airspace, that's good -- governments have acted swiftly to restore confidence -- but I think it'll throw up questions for consumers over who they're flying with, which points they're flying between and how they're flying between them. If you were flying from Athens to Lithuania, or in the region around Russia, you might think twice.
  • The events, described by some governments as a state-sponsored hijacking, have "inevitably redrawn the aviation map of Europe," says one airline industry insider, who wanted to remain anonymous due to the risk of being identified. (
  • But the issues don't just end there, they say. "The problem you have is the challenge around where you draw the new map -- that whole region has restrictions."There are already restrictions flying over Ukraine"
  • "So Belarus had seen a huge increase in traffic because people were going around Ukraine."
  • "Airlines will either have to go very far north into the polar region, or to go down to the Gulf States -- but then most European carriers would avoid flying over Iraq and Iran. So, they'd probably go over Egypt, Saudi Arabia and across India.
  • "There's a big lump of airspace which is strategically important to airlines and is now being denied them -- and there'll be a knock-on effect on flight times, cost, and environmental impact."
  • Everyone in the industry agrees that if diversions become a long-term thing, it'll be a headache.
  • As well as the increased fuel burn and longer flight times, he says, any unplanned stops can send crews over their allotted hours. "They might need to be swapped out, with a new crew being flown in. There are significant consequences to this sort of disruption," he says.
  • The rules and regulations around airline safety are "absolutely sacrosanct," he says -- and have been enshrined in international law since 1944, in the Chicago Convention, which established freedom of the skies after the Second World War.
  • "This is the first time that a mechanism designed to ensure the safety and security of air travel has allegedly been used for political ends, and what's also worrying is that the political response to that has also been to use another mechanism designed to ensure flight security for political ends.
  • If you start playing politics with flight safety, you're setting out on a slippery slope, he argues.
  • "This symbolizes something really big -- since the Chicago Convention, freedom of the skies has been laid out. It's supposed to be universally accepted that airlines have a right to overfly a foreign country without being forced to land," they say.
  • "Clearly that has been violated. What Belarus is said to have done is really horrible -- and if it turns out to be a precedent, it's even worse. It's a terrible signifier of what could happen."
  • In short?"Everyone is worried about what this incident means for the future."
saberal

FBI agent charged in off-duty shooting of man on subway | Fox News - 0 views

  • An FBI agent has been charged with attempted murder in the off-duty shooting of another man on a Metro subway train last year in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., according to court records unsealed Tuesday.
  • The charges stem from a Dec. 15 shooting on a train near Medical Center Station in Bethesda. Police for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said in a Dec. 18 statement that the agent fired multiple shots after the man had approached him that morning and they exchanged words.
  • When the man asked Valdivia for money on the train, the agent said no and the man muttered expletives while walking away, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Hill said during Tuesday’s hearing. Valdivia told the man, "Watch your mouth," and the man turned around and approached Valdivia, who told him to back up multiple times. Valdivia shot the man from 2 to 3 feet away, Hill said, and did not identify himself as an agent until after the shooting. The man had part or all of his spleen, colon and pancreas removed during surgery after the shooting.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In a statement Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Baltimore field office said the bureau was aware of the charges and is fully cooperating with the investigation.
  • In a 911 call released in January, a witness said the agent had warned the man to back away, but the man ignored the command and instead prepared to fight him, the Washington Post reported.
« First ‹ Previous 101 - 120 of 196 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page