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Tense Lunar New Year for Bay Area after Asian Americans Attacks

Tense Lunar New Year for Bay Area after Asian Americans Attacks

There is no shortcut to deep, lasting healing, Ms. Wu said. Progress requires investing in neighborhoods; improve access to education, housing and food; and having “difficult and honest conversations”.

Nonetheless, she said, “It has been really encouraging in a way, to see the level of solidarity and the amount of support, not only from our own communities in the city and across the bay. , but also black and brown communities.

Young activists have used social media to raise awareness and disseminate calls to action, including fundraising and volunteer initiatives.

Eda Yu, 25, a half-Chinese, half-Indonesian writer and journalist, and her partner, Myles Thompson, a black creator, were briefed on the news of the attacks and acknowledged the strong emotions they aroused. The couple, she said, “wanted to come together and create a project rooted in solidarity.”

They made an Instagram slideshow that it was hoped would serve as an art of protest and a resource for those who want to help.

The first image, Ms. Yu said, was meant to look like a poster.

“Please! Protect our elders,” it reads. “Support our Chinatowns. Support our communities.”

The remainder includes a timeline of incidents and a list of community organizations working in Asian communities in the Bay Area. They listed each organization’s website and created a GoFundMe to donate to all organizations at once; they would split the money and one of their employers said they would match the premiums. The initial goal was to raise $ 5,000. In two days, they raised $ 50,000.

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Pentagon ends plan to vaccinate 40 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay

Pentagon ends plan to vaccinate 40 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on Saturday suspended plans to offer coronavirus vaccines next week to 40 prisoners of war at Guantánamo Bay after an outcry that the Defense Department was referring terrorism suspects to the American people.

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the department, announced the overthrow on Twitter, noting that none of the inmates had been vaccinated. A delay, he said, would allow officials “to assess the force protection impact on our troops, and that will always be the top priority.”

The 40 prisoners include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as six men who were allowed to be released by a government interagency panel.

The New York Times disclosure Thursday of plans to administer vaccines to prisoners at Guantánamo sparked a strong backlash, especially given the slow start of vaccine rollout in the United States.

Most states have started vaccinating older people, but people across the country have expressed frustration with vaccine shortages, long lines and canceled appointments.

California Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House’s top Republican, took to Twitter on Saturday to criticize the Pentagon’s original proposal. “President Biden told us he would have a plan to beat the virus on day one,” he wrote. “He just never told us it would be giving the vaccine to terrorists before most Americans.”

The Department of Defense announced the suspension several hours later.

About 1,500 soldiers serve in the Cuban detention center, most of them members of the National Guard who arrived during the pandemic and spent their first two weeks there in personal quarantine. But Southern Command, which oversees the prison, has yet to reveal how many of them have been offered the vaccine and how many have agreed to receive it.

Dr Terry Adirim, the Pentagon’s senior deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, on Wednesday signed a memo authorizing the vaccination of detainees. She is appointed by the Biden administration and has held the post of senior health official in the Department of Defense since July 2016.

Several hundred doses of the Moderna vaccine first arrived at the base on January 7, and medical staff received the first injections. It is not known whether enough doses have reached the base to vaccinate all those seeking her among the 6,000 residents, including seafarers and their families, teachers and contractors. The original plan was to start offering vaccines to prisoners on Monday. They were to receive information over the weekend to help them decide whether or not to accept the shots.

Lack of vaccinations has been a major obstacle to resuming pre-trial hearings in the 9/11 case, especially because virtually everyone except prisoners go to court across the United States and get vaccinated. prisoners, lawyers, the judge and other judicial staff were not a priority.

Vaccines against covid19>

Answers to your questions about vaccines

Currently, more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – are eligible for vaccination. But each state makes the final decision as to who starts. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to open eligibility to all people 65 and over and adults of all ages with health conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill. or die from Covid-19. The adults of the general population are at the back of the pack. If federal and state health authorities can remove the bottlenecks in vaccine distribution, everyone 16 and older will become eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months for a vaccine to be available to anyone under the age of 16. Visit your state’s website for up-to-date information on immunization policies in your area.

You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine at no cost. Congress passed a law this spring that prohibits insurers from enforcing any cost sharing, such as a copayment or deductible. It relied on additional protections preventing pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients, including those who are uninsured. Even so, health experts fear that patients will stumble upon loopholes that expose them to surprise bills. This could happen to those who are charged a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine, or to Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine from a doctor or emergency care clinic, tell them about any hidden costs. To make sure you don’t receive a surprise bill, it is best to get vaccinated at a health service vaccination site or local pharmacy once vaccines become more widely available.

This remains to be determined. It is possible that the Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu vaccine. Or it may be that the benefits of the vaccine last for more than a year. We have to wait and see how durable the protection against vaccines is. To determine this, researchers will follow vaccinated people looking for “revolutionary cases” – those people who contract Covid-19 despite being vaccinated. This is a sign of weakening protection and will give researchers clues about how long the vaccine will last. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of those vaccinated to determine if and when a booster injection may be needed. It’s conceivable that people would need boosters every few months, once a year, or just every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.

The Pentagon is preparing to hold its first indictment in Guantánamo since 2014 on February 22. According to the original plan, the defendants in this case – Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali; Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep; and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin – reportedly had the opportunity to be fully immunized before their first court appearance in over 17 years in the United States.

Mr. Hambali, who is Indonesian, is being held in Guantánamo as a former leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian extremist group that became affiliated with Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. The other two men, Malaysians, are accused of being Mr. Hambali’s accomplices in the 2002 bombings in a nightclub in Bali., which killed 202 people, and the 2003 Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta, which killed at least 11 people and injured at least 80.

Their case had been dormant for years. Then, a day after President Biden’s inauguration, a senior Pentagon official who had been in charge of military commissions under the Trump administration approved the dossier for trial.

The Biden administration has yet to disclose its Guantánamo policy, although Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told Congress during his confirmation hearing that the administration will not add any new detainees to the site. and request its closure.

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Military judge in U.S. court held by video link in Guantánamo Bay

Military judge in U.S. court held by video link in Guantánamo Bay

But the complexities are magnified when it comes to Guantánamo, which in normal times is essentially a suburban court that opens with the arrival of the judge, lawyers, reporters, translators and other staff. aboard a charter plane from Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington.

Credit…Office of Military Commissions

In Guantánamo’s best-known case – the long-delayed trial of those accused in the September 11, 2001 plot – the government chose to prosecute five men simultaneously for conspiring in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Hearings typically require over 100 people at the base, including senior death row attorneys, some in their 60s, who live outside the Washington area and are now considered particularly at risk if they travel. in the pandemic.

Over the weekend, the Chief Justice of the War Tribunal, Army Col. Douglas K. Watkins, canceled plans to hold a preliminary hearing this week in the case of a confessed Qaeda courier Majid Khan, in a makeshift courtroom in Reston, Virginia. Given the rapid spread of the coronavirus, Col. Watkins said it was too risky to hold the hearing because he was traveling from Texas and two defense attorneys were from New York and Connecticut.

At the time he canceled it, one of Mr Khan’s attorneys, Army Col. Wayne J. Aaron, was completing two weeks of quarantine in a small trailer in Guantánamo so he could sit with the prisoner. in the courtroom and participate remotely.

Mr Khan, who grew up in suburban Baltimore, pleaded guilty in 2012. This week’s hearing was meant to discuss witnesses to his sentencing, which is scheduled for May in Guantánamo – after two weeks in quarantine for participants, followed by a week-long survey. hearing on the torture of the prisoner by the CIA

For the Khan hearing, the Pentagon had also set up a viewing site at Fort Meade, Md., For four socially distanced journalists to watch the proceedings in streams that would have switched between Guantánamo and Virginia. Generally, journalists can travel to Guantánamo to observe the hearings.

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Game day in Green Bay: empty sports bars, full hospitals

Game day in Green Bay: empty sports bars, full hospitals

At Cropsey’s on State, Carol Gezella, who once owned the place – her son now does – said she felt ‘pretty safe’ despite the virus spike, but was concerned about orders of the governor.

“We’re going to do whatever we can to stay open,” she said.

Although rural areas and small metropolitan areas have seen some of the worst outbreaks in recent weeks, many large cities are also struggling. Counties that include Chicago, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Anchorage and El Paso all set one-day records on Saturday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called on federal officials to open an army medical center in Fort Bliss to civilian patients to help ease pressure on El Paso hospitals.

And, whether in big cities or small towns, health experts warn the country is heading for the worst increase in cases to date.

Dr Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner, said in an appearance on CBS ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday that the United States was at a “dangerous tipping point.”

“These cases are going to continue to pile up,” Dr Gottlieb said. “There really is no safety net here. I don’t see any strong political intervention any time soon. “

Still, some Packers fans have found hope in their team’s legacy.

Tom Wartick is a longtime Packers fan whose daughter got married on the pitch. On Sunday, he was taking photos along Lombardi Avenue, named after Vince Lombardi, the legendary Packers coach whose statue stands outside Lambeau Stadium. Mr Wartick said he felt the sense of upliftment of a true fan.

“Vince Lombardi said it was okay to get knocked over – it wasn’t okay to stay on the ground” said Wartick, 63. “And it’s the same with this Covid virus. It’s a little intimidating, but we have to keep moving forward in life.

Lucy tompkins contributed to New York reporting and Mitch smith from Chicago.