Canadian anti-vax truckers inspire copycat protests


New York City workers opposed to Covid vaccine mandates march across the Brooklyn Bridge carrying giant US and Canadian flags

 (AFP/ANGELA WEISS)


A protester stands with a Canadian flag near the parliament building in Wellington during a demonstration against Covid restrictions 

(AFP/Marty MELVILLE)


Anti-Covid mandate protestors hold a sign reading "Freedom" and a Canadian flag in Ottawa 

(AFP/Dave Chan)


City workers protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions in New York City

 (AFP/ANGELA WEISS)



Protesters stand on an overpass to welcome a protest convoy of trucks and other vehicles in Wellington, New Zealand

 (AFP/Marty MELVILLE)

The front gate of the Canadian parliament is covered with banners protesting vaccine mandates

 (AFP/Dave Chan)

Tue, 8 February 2022

A protest movement by Canadian truckers angered over Covid vaccine rules has become a rallying point for opponents of pandemic restrictions, firing up crowds from New York to New Zealand.

In New York, dozens of municipal workers facing dismissal unless they get shots marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall on Monday carrying giant US and Canadian flags.

"Unvaccinated Lives Matter" and "Workers Are Essential, Mandates Are Not," read signs carried by the crowd, which included firefighters and teachers.


In New Zealand, inspired by the Canadian "Freedom Convoy," trucks and campervans blocked streets near parliament in Wellington on Tuesday to protest against Covid restrictions and vaccinations.

Hundreds of vehicles plastered with messages such as "Give Us Back Our Freedom" parked in streets surrounding the parliament building.

Others drove around the city center with horns blaring as over 1,000 protesters on foot listened to speeches.

"I'm actually vaccinated but I'm against mandating people to be vaccinated," said Stu Main, of Wellington. "I think it's disgraceful, forcing vaccination on people who don't want it."

Several Wellington protesters carried Canadian flags, including an expatriate named Billy, who declined to give his surname.

"I'm just supporting the brothers in Canada, fighting for freedom over there," he said.

The Canadian protests have often tapped into right-wing politics, with Donald Trump flags at rallies and huge interest on conservative online sites.

- Calls for rallies in France -

In France, calls were circulating on Facebook for protestors to descend on Paris for anti-mandate demonstrations this weekend.

Similar appeals were launched in Belgium.

Some of the most vociferous support for the Canadian demonstrators has come from Republican officials in the United States, where Covid mask and vaccination mandates have become a highly partisan issue.

"The Freedom Convoy is peacefully protesting the harsh policies of far left lunatic Justin Trudeau who has destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates," former president Trump said.

"Now, thankfully, the Freedom Convoy could be coming to DC with American Truckers who want to protest (President Joe) Biden's ridiculous Covid policies," he said in a statement.

There has been no protest in Washington so far, but more than 100 truck drivers in Alaska drove from Anchorage to Eagle River on Sunday to support the Canadian demonstrators, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, addressed a rally in Eagle River, ADN said, telling the crowd he did not believe the federal government "has the power to look at American citizens and say 'either you get vaccinated or you get fired from your job.'"

According to the US Centers for Disease Control, fully vaccinated people are significantly less likely to die of the disease than non-vaccinated people.

Several Republican officials in US states have called meanwhile for investigations into GoFundMe after the fundraising site stopped taking donations for the "Freedom Convoy" protest.

GoFundMe removed the "Freedom Convoy" donation page on Friday, claiming it violated the site's terms of service that "prohibit user content that reflects or promotes behaviour in support of violence."

GoFundMe said it would refund all of the donations.

After the GoFundMe cutoff, organizers launched a donation drive on GiveSendGo, which describes itself as the "leader in Christian fundraising." More than $6.3 million has been raised on GiveSendGo as of Tuesday.

- Spreading protests -

The "Freedom Convoy" demonstrations began January 9 in western Canada as protests by truckers angry with vaccine requirements when crossing the US-Canadian border.

They have since morphed into broader protests against Covid restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government.

Trudeau demanded an end on Monday to the protest that has paralyzed Ottawa, saying "It has to stop."

"This pandemic has sucked for all Canadians," he said. "But Canadians know the way to get through it is continuing to listen to science, continuing to lean on each other."

cl/bgs

Canada provinces move to ease Covid rules as trucker protest hardens






1 / 6
The "Freedom Convoy" protests began in January in western Canada -- launched by truckers angry with requirements to either be vaccinated, or to test and isolate, when crossing the US-Canadian border (AFP/Dave Chan)

Michel COMTE
Tue, February 8, 2022, 10:54 AM·4 min read

Truckers paralyzing the Canadian capital in anger at Covid rules showed no sign of backing down Tuesday, as several of the nation's provinces announced it was time to roll back restrictions that count among the world's toughest.

With authorities struggling to bring the protest movement to heel, Saskatchewan in the country's west said Tuesday it was ready to lift all pandemic restrictions, with Quebec and Alberta also signaling plans to ease measures.

And in the capital, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- who a day earlier issued a stern warning the protests "had to stop" -- appeared to shift tone, saying he understood "how frustrated everyone is" and that "the time is coming when we will be able to relax."

"We're all sick and tired of restrictions, of mandates, of having to make sacrifices," Trudeau said, adding, however, that vaccine mandates were the "way to avoid further restrictions."

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" began in January in western Canada -- launched in anger at requirements truckers either be vaccinated, or test and isolate, when crossing the US-Canadian border.

Having snowballed into an occupation of the Canadian capital, the protest has sparked solidarity rallies across the nation and abroad, and by Tuesday had forced the temporary closure of a key US border bridge, the busiest international land-border crossing in North America.

Amid a state of emergency in Ottawa, federal police have deployed among demonstrators waving Canadian flags and anti-Trudeau placards.

Trudeau emerged from his own bout with Covid Monday night to address an emergency House of Commons debate on the protests, now in their second week and fast becoming a rallying cry for far-right and anti-vaccine groups.

Briefing reporters Tuesday, Ottawa Deputy Police Chief Steve Bell said his agents had made 22 arrests to date.

"Our message to demonstrators remains the same: Don't come. And if you do, there will be consequences," he said.

- 'Fed up' -

Under light snowfall, the truckers have been warming themselves by open pit fires and playing street hockey.

Since a court ordered their incessant loud honking to stop, they have turned instead to revving the engines of their big rigs.

Protester Martin Desforges, 46, told AFP he was determined to stay "until the end," which organizers said would come only when all pandemic restrictions were lifted.

"I'm against wearing a mask, all distancing measures and restaurant closures," he said.

"Getting vaccinated should be a decision between a person and their doctor," echoed fellow protester John Hawley-Wight, "not the government."

More than 80 percent of Canadians aged five and up are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

"The population is fed up. I'm fed up. We're all fed up," said Francois Legault, premier of Quebec province, which announced it would lift most Covid restrictions by mid-March, with hospitalizations now trending downward.

"Right now, we can take a calculated risk and finally turn the page," he said.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced a lifting in coming weeks of Covid restrictions including requiring testing or proof of vaccine status for businesses and public venues -- saying the "policy has run its course."

Vaccine mandates for travelers are set by Canada's federal government, but most other Covid measures are the responsibility of provincial authorities.

- 'Living in fear' -

From the original opposition to vaccine requirements, the trucker movement has morphed into a broader protest against Covid-related restrictions and Trudeau's Liberal government, and put a spotlight on pandemic curbs around the world.

Key US-Canada border crossings in Ontario and Alberta have been partially blocked by truckers and farmers, with Transport Minister Omar Alghabra warning Tuesday of "serious implications on our economy, on our supply chain."

Inspired by the Canada protests, a convoy of trucks and campervans blocked streets near New Zealand's parliament in Wellington Tuesday to protest against Covid restrictions and vaccinations, while calls have multiplied on social media for similar rallies in Europe and the United States.

The truckers have received US support ranging from former president Donald Trump to the billionaire Elon Musk, while at home, according to a Leger poll, 44 percent of vaccinated Canadians sympathize with their "concerns and frustrations."

bur-amc/sw/ec

SASKATCHEWAN 
Canada Province Lifts All Covid Restrictions Amid Protests

By AFP News
02/08/22 

Canada's Saskatchewan province announced Tuesday the lifting of all Covid restrictions including wearing of masks and proof of vaccination for indoor dining -- as truckers continued occupying Ottawa with similar demands.

Alberta was expected to soon follow suit -- despite some pushback from doctors and nurses -- while Quebec announced it would move up the loosening of restrictions.

Most of the Saskatchewan measures introduced in September, when the Delta variant of Covid-19 was spreading across Canada, will end at midnight on Sunday.

Indoor masking requirements and quarantines for anyone who tests positive, however, will remain in place until the end of the month.

"This policy has run its course," Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told a news conference.

The premier noted that more than 80 percent of Saskatchewan residents had received two Covid vaccine jabs, and about half got a booster -- similar to data for the country as a whole -- and that it was now time to treat Covid as endemic.

A protester walks in front of parked trucks as demonstrators continue to protest vaccine mandates on February 8, 2022 in Ottawa, Canada 

Photo: AFP / Dave Chan

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has proposed a phased removal of pandemic restrictions in his province. He is to provide details this week.

Meanwhile Quebec Premier Francois Legault signaled on Tuesday the lifting of Covid measures in his jurisdiction by mid-March.

"We will need to learn to live with the virus. There may be a sixth wave eventually, but we will have to live with Covid," Legault said, pointing to falling Covid hospitalizations.

Moe, who contracted Covid last month, has endorsed a convoy of truckers that converged on Ottawa to call for an end to vaccine mandates for travel between Canada and the United States.

Vaccine mandates for travelers are set by the federal government, but most other Covid measures are the responsibility of provincial authorities.

"It's time," he'd said in a video address last week for Canadians to regain their freedom and to be "getting your life back to normal."

Ottawa protesters against Covid restrictions dig in for long haul

Geneviève NORMAND

Tue, February 8, 2022, 

Seated around a campfire flanked by big rigs, with a view of parliament, bleary-eyed protesters on their 12th day of occupying Canada's capital say they are more determined than ever to stay put — and defend their "freedom."

"I am here to get my life back and so everyone else can too," said protester Sebastien Beaudoin.

Warming himself by the fire, the 39-year-old carpenter with a long beard said he's struggled during the past two years.

"It feels good to live again, to dance in the evening, to hug each other," he told AFP.

Hundreds of trucks draped with anti-government slogans have clogged the streets of downtown Ottawa, bringing it to a standstill.

The convoy arrived from westernmost Canada in late January demanding an end to vaccine requirements when crossing the US-Canadian border. But their protest has morphed into a broader movement against all Covid health restrictions.

Next to Beaudoin, Sophie Leblanc said she came from Quebec province to join the protest on Sunday and stayed.

"I'm not vaccinated, I don't want a QR code (for vaccine passports) and I want to be able to go shopping," says the 38-year-old woman who stands out in a bright orange coat, with a piercing above her lip.

She said she lost her waitressing job amid the various lockdowns imposed on restaurants and other businesses over the past two years, but found new work in the forestry sector.

"For two years, everyone has been dead, we are not allowed to see our families, our friends, we are not allowed to see anyone," she laments.

Here in Ottawa, she added, she has found comfort and solidarity with the truckers. "We found our humanity," she says.

- Government went too far -

Several Canadian provinces introduced severe restrictions last year to slow the spread of Covid-19. Quebec province in particular imposed what is believed to be the among longest lockdowns in the world, as well as a nighttime curfew.

The truckers have shown their dislike of the measures with loud honking day and night — until a court ordered them on Monday to stop. Since then, they've taken to revving their engines instead.

A strong smell of diesel fuel now permeates the air.

The government "can't come in and control our lives right down to what we put in our body, or where we can't go," trucker Jay VanderWier of Smithville, Ontario, told AFP.

He parked his truck in front of parliament, right outside the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He said Canadians had been told that it "was gonna take two weeks to flatten the curve (of Covid infections), but how many months are we at now?"

He pointed to the crowd of protesters around him, saying they're "ready to do anything it takes for freedom," short of violence.

Sporting a Maple Leafs hockey team jersey and cap, he mused about whether Trudeau is able to sleep at night amid "the job numbers, the suicides" and other tales of hardships brought on by pandemic restrictions.

This has all happened, he said, because of a "callous decision made from the top."

gen/tib/amc/md

Turtles dying from eating trash show plastics scourge in UAE

By ISABEL DEBRE

1 of 10

A dead green sea turtle washes up on the beach in the Khor Kalba Conservation Reserve, in the city of Kalba, on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. A staggering 75% of all dead green turtles and 57% of all loggerhead turtles in Sharjah had eaten marine debris, including plastic bags, bottle caps, rope and fishing nets, a new study published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. The study seeks to document the damage and danger of the throwaway plastic that has surged in use around the world and in the UAE, along with other marine debris. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

KALBA, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The hawksbill sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, its shell ashen and stomach taut.

A week ago, the adolescent turtle washed up on a beach in Kalba, a city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once unspoiled, the coast of mangrove trees is now fouled by piles of trash dragged from nearby landfills. Strewn across the shore are plastic bags, packages, bottle caps — and far too often, dead turtles.

At first, Fadi Yaghmour, a marine expert who has examined some 200 turtles for the first research on the subject from the Middle East, extracted typical fare from the carcass — squid beaks and oysters.

Then, a culprit for the creature’s demise became clear: shriveled balloons and plastic foam, some of the last things the turtle ate.

“It’s probably malnourished,” Yaghmour told The Associated Press last week as he worked. Plastic clogs turtles’ intestinal tracts, he said, and can cause them to starve.

This turtle is one of 64 retrieved from the shores of Kalba and Khor Fakkan, in the wider emirate of Sharjah, to be analyzed in Yaghmour’s lab. His team of researchers have published a new study in the Marine Pollution Bulletin that seeks to document the damage and danger of the throwaway plastic that has surged in use around the world and in the UAE, along with other marine debris.

When discarded, plastic clogs waterways and chokes animals — not just sea turtles but whales, birds and all sorts of life.



A staggering 75% of all dead green turtles and 57% of all loggerhead turtles in Sharjah had eaten marine debris, including plastic bags, bottle caps, rope and fishing nets, the study found. The only other research from the region, published in 1985, found that none of the studied turtles in the Gulf of Oman had eaten plastic.

“When the majority of sea turtles have plastics in their bodies, you know you have a significant problem,” Yaghmour said. “If there’s ever a time to care about turtles, it is now.”

Turtles may have survived the mass extinction that killed off dinosaurs millions of years ago, but today they’re disappearing around the world.

Hawksbills are critically endangered, according to the World Conservation Union, and green and loggerhead species are endangered. The three species are found in the Persian Gulf’s warm, shallow waters, as well as the Gulf of Oman on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.

Skyrocketing amounts of litter pollute the world’s environment, with a seminal study in Science Advances five years ago estimating that 12 billion metric tons will pile up by 2050.

That’s just one of the manifold threats that humans have created for sea turtles — including rising sea temperatures that bleach coral reefs, coastal overdevelopment and overfishing. But it’s perhaps the most visible, as shown by the gruesome scene in the Kalba lab.

A massive amount of debris was found inside the dead turtles in Sharjah — 325 shards in one turtle, and 32 pieces of fishing net in another. They can cause deadly blockages, lacerations and gas to build up in the digestive tracts.

The study also found that green sea turtles were most inclined to eat drifting plastic bags and ropes, which resemble their diet of cuttlefish and jellyfish. Loggerheads ate bottle caps and other small pieces of hard plastic mistaken for tasty snails and other marine invertebrates. The youngest sea turtles, not as discriminating, ate the most plastic.

Conservationists in the UAE, including Yaghmour’s team and others at Sharjah’s Environmental and Protected Areas Authority, are seeking to protect the country’s turtles from the threats. Community officers respond to constant reports of turtles in distress, rescuing the sick reptiles for rehabilitation.

“If we lose these turtles, the ecosystem will die,” said Abdulkarim Vettan, Al-Qurum Mangrove Center’s operational manager, pointing to one turtle whose flipper veterinarians amputated because it became caught up in a net.

The environmentalists face a daunting task in the oil-rich federation that’s one of the world’s highest carbon-dioxide emitters and trash producers per capita. Over the past decades, plastic use and waste surged as the UAE transformed at warp-speed from a parched desert pearling towns into a super-modern business hub known worldwide for its culture of consumerism.

Carbon-intensive desalination has driven much of the growth. The construction of Dubai’s colossal artificial islands a decade ago dredged up sediment that destroyed the natural reef and turtle nesting sites along the coast, according to environmental studies from the time.

“Everything points toward major degradation and stress on the marine ecosystem of the Persian Gulf,” said Christian Henderson, a Middle East political ecologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “The development of car-dependent urban regions has been extremely fast, without any kind of environmental consideration at all.”

The UAE pledged last fall to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the first country among the oil-rich sheikhdoms to make the long-term commitment. The goal remains difficult to gauge and has met skepticism.

On Monday, Dubai announced it will begin charging a 25-fil (about 6 cents) fee on plastic bags, with the aim of outlawing them entirely in two years over environmental concerns.

“The image of piecemeal environmental interventions is important politically, culturally and socially to the UAE,” Henderson added. “But the kind of interventions that require genuine sustainability are not on the table because of the sacrifices that would be involved.”

Meanwhile, experts say, the trash crisis grows and turtles pay the ultimate price.

___

Follow Isabel DeBre on Twitter at www.twitter.com/isabeldebre.

BJP HINDU FASCISM;  RACISM & CASTISM
In India, wearing hijab bars some Muslim students from class

By SHEIKH SAALIQ

1 of 4

Indian girl students who were barred from entering their classrooms for wearing hijab, a headscarf used by Muslim women, speak to their principal outside the college campus in Udupi, India, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022. Muslim girls wearing hijab are being barred from attending classes at some schools in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, triggering weeks of protests by students. (Bangalore News Photos via AP)


NEW DELHI (AP) — When the students were barred last month from entering their classrooms and told not to wear hijab, a headscarf used by Muslim women, they began camping outside the all-girls high school.

The story cascaded across the internet, drawing news crews to the front of the government-run school in Udupi district, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

Battle lines were swiftly drawn. The students began protesting outside the school gate and sat huddled in a group, reading their lessons. The school staff, which said the students were defying uniform rules, remained unmoved.

A month on, more schools have begun implementing a similar ban on hijabs, forcing the state’s top court to step in. It will hear petitions filed by the protesting students on Tuesday and rule on whether to overturn the ban.

But the uneasy standoff has raised fears among the state’s Muslim students who say they are being deprived of their religious rights. On Monday, hundreds of them, including their parents, took to the streets against the restrictions, demanding that students should be allowed to attend classes even if they are wearing hijab.

“What we are witnessing is a form of religious apartheid. The decree is discriminatory and it disproportionately affects Muslim women,” said A. H. Almas, an 18-year-old student who has been part of the weeks-long protests.

So far several meetings between the staff, government representatives and the protesting students have failed to resolve the issue. The state’s education minister, B. C. Nagesh, has also refused to lift the ban. He told reporters Sunday that “those unwilling to follow uniform dress code can explore other options.”

For many Muslim women, the hijab is part of their Islamic faith. It has for decades been a source of controversy in some western countries, particularly in France, which in 2004 banned it from being worn in public schools. But in India, where Muslims make up almost 14% of the country’s near 1.4 billion people, it is neither banned nor is its use restricted in public places.

In fact, women wearing hijab are a common sight in India, and for many of them, it symbolizes religious identity and is a matter of personal choice.

Because the debate involves alleged bias over a religious item worn to cover hair and maintain modesty, some rights activists have voiced concerns that the decree risks raising Islamophobia. Violence and hate speech against Muslims have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, which also governs the Karnataka state.

“Singling out hijab for criticism is unfair and discriminatory. Those opposing it are on record decrying secularism and for openly espousing majoritarianism,” said Zakia Soman, founder of a Muslim women’s group, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan.

Others contend it underscores the potential isolation and marginalization of Muslims who feel Modi and his Hindu nationalist party are slowly isolating them, compounding an already growing unease felt by the minority community, in a multicultural country that has guarantees of religious freedom enshrined in its constitution.

“What we are seeing is an attempt to invisibilize Muslim women and push them out of public spaces,” said Afreen Fatima, a New Delhi-based student activist. She said the ban is the culmination of a growing climate of hate against Muslims “which has now manifested itself in the physical realm.”

The protests have drawn public condemnation, with the hashtag #HijabIsOurRight circulating widely on social media, but also led to a rather unexpected pushback.

For the last week, some Hindu students in the state have started wearing Saffron-coloured shawls, a symbol of Hindu nationalist groups. They have also chanted praises to Hindu gods, while protesting against the Muslim girls’ choice of headgear, signifying India’s growing religious faultlines and bitter tensions between the country’s Hindu majority and its large Muslim minority.

The events have prompted the state government to ban clothes it said “disturb equality, integrity and public order” and some high schools to declare a holiday to avoid communal trouble.

On Monday one of the schools yielded partially and allowed its Muslim students to attend class with a hijab but made them sit in separate classrooms. The move was heavily criticized, with Muslim students alleging the staff of segregating them on the basis of faith.

“It is humiliating,” said Almas. “How long are we going to accept that citizens can be stigmatized because of their religion?”

SEE http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/10/hinduism-is-fascism.html

HEADLINE;  A REPUBLICAN TELLS THE TRUTH
McConnell rebukes RNC, calls Jan. 6 

‘violent insurrection’

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

1 of 5

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Standing with McConnell is Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., left, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., right. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is criticizing the Republican National Committee for censuring two House GOP lawmakers investigating the “violent insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, saying it’s not the party’s job to police the views of lawmakers.

As former President Donald Trump has downplayed the attack by his supporters last year — the worst attack against the Capitol in two centuries — the RNC last week took a voice vote to approve censuring Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at the party’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City. The two Republicans sit on a Democrat-led House committee that is aggressively investigating the siege and has subpoenaed many in the former president’s inner circle.

The RNC resolution censuring Cheney and Kinzinger accused the House panel of leading a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” — words that drew outrage from Democrats and firm pushback from several GOP senators. The rioters who broke into the Capitol through windows and doors brutally beat law enforcement officers and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said Tuesday. He said he still has confidence in RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, but “the issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views than the majority. That’s not the job of the RNC.”

The dispute is the latest tug of war within the party over issues that McConnell and others see as politically beneficial and would prefer to talk about in an election year – inflation, for example — versus the discourse over the insurrection and Trump’s election lies.

The rioters who broke in to the Capitol were repeating Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen win, even after election officials and courts across the country repeatedly dismissed those claims. McConnell and his closest allies have said for months that they want to look forward to November 2022, when they have a chance of taking back the Senate, and not back to January 2021.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Monday that the RNC has said it wants the party to be unified, “and that was not a unifying action.” Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby said he believes the GOP should be a “big tent.” Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitt Romney of Utah both contacted McDaniel to discuss the censure.

Romney, who is McDaniel’s uncle, told reporters that it “could not have been a more inappropriate” message from the party.

“Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us,” he said.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins said the rioters who “broke windows and breached the Capitol were not engaged in legitimate political discourse, and to say otherwise is absurd.”

Collins said the GOP started out the year with an advantage on issues that could decide the election, but “every moment that is spent re-litigating a lost election or defending those who have been convicted of criminal behavior moves us further away from the goal of victory this fall.”

The censure was approved last week after an RNC subcommittee watered down a resolution that had recommended expelling the pair from the party. McDaniel denied that the “legitimate political discourse” wording in the censure resolution was referring to the violent attack on the Capitol and said it had to do with other actions taken by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. But the resolution drew no such distinction.

Cheney said Monday that she had been receiving a “tremendous amount of support” in the wake of the censure vote. “I think every American who watched the video of that attack and who watched that attack unfold knows that it was really shameful to suggest that that what happened that day might be legitimate political discourse,” she said.

McConnell has maintained his strong criticism of Trump over the insurrection, though he voted to acquit the former president after the House voted to impeach him one week after the attack. In a speech after that vote, McConnell said “there is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” and that “a mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.”

His use of the word “insurrection” — the act of rising up against established authority — is significant. Many in his party have insisted that it was not an insurrection, downplaying the attack or trying to portray it as a peaceful protest.

Still, the GOP leader doesn’t often mention Jan. 6 and did not participate in remembrance ceremonies on the anniversary of the attack last month. He has emphasized to his conference that they should focus on the future and issues that will help them win back the Senate.

Similarly, former Vice President Mike Pence has mostly avoided talking about the insurrection, even though he was in the building as it happened and some rioters were calling for his death. But on Friday, he addressed Trump’s repeated criticism that he could have “overturned” the election in his ceremonial role overseeing the electoral count.

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

While few Republicans openly defended the RNC’s move, several said it was the party’s prerogative to take the vote.

“The RNC has any right to take any action and the position that I have is that you’re ultimately held accountable to voters in your district,” said New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 Republican in the House. “We’re going to hear the feedback and the views of voters pretty quickly here this year.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Cheney and Kinzinger’s role on the Jan. 6 panel is “not helpful.” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who along with Cruz led objections to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, said it is a distraction to have Republicans in Washington like McConnell “bashing other Republicans.”

“If you come to the state of Missouri and talk to Republicans, people who are going to be voting in our primary, they probably agree with what the RNC did,” Hawley said.

___

Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

High court’s Alabama ruling sparks alarm over voting rights
By LISA MASCARO and FARNOUSH AMIRI

1 of 4

FILE - Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., alongside other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaks in front of the senate chambers about their support of voting rights legislation at the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 19, 2022. The Supreme Court's decision to halt efforts to create a second mostly Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election has sparked fresh warnings that the court is eroding the Voting Rights Act and reviving the need for Congress to intervene.

(AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision to halt efforts to create a second mostly Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election sparked fresh warnings Tuesday that the court is becoming too politicized, eroding the Voting Rights Act and reviving the need for Congress to intervene.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts to increase Black voting power. Civil rights groups had argued that the state, with its “sordid record” of racial discrimination, drew new maps by “packing” Black voters into one single district and “cracking” Black voters from other districts in ways that dilute their electoral power. Black voters are 26% of Alabama’s electorate.

In its 5-4 decision late Monday, the Supreme Court said it would review the case in full, a future legal showdown in the months to come that voting advocates fear could further gut the protections in the landmark Civil Rights-era law.

It’s “the latest example of the Supreme Court hacking away at the protections of the voting rights act of 1965,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “Congress must act. We must restore the Voting Rights Act.”

The outcome all but ensures Alabama will continue to send mostly white Republicans to Washington after this fall’s midterm elections and applies new pressure on Congress to shore up voter protections after a broader elections bill collapsed last month. And the decision shows the growing power of the high court’s conservative majority as President Joe Biden is under his own pressures to name a liberal nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

Rep. Terri Sewell, the only Black representative from Alabama, said the court’s decision underscores the need for Congress to pass her bill, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, to update and ensure the law’s historic protections.

“Black Alabamians deserve nothing less,” Sewell said in a statement.

The case out of Alabama is one of the most important legal tests of the new congressional maps stemming from the 2020 census count. It comes in the aftermath of court decisions that have widely been viewed as chiseling away at race-based protections of the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama and other states with a known history of voting rights violations were no longer under federal oversight, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department for changes to their election practices after the court, in its 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, struck down the bill’s formula as outdated.

As states nationwide adjust their congressional districts to fit population and demographic data, Alabama’s Republican-led Legislature drew up new maps last fall that were immediately challenged by civil rights groups on behalf of Black voters in the state.

Late last month, a three-judge lower court, which includes two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, had ruled that the state had probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters. This finding was rooted, in part, in the fact that the state did not create a second district in which Black voters made up a majority, or close to it.

Given that more than one person in four in Alabama is Black, the plaintiffs had argued the single Black district is far less than one person, one vote.

“Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” the three-judge panel wrote in the 225-page ruling.

The lower court gave the Alabama legislature until Friday to come up with a remedial plan.

Late Monday, the Supreme Court, after an appeal from Alabama, issued a stay. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, part of the conservative majority, said the lower court’s order for a new map came too close to the 2022 election.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined his three more liberal colleagues in dissent.

“It’s just a really disturbing ruling,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a member of the Judiciary Committee, who called the Supreme Court’s decision “a setback to racial equity, to ideals of one person, one vote.”

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the decision “hits at the guts of voting rights.” She told The Associated Press: “We’re afraid of what will happen from Alabama to Texas to Florida and even to the great state of Ohio.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the court decision exposes the need for Congress to legislate to protect voting rights. The erosion of those rights is “exactly what the Voting Rights Act is in place to prevent.”

Critics went beyond assailing the decision at hand to assert that the court has become political.

“I know the court likes to say it’s not partisan, that it’s apolitical, but this seems to be a very political decision,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., tweeted that the court majority has “zero legitimacy.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., tweeted that the court’s action was “Jim Crow 2.0.”

Alabama Republicans welcomed the court’s decision. “It is great news,” said Rep. Mo Brooks who is running for the GOP nomination for Senate. He called the lower court ruling an effort to “usurp” the decisions made by the state’s legislature.

The justices will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the voting rights law, a case that could call into question “decades of this Court’s precedent” about Section 2 of the act, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent. Section 2 prohibits racial and other discrimination in voting procedures.

Voting advocates see the arguments ahead as a showdown over voting rights they say are being slowly but methodically altered by the Roberts court.

The Supreme Court in the Shelby decision did away with the preclearance formula under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And last summer, the conservative majority in Bronvich vs. the Democratic National Committee upheld voting limits in an Arizona case concerning early ballots that a lower court had found discriminatory under Section 2.

With the Alabama case, the court is wading further into Section 2 limits over redistricting maps.

“It’s concerning,” said Devin Rosborough, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU voting rights project.

Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Chris England, who is a member of the Alabama Legislature from Tuscaloosa, said he fears the Supreme Court’s action will reverberate and embolden other GOP-controlled states.

“If this was the epicenter of the earthquake, the tremors are going to be felt in state legislatures, city councils and county commissions — all of which are currently going through some form of redistricting right now,” said England.

___

Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Chris Megerian in Washington and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.

Red flags trailed ex-UCLA lecturer across elite universities
By STEFANIE DAZIO

Police vehicles sit in front of University Hill Elementary School across from the campus of the University of Colorado after Matthew Harris, accused of making violent threats against the college as well as the University of California, Los Angeles, was taken into custody following a standoff at his Boulder apartment complex Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in Boulder, Colo. A trail of red flags about his behavior toward women followed Harris, a former lecturer at UCLA, on an academic journey that took him to three of the nation's most prestigious universities — Duke, Cornell and then UCLA.

 (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

LONG READ

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A trail of red flags about his behavior toward women followed Matthew Harris on an academic journey that took him to three of the nation’s most prestigious universities — Duke, Cornell and then the University of California, Los Angeles.

Former graduate classmates at Duke and Cornell, where he studied before becoming a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA in recent years, described him as inappropriate and creepy, with obsessive behaviors like sending excessive emails and text messages to some women that became harassment and, in at least one case, sexual harassment. Another said she changed her morning routine at Duke for weeks after Harris learned her schedule and texted her messages like, “I’m here, where are you?”

Last week, a SWAT team in Colorado arrested Harris after he allegedly emailed an 800-page document and posted videos threatening violence against dozens of people at UCLA, prompting the school to cancel in-person classes for a day. The so-called manifesto contained numerous racist threats and used the words “bomb,” “kill” and “shoot” more than 12,000 times.

Wearing a green jail jumpsuit with his wrists handcuffed, Harris did not speak Tuesday during his brief appearance in federal court in Denver. Another hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23 and a judge ordered him to remain in federal custody without bail.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Jennifer Beck told the judge Harris is looking to hire private counsel. Beck did not immediately return a request for additional comment.

In online class reviews, interviews and emails obtained by The Associated Press, current and former students at all three universities alleged negligence by the schools for letting Harris slide previously, despite his concerning conduct.

“I have no idea how this guy is still teaching,” one of his UCLA students wrote in October 2020 in an anonymous class review.

Two former Duke students, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they fear for their safety, said that while they did not report Harris to university officials at the time, his behavior was well known within the small philosophy program and they did not feel they would have been supported by faculty if they’d come forward.

Taken together in the years since major mass shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and elsewhere, the students’ allegations at three top-tier colleges raise questions about the line between uncomfortable and actionable behavior, a university’s duty to encourage the reporting of it, and an institution’s obligation to prevent it from occurring at another school.

The students’ descriptions of years of alarming behavior prompts another question: What, if anything, did the universities do to get Harris help?

___

A graduate student at Duke as he completed his Ph.D. in 2019, Harris also attended Cornell for a year before UCLA hired him as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer — a distinguished posting — until he was put on “investigatory leave” last March after allegedly sending pornographic and violent content to his students.

“Clearly Duke should not have passed him to us, and Duke and Cornell should not have passed him to UCLA,” said Adriene Takaoka, a Cornell philosophy graduate student whose time overlapped with Harris’. “We’re just lucky that no one’s been physically hurt. Certainly people have been psychologically damaged.”

The former Duke students described their initial interactions with Harris as largely collegial, but with strange undertones that grew over the years.

“There would just be this feeling of ‘um, I feel uncomfortable’ or ‘that was creepy,’” another said. “By the time I left the program, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.”

But Andrew Janiak, a Duke philosophy professor and former chair of the department who served on Harris’ dissertation committee, said he never had any indication of such behavior, describing him as “very shy, very reticent, never aggressive. I never saw him even raise his voice.”

Janiak received the first reports of harassment in late March, after Harris had left Duke. Emails show Janiak immediately contacted UCLA.

Duke and Cornell declined to comment to AP and did not answer a list of detailed questions sent via email, such as whether any official reports were made about Harris while he attended their institutions and if there were none, what that says about their culture of reporting.

___

The signs were there, like bread crumbs scattered across the three schools.

The morning routine incident at Duke. A house party at Cornell where he tried to rope a relative stranger into a discussion about his mental health. Negative online reviews of his UCLA lectures. Maniacal laughter that disrupted classes. Odd interactions with women he’d approach out of the blue on campus. A campaign of incessant text messages and emails that caused several students to cut off contact with him.

“No one would look at that kid and say, ‘Oh, he’s fine,’” said Brian Van Brunt, an expert on campus violence and mental health and former president of the National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment. “Typically someone like this didn’t just appear out of nowhere.”

In recent years, most colleges and universities have formed behavioral intervention and threat assessment teams in response to school shootings, meant to flag concerning behavior and get help before conduct escalates.

Emails and court documents show UCLA’s behavioral intervention team was involved, but possibly not until as late as March 30, 2021, when Harris’ behavior really began to escalate.

That spring, Harris began sending bizarre and disturbing emails to his former classmates and current UCLA students. The emails to the UCLA students allegedly included pornographic and violent content sent to women in his research group, prompting the university to put him on “investigatory leave.”

Bill Kisliuk, UCLA’s director of media relations, said in an email that people at the university “brought concerns” to its Title IX office last year, which “worked with the individuals to address the concerns.” He declined to comment further, citing privacy. The university announced Monday that it was creating a task force “to conduct a comprehensive review” of its protocols for assessing potential threats.

The messages to Harris’ former Duke classmates, however, had links to his YouTube channel that included a video titled “Dead White Professors (Duke University remix).” Despite evidence he was in North Carolina at the time, the university appeared unwilling to bar him from campus, emails show.

In April, his mother reached out to a professor at University of California, Irvine, saying her son in January had threatened in emails to “hunt” and kill the woman. The professor had briefly met Harris in 2013 while they were both at Duke and he reached out when he moved to LA in 2020, sending emails and text messages that would turn aggressive and obsessive.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did nothing and someone got hurt,” Harris’ mother wrote.

Those messages prompted the UC system to obtain a workplace violence restraining order against him, which barred him from all UC campuses. UCLA police also sought a Gun Violence Emergency Protective Order.

In November — months after he’d been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility and, his mother later told the FBI, diagnosed with schizophrenia — Harris tried to buy a gun but was denied because of those orders.

___

Now, his former classmates wonder: How did Harris even get hired at UCLA?

His dissertation — despite an alarming dedication posted online — would have been approved unanimously by a four-person committee. Janiak said he wrote Harris a letter of recommendation but declined to discuss it.

“Everyone wants to re-read the past and try to figure out, ‘was he secretly crazy,’” the professor said, but there was nothing “that would make me think, ‘boy, this person’s in trouble.’ ”

Janiak said students reported other complaints to him while he was chair of the department, but no one came forward about Harris until last March.

The onus is on the incoming institution to ask targeted questions about an applicant beyond their academic credentials, according to Saunie Schuster, a lawyer who advises colleges and co-founded the Association of Title IX Administrators.

While schools typically cannot mention unproven accusations for fear of a lawsuit, Schuster said, they can do a background check that includes phone interviews with classmates, supervisors and students. It’s not clear whether UCLA officials conducted such a background check or interviews; the university did not answer AP’s questions regarding whether it reached out Duke or Cornell during the hiring process.

Schuster said a background search would’ve allowed questions to be posed to former employers like, “Would you hire this individual to work directly with you?”

“Has this individual demonstrated any conduct that you’ve observed that would give you concerns?”

For Harris’ former classmates, the answer is clear: Yes.

___

Associated Press writers James Anderson and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Justice Dept. announces $3.6B 

crypto seizure,  2 arrests

By ERIC TUCKER

 An American flag flies outside the Department of Justice in Washington, March 22, 2019.

 The Justice Department has announced its largest-ever financial seizure — more than $3.5 billion — and the arrests of a New York couple accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency. It says the cryptocurrency was stolen from the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange. Law enforcement officials on Tuesday revealed the Justice Department has seized roughly $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached nearly six years ago. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced Tuesday its largest-ever financial seizure — more than $3.6 billion — and the arrests of a New York couple accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency stolen from the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange.

Federal law enforcement officials said the recovered sum was linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached by hackers nearly six years ago.

Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, a citizen of Russia and the United States, and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, accused of relying on various sophisticated techniques to launder the stolen money and conceal the transactions. They face federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. It was unclear if they had lawyers or people who could speak on their behalf.

They were in custody pending an appearance in Manhattan’s federal court later Tuesday.

“The message to criminals is clear: Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven. We can and we will follow the money, no matter what form it takes,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a video statement released by the Justice Department.

The couple was not charged in the Bitfinex hack itself, during which a hacker was able to initiate more than 2,000 unauthorized bitcoin transactions. About $71 million in stolen bitcoin — valued today at more than $4.5 billion — was transferred to an outside digital wallet, officials said.

Investigators using what Monaco described as “old-fashioned police work” located a wallet containing more than 2,000 bitcoin accounts and followed the trail to accounts at a dark web criminal marketplace called AlphaBay that was dismantled by the Justice Department in 2017.

Authorities say they ultimately traced the stolen funds to more than a dozen accounts that were controlled by Lichtenstein, Morgan and their businesses. Court documents accuse them of relying on classic money-laundering techniques to hide their activities and the movement of the money, such as setting up accounts with fictitious names using computer programs to automate transactions.

Millions of dollars of the transactions were cashed out through bitcoin ATMs and used to purchase gold and non-fungible tokens as well as more mundane items like Walmart gift cards for personal expenses, prosecutors said.

Justice Department officials say that though the proliferation of cryptocurrency and virtual currency exchanges represent innovation, the trend has also been accompanied by money laundering, ransomware and other crimes. The Justice Department last year announced the formation of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team in recognition of the trend.

“Today’s arrests, and the Department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Monaco said in a statement. “In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.”

____

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP.

A Woman Accused Of A $4.5 Billion Cryptocurrency Laundering Scheme Has Moonlighted As A Rapper And Forbes Writer

The DOJ has charged Heather Morgan, who uses the stage name Razzlekhan, with attempting to launder thousands of bitcoins alongside her husband, startup founder Ilya Lichtenstein.

by Sarah Emerson

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Razzlekhan / Via youtube.com

A husband and wife were arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to launder $4.5 billion in stolen cryptocurrency. In an announcement, the Department of Justice called its confiscation of 94,000 bitcoins, which amounts to $3.6 billion, the agency’s “largest financial seize ever.”

The department named Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan as the individuals responsible for allegedly attempting to launder 119,754 bitcoin stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.

Bitfinex was targeted by hackers in August 2016 who “​​initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions,” the DOJ said. Investigators claim the stolen bitcoins were sent to a digital wallet managed by Lichtenstein. Roughly 25,000 of those bitcoins were then allegedly moved to financial accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan while the remainder stayed in the wallet used in connection with the hack. DOJ agents said they obtained private keys to the wallet using search warrants, enabling them to seize more than 94,000 bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex

The announcement shared little about the identities of Liechtenstein and Morgan except that they are in their early 30s. But court documents also identified the duo by their aliases, “Dutch” and “Razzlekhan.” Twitter users and journalists have already found what appear to be numerous profiles belonging to Morgan, who, before her arrest, was seemingly pursuing a career as an influencer.

On Twitter, Morgan allegedly identified herself as a “serial entrepreneur,” “surreal artist,” “rapper,” and “also Forbes writer.” Indeed, a Forbes contributor page for Heather R Morgan lists numerous posts, including a story titled “Experts Share Tips to Protect Your Business From Cybercriminals.” Morgan also appears to have written for Inc.

Morgan also developed a rapper persona known as Razzlekhan, dropping several tracks and music videos on YouTube, as first pointed out by NBC News reporter Kevin Collier. “This song represents who I am: a badass CEO and female rapper, who's ready to take on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and any other place that oppresses individual uniqueness and self expression,” Razzlekhan says in a YouTube description for her “Rap Anthem for Misfits & Weirdos.” Her YouTube page also includes fashion unboxing videos, a song about endometriosis, footage from a livestream of Black Lives Matter protests in New York City, and a video of Morgan giving Lichtenstein a quarantine haircut.

On a personal website, Razzlekhan likens herself to “Genghis Khan, but with more pizzazz,” saying that “her style has been described as ‘sexy horror comedy,’ because of her fondness for combining dark and disturbing concepts with dirty jokes and gestures.” She adds, “No one knows for sure where this rapper's from — could be the North African desert, the jungles of Vietnam, or another universe.” (The DOJ report states that Morgan and her husband currently reside in New York.)

BuzzFeed News attempted to contact Morgan through Razzlekhan’s Facebook page but did not receive a response. The pair were scheduled to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday at 3 p.m.

On a LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Morgan, however, she is listed as a partner at Demandpath, a “boutique micro-fund investing” firm. A LinkedIn profile seemingly belonging to Lichtenstein also places him at Demandpath. Prior to that, he’s described on Crunchbase as a founder of the advertising research startup MixRank, which was incubated at Y Combinator and raised more than $1.5 million in funding from Mark Cuban and other venture capitalists. (Lichtenstein is nowhere to be found on MixRank’s website.) Neither Demandpath nor MixRank responded to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

Cuban told BuzzFeed News his last email exchange with Lichtenstein was in 2012. “I also found an email saying he left MixRank 6 years ago. That’s the extent of what I know about the guy,” Cuban said.

Y Combinator did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

Both Morgan and Lichtenstein appear to come from the finance industry, and the DOJ claims they were able to use “sophisticated laundering techniques,” such as using fictitious identities to open online accounts, automating transactions through computer programs, and “chain hopping,” or rapidly exchanging one cryptocurrency for another, to conceal their money trail.

The pair have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carry maximum prison sentences of 20 years and five years respectively.