Brazil governors seek own vaccine supplies as stocks run low
By MAURICIO SAVARESE

February 13, 2021


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Health workers Diego Feitosa Ferreira, 28, right, and Clemilton Lopes de Oliveira, 41, leave a home after a resident denied to be vaccinated against the new coronavirus, in the Capacini community, along the Purus river, in the Labrea municipality, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. Navigating complex waterways to reach remote communities in Brazil’s Amazon is only the first challenge for the healthcare workers vaccinating Indigenous and riverine people against COVID-19. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

Maria Castro de Lima, 72, receives a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from a healthcare worker, while sitting on the porch of her home in the Recanto community, along the Purus River, in the Labrea municipality, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian state governors are pursuing their own vaccine supply plans, with some expressing concern that President Jair Bolsonaro’s government won’t deliver the shots required to avoid interrupting immunization efforts.

Governors are under pressure from mayors, some of whose vaccine stocks have already been depleted, including three cities in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. Northeastern Bahia state’s capital Salvador suspended vaccination on Thursday because supplies are dwindling. Brazil’s two biggest cities, Rio and Sao Paulo, are expected to be without shots in a matter of days.

The governor who has pushed hardest to shore up his state’s own vaccine supply during the pandemic is Sao Paulo’s João Doria, a former Bolsonaro ally turned adversary. The president repeatedly criticized Doria’s deal to purchase 100 million CoronaVac shots from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and said the federal government wouldn’t buy them.

Bolsonaro reversed course in January, facing delay in the delivery of the only vaccine his administration purchased and watching as other nations began immunizing their citizens while Brazil’s 210 million people were on hold.

“It it weren’t for this (CoronaVac) shot, Brazil today would be a country without vaccines,” Doria told The Associated Press in an interview. He added that he is negotiating for 20 million more doses and, if the federal government doesn’t buy them, he could sell them to other governors. “It is not for a state government to secure vaccines, but here we are.”

Bolsonaro’s administration has a deal for 100 million AstraZeneca doses, but only 2 million of them have arrived, with more expected only in March, according to Fiocruz, the Rio-based laboratory that will produce the shots in Brazil.

Brazil’s government last month contracted for 46 million CoronaVac shots from Sao Paulo, of which nearly 10 million have so far been delivered, and is under pressure to sign another deal for 54 million more.

A demonstrator holds a sign with a message that reads in Portuguese "Vaccines for all," during a protest against the government's response in combating COVID-19 and demanding the impeachment of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Vaccines purchased by the federal government have been distributed across the nation, which is more expansive than the U.S.′ contiguous 48 states. With local authorities administering the shots, the number of people immunized isn’t clear, nor which locations have looming shortages.

With nearly 12 million total doses available to date, 4.9 million people have received shots, according to a consortium of Brazilian media formed last year to counter COVID-19 data blackouts

Bahia state’s Gov. Rui Costa also struck out on his own, reaching an agreement in September to purchase the rights to 50 million doses of the Sputnik V shot from Russia. It hasn’t yet been authorized by Brazil’s health authorities.

After ignoring Costa’s deal for months, Brazil’s Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said on Feb. 5 that the government will buy 10 million Sputnik V shots. Fueling pressure on Pazuello to seek alternatives, recent studies cast doubt on the efficacy of the shot his ministry had purchased from AstraZeneca against variants of the coronavirus.

One such variant has been widely detected in Amazonas state’s capital Manaus, which last month saw its health system overwhelmed by the crush of patients in desperate need for oxygen. The variant is less vulnerable to some treatments.

Pazuello said at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the Brazilian variant is three times more contagious than the original virus, without providing further details. He also said he expects half the population to be vaccinated by June, and the rest by year-end. Brazilian health experts say the country needs about 340 million shots for the entire population above age 18. COVID-19 shots that received authorization for emergency use have not been tested adequately in teenagers and children.

Brazil’s government last year declined to buy 70 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Bolsonaro defended the decision, saying the Pfizer contract was conditional on the government agreeing to release the company from any potential liabilities.

With sustained supply of shots from the federal government in doubt, Manaus-based state judge Etelvina Braga handed down a ruling Friday that gives Amazonas state’s government and Manaus’ City Hall 20 days to secure a letter of intent with pharmaceutical companies for the purchase of vaccines. In her decision, she noted that other states, including Alagoas that is one of Brazil’s poorest, already have such letters that are the first step toward securing a contract.

Maranhao state Gov. Flavio Dino, one of Bolsonaro’s most vocal critics, says the pandemic and difficulties in vaccine rollout have given conservative and progressive governors common cause. Most of Brazil’s 27 governors backed the president in the 2018 election, he added, but his relationship with state authorities has soured.

“The health crisis and the lack of dialogue with Bolsonaro made the governors grow closer, even if they have deep ideological differences,” said Dino, a former judge and member of the opposition Communist Party, speaking by phone. “He acts as if he weren’t in charge, so we see each other as the ones dealing with reality.”

Study: Wait times for donor kidneys have not improved in two decades

By Denise Mann, HealthDay News

Despite widespread efforts to increase access and awareness, new research shows there's been virtually no change in the number of people on waiting lists for potentially lifesaving kidneys over the past two decades.

For their study, scientists analyzed information on more than 1.3 million adults with kidney failure listed in the United States Renal Data System from 1997 to 2016, and found no improvement in rates of waitlist placement and consistently low rates among more vulnerable populations, including those in poorer communitie

The findings were published this week in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

But things may turn the corner due to an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump in July 2019. It aims to get more people placed on waitlists for new kidneys and doubles the number of kidneys available for transplant by 2030.

RELATED Less than perfect kidneys safe for transplant, study shows

Kidney transplantation is the best treatment for people with kidney failure, but not everyone is placed on waitlists for kidneys or even made aware of the possibility of transplants. Instead, these folks receive dialysis indefinitely.

With dialysis, a machine takes over for your kidneys and filters and purifies your blood. This can be done at home or in a medical facility.

"Many more people could benefit from kidney transplants if they understood the benefits of transplantation versus going on maintenance dialysis," said study author Jesse Schold, director of outcomes research for the Kidney and Kidney/Pancreas Transplant Program at the Cleveland Clinic.

RELATED Kidney transplants between people with HIV successful, study shows

Some dialysis facilities are better at referring people for kidney transplants than others, he said. "It's likely that referral rates are better with greater social support, greater access to insurance and other resources," Schold said.

Thanks to the Trump executive order, dialysis centers will start to receive higher reimbursements from Medicare when they refer individuals to transplant waitlists, he said.

Another way to improve access across the board would be to have people opt out of kidney transplant waitlists instead of opting in, Schold suggested. "This way, they are automatically referred as the default," he explained.

RELATED Texas hospital performs complicated, 10-person kidney swap

The stagnant waitlist is one part of the problem, but there is also a significant kidney supply issue, Schold said. "The major risk factors for kidney disease are obesity, diabetes and older age, all of which are increasing in the country, so to try and provide kidneys for all patients who could benefit is a very formidable challenge," he said.

Still, there are ways to try to increase supply so it better keeps pace with growing demand, Schold said.

As much as 20% of donated kidneys are currently discarded. But "if they were sent directly to places where they are most likely to be used, this percentage would decrease," he said.

And United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit organization that manages the U.S. organ transplantation system, is currently making such changes to their allocation process. Some transplant centers are more likely to take organs that may not be perfect but are still viable.

"We want to look back historically or use machine learning to direct organs where they are most likely to be used," explained Darren Stewart, a UNOS principal research scientist who was not involved in the new study. "We will continue to build in smarter ways to order the list so we don't get a lot of refusals, transplant more organs and are less likely to have a discard."

In the past, transplant centers were highly scrutinized by regulators for their outcomes and success rates and less likely to perform riskier transplants as a result, but the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has rolled back these regulations.

"Transplant centers will now become a little more willing to accept higher-risk organs," Schold noted.

Stewart pointed out that kidney transplant rates are actually increasing already, and that racial and ethnic disparities in receiving new kidneys are decreasing.

"The issue is getting on the waitlist in the first place and this involves a referral from a dialysis center, and that has been stagnant for two decades," Stewart said. "We will start to see these numbers budge as CMS rolls out new payment models that encourage dialysis centers to refer patients for evaluation and kidney transplant waitlist placement."

All in all, there's reason for hope, agreed Dr. Stephen Pastan, medical director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at the Emory Transplant Center in Atlanta.

Many of the systems are much better aligned than they have been in the past, said Pastan, who was not involved in the study.

"UNOS is doing things to make organ placement more efficient so organs are discarded less frequently, and there are new payment models so that dialysis centers would receive higher reimbursements if they refer patients for transplants," he said. "We should see improved transplantation rates and access to transplants in the future."More information

The National Kidney Foundation offers more on the kidney transplant waitlist process.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Biden calls for gun law reforms three years after Parkland school shooting

President Joe Biden called on Congress Sunday to pass "commonsense gun law reforms" on the third anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead. Photo by Gary Rothstein/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden marked the third anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., with a call for gun legislation on Sunday.

In a statement remembering the 17 people -- 14 students and three staff -- killed by a gunman in the Feb. 14, 2018 shooting, Biden called on Congress to pass "commonsense gun law reforms," including required background checks on all gun sales, a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers that "knowingly put weapons of war on our streets."

"The Parkland students and so many other young people across the country who have experienced gun violence are carrying forward the history of the American journey. It is a history written by young people in each generation who challenged prevailing dogma to demand a simple truth: we can do better. And we will," said Biden.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff on Sunday and filed paperwork to create a "Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Memorial Day" to be observed annually beginning on Feb. 14, 2022.

"Our state and nation will never forget February 14, 2018," DeSantis wrote on Twitter. "We remember the 17 innocent lives that were lost on that tragic day. Their legacies will endure."

Many of the student survivors and their families engaged in activism calling for gun reform following the shooting, spawning the national "March For Our Lives" movement.

In the months after the shooting Sen. Rick Scott, then the governor of Florida, signed $400 million of legislative reforms for school security, mental health and gun control. The legislation bans the use of bump stocks -- devices that allow the rapid firing of certain firearms -- increased the minimum rifle purchasing age from 18 and 21, and instituted a three-day waiting period on all firearm purchases.

Other states also passed similar legislation in the following months to expand background checks, ban bump stocks and limit magazines among other restrictions.

Family members of the victims, led by Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed in the shooting, created a series of "shame cards" to send to Congress in order to hold lawmakers to task for a lack of federal action on gun control since the shootings.

Gunman Nikolas Cruz, a former student at the school, faces 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting. His case was delayed in late December 2019 and has faced further delays in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Parkland anniversary, Biden calls for tougher gun laws
AP NEWS
By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN

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FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2018 file photo, people comfort each other as they sit and mourn at one of seventeen crosses, after a candlelight vigil for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. Sorrow is reverberating across the country Sunday, Feb. 14, 2021, as Americans joined a Florida community in remembering the 17 lives lost three years ago in the Parkland school shooting massacre. President Joe Biden used the the occasion to call on Congress to strengthen gun laws, including requiring background checks on all gun sales and banning assault weapons. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Sorrow reverberated across the country Sunday as Americans, including President Joe Biden, joined a Florida community in remembering the 17 lives lost three years ago in the Parkland school shooting massacre.

“In seconds, the lives of dozens of families, and the life of an American community, were changed forever,” Biden said in a statement released Sunday.

The president used the occasion to call on Congress to strengthen gun laws, including requiring background checks on all gun sales and banning assault weapons.

There was no time to wait, the president said. “We owe it to all those we’ve lost and to all those left behind to grieve to make a change. The time to act is now.”


Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered flags be lowered to half staff from sunrise to sunset across the state to honor those who perished when a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School opened fire on campus with an AR-15 rifle on Valentines Day in 2018.

When the gunfire ended, 14 students and three staff members were dead, and 17 others were wounded. The suspect, Nikolas Cruz, is still awaiting trial.

In his proclamation for a day of remembrance, DeSantis asked fellow Floridians to pause for a moment of silence at 3 p.m. Sunday.

“The Parkland community is resilient in the wake of tragedy, reminding us just how strong and united Floridians can be in the face of such devastating loss,” the governor said in his proclamation.

The Republican governor also noted some of the school safety measures enacted since the tragedy three years ago, including money to install panic alert systems at schools across the state and to strengthen programs meant to prevent violence before they occur.

The panic alert measure was dubbed “Alyssa’s Law,” in honor of 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed three years ago.

Parkland parents have been divided over how lawmakers should respond.

Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was 14 when she was killed in the shooting, addressed the president in a tweet Sunday.

“Mr. President, thank you for remembering the loved ones taken from us 3 years ago,” he wrote. “Alaina loved this country and the freedoms it guarantees. Common sense tells us that honoring her life does not require infringement on the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

In an interview Sunday, Petty said the president’s proposals won’t prevent more tragedies.

“It’s wrong to focus on the weapon,” said Petty, who is now a member of the state school board. “For those who understand what happened that day, there were mistakes. This was the most preventable school shooting in the history of our country. The warning signs were there. It was clear the killer had intentions to attack the school.”

Petty remembered his daughter as a friend to everyone, and recounted how important community service was to her.

“For those of us who lost loved ones that day, it’s pretty much like any other day. We miss them. There’s nothing we can do to bring them back. The only thing we can do is move forward and try to honor their memories and make sure this doesn’t happen to any other families,” he said.

But critics of the governor and Republican-controlled Legislature say guns are too easily accessible and say more needs to be done to keep assault-style guns away from potentially bad actors.

“The passage of time has done little to heal the heartbreak we felt upon hearing the shocking news three years ago today, nor dulled our sense of outrage at the lack of consequential legislative action from lawmakers since that horrible morning — laws that would prevent another Parkland from ever happening again,” said Manny Diaz, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party.

Over the years, deadly violence targeting schools has shaken the nation — including the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 that claimed 32 lives and the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. Even before the Parkland tragedy, there was already plenty of anguish in Florida over gun violence. Less than two years before, another gunman shot up the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people.

None of the deadly events produced comprehensive gun laws. Mass shootings have galvanized gun control advocates, who have been met with resistance from Republican lawmakers and their 2nd Amendment allies. It remains to be seen what will be done on the federal level, despite Democratic control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer,” the president said his statement Sunday.


In addition to background checks and an assault-weapons ban, Biden is calling on Congress to outlaw high-capacity magazines and make gun manufacturers liable for the role their products play in violence.

“For three years now, the Parkland families have spent birthdays and holidays without their loved ones,” Biden said.

“Today, as we mourn with the Parkland community, we mourn for all who have lost loved ones to gun violence,” he said.

“Over these three years, the Parkland families have taught all of us something profound,” the president continued. “Time and again, they have showed us how we can turn our grief into purpose – to march, organize, and build a strong, inclusive, and durable movement for change.”

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Follow Bobby Caina Calvan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BobbyCalvan.

A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF THE DEBATE

Gender identity bill divides Spain’s feminists, left-wing
By ARITZ PARRA

February 13, 2021

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Victoria Martinez, 44, folds clothes at her home in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. By May this year, barring any surprises, Martinez will complete a change of both gender and identity at a civil registry in Barcelona, finally closing a patience-wearing chapter that has been stretched during the pandemic. The process, in her own words, has also been “humiliating.” (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

MADRID (AP) — Victòria Martínez continues to sign official documents with the name that she, her partner and their two daughters ditched four years ago. Barring any surprises, she expects the Spanish government to recognize her as Victòria by May, closing a patience-wearing chapter familiar to transgender people around the world.

Changing her legal identity at a civil registry office in Barcelona will allow Martínez to update her passport and driver’s license and to carry a health card that correctly states she is a woman. But the process, which the pandemic prolonged, has been, in her words, “humiliating” — requiring a psychiatric diagnosis, reports from three doctors and a court’s approval.

“Did I want to be stigmatized by being labeled as crazy? Did I want to voluntarily apply for a shrink’s report that says so, to have a judge decide whether I can be what I already am?” Martínez, 44, recalls asking herself. “The whole thing has been emotionally exhausting.”

A new law proposed by the far-left party in Spain’s coalition government would make it easier for residents to change genders for official purposes. A bill sponsored by Equality Minister Irene Montero aims to make gender self-determination — no diagnosis, medical treatment or judge required — the norm, with eligibility starting at age 16. Nearly 20 countries, eight of them in the European Union, already have similar laws.

Factions of the Catholic Church and the far-right have focused their opposition to the bill on the fact that it also would allow children under 16 to bypass parental objections and seek a judge’s assistance in accessing treatment for gender dysphoria, the medical term for the psychological distress that results from a conflict between an individual’s identity and birth-assigned sex.

Less expected has been the fierce resistance from some feminists and from within Spain’s Socialist-led government.

“I’m fundamentally worried by the idea that if gender can be chosen with no more than one’s will or desire, that could put at risk the identity criteria for 47 million Spaniards,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a veteran Socialist and women’s rights advocate, said last week.

Opponents argue that allowing people to choose their gender eventually would lead to “erasing” women from the public sphere: if more Spaniards registered male at birth switch to female, they say, it would skew national statistics and create more competition among women for everything from jobs to sports trophies.

The divide in Spain mirrors a debate between a branch of feminist theorists and LGBTQ rights movements around the globe. At one end, activists often derogatorily referred to as TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) posit that the advancement of transgender rights could undercut efforts to root out sexism and misogyny by negating the existence of biological sexes.

The State Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual people says that if passed in its current form, the law would help end discrimination against transgender people and leapfrog Spain to the European vanguard of protecting LGBTQ rights.

The concern of Alexandra Paniagua, one of the new platform’s activists, pivots around the idea that by eliminating the opinions of doctors and judges, state-subsidized hormones and gender reassignment surgery would become more available, ultimately “promoting” more dysphoria among young people.

“More people will see easier access to the invasive treatment, especially girls who have been told that their bodies are less worthy in our society,” she said.

But Trans Platform Federation President Mar Cambrollé argues that some of the fears cited as reasons to keep existing hurdles in place are based on outdated ideas that reduce boys and girls, men and women to a handful of socially prescribed characteristics and roles.

“Transphobic attitudes piss me off,” Cambrollé said. “As a woman, I’ve been discriminated against for being a woman in a world made by men for men, but also by cis(gender) people who build it with other cis people in mind.”

Finding a compromise any time soon looks like an insurmountable task judging by the virulence of the debate online. Cambrollé has sued 85-year-old Lidia Falcón, the founder of Spain’s Feminist Party, for repeatedly saying that transgender and gay people promote pedophilia; prosecutors are investigating Falcón’s statements as a possible hate crime.

Ángela Rodríguez, an advisor to Montero on LGBTQ issues, said the bill’s timing has added to the tension, with International Women’s Day coming up on March 8.

“There is a dispute for the hegemony of the message in the feminist movement,” Rodríguez said during a recent panel discussion.

What for many is a theoretical debate is painfully real to Martínez, who has closed most of her social media accounts. She says the constant chatter feels both too “personal” and “perverse, generalizing about what a trans person is.”

“Unfortunately, to this day, it’s still easier for people who stare at you when you are walking down the street and they can reconcile a certain type of face with a pair of tits,” said Martínez, who wears round-edged glasses and her hair in a bob to soften her sharp facial contours.

To come out as transgender, first to herself and then to her partner, required Martínez to grow a kind of confidence that wasn’t part of growing up as a boy in 1980s Spain. There were suicide attempts before she started living as Victòria, and she doesn’t consider herself brave.

“For me,” she said, “there just wasn’t any other choice.”

Yet Martínez hesitated over taking hormones and updating her civil registry record. She fought hard to be proud of the woman she is, with a deep voice and a way of carrying herself that stands out. Didn’t she want to break with traditional gender molds, including expectations that transgender women should embody stereotypical femininity?

In the end, she decided it would be easier to navigate the world with a more socially conforming appearance and an identity card that confirms she is female, even if that meant bowing down to existing legal requirements and the notions of people who still think in binary terms.

“I lived 40 years in hiding,” she said. “Now I protect myself, but I don’t hide.”

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AP reporters Emilio Morenatti and Renata Brito contributed to this report.

Victoria Martinez, 44, hugs her daughter as she wakes her up for school at their home in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. By May this year, barring any surprises, Martinez will complete a change of both gender and identity at a civil registry in Barcelona, finally closing a patience-wearing chapter that has been stretched during the pandemic. The process, in her own words, has also been “humiliating.” (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

‘I am a child!’ Pepper spray reflects policing of Black kids

By DEEPTI HAJELA and LINDSAY WHITEHURST February 12, 2021

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FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2021, file photo, Toni Winter, left, chants as she marches with members of Community Justice Initiative and supporters to the Rochester Police Department's Clinton Section, protesting the police handcuffing and pepper spray of a 9-year-old Black girl in Rochester, N.Y. A police officer using pepper spray against the girl has spurred outrage as the latest example of law enforcement mistreatment of Black people, and one that shows even Black children are not exempt. (Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat & Chronicle via AP, File)

The 9-year-old Black girl sat handcuffed in the backseat of a police car, distraught and crying for her father as the white officers grew increasingly impatient while they tried to wrangle her fully into the vehicle.

“This is your last chance,” one officer warned. “Otherwise pepper spray is going in your eyeballs.”

Less than 90 seconds later, the girl had been sprayed and was screaming, “Please, wipe my eyes! Wipe my eyes, please!”

What started with a report of “family trouble” in Rochester, New York, and ended with police treating a fourth-grader like a crime suspect, has spurred outrage as the latest example of law enforcement mistreatment of Black people.

As the U.S. undergoes a new reckoning on police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s death last May, the girl’s treatment illustrates how even young children are not exempt.

Research shows Black children are often viewed as being older than they are, and are more likely to be seen as threatening or dangerous. Advocates have long said that leads to police treating them in ways they wouldn’t dream of treating white children. In some cases it has led to fatalities like the killing of Tamir Rice, a Black 12-year-old shot by a white police officer in Cleveland in 2014.

“Black children have never been given their opportunity to be children,” said Kristin Henning, law professor and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics in late 2020 found Black children and teenagers were six times as likely to die from police gunfire as white children. It analyzed data from police use of force in situations involving young people between the ages of 12 and 17 from 2003 to 2018.

“Black children have really been seen as older, more culpable, less amenable to rehabilitation and less worthy of the Western notions of innocence and the Western notions of childhood,” Henning said.

The headlines from Rochester were deeply personal for Mando Avery, whose 7-year-old son was hit by pepper spray from a police officer aiming at someone else during a protest in Seattle last summer. The spray left his son’s face and chest painful and swollen from chemical burns for several days, and even required a visit to the emergency room.

He has since had nightmares and now fears police. Small things can bring back bad memories, like using a spray bottle to do his hair.

“Their innocence goes away much, much sooner,” Avery said. “What kind of temper tantrum leads to handcuffing a child?”

In the Rochester case, the girl’s mother called police on Jan. 29 after an argument with her spouse and said she asked officers to call mental health services when her daughter grew increasingly upset.

But police body camera video shows only officers at the scene, first handcuffing the girl’s hands behind her back and then growing increasingly impatient as they tried to get her into the police car, culminating in the pepper spray.

There’s a point in the video when an officer says, “You’re acting like a child!” to which the girl replies, “I am a child!”

The officers have been suspended pending an investigation. More video footage released Thursday showed the wait until an ambulance arrived for the girl.

The case comes months after the high-profile death last spring of Daniel Prude, a Black man undergoing a mental health crisis when his family called the Rochester police. Officers handcuffed him, then put a hood over his head when he spit at them. As he struggled, they pinned him face down on the ground, one officer pushing his head to the pavement until he stopped breathing.

The 9-year-old girl’s mother, Elba Pope, told The Associated Press she didn’t think the white officers saw her daughter the same way they would have seen a white child.

“Had they looked at her as if she was one of their children, they wouldn’t have pepper sprayed her,” she said.

Henning agreed. “This is where the question of race comes into play,” she said. “If that child had looked like one of their little girls, looked like the little child that they tucked into bed, it is far less likely that they would have done that.”

The president of the Rochester police union has said the officers didn’t lack compassion but were dealing with a difficult situation with limited resources and were following department protocol.

Full Coverage: Race and ethnicity

New York isn’t the only place where police treatment of Black children has been a flashpoint.

In suburban Denver, four Black girls aged 6 to 17 were detained by police at gunpoint after they were wrongly suspected of being in a stolen car last year.

One officer tried to handcuff the 6-year-old, who was wearing a tiara for what was supposed to be a girls day out with her relatives, but the cuffs were too big, according to a lawsuit filed by the family.

In North Texas, a white police officer was recorded on video pushing a swimsuit-clad Black girl to the ground at a pool party in 2015. Later that year, a sheriff’s deputy at a school in South Carolina flipped a girl to the floor and dragged her across a classroom after she refused to surrender her cellphone in math class.

In Tamir Rice’s case, the 12-year-old was playing with a pellet gun in November 2014 when Cleveland police responding to a call pulled up and within seconds, shot him. When his 14-year-old-sister ran to the scene, she was pushed to the ground and handcuffed. The officers were not indicted.

It’s that history that makes Christian Gibbs, a Black father of three daughters, grateful the girl in Rochester wasn’t more grievously injured — and angered that’s even a worry.

“Thank God she wasn’t killed. ... And the fact that we have to say that is already an indictment of the type of treatment that we expect to be doled out, even to little children,” said Gibbs, 46, of Bowie, Maryland.

Holly M. Frye, of South Ogden, Utah, said she has near-daily conversations with her three children about how to act around police officers, the same kind of conversations her parents had with her.

“This sort of aggression toward the Black race has always been in existence, it’s just being recorded now,” she said. “It’s a topic that never leaves our kitchen table, we’re always constantly talking about it.”

While data is scarce on very young children’s interactions with police, Black youths are nearly five times as likely to be incarcerated compared with white young people, according to an analysis by the nonprofit The Sentencing Project.

The incarceration rate for white youth is 83 per 100,000; for Black youths that number jumps to 383, The Sentencing Project found. While that is partly due to differences in offending, studies have found teenagers of color are more likely to be arrested and more likely to face severe consequences compared with their white peers, the report said.

And it’s not just policing and the criminal justice system. Black students face higher rates of suspension and expulsion from school, said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, which fights against structural racism.

It’s “the way that our Black children are questioned by adults, with this underlying assumption that they are not to be believed, and they’re not to be trusted, and that they’re always up to something wrong,” she said.

That leads to trauma and mistrust on the part of Black youth toward the authorities around them, she said.

“There is no ‘Officer Friendly’ for Black kids,” she said.

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Hajela reported from Essex County, New Jersey, Whitehurst reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writer Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.

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Hajela is a member of the Race and Ethnicity reporting team at The Associated Press.

MORE STORIES:
– New video captures pepper-sprayed girl's wait for EMTs
– Black girls wrongly held at gunpoint in Colorado file suit
– Mom of pepper-sprayed 9-year-old speaks out against police

Religion and the death penalty collide at the Supreme Court

By JESSICA GRESKO

February 12, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is sending a message to states that want to continue to carry out the death penalty: Inmates must be allowed to have a spiritual adviser by their side as they are executed.

The high court around midnight Thursday declined to let Alabama proceed with the lethal injection of Willie B. Smith III. Smith had objected to Alabama’s policy that his pastor would have had to observe his execution from an adjacent room rather than the death chamber itself.

The order from the high court follows two years in which inmates saw some rare success in bringing challenges based on the issue of chaplains in the death chamber. This time, liberal and conservative members of the court normally in disagreement over death penalty issues found common ground not on the death penalty itself but on the issue of religious freedom and how the death penalty is carried out.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of three justices who said they would have let Smith’s execution go forward, said Alabama’s policy applies equally to all inmates and serves a state interest in ensuring safety and security. But he said it was apparent that his colleagues who disagreed were providing a path for states to follow.

States that want to avoid months or years of litigation over the presence of spiritual advisers “should figure out a way to allow spiritual advisors into the execution room, as other States and the Federal Government have done,” he wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Clarence Thomas also would have allowed the execution of Smith, who was sentenced to die for the 1991 murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham.

Alabama had up until 2019 allowed a Christian prison chaplain employed by the state to be physically present in the execution chamber if requested by the inmate, but the state changed its policy in response to two earlier Supreme Court cases.

Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says the court’s order will most clearly affect states in the Deep South that have active execution chambers. Dunham said most state execution protocols, which set who is present in the death chamber, do not mention spiritual advisers. For most of the modern history of the U.S. death penalty since the 1970s, spiritual advisers have not been present in execution chambers, he said.

The federal government, which under President Donald Trump resumed federal executions following a 17-year hiatus and carried out 13 executions, allowed a spiritual adviser to be present in the death chamber. The Biden administration is still weighing how it will proceed in death penalty cases.

The court’s order in Smith’s case contained only statements from Kavanaugh and Justice Elena Kagan.

“Willie Smith is sentenced to death, and his last wish is to have his pastor with him as he dies,” Kagan wrote for herself and liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, as well as conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Kagan added: “Alabama has not carried its burden of showing that the exclusion of all clergy members from the execution chamber is necessary to ensure prison security.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito did not make public their views, but at least one or perhaps both of them must have voted with their liberal colleagues to keep Smith’s execution on hold.

The court’s yearslong wrestling with the issue of chaplains in the death chamber began in 2019, when the justices declined to halt the execution of Alabama inmate Domineque Ray. Ray had objected that a Christian chaplain employed by the prison typically remained in the execution chamber during a lethal injection, but the state would not let his imam be present.

The next month, however, the justices halted the execution of a Texas inmate, Patrick Murphy, who objected after Texas officials wouldn’t allow his Buddhist spiritual adviser in the death chamber. Kavanaugh wrote at the time that states have two choices: Allow all inmates to have a religious adviser of their choice in the execution room or allow that person only in an adjacent viewing room.

In response, the Texas prison system changed its policy, allowing only prison security staff into the execution chamber. But in June, the high court kept Texas from executing Ruben Gutierrez after he objected to the new policy.

Diana Verm, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which had submitted briefs in two of the spiritual adviser cases, said it was unusual for the court with its conservative majority to halt executions.

“You can tell from some of the opinions that the justices don’t like the last-minute nature of execution litigation, but this is an area where they are saying: ’Listen ... religious liberty has to be a part of the process if it’s going to happen,” Verm said.

Cuban official asks Biden’s gov’t to reconsider sanctions
Associated Press

February 11, 2021

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HAVANA (AP) — A top Cuban official said on Thursday that declassified U.S. documents pointing out deficiencies in the response to health issues reported by American diplomats on the island show some of the falsehoods the Trump administration used to impose measures against Cuba.

Johana Tablada, deputy director for U.S. affairs at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, said the new U.S. government should consider reversing measures imposed by Trump against the island after tensions increased because of the health incidents and other issues.

Between late 2016 and May 2018, several U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana complained of health problems from an unknown cause. Trump’s administration officials suggested that Cuba may have been behind the incidents or allowed alleged sonic attacks against the diplomats, something the island has always denied.

A declassified assessment by the State Department, made public on Wednesday by the nonprofit National Security Archive, indicated there was a poor response to the incidents and a lack of coordination. The report was completed in 2018, but not released publicly, and it’s not conclusive about what caused the reported health problems.

The Cuban government is interpreting the document to mean there were no actual attacks against the diplomats.

“If there was no attack, the U.S. consulate in Havana should not be closed, Cuban families should not be prevented from assisting loved ones in Florida and vice versa, bilateral agreements should not be affected,” Tablada said.

Former President Barack Obama’s administration eased or lifted sanctions after restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015. Trump later reversed many of his predecessor’s decisions.

President Joe Biden’s government has promised to renew relations with Cuba.

Thailand’s pro-democracy protesters clash with police

BY CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL

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Pro-democracy protesters position themselves on the sidewalk during a rally in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Feb. 13,2021. The rally in the Thai capital was organized by the Ratsadorn movement, which campaigned last year for Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and his government to step down, the constitution to be amended and the reform of the monarchy to make it more accountable.(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

BANGKOK (AP) — Pro-democracy protesters in Thailand clashed with police Saturday night while seeking the release of four comrades awaiting trial on charges of defaming the monarchy.

The four top leaders of the student-led movement were ordered to stay in custody Tuesday on the so-called lese majeste charge, which carries a punishment of three to 15 years in prison. They were also charged with sedition.

The protest movement campaigned last year for Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and his government to step down, the constitution to be amended to make it more democratic and the monarchy reformed to make it more accountable.

The demand about the monarchy is the most controversial, because the institution has been widely considered an untouchable, bedrock element of Thai nationalism.

Police deputy spokesperson Krissana Pattanacharoen said more than 20 police were injured and seven or eight protesters detained. There was no information on the number of protesters hurt when they tried to breach heavily defended police lines.

At one point, footage showed riot police descending on and beating a medical volunteer who was waiting for his friend, another volunteer, to fix his motorcycle. The man wore a green vest identifying him as part of medical volunteers offering service at protests.

The volunteer service said the man was taken to a police station, and police said he was released Sunday morning.

The protest began at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, where participants were urged to write their wishes for Thailand’s future on a big red cloth that was wrapped around the structure as those present sang the national anthem.

Members of the crowd of about 1,000 also removed plants that had been placed around the monument, alleging they had been put there last week to deny space for protesting.

Attapol Buapat, one of the protest leaders, said that if their friends were not freed from jail within seven days, protesters from around the country would head to Bangkok to join a big rally next Saturday.

“They should have been allowed bail,” said Attapol, also known as as Kru Yai.

The protesters then tried to march to the Bangkok City Pillar Shrine, the capital’s symbolic spiritual center, which is treated as the protector of the country and the monarchy.

At least 100 police in riot gear backed up by two water cannon trucks blocked their path. Attapol won agreement from the police to allow four protest representatives to carry out activities at the shrine. However, he could not control the crowd and front-line protesters dismantled barriers set up by police and threw bottles and smoke bombs at them.

After the four protest representatives returned from the shrine, organizers declared an end to the rally and the crowd began to disperse.

Seven activists charged on eighth day of Myanmar protests against coup


Protesters hold placards at a rally Saturday against the military coup outside the U.S. embassy in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo by Nyein Chan Naing/EPA-EFE


Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Seven activists were issued arrest warrants on Saturday, the eighth day of Myanmar's protest against the military coup, over their social media posts.

The activists were charged under section 505 (b) of the Penal Code for allegedly defaming the state and threatening "public tranquility," in their social media posts, the National Administrative Council said in a statement, Anadolu Agency reported.

Among those charged Saturday, were Min Ko Naing, whose name means Conqueror of Kings, and Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Jimmy, who both served time in prison after participating in the 1988 pro-democracy uprisings in the country, along with five other democracy activists and social influencers.

Naing has been described by The New York Times as the most influential person in Myanmar after the country's civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other high-ranking elected government officials in a coup weeks ago.

Naing and Yu went into hiding with the other five when the military overthrew the civilian government on Feb. 1, according to the Anadolu Agency report.

Naing urged people in the country to resist in all ways as the protests started three days after the coup.

The five other activists charged include singer Linn Linn, who is a former bodyguard of detained leader Kyi; Insein Aung Soe; Myo Yan Naun Thein, the director of Bayda Institute for a Just Society; presenter Maung Maun Aye and Facebook cele Ei Pencilo, The Irrawaddy reported.

Soe had communicated anti-military messages on social media, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said in a daily briefing.

The same charge the seven activists face, which carries a punishment of up to two years, has been used widely to stifle political dissent under previous military regimes, according to the Irrawaddy report.

Myanmar's eighth day of protest against the military coup Saturday featured a 10-minute moment of silence at some demonstrations and more unity across society, according to the AAPP daily briefing.

"There was a 10-minute silence of respect for the day of independence hero General Aung San birth, father of currently-detained State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi at some demonstrations," the daily briefing said.

"More and more sections of society are coming together, a number of demonstrations were hundreds of thousands in size around the country, peacefully fighting for democracy," the AAPP added.

In particular, six policemen and one traffic police from Loikaw and Demawso Township joined the protest Saturday, bringing the total number of policemen joining the Civil Disobediences Movement to 61, according to the briefing. A police force demanded two of the policemen who took part in a protest Saturday in Hpa-an Township, Kayin State, return, and people shielded the two policemen from backlash in response.

Since the coup began, medical staff members have also joined the CDM, a strike campaign that rejects the rule of the military, Voice of America reported.

On Saturday, protesters in Yangon, held signs reading "Stop the kidnapping at night" in response to recent night raids, according to the Voice of America report.

The protests have continued despite a ban on gatherings of five or more people. There has also been a military-imposed curfew from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in several towns in Myanmar.

On Friday, the new military government released more than 23,000 prisoners, but Kyi and other politicians and activists remain in detention. The State Administrative Council ordered the release to to mark Union Day, a national holiday in Myanmar.

Lawmakers call for independent commission to investigate Capitol riots

Rep. Madeliene Dean, D-Pa., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., on Sunday expressed support for a "9/11-style" independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Lawmakers on Sunday supported a call for the formation of a "9/11-style" independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol after former President Donald Trump was acquitted of allegedly inciting an insurrection.

House impeachment manager Rep. Madeliene Dean, D-Pa., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told ABC News' This Week they would support a full investigation into the potential coordination that led to Trump supporters making their way inside the Capitol as Congress worked to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had previously suggested the idea of a 9/11-style commission in a Feb. 3 letter also calling for measures to increase security for lawmakers.

On Sunday, Dean highlighted the historic nature of the destruction that took place on Jan. 6.

"For the first time in however many years, we had an insurrection incited by the president of the United States," she said. "The House was desecrated, the Capitol was desecrated. People were terrorized. This was incited by the president of the United States. Of course, there must be a full commission, not guided by politics, but filled with people who would stand up to the courage of their conviction, like Dr. Cassidy."

Cassidy on Saturday joined every Senate Democrat and six other Republicans in breaking with the GOP in the 57-43 vote in favor of convicting Trump, which ultimately fell short of the 67 votes needed to secure a conviction.

On Sunday, Cassidy told ABC News that Trump's actions fell within his definition of inciting and insurrection and that he believes there should be "a complete investigation" into what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

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"Why was there not more law enforcement, National Guard already mobilized, what was known, who knew it, and when they knew it, all that, because that builds the basis so this never happens again in the future," he said.

Although the GOP overwhelmingly voted to acquit Trump, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell condemned the former president's actions in a speech after the vote, saying Trump exhibited a "disgraceful dereliction of duty" but said that impeachment is a "narrow tool" that is not intended to take aim at a president who is no longer in office.

"There is no question -- none -- that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," he said. "The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing