USA
Cannabis entrepreneurs, celebrity investors light up as legalization blooms


Nabis warehouse associate David Garcia holds a tablet with cannabis orders that he uses to pick products from the shelves at the Nabis warehouse in Oakland

Paul Lienert and Jane Lanhee Lee
Tue, March 16, 2021, 

DETROIT/OAKLAND, Calf. (Reuters) - Driven by a surge in cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic, industry entrepreneurs and investors are gearing up for even greater growth as legalization spreads and the economy reopens.

So far, 36 states and the District of Columbia have approved medical use of marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Of them,15 states and D.C. have approved recreational use of pot.

Cannabis technology startups, including those enabling home delivery of pot, got a big boost during the pandemic as more Americans partook, igniting investor interest in companies that provide everything from cultivation management tools to compliance and e-commerce software for an industry that still operates in a legal gray zone at the federal level.

Cannabis entrepreneurs say they have to move quickly and build their brands before full U.S. legalization levels the playing field - a process that many expect to gather steam this year.

“Why are you going to Weedmaps (for listings of cannabis retailers) if you can go to Yelp? Why do you order through this or that system if you can order through DoorDash or Uber Eats?” asks Steve Allan, chief executive of The Parent Company, which has Jay-Z as chief visionary officer and is looking to consolidate smaller players following its January listing through a special purpose acquisition company.

TPCO has built its own e-commerce technology that can handle everything from business management to retail sales, said Allan.

In one of the biggest venture capital deals in the sector to date, Oregon-based e-commerce platform Dutchie on Tuesday announced it raised $200 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.7 billion.

Dutchie’s investors include former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, NBA star Kevin Durant and DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang. The company's online marketplace connects cannabis dispensaries with consumers, who can order home delivery.

Reuters has identified more than 90 private and public cannabis tech companies in North America, with total private investment in the first quarter at the highest level in 18 months, according to data compiled by PitchBook and Crunchbase.

All told, investors have poured more than $2.5 billion into cannabis tech startups since 2018.

Public investors are piling in too. Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, that target the broader cannabis industry raised at least $4.3 billion through early 2021, with $1.7 billion of that still waiting to be deployed, according to cannabis researcher BDSA.

That interest comes as shares of publicly traded cannabis companies - many of which are listed in Canada because they are barred from U.S. exchanges - have begun to rebound after a brutal sell-off in 2019.

“We’re still in the very early innings” of investing, said Harrison Aaron, an investment analyst with Gotham Green Partners, a New York-based private equity firm with a cannabis-centric portfolio.

U.S. legal cannabis sales for both medicinal and recreational use last year jumped 45%, according to BDSA.

“We don’t necessarily want things to go (fully) legal today because there’s a lot of value in our companies, and we want more time to build,” said Lenore Kopko, managing partner at Gotham Green.

Others believe entry to the cannabis industry may not be quick or easy for many of the big outside players.

“Cannabis legislation, regulations and supply chain flows create complexity that is not built into software made for other industries,” said David Hua, founder and CEO of Meadow, which sells compliance and operating software for cannabis retailers.

CELEBRITIES GALORE

Cannabis startup funding in the sector has been led by a closely knit network of investors that often co-invest with one another. That network includes Liquid 2 Ventures, headed by former NFL quarterback Joe Montana, and Casa Verde Capital, founded by entertainer Snoop Dogg.

Another of those firms, Beverly Hills-based Arcadian Capital, has invested in more than a dozen cannabis tech startups. Boca Raton-based Phyto Partners has funded 10, many of them as a co-investor with Arcadian.

The network occasionally is joined by other high-profile individual investors. DoorDash’s Tang and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan were among those backing Oakland-based Nabis, a cannabis online marketplace for dispensaries that also has a warehouse, delivery service and online financing for retailers.

There is another draw for investors beyond the immediate business opportunity: data on a brand-new industry.

For Arcadian, the torrent of data that is being generated by cannabis tech startups provides “a great mechanism to learn more about the industry,” said Matthew Nordgren, the company’s founder and managing partner.

Industry boosters say technology developed and incubated by the cannabis industry could open new pathways for retail trade in other sectors.

Socrates Rosenfeld, co-founder and CEO of Jane Technologies, the Santa Cruz creator of an e-commerce platform that has been funded by Arcadian and Gotham Green, called it "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a tech company to work in partnership with the operators in this space to build and redefine how tech and analog retail work together.”

(Reporting by Paul Lienert and Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Dan Grebler)

AAPI women more than twice as likely to report hate incidents as men, report finds



Shawna Chen
Tue, March 16, 2021, 7:00 AM·2 min read

Racism-fueled violence against Asian Americans continues to spike, with women more than twice as likely to be targeted than men, according to a report from the reporting center Stop AAPI Hate published Tuesday.

Why it matters: Anti-Asian racism escalated after the pandemic began, with people blaming Asian Americans for COVID-19, which was first detected in China.

It follows a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S., made worse last year by former President Trump's "Chinese virus" rhetoric.

Driving the news: Stop AAPI Hate received nearly 3,800 self-reported incidents from March 19 last year to Feb. 28. The organization warned the number represents only a fraction of incidents due to tendencies to underreport.

By the numbers: Verbal harassment (68.1%) and shunning (20.5%), or the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans, comprise the two largest proportions of total reported incidents.

Physical assault comes in third at 11.1%.

Chinese people are the largest ethnic group to report experiencing hate (42.2%), followed by Koreans (14.8%), the Vietnamese (8.5%) and Filipinos (7.9%).

Businesses are the "primary site" of discrimination (35.4%), while 25.3% of reported incidents took place in public streets.

Of note: Though not specified in the report, women also face hate-motivated sexual violence. One attack occurred in a train station last week.


Anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic has also forced many Asian American businesses to shutter.

The big picture: Anti-Asian hate has gained more attention in recent weeks, as a string of particularly violent attacks against Asian American elders spurred outrage.

About four in 10 Americans have said it's more common for people to express racist views about Asian people now than before the pandemic, per a July report from the Pew Research Center.

Last week, Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) announced plans to reintroduce the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would designate a Justice Department officer to oversee review of reported coronavirus-related hate crimes.

UN Women: COVID-19 is `most discriminatory crisis' for women


FILE - In this Wednesday, March 7, 2018 file photo, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of U.N. Women, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in New York. The U.N. health agency and its partners have found in a new study released Tuesday, March 9, 2021 that nearly one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes, calling the results a “horrifying picture” that requires action by government and communities alike. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, called violence against women "the most widespread and persistent human rights violation that is not prosecuted.” (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)


EDITH M. LEDERER
Mon, March 15, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of UN Women called the COVID-19 pandemic “the most discriminatory crisis” that women and girls have ever experienced on Monday, pointing to women losing jobs far more often than men, a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence, and 47 million more women being pushed into living on less than $1.90 a day this year.

Emerging from the pandemic, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said the world also faces more orphans and child-headed homes, an increase in child marriage, 59 percent of women reporting having to spend more time on domestic work since the pandemic began, and a digital gender gap leaving many women unprepared for the future.

She spoke at the opening of the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women whose theme this year is on women's participation and decision-making in public life and combatting violence against women and girls.


Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of the U.N. women’s agency, said the World Health Organization’s latest report shows that the highest rates of intimate partner violence in the past 12 months -- 16% -- was against young women aged 15 to 24.

A report for the commission’s session also underlined that “violence against women in public life is a major deterrent to their political participation, and affects women of all ages and ranks, in every part of the world,” she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said every month the toll from violence against women rises -- from sexual abuse to child marriage.

“The damage is incalculable and will resound down the decades, into future generations,” he said.

The U.N. chief said the fallout from the pandemic “has shown how deeply gender inequality remains embedded in the world’s political, social and economic systems.”

Over the past year, Guterres said women leaders are among those who’ve kept COVID-19 transmission rates low and put their countries on tract for recovery while countries with less effective responses to the pandemic “have tended to be those where strongman approaches prevail and women’s rights are under assault.”

But the secretary-general said “looking across the world, we see that women’s voices remain missing from the highest levels of leadership.”

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s latest report released last week, only 25 percent of lawmakers worldwide are women and only 22 countries have a female head of state or government with Europe topping the list.

“At current rates parity among heads of government will not be achieved until 2150,” Guterres said. “That’s right, another 130 years of men making the same kinds of decisions they have made for the past 130 years and more.”

While these new numbers are little changed, UN Women’s Mlambo-Ngcuka said there are gains “to celebrate and inspire us.”

She pointed to the share of women in government in Lithuania increasing from 8 percent to 43 percent, Rwanda leading the world with the largest share of women ministers at 54.8 percent, and the percentage of women ministers in the United States rising from 17 percent in 2020 under former president Donald Trump to 46 percent in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, “a historic high.”

Despite these positive developments, Guterres said men are dominating decision-making during the pandemic.

“A study of 87 countries found that 85 percent of COVID-19 task forces contained mostly men,” the U.N. chief said.

Guterres stressed that women have the skills and expertise for top jobs, and in many countries they’re graduating from higher education at higher rates than men.

“What we need is not more training for women, but to train those in power on how to build inclusive institutions,” he said. “We need to move beyond fixing women and instead fix our systems.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka called for “big, bold steps” and urged global leaders to make space especially for young women to enter public life.

“We see them on the streets across the world, leading movements even in the face of lethal threat,” she said.

David Stuurman: The South African who twice escaped Robben Island


Wed, March 17, 2021

David Stuurman statue

David Stuurman, who has just had an airport named after him, was one of the first leaders of resistance to colonial expansion in South Africa, yet few people in the country know much about him, as the BBC's Mohammed Allie reports.



To the colonial establishment of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, David Stuurman was a criminal and a threat, but to the Khoi and Xhosa people (or amaXhosa) he achieved hero status for his brave and continued resistance to forced removals and subjugation.

Stuurman also has the distinction of being the only person to have twice escaped from Robben Island - later known as one of the places where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated - off the coast of Cape Town.

In 1809 he was among the first political prisoners to be banished there.

First escape

"He was arrested and charged for resisting colonial rule as well as opposing the conscription of the Khoi into militias that were created to defend the colony and to attack the San and amaXhosa," cultural activist Stephen Langtry told the BBC.

"By December of 1809 Stuurman and a few others were the first to escape from the island using one of the whaling boats that was anchored in the harbour.

"He made it out of the colony and was given refuge amongst the amaXhosa. He was recaptured [a decade later] and put to hard labour on Robben Island. On 9 August 1820, he escaped again," Langtry added.

Even though the getaway boat capsized, Stuurman survived only to be caught once more and sent back to the island in December for a third stint.
Death in Australia

This time he was chained to a wall until he could be transported in February 1823 to Australia.

Stuurman was then put to work at the military barracks in Sydney for six years before he was granted a ticket to leave. But by that time he had become lame in his right leg and was unable to return home, according to Sydney Living Museums.

He died in Australia in 1830 and was buried in a cemetery which was later redeveloped as Sydney's central railway station, meaning that Stuurman's remains could not be located.

David Stuurman's spirit was laid to rest back in South Africa in a ceremony in 2017

After negotiations with the Australian authorities that lasted several years, a traditional ceremony was conducted in Sydney in 2017 to repatriate the spirit of Stuurman. Three days later a second spiritual repatriation was conducted at the Sarah Baartman Heritage Centre in the South African town of Hankey, Eastern Cape province.

Born around 1773, near the Gamtoos River in what is now Eastern Cape, Stuurman took over the leadership of his Khoi clan from his brother Klaas who died in 1803.

He became involved in the anti-colonial fight after his people were dispossessed of their land by the Dutch and British colonisers, forcing him and other indigenous people to live and work on their land as labourers.
'Tied up and beaten'

Stuurman himself worked for a farmer, Johannes Vermaak, but his brutal treatment led him to abandon his job.

At one point it was alleged that he had threatened Vermaak.

"[After the disagreement] Vermaak had first demanded that he be shot but settled for having him tied to a wagon and beaten with sjamboks [whips]," historian Vertrees Malherbe has written.

"After that he was salted and left in the burning sun, for some hours."

Key dates in Stuurman's life. [ Early 1770s Stuurman born in what is now Eastern Cape ],[ 1795 British forces seize Cape Colony from the Dutch, then return it in 1803 and finally gaining control in 1806 ],[ 1799 Khoi rebellion, which Stuurman helps lead, begins ],[ 1809 Stuurman arrested and held on Robben Island but later escapes ],[ 1820 Stuurman recaptured after second escape ],[ 1830 Stuurman dies in Australia after being transported there in 1823 ], Source: Source: SA History Online, BBC Monitoring, Image

Stuurman's active career as Khoi leader spanned a tumultuous period in the first two decades of the 19th Century, when the Xhosa, Boers, Khoikhoi, San and the British clashed intermittently in the Eastern Cape.

The conflict was largely because of colonial expansion which dispossessed Xhosa and Khoi people of their land, cattle and other belongings.

In 1799 the Khoi on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony rebelled. Hundreds left the farms which, in many instances they were forced to work on, and went to live with the Xhosa, according to South African History Online.

Together the Khoi and the Xhosa attacked the colonialists.

Stuurman helped lead the expeditions to recapture cattle from Dutch colonists between 1795 and 1803.

By all accounts, Stuurman was a thorn in the side of both the frontiersmen and the new British authorities in the Cape as he refused to be coerced into giving up his clan's independence.

'For us, he's a legend'

"He was important for his contributions in resisting colonial occupation. He was also a formidable resistance fighter," cultural activist Shepi Mati told the BBC.

"At one point he received refugees - people who ran away from slavery and forced conscription into farm labour and offered them a safe haven among his community who resided in the area now called Hankey in the Eastern Cape.

"Stuurman himself was highly regarded in the community. He was not afraid to take on the colonialists. He took back land and cattle that was forcibly taken from his people."

Khoi activists and Khoi San community members took part in the symbolic burial in 2017

Mati added that Stuurman also played an important role in fostering unity between the Khoi and the Xhosa.

"For us he's a legend. He's one of the Khoi and San heroes who was the first, together with his brother Klaas, to fight colonialism, land dispossession and slavery at the time," says Christian Martin, an Eastern Cape-based Khoi and San activist. In 2016, he proposed that Port Elizabeth's airport should be named in Stuurman's honour.

"Stuurman was way ahead of his time when it comes to unity and nation building.

"There's a white people's version of Stuurman where he is painted as a murderer. Remember some people also thought of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist - but to millions he was a hero."

The colonists saw him as a bandit and unwilling to co-operate and in 1809 Stuurman was arrested and held on Robben Island.
'First revolutionary'

Martin reveals that he received several messages from white South Africans after the renaming of the international airport in Port Elizabeth (which itself has got a new name - Gqeberha).

One, written in Afrikaans, called Stuurman "a notorious robber and murderer" who had settlers killed, stole their cattle and "chased their women and children, barefoot and wearing only their nightclothes into the field in the bitter cold".

Perhaps part of the source of the anger was that the airport was once named after former Prime Minister HF Verwoerd, considered to be one of the architects of apartheid, which legalised racial discrimination.

According to Errol Heynes, a former deputy mayor of Port Elizabeth, Stuurman, by opposing forced removals, became "one of the first revolutionaries in the country".

"It was important to highlight those who had fought the first settlers and fought colonisation before the advent of apartheid," he adds.

Stuurman has been honoured in other ways. In 2015 a life-size bronze sculpture of him, created by Cape Town-based artist Keith Calder, was erected at the National Heritage Monument in Tshwane.

Despite this and having played a key role in resisting colonialism it has taken the renaming of the airport for many South Africans to learn more about him.

With this move and the tales of his heroism, including the double escape from Robben Island, there is now likely to be more interest.

Bernie Sanders rips into Jeff Bezos: 'You are worth $182 billion ... why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers' from unionizing?

Annabelle Williams
Wed, March 17, 2021


Bezos declined Sanders' invitation to testify at a hearing, but the senator had harsh words for him.


Sanders criticized Amazon's countering of a union drive in Alabama despite the CEO's record wealth.


The hearing included testimony from a pro-union worker at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse.


At a hearing on Wednesday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke critically about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who declined Sanders' invitation to testify, and Elon Musk, the two wealthiest men.

"Bezos and Musk now own more wealth than the bottom 40%. Meanwhile, we're looking at more hunger in America than at any time in decades," Sanders said in his opening remarks at the Senate Budget Committee hearing, which was titled The Income and Wealth Inequality Crisis in America

"If he was with us this morning, I would ask him the following question ... Mr. Bezos, you are worth $182 billion - that's a B," Sanders said. "One hundred eighty-two billion dollars, you're the wealthiest person in the world. Why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers in Bessemer, Alabama, from joining a union?"

The unionization push being voted on at Amazon's Bessemer fulfillment center has been the focal point of a high-profile labor dispute between the behemoth "everything store" and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Amazon has aggressively pushed its workers to vote against unionization, launching a campaign called "Do It Without Dues" to encourage workers to stick to the status quo.

Sanders pointed out the disparity between Bezos' wealth growth during the pandemic and the struggles of rank-and-file workers.

"Jeff Bezos has become $77 billion richer during this horrific pandemic, while denying hundreds of thousands of workers who work at Amazon paid sick leave," he said.

Jennifer Bates, an employee at the Bessemer warehouse who testified at Wednesday's hearing, said the unionization efforts were an attempt to "have a level playing field." Bates cited tough working conditions, long hours, and a lack of job security as major drivers of the unionization efforts.

"Amazon brags it pays workers above the minimum wage," she said. "What they don't tell you is what those jobs are really like. And they certainly don't tell you what they can afford."

When asked what having a union would mean to her and her coworkers, Bates said it would result in their voices being "amplified" and a "sense of empowerment, "and not just at the Amazon in Bessemer but all over the country."

"We take employee feedback seriously, including Ms. Bates's, but we don't believe her comments represent the more than 90% of her fulfillment center colleagues who say they'd recommend Amazon as a great place to work to friends and family," an Amazon spokesperson told Insider. "We encourage people to speak with the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees who love their jobs, earn at least $15 an hour, receive comprehensive healthcare and paid leave benefits, prefer direct dialogue with their managers, and voted Amazon #2 on the Forbes best employers list in 2020."

While much of the hearing was devoted to the Amazon unionization fight, which will be decided at the end of March, Sanders said "Amazon and Jeff Bezos are not alone" and decried the "corporate greed" that drives income inequality.

Others who testified at the hearing included former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who said unions were important and cited the steep decline in union membership since the labor heyday of the mid-1900s.

Sanders has been a vocal critic of Amazon, while President Joe Biden has taken a softer approach in referencing the union drive. In a statement earlier in March, Biden condemned "anti-union propaganda" from large companies but stopped short of naming Amazon.

Atlanta mayor calls police depiction of motive in spa killings 'victim blaming'

Caitlin Dickson and Christopher Wilson

Wed, March 17, 2021

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took issue with the way authorities described the possible motive of the suspect in the Tuesday evening killings of eight people at three spa locations.

The mayor countered the depiction used by Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department shortly after he pointed to suspect Robert Aaron Long’s assertion that “sexual addiction” rather than racism toward Asian Americans was behind his shooting rampage.

“We are not about to get into victim blaming, victim shaming, here,” Bottoms said at a Wednesday news conference, adding, “We don’t know additional information about what his motives were. We will not begin to blame victims, and as far as we know in Atlanta these are legally operating businesses that have not been on our radar, the radar of [the Atlanta Police Department].”

Earlier at the news conference, Baker drew scrutiny for his matter-of-fact description of Long’s mindset.

“He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did,” Baker said, adding that the businesses were seen by Long as “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

Long, 21, was arrested Tuesday evening. Six of the eight victims were Asian women, but Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said Wednesday morning that it was too early to call the murders a hate crime. The killings come amid an increased focus on violence against Asian American communities, and the FBI is involved in the investigation.

On Wednesday afternoon, Long was charged with murder and assault.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaking about the arrest of Robert Aaron Long on Wednesday. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department said that Long confessed to the crimes and that he was apprehended after his family assisted law enforcement. Officials stated that Long told them he viewed the spas as a sexual outlet, but it is not yet known whether he had visited any or all of the three establishments prior to his attack, or if any of those establishments had ties to the sex industry.

Officials said they believe that when they apprehended Long he was heading to Florida to commit further violence, suggesting he was planning to target “some type of porn industry” business. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Long purchased a gun used in the killings on Tuesday just hours before the shooting.

Police responded to the report of a robbery in Acworth, a suburb of Atlanta, just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday. They found four people dead and one injured at Young’s Asian Massage. An hour later they responded to reports of a robbery at Gold Spa in northeast Atlanta. Three women were found dead there, along with another victim at Aromatherapy Spa across the street.

Authorities released names of four of the victims: Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Yan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44.

“That the Asian women murdered yesterday were working highly vulnerable and low-wage jobs during an ongoing pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence and white supremacy,” said Phi Nguyen, a litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, in a statement.

“While authorities are still investigating the motive in these attacks and whether or not they were anti-Asian in nature, we already know that too many within the AAPI [Asian American/Pacific Islander] community fear every day for themselves and their loved ones as a result of the spate of attacks over the past year,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement. “We all must call on elected officials to take steps to counter anti-Asian hate and other extremist or hateful ideology. And law enforcement at every level, along with social media companies, must work together to help intercept and combat this growing threat.”


Atlanta mayor: Asian spa shootings ‘a crime against us all’

Nick Niedzwiadek
Wed, March 17, 2021

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday condemned the attacks on three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, including six Asian women.

“Whether it is senseless violence that we've seen play out in our streets, or more targeted violence like we saw yesterday, a crime against any community is a crime against us all,” Bottoms said at a news conference.

Law enforcement officials in Georgia Wednesday said the shootings do not appear to be racially motivated but stressed the investigation into the deadly shootings is ongoing. A 21-year-old male suspect in the shootings was taken into custody Tuesday night following a police chase.

Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County sheriff's office said that the man claims to have a sex addiction and that the businesses were a “temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

“It is still early on, but those were comments that he made,” Baker said, adding that investigators have not found a potential political or religious motivation for the attacks.

Authorities also said the alleged shooter said he was planning to leave the state when he was apprehended and may have gone after a business tied to "the porn industry" in Florida.

“For as tragic as this was on yesterday, it could have been worse,“ Bottoms said. “It is very likely that there would have been more victims on yesterday.”

The shootings Tuesday came amid heightened concern about a rise in hate crimes against people of Asian descent in recent months and immediately posed questions about why the particular businesses were targeted. At least one victim survived the attack but remains hospitalized.

The man, Robert Aaron Long, has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County, part of the Atlanta metro area where one of the businesses was located. Additional charges are expected to follow related to the two shootings that occurred within the city.

Bottoms said that regardless of what fueled the violence, the fear and outrage it induced needs to be addressed.

“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that many of the victims, [the] majority of the victims were Asian,” she said. “We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable. It is hateful, and it has to stop.”

The Atlanta mayor said she has been in contact with the White House in the aftermath of the shootings, and the Biden administration said early Wednesday that the president had been briefed on the “horrific” situation.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday afternoon that he has been in touch with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray about the situation and acknowledged the concern expressed by the AAPI community.

"I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans, and it's troubling," Biden said from the Oval Office. "I'll have more to say when the investigation is completed."

Earlier in the day Vice President Kamala Harris said the string of shootings was "tragic."

"It speaks to a larger issue, which is the issue of violence in our country, and what we must do to never tolerate it and to always speak out against it," the vice president said. "I do want to say to our Asian-American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people."

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) released a statement Wednesday saying he is "heartbroken" for the victims and their families.

"While the motive for last night's terrible violence remains under investigation, I express my love and support for and stand in solidarity with the Asian-American community, which has endured a shocking increase in violence and harassment over the last year," Ossoff said.

Numerous Asian-American political figures expressed outrage at Tuesday's shootings, as well as the animus directed at Asians within the United States.

Andrew Yang, a leading New York City mayoral candidate, said the tragedy underscores the need for additional resources to combat anti-Asian hate crimes and that he did not believe that race was a non-factor in Georgia.

“We should be treating hate crimes as such," he said in Times Square on Wednesday. "And make no mistake, these women were targeted on the basis of their race."

Yang's wife, Evelyn, similarly dismissed the idea that the locations of the shootings can be separated from the victim's identities.

"If you target massage parlors you are targeting Asian women," she wrote in a tweet. "I appreciate all the supportive sentiment out there but let’s be clear in calling this what it is — a hate crime."

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) blamed former President Donald Trump for stoking some of the anti-Asian sentiment. The former president and some of his aides repeatedly used the racist term "kung flu" in reference to the coronavirus and frequently labeled it the "China virus." Trump invoked the latter as recently as Tuesday night in a Fox News interview that aired as news was starting to emerge about the shootings.

"We feel that we have been invisible," Meng, who is of Tawainese descent, said on MSNBC. "We are so hurt about what happened last night in Atlanta, but also hurt about this yearslong-worth of hateful incidents and hate crimes that have skyrocketed across the country.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki likewise told reporters Wednesday there's "no question" Trump contributed to "perceptions of the Asian-American community that are inaccurate, unfair [and] have elevated threats against Asian Americans."

LGBTQ Catholics stung by Vatican rebuff of same-sex unions

DAVID CRARY and LUIS ANDRES HENAO

Mon, March 15, 2021

The Vatican’s declaration that same-sex unions are a sin the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless was no surprise for LGBTQ Catholics in the United States — yet it stung deeply nonetheless.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said her organization’s membership includes same-sex couples who have been together for decades, persevering in their love for one another in the face of bias and family rejection.

“The fact that our church at its highest levels cannot recognize the grace in that and cannot extend any sort of blessing to these couples is just tragic,” she said.

She was responding to a formal statement Monday from the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying Roman Catholic clergy may not bless such unions since God "cannot bless sin.” It was approved by Pope Francis.

"Having sin be explicitly included in this statement kind of brings us back to zero,” said Ross Murray, who oversees religious issues for the LGBTQ rights group GLAAD.

He expressed dismay that “the ability for us to live out our lives fully and freely is still seen as an affront to the church or, worse yet, an affront to God, who created us and knows us and loves us.”

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater LGBTQ acceptance in the church, said that if those priests who have already been blessing same-sex unions now stop doing so, lay Catholics could be moved take their place.

“If priests and pastoral ministers no longer feel they can perform such a blessing, the Catholic laity will step in and perform their own rituals,” DeBernardo said. “The toothpaste is out of the tube, and it can’t be put back inside.”

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, an openly gay Catholic priest and professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, said priests who want to engage in pastoral outreach to the gay and lesbian community “will continue to do so, except that it will be even more under the table ... than it was before.”

For Catholics in same-sex relationships, he said, the Vatican’s new message will hurt.

“Every human being is born with this innate desire to love,” he said. “For those who are oriented toward members of the same sex ... to have it being described as inherently or innately sinful without any qualification, that is crushing.”

The Rev. James Martin, another priest who advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic church, said in a post on Twitter that he received dozens of messages from LGBTQ people on Monday saying they were discouraged by the Vatican’s pronouncement. He urged them not to despair.

“Besides, what is the alternative?” he asked. “To live in fear of the future that God has in store for us?... To doubt that Jesus is on the side of those who feel in any way marginalized?”

Vatican doctrine holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and that same-sex unions are sinful.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said those teachings, put together, are problematic.

“It boggles the mind that the hierarchy can affirm that LGBTQ+ persons are made in the image of God but that their unions are a sin,” she said via email. “Are they made in God’s image with the exception of their hearts? With the exception of their abilities and inclinations to love?"

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the U.S.-based NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, said she was relieved the Vatican statement wasn’t harsher.

She interpreted it as saying, “You can bless the individuals (in a same-sex union), you just can’t bless the contract.”

“So it’s possible you could have a ritual where the individuals get blessed to be their committed selves.”

The Vatican's pronouncement was welcomed by some church conservatives, however, such as Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League.

“There will be no recognition of homosexual unions or marriage by the Catholic Church. It is non-negotiable. End of story,” he said.

“Pope Francis has been under considerable pressure by gay activists, in and out of the church, to give the green light to gay marriage,” Donohue added, calling Monday’s statement “the most decisive rejection of those efforts ever written.”

Francis has endorsed providing legal protections for same-sex couples, but that is in the civil sphere and not the church.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean advocate for sex-abuse victims who is gay, reported in 2018 that when he met with Francis, the pope had told him, “God made you like this, and he loves you."

On Monday, Cruz said the Vatican officials who issued the new statement “are completely in a world of their own, away from people and trying to defend the indefensible.”

He called for a change in the leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it was undermining efforts by Francis to create a more inclusive church.

“If the church and the CDF do not advance with the world ... Catholics will continue to flee.” he said.

In Francis’ homeland of Argentina, LGBTQ activist Esteban Paulon said earlier statements by the pontiff conveying empathy and understanding for gays and lesbians were mere gestures, lacking any official weight.

“They were not institutional pronouncements,” said Paulon, executive director of the Institute of Public Policies LGBT+. “Saying that homosexual practice is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech that unfortunately in Latin America and Europe is on the rise.”

Chile’s largest LGBTQ rights group, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, condemned the decree as a “homophobic and anti-Christian action” from the Catholic hierarchy.

Spokesman Oscar Rementería contrasted the Vatican’s stern rhetoric against same-sex marriage with the many documented cases of Catholic leaders covering up child sex abuse committed by clergy.

___

Associated Press writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Nicole Winfield in Rome and Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Group of priests vows to bless same-sex couples
Caitlin O'Kane
Wed, March 17, 2021

A group of priests who have distanced themselves from the Catholic Church are criticizing the Vatican's recent decree that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex marriages. The Austrian Priests' Initiative, a group of priests leading a campaign of disobedience against the Vatican, said this week they will continue to bless same-sex couples.

The initiative (also as Pfarrer-Initiative) said in a statement that its members "are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that wants to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples."

"This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to be overcome with Pope Francis," the group's statement continues. "In solidarity with so many, we will not reject any loving couple in the future who wants to celebrate God's blessing, which they experience every day, in a church-service."

"Reality has long since shown that same-sex couples connected in love can very well celebrate God's blessing in church. A state-of-the-art theology establishes this responsible practice," the statement reads.

The Austrian Priests' Initiative was founded in 2006 by nine priests and now has around 350 members from the ranks of the Roman Catholic church. The majority of its members are from Austria, but the initiative has expanded to other countries. More than 3,000 people support the reform movement, led by Father Helmut Schüller.

The group's call to disobedience aims to reform the Catholic church. In part, they would like to create a new image of a priest, so that a man or woman, married or unmarried, can serve as a priest.

"The Austrian Priest's Initiative is an Austria-wide movement of Roman Catholic priests and deacons who follow their conscience and campaign for new paths in the church," the group said in its statement. "Its goals are: lively congregations, contemporary synodal church structures and, above all, a credible and open-minded world church that focuses on sincere service to people."

The group also said it "vehemently" protests against the assumption that same-sex couples are not part of God's divine plan. "We deeply regret that this decree, which seeks to revive the spirit of bygone times, widens the gap between Roman bureaucracy and the local Church," the group said. "This decree offends many Christians and obscures and discredits the liberating message of Jesus."

The Vatican's decree states the Church cannot bless same-sex unions since God "cannot bless sin," the Associated Press reports.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the Vatican's orthodoxy office, issued a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis.

The Vatican upholds that gay people must be treated with respect and dignity, however, gay sex is considered "intrinsically disordered." In Catholicism, marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman, is intended for the sake of creating new life, and is part of God's plan, the AP reports.


Elton John slams Vatican for blessing its 'Rocketman' investment but not gay marriage


Christie D'Zurilla
Tue, March 16, 2021

Elton John, left, in 2019 with husband David Furnish, is criticizing 

the Catholic Church for its refusal to bless same-sex marriages. 

(Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images)

Elton John is blasting the Catholic Church as hypocritical after the Vatican decreed Monday that priests could not bless same-sex unions, because God "cannot bless sin.”

Apparently, the church isn't as averse to earning money from a movie, "Rocketman," that closes with scenes of the singer, his husband, David Furnish, and their two young children.

"How can the Vatican refuse to bless gay marriages because they 'are sin', yet happily make a profit from investing millions in 'Rocketman' — a film which celebrates my finding happiness from my marriage to David?? #hypocrisy," John posted Monday on social media, including screen shots of articles about the decree and the film investment.

The Daily Beast discussed the investment in a 2019 story about a review of church finances that was ordered by Pope Francis. The probe focused in part on the Malta-based Centurion Global Fund, which reportedly draws two-thirds of its investments from the Vatican Secretariat of State. It's about $78 million, the Beast said.



"[T]he most curious item on the report to come out so far," the story said about documents that were reviewed by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, "is a $4.5 million expenditure recorded in February of this year related to finance for the 2019 films Men in Black: International and Elton John’s rather steamy biopic Rocketman, which portrays the entertainer’s drug problems and is the first studio movie to portray gay sex between men in an authentic way.

"While investing in mainstream entertainment is hardly sinful, the great contradiction is that the Catholic Church preaches to the devout that homosexuality is a sin."

The Vatican maintains that LGBTQ people must be treated with dignity and respect but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered.” Catholic teaching holds that marriage between a man and woman is part of God’s plan and is intended for procreation.

In its new document, the Vatican said questions had been raised in recent years about whether the church should bless same-sex unions in a sacramental way, particularly after the pope had insisted on the need to better welcome and accompany gay people in the church.

The Vatican stressed the “fundamental and decisive distinction” between gay individuals and same-sex unions, noting that “the negative judgment on the blessing of unions of persons of the same sex does not imply a judgment on persons.”

John and Furnish, now 73 and 58, respectively, met in 1993, had a civil union in 2005 and welcomed sons Zachary and Elijah via surrogacy in 2010 and 2013. The couple married in 2014 after it became legal in the U.K.

In the fantasy-musical biopic "Rocketman," the timeline of John's life is not beholden to reality, allowing the story to end with the 1983 release of the song "I'm Still Standing" despite showing John's failed 1984 marriage to recording engineer Renate Blauel and using the singer's 1990 rehab stint as a storytelling device.

And though Furnish was a producer, the 2019 feature contains no mention of the men's lasting relationship until its final two images before the credits roll.

This is hardly the "Crocodile Rock" singer's first criticism of organized religion.

"[T]here are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion," John, a self-declared atheist, told a London newspaper in 2006. "From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. ... Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

The Associated Press con

Syrians in rebel-held Idlib mark 10 years since uprising




SyriaAn anti-Syrian government protester shouts slogans as others wave revolutionary flags, to mark 10 years since the start of a popular uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule, that later turned into an insurgency and civil war, In Idlib, the last major opposition-held area of the country, in northwest Syria, Monday, March 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Mon, March 15, 2021


BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of Syrians in the last opposition-held area of the country protested Monday, marking 10 years since the start of a popular uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule that later spiraled into an insurgency and civil war.

The protest in Idlib city was the largest in years, and aimed at recreating the early days of peaceful protests in which tens of thousands called for Assad's downfall. However, Syrian rebels have been crushed in most of the country and no longer pose a military threat to Assad. His troops, backed by Russia and Iran, have vanquished opposition-held territory over the past few years.

The city of Idlib is the last urban area still under opposition control in Syria, located in a shrinking rebel enclave in the northwestern province of the same name.


“A decade of global abandonment,” read one of the banners carried by protesters.

The Syrian conflict has killed more than half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. Those displaced include more than 5 million refugees, mostly in neighboring countries.

In Idlib’s Sabaa Bahrat square, more than 2,000 people gathered to mark the anniversary — almost none of them wearing masks to protect against coronavirus — with some chanting “no retreat, no surrender.”

“Injustice will eventually come to an end and righteousness will be victorious,” said citizen journalist Salwa Abdul-Raham, who is based in Idlib and took part in the protest.

“Those who lost their children or lost their lives, their blood will not be in vain,” she said. “There is divine justice and victory will be achieved to bring freedom and justice.”

Protests also took place in other rebel-held parts of Syria, including western districts of Aleppo province where demonstrators carried posters reading: “At the end of the decade, we renew the pledge.”

Also on Monday, Syrian security forces thwarted an attack in the capital Damascus killing thee militants and detaining three others, state TV reported. The TV said three of the attackers had explosive belts, an apparent reference to suicide attacks.

Chimps from two Czech zoos are Zooming each other
Story by Reuters

We humans may be tiring of video calls, Zoom birthdays and streamed performances, but the chimps at two Czech zoos are just starting to enjoy their new live online linkup.

Chimpanzees watch a giant screen inside their enclosure at Dvur Kralove Zoo, where a screen broadcasting fellow apes from Brno zoo has been installed as part of an enrichment project for chimpanzees amid zoo closures due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Dvur Kralove nad Labem, Czech Republic, March 16, 2021. REUTERS/David W Cerny

To make up for the lack of interaction with visitors since the attractions closed in December under Covid-19 restrictions, the chimpanzees at Safari Park Dvur Kralove and the troop at a zoo in Brno, 93 miles away, can now watch one another's daily lives on giant screens.

There are no mute-button disasters as the sound is off, but there has already been plenty of interest in what the distant cousins are up to since the project got underway last week.

"At the beginning they approached the screen with defensive or threatening gestures, there was interaction," said Gabriela Linhartova, ape keeper at Dvur Kralove, 84 miles east of Prague.

"It has since moved into the mode of 'I am in the movies' or 'I am watching TV.' When they see some tense situations, it gets them up off the couch, like us when we watch a live sport event."

The chimpanzees have also adopted other human behaviors such as grabbing goodies like nuts to chew on while watching the action.

The video conferences, also aired on the safari park's website, will run daily from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. until the end of March, when keepers will evaluate whether they should continue.

© DAVID W CERNY/REUTERS A chimpanzee rests in front of a giant screen inside its enclosure at Safari Park Dvur

JORDANIAN HEALTH  MINISTER STEPS DOWN OVER DEATHS FROM OXYGEN SHORTAGE

SALT, Jordan — Jordan’s health minister stepped down Saturday after at least seven patients in a hospital COVID-19 ward died due to a shortage of oxygen supplies, state media reported  

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Hours later, King Abdullah II arrived at the Salt government hospital to help calm angry families who had gathered outside.

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh ordered an investigation into the deaths early Saturday morning at the hospital in the town of Salt, 20 kilometres (13 miles) north of the capital Amman.

King Abdullah has ordered the hospital’s director also suspended, according to Al-Mamlaka TV, which added that all of the dead were coronavirus patients.

The Al-Rai newspaper, a government mouthpiece, confirmed that Health Minister Nathir Obeidat had resigned.

Jordan, home to 10 million people, is grappling with surging coronavirus infections and deaths and struggling to secure vaccines.

About 150 relatives of the patients gathered outside the hospital, which was surrounded by a large deployment of police and security officers, who prevented the families from entering.

One of those waiting anxiously outside was Fares Kharabsha, whose parents are COVID-19 patients. He was inside when the oxygen ran out in the ward and said medical and civil defence workers and people from outside the hospital rushed in with portable oxygen devices to try to prevent more deaths. “They resuscitated a large number of people, including my father and mother,” he said. “I do not know how many, but I saw people who died.”

The oxygen outage lasted for over 40 minutes, according to the reports.

Another relative, Habis Kharabsha, complained of a lack of sufficient services at the hospital. “At the isolation department, there was only one doctor and two nurses for 50 or 60 patients; this is mad,” he said.

The Middle Eastern kingdom has reported over 465,000 cases and more than 5,200 deaths during the pandemic. Last month, it tightened restrictions, restoring a weekend lockdown and nighttime curfews, to curb the spread of the virus.

Jordan launched its vaccination drive in mid-January with plans to inoculate over 4 million residents in 2021. On Friday, the country received 144,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine delivered through the global COVAX initiative.

The COVAX alliance aims to share COVID-19 vaccines with more than 90 lower- and middle-income nations. However, the program is facing delays, underfunding and limited supplies.

The EU has allocated 8 million euros to support Jordan’s purchase of vaccines. A second shipment from COVAX is expected in April.