AP Interview: Stacey Abrams on voting rights, her next move

By BILL BARROW and HILARY POWELL

April 9, 2021

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, file photo, Democrat Stacey Abrams walks on Senate floor before of members of Georgia's Electoral College cast their votes at the state Capitol in Atlanta. In a new interview with The Associated Press, voting rights advocate Abrams discussed a new state law that tightens some Georgia voting rules after Democrats carried the state in the 2020 elections. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, Pool, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia is at the forefront of the partisan fight over voting rights and election law.

The Associated Press sat down this week with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in 2018 and a leading voice on ballot access, to talk about a sweeping new state law that tightens some Georgia voting rules after Democrats carried the state in the 2020 elections.

The interview has been condensed for brevity:

AP: Please explain what you mean when you say this new law will make it harder for Georgians to vote, particularly Black and other minority Georgians.

ABRAMS: In the 2018 election and the 2020 election, there has been an increased use of early voting, in-person absentee voting, use of drop boxes. And these are all of the things that have been tightened. The change from (using) signature verification to using an ID to submit your absentee ballot is a direct result to lawsuits that we filed to allow more people to use absentee balloting.

These are (new) laws that respond to an increase in voting by people of color by constricting, removing or otherwise harming their ability to access these perquisites. It doesn’t say brown and Black people can’t vote. It simply says we’re going to remove things that we saw you use to your benefit; we’re going to make it harder for you to access these opportunities.

AP: Gov. Brian Kemp has been assertive in defending the law. He focuses on provisions like codifying weekend early voting, setting aside money to make state IDs free. Judged individually, are some of these good moves?

ABRAMS: This now gives them permission to shorten your early voting time. Instead of it being 7 (a.m.) to 7 (p.m.), it now can be 9-to-5, and the county has to decide to give you more power. Prior to this, it was assumed everyone can vote from 7 to 7. (Editor’s note: Old Georgia law said early voting would be conducted during “normal business hours,” though most counties had longer hours. The new law specifies a weekday window of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. but allows counties to expand to a 12-hour window.)

I object to a characterization that suggests they have given something that did not exist. What they’ve done is actually placed restrictions.

When it comes to free ID, the notion of it being free is actually a misnomer. You may not have to pay a fee, (but) you’ve got to pay for the birth certificate, you’ve got to pay for all the documentation that leads up to being able to get that ID. And there is a cost, especially to rural communities, that often do not have transportation or access to the DMVs, which are not on every street corner. So there’s a very real cost to voters to secure this ID.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo Stacey Abrams speaks to Biden supporters as they wait for former President Barack Obama to arrive and speak at a rally as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden at Turner Field in Atlanta. In a new interview with The Associated Press, voting rights advocate Abrams discussed a new state law that tightens some Georgia voting rules after Democrats carried the state in the 2020 elections. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

AP: Do you support consumer boycotts and corporate responses like Major League Baseball moving the All-Star Game from metro Atlanta?

ABRAMS: I grew up in the Deep South. Boycotts are the reason that I have the ability to make this argument as a free citizen. I understand the impulse of boycotting, but I also understand that boycotts operate differently depending on your targets and depending on your timeline. I do not believe that a boycott at this moment is beneficial to the victims of these bills. I do believe it is absolutely necessary for corporations to show their goodwill. They have to publicly denounce these bills, they have to support and invest in voting rights expansion, and they need to support the federal voting rights standards.

AP: Can you talk about how voting is rooted in your United Methodist faith, growing up with a strong, religious background and both your parents being clergy?

ABRAMS: I grew up in a family that not only believed in our faith as a religious identity, but believed our faith as a responsibility and lived experience. For me, defending the right to vote is not just about defending it for people of color. My push is that we should have expansion of the right to vote for every community that faces barriers, including the disabled, those who are returning citizens (released from prison), the poor, young people. Unfortunately, the targets tend to be those very same communities. And thus, most of the work that I do is about lifting up their voices and protecting their right to vote.

AP: Bottom line, could Democrats have won in Georgia in 2020 under these new rules? Could you win a governor’s race if you run again?

ABRAMS: I think it is possible for Democrats to win ... but I will say this: It is wrong for any state to preclude access, especially under the guise and under the baldfaced lie that this is an expansion. ... We should not be thinking about these laws in the context of who can win an election, except to the extent that Republicans are gaming the system because they’re afraid of losing an election.

AP: Democrats’ pending voting bills in Washington wouldn’t supersede everything in state laws, but how much could they mitigate the negative effects you see in state actions?

ABRAMS: It would standardize the laws so that our democracy does not depend on our geography. Congress (can) say we will have a standardized election system that guarantees automatic voter registration, in-person early voting and no-excuses mail balloting. Those three pieces alone absolutely create ... a level opportunity for voters regardless of race and regardless of geography to participate in our elections.

AP: Can you see Democrats passing any voting changes without changing the Senate filibuster rule? And how does it strike you to hear President Biden say the filibuster is a vestige of the Jim Crow era but that he doesn’t necessarily support completely scrapping the rule?

ABRAMS: While I am disappointed by the recent op-ed by Sen. Joe Manchin that says that he’s not willing to entertain any changes to the filibuster, I do believe his good intention that we should be able to achieve bipartisan support. ... I do believe that there’s legitimate argument to be made that carving out an exception to protect the fundamental rights of democracy, and participation in democracy, is worthy of an exemption to the filibuster. I can understand the hesitation of completely scrapping it, including the hesitation expressed by the president, because the worry is that if you remove it completely, you no longer have any controls over what can happen. Although it was used by avowed Southern racists to block civil rights, the original intention was not grounded necessarily in abject racism.

AP: But do you see any scenario where voting rights legislation gets 10 Republican votes required to pass under current filibuster rules?

ABRAMS: I think that it is unlikely. (But) I am a woman of faith. And so my approach is to pray for what I need but work for what I think needs to be done.

AP: There is an assumption that you will run for governor again next year. Is there any time frame when you will make your decision public?

ABRAMS: I am not thinking about that right now. My focus is on making certain we can have elections (with) full participation in 2022. I’m also working through my organization Fair Count on ensuring that every person who’s eligible for the (COVID-19) vaccination can get it, especially in the underserved southwest, rural area of Georgia. We’re also doing work on COVID recovery through the Southern Economic Advancement Project to ensure that recovery includes fixing the public health infrastructure that is so broken across the South.

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Powell reported from Washington.

BACKGROUNDER

Senate filibuster’s racist past fuels arguments for its end

By LISA MASCARO

April 9, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — Once obscure, the Senate filibuster is coming under fresh scrutiny not only because of the enormous power it gives a single senator to halt President Joe Biden’s agenda, but as a tool historically used for racism.

Senators and those advocating for changes to the practice say the procedure that allows endless debate is hardly what the founders intended, but rather a Jim Crow-relic whose time is up. Among the most vivid examples, they point to landmark filibusters including Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour speech against a 1957 Civil Rights bill, as ways it has been used to stall changes

The debate ahead is no longer just academic, but one that could make or break Biden’s agenda in the split 50-50 Senate. Carrying echoes of that earlier Civil Rights era, the Senate is poised to consider a sweeping elections and voting rights bill that has been approved by House Democrats but is running into a Senate Republican filibuster.

In a letter Friday, nearly 150 groups called on the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, saying the matter takes on fresh urgency after passage of more restrictive new elections law in Georgia, which could be undone by the pending “For the People” act that’s before Congress.

“The filibuster has a long history of being used to block voting rights, civil rights, and democracy-protecting bills,” said Fix our Senate and a roster of leading progressive and advocacy groups focused on gun control, climate change, immigration and other issues.

“Senate Democrats will soon face a choice: Protect our democracy and pass the For the People Act, or protect the filibuster — an outdated and abused ‘Jim Crow relic’ that deserves to be tossed into the dustbin of history.”

The pressure is mounting on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats as time ticks on Biden’s priorities. With the narrow Senate and the Democrats holding just a slim majority in the House, it’s clear that Republicans will be able to easily block bills from passing Congress, which they plan to do.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell recently declared it “fake history” to suggest a racial component to the filibuster practice.

In a Senate speech, McConnell recalled times the filibuster was used by both parties, including just last year when Democrats were in the minority and used it to block other bills. “It’s not a racist relic,” McConnell said.

Established almost by accident in a way that allows unlimited debate, the filibuster practice dots early congressional history, but entered the lexicon on the eve of the Civil War. By the early 20th century, it was used to block anti-lynching bills but became more widely used in recent years, sharpened as a procedural weapon to grind any action to a halt in the Senate.

To overcome a filibuster takes 60 votes, but some Democratic senators have proposed lowering that threshold to 51 votes, as has been done to allow approval of executive and judicial nominees. Senate Democrats hold the slim majority this session because under the Constitution, the Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris, can cast the tie-breaking vote

McConnell himself changed the filibuster practice when Republicans were in the majority, stunning Washington when he maneuvered the Senate to lower the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees to 51 votes, enabling Republicans to install three of Donald Trump’s high court judicial nominees over Democratic objections.

The top-ranking Black member of Congress, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, warned senators recently that he would not be quiet if they used the filibuster to halt action on raising the minimum wage and other Democratic priorities. “We’re not just going to give in to these arcane methods of denying progress,” the South Carolina Democrat said, hearkening back to Thurmond’s speech.

But it would take all Democrats to agree to change the rules, and some centrists, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are not on board.

“There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” he wrote in a recent op-ed.

Manchin has received as much attention as any other senator as the White House conducts outreach to Congress.

Biden has spoken to him several times, and he’s also received calls from other senior officials including White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

Biden advisors have long known that he would express reluctance to overhaul the filibuster. And Manchin is not alone — as many as 10 Democratic senators have been wary of changing the filibuster practice.

The president and White House aides have also spoken to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., among others, according to advisors.

The administration’s pitch to all the senators, including Manchin, has framed the moment as one that calls for drastic action, including a need to uphold voting rights in the face of legislation they believe can be considered racist.

Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman said while the filibuster itself may in itself be racist, it certainly has been used that way in the past — as well as in the present.

“There’s nothing partisan about saying the filibuster has mostly been used for racist reasons, I think everybody would agree that that’s true,” he said.

The election legislation coming before the Senate will become a test case. Already approved by the House as H.R. 1, the sweeping federal package would expanding voting access by allowing universal registration, early voting by mail and other options, undoing some of Georgia’s new law.

Democrats intend to eventually bring it forward for votes and test the Republicans willingness to object.

At the same time, Schumer is eyeing another process, so-called budget reconciliation, that provides a tool for certain budgetary bills to be approved on a 51-vote threshold, bypassing GOP opposition.

Democrats used the reconciliation process to Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, in the face of unified Republican no votes, and could use it again to advance his $2.3 trillion infrastructure packag e or other priorities.

Since reconciliation revolves around budgetary matters, it’s it’s not clear the elections bill or others legislation gun control or immigration, for example, could be considered under the procedure.

One Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the new senator whose election in January helped deliver the party majority control, recently signaled he is prepared to use all options to push ahead on the elections bill.

“I intend to use my leverage, and my state’s leverage as the majority maker, whose electoral future is in peril right now, to demand that we deal with voting rights,” he told The Associated Press, “and we deal with it urgently and swiftly.”

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Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.

Soviet cosmonaut made pioneering spaceflight 60 years ago THIS WEEK

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

April 12, 2021


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FILE - In this undated file photo, Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin, first man to orbit the earth, is shown in his space suit. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space 60 years ago. The successful one-orbit flight on April 12, 1961 made the 27-year-old Gagarin a national hero and cemented Soviet supremacy in space until the United States put a man on the moon more than eight years later. (AP Photo/File)

MOSCOW (AP) — Crushed into the pilot’s seat by heavy G-forces, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin saw flames outside his spacecraft and prepared to die. His voice broke the tense silence at ground control: “I’m burning. Goodbye, comrades.”

Gagarin didn’t know that the blazing inferno he observed through a porthole was a cloud of plasma engulfing Vostok 1 during its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and he was still on track to return safely.

It was his quiet composure under pressure that helped make him the first human in space 60 years ago.

Gagarin’s steely self-control was a key factor behind the success of his pioneering 108-minute flight. The April 12, 1961, mission encountered glitches and emergencies — from a capsule hatch failing to shut properly just before blastoff to parachute problems in the final moments before touchdown.

From the time 20 Soviet air force pilots were selected to train for the first crewed spaceflight, Gagarin’s calm demeanor, quick learning skills and beaming smile made him an early favorite.

Two days before blastoff, the 27-year-old Gagarin wrote a farewell letter to his wife, Valentina, sharing his pride in being chosen to ride in Vostok 1 but also trying to console her in the event of his death.
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“I fully trust the equipment, it mustn’t let me down. But if something happens, I ask you Valyusha not to become broken by grief,” he wrote, using a nickname for her.

Authorities held onto the letter and eventually gave it to Gagarin’s widow seven years later after he died in an airplane crash. She never remarried.

Gagarin’s pioneering, single-orbit flight made him a hero in the Soviet Union and an international celebrity. After putting the world’s first satellite into orbit with the successful launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the Soviet space program, rushed to secure its dominance over the United States by putting a man into space.

“The task was set, and people were sleeping in their offices and factory shops, like at wartime,” Fyodor Yurchikhin, a Russian cosmonaut who eventually made five spaceflights, recalled.

As the Soviet rocket and space program raced to beat the Americans, it suffered a series of launch failures throughout 1960, including a disastrous launch pad explosion in October that killed 126 people. Missile Forces chief Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin was among the victims.

Like Gagarin, Soviet officials were prepared for the worst. No safety system had been installed to save the cosmonaut in case of another rocket explosion at blastoff or after.
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Authorities drafted three versions of a bulletin about Gagarin’s flight for the official TASS news agency: one announcing a successful flight, another in case of problems, and the third one for a mission ending in disaster.

Apart from potential engine failures and other equipment malfunctions, scientists questioned an individual’s ability to withstand the conditions of spaceflight. Many worried that a pilot could go mad in orbit.

Soviet engineers prepared for that situation by developing a fully automatic control system. As an extra precaution, the pilot would receive a sealed envelope containing a secret code for activating the capsule’s manual controls. The theory was that a person who could enter the code must be sane enough to operate the ship.

Everyone in the space program liked Gagarin so much, however, that a senior instructor and a top engineer independently shared the secret code with him before the flight to save him the trouble of fiddling with the envelope in case of an emergency.

Problems began right after Gagarin got into Vostok 1, when a light confirming the hatch’s closure did not go on. Working at a frantic pace, a leading engineer and a co-worker removed 32 screws, found and fixed a faulty contact, and put the screws back just in time for the scheduled launch.

Sitting in the capsule, Gagarin whistled a tune. “Poyekhali!” — “Off we go!” — he shouted as the rocket blasted off.

As another precaution, the orbit was planned so the spacecraft would descend on its own after a week if an engine burn failure stranded the ship. Instead, a glitch resulted in a higher orbit that would have left Gagarin dead if the engine had malfunctioned at that stage.
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While the engine worked as planned to send the ship home, a fuel loss resulted in an unexpected reentry path and a higher velocity that made the ship rotate wildly for 10 agonizing minutes.

Gagarin later said he nearly blacked out while experiencing G-forces exceeding 10 times the pull of gravity. “There was a moment lasting two or three seconds when instruments started fading before my eyes,” he recalled.

Seeing a cloud of fiery plasma around his ship on re-entry, he thought his ship was burning.

A soft-landing system hadn’t been designed yet, so Gagarin ejected from the module in his spacesuit and deployed a parachute. While descending, he had to fiddle with a sticky valve on his spacesuit to start breathing outside air. A reserve chute unfolded in addition to the main parachute, making it hard for him to control his descent, but he landed safely on a field near the Volga River in the Saratov region.

Gagarin was flown to Moscow to a hero’s welcome, hailed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and greeted by enthusiastic crowds cheering his flight as a triumph on par with the victory in World War II. In the years before he died at age 34, he basked in international glory, visiting dozens of countries to celebrate his historic mission.

“The colossal propaganda effect of the Sputnik launch and particularly Gagarin’s flight was very important,” Moscow-based aviation and space expert Vadim Lukashevich said. “We suddenly beat America even though our country hadn’t recovered yet from the massive damage and casualties” from World War II.

Gagarin was killed in a training jet crash on March 27, 1968. Not quite 16 months later, the U.S. beat the Soviet Union in the space race, putting an astronaut on the moon.

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union ended the era of rivalry. Russia’s efforts to develop new rockets and spacecraft have faced endless delays, and the country has continued to rely on Soviet-era technology. Amid the stagnation, the much-criticized state space corporation Roscosmos has focused on a costly plan to build its new, rocket-shaped headquarters on the site of a dismantled rocket factory.

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Associated Press journalists Kostya Manenkov and Kirill Zarubin in Moscow contributed to this report.

AP PHOTOS: From Moscow to Pacific, Russia glorifies Gagarin
April 12, 2021


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FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019 file photo, the sun sets over a statue of the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. From a giant statue towering over Moscow to a more modest monument on the Sakhalin Island in the Pacific Ocean, dozens of memorials across Russia commemorate Yuri Gagarin, the cosmonaut who became the first person in space on April 12, 1961, 60 years ago. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

MOSCOW (AP) — From a giant statue towering over Moscow to a more modest monument on the Sakhalin Island in the Pacific Ocean, dozens of memorials across Russia commemorate Yuri Gagarin, the cosmonaut who became the first person in space 60 years ago.

Gagarin’s 108-minute mission took the Space Age to a new level and marked a historic achievement for the Soviet Union, which beat the United States in a tight race to launch a man beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

For the Soviet people, Gagarin’s spaceflight was a triumph comparable to the victory over the Germans in World War II. It has remained a source of national pride since April 12, 1961, a symbol of the country’s bravery and technological prowess.

Gagarin died seven years after he orbited the planet. The first monuments glorifying him and his pioneering achievement were erected while he still was alive.



A titanium obelisk depicting a starting rocket and dedicated to the first Soviet cosmonauts was unveiled in Moscow in 1964. Standing 107 meters high, (351 feet), it includes a Gagarin relief. The Cosmonauts Alley near the Conquerors of Space monument that opened in 1967 features bronze busts of Gagarin and other Soviet cosmonauts.

Another towering monument built in 1980 also became a Moscow landmark: a titanium statue of Gagarin standing on a pedestal formed to resemble rocket exhaust. It is 42 meters (138 feet) high and weighs 12 tons.

After Gagarin died in a training jet crash in March 1968, he was buried near the Kremlin Wall alongside former Soviet leaders. The field near Moscow where his plane crashed also got a memorial.

Other Gagarin monuments include a statue in Star City, home to the spaceflight training center just outside the capital where Gagarin and many other cosmonauts lived.

Dozens of others are spread across Russia, including one in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the far-eastern Sakhalin Island.

A statue of Gagarin also marks the Baikonur space launch facility, the place he blasted off from in then-Soviet Kazakhstan. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia leased Baikonur for both piloted space missions and satellite launches.



A field near the Volga River where Gagarin landed after his historic 1961 flight bears an obelisk and a Gagarin statue added later. A theme park was set up there to mark the 60th anniversary of his flight.

Small but quick: Bhutan vaccinates 93% of adults in 16 days
April 12, 2021


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Face masks for use as precaution against coronavirus are displayed for sale at a shop in Thimpu, Bhutan, Monday, April 12, 2021. The tiny Himalayan kingdom wedged between India and China has vaccinated nearly 93% of its adult population since March 27. Overall, the country has vaccinated 62% of its 800,000 people. (AP Photo)

THIMPU, Bhutan (AP) — When plotted on a graph, the curve of Bhutan’s COVID-19 vaccination drive shoots upwards from the very first day, crossing Israel, the United States, Bahrain and other countries known for vaccinating people rapidly.

Those countries took months to reach where they are, painstakingly strengthening their vaccination campaigns in the face of rising coronavirus cases. But the story of Bhutan’s vaccination campaign is nearly finished — just 16 days after it began.

The tiny Himalayan kingdom wedged between India and China has vaccinated nearly 93% of its adult population since March 27. Overall, the country has vaccinated 62% of its 800,000 people.

The rapid rollout of the vaccine puts the tiny nation just behind Seychelles, which has given jabs to 66% of its population of nearly 100,000 people.

Its small population helped Bhutan move fast, but its success has also been attributed to its dedicated citizen volunteers, known as “desuups,” and established cold chain storage used during earlier vaccination drives.

Bhutan received its first 150,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from neighboring India in January, but the shots were distributed beginning in late March to coincide with auspicious dates in Buddhist astrology.

The first dose was administered by and given to a woman born in the Year of the Monkey, accompanied by chants of Buddhist prayers.

“Let this small step of mine today help us all prevail through this illness,” the recipient, 30-year-old Ninda Dema, was quoted by the country’s Kuensel newspaper as saying.

Dr. Pandup Tshering, secretary to the Ministry of Health, said jabs were still being provided to those who could not get vaccinated during the campaign period and that the country had enough doses to cover its entire population.

Bhutan has recorded 910 coronavirus infections and one death since the pandemic began.

Bhutan has a mandatory 21-day quarantine for all people arriving in the country. All schools and educational institutions are open and are monitored for compliance with COVID-19 protocols, Tshering said.

Bhutan is the last remaining Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas. But the country has transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a democratic, constitutional monarchy.

ANOTHER REASON TO END THE DEATH PENALTY

Texas’ longest serving death row inmate has sentence tossed
By JUAN A. LOZANO

This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Raymond Riles. An appeals court has overturned the sentence of Texas’ longest serving death row inmate, whose attorneys say has languished in prison for more than 45 years because he's too mentally ill to be executed. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)

HOUSTON (AP) — An appeals court has overturned the sentence of Texas’ longest serving death row inmate, whose attorneys say has languished in prison for more than 45 years because he’s too mentally ill to be executed.

Raymond Riles’ “death sentence can no longer stand” because the 70-year-old inmate’s history of mental illness was not properly considered by jurors, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The decision means Riles’ case will be sent back to a Houston courtroom for resentencing.

He was sent to death row in 1976 for fatally shooting John Thomas Henry in 1974 at a Houston car lot following a disagreement over a vehicle. A co-defendant, Herbert Washington, was also sentenced to death, but his sentence was overturned, and he later pleaded guilty to two related charges and was sentenced to 50 and 25 years in prison.

When Riles was tried, state law did not expect jurors to consider mitigating evidence such as mental illness when deciding whether someone should be sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that Texas jury instructions were unconstitutional because they didn’t allow consideration of intellectual disability or mental illness or other issues as mitigating evidence in the punishment phase of a capital murder trial.

But Riles’ case remained in limbo as lower courts failed to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision until at least 2007, said Jim Marcus, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and one of Riles’ attorneys. That then gave Riles a realistic chance to prevail on this legal issue but it wasn’t until recently that he had contact with attorneys who were willing to assist him, Marcus said.

Inmates like Riles are “housed on death row because their judgment is a sentence of death, but it can’t be carried out because they’re too mentally ill. In Texas, that means people are left to languish in the Polunsky Unit (the location of Texas’ death row), where the conditions are basically solitary confinement,” Marcus said.

While prosecutors argued at Riles’ trial that he was not mentally ill, several psychiatrists and psychologists testified for the defense that he was psychotic and suffered from schizophrenia. Riles’ brother testified that his “mind is not normal like other people. He is not thinking like other people.”

“All parties (now) agree that he is mentally ill. The state of Texas has treated him as such for the 45 years he’s been on death row,” said Thea Posel, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and another of Riles’ attorneys.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg did not challenge the effort to overturn the death sentence.

“We are glad Texas’ highest (criminal) court agreed with prosecutors and defense lawyers that jurors must be able to consider a defendant’s mental health history before deciding punishment,” Ogg said Thursday.

Ogg’s office declined to comment on whether prosecutors will again pursue a death sentence in Riles’ case.

Marcus said he thinks Riles will most likely be resentenced to life in prison.

“This would be a very difficult case for Harris County to pursue further because Mr. Riles is so mentally ill, that it’s unlikely he would be found competent to stand trial,” he said.

If he were to be resentenced to life in prison, he would likely be eligible for release, but any final decision would be made by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Marcus said.

While the Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for individuals who are intellectually disabled, it has not barred such punishment for those with serious mental illness, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

In 2019, the Texas Legislature considered a bill that would have prohibited the death penalty for someone with severe mental illness. The legislation did not pass.

The state, which during most years executes more inmates than any other state, has not had an execution since July 2020.

REST IN POWER

Pakistan’s iconic human rights defender I.A. Rehman dies
April 12, 2021

FILE - In this July 16, 2018 file photo, I.A. Rehman, center, an official from the Human Rights Commission addresses a news conference, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Rehman, an iconic Pakistani human rights defender and former editor, has died in the eastern city of Lahore after a brief illness his family said Monday, April 12, 2021. Rahman was 90. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash, File

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — An iconic Pakistani human rights defender and journalist I.A. Rehman has died in the eastern city of Lahore after a brief illness, his family and friends said Monday. Rehman was 90. He spent his life defending human rights, opposing military dictators, fighting for the rule of law and democracy.

Rehman was also a strong voice for the country’s minorities, including Christians and Hindus.

He died of old age, high sugar, and blood pressure level, according to Harris Khalique, secretary-general at the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Rehman had been associated with the commission for a long time

Rehman worked as an editor for various newspapers before joining the commission. He regularly contributed articles for Pakistani newspapers.

Rehman was born in 1930 in Haryana in neighboring India before Pakistan got independence from British colonial rule in 1947. He was the author of three books an advocate of peace between Pakistan and India, the two South Asian nuclear rivals who have fought three wars since 1947.

Rehman campaigned for amendments to the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which domestic and international rights groups say have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and to settle personal scores.

The reports of his death prompted an outpouring of grief on social media, with Cabinet ministers to the country’s opposition paying tributes to Rehman for his contribution to journalism and human rights. Among the mourners was Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who tweeted that the country had lost “a true icon.”

A longtime friend, human rights defender Afrasiab Khattak, tweeted that Rehman’s death marked “the end of an era.”

The U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Lahore also extended condolences to Rehman’s family and friends, calling him “a journalist and defender of human rights.”

Rehman, the statement said, “will inspire countless future generations.”

Rehman was expected to be buried in the city of Lahore later Monday.

India: Hindu festival turns to superspreader event as COVID infections soar

India is recording huge jumps in daily coronavirus infections while facing vaccine and hospital bed shortages. Loosely enforced restrictions are being blamed for fueling the soaring infection rate.



A festival on the Ganges river has reportedly led to thousands of COVID infections

India's coronavirus infection rates are rising exponentially, with the country registering over 200,000 new infections over the last 24 hours — twice as many as 10 days prior.

Experts say the harrowing trend can be traced back to two factors — extremely virulent mutations of the original virus, and the country's lax approach to restrictions on daily life to slow the spread of infection.

India is also struggling with vaccine shortages and has administered just 114 million jabs so far for a population of over 1 billion.

Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in New Delhi has ordered the country's Serum Institute — a key global vaccine supplier — to stop exporting doses in order to vaccinate Indians first.

However, politicians are also wary of imposing nationwide lockdowns, cognizant of the devastating economic effect of the last lockdown in Spring 2020.

The state of Maharashtra and its capital, Mumbai, and the national capital, Delhi, are among a handful of regional governments that have imposed new restrictions.

Officials have so far refused to reimpose limits after they were almost entirely done away with at the beginning of 2021. As a result, crowds have flocked to sporting, political and religious events in huge numbers.

Hindu festival amid second wave

One event, the Kumbh Mela religious festival in the northern city of Haridwar, has already attracted nearly 5 million largely non-mask wearing Hindu pilgrims to the banks of the holy Ganges River this week.

Festival organizer Siddharth Chakrapani told AFP news agency "our faith is the biggest thing for us. It is because of that strong belief that so many people have come here to take a dip in Ganga. They believe that Maa (mother) Ganga will save them from this pandemic."

Officials in Haridwar said that on Monday and Tuesday alone they detected nearly 2,000 infections among festival goers.

LNJP Hospital's Suresh Kumar said new virus variants that evade testing were adding to the burden on India's healthcare system.

"People are not following the COVID guidelines. They are just careless," he told AFP.
Variants overload hospitals

The impact of India's vaccine shortage is being exacerbated by the effect of mutant coronavirus variants on younger people, who health officials say are showing up at hospitals in record numbers. Doctors say they are now seeing far more patients aged 45 and under.

"We are also seeing children under the ages of 12 and 15 being admitted with symptoms in the second wave. Last year, there were practically no children presenting symptoms," said Khusrav Bajan, a consultant at Mumbai's PD Hinduja National Hospital, told AFP

Doctors at the New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said that while patients infected with last year's strain could likely infect up to 4 of every 10 people they came into contact with, the new variant makes it possible to infect 9 of 10.

In the northern state of Punjab, a full 81% of those admitted to hospital have been found to be infected with the so-called UK variant.

"This virus is more infectious and more virulent," Dhiren Gupta, a senior physician at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, told Reuters news agency.

Suresh Kumar, medical director at New Delhi's Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) — with 1,500 beds, one of India's largest COVID-only health institutions — told Reuters that the hospital is "overburdened" and at "full capacity.

RELIGION VS SCIENCE EVEN VEDIC SCIENCE
Huge gatherings at India’s Hindu festival as virus surges

By NEHA MEHROTRA and SHEIKH SAALIQ

April 12, 2021

Devotees take holy dips in the river Ganges during Shahi snan or a Royal bath at Kumbh mela, in Haridwar in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Monday, April 12, 2021. As states across India are declaring some version of a lockdown to battle rising Covid cases as part of a nationwide second-wave, thousands of pilgrims are gathering on the banks of the river Ganga for the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela. The faithful believe that a dip in the waters of the Ganga will absolve them of their sins and deliver them from the cycle of birth and death. (AP Photo/Karma Sonam)

NEW DELHI (AP) — Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees gathered by the Ganges River for special prayers Monday, many of them flouting social distancing practices as the coronavirus spreads in India with record speed.

The Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, is one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Hinduism. The faithful congregate in the northern city of Haridwar and take a dip in the waters of the Ganges, which they believe will absolve them of their sins and deliver them from the cycle of birth and death.

The Kumbh Mela, which runs through April, comes during India’s worst surge in new infections since the pandemic began, with a seven-day rolling average of more than 130,000 new cases per day. Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed with patients, and experts worry the worst is yet to come.

Naga Sadhu or Naked Hindu holy men wait for the start of a procession towards the river Ganges for Shahi snan or a Royal bath during Kumbh mela, in Haridwar in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Monday, April 12, 2021. 

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party say the festival has been allowed at a time when infections are skyrocketing because the government isn’t willing to anger Hindus, who are the party’s biggest supporters.

With the surge showing no sign of slowing, India’s confirmed infections since the pandemic began surpassed Brazil’s total on Monday to make it the second-worst hit country in the world.

The current surge has hit hardest in Western Maharashtra state, home to the financial capital Mumbai. The state has accounted for nearly half of the country’s new infections in the past two weeks.

Amid concerns the Kumbh Mela festival could turn into a superspreader event, Uttarakhand state’s chief minister, Tirath Singh Rawat, last week said “the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.”

Health experts had appealed for the festival to be canceled, but the government went ahead saying safety rules would be followed. There are concerns that pilgrims could get infected and then take the virus back to their cities and villages in other parts of the country.

Authorities in Haridwar said the length of the festival has been shortened from previous years, but it has been extremely difficult to implement social distancing measures. Coronavirus tests are mandatory for those entering the area.

“We are continuously appealing to people to follow COVID-19 appropriate behavior. But due to the huge crowd, it is practically not possible,” senior police officer Sanjay Gunjyal said.

Government critics have compared the government’s response to the festival to the response last year when Indian Muslims faced rising Islamophobia following accusations that an initial surge in infections was tied to a three-day meeting of an Islamic missionary group, the Tablighi Jamaat, in New Delhi.

A Naga Sadhu or Naked Hindu holy man smokes before taking a holy dips in the river Ganges Kumbh during Shahi snan or a Royal bath during mela, in Haridwar in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Monday, April 12, 2021. 

Some leaders from Modi’s party and India’s freewheeling TV channels, which have long favored the government’s Hindu-nationalist policies, labeled Muslims as “jihadis” and “super spreaders” in March 2020 when the seven-day rolling average of coronavirus cases in the country was not even 200 per day. The blame triggered a wave of violence, business boycotts and hate speech toward Muslims.

India’s 200 million Muslims account for 14% of the population and are the largest minority group in the Hindu-majority nation.

The surge in India comes as the country’s vaccination drive appears to be struggling. Multiple Indian states have reported a shortage of doses even as the federal government has insisted that there’s enough in stock.

After a sluggish start, India is now vaccinating 3.6 million people on average daily, which is more than the United States. It has so far administered more than 103 million shots, the most in the world after the U.S. and China, but much lower than many countries per capita — still less than 6% of India’s population of nearly 1.4 billion people.

A woman talks to a Hindu holy man before the start of a procession for Shahi snan or a Royal bath during Kumbh mela, in Haridwar in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Monday, April 12, 2021. 

Biden’s ambitious expansion of long-term care sparks debate

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

April 9, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is proposing a major expansion of the government’s role in long-term care, but questions are being raised over his using the low-income Medicaid program and piggybacking the whole idea on an infrastructure bill.

The White House infrastructure package includes $400 billion to accelerate a shift from institutional care to home and community services through the federal-state Medicaid program. The size of the financial commitment — about 17% of the $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal — leaves no doubt that Biden intends to put his mark on long-term care.

Biden is acting as the nation emerges from a pandemic that has taken a cruel toll on older people, particularly nursing home residents. Long-term care was always going to be a growing issue in an aging society like the United States. The pandemic has made it even more consequential.

“The most important thing that Biden did is to say that ‘Long-term care is a major priority in my administration,’” said Howard Gleckman, a retirement policy expert with the Urban Institute think tank. “At the 30,000-foot level, this is really important because the president says so.”

Below that, the White House has not spelled out much. A summary of Biden’s plan says the money would go to expand home and community-based services so more people could get care. A major goal would be to raise pay and benefits for workers, nearly all of whom are women, many from minority and immigrant communities. Wages now average around $12 an hour. The proposal would also permanently reauthorize a program within Medicaid that helps people move out of nursing homes and back into their communities.

But Medicaid remains a safety net program and that means middle-class people can face arduous challenges to qualify even if they have staggering expenses for long-term care. Because Biden is funneling his funding boost through Medicaid, that leaves out the middle class.

Biden “is the working-class guy, the middle-class guy ... he knows if we only focus on Medicaid, his core constituency is not going to be helped, unless they wipe out their assets,” said William Arnone, CEO of the nonpartisan National Academy of Social Insurance, which works on policy.

An alternative to Medicaid could resemble Social Security and Medicare, which have no income-based tests for benefits, Arnone added. But that would cost far more than Biden is proposing to spend. People often assume Medicare covers long-term care, but it does not.

Some Republicans have also questioned whether long-term care has any place in an infrastructure bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the White House plan a “liberal wish list” mislabeled as infrastructure. In rebuttal, Biden said infrastructure should include expanded services — not just roads and bridges — as part of what Americans need to “build a little better life, to be able to breathe a little bit.”

Medicaid spends about $200 billion a year on all long-term care needs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Reflecting a growing sentiment that older adults should be able to remain in their homes, more than half the money goes to home and community-based care. The Biden bill would average out to an increase of $40 billion a year over 10 years.

About 4 million people receive home and community-based services, which are less expensive than nursing home care. But an estimated 800,000 are on waiting lists for such services. More than 1 million people live in nursing homes.

Policy consultant Brian Blase, a former Trump White House health care adviser, said a warning flag for Republicans is that Biden’s plan calls for upholding the right of care workers to unionize.

“It seems like it’s a boondoggle to create more union workers and through the unions funnel money back to the Democrats” via campaign contributions, said Blase.

That makes union officials bristle. “It’s just fundamentally unacceptable that federal dollars should go to pay for poverty-level jobs, and we have an opportunity to change that,” said Leslie Frane, a vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents many health care workers.

Stepping back, Republicans generally have no quarrel with prioritizing in-home services over nursing homes. “It is bipartisan to support people who would be eligible for Medicaid staying at home rather than going into institutions,” said Blase. However, loosening eligibility rules will lead to “runaway expenses,” he said.

The money in the infrastructure plan follows $12.7 billion for home and community services in Biden’s coronavirus relief law. Taking a leading role in Congress drafting the infrastructure sequel is Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

“I’m going to do everything I can to help middle-class families,” Casey said. “What I’m trying to do is add dollars to Medicaid to serve more people. We got a foot in the door in the rescue bill with $12.7 billion, but obviously we’re going to need a lot more.”

Congressional officials said the approach that’s taking shape calls for increasing the federal contribution to states for home and community services while setting some basic national standards. Such standards could include the type and scope of services that states cover as well as a mechanism for raising pay for workers. They’re also looking at ideas such as creating state registries of qualified caregivers, which could be useful to middle-class people not eligible for Medicaid.

“There are certain issues related to long-term care that predate the pandemic and will be a challenge even after the pandemic,” Casey said. But the coronavirus “forces us to confront problems we’ve ignored too long in our long-term care system, and also to invest more in long-term care generally.”

Interior secretary steps into Utah public lands tug-of-war

By SOPHIA EPPOLITO

April 8, 2021


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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland tours near ancient dwellings along the Butler Wash trail during a visit to Bears Ears National Monument Thursday, April 8, 2021, near Blanding, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — For decades, a public lands tug-of-war has played out over a vast expanse of southern Utah where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and cliff dwellings and distinctive twin buttes bulge from a grassy valley.

A string of U.S. officials has heard from those who advocate for broadening national monuments to protect the area’s many archaeological and cultural sites, considered sacred to surrounding tribes, and those who fiercely oppose what they see as federal overreach.

On Thursday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was the latest cabinet official to visit Bears Ears National Monument — and the first Indigenous one.

Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, met with tribes and elected officials at Bears Ears as she prepares to submit recommendations on whether to reverse President Donald Trump’s decision to downsize that site and Grand Staircase-Escalante, another Utah national monument.

“I know that decisions about public lands are incredibly impactful to the people who live nearby. But not just to us, not to just the folks who are here today, but people for generations to come,” Haaland told reporters during a news conference in the town of Blanding. “It’s our obligation to make sure that we protect lands for future generations so they can have the same experiences that the governor and I experienced today.”

Haaland listens during a news conference Thursday following her visit to Bears Ears National Monument. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

The visit underscores Haaland’s unique position as the first Native American to lead a department that has broad authority over tribal nations, as well as energy development and other uses for the country’s sprawling federal lands.

“She brings something that no other cabinet secretary has brought, which is that her Indigenous communities are coming with her in that room,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College.

Miller said the outcome of the negotiations will shed light on how the Biden administration plans to respond to other public lands disputes and will likely impact subsequent conversations with other states on natural resources.

Haaland faces competing interests: Tribes across the U.S. hailed her confirmation as a chance to have their voices heard and their land and rights protected, while Republican leaders have labeled her a “radical” who could, along with President Joe Biden, stunt oil and gas development and destroy thousands of jobs.

Pat Gonzales-Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said he looked forward to Haaland seeking tribes’ input, which he called a “far cry” from her predecessors in the Trump administration.

He noted Haaland is familiar with the landscape — Bears Ears contains many sites of spiritual importance to New Mexico’s pueblos — but acknowledged she had a responsibility to hear from all sides.

“She is the interior secretary for all of us, and that also requires her to engage other groups.”

The coalition wants the monument restored to its original size, or even enlarged, but Gonzales-Rogers said he hoped Haaland’s visit would at least be a step toward a more certainty.

“All parties would like to see some permanence, and they don’t want it to vacillate between either administrations or political ideology,” he said.

Prominent Utah Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney and new Gov. Spencer Cox, have expressed concern with the review under Biden’s administration and demanded state leaders be involved. Haaland met with them, along with Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and U.S. Rep. Blake Moore during her visit.

Rep. Blake Moore, left, looks on as Sen. Mitt Romney speaks at a news conference Thursday in Blanding, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

The Utah delegation called on Biden to work with Congress and others toward a permanent legislative fix regarding the monuments’ borders and management, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

“Can we find the solutions? I think there is an opportunity for that, to provide the resources that are needed,” Cox told reporters Thursday. “But all of those things can only be done through legislation. It can’t be done through an executive order.”

Former President Barack Obama proclaimed Bears Ears a national monument in 2016. The site was the first to receive the designation at the specific request of tribes.

Its boundaries were downsized by 85% under the Trump administration, while Grand Staircase-Escalante was cut nearly in half. The reductions paved the way for potential coal mining, and oil and gas drilling on lands that were previously off-limits. Activity was limited because of market forces.

Since Trump downsized the monuments, more visitors have come to the sites and put natural and cultural resources at risk, said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

“Every day that goes by leaves the irreplaceable resources at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase vulnerable to damage or destruction from looting, vandalism or other threats as a result of lack of protective management,” Francis said ahead of Haaland’s visit.

A section of ancient dwellings is seen during Thursday's tour along the Butler Wash trail at Bears Ears. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations are suing to restore the monuments’ original boundaries, arguing presidents don’t have legal authority to change monuments their predecessors created. On the flip side, Republicans have argued Democratic presidents misused the Antiquities Act signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to designate monuments beyond what’s necessary to protect archaeological and cultural resources.

Haaland will be a key player in deciding what comes next.

She has said she will follow Biden’s agenda, not her own, on oil and gas drilling, and told reporters at a briefing last week that her report to the president will reflect conversations with people who know and understand the area.

The administration has said the decision to review the monuments is part of an expansive plan to tackle climate change and reverse the Trump administration’s “harmful policies.”

But Mike Noel, a former state representative and vocal critic of expanding the monuments, said it would be a mistake for Biden’s administration to “go back and rub salt in the wounds” by reversing Trump’s action.

He said he fears that not allowing local and state officials to make these decisions will only further divide those involved.

“It’s never a good thing when decisions like this are made from Washington, D.C.,” Noel said. “I just think it’s being done wrong, and I hope that the new secretary recognizes that.”

___

Eppolito is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this story.