Emotions run high as anti-lynching bill stalls in Senate
WASHINGTON — A Senate impasse over a widely backed bill to designate lynching as a federal hate crime boiled over on Thursday in an emotional debate cast against a backdrop of widespread protests over police treatment of African Americans.
Raw feelings were evident as Sen. Rand Paul — who is single-handedly holding up the bill despite letting it pass last year — sought changes to the legislation as a condition of allowing it to pass.
But the Senate’s two black Democrats, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, protested, saying the measure should pass as is. The debate occurred as a memorial service was taking place for George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes, sparking the protests that have convulsed the nation.
The legislative effort to make lynching a federal hate crime punishable by up to life in prison comes 65 years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi, and follows dozens of failed attempts to pass anti-lynching legislation.
The Senate unanimously passed virtually identical legislation last year. The House then passed it by a sweeping 410-4 vote in February but renamed the legislation for Till — the sole change that returned the measure to the Senate.
Trump emulates strongman tactics, tests his limits
WASHINGTON — A phalanx of law enforcement officers and soldiers is positioned on the streets of the nation’s capital to keep protesters at bay. Helicopters circle overhead, sometimes dipping low to buzz the crowd. The country’s leader warns that he’s willing to go further to “dominate” the streets.
In words and in actions, President Donald Trump is increasingly emulating the strongman leaders he has long admired as he seeks to tamp down protests over police brutality that are roiling the United States. In doing so, he is stretching the powers of the American presidency in ways rarely seen, and testing the willingness of the Pentagon to follow along.
His actions have forced a public reckoning among both current and former military leaders, as well as a handful of Republican politicians. Some of their concerns center not only on the actions Trump has already taken, but also on how far he may be willing to go in an election year, particularly if the political winds appear to be moving against him.
“Perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican from Alaska. She added that she was unsure whether she could continue to support the president in November.
The president’s face-off against Democrat Joe Biden will be the ultimate inflection point, a moment when the nation decides whether to shift course or press forward with Trump at the helm for four more years.
After Mattis, more in the GOP frown on Trump’s tone
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s inability to unify the nation at a time of grave unrest is testing his uneasy alliance with mainstream Republicans, some emboldened by Gen. James Mattis’ plea for a leader who lives up to the U.S. ideals of a more perfect union.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Thursday called the rebuke by Trump’s first Pentagon chief “necessary and overdue.”
“Perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski’s remarks reflected the choice Republicans are forced to make about whether, and for how long, to support Trump when his words and actions so often conflict with their values and goals. Trump has responded to violence accompanying some protests following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis by calling for more “law and order” to “dominate” even peaceful demonstrations. He has been slower and less forceful in addressing racial injustice and questions of police brutality that lie at the heart of the unrest.
Asked whether she can still support Trump, Murkowski replied: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”
UK vaccine summit calls for freely available virus vaccine
LONDON — A vaccine summit has raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with how any potential vaccine against the coronavirus might be distributed globally — and fairly.
The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have urged that “a people’s vaccine” be developed for COVID-19 that would be freely available to everyone, calling it a “moral imperative.”
Thursday’s event hosted by Britain raised $8.8 billion, exceeding its target, for the vaccines alliance GAVI, which says the funds will be used to vaccinate about 300 million children in dozens of countries against diseases like malaria, pneumonia and HPV.
From wire sources
GAVI also announced a new “advance market commitment” mechanism to enable developing countries to get any effective COVID-19 vaccine when available. It hopes to raise an additional $2 billion for that effort, to immunize health care workers as well as high-risk individuals and create a buffer of doses to be used where needed most.
But experts pointed out that the unprecedented pandemic — where arguably every country will be clamoring for a vaccine — may make efforts at fair distribution extremely messy.
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New York Times says senator’s op-ed didn’t meet standards
NEW YORK — In an embarrassing about-face, The New York Times said Thursday that an opinion piece it ran by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton advocating the use of federal troops to quell nationwide protests about police mistreatment of black Americans did not meet its standards.
Cotton’s op-ed, titled “Send in the Troops” and first posted online late Wednesday, caused a revolt among Times journalists, with some saying it endangered black employees. Some staff members called in sick Thursday in protest.
The Times said in a statement that a “rushed editorial process” led to publication of a piece that did not meet its standards.
Cotton taunted the paper on Twitter Thursday night, accusing it of “surrendering to the mindless woke mob.”
The Arkansas Republican’s piece remained on the Times’ website Thursday evening. The Times said it was still determining whether the column will be corrected or what to say in an editor’s note attached to it.