Ginni Thomas pressed Trump’s chief of staff to overturn 2020 vote, texts show
In the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a barrage of text messages imploring President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to take steps to overturn the vote, according to a person with knowledge of the texts. The texts were among about 9,000 pages of documents that Meadows turned over to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The texts detailed Meadows’ interactions with Republican politicians as they planned strategies to try to keep Trump in office in the weeks before the riot.
Biden administration prepares sweeping change to asylum process
The Biden administration has finalized a plan to overhaul the system for immigrants seeking asylum in the United States, aiming to take a burden off immigration courts in what some experts see as the most sweeping change to the process in a quarter-century. Under the policy, which the administration released Thursday, some migrants seeking asylum will have their claims heard and evaluated by asylum officers instead of immigration judges. The goal, administration officials said, is for the entire process to take six months, compared with a current average of about five years. The plan is to release many asylum-seekers through a parole status while they go through the process.
Ethiopia declares ‘humanitarian truce’ in war-ravaged Tigray region
Ethiopia’s government on Thursday announced what it called an immediate “humanitarian truce” with forces it has been fighting for 17 months in the northern Tigray region, where millions are hungry and food aid has not been delivered since December. The conflict in Africa’s second most populous nation has pitted the Ethiopian military against rebels in the northern region of Tigray. The war, which began in November 2020, has left thousands dead and forced more than 2 million people from their homes. The government, in announcing the unilateral truce, said it was acting because thousands of people from Tigray had begun flooding into bordering regions seeking help.
Pilots were highly experienced, adding to crash’s mystery
The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time. His co-pilot was even more experienced. Together, the men operating Flight 5735 had more than 39,000 hours of flying experience, the equivalent of 4 1/2 years nonstop in the cockpit, adding to the mystery of why the plane plunged from a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet into a mountainside Monday. How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade.
WHO says subvariant is driving most virus cases
The World Health Organization reported that the highly contagious omicron subvariant, BA.2, that is helping to drive another surge of coronavirus cases in Europe is now the dominant version of omicron around the world. Globally, BA.2 made up about 86% of cases reported to the WHO from Feb. 16 to March 17, the agency said in a report. BA.1 and BA.1.1 together represented about 13% of the cases. When the WHO last reported these figures March 8, it said that BA.1.1 was the dominant subvariant and that BA.2 made up 34% of new cases. In the U.S., about one-third of new cases are BA.2.
By wire sources