News
The EU is ready to continue formal talks over Russia’s massive troop build-up along the Ukrainian border, the bloc said in a letter for Moscow, calling once again on the Kremlin to pull back its military.
The letter, a draft of which was seen by POLITICO, represents the EU’s collective response to a recent memo Russia sent to EU countries. It was signed by the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell.
“We remain gravely concerned about the current situation and firmly believe that tensions and disagreements must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy,” the EU leader writes. “We call on Russia to de-escalate and to reverse its military build-up in and around Ukraine, and in Belarus.”
CNN, – February 9, 2022
The governors of New York and Illinois are expected to announce the end of — or a plan to roll back — certain Covid-19 mitigation requirements involving masks on Wednesday, media reports say.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul will end the state’s strict rules for businesses on Wednesday, three people briefed on the decision told The New York Times.
That mandate requires businesses to ask customers for proof of vaccination or for them to wear masks indoors, except when eating or drinking.
CNN, – February 9, 2022
In some liberal states, masks are coming off — but not everyone is ready.
Governors in New Jersey, California, Delaware, Connecticut and Oregon have all said that they are lifting masking requirements in some indoor settings. All but California have set deadlines to end required masking in schools. The governors pointed to Covid-19 case rates that have fallen precipitously after Omicron’s peak, the hospitalization rates that have stabilized or high vaccination rates in their states.
But the Biden administration still recommends masking indoors — a position that has long put it in conflict with some Republican-led states, and now with several Democrat-led ones. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, too, has not changed its guidance, and continues to recommend mask-wearing in schools, regardless of vaccination status.
On Monday night, the Supreme Court handed down a deeply alarming decision that suggests that the Court’s Republican majority is about to cut away one of the few parts of the Voting Rights Act that it hasn’t already gutted or killed.
The immediate impact of the Court’s 5-4 decision in Merrill v. Milligan is that Alabama’s new congressional maps, which a three-judge panel that includes two Trump appointees determined to be an illegal racial gerrymander, will take effect in the 2022 election. Under those maps, only one of the state’s seven districts — or 14 percent of the US House seats — has a real shot of electing a Black lawmaker. African Americans make up about 27 percent of the state’s population.
The lower court ordered the state to draw at least two districts “in which Black voters … have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.” Thus, had the lower court decision taken effect, it is likely that the racial composition of Alabama’s congressional delegation would closely match that of the state as a whole.
February 9, 2022 – 10:00 am to 10:30 am (ET)
February 9, 2022 – 2:45 pm to 4:10 pm (ET)
Associated Press, February 9, 2022 – 10:15 am to 12:30 pm (ET)
https://apnews.com/article/mask-mandate-coronavirus-pandemic-kathy-hochul-new-york-02dbddd8616730744eb915c1480a3ef7
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that the state will end a COVID-19 mandate requiring face coverings in most indoor public settings, but will keep masking rules in place in schools for now.
The mandate requiring face coverings in most indoor public settings, like grocery stores, shops and offices, was put in place Dec. 10 as the omicron variant of the virus began infecting huge numbers of New Yorkers. It was set to expire Thursday unless the Democrat’s administration extended it.
Speaking from her office in New York City, Hochul said infection rates have since declined to a level where it is safe to rescind the broad masking order.
MSNBC news – February 7, 2022 (00:29)
CNN, – February 9, 2022
The three words about the US Capitol attack that have sparked a firestorm inside the Republican Party — “legitimate political discourse” — were not included in early drafts of the resolution to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, a person involved in the process tells CNN, but were added as the document was edited late last week at a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Salt Lake City.
One early draft, which denounced the two lawmakers for taking part in a House select committee investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack described the inquiry as “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in nonviolent and legal political discourse.”
The RNC was originally trying to expel Cheney, of Wyoming, and Kinzinger, of Illinois, from the Republican Party, but that effort was watered down amid objections from some members of the committee and congressional GOP leaders.
