China's looser anti-COVID measures met with relief, caution
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — People across China reacted with relief and caution Thursday to the dramatic government decision to loosen some of the world’s most severe COVID-19 restrictions.
For the first time in months, Jenny Jian hit the gym in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou without being required to scan the “health code” on her smartphone, part of a nationwide system that tracks where hundreds of millions of people go.
Elsewhere, virus tests no longer were required to enter many public places under changes announced Wednesday that followed nationwide protests against restrictions that have confined millions of families to their homes. Schools in areas without outbreaks were ordered to reopen.
“It was implemented very quickly,” said Jian, a 28-year-old resident of the southern city of Guangzhou. “But policy is one thing. The main thing is to see what the experience is when I step out the door.”
The changes are in line with the government's promise to make restrictions less burdensome while still trying to contain the virus. While it’s not clear if the new rules are a direct response to the protests, they address some of the most pressing issues that drove people on the streets.
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Bill protecting same-sex, interracial unions set for passage
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is set to give final approval Thursday to legislation protecting same-sex marriages in federal law, a monumental step in a decadeslong battle for nationwide recognition of such unions that reflects a stunning turnaround in societal attitudes.
A law requiring all states to recognize same-sex marriages would come as a a relief for hundreds of thousands of couples who have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized those marriages nationwide. The bipartisan legislation would also protect interracial unions by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
President Joe Biden backs the bill and said he will “promptly and proudly" sign it into law.
Democrats have moved the bill quickly through the House and Senate since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested same-sex marriage should also be reconsidered.
Roused to action by the court, the House passed a bill to protect the same-sex unions in July with the support of 47 Republicans, a robust and unexpected show of support that kick-started serious negotiations in the Senate. After months of talks, the Senate passed the legislation last week with 12 Republican votes.
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Rapid fall from power, arrest for embattled Peru president
LIMA, Peru (AP) — In just three tumultuous hours, President Pedro Castillo went from decreeing the dissolution of Peru’s Congress to being replaced by his vice president, but the threats against his government had been building throughout his nearly 17-month presidency.
The former school teacher and center-left political novice, who won a runoff election in June 2021 by just 44,000 votes, stepped onto a no-holds-barred political battlefield in Peru, the South American country now on its sixth president in six years. By nightfall Wednesday, after a day of high political drama, prosecutors had announced Castillo was under arrest, facing charges of rebellion.
From the start, Castillo’s presidency seemed destined to be short-lived, said Flavia Freidenberg, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a member of the university’s Latin America Political Reform Observatory.
“He is a president who took office with a very low level of support, he didn’t have a political party, he had a hard time putting together a Cabinet, the Cabinet has changed constantly and there has been a constant power struggle with Congress,” she said.
Castillo, a rural school teacher from an impoverished district high in the Andes, was considered a clear underdog when he joined the race to replace President Francisco Sagasti, who had been appointed by Congress in November 2020. Sagasti was the last of three heads of state Peru cycled through in one week that November.
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Iran executes first known prisoner arrested in protests
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Thursday it executed a prisoner convicted for a crime allegedly committed during the country's ongoing nationwide protests, the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran.
The execution comes as other detainees also face the possibility of the death penalty for their involvement in the protests, which began in mid-September, first as an outcry against Iran's morality police. The protests have since expanded into one of the most serious challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Activists warn that others could also be put to death in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people so far have received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.
The “execution of #MohsenShekari must be me(t) with STRONG reactions otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters,” wrote Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the Oslo-based activist group Iran Human Rights. “This execution must have rapid practical consequences internationally.”
Iran's Mizan news agency reported the execution of the man, identified as Mohsen Shekari. It accused the man of blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the security forces with a machete. The member of the forces required stitches for his wounds, the agency said.
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UK royals brace as Harry-Meghan doc promises 'full truth'
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s monarchy braced for more bombshells to be lobbed over the palace gates Thursday as Netflix released the first three episodes of a series that promises to tell the “full truth” about Prince Harry and Meghan’s estrangement from the royal family.
Promoted with two dramatically edited trailers that hinted at racism and a “war against Meghan,” the series “Harry & Meghan” is the couple’s latest effort to tell the world why they walked away from royal life and moved to Southern California almost three years ago. It is expected to expand on criticism of the royal family and British media delivered in a series of interviews over the past 18 months.
Netflix released the first three hour-long episodes on Thursday, with three more due Dec. 15. The documentary includes video diaries recorded by Meghan and Harry — apparently on their phones — in March 2020, amid the couple's acrimonious split from the royal family and move to the United States.
Harry says in the footage that it's "my duty to uncover the exploitation and bribery” that happens in British media.
“No one knows the full truth,” Harry adds. “We know the full truth.”
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Biden approval, views of economy steady, sour: AP-NORC poll
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fresh off his party’s better-than-anticipated performance in the midterm elections, President Joe Biden is facing consistent but critical assessments of his leadership and the national economy.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 43% of U.S. adults say they approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 55% disapprove. That’s similar to October, just weeks before the Nov. 8 elections that most Americans considered pivotal for the country’s future.
Only about a quarter say the nation is headed in the right direction or the economy is in good condition. Both measures have been largely negative over the course of the year as inflation tightened its grip, but were more positive through much of Biden’s first year in office.
Mishana Conlee said she tries to be optimistic about the coming year, but she thinks things are going to the gutter because “our president is incompetent” and not mentally fit for the White House. The 44-year-old in South Bend, Indiana, said she's frustrated about rising expenses when she's living paycheck to paycheck as a dietary aide at a nursing home.
“The more I work, I just can't get ahead," Conlee said. "That's just all there is to it.”
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Scrutiny of Ukraine church draws praise, fear of overreach
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After its searches of holy sites belonging to Ukraine’s historic Orthodox church, the nation’s security agency posted photos of evidence it recovered — including rubles, Russian passports and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch.
Supporters and detractors of the church debate whether such items are innocuous — or increase suspicions the church is a nest of pro-Russian propaganda and intelligence-gathering.
What’s unambiguous are other photos shared by the agency, known as the SBU, posted as recently as Wednesday — some showing an armed Ukrainian officer standing outside a church building, others showing brawny, camouflaged officers questioning clerics in long beards and cassocks.
They illustrate the increased pressure the Ukrainian government is putting on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its centuries-old ties to Moscow, as the brutal Russian invasion slogs into the 10th month of a war that has had religious dimensions from the start.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday announced measures primarily targeting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is one of two major Orthodox churches in Ukraine following a 2019 schism. Even though the UOC declared independence from Moscow in May, such a declaration is easier spoken than accomplished amid the complexities of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Besides, many Ukrainians don’t believe it’s really free from Moscow.
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EXPLAINER: Pronouns, nonbinary people and the Club Q attack
The Colorado Springs gay bar shooting suspect’s assertion of being nonbinary has put gender identity and pronouns — and some sensitive questions around them — back in the spotlight.
Respecting Anderson Lee Aldrich’s request to be referenced with they/them pronouns does not amount to placating someone accused of a heinous act, nonbinary people and advocates say.
But they do worry that Aldrich’s high profile as a crime suspect could lead to negative assumptions about all nonbinary people. And they stress that any skepticism about Aldrich’s gender identity shouldn’t be used as an excuse to doubt all nonbinary people or cast aspersions on how they use pronouns.
Critics of nontraditional gender identities — that is, of people who do not identify strictly as man or woman, boy or girl — often ridicule the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as they/them, and the notion that Aldrich may be using them as some sort of stunt or potential legal defense has been an undercurrent in the legal handling and media coverage of the case.
Here's a look at nonbinary people, along with the pronouns they may use and how those words figure into the Aldrich case:
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New York Times journalists, other workers on 24-hour strike
NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of journalists and other employees at The New York Times began a 24-hour walkout Thursday, the first strike of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years.
Newsroom employees and other members of The NewsGuild of New York say they are fed up with bargaining that has dragged on since their last contract expired in March 2021. The union announced last week that more than 1,100 employees would stage a 24-hour work stoppage starting at 12:01 a.m. Thursday unless the two sides reach a contract deal.
The NewsGuild tweeted Thursday morning that workers, “are now officially on work stoppage, the first of this scale at the company in 4 decades. It’s never an easy decision to refuse to do work you love, but our members are willing to do what it takes to win a better newsroom for all.”
Negotiations took place Tuesday and some of Wednesday, but the sides remained far apart on issues including wage increases and remote-work policies.
On Wednesday evening the union said via Twitter that a deal had not been reached and the walkout was happening. “We were ready to work for as long as it took to reach a fair deal,” it said, “but management walked away from the table with five hours to go.”
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Zelenskyy quip, Trump conspiracy top 2022 notable quote list
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A tart retort by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a U.S. offer of help and a call by former U.S. President Donald Trump for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution top a Yale Law School librarian's list of the most notable quotations of 2022.
In February, only days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. offered to transport Zelenskyy to safety. That appeared not to sit well with him. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” he shot back, a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation told The Associated Press.
Trump's comment in a Dec. 3 post on his Truth Social media platform was a late addition to the list compiled each year by Fred Shapiro, an associate director at the library. The former president was again repeating his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he wrote. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
The list assembled by Shapiro is a supplement to The New Yale Book of Quotations, which is edited by Shapiro and published by Yale University Press.
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