Author: CensorBiz

Adetokumboh M’Cormack brings to life the story of the The German King, a true story of Rudolf Manga Bell, an Cameroonian king who leads a rebellion against Kaiser Wilhelm II’s oppressive colonial rule at the start of World War 1.
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Greek authorities used tear gas and a water cannon Friday morning to prevent migrants from crossing the border into their country from Turkey.On the other side of the border, Turkish authorities fired volleys of tear gas into the Greek territory.Thousands of refugees have reached Turkey’s eastern border from land and sea, and have been camping out since last week in hopes of making their way to Greece and eventually to other Western European countries.Greece has declared its border closed, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country would no longer serve as the gatekeeper for Europe after airstrikes by Russian-backed government forces in Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers last week.Erdogan’s decision has alarmed governments in Europe and the EU is insisting that Turkey is obliged to keep the refugees and other migrants since Brussels is disbursing billions of euros as part of a deal reached with Turkey in 2015.More than 3.5 million Syrians have taken refuge in Turkey to escape the civil war in Syria.Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday to a cease-fire in northwestern Syria, following talks on easing tensions in the region.
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Nigeria’s health authorities are intensifying efforts to contain the coronavirus, after the West African nation announced its first case last week. Part of Nigeria’s readiness includes upgrading testing labs, conducting screening at entry points and developing public awareness campaigns.A National Reference Laboratory in the Gaduwa area of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, is one of five set up across Nigeria by the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) to test for the coronavirus.Lab manager Akinpelu Afolabi says Nigeria’s only confirmed case of the coronavirus was discovered here.“So far, of all the 13 samples we’ve tested, it was that one that was positive,” he said. “We tested here and tested in Lagos. That was the only one that was detected here. They are managing one person in Lagos.”Nigeria preparedNigeria is one of only three African countries capable of testing the coronavirus in real time.Afolabi says health authorities and officials of Nigeria’s disease control center have prepared many weeks ahead.“You’ve seen the equipment we have. You’ve seen the people working,” he said. “We have what it takes, in terms of human resources. In terms of equipment, we have it.”Nigerian authorities say it was an Italian man from Milan, a city badly hit by the coronavirus, who was the first confirmed case of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa.The World Health Organization in February named Nigeria among 12 countries in Africa at high risk of people contracting the virus.Emergency operationsAuthorities have responded by activating emergency operations, including public health awareness campaigns and heightened surveillance at entry points, like the airport.Nwando Mbah is a director at the National Center for Disease Control.“At the point of entry, we have mounted a lot of activities, checking people, getting information from them, and then at the same time, comparing whatever information we are getting with what they are saying, because a lot of people tell lies,” Mbah said.With more than 95,000 coronavirus cases around the world and 3,300 deaths, Nigerians are worried about the spreading virus, even though authorities are urging citizens to remain calm.
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U.S. lawmakers quickly passed more than $8 billion in emergency funding Thursday, addressing the growing coronavirus crisis. Officials in Nevada, Illinois, New York and Maryland. are announcing new cases that are among the 102 people testing positive for the coronavirus in 14 U.S. states. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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The U.S. Health and Human Services secretary said Thursday a million test kits for the COVID-19 are expected to arrive this weekend at U.S. labs.  Alex Azar said the coronavirus tests are shipping from a private manufacturer.The Trump administration has received criticism about the short supply of test kits.Vice President Mike Pence said in Washington state Thursday, “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,” but added that “real progress” had been made “in the last several days.”Vice President Mike Pence, right, looks on as Gov. Jay Inslee speaks during a news conference, March 5, 2020, at Camp Murray in Washington state. Pence was in the state to discuss its efforts to fight the spread of the coronavirus.Pence met Thursday with Washington Governor Jay Inslee. Washington is the site of 11 of the 12 U.S. deaths from the virus. Most of the deaths in Washington took place in a nursing home near Seattle.’Not a successful strategy’National Nurses United said its members have not been given the resources, supplies, protection and training they need to do their jobs properly. “It is not a successful strategy to leave nurses and other health care workers unprotected,” Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said. Castillo, who is a registered nurse, said when nurses are quarantined, “We are not only prevented from caring for COVID-19 patients, but we are taken away from caring for cancer patients, cardiac patients and premature babies.”Four U.S. states — Maryland, California, Florida and Hawaii — have declared states of emergency because of the virus.FILE – This undated file photo provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows CDC’s laboratory test kit for the new coronavirus.Maryland joined the roster Thursday after three Montgomery County residents, a husband and wife in their 70s and a woman in her 50s, were diagnosed with the coronavirus. All three were reported to have contracted the virus while on an overseas cruise. Montgomery County is a Maryland suburb next to Washington, D.C.State of emergency in PalestineIn the Middle East, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency Thursday, shutting down schools for 30 days and closing the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after seven coronavirus cases were confirmed in the city. These are the first cases in the Palestinian territories.Closing the church in the town that worshipers say was Jesus’ birthplace will devastate Bethlehem’s vital tourism industry and comes just weeks before Easter.The threat appears to be waning in China, where the outbreak erupted in December. The WHO said Thursday there are about 17 times as many new cases outside China now than inside China.On Friday, however, China reported that the number of new cases had risen from 139 Thursday to 143.A medical worker in a protective gear offers consultation to people at the first stage screening post for checking for COVID-19 at Kyungpook National University Hospital in Daegu, South Korea, March 6, 2020.South Korea travelHundreds of patients are being released from Chinese hospitals and shuttered factories are starting to reopen. But Chinese President Xi Jinping has called off a scheduled state visit to Japan, where Tokyo has declared that all visitors from China and South Korea will be placed under quarantine. South Korea has the largest number of coronavirus cases outside China.Australia joined China and Iran in banning travel from South Korea.Indonesia is also restricting travel from parts of South Korea as well as two other hard-hit nations: Iran and Italy. Both of those nations have shut down schools.The United Nations said the virus has disrupted classes for nearly 300 million students worldwide from preschool through 12th grade. That number does not include colleges that have also been shuttered.Funds to fight outbreakIn the United States, with more than 150 confirmed cases of the virus and 12 deaths, the Senate Thursday followed the House in approving $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the outbreak, including money for developing a vaccine. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.Trump took some heat Thursday from health experts after he told Fox News that the World Health Organization is sending out false information, and he suggested infected patients are safe going to their jobs in offices and stores.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the coronavirus is highly transmissible and that people who are sick must stay home.Global markets took another beating Thursday with investors nervous about the coronavirus outbreak and uncertain about exactly which way the situation is going.Experts say the roller coaster ride in the markets is likely to continue as long COVID-19 spreads to more countries, with investors acting out of fear over where the next state of emergency, quarantine or business shutdown will be declared.’Time to act’At his daily virus briefing Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus again stressed the seriousness of the virus about which scientists still know little.“This is not a drill. This is not the time for giving up, this is not a time for excuses,” Tedros said. “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades, Now is the time to act on those plans.”As of late Thursday, there were more than 98,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide and at least 3,300 deaths.
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The coronavirus threat has emerged as a political issue in the United States, with Democrats questioning President Donald Trump’s decisions and competence in responding to a potential epidemic that is taking a toll on the U.S. economy. VOA’s Brian Padden reports there are concerns that the spreading virus could disrupt the election itself, by restricting public gatherings at campaign rallies, political conventions and even voting sites.
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The Trump administration said Thursday that it would allow an additional 35,000 temporary foreign workers to come to the U.S. to fill nonfarm seasonal jobs amid a tight labor market.The additional visas, on top of the 66,000 allowed in each year under U.S. law, is the highest annual total allowed under President Donald Trump.A total of 10,000 of the additional H-2B visas will be set aside for the first time for people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because those countries agreed to work with the administration to take in people seeking asylum in the United States along its southern border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.Seasonal workers with H-2B visas are permitted to work in the U.S. for less than a year. They work in such areas as landscaping, construction, hotel and restaurant work, and seafood- and meat-processing plants.Many American businesses and politicians of both parties have called for an increase, especially amid the tight labor market.The administration says it will take significant steps to address fraud and abuse in the H-2B program and will generally limit the visas to returning workers.
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In a green valley near the banks of the River Nile about 20 kilometers south of Bor town lies Malek, a small South Sudanese village dotted with grass-thatched huts, where people diagnosed with leprosy are forced to live with each other and their children in an isolation camp.  They live out their days in extreme poverty because they are shunned by their own communities, many of them too weak to provide for themselves.Malek resident Monica Yom Kulang, 43, is a mother of four living with leprosy. The visibly frail woman rests under a  desert date tree in the village. Yom says her relatives abandoned her 20 years ago because of her leprosy. Yom broke her left arm earlier this week by tripping on a tree log while walking out of her dark hut at night.Bor, Jonglei State, South Sudan“Life is very difficult. You see now I’m feeling a lot of pain. Have you seen my broken arm? I’m weak. There is no energy, and that is because there is no food. There used to be some food assistance from the government, but many months ago that stopped. We are just suffering. No food, no medicine, there is nothing,” Yom told South Sudan in Focus.She said patients like her are in dire need of food, clothing and health care, not to mention a school and teachers for her children, but “nobody seems to care much.” Their only neighbors are baboons that climb in nearby forests and hippopotamus that keep cool in the River Nile, according to Yom.Yom says her family and other leprosy victims and their children survive on food items donated by a handful of churches and well-wishers.Poor shelter, little foodLocal traditional chief Peter Akoy Madhor, 37, said his father, a leper, died a month ago. Madhor said people like his father are in desperate need of things they no longer receive from the government.“The grass-thatched shelters you see here were put up in 2013, and since then there hasn’t been proper renovation. They are almost falling on people now,” Madhor told South Sudan in Focus. “Number two, there is not enough food available. There is no life without food. We also need a clinic. It will really be helpful because now even other diseases, not leprosy, can kill.”  The people with leprosy also need canoes for fishing so they can try to feed themselves, says Madhor.    He says many lepers in the camp lack food and shelter because they are not strong enough to plant crops or build huts of their own.Many adult leprosy patients in Malek have lost toes and fingers because of the crippling disease.Dr. Ronald Ssemanda of the Sera Medical Clinic in Bor says leprosy is a chronic, progressive bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium Leprae.   He says the disease mostly affects the nerves of the extremities such as skin, the lining of the nose and the upper respiratory tract. It often produces skin ulcers, nerve damage and muscle weakness.It’s treatableBut Ssemanda says, unlike in ancient times when there was no treatment, leprosy is completely curable today.“Treatment is there, especially for children from 2 years and above. So the preventive thing is identifying somebody with early signs. Early signs usually are the skin changes,” Ssemanda told South Sudan in Focus.People with leprosy are typically stigmatized in South Sudan because there are few treatment options available to them and most villagers fear they will catch the highly contagious disease.   Malek village, known in the Dinka language as pan-abil or “leprosy victims,”  was created in the late 1960s to host people suffering from the disease. Decades later, its name was changed to “paan-koch lajik,” meaning “home of the holy people.” The more than 200 leprosy victims in Malek predominantly come to the camp from Jonglei, Lakes and Central Equatoria states.Duot Akech, director general in the Jonglei state ministry of social welfare, says state officials have no funds to support families living in Malek village.  “We used to help them as a government, but the financial crisis now cannot allow it. We have challenges, you know, our government here, and we have nothing in hands from the government. So we refer them to the U.N.,” Akech told South Sudan in Focus.According to the latest figures available from the World Health Organization, 208,619 new cases of leprosy were reported in 2018 from 127 countries.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden says that he’s worried that protesters have stormed the stage when he’s been speaking at campaign events with his wife beside him and that it might be time for Secret Service protection.
“Well, I think that’s something that has to be considered, the more outrageous some of this becomes,” Biden told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday,
Two animal welfare protesters rushed the stage during Biden’s Super Tuesday victory speech in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, waving anti-dairy signs and yelling. The first was escorted off the stage by a man, and the second was tackled by Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and one of his senior advisers, Symone Sanders.
The protesters got within a few feet of Biden, who was speaking after primary victories in several states propelled him into a two-man race for the Democratic presidential nomination with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I wasn’t scared for me, I was worried about for Jill,” Biden said, recalling that she did the same thing at an event in New Hampshire when a man approached him from behind. When the man tried to interrupt him, Jill Biden put her arms around the man, turned him around and helped push him away.
 “That’s what I worry about,” Biden said. “I worry about Jill.”
Biden isn’t the only candidate to have been accosted at a campaign event. Topless demonstrators crashed a Bernie Sanders rally in Nevada two weeks ago. The breaches prompted an online outcry that the candidates be granted Secret Service protection. That demand was followed by a letter Wednesday from some House Democrats advocating more urgent action.
The Secret Service, by statute, protects the president, the vice president and their families as well as some other senior government officials. It is also authorized to protect major party presidential candidates, an authority granted after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
The leading candidates in 2012 and 2016 all had Secret Service protection at this point in those races. None of the 2020 Democratic candidates has Secret Service protection, or has asked for it.
“The idea of jumping on a stage is just not permissible,” Biden said. “The last thing we need is anybody hurt.”   
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is postponing a visit to Japan scheduled for next month as both countries deal with the outbreak of a new coronavirus that has infected 95,000 people in more than 75 countries.Both Chinese and Japanese officials said Thursday Xi’s trip would be postponed until a more appropriate time.China is the center of the outbreak, and while its new cases have dwindled in recent weeks, it has experienced the biggest toll with 3,000 deaths and hits to its economy as officials shut down cities to try to contain the spread.Japan has seen more than 1,000 cases, many of them involving a cruise ship that spent weeks docked in quarantine in Yokohama.A man wearing a face mask walks past Piazza Duomo square after the government closed cinemas, schools and urged people to work from home and not stand closer than one meter to each other, in Milan, Italy, March 5, 2020.Attempts to stop virusAs the virus has reached other regions of the world, governments have scrambled to institute their own measures, including shutting schools, banning large gatherings and limiting visitors from other nations.Italy has shut schools and universities until March 15, and is banning spectators at sporting events for the next month. It has been one of the hardest-hit areas outside of China with more than 3,000 people infected.Saudi Arabia followed a ban on foreigners entering the country to participate in pilgrimages to Mecca by adding a new ban on its own citizens and residents of performing the ritual.The neighboring United Arab Emirates on Thursday advised its citizens and residents not to travel anywhere outside the country during the coronavirus outbreak.In the United States, the focus of the outbreak has been on the Western states of Washington and California.FILE – The Grand Princess arrives in the port of Mahaual, Mexico, March 26, 2007. The ship sits off the coast of California awaiting test kits for its crew and passengers.Cruise ship awaits testsPrincess Cruises said the U.S. Coast Guard will use a helicopter Thursday to drop coronavirus testing kits so that a group of fewer than 100 crew and passengers can be screened while the Grand Princess ship sits off the California coast.No one will be allowed to leave the ship until those tests come back, a measure being taken after health officials linked two cases to passengers who took a February cruise aboard the ship and later tested positive. A total of 11 deaths, including one of those passengers, have been reported in the U.S. from the virus.In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency, joining Washington, Florida and Hawaii.World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during the daily press briefing on the new coronavirus at the WHO headquarters, March 2, 2020, in Geneva.All-out effortWorld Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday he is concerned that in some countries “the level of political will does not match the level of the threat we face.”He said all countries must “educate their populations, to expand surveillance, to find, isolate and care for every case, to trace every contact, and to take an all-of-government and all-of-society approach.”The U.S. Senate is expected Thursday to pass an $8.3 billion spending bill to tackle the virus, including research on a vaccine, the purchase of test kits and treatments. Some of the money will also be used to fund international efforts to stop the virus.The House of Representatives approved the measure Wednesday, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.
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A new scientific study shows climate change was 30% more likely to have triggered the recent devastating bushfires in Australia.The study was conducted by an international group of scientists from Europe, Australia and the United States for World Weather Attribution, an independent agency that analyzes the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events.Using the latest high-resolution computer models, the scientists found that temperatures are 1-2 degrees Celsius higher than in 1900, and the risk for fire is four times more likely compared with the conditions in the same year.  More than 19 million hectares were destroyed during Australia’s 2019-20 wildfire season, which also killed 34 people and more than 1 billion animals.
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Javier Perez de Cuellar, the two-term United Nations secretary-general who brokered a historic cease-fire between Iran and Iraq in 1988 and who in later life came out of retirement to help re-establish democracy in his Peruvian homeland, has died. He was 100.His son, Francisco Perez de Cuellar, said his father died Wednesday at home of natural causes. Current U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Peruvian diplomat a “personal inspiration.”“Mr. Perez de Cuellar’s life spanned not only a century but also the entire history of the United Nations, dating back to his participation in the first meeting of the General Assembly in 1946,” said Guterres in a statement late Wednesday.Perez de Cuellar’s death ends a long diplomatic career that brought him full circle from his first posting as secretary at the Peruvian embassy in Paris in 1944 to his later job as Peru’s ambassador to France.When he began his tenure as U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, 1982, he was a little-known Peruvian who was a compromise candidate at a time when the United Nations was held in low esteem.Serving as U.N. undersecretary-general for special political affairs, he emerged as the dark horse candidate in December 1981 after a six-week election deadlock between U.N. chief Kurt Waldheim and Tanzanian Foreign Minister Salim Ahmed Salim.Once elected, he quickly made his mark.Shaking the UN houseDisturbed by the United Nations’ dwindling effectiveness, he sought to revitalize the world body’s faulty peacekeeping machinery.His first step was to “shake the house” with a highly critical report in which he warned: “We are perilously near to a new international anarchy.”With the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and with conflicts raging in Afghanistan and Cambodia and between Iran and Iraq, he complained to the General Assembly that U.N. resolutions “are increasingly defied or ignored by those that feel themselves strong enough to do so.”During his decade as U.N. chief, Perez de Cuellar would earn a reputation more for diligent, quiet diplomacy than charisma.“He has an amiable look about him that people mistake for through and through softness,” said an aide, who described him as tough and courageous.Quiet diplomacyFaced early in his first term with a threatened U.S. cutoff of funds in the event of Israel’s ouster, he worked behind the scenes to stop Arab efforts to deprive the Jewish state of its General Assembly seat. There was muted criticism from the Arab camp that he had given the Americans the right of way in the Middle East.In dealing with human rights issues, he chose the path of “discreet diplomacy.” He refrained from publicly rebuking Poland for refusing to allow his special representative into the country to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the Warsaw regime’s 1982 crackdown on the Solidarity trade union movement.He came back for a second term after a groundswell of support for his candidacy, including a conversation with President Ronald Reagan, who — in the words of the U.N. chief’s spokesman — expressed “his personal support for the secretary-general.”“Just about all the Western countries have told him they’d like to see him stay on,” a Western diplomatic source said at the time. “There is no visible alternative.”Unlike his predecessor, Kurt Waldheim who was regarded as a “workaholic” and who spent long hours in his office, Perez de Cuellar liked to get away from it all. “He is very jealous of his own privacy,” a close aide said.“When I can, I read everything but United Nations documents,” Perez de Cuellar confided to a reporter. Once on a flight to Moscow, an aide observed that “in the midst of it all, the secretary-general had time for splendid literature.”Trilingual, Perez de Cuellar read French, English and Spanish literature.Lebanon hostagesPerez de Cuellar spent much of his second term working behind the scenes on the hostage issue, resulting in the release of Westerners held in Lebanon, including the last and longest held American hostage, journalist Terry Anderson, who was freed Dec. 4, 1991.All told, Perez de Cuellar’s diplomacy helped bring an end to fighting in Cambodia and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.Shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 1992, he walked out of U.N. headquarters to his waiting limousine, no longer the secretary-general, but having attained his final goal after hours of tough negotiations: a peace pact between the Salvadoran government and leftist rebels.“Mr. Perez de Cuellar played a crucial role in a number of diplomatic successes, including the independence of Namibia, an end to the Iran-Iraq War, the release of American hostages held in Lebanon, the peace accord in Cambodia and, in his very last days in office, a historic peace agreement in El Salvador,” Guterres said.Became diplomat 1944Javier Perez de Cuellar was born in Lima on Jan. 19, 1920. His father a “modest businessman,” was an accomplished amateur pianist, according to the former secretary-general. The family traced its roots to the Spanish town of Cuellar, north of Segovia.In Peru, the family belonged to the educated rather than the landowning class.He received a law degree from Lima’s Catholic University in 1943 and joined the Peruvian diplomatic service a year later. He would go on to postings in France, Britain, Bolivia and Brazil before returning to Lima in 1961, where he served in a number of high-level ministry posts.He was ambassador to Switzerland and then became Peru’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union while concurrently accredited to Poland. Other assignments included the post of secretary-general of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry and chief delegate to the United Nations.After leaving the U.N., Perez de Cuellar made an unsuccessful bid for Peru’s presidency in 1995 against the authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, whose 10-year autocratic regime crumbled in November 2000 amid corruption scandals.At the age of 80, Perez de Cuellar emerged from retirement in Paris and returned to Peru to take on the mantle of foreign minister and cabinet chief for provisional President Valentin Paniagua.His impeccable democratic credentials lent credibility to an interim government whose mandate was to deliver free and fair elections. Eight months later, newly elected President Alejandro Toledo asked him to serve as Ambassador to France.Between foreign assignments, he was professor of diplomatic law at the Academia Diplomatica del Peru and of international relations at the Peruvian Academy for Air Warfare.At UN in 1975Transferring to the United Nations in 1975, he was appointed by Waldheim as the secretary-general’s special representative in Cyprus. During his two years on the divided island he helped to promote intercommunal peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.After a brief stint as Peru’s ambassador to Venezuela, he returned to the United Nations in 1979 as undersecretary-general for special political affairs. In that capacity, he undertook delicate diplomatic missions to Indochina and Afghanistan.Perez de Cuellar resigned his U.N. post in May 1981, just before the election campaign for U.N. secretary-general heated up, and returned to the Peruvian diplomatic service.President Fernando Belaunde Terry recommended Perez de Cuellar for nomination as U.N. secretary-general.Perez de Cuellar married the former Marcela Temple. He had a son, Francisco, and a daughter, Cristina, by a previous marriage.His funeral will be Friday.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, the top US military officer, answered questions from lawmakers after the United States conducted its first strike against the Taliban since the start of a reduction in violence agreement. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the details.
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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the U.S. presidential race Wednesday, the day after former Vice President Joe Biden scored key victories in several of the Super Tuesday primaries. Biden’s dramatic political comeback has reshaped the Democratic primary battle into a two-man race between himself and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington on where the race is headed.
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Most of the openly LGBT+ candidates competing in this week’s Super Tuesday elections won their races, campaigners said, showing acceptance and momentum building among the nation’s largest-ever field of gay and trans people running for office.At least 28 LGBT+ candidates won primary races to become their political party’s nominee in the November election, according to the Victory Fund, a nonpartisan group that supports lesbian, gay, bi and trans candidates.Fourteen U.S. states on Tuesday held political primary contests, most closely watched as the Democratic Party chooses its nominee to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election.Lower-echelon party contests included the mayoral race in San Diego, California, where openly gay candidate Todd Gloria  finished first in the city’s primary, and in southwestern Texas, where Gina Ortiz Jones won the Democratic Party nod in her bid to be the first openly LGBT+ member of the U.S. Congress from Texas.Gina Ortiz Jones, shown Aug. 10,2018, won the Democratic Party nod in her bid to be the first openly LGBT+ member of the U.S. Congress from Texas.In all, 38 Victory Fund candidates were on ballots on Tuesday. Of those, 28 won and three races remained too close to call.”We are building toward a rainbow revolution in November, with historic LGBTQ candidates running in parts of the country and for levels of government that we never have before,” said Annise Parker, head of the LGBTQ Victory Fund in an emailed statement.”We are rewriting the rules on electability and embracing the fact that America is ready to elect LGBTQ candidates up and down the ballot.”More than 730 openly LGBT+ candidates are running for elective office nationwide this year, the largest number ever, according to the Victory Fund.Political experts said credit was due to Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate to make a competitive run for the U.S. presidency.The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a relative unknown narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, the first measure of the Democratic Party’s nominating process in February, and followed with a close second in New Hampshire’s primary.But his early momentum did not hold, and Buttigieg dropped out of the race on Sunday.”There’s one very obvious reason here: The candidacy of Pete Buttigieg has inspired more LGBTQ people to run for office,” Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.”There’s a greater acceptance of the LGBT community among the public and a willingness to vote for LGBTQ candidates in many parts of the country.”Also, efforts to trim LGBT+ rights by the Trump administration, such as banning trans people from serving openly in the military and proposing that firms with federal contracts be allowed not to hire gay and trans workers on religious grounds, gave momentum to LGBT+ candidates, experts said.”The mainstream position now is one of acceptance for LGBT people and the challenger position is for those who don’t,” said Susan Burgess, a political science professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.”And that’s huge,” she said.According to an exit poll conducted in 12 of the 14 states by NBC News, one in 10 voters identified as LGBT+.This year’s field of LGBT+ candidates follows a historic 161 openly gay or trans candidates winning office in 2018 out of 225 candidates endorsed by the Victory Fund.
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Voters on Super Tuesday narrowed the field of candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Plugged In examines how Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are the two men left to win the opportunity to face President Donald Trump in America’s general election in November. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee in California and VOA’s Carolyn Presutti in Texas report from the states with the biggest delegate hauls. Former Democratic strategist Penny Lee and David Barker, political science professor at American University join anchor Jim Malone to break down the results. Air date: March 4, 2020.
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Lawmakers in Washington reached a bipartisan agreement Wednesday to provide $8.3 billion in emergency funding to combat the rapid spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives agreed to the funding bill and hope a final version of the measure clears Congress by the end of the week.Final passage would be a bipartisan achievement that is now uncommon in Washington’s polarized political climate.“When it comes to Americans’ health and safety, there is no reason to be penny-wise and pound-foolish,” said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer.Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, talks to reporters in Washington, Feb. 13, 2020.Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman, Republican Richard Shelby, said negotiators are nearing a final agreement and that passage of the measure this week “sends a message to the American people that we care and we are going to do everything we can.”The measure would triple U.S. President Donald Trump’s $2.5 billion request to fund the government’s fight against COVID-19, which researchers say may have been spreading undetected for weeks in the Pacific Northwestern city of Seattle, Washington.Officials in Washington state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, reported Wednesday a total of nine coronavirus deaths, most in a nursing home in suburban Seattle.Twenty-seven cases of the virus have been reported in the Seattle area, including a case at Amazon’s huge Seattle campus.More than 100 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., including six cases in southwestern city of Los Angeles, where officials declared a local health emergency on Wednesday.Four new cases were also confirmed in the northeastern city of New York, yet another indication the fast-spreading virus is likely to disrupt the daily routines of people in the U.S.
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