Статті

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning that Russia is trying to undermine Americans’ confidence in the security and validity of mail-in voting.In a bulletin labeled “For official use only” circulated Thursday, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis said Russia was “likely to continue amplifying criticism of vote by mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process.”The bulletin said that in mid-August, Russian state media outlets and proxy websites published criticism of widespread mail-in voting, “claiming ineligible voters could receive ballots due to out-of-date voter rolls, leaving a vast amount of ballots unaccounted for and vulnerable to tampering.”It said that since March, Russian outlets also sought to undermine confidence in mail-in voting processes, alleging that they provide “vast opportunities for voter fraud.”The bulletin said Russia is likely to step up trolling by promoting allegations of U.S. election system corruption, failures and “foreign malign interference” to undermine public trust in U.S. elections. It noted that following the Iowa caucuses earlier this year, Russian outlets claimed that the result was “fixed in favor of establishment candidates” and that voting system problems had resulted in “ballot manipulation.”The Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment. Russia has denied interfering in U.S. elections.Adam Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the bulletin validated his concern that Russia is seeking to “sow distrust in our democratic process.”By attacking U.S. mail-in ballot integrity, Schiff said, “Russia is echoing destructive and false narratives around vote by mail that President [Donald] Trump and his enablers, including Attorney General [William] Barr, have been aggressively promoting.”Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, saying in one July 30 Tweet: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Trump administration have informally agreed to keep a stopgap government-wide funding bill — needed to avert a shutdown at the end of this month — free of controversy or conflict. The accord is aimed at keeping any possibility of a government shutdown off the table despite ongoing battles over COVID-19 relief legislation, while sidestepping the potential for other shutdown drama in the run-up to the November election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference in San Francisco, Sept. 2, 2020.That’s according to Democratic and GOP aides on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on a Tuesday conversation between Pelosi, D-Calif., and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. They required anonymity to characterize an exchange they were informed of but not directly party to. “House Democrats are for a clean continuing resolution,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammil. The definition of “clean” tends to vary among those steeped in Capitol Hill jargon, but it would not necessarily rule out noncontroversial add-ons like routine extensions of programs like federal flood insurance or authority to spend money for highway programs. Some lawmakers are sure to seek substantive legislation and even COVID-related items if consensus could somehow evolve. “We do believe that we’ll be able to get funding to avoid a shutdown,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 1, 2020.The duration of the temporary funding measure or what noncontroversial items might ride along haven’t been settled, aides say, and the Pelosi spokesman declined to further characterize the agreement. The government faces a Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a shutdown like the 2018-2019 shutdown sparked by Trump’s insistence on more funding to construct his U.S.-Mexico border wall. There is sentiment among some Democrats for the stopgap legislation to extend into next year, but December appears to be the administration’s preference and a more likely result. The development comes as lawmakers are absent from Washington but are preparing to return for a brief pre-election session that’s likely to involve battling over COVID relief legislation. But the chances of another rescue bill have ebbed as the summer is nearing an end. The Mnuchin-Pelosi agreement on preventing a shutdown appears aimed at ensuring that the consequences of gridlock on the COVID relief front do not include a politically-freighted partial shutdown. Monica Crowley, a spokeswoman for Mnuchin, said Treasury would decline to comment. 
 
…

Tuesday marked the first day of school in China’s northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, but a boycott of classes left many classrooms and playgrounds empty. Hundreds of ethnic Mongolian students, parents and teachers are protesting a new bilingual education policy they say will endanger Mongolian language and culture.The policy, announced before the start of the fall semester, requires schools to use national textbooks in Mandarin starting in the first grade of primary schools and in middle schools, replacing the current Mongolian textbooks. The Mandarin instruction is expected to expand to politics and morality courses and history classes over the next two years.Over the past few days, protests by Mongolian students, parents, teachers and ordinary herders have taken place in many cities in Inner Mongolia, all opposing the “bilingual teaching” policy implemented by the Inner Mongolia Education Department.Videos provided by the South Mongolia Human Rights Information Center show hundreds of middle school students in school uniforms chanting, “Defend Mongolian culture and language,” while some of them, with the help of parents and citizens, are seen breaking through a closed gate and leaving school.Many others are not choosing to make public demonstrations against the policy, fearing possible violent retaliation by Chinese authorities. Dagula, a mother of an elementary student, told VOA she was keeping her child at home.’Just stay at home'”Now everyone is saying, ‘Don’t march on the streets or anything, just stay at home. As long as you don’t send your kids to school, everything will be fine,’ ” she said.Like other parents of Mongolian students, Dagula worries that if Mandarin replaces Mongolian in classrooms, it may lead to the disappearance of their language.The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government’s interpretation of the policy published on August 31 says “the textbooks reflect the will of the Party and the State” and “inherit the advanced achievements of Chinese excellent culture and human civilization.” The moves are being promoted as a major reform initiative that has popular support.Mongolians protest at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ulaanbaatar against China’s plan to introduce Mandarin-only classes at schools in the neighboring Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Aug. 31, 2020.Yilalatu, another parent, disagrees. He told VOA that the younger generations are already heavily influenced by Mandarin culture and the new policy will further marginalize Mongolian language and culture, which will cause the younger generations to lose their Mongolian identity.”I’m worried that if children learn Mandarin from first grade, they will forget their mother tongue,” he said. “This has happened. The father and mother are Mongolian, the child who learned Mandarin since primary school has become Han and doesn’t know anything [in Mongolian]. He can’t read or speak Mongolian, even doesn’t know how to say eating or drinking in Mongolian.”He said teachers, students and parents in Mongolian schools are simply asking the authorities to withdraw their new policies, resume their previous practices and start Mandarin classes in the third grade of primary school. They argue that starting later won’t affect their Mandarin skills. He explained that was what his own child did. Now a college graduate, his child’s Mandarin is better than Mongolian.Dagula said she agrees, noting that parents can accept teaching solely in Mongolian in primary school and switching to Mandarin in middle school. She said that when she was in middle school, she was one of the best students at Mandarin. She said she thought that mastering Mandarin would be of great help to her children’s future development, but that the descendants of the Mongolian people must first learn their own language and culture.Deadline for home-schoolersChinese authorities appear to be planning consequences for parents who are not sending their children to school.According to sources who asked not to be named to avoid retribution, Mongolians who work for the government or who are Communist Party members were given a deadline of Thursday to send their children back to school. Otherwise, they have been told, they could lose their jobs or be expelled from the party. The government also threatened to take away social benefits of those who disobey.Dagula said she had received phone calls from her boss at work asking her to set an example by taking her child to school.In the face of rising protests, the government also is proposing new security measures.During a tour in the region this week, China’s Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi ordered the police to “severely clamp down on domestic and foreign forces that carry out infiltration and sabotage” and to promote “the fight against separatism” in the ethnic minority region.Police deployedEyewitnesses report seeing armed police deployed on standby in protest locations.  Videos circulating on the internet show hundreds of heavily armed riot police guarding Xinhua Square, the largest square in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, and some of the protesters being taken away by police.According to the South China Morning Post, authorities are using a facial recognition system to identify and then arrest the protesters.Chinese authorities are also controlling the channels of expression of public opinion. The WeChat accounts of groups that expressed opposition to the new policy have been blockedBut Dagula said Mongolians were willing to pay the price to protect their language.”In order to protect the Mongolian language, everyone will pay the price, and we will certainly pay the price,” she said. “There must be a solution. That’s what I’m looking forward to right now.”Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…

Tanzania is heading toward October elections after five years under President John Magufuli. Magufuli has initiated major infrastructure projects and fought against official corruption.  But critics call him “The Bulldozer” for ignoring criticism of the projects and cracking down on opponents and freedom of the press.  Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam. Camera: Rajabu Hassan 
Producer:  Henry Hernandez 
…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that it has informed public health officials in all 50 states and several large cities to be prepared to distribute a coronavirus vaccine by November 1, two days before the presidential election.The McClatchy news service was the first to report Wednesday that the CDC had sent out a four-page memo on August 27 for health departments to draft vaccination plans by October 1  “to coincide with the earliest possible release of COVID-19 vaccine.” The Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus crisis hearing, July 31, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.Fauci’s take on potential vaccine
News of the CDC memo coincided with remarks made Wednesday by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said that he is confident there will be a “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year.However Fauci also said in an interview last week with Reuters news agency that “the one thing that you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting an [emergency approval of a vaccine] before you have a signal of efficacy.””One of the potential dangers if you prematurely let a vaccine out is that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the other vaccines to enroll people in their trial,” he said.Other  health experts have also expressed skepticism about rolling out a vaccine before the completion of clinical trials, saying hastening its distribution to the public could pose safety risks and deepen anti-vaccination sentiments.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 3 MB540p | 3 MB1080p | 9 MBOriginal | 19 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioSafety checks
Patricia Zettler, a former Food and Drug Administration associate chief counsel told the Washington Post this week, “I think it’s extremely critical we have rigorous evidence of safety and effectiveness supporting a vaccine before the FDA gives its okay.” Zettler is currently a law professor at Ohio State University.Some state health departments say they lack the staff, money and tools to educate people about vaccines and then to distribute, administer and track hundreds of millions of doses, according to the Associated Press.  “There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to be prepared for this vaccination program, and it will not be complete by Nov. 1,” Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition, a national vaccine education and advocacy organization in Minnesota, told the AP. “States will need more financial resources than they have now.”   Only half of Americans trust vaccine
A recent Thousands of bikers rode through the streets for the opening day of the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally Friday, Aug. 7, 2020, in Sturgis, S.D. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)COVID death linked to South Dakota rally
Meanwhile, a resident of the northern state of Minnesota is believed to be the first person to have died of the coronavirus after attending a huge motorcycle rally in the neighboring state of South Dakota last month.Health officials in Minnesota say the man was in his 60s and had underlying health conditions.  He was one of hundreds of motorcycle enthusiasts who converged on the small town of Sturgis for 10 days, many of them also refusing to wear face masks or observe social distancing.  At least 260 new COVID-19 infections in 11 states have been tied directly to the event, according to the Washington Post.    
…

The U.S. State Department has imposed a new set of restrictions on Chinese diplomats working in the United States.Under the new rules, which were announced Wednesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, senior Chinese diplomats must get prior approval to visit college campuses or meet with local government officials, and to host any cultural events outside of the Chinese Embassy or consular posts if the audience is larger than 50 people.Pompeo also said the administration will require the Chinese government to properly identify all government-run social media accounts.Pompeo said the imposition of similar rules on American diplomats working in China was the reason for the restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States.“We’re simply demanding reciprocity,” he said.The Chinese Embassy in Washington issued a statement calling the move “yet another unjustified restriction and barrier” on their diplomatic and consular personnel.The new restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States is the latest sign of worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies. The two sides have clashed over numerous issues, including trade, technology, the new national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, and China’s increasingly aggressive behavior toward Taiwan.
…

Mexican police are seeking the gunmen who stormed a funeral service late Tuesday and opened fire, killing at least eight people and wounding more than a dozen others in the city of Cuernavaca.Interior Minister for Morelos State Pablo Ojeda said according to the initial witness accounts, the gunmen arrived in different vehicles, with weapons that are for the exclusive use of the armed forces.The mass shooting is the latest in a country plagued by drug-related gang violence.Mexico’s murder total reached a record 34,582 last year, more than 1,000 more killings than the previous year.Reuters reports the number of murders in Mexico was up slightly, 1.6%, the first seven months of this year compared to the same period in 2019.  
…

At least one person was killed and more than 2,000 people evacuated to temporary shelters in South Korea as a powerful typhoon churned across the peninsula, authorities said Thursday.Typhoon Maysak — named after the Cambodian word for a type of tree — made landfall early Thursday in Busan on the southern coast, knocking down traffic lights and trees and flooding streets.A woman was killed after a strong gust shattered her apartment window in Busan, while a man in his 60s was injured when the wind toppled an outdoor refrigerator, crushing him.More than 2,200 people evacuated to temporary shelters and around 120,000 homes left without power throughout the night across southern parts of the country and on Jeju Island.Maysak was making its way up the eastern side of the peninsula into the Sea of Japan, known as the East Sea in Korea, packing gusts of up to 140 kph.”The typhoon’s influence on our country will gradually weaken,” South Korea’s Meteorological Administration said, forecasting heavy downpours and strong winds in eastern areas.Maysak was forecast to make landfall again in North Korea at around 0300 GMT at Kimchaek, in North Hamgyong province.Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact in the North due to its creaking infrastructure, and the country is vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been deforested.Pyongyang’s state media was on high alert, carrying live broadcasts of the situation.”The trait of this typhoon is that it has brought heavy precipitation,” said a news reporter for Korean Central Television in its early morning newscast, standing in an inundated street in the eastern port of Wonsan.”The total precipitation from 21:00 on September 2 to 6:00 on September 3 is 200 millimeters,” he added.Maysak is the second typhoon in a week to hit the peninsula.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week visited a farming region hit by Typhoon Bavi and expressed relief the damage was “smaller than expected.” 
…

Tropical Storm Nana barreled westward Wednesday just off the coast of Honduras on a collision course with the Central American nation of Belize, where thousands of people were stocking up on food, water and construction materials.Long lines stretched through supermarkets and hardware store shelves were nearly bare as Belizeans bought materials to board up windows and doors ahead of Nana’s expected landfall late Wednesday night or early Thursday, possibly as a hurricane.The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Nana was located about 160 kilometers east-southeast of Belize City with maximum sustained winds of 95 kph. The storm was moving at 24 kph and was expected to strengthen throughout the day.Belize issued a hurricane warning for its coastline. Nana was 80 kilometers north-northwest of the Honduran island of Roatan, a popular tourist destination.Heavy rains were expected in Belize, as well as in northern Honduras and throughout Guatemala as the storm crosses the isthmus Thursday.Local leaders in rural villages in the southernmost district of Toledo were awaiting word from the National Emergency Management Organization to open hurricane shelters.As evening approached, dark clouds hung on the horizon as uneasy residents awaited the storm’s arrival. 
…

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he is visiting Kenosha, Wisconsin, Thursday, two days after Republican President Donald Trump walked along a street in the Midwestern city left in rubble in the aftermath of civil unrest spawned by the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.
 
Biden’s campaign said the former vice president would hold a community meeting in Kenosha, a 100,000-resident city on the shores of Lake Michigan.
 
“What we want to do is — we’ve got to heal,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday. “We’ve got to put things together. Bring people together.”FILE – Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden walks to an outdoor stage with his wife Jill Biden during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 20, 2020. His campaign said that he and his wife, Jill Biden, would later make a separate campaign stop in the city.
 
Biden’s visit underscores how he and Trump are trying to gain a political edge on the sensitive U.S. reckoning over racial issues and police treatment of minorities. The issue came to the forefront when a Black man, George Floyd, died in late May while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and spiraled into coast-to-coast protests over Floyd’s death and similar, subsequent incidents.
 
Trump marked his visit to Kenosha with vocal support for law enforcement, saying, “You have to be decisive, and you have to be tough, and you have to be strong, and you have to be willing to bring people in,” such as National Guard troops, to quell violence.
 
Biden, the Democratic candidate opposing Trump in the November 3 election, has criticized the U.S. leader for failing to condemn all violence from the political left and right, while at the same time refusing to criticize a teenage vigilante accused of killing two people and wounding another during protests launched by the shooting of the Black man in Kenosha, Jacob Blake.
 
“This president keeps throwing gasoline on the fire,” Biden said at his news conference. He added, “I didn’t hear him say much” about Blake being shot seven times in the back as police attempted to arrest him. “The fact is he’s not acting very responsibly,’ Biden said of Trump.  
Biden’s visit will be the first stop in Wisconsin by a Democratic presidential candidate in eight years. In 2016, the state looked safe for Democrats, and the party’s candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, skipped campaigning there. But Trump narrowly won Wisconsin, along with two other normally Democratic states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, to capture a four-year term in the White House.
 
Democrats had been scheduled to hold their national convention last month in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s biggest city, but abandoned those plans in favor of a virtual convention for fear of spreading the coronavirus pandemic if thousands of convention delegates jammed into a basketball arena, as had been scheduled.
 
During his visit to Kenosha, Trump said of urban protests, “You have anarchists, and you have the looters, and you have the rioters. You have all types. You have agitators.”Trump, Biden Trade Barbs as President Visits WisconsinUS leader views damage from Kenosha civil unrest after police shot Black man 7 times during arrest Trump attacked “reckless, far-left politicians,” adding, “We must give far greater support to our law enforcement.”
 
Trump said that in Kenosha, “Violent mobs demolished or damaged at least 25 businesses, burned down public buildings and threw bricks at police officers, which your police officers won’t stand for.”
 
“And they didn’t stand for it,” Trump said. “These are not acts of peaceful protests but really domestic terror.”
 
Biden this week accused Trump of “rooting for chaos and violence” during the election season because he sees it as “a political lifeline.”
 
Biden said at the news conference “burning and looting is wrong, and that person should be held accountable.”
 
Trump did not meet with Blake’s family during his visit and it was unclear whether Biden would. Trump did speak with a pastor he identified as the Blake family’s, and Biden talked earlier with some of Blake’s relatives.  
Authorities have charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenage vigilante, with five felonies in connection with the shootings of three people during August 25 protests. Rittenhouse claimed to be in Kenosha in order to protect businesses during the civil unrest.
    
…

An American who traveled to Syria to fight for Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate has pleaded guilty to terror charges, a year after he was returned to the United States.The U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday that Omer Kuzu, 23, had pleaded guilty of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.The Dallas, Texas, native faces up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for January 2021.“This defendant, an American citizen radicalized on American soil, pledged allegiance to a brutal terrorist group and traveled halfway across the world to enact its agenda,” U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox said in a statement. “I am gratified Mr. Kuzu faced justice in an American court.”US Citizen Accused of Joining IS in Syria Is Repatriated to Texas to Face ChargesOmer Kuzu of Texas is the sixth US citizen or permanent resident to be brought back from Syria or Iraq According to court papers, Kuzu admitted leaving the U.S. with his brother in October 2014, against the wishes of their parents, to join IS.The brothers, who held dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship, then made their way to Istanbul before being smuggled into Syria.Kuzu said that shortly after arriving in Syria, they were taken to Mosul, Iraq, where they trained.Once back in Syria, he pledged allegiance to then-IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and began working for the terror group’s telecom directorate, repairing communication equipment for frontline fighters, earning $125 a month.Officials said Kuzu was captured by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces last March, along with 400 other IS fighters, near the Syrian village of Dashisha.Upon his return to the U.S., Kuzu told investigators he had a wife and child, but their fate and that of his brother remains unclear.Since 2017, the U.S. has repatriated eight adults and 10 children from Syria and Iraq.Mohamad Jamal Khweis of Virginia was convicted on terror charges.28yo #Virginia man Mohamad Jamal Khweis gets 20years for joining #ISIS, acting asst AttyGen calls him “unpredictable & dangerous person” pic.twitter.com/1VHV6mOqLt— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 27, 2017Another, Samantha Elhassani, pleaded guilty last November.Samantha ElHassani – one of six US adults repatriated from #Syria or #Iraq to face charges of supporting #ISIS – pleads guilty to financing terrorismElHassani admitted she transported $30k in gold/jewels out of the US to be used by ISIShttps://t.co/INOzjnnFTU— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 26, 2019Charges against three others are pending. Two women who were repatriated last June have not been charged.What to do with IS foreign fighters and their families has been a source of debate among the U.S. and its allies since the terror group’s caliphate collapsed.The U.S. has long been pushing for countries to repatriate those who left to join IS, but many countries, especially those in Western Europe, have been reluctant to do so.“The Department of Justice remains committed to holding accountable those who have left this country in order to join and support ISIS,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement Wednesday, using an acronym for the terror group. “We hope countries around the world, including our European allies and partners, will likewise take responsibility for their own citizens who traveled to support ISIS.”The SDF continues to hold about 2,000 foreign fighters in makeshift prisons in northeastern Syria. Another estimated 10,000 foreign women and children reside in displaced-persons camps in the region.
 
…

A task force commissioned by the Washington, D.C., government has recommended renaming, relocating or adding context to dozens of monuments, schools, parks and buildings because of their namesakes’ participation in slavery or racial oppression. Among the targets are the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
Some of the proposals in the report released Tuesday are definite non-starters, as many of the most prominent monuments and statues stand on federal land, outside D.C. government control. Still, the recommendations have already prompted fierce reactions amid an ongoing national debate over America’s racial history.
“As long as President Trump is in the White House, the mayor’s irresponsible recommendations will go absolutely nowhere, and as the mayor of our Nation’s capital city — a city that belongs to the American people — she ought to be ashamed for even suggesting them for consideration,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Tuesday.
The task force, known as DCFACES (District of Columbia Facilities and Commemorative Expressions), was formed by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser over the summer in the face of a nationwide wave of protests over police brutality and systemic racial inequities that included Washington as one of its epicenters. It released a 24-page executive summary Tuesday.
Some of the group’s recommendations were widely expected; for example, Woodrow Wilson High School has been a prime candidate for a name change for years due to Wilson’s open public support for segregation. Others are more controversial, such as proposals to rename schools named for Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and “The Star-Spangled Banner” composer Francis Scott Key.
For the multiple statues and monuments on federal land, the committee advises Bowser to ask the federal government to “remove, relocate, or contextualize” landmarks such as the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and the statue of Christopher Columbus outside Union Station.
The task force, in its summary, explained that it focused on “key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women and LGBTQ communities and violation of the DC Human Rights Act.”
The report doesn’t go into detail about how “re-contextualizing” would work, but there have been recent recommendations that plaques be added to the monuments to Jefferson and Washington, explaining that their namesakes were longtime slave-owners.
Bowser, in a Tuesday tweet, said she looked forward to reviewing the recommendations from the task force, which she had tasked with “evaluating public spaces to ensure the namesake’s legacy is consistent with #DCValues.”
Bowser has very little power to control what happens on federal land. She and the D.C. Council fought for years to have a statue of former Confederate general Albert Pike  removed; they were unsuccessful because the statue sits on federal land. In June, hundreds of protesters toppled the Pike statue while officers from the Metropolitan Police Department looked on and kept their distance.
…