Category Archives: News to use
Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works
The Last Living Paratrooper from MacArthur’s return ….. | Pacific Paratrooper
Richard Adams describes General MacArthur as “quite a guy.”
In commemoration of the 75th year of World War II in the Philippines, one of its heroes returned. Richard “Dick” Adams visited Corregidor once again, but this time, he did not parachute out of a C-47 plane to land on the towering trees of the Rock. The 98-year-old understandably opted to ride a ferry.
He was recently, poignantly, at the MacArthur Suite of the Manila Hotel, in a room dedicated to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who led the American and Filipino troops in liberating the country from Japanese occupation. MacArthur actually stayed in that suite for six years, as Manila Hotel’s honorary general manager.
It was a time of fear across the country as Japanese forces ravaged Manila and the countryside. People clung to MacArthur’s words, “I shall return,” which he said after he was forced to abandon the Philippine island fortress of Corregidor under orders from U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in March 1942. Left behind at Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino soldiers, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive.
Source: The Last Living Paratrooper from MacArthur’s return ….. | Pacific Paratrooper
Ohio reports 1,156 weekly increase in K-12 student cases, 477 in staff – cleveland.com
Ohio reported an increase of 1,156 coronavirus cases in K-12 students and 477 in staff for the week of Feb. 22, the week before schools were mandated to return to in-person or hybrid instruction in exchange for staff receiving vaccines.
The increase was slightly down from the week of Feb. 15, with an increase of 1,450 new student and 510 staff cases. The Feb. 22 increases, reported Thursday, bring totals to 40,250 student coronavirus cases and 22,477 staff cases since Sept. 7, when Ohio instituted reporting guidelines. Schools or districts report cases to health departments.
Source: Ohio reports 1,156 weekly increase in K-12 student cases, 477 in staff – cleveland.com
Living a Creative and Open Life
Working women and men from Asia, Europe, the Americas, the Middle-East and Africa say they want to experience the totality of existence, an Open Life, and not a constricted or broken life. What they have in common is the courage to look within and beyond and to trust what appears to be a deep sense of belonging, of wholeness, of connectedness, and of openness to the infinite. Source: Living a Creative and Open Life
Amanda Gorman Says Security Guard Confronted Her, Saying She Looked ‘Suspicious’ – The New York Times
Amanda Gorman, who became a national sensation when she delivered a stirring poem at President Biden’s inauguration in January, said on Friday that a security guard had followed her home and told her she looked suspicious.
“A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight,” Ms. Gorman wrote on Twitter. “He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious.’ I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat.”
Chile reporta 5.325 nuevos contagios por Covid-19 en 24 horas | Noticias | teleSUR
En el país suramericano el número total de fallecidos a causa del coronavirus asciende a 20.928.
Source: Chile reporta 5.325 nuevos contagios por Covid-19 en 24 horas | Noticias | teleSUR
Shooting Death, Raid of Protester’s Grave Spark Anger in Myanmar’s Mandalay — Radio Free Asia
Myanmar security forces shot dead an anti-junta demonstrator in Mandalay on Friday, driving the death toll from violent crackdowns in Myanmar’s second-largest city up to 11, while the hasty exhumation of the body of protester killed earlier in the week added to anger at military authorities.
The death came as more police quit their jobs to join the protest movement and the U.S. ambassador in Yangon had his first meeting with the junta in the nearly five weeks since the army deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her elected government, sparking daily protests across the country.
In Mandalay, Zaw Myo was shot in the neck as he marched with fellow engineers in a morning protest. Though he received emergency treatment at a private clinic, he died of his wound a few hours later, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a young son, they said.
Source: Shooting Death, Raid of Protester’s Grave Spark Anger in Myanmar’s Mandalay — Radio Free Asia
Gov. Greg Abbott rejects aid from Biden administration in dispute over coronavirus testing for migrants
Translation: Governor is afraid he will be ousted from office unless he plays the racist anti-immigration card to divert attention from all the Texans who have died because he has repeatedly tried to reopen state and schools too soon and left Texans in the freezer… “Abbott’s comments about migrants with coronavirus have sparked dismay among many advocates along the border. The governor, along with other Texas politicians, has a history of describing migrants in terms that suggest they are a threat. In 2019, a day before a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people in El Paso, Abbott sent out a campaign mailer calling on supporters to “DEFEND” Texas at the border. He later said “mistakes were made” about the mailer.”
Migrants crossed the Paso del Norte International Bridge last month from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso.
Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune
Gov. Greg Abbott appeared this week to rebuff help from the federal government to give coronavirus testing to migrants before they are released from federal custody, saying it’s a federal responsibility to screen immigrants coming into Texas.
The announcement came after Abbott, a Republican, repeatedly accused the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden of “releasing immigrants in South Texas that have been exposing Texans to COVID.” The Biden administration denied that Thursday, and CNN reported that Abbott was “stalling” on a federal offer to pitch in on testing migrants.
Abbott and Biden have been fighting for days over coronavirus safety protocols and whose actions have been putting the health of Texans at risk. After Abbott announced this week that he was lifting Texas’ statewide mask mandate and capacity restrictions on businesses, Biden called that decision “Neanderthal thinking.” Abbott shot back in multiple interviews and social media posts that Biden’s immigration policies were the real threat to Texans and accused the president of releasing migrants with COVID-19 into Texas.
“The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities,” Abbott wrote in one tweet Wednesday afternoon.
Asked for evidence of that claim, Abbott’s office pointed to news reports from NBC News, Fox News and the New York Post earlier this week that 108 migrants had tested positive since Jan. 25 in Brownsville after being released by federal authorities. The city has been conducting the tests since late January. It’s unclear from the reports how many of the asylum seekers are staying in Texas. The majority of migrants apprehended by or who surrender to federal authorities usually leave for places farther north.
Migrants released from custody while their asylum cases are pending are given notices to appear for court, a document that, when issued, signals the beginning of removal proceedings for migrants if they cannot convince federal authorities they have the right to stay. The office of Customs and Border Protection in South Texas did not respond to a request for comment seeking more information about the testing process.
The testing in Brownsville was reportedly administered by the city. NBC reported that 6.3% of the migrants tested were confirmed to have the coronavirus. That rate is smaller than the positivity rate statewide, in which an average of 8.3% of tests came back positive over the past seven days. The 108 tests over the past five weeks is a small share of the more than 3,800 confirmed cases in Cameron County reported by the state since Jan. 25.
After Abbott began upbraiding Biden for releasing the migrants, CNN reported that the Department of Homeland Security had tried to use Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars to help local officials test migrants released from federal custody and isolate them if they test positive. The grant money needed state approval to be allocated, CNN reported.
Abbott seemed to make clear Thursday that he was not interested in the federal offer. He argued in a statement that border security is “strictly a federal responsibility,” and thus the Biden administration alone should “test, screen, and quarantine” migrants who may have COVID-19.
“Instead of doing their job, the Biden Administration suggested it did not have the sufficient resources and, remarkably, asked Texas to assist them in aiding their illegal immigration program,” Abbott said. “Texas refused.”
Asked about Abbott’s statement, the White House referred to comments that press secretary Jen Psaki made Thursday that the federal policy is for coronavirus testing for migrants released from custody “to be done at the state and local level with the help of NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and local governments.” She added that the policy states that migrants should be tested “before they are even moved to go stay with family members or others they may know while their cases are being adjudicated.”
Since before the 2020 election, the number of migrants apprehended on the border has increased significantly. From October through January, more than 296,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended. That’s more than half of the 458,000 apprehended in all of the 2020 federal fiscal year, according to federal statistics.
The Biden administration has also stopped adding migrants to the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, which forced tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings in American courts. Some of the first MPP arrivals began entering Texas last week at Brownsville and El Paso, but they are tested for COVID-19 before entering, confirmed Ruben Garcia, the director of the Annunciation House shelter network that is temporarily housing the migrants.
The release of asylum seekers from custody with notices to appear has been a lightning rod issue for Republicans who incorrectly claim that most asylum seekers ignore the notices and instead try to live in the shadows unlawfully. A 2019 study from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which uses Freedom of Information Act requests to track immigration court cases, found that more than 80% of all migrants show up for their court hearings, and that number increases to nearly 100% if the asylum seekers have representation.
But Abbott said Thursday that Texas “will not aid a program that makes our country a magnet for illegal immigration.”
Texas has already been sending tests to border communities, however. The Texas Division of Emergency Management confirmed to the Tribune that it has provided testing to “local officials in border communities who have been responding to an influx of individuals crossing the international border.”
“Since the end of January, the state has provided 40,000 COVID-19 tests to Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, and Del Rio to meet the testing need not being fulfilled by the federal government,” the division’s spokesperson, Seth Christensen, said in a statement.
As for whether the state will provide more tests to border cities, Christensen said TDEM “does not have any outstanding requests from our local partners for testing resources.”
Abbott’s comments about migrants with coronavirus have sparked dismay among many advocates along the border. The governor, along with other Texas politicians, has a history of describing migrants in terms that suggest they are a threat. In 2019, a day before a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people in El Paso, Abbott sent out a campaign mailer calling on supporters to “DEFEND” Texas at the border. He later said “mistakes were made” about the mailer.
Clara Long, the associate director with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, said Abbott’s comments this week are disturbing but not surprising as the governor tries to distract from his own executive order, which critics say will put Texans at risk.
“That fact that that is just such a political statement seems so revealed by the mask [order],” she said. “Do you care about people’s health or do you not? But it’s just clear it’s not about protecting Texans or protecting migrants. It’s about political gain.”
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The grit and determination of Myanmar’s young rebels
Opponents of Myanmar’s military coup face daily threats and violence, and yet defiance continues.

Opponents of Myanmar’s military coup face daily threats and violence, and yet defiance continues.
The Positive Futures Guide
Creating and sustaining the Positive Future you desire may well begin right here…
I have created the Positive Futures Guide to assist you in creating & sustaining a positive future for yourself, your family, organization, community, or the issue that fires your passion.
Source: The Positive Futures Guide
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