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News Reports
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Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative March 2021 news and viewsNote: This February has seen lots of news, which is divided into two parts on this site to ease reader uploads.
March 8
Top Headlines
- Washington Post, Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief plan reflects seismic shifts in U.S. politics
- Washington Post, The business winners in Biden’s relief package: Restaurants, concert venues and more
- Washington Post, U.S. proposes power-sharing plan to Afghan and Taliban leaders
- Washington Post, Meghan tells Oprah Winfrey she had suicidal thoughts as part of the royal family: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore'’
New York Times, Our reporters and critics analyzed the interview. Read the highlights here, March 8, 2021 (print ed.).
U.S. Politics, Governance
- Washington Post, Opinion: Biden is rolling back the culture war. The country should thank him, E.J. Dionne Jr.
- New York Times, In the Stimulus Bill, a Policy Revolution in Aid for Children
- New York Times, Rescue Package Includes $86 Billion Bailout for Failing Pensions
- Washington Post, Opinion: Biden grasped what the media did not, Jennifer Rubin
- Washington Post, Boarded up and lined with barbed wire, Minneapolis braces for murder trial in George Floyd’s death
New York Times, Top State Leader Says ‘Cuomo Must Resign.’ Governor Says ‘No Way’- Palmer Report, Fact check: if Andrew Cuomo is ousted, will it lead to Donald Trump being pardoned in New York? Bill Palmer
- Washington Post, Biden directs fresh review of Title IX rule on campus sexual assault,
Virus Victims, Responses
Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 537,841- Washington Post, 58.9 million vaccinated
Washington Post, GOP voters may decide whether U.S. reaches herd immunity- New York Times, Live Updates: Advice Is on the Way for Americans Who Are Vaccinated
U.S. Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, Insurrection
New York Times, Josh Hawley Is ‘Not Going Anywhere.’ How Did He Get Here?
World News
- New York Times, Preparing for Retaliation Against Russia, U.S. Confronts Hacking by China
- Washington Post, Massive explosions rock Equatorial Guinea’s largest city; at least 17 dead, hundreds injured
Top Stories
Washington Post, Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief plan reflects seismic shifts in U.S. politics, Jeff Stein, March 8, 2021 (print ed.). The disparity between the reception to President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan and President Biden’s is the result of major shifts in politics.A new Democratic administration facing down a massive economic crisis pushes a $800 billion stimulus package. A bloc of centrist Democrats balk at the price-tag, and Republicans are thrown into a frenzy warning about the impact to the federal deficit.
A little more than a decade later, another new Democratic administration takes office facing a different economic crisis. This time, it proposes spending an additional $1.9 trillion in spending, even though the federal deficit last year was $3.1 trillion — much larger than during the last crisis. Centrist Democrats unify behind passing the measure, and the GOP rejects it but in a more muted fashion.
The disparity between the reception to President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan and President Biden’s is the result of several seismic shifts in American politics — the most dramatic of which may be the apparent impact of the pandemic on attitudes about the role of government in helping the economy.Since the outset of the coronavirus, polling has found substantial support among Americans for providing more government aid for those in need. That is partially due to the nature of the current crisis, which for a time opened a deeper economic hole than even the Great Recession. But the shift is also the result of a reorientation on economic policy — both on the left and on the right — that has transformed the political landscape.
On the right, congressional Republican lawmakers may still fret about higher deficits — but the most popular politician among their voters does not. Both as a candidate and as president, Donald Trump blew past Republican concerns about the deficit, pushing for trillions in additional spending and tax cuts and running unprecedented peacetime debt levels.
Washington Post, The business winners in Biden’s relief package: Restaurants, concert venues and more, Tory Newmyer, March 8, 2021 (print ed.). A restaurant group pushed for the expansion of a tax credit and lobbied against a minimum wage increase.Washington Post, U.S. proposes power-sharing plan to Afghan and Taliban leaders, Karen DeYoung, March 8, 2021 (print ed.). Along with the proposal for an interim power-sharing arrangement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that a U.S. departure remains under active consideration and could lead to “rapid territorial gains” by the Taliban.Worried that Afghan peace talks are going nowhere, and facing a May 1 deadline for the possible withdrawal of all U.S. troops, the Biden administration has proposed sweeping plans for an interim power-sharing government between the Taliban and Afghan leaders, and stepped-up involvement by Afghanistan’s neighbors — including Iran — in the peace process.
Along with the proposal, shared with both sides over the past week by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that a U.S. departure remains under active consideration and could lead to “rapid territorial gains” by the Taliban.
“I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone,” Blinken wrote in a three-page letter to Ghani sent to coincide with the proposal.
Biden administration officials refused to confirm or deny the specifics of the interim plan or the Blinken letter. “As a general matter, we do not comment on alleged correspondence with foreign leaders,” a State Department spokesperson said.
The letter and the eight-page plan for an interim government were published Sunday by Afghanistan’s Tolo News.
Britain's Prince Harry, his wife Meghan, center, interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for a broadcast airing on March 7, 2021 (screenshot).
Washington Post, Meghan tells Oprah Winfrey she had suicidal thoughts as part of the royal family: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,’ Emily Yahr, March 8, 2021 (print ed.). Takeaways from Prince Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey.In the days leading up to Oprah Winfrey’s highly-anticipated primetime interview Sunday night with Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, CBS released a clip that showed Winfrey telling the couple, "You’ve said some pretty shocking things here.”
That may have been an understatement. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the interview:1) Meghan said she had suicidal thoughts as a member of the royal family.
Winfrey noted that Meghan had once said “the daily onslaught of vitriol and condemnation from the U.K. press was “almost unsurvivable.” (Meghan, who is biracial, in particular faced racist and sexist coverage in the tabloids not long after she and Harry started dating.) When Winfrey asked if there was a breaking point, Meghan said that at one point after they got married, “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
“That was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought,” she said. Meghan said that she went to several people in the “institution” (apparently meaning the palace and royal family, though she didn’t name names) and said that, "I’ve never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere.” She also went to royal Human Resources.
In response, Meghan said, while they were sympathetic, she was told, "There’s nothing we can do to protect you, because you’re not a paid employee of the institution.”
“Did you ever think about going to a hospital?” Winfrey asked. “Or is that possible, that you can check yourself in someplace?”
"That’s what I was asking to do ... I couldn’t, you know, call an Uber to the palace,” Meghan said. “You have to understand, as well, when I joined that family, that was the last time ... that I saw my passport, my driver’s license, my keys. All that gets turned over.”
Winfrey said it sounded like, “you were trapped and couldn’t get help, even though you were on the verge of suicide."
“That’s the truth,” Meghan said. She added that Harry was very supportive, and didn’t want her to be home alone after she told him all of this.
2) Meghan said someone at the palace expressed concern about Archie’s skin color.
Meghan also revealed when she was pregnant with her now nearly 2-year-old son Archie, there were “concerns and conversations" about how dark his skin would be when he was born — and that race may have played a role in why she and Harry were told why he would not be given the title of prince, nor would the baby be given security after he was born.
Winfrey, upon hearing this, was stunned. “That’s a conversation with you?” she asked. “About how dark your baby is going to be?” When Meghan didn’t respond, she followed up: “You’re not going to tell me who had the conversation?"
“I think that would be very damaging to them,” Meghan said.
Later, Winfrey asked Harry to reveal more details. "That conversation I’m never going to share,” he said, and declined to say any more on the topic, or specify who had talked to him about this.
U.S. Politics, Governance
Washington Post, Opinion: Biden is rolling back the culture war. The country should thank him, E.J. Dionne Jr., right, March 8, 2021 (print ed.). The ...
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