GOP Congressman Hice of Georgia won’t seek reelection
WASHINGTON — Rep. Jody B. Hice, a conservative Georgia Republican, said Monday he would not seek reelection in his district, sandwiched between Atlanta and Augusta. Instead, he plans to run for Georgia’s secretary of state, creating an open seat race in the 10th District.
Hice easily won reelection in November, taking 62% against Democrat Tabitha Johnson-Green.
In his new race, Hice says he is taking on fellow Republican and current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defended Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results after voters in the state narrowly went for President Joe Biden. The losing candidate, former President Donald Trump, offered an endorsement of Hice, who was a pastor and radio talk show personality before entering the House.
“Every Georgian, in fact, every American has the right to be outraged by the actions and, simultaneously, the inaction of our Secretary of State,” Hice, who was first elected in 2014, said in a statement.
In Congress, Hice has served in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, and he was among 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted in January against certifying the Electoral College results for Biden.
Trump, in an email Monday, offered his “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Hice’s bid for secretary of state in Georgia.
“Jody has been a steadfast fighter for conservative Georgia values and is a staunch ally of the America First agenda,” Trump said in the statement.
— CQ-Roll Call
Family of shooting victim calls for hate crime investigation
LOS ANGELES – Sia Marie Xiong was identified Sunday as the victim of a fatal shooting in Compton, and the family is calling for the 28-year-old's death to be investigated as a possible hate crime amid a recent rise in violence against Asian Americans.
A spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department said Xiong's death is not believed to be a hate crime, although a suspect or motive have not yet been identified. She said the investigation's focus could change if additional information surfaces.
Xiong was killed just before 6 a.m. Saturday on the 1600 block of East Kay Street, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Her family held a press conference Sunday evening to ask sheriff's officials to consider all possible motives, including racial prejudice.
Xiong, who had a 3-year-old son, was of Cambodian, Black and Native American descent, said the family's lawyer, Toni Jaramilla.
"The backdrop is of course the rise in Asian hate crimes," Jaramilla said in an interview. Six women of Asian descent were among eight victims fatally shot by a white man at three Atlanta-area spas March 16 . The crime followed a rise in anti-Asian hate attacks in California and nationally.
"We're looking to see if the Sheriff's Department can look at it with that lens," Jaramilla said.
— Los Angeles Times
Putin to get his COVID-19 vaccination shot Tuesday
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was to receive his coronavirus vaccine shot on Tuesday, months after his country started its inoculation campaign.
"By the way, I intend to do it myself tomorrow," the president said on Monday during a video conference. Putin did not, however, reveal which vaccine would be administered to him.
According to the state news agency Tass, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin would receive one of the three Russian vaccines available: the internationally known Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac.
All three are effective and reliable, Peskov said.
For months, the 68-year-old Putin had repeatedly left open when he would be vaccinated. Sputnik V has been on the Russian market for more than half a year, but has only been approved for people over 60 since the end of December.
According to Putin, only 4.3 million people in Russia have been vaccinated — just under 3% of the population. Some 6.3 million people have received the first of the two necessary shots.
Many people have hesitated because Putin did not get vaccinated himself, although he had touted Sputnik V as the world's best vaccine.
Many Russians do not trust that the Russian-developed vaccines have been tested sufficiently.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said about 30 million Russians should be vaccinated by the middle of the year.
— dpa
Queen Elizabeth looking into adding diversity officer following Meghan Markle interview
Changes could be in store for the British royals following Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Queen Elizabeth II is looking into adding a diversity officer after Meghan told Winfrey she was made aware of concerns within the palace about “how dark” her son Archie’s skin might be ahead of his birth in 2019, People reports.
“Diversity is an issue which has been taken very seriously across the Royal Households,” a royal source told People. “We have the policies, the procedures and programs in place, but we haven’t seen the progress we would like in terms of representation and more needs to be done, we can always improve. The work to do this has been underway for some time now and comes with the full support of the family.”
Following the highly publicized interview, which aired earlier this month, Winfrey shared on “CBS This Morning” that Harry said the Queen and Prince Philip weren’t “part of those conversations” about Archie while Markle was pregnant.
The Queen has since said in a statement through Buckingham Palace that the royal family was “saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.”
“The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
Harry and Meghan left their senior roles in the United Kingdom last year and have since moved to California.
— New York Daily News
