As mask mandates end, Oregon bucks trend with permanent rule

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — As states around the country lift COVID-19 restrictions, Oregon is poised to go the opposite direction — and many residents are fuming about it.

A top health official is considering indefinitely extending rules requiring masks and social distancing in all businesses in the state.

The proposal would keep the rules in place until they are “no longer necessary to address the effects of the pandemic in the workplace.”

Michael Wood, administrator of the state’s department of Occupational Safety and Health, said the move is necessary to address a technicality in state law that requires a “permanent” rule to keep current restrictions from expiring.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.

But the idea has prompted a flood of angry responses, with everyone from parents to teachers to business owners and employees crying government overreach.

Wood’s agency received a record number of public comments, mostly critical, and nearly 60,000 residents signed a petition against the proposal.

Opponents also are upset government officials won’t say how low Oregon's COVID-19 case numbers must go, or how many people would have to be vaccinated, to get the requirements lifted in a state that’s already had some of the nation’s strictest safety measures.

“When will masks be unnecessary? What scientific studies do these mandates rely on, particularly now that the vaccine is days away from being available to everyone?” said state Sen. Kim Thatcher, a Republican from Keizer, near the state’s capital. “Businesses have had to play ‘mask cop’ for the better part of a year now. They deserve some certainty on when they will no longer be threatened with fines.”

Wood said he is reviewing all the feedback to see if changes are needed before he makes a final decision by May 4, when the current rules lapse.

Oregon, a blue state, has been among those with the country’s most stringent COVID-19 restrictions and now stands in contrast with much of the rest of the nation as vaccines become more widely available.

At least six states — Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota and Texas — have lifted mask mandates, and some never implemented them. In Texas, businesses reopened at 100% capacity last month.

In January, Virginia became the first in the nation to enact permanent COVID-19 workplace safety and health rules.

“While the end of this pandemic is finally in sight, the virus is still spreading — and now is not the time to let up on preventative measures,” Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam said following the announcement.

Besides mask and distancing requirements, Oregon's proposal includes more arcane workplace rules regarding air flow, ventilation, employee notification in case of an outbreak, and sanitation protocols.

It dovetails with separate actions issued by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, using a state of emergency declaration, requiring masks in public statewide — and even outside when 6 feet (1.83 meters) of distance can’t be maintained — and providing strict, county-by-county thresholds for business closures or reductions in capacity when case numbers rise above certain levels.

more

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mask-mandates-end-oregon-bucks-154321211.html

US deports woman who lied about role in Rwandan genocide

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A woman who served a 10-year sentence in U.S. prison for lying about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to obtain American citizenship and lost her bid for a new trial has been deported to Rwanda, her lawyer said Saturday.

Beatrice Munyenyezi was convicted and sentenced in 2013 in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. She served a 10-year sentence in the state of Alabama and had faced deportation.

She lost her latest court battle in March, when the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district judge's rejection of her petition challenging how the jury was instructed during her trial in federal court in New Hampshire.

“Yes, that did happen," her lawyer, Richard Guerriero, wrote in an email Saturday when asked whether Munyenyezi had been deported to Rwanda. He said he believed she arrived in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, on Friday.

Munyenyezi was convicted of lying about her role as a commander of one of the notorious roadblocks where Tutsis were singled out for slaughter. She denied affiliation with any political party, despite her husband’s leadership role in the extremist Hutu militia party.

She requested a new trial based on a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the government’s ability to strip citizenship from immigrants who lied during the naturalization process.

Munyenyezi alleged that the jury was given inaccurate instructions on her criminal liability. A judge denied her request, saying that even if the instruction fell short, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

As part of her appeal, Munyenyezi's trial lawyers, who are now New Hampshire superior court judges, said in court documents that they would have presented Munyenyezi’s case differently if the U.S. Supreme Court decision had been law during her trial.

They added that they believe if the jury had instructed based on the court decision, “the verdict may have been different.”

At the time, her lawyers portrayed her as the victim of lies by Rwandan witnesses who had never before implicated her through nearly two decades of investigations and trials, even when testifying against her husband and his mother before the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.

U.S. prosecutors said that Munyenyezi wasn't entitled to a new trial and could have raised a similar legal argument at the time because it had come up in other cases. But her defense lawyers said they were not aware that other lawyers had raised the issue.

In the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case, a Serb who emigrated from Bosnia to the United States lied about the reasons she feared persecution, her husband’s service in the Bosnian Army, and his role in the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians.

She asked that the jury be instructed that her citizenship could be stripped if the government proved that her lies had influenced the decision to grant her citizenship. A court declined to do that, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-deports-woman-lied-role-190545030.html