Harris tasked to protect voting rights in America

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced vice-president Kamala Harris will lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights as Republican state lawmakers across the country attempt to enact voting restrictions.

The efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to pass restrictive laws, which the White House and civil rights groups say make it harder for Americans to vote, follow former president Donald Trump’s false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread election fraud.

President Biden said voting rights in the US are “under assault” with an intensity he has never seen before. “It’s simply un-american”, he said, while delivering a speech in Oklahoma during the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, in which a white mob had looted and burned Tulsa’s Greenwood district, which was known as Black Wall Street. As many as 300 Black Tulsans were killed.

“I’m asking vice-president Harris to help these efforts, to lead them among her many other responsibilities. With her leadership and your support, we’re going to overcome again... It’s going to take a hell of a lot of work,” Biden said.

It adds another high-profile fight to Harris’ fast-expanding portfolio, which also includes addressing the root causes of migration from Central America and leading the national space council.

US halts Trump-backed oil drilling in Alaska

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday it was halting petroleum development activity in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a move by former president Trump to allow drilling.

The interior department said it was notifying firms of the freeze, pending a comprehensive environmental review that will determine whether leases should “reaffirmed, voided or subject to additional mitigation measures”, the agency said.