Six In The Morning Monday 3 February 2021

 

She was stunned by Biden's inauguration. How this South Carolina mom escaped QAnon

Story by Donie O'Sullivan
Video by Zach Wasser and Richa Naik

Updated 1545 GMT (2345 HKT) February 3, 2021

Ashley Vanderbilt says her four-year-old daughter Emmerson knew "something was wrong with her mom."

"I wasn't one hundred percent there like I should have been," she recalls.

After November's election she spent days on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube becoming indoctrinated into the world of QAnon. By inauguration day, she was convinced that if then President-elect Joe Biden took office the United States would literally turn into a communist country. She was terrified that she would have to go into hiding with her daughter.

Kremlin shrugs off Navalny backlash as protesters crowd jails

1,438 more reportedly arrested amid brutal police crackdown following opposition leader’s imprisonment

Andrew Roth in Moscow

Wed 3 Feb 2021 13.10 GMT

The Kremlin has attempted to play down the jailing of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying that his 32-month imprisonment will have not have “significant influence” on Russian politics or lead to a mass protest movement similar to the one in neighbouring Belarus.

Meanwhile, protesters detained at recent rallies in support of Navalny have complained of inhumane conditions as police hold them in overcrowded jails or on buses in subzero temperatures days after their arrest.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday that Putin had not reacted to Navalny’s speech in a Moscow courtroom, where he said the Russian leader would go down in history as “Vladimir Putin, the poisoner of underpants”.

Rihanna and Greta Thunberg among international celebrities tweeting support for protesting Indian farmers

After Republic Day violence, Modi government has dug ditches on highways, embedded spikes on the roads and cut internet in areas where farmers are protesting

Stuti Mishra

in Delhi

@StutiNMishra

The Indian government has hit out at pop star Rihanna after she tweeted about the months-long farmer protests on the outskirts of Delhi and other major cities, triggering an outpouring of support from well-known international figures including Greta Thunberg, Jay Sean and the niece of US vice president Kamala Harris. 

Thousands of farmers have been camped out around the Indian national capital for months now, suffering through cold waves and at times violent clashes with police, as they demand the repeal of agricultural reforms that they fear will leave them worse off. 

“Why aren’t we talking about this?!” Rihanna wrote on Twitter, sharing a CNN article on the protests with her 100 million followers, using the hashtag #FarmersProtest.

Biodiversity: Food 'key driver' of accelerating death of wildlife

Eating more plants and less meat would take pressure off land needed to feed a growing world, according to a UN report. Experts say organic farming alone is not the answer.

The way food is grown around the world threatens 24,000 of the 28,000 species that are at risk of extinction, according to a report published Wednesday that calls on world leaders to urgently reform the global food system.

Plants and animals are dying out at a rate that is at least tens — if not hundreds — of times faster than the average over the past 10 million years, according to the report, which was published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), British think tank Chatham House, and animal welfare organization Compassion in World Farming. The decline has mostly been driven by people destroying natural ecosystems to make space for cropland and pastures.

Montana’s face-off over face masks

Montana had low virus infection and death rates. Then came a fight, county by county, town by town, between the health workers and those blocking anti-Covid measures.

by Gwen Florio

In the early days of the pandemic, Dr Annie Bukacek from Kalispell, Montana, issued a dire warning about Covid-19’s death rate. Except she called it the ‘so-called death rate’. ‘Based on inaccurate, incomplete data, people are being terrorised by fearmongers into relinquishing cherished freedoms,’ said Bukacek in a YouTube video viewed 870,000 times.

Flash-forward to November, at a county health board meeting in Ravalli County, people packed the room, inches apart, barefaced and sometimes shouting their objections to masks and other possible restrictions (‘Freedom! Freedom!’).

Olympics organisers unveil COVID rules for Tokyo Games

First in series of playbooks lays out COVID-19 measures, including a face mask mandate and bans on singing and chanting.

No singing, no dancing and masks at “all times” – these are some of the measures unveiled by the organisers of the Tokyo Olympics as part of a COVID-19 plan seeking to ensure the event goes ahead in a safe way.

The roll-out of the first of a series of “playbooks” on Wednesday was aimed at assuring athletes and sports officials, and an attempt to convince the Japanese public that the Olympics should not be postponed again.