News in :90 – March 1, 2021

Police fired tear gas at crowds in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, on Monday.

The crowds returned to the streets to protest last month’s coup, despite reports that security forces had killed at least 18 people a day earlier.

The protesters were chased as they tried to gather at their usual meeting spot at a business center in Yangon.

Demonstrators scattered to rinse the irritating gas from their eyes, but then later regrouped.

The coup reversed years of slow progress towards democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule.

The coup started Feb. 1, the same day a newly elected parliament was supposed to take office.

Two top human rights officials in Moscow urged an international probe into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navaly.

They also called Monday for his immediate release from prison.

Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, got sick on Aug. 20 during a domestic flight in Russia.

He was flown while in a coma to Berlin for treatment two days later.

Labs in Germany, France, and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons showed that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

The rights experts said that an international probe into Navalny’s poisoning is especially critical now that he is in prison.

They called for his immediate release and reminded Russia that it’s responsible for Navaly’s care and protection in prison.

Four faculty and staff members in the St. Thomas School of Education started spreading joy by sewing and distributing over 1,200 masks.

Anne Howard, Debbie Monson, Ea Porter, and Bridgette Smith made the masks for homeless shelters, medical workers, grocery clerks, librarians, and others within the Twin Cities and beyond.

The four were making masks individually but then discovered in a Zoom meeting that they had all been making masks in their free time.

Since then, they have stayed busy sewing, not just to protect others from the virus, but to make others feel loved during an isolating time.

Natalie Hoepner can be reached at hoep8497@stthomas.edu.