GRACE MENG

House Democrats will try once more to amend the Constitution in order to lower the voting age to 16, an idea that has been popular with Democrats but unpopular with Republicans.

The “Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture Act” creates an eight-member commission to study how to make such a museum a reality in Washington, including whether it should be part of the Smithsonian Institution. The House passed the bill in April, and the Senate did so in May, which Biden had designated as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Harris said such a museum will help “fight ignorance” and “dispel misinformation” about Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander people in the U.S. The Smithsonian is in early planning stages for two new museums, the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum. Both the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture are run by the Smithsonian.

President Joe Biden has signed a bill creating a commission to study establishing a national museum on the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

Efforts to create a national Asian Pacific American museum in Washington, D.C., pushed ahead Monday. The House passed legislation that would create a commission to study the feasibility of a new National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. The bill approved unanimously by the House would establish a new commission to consider the feasibility of a new National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. Plans are underway for two other museums, the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian Women's History Museum. “Our story is not just an Asian American story, it’s an American story.”Copyright 2022 The Associated Press.

Efforts to create a national Asian Pacific American museum in Washington, D.

At a time when attacks against Asian Americans are on the rise, some lawmakers want to create a national museum focused on Asian Pacific American history and culture. The path to creating the museum follows the formula of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was 100 years in the making and opened in 2016. If the Asian American museum is approved, it may be vying for a spot on the National Mall alongside the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, which were both authorized by Congress in 2020. AdvertisementSince the start of the pandemic, attacks against Asian Americans have increased nationwide, law enforcement officials say. “ … We all deserve a place to take our children and see that Asian Americans are and have been an integral part of the fabric of this great nation.”GiftOutline Gift Article

On the anniversary of the spa shootings that left six Asian women dead, others say they are trying to safeguard themselves amid ongoing violence.

The drama surrounding Peng Shuai is following a familiar script: Someone who has run afoul of China’s Communist government disappears from view.

Rep. Grace Meng says she introduced the measure to send the message to Asian Americans that they are a valued part of American society. If the bill passes, it would become the 12th federal holiday.

Interpol is holding its General Assembly in Istanbul to discuss security threats and to hold a closely watched election for the international policing body's new leadership.

The world police agency meets in Istanbul this week to elect new leadership.

The AP Interview Wife of Ex-Interpol President Grace Meng, the wife of former Interpol president Meng Hongwei, answers the Associated Press in Lyon, central France, Tuesday, Nov.16, 2021. "Mr. Hu Binchen is someone I know extremely well, because he used to be Mr. Meng's subordinate. I also have known Mr. Hu for about 10 years," she said in the AP interview. “So if Mr. Hu Binchen sympathizes with us or helps us, or expresses kindness toward us, that will mean that he will be violating party discipline. So this is a problem.”“One day, will Mr. Hu Binchen also be disappeared, like Mr. Meng?” she asked.

The wife of the former Interpol president who disappeared in Beijing in 2018 and was imprisoned says she fears a similar fate awaits China’s latest candidate for a role with the international police body.

"I must admit Kevin McCarthy has accomplished one thing. America is no longer woke," Rep. Jamie Raskin tweeted.

Grace Meng, the wife of former Interpol president Meng Hongwei, lashed out at the Chinese government in a scathing interview.

The AP Interview Wife of Ex-Interpol President Grace Meng, the wife of former Interpol president Meng Hongwei, poses for a photo after an interview with the Associated Press in Lyon, central France, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani) (Laurent Cirpriani)LYON, France — (AP) — In China, she enjoyed the privileges that flowed from being married to a senior member of the governing elite. But Meng Hongwei, the former Interpol president, has now vanished into China's sprawling penal system, purged in a stunning fall from grace. From being an insider, Grace Meng has become an outsider looking in — and says she is horrified by what she sees. Grace Meng also has political connections through her own family.

LYON, France — (AP) — In China, she enjoyed the privileges that flowed from being married to a senior member of the governing elite. From being an insider, Grace Meng has become an outsider looking in — and says she is horrified by what she sees. “I have the responsibility to show my face, to tell the world what happened," she told The AP. Grace Meng also has political connections through her own family. "But I also know that very many families in China today are facing a similar fate to mine.”Copyright 2021 The Associated Press.

Shedding her anonymity in an interview with The Associated Press, the wife of the former president of Interpol who disappeared and was imprisoned in China has now chosen for the first time to show her face.

The 9/11 Immigrant Worker Freedom Act is a revised version of a bill that former Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York introduced in 2017 that did not advance in the House. Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley in a 2018 Democratic primary, winning the seat representing parts of the Bronx and Queens. Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Rep. Grace Meng, both from New York, are lead co-sponsors of the bill. If enacted, clean up workers would be able to apply for legal status and receive work authorization during the pendency of the application, they said. “I feel some hope that maybe I will be able to obtain legal status,” he said.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and two other legislators have reintroduced a bill in the House to put immigrants who cleared debris after the Sept. 11 attacks on a fast track to legal immigration status in the U.S. Immigrants in New York who worked after the attacks have long asked to obtain legal immigration status as a way to compensate for the subsequent health problems they have suffered.

Since the campaign trail, President Biden has said he wants to close privately run immigrant detention centers. But immigrant advocates say his administration isn't following through on his promises.

Prominent attacks on Asian Americans during the pandemic, along with the Atlanta massage business shooting that left six Asian women dead, have spurred expanded conversations about Asian American identity and history.

Biden President Joe Biden smiles after signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 20, 2021, in Washington. Biden lavished praise on Democrats and Republicans for approving the bill by lopsided margins and sending it to the White House for his signature. Several dozen lawmakers attended the bill signing ceremony, one of the largest groups to visit the Biden White House during the pandemic. The new law will expedite Justice Department reviews of hate crimes by putting an official in charge of the effort. At the end of the program, lawmakers who led the effort to get the bill passed surrounded Biden as he sat at a desk and signed it into law.

President Joe Biden has signed legislation intended to curtail a dramatic rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The bill passed both chambers of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.

What new legislation can –– and can’t –– do to address anti-Asian hate crimes. And, the growing role of people of color in far-right organizations.

Congress Hate Crimes Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., right, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, and Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., center, listen. It also rebuked local law enforcement officers who downplayed the potential that the attacks were a hate crime. “He chose three places where Asian women would be killed, and there is no doubt in my mind that this was a hate crime." Passage of the hate crimes bill was a rare example of bipartisanship in a Congress that has struggled to overcome partisan gridlock. But many Republicans remained critical of the resolution condemning the massage business attacks, accusing Democrats of needlessly politicizing a tragedy.

The Democratic-led House has approved a resolution condemning attacks in March that killed six women of Asian descent at Atlanta-area massage businesses.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Tuesday signed into law a dozen police reform measures, saying they will "work in coordination with one another to create a system of accountability and integrity stronger than anywhere else in the nation." Police chokeholds, neck restraints, and no-knock warrants are now banned in the state, and officers are required to step in if they witness colleagues using excessive force. The bills also restrict the use of tear gas, create an independent office to evaluate the use of deadly force, and make it easier to sue officers who cause injury. Now, Inslee said, Washington has "the best, most comprehensive, most transparent, most effective police accountability laws in the United States." These sweeping reforms come after several high-profile police brutality cases, including the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died while in police custody last year in Tacoma; he was heard on police scanner traffic telling officers after he was handcuffed that he couldn't breathe. More stories from theweek.comThe threat of civil war didn't end with the Trump presidencyMcConnell expresses 'surprising' openness to Jan. 6 commission7 scathingly funny cartoons about Liz Cheney's ouster

Bill has already passed Senate and will now be sent to president for his signature

The legislation, which had near-unanimous support from the Senate, now goes to President Biden's desk for his signature.

Congress Hate Crimes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., listens during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. To many Asian Americans, the pandemic has invigorated deep-seated biases that in some cases date back to the Chinese Exclusion Act of more than a century ago. Yet to some activists, including organizations representing gay and transgender Asian Americans, the legislation is misguided. “Law enforcement is currently underreporting these kinds of incidents and it makes it easy to ignore hate crimes all together,” she said. Many conservatives have historically dismissed hate crimes laws, arguing they create special protected classes so that victims of similar crimes are treated differently.

"Congress has the Asian American community's back," Rep. Grace Meng, who led the bill, said on Tuesday.

Violence against those in the AAPI community has grown despite increased national attention and political action against anti-Asian hate.

To many Asian Americans, the pandemic has invigorated deep-seated biases that in some cases date back to the Chinese Exclusion Act of more than a century ago. And in Georgia, six Asian women were killed in March during during a series of shootings targeting workers at massage parlors. Prosecutors are seeking hate crimes charges. Yet some activists, including organizations representing gay and transgender Asian Americans, say the legislation is misguided. Not a shortage of police and jails.”Meng acknowledged some of the concerns raised by the groups, but countered that the widespread underreporting of hate crimes needs to be addressed.

Congress has passed legislation aimed at combating hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Congress approved legislation Tuesday intended to curtail a striking rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, sending President Joe Biden a bipartisan denunciation of the spate of brutal attacks that have proliferated during coronavirus pandemic. The bill, which the House passed on a 364-62 vote, will expedite the review of hate crimes at the Justice Department and make grants available to help local law enforcement agencies improve their investigation, identification and reporting of incidents driven by bias, which often go underreported. It previously passed the Senate 94-1 in April after lawmakers reached a compromise.

The bill, which was approved in the Senate last month, is expected to pass in the House.

It would require the Justice Department to expedite reviews of hate crimes related to Covid-19 amid a spike in violence against Asian Americans.

The pictures always make it look so presidential.

The Senate has passed legislation to combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Chuck Schumer said the Senate would vote on the bill, the most concrete step Congress has taken to address hate crimes against Asian Americans.

The Senate has opened debate on legislation confronting the rise of potential hate crimes against Asian Americans.

A bill under consideration would try to make it easier to report and prosecute hate crimes against Asian Americans.

It's also spurring her and other Asian Americans to push for greater political influence in Washington and other power centers. President Joe Biden and his aides have been repeatedly pressed to include Asian Americans in his Cabinet. “I think symbolism and representation matters, but only up to a point,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “Those things all contribute to lower rates of political participation among Asian Americans, but people — mistakenly, I think — assume that Asian Americans are somehow less interested in U.S. civic life.”AdThat's evolving. “Asian Americans didn't necessarily grow up with that vocabulary of advocacy and how to fight for ourselves," Meng said.

"While we do not yet know motive, as I said last week, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing crisis of gender-based and anti-Asian violence that has long plagued our nation," Biden said in a statement. The endorsement also comes a day after a congressional hearing on violence against Asian Americans, the first in 34 years. Biden and several lawmakers and activists at the Thursday hearing pressed Congress to pass hate crime legislation introduced by Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, earlier this month. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, is seen during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, nominee to be Attorney General, on Monday, February 22, 2021. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

The assailants, when they were beating me up on the ground, they told me that they wanted to kill me," Kim told CBS News' Weijia Jiang. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are traveling to Atlanta Friday to meet with Asian American leaders after the deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area spas. It was the first congressional hearing on anti-Asian discrimination in more than 30 years. Representative Grace Meng of New York, the first vice-chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, fired back at Roy's remarks. Meng and other lawmakers want legislation to create a federal position to review all recent attacks on Asian Americans.

The assailants, when they were beating me up on the ground, they told me that they wanted to kill me," Kim told CBS News' Weijia Jiang. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are traveling to Atlanta Friday to meet with Asian American leaders after the deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area spas. It was the first congressional hearing on anti-Asian discrimination in more than 30 years. Representative Grace Meng of New York, the first vice-chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, fired back at Roy's remarks. Meng and other lawmakers want legislation to create a federal position to review all recent attacks on Asian Americans.

His comments were immediately criticized by other lawmakers at the hearing, but he responded in a statement afterward saying "I meant it." There are old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree," Roy said at the hearing on Thursday. Roy also railed against the "Chinese Communist Party" and suggested the hearing was trying to police "rhetoric in a free society." In a statement after the hearing, Roy defended his comments emphasizing that "more justice" was needed in race-related violence. Thursday's hearing was scheduled before a gunman opened fire at three Atlanta-area spas, killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent, dead.

A House Judiciary subcommittee is holding a hearing Thursday focused on the rise of violence and discrimination against Asian Americans. The hearing comes amid a spike in assaults on Asian Americans nationwide. How to watch House Judiciary Committee hearing on violence and discrimination against Asian Americans todayWhat : House Judiciary Committee holds hearing on violence and discrimination against Asian Americans: House Judiciary Committee holds hearing on violence and discrimination against Asian Americans Date: Thursday, March 18, 2021Thursday, March 18, 2021 Time: 10 a.m. On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday acknowledged that hate crimes against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic have "skyrocketed." Harris and Mr. Biden will also meet with Asian American community leaders during their trip to Atlanta on Friday, the White House confirmed to CBS News.

The Rise Up Against Asian Hate rally, organized by the Asian American Federation (AAF), took place at Foley Square in downtown Manhattan, two blocks from where a 36-year-old Asian man was stabbed on Thursday night. Noel Quintana, whose face was slashed in on the subway in early February, speaks at the Anti-Asian Hate Rally on Saturday, February 27, 2021. A full-time, dedicated bureau ... that patrol the streets, patrol the subways and keep the Asian community safe from harm." But these, and President Biden's executive order in February denouncing anti-Asian hate, are largely symbolic, and more concrete action is needed, activists say. Late last year, the NYPD established an Asian Hate Crimes Task Force.

Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to hold a press briefing Friday on the coronavirus pandemic as the state prepares to receive a Covid-19 vaccine that could be authorized and delivered in the coming days. Cuomo will be joined by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM). New York could receive the doses as soon as this weekend, Cuomo's office said in a press release Wednesday. Meanwhile, New York is weighing whether to impose restrictions on indoor dining if the state's hospitals continue to be overrun with Covid-19 patients. Cuomo said on Monday that if New York City's hospitalizations don't stabilize in five days, the state could close indoor dining in the city as soon as next week.

FILE - In this April 1, 2020, file photo, people walk past posters encouraging participation in the 2020 Census in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)ORLANDO, Fla. Halfway through the extended effort to count every U.S. resident, civil rights leaders worry that minority communities are falling behind in responding to the 2020 census. With the new coronavirus spreading, the Census Bureau suspended field operations in mid-March for a month and a half, including efforts to drop off census forms at households in rural areas with no traditional addresses. The Census Bureau on Thursday said it had finished dropping off the forms to almost all of the 6.8 million mostly rural households. We are risking another decreased count in 2020 census, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat from New York City, said Thursday during a conference call.

New York Congresswoman Grace Meng posted a selfie from her American Airlines flight from New York to Washington, D.C., on Twitter Friday morning as she headed out for the vote on the coronavirus stimulus bill. Airlines, industry officials and even health experts say flights are an essential service, for people and cargo, and need to continue during the crisis. Airlines have put in place stringent safeguards for those still flying, including supercharged cleaning, reduced in-flight service and the spacing out of passengers on flights. An American Airlines flight from New York JFK to Cancun, Mexico, last week had six passengers on a 172-seat plane. Across the three New York airports, the number of flights is down sharply.

New York Congresswoman Grace Meng posted a selfie from her American Airlines flight from New York to Washington, D.C., on Twitter Friday morning as she headed out for the vote on the coronavirus stimulus bill. Airlines, industry officials and even health experts say flights are an essential service, for people and cargo, and need to continue during the crisis. Airlines have put in place stringent safeguards for those still flying, including supercharged cleaning, reduced in-flight service and the spacing out of passengers on flights. An American Airlines flight from New York JFK to Cancun, Mexico, last week had six passengers on a 172-seat plane. Across the three New York airports, the number of flights is down sharply.

New York Congresswoman Grace Meng posted a selfie from her American Airlines flight from New York to Washington, D.C., on Twitter Friday morning as she headed out for the vote on the coronavirus stimulus bill. Airlines, industry officials and even health experts say flights are an essential service, for people and cargo, and need to continue during the crisis. Airlines have put in place stringent safeguards for those still flying, including supercharged cleaning, reduced in-flight service and the spacing out of passengers on flights. An American Airlines flight from New York JFK to Cancun, Mexico, last week had six passengers on a 172-seat plane. Across the three New York airports, the number of flights is down sharply.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images(CNN) - A Hindu priest was attacked in a Queens, New York, neighborhood this week, and a suspect was arrested in the case, a congresswoman said Saturday. "I commend the NYPD for making a swift arrest in this case and I'm confident that justice will be served. I stand with the Hindu community and wish the victim a full recovery," Rep. Grace Meng, D-New York, said in a statement. An NYPD spokesperson said the victim was taken to a hospital after being punched and hit with an object believed to be an umbrella. Investigators do not believe there is a hate crime component connected at this point, the second NYPD spokesperson said.