The BulleTin • Thursday, april 21, 2022 A13
U.S. to appeal order voiding travel mask mandate
BY MICHAEL BALSAMO AND
ZEKE MILLER
associated press
The Justice Department
is filing an appeal seeking to
overturn a judge’s order that
voided the federal mask man-
date on planes and trains and
in travel hubs, officials said
Wednesday.
The notice came minutes
after the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention asked
the Justice Department to
appeal the decision handed
down by a federal judge in
Florida earlier this week.
A notice of appeal was filed
in federal court in Tampa.
The CDC said in a state-
ment Wednesday that it is its
“continuing assessment that
at this time an order requir-
ing masking in the indoor
transportation corridor re-
mains necessary for the public
health.”
It remained unclear
whether the Biden adminis-
tration would ask the appeals
court to grant an emergency
stay to immediately reim-
pose the mask mandate on
public transit. An emergency
stay of the lower court’s rul-
ing would be a whiplash mo-
ment for travelers and transit
workers. Most airlines and
airports, many public transit
systems and even ride-shar-
ing company Uber lifted their
mask-wearing requirements
in the hours following Mon-
day’s ruling.
A federal judge in Flor-
ida struck down the national
mask mandate for mass transit
on Monday, leading airlines
and airports to swiftly repeal
their requirements that pas-
sengers wear face coverings.
The Transportation Security
Administration said Monday
that it would it will no longer
enforce the mask requirement.
The CDC had recently ex-
tended the mask mandate,
which was set to expire Mon-
day, until May 3 to allow more
time to study the BA.2 omi-
cron subvariant, which is now
responsible for the vast major-
ity of U.S. cases. But the court
ruling Monday had put that
decision on hold.
The CDC said it will con-
tinue to monitor public health
conditions to determine if
a mandate would remain
necessary. It said it believes
the mandate is “a lawful or-
der, well within CDC’s legal
authority to protect public
health.”
Justice Department spokes-
man Anthony Coley said
Wednesday night that the de-
partment was filing the appeal
“in light of today’s assessment
by the CDC that an order re-
quiring masking in the trans-
portation corridor remains
necessary to protect the public
health.”
Biden’s administration has
offered mixed messages in the
wake of the Monday ruling.
While officials said Americans
should heed the CDC’s guid-
ance even if it was no longer
a requirement, Biden himself
suggested they had more flex-
ibility on masking-up during
transit.
“That’s up to them,” Biden
declared during a Tuesday
visit to Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. The White House
nonetheless continues to re-
quire face coverings for those
traveling with him on Air
Force One, citing guidance
from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
White House press secre-
tary Jen Psaki said Wednesday
that Biden still is encourag-
ing Americans to wear masks
when traveling and that he
had been “answering the ques-
tion quite literally” a day be-
fore.
evan Vucci/ap
Passengers wait in line at the security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport on Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia. The
Justice Department is filing an appeal seeking to overturn a judge’s
order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and
in travel hubs. The notice came minutes after the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention asked the Justice Department to appeal the
decision handed down by a federal judge in Florida earlier this week.
“People are not legally
bound to wear masks,” she
said, after the court order. “So,
it is a point in time where it
is up to people — it is their
choice, in that regard.
War in Ukraine
Russia tightens noose on Mariupol as attacks intensify in the east
NABIH BULOS, LAURA KING
AND KATE LINTHICUM
los angeles Times
RUBIZHNE, Ukraine
— Russia tightened its grip
Wednesday around Ukraine’s
last stronghold in the besieged
port of Mariupol, whose des-
perate defenders, holed up in
underground shelters beneath
a massive steel plant, pleaded
for international help, declaring
that they were “probably facing
our last days, if not hours.”
Along hundreds of miles of
a scythe-shaped battlefront in
Ukraine’s east, the din of Rus-
sian bombardment echoed in
cities and towns, while Mos-
cow’s ground forces made a
series of what Ukrainian mil-
itary officials described as
probing attacks that did not
yield any substantial new terri-
torial gains.
With the war about to grind
into a ninth week and West-
ern powers racing to supply
Ukraine with heavier weap-
ons, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in
a video address to the nation
that nearly all of Russia’s com-
bat-ready forces were “con-
centrated on the territory of
our state” and just outside its
borders. Moscow, he said, was
deploying “almost everyone
and everything that is capable
of fighting.”
Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion
of its smaller neighbor has
triggered a refugee crisis on a
scale not seen in Europe since
World War II. The United Na-
tions’ refugee agency Wednes-
day put the the number who
have fled Ukraine at 5 million.
More than 7 million people
are internally displaced.
As the fighting’s ferocity has
increased — and in the weeks
since gruesome evidence
began emerging of Russian
atrocities against civilians in
the suburbs of Kyiv, the capi-
tal — diplomatic efforts have
floundered. On Wednesday,
Kremlin spokesman Dmi-
try Peskov blamed Ukraine
for the impasse, saying that
Moscow had sent Zelenskyy’s
government a draft document
Land Act
Continued from A1
Jermayne Tuckta, an archivist
at the Museum at Warm Springs,
finds irony in the numbers.
“It’s interesting that a lot of ru-
ral people would find this unfair
because they are the ones who
benefited from the Donation
Land Act the most,” said Tuckta,
a member of the Confederated
Tribes of Warm Springs.
Tuckta said the difference be-
tween rural and urban attitudes
could come down to which side
is more exposed to Native Amer-
ican issues on a daily basis. Peo-
ple in urban areas do not regu-
larly see the impacts of the Land
Donation Act on Native Ameri-
cans, he said.
“Those in the rural areas
probably often run into tribal
members who are looking for
places to gather edible roots,”
said Tuckta. “So people in ru-
ral areas are seeing first hand
alexei alexandrov/ap
Damaged and burned vehicles are seen at a destroyed part of the Illich Iron & Steel Works Metallurgical
Plant, as smoke rises from the Metallurgical Combine Azovstal during heavy fighting, in an area controlled
by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Monday.
with “absolutely clear” propos-
als and that Ukraine had not
responded.
“The ball is in their court,”
Peskov told reporters. In the
past, Ukraine has accused
Moscow of distorting what
was said in negotiations.The
capture of Mariupol, a port
city on the Sea of Azov that
has been nearly wiped off the
map by continuous Russian
bombardment, would be a sig-
nificant triumph for Russia.
In a message recorded deep
within a sprawling steelworks
plant where Ukrainian forces
and some frightened civil-
ians are holed up, a Ukrainian
commander said the defend-
ers were outnumbered 10 to 1
by Russian attackers.
“We are probably facing
our last days, if not hours,” the
officer, Serhiy Volnya of the
36th Marine Brigade, said in
the video, which was posted
on Facebook. He pleaded with
world leaders to arrange for
Ukrainian forces remaining
in the steel plant and its un-
derground tunnels to be evac-
uated and taken “to the terri-
tory of a third-party state.”
leo Correa/ap
Alexandra Kusminova pets her
cat, named Mouse, as she sits on
a bed settled in a restaurant that
was transformed into a shelter in
Dnipro, Ukraine, on Wednesday.
Russia has been dropping
heavy bombs on the steel
complex even as it issues re-
peated surrender demands,
promising that holdouts who
give up would be unharmed.
But previous ultimatums, on
Sunday and Tuesday, were ig-
nored by the Ukrainian side,
as was Wednesday’s. Ukraine
says a Mariupol hospital
where hundreds of civilians
had taken shelter was also tar-
geted Wednesday.
the cause and effects of what the
land donation act did.”
Tuckta said Native Americans
often ask permission from local
landowners to dig for roots on
private property, common sit-
uations that bring the two sides
in direct contact. Improving
relations between Native and
non-Native peoples may have
changed attitudes toward his-
toric events and policies, he said.
Now when tribal members
venture off the reservation in
search of edible roots they are
finding more hospitable land-
owners.
“When my grandmother
was younger, they would try to
gather the edible roots in the
Shaniko area. The landowners of
that generation weren’t as lenient
or nice toward tribal members,”
said Tuckta.
“But today that has changed.
This new generation of land-
owners are open, as long as they
know we are not out there leav-
Several thousand Ukrainian
troops, by the Russians’ esti-
mate, remained in the plant
and its labyrinth of tunnels
and bunkers spread out across
about 4 square miles. Zelen-
skyy said about 1,000 civilians
were also trapped there.
All told, more than 100,000
people were believed trapped
with little if any food, water,
medicine or heat in Mariupol,
which had a pre-war popula-
tion of over 400,000.
Officials have tried to ar-
range the evacuation of tens
of thousands of residents who
remain trapped in the city un-
der dire conditions, without
access to drinking water, food
or medical supplies.
Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s
deputy prime minister, said
that a plan to rescue civilians
from Mariupol via a humani-
tarian corridor “did not work
as planned” Wednesday and
that another attempt would be
made Thursday. “Due to the
lack of control over their own
military at the place, the occu-
piers were unable to ensure a
proper cease-fire,” she said of
Russia.
Bio Box
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ion research. To help obtain
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ing trash or anything and we
are just out there to gather our
roots.”
This generational change of
heart towards the needs of Na-
tive Americans is reflected in the
survey, said Tuckta.
█
Reporter: 541-617-7818,
mkohn@bendbulletin.com
Mariupol, a once-thriving
city of nearly half a million
people, now lies in ruins, with
three-quarters of its prewar
population either displaced
or dead. Still, it is considered
a strategic prize. Capturing it
would allow the creation of
a land corridor linking Rus-
sian-controlled parts of the
Donbas — Ukraine’s eastern
industrial heartland — to the
Crimean Peninsula, which
Moscow annexed eight years
ago.
While Russia was focusing
its “main effort” on captur-
ing Mariupol, the Ukrainian
military said Moscow’s forces
were also making repeated
thrusts in the eastern regions
of Donetsk and Luhansk,
which make up the Donbas.
Ten Russian ground attacks
were repulsed in the previous
24 hours, the military said in
an operational report early
Wednesday.
Since both sides declared
Monday that the war had
entered a new phase, Rus-
sian forces have captured
Kreminna, an eastern town
of about 18,000 people on the
front lines.
Nearby, the city of Rubizhne
was the site of intense artillery
fusillades.
Shelling had devastated
wide parts of the city, turning
Rubizhne into a landscape of
smashed, scorched buildings
and cratered boulevards.
Russian forces had report-
edly taken much of the city,
but on Wednesday, street bat-
tles were ongoing, with an
especially intense skirmish
around the train station.
Although some Western of-
ficials and analysts have ques-
tioned whether the Russian
offensive in the east was un-
derway in earnest, British mil-
itary intelligence said in a new
assessment that fighting in the
Donbas was growing in inten-
sity, with Russian forces seek-
ing to break through Ukrainian
defenses and disrupt supply
lines and troop redeployment
on the Ukrainian side.
“Russian attacks on cities
Levy
Continued from A1
The levy, if approved by
voters in the May 17 pri-
mary election, would pay
for improvements, such
as housing police and fire
operations under the same
roof, building an interview
room and a holding cell,
and providing covered
parking for police vehicles
to prevent cars from get-
ting buried in snow during
the winter.
“Both the police facil-
ities and the fire station
are not up to current stan-
dards, and they are not
buildings that are ade-
quate in the future,” said
Bill Hepburn, the chair of
the Sunriver Service Dis-
trict.
The levy would assess
47 cents per $1,000 of as-
sessed property value. It is
across Ukraine show their at-
tempt to try and disrupt the
movement of Ukrainian rein-
forcements and weaponry to
the east of the country,” the as-
sessment said.
Supply and reinforcement,
combined with serious mo-
rale problems, were key weak-
nesses in Russia’s drive to
capture Kyiv, an effort that
Moscow abandoned a month
ago. Analysts say those same
issues could beset Moscow’s
efforts in the east as well.
But vast tracts of open ter-
ritory and superior firepower
could favor the Russian push
in the east — the main rea-
son that Zelenskyy has been
making near-daily pleas for
more heavy weaponry from
the West.
“If we had access to all the
weapons we need, which our
partners have and which are
comparable to the weapons
used by the Russian Federa-
tion, we would have already
ended this war,” he said in his
address.
The United States, Canada
and Britain have promised
Ukraine more artillery, and
Norway is sending air-defense
missiles. In addition to new
sanctions on Russia that the
White House says are in the
works, President Joe Biden is
expected to announce a new
military aid package for Kyiv
in coming days.
Some allied countries, in-
cluding Germany, have been
name-checked by Ukrainian
officials as flagging in their
provision of armaments just
when the need is greatest.
Seemingly stung by the criti-
cism, German Foreign Min-
ister Annalena Baerbock on
Wednesday cited recent ship-
ments of anti-tank weapons
and Stinger anti-aircraft mis-
siles to Ukraine.
Baerbock, speaking at the
start of a visit to the three Bal-
tic states, said Germany was
also providing “other things
that we didn’t talk about in
public.”
█
difficult to determine an
average assessed value of
a home in Sunriver, Hep-
burn said — on his street
alone he said it fluctuates
between $290,000 and
$1.4 million.
Hepburn said someone
who owns a home with an
assessed value of $400,000
would pay $188 in the first
year of the levy.
The rest of the $18 mil-
lion project will be covered
by $3 million from ser-
vice district reserves and
$8 million in Deschutes
County transient room tax
revenue.
Hepburn said it is criti-
cal for the district to pass a
levy now versus five years
from now, because the $8
million from the county
helps keep the cost low for
Sunriver taxpayers.
“There is absolutely
no guarantee we would
— Information from The Associated
Press is included in this report.
be able to do something
like that again,” Hepburn
said, referring to receiv-
ing $8 million from De-
schutes County. “This is
a unique opportunity to
have the county funding
almost half the cost of the
project. That opportu-
nity may never come up
again.”
Hepburn said the ser-
vice district has yet to hear
any negative comments
about the levy since the
district began campaign-
ing for it last year, and the
secretary of state website
does not show any orga-
nized opposition groups to
the levy.
“We worked hard at
limiting the impact on the
Sunriver taxpayer, and I
think we’ve done it,” he
said.
█
Reporter: 541-633-2160,
bvisser@bendbulletin.com