Supporters mark one year since Arbery’s death

Savannah, Ga. — Family and friends walked in procession through the coastal subdivision where armed men chased and shot him in the street. Others joined his mother for a vigil at the rural church where he’s buried. Lawmakers paused to remember him at the Georgia state Capitol, and President Joe Biden offered thoughts on the slaying one year ago of Ahmaud Arbery.

When the 25-year-old was killed on Feb. 23, 2020, few outside this Georgia port city paid much attention at first. As three men await trial for murder, those closest to Arbery sought to make sure his death isn’t overlooked again.

“He isn’t going to rest in his grave until we get justice,” Marcus Arbery, Arbery’s father, said Tuesday evening as he and other family members led a group of about 100 supporters on a memorial march into the Satilla Shores subdivision.

Board leaders resign after deadly Texas power outages

Austin, Texas — Top board leaders of Texas’ embattled power grid operator said Tuesday they will resign following outrage over more than 4 million customers losing electricity last week during a deadly winter storm, including many whose frigid homes lacked heat for days in subfreezing temperatures.

The resignations are the first since the crisis began in Texas, and calls for wider firings remain in the aftermath of one of the worst power outages in U.S. history.

All of the four board directors who are stepping down, including Chairwoman Sally Talberg, live outside of Texas, which only intensified criticism of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The resignations are effective today — a day before Texas lawmakers are expected to sharply question grid managers and energy officials about the failures during hearings at the state Capitol.

A fifth board member also resigned, and a candidate for a director position who also does not live in Texas withdrew his name.

Tech firms: There’s little doubt Russia was behind hack

Washington (ap) — Leading technology companies said Tuesday that a months-long breach of corporate and government networks was so sophisticated, focused and labor-intensive that a nation had to be behind it, with all the evidence pointing to Russia.

In the first congressional hearing on the breach, representatives of technology companies involved in the response described a hack of almost breathtaking precision, ambition and scope. The perpetrators stealthily scooped up specific emails and documents on a target list from the U.S. and other countries.

“We haven’t seen this kind of sophistication matched with this kind of scale,” Microsoft President Brad Smith told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Forensic investigators have estimated that at least 1,000 highly skilled engineers would have been required to develop the code that hijacked widely used network software from Texas-based SolarWinds to deploy malware around the world through a security update.

Poet, publisher Ferlinghetti dies at 101

San Francisco (ap) — Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher, bookseller and activist who helped launch the Beat movement in the 1950s and embodied its curious and rebellious spirit well into the 21st century, has died at age 101.

Ferlinghetti, a San Francisco institution, died Monday at his home, his son Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said. A month shy of his 102nd birthday, Ferlinghetti died “in his own room,” holding the hands of his son and his son’s girlfriend, “as he took his last breath.” The cause of death was lung disease. Ferlinghetti had received the first dose of the COVID vaccine last week, his son said Tuesday.

Few poets of the past 60 years were so well known, or so influential. His books sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, a fantasy for virtually any of his peers, and he ran one of the world’s most famous and distinctive bookstores, City Lights. Although he never considered himself one of the Beats, he was a patron and soul mate and, for many, a lasting symbol — preaching a nobler and more ecstatic American dream.

Late gains reverse most of stock market’s early slide

A late-afternoon burst of buying on Wall Street helped reverse most of a stock market sell-off Tuesday, nudging the S&P 500 to its first gain after a five-day losing streak.

The benchmark index eked out a 0.1% gain after having been down more than 1.8% earlier. The Nasdaq lost 0.5% as technology stocks fell for a sixth straight day. The tech-heavy index had been down nearly 4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is less exposed to tech stocks than the two other indexes, managed to rise 0.1%.

Facebook, Disney, Netflix and other communications stocks helped drive the market’s comeback. Financial and energy companies also helped lift the market, outweighing losses in technology and other sectors. Bond yields held near their highest level in a year.

More policy, less pomp as Biden, Trudeau meet virtually

Washington (ap) — President Joe Biden’s first bilateral meeting with Canada’s Justin Trudeau since taking office was high on policy and low on pomp as the coronavirus forced the two leaders to convene virtually Tuesday rather than gathering with customary Oval Office fanfare.

The two leaders — Biden in the Roosevelt Room at the White House and Trudeau in the prime minister’s office in Ottawa — delivered friendly opening remarks in front of the media, with flags from both countries on display at both ends of the long-distance conversation.

“The United States has no closer friend, no closer friend, than Canada,” Biden said.

Mars rover’s giant parachute carried secret message

Cape Canaveral, Fla. (ap) — The huge parachute used by NASA’s Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle lover on the spacecraft team.

Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out “Dare Mighty Things” in the orange and white strips of the 70-foot (21-meter) parachute. He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission’s headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Clark, a crossword hobbyist, came up with the idea two years ago. Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was “super fun,” he said Tuesday.

Biden moves to reengage with Palestinians after Israel focus

Washington (ap) — The Biden administration is moving slowly but surely toward reengaging with the Palestinians after a near-total absence of official contact during former President Donald Trump’s four years in office.

As American officials plan steps to restore direct ties with the Palestinian leadership, Joe Biden’s national security team is taking steps to restore relations that had been severed while Trump pursued a Mideast policy focused largely around Israel, America’s closest partner in the region.

On Tuesday, for the second time in two days, Biden’s administration categorically embraced a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that Trump had been purposefully vague about while slashing aid to the Palestinians and taking steps to support Israel’s claims to land that the Palestinians want for an independent state.