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New data has found Asian American voter turnout in Georgia has doubled from 2016 to 2020. The number of ballots cast by Asian Americans in Georgia also increased by around 60,000 votes in 2020. Asian Americans as a political force is so notable that Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is slated to host a rally for Asian Americans the weekend before the runoff election.
 

Republicans also made progress in state’s elections among Asian Americans. Herschel Walker was joined by former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley as they rallied Indian Americans in September. The Republican National Committee also opened an Asian American community center in Berkeley Lake last year where they held roundtables and celebrated Lunar New Year.   
 

Georgia state senator elect Nabilah Islam, who will be the first South Asian woman in the chamber, said of the election runoff, “We’re the only demographic group that keeps going up. So I’m confident that we’re going to be a huge voting bloc that will help deliver a win for Sen. Raphael Warnock.”

• Averie Bishop is the first Asian American woman to be crowned Miss Texas. Bishop will represent Texas in the upcoming Miss America competition. She has a J.D. from Southern Methodist University Law School and founded The Tulong Foundation, a non-profit providing aid and educational skills to children in the Philippines, with her mother, Marevi.

• Fresh mint for a new generation: Second-graders and other youth participated in an educational program and scavenger hunt for Anna May Wong quarters at the Chinese American Museum earlier this month. One parent commented on the experience saying, “What’s neat is simple things like this teach them about their heritage. I like that the coin is small enough that they can take it with them.” John Chu, branch chief of digital media and education outreach for the U.S. Mint, added that the quarters could be in circulation for 30 years with 500 million eventually being made.

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• ABC Cooking: Residents in San Francisco came out for the first “Asian and Black Community (ABC) Cookout” on Sunday. The event was led by organizations “Asians are Strong” and “Both Sides of the Conversation.” Katie Quan, an educator at the event, said, “A lot of it aims to start a conversation on how Asian and Black communities have worked together in the past. All the way from the 1800s to present.”    

• Dutiful Daughter Pt. 2: Kim Jong-Un has taken his daughter Ju Ae out for her second public appearance, this time to a meeting with a missile scientist. The nine or ten-year-old daughter is being called “beloved China” by North Korean state media. Experts speculate that it may be a sign of Kim priming a potential future successor.

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• Protests in China reach a new pitch: A journalist from the BBC was “beaten and kicked” by Chinese police amid protests regarding Covid-19 lockdown and the altering of World Cup footage by state media to avoid imagery of maskless crowds.

• Kris Wu sentenced: Chinese Canadian singer and former EXO member Kris Wu has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Chinese court. Wu was found guilty for rape and group sex. In a separate case, Wu was also charged approximately $83 million for tax evasion by the Beijing Municipal Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration. 

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• Squid Game star’s sexual misconduct: “Squid Game” star Oh Yeong-su, the 78-year old actor and Golden Globe winner who was the elderly character “Player 1” in the series, has been charged with sexual misconduct for an alleged inappropriate touching of a woman back in 2017. Oh has denied the allegations.

• Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, the largest in the world, has erupted for the first time in 38 years.
   
• Cosmopolitan magazine in South Korea is under fire for a cover shoot that seems to glamorize illicitly filming women, which has been a pervasive problem in the country.  
   
• WhatsApp is dismissing reports of an alleged data and phone number leak impacting around 3 million Hongkongers. 
   
• An 85-year-old Indian Tamil man burned himself to death in a protest against the government imposing the Hindi language. 
   
• Women in China are legally changing their sexist names and those that denote their parent’s preference for boys rather than a girl.