Hello, everyone! 

The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) launched the first-ever “National Strategy to Advance Equity, Justice and Opportunity for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) Communities.”

On Tuesday, a virtual event was hosted to release and discuss the latest strategy which comprises action plans from 32 federal agencies, including all 15 executive departments in the President’s Cabinet. Senior Biden-Harris Administration officials and national community leaders discussed issue areas highlighted in WHIAANHPI’s annual report as well as efforts to address anti-Asian hate, prioritize data disaggregation, promote language access, and ensure an equitable COVID-19 recovery. For instance, information from the federal government will now be accessible in different languages to help the AAPI community. The Internal Revenue Service developed landing pages on IRS.gov in 20 foreign languages, including Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog, Khmer, Japanese, Urdu, Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, and Punjabi.

Federal agencies have also begun working to provide greater funding to the AAPI community. In the last two years, the Small Business Administration has provided over $5 billion worth of loans to AAPI business owners. Federal spending from the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Agriculture on Hawaii and the Pacific Islands have also increased by over $80 million.

• First-generation Vietnamese American and Kwaidan Editions co-founder Hung La has launched Lu'u Dan, a brand that aims to break beyond the one-dimensional stereotypes around Asian men. The name Lu'u Dan is a colloquial Vietnamese term for “dangerous man.” The brand is influenced by Japan, Vietnam, and China, but La emphasizes that it is not offering a "pan-Asian" aesthetic. Its first collection is heavily autobiographical, drawing from La's love of easy and handsome sportswear, but future collections will explore different character archetypes. The brand also has a focus on community building and addressing the lack of strong Asian figures in the fashion industry. La says about the new collection, “After all this work for others and on [Kwaidan Editions], I felt like this was an opportunity to use my voice as a designer to put imagery forward that hopefully spoke to a younger generation of Asian children.”

• Republicans’ religious rumble: California GOP leader Harmeet Dhillon is fighting back against what she calls "bigoted attacks on my faith." Dhillon, a Sikh American and former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, is running against current Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel for her position. The election will be held Jan. 27. Dhillon has tweeted about threats she has received and bigoted attacks on her faith from McDaniel's supporters. Dhillon responded in a tweet declaring, “To be very clear, no amount of threats to me or my team, or bigoted attacks on my faith traceable directly to associates of the chair, will deter me from advancing positive change at the RNC, which includes new standards of accountability, transparency, integrity, and decency.” McDaniel has released a statement condemning religious bigotry and claiming that these attacks have no place in the party or politics. Republican leaders in Alabama deny that they have heard any accusations of a whisper campaign against Dhillon.

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• Art professor sues: Erika López Prater, a former adjunct art professor at Hamline University in Minnesota, is suing the university for dismissing her after a Muslim student objected to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a global art course. The lawsuit alleges that Hamline subjected her to religious discrimination, defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation. Lawyers for Prater said in a statement, “Among other things, Hamline, through its administration, has referred to Dr. López Prater’s actions as ‘undeniably Islamophobic.’ Comments like these, which have now been published in news stories around the globe, will follow Dr. López Prater throughout her career, potentially resulting in her inability to obtain a tenure track position at any institution of higher education.” The university has admitted to a "misstep" and plans to hold public conversations about academic freedom. The university also plans to hold public conversations in the coming months, one on academic freedom and student care and another on academic freedom and religion.

• India’s news crackdown: India's government has proposed a draft of IT rules that would prohibit social media platforms from hosting any information that it identifies as false. This is the latest move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to rein in big tech firms. The draft proposal states that any information identified as "fake or false" by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) or any other agency authorized for fact-checking by the government or "by its department in which such business is transacted," would be prohibited. Social media platforms or other "online intermediaries" would have to "make reasonable efforts" to ensure users do not "host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share" such information. The government had previously announced the setting up of a panel to hear complaints from users regarding content moderation decisions of social media firms. 

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• Rappler wins: Journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa was acquitted of tax evasion on Wednesday, a rare victory in her fight to keep publishing her news site Rappler, which has had run-ins with the Philippine authorities and become emblematic of the country's declining press freedoms. Had Ressa lost, she would have faced 34 years in prison if convicted. She had four charges against her, as did Rappler. This is the first high-profile test of whether the legal troubles facing Ressa and Rappler would continue under the Philippines’ new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has benefited from online disinformation and tried to play down the brutality of his father’s dictatorship decades ago.

• Hamada’s new helm: Former DC Films head Walter Hamada has launched his new production banner, 18hz Productions, and has made notable hires. Nathan Samdahl, a former Paramount executive who was instrumental in the making of the horror hit “Smile,” will serve as the company’s senior vice president, while Nick Romano has been appointed as creative executive. The company has signed an exclusive, multi-year production deal with Paramount to spearhead the studio’s mainstream horror movies, with the goal of releasing several low-to-mid-budget films per year across theaters and streaming. The company’s name reflects the focus on horror, 18hz being known as the ghost frequency, a sound that is known to provoke feelings of fear and paranoia.

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• “Scream” for a new tour: K-pop girl group Dreamcatcher has announced the dates and venues for the US leg of their upcoming “Reason: Makes Dreamcatcher 2023” tour. The tour will begin in Atlanta, Georgia in late February and will cover nine cities, including Washington, D.C, New York City, Chicago, Denver and more. The tour will end in Los Angeles in late March. This is the first time Dreamcatcher will perform in Washington, D.C., Irving, Texas and Oakland, California. Tickets will go on sale on Jan. 19 via Ticketmaster.

• Netflix dropped its trailer for “Once & Always,” a “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” reunion special in honor of the show’s 30th anniversary.  
   
• Lee Isaac Chung will direct an episode in the new season of “The Mandalorian.”
   
• K-pop boy group NCT 127 will host a virtual concert on Roblox. 
   
• “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and Adidas are teaming up for some new shoes. 
   
• Simu Liu will receive the Radius Award from the Canadian Academy of Cinema and Television.