Washington lawmaker wears Star of David in vaccine protest

SEATTLE (AP) — A Washington state lawmaker is being criticized after wearing a yellow Star of David in protest of COVID-19 vaccine regulations. The Seattle Times reports that state Rep. Jim Walsh, a Republican from Aberdeen, wore the symbol during a speech to conservative activists at a Lacey church Saturday. Walsh later apologized. The display compared the government’s efforts to protect people from a highly contagious virus with the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. On a Facebook page where video of the speech was posted, Walsh wrote: “In the current context, we are all Jews.” A Seattle Holocaust-education leader called that absurd, saying it trivializes and distorts the genocide.