Biden declared ‘healthy’ and ‘vigorous’ after his first presidential physical
President Joe Biden’s personal physician said Friday he was a “healthy, vigorous, 78-year-old” who was fit to carry out his duties, after the president underwent a full medical evaluation and briefly transferred powers to the vice president so he could undergo a colonoscopy. Dr. Kevin O’Connor said Biden had developed a “more pronounced” tendency to cough and clear his throat during speaking engagements. After running tests, including those meant to detect 19 various respiratory viruses, O’Connor said the culprit was gastroesophageal reflux, or acid reflux. O’Connor also said Biden’s gait had become stiffer, which he said had been caused by age-related changes in the president’s spine.
Biden nominates two new Postal Service Board members
President Joe Biden on Friday nominated two people to the U.S. Postal Service’s board of governors, a move that could jeopardize Louis DeJoy’s position as postmaster general. Biden nominated Daniel Tangherlini, a former administrator of the General Services Administration during the Obama administration, and Derek Kan, a Republican business executive and former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration, to join the board. Biden chose Tangherlini and Kan to succeed members whose terms are ending and who have been close allies of DeJoy’s. Those two — board chair Ron Bloom, a Democrat, and John Barger, a Republican — were appointed by President Donald Trump.
Discussions of race are notably absent in trial of Arbery’s accused killers
When Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased through a Georgia neighborhood by three white men and shot at close range, his killing was widely viewed as an act of racial violence. One of the men uttered a racist slur moments after shooting Arbery, one of his co-defendants told authorities. One of the trucks the men were in had a vanity plate with a Confederate flag symbol. Yet, over 10 days of testimony in a south Georgia courtroom, jurors heard no discussion of race or allegations of bigotry. Prosecutors largely shied away from the issue, despite chances to ask about it as they presented their case.
In rare show of weakness, Modi bows to India’s farmers
Narendra Modi has dominated politics in India for seven years. But Friday, with a rare retreat, Modi said that his government would repeal three farm laws aimed at fixing the country’s struggling agricultural sector, in a surprise concession to yearlong protests by farmers worried that the overhauls would ruin their livelihoods. The government, he said in a televised address, “will begin the procedure at the Parliament session that begins this month.” The speech signaled that his standing has weakened amid a variety of problems, including a disastrous response to a second wave of the coronavirus and a struggling economy.
US warns allies of possible Russian incursion as troops amass near Ukraine
U.S. intelligence officials are warning allies that there is a short window of time to prevent Russia from taking military action in Ukraine, pushing European countries to work with the United States to develop a package of economic and military measures to deter Moscow, according to U.S. and European officials. Russia has not yet decided what it intends to do with the troops it has amassed near Ukraine, U.S. officials said. Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, traveled to Brussels this week to brief NATO ambassadors about U.S. intelligence on the situation. The United States has also been sharing intelligence with Ukraine.
FBI agents became CIA operatives in secret overseas prisons
In the torturous history of the U.S. government’s black sites, the FBI has long been portrayed as acting with a strong moral compass. Its agents, disgusted with the violence they saw at a secret CIA prison in Thailand, walked out, enabling the bureau to later deploy “clean teams” untainted by torture to interrogate the five men accused of conspiring in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But new information that emerged this week in the case undermines that narrative. The two intelligence agencies secretly arranged for nine FBI agents to temporarily become CIA operatives in the overseas prison network.
China’s influence looms over Blinken’s Africa visit
The reality of Washington’s global struggle with Beijing, the organizing principle of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, has shadowed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s debut trip to sub-Saharan Africa this week. In a speech in Abuja, Nigeria, on Friday, Blinken outlined the Biden administration’s vision for Africa, which he said must feature close cooperation to advance democracy, prevent pandemics and slow climate change. But in a message that both reflected an awareness of a regional power game with China and attempted to downplay it, he also said the U.S. would no longer treat Africa as a mere pawn in the global competition with other powers.
By wire sources
© 2021 The New York Times Company
