Biden scales back policy plans and blames GOP obstruction
President Joe Biden vowed Wednesday to pursue a scaled-back version of his marquee domestic policy plan as he mounted a defense of his first-year accomplishments and repeatedly blamed Republicans for abandoning any serious attempt to govern the country. In a news conference, Biden refused to accept criticism of how his administration has handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying that “we’ve done remarkably well.” Acknowledging that his $2.2 trillion social spending legislation will not pass the Senate in one piece, Biden said he would try to pass individual parts of the bigger bill in the Senate, where they might get more bipartisan support.
Biden will provide 400 million N95 masks for free starting next week
Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, Americans who have had a hard time getting their hands on masks and at-home tests are suddenly being showered with offers of freebies — courtesy of taxpayers and the Biden administration. On Wednesday, the administration announced that it would make 400 million nonsurgical N95 masks available free of charge at community health centers and retail pharmacies across the United States. The White House said there would be a limit of three masks per person. The news came a day after the administration rolled out covidtests.gov, its new website where Americans can order at-home coronavirus tests at no cost.
In rebuke to Trump, SCOTUS won’t block release of Jan. 6 files
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused a request from former President Donald Trump to block release of White House records concerning the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Only Justice Clarence Thomas noted a dissent. A special House committee investigating the attack sought the records from the National Archives, which gave both President Joe Biden and Trump the opportunity to object. Trump invoked executive privilege, a doctrine meant to protect the confidentiality of presidential communications, over some of the documents. Biden took a different view in October in declining to assert executive privilege over some of the materials. Trump had sued to block release of the documents.
Biden predicts Putin will invade Ukraine, but will regret it
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he now expected President Vladimir Putin of Russia would order an invasion of Ukraine. “Do I think he’ll test the West, test the United States and NATO, as significantly as he can? Yes, I think he will,” Biden told reporters during a nearly 2-hour-long news conference in the East Room of the White House. But, he said Putin will pay “a serious and dear price for it.” The president later acknowledged that Putin’s move might not amount to a full-scale invasion of the country.
Tonga faces weeks of digital darkness
Tonga’s sole undersea cable, and its connection to the world, was severed by a huge volcanic eruption on Saturday night, and the country now faces weeks of digital darkness as a repair ship prepares to make its way from Papua New Guinea. In the meantime, the only word about Tonga’s immediate needs after last week’s eruption and subsequent tsunami has come through the country’s few satellite phones. The Red Cross said Wednesday that drinking water supplies had been severely affected by ash and saltwater, and two New Zealand navy vessels were set to arrive Friday with large stores of water.
New research shows how health risks to children mount as temperatures rise
Hotter temperatures in late spring and summer were associated with higher rates of emergency room visits for children across the United States, researchers said Wednesday. The research adds to a growing body of evidence of the dangers that heat poses to vulnerable populations. Although children dissipate heat in the same way as adults, they suffer the effects differently, in part because of differing body surface areas, body fat composition and hydration. “We’ve run into trouble previously assuming that children are little adults,” said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at the Boston Children’s Hospital who was one of the paper’s authors.
In sewage, clues to omicron’s surge
As the highly contagious omicron variant pushes national coronavirus case numbers to record highs, public health officials are eagerly searching for an indication of how long this surge might last. The clues are emerging from an unlikely source: sewage. People who contract the coronavirus shed the virus in their stool, and the virus levels in local wastewater provide a strong, independent signal of how much is circulating in a given community. According to Biobot Analytics, a company tracking the coronavirus in wastewater in 183 communities across 25 states, viral levels have already begun to decline in many big cities but are still rising in smaller communities.
Declassified video shows fatal drone strike
Newly declassified surveillance footage provides additional insights about the final minutes and aftermath of a botched U.S. drone strike last year in Kabul, Afghanistan, showing how the military made a life-or-death decision based on imagery that was fuzzy, hard to interpret in real time and prone to confirmation bias. The strike Aug. 29 killed 10 innocent people in a tragic blunder that punctuated the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. The disclosure of the videos was a rare step by the U.S. military, and is the first time any footage from the Kabul strike has been seen publicly.
By wire sources