President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol on Friday. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks,’ Mr. Biden maintained. ‘We’re going to get it done.’ Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
“WASHINGTON—President Biden called on House Democrats to hold off on voting on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill until after they reach an agreement on a separate social-policy and climate bill, moving to again delay final passage of a central piece of his own agenda in a bid to unify restive Democrats.
Even as Mr. Biden endorsed progressives’ push to hold up a vote on the infrastructure bill, however, he acknowledged in a closed-door meeting with House Democrats on Friday that the price tag of the social-policy and climate bill would need to drop substantially below $3.5 trillion to closer to roughly $2 trillion, according to lawmakers and aides.
The infrastructure bill ‘ain’t going to happen until we reach an agreement on the next piece of legislation,’ Mr. Biden told House Democrats, according to a person familiar with his remarks. Exiting the meeting, Mr. Biden told reporters: ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks. We’re going to get it done.’
The House took up a short-term extension of existing transportation programs, instead of the infrastructure bill, passing it 365-51 on Friday night.
The presidential visit to Capitol Hill appeared to defuse, at least temporarily, a standoff between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party, who have feuded for weeks over Mr. Biden’s agenda.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The United States surpassed 700,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Friday, a milestone that few experts had anticipated months ago when vaccines became widely available to the American public.
An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months, a period in which the country has offered broad access to shots, were unvaccinated. The United States has had one of the highest recent death rates of any country with an ample supply of vaccines.
The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919, which killed about 675,000 people.” Read more at New York Times
“Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh has tested positive for the coronavirus, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said on Friday. She said the justice had been fully vaccinated since January and that he was not showing symptoms of the virus.” Read more at New York Times
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that the state will require all schoolchildren to get vaccinated against coronavirus in the coming year, setting the stage for the nation’s most sweeping vaccine mandate for young people.
The mandate will take effect gradually after the Food and Drug Administration gives full approval to a coronavirus vaccine for younger children. None have been authorized yet, even under emergency status, for children under the age of 12.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been authorized for emergency use for 12-to-15-year-olds, and has been fully approved for people 16 and older. The state said that it could begin requiring a coronavirus vaccine for students in grades 7 to 12 starting in July.
At that point, it will become part of the slate of vaccines California requires children to get before stepping into classrooms. It will apply to any student who wants to attend school — public or private — in-person.” Read more at Washington Post
“America came this close to herd immunity.
Last May, ‘we had enough vaccination and natural immunity to have basically almost achieved a population level of immunity,’ said Dr. Eric Topol. ‘We were getting down to fewer than 10,000 cases a day. We were looking good.’
Then the delta variant moved the goal posts.
With the original version of the virus that causes COVID-19, America's current vaccination rate of about 65% would have been enough to stop the spread.
‘If we were dealing with the original, we have sufficient vaccination such that the large-scale pandemic would be over in this country,’ said Dr. Joshua Schiffer, a physician and mathematical modeling expert who studies infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Unfortunately, the now-dominant delta strain is more than twice as contagious and requires more people to be immune through vaccination or previous infection for the virus to stop spreading, say experts.
‘Now we need 85 to 90% vaccinated against delta,’ said Topol, vice president for research at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and a national expert on the use of data in medical research.
It’s not an impossible number. In countries like Portugal, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, upwards of 80% of the total population are now vaccinated, and cases and deaths are falling.
That seems unlikely to happen in the United States, where only 55% of the total population is fully vaccinated, and 12% of Americans say are adamantly opposed to it.” Read more at USA Today
“Donald Trump, the former US president, has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to reinstate his account.
In July Trump sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, as well as their chief executives, alleging they unlawfully silence conservative viewpoints.
Trump’s request for a preliminary injunction against Twitter was filed late on Friday in Miami, claiming the social media company cancelled his account in January under pressure from his political rivals in Congress, the report by Bloomberg News said.
Twitter declined to comment. Trump’s representatives did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment outside business hours.
Trump lost his social media megaphone this year after the companies said he violated their policies against glorifying violence.
Hundreds of his supporters launched a deadly assault on the US Capitol on 6 January, after Trump in a speech repeated his false claims that his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.” Read more at The Guardian
“The Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation climbed in August at the quickest pace in 30 years, data released on Friday showed, keeping policymakers on edge as evidence mounts that rapidly rising prices are poised to last longer than practically any of them had expected earlier this year.
The numbers come at a pivotal moment, as inflationary warning signals abound. Used car prices show signs of picking up again,costs for raw goods like cotton and crude oil are increasing and companies continue to experience pain from persistent supply chain disruptions.
That is stoking fears in Washington and on Wall Street that although rapid price gains will eventually fade, the adjustment could drag on for months. A longer burst of inflation raises the chances that consumers will change their expectations and behavior, paving the way for more permanent price increases.
It is a high-stakes juncture for policymakers. The Fed is preparing to withdraw some of its support for the economy soon, but it would prefer to do so only gradually, given the millions of Americans who remain out of work. The White House is trying to pass two big policy packages at the core of President Biden’s economic agenda, and Republicans have begun wielding every new inflation data point as an argument against more federal spending.” Read more at New York Times
“A coalition of women’s groups plans to take to the streets in 660 communities nationwide on Saturday to rally for the right to an abortion, two days before the Supreme Court reconvenes in a session widely expected to overturn it.
‘It’s a break-glass moment for us,’ said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, which is leading the mobilization with numerous reproductive rights organizations.
Nearly five years ago, the Women’s March staged the nation’s largest one-day rally to protest the inauguration of then-president Donald Trump, with participants warning that his administration was the beginning of the end of abortion rights.” Read more at Boston Globe
“MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday announced he was retiring from politics and dropping plans to run for vice president in next year’s elections when his term ends, paving the way for his politician daughter to make a possible bid for the top post.
Speaking before reporters, Duterte said many Filipinos have expressed their opposition to his vice-presidential bid in surveys and public forums.
‘The overwhelming sentiment of the Filipino is that I’m not qualified, and it would be a violation of the constitution,’ Duterte said. ‘In obedience to the will of the people.’
‘I will follow what you wish and today I announce my retirement from politics,’ he added.
The 76-year-old leader, known for his deadly anti-drugs crackdown, brash rhetoric and unorthodox political style, earlier accepted the ruling party’s nomination for him to seek the vice presidency in the May 9 elections. The decision outraged many of his opponents, who have described him as a human rights calamity in an Asian bastion of democracy.” Read more at Washington Post
“The commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League resigned Friday night, hours after the league called off all of this weekend’s games, as the NWSL grapples with multiple reports of alleged abuse of players and claims that the league had failed to address allegations of sexual coercion by a male coach.
In a statement, the league said it had ‘received and accepted Lisa Baird’s resignation as its commissioner.’
Baird’s resignation follows the firing of two NWSL coaches in the space of a week after both faced abuse allegations. Former Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke was fired Tuesday following a league investigation into allegations of verbal and emotional abuse that were first reported in The Washington Post.
And on Thursday, North Carolina Courage coach Paul Riley was fired following a harrowing account of multiple allegations of sexual coercion published in the Athletic. Baird had been told of some of the allegations against Riley early this year, the Athletic reported, but declined a request from a player Riley allegedly abused to investigate him. (Riley denied the allegations to the Athletic.)
The revelations of alleged abuse, and of the league’s failures, prompted an outcry of anger from NWSL players and other prominent figures, with the player’s association calling for an end to ‘systematic abuse in the NWSL.’” Read more at Washington Post
“An Austin judge has issued default judgments against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, citing his pattern of bad faith in dealing with lawsuits by parents of two children killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
The rulings mean the lawsuits will proceed to a trial to determine how much money Jones and his InfoWars media system must pay the parents for defamation and emotional distress caused by broadcasts that called the school shooting a hoax.
It's no longer a matter of whether Jones writes a check to the parents, said Bill Ogden, a lawyer for the parents. ‘It's now how big a check is it going to be.’
District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble said the rarely granted motion for a default judgment was appropriate because prior sanctions, including $150,000 in court-ordered penalties, failed to change Jones' behavior.” Read more at USA Today
“The law enforcement officers described what they could offer the Oath Keepers:
‘I have a wide variety of law enforcement experience, including undercover operations, surveillance and SWAT,’ one wrote on the membership application.
‘Communications, Weapons, K9 Officer for local Sheriffs office 12 years to present,’ wrote another.
‘I am currently working as a deputy sheriff in Texas,’ typed a third.
These men, who had sworn to uphold the law, were signing up to join an armed, extremist, anti-government group.
The Oath Keepers trade in conspiracy theories and wild interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. Its members have been involved in armed standoffs with the federal government. Some face charges in connection with their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The statements are part of a massive trove of data hacked from the Oath Keepers website. The data, some of which the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets made available to journalists, includes a file that appears to provide names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of almost 40,000 members.
A search of that list revealed more than 200 people who identified themselves as active or retired law enforcement officers when signing up. USA TODAY confirmed 20 of them are still serving, from Alabama to California. Another 20 have retired since joining the Oath Keepers.” Read more at USA Today
“Amid a record hot summer in large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, beset by devastating fires, floods and hurricanes, Antarctica was mired in a deep, deep freeze. That’s typically the case during the southernmost continent’s winter months, but 2021 was different.
The chill was exceptional, even for the coldest location on the planet.
The average temperature at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station between April and September, a frigid minus-78 degrees (minus-61 Celsius), was the coldest on record, dating back to 1957. This was 4.5 degrees lower than the most recent 30-year average.
While impressive and unexpected, scientists characterized this record as a mere blip and curiosity as both Antarctica and the planet continue to rapidly warm amid escalating extreme weather.” Read more at Washington Post
“The letter sounds passionate and personal.
It is motivated, the author explains, by a desire to ‘speak up for what is best for my kids.’ And it fervently conveys the author’s feelings to school leaders: ‘I do not believe little kids should be forced to wear masks, and I urge you to adopt a policy that allows parental choice on this matter for the upcoming school year.’
But the heartfelt appeal is not the product of a grass roots groundswell. Rather, it is a template drafted and circulated this week within a conservative network built on the scaffolding of the Koch fortune and the largesse of other GOP megadonors.
That makes the document, which was obtained by The Washington Post, the latest salvo in an inflamed debate over mask requirements in schools, which have become the epicenter of partisan battles over everything from gender identity to critical race theory. The political melee engulfing educators has complicated efforts to reopen schools safely during a new wave of the virus brought on by the highly transmissible delta variant.” Read more at Washington Post
“South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem on Friday posted a video trying to explain the circumstances behind a controversial meeting she held with the head of an agency that had moved to deny her daughter’s application to become a certified real estate appraiser.
Noem (R) published the video days after dismissing reports about the meeting — which has prompted allegations of abuse of power and a review by the state’s Republican attorney general — as a political attack on her family.
‘My daughter went through the exact same process that others did in South Dakota to become an appraiser,’ Noem tweeted Friday. ‘She was treated no different. And I never asked for her to get special treatment.’
In the tweet, Noem linked to a nearly three-minute YouTube video she had filmed, titled ‘The Facts on South Dakota Appraiser Certification,’ in which she blasted ‘speculation and innuendo in the media’ and said that she had raised her daughter to accomplish things on her own.
Noem did acknowledge her administration had been ‘fixing’ the certification process to make it easier for people in South Dakota to become real estate appraisers, because the requirements were making it ‘way too difficult.’” Read more at Washington Post
“Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave an impassioned speech Friday on how Alaska’s growing coronavirus infection rate has strained the state in unforeseen ways, and she decried protesters comparing mask mandates to actions by the Nazis.
Addressing a relatively empty Senate chamber, Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that she had planned to return home this weekend but that most of the scheduled events and meetings had to be held virtually because of the virus.
‘We are leading the nation right now in our covid rates,’ Murkowski said, noting the drop in the Lower 48. ‘We’re separated enough geographically, but through the advantages of air travel and road travel, we mix, we mingle, we get around, and the virus knows no bounds.’” Read more at Washington Post
“The circuslike review of the 2020 vote commissioned by Arizona Republicans took another wild turn on Friday when veteran election experts charged that the very foundation of its findings — the results of a hand count of 2.1 million ballots — was based on numbers so unreliable that they appear to be guesswork rather than tabulations.
The organizers of the review ‘made up the numbers,’ the headline of the experts’ report reads.
The experts, a data analyst for the Arizona Republican Party and two retired executives of an election consulting firm in Boston, said in their report that workers for the investigators failed to count thousands of ballots in a pallet of 40 ballot-filled boxes delivered to them in the spring.
The final report by the Republican investigators concluded that President Biden actually won 99 more votes than were reported, and that former President Donald J. Trump tallied 261 fewer votes.
But given the large undercount found in just a sliver of the 2.1 million ballots, it would effectively be impossible for the Republican investigators to arrive at such precise numbers, the experts said.” Read more at New York Times
“New York this week gave the nation an early glimpse of what the Biden administration's 50-state vaccine mandate for health care workers might look like.
The Empire State's hospitals dismissed or suspended dozens of workers for failing to meet a Monday deadline requiring workers get at least their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Anticipating service disruptions from frontline health workers quitting or getting fired, health systems from New York City to upstate delayed non-emergency operations, cut clinic hours and paid travel nurses up to $200 an hour to fill vacant shifts.
The dismissals represented a small percentage of workers at large health systems. Most holdout employees got vaccinated in the days leading up to Monday’s deadline as Gov. Kathy Hochul touted a 92% immunization rate among hospital staff this week.
‘I’m not going to sugarcoat it – it’s certainly been difficult,’ said Bea Grause, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State.
Despite the short-term headaches, Grause said the mandate is critical "to put COVID-19 in the rearview mirror" and protect workers, patients and the communities they serve.
‘There’s no cheap, easy or quick fix to it, and we’re just going to have to problem solve as we move forward,’ she said.
'More and more jobs open'
President Joe Biden last month announced all hospitals that take Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement must vaccinate their workers. The agency that oversees those federal health programs has yet to announce details on when a national mandate will take effect.
While health leaders acknowledge and support mandatory vaccination, some worry workforce disruptions punctuate a widespread shortage of health care workers at hospitals and clinics nationwide. The number of health job openings swelled during the pandemic with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting 1.8 million health care openings as of July, up from 1.1 million open jobs in July 2020.
Staffing agencies that provide nurses and other temporary health care workers said requests from hospitals have surged during the pandemic. And once the Biden mandate kicks in for hospitals, requests for contract nurses are likely to go higher to fill vacancies amid a nationwide labor shortage.” Read more at USA Today
“UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations informed Ethiopia on Friday that it has no legal right to expel seven UN officials whom it accused of ‘meddling’ in the country’s affairs.
Ethiopia announced the expulsions on Thursday, giving the seven officials 72 hours to leave, as pressure grows on the government over its deadly blockade of the Tigray region where children are reportedly starving to death.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said a diplomatic note sent to Ethiopia’s UN Mission and conveyed to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during a phone call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday stated the UN’s ‘longstanding legal position’ that the doctrine of declaring someone ‘persona non grata’ — or unwelcome — does not apply to UN personnel.” Read more at Boston Globe
“SEOUL, South Korea — President Moon Jae-in and his Democratic Party in South Korea have spent months vowing to stamp out what they have called fake news in the media. But lawmakers had to postpone a vote on a new bill this week when they encountered a problem: no one can agree on exactly how to do it.
Moon’s party, which controls a majority in the parliament, submitted the bill in August, touting it as one of the last major reforms of his administration before his five-year term ends in May. The bill triggered an outcry from domestic media and international rights groups that warned it would discourage journalists from investigating corruption sandals and would have a chilling effect on press freedoms.” Read more at Boston Globe
“LONDON — In effort to restore public confidence after one of its officers raped and murdered a young woman, the London Metropolitan Police encouraged people to ‘shout’ or ‘wave down a bus’ if they encountered a lone police officer they don’t trust.
The measures, which are not unlike the ones police recommend for dealing with any dangerous situation, struck many as missing the point and once again putting the onus for safety on women rather than the men who commit the crimes.
‘Telling women to run if someone purporting to be a police officer tries to arrest them is not a solution,’ conservative lawmaker Caroline Nokes told Sky News, while Jess Phillips of the opposition Labour Party said simply that ‘the suggestion that somehow we have to change our behavior, once again, is a bit tiring.’
Britain is a society that prides itself in ‘policing by consent,’ the idea that police work on behalf of the public rather than the state and maintaining trust in that system is paramount.
But that confidence in the police was rocked after officer Wayne Couzens, 48, used his police identification to falsely arrested Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, on the pretext she broke COVID regulations last March. Later that night, he raped her, strangled her with his police belt, and burned her body.
On Thursday, Couzens was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole, a rare judgment that is usually only ever handed out to people who commit terrorist attacks or multiple murders.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Nearly 60 African migrants are believed to have drowned while trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands, the latest tragedy during a year when fatalities on this ocean crossing have more than doubled from the same period in 2020.” Read more at New York Times
“David Lee Roth has announced he will be retiring from music.
The former lead singer of rock band Van Halen, 66, revealed the news in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article Friday, saying he is ‘throwing in the shoes’ and stepping back from his prolific music career.
‘This is the first, and only, official announcement,’ Roth said over the phone in a conversation the outlet described as ‘more a spoken-word performance than interview.’ ‘You’ve got the news. Share it with the world.’
Roth added he is ‘not going to explain the statement’ and that his five upcoming shows at House of Blues Las Vegas will be his last.
Though Roth did not provide the reason for his retirement, his sudden announcement comes almost a year after Van Halen co-founder and guitarist Eddie Van Halen died from cancer at age 65.” Read more at USA Today