Relatives mourning outside a hospital mortuary last week in Delhi after seeing bodies of Covid-19 victims.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — “The White House, citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced Friday that it would begin restricting travel from India to the United States next week, a major new test of the Biden administration’s pandemic response.
The decision was one of the most significant steps yet taken by the White House in response to the crush of new infections in India, where over 3,000 people are dying each day as citizens gasp for air on the streets. The country recorded almost 400,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday alone.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the policy would go into effect on Tuesday. The travel restrictions will not apply to citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States, their spouses or minor children or siblings, or to the parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents who are under 21.
The surge of the virus in India has posed a new challenge for Mr. Biden’s pandemic response. President Donald J. Trump’s decision to issue restrictions on travel from China early in the pandemic followed days of fierce debate among national security and public health officials, and was heavily criticized by Democrats and public health experts, who worried that the decision would hinder the nascent global response to the new threat.” Read more at New York Times
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“A push among GOP-run state legislatures to limit voting access for people of color is kicking into high gear. Now Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is about to sign new voting restrictions into law.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / Patricia Mazzei and Nick Corasaniti
“The bill will make it more difficult to vote in Florida, with new restrictions on ballot boxes, absentee ballot signatures, and mail-in voting. Earlier versions of the bill would have outlawed mail ballot drop boxes altogether.” [Vox] Read more at US News / Alexa Lardieri
“Republican lawmakers say this is all to increase security and voter confidence. But Florida’s election ran smoothly in 2020, with no indications of widespread voter fraud or ballot impropriety.” [Vox] Read more at Brennan Center
“A lack of evidence hasn’t stopped GOP state legislatures from using claims and concerns around election fraud to cut down on the record turnout among minority populations that helped propel Democrats to victory in states like Georgia and Arizona. Georgia’s own law restricting voting passed in March.” [Vox] Read more at CNN / Dianne Gallagher, Wesley Bruer, Jade Gordon and Kelly Mena
“All told, 361 bills restricting voting have been introduced in 47 states, as of late March.” [Vox] Read more at CNN / Dianne Gallagher, Wesley Bruer, Jade Gordon and Kelly Mena
“Democrats in Florida are not mincing words. State Rep. Omari Hardy called the bill ‘the revival of Jim Crow in this state, whether the sponsors admit it or not.’ [Vox] Read more at The Hill / Lexi Lonas
“One of the nation’s largest states is taking on Big Tech.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign into law a bill that would prevent social media companies Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube from ‘deplatforming’ politicians like former President Donald Trump from their platforms.
The bill was approved Thursday by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
It orders social media companies to publish standards with detailed definitions of when someone would be censored or blocked and makes companies subject to as much as $250,000 daily fines for deplatforming a Florida candidate. The bill also requires a social media company to notify users within seven days that they could be censored, giving them time to correct the posting.
Republican lawmakers in Florida say legislation is needed to curb the influence the nation’s leading social media companies have over the national conversation.” Read more at USA Today
“The federal mask mandate for all transportation networks will be extended through September, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced Friday.
The mask requirement is for travel on airplanes, in airports, on buses and on rail systems. It went into effect in February with an expiration date of May 11, which has now been moved to Sept. 13.” Read more at The Hill
“President Biden is canceling projects to build a wall along the southern border using diverted defense funds and will use some funding to counter environmental damage from the wall's construction.
Then-President Trump had diverted billions in defense and military construction funds toward building the wall, using emergency powers after Congress refused to fully fund the project directly.” Read more at The Hill
“The FBI’s raids on Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office are a stunning reversal for a former law-and-order mayor and crusading federal prosecutor who perp-walked accused insider traders off Wall Street trading floors in the 1980s. Patricia Hurtado and Greg Farrell report that the investigation is being conducted by the same Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that Giuliani once led.” Read more at Bloomberg
Giuliani speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Nov. 19.
“Joshua Duggar, the eldest of the siblings featured in the hit TLC reality show ‘19 Kids and Counting,’ pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges in Arkansas on Friday, according to an indictment and court proceedings.
Mr. Duggar, 33, was arrested on Thursday in Springdale, where he lives with his wife and six children. According to prosecutors, in May 2019 he used the internet to download explicit material showing the sexual abuse of children, some younger than 12 years old.
Mr. Duggar was charged with one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography, the indictment says. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000 for each count, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas said in a statement.
On Friday, Mr. Duggar entered the not guilty plea during an online court hearing. He appeared from the detention center in Washington County, where he had been held since his arrest on Thursday, according to online detainee records. A detention hearing was set for Wednesday and his trial was scheduled for July 6.” Read more at New York Times
“Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, led Republican senators on Friday in protesting a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the legacy of American slavery, calling the guidance ‘divisive nonsense.’
In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, and three dozen other Republicans singled out a reference in the proposal to The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which was included as an example of a growing emphasis on teaching ‘the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society.’
‘Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it,’ the senators wrote. ‘Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil.’
It was the latest bid by Republicans to stoke outrage within their conservative base about President Biden’s agenda, which party leaders are increasingly portraying as a radical overreach into every corner of American life.” Read more at New York Times
“Russians Reject Vaccines as Kremlin Fears New Covid-19 Wave
Facing a rising wave of Covid-19 infections and a vaccination rate that isn’t keeping up, the Kremlin is trying to contain the epidemic without alarming Russians. As Evgenia Pismennaya and Jake Rudnitsky report, even insiders worry it won’t succeed, with unofficial government statistics showing a third wave has begun.” Read more at Bloomberg“Kamala Harris Confronts Border Crisis Worsened by Regional Feuds
Vice President Kamala Harris finds herself navigating strained relations with the leaders of Central American countries that have produced a surge of migrants to the U.S., vastly complicating her assignment to curb a growing humanitarian crisis on the southwest border, Jordan Fabian and Michael D McDonald report.” Read more at Bloomberg'“DECISION DAY — Saturday is the last day for many high school seniors to decide where they’ll spend the next four years of their education — many without even stepping foot on a college campus.
National headlines have highlighted acceptance rates going down, but that’s for the Ivy Leagues and top institutions in the U.S., said Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Because many of these schools made standardized tests optional, more students applied, thinking they may have a shot.
Yet the majority of schools are actually still looking for students, Pérez said. Spring undergraduate enrollment is down 5.9 percent compared to this time last year, according to research by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — a steeperdecline in undergraduate enrollment than occurred in fall 2020. Traditional college students, ages 18 to 20, saw the largest decline: 7.2 percent for the current semester compared to last year.
During summer 2020, pandemic-fueled uncertainty led some students to defer their freshman year. The concern was that these gap-year students would make it more difficult for this class to get accepted. That largely hasn’t been the case.
Pérez’s group releases an annual list of universities and colleges still looking for applicants. This year’s list has over 300 institutions so far, and it’s expected to grow. The group released it early after calls from concerned high school counselors and students.
This trend isn’t solely because of Covid. It’s the first edge of a demographic cliff coming in 2025 and 2026 when the country will have fewer high school students, Pérez said. The decline arrived early this year because high levels of unemployment and underemployment pulled a lot of families out of the collegepipeline. ‘We’re worried about, what will that look like this September?’ he said. ‘And will the students ever come back?’
Students exit the KSU Ice Arena after getting their Covid vaccine at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. | Getty
The numbers are even more alarming for community colleges, where enrollment nationwide has dropped 11.3 percent since this time last year, according to National Student Clearinghouse. It was down 9.5 percent last fall. The majority of community college students are older adults, and the responsibilities of work, child care and school were too much to handle.
At large public universities like North Carolina State University, the acceptance rate has been relatively stable, said Jon Westover, director of undergraduate admissions at N.C. State. Roughly 100 students deferred last year, and the schoolexpects a class size of 4,800 freshmen in September. It will accept 1,450 transfer students in the fall as well.
Applications from international students, particularly from China and India, were down 20 percent this year, Westover said. Class differences among students were also exacerbated as some families had to make difficult choices about how, or whether, to pay fortheir child’s education.
On top of everything else, Westover said universities can’t forget about the soon-to-be college sophomores who had their freshman year upended by the pandemic — a year that’s pivotal for retention.
The lingering questions for this fall’s incoming first-year students are overwhelming. Will this year be more normal? Will they be required to get vaccinated before enrolling? How is their mental health? Did their remote high school environment leave them less prepared for college courses? Did they make the right choice without even a campus visit?
Application readers had to go in with a different mindset — not comparing students to those they’d seen in years past. Students have been isolated at home. They missed out on standout opportunities and extracurriculars. Families lost jobs and loved ones.
‘This has been the most challenging year in my career,’ Westover said. ‘I started in admissions in 1998, and it just felt like everything was different this year.’” Read more at POLITICO