“Medical experts are warning of another deadly pandemic winter as Covid-19 numbers tick up and flu season threatens. The US is back at a point where more than 2,000 people are dying of Covid-19 every day on average, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, about 12,000 to 50,000 Americans lose their lives to flu every year. The best way to avoid another devastating season, doctors say, is to get vaccinated for both. Meanwhile, parts of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, are coming out of long lockdowns and abandoning their ‘zero Covid’ strategies. Leaders want to revive their countries’ economies, especially their tourism sectors, but experts are worried that low vaccination rates in the region could spell disaster.” Read more at CNN
“The United States plans to send an additional 500 million COVID-19 vaccines around the world, increasing the total doses donated to other nations to more than 1.1 billion. President Joe Biden is expected to announce the commitment at a virtual world COVID summit he's hosting Wednesday. In a speech Tuesday at the United Nations, Biden called on world leaders to step up vaccination efforts and expand access to treatments. He touted the U.S. COVID global response, which includes an investment of more than $15 billion, as a ‘dose of hope.’ Among the items to be discussed Wednesday are ‘solving the oxygen crisis, and making tests, therapeutics and PPE more available,’ according to a White House statement.” Read more at USA Today
Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
“The climate crisis was front and center at the UN General Assembly yesterday. Chinese President Xi Jinping recorded a rare address to the UN body promising to halt coal projects, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country will present the Paris climate agreement to its parliament next month, and US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stressed further climate action during an Oval Office meeting. An array of international points of conflict were also addressed by the dozens of world leaders present, including nuclear arms in Iran, free and fair elections in Venezuela, and competition between the US and China. The Taliban have also requested representation at this week's meeting, a move that is expected to kick off a diplomatic battle with the preexisting Afghan envoy.” Read more at CNN
“Progressive Democrats have announced they will not vote for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill without passing the $3.5 trillion package that is aimed at enacting President Joe Biden's economic agenda. That vote is scheduled for next week, and as it stands, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose only a handful of votes to get anything passed. President Biden will increase his engagement with Congressional Democrats today, including a meeting with Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to try and get all the Democratic factions in line. Yesterday, the House also passed a bill to avoid a government shutdown and suspend the US debt limit. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, so the country is still approaching a possible shutdown and financial precipice in the coming weeks.” Read more at CNN
“Several recent revelations have shed light on then-President Trump and his supporters’ plans to subvert the Constitution and keep him in power after the 2020 election. These revelations are likely to be of high interest to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. For instance, a newly revealed memo shows a conservative lawyer working with Trump's legal team tried to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence that he could overturn the election results on January 6 when Congress counted the Electoral College votes. The six-step scheme, which included throwing out electors from seven states, was outlined in a two-page memo obtained by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa for their book, ‘Peril.’ The memo was then obtained by CNN.” Read more at CNN
“WASHINGTON — House Democrats are planning to introduce a package of proposed new limits on executive power, beginning a post-Trump push to strengthen checks on the presidency that they hope will compare to the overhauls that followed the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War.
Democrats have spent months negotiating with the Biden White House to refine a broad set of proposals that amount to a point-by-point rebuke of the ways that Donald Trump shattered norms over the course of his presidency. Democrats have compiled numerous bills into a package they call the Protecting Our Democracy Act.
The legislation would make it harder for presidents to offer or bestow pardons in situations that raise suspicion of corruption, refuse to respond to oversight subpoenas, spend or secretly freeze funds contrary to congressional appropriations, and fire inspectors general or retaliate against whistleblowers, among many other changes.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Former president Donald Trump has sued his niece, Mary L. Trump, and the New York Times over the publication of a 2018 article detailing allegations that he ‘participated in dubious tax schemes … including instances of outright fraud’ that allowed him to receive over $413 million from his father, Fred Trump Sr., while significantly reducing taxes.
The suit, filed in a Dutchess County, N.Y., court on Tuesday, alleges that Mary Trump, the New York Times and at least three of its reporters ‘engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records’ about the former president’s finances. According to the lawsuit, Donald Trump suffered at least $100 million in damages as a result of the alleged actions.
Trump, unlike every other major-party presidential nominee in recent history, has declined to make his tax records public.” Read more at Washington Post
“The United States will continue deportation flights to Haiti today as it seeks to repatriate nearly 15,000 migrants who have crossed into U.S. territory in recent days.
Videos of federal authorities mistreating the mostly Haitian migrants at a camp in Del Rio, Texas—a town on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border—have led to fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers and adds to a warning from the head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR that the deportations may violate international law.
The Biden administration appears to be betting on deterrence, hoping its quick action will stop more migrants from making the dangerous and expensive journey. The move could also be seen as hypocritical; just over 7 weeks ago, on Aug. 3, the Biden administration extended protected status to Haitian migrants in the United States, in light of what the Department of Homeland Security called a ‘deteriorating political crisis, violence, and a staggering increase in human rights abuses’ in their home country.
The rise of Title 42. The legal authority under which Biden has carried out the expulsion has also been called into question. Title 42, a Trump-era authorization implemented at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic to expel asylum seekers immediately on the grounds that they could spread disease, has been maintained by the Biden administration.
Last week, a federal judge blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the policy, a decision that is now being appealed by the U.S. government.
Amid a surge of migrants crossing into the United States this year, Title 42 has been applied regularly; figures from U.S. customs authorities show roughly 700,000 expulsions took place under the Biden administration to date, nearly twice the amount that took place under President Donald Trump.
A shut door. The rejection of migrants seeking asylum in safe countries is not just an American problem; the European Union has paid Turkey to take Europe-bound migrants on its behalf, while the United Kingdom is considering copying Australia’s policy, which involves processing asylum seekers in a third country.
Climate concerns. The dilution of the right to asylum comes as millions are expected to become refugees due to the extreme effects of climate change in the coming decades. UNHCR estimates that 20 million people are already forced to leave their homes annually because of climate change, although most remain within their own countries.
As part of a review of U.S. refugee policy, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has been tasked with presenting ‘options for protection and resettlement of individuals displaced directly or indirectly from climate change’ by October.
Even as it pursues a policy of deterrence at its borders, the Biden administration is taking steps to increase the number of refugees accepted into the country. Starting Oct. 1, the annual cap on U.S. refugee admissions will increase to 125,000 from the historic low of 15,000 set during the Trump administration.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Many Haitian migrants camped in the small Texas border city of Del Rio are being released in the United States, two U.S. officials told the Associated Press . The move undercuts the Biden administration's public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion. Haitians have been released on a ‘very, very large scale’ in recent days, according to one U.S. official. It comes despite the signaling of an effort to repatriate them on flights back to Haiti under a pandemic-related authority that denies migrants an opportunity to seek asylum. Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback chasing after migrants has led to widespread and strongly worded criticism from experts, former officials and lawmakers.” Read more at USA Today
“SAN JOSE, Calif.—An Arizona medical assistant testified Tuesday at the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes that she received two Theranos Inc. blood tests indicating she was miscarrying when she was in fact pregnant—results that her medical provider testified were unlike any she has ever seen in eight years of practice in women’s health.
After the erratic results that patient Brittany Gould received on the key pregnancy marker in October 2014, nurse practitioner Audra Zachman testified, ‘I felt very uncertain of the validity of the results and felt uncomfortable as a provider’ sending more patients to Theranos.
Ms. Gould is the first patient to take the stand, as the proceedings enter the third week of testimony. Prosecutors have so far called three former Theranos employees to help bolster their case that Ms. Holmes defrauded patients and investors by touting that Theranos had developed a revolutionary technology that could test for a range of health conditions using a few drops of blood from a finger prick.
Ms. Holmes has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The remains found at a campground near Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park are those of Gabby Petito, an autopsy confirmed Tuesday. The Teton County coroner initially ruled her death a homicide. However, the official cause of death ‘remains pending final autopsy results,’ the FBI said in a statement. Meanwhile, authorities continued to search a swampy Florida preserve area near the home of Petito's fiancé, Brian Laundrie, 23. Nothing of note was found at the Carlton Reserve and the search was expected to continue Wednesday. Laundrie has been labeled the sole person of interest in what began as a missing person case for Petito, 22.” Read more at USA Today
“Facebook's Oversight Board called on it to ‘commit to transparency’ in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report last week that millions of high-profile users get special treatment by content moderators.” Go deeper. Read more at Axios
“The Taliban government’s new faces. The Taliban announced new appointments to its interim government on Tuesday in a bid to project a more inclusive image after criticism over its level of diversity. The appointees, all men and in lower-level positions, represent a departure from the primarily Pashtun government established earlier this month, with one member of Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazara community named as a deputy health minister.
The Taliban also named Suhail Shaheen, a prominent spokesman, as its new U.N. representative, although it’s unlikely the United Nations will allow him to address the General Assembly instead of sitting Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai. Afghanistan’s representative is scheduled to deliver an address on Monday Sept. 27.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“China’s coal-powered future. China will end its financing of new coal power plants overseas, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Tuesday. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Xi said China would instead ‘step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy.’ Although it is welcome news for the planet, it is tempered by China’s own domestic plans, which involve dozens of new coal plants in the coming years as it heads toward a goal of peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Europe’s defense. EU leaders will discuss plans for a more coordinated defense posture in an upcoming summit in October, European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic told reporters on Tuesday. ‘I think that after Kabul, after AUKUS, this was, I would say the natural conclusion, that we need to focus more on the strategic autonomy,’ Sefcovic said, referring to the recent trilateral defense pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden will attempt to smooth over rocky relations with France in the wake of the AUKUS deal by speaking with President Emmanuel Macron over the phone in the coming days, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that the White House is still working on scheduling the call.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Germany’s election. As Germany goes to the polls on Sunday, the latest national poll points to a tight election and a new coalition government. The Social Democrats maintain their lead with 25 percent support, while the Christian Democrats gained a point from last week, reaching 22 percent support. Both the Social Democrats and Green Party have ruled out a coalition with the Christian Democrats, although that pledge is likely to be tested once final results are known. One promise that is more likely to be kept is one made by all leading parties to reject any coalition with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Two men in New Zealand have been charged with breaking strict lockdown protocols after police found a large cache of KFC chicken stashed in the trunk of the car the two were traveling in. The men are also suspected of gang membership after police seized $70,000 in cash from the pair.
Under Auckland’s level 4 lockdown restrictions, restaurants in the city remain closed for dining-in or delivery orders and only essential movements outside the home are allowed. Police say the men made the chicken run as part of a journey to Hamilton, 75 miles to the south, which is currently under a less severe level 2 lockdown.
The men are not the only intrepid New Zealanders to break the rules in order to get a fast-food fix. Police charged a 20-year-old Auckland man last week after he posted a Tiktok video leaving Auckland in search of McDonald’s. As of today, Auckland moves into level 3, meaning food delivery services are back up and running.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“San Jose State University will pay $1.6 million to 13 female student athletes who said that they had been sexually harassed by a former trainer.” Read more at New York Times
“Actor Willie Garson, who played Stanford Blatch, the beloved pal to Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City," has died. He was 57.” Read more at USA Today
Actor Willie Garson in 2017Invision/AP file photo; USA TODAY graphic
“Sarah Dash brought her church-rooted soprano and high harmonies to Labelle, the vocal trio best known for the 1974 No. 1 single ‘Lady Marmalade.’ Dash died at 76.” Read more at New York Times
“Is Boris Johnson heading for a winter of discontent?
The Shakespearean phrase is suddenly in vogue again as the U.K. prime minister juggles a toxic mix of surging energy prices, supply-chain disruptions, tax rises and the unwinding of pandemic support.
The winter in question was 1978-1979, when James Callaghan’s Labour government was beset by strikes causing power blackouts and garbage to pile in the streets. It’s been used as a stick by Conservatives to beat Labour with ever since.
Now, as the days draw in, Johnson’s Tories face their own set of challenges.
A U.S. trade deal that was billed as a key Brexit dividend looks a distant prospect after President Joe Biden downplayed its chances during a meeting with Johnson at the White House yesterday.
Domestically, soaring gas prices mean U.K. consumers will be hit by a 12% rise in bills next month at a time broader inflation is on the up. A dearth of truck drivers — worsened by a post-Brexit clampdown on immigration — is emptying shelves in supermarkets and bringing warnings of Christmas shortages.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is stuck with a record peacetime budget deficit, and his flagship furlough program and a temporary increase in social benefits that helped struggling Britons through the pandemic will end soon.
Still, Johnson was buoyed by a submarine deal with Australia and the U.S., and will host the COP26 climate summit in under six weeks. Even a high Covid caseload appears manageable, for now. He told Sky News yesterday that ‘Christmas is on.’
The question is whether any of this matters to an electorate seemingly in thrall to Johnson’s charms.
This winter will test if voter tolerance turns to anger.” — Alex Morales Read more at Bloomberg
This combination of two undated photos released by Guinness World Records on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, show sisters Umeno Sumiyama, left, and Koume Kodama at separate nursing homes in Shodoshima island, left, and Oita prefecture, Japan. The two Japanese twin sisters have been certified by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living identical twins, aged 107 years and 300 days as of Sept. 1, 2021, the organization said Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. (Guinness World Records via AP)
“TOKYO (AP) — Guinness World Records has certified two Japanese sisters as the world’s oldest living identical twins at 107, in an announcement Monday coinciding with Respect for the Aged Day, a national holiday in Japan.
Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama were born the third and fourth of 11 siblings on Shodoshima island in western Japan on Nov. 5, 1913.
They were separated after elementary school, when Kodama was sent to work as a maid in Oita on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu. She later married there, while Sumiyama remained on the island where they grew up and had her own family.
The sisters later recalled their difficult younger days. Growing up, they said they were bullied because of prejudice against children of multiple births in Japan.
Busy with their own lives for decades, the sisters rarely met until they turned 70, when they started making pilgrimages together to some of the 88 Shikoku temples and enjoyed being reconnected.
Sumiyama and Kodama were 107 years and 300 days old as of Sept 1, breaking the previous record set by famous Japanese sisters Kin Narita and Gin Kanie at 107 years and 175 days, Guinness World Records Ltd. said in a statement.” Read more at AP News
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