CNN anchor is no longer allowed to interview his governor bother; reaction on ‘The Five’
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is conveniently off the air this week, just as the “Cuomo Prime Time” host finds himself swept up in another scandal involving his brother, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The Albany-based Times Union newspaper reported late Wednesday that “high-level members” of New York’s Department of Health were directed by Andrew Cuomo and state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to “conduct prioritized coronavirus testing on the governor’s relatives as well as influential people with ties to the administration.”
“Members of Cuomo’s family including his brother, his mother and at least one of his sisters were also tested by top health department officials — some several times, the sources said,” according to the Times Union.
The “Cuomo Prime Time” anchor was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 31. As the paper noted, the diagnosis came “at a time when many members of the public struggled to obtain coronavirus tests.”
It is unclear, however, whether Chris Cuomo himself, CNN, or New York State taxpayers funded the test that showed the positive test results.
On Tuesday, the “Cuomo Prime Time” Twitter account reminded viewers the anchor would be off the air this week to be with his family and would return Monday.
Chris Cuomo previously told viewers he “obviously” could not cover his brother’s political woes — despite inviting the so-called “Luv Guv” onto his show for nearly a dozen chummy interviews in the early months of the pandemic. However, his primetime colleagues Anderson Cooper, who has also taken over Cuomo’s timeslot this week, and Don Lemon both avoided the bombshell report, which likely would have been breaking news on the far-left network if a Republican governor was knee-deep in such a scandal.
According to the Times Union, epidemiologist Dr. Eleanor Adams was sent to the CNN anchor’s residence in Long Island to test him. It is unclear if she was the one who administered his positive test results.
In addition, New York State Police troopers were reportedly ordered to drive the COVID tests, which were referred to as “critical samples,” to the Wadsworth Center laboratory in Albany.
A Cuomo administration official told the Albany paper, “It’s being a little bit distorted with like a devious intent. … We made sure to test people they believed were exposed.” The official added: “All of this was being done in good faith in an effort to trace the virus.”
A CNN spokesperson told the Washington Post, “We generally do not get involved in the medical decisions of our employees. However, it is not surprising in the earliest days of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, when Chris was showing symptoms and was concerned about possible spread, he turned to anyone he could for advice and assistance, as any human being would.”
CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Despite benefiting from priority treatment by the Cuomo administration, Chris Cuomo appeared to flout his own brother’s COVID restrictions by leaving his home as he was recovering from the virus. In April of last year, the anchor reportedly got in a verbal confrontation on the lawn of another property with a cyclist who called him out for violating the governor’s policies.
Andrew Cuomo is already under investigation after a senior adviser admitted to Democratic lawmakers that his administration covered up data on nursing home deaths during the pandemic. A separate investigation is examining allegations of sexual misconduct made against the governor by eight women.
“This latest North Korean missile launch is most likely a reaction to U.S. President Joe Biden’s downplaying and seeming to laugh off their weekend missile tests,” said Harry J. Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Washington-based Center for the National Interest. “The Kim regime, just like during the Trump years, will react to even the slightest of what they feel are any sort of loss of face or disparaging comments coming out of Washington.”
North Korea conducted its last major weapons tests in late 2017 when it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that it said was powerful enough to deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States. It then abstained from missile tests as its leader, Kim Jong-un, engaged in diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump. But after the Kim-Trump summit collapsed without a deal in Hanoi in February 2019, North Korea resumed a series of short-range ballistic missile tests from May 2019 until March of last year, when the tests were halted amid the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Trump dismissed those short-range tests, touting North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests as one of his biggest foreign policy achievements.
As details of the Biden administration’s new North Korea policy are made available in the coming weeks, North Korea is likely to resume raising tensions, analysts said.
Kim Jong-un “will keep it up through graduated escalation, culminating in an emphatic show of force,” potentially including the flight test of a new, bigger but untested ICBM that North Korea rolled out during a military parade last October, said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. At a party meeting in January, Mr. Kim vowed to further advance his country’s nuclear capabilities, declaring that it would build new solid-fuel ICBMs and make its nuclear warheads lighter and more precise.
Authorities on Wednesday night moved to close down a homeless encampment in Echo Park that has become a highly charged test of city leaders’ struggle to balance constituents’ demands for clean streets and public spaces with the ever-growing tragedy of people who have no homes.
Scores of police moved into the area, where they were met by more than 200 protesters who oppose the sweep. The Los Angeles Police Department repeatedly told protesters to leave, and by early Thursday morning, the crowd had dwindled and the protest had mostly wound down.
Just before 10 p.m., park rangers, flanked by LAPD officers, began taping notices of closure onto trees and light poles on the east side of the park, where homeless people have been camping throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The signs said the park closes Thursday and gave notice that all personal property must be removed from the park, “including, but not limited to, tents, chairs, tables, backpacks, bags, and personal items…”
City contractors protected by LAPD officers unloaded fence from flatbed trucks. Flood lights helped guide their work as they pounded the panels of fence into the ground. Once it was up, the workers unfurled green fabric and hung it along the fence.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said homeless residents inside the park will be allowed to stay there overnight but that no one else can enter. The encampment residents must leave within 24 hours, he added.
Some protesters saw that statement as a victory. “We won the night,” one organizer shouted.
“I live here and I consider tonight a victory,” added one resident of the camp.
Police just before 10:30 gave a dispersal order to the crowd through a loudspeaker from a white truck, officially declaring an “unlawful assembly.”
There were some clashes, with police seen shoving some protesters and some bottles and other objects thrown at officers. Police tried to push protesters back from the park but they refused to move.
At one point, a line of police officers in riot gear moved slowly along Glendale Boulevard at the edge of the lake, telling protesters to “Clear the area!”
The protesters, a mix of homeless people and activists who have taken up their cause, refused to budge, and chanted back: “Whose park? Our park!”
The crowd then began chanting, “Why are you in riot gear? I don’t see no riot here!”
By 12:30 a.m., the number of protesters had dwindled to about 40, watched over by several hundred police.
Some residents of the encampment were saying they would not leave. But others decided it was time to go.
Edward Juarez dismantled a tent on the east side of the park as dozens of officers massed across the street. Park rangers, accompanied by police, taped signs to trees that said Juarez and others who lived in the park had to clear out by 10:30 pm Thursday.
Juarez, who has lived in the park since August, said the tent belonged to a friend who’d been placed last week at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Juarez, a professional photographer who said he lost his livelihood when the pandemic shut down concerts and other nightlife events he worked, said he planned to stay the night somewhere else, maybe on Alvarado Street or at a friend’s house.
“I just want to get out of here, it’s getting crazy,” he said, nodding toward the officers wearing helmets and carrying batons across the street.
Juarez said police officers came to the park last week and said the city planned to clear the park, although they didn’t tell him when the sweep would happen.
“It’s what it is,” he said. “What else are you going to do?”
Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said the LAPD “was asked to support community safety efforts during installation of the fencing to assist in the rehabilitation of Echo Park. Department personnel are deployed in that area so that those efforts can begin in a safe and unimpeded manner.”
He added that homeless services providers would be back in the park Thursday to “work with the park’s unhoused residents to offer shelter and services to anyone who wants and needs the assistance.”
The SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition late Wednesday demanded the closure be postponed so residents “have the necessary time to meaningfully connect with service providers who are working tirelessly to serve them.”
As protests erupted on the west side of the park, senior officials with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority moved through the parks dimly lit and dead quiet eastern part. They sought out the 30-50 homeless people they estimate remain here.
They found one couple who jumped at the opportunity to go to a downtown hotel and quickly called them a Lyft.
“Let’s meet at their tent. We have to figure out what to do with their stuff,” LAHSA executive director Heidi Marston said to one of her colleagues as they waited for them to depart.
Marston was angry with how the park’s closure had been rolled out and communicated to homeless people. They need time and ample warning before something like this could take place, she said.
“It’s about setting expectations, being clear And giving them options,” Marston said. That wasn’t possible here, she said. The couple they got to a hotel were the only people who wanted to go tonight. She hoped more would go Thursday.
“If you’re gonna close the park be clear. It doesn’t mean we need take people by surprise,” she said.“It facilitates fear, chaos and it breaks the trust we built. It seems like it didn’t need to happen this way.”
The LAPD issued a statement urging “calm and cooperation as the installation of fencing in support of the Echo Park rehabilitation effort continues. Unfortunately officers have received projectiles and refusals from individuals blocking streets in the area.”
The department denied claims from some that officers used tear gas. “There is NO tear gas being used,” the department said on Twitter. None was evident.
While other large homeless encampments have been shut down with less fanfare, the future of the one at Echo Park is emerging as a flashpoint in the city’s struggle with homelessness.
Unlike in some previous sweeps, when the city has temporarily displaced homeless people to clean up an area, it is trying to move people from Echo Park permanently. To do that humanely, it is offering shelter through Project Roomkey, a state program that has reserved thousands of hotel rooms for homeless people.
Some residents of the camp have agreed to go. But others are vowing to stay and resist eviction. They argue that the park, nestled in a small canyon with a breathtaking view of the downtown skyline, has been elevated by the homeless residents and their allies as a place of beauty that gives those living there the dignity and safety they could not find on sidewalks and under freeways.
Park residents and their advocates, who held a protest Wednesday morning, argue that they have turned the encampment into a model, with a pantry, a garden and some effort among residents to coordinate cleaning.
“This park could have easily been MacArthur [Park] or skid row, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. That was because of us — not you,” one longtime resident, Ayman Ahmed, told O’Farrell. The 20-something Ahmed has become an unofficial spokesman for the encampment.
But the camp has drawn the ire of neighbors. And some city leaders argue they are not simply pushing people out but are offering them better accommodations.
“You define a sweep as moving someone indoors to a safe, clean environment where they will be provided free, healthy meals, receive medical care and a path to wellness, then you can call it what you want,” O’Farrell said later in the day. “Because this is what we are doing for everyone who has been there over the last several weeks or months.”
As the encampment grew last year to nearly 200 tents and covered nearly half the park, many residents of the surrounding hillsides demanded that O’Farrell do something about an intrusion of trash, drug use and crime in their neighborhood, which he represents.
O’Farrell has long said he would close the park and repair any damage, but he resisted requests to publicly commit to a timetable.
While outreach workers have been telling people in the park for weeks that they would eventually have to leave, the decision to act this week remained a tight secret until it leaked through unidentified sources to The Times and activists supporting the homeless encampments. The activists said O’Farrell hoped to keep the date quiet to avoid a backlash and that he obtained an opinion from City Attorney Mike Feuer that only 24 hours’ notice would be required to enforce the 10:30 p.m. park curfew.
Feuer’s office said it provided advice but would not say what the advice was.
A large homeless encampment on the banks of Echo Park Lake has emerged as a divisive flashpoint in Los Angeles’ crisis of how to treat the unhoused. Now the city is believed to be preparing to sweep the camp and close the surrounding park.
The campers and their advocates began a vigil Wednesday, anticipating that police would arrive at night or early in the morning to begin ticketing.
For the second consecutive day, volunteers from groups like Streetwatch and workers from nonprofits such as Urban Alchemy and PATH circulated in the park, recruiting campers to get on shuttle buses making the short trip downtown to three hotels at undisclosed locations.
Somewhat complicating matters on Wednesday, outreach workers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority were not allowed to enter the park.
“It’s for the safety of our teams. We’re worried about the protests,” said a LAHSA spokesman, Christopher Lee.
Leaders among those who declined the shelter said they expected from 20 to 50 people to defend what they believe is their right to live in the public park.
As tension over the expected sweep built during the week, Mayor Eric Garcetti took a back seat to the councilman from his former district, issuing a statement Tuesday that he was working with O’Farrell to ensure all people in the park are offered appropriate housing or shelter and are “given the opportunity to claim or store their property.”
More than 150 homeless people and activists massed in the park by 7 a.m. Wednesday to castigate the planned closure. Homeless people have been camping in the park since late 2019, but their numbers have grown substantially during the pandemic.
A homeless encampment at Echo Park Lake has become a symbolically fraught case study of the rights to public spaces
Since news of the park closure broke, O’Farrell’s office has been flooded with angry calls and emails. In the park, encampment residents mingled with the community and decried the city’s response to homelessness writ large.
The group marched to O’Farrell’s district office on Sunset Boulevard, a block away, where Ahmed argued that since parks are on public land, they should be used for the public good. He criticized the secrecy that accompanied the planned closure and informed people they’d be staying the night.
“Whoever can be here, please sleep over,” he said. “We need to tell Mitch this has got to stop.”
Once the speakers were finished, the group marched back to the park and planned to paper it with signs as they waited for the authorities to arrive.
The city is offering to move people from the encampment to hotel rooms it is renting temporarily under a state program, Project Roomkey. Ahmed spoke of it in dark terms, claiming without evidence that it was lining the pockets of elected officials and wasn’t helping people who need it the most. He said the closure of the park would only add to the problems of the people who have been staying there.
Ahmad Chapman, a spokesman for the homeless services agency, said that on Monday and Tuesday, outreach workers from the organization moved 44 people from the lake into hotels.
Throughout the morning Wednesday, buses ferried people to a downtown hotel, ultimately taking another 15 to 20 former park residents.
Homeless services workers have quietly expressed frustration about the speed and secrecy of the cleanup and closure plan. They have said it makes it harder to help their clients.
Several people phoned into a City Council meeting Wednesday to rail against the closure plan, including protesters dialing in from the Echo Park demonstration.
“Mitch, if you continue down this path, to sweep and displace unhoused residents of Echo Park Lake, there’s going to be an escalation that you are not prepared for,” warned Ricci Sergienko of the activist group People’s City Council, which has repeatedly staged protests outside the homes of council members.
Ahmed urged O’Farrell to work with the residents, arguing that they had worked to throw away trash and clean the area.
At the end of the meeting, O’Farrell complained that there had been “a concentrated and coordinated effort” to spread disinformation and disrupt efforts to get people into housing. The councilman said there had been months of effort to build relationships with people living in the park and get them into housing, ahead of “the temporary and necessary closure of the park facility so crews can begin extensive repairs.”
He denounced the idea that the encampment was somehow utopian or “commune-like,” citing a phrase in one Times article. “The park has, in fact, devolved into a dangerous, chaotic environment for all users,” O’Farrell said, noting that there had been four deaths there.
They met on a cold night, both taking refuge in the waiting room at Union Station, then upgraded to a tent in the homeless camp on the banks of Echo Park Lake.
Some of those at the park welcomed the prospect of a hotel room.
Slumped on the sidewalk on a street just north of the park, Clifford French, who had been staying in the park for four months, said he was excited to get a room. After arriving from Nevada and riding the buses and walking the streets for a week, he came to the lake after a friend told him it was a safe place to stay.
The 41-year-old said homelessness quickly becomes about surviving rather than thriving. The simple acts of keeping clean and staying fed consumed his time. French looked forward to a bed and being able to take a shower. He hoped the stability might give him the chance to look for a job or sign up for benefits. But still he wondered about the people who weren’t lucky enough to get a room.
“The park was a nice place to stay. I loved the sun, the fountain and the people,” he said. “It’s hard to know where these people will go.”
Times staff writer Emily Alpert Reyes, Dakota Smith and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
The launches came a day after U.S. and South Korean officials said the North fired short-range weapons presumed to be cruise missiles into its western sea over the weekend.
The negotiations over the North’s nuclear program faltered after the collapse of Kim Jong Un’s second summit with former President Donald Trump in February 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of their nuclear capabilities.
The North has so far ignored the Biden administration’s efforts to reach out, saying it won’t engage in meaningful talks unless Washington abandons its “hostile” policies.
Kim’s powerful sister last week berated the United States over its latest round of combined military exercises with South Korea that ended earlier this month, describing the drills as an invasion rehearsal and warned Washington to “refrain from causing a stink” if it wants to “sleep in peace” for the next four years.
Just hours after Thursday’s launches, South Korea Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong was to meet with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Seoul for discussions on North Korea and other regional issues. South Korea’s presidential office said it will hold an emergency National Security Council meeting to discuss the launches.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the North’s short-range tests on Sunday were its first missile firings since April 2020. President Joe Biden played down those launches, telling reporters, “There’s no new wrinkle in what they did.”
North Korea has a history of testing new U.S. administrations with missile launches and other provocations aimed at forcing the Americans back to the negotiating table.
Since Trump’s first meeting with Kim in Singapore in 2018, the North has not conducted nuclear or long-range missile tests, although analysts believe they have pressed ahead with their programs on both.
The North has continued short- and medium range missile testing during its suspension of nuclear and long-range tests, expanding its ability to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. bases there.
While Kim has vowed to strengthen his nuclear weapons program in recent speeches, he also tried to give the new U.S. administration an opening by saying that the fate of their relations depends on Washington.
During his visit to Seoul last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sternly criticized North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and human rights record and pressed China to use its “tremendous influence” to convince the North to denuclearize.
CNN anchor is no longer allowed to interview his governor bother; reaction on ‘The Five’
CNN anchorChris Cuomo reportedly received another benefit to being New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s brother beyond the ability to book him for chummy interviews in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Albany-based Times Union newspaper reported late Wednesday that “high-level members” of New York’s Department of Health were directed by Andrew Cuomo and state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to “conduct prioritized coronavirus testing on the governor’s relatives as well as influential people with ties to the administration.”
“Members of Cuomo’s family including his brother, his mother and at least one of his sisters were also tested by top health department officials — some several times, the sources said,” according to the Times Union.
The “Cuomo Prime Time” anchor was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 31. As the paper noted, the diagnosis came “at a time when many members of the public struggled to obtain coronavirus tests.”
It is unclear, however, whether Chris Cuomo himself, CNN, or New York State taxpayers funded the test that showed the positive test results.
According to the Times Union, epidemiologist Dr. Eleanor Adams was sent to the CNN anchor’s residence in Long Island to test him. It is unclear if she was the one who administered his positive test results.
State Police troopers were reportedly ordered to drive such COVID tests, which were referred to as “critical samples,” to the Wadsworth Center laboratory in Albany.
A Cuomo administration official told the Albany paper, “It’s being a little bit distorted with like a devious intent. … We made sure to test people they believed were exposed.” The official added: “All of this was being done in good faith in an effort to trace the virus.”
A CNN spokesperson told the Washington Post, “We generally do not get involved in the medical decisions of our employees. However, it is not surprising in the earliest days of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, when Chris was showing symptoms and was concerned about possible spread, he turned to anyone he could for advice and assistance, as any human being would.”
CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Despite benefiting from prioritized treatment by the Cuomo administration, Chris Cuomo appeared to flout his own brother’s COVID lockdown restrictions by leaving his home as he was recovering from the virus. In April of last year, the anchor reportedly got in a verbal confrontation on the lawn of another property with a cyclist who called him out for violating the governor’s policies.
The new reporting from the Times Union also revives scrutiny of the CNN star’s close ties to the top Democratic politician. After allowing Chris Cuomo to crack jokes and perform prop comedy with his older brother nearly a dozen times on “Cuomo Prime Time,” CNN recently announced that the anchor cannot cover the growing scandals plaguing the Cuomo administration, including a controversy surrounding nursing home deaths and multiple sexual misconduct allegations.
Before getting itself into a pickle by running aground in the Suez Canal, this unfortunate vessel drew one.
According to nautical tracking service VesselFinder, the massive Ever Given charted a route resemblant of a penis, testicles and an enormous butt in the Red Sea before it became stuck, causing an intercontinental traffic jam in the maritime artery.
As for the possibility that the vessel tracking site somehow conjured the data as a juvenile genital joke, “There is no room for some kind of conspiracies or false data,” a spokesperson for the site told Vice.
“Innocent, but terrible luck,” disinformation researcher John Scott-Railton captioned a tweet of the Ever Given’s watery, x-rated route.
The gigantic ship — which measures in at more than four football fields long and over 440 million pounds — became lodged in the Suez Canal when high winds and a dust storm turned it sideways on Tuesday. Previous to that, it was en route to the Netherlands from China. The way in which the ship became stuck was “the most awkward way possible,” Scott-Railton tweeted.
In this photo released by the Suez Canal Authority, a boat navigates in front of the cargo ship Ever Given on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, after it become wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal and blocked all traffic in the vital waterwayAP
“Ship in front of us ran aground while going through the canal and is now stuck sideways looks like we might be here for a little bit,” a person aboard another ship in the canal captioned an image of the Ever Given.
Multiple attempts to free it by small Egyptian vessels were unsuccessful, but crews were eventually able to partially free it on Wednesday.
While traffic appears to have now resumed, the situation was so bad that many familiar with the waterway feared it would be blocked for days — a major issue as it serves as a vital link between Africa and Asia and the main conduit for roughly 12 percent of global trade.
“After all day trying to refloat the mega container ship ‘Ever Given’, in the Suez Canal, there is a steady log jam of ships waiting in the Mediterranean & Red Sea and in the canal itself,” a sea traffic-follower observed on Tuesday.
In this photo released by the Suez Canal Authority, a boat navigates in front of the cargo ship Ever Given on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, after it become wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal and blocked all traffic in the vital waterway.AP
With the National Rifle Association, once the most powerful lobbying organization in the country, tied up in bankruptcy and spending more money on legal fees than on fighting the White House or Congress, Mr. Biden could have more room to maneuver.
Since the transition, Biden administration officials have met regularly with Mr. Feinblatt and other proponents of gun control to talk about what actions are possible that do not need cooperation from Congress.
The ideas they have discussed include the Federal Trade Commission evaluating gun ads for safety claims that are false or misleading, the Education Department promoting interventions that prevent students from gaining access to firearms and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being required to provide reliable data tracking gunshot injuries.
They have also discussed whether to declare gun violence a public health emergency — a move that would free up more funding that could be used to support community gun violence programs and enforcement of current laws.
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has funding to inspect the average gun dealer every five years,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a nonprofit group. “We have more gun dealers than Starbucks and McDonald’s.”
Designating gun violence as a public health crisis, Ms. Brown said, would make more money available that would allow for more regular inspections. That was one proposal, she said, that was shared with the Biden transition teams.
“We also discussed what can be done through agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services to incentivize the health care community to focus on preventive measures that can stop gun violence before it starts,” Ms. Brown said.
WASHINGTON – As the Biden administration grapples with the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children at the border, Vice President Kamala Harris will lead U.S. efforts to stem migration, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday.
Harris will work on establishing a partnership with Mexico and the northern triangle of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
“There’s no question that this is a challenging situation,” Harris said before meeting Wednesday with Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law, and that we also, because we can chew gum and walk at the same time, must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek.”
An increased number of children are being accepted into the USA, leading to overcrowding in short-term, jail-like facilities run by Customs and Border Protection. The Biden administration has struggled to move children quickly out of those facilities and into those run by HHS. By law, children are supposed to be moved out of CBP facilities within 72 hours.
As of Tuesday, HHS had 11,350 unaccompanied minors in its care.
Biden praised Harris Wednesday during the announcement, saying he “can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this.”
“When she speaks, she speaks for me, doesn’t have to check with me,” Biden said. “She knows what she’s doing, and I hope we can move this along.”
During an interview with “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday, Harris said the administration faces a “huge problem” at the border. Biden administration officials have avoided using the term “crisis.”
“It’s a huge problem. I’m not going to pretend it’s not. It’s a huge problem,” Harris said. “Are we looking at overcrowding at the border, particularly of these kids? Yes. Should these kids be in the custody of HHS … instead of the patrol? Yes. Should we be processing these cases faster? Yes.
“This is, however, not going to be solved overnight,” she said.
The Biden administration has faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill for its response to the situation at the border and a lack of media access to the holding facilities.
White House officials and members of Congress visited a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, on Wednesday. One network, NBC, accompanied the officials on their trip.
Tuesday, the Biden administration released photos and videos of CBP overflow facilities in Donna, Texas, and El Paso.
The administration contacted Mexico and Central American countries to discuss solutions to the increase of migrants.
This week, Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southwest border, traveled to meet with Mexican government officials to discuss the situation at the border.
Juan Gonzalez, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Western Hemisphere, and Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department’s northern triangle special envoy, traveled to Guatemala to meet with government officials and nongovernmental organizations to discuss how to address the “root causes of migration in the region and build a more hopeful future in the region.”
Migrant surges at the border are typical and happened in 2019 and 2014.
Many migrants were left in limbo under Trump administration policies such as Title 42, which is still in place, and the Migrant Protection Protocol, which forced migrants to wait in Mexico for their immigration hearings. Many of those migrants are trying to cross into the USA.
Spring is typically when the number of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexican border increases, as travel conditions are easier. Many migrants from Central American countries face political and economic turmoil in their countries, as well as gang violence.
Last year, two hurricanes displaced many in Central America, some of whom made the trek to the USA.
Two-thirds of Americans back tougher gun laws, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, but Republican support has fallen significantly as the issue takes on a stronger partisan cast than it did a few years ago.
In the poll, taken in the wake of two mass shootings in the span of a week, 65% overall say gun laws should be stricter – a sizable majority but one that has fallen by 7 percentage points from a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll taken in August 2019.
The 54% support among Republicans two years ago has plummeted to 35%. Democratic support has stayed about the same, now at 90%.
“This is much more about a shift in the Republican base, and their leadership, than about the issue itself,” Ipsos President Cliff Young says. “In these highly tribalized times, cues from leadership become especially important in how the public forms their stance around issues. The partisan cuing around gun reforms has changed among Republican leadership, and the Republican base has followed suit.”
The online poll of 1,005 adults, taken Tuesday and Wednesday, has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.5 points.
The double-digit decline in GOP support eases the political pressure on Republican officials to endorse new gun laws. The largest group of the party’s voters, a 44% plurality, say current gun laws are “about right.”
The findings underscore the rocky terrain ahead for two measures passed this month by the Democratic-controlled House to tighten background checks of gun buyers and to give the FBI more time to vet them. Even advocates acknowledge that prevailing in the evenly divided Senate – where 60 votes would be needed to break a filibuster and bring the proposals to a vote – seems a distant prospect.
That said, 61% of Americans say they want the Senate to pass the House bills, including Democrats by a wide margin. A bipartisan majority backed the legislation in 2019, but now Republicans are evenly split.
The survey was taken after a mass shooting last week killed eight people at three spas in the Atlanta area. Monday, another shooting killed 10 people, including a police officer, at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
In Washington, what has followed is familiar: Democrats demand tougher gun laws, and Republicans argue they would do little to stem the bloodshed. Opponents of stricter regulations have gone on high alert. “They want to TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS,” the Second Amendment Foundation warned in a fundraising email sent Tuesday morning, less than 18 hours after the Boulder shooting.
Even President Joe Biden, who has long advocated tougher gun laws, struck a note of caution after he declared Tuesday in somber remarks, “We have to act.” When a reporter asked if he had the political capital to do that, he replied, “I hope so” and raised his hand, his fingers crossed. He added, “I don’t know.”
The findings show some notable shifts since a similar USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll in August 2019, after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
Now 57% overall say loose gun laws bear at least some responsibility for mass shootings in the USA. That’s down 10 points from 2019. Among Republicans, the 51% majority who blamed loose gun laws in 2019 has been cut almost in half, to 27%. The views of Democrats, at 85%, haven’t significantly changed.
Republicans are much less likely to hold gun manufacturers and the NRA responsible, down 17 points to 20%. In contrast, three of four Democrats say gun manufacturers and the NRA are responsible. Overall, 73% place blame on the nation’s mental health system.
A string of mass shootings have left their imprint on Americans’ daily lives. Nearly one in four say they have felt unsafe in public spaces in the past few weeks, 8 points higher than two years ago.
Coloradans have created makeshift memorials after a mass shooting killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder on Monday.
People placed flowers, messages and other mementos atop a police car at the Boulder Police Department on Tuesday in remembrance of fallen Officer Eric Talley, 51, who was first to arrive at the scene of the shooting and was killed in the line of duty.
“Thank you #Boulder,” the Boulder Police Department tweeted Tuesday with a photo of the memorial. “Your kindness means more than we can say right now.”
Homer Talley, 74, described his son as a devoted father who “knew the Lord.” He had seven children, ages 7 to 20.
“We know where he is,” his father told The Associated Press from his ranch in central Texas. “He loved his family more than anything. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of putting them through it.”
The other dead ranged in age from 20 to 65. They were identified as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Adrienne Kroepsch of Golden, Colo., lights votive candles to place by crosses bearing the names of victims placed by the parking lot where a mass shooting took place in a King Soopers grocery store Tuesday, March 23, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
More Boulder residents erected a memorial on a fence near King Soopers on Tuesday to remember the 10 victims, according to local news outlet CBS 9.
About 100 people on Tuesday evening milled about at the memorial adorned with wreaths, candles, banners reading “#Boulderstrong” and 10 crosses with blue hearts and the victims’ names.
Louis Saxton, who was at the grocery store at the time of the shooting, brought his cello to the fence memorial to play music in honor of the victims, CBS 9 reported.
Louis Saxton plays his cello by a fence put up around the parking lot where a mass shooting took place in a King Soopers grocery store Tuesday, March 23, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
“It’s my happy place. I wanted to bring as much happiness as I can to a place of mourning,” he told the outlet.
Police on Tuesday identified Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, as the shooter, and charged him with 10 counts of murder.
The massive container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal, halting traffic in one of the world’s busiest waterways, is still stuck after little progress appeared to be made on Wednesday to dislodge the ship.
The ship, called the Ever Given, became horizontally wedged in the waterway following heavy winds. Multiple tugboats were sent to the scene to assist in the re-float operation, which can take days.
Around 4 p.m. ET a spokesperson from Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which is the technical manager of the vessel, said the ship was still aground with re-float efforts ongoing.
The enormous cargo carrier is more than 1,300 feet long and about 193 feet wide. It weighs more than 200,000 tons. One end of the ship was wedged into one side of the canal, with the other stretching nearly to the other bank.
The 120-mile long man-made waterway is a key point of global trade, connecting a steady flow of goods from East to West.
Everything from consumer products to machinery parts to oil flows through its waters.
Nearly 19,000 ships passed through the canal during 2020, for an average of 51.5 per day, according to the Suez Canal Authority. The ship was sailing from China to Rotterdam when it ran aground.
Satellite images showed a buildup of ships on either end of the waterway as the Ever Given halted the flow of traffic.
The accident comes as the global supply chain already struggles to keep apace with demand. The shortages have been most acute in the chip industry, forcing automakers to suspend operations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday appointed Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta as California attorney general, picking a leading advocate for criminal justice reform who has campaigned to abolish the death penalty and eliminate cash bail for many offenses.
If confirmed by the state Legislature, Bonta, a resident of Alameda, will be the first Filipino American to serve as California attorney general, having also set the milestone for the state Assembly when he was elected in 2012, representing a Bay Area district that includes the cities of Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro.
Newsom’s appointment fills a vacancy left by Xavier Becerra’s departure to become U.S. Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration after he was confirmed Thursday by the Senate.
“Rob represents what makes California great — our desire to take on righteous fights and reverse systematic injustices,” Newsom said Wednesday. “Growing up with parents steeped in social justice movements, Rob has become a national leader in the fight to repair our justice system and defend the rights of every Californian.”
Bonta, said he was humbled by the confidence placed in him by Newsom.
“I became a lawyer because I saw the law as the best way to make a positive difference for the most people, and it would be an honor of a lifetime to serve as the attorney for the people of this great state,” Bonta said in a statement. “As California’s attorney general, I will work tirelessly every day to ensure that every Californian who has been wronged can find justice and that every person is treated fairly under the law.”
Bonta’s appointment comes just days after a group of Asian and Pacific Islander leaders, including Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), called on the governor to appoint an attorney general who would address incidents in which Asian Americans have been targeted for racist attacks. Chiu, who supported Bonta for the job, raised the issue as he condemned an Atlanta-area shooting Tuesday in which a white gunman is accused of killing eight people including six women of Asian descent.
“Assemblymember Bonta’s legal, legislative and lived experiences make him the best choice to represent the diversity of this state,” said state Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), chairman of the eight-member Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, in a letter to Newsom last month that called the appointment “a major step towards the equitable representation of California’s fastest growing racial and ethnic groups, Asian Pacific Islanders.”
The governor is scheduled to make the announcement at the International Hotel Manilatown Center in San Francisco.
The appointment ends weeks of political wrangling by supporters of a dozen Democrats with interest in becoming the state’s top cop. Others with aspirations toward the job included Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, as well as county district attorneys and current and former judges.
Bonta, 49, was one of four names recommended for the job by the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.
The attorney general job comes with an annual salary of $182,189 and the position is next up for election in 2022.
With that race looming, Bonta will be calling on his skills as a prodigious political fundraiser. His reelection committee had $2.3 million in its most recent filing.
He has also shown loyalty to the governor, emerging in recent weeks as a leading voice against the threatened recall of Newsom.
Bonta, who is married and has three children, is the Assembly assistant majority leader and serves on committees overseeing spending, communications and health issues.
In the Legislature he has led efforts to change the state’s criminal justice system, including a bill now pending that would mostly eliminate cash bail for misdemeanors and many nonviolent, low-level felonies.
It is his second attempt on the issue. In 2018, Bonta was co-author of Senate Bill 10, which would have ended the money bail system to address equity issues in the criminal justice system by reducing incarceration of low-income people before trial. But the bail industry qualified a referendum on the measure and voters rejected the changes last year.
“The jailhouse door should not swing open and closed based on how much money someone has,” Bonta said when he introduced this year’s bill. “There is no disputing the present system wrongly treats people who are rich and guilty better than those who are poor and innocent. The status quo is indefensible and disproportionately impacts low-income Californians and communities of color.”
Last year, Bonta called for prosecutors to be required to recuse themselves from the investigation and prosecution of law enforcement misconduct if their election campaigns accept financial contributions from law enforcement unions.
“This is about trust in law enforcement and trust in the independence of our elected prosecutors,” he said.
Bonta also supported Newsom’s 2019 order for a moratorium on executions in California. That same year, Bonta co-authored Assembly Constitutional Amendment 12, which would have placed a measure on the state ballot to repeal the death penalty, although the bill did not advance.
“I believe the death penalty is wrong for California and I oppose it,” Bonta said at the time. “Not only is it inhumane and uncivilized, it is broken. The death penalty is fallible and, because it’s irreversible and final, there is no recourse when a mistake is made and innocent people are put to death.”
He also said capital punishment has a disparate impact on people of color, who he said “are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white.”
Bonta also voted last year to pass Assembly Bill 1506, a law that requires the state attorney general’s office to investigate police shootings that result in the death of an unarmed civilian.
As a lawmaker involved in worker protection bills, Bonta had support for the attorney general post from several labor groups including Teamsters Joint Council 42, Northern California Carpenters, the California Faculty Assn., United Teachers Los Angeles and the California Federation of Teachers.
“In Sacramento, he has fought to ensure all of our kids, regardless of their ZIP Code, get a fair start in school and in life, and that teachers and school workers have the tools to meet their students’ needs,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers.
Bonta was born in Quezon City in the Philippines, he said. His parents decided to move with him to California when he was 2 months old, acting ahead of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of martial law, he said in a biographical account.
Bonta’s parents worked as organizers for the United Farm Workers of America, and he recalls a childhood living in a trailer in La Paz in the Tehachapi Mountains outside Bakersfield, close to the home of César Chávez, the founder of the group, an experience that he said gave him a close-up view of the struggles of agricultural workers.
He said he was influenced by his father, who was also involved in the civil rights movement in the South.
Bonta received a law degree from Yale Law School after working his way through Yale College, where he captained the soccer team.
Before his election to the Assembly, Bonta was deputy city attorney for San Francisco, and also worked as a private attorney handling cases involving racial profiling and other mistreatment.
He also served as a director of the Alameda Health Care District and as vice mayor for the city of Alameda.
Other legislation introduced by Bonta has protected tenants from improper evictions, ended the use of for-profit, private prisons and set up the system of regulating cannabis after voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2016.
Bonta also has faced controversy while in the Legislature. In 2017 the assemblyman formed a foundation and solicited donations from interests with business at the Capitol. One of his foundation’s first contributions in 2018 was $25,000 provided to a nonprofit called Literacy Lab, where his wife was chief executive and earning a six-figure salary, CalMatters reported in February 2020. Ethics experts said that while such activities are not illegal, they should not be allowed.
The attorney general oversees the California Department of Justice, which has 4,500 attorneys, investigators, peace officers and other workers. As the state’s top lawyer, the attorney general advises state government on legal issues and defends the state in court when it faces litigation.
As the top law enforcement officer in the state, the attorney general assists local prosecutors and police agencies with criminal investigations, and prosecutes violations of state laws, including those protecting the environment, charities and gun safety.
The attorney general’s office also serves as a watchdog on police misconduct. Some critics of the criminal justice system have criticized Becerra for not being aggressive enough in investigating police agencies and officers accused of excessive force and other misconduct.
Those same criminal justice reform advocates had pressured Newsom to appoint someone who would act to reduce incarceration, reform or eliminate the bail system and hold law enforcement accountable on other issues.
Becerra, 63, was the first Latino attorney general in California. He was appointed as the state’s top cop in 2016 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to fill a vacancy when Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate.
As attorney general, Becerra was a leading litigator, challenging many of the former president‘s policies, having sued the Trump administration 123 times, including nine lawsuits filed on Trump’s last day in office that contested changes in environmental rules.
Republican lawmakers said Wednesday that they hoped Bonta would approach the job differently than his predecessor.
“The Golden State has many challenges and I hope our new attorney general focuses on what matters to everyday Californians — safe streets, protection from fraud, identity theft, and ensuring our civil rights are protected,” said Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita.
The next state attorney general is not expected to spend as much time in court challenging federal policy during the Biden administration.
The new selection represents the third high-profile political appointment made by Newsom in recent months.
In December, the governor appointed Secretary of State Alex Padilla as the first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate, filling the vacancy created when Sen. Kamala Harris was elected VIce president. That same month, Newsom appointed Assemblywoman Shirley Weber of San Diego as secretary of state, filling the vacancy caused by Padilla’s departure for Washington.
But Toomey, R-Pa., said Wednesday he couldn’t support Levine’s confirmation. He cited the high number of deaths in Pennsylvania nursing homes to the coronavirus.
“In Pennsylvania, the pandemic struck seniors in nursing homes disproportionately hard compared to other states. This was due in part to poor decisions and oversight by Dr. Levine and the Wolf administration,” Toomey said in a statement.
“Moreover, the commonwealth’s extended economic lockdown that Dr. Levine advocated for was excessive, arbitrary in nature, and has led to a slower recovery,” Toomey said. “While I appreciate Dr. Levine’s service and responsiveness to my office over the past year, she has not earned a promotion to help lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and I cannot support her confirmation.”
Levine led the Pennsylvania Health Department for years before leaving to take the post in the Biden administration. She gained a wide profile as Gov. Tom Wolf relied heavily on Levine in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly 25,000 deaths in Pennsylvania have been tied to COVID-19 and more than half of those deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, according to the health department.
Republican lawmakers have criticized Levine and Wolf’s administration for allowing some nursing home residents hospitalized due to COVID-19 to return to their own facilities to recover. Critics have said the Wolf administration’s guidance led to spikes of coronavirus cases in long-term care facilities.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., voted to confirm Levine.
Levine becomes the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
In recent months, Levine earned some criticism for the state’s rate of COVID-19 testing lagging behind other states. But she won praise for taking steps to stem the spread of the coronavirus and for her calm, measured manner in talking to the public about the pandemic.
Some lawmakers, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, have questioned Levine about gaps in data about cases in nursing homes, Spotlight PA reported.
Authorities have not yet released any information about a possible motive behind Monday’s shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, that left 10 people dead. The 21-year-old suspect has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who is from a Denver suburb, was booked into jail on murder charges Tuesday and was expected to make a first court appearance on Thursday.
The victims he is accused of killing were between the ages of 20 and 65. Among them was a Boulder police officer, 51-year-old Eric Talley, a father of seven children, who responded to the shooting.
The other victims were identified as Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; Rikki Olds, 25; Neven Stanisic, 23; Denny Stong, 20; and Jody Waters, 65.
At the White House, President Biden said another city has been “scarred by gun violence” and called on Congress to pass gun control measures. “I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling, the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones, who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what’s happened,” Mr. Biden said.
Mourners embrace on March 23, 2021, along a fence put up around the parking lot where a mass shooting took place at a King Soopers grocery store the day before, in Boulder, Colorado.
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