“I don’t believe in it being taken seriously,” Durbin said in an interview about the charges. “I’m troubled by it because it’s so outrageous. It really tests the committee as to whether we’re going to be respectful in the way we treat this nominee.”
Durbin’s response — plus a heated reply from the White House — comes after Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Jackson’s decisions on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and as a district court judge in a series of tweets Wednesday, going so far as to say “her record endangers children.”
But the document on Jackson’s history shows the GOP is embracing that line of attack. It suggests that Jackson “routinely handed out light sentences but the lightest in all categories reviewed by Judiciary Republicans was in child pornography cases.” And Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) joined Hawley in tweeting about the issue, saying Republicans “need real answers.”
Democrats were quick to defend Jackson’s record. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates countered that in the “overwhelming majority of [Jackson’s] cases involving child sex crimes, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. Probation recommended.” He also noted that Jackson’s endorsements include law enforcement, conservative judges and survivors of crimes and that she is a mother.
Bates described the attacks as “toxic and weakly-presented misinformation that relies on taking cherry-picked elements of her record out of context — and it buckles under the lightest scrutiny.”
Durbin, meanwhile, highlighted that the Judiciary Committee approved her nomination three times with a bipartisan vote. He added that the cases Hawley tweeted about were decided unanimously by the U.S. Sentencing Commission and suggested the Missouri Republican took them out of context.
“It isn’t as if she was an outlier in any respect, and the commission is balanced between Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals,” Durbin said. “She went along with the overwhelming majority of federal judges asking for this and the unanimous decision of the commission. And Hawley now thinks he’s discovered something.”
Hawley states that, in a series of criminal cases that came before Jackson during her eight years on the district court in Washington, she sentenced child pornography offenders to prison sentences below what federal sentencing guidelines recommended. For more than a decade, criminal justice reform advocates and many federal judges have complained publicly that — in part due to advances in technology — those guidelines are too harsh in cases involving only receipt or sharing of child pornography materials.
Democrats widely view Jackson’s record as a public defender and her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as a selling point for her nomination, arguing that she brings a much-needed perspective to the high court. Republicans, however, are already signaling they’ll make her time as a public defender and on the commission a key focus in their line of questioning. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is also pushing for additional documents about Jackson’s time on the Commission.
Hawley shot back in a Thursday tweet that Bates’ answers were “juvenile histrionics” and lacking “substantive answers for the judicial record of a person they nominated.”
Later in the day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki escalated the rhetorical tussle by recalling Hawley’s 2017 hesitance to reveal whether he would vote for Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore, who had romantically pursued teenage girls.
“I’m not sure that someone who refused to tell people whether or not he would vote for Roy Moore is an effective and credible messenger on this,” Psaki told reporters. (Hawley urged Moore to drop out of the race unless he could prove the allegations of underage sexual contact were false.)
Once Jackson’s hearings begin, Republicans are also indicating they plan to ask Jackson about her representation of Guantanamo detainees as a public defender, as well as briefs she filed in private practice against former President George W. Bush’s detention policies.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview with conservative talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt that Jackson is “highly likely” to be confirmed. But he also suggested in his floor remarks Thursday that her record as a public defender will be a significant focal point.
“Her supporters look at her resume and deduce a special empathy for criminals,” McConnell said.
LVIV, Ukraine—Rescuers dug through the debris of a bombed theater in Mariupol where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians had sought shelter as Russian forces continued to shell the southern port city and other urban areas across the country.
The entrance to a bomb shelter under the theater in Mariupol was blocked when the building partially collapsed from a Russian airstrike late Wednesday night, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of military administration in the eastern region of Donetsk. Former governor Sergiy Taruta said on Thursday the shelter had remained intact and there were survivors.
Farmers use combines to harvest a wheat field in July 2021 near the village Tbilisskaya, Russia. Russia accounts for 30% of global wheat exports.
Vitaly Timkiv/AP
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Farmers use combines to harvest a wheat field in July 2021 near the village Tbilisskaya, Russia. Russia accounts for 30% of global wheat exports.
Vitaly Timkiv/AP
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation suspending normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, another move by Congress designed to squeeze Russia’s economy as its military continues assaulting Ukraine.
The U.S. currently extends “most favored nation” (MFN) status to all countries but two, North Korea and Cuba.
The White House backs the bill, sponsored by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. It gives President Biden authority to increase tariffs on products from the two countries through January 1, 2024. It also suspends Russia’s participation in the World Trade Organization. It indicates that the president can restore trade relations if Russia and Belarus cease all aggression against Ukraine, but establishes a process for Congress to block that if it disagrees.
“We must do everything in our power to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities it is committing hourly in the nation of Ukraine,” Neal said on the House floor.
Brady noted that there is bipartisan, bicameral support for the effort and that as a result, “American dollars will no longer fund Russia’s war machine.”
The only lawmaker born in Ukraine, Rep Victoria Spartz, R-Indiana, said the vote was sending a message to the two countries. She noted that the leadership of Belarus allowed Russia to place rockets in their country used to attack Ukraine and that Russia and its allies cannot expect “business as usual.”
“If they want to have peace it better be soon, and they better get to the table and stop this insanity in killing of the Ukrainian people,” Spartz said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he wants the Senate to take up the measure soon but has not specified a timeline for action.
A US citizen was killed in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv during what his sister said Thursday was an attack on civilians waiting in a bread line.
James Whitney Hill, 67, was identified by sister Cheryl Hill Gordon in a post on Facebook.
“My brother Jimmy Hill was killed yesterday in Chernihiv, Ukraine,” Cheryl Gordon wrote.
“He was waiting in a bread line with several other people when they were gunned down by Russian military [snipers]. His body was found in the street by the local police.”
The first American citizen killed in Ukraine was identified as Jimmy Hill.
“Ira and mom in next room. Not the Hilton but we are appreciative. Room service great. How do we tip?” Hill wrote on Facebook.Facebook/Jimmy Hill
A photo posted to Hill’s Facebook of where he was staying in Chernihiv.Facebook/Jimmy Hill
Hill also posted this photo of the millet dish he ate three times a day while under siege in Chernihiv.Facebook/Jimmy Hill
A photo from Hill’s Facebook of Chernihiv, Ukraine.Facebook/JimmyHill
Earlier Thursday, the US Embassy in Kyiv said Russian forces fatally shot 10 people in the attack, which Russia denied as a hoax.
In a brief phone interview, Gordon said another brother was notified of Hill’s slaying by the State Department.
Hill had been living in Ukraine and working as a teacher for the past 25 years. she said.
Rescuers carry the body of a person who was killed by shelling in Chernihiv.via REUTERS
He became romantically involved with a former student, Irina, who’s in her 40s and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about eight years ago, Gordon said.
The couple was in Chernihiv because “after two years of searching,” Hill found a hospital there with a doctor who “knew much more about MS than other doctors in the area,” she said.
“He finally got her into the hospital in January,” his sister said. “Once the war broke out, he made the decision to stay.”
A rescuer covers the body of a person who was killed by shelling in Chernihiv.via REUTERS
Hill “was actually trying to get her out of there, but Irina was in poor condition,” she said.
“She would have needed an ambulance to get her out and there was no way to get her out,” Gordon said.
“The hospital was running out of food, so he went out to food and that’s how he was killed.”
Hill had to return to the US periodically to satisfy Ukrainian visa requirements and he owned property in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park that his brother rented out as an Airbnb when Hill wasn’t there, Gordon said.
A satellite image shows the shelling damage in a residential area of Chernihiv.AP
On Tuesday, a friend, Karin Moseley, told Idaho TV station Local News 8 that Hill had been “thrust into literally the middle of hell” after traveling to Ukraine in December.
Gordon said she hadn’t spoken with Hill recently because he had difficulty charging his phone and getting service since the invasion, but was able to communicate with him through Facebook.
In a series of harrowing posts this week, Hill — who is survived by a son, Kai Troje Hill — described the deteriorating situation.
Desolate streets with bodies of victims in the shelled-out city.via REUTERS
“We are trapped in Chernihiv. They bomb here every night. People discouraged. Food shortages, gas, running water, some electricity..there is a siege here…” he wrote on Sunday.
“We are trying to come up with a plan. We need to get out of here. We want to take a family with children out with us. Its not safe here. But its not safe.”
On Monday, he wrote, “We are hanging in there…very coold inside. food portions are reduced..bombing and explosions most of the night..hard to sleep. People getting depressed.”
A residential building damaged by shelling.via REUTERS
“We could try a break out tomorrow but Ira’s mom doesnt want to. Each day people are killed trying to escape. But bombs falling here at night. Risk either way…I only have wifi a few hours a day.We have enough food for a few days..”
His two final posts came Tuesday, when he wrote, “Intense bombing!still alive. Limited food. Room very cold.”
“Not allowed to take photos. Spies throughout city. Bombing has intensified noway out,” he added.
Earlier, he blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for causing the deadly chaos and rued the day he was conceived.
A map shows the areas of Ukraine threatened by Russian forces.
“There is bad luck in this world and it’s falling down all over Ukraine and it’s people now,” he wrote on March 7.
“It’s nobodies fault except the psychos in the Kremlin, one man especially. His miserable existence is bad luck for everyone.”
Hill added: “Of all the millions of his father’s sperm to find his mom’s egg, he made it. Were condoms available in Russia 69 years ago?”
While the U.S. squandered blood and treasure in a morass of twin foreign conflicts, China went on with its business and reaped the benefits of America’s distraction.
Today though, China is slowly learning the hard way that it’s now too big, and too globally important, to remain effectively neutral in geopolitical conflicts.
As Russian troops lay siege to Ukrainian cities, China has tried to walk a tightrope: abstaining from condemnations of Moscow, maintaining trade with its neighbor, and professing a bland sympathy for the thousands of civilian deaths thus far.
But over the weekend, Washington revealed intelligence that appeared expressly designed to make China choose a side, telling reporters that Russia had requested Beijing’s material assistance in the Ukraine war effort through provision of unspecified economic and military assistance. A senior U.S. official said the Chinese government had “responded” to that request, but there are no details as to the nature of that response.
The administration’s dilemma is that China isn’t what it used to be a couple decades ago. It’s the world’s second largest economy and the origin point of countless global supply chains. Russia, despite its energy and banking sectors (and some oligarch’s expense accounts at Harrods), was relatively unimportant to the functioning of Western economies, making it relatively easier to sanction.
But China is a dominant player in everything from electrical appliances to shipping to solar panels, which could help it prevent a unified response on sanctions and certainly better endure any forthcoming economic punishment. Moreover, as Norway, South Korea, Lithuania and Australia know all too well, Beijing can inflict painful economic counterattacks when it feels threatened.
Thus far, however, China’s showed little evidence that it aims to fulfill Russia’s request for assistance.
“Without getting into details, I’m aware of instances in the last few weeks when China said no to Russian requests [for economic and military assistance] and I would hope that continues,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee member Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.). “The administration has been pretty clear that we would not hesitate to sanction Chinese entities that attempt to undermine the sanctions we have imposed on Russia.”
At least one Russian government agency has confirmed Malinowski’s assertion that China has denied recent Russian requests for assistance. The head of the Continuous Airworthiness Management Department at the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said last week that the Chinese government had declined to provide spareparts to Russian airlines, forcing them to turn to possible suppliers in Turkey or India.
But observers say that Russia’s possible drone acquisition efforts don’t necessarily reflect a recent effort to secure Chinese weaponry for deployment in Ukraine. And the U.S. allegation of that Russian request may more reflect U.S. diplomatic tactics rather than an impending Chinese hardware sale.
“It is very plausible that Russia is discussing with China the sale of drones and other types of equipment, but it’s most likely a long-standing negotiation that precedes war in Ukraine,” said Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “I think that the intelligence [about drone sales] is accurate, but it’s framed … as Russia kind of rushing to China for material help. It’s part of the diplomatic pressure tactics based on a kind of right intelligence, but curated.”
Others question the logic of a Russian request for military assistance from China. “I don’t really understand why it is convenient for Russia to use Chinese military aid rather than using its own resources and why it might be important for China, given its interests,” said Igor Denisov, senior research fellow at the Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies, Institute of International Relations at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s MGIMO University.
China’s interests — to maintain an equilibrium between its relationship with Russia without sacrificing economic and diplomatic links with the international community built over the past 50 years — would appear to preclude providing obvious military support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“China doesn’t want to be further implicated in Putin’s scorched earth campaign or to be strong-armed by the Americans into turning away from Russia mere weeks after the two leaders declared a partnership ‘without limits,’” said Danny Russel, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s statement last week that his government is “deeply concerned and grieved” by the invasion suggests that the optics of China’s relationship with a Russian army implicated in mass death of Ukrainian civilians are becoming too much for Beijing. And Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s statement Tuesday that “China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to become what it is today,” suggested a hint of buyer’s remorse for how the China-Russia alliance is playing out publicly while Russian troops shell Ukrainian maternity hospitals.
“I suspect the calculus in Beijing revolves around the question of how to provide support to Russia — if it was indeed requested — in ways that are less likely to be perceived as tied to the violence in Ukraine,” said Jason Kelly, assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College. “Chinese officials have been framing China’s position on the war in Ukraine as above the fray — an arms-length observer hoping for peace talks, de-escalation and a diplomatic settlement. It’s harder to maintain the credibility of that posture when you’re seen to be funneling supplies to the side that initiated the conflict and is pummeling its smaller neighbor.”
There are faint calls from Chinese foreign policy think tanks for a rethink of Xi Jinping’s alignment with Putin. Russia’s aggression is evoking near-universal revulsion across the globe: It’s rippling, if unevenly, through developing countries in Africa and Latin America, threatening to undermine Beijing’s soft power aspirations underwritten by billions of dollars for Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure investment program.
“China cannot be tied to Putin and needs to be cut off as soon as possible,” said Hu Wei, vice chair of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of China’s State Council in an opinion piece published March 5. Chinese censors have already deleted the Chinese-language version of Hu’s essay, Radio France International reported Wednesday.
Wang Huiyao, president of the Beijing-based think tank the Center for China and Globalization, suggested in a New York Times op-ed Sunday that China step up as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia to provide Putin “an offramp” from his current aggression.
But those opinions fly in the face of China’s lockstep alignment with Russia and their influence on Xi’s decision-making process is questionable at best.
The Chinese government won’t disclose whether it intends to materially aid the Kremlin’s wareffort, but it’s clear about its opposition to Western sanctions against Moscow — and their possible spillover impact. “China is not a party directly involved in the crisis, and it doesn’t want to be affected by sanctions even more. China has the right to safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights and interests,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno on Monday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao deflected questions Monday about China’s possible support for Russia by accusing the U.S. of “maliciously spreading disinformation targeting China.”
But getting China to adopt a more Western-aligned public position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — or even to quietly do the right thing — is a big ask.
If national security adviser Jake Sullivan went into his Monday meeting with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, to secure a commitment that China won’t circumvent sanctions against Russia, that effort failed. Sullivan conveyed “deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time, and … was direct about those concerns and the potential implications and consequences of certain actions,” a senior administration official said of the meeting. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price underscored that point later the same day by stating that the U.S. “will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses.”
It’s uncertain if Beijing is listening. China’s Foreign Ministry 669-word readout of the Sullivan-Yang meeting — which devoted three words to Ukraine (“the Ukraine issue”) and 332 words to Chinese concerns about the U.S. position on Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong — suggests Yang had different priorities.
The Biden administration is unambiguous that China risks damaging economic sanctions from the world’s largest economies if it opts to bolster Russia’s war effort.
“If China were to decide to be an economic provider [to Russia] … they only make up 15 to 20 percent of the world’s economy,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Monday. “The G7 countries make up more than 50 percent. So, there are a range of tools at our disposal in coordination with our European partners should we need to use them.”
That warning echoes one issued last week by Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, about the likely U.S. response if it discovers that China’s state-owned Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation is circumventing sanctions by selling high technology items, including chips, to Russia. “We could essentially shut SMIC down because we prevent them from using our equipment and our software. … It would be devastating to China’s ability to produce these chips,” Raimondo told the New York Times.
Psaki’s and Raimondo’s comments have caught Beijing’s attention. “The U.S.’ remarks reflect thinly-veiled bullying and intimidation and expose the ingrained Cold War zero-sum mentality and bloc confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao growled on Wednesday.
That likely reflects Beijing’s assessment that the impact of such sanctions would pummel the Chinese economy. “Since China is 10 times more engaged with the world economy than Russia, the economic dislocation in China will be enormous,” said Gary Hufbauer,former U.S. Treasury department deputy assistant secretary for international trade and investment.
“China is more [economically] integrated and that makes us more vulnerable [to countersanctions], but it also makes China more vulnerable than Russia, so I don’t think it would be wise for the Chinese to get into that game of chicken with us,” said Malinowski.
But there are questions regarding the degree of unity the U.S. might find in imposing impactful sanctions against China. That’s because China’s economic heft and its role as an indispensable export manufacturing center will inevitably impose serious pain on sanctioning countries.
“China has more to lose [than Russia], but I would also argue that I don’t think anybody will impose the same sanctions on China that they’re imposing on Russia, especially voluntary ones, like Inditex’s decision to leave Russia,” said Alicia García Herrero, senior fellow at the European think tank Bruegel. “I think that [the international community] will not be as united against China, which means that the sanctions will be weaker, which means the impact might be less.”
If the White House is worried about the impact of rising gas prices at home due to sanctions on Russian energy, it’s clearly aware that bottling China would have far more severe domestic effects. A powerful sanctions regime against China will require the U.S. and allies to bear significant economic hardship and possibly weather Chinese economic retaliation.
“It will be much more difficult to inflict ‘severe costs’ on the economic giant China than Russia. We cannot be effective unless we gain allied unity, especially Europe and Japan, and the American business community and people are willing to absorb pain,” former U.S. Ambassador to China Winston Lord said in a statement. “With those two prerequisites I think we could seriously hurt the Chinese economy, given its enormous reliance on the world economy.”
But Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says that the U.S. shouldn’t hesitate to wield its economic power to punish both Russia and China for assistance that harms Ukraine.
“The strongest deterrent is action. Authoritarians don’t listen to talk [so] we need to make a strategic assessment that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are one and the same and we need to start applying the same types of rules to both of them,” McCaul said. “We’re still the world’s largest economy, and I think we underestimate our own strength here [because] when we actually use our strength, it has serious repercussions for the PRC.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that he believes Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing numerous instances of attacks on civilians.
“President Biden said that, in his opinion, war crimes have been committed in Ukraine. Personally, I agree. Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime,” Blinken said during a press conference at the State Department.
“After all, the destruction of the past three weeks, I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise,” he added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that Biden was speaking from his heart about what he has seen on the news, which she described as “barbaric actions by a brutal dictator.”
She noted that there is a separate legal process underway at the State Department to determine whether Putin violated international law and committed war crimes.
The nation’s top diplomat described a laundry list of reports in which Russian forces targeted Ukrainian civilians.
“Russian forces bombed a theatre in Mariupol where hundreds of people had taken shelter. The word children had been written in Russian in giant white letters on the pavement outside the building so that you could know from the air that there were children inside,” Blinken explained.
“Russian forces also opened fire on 10 civilians who were waiting in line for bread,” he said, adding that the U.S. had so far observed a “long list of attacks on civilian and nonmilitary locations across Ukraine.”
Also on Wednesday, the UN’s top court ruled in favor of Ukraine and ordered Russia to immediately suspend its ongoing war. Russia has previously snubbed the International Court of Justice hearings on the matter.
LVIV, Ukraine—Civilians in Mariupol are bartering cigarettes for gasoline and melting snow for drinking water as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine intensifies in key regions across the country.
The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in Mariupol couldn’t be determined Thursday after Russian forces bombed a theater where they had been sheltering from fighting over the southern port city. People are digging through the debris of the collapsed theater building searching for survivors despite continuous shelling, the city council said. It didn’t say how many people had died or survived the bombing.
LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that many people in Russia were showing themselves to be “traitors” and pointed to those who were resigning from their jobs and leaving the country.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made the comments a day after President Vladimir Putin delivered a stark warning to Russian “traitors” who he said the West wanted to use as a “fifth column” to destroy the country. read more
“In such difficult times…many people show their true colours. Very many people are showing themselves, as we say in Russian, to be traitors,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
He was asked about Putin’s remark that Russia would undergo a natural and necessary “self-cleansing” as people were able to “distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors”.
Peskov said: “They vanish from our lives themselves. Some people are leaving their posts, some are leaving their active work life, some leave the country and move to other countries. That is how this cleansing happens.”
The Kremlin leader’s comments were welcomed in parliament by Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the nominally opposition Communist party that often backs Putin on important matters of policy.
“We need to defeat the fifth column that is entrenched inside and is ready to stab us in the back any minute,” he said. “All these troubles started in 1991 when (modern Russia’s first president Boris) Yeltsin with his clique sold and betrayed the country.”
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, seen here in a December 2020 file photo. Jha is the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
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Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, seen here in a December 2020 file photo. Jha is the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
Elise Amendola/AP
As the Biden administration pushes into the next phase of the COVID pandemic, there will be a new face for the government’s response. And it’s a familiar one. In a statement, President Biden announced Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, will serve as the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
“Dr. Jha is one of the leading public health experts in America, and a well known figure to many Americans from his wise and calming public presence,” Biden said, nodding to Jha’s ubiquitous presence on cable news (and the public radio airwaves) throughout the pandemic.
Jha replaces Jeff Zients, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, who brought private sector management experience to the massive challenge of ramping up a nationwide vaccination campaign at the start of a new administration. Zients and his deputy, Natalie Quillian, are both set to leave in April, the White House said.
Jha is an expert in disease research and public health policy
Jha is one of many outside advisers the White House consulted as it developed its roadmap for the next phase of the pandemic. He has been a proponent of using all available tools to help people return to the important things in life, like school and social interactions.
“No one thinks that the virus is going away,” Jha told NPR in an interview last month. “None of us think that we’ll never have another surge or another variant. So what’s the game plan so that we’re not caught off guard?”
And while he has been advising the White House, Jha has also been critical at times, for instance of how the administration has communicated with the public about shifting guidance. He thought it was a mistake last summer for the president to celebrate masks coming off in a way that made it seem like the pandemic was over and they would never need to come back. Of course, the delta wave soon followed.
Jha is a clear communicator, with a ready analogy. Like with masks, he says to think of them like a rain coat.
“You wear it when it’s raining. You take it off when it stops raining,” Jha told NPR.
“And if we think of masks in that way then, yeah, during surges, we should have masks. And everybody should be wearing them. And then when the surge ends, we should take off our masks,” he added.
I’ve been saying for weeks that as cases recede
We can soon relax public health restrictions
I think of this like the weather
When it is bucketing rain
Umbrella, rain coat, boots, are all essential
When the storm turns into a drizzle, those become less critical
In a statement released by Brown University, Jha said he was honored by the president’s invitation to join the administration. “To the American people, I promise I will be straightforward and clear in sharing what we know, in explaining what we don’t know and how we will learn more, and what the future will ask of all of us,” Jha said.
Being upfront about uncertainty is one of the best practices of public health communications.
Zients was COVID czar for 14 months
A White House official told NPR that Zients, who left a private equity firm to join the administration, had been trying to move on for some time, but COVID kept throwing curveballs.
“Jeff Zients has made contributions the country will never fully appreciate,” Andy Slavitt, a member of the COVID response team who left last year, wrote on Twitter. “When we arrived Jan 20, there were no vaccines, no at home tests, no distribution sites. No global commitment, no website & months since the last public briefing.”
In fact, there were vaccines, but not nearly enough of them and the distribution channels were imperfect at best. One of the early accomplishments of Zients and his team was to set up a pharmacy program, distributing doses directly to pharmacies to get shots in arms more quickly.
Much later, after being caught flatfooted by the omicron variant, the White House COVID response team aggressively moved to purchase and distribute at-home rapid COVID tests. Americans can now get eight tests shipped to their homes free of charge, via covidtests.gov. Zients also pushed to accelerate the production schedule of antiviral pills to treat COVID in high risk patients.
Biden’s pandemic policy turns a corner
The leadership shift comes as the administration moves into a new phase of its pandemic response, one that seeks to get more things back to normal after two years of crisis while staying vigilant for new variants and outbreaks.
That plan hit a road bump when the White House asked Congress for $22.5 billion in emergency spending to pay for it. Congress has thus far declined.
The White House said it will start to wind down a COVID-19 program that pays to test, treat and vaccinate people who don’t have health insurance and had to step back from plans to place another order for monoclonal antibody treatments.
High-profile cases pop up around Biden
According to a statement from the Irish embassy in Washington, the Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin tested positive for COVID Wednesday evening. His planned meeting with Biden at the White House was shifted to virtual.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Vice President Harris announced that second gentleman Douglas Emhoff had also tested positive. Harris had tested negative as of Tuesday’s announcement.
These are just the latest reminders that COVID is most certainly not over.
The new order, Biden said, would allow for the transfer of 800 antiaircraft missiles, 9,000 antitank rounds, 7,000 small arms and roughly 20 million rounds of ammunition.
In addition to sending its own equipment, the United States is helping coordinate donations from European countries. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is visiting Slovakia and Bulgaria this week in part to help with that effort.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, a senior defense official said that the United States was focusing on sending supplies quickly, and that the Pentagon would figure out how to replenish its stockpiles later. The official said the focus now was to make sure that the Ukrainians get the items quickly. The Ukrainian military needs easy-to-carry and easy-to-use defensive weapons to continue to stall the Russian advance. The Ukrainians will succeed, U.S. and European military experts said, if they can operate in small teams, strike assembled Russian forces, then melt away to set a new ambush later.
As part of the package, the Biden administration will provide Switchblade drones, according to people briefed on the plans. Military officials call the weapon, which is carried in a backpack, the “kamikaze drone” because it can be flown directly at a tank or a group of troops, and is destroyed when it hits the target and explodes.
“These were designed for U.S. Special Operations Command and are exactly the type of weapons systems that can have an immediate impact on the battlefield,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Bigger, armed drones, like U.S.-made Predators or Reapers, would be difficult for Ukrainians to fly and would be easily destroyed by Russian fighter planes. But former officials said small, portable kamikaze drones could prove to be a cost-effective way to destroy Russian armored convoys.
About 1,500 cars had managed to flee Mariupol on Wednesday, according to Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor. But, he said, an attack by Russia on the convoy left at least five wounded, including a child.
The new order, Biden said, would allow for the transfer of 800 antiaircraft missiles, 9,000 antitank rounds, 7,000 small arms and roughly 20 million rounds of ammunition.
In addition to sending its own equipment, the United States is helping coordinate donations from European countries. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is visiting Slovakia and Bulgaria this week in part to help with that effort.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, a senior defense official said that the United States was focusing on sending supplies quickly, and that the Pentagon would figure out how to replenish its stockpiles later. The official said the focus now was to make sure that the Ukrainians get the items quickly. The Ukrainian military needs easy-to-carry and easy-to-use defensive weapons to continue to stall the Russian advance. The Ukrainians will succeed, U.S. and European military experts said, if they can operate in small teams, strike assembled Russian forces, then melt away to set a new ambush later.
As part of the package, the Biden administration will provide Switchblade drones, according to people briefed on the plans. Military officials call the weapon, which is carried in a backpack, the “kamikaze drone” because it can be flown directly at a tank or a group of troops, and is destroyed when it hits the target and explodes.
“These were designed for U.S. Special Operations Command and are exactly the type of weapons systems that can have an immediate impact on the battlefield,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Bigger, armed drones, like U.S.-made Predators or Reapers, would be difficult for Ukrainians to fly and would be easily destroyed by Russian fighter planes. But former officials said small, portable kamikaze drones could prove to be a cost-effective way to destroy Russian armored convoys.
The head coach and six members of the University of the Southwest men’s and women’s golf teams were among nine people killed in a head-on vehicle crash in Texas, authorities said.
The crash occurred Tuesday night near Midland, Texas, and only two people aboard the college team’s van survived, according to a statement from the University of the Southwest in Hobbs, New Mexico.
The college confirmed that Tyler James, the head coach of both the men’s and women’s golf teams, was among those killed. The coach and his teams were returning home from a tournament in Midland when the crash occurred, according to the school’s statement.
“The USW campus community is shocked and saddened today as we mourn the loss of members of our university family,” school officials said in the statement to ABC affiliate station KMID in Midland.
The players who died were identified as Maurico Sanchez, 19, of Mexico; Travis Garcia, 19, of Pleasanton, Texas; Jackson Zinn, 22, of Westminster, Colorado; Karissa Raines, 21, of Fort Stockton, Texas; Laci Stone, 18, of Nocona, Texas; and Tiago Sousa, 18, of Portugal.
Two passengers in the team van who survived the wreck were in critical condition Wednesday at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, the school’s statement said. They were later identified as 19-year-old Dayton Price of Mississauga, Ontario, and Hayden Underhill, 20, of Amherstview, Ontario.
“We would ask for prayers for their recovery and for comfort and strength for all of families and friends and students of those whose lives have been lost,” school officials said in the statement.
Sgt. Steven Blanco of the Texas Department of Public Safety said the crash happened around 8:17 p.m. Tuesday on a two-lane road about nine miles east of Andrews, Texas, when the 17-seat passenger van carrying the golf teams collided with a pickup truck.
Two people in the pickup truck were killed, authorities said. They were identified as 38-year-old Henrich Siemens and an unnamed 13-year-old, both from Seminole, Texas.
A preliminary investigation indicates that the driver of the southbound pickup truck for unknown reasons veered into the northbound lanes, colliding with the van, the Department of Public Safety said Wednesday. The agency said both vehicles caught fire following the crash.
Blanco said the cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Texas Highway Patrol’s West Texas Region.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced Wednesday afternoon that it has sent to Texas an 11-member team, including accident reconstruction experts, to conduct an investigation of the crash in conjunction with the highway patrol.
NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss at a news conference said the speed limit in the area of the crash is 75 mph. Weiss said determining the speed of the vehicles when the collision occurred will be part of the investigation.
“It’s a very tragic scene. Very very tragic,” said Blanco, describing the crash when officers first arrived.
University officials confirmed that James was driving the vehicle when the collision happened.
James was in his first year as head coach of both the women’s and men’s golf teams, school officials said.
School officials said they were working Wednesday to notify the families of all those involved in the crash and to provide counseling and religious services to all students, faculty and staff on campus.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement Wednesday asking Texans to join in praying for the families of those whose lives were lost and for the recovery of two critically injured students.
“We grieve with the loved ones of the individuals whose lives were horrifically taken too soon in this fatal vehicle crash near Andrews last night,” Abbott said.
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