(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Friday announced the next list of recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords and actor Denzel Washington are among the 17 individuals chosen to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. The ceremony will take place at the White House on Thursday, July 7.
Late Sen. John McCain, a Purple Heart recipient who represented the state of Arizona in Congress for decades before succumbing to glioblastoma in 2018, will be awarded the honor posthumously.
Biden and McCain’s friendship dated back to the 1970s, and the two worked together on a number of issues during their time in the Senate. In 2018, Biden delivered a moving eulogy at McCain’s memorial service, stating “we will not see his like again.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka also will receive posthumous awards.
President Joe Biden will be the first president to award the medals after already receiving one himself. Former President Barack Obama presented the medal to Biden in 2017, who was then serving as vice president.
“This honor is not only well beyond what I deserve, but it’s a reflection of the generosity of your spirit,” an emotional Biden told Obama during the ceremony. “I don’t deserve this. But I know it came from the president’s heart.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to people who have “made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
“These seventeen Americans demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith,” the White House said. “They have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities – and across the world – while blazing trails for generations to come.”
Here’s a list of the other 11 Medal of Freedom recipients:
Sister Simone Campbell – Campbell is a member of Sisters of Social Service, and a prominent advocate for economic justice, immigration reform, and healthcare policy.
Dr. Julieta García – García was the first Hispanic woman to serve as a college president, having served in the top position at The University of Texas at Brownsville.
Fred Gray – Gray was one of the first Black members of the Alabama State legislature since Reconstruction, and a distinguished civil rights attorney whose clients included Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Father Alexander Karloutsos – Karloutsos is a former Vicar General of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and as a priest provided counsel to several U.S. presidents
Khizr Khan – a Pakistani immigrant whose son was killed while serving in the U.S. Army, Khan served on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom under Biden.
Sandra Lindsay – Lindsay, a New York critical care nurse, was the first American to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Diane Nash – a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Nash worked closely with King and other civil rights leaders.
Megan Rapinoe – a World Champion and Olympic soccer star, Rapinoe is also an advocate for gender pay equality, racial justice, and LGBTQI+ rights.
Alan Simpson – Simpson has served in the U.S. Senate for nearly two decades, leading on issues such as campaign finance reform and marriage equality.
Wilma Vaught – Vaught is one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history.
Raúl Yzaguirre – Yzaguirre is a civil rights advocate who served as CEO and president of National Council of La Raza for 30 years, and was once the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
(NEW YORK) — In the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, scientists were hopeful it might herald the long-awaited turning point of the pandemic, not only bringing the threat of severe disease, hospitalization and death to an end, but also completely halting the spread of the disease.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said in December 2020 that if the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign went well, the U.S. could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021.
A series of events last summer, including a widespread COVID-19 outbreak that hit highly vaccinated Provincetown, Massachusetts, soon swayed those hopes, as evidence emerged that vaccinated people were contracting the virus more frequently than initially expected and transmitting it to others.
In the months that followed the Provincetown outbreak, breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.
Experts say current vaccines are still doing their most important job – dramatically reducing people’s risk of severe illness and death. But they are no longer hopeful vaccines will stop the virus in its tracks, now that it’s clear vaccinated people can develop mild disease and transmit illness to others.
The astoundingly high levels of protection against infection that was initially observed, especially for the mRNA vaccines, created by Pfizer and Moderna, have largely dissipated, especially for those with one or two doses combined with extremely transmissible variants.
“When it comes to vaccines and COVID-19 infection, there’s good news and bad news,” said Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. “The good news is the vaccines are still doing an amazing job at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. The bad news is that effectiveness at preventing infection is a lot lower in the omicron era, and wanes quickly after vaccination.”
Despite the increase in the number of breakthrough infections, per capita data shows that unvaccinated Americans continue to have a greater risk of developing severe disease or death from COVID-19, than their vaccinated counterparts.
“Variant evolution and even subvariant evolution within omicron have shown that accumulation of mutations result in limited cross-protection when it comes to infection risk,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “The main question continues to be does infection matter in a world where serious outcomes are averted.”
But health experts say that despite mild outcomes for many vaccinated and boosted people, waning immunity and easily transmissible variants, high caseloads have the potential to strain public health systems and put the vulnerable at risk. In addition, long COVID-19 remains a risk, although vaccinated people are less likely than unvaccinated to suffer from it.
How protected are we really?
Although the vaccine’s protection against hospitalization remains strong, data collected in the U.K. found that being vaccinated was no longer enough to protect against mild or asymptomatic infection by June 2022.
Although effectiveness against severe disease remains relatively strong across all vaccines, emerging evidence suggests that that protection also wanes over time, and in the face of newly evolved variants. A CDC analysis found three shots was roughly 90% effective against emergency room or hospital visits in the months after the third shot, but that declined to 66-78% by four to five months out.
Given mounting evidence of the benefits of three doses, the CDC recommends an additional booster dose for adults and children 5 and older.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine also found that as the virus continues to evolve, each new omicron subvariant is increasingly likely to lead to reinfection or breakthrough infection.
Researchers found lower antibody responses against new omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.5 – now dominant – compared to prior omicron subvariants.
Thus, as evolving variants continue to escape protection, Doron stressed that widespread protection against infection is likely unrealistic.
“I believe it is not reasonable to expect the current vaccines to prevent infection,” Doron said. “The effectiveness isn’t high, and it is short-lived. It is not feasible to revaccinate people as often as would be needed to maintain any kind of level of protection from infection.”
Amid concerns of a renewed COVID-19 resurgence, federal officials are now in the process of deciding what type of vaccines should be made available in the fall, in order to better address variants that are increasingly getting better at eluding the immune response triggered by the vaccines.
The Food and Drug Administration said this week that it is asking the vaccine companies to produce shots for this fall that will give Americans the broadest and strongest protection against COVID-19 for its upcoming booster campaign.
The manufacturers have been advised to create vaccines that include two strains of COVID-19, the original strain and the most recent omicron BA.4 and BA.5 strains that are currently dominant in the U.S.
Although the FDA’s group of advisers voted earlier in the week in support of moving forward with the new vaccine design, some reminded Americans that these new-and-improved shots will also not be able to offer total protection from mild infections.
Although scientists say they are not giving up on finding a vaccine that can prevent all infections, they creating such a vaccine is more difficult – a feat that very few other vaccines have accomplished.
Herd immunity no longer the goal
In the first months of the pandemic, reaching herd immunity was frequently discussed by public health experts as an important long-term goal in achieving national protection against COVID-19 and returning to normalcy in the face of a deadly and mysterious disease.
However, when the occurrence of breakthrough infections became more common, despite mass vaccination, the likelihood of herd immunity began to slip away.
“The more our understanding of COVID-19 has improved, the more we’ve realized that the theoretical end state of herd immunity is unachievable,” Brownstein said. “There will likely be a continuous race between the evolution of the virus and the background immunity achieved either through infection or vaccination. Unfortunately, evolution continues to outpace our ability to gain protection.”
Doron said that she believes that “eventually” the nation will have enough immunity to treat COVID-19 like other viruses that circulate regularly, when hospitalizations and deaths are not as widespread.
“I think we will have enough immunity as a population to treat COVID-19 like we do other respiratory viruses, where we stay home until we feel better and don’t structure our lives around the virus. Immunocompromised people will still need to be careful as they always are about catching infections,” Doron explained.
Providing clear goals and outlining the benefits of vaccination remains critical to encouraging uptake among the hesitant.
“Public health has to be more clear about the goals of vaccination programs,” Brownstein said.
Many health experts agree that the goal of the nation’s current vaccine drive cannot be to prevent every infection, as providing robust protection from hospitalization and deaths remains the most critical goal in the nation’s fight against COVID-19.
“If COVID-19 had always caused only the kind of infection that we currently see in boosted people, we wouldn’t have let it upend our lives the way we did. Ultimately, what’s most important is prevention of hospitalization and death,” Doron said.
However, Brownstein noted that it is important to consider the continued risks of long-COVID, which even with less severe forms of infection.
“While prevention of hospitalization and deaths remain the priority, post-acute conditions like long COVID-19 challenge this paradigm,” Brownstein added. “Muddied messaging has led to extreme divides between those who feel protected and those who still worry about long term impacts of infection especially with unknown variants around the corner.”
(WASHINGTON) — Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema remains committed to upholding the Senate filibuster, a spokesperson said Friday, a day after President Joe Biden said he would support making an exception to codify abortion rights in federal law.
“Senator Sinema’s position on the filibuster has not changed,” the spokesperson told ABC News.
While West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin hasn’t weighed in specifically after Biden’s call, all signs are that he, too, remains opposed to such a carveout. Without the support of both Democrats, a change to the Senate rules is likely not possible.
Biden is under pressure to act on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court last Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion access nationwide for the past five decades.
Biden on Thursday called the high court’s behavior “outrageous,” stating he supported an exception to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to protect abortion rights.
“We have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law,” he said. “And the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way it’s like voting rights, it should be we provide an exception for this, except the required exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
Biden earlier this year voiced support for a filibuster carveout to pass voting rights legislation, but that too faced opposition from Manchin and Sinema.
The administration has announced several steps aimed at safeguarding existing protections for women, such as protecting access for medication abortion and ensuring that pregnant patients can get emergency medical care. Earlier this week, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said every option is being explored with top legal advisers.
But Biden’s acknowledged that such executive action can only go so far, stating it is ultimately up to Congress to enshrine abortion rights at the federal level.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday said “Democrats are fighting ferociously to enshrine Roe v Wade into law.”
But the party’s options remain extremely limited, so long as the Senate filibuster is intact.
When asked about Biden’s call for filibuster carveout, Sinema’s office referred ABC News to the op-ed the senator wrote last summer and her statement following the leaked Dobbs decision earlier this year. In both statements, Sinema affirmed her belief that the filibuster has been used to protect women’s rights.
“Protections in the Senate safeguarding against the erosion of women’s access to health care have been used half-a-dozen times in the past ten years, and are more important now than ever,” she said in the previous statement.
Manchin said last week, following the Supreme Court decision, that he was hopeful for a bipartisan solution.
When the draft abortion decision leaked in May, Manchin told reporters “the filibuster is the only protection of democracy.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A suspect has been identified in the 1990 cold case murder of a Seattle teenager through the investigative tool of genetic genealogy, Washington state officials announced.
But the suspect, Robert Brooks, won’t stand trial, because he died in 2016 from natural causes, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
Brooks has now been linked to the sexual assault and murder of 17-year-old Michelle Koski, who was found dead on Aug. 25, 1990 in Snohomish, the sheriff’s office said.
Brooks, then 22, had been released from prison four months before the killing, the sheriff’s office said. He was staying with family just a few blocks from where Koski lived, the sheriff’s office said.
Koski’s case had already been unsolved for 15 years when it was picked up by the cold case team in 2005, the sheriff’s office said. There wasn’t a DNA match from the crime scene to anyone in the CODIS law enforcement database, officials said, and over the next 10 years, several suspects were ruled by testing their DNA.
The case finally identified Brooks as a suspect by using genetic genealogy, which takes an unknown suspect’s DNA left at a crime scene and identifies it using his or her family members who voluntarily submit their DNA samples to a DNA database. This allows police to create a much larger family tree compared with using only databases like CODIS.
A forensic genealogist spent about one year building family trees using the unknown suspect’s DNA, which she eventually narrowed down to two brothers, officials said. Brooks’ DNA was then matched to DNA at the crime scene, officials said.
“After more than 30 years of searching for answers following this terrible murder, we can finally provide Michelle’s family with some answers,” Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney said in a statement.
“I have been praying for this day for a very long time,” Koski’s friend, Melissa Johnson, said at a news conference Thursday, as she thanked the officers and genealogists who worked on the case.
“Michelle and I met when we were just 10 years old,” Johnson said.
“I often wonder what she would’ve been like had she still been alive, and how different my life would be, as well. … I now pray that Michelle can finally rest in peace,” Johnson said.
(NEW YORK) — Melissa Gates, who is physically disabled and uses a cane or scooter to move around, was actively searching and applying for a federal job. It took her 20 years before she finally received a position as a secretary for NASA.
She said she wanted the stability and the health care benefits that were likely to come from a government job. And she did everything she could to get one: applying to positions online, going through state-run disability organizations, even traveling for career fairs.
“I would always travel down, standing on long lines, just to have them tell me to submit my resume on one of their sites, which I could have already done on my own,” Gates said. “That’s how my journey started.”
She moved to Maryland from New Jersey in order to get help from the nonprofit disability employment organization Melwood, which provides employment, job training and skill development services to more than 2,000 disabled people each year.
Though she said she was never outwardly discriminated against because of her disability, she wonders if it may have played a role in her job search.
“All the other avenues that I had tried to utilize to help me get this dream job of a federal career were unsuccessful,” Gates told ABC News. “Within six months, I had three interviews and was able to secure a job where I am now at NASA.”
In 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the unemployment rate for disabled people was 10.1% – which is about twice as high as the rate for those without a disability.
The National Council on Disability said that people with disabilities also live in poverty at more than twice the rate of people without disabilities, and account for more than half of those living in long-term poverty.
Inaccessibility plagues hiring practices and workplaces across the country, making it harder for disabled people to get interviews, score jobs and find a workplace that meets their needs.
The hiring process has inadvertently made it harder for some disabled people to prove their ability to do the job. Scott Gibson, who is the chief strategy officer at Melwood, said simple steps can be taken to correct seemingly innocent mistakes that lead to the exclusion of disabled candidates.
Accommodations during the hiring process, Gibson said, could be as easy as having a quieter space in a job fair to talk with candidates, or training hiring managers about unconscious bias that could affect their perception of disabled people.
“This old way of doing things isn’t perfect and maybe if we try something new, you’ll find out that great talent is right in front of you,” said Gibson.
And even when people are hired, workplaces may not be the most accommodating to disabled and neurodivergent people. “Neurodivergent” refers to people whose brains may function in a different way than what is considered typical, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Before COVID-19, many workplaces were not designed with accessibility in mind.
For example, Gibson said noisy, crowded office spaces may be distracting to people with audio hypersensitivities, while a lack of a remote work can exclude or endanger immunocompromised people or people who are physically disabled.
Some office spaces may also be unwelcoming to people with wheelchairs or canes. Some disabilities require other accommodations, such as captioning during video calls or technology to enlarge text on screen.
COVID-19, however, has served as the beginning of a new era for accessibility for employees and employers.
“One of the great things that came out of COVID is it made many employers realize how easy it is to be accessible,” Gibson said.
With accessible hiring practices, people like Gates can get a fair shot at jobs across industries.
“Give us a chance,” Gates said. “We’ll show you what we can do.”
(NEW YORK) — With Independence Day approaching, and plenty of associated picnics and barbecues on the way, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is warning of the dangers of foodborne illness and providing some helpful tips to keep people safe.
Four easy steps can help you avoid food poisoning: clean, separate, cook and chill.
First, find out if there is a clean water source before you grill or eat outdoors. If not, pack water for food preparation and cleaning as well as clean cloths, alcohol-based moist wipes, and hand sanitizer to clean hands and surfaces.
“If you are grilling out at a public park, and [they] have grills and tables there, be sure to check the grill and use a grill brush to scrub off any excess debris. You can also make sure to bring some disinfecting wipes to disinfect any kind of patio furniture, tables, and chairs that you may be using, especially if they’re going to be in contact with food,” said Kenneth King, a USDA food safety expert.
Keep raw meats, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from any other ready-to-eat foods to avoid cross-contamination. Use a separate cutting board for fresh produce and another one for raw meat products.
Always use a food thermometer to ensure that all foods are cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature.
“For hamburgers, you want to insert the food thermometer through the side of the patty until the probe reaches the center … the temperature should read 160F [when] your hamburger is safe to eat,” King said. “For hot dogs, they need to reach 165F and you can do this by sticking the thermometer into the end of the hot dog all the way until the probe reaches the center.”
If you’re transporting food in a cooler, make sure it is stocked with ice or frozen gel to keep perishable food cold. The “danger zone” in which bacteria grow rapidly is in between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Additionally, you should avoid leaving any food out longer than two hours, or one hour if the outside temperature surpasses 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep any pack beverages in a separate cooler from perishable food.
“The scary thing about bacteria is that we can’t really see it, the food may look okay, but in actuality, it’s not,” King said. “We always recommend to people [that] when you’re out grilling, and you have some food sitting out on the table too long and no one’s eating it, please be sure to put that food back into a refrigerator. Or if you’re grilling outside, and you have a cooler with some ice, nestle that food under some ice in the cooler to keep it cold.”
An estimated 48 million people in the U.S. — 1 in 6 Americans — get sick from foodborne diseases each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Certain groups are at risk of more serious illness from food poisoning. Adults aged 65 and older, children under the age of 5, those with weakened immune system due to health conditions or medicine, and pregnant people should take extra care when eating food.
The CDC also recommends that those at higher risk should avoid undercooked or raw food from animals, raw or lightly cooked sprouts, unpasteurized milk and juices, and soft cheese that has not been made with pasteurized milk.
Symptoms of food poisoning include upset stomach, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. Visit a health care provider if you or a loved one develops severe symptoms such as bloody diarrhea, a high fever, frequent vomiting, signs of dehydration and diarrhea that lasts more than three days.
The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline can be reached at 1-888-674-6854. You can also chat live at ask.usda.gov. Representatives can help address any food safety questions people might have from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
“We recommend that while you’re preparing for the July 4 weekend, make sure to give us a call if you have any questions. Or you can look up our website at foodsafety.gov,” said King.
(NEW YORK) — Rain, heat and fire are all in the forecast this 4th of July weekend.
Here’s what to know:
South
Heavy rain is pounding the Texas coast and western Louisiana on Friday.
The heaviest rain will be from Beaumont, Texas, to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where up to 6 inches of rain is possible.
Rainfall rates could reach 2 to 4 inches per hour on Friday.
A flood watch has been issued for Houston, Galveston, Texas, and Lake Charles through Friday evening.
Northeast
In the Northeast, it’ll be a scorcher on Friday. Temperatures are forecast to reach 91 degrees in Boston; 92 in New York City; 94 in Philadelphia and 93 in Washington, D.C.
Factoring in humidity, the heat index (what temperature it feels like) could be close to 100 degrees from New Jersey to Virginia.
Then a cold front will move into the Northeast on Saturday, bringing severe weather threat for the Interstate 95 corridor from D.C. to Boston. Damaging winds and some hail are possible.
In the West, fire danger will be high Saturday through Monday due to dry and windy conditions expected in Nevada, Arizona and Utah.
The strongest wind gusts will be on Sunday when they could approach 45 mph.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican lawmakers are proposing what they call “pro-family” platforms following the Supreme Court’s scrapping of the constitutional protections around abortion to try to help people who, in some states, could now be forced to carry a pregnancy to term.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio put out a sprawling framework last week, while Sens. Steve Daines of Montana, Mitt Romney of Utah and Richard Burr of North Carolina put out their own proposal pushing for a monthly cash stipend for working families pulled from other tax benefits.
Specific states have also touched on new or forthcoming tools for new parents, such as a website to connect moms with resources that South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kristi Noem discussed on ABC’s This Week.
Yet implementing these small handful of new plans, which would institute policies that would be novel in some states, could prove easier said than done, critics and experts say — raising concerns over the resources that will be available for new parents in the 12 states and counting without access to abortion.
“This ruling and the result that people are going to be forced to have unplanned pregnancies and care for children that they weren’t planning for … means that people are going to be suffering economic consequences,” Amy Matsui, the director of income security and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, told ABC News. “These plans nod to that fact, but don’t actually do anything to address it in a meaningful way.”
Among the top concern cited is a historic lack of investment in social safety net programs by states that are restricting or outlawing abortion.
An amicus brief filed by pro-abortion rights groups in the Supreme Court case that overturned constitutional abortion protections showed that 14 states with the most restrictive laws also demonstrated poor maternal and child health outcomes, including early need for prenatal care, low infant birthweight and infant mortality.
And while some early proposals appear intended to combat precisely those scenarios, experts warn that those trends indicate some states are on poor footing to implement any substantial solutions.
“When you look at the overlay, the states that have restricted or banned abortion are the same states that have not invested in their safety nets. They do not have the same kinds of supports for low-income families, for pregnant people, for health care, for child care, for supporting workers or for education that states that generally support abortion rights do,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute.
“So basically, they are not providing the health care that people need or the supports that they need,” Nash said. “And now, sort of as an afterthought and because of public outcry, they’re saying, ‘OK, well, let’s pull together sort of a quick package.'”
To be sure, Republicans insist their plans are feasible, casting them as prudent proposals.
“For the past 50 years, our country built a massive, pro-abortion commercial infrastructure. There are commonsense, bipartisan steps we can take to support American families and protect life, instead of ending it,” Rubio said in a statement.
“This will be a big boost for parents and families that won’t increase the debt and will make federal policy work better for families across the nation — I hope to see all my colleagues get behind this plan,” Daines added.
But digging deeper, some experts expressed concern about the plans’ specific planks, warning that they would force pregnant people to make difficult choices.
Rubio’s plan, for instance, would allow new parents to invest in paid parental leave by pulling forward up to three months of their future Social Security benefits.
And in the proposal from Daines, Romney and Burr, the monthly cash benefit for working families is paid for by “consolidating the family portion of the [earned income tax credit] to not vary depending on the number of dependents” and eliminating the head of household filing status and child portion of the child and dependent care credit.
“That is great, and continuing to have an expanded child tax credit is important for the well-being of families and children,” Matsui said of a monthly cash benefit. “But to fund it by taking away the head of household filing status or restricting the EITC or taking away the child portion of the child and dependent care tax credit is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“Another example is the purported parental leave provision that is in Sen. Rubio’s package. It offers new parents the opportunity to borrow against their future Social Security benefits,” she added. “They need it now and they need it later. And we’re asking them to bear the cost rather than provide new and additional supports. It really is just kind of a shifting shell game.”
Rubio’s plan also offers expanded tax relief for adoptive parents, though activists said that does little to help someone during a pregnancy. The plan also includes a provision to “expand access to social services by lowering barriers to faith-based organizations’ participation,” but the experts who spoke with ABC News warned of past discriminatory language by such groups, particularly against the LGBTQ community.
“That is just completely inappropriate,” Nash said.
Experts did not disagree with every aspect of the plans. For instance, Nash called Rubio’s provision to boost the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as WIC) and to extend the postpartum benefit eligibility period from one to two years “helpful.”
But overall, experts and critics spoke on the recently proposed plans with skepticism, chiefly over how novel their proposals are in some of the most impacted states.
“I think that even a really great plan, which I don’t think either of these are, even a really great plan that isn’t tested is a bad idea,” said Susan Polan, associate executive director of public affairs and advocacy at the American Public Health Association. “We can’t piecemeal it together and build the plane as we’re flying it.”
(HONG KONG) — In a speech celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, Chinese President Xi Jinping strongly reaffirmed the territory’s autonomy under the promise of “One Country, Two Systems” but with one very strong caveat: Beijing has full jurisdiction and Hong Kong must respect that.
“One Country, Two Systems is an unprecedented great initiative of historical significance,” Xi declared in a victory lap of a speech now that the opposition in the city has either been silenced or behind bars. “There is no reason to change such a good system, and it must be maintained for a long time.”
Xi’s words run counter to the view of many in the city who supported the now-silenced pro-democracy activists and Western politicians around the world who view Beijing’s increasing direct influence in the city as reneging on the agreement made between the United Kingdom and China that led to the handover on July 1, 1997.
Also marking the occasion, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a video statement on Twitter saying, “We made a promise to the territory and its people and we intend to keep it, doing all we can to hold China to its commitment”
“We simply cannot avoid the fact that for some time now, Beijing has been failing to comply with its obligations. It’s a state of affairs that threatens both the rights and freedoms of Hong Kongers and the continued progress and prosperity of their home.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken added, “it is now evident that Hong Kong and Beijing authorities no longer view democratic participation, fundamental freedoms, and an independent media” as a part of its promise.
In Xi’s view, the Chinese government is fulfilling its obligations in allowing the former British colony to choose its path and thrive economically, if not politically, over the past quarter century.
“Hong Kong will maintain the original capitalist system unchanged for a long time and enjoy a high degree of autonomy” Xi, who is on a two-day visit to the city, told a 1,300-strong gathering of Hong Kong’s political and business elite at the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center. But he warned that residents must “consciously respect” the rule of Chinese Communist Party and its socialist system in the mainland.
Having implemented a far-reaching security law two years ago to silence dissent, Xi mostly sidestepped security and political concerns and focused on Hong Kong’s economic development, signaling an intention to turn the page on the turmoil of the last decade.
The Chinese government has long believed that the vast chasm of economic inequality in the city, exacerbated by unaffordable housing costs, was the chief reason for popular discontent which, in Beijing’s telling of events, were then exploited by “foreign forces” to foment anti-government protests.
“Hong Kong cannot afford more chaos,” Xi told the newly inaugurated administration led by Hong Kong’s former security official John Lee.
“The public has good expectations to have better livelihoods, that they can live in a wider and bigger home, with more job opportunities, better education for the children, and can be better taken care of when they are old,” Xi continued.
“The new government should not disappoint them and should place these expectations as top priorities,” stressed the Chinese leader.
“The major issue for John Lee is to deliver better housing and relieve economic inequality and poverty and if possible, find new engines for economic growth,” David Zweig, Professor Emeritus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told ABC News.
“Economic problems that Hong Kong has faced for past 20 years were due largely to the [real estate] tycoons who would not allow [the Hong Kong leader and legislature] to resolve these core issues,” Zweig explained, which led to the younger generation insisting on a more representative system which, in Beijing’s eyes, threatened to shift the power in the legislature.
In the wake of the 2019 protests, Zweig believed that when the popular opposition was positioned to take over the legislature and replace Beijing’s “executive-led government” with a de-facto parliamentary one, the Chinese government was unwilling to take that risk.
In response, Beijing reformed the electoral system to ensure “only patriots can govern Hong Kong.”
“Our mistake as observers was not to realize that, while China could support a more open system, under ‘One country, Two systems’ it would never let the opposition take over,” said Zweig.
At an event earlier this week, the last British governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten recalled a pro-Beijing businessman explaining this dynamic to him as the two governments were hashing out the final details before the handover. “You don’t understand the Chinese,” Patten remembered the individual telling him, “they don’t want to rig the elections, they just want to know the result in advance. Well, yes, I see that, but it’s not what’s called democracy.”
“John Lee and Beijing, having established an authoritarian regime, must deliver on the core economic issues,” Zweig told ABC News.
After spending less than 10 hours in the city over two days, Xi and his wife left Hong Kong via the high speed rail link that physically ties the center of Hong Kong to the mainland.
The new Hong Kong chief executive has his work cut for him. Hong Kong’s strict COVID measures and sealed borders over the past two years has endangered Hong Kong’s status as an aviation hub and international financial center. Its economy contracted 4% in the first quarter of this year — one of the worst performances in 30 years.
Coupled with the security crackdown, Hong Kong residents have been voting with their feet. Since the beginning the year there has been 154,000 net departures from the city, the highest rate since Hong Kong returned to China.
“We won’t let President Xi down,” Lee told the press after the Chinese president’s departure. “We won’t let the people down.”
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Authorities in North Korea have instructed its people to avoid “alien things” falling near its border with South Korea.
North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a news report on where the COVID-19 virus came from and pointed the finger at materials that flew in from South Korea. The paper said that two local townspeople showed COVID-19 symptoms after touching “alien things” at the border.
“State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters saw to it that an emergency instruction was issued stressing the need to vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders,” Rodong Sinmun said Friday.
The influx of non-native objects, especially from the southern half of the Korean peninsula, has put North Korea’s border at the highest level of alert for the longest amount of time since the two Koreas separated in 1953. Sending propaganda leaflets and materials in air balloons has been common practice from both sides but Seoul has made it illegal in 2020.
“It appears to be an attempt to raise suspicion among North Korean citizens about the propaganda leaflets, an attempt to spread the false idea that the leaflets are carrying COVID-19,” Hyung Joong Park, head researcher at the Korea Institute of National Unification, told ABC News.
Park also explained that they are forming the narrative that COVID was caused not by failures by the Party but by a premeditated move from the outside.
North Korea has reported over 4,750 cases of “fever” on Friday and claims that, as of Thursday evening, since the pandemic began more than 99.827% of the people who had “fever” have recovered. There is an extremely limited number of COVID test kits in North Korea as the regime has refused to accept foreign assistance to help identify patients.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry responded to North Korea’s accusation and that they see zero possibility of viruses entering North Korea through leaflets from the South, explaining that the timing of the North’s claim of contact with “alien materials” at the beginning of April does not match the timing of leaflet-sending that activists in South Korea say took place in late April.
“South Korea’s Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization is on the same page that it is impossible to be infected with COVID-19 through the virus remaining on the surface of an object, not to mention there isn’t any officially confirmed case of COVID-19 infection through mail or other supply,” Cha Duck Chul, the deputy spokesperson of South’s Unification Ministry told reporters Friday.
On Tuesday, the defector group Fighters For North Korea based in Seoul claim to have flown 20 unauthorized balloons carrying masks, pain relief pills, and doses of Vitamin C in order to send support to pandemic-hit North Korea.
“Accusing the balloon and leaflets from South Korea of spreading virus lays a foundation for North Korea taking extreme measures against balloon launches on the grounds that it is a national security threat,” John Delury, professor at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies, told ABC News.
ABC News’ Eunseo Nam and Hyerim Lee contributed to this report.
