(CNN) When Republican governors began prematurely lifting coronavirus restrictions in their states earlier this spring, President Joe Biden and his team largely kept their heads down, ramping up vaccine distribution while steering clear of rhetorical battles with political adversaries.
But this week, as the Delta variant and low vaccination rates in several southern states sent cases soaring, Biden took a new approach: Castigating Republican governors who are standing in the way of mask and vaccine requirements — and calling out the governors of Texas and Florida in particular for enacting “bad health policy.”
“I say to these governors: Please help. But if you aren’t going to help, at least get out of the way,” Biden said during remarks about the pandemic on Tuesday. “The people are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.”
DeSantis: "If you're trying to deny kids a proper in-person education, I'm gonna stand in your way… If you're trying to restrict people, impose mandates, ruin their jobs… If you try to lock people down, I am standing in your way."
The U.S. Department of Justice is now telling states that they should not pursue their own Arizona-style election audits.
The DOJ’s new guidance document claims that undertaking “partisan” election audits could violate federal law, which seems like a clear statement directed at Republicans who support audits in states.
“The guidance document explicitly warns against audits in which election officials are forced to turn over materials like ballots or voting machines to state lawmakers or third parties — as in Arizona, whose audit is being run by the private company Cyber Ninjas,” Forbes reported.
A top communications manager at Facebook helped Gov. Andrew Cuomo fight sexual misconduct allegations — including by helping leak confidential files about accuser Lindsey Boylan and by participating in regular discussions about Cuomo’s communications strategy, according to the New York attorney general’s bombshell investigation.
Dani Lever — who had worked in Cuomo’s press operation since 2014 but left in August 2020 to join Facebook as a communications manager — played a key role in Cuomo’s communications strategy even while working for Facebook, according to the investigation released Tuesday.
In December 2020, former Cuomo staffer Lindsey Boylan became the first of several women to accuse the governor of sexual harassment. Hours later, Cuomo communications director Rich Azzopardi decided to send Boylan’s confidential personnel files to several journalists in what investigators called an attempt to “discredit and disparage” her.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Tuesday announced that he made good on his promise to pardon a couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at social justice demonstrators as they marched past the couple’s home in a luxury St. Louis enclave last year.
Parson, a Republican, on Friday pardoned Mark McCloskey, who pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750, and Patricia McCloskey, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000.
“Mark McCloskey has publicly stated that if he were involved in the same situation, he would have the exact same conduct,” the McCloskeys’ lawyer Joel Schwartz said Tuesday. “He believes that the pardon vindicates that conduct.”
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – The Biden administration is developing a plan to require nearly all foreign visitors to the United States to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as part of eventually lifting travel restrictions that bar much of the world from entering the United States, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The White House is not ready to immediately lift travel restrictions because of the rising COVID-19 case load and highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant, the official said.
The Biden administration has interagency working groups working “in order to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel,” the official said, adding it includes “a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated.”
Last month, Reuters reported that the White House was considering requiring foreign visitors to be vaccinated as part of discussions on how to relax travel restrictions.
Americans’ approval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic slipped to 53 percent, while his job approval rating fell more slightly, as concerns about the U.S. Covid-19 response mounted, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The poll was conducted by Quinnipiac University and surveyed attitudes about topics including Biden’s handling of Covid-19, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
She’s also taking all the money she won and is buying her mother a food truck.
“I love representing the U.S.,” says American Olympian Tamyra Mensah-Stock, after winning gold for @USAWrestling in Tokyo. “I love living there. I love it. And I’m so happy I get to represent USA!”
WASHINGTON — The party plans had been months in the making and many invitees had already arrived on Martha’s Vineyard when former President Barack Obama belatedly announced he was canceling his huge 60th birthday bash scheduled for Saturday.
“Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,” Hannah Hankins, a spokeswoman for the former president, said in a statement Wednesday morning. “He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon.”
CNN host Chris Cuomo did not mention the growing scandal engulfing his brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his CNN show Thursday.
At the top of his program, the anchor briefly praised Olympian Simone Biles for winning a bronze medal in Tokyo before pivoting to the coronavirus.
“I’m Chris Cuomo, welcome to ‘Prime Time,’ ” he said. “We’re focused on COVID here, especially until we get the Delta variant under control and for now – as you know – it’s getting worse.”
Topics for the hour-long program included how Florida has become an epicenter of coronavirus cases as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to push against mask mandates and businesses asking for proof of vaccinations.
Vermont’s commissioner of health discussed how the state became a leader in vaccinations, while Cuomo ended by splitting a screen with his friend Don Lemon and discussing suicides among Capitol police who were defending the building during the Jan. 6 siege.
Border officials encountered an estimated 210,000 migrants at the southern border in July, the highest monthly total since 2000, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Preliminary government data reportedly shows border officials encountered some 19,000 unaccompanied migrant minors, a record high from previous months including just over 18,800 in March, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy David Shahoulian said, the AP reported.
The numbers of encounters historically decrease during the hot summer months, though officials have yet to report a monthly decrease since April 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. The total number of encounters at the southern border may be exaggerated because most migrants were rapidly expelled under a Trump-era public health order and some attempted to cross the border multiple times, according to CBP.
