Tag: Efforts

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ISIS Poses ‘Acute’ Menace to U.S. Evacuation Efforts in Kabul, Sullivan Says

ISIS Poses ‘Acute’ Threat to U.S. Evacuation Efforts in Kabul, Sullivan Says

A deadly attack on American and Afghan civilians would be a disaster not only for the US but also for the Taliban, who want to consolidate control over Kabul. The Taliban and the Islamic State were enemies and fought for control of parts of the country on the battlefield.

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban emerged in 1994 amid the unrest following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including flogging, amputation and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here is more about their genesis and track record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who for years have been on the run, in hiding, in prison and dodged American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to rule, including whether they will be as tolerant as they say they are.

What is happening to the women of Afghanistan? When the Taliban was last in power, they banned women and girls from most jobs or from going to school. Afghan women have gained a lot since the Taliban was overthrown, but now they fear that they are losing ground. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are indications that they have begun to reintroduce the old order in at least some areas.

Western counter-terrorism analysts say a high-profile attack by ISIS during the evacuation would most likely add to the group’s dwindling wealth, recruitment and prestige.

A June United Nations report found that “Islamic State’s territorial losses have affected the group’s ability to recruit and generate new funds.”

Although the ISIS affiliate was believed to still have 1,500 to 2,200 fighters in small areas of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, the report said, “It has been forced to decentralize and consists mainly of cells and small groups across the country that act autonomously ”. while they share the same ideology. “

While the group suffered military setbacks from the summer of 2018, the report concluded that since June 2020, under its ambitious new leader Shahab al-Muhajir, the subsidiary has “remained active and dangerous” and is trying to increase its ranks with disaffected Taliban fighters and other militants.

“Given that ISIS-K and the Taliban are enemies, it will be a challenge for ISIS-K,” said Clarke. “Nevertheless, the Taliban now have their hands full governing, which will consume a considerable amount of bandwidth within the organization.”

Nathan Sales, the State Department’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator in the Trump administration, said on Sunday that if the ISIS affiliate were able to attack the Kabul airport, “it suggests that Afghanistan may be after the departure of the USA will be a permissive environment for all types of terrorist groups. even those who are hostile to the Taliban. “

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Health

Fauci declares delta variant ‘best risk’ to the nation’s efforts to get rid of Covid

Fauci declares delta variant 'greatest threat' to the nation's efforts to eliminate Covid

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC on Tuesday, April 13, 2021.

Leigh Vogel | Bloomberg | Getty Images

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday the highly contagious Delta variant is the “greatest threat” to the nation’s attempt to eradicate Covid-19.

Delta, which was first identified in India, now accounts for about 20% of all new cases in the United States, up from 10% about two weeks ago, Fauci said during a White House press conference on the pandemic.

He said Delta appears to be “following the same pattern” as Alpha, the variant first found in the UK, with infections doubling in the US about every two weeks.

“Similar to the UK, the Delta variant is currently the biggest threat in the US to our attempt to eliminate Covid-19,” he said.

Fauci’s comments come after CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Friday urged Americans to get vaccinated against Covid and said she expected Delta to become the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States

Studies suggest that it is about 60% more transmissible than alpha, which was more contagious than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019

“As worrying as this Delta strain is about its hypertransmittance, our vaccines are working,” Walensky told ABC’s Good Morning America. If you get vaccinated, “you will be protected against this Delta variant,” she added.

In the UK, the Delta variety recently became the dominant variety there, surpassing Alpha, which was first discovered in the country last fall. The Delta variant now accounts for more than 60% of new cases in the UK

Health officials say there are reports that the Delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm these conclusions. However, there is evidence that the Delta strain may cause different symptoms than other variants.

Fauci said Tuesday the US had “the tools” to defeat the variant and urged more Americans to get fully vaccinated against Covid and “destroy the outbreak.”

The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is unlikely to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of American adults to receive one or more vaccinations by July 4th.

“In this case, two weeks after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, the effectiveness of the vaccines was 88% effective against Delta and 93% effective against Alpha when it comes to symptomatic diseases,” said Fauci, citing a study.

The World Health Organization said Friday that Delta is becoming the predominant variant of the disease worldwide.

On Monday, WHO officials warned that the variant was the fastest and strongest coronavirus strain to date and that it would “pick up” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid-19 vaccination rates.

It has the potential to be “more deadly because it is more efficient in the way it is transmitted between people, and it will eventually find those at risk who will become seriously ill, hospitalized and possibly die”, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Emergency Health Program, said during a news conference.

Delta has now spread to 92 countries, said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for Covid, on Monday. She said, “Unfortunately, we still don’t have the vaccines in the right places to protect people’s lives.”

WHO has urged wealthy nations, including the US, to donate cans. The Biden government detailed early Monday where it will be sending 55 million doses of vaccine, most of which will be distributed through COVAX, the WHO-supported immunization program.

“These vaccines are highly effective against serious illness and death. That is what they are intended for and that is what they must be used for,” said Van Kerkhove. “This is what COVAX and WHO and all of our partners have worked to ensure that these vaccines reach the most vulnerable people.”

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Health

Sen. Warren presses PhRMA foyer group on efforts to dam vaccine patent waivers

Sen. Warren presses PhRMA lobby group on efforts to block vaccine patent waivers

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., conducts a news conference outside the Capitol to reintroduce the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.

Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pressing the CEO of a major pharmaceutical trade group on its lobbying efforts against a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines that would help boost production of the shots for poorer nations.

Warren and other lawmakers asked how much money the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, and its member companies spent this year lobbying Congress and White House officials in opposition to the waiver, in a letter sent Wednesday to PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl that was obtained by CNBC.

The Biden administration said in early May it would support waiving the World Trade Organization’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPs, agreement. PhRMA, whose members include Covid vaccine makers AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, is trying to block the waiver.

Removing patent protections on Covid vaccines would allow other drug companies to manufacture the lifesaving shots. Drugmakers worry that could set a precedent for future products and end their lucrative monopolies over sales of their new medicines.

Warren also asked the trade group about its attempts to block a bill from House Democrats that would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with manufacturers for lower drug prices.

“PhRMA and other pharmaceutical companies have pushed the Biden Administration to oppose the TRIPS waiver, arguing that it would “undermine the global response to the pandemic,”‘ Warren and other lawmakers wrote. The industry also said drug pricing provisions of the American Rescue Plan would “lead to fewer new cures and treatments,” and it opposed Medicare Part D price negotiation, the letter reads.

“While taking credit for the development of new COVID vaccines — which were developed with massive infusions of federal funds — the pharmaceutical industry has not backed off of its efforts to block drug pricing proposals and maintain the status quo,” the lawmakers added.

The lawmakers gave the trade group until June 30 to respond.

In a statement to CNBC, PhRMA spokesman Brian Newell said the trade group was reviewing the letter.

“We will continue our efforts to work with policymakers on solutions to lower what patients pay out of pocket for prescription medicines and ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

Warren’s letter comes as global groups, including the World Health Organization, are urging wealthy countries and drugmakers to get Covid shots to low-income and lower-middle-income countries, some of which are witnessing an increasingly worrying rise in new infections.

Ken Frazier, chairman and chief executive officer of Merck & Co., from left, Stephen Ubl, chief executive officer of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and Robert Hugin, chairman of Celgene Corp., arrive to a news conference outside the White House following a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Many countries and drugmakers have made pledges to share millions of doses around the world. President Joe Biden announced last week that his administration would donate 500 million vaccine doses produced by Pfizer to other nations.

The pharmaceutical industry has previously said the TRIPS waiver would compromise safety, weaken supply chains and sow confusion between public and private partners.

In the first three months of this year, pharma companies have spent a record $92 million on lobbying, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group in Washington. PhRMA spent $8.6 million this year on lobbying after spending $25.9 million in 2020, according to its data.

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Politics

Garland Pledges Renewed Efforts to Shield Voting Rights

Garland Pledges Renewed Efforts to Protect Voting Rights

Republican-led legislatures in several states including Georgia, Florida and Iowa have passed laws imposing new voting restrictions, and Texas, New Hampshire, Arizona and Michigan, among other states, are considering changes to their electoral systems.

At the same time, hopes have dimmed on the left that Congress will pass two major election bills after Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said he would not support abolishing the filibuster to advance such measures.

Mr. Garland has said that protecting the right to vote is one of his top priorities as attorney general, and his top lieutenants include high-profile voting rights advocates such as Vanita Gupta, the department’s No. 3 official, and Kristen Clarke, the head of the Civil Rights Division. The division currently has about a dozen employees on its enforcement staff, which is focused on protecting the right to vote, according to a department official familiar with the staff.

Despite his pledge, Mr. Garland is still limited in what he can do unless Democrats in Congress somehow manage to pass new voter protection laws. He can sue states that are found to have violated any of the nation’s four major federal voting rights laws. He can notify state and local governments when he believes that their procedures violate federal law. And federal prosecutors can charge people who are found to have intimidated voters, a federal crime.

The Justice Department’s most powerful tool, the Voting Rights Act, was significantly weakened by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down pieces of the act forcing states with legacies of racial discrimination to receive Justice Department approval before they could change their voting laws.

Now the department can only sue after a law has been passed and found to violate the act, meaning that a restrictive law could stand through multiple election cycles as litigation winds its way through the courts.

Any new steps to protect voting rights are unlikely to move quickly, said Joanna Lydgate, a former deputy attorney general of Massachusetts who co-founded the States United Democracy Center. “People will need to be patient,” she said.

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Health

Biden Covid group holds briefing as U.S. doubles down on vaccine efforts

Fauci says AstraZeneca will likely issue modified statement

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President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Response Team holds a press conference Thursday on the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that infected more than 33.3 million Americans and killed at least 595,849 people.

On Wednesday, Biden said the government had redoubled efforts to get more Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 by July 4th

In early May, Biden announced his administration’s new goals in the fight against this virus: 70% of adults in the US should receive at least one dose of a vaccine and 160 million adults should be fully vaccinated by Independence Day.

In a White House speech on Wednesday, Biden announced June as “national month of action” to vaccinate more Americans. He urged unvaccinated Americans to get the shots and said they were still at risk of getting seriously ill, dying, and passing the disease on to others, especially as autumn approaches.

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Health

Biden doubles down on U.S. efforts to get extra People vaccinated by the Fourth of July

Biden doubles down on U.S. efforts to get more Americans vaccinated by the Fourth of July

President Joe Biden speaks on Covid-19 response and vaccinations in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, in Washington, DC, on June 2, 2021.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Wednesday doubled down on his administration’s efforts to get more Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 by July 4, a date the president has said he hopes will mark a turning point in the pandemic in the U.S.

In early May, Biden announced his administration’s new goals in the fight against the coronavirus: getting 70% of U.S. adults to receive at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and having 160 million adults fully vaccinated by Independence Day.

Speaking from the White House on Wednesday, Biden announced June as the “national month of action” to get more Americans vaccinated by July 4. He urged unvaccinated Americans to get the shots, saying they are still at risk of becoming seriously ill, dying and spreading the disease to others, especially once the U.S. approaches the fall.

“Getting a vaccine is not a partisan act,” Biden said, noting that the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines were authorized under former Republican President Donald Trump.

“I don’t want to see the country that is already divided be divided in a new way: between places where people live free from fear of Covid and places, when the fall arrives, deaths and severe illnesses return,” he said. “The vaccine is free, safe and effective.”

The president outlined his administration’s approach to its nationwide vaccine campaign, which he said would mobilize national organizations, community- and faith-based partners, celebrities, athletes and other influential groups.

In details released ahead of Biden’s speech, the White House also said the administration has asked pharmacies to extend their hours for the month of June and disclosed it is partnering with child-care providers to offer free services to all parents getting vaccinated or recovering from the shots.

KinderCare and Learning Care Group as well as more than 500 YMCAs will offer the child services, Biden said later Wednesday.

The administration is also organizing efforts to call and text people in areas with low vaccination rates and is challenging mayors to compete with each other to see which city can increase shot rates the quickest, according to an email from the White House.

Other administration efforts include “Shots at the Shop,” an initiative that will engage Black-owned barbershops and beauty salons across the country to support local vaccine education and outreach efforts.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will also lead a tour – called the “We Can Do This” National Vaccination Tour – which will highlight “the ease of getting vaccinated, encourage vaccinations, and energize and mobilize grassroots vaccine education and outreach efforts,” according to the White House.

On Wednesday, Biden also touted the White House’s partnership with Uber and Lyft to offer free rides to vaccination sites until July 4.

“America is heading into a summer dramatically different from last summer,” he said. “Safely vaccinated people are shedding their masks and greeting one another with a smile.”

As of Tuesday, more than 162 million U.S. adults, or 62.8% of people 18 and over, have received at least one Covid vaccine, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 133 million U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

There was an average of 1.2 million Covid shots administered every day over the last week in the U.S. But some of the data over the long holiday weekend is incomplete, so vaccination rates may be higher.

Public health experts say Biden’s vaccination goal may pose a challenge for his administration as the U.S. has already inoculated those most enthusiastic about getting a vaccine.

Kevin Hensley is given the J&J COVID vaccine in coordination with the Cook County Health Dept. and the Chicago White Sox. Recipients were given a $25 card for discounts on concessions before Game One of a doubleheader at Guaranteed Rate Field on May 29, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.

David Banks | Getty Images

In order to administer millions of more inoculations in the next four weeks, the White House has said the president will take additional steps to encourage more people to get vaccinated and make it easier for them to do so.

In addition to the steps announced Wednedsay, the Biden administration has worked to make getting a vaccine “as easy as ever” with many vaccination sites across the U.S. offering walk-ins.

The administration in April launched a massive campaign to persuade more Americans to take the vaccines, which is using social media and virtual events where celebrities and athletes answer people’s lingering questions about the vaccines.

The CDC has updated its public health guidance to say that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a face mask or stay 6 feet away from others in most settings, whether outdoors or indoors. Many public health experts say the change was designed to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

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Politics

Biden’s Funds Has Racial Fairness Efforts Baked In

Biden’s Budget Has Racial Equity Efforts Baked In

WASHINGTON – Six days after his inauguration, President Biden vowed that his administration would see everything through the lens of racial equality and make it the “business of the entire government.”

On Friday, his $ 6 trillion budget began delivering on that promise.

Spread across the President’s enormous spending plan are tens of billions of dollars worth of programs specifically designed to strengthen the fortunes of blacks, Asians, tribal communities, and other historically underserved groups in the United States.

Mr Biden is not the first President to spend money on such programs. And civil rights activists said the budget released on Friday fell short on some critical areas like student loans, where they say more money is needed to address a longstanding lack of fairness and a one-sided burden on minorities.

“It’s going in the right direction, but it’s not a perfect document,” said Derrick Johnson, the NAACP president, who was disappointed that the president’s budget did not include the repayment of student loan debt, which falls disproportionately to black Americans.

But he added that his organization was pleased that the president “continued to meet one of his priorities”.

This idea of ​​paying special attention to the distribution of taxpayers’ money among racial groups has never been approached as methodically as this year, according to supporters of Mr Biden. When asked about the President’s equity agenda on Friday, Shalanda Young, acting President’s Budget Director, said her department “built” this into the overall spending plan by “giving our agencies” clear instructions that they should use this lens in their implementation these programs are supposed to. “

“This is not something we have to shout,” she said. “This is something that should be ubiquitous in how the government does its business.”

Much of the president’s huge budget goes into expenditures that aren’t explicitly split by race: health care, education, military, transportation, agriculture, retirement planning, and foreign affairs, among others.

However, across all of these programs, Mr. Biden’s team has suggested higher spending to ensure people with color and others who are often left behind get a bigger share of the total cake.

Among the large and small budget items determined by equity:

  • $ 3 Billion to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Eliminate Racial Disparity in Maternal Mortality.

  • $ 15 billion for Highways to Neighborhoods, a program to reconnect neighborhoods that were cut off by infrastructure projects developed decades ago.

  • $ 900 million to fund tribal efforts to expand affordable housing.

  • $ 936 million for an initiative to accelerate environmental and economic justice for the Environmental Protection Agency.

  • $ 110 million for a Thriving Communities initiative to promote transportation equity through grants to underserved communities.

  • $ 39 billion in student grants for low- and middle-income students who historically attend black colleges and universities, as well as students who serve other minorities.

Mr Biden predicted these kinds of budget decisions in his early days in office. In a speech announcing his “justice agenda,” the president said he was determined to go further than his predecessors in addressing groups he said had been left behind too often.

“We have to open America’s promise to every American,” he said during the January 26 speech. “And that means that we don’t have to make the issue of racial justice an issue for just one government department.”

This approach has angered the Conservatives, who accuse the president and his advisors of pursuing a racist agenda against white Americans. Fox News hit the headlines accusing Mr. Biden of trying “to fuel the nationwide division with a ‘racial equity’ push”. And the New York Post published an editorial, “In Push for Woke ‘Equity’, Biden Abandon’s Equality,” accusing the president of being “un-American.”

A group called America First Legal, led by Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, two top aides to former President Donald J. Trump, received an injunction from a Texas judge this week against Mr. Biden’s efforts by the Small Business Administration Prioritize grants from the $ 28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund to businesses that belong to minority or underserved groups.

Updated

May 28, 2021, 4:32 p.m. ET

“This ruling is another powerful blow to the Biden government’s unconstitutional decision to select winners and losers based on skin color,” the group said in a statement.

The President is unlikely to back down. Speaking days after his inauguration, he vowed that “every component of the White House and every agency will be involved in this work because promoting justice must be everyone’s business.”

Despite all of Mr. Biden’s energetic rhetoric – he once promised to “no longer allow a narrow, cramped view of this nation’s promise to fester” – his government made little effort on Friday to draw attention to this principle or to highlight details about it how a stock-driven approach would change the way the government spends its money.

Biden’s 2022 budget

    • A new year, a new budget: Fiscal year 2022 for the federal government begins October 1, and President Biden has announced what he plans to spend from that point on. However, all editions require the approval of both Congress Chambers.
    • Ambitious overall spending: President Biden wants the federal government to spend $ 6 trillion in fiscal 2022 and total spending to rise to $ 8.2 trillion by 2031. This would bring the United States to its highest sustainable federal spending level since World War II, while running deficits above $ 1.3 trillion for the next decade.
    • Infrastructure plan: The budget describes the President’s desired first year of investment in his US employment plan, which aims to fund improvements to roads, bridges, public transportation and more with a total of $ 2.3 billion over eight years.
    • Family plan: The budget also addresses the other major spending proposal that Biden has already put forward, his American family plan, which aims to strengthen the United States’ social safety net by expanding access to education, reducing childcare costs, and bringing women in the workforce are supported.
    • Compulsory programs: As usual, mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare is a significant part of the proposed budget. They grow as the American population ages.
    • Discretionary issues: Funding for each agency and executive program budget would reach approximately $ 1.5 trillion in 2022, a 16 percent increase from the previous budget.
    • How Biden would pay for it: The president would fund his agenda largely through tax hikes for businesses and high earners, which would lead to a decline in budget deficits in the 2030s. Administration officials said tax increases would fully offset plans for jobs and families over the course of 15 years, which the budget request confirms. In the meantime, the budget deficit would stay above $ 1.3 trillion each year.

During a press conference on the introduction of the budget on Friday, Ms. Young and Cecilia Rouse, the chairmen of the White House National Economic Council – both black women – did not mention the president’s equity agenda until a reporter asked about it.

And the budget itself does not seek to quantify the impact of following the presidential instructions in order to make decisions based on a sense of racial justice. There is no “Equity” section in the budget. Aides did not send newsletters to reporters on Friday promoting the “equity spending” in the president’s opening budget.

That left some outreach to civil rights groups and other advocates, who were quick to point out examples of spending that would benefit communities traditionally left behind by previous presidents.

Sara Chieffo, chief lobbyist for the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group, referred to the Environmental Protection Agency’s $ 936 million initiative to accelerate environmental and economic justice, which aims to clean up the environment in underserved communities .

“The importance of this government’s proposal to make the largest ever investment in color communities and low-income communities that have been exposed to environmental racism for decades cannot be emphasized enough,” said Chieffo.

Marcela Howell, President of In Our Own Voice: National Reproductive Justice Agenda for Black Women, commended the president for investing in programs that specifically benefit black women.

“Kudos also go to President Biden for funding important programs to combat racial justice and economic security,” she said in a statement, adding that “we are making the proposed investments in infrastructure and job creation, affordable childcare and education of workers as well as education “. and more.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued a statement thanking Mr. Biden for what the group called “important investments” that would help “address the maternal mortality crisis and its devastating effects on color communities.”

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World News

Grief Mounts as Efforts to Ease Israel-Hamas Battle Falter

Grief Mounts as Efforts to Ease Israel-Hamas Fight Falter

GAZA CITY – Diplomats and international leaders failed to broker a ceasefire in the recent Israel-Hamas conflict on Sunday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue the fight and the United Nations Security Council failed to agree on a joint response to the worsening Bloodshed.

The diplomatic clashes came after the fighting, most intense in seven years in Gaza and Israel, entered its deadliest period to date. At least 42 Palestinians were killed in an air strike on several apartments in Gaza City early Sunday morning, Palestinian officials said, the deadliest episode of the conflict to date.

Mr. Netanyahu’s vow proved true a few hours later when The Associated Press reported: Israeli warplanes launched a series of heavy air strikes in several locations in the Gaza Strip early Monday.

Explosions rocked the city from north to south for 10 minutes in an attack that was heavier, covered a larger area, and lasted longer than a series of air strikes 24 hours earlier that killed the 42 Palestinians – the deadliest single attack of the final round the violence between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules Gaza. Previous Israeli air strikes flattened three buildings.

According to local media reports, targets hit early Monday included the main coastal road west of Gaza City, security links and open spaces. The power distribution company said the air strikes damaged a line that supplies electricity from the only power station to large areas in the south of the city.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

According to Palestinian officials, the number of people killed in Gaza rose to 197 in the seven days of the conflict, while the number of Israeli residents killed by Palestinian militants rose to 11, including one soldier, the Israeli government said.

On Sunday afternoon, the street bombed in the airstrike created a desperate scene when Anas al-Yazji, a graphic designer, climbed over the rubble in search of his fiancée Shaimaa Abul Ouf. Between the fragments of the broken walls was a wallet, a necklace, a Koran, and even a couple of handbags.

But 12 hours after Israel hit the building – aiming, the Israeli army said, at an underground network of Hamas tunnels – there was still no sign of Ms. Abul Ouf.

“I’ll wait here until we find them,” said 24-year-old al-Yazji as a yellow excavator shoveled debris from one pile to the other. “Then I’ll bury her.”

As darkness fell, the fighting showed no sign of subsiding.

“Citizens of Israel,” said Netanyahu in a speech on Sunday afternoon at the headquarters of the Israeli army in Tel Aviv, “our campaign against the terrorist organizations is continuing with full force.”

He added: “We want to put a price on the attacker, as we do with all forms of terrorism. It will take time to restore calm and security and to rebuild deterrence and governance. “

Mr Netanyahu’s promise came amid mounting international criticism of Israeli air strikes in Gaza that began last Monday after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem after a month of mounting tensions between Palestinians and Israelis in the holy city.

The Israeli army says its goal is to destroy the military infrastructure of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave of about two million people that is under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade. Israel blames Hamas for the civilian casualties in Gaza and says the group is hiding militants in residential areas.

That statement was scrutinized over the weekend when Israeli jets destroyed a tower in Gaza City that housed two major international news outlets, The Associated Press and Al Jazeera, after calling the owner of the building and telling him to rent evacuate. An Israeli strike killed at least 10 members of the same family in a home in a refugee camp and caused collateral damage in a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, a medical aid group.

Then on Sunday morning the air raid hit Ms. Abul Ouf’s house. Two relatives said the strike killed two members of their immediate family, at least 12 members of their extended family and more than 30 neighbors, and left their mother in critical condition.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it had “hit an underground military structure of the Hamas terrorist organization that was located under the street”. It added: “Hamas is deliberately locating its terrorist infrastructure under civilian houses and putting them at risk. The underground foundations collapsed, causing civil housing to collapse above them and unintentional casualties. “

American Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged Hamas and Israel to exercise restraint at the Security Council meeting on Sunday to find a way to end the violence.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Updated

May 16, 2021, 7:21 p.m. ET

“The United States calls on all parties to ensure the protection of civilians and respect international humanitarian law,” she said. “We also call on all parties to protect medical and other humanitarian institutions as well as journalists and media organizations.”

The Security Council adjourned with no action or statement indicating that members could not agree on what to say. China’s Ambassador Zhang Jun, whose country holds the presidency this month, said after the meeting that he was working to ensure that the council “take immediate action and speak with one voice”.

Hady Amr, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs, concluded a day of talks on Sunday with key Israeli officials and the office of the Quartet, which mediates peace negotiations in the Middle East. He is said to have similar talks on Monday with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the West Bank but lost control of Gaza in 2007.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas last week sparked a wave of related violence between Arabs and Jews in Israel itself. This and demonstrations in the occupied West Bank have led analysts to wonder if the Palestinians are on the verge of a major uprising, the third since the late 1980s. The protests and clashes were less intense on Sunday after massive crackdown by police in Israel and the Israeli army in the West Bank.

But Arabs and Jews clashed in the Negev desert in southern Israel, in East Jerusalem, and in Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish town in central Israel. Police response to last week’s riots has mainly centered on Arabs following attacks on synagogues, which some had likened to a pogrom.

On Sunday, an umbrella organization for Arab leaders in Israel appealed to the international community to protect the Palestinian citizens of Israel “from violent attacks and human rights violations by state and private actors”. The group added: “Palestinian citizens share a fear for their lives.”

On Sunday afternoon, a Palestinian rammed a police checkpoint and injured several police officers in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in east Jerusalem. Seconds later, the police fatally shot the driver. Several Palestinian families are evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in a case that has fueled the Palestinian national sentiment and created the conditions for renewed conflict in Gaza.

The rocket fire by Hamas and other militant Islamist groups in Gaza over the weekend included a large barrage over central Israel early on Sunday morning.

Most of these missiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome, an anti-missile detection system partially funded by the United States. But wherever they met, they terrorized Israeli residents, especially in cities like Sderot, which are near the Gaza Strip.

An explosion this weekend destroyed a fifth-floor apartment in Sderot, killing a 5-year-old boy and tearing a hole in another where Eli Botera, his wife Gitit and their young daughter Adele huddled into the baby’s bedroom.

“My wife panicked and started screaming,” said Mr Botera. “After all, everything is up to God. Everyone has to do what they can to protect themselves, but if it is your fate to die, you will die. “

The deadliest attacks were in Gaza – and the most important of them was the air strike on Ms. Abul Ouf’s house in Al-Wehda, a busy, affluent neighborhood in Gaza City, full of shops and apartment blocks.

Ms. Abul Ouf trained as a dentist and lived at home with her parents and siblings, relatives said. By Sunday morning, two were dead and three were injured and torn from the rubble, relatives said. Ms. Abul Ouf’s father, a supermarket owner, was unharmed after fixing a neighbor’s internet one night.

Ms. Abul Ouf was due to marry Mr. al-Yazji in two months. You last spoke early Sunday when the bombing began, Mr. al-Yazji said.

“Hide yourself,” he remembered telling her in a text message.

But the message never got through.

Mr. al-Yazji spent hours on Sunday searching the rubble for her. Government rescuers hurled rubble away stone by stone, and when they discovered a corpse, Mr. al-Yazji rushed over, and the rubble and the sand of the rubble formed his feet.

The person was still breathing. But it wasn’t Mrs. Abul Ouf.

The Israeli bombardment has forced 38,000 people to seek refuge in dozen of UN schools, the United Nations said. Gaza now faces power outages for at least 16 hours a day, while damage to a desalination plant has threatened access to drinking water for around 250,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Israel’s air strikes have also halted all Covid-19 vaccinations and virus testing in the Palestinian enclave, increasing the risk of virus contamination as civilians rush into shelters for security reasons, UN officials said.

Mr. al-Yazji stood in the rubble on Sunday, giving up hope of finding his fiancée that afternoon. He took a box of her dental kit from the ruins, a small mark to remember. Then he and his brother went to the nearby hospital where the victims of the air strike were killed.

After each new ambulance arrived, it rushed to its back doors to look in and see if Ms. Abul Ouf was inside. Each time he went back disappointed.

After a few hours he went to the morgue instead. And there, lying motionless on a stand, was Shaimaa Abul Ouf’s body.

Mr. al-Yazji became hysterical with grief. “Be happy,” he said after identifying her body.

“I swear to God,” he added, “she laughed.”

The reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner from Sderot, Israel. Lara Jakes from Washington; Rick Gladstone from New York; Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; and Adam Rasgon from Tel Aviv.

Categories
Politics

Plunging Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Provide Dents State Inoculation Efforts

Plunging Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Supply Dents State Inoculation Efforts

“The last thing we wanted to hear about was that we were getting fewer vaccines,” Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, told reporters on Friday. “We were hoping to start up as they promised.”

In a statement, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, said, “We won’t be able to get as many shots into the arms of New Yorkers as we’d like”. He added, “As has been the case since our vaccination efforts began, the X-Factor is care, care, care.”

Some state health officials had hoped to use Johnson & Johnson’s unique, easy-to-store vaccine to target college students and other temporary groups. Others offered it at mass vaccination sites or directed it to rural areas.

Instead, Johnson & Johnson can shipments across the states will drop sharply next week: California will drop from 572,700 to 67,600 cans, Texas from 392,100 to 46,300, Florida from 313,200 to 37,000, and Virginia from 253,400 to 27,900.

In Virginia, which will expand vaccine coverage to the entire adult population in nine days, the effect will be “tremendous,” said Dr. Danny Avula, the state vaccination coordinator. He said officials should warn people that appointments could be difficult to come by, even though they would be allowed to register for recordings.

Categories
Business

Range, fairness efforts usually overlook these with disabilities

Diversity, equity efforts often overlook those with disabilities

2020 spawned a pivotal national conversation that focused on the need for businesses – from Main Street to Wall Street – to address recruitment practices, employment policies, attitudes and other aspects of the employment process to explore opportunities for diversity, equity and inclusion to expand. It seems like every business in the US, from Google to Pepsi to the family-owned small business near you, is researching DEI strategies and tactics to attract new employees, retain existing employees, and appeal to a wider customer base.

You cannot sign in to LinkedIn or Indeed without posting a new job posting for an executive dedicated to promoting DEI internally. You can’t scroll through Instagram or Facebook without coming across a new consumer-facing social media campaign like L’Oréal’s new partnership with the NAACP. And you can’t shop at your favorite store without noticing the latest social justice philanthropy initiative like Crate & Barrel’s new 15 percent pledge to ensure 15% of its products and collaborations are from black companies, artists and designers by 2024 be represented.

As our country continues the necessary DEI talks and organizations and businesses continue to employ creative strategies to solve systemic problems, we are overlooking the most underemployed and unemployed segment of our entire US population – people with disabilities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 61 million adults with a disability in the United States – that’s 26%, or about one in four adults. In 2019, the Ministry of Labor reported that 7.3% of people with disabilities were unemployed – about twice the rate for people without disabilities.

Where are the consumer-centric campaigns with people with visible (and invisible) disabilities?

Where are the social justice campaigns in support of the products and businesses of people with disabilities?

And above all, why aren’t more companies employing people with disabilities?

Despite the passage of the Disabled Americans Act by Congress in 1990 and subsequent amendments in 2008, systemic issues continue to pose significant structural, economic, educational, and regulatory barriers to employers and people with disabilities.

The poverty rate among adults with disabilities (27%) is more than twice as high as that among adults without disabilities (12%). Some will say the reason for this is complicated. We disagree.

People with disabilities are forced to live in a health and benefit system that was developed in the 1960s when people with disabilities were often institutionalized from birth. Even in 2021, for a person with a disability eligible for entitlement programs, the only health care and services option is in their state Medicaid program (51 different bureaucratic programs that are complex and complex for individuals, family members, and caregivers are awkward).

People with disabilities also have to navigate a complex, limited employment sector based on outdated low expectations and stereotypes – limited options more like the 1980s than the 2020s.

Many people with disabilities live in poverty because their only government support (i.e. Medicaid and Social Security) is not specifically targeted to support their disability. Individuals are limited in what they can earn (around $ 735 per month) and how much they can save at any given time (around $ 2,000). These means tested program qualifications are based on income measures from 1964.

Fifty-seven years later, it is time to look at these legacy systems and programs. It is time to decouple the poor from the disabled community and create incentives to bring people with disabilities into jobs and careers.

Many people with disabilities can and want to work, and many can work effectively with minimal assistance. In many cases, applying for government support to help people on low incomes and live in poverty is the only way people with disabilities can survive because they lack the experience, opportunities, encouragement and support that are needed to to get them into sustainable employment.

Any organization, including the government, can help improve this situation and help the largest unemployed population of people living in the United States today:

  • Create a co-designed national disability insurance program that focuses on self-management by the individual and his or her family or carer.
  • Remove income and wealth restrictions for people with disabilities so they can work, live and fulfill their own professional passions without fear of losing benefits.
  • Employers can make their workplaces truly diverse, equitable and inclusive by changing their recruiting strategies, expanding their talent pool, offering a training program that partners with special education programs and local disability organizations, and their goods and services – and the way they market – make sure – appeal to a wider audience.

As we near 2021 and begin the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, it makes sense to think about ways to maximize labor force participation. A strong focus on DEI is critical to positioning the economy for recovery and growth. And while we discuss how DEI should be successful in the US, it is time for policymakers and employers to do their part to tap into the most unemployed population in this country – people with disabilities.

Sara Hart Weir is a leading nonprofit executive and disability policy expert in the United States. Weir is the former President and CEO of the National Down Syndrome Society, co-founder of the CEO Commission for Disability Employment, and most recently the runner-up in the U.S. Third Congressional District of Kansas in 2020.

Nicholas Wyman is a future labor expert, author, speaker, and president of the Institute for Skills and Innovation in the Workplace. He was also LinkedIn’s Leading Education Author of the Year and wrote an award-winning book, Job U, A Practical Guide to Finding Wealth and Success by Developing the Skills Businesses Really Need. Wyman holds an MBA, graduated from Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government, and received a Churchill Fellowship.