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Health

Biden Ramps Up Virus Technique for Nursing Properties, Faculties

Biden Ramps Up Virus Strategy for Nursing Homes, Schools

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration moved on multiple fronts on Wednesday to fight back against the surging Delta variant, strongly recommending booster shots for most vaccinated American adults and using federal leverage to force nursing homes to vaccinate their staffs.

In remarks from the East Room of the White House, President Biden also directed his education secretary to “use all of his authority, and legal action if appropriate,” to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms. That move is destined to escalate a fight with some Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the virus.

The shifts in strategy reflect the administration’s growing concern that the highly contagious Delta variant is erasing its hard-fought progress against the pandemic and thrusting the nation back to the more precarious point it was at earlier in the year.

Thus far, Mr. Biden has been reluctant to use the federal government’s power to withhold funding as a means of fighting the pandemic. But that changed Wednesday, when he said his administration would make employee vaccination a condition for nursing homes to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. Officials said the decision would affect more than 15,000 nursing homes that employ 1.3 million workers.

“The threat of the Delta virus remains real, but we are prepared, we have the tools, we can do this,” Mr. Biden said in the East Room, adding, “This is no time to let our guard down.”

He accused politicians who were banning local school districts from requiring masks in the classroom of setting a “dangerous tone,” adding, “We’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators from protecting our children.” The administration is sending letters to eight states — Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — challenging their efforts to ban universal masking in schools.

For many Americans, the booster strategy will affect them the most. The government plans to offer third shots to adults who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines eight months after they received their second dose. About 150 million Americans have been fully immunized with one of those two vaccines.

“We are concerned that the current strong protection against severe infection, hospitalization and death could decrease in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk” or who were inoculated in the early months of the vaccination campaign, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.

Assuming that regulators decide third shots are safe and effective, the effort will start Sept. 20. Officials said they were waiting on more data to decide whether the 14 million Americans who received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine should also receive an additional shot, but suggested that they would be included as well.

Although some public health experts have said booster shots were prudent and expected, not all scientists are convinced it is the right move. And advocates for global health said it was morally wrong — and shortsighted — for the administration to give booster shots to Americans when so many people around the world were still waiting to be vaccinated.

For state officials and health care providers, already exhausted from an 18-month battle against a novel virus that seems to shift its shape the moment it seems under control, the booster-vaccination campaign will bring a fresh round of logistical challenges. Some worried it could sidetrack efforts to vaccinate the roughly 85 million Americans who were eligible for shots but remained unvaccinated.

“We now have to fight a war on two fronts,” said Dr. José R. Romero, the Arkansas secretary of health. “We have to continue to press the vaccine into those groups that have not accepted it, and then have another effort to vaccinate those at high risk.”

The move to make employee vaccination a condition for nursing homes to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding reflects months of frustration with the low vaccination rates among nursing assistants and other workers who care for highly vulnerable people.

Officials described it as the first time that Mr. Biden had threatened to withhold federal funding in order to force vaccinations.

In an interview before the president spoke, Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona described another major turning point: his department will use its civil rights enforcement arm to allow schools to require masks. The move comes as many educators and parents fear a surge in cases as the school year is about to start and as pediatric Covid cases climb.

The C.D.C. has recommended that everyone in schools wears masks, regardless of their vaccination status, but some states and localities are refusing to issue rules requiring masks or preventing schools from imposing them.

“The president is appalled, as I am, that there are adults who are blind to their blindness, that there are people who are putting policies in place that are putting students and staff at risk,” Dr. Cardona said in the interview.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “we shouldn’t be having this conversation. What we’re dealing with now is negligence.”

Administration officials made clear that booster shots would depend upon a determination by the Food and Drug Administration that third shots are safe and effective — a ruling expected in the coming weeks. Whether those under the age of 18 will be eligible will also be up to the F.D.A. and a federal advisory committee of experts, they said.

Aside from some people with weakened immune systems who have already been authorized for third shots, officials advised that fully vaccinated people wait for what they promised would be a speedy but orderly national rollout of booster shots.

Updated 

Aug. 18, 2021, 7:51 p.m. ET

“Here’s what you need to know: If you are fully vaccinated, you still have a high degree of protection from the worst outcomes of Covid-19 — severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general, said at a White House briefing. “We are not recommending that you go out and get a booster today.”

Dr. Walensky presented a series of studies at the briefing that, she said, showed the vaccines’ efficacy wanes over time. Some doctors applauded the decision to offer booster shots.

“Given the prevalence we have of the Delta variant, doing everything we can to keep people out of the hospital — especially those at high risk — does make sense,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, the director of the Center for Disaster Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

But some scientists criticized the policy as overly broad, arguing that it is not clear that the general population needs a third shot.

Jennifer B. Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the studies cited by administration officials showed that the vaccines were doing what they were intended to do — protect against severe disease and hospitalization.

“I don’t think the metric of, ‘We’re seeing more infection’ is the right metric to be judging the efficacy of the vaccines,” she said. “The right metric is, ‘Does it prevent severe disease?’”

The administration’s move follows similar actions by Israel, Germany and France but goes against the recommendation of the World Health Organization, which is arguing extra vaccine supply should go to countries that have vaccinated far fewer of their residents.

“Vaccine injustice is a shame on all humanity and if we don’t tackle it together, we will prolong the acute stage of this pandemic for years when it could be over in a matter of months,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, said at a news conference before the White House’s briefing.

Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator, said the administration was already donating 600 million doses of vaccines to needy countries and would continue that effort — a point Mr. Biden reiterated in the East Room.

“We can take care of America and help the world at the same time,” Mr. Biden said.

Administration experts said the booster policy was the result of dual, disturbing trends: a decline in the vaccines’ potency over time and the apparent ability of the Delta variant to somehow bypass their protection better than its predecessors.

One study they cited found the vaccines’ effectiveness at preventing infections among nursing home residents dropped to about 53 percent from 75 percent between spring and summer, when the Delta variant became dominant.

Understand the State of Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.

    • Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
    • Vaccine rules . . . and businesses. Private companies are increasingly mandating coronavirus vaccines for employees, with varying approaches. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.
    • College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.
    • Schools. On Aug. 11, California announced that it would require teachers and staff of both public and private schools to be vaccinated or face regular testing, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots.  
    • Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.
    • New York. On Aug. 3, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced that proof of vaccination would be required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations, becoming the first U.S. city to require vaccines for a broad range of activities. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.
    • At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops “no later” than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.

Dr. Walensky said preliminary data from another study of more than 4,000 frontline workers suggested that the vaccines might not work as well against the Delta variant than against prior variants. In that study, a decline in vaccine efficacy against infection appeared related to the variant, not to how long ago the workers were vaccinated, she said.

She also cited data from Israel showing a worsening in the infection rate among vaccinated people over time. Israel vaccinated much of its population faster than other countries, making it a potential harbinger of what is to come for the United States.

Dr. Murthy said there was “nothing magical” about the eight-month timeline for allowing boosters, describing it simply as the best judgment of health experts. He and other officials emphasized that the overwhelming majority of hospitalizations and deaths from Covid continued to occur among the unvaccinated.

“Protection against severe disease and hospitalization is currently holding up pretty well,” Dr. Walensky said.

First in line for booster shots will be health care workers, nursing home residents and other older adults, followed by the rest of the general population. Officials envision offering the extra shots at pharmacies and other sites where initial vaccinations are already underway, rather than reopening mass vaccination sites. More than five million people could be eligible for the shots as of late September.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the president’s top medical adviser for the pandemic, said studies had shown that third shots of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines could boost the levels of antibodies that fight the virus tenfold — an increase he called “remarkable.”

Although they promised the booster rollout would be orderly and thoughtful, federal officials are clearly racing against the clock to offer extra shots before those who were vaccinated earliest could be more vulnerable to the threat of severe disease.

The F.D.A. must first authorize third doses, and an advisory committee of the C.D.C. must review the evidence and make recommendations. But neither Pfizer nor Moderna has yet submitted all the necessary data showing that third shots are safe and effective.

Pfizer is expected to finish submitting its data this month. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are studying whether a half dose or full dose works best. The company plans to submit its data next month.

On the plus side, federal and state health officials said that much of the infrastructure for a rollout was already in place. Tens of thousands of pharmacies and other sites are already offering shots on a daily basis, and many state officials said they could easily expand their work.

The nation’s vaccine surplus also makes it unlikely that Americans will experience the kind of frenzy seen in the early weeks of the vaccine effort last winter, when older Americans desperate for shots flooded mass vaccination sites. “The bottom line is that we are prepared for boosters, and we will hit the ground running,” Mr. Zients said.

Some state officials sounded less sure of a smooth operation. “It’s hard even to predict how strong the demand will be,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which was briefed on the administration’s plans Wednesday morning by C.D.C. experts.

“The big question is, do we do community vaccination clinics again, which worked very well in the initial run,” he said, “or is the demand going to be a little bit more spaced out over time?”

Apoorva Mandavilli and Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting.

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Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris unveils technique to handle unlawful immigration

Vice President Kamala Harris unveils strategy to address illegal immigration

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building during the National Bar Association’s virtual meeting in Washington, DC, the United States, on Tuesday, July 27, 2021.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday released a comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of migration amid the recent surge in illegal border crossings between the US and Mexico.

The strategy states that the pandemic and “extreme weather conditions” have exacerbated the causes of migration, including corruption, violence, human trafficking and poverty.

The announcement comes as the government faces a crisis on the southern border with migrant detentions reaching a 20-year high in recent months.

More than 1.1 million arrests were recorded in the first six months of this fiscal year, according to US Customs and Border Protection. And in June alone, there was a record high of almost 190,000 arrests.

While the Biden government has sent millions of doses of vaccine and hurricane aid to Central America, Harris noted that such short-term aid “is not enough to provide long-term relief”.

Instead, the Vice President’s strategy promises more sustained efforts to address the motives for migration, including a realignment of engagement in Central America.

“In Central America, the root causes of migration run deep – and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States,” Harris wrote in a cover letter about the plan. “Because of this, our nation must work consistently with the region to address the needs that are causing people to leave Central America and come to our border.”

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden appointed Harris to lead the government’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and she visited the US-Mexico border in June as part of that effort.

The strategy is the Vice President’s latest move to address these root causes and is a core part of the Biden government’s broader plan, released Tuesday, to establish a “fair, orderly and humane immigration system.”

The plan is divided into five pillars but does not provide a detailed timetable or policy actions to be taken. The pillars include combating economic insecurity and inequality, combating democratic corruption and promoting respect for human rights.

The plan also addresses gang violence and crime, and the fight against sexual and gender-based violence.

Harris noted that the United Nations and the governments of Mexico, Japan and South Korea have pledged to join efforts to combat the motives for migrating from Central America.

“The United States cannot do this job on its own,” Harris wrote in the cover letter. “Our strategy is far-reaching – and focuses on our partnerships with other governments, international institutions, companies, foundations and civil society.”

On Tuesday, the White House also published a “Collaborative Migration Management Strategy” ordered by President Joe Biden in February. It outlines how the US will work with other countries to “manage safe, orderly and humane migration” in North and Central America.

Efforts include expanding employment opportunities and protection in countries where migrants leave, ensuring safe and humane border management, and creating more legal routes for entry into the United States

Dozens of migrants of Central American and Mexican descent are sleeping on the esplanade of the National Institute of Migration near the El Chaparral border crossing, waiting for US authorities to allow them to enter the country to begin their humanitarian asylum process.

Stringer | Image Alliance | Getty Images

Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for its immigration policies, claiming that the withdrawal of several directives enacted under former President Donald Trump encouraged illegal migration to the United States

Democrats and immigration supporters have also put pressure on Biden to ensure humane treatment of migrant children and families at the border and repeal a Trump-era public health ordinance known as Title 42.

The Health Ordinance has allowed border officials to deport migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum.

On Monday, the Biden government also announced that it would speed up deportations for some migrant families through an “expedited deportation,” which allows immigration authorities to deport a migrant without a hearing from an immigration judge.

The expeditious deportation procedure will apply specifically to family units who are not deported to Mexico under Title 42 and who are not entitled to asylum, according to a statement by the Ministry of Homeland Security.

This decision drew further criticism from supporters of the left.

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Politics

A 2nd New Nuclear Missile Base for China, and Many Questions About Technique

A 2nd New Nuclear Missile Base for China, and Many Questions About Strategy

In the barren desert 1,200 miles west of Beijing, the Chinese government is digging a new field of what appears to be 110 silos for launching nuclear missiles. It is the second such field discovered in the past few weeks by analysts studying commercial satellite imagery.

It could mean a huge expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal – the need for an economic and technological superpower to show that, after decades of reluctance, it is ready to deploy an arsenal the size of Washington or Moscow.

Or it can simply be a creative, albeit costly, negotiating trick.

The new silos are apparently built to be discovered. The latest silo field, which began in March, is located in the eastern part of Xinjiang Province, not far from one of the notorious Chinese “re-education camps” in the city of Hami. It was identified late last week by nuclear experts from the Federation of American Scientists from images of a fleet of Planet Labs satellites and shared with the New York Times.

For decades, since its first successful nuclear test in the 1960s, China has maintained a “minimal deterrent” that most outside experts estimate at around 300 nuclear weapons. (The Chinese won’t say so, and the US government’s assessments will be classified.) If that’s true, that’s less than a fifth of the number deployed by the United States and Russia, and in the nuclear world, China has always considered itself an occupier of moral height and avoids expensive and dangerous arms races.

But that seems to be changing under President Xi Jinping. While China is cracking down on dissent at home, claiming new control over Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan and using cyber weapons much more aggressively, it is breaking new ground with nuclear weapons.

“The silo construction at Yumen and Hami represents the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal of all time,” write Matt Korda and Hans M. Kristensen in a study on the new silo field. They found that China has operated about 20 silos for large liquid-fuel missiles called DF-5s for decades. But the newly discovered field, combined with one hundreds of miles away in Yumen, northeast China, discovered by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, will bring about 230 new silos to the country. The Washington Post previously reported the existence of this first field with around 120 silos.

The puzzle is why China’s strategy has changed.

There are several theories. The simplest is that China now sees itself as a comprehensive economic, technological and military superpower – and wants an arsenal to match that status. Another possibility is that China is concerned about the increasingly effective American missile defense and India’s nuclear build-up, which is advancing rapidly. Then there is Russia’s announcement of new hypersonic and autonomous weapons and the possibility that Beijing may want a more effective deterrent.

A third is that China is concerned that its few ground-based missiles are vulnerable to attack – and by building more than 200 silos spread across two locations, they can play a shell game, move 20 or more missiles, and unit make states guess where they are. This technique is as old as the nuclear arms race.

“Just because you build the silos doesn’t mean you have to fill them all with missiles,” says Vipin Narang, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in nuclear strategy. “You can move them.”

Updated

July 26, 2021, 5:21 p.m. ET

And of course you can swap them. China may believe that sooner or later it will be drawn into arms control negotiations with the United States and Russia – something President Donald J. Trump tried to force in his final year in office when he said he would not renew the New START treaty on Russia unless China, which never participated in nuclear arms control, was included. The Chinese government rejected the idea, saying if Americans were so concerned they should cut their arsenal by four-fifths to Chinese levels.

The result was a standstill. At the very end of the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his arms control officer Marshall Billingslea wrote: “We have asked Beijing for transparency and, together with the United States and Russia, to work out a new arms control agreement covering all categories of nuclear weapons.”

“It is time for China to stop posing and acting responsibly,” they wrote.

But the Biden government had come to the conclusion that it would be unwise to phase out New START with Russia just because China refused to join. After his term in office, President Biden acted quickly to renew the treaty with Russia, but his administration has said that at some point it would like China to make some kind of deal.

These conversations have yet to begin. Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is this week for the first visit by a senior American diplomat to China since Mr Biden took office, although it is not clear that nuclear weapons are on the agenda. In addition to leading nuclear talks with Russia.

At the White House, the National Security Council declined to comment on evidence of China’s growing arsenal.

It is likely that American spy satellites picked up the new build months ago. But it all came public after Mr. Korda, a research analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, a private group in Washington, used civilian satellite imagery to survey the arid hinterland of Xinjiang Province, a rugged area of ​​mountains and deserts in northwest China . He looked for visual clues about the silo construction that matched what the researchers had already discovered.

In February, the Federation of American Scientists reported the expansion of missile silos at a military training area near Jilantai, a city in Inner Mongolia. The group found 14 new silos under construction. Then came the discovery in Yumen.

While searching the wilderness of Xinjiang Province, Mr. Korda specifically looked for inflatable domes – similar to those that house some tennis courts. Chinese engineers erect them over the construction sites of underground missile silos to hide the work underneath. Suddenly, about 250 miles northwest of the recently discovered base, he found a series of inflatable domes, almost identical to those in Yumen, on another sprawling military compound.

The new construction site is in a remote area that the Chinese authorities have cut off from most of the visitors. It is about 60 miles southwest of the city of Hami, known as the site of a re-education camp where the Chinese government detains Uyghurs and members of other minorities. And it’s about 260 miles east of a tidy complex of buildings with large roofs that can open to the sky. Recently, analysts identified the site as one of five military bases where the Chinese armed forces have built lasers that can fire concentrated beams of light at reconnaissance satellites, which are mainly sent into the air by the United States. The lasers blind or deactivate fragile optical sensors.

Working with his colleague, Mr. Kristensen, a weapons expert who leads the group’s nuclear information project, Mr. Korda used satellite photos to explore the site.

The new silos are a little less than two miles apart, according to their report. In total, the sprawling construction site covers around 300 square miles – similar in size to the Yumen base, also in the desert.

Mr. Narang said the two new silo fields gave the Chinese government “many options”.

“It’s not crazy,” he said. “You are making the United States target many silos that may be empty. They can slowly fill these silos when they need to build their strength. And they get influence in arms control. “

“I’m surprised they didn’t do that a decade ago,” he said.

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Biden’s China Technique Meets Resistance on the Negotiating Desk

Biden’s China Strategy Meets Resistance at the Negotiating Table

In an effort to maintain an increasingly strained relationship, the Biden government has developed a strategy to confront China on disputes while leaving the door open to cooperation against global threats.

On Monday, China appeared to slam the door on the idea that the two countries could work together in one day and clash the next.

Talks with Assistant Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman – the highest-ranking government official to visit China – began with a spate of public criticism from the Chinese side and ended with little evidence that the two powers were closer to narrowing their differences.

“The relationship between the United States and the PRC is complex, so our policies are very complex,” Sherman said in a telephone interview following the meetings on the People’s Republic of China. “We believe our relationship can tolerate this nuance.”

The meetings, held in northeast China’s Tianjin city, covered the range of disputes between the two countries, she said. Many of them are bitter and defy a simple solution.

These included human rights, the rapid curtailment of political freedoms in Hong Kong, and what Ms. Sherman called “the horrific acts in Xinjiang,” the largely Muslim region of western China where hundreds of thousands of detention and re-education centers passed.

Ms. Sherman also raised China’s demands over Taiwan, its military operations in the South China Sea, and allegations by the United States and other nations last week that China’s Department of State Security was behind the hacking of Microsoft email systems and possibly other cyber attacks.

“This is very serious – that the Department of State Security would help criminals hack Microsoft and possibly others,” she said, adding that many countries had joined the United States, saying that “such behavior is absolutely irresponsible, reckless and totally irresponsible is out of place ”. in our world. “

China gave no reason, at least publicly, saying that the United States had no right to lecture the Chinese government or anyone else. Before Ms. Sherman finished their meetings, the State Department released a series of six harsh statements from the first official she met, Xie Feng, the assistant secretary of state overseeing relations with the United States.

Mr Xie accused the United States of committing Native American genocide and botching the response to the coronavirus pandemic that killed 620,000 Americans.

The Biden government’s policy is nothing more than a “thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China,” Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to a summary of his comments the Chinese State Department sent reporters on Monday before the Americans could show up provide your own account.

“It appears that a nationwide and societal campaign is being waged to bring China down,” Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to the summaries of his comments, which were also posted on the ministry’s overseas website.

Updated

July 26, 2021, 9:15 a.m. ET

Ms. Sherman’s meetings provided the latest measure of how the Biden administration’s strategy is working. At least so far, it has done little to mitigate China’s behavior. Mr. Xie’s remarks underscored the anger that has been building in China towards the United States and undermines the chances that the approach will gain ground.

After a second meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Ms. Sherman pointed out that the two sides had discussed global and regional issues on which the two governments could potentially work together, including North Korea and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, she warned of concrete progress, adding that she did not come to the talks with immediate results.

“We were pretty straight forward with each other in the areas of big differences,” she said.

“In areas where we have common interests and there are major global interests, we have had very substantial discussions and exchanged some ideas,” said Sherman. “We’ll have to see where this leads.”

Drew Thompson, a former director of China for the US Department of Defense, said the underlying intent behind Ms. Sherman’s visit appears to be to ensure that the worsening of differences does not lead to dangerous stalemates.

“Beijing is taking a maximalist approach to US-China relations, issuing lists of demands, insisting that Washington adopt reverse policies and actions,” said Thompson, now a researcher at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy the National University is from Singapore.

“The main goal for Washington is to deepen understanding of China’s positions, reduce the potential for misjudgment and avoid misjudgment that could lead to open conflict,” he said.

The tone on Monday reflected the opening of high-level talks between senior Chinese and Biden government officials in March when Beijing’s senior foreign policy leader Yang Jiechi gave a 16-minute talk accusing Americans of arrogance and hypocrisy. The controversial start with the Biden administration caught officials in China by surprise, who thought relations hit rock bottom in the last year of the Trump presidency and therefore could only get better with the new president.

Mr. Xie told the Chinese news media after meeting that he had forwarded two requests to Ms. Sherman, including lifting the visa restrictions on Communist Party members, lifting sanctions against Chinese officials and shutting down major Chinese news agencies in the United States as foreign agents. All of these were introduced during Donald J. Trump’s presidency, but President Biden did nothing to repeal any of them.

While Mr Biden has largely avoided it the heated ideological sparring with the Chinese Communist Party that the Trump administration led in its final year, relations remain strained.

Washington has sought allies to pressure Beijing on many of these issues. Ms. Sherman’s trip also took her to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia to rebuild regional ties that were strained under Mr. Trump.

And the Chinese government has resented calls by the United States, the World Health Organization and others for a new investigation into whether the coronavirus might have hatched from a laboratory in China and set off the pandemic.

Last week, Chinese officials said they were “extremely shocked” at a WHO proposal to reconsider laboratory leak theory. A report in March of a first WHO investigation said it was “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus jumped into the wider population after escaping from a laboratory.

Ms. Sherman said she has urged China to cooperate in the international investigation into the spread of Covid. “I’ll let them speak for themselves,” she said, “but from my point of view I certainly didn’t get the answer I wanted or hoped for.”

China’s belligerent tone seems to flow from above. The country’s head of state, Xi Jinping, has signaled a growing impatience with criticism and demands from Washington, particularly with regard to Beijing’s internal problems such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Beijing has fought against sanctions against Hong Kong and Xinjiang with its own against Western politicians, human rights groups and academics.

“We will never accept excruciatingly arrogant lectures from these ‘master teachers’!” Mr. Xi said in a speech on July 1 to commemorate 100 years since the Chinese Communist Party was founded.

Keith Bradsher contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Expert in Technique (and Grudges), Prime Biden Adviser to Depart White Home

Skilled in Strategy (and Grudges), Top Biden Adviser to Depart White House

WASHINGTON – For the past 17 months since Joseph R. Biden Jr. roused his campaign after an embarrassing fourth place in the Iowa caucuses, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has relied on Anita Dunn, a veteran Washington advisor, for both guidance and guidance as a grudge.

Ms. Dunn, 63, gave direction as Mr. Biden’s campaign took off. She later refused to allow Julian Castro, a former housing minister, a requested speaking time at the Democratic National Convention, still upset by his night of debate against Mr Biden’s mental acuity, according to people familiar with the snub. And so far in the west wing she has helped shape every important political advance.

Now, Ms. Dunn will return to her powerful democratic consultancy, leaving a void in Mr. Biden’s little inner circle as the highly contagious Delta variant permeates unvaccinated communities and the fate of Mr. Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal is on the verge of collapse.

“It brings stability and adherence to strategy,” said David Plouffe, the former Obama campaign manager. “You can see it in the White House, where they are very disciplined about Covid, the economy and the President’s commitment. This discipline and not swinging in every pitch is really classic Anita. “

Ms. Dunn has prepared the President for every interview and press conference since taking on his campaign and promoting the government’s buttoned-up approach to the news media. She is widely credited with promoting women to leadership positions in the west wing. And she firmly opposes Mr. Biden asking questions from reporters on a regular basis, which she believes does little to advance his agenda. She prefers town hall events.

But for all of her discipline and expertise, Ms. Dunn’s presence in the Biden administration, and before that in the Obama administration, has raised the question of how her influence in government overlaps with the corporate work of her company, which represents clients who want to influence politics .

Ms. Dunn has just parted ways with SKDK, the business and policy advisory firm she co-founded, and is returning next month for short campaign and government work. And the fact that it is exempt from filing public financial disclosures required by full-time presidential candidates has been criticized by some ethics watchers.

Your presence in the west wing is also evidence of how Mr Biden has prioritized his reliance on trustworthy personalities with decades of experience in the bypass, even as he promised to end access peddling common during the Trump administration. (This week Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close friend of former President Donald J. Trump and one of his top 2016 fundraisers, was accused of using his access to Mr. Trump to promote the UAE’s foreign policy goals and then reiterated Misleading federal agents about his activities.)

Ms. Dunn and her colleagues have said that she has always scrupulously adhered to ethical rules. The SKDK emphasizes that it does not lobby, but rather provides political and media advice.

Ms. Dunn and her husband Robert Bauer, a former White House attorney who still serves as personal advocate for both Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama, have long been part of the infrastructure of Washington’s national democratic politics.

Following the 2020 election, Ms. Dunn intended to return to her position as managing director of her company, which represents Pfizer, AT&T and Amazon alongside other corporate giants such as the NAACP

However, Mr. Biden and his wife Jill Biden had other plans. They urged Ms. Dunn to join the new government, reminding her that the pandemic was killing 3,000 people every day and that Mr. Biden relied on her experience and determination.

Ms. Dunn did not feel that she could say no, colleagues said.

She agreed to work for a short term as “special government agent,” a designation that exempts her from the public finance disclosure required of full-time government employees, but also limits the number of days she spends in white A house.

Nor did she intend to oversee Mr Biden’s campaign. But after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses, followed by a disastrous fifth place in New Hampshire, Ms. Dunn was motivated by a mixture of loyalty and desperation, according to colleagues.

There was little money in February 2020. There were no crowds. Ms. Dunn took control of the entire operation, lived at a Hampton Inn in Philadelphia near the campaign headquarters, and approved $ 200 in office supplies, colleagues recalled.

Ms. Dunn helped Mr. Biden conclude that the timing was not right. Mr Biden reached out to her again in 2018 when he was seriously considering a run against Mr Trump.

In her current position, she earns a salary of $ 129,000, just below the $ 132,552 threshold that requires filing public financial disclosures. (Mr. Bauer, who is a co-chair of the President’s Commission to Evaluate Proposed Revisions in the Supreme Court, is also a special government official, though his role is unpaid.)

Eleanor Eagan, a research director for the Revolving Door Project, criticized the government for allowing Ms. Dunn to bypass disclosure rules. “Biden has promised to restore confidence in the government after Trump’s fantastically corrupt government,” Ms. Eagan said. “Allowing this and similar evasions is a clear violation of this promise.”

Now Ms. Dunn is returning to the private sector, where her colleagues benefit from her connections in the west wing.

Ms. Dunn’s company was also hired to handle the $ 2.2 million direct mail contract for the Biden campaign, according to the campaign papers, underscoring how the business world and the political world are sometimes aligned.

Some of SKDK’s customers have sparked controversy, such as the case of NSO Group, an Israeli cyber-tech company that The Intercept said was accused of using its spyware to hack the phones of journalists and human rights activists. Hilary Rosen, a partner at SKDK, said she stopped representing the company in 2019 and dropped it as a customer over spyware allegations.

A senior White House official said Ms. Dunn would be subject to the governmental restrictions that apply to former federal employees. This includes a two-year limit on who she contacts on matters in which the government has a “significant interest” that has been pending under its official responsibility in the White House.

Even with her return to the company, no one at the White House expects Ms. Dunn’s influence in the Biden world to end completely. Indeed, many view her departure as a moment to take a deep breath before she begins planning the president’s re-election, which he has so far announced.

“She will always be a phone call away,” said Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser to the White House.

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World News

Biden’s technique on the Russia-to-Germany gasoline pipeline complicated and wishes rationalization, says international coverage professional

Biden’s strategy on the Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline confusing and needs explanation, says foreign policy expert

Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, said he thinks the Biden administration’s decision to waive sanctions on a Russian company overseeing the construction of a controversial Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline was about improving relations with Germany.

“I believe they’re essentially deferring to Chancellor [Angela] Merkel to figure out some kind of a strategy that she thinks may work, and maybe get Russia to behave better over Ukraine and other places… But if that’s the strategy, I’d like to hear it explained and defended, not just sort of swept under the rug,” said O’Hanlon.

The Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2, would bring natural gas from Russia to Germany and run under the Baltic Sea. Critics from both sides of the political aisle expressed concern that Russia could use the pipeline to gain leverage over European nations. 

Republican Senator Rob Portman slammed the decision and has said it was “contrary to our national interests, and at an especially volatile period, helps Russia while hurting Ukraine and our European Union allies.”

New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement that “completion of this pipeline poses a threat to U.S. security interests and the stability of our partners in the region.”

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

O’Hanlon told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that he agreed with the critics. 

“It’s confusing why you would give Russia more leeway, more leverage, and also the ability to bypass Ukraine in shipping gas into Europe,” said O’Hanlon. “It doesn’t smack me to be a good decision.”

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Health

Biden Shifts Vaccination Technique in Drive to Reopen by July 4

Biden Shifts Vaccination Strategy in Drive to Reopen by July 4

WASHINGTON – President Biden, faced with delayed vaccinations threatening his promise of near-normalcy through July 4th, revised its strategy to fight the pandemic on Tuesday, moving from mass vaccination sites to more local facilities to appeal to younger Americans and those who hesitate to get a shot.

In a speech at the White House, Mr Biden said he was launching a new phase in the fight against the coronavirus, with the aim of vaccinating at least 70 percent of adults at least partially by Independence Day, and with a personal appeal to all those who were not vaccinated: “That is Your decision. It’s life and death. “

After three months of tackling supply and distribution bottlenecks, the Biden government faces a problem the president deemed inevitable: many of those most likely to want to be vaccinated have already done so. Vaccination sites in stadiums that were once filled with truckloads of people looking for shots are closing, stating that once they ask for more vaccines, they won’t be able to use all of the doses the federal government wants to ship to them.

However, the government’s own health experts say an additional ten million Americans will need to be vaccinated before the infection rate is low enough to return to what many people consider normal life.

The administration now wants tens of thousands of pharmacies for people to take pictures. It has also ordered pop-up and mobile clinics, especially in rural areas, and plans to allocate tens of millions of dollars to outreach workers in the community to provide transportation and organize childcare for those in high-risk neighborhoods who are want to be vaccinated.

To build confidence in vaccines, federal officials plan to enlist the help of family doctors and other envoys who have trusted voices in their communities.

In a new effort to balance supply and demand, federal officials announced Tuesday that this vaccine would be considered part of a federal pool available to other states who so choose if they don’t get theirs in a given week would order full dose distribution to order more. So far, if states have not been able to order all of their allotted doses on a population basis, they could carry over that supply to the next week.

Mr Biden also announced a new federal website and phone number that will help people find the closest vaccination site. “We will make it easier than ever to get vaccinated,” he promised.

The government is hoping for a surge in vaccinations if the Food and Drug Administration approves the use of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for adolescents ages 12-15 as expected early next week. The president said adolescents are important in fighting the virus because while they are not as susceptible to serious illnesses, they can still get sick and infect others.

Experts say the United States may never achieve herd immunity. At this point the virus dies because there are no hosts to transmit it. And the president suggested the nation was still a long way from defeating the pandemic.

While the vast majority of seniors have been vaccinated, “we are still losing hundreds of Americans under 65 every week,” Biden said. “And many more get seriously ill at the same time from long distances.” He warned that the nation would vaccinate people in the fall.

Still, the president said that if 70 percent of the nation’s adults have had at least one vaccine by July 4th, “Americans will have taken a serious step toward a return to normal.”

To get there, the government needs to shift the focus from mass vaccination sites to doctor’s offices, pharmacies and other local facilities, and make a far more concerted effort to reach those who are reluctant to take pictures or just find out it’s too much trouble.

“We will move on,” said the president, optimistic that “most people will be convinced of the fact that their failure to receive the vaccine can lead to other people becoming sick and possibly dying.”

Updated

May 4, 2021, 3:12 p.m. ET

As of Tuesday, more than 106 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated and more than 56 percent of adults – or nearly 148 million people – had received at least one shot. This has contributed to sharp falls in infections, hospitalizations and deaths across all age groups, federal officials said.

Despite a flood of available doses, the rate of vaccination has dropped significantly in the past two and a half weeks. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, providers are currently delivering an average of about 2.19 million doses per day, down about 35 percent from the high of 3.38 million on April 13.

Mr Biden called for 160 million adults to be fully vaccinated by July 4 – an increase of 55 million people, or more than 50 percent. About 35 million more adults would have to get at least one shot to reach the president’s target of 70 percent of adults who are at least partially protected. While this next phase of the vaccination effort is “easier because I don’t have to put this massive logistical effort together,” said Mr Biden, “in the other sense it is more difficult, it is beyond my personal control.”

When asked if the United States would help other countries that are worse off, the president promised that by July 4th his administration will have “sent about 10 percent of what we have to other nations.” It wasn’t clear whether he was referring only to doses of AstraZeneca that are not approved for sale in the U.S. or to the country’s entire vaccine inventory. He also promised to act quickly “to get as many doses as possible from Moderna and Pfizer and export them around the world”.

So far, White House officials have stuck to formulas that assign vaccine doses to states by population and have been extremely reluctant to send doses of approved vaccines overseas. The government had been unwilling to move doses to states that could administer it faster, fearing that rural areas or underserved communities would lose to urban or richer areas where residents were more willing to get shots.

As the pace of vaccination slows down, officials have decided that the benefits of a loose system outweigh this risk.

States that want more than their allotment can ask for up to 50 percent more doses, officials said. States that do not claim all of their doses a week will not be penalized and will be able to claim their full allocations the next week, officials said.

The postponement makes little difference to some states that routinely obtained as many doses as the federal government was willing to ship. But it could help some states that can use more than the federal government has shipped.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday the move would give governors more flexibility. “Just a few weeks ago,” she said, “we were at a different stage in our vaccination efforts when supplies were more limited and states largely ordered at or near their full allotment.”

Virginia is a case in point. Last week, for the first time, the state didn’t order every dose it could have, said Dr. Danny Avula, the state vaccination coordinator.

Now he said, “If we can find ways to vaccinate a few people at a time, supply will exceed demand across the state, and work will be much slower and more difficult.” Dr. Avula said the change will “be very helpful to the few states that still have localized areas of high demand.”

Low demand states like Arkansas may find their allotted doses shipped to an alternate location. Arkansas has so far only used 69 percent of the doses it has been given, data shows. Last week, a health ministry spokeswoman said the state had not ordered cans from the federal government. Just over a third of Arkansas adults have received at least one dose, one of the lowest in the country.

Ms. Psaki said the government is working with states to find out which settings make the most sense at this point in the vaccination campaign.

“We’re constantly evaluating the best delivery mechanisms,” she said, “and if something isn’t the most effective, we will make changes.”

Mr Biden suggested that general practitioners and pediatricians play a key role in promoting the vaccination program, as do other community figures. If the Pfizer vaccine is approved for teenagers, the administration plans to make it immediately available to them in about 20,000 pharmacies that participate in the federal vaccination program.

However, some cans are being shipped direct to pediatricians so “parents and their children can talk to their GP and get the shot from a provider they trust most,” the president said. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said last week that “80 percent of people who try to decide on a vaccine say they want to speak to their doctor about that decision – and we heard that loud and clear. ”

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Politics

Democrats Splinter Over Technique for Pushing By way of Voting Rights Invoice

Democrats Splinter Over Strategy for Pushing Through Voting Rights Bill

Black House members, for example, are deeply concerned about the move of the law to independent redistribution commissions, which they fear could cost seats if majority and minority districts are dissolved, especially in the south. Before the bill was passed, the authors spent considerable time reassuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus that adequate safeguards were in place to sustain their districts. However, a prominent committee chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, remained so concerned that he voted against the bill despite sponsoring it.

Some of the Party’s institutions believe that the Small Dollar Public Funding Plan, which includes a six-to-one matching program for donations under $ 200, could stimulate and fuel the primary challenges, especially those from the far left, by allowing them to get on board with established businesses’ usual fundraising faster.

Then there is a more annoying political concern, most clearly voiced by Mr Manchin but shared by others, that Mr Trump falsely claimed for months that Democrats were scammers trying to rig the 2020 elections against him, some independent voters – fair or not – will see the legislation as an attempt to do just that and punish the party in the medium term in 2022.

The state election administrators have also made their own complaints, tacitly telling their senators to change the national voting requirements, which they say will be onerous or impossible by 2022. Some have complained that they were simply not consulted on a major federal revision of the system they believe they were effectively overseeing.

“I said no electoral officers were injured in making this law,” quipped Charles Stewart III, a senior electoral expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Holding elections is very detailed and it’s not just about postponing things. They add new functionality and complexity, rather than just shifting complexity from one place to another. “

Many say they support the aims of the proposal, but fear that it goes too far in some places and contradicting lines in others. For example, the law states that properly stamped ballot papers received up to 10 days after an election must be counted as valid. However, it also gives voters up to 10 days to correct errors in ballots sent in, which means that incorrect ballots arriving late can delay the confirmation of an election by up to 20 days. Some administrators believe that a 20-day delay threatens to destroy the timelines for formalizing election results.

Others say the move, which requires all federal elections to start with an identical set of rules, ignores reality in the dozens of thousands of jurisdictions overseeing the vote. A director for democratic state elections said the early electoral mandates in the bill would require a county of 2,000 residents to keep elections open for 15 days, 10 hours a day, even for an off-year Congressional area code that only attracts a handful of voters attracts.

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Health

Putin to get coronavirus vaccine; Russia’s vaccine technique in focus

Putin to get coronavirus vaccine; Russia's vaccine strategy in focus

Russian President Vladimir Putin will chair a meeting on May 13, 2020 to focus on assisting the aviation industry and aviation at his land residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow.

Alexey Nikolsky | AFP | Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to receive a coronavirus shot on Tuesday as the country’s vaccination strategy takes center stage.

Putin’s vaccination is due one day after commending multimillion-dollar international sales of Russian vaccine Sputnik V Covid. However, the country’s adoption appears to be slow and in stark contrast to the large number of vaccines destined for the international market.

It was reported that Russia’s own manufacturing capacity is low, and Putin appeared to be nodding at it on Monday. He said Russia needs to ramp up domestic vaccine production and that household supplies are a priority, according to Reuters.

He found that 4.3 million people in the country had already received two doses of the vaccine. This is much higher than in the UK, for example, where around 2.3 million people have given both doses to date. However, Russia was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine (Sputnik V) as early as August 2020, first shot in early December.

However, the Kremlin has not confirmed whether Putin will receive Sputnik V. There are three Russian vaccines and Putin’s spokesman said Monday that the president would be vaccinated with one of them. “All of them are good and reliable,” the spokesman said, according to the AP.

logistics

Russia faces a number of logistical challenges when introducing a vaccine. It is the largest country in the world and has around 144 million inhabitants in an area that stretches across Europe and northern Asia.

In early March, Putin found that all but nine Russian regions had started using the vaccine, with delays related to “problems with logistics, distribution (and) locations,” the Moscow Times reported.

Global data on vaccination programs shows that Russia is lagging behind many other countries in its own domestic rollout, with the number of single doses administered in Russia just above the number of doses administered in Bangladesh, according to Our World in Data.

Vaccination dates are highlighted as Russia was hit so hard by the pandemic: it has recorded the fourth highest number of cases in the world (over 4.4 million) and over 94,000 people have died of Covid in the country, according to Covid at Johns Hopkins University.

Vaccination skepticism

Another major problem hindering Russia’s adoption is citizens’ reluctance to adopt vaccines. Daragh McDowell, head of Europe and senior Russian analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC that the country’s lower vaccination rates “are likely due to public unwillingness to be skeptical about the vaccine rather than lack of supply.”

He noted that the latest data from the Levada Center, an independent pollster in Russia, suggests that only 30% of Russians are “ready to get vaccinated, a number that has actually decreased since last year”.

“This is mainly due to concerns about side effects and the inadequate testing of the vaccine. In other words, while the Kremlin received a boost in propaganda by bringing the vaccine out first, it came at the expense of doubts about its safety.” McDowell noticed.

A woman receives the second component of the Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) COVID-19 vaccine.

Valentin Sprinchak | TASS | Getty Images

Sputnik V was originally only approved in Russia for those ages 18 to 60, which means that 68-year-old Putin was too old to receive it. However, further studies in seniors found that the vaccine was safe in people 60 and older, and that the age group can now get the shot.

“The fact that Putin waited so long to be vaccinated himself is not going to go unnoticed and has contributed to these doubts,” added McDowell.

“The president’s vaccination will convince some Russians of the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety (but) high levels of social distrust and conspiratorial thinking will mitigate its effects.”

He stressed that the same survey data that showed that 30% of Russians were willing to be vaccinated also showed that nearly two-thirds believed Covid was artificially developed as a biological weapon.

International sales agreements

Another aspect of the Russian vaccine program that has attracted attention is the high number of international sales of its vaccine. On Monday, Putin confirmed that Russia had signed international sales agreements for Sputnik V cans for 700 million people.

RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund that backed the development and deployment of Sputnik V, announced Tuesday that Sputnik V has now been approved in 56 countries, with Vietnam being last on the list. Several Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Slovakia have also ordered Sputnik V cans.

In the meantime, the European Medicines Agency launched an ongoing review of Sputnik V earlier this month.

Verisk Maplecroft’s McDowell pointed out that while exporting 700 million cans is “an extremely ambitious figure,” it is likely that licensed products also made overseas, for example in India and South Korea.

Data processing

Russian vaccine Sputnik V was approved by the Russian health authority in August last year before clinical trials were completed, leading to skepticism among experts that it may not meet strict safety and efficacy standards. Some experts argued that the Kremlin is keen to win the race to develop a Covid vaccine, an indictment it has brought against other countries. Russia has repeatedly stated that its vaccine is the target of anti-Russian sentiment.

Russia appeared to be confirmed in early February As an interim analysis of the 20,000-participant Phase 3 clinical trials of the shot was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet. The vaccine was found to be 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infections.

In an accompanying article in the Lancet, Ian Jones, Professor of Virology at the University of Reading, England noted that “the development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for undue urgency. However, the result reported here is clear and scientific. The principle of vaccination is demonstrated which means another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19. “

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Business

Laws geared toward transgender individuals is an election technique, journalist says

Legislation aimed at transgender people is an election strategy, journalist says

The Republican Party is turning to old tactics to build a new coalition after losing control of the Senate and Presidency in the 2020 elections.

Politico’s national political correspondent Gabby Orr said Friday the GOP’s strategy to pass laws banning transgender female athletes from women’s sports teams was motivated by its goal of overcoming election failures and recovering local voters.

“My sources, who are going behind the scenes on this issue and who want Republicans to talk about it, think this could be something that resonates … not just with non-ideological voters – when labeled a justice issue – but also with the socially conservative grassroots voters that the Republican Party has to bring out, “Orr said.

Mississippi is poised to become the first state against transgender people this year after its legislature passed a law banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports in schools and universities. Republican Governor Tate Reeves tweeted Thursday night that he would sign the bill.

Orr warned, however, that the strategy could “absolutely” shut down moderates.

“We’ve seen some of the loudest voices talking about it in the GOP are Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia Congressman) and Ted Cruz (Senator from Texas). So they’re not exactly popular politicians with moderate voters, let alone suburbanites Women, “Orr told CNBC’s” The News with Shepard Smith. “” There is a risk that the GOP will backfire at a time when we really saw the country’s trend in support of anti-discrimination laws, including Republicans. ” “

Orr cited a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute that found that 61% of Republicans were in favor of non-discrimination protection for LGBTQ Americans in 2020. That was five percentage points more than in 2019.

Idaho passed a law last year banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports, but one federal district suspended the law and it wasn’t enacted. At least 26 states have introduced similar bills across the country.