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Health

The White Home is taking proper method in preventing the Covid-19 delta variant, Gottlieb says

The White House is taking right approach in fighting the Covid-19 delta variant, Gottlieb says

The Biden government is taking the right approach in tackling the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant by deploying response teams to vulnerable communities, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Thursday.

“I think the government is doing the right thing when it comes to changing its strategy,” Gottlieb, the former FDA chief under former President Donald Trump, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” about the grassroots approach new government.

Gottlieb explained that the targeted response can help teams focus on vaccinating the communities prone to Covid and the Delta variant.

“Right now we need to move to a grassroots strategy and try to put resources into local communities so that local groups can encourage people to get vaccinated, put the vaccines in the hands of doctors, and find ways to get more vaccines to get into the hands of small providers who can encourage their patients to vaccinate, “said Gottlieb.

The Delta variant is driving a sharp spike in new Covid cases across the country and currently accounts for about 25% of the new cases sequenced in the US. Officials believe it will become the dominant strain in the country, dwarfing the currently dominant alpha variant.

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, attributed the increase in part to delayed vaccination rates. The CDC director added that about a third of all counties across the country have so far vaccinated less than 30% of their population. She said most of them are in the South and Midwest.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the board of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotechnology company Illumina.

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Politics

Black Lives Matter leaders met with Biden White Home officers on police reform

Black Lives Matter leaders met with Biden White House officials on police reform

Protesters gather near the White House before a group attempted to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square on June 22, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

Black Lives Matter leaders met with members of President Joe Biden’s team as the White House and lawmakers negotiated the details of a possible police reform deal.

In a statement first broadcast to CNBC, Black Lives Matter said the leaders recently met with White House officials to discuss their agenda. The activist group is not satisfied with what has happened since the discussion, namely with proposals to give police departments more money.

“Black Lives Matter executives met with White House officials earlier this year to discuss our policy agenda, and while we appreciate the opportunity to speak with them, we are surprised by their lack of progress on issues that are black-minded People, the same communities, matter. ” who supported Biden-Harris so much in last year’s election, “the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation told CNBC in an email on Tuesday.

It is unclear when the meeting took place or which officials from both sides attended the meeting. Politico reported in May that the BLM had yet to meet with the Biden White House. The Washington Post reported late last year that Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, wrote a letter to Biden and Kamala Harris about a possible meeting.

Black Lives Matter press representatives responded to requests for additional comments. The White House has not responded to requests for comment.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., One of the lawmakers working on police reform, told NBC News that the negotiations had encountered some obstacles due to power struggles between law enforcement groups.

“I worry that it might prevent us from coming to an agreement. And you know what a really sad statement I think about the profession that they would actually prevent reforms and refuse to modernize,” she said.

The meeting and its aftermath suggest that Black Lives Matter and the Biden team are heading for a stalemate. It’s also a sign that Black Lives Matter may not have as much impact at the Biden White House as the group hoped.

Black Lives Matter, created after George Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013 in the murder of the unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin, is calling for a reduction in police spending. For years the group has inspired and organized large protests against brutality against blacks.

Last year, Black Lives Matter’s group and motto gained popularity and relevance after police murdered George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black Americans as protests erupted across the country.

Biden won the 2020 election with the overwhelming support of black voters.

The president recently said that states could raise $ 350 billion in stimulus funds to bolster police forces. Biden has also announced a series of measures his government is taking to curb the rise in crime and gun violence.

This didn’t go well with Black Lives Matter or activists calling for the defunding of police departments.

“And now we see the president arguing for increased spending on the police force instead of investing in housing, education, climate protection and health care,” Black Lives Matter said in a statement to CNBC. “This is no time to go back to the dangerous scare days of the 1990s when more police officers were deployed in our neighborhoods rather than services that improve lives and keep black communities safe.”

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Entertainment

Get to Know Disney’s Snow White Star Rachel Zegler

Get to Know Disney's Snow White Star Rachel Zegler

Rachel Zegler is ready to make her mark on Hollywood! After landing the lead of Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, the 20-year-old was recently cast as Snow White in Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Rachel, who is Colombian-American, is the latest Disney princess of color, joining the ranks of Elena from the animated series Elena of Avalor and Halle Bailey who is starring as Ariel in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid. Seeing as Rachel is fairly new to the spotlight, why not take a moment to learn more about her? Keep reading for a few fun facts about Disney’s newest princess!

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Politics

Biden invitations bipartisan senators to White Home

Biden invites bipartisan senators to White House

(L-R) U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) hold a bipartisan meeting on infrastructure in the basement of the U.S. Capitol building after original talks fell through with the White House on June 8, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images

President Joe Biden will meet with Democratic and Republican infrastructure negotiators at the White House on Thursday, as senators say they have moved closer to a deal to revamp transportation, broadband and utilities.

“White House senior staff had two productive meetings today with the bipartisan group of Senators who have been negotiating about infrastructure,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday night. “The group made progress towards an outline of a potential agreement, and the President has invited the group to come to the White House tomorrow to discuss this in-person.”

The lawmakers have worked for weeks to craft a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package that could get through Congress with support from both parties. Deciding how to pay for the plan has posed the biggest challenge, and the senators have not finalized how a proposal would raise revenue.

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Twenty-one senators — 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats — have backed the infrastructure framework. They will likely need to win support from Democratic leaders to garner the 60 votes needed to pass the bill in the Democratic-held Senate.

Biden plans to meet with senators who crafted the plan at 11:45 a.m. ET.

“We’ll see what the president says, but I will tell you we’ve worked very closely with White House negotiators through this process,” Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and one of the lead infrastructure negotiators, told CNBC on Thursday morning. He said the group will pitch the plan to more senators from both parties.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who has worked on infrastructure as co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told CNBC that a deal is “inches away.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., met with White House officials on Wednesday night. If they back the bipartisan framework, they could try to sell their caucuses on passing it before moving to approve a larger bill that addresses more of their priorities without Republican votes. The second package could include programs related to child and elder care, education, health care and climate change.

The Senate has started to work on the budget resolution that would allow Democrats to use the reconciliation process to pass the plan.

“Both tracks — the bipartisan track, and the budget reconciliation track are proceeding in pace, and we hope to have voted on both of them in the Senate and House in July,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting at the White House.

Both of the congressional leaders agreed with Biden’s call not to raise taxes on anyone who makes under $400,000 per year, according to a White House readout of the meeting. The Biden administration has said it will not back an increase to the gas tax or an electric vehicle user fee as part of the bipartisan framework because it would break the president’s pledge.

Republicans have fought the president’s proposal to hike the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. The GOP slashed the rate from 35% in 2017.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

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Politics

The White Home publicly acknowledges the U.S. is prone to miss Biden’s July Four vaccination objective.

The White House publicly acknowledges the U.S. is likely to miss Biden’s July 4 vaccination goal.

The White House on Tuesday publicly acknowledged that President Biden does not expect to meet his goal of having 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4 and will reach that milestone only for those aged 27 and older.

It would be the first time that Mr. Biden has failed to meet a vaccination goal he has set. If the rate of adult vaccinations continues on the current seven-day average, the country will come in just shy of Mr. Biden’s target, with about 67 percent of adults partly vaccinated by July 4, according to a New York Times analysis.

White House officials have argued that falling short by a few percentage points is not significant, given all the progress the nation has made against Covid-19. “We have built an unparalleled, first of its kind nationwide vaccination program,” Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said at a new briefing. “This is a remarkable achievement.”

In announcing the goal on May 4, Mr. Biden made a personal plea to the unvaccinated, saying getting a shot was a “life and death” choice. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated and 177 million have received at least one dose.

But health experts warn that the falloff in the vaccination rate could mean renewed coronavirus outbreaks this winter when cold weather drives people indoors, with high daily death rates in areas where comparatively few people have protected themselves with shots.

“I give credit to the Biden administration for putting in place a mass vaccination program for adults that did not exist,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “But now we’ve hit a wall.”

Unless tens of millions more Americans get vaccinated in the next few months, he said, “I think, come winter, we are going to again see a surge. And that surge is going to occur exactly where you would expect it to occur — in areas that are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated.”

Young adults aged 18 to 26 have so far proven particularly hard to persuade. “The reality is many younger Americans that felt like Covid-19 is not something that impacts them, and they’ve been less eager to get the shot,” Mr. Zients said.

He said it would take “a few extra weeks” to reach more of that group to achieve the goal of 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated.

Lazaro Gamio contributed reporting.

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Politics

GM Tells White Home It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Guidelines

GM Tells White House It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Rules

General Motors on Wednesday told the Biden administration that it would agree to tighter federal fuel economy and tailpipe pollution rules, along the lines of what California has already agreed to with five other auto companies.

The move is a step by the nation’s largest automaker away from its position during the Trump administration, when G.M.’s chief executive officer, Mary Barra, asked President Donald J. Trump to relax Obama-era auto pollution rules.

President Biden is seeking to reinstate those restrictions as part of his efforts to cut climate-warming pollution, and he hopes to propose new draft auto pollution rules as soon as next month.

Ms. Barra stopped short of endorsing Mr. Biden’s desire to fully reimpose or strengthen the Obama-era auto pollution standards, which to date stand as the strongest policy ever imposed by the federal government to fight climate change. And she also asked the administration to augment the federal rules with provisions that would give incentives to auto companies that are investing in electric vehicles, although she did not specify what those incentives should be.

Just weeks after Mr. Biden’s election, Ms. Barra dropped her company’s support of the Trump administration’s efforts to nullify California’s rules on tailpipe emissions. And days after the new president’s inauguration, she announced that after 2035 her company would sell only vehicles that have zero emissions, a target in line with Mr. Biden’s pledge to cut the United States’ emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

This week, in a letter to Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Ms. Barra wrote, “G.M. supports the emissions reduction goals of California through model year ’26,” adding, “the auto industry is embarking upon a profound transition as we do our part to achieve the country’s climate commitments.”

The Obama-era climate rules, which G.M. sought to loosen, required automakers to build vehicles by 2025 that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon. The rules would have eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles. Mr. Trump rolled back Mr. Obama’s standards from 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 to 40 miles per gallon and revoked California’s legal authority to set its own state-level standard.

California reached a separate deal with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo under which they would be required to increase their average fuel economy to about 51 miles per gallon by 2026.

Ms. Barra said that her company would now support those standards at the federal level — alongside a program to give some form of credit or incentive to electric vehicle manufacturers like her own company.

Negotiations on the new auto pollution standards are ongoing alongside White House talks to reach a deal on infrastructure legislation, which Mr. Biden hopes will include generous spending on tax credits for electric vehicle manufacturers and consumers, as well as direct government investments in 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations.

Nick Conger, an E.P.A. spokesman, said in an email that Mr. Regan had spoken this week with leaders from auto manufacturers and that the “conversations have been constructive as the agency moves forward on actions to address emissions from cars and light-duty trucks.”

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Politics

White Home Outlines Plan to Ship 25 Million Vaccine Photographs Overseas

White House Outlines Plan to Send 25 Million Vaccine Shots Abroad

Mr. Biden came into office vowing to restore America’s position as a leader in global health, and he has been under increasing pressure from activists, as well as some business leaders, to do more to address the global vaccine shortage. Earlier this year, he said he was reluctant to give away vaccine doses until the United States had enough for its own population, though he did promise in March to send a total of four million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to Mexico and Canada.

Those doses, it turned out, were made at a Baltimore facility owned by Emergent BioSolutions, where production has since been put on hold after an incident of contamination.

Mr. Biden’s pledge to donate 80 million doses involves vaccines made by four manufacturers. Besides AstraZeneca, they are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the last three of which have received U.S. emergency authorization for their vaccines. The president announced last month that his administration would send 20 million doses of the authorized vaccines overseas in June — the first time he had pledged to give away doses that could be used in the United States. Officials did not say on Thursday why that number had been increased by five million.

Last month, Mr. Biden announced he would send one million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to South Korea; a plane carrying those doses was expected to take off Thursday evening, Mr. Zients said.

Mr. Biden has also pledged to donate up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, but those doses, also made at the Emergent plant, are not authorized for domestic use and cannot be released until regulators deem them safe. In March, his administration committed to providing financial support to help Biological E, a major vaccine manufacturer in India, produce at least one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of 2022.

The president has described the vaccine donations as part of an “entirely new effort” to increase vaccine supplies and vastly expand manufacturing capacity, most of it in the United States. To broaden supply further, Mr. Biden recently announced he would support waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines. He also put Mr. Zients in charge of developing a global vaccine strategy.

But activists say simply donating excess doses and supporting the waiver is not enough. They argue that Mr. Biden must create the conditions for pharmaceutical companies to transfer their intellectual property to vaccine makers overseas, so that other countries can stand up their own vaccine manufacturing operations.

Mr. Zients also said the United States was lifting the Defense Production Act’s “priority rating” for three vaccine makers — AstraZeneca, Novavax and Sanofi. None of those vaccines are authorized for U.S. use, and the shift means that U.S.-based companies that supply the vaccine makers will be able to “make their own decisions on which orders to fulfill first,” Mr. Zients said.

Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.

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Health

White Home lays out plan to share tens of millions of doses with poorer nations

White House lays out plan to share millions of doses with poorer nations

The Oxford-AstraZeneca covid vaccine.

Karwai Tang | Getty Images

The U.S. government will share the majority of its donated Covid-19 vaccine doses through COVAX, the World Health Organization-led program that provides shots to countries in need, the White House announced Thursday.

The Biden administration has committed to donating at least 20 million doses of Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson as well as 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccines, which has not yet been authorized for use in the United States.

The U.S. plans to allocate 75% of the vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine sharing program, the White House in an email. Of the first 25 million doses, about 6 million will go to countries in South and Central America, 7 million to Asia and 5 million to Africa, the White House said. About 6 million will go to neighboring countries and U.S. allies.

At least 25% of shots will be kept for immediate U.S. needs and for “countries in need, those experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance,” according to the plan.

The administration is donating the shots to “save lives” and thwart the emergence of new variants,  national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday.

“The United States is not doing this as some kind of back-and-forth deal where we are getting something in return,” Sullivan said at a White House briefing. “We are giving these for a single purpose. It is the purpose of ending this pandemic.”

The announcement comes as world leaders urge wealthy nations such as the U.S. to donate Covid shots to other countries. While the U.S. has returned to some form of normality as more Americans get vaccinated and new cases fall, other countries, like India, have experienced huge outbreaks.

Just last week, the WHO said Africa needed at least 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine within six weeks to get the second round of shots to people who have received the first.

The head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations told Reuters that leaders of the Group of 7 rich nations must donate shots urgently to avoid an outcome akin to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people.

“It’s a moral imperative if we want to avoid situations like Peru, if we want to avoid impacts that could rival those of the 1918 flu, we must send vaccine to countries to protect their health-care workers and protect the vulnerable populations now,” Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI which co-runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility, told Reuters.

In addition to donating the doses, the White House also announced it is lifting restrictions as part of the Defense Production Act that gave the U.S. priority for vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Novavax.

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Politics

Household meets with Biden, Harris at White Home

Family meets with Biden, Harris at White House

Gianna Floyd, daughter of George Floyd, along with other family members and lawyers, raise fists and say his name while facing reporters at the White House following their meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington, U.S., May 25, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

WASHINGTON — Members of George Floyd’s family met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Tuesday, to mark the first anniversary of Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after then-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Floyd was unarmed.

Floyd’s death sparked worldwide calls for racial justice in policing and a reimagining of law enforcement. Following the hourlong meeting, the Floyd family spoke to reporters outside the White House.

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“Being here today is an honor,” said Terrence Floyd, a brother of George Floyd. “To meet with the president and vice president, and for them to show their concern for our family and to give an ear to our concerns and how we feel in this situation. It was a very productive conversation, and we thank everyone for the love.”

In a statement, Biden said the Floyd family “has shown extraordinary courage, especially [George Floyd’s] young daughter Gianna, who I met again today. The day before her father’s funeral a year ago, Jill and I met the family and she told me, ‘Daddy changed the world.’ He has.”

Despite the global response to Floyd’s murder, Congress has yet to pass a bill to reform policing.

Bipartisan negotiators have worked for weeks to tweak the House-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in order to win enough Republican support to get it through the Senate. Negotiators include Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., and Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., who are expected to continue talks this week.

Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump said members of the family would meet with senators later in the day Tuesday.

A Marine holds the door as Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, walks into the White House, Tuesday, May 25, 2021, in Washington.

Evan Vucci | AP

Earlier this year, Biden called on Congress to pass a policing reform bill and send it to his desk before the first anniversary of Floyd’s death. That deadline passed Tuesday, but Biden stressed that he was willing to wait longer to make sure the bill contained genuine accountability measures.

“So he’s going to be patient and make sure it’s the right bill and not a rushed bill,” said Crump.

“We have to act,” said Biden. “We face an inflection point.”

Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said that a Congress that voted to protect wildlife could vote to protect Black lives.

“If you can make federal laws to protect the bird that is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” he said.

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Politics

Biden to host George Floyd household at White Home

Biden to host George Floyd family at White House

Rodney Floyd and Philonise Floyd, brothers of George Floyd, and Brandon Williams, nephew of George Floyd, check in at a security entrance at the Hennepin County Government Center on April 9, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

President Joe Biden will host George Floyd’s family at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official has confirmed to CNBC.

The visit marks the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death, which triggered international protests against police brutality and racism in the criminal justice system.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes.

Chauvin was found guilty of murder and manslaughter in April. His sentencing date is set for June.

The Floyd family’s visit to the White House comes as lawmakers attempt to create bipartisan legislation on police reform that could pass through both chambers of Congress.

The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March. The police reform bill seeks to ban chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants as well as end qualified immunity.

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However, lawmakers have struggled to find a compromise that can win enough support in the evenly divided Senate.

Congress is set to miss the president’s deadline to pass the legislation by the anniversary of Floyd’s death. At least 10 Senate Republicans are needed for the bill’s passage due to the chamber’s filibuster rule.

“It would be a contribution to rebuilding trust in communities,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday with respect to the bill’s potential passage. “Obviously, there’s more that needs to be done beyond that; that’s not the only step — far from it.”

A point of contention in the negotiations has been on qualified immunity, which makes it difficult to sue individual officers.

Ten House Democrats are pushing congressional leaders not to scrap the provision seeking to end qualified immunity. But some GOP senators are concerned that ending it would make officers and departments vulnerable to a rash of lawsuits.