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Romney: Allegation that Trump dialed Jan. 6 witness is 'very serious'

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) expressed serious concern Wednesday over the claim by the House select Jan. 6 committee that former President Trump attempted to call one of the committee’s witnesses, who had not yet appeared in its public hearings.  

Romney called the allegation “very serious” and dismissed speculation that Trump may have pocket-dialed the witness by accident.

“I can’t imagine why he’d have a witness on his cell phone making a pocket-dial so that’s not terribly credible. If in fact he was calling a witness, that allegation is very serious,” he said.  

House Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) revealed the attempted contact by Trump during her closing statement at Tuesday’s hearing.  

She said the committee had passed the information along to the Justice Department and warned: “We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.”  

That claim prompted an angry response from Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich.  

“Liz Cheney continues to traffic in innuendo and lies that go unchallenged, unconfirmed, but repeated as fact because the narrative is more important than the truth,” he said on Twitter.  

A host for Newsmax, a media outlet viewed as sympathetic toward the former president, claimed that Trump may have “butt dialed” the witness.

“Hey, maybe it was a butt dial, huh? Tell the Justice Department that. OK, they take themselves so seriously,” Newsmax host Greg Kelly said in Trump’s defense.  

Cheney also raised the issue of possible witness tampering at the committee’s June 28 hearing, noting that at least one witness had received phone calls from Trump allies interested in what they might say publicly.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Top progressives push colleagues to expand social security benefits

Top progressives in the House are trying to garner support for legislation expanding Social Security benefits, pitching the bill introduced last year to colleagues as a chance to “deliver a long-awaited promise to the American people.”

In a letter to Democratic colleagues, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), as well as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.) pushed legislators to get behind H.R. 5723, or Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, calling the package “sound policy and a potent message for voters” ahead of the midterm elections.

“Since the advent of Social Security, Democrats have worked steadfastly for nearly a century to build on that landmark achievement and create a more just society, guaranteeing a life of dignity to our seniors,” the representatives wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill. “Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust upholds this tradition.”

“It increases benefits across the board at a time when seniors are particularly struggling with the health impacts of COVID and with higher inflation on a fixed-income budget,” they added.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), was introduced last October but did not advance through the Ways and Means Committee and relevant subcommittees.

About 76 percent of Americans support expanding social security benefits, according to a Data for Progress poll conducted in June.

It’s unclear if Congress will move on the proposal. Both Democrats and Republicans agree the social security system must be revamped before 2035 — when the retiree population is expected to double — but there is little consensus on how to move forward.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a separate Senate package that would increase benefits by $200 per month.

Robert Roach Jr., the president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, testified last month in support of the Sanders’s legislation, but expressed support for the House package, explaining “older Americans today are hurting.”

“I have seen examples for myself firsthand. I have observed on many occasions seniors at the supermarket checkout who had to put food back because the grocery bill was more than they had,” Roach said in a June 22 statement. “Seniors are having to make decisions between food and medicine on a daily basis.”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has not seen a major expansion or overhaul since the Obama administration, which boosted the department’s budget by $1 billion.

The bill championed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus would expand retirement, disability, and dependent benefits while removing penalties against households with dual-incomes. It would also expand benefits to students and end a five-month waiting period for those signing up for disability benefits.

According to Jayapal, the increased benefits would be paid for by a payroll tax on Americans who make above $400,000 a year.

Source: TEST FEED1

Top GOP senator slams HHS for 'disturbing' response to monkeypox

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (R) on Thursday slammed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for its response to the monkeypox outbreak so far, bemoaning that the agency was “failing to learn from the devastating effects of COVID-19.”

Burr wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra that the monkeypox response was “falling short” despite the country’s experience navigating through the pandemic.

“The administration has the tools and authorities necessary to combat these threats. Your failures to act are a threat to public health, and especially for gay and bisexual men who are at highest risk,” wrote Burr. “The government failed this population at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we should not fail them again.”

Burr, who sits on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, criticized the absence of a clear research plan to better understand monkeypox as well as what he perceived to be a lack of communication coming from federal public health officials.

The senator also took aim at the “reactive” testing response to monkeypox, writing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was “repeating the same mistakes” it had made during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This pattern of reactive policymaking is disturbing. Planning for national-level medical countermeasure needs has been articulated by Congress as a core responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services,” Burr wrote.

The senator demanded to know what HHS’s strategy for addressing monkeypox is, including what is being done to facilitate more widespread, rapid testing for the virus. He also asked how the agency plans on expediting vaccinations against monkeypox for Americans.

Several laboratories including Labcorp’s facility in Burr’s state of North Carolina, the Mayo Clinic’s laboratories and Quest Diagnostics have all begun accepting tests for monkeypox.

The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.

As of Thursday, nearly a thousand cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in the U.S., though this number is almost certainly an undercount due to the lag in testing as well as the many individuals who may not be aware that they have been infected.

Source: TEST FEED1

FDA authorizes Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Novavax’s COVID-19 shot for emergency use on Wednesday, adding a fourth vaccine to the U.S. arsenal.

The agency cleared the vaccine for adults aged 18 and older. The shot will be administered as a two-dose primary series, three weeks apart.

Novavax’s vaccine could appeal to people who have been reluctant to receive one of the mRNA vaccines, as the protein-based shot was manufactured using a fundamentally different process. But about 77 percent of adults have already received two doses of an mRNA shot, so the potential market is small.

The U.S. is not short on doses from any of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines that have been available for more than a year, and those manufacturers are already working with administration officials to formulate a variant-specific booster shot for the fall.

Still, the vaccine comes as the White House is urging people to get vaccinated and boosted to protect against a wave of severe infection from the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of omicron. 

Novavax’s shot “provides another alternative for adults and adds another vaccine to the COVID-19 vaccine supply for the United States. The American public can trust that this vaccine, like all vaccines that are used in the United States, has undergone the FDA’s rigorous and comprehensive scientific and regulatory review,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s vaccine division.

In clinical trials, the vaccine was about 90 percent effective at preventing mild, moderate and severe COVID-19. But, critically, the trials were conducted before the omicron variant became dominant.

The company has since submitted updated data to the FDA, and publicly said the vaccine shows “broad” response to the currently circulating variants.

Novavax relies on more traditional vaccine technology, similar to those used to protect against flu and for routine childhood immunizations against whooping cough and meningitis. The two-dose vaccine can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures, making it easier to ship and use. 

The Maryland-based Novavax secured a $1.8 billion contract from the former Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed early in the pandemic to scale up research and purchase up to 100 million doses. 

The Biden administration earlier this week announced it was purchasing 3.2 million doses.

Novavax originally wanted to ask the FDA for authorization by May 2021, but was beset by manufacturing problems and struggled to scale up production. It wasn’t able to file until the end of January 2022. 

The vaccine is currently being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer.

An FDA advisory panel voted in favor of recommending authorization last month, but the process dragged out because the agency was conducting a review of the company’s manufacturing process.

FDA this week said Novavax is expected to finish its quality testing “in the next few weeks.”

Once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off, vaccination can begin. The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet on July 19.

Source: TEST FEED1

Haaland defends Interior policies, cites unused leases

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland defended the Biden administration’s progress on federal fossil fuel leasing at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Appropriations Committee, emphasizing the industry’s unused leases on federal lands. 

Questioning Haaland, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) invoked the recent five-year leasing proposal issued by the Interior Department, asking about the likelihood that the administration would hold zero lease sales, which the plan identifies as an option. 

Haaland did not offer an estimate, only saying the department would factor in public feedback received in the 90-day public comment period and pledging a “balanced approach.”  

Responding to a follow-up question from Hyde-Smith about offshore drilling, Haaland responded, “There are about 9,000 approved drilling permits across the country currently that are not being used, 10.4 million acres of offshore federal waters already under lease.”

“I know there’s a lot that goes into considerations with the price of fuel but I want to assure you that at the Department of Interior, we’re doing our jobs and following the law to move any of these issues forward,” she added.  

In January 2021, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily pausing new oil and gas leasing on federal lands. Today’s high gas prices are due to a number of factors, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and production that has struggled to keep pace with the demand, but the administration has frequently cited the number of unused leases as a counter to criticism of its energy policies. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) also invoked the unused leases in his own questioning of Haaland, noting that the first year of the administration saw an all-time high for production of oil from federal lands offshore and onshore, as well as the fact that about 75 percent of offshore federal lands leased by oil companies remain unused. 

Reed went on to ask Haaland if it was accurate to say that “the price of oil is so high right now that they literally can make more money just extracting from existing wells and not increasing production, which would lower costs.” 

Haaland did not directly cosign Reed’s characterization, noting that “there’s a lot that goes into” fuel prices, including ongoing international turmoil. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Bank of America economists expecting mild recession this year

Bank of America economists predicted that the United States will face a mild recession this year in a report released on Wednesday. 

The economists previously forecast the economy underachieving its potential but still having positive growth output, but economic momentum has slowed more rapidly than they predicted. The report states that the most concerning trend is slowing momentum in spending on services. 

The analysis comes as the Labor Department reported Wednesday that the consumer price index was up 9.1 percent over last June, the highest increase in four decades. 

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point last month to attempt to cool off the economy and slow price increases, the largest increase since the 1990s. Some economists have expressed worries that these efforts may lead to a recession. 

The report states the Bank of America economists expect a mild recession to begin in the second half of 2022, with real gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of the value of the economy’s goods and services adjusted for inflation, declining 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter of the year. 

The forecast then predicts a 1 percent real GDP increase in 2023. 

The combination of the decrease this year and below-trend growth for much of next year is projected to raise the unemployment rate from 3.6 percent to 4.6 percent, according to the report. But it said the more significant economic downturn and the higher unemployment rate should also improve inflation somewhat faster than previously expected.

The economists expect the Fed to raise interest rates another three-quarters of a percentage point this month with the goal of rates being between 3.25 and 3.5 percent by the end of the year. Interest rates remained near zero throughout much of the pandemic to incentivize economic investment.

Multiple other banks like Deutsche Bank have predicted a recession is coming in the near future amid concerns over the Fed’s ability to achieve a “soft landing” to inflation.

Source: TEST FEED1

What do the images from NASA’s Webb telescope tell us?

From its vantage point 1 million miles away from Earth, NASA’s Webb telescope just started to unravel new insights about the universe. So, what is most exciting about the latest data caught in the “spider web” of the telescope’s 18 hexagonal segments of its primary mirror?

The new Webb data shows evidence for water vapor, hazes and some previously unseen clouds, on the gas-giant planet WASP-96b. The planet’s mass is half of Jupiter’s mass and transits in front of its star every 3.4 days, allowing a small fraction of the star’s light to pass through its atmosphere and reveal its composition to Webb’s instruments. This planet is not expected to host life-as-we-know-it because it does not possess a thin atmosphere on top of a rocky surface, like the conditions on Earth.

But there was also a “deep image” of the cosmos that was released in a dedicated White House event, hosted by President Biden and Vice President Harris. The image shows numerous red arcs stretched around a cluster of galaxies, named SMACS 0723, located about 5 billion light years away. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted, “We’re looking back more than 13 billion years,” an unusual statement to be heard in the White House, which makes plans on a timescale of four years.

These amazingly sharp arcs were observed thanks to the unprecedented angular resolution of Webb’s optics. They feature ancient small galaxies from early cosmic times which happened to lie behind the cluster, so that their images were deformed by the effect of gravitational lensing. Clusters of galaxies, like SMACS 0723, contain a concentration of about a thousand Milky-Way-like galaxies, buzzing around at 5 percent the speed of light or a thousand miles per second. Most of the cluster mass is made of dark matter, an invisible substance that fills the dark gaps in Webb’s image. The luminous cores of galaxies are like fish swimming in a container filled with transparent water, bound together by gravity, which serves as the “aquarium” walls.

Ever since Fritz Zwicky observed clusters of galaxies in 1933, we’ve known that most of the matter in them is invisible. While Zwicky inferred that dark matter must exist in order to bind the fast-moving galaxies, the same gravitational potential well can be probed directly through its lensing effect on background galaxies.

The Webb telescope achieves unprecedented sensitivity to the faint galaxies that produced the first light during the dark ages of the universe, hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. Its unprecedented ability to peer back in time stems from its observing site far away from the glowing terrestrial atmosphere, the area of its “light bucket” being 7.3 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, and its high sensitivity to the infrared band into which starlight from early cosmic times is redshifted.

In its released “deep image,” the $10 billion Webb telescope, is aided by the natural gravitational lens of SMACS 0723, graciously provided to us for free. The cluster lens magnifies distant sources behind it by bending their light. The combination of the Webb telescope and the cluster’s magnifying power allows us to peer deeper into the universe than ever before.

In a 1936 paper, “Lens-Like Action of a Star by the Deviation of Light in the Gravitational Field,” Albert Einstein predicted that a background star could be gravitationally lensed into a ring if it is located precisely behind a foreground star. This “Einstein ring” is an outcome of the cylindrical symmetry around the lens. A cluster of galaxies is not perfectly symmetric and so sources behind its center are lensed into a partial ring, or an arc — as evident from Webb’s image.

In 1992, I entered the neighboring office of Andy Gould, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where Einstein wrote his lensing paper. Gould worked extensively on gravitational lensing by compact objects, considering the possibility that the dark matter is made of them. I asked Gould whether he ever considered the contribution of a planet to the lensing effect by a star. Gould responded promptly, “planets have a negligible mass relative to their host star and so their impact on the combined lensing effect would be negligible.” I accepted the verdict of the local lensing expert and retreated quietly. But 10 minutes later, Gould showed up in my office and said, “I was wrong … the Einstein ring radius of planets scales as the square root of their mass and so their effect is measurable and could serve as a new method for discovering planets around distant stars. Let’s write a paper about that.” So, we did.  

Today, gravitational lensing is the main method by which planets are discovered around distant stars where the transit method is less practical because the stars are too faint.

This anecdote from 30 years ago weaves together the themes of the two Webb images that were just unraveled.

A decade ago, I wrote “How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form?” and co-wrote “The First Galaxies in the Universe“. Both books described theoretical expectations for what the Webb telescope might find in the context of the scientific story of genesis: “Let there be light.” Last year, I co-authored another, “Life in the Cosmos.” There is no doubt that I would be glad if the forecasts in these textbooks will be confirmed by future Webb data. But even better, I would be thrilled if Webb’s data will surprise us with new discoveries that were never anticipated.

Avi Loeb is head of Harvard’s Galileo Project, a systematic scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts. Loeb is the founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, the director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and he chairs the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project. He is the author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Graham seeks to quash grand jury subpoena in Trump Georgia probe

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is asking a federal court to quash a grand jury subpoena for his testimony in the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation into former President Trump’s efforts to undermine Georgia’s election results.

Graham intends to ask a federal judge to quash the subpoena on the grounds that he cannot be compelled to testify because his conversations with state officials were part of his official conduct as a legislator, according to copies of the filings provided to The Hill by Graham’s lawyers.

“Senator Graham’s contact with Georgia officials referenced in the Certificate falls within the ‘legislative sphere’ because it was to gather information relevant to his oversight responsibilities as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and given his obligations under the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” the filing reads.

Fox News first reported Graham’s motion in federal court.

A local judge in Georgia ordered Graham this week to testify before the grand jury convened by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) about his communications with state elections officials following the 2020 election.

But the South Carolina Republican is arguing the Constitution prohibits state judicial proceedings from compelling the testimony of a federal legislator if it relates to his official conduct.

Through his attorneys, Graham also denied taking any steps to try to undermine Georgia’s election results, saying his conversations with state officials were about the security of absentee voting. 

“Senator Graham did not inject himself into Georgia’s electoral process, and never tried to alter the outcome of any election,” the court filing reads. “The conversation was about absentee ballots and Georgia’s procedures.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Our children are in crisis; thus, our village is in crisis

As a society, we often refer to the proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. The village — families, friends, schools, clinical professionals, communities and elected officials — has never been more important as our children experience the pain and impacts caused by struggles with their mental health. Our children are in crisis; thus, our village is in crisis.   

The numbers are heartbreaking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that mental health-related emergency department (ED) visits increased 24 percent for children ages 5 to 11 and 17 percent for adolescents ages 12 to 17 in 2020 compared to the same months of 2019. In 2021, the CDC found that 4 in 10 teens reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, while 1 in 5 reported contemplating suicide. Despite a growing awareness of the crisis through the COVID-19 pandemic, cases continued to climb. In 2021, children’s hospitals across the U.S. saw a 31 percent increase in mental health inpatient admissions for children and teens ages 3 to 18 and a 153 percent increase in emergency room visits for suicide attempts and self-injury for kids ages 5 to 18, compared to 2016.  

The severity and pervasiveness of this crisis in children led the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry to declare an emergency in child and adolescent mental health. The U.S. Surgeon General echoed our concerns and issued an advisory on the crisis late last year.  

At the Children’s Hospital Association, we are too familiar with these statistics and the children and families’ stories behind them. Children’s hospitals across the country are often the last resort for families. While emergency rooms can be critical access points in a health crisis —  physical or mental, the steady rise in visits over the past decades and the sharp rise over the past five years are symptoms of a pediatric mental health system that is overwhelmed and under resourced. With mental health programs over their capacities and too few behavioral health specialists to meet the demand for care, children and families are left in limbo and not receiving the timely care they need. While waiting to receive care, they board – meaning they are safely held – in the hospital’s emergency room or in an inpatient room, until they can be released to a treatment program or facility. During this time, they are separated from their families, schools, friends and communities, critical social supports that help children cope. 

The magnitude of this crisis requires renewed attention and action at the federal, state, and local levels. We must make purposeful investments in resources to support the social and emotional well-being of our children, thus preventing and reducing the severity of the mental health challenges our children face. The people, programs and professionals are needed where children live, learn, and play: their communities and schools. Investments are also needed in treating children who require more intensive therapies and care to ensure they recover and maintain their health. Current payment for therapy services, intensive outpatient programs and inpatient care are far below the actual cost of providing the care, worsening the shortages of behavioral health services for children. 

Shortages across key pediatric behavioral health professions, including psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, family therapy, and school counseling are well-documented. Currently, there are only 10 psychiatrists per 100,000 children – nearly one-fifth of what is required. And only 20% of children with mental, emotional, and behavioral health disorders receive care from a specialist at all.  

The lack of adequate care for children now will have negative ramifications for their future and ours. Adult addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and violence can often be traced to unaddressed or undertreated issues in mental health in childhood and adolescence. We know that 50 percent of mental health conditions begin before the age of 14, and go unaddressed for on average, 11 or more years. Can we change these outcomes? 

We have reason to hope. We are encouraged by the bipartisan work in both the Senate and the House of Representatives that seeks to expand access to pediatric mental health services. The policies in these pieces of legislation are important steps towards investing in the pediatric mental health workforce, strengthening critical mental health infrastructures for children and expanding pediatric mental health care capacities across the continuum of care.  

This week, leaders and mental health experts from children’s hospitals across the country are in Washington, D.C., to work with members of Congress and the Biden administration on solutions that address the youth mental health emergency. Representing one part of the pediatric mental health system for children, we hope to shine a light on the full system of care needed. 

Children’s hospitals and health systems stand ready to confront the mental health crisis being experienced by children and youth head on in partnership with families, providers, schools, communities, and policymakers. We are all aware of the issues, let us now transform this awareness into action. We need smart, durable policy to support what is most important for the health and well-being of our children. 

Amy Wimpey Knight is the president of Children’s Hospital Association, representing over 220 hospital organizations and pediatric programs dedicated to improving child health through innovation in policy and care delivery. 

Source: TEST FEED1