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Fauci tests positive for COVID-19

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday but is experiencing “mild symptoms,” the National Institutes of Health said.  

“He is fully vaccinated and has been boosted twice,” the agency said. “He is currently experiencing mild symptoms. Dr. Fauci will isolate and continue to work from his home. He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials.” 

Fauci has been the face of the government’s response to COVID-19 for more than two years and has previously avoided testing positive for the virus. But he is the latest in a long string of high-profile cases among lawmakers and government officials in Washington, D.C.  

Biden is so far one of the few top government officials who has avoided getting it, though the White House acknowledges he could.  

This is a developing report.

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Nebraska governor tests positive for COVID-19

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) announced on Wednesday that he and first lady Susanne Shore have tested positive for COVID-19. 

“The First Lady and I have tested positive for COVID-19. Both of us are experiencing very minor symptoms.  We will be following CDC guidelines and will be isolating,” the governor said in a brief statement.

Ricketts previously stated that he has been vaccinated and received a booster shot.

Almost 65 percent of Nebraska’s population is fully vaccinated. The state has seen roughly 2,300 new cases and 21 deaths in the past week, numbers well-below the peaks seen in cases during the omicron variant-related surge in January and in deaths last fall, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. 

This comes as COVID-19 cases have hit a plateau in the U.S. as a whole amid the spread of the BA.2 omicron subvariant, with roughly 100,000 new cases being reported each day. The number of cases nationwide does not appear to either be rising higher or declining after reaching a peak, as it has during previous waves of the coronavirus.

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Congress must seize the opportunity for a modern VA by supporting the AIR Commission

Recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs released recommendations for realigning its infrastructure to best meet the needs of the veterans it serves. These recommendations, part of the Asset and Infrastructure Review process laid out under the VA MISSION Act, have been met with misguided, though predictable, responses from lawmakers and media outlets.

Most notably, both groups have chosen to zero in on recommended facility closures rather than the recommended facility upgrades and new builds — the things veterans need.

Though we have had our disagreements with the VA on how to best serve veterans, the area we do agree on is ensuring resources are aligned with veterans’ needs. To do that, Congress must support the AIR Commission and its process, just like they did when they overwhelmingly voted in favor of it in 2018. As Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said when the MISSION Act passed “I think this could be a real win for the veterans in the country and give them the ability to get more timely health care, better-quality health care and build the capacity within the VA, too.

The AIR process is meant to modernize the VA. Auditing facilities and assets is a responsible move that gives the VA and decision makers insight into what the VA is working with and what is aging out of use.

For example, the average VA facility is more than 60 years old, five times older than comparable private sector health care facilities. Further, many VA facilities are rated a C-, which means they are not a suitable environment for health care services.

It should be obvious that old and broken-down facilities are not sound enough to deliver the type of medical care current and future veterans need. After all, a lot has evolved in medicine and war injuries since the facilities were built.

AIR Commission recommendations, if implemented, would drive realignment of resources to where the veterans are — shifting them from underused facilities and adding them in new parts of the country. The VA has recommended more than 250 facilities be renovated or built.

The VA didn’t come to any of their recommendations out of nowhere but rather based on market data and population shifts showing where veterans are living and what types of care they need.

VA estimates show the veteran population will decrease nearly 40 percent over the next two decades. And those remaining veterans will have substantially different health care needs than those who went before them.

Additionally, veterans are moving to different areas of the country, increasingly finding homes in western and southern states. These population shifts demand realignment of VA’s facilities and offerings.

It doesn’t make sense to keep giant, antiquated, underused facilities open rather than aligning the facilities with where the veterans actually live. Critics making blanket statements about opposition to the VA’s recommendations are just making a show of “protecting” veterans while they are actually doing them harm.

As one senator recently stated, our veterans “deserve easy access to the health care they have earned.” We wholeheartedly agree, which is why we support community care options for those who want them. 

We and our organization represent veterans and states that would benefit from the results of the AIR Commission. Some live in rural states with long drives to VA facilities where veterans desperately need more options for accessing medical care. Some live in states that veterans are flocking to that need VA resources comparable with our veteran populations. All of us see the benefits of a dynamic VA that puts its resources where the veteran is, not where a politician would like.

That is why we put the effort into telling our stories and meeting with lawmakers to make sure they know just how much the AIR process and commission would help us and our communities.

Holding tight to aging, dilapidated, underused facilities doesn’t help veterans. What does help veterans is allowing the VA to align its infrastructure and resources to meet the needs of its patients. That should be the VA’s first priority — caring for veterans when and where they need attention.

It is our hope that Congress will prioritize the AIR process, vote to confirm commission nominees, and take VA reforms even further by supporting legislation that gives veterans access to community care options where a VA can’t meet the veterans’ needs.

That is what we were promised.

Russ Duerstine is the deputy director for Concerned Veterans for America and a veteran of the United States Air Force. Brian Fay is a grassroots engagement director with Concerned Veterans for America in Florida and a veteran of the United States Army.

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Cornyn warns gun safety framework may have to be slimmed down

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the lead Republican negotiator of a bipartisan gun safety framework, said Wednesday that some issues still need to be ironed out and warned the package may have to be slimmed down in order to get a bill passed.

Cornyn said he’s “starting to get a little concerned” about the impasse over “a couple of issues that need to be settled before we can reach an agreement.”  

“At some point, if we can’t get to 60 then we’re going to have to pare some of this,” he told reporters outside the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room Wednesday morning.  

“We’ve got to settle these issues or else we’re talking about jeopardizing the whole deal,” he added, calling the remaining work “a lift.”  

Cornyn says the negotiators will hold a “critical meeting” Wednesday afternoon in order to resolve their differences.  

He said one issue that has to be ironed out is whether to provide money to states that do not have red flag laws to take guns away from people deemed dangerous to the community but have other crisis intervention programs to prevent such people from possessing firearms.  

The second issue is how to define romantic or dating relationships that would be subject to language closing the so-called boyfriend loophole. Under the law as it now stands, current and former dating partners are not barred from owning a firearm if convicted of a domestic abuse misdemeanor.  

“We’ve got to get 60 votes for whatever it is we do, so that is always a factor. Obviously, my goal is to get much more than 60 votes, but we’re meeting this afternoon. I think it’s going to be a critical meeting to try to figure out exactly where we’re stuck and where we can unstick,” he said.  

He said the framework signed by 10 Republicans and unveiled on Sunday was “an agreed set of principles” but noted “coming up with text is harder.”  

“Sometimes when people use the same word they mean it differently or people hear it differently. So getting it in writing is critical,” he said.  

On the debate over restricting firearms for people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors, Cornyn said Democrats “want to expand that definition and I’m begging them to come up with something that I can get my arms and head around.” 

“We need something very clear and so far we haven’t gotten it,” he said.  

Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator, said “I think we have more issues than that and they’re all overcome-able.”  

“There’s always going to be some polite disagreements over how that turns into text,” he said. 

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Trump congratulates Nancy Mace on primary win after backing her opponent

Former President Trump congratulated Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) Wednesday after her victory in Tuesday night’s primary against state Rep. Katie Arrington, whom Trump had endorsed.

Trump, who endorsed Arrington in February, made Mace one of his primary targets after she did not object to certifying the 2020 presidential election results and criticized him for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The South Carolina congresswoman did not vote to impeach Trump after the riot, but he still vowed to speak out against her in her reelection bid.

“Katie Arrington was a long shot but ran a great race and way over performed,” the former president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Congrats to Nancy Mace, who should easily be able to defeat her Democrat opponent!”

The primary fight between Mace and Arrington was divisive within the GOP. While Arrington received Trump’s endorsement, Mace was endorsed by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, both former South Carolina politicians who served in the Trump administration.

Although Mace was openly critical of Trump’s actions regarding the Jan. 6 attack, she still attempted to tie herself to the former president in her reelection bid by painting herself as a proponent of his agenda.

Arrington’s loss marks the latest primary defeat for a Trump-backed candidate as he weighs a 2024 presidential race.

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North Carolina charter school cannot force girls to wear skirts, appeals court rules

A federal appeals court has ruled that a North Carolina public charter school may not require its female students to wear skirts as part of their uniform. The decision marks the first time a federal appeals court has recognized that students of charter schools that receive public funding are guaranteed the same constitutional and civil rights protections as students attending traditional public schools, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Tuesday.

“Today’s decision is a victory for North Carolina’s students attending public charter schools,” Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, said in a statement. “As the opinion recognizes, dress codes that enforce different rules based on students’ sex reinforce old-fashioned conventions of how girls should dress, and signal that girls are not equal to boys. These discriminatory gender stereotypes are harmful and have no place in our public schools.”

The court’s ruling stems from an ACLU lawsuit filed in 2016 against the North Carolina Day School, a public charter school in Brunswick County, N.C., on behalf of three female students. The case challenged a long-standing school policy requiring girls to wear skirts or skorts to school and prohibiting them from wearing pants or shorts.

The students, who at the time of the lawsuit’s filing were in kindergarten, fourth and eighth grades, argued that the skirts they were made to wear restricted their movement, prevented them from sitting comfortably in class and playing freely at recess and caused them to feel uncomfortably cold in the winter.

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The school’s uniform policy, the lawsuit argued, “on its face, treats girls differently than boys and causes them to suffer a burden that boys do not suffer.”

The North Carolina Day School had said its uniform policy was designed to promote “traditional values.”

A federal judge in 2019 had ruled that the school’s uniform policy was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of sex. The school later appealed.

“Nothing in the Equal Protection Clause prevents public schools from teaching universal values of respect and kindness,” Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Keenan wrote Tuesday in her opinion. “But those values are never advanced by the discriminatory treatment of girls in a public school. Here, the skirts requirement blatantly perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes as part of the public education provided to North Carolina’s young residents.”

The school’s attorney, Aaron Streett, in a statement Tuesday said Charter Day School disagrees with the court’s majority opinion and is considering next steps, the Associated Press reported.

“The majority opinion contradicts Supreme Court precedent on state action, splits with every other circuit to consider the issue, and limits the ability of parents to choose the best education for their children,” he said.

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George Washington University scraps 'Colonials' moniker after student pressure

George Washington University (GWU) has announced plans to retire its “Colonials” moniker by the 2023-24 academic school year following years of pressure from its student body. 

In a news release on Wednesday, the school said its Board of Trustees has opted to replace the “Colonials” moniker with a new one, based on a special committee’s recommendation on the matter. 

The board established a “Task Force on Naming” in November 2019 amid growing concerns from the school’s community members about the nearly 100-year-old school moniker.

Former GWU President Thomas LeBlanc convened a “Special Committee on the Colonials Moniker” in July 2020 after the task force developed a framework to address name change requests, charging the new committee with sending a recommendation to the school’s Board of Trustees to determine whether the moniker should be changed. 

The committee’s report, published in March 2021, detailed various reasons for the school to change the name, citing that George Washington, the school’s namesake, rejected the “colonial” term and arguing that the moniker glorifies colonizers who stole land and resources from indigenous groups and also introduced slavery in the colonies. 

“The board recognizes the significance of changing the university’s moniker, and we made this decision only after a thoughtful and deliberate process that followed the renaming framework and special committee recommendation that considered the varying perspectives of our students, faculty, staff, alumni and athletics community,” GWU’s Board of Trustees Chairwoman Grace Speights said in a statement. 

“A moniker must unify our community, draw people together and serve as a source of pride. We look forward to the next steps in an inclusive process to identify a moniker that fulfills this aspiration.”

This comes after GWU student leaders in recent years changed the names of several public gathering areas around the school to strip them of the moniker, including renaming the student body section at sporting events, which once was referred to as the “Colonial Army,” to “George’s Army,” student publication The GW Hatchet reported. 

The GWU student body also recommended alternatives to the “Colonial” moniker such as the “Hippos” and “Revolutionaries” through a petition started in 2018 which garnered nearly 550 signatures, the school newspaper noted. 

“As we embark on our third century, we must continue to lead with our values, strengths and the diversity of the George Washington University community,” GWU President Mark S. Wrighton said in a statement. “I was impressed by the principled and collaborative approach of the special committee, and it was clear this process was driven by research and robust engagement with the community. While some may disagree with the outcome, this process has determined that changing the moniker is the right decision for our university.”

The “Colonials” moniker is slated to be used until a new name is announced following an “engagement process” within the GWU community, which is expected to be completed by the 2023-24 academic school year, according to the release.

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Fed hikes rates by 75 basis points for first time since 1994

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it would hike interest rates this month at the fastest pace in nearly 30 years after a discouraging May surge in inflation.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the panel of Fed officials responsible for setting interest rates, said it would raise the bank’s baseline interest rate range to 1.5 to 1.75 percent, an increase of 0.75 percentage points. 

It is the first 0.75 percentage point rate hike issued by the Fed since 1994.

The Fed’s unusually large interest rate hike follows a tumultuous four-day stretch for financial markets. Stocks have plunged, bond yields have skyrocketed and cryptocurrency values have collapsed in the wake of an alarming increase in price growth last month. 

The Labor Department announced Friday that the consumer price index (CPI), a closely watched gauge of inflation, rose 1 percent in May alone and 8.6 percent over the past 12 months — far exceeding the expectations of economists. Experts were also alarmed by how many goods and services saw rapid price growth in May, along with the staggering rise in food and energy prices driven by the war in Ukraine.

The Fed was already on track to raise interest rates by 0.5 percentage points in June following an identical hike in May and a 0.25 percentage point hike in March. While Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other top bank officials left the door open to a larger or smaller hike, they made clear they expected another 50 basis point hike to be the best path forward. 

Fed officials are often wary of breaking from the decisions they signal in advance to financial markets, particularly as it navigates interest rate hikes. But a Monday financial market meltdown prompted many Wall Street Fed watchers to boost their odds of a 75 basis point hike. Several news outlets later confirmed the Fed was mulling a bigger rate increase, laying the groundwork for Wednesday’s decision.

The CME Group FedWatch tool, which monitors where futures tied to the Fed’s baseline interest rate range are trading, gave a 97 percent chance on Tuesday of a 75 basis point interest rate hike.

Borrowing costs for consumers and businesses are set to rise in the wake of the Fed’s decision. 

Banks and lenders set interest rates on credit cards, auto loans, adjustable rate loans and other shorter-term credit products they offer based on the Fed’s baseline interest rate range. As the Fed hikes rates, interest rates on those products also rise and pin consumers down with higher borrowing costs.

While mortgage interest rates are not directly tied to the Fed’s baseline interest rate range, they will also continue to rise. Banks and lenders set interest rates for mortgages and other longer-term loans based on the yields for Treasury Department bonds. When Treasury bond yields rise as the Fed hikes rates, banks and lenders set their interest rates higher accordingly.

The Fed is aiming to bring inflation down by reducing the amount of spending on goods and services, particularly those already in high demand and short supply. As consumers and businesses cut back on spending, firms may not be able to keep raising prices with less demand for their products. 

Tighter interest rates also tend to reduce stock prices and housing prices, which can prompt wealthier households to cut back spending or boost saving to compensate.

Home sales have already declined sharply in 2022 after two years of torrid growth as mortgage rates have risen. Several major retail chains are also bracing for lower earnings as consumers spend less on products like electronics and furniture.

Even so, economists and investors are increasingly concerned the Fed may need to deliberately induce a recession in order to bring inflation down. Prices for food, energy and other essential commodities have skyrocketed in the wake of the war in Ukraine and the Fed has little control over the international supply shocks. 

Persistent COVID-19 lockdowns in China are also choking off global supply chains and deepening backlogs behind rising prices.

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Heat wave bakes one-third of Americans, highlighting urgency of climate legislation

There have always been heat waves. They typically showed up in July or August, covered a limited area and were gone in a few days. But as we wrote a year ago when the Pacific Northwest blistered under record-shattering heat, this is not your grandparents’ climate. A look at this week’s national heat map can’t leave any but those in deepest denial feeling sanguine about the climate crisis.

As more than 100 million Americans face withering heat, it is time to ring the alarm bell yet again, only louder and more urgently. We’ve been kicking the can for so long that we’re now running out of road for stabilizing temperatures below internationally agreed-upon levels. Like the public outcry over the recent rash of murderous gun violence, can this time be different?

Can this be the moment that our elected representatives finally awaken to the urgency of the climate emergency and deliver the action Americans are calling for?

One of the clearest impacts of a warming climate is the increase in extreme heat. It’s been observed across the globe, and projections are that it will get much worse unless we act to rapidly reduce heat-trapping emissions. A recent analysis co-authored by one of us found that heat stress is expected to become more severe due to an increase in the frequency, duration, severity, geographic extent, as well as length of extreme heat and humidity.

Climate disruption is also bringing temperatures that our human bodies simply cannot tolerate. We cool ourselves by producing sweat, which evaporates from our skin, pulling heat from our bodies into the air. But when the air is not only extremely hot but also very humid, the sweat can’t evaporate and cool us down as quickly, and the damage to our bodies can be fatal. Some places on Earth are already experiencing conditions this hot and humid, and more will soon. Children and the elderly are particularly at risk.

Human-caused climate disruption is making extreme heat waves hundreds of times more likely, greatly increasing the odds of events like the one we’re suffering through now. In a disturbing twist on “The Hunger Games” blessing, the odds will not ever be in our favor going forward, unless we rapidly slash heat-trapping emissions.

While other climate-change-fueled disasters like hurricanes are more visually dramatic, extreme heat is invisible and silent, but very costly in both lives and dollars. Extreme heat caused more deaths on average in the U.S. than hurricanes and floods combined over the past 30 years. Heat’s impact on the U.S. economy in 2020 was $100 billion in worker productivity losses alone. That’s projected to double by 2030, and reach half a trillion dollars by 2050. That’s 1 percent of U.S. GDP, and that’s only one dimension of heat’s impact.

To raise awareness around heat waves and alert people to how they can stay safe amid dangerous heat, it’s been suggested that we name and categorize them, like we do hurricanes. And speaking of naming, when the news media report on heat waves, and when we talk about them, we should name what, specifically, is causing them to become hotter, longer-lasting, more widespread and more frequent. And not just some vague “human activities,” but global heating, caused predominantly by the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. Far too often these clear links are left out of our discussion.

Bringing these two ideas together, it’s been suggested that as we consider naming extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, we choose names that call out companies and politicians who have denied climate science and blocked action to tackle the crisis: Names including Exxon, which was aware of climate change 45 years ago, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading denier of climate change along with many other lawmakers, and Koch Industries, one of the top U.S. corporate polluters. 

This week’s heat wave highlights the urgency of passing strong climate legislation now. The Build Back Better Act would have been an excellent first step, but it was stalled by one man: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Talks are now underway to revive many of the climate measures in that bill and get us back on track to speeding-up the clean energy transition. As we swelter through the days to come and a summer ahead that is sure to be rife with more disasters supercharged by climate change, let us remember the names of those who have brought us to this moment, and more importantly, those, like Manchin, who can still help us find our way out.

Susan Joy Hassol is director of the non-profit Climate Communication. She publishes Quick Facts on the links between climate change and extreme weather events. Follow her on Twitter: @ClimateComms

Michael E. Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. He is author of “The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet.” Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelEMann

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