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Novavax hopes FDA go-ahead will boost lagging US vaccinations

Federal regulators appear poised to finally authorize a COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax in the coming weeks, a move that the company hopes can help improve the lagging U.S. vaccination effort.  

But winning over even a small number of eligible people who haven’t yet been vaccinated could be a difficult task. It’s not clear how much success the company will find.  

Even as COVID-19 infections rise, much of the U.S. has moved on from thinking about the pandemic, and demand for vaccines has waned considerably.  

“There’s a lot of potential benefits to having this additional vaccine in the arsenal, but the circumstances of the pandemic have changed significantly,” said Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.  

Across the U.S., restaurants are packed with people, and many Americans have given up on  wearing masks, even on public transit or on airplanes. 

The vaccination rate has also not changed significantly in recent weeks.  

While about 77 percent of adults have received two doses of an mRNA shot, only about 50 percent have received a single booster, and only about 20 percent of those eligible have received a second booster. 

John Trizzino, Novavax’s chief commercial officer, said he doesn’t see an issue with waning demand.  

He wants to give people a different option, especially since the government is limiting the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.  

“There are a substantial number of people that are not yet vaccinated. And I think it’s important to make sure that this is an option made available to them. I think we’ll see uptake in those people that have either been vaccine hesitant or have a preference for something other than mRNA vaccine,” Trizzino told reporters during a media briefing. 

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. 

Kaiser’s Michaud said he considers it a victory even if the Novavax shot convinces just a small minority of the vaccine-hesitant.  

“Every vaccination is a good thing and protects people, especially as we’re looking down to potentially difficult fall and winter seasons. So is it going to completely transform vaccinations in the U.S. and convince a whole wave of people to get vaccinated? Unlikely. But … it’s worth having this other option out there,” he said.  

In a separate interview, Trizzino said he is taking a longer view. Novavax might have missed out on the initial vaccinations at the peak of the pandemic, but there will likely be a need for annual revaccination. 

“I think the opportunity as we see is what lies in front of us. I can’t make up for what didn’t happen, but we know that we’ve got a safe and effective vaccine, we know that there’s going to be an ongoing need for vaccination … once the pandemic ends,” Trizzino said. 

It’s still not clear how immunity from Novavax’s shot compares to the mRNA vaccines, but clinical trials showed the vaccine was 90 percent effective against all the variants of concern that were circulating at the time of the trials.  

The trials took place before the omicron variant became dominant, though the company said it is confident protection is maintained. 

The effectiveness of Pfizer and Moderna’s shots against infection appears to wane after several months, but they still protect against severe disease and hospitalization.   

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Novavax had never brought a drug to market. The Maryland-based company secured a $1.8 billion contract from the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed early in the pandemic to scale up research and purchase up to 100 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. 

Trizzino said negotiations are ongoing about how many doses the government will purchase from the initial agreement. 

“The government is going to be buying some amount of doses … not certain how much under that agreement, and there will be doses available within a short few weeks after the emergency use authorization is granted under that contract,” he said. 

Novavax is banking on being able to use its shot as a booster. Trizzino said the company has data showing it can boost the immune response in people that received an mRNA shot initially, but the FDA is only considering it as a primary dose.  

Assuming the FDA grants emergency authorization for the vaccine in adults, Trizzino said he expects to formally submit data on booster effectiveness as well as use in adolescents “in a very short period of time, weeks, if not days” after that. 

Source: TEST FEED1

6 shot in downtown Chattanooga

Six teenagers were shot in downtown Chattanooga on Saturday following an altercation.

Four of the victims are experiencing non-life threatening injuries, and two are in “very, very critical” condition, Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy revealed at a news conference on Sunday. 

Murphy said police on patrol near the area of 100 Cherry Street and 100 Walnut Street heard gunshots and “observed multiple parties firing” before seeing that multiple victims had been shot.

Chattanooga police officers were already in the downtown area monitoring several large groups and what were perceived to be unchaperoned juveniles, according to the police chief. Officers tried to usher “unintended teens” in the area to safety amid the violence, Murphy said.

Authorities detained one person of interest on Saturday night, but the individual was ruled out a suspect, Murphy told reporters. Investigators are still searching for the perpetrator.

Murphy said authorities believe “two groups of people were beginning to converge on one another in what appeared to have been some type of altercation.” Two people from one of the groups then started firing at the other group.

She noted, however, that the incident does not appear to be gang-related, but said it has not been completely ruled out.

The shooting in Chattanooga follows a pair of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, where a combined 31 people were killed. Ten Black individuals were fatally shot in Buffalo, and 19 elementary school students and two teachers died in Uvalde.

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly on Sunday endorsed stricter gun regulations in the wake of the shooting.

“I can’t say this clearly enough: easy access to illegal guns is killing kids and our community has a responsibility to put a stop to it,” he said at a news conference, specifically noting background checks, red-flag laws and raising the age limit to purchase assault rifles.

He also called on parents to keep watch over their children who have access to firearms.

“Parents also need to be responsible. If you know your kid has access to a firearm you must intervene before someone, perhaps even your own child, ends up dead,” Kelly said.

“The kind of gun violence that erupted last night is often rooted in neglect. All of us, especially parents, caregivers and families, must be actively involved in knowing where our children are, what they’re doing and ensuring they don’t get their hands on weapons that can harm themselves and others. If you have a firearm, keep it securely locked away from children,” he added.

Source: TEST FEED1

SEC looms over Musk-Twitter deal

Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter has been the subject of countless headlines as the mercurial CEO has made his hang ups with the acquisition very public. 

That tendency to share his thoughts on the public forum might be putting the billionaire on a collision course with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

Musk has berated and antagonized the regulatory agency for years after being penalized for tweeting recklessly about taking Tesla private.  

His latest conduct on Twitter as he attempts to take over the company could draw even more legal headaches, but it remains an uncertain whether the agency will find enough misconduct to rein Musk in.  

The SEC must vet and approve Musk’s offer to buy Twitter, a publicly traded company, before it can be finalized. While the agency can’t reject Musk’s offer based on his vision for the company, the SEC can raise objections and delay the transaction if they believe he was not forthcoming on required disclosure forms. 

“The documents will need to detail what’s transpired in his journey to getting financing, and that’s where you may find some fertile legal ground,” said Steven Sisser, partner at law firm Lowenstein Sandler and co-chair of the firm’s transactions and advisory group. 

“What [the SEC’s] rules are designed to do is enable you, the public, to have all the information necessary so that you don’t wake up three weeks later and say, ‘If I had known that, I wouldn’t have tendered my shares.’” 

The SEC already has several potential reasons to probe Musk and his bid to buy Twitter, including the late disclosure of his stake in the company, filing the wrong type of disclosure, and his frequent criticism of Twitter leaders on the platform itself. 

Before Musk made his intentions to fully purchase the platform public, he revealed through an April 4 filing that he had bought 9.2 percent of outstanding shares, making him the largest independent shareholder. 

That disclosure sent shares of the company skyrocketing from roughly $39 per share to over $50. 

However, legally, Musk should have notified the SEC about his investments in Twitter far earlier, when he cleared a 5 percent stake. 

By filing that disclosure after the 10-day deadline, Musk may have netted $156 million according to University of Maryland business school professor David Kass. 

“Either he’s underpaid by $156 million by withholding this information, or he had $156 million profit as a result of holding this information,” he explained. “And of course shareholders who sold their shares during this time period… were in effect shortchanged.” 

Multiple outlets reported last week that the SEC has launched an investigation into the late disclosure. 

The agency could also take issue with the form Musk filed to reveal his initial stake in Twitter. 

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO filed a 13G disclosure with the SEC, which is meant for passive investors. While at the time he may not have had intentions of being an active investor, within a matter of weeks, he did receive an offer to join the company’s board, rejected it, and offered to buy all outstanding shares. 

The agency last month sent Musk a letter asking him to explain several potential missteps in his April 4 announcement of his purchase of a major portion of Twitter shares, according to documents obtained by several news outlets. 

Musk did eventually file a 13D disclosure meant for active investors and is known for changing his mind drastically, giving him some cover. 

“It’s quite possible at some point he really just was interested in Twitter and wanted to be a passive investor,” said Michael Dambra, an associate professor of account and law at the University of Buffalo. “Once we get more information about what his conversations were with Twitter beforehand it’ll show whether or not there was an incorrect filing.” 

The SEC is under some pressure to act on the two potential initial disclosure filings because such a high-profile case of allegedly skirting the rules could encourage others to follow Musk’s lead. 

“Certainly if the SEC just backs down and there doesn’t seem to be strong enforcement on revealing your positions, you’d think that other activist investors would be incentivized to do so,” Dambra explained.  

“They don’t want to disclose their position early on, they’d rather creep up and grab more ownership of another company over time, because one, it gives them more control, and two, it allows them to buy shares at a discount.” 

Some of Musk’s conduct since agreeing to a deal to purchase the company could also invite SEC scrutiny. 

Musk has griped on Twitter about whether the company accurately determined how many Twitter accounts belong to automated bots instead of verifiable human users, hinting it could jeopardize the deal. He then said Twitter’s legal team accused him of violating a non-disclosure agreement, and also sparred online with Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal, at one point responding with a poop emoji. 

“The standard governing what goes into an SEC disclosure certainly isn’t the same standard as what some random person says on Twitter. But, by the same token, when you have somebody like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or any celebrity that can move markets or move people to action with words, the government has always considered that factor,” said Joe Valenti, partner at law firm Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr. 

Valenti added that Musk’s previous issues with the SEC could influence scrutiny of the Twitter deal. 

In 2018, the SEC forced Musk to pay a $20 million fine, step down from the Tesla board and obtain pre-clearance from lawyers to post things that could be material to the company in a settlement over allegations that he had fraudulently tweeted about securing funds to take the electric car maker private. 

Musk has remained frustrated about that settlement, calling SEC regulators “bastards” at a conference last month. An attempt to have the portions of the 2018 settlement requiring supervision of Musk’s Tesla-related tweets terminated was recently thrown out by a judge. 

“The previous enforcement history is always the starting point in any type of case analysis. The government tries to understand what it is dealing with,” Valenti said. 

Both Valenti and Sisser said it’s unlikely Musk will face criminal charges based on questionable disclosures and testy tweets unless they are part of a plan meant to harm Twitter or make money off the potential deal under false pretenses. Even so, scrutiny from the SEC could slow the deal to a halt if banks backing Musk get cold feet. 

“Given its sheer size and the celebrity around it, [Musk’s bid] will get a meaningful review and his prior history will make that even more of a certainty,” Sisser said. 

An attorney representing Musk did not respond to a request for comment. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden pressed to take unusual strategy on Title 42 court fight

Advocates are calling on the Biden administration to take an unusual approach in the legal battle over Title 42: Challenge a court ruling that blocks it from being lifted but otherwise cave to the court’s demands. 

A ruling last week blocked the Biden administration from rescinding the Trump-era policy that denies migrants their right to seek asylum.

It’s a case not centered on the merits of the policy but whether the Biden administration followed administrative laws surrounding rulemaking.

Judge Robert Summerhays of the U.S. District Court in Louisiana‚ a Trump appointee, sided with states in determining the Biden administration had to launch a notice and comment process in order to nix the policy.

The Biden administration has pledged to appeal the ruling, and while advocates want them to take the additional step of seeking a stay to freeze the order, some also say they should just go ahead and get the rulemaking over with. 

“I think Title 42 needs to end immediately. The quickest way to do that is to obtain a stay,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrants’ rights project.

“If the administration cannot obtain a stay then doing notice and comment quickly would be more immediate than allowing an appeal to go forward over months and possibly a year or more,” added Gelernt.

The decision by the court in effect requires the Biden administration to jump through more administrative hoops to wind the order than the Trump administration took in creating it. The policy was initially crafted not through rulemaking but through an emergency order.

Its status has been reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control roughly every 30 days since its inception – its impermanent nature and continual review something the government argues is key to why a formal rulemaking process isn’t required. 

Even an eventual interim rule published by the Trump administration months into Title 42’s use required only a notice to terminate the policy.

Still, the court said Biden must complete the notice and comment rulemaking process required under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), siding with states who say they have a right to comment on the policy shift.

Summerhays ruled the pandemic created circumstances that justified putting in place an emergency order without a formal notice and comment period, but its lifting should be done through the thoughtful process required by the APA.

“An agency’s response to a dangerous and largely unknown contagious disease may justify emergency action that dispenses with the normal rulemaking process,” wrote Summerhays. 

“The same emergency conditions do not exist—or at least the CDC has not explained how such emergency conditions exist—with respect to terminating Its COVID-related orders based on improving conditions and allowing DHS to resume normal operations.”

Those who want to lift Title 42 see it as an unnecessary hurdle to return to what had been the status quo for decades.

“We’re now ready to return to immigration law as Congress has enacted it and as every prior administration has enforced it. Then I think you should be able to look at what they’re saying as a basis for why they want to return to the way we’ve always done things,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an immigration law professor at Ohio State University. 

The Biden administration faces hurdles in challenging the Louisiana court’s ruling.

The appeal in the case will head to the Fifth Circuit, one of the more conservative-leaning appeals courts. 

Judges there also sided with the states on another APA challenge of a Biden rescission of a Trump-era policy. In that case, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Department of Homeland Security needed to more fully explain its rationale for rescinding Remain in Mexico, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

“I don’t think the Fifth Circuit is going to give them any relief so it’s going to wind up going to the Supreme Court,” said Allen Orr, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 

“The Biden administration by the time it actually gets to the Supreme Court, they could go through the proposed rulemaking, although it’s not needed, just to meet the requirements of the court.”

It’s not clear that the Supreme Court would take the case, let alone rule in Biden’s favor.

But the Biden administration might be resistant to taking the faster road to unwinding Title 42. It has relied on Title 42 heavily, keeping the policy in place for over a year even as it rescinded other Trump immigration moves.

It may also want to avoid setting a precedent of having to go through a rulemaking process when it believes one is not necessary.

García Hernández also argued that the notice and comment process may not go as quickly as some may like. While departments have some control over the time period under which people can comment, it still often takes months to review them in order to issue documents showing the government’s response to stakeholders.

The ruling is frustrating to those who believe it is keeping in place an illegal policy. Title 42 has warped the use of the law to masquerade border policy as a public health issue, they argue.

“That’s the main issue that I hope a higher court will reach into – that Title 42 is not about border control. Therefore it’s not legitimate for Title 42 to address border control,” Orr said. 

While the Louisiana case is being argued solely on procedural grounds, other cases working their way through the system have more directly challenged Title 42’s impact on asylum law.

Gelernt and the ACLU had a recent victory in a case looking at the merits of Title 42, with another Trump-appointed judge ruling that the Biden administration could not expel families with children to places where they could face persecution or torture.

In that case the judge also questioned the need for Title 42 in the face of progress fighting the pandemic, saying the order looks “like a relic from an era with no vaccines, scarce testing, few therapeutics, and little certainty.”

The ruling in the case took effect Monday – the same day Title 42 would have been lifted, if not for the Louisiana case.

The interaction of the two rulings means the Department of Homeland Security must now weigh the concerns of families it would otherwise plan to swiftly expel under Title 42.

“The skirmish over procedural issues in the Louisiana case obscures the human dimension of Title 42 which is that migrants are being sent back to horrific danger and there’s never been and certainly now there is not a public health justification,” Gelernt said. “States in this case are using a procedural law to keep in place covid restrictions that they believe are only necessary when dealing with migrant asylum seekers.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Russia’s war in Ukraine is nothing like World War II

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin seem to agree on one thing: The proxy war their countries are fighting in Ukraine is a new World War II. In his Victory Day speech this month, Putin extolled the sacrifices made during what Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War — and continued to describe the Ukrainians as Western-backed neo-Nazis. A few hours later, Biden signed the evocatively named “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022,” invoking the same victory in Europe, 77 years ago.

Other leaders and experts have been even more full-throated. To Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), “This is the 1930s all over again.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Congress that Ukraine is the Sudetenland. Ben Wallace, Britain’s defense secretary, said Putin and his generals are “mirroring” the tyranny of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hailed America for again assuming the role of the “Arsenal of Democracy.”

Beneath this avalanche of historical analogies, however, is a less grandiose reality. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t World War II — not even close. No war since 1945 has had the magnitude or the impact of what future president Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly termed America’s “crusade” against Nazism.

The scale of World War II dwarfed the current conflict in Ukraine. Nazi Germany sent its panzer divisions to the gates of Moscow and the doorstep of Cairo. The Red Army of Putin’s father fought from Siberia to Silesia. The Russian Army of today is being humbled in a regional intervention on its border. Putin deployed perhaps 200,000 troops into Ukraine; the Red Army lost more than three times as many men just at Kiev in 1941. The war in Ukraine is a brutal, high-intensity conventional conflict, but it isn’t in the same league as the Gotterdammerung of World War II’s Eastern Front.

The Nazis gobbled up most of Europe in barely 18 months: Poland, France, the Low Countries, most of Scandinavia, the Balkans. The Russian military threat today is minimal by comparison. The Ukraine war has required Russia to so denude the rest of its regions of troops that it is not a conventional threat to anyone else — for the time being. As one analyst noted just three weeks into the war, Russia has proved unable to take cities a mere 20 miles from its border; the idea that it threatens Warsaw, let alone Berlin, is not credible.

Putin’s Russia, increasingly totalitarian though it is, also is not Hitler’s Germany. In the interwar period, fascist parties and regimes sprung up all over the world alongside, and in imitation of, the Nazis. Some, such as Benito Mussolini’s original article, predated Hitler’s regime. Putin’s propagandizing has only yielded some foreign politicians who will take his money and a fringe network of far-right admirers, susceptible to stories of Russian strength until that narrative was shattered on Ukraine’s battlefields. Russia’s corrupt, sclerotic autocracy is not a model for anyone.

Putin’s irredentist ends may perhaps rival Hitler’s, but his means fall far, far short. Germany and its allies threw nearly 4 million soldiers at the Soviet Union in 1941 — the largest invasion in history. Putin, after scraping together almost all his available combat power, has perhaps 150,000 troops remaining in Ukraine. His navy, its Black Sea flagship sunk, and his air force, unable to dominate Ukrainian airspace despite enormous material advantages, are in even worse shape. In another indication of his limited strength, Putin thus far has avoided calling for national mobilization.

Putin’s initial view of Ukrainian resistance does seem to have been legitimately Hitlerian. Russia’s disastrous opening gambit, an attempted coup de main that threw paratroops and tanks at Kyiv with minimal support, rested on an expectation that Ukraine would collapse in the face of a Russian onslaught. Eighty years before, Hitler felt the same way about Soviet Russia, telling one of his generals, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.” We should be grateful for this echo of historic hubris.

But there is a final, less comforting historical difference. Nazi Germany deployed an array of “Wunderwaffe” as World War II neared its end. Jet fighters, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were all first used in war by the Third Reich. But Hitler never cracked the nuclear code. Putin’s Russia boasts the world’s largest nuclear arsenal — more than 4,000 strategic nuclear warheads — and an array of small “tactical” nuclear weapons that it potentially could use in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine is not World War II. But the stakes, should we somehow stumble into the worst possible outcome, are actually higher. This reality, however much politicians and pundits might prefer to ignore or dismiss it, argues for American prudence, deliberation and seeking a finely calibrated outcome: a victory that guarantees Ukrainian independence and self-determination while keeping the risk of nuclear escalation as low as possible. Maximalist goals such as regime change in Russia, an inevitable by-product of World War II rhetoric, court catastrophe.

World War II is still an anchor for American self-identity. The “Greatest Generation” — that appellation itself a product of the nostalgia industry and a rose-tinted view of the past — is disappearing daily. But for the baby boomers who grew up in the war’s wake, and continue to hold most of the wealth and political power in America today, World War II is a touchstone, a constant reminder of American power, resolve and ultimate goodness. Seeking to make the latest foreign policy crisis into an echo of the past is a road to, at best, disappointment, and at worst, disaster.

Gil Barndollar is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and the Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He was a Marine Corps infantry officer who deployed twice to Afghanistan, and to Guantanamo Bay and the Persian Gulf.

Source: TEST FEED1

US, Canada investigating strawberries linked to hepatitis A outbreak

Several health agencies in the United States and Canada are investigating a hepatitis A outbreak potentially connected to organic strawberries purchased in March and April. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers against eating strawberry brands FreshKampo and HEB, sold at major grocery stores including Aldi, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market, Trader Joe’s, Walmart and other major chains.

“Epidemiologic and traceback data show that fresh organic strawberries sold as FreshKampo and HEB brands that were purchased between March 5, 2022, and April 25, 2022, are a likely cause of illness in this outbreak,“ the agency said.

The FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, along with state and local partners, are investigating the infections, according to an announcement. 

Hepatitis A cases reported in California, Minnesota and Canada were traced back to people who purchased the organic strawberry brands, the FDA said.

A total of 17 cases were reported in the U.S., including 15 in California, one in Minnesota and one in North Dakota, and 12 hospitalizations. The last illness onset was reported on April 30.

While the strawberries are now past their shelf life, the FDA warned that people who may have frozen the fruit should throw them away. The agency also encouraged people to contact their healthcare provider if they think they have symptoms of a hepatitis A infection.

Those symptoms can include fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine and other ailments and typically occur after someone eats or drinks contaminated food or water. 

The strawberry-related outbreak comes amid a global pediatric hepatitis outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday said that 650 pediatric cases of severe hepatitis have been reported in 33 countries between April 5 and May 26. 

The CDC has issued new guidance about testing for adenovirus in children as a possible reason for pediatric outbreak, but it remains unclear if the two are linked.

Source: TEST FEED1

FBI investigating authenticity of 25 Basquiat paintings at Florida museum

The FBI is investigating the authenticity of more than two dozen paintings displayed in a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit in Orlando, Fla., the New York Times reports.

A federal subpoena dated July 27, 2021, states that 25 paintings in the Orlando Museum of Art’s “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat” exhibit are being examined by the F.B.I.’s Art Crime Team, the Times reported.

Concerns about the authenticity of the art include a claim that the FedEx typeface featured on a piece of cardboard in the collection was not created until 1994, six years after Basquiat’s death, the Times reported in February.

The owners of the paintings and the museum’s director have defended the legitimacy of the works, which were reportedly made by the Neo-expressionist artist in 1982 on pieces of scavenged cardboard and recovered in 2012 from a storage unit in Los Angeles.

“We have a rigorous standard in our business,” Orlando Museum of Art Director and CEO Aaron De Groft told WESH 2 in February ,when the exhibit in opened. “We have no doubt, we stand by it, they’re original.”

Several professionals, including handwriting experts, have deemed the paintings to be originals. De Groft said the FedEx typeface claim is also incorrect.

“We determined that the way that the type and the font were being used were done all the way back to 1971,” he said.

The F.B.I. team investigating the paintings’ authenticity has interviewed several people, including previous owners of the art, and has demanded all communication between the owners and museum employees, per the Times. .

The museum’s Basquiat collection is estimated to be worth about $100 million, assuming the paintings are authentic.

Source: TEST FEED1

Abbott booed at Uvalde memorial site: 'We need change'

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) arrived at Robb Elementary School on Sunday to a crowd of booing onlookers, days after a gunman entered the school in Uvalde, Texas and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.

As Abbott approached the memorial, the crowd — composed of both local Uvalde residents and people from other areas — booed the governor, according to videos posted online.

“Please Gov. Abbott help Uvalde county,” one onlooker shouted. “We need change! We need change, governor!”

Abbott’s arrival came on the same day that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited the scene of the massacre. The Bidens were greeted with cheers before they laid flowers at the memorial. 

The first couple then went to Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, before someone shouted “Do something!” as they left the service.

“We will,” Biden said in response.

Abbott has also said he expects new laws to be enacted as a result of the elementary school shooting. But when pressed for detail about those measures, Abbott’s response centered on mental health, not gun reform. 

“You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws passed that I will sign addressing health care in this state,” Abbott said.  “There are an array of health issues that relate to those who commit gun crimes.”

“Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks instead of mental health, I suggest to you it is mistaken,” he added. 

A Morning Consult and Politico poll conducted the day after the Uvalde shooting showed that 88 percent of respondents supported background checks on all gun sales.

Background checks have effectively blocked 4 million gun sales “to people prohibited by law from having guns,” according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Abbott’s Democratic opponent in November’s election, Beto O’Rourke, confronting him at a press conference on Wednesday.

“You are doing nothing,” O’Rourke said, feet away from Abbott. “You said this was not predictable, this was totally predictable, and you choose not to do anything.”

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin blasted O’Rourke during the encounter, yelling “I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Worries about coming ObamaCare premium spikes intensify

Democrats are growing increasingly concerned that a spike in ObamaCare premiums could hit this fall right before the midterm elections.  

The party is already facing major headwinds from inflation and President Biden’s lagging approval ratings, and a health care premium spike would add a major blow. 

The American Rescue Plan signed by President Biden last year temporarily increased financial assistance under ObamaCare, but that increase is set to expire at the end of this year, causing an increase in premiums for enrollees in the health law unless Congress acts.  

Notices about the premium increases would be sent out shortly before the midterm elections, adding political pain for Democrats in addition to the higher premiums for consumers.  

“Right before the election, people would get notices of big premium increases, and that will certainly not reflect well on Democrats,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

Vulnerable Democratic lawmakers are trying to sound the alarm. A group of 26 House Democrats from swing districts, led by Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), sent a letter to leadership last week urging the extra subsidies to be extended.  

“I’m worried that we’re running up on a cliff,” said Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), one of the signers of the letter, who compared it to the expanded child tax credit that was allowed to expire at the start of this year. “We’re suddenly going to lose that ability. It’s similar to the child tax credit, which, you know, just kind of came and went, the expiration of it. I just don’t want to see that happen. I think it is absolutely game-changing.”

Given Republican opposition to any increased spending on ObamaCare, an extension of the subsidies would have to be included in a party-line package using the reconciliation process to bypass a GOP filibuster in the Senate.  

The problem for Democrats is that negotiations over that broader package with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the key swing vote, have shown few signs of progress for months.   

But the health care cliff is adding increased urgency for Democrats to find a way forward on the package.  

Frederick Isasi, executive director of the health care consumer advocacy group Families USA, said awareness is growing on Capitol Hill about the problem.  

“In the last couple weeks we’ve seen much greater focus coming to bear on this,” he said.  

“It’s moved from some key staff understanding that this is a real problem to members,” he added, as well as people working on campaigns. “I think the members are finally starting to become aware.” 

The premium increases would be substantial if Congress does not act, with an average rise of around 53 percent, affecting roughly 13 million people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.  

Middle class people making more than 400 percent of the federal poverty line would be especially hard hit, given that they would go back to not being eligible for any financial assistance and have to pay the full cost of their premiums.  

Vulnerable Democrats are also pushing to lower prescription drug prices, a centerpiece of Democrats’ recent campaigns that also faces time pressure as the window for a major economic package before the election narrows.  

Wild led a separate letter with swing-district lawmakers earlier this month pushing for action on drug prices.  

“There often are not things that we can specifically do to bring down inflation but what we can do is reduce people’s costs, and health care costs, whether it’s prescription drug prices, or health insurance premiums, is a huge part of that,” Wild said.  

Manchin, the key swing vote in the Senate, has been a supporter of both action on drug prices and on the Affordable Care Act subsidies in the past. The question is less whether he will support those specific elements and more whether he can reach a deal with Democratic leaders on the broader package.  

Wild said that a fallback option should be a health care-only package, if a broader deal cannot come together. “As far as I’m concerned, it should be an option,” she said.  

A Democratic strategist said that the looming health care subsidy cliff had “reinvigorated peoples’ interest” in finding a deal on the larger package. 

“People are certainly worried about it and hopeful that it will get resolved,” the strategist said. “This would be a self-inflicted wound if Democrats let it happen, but there is growing desire to avoid the cliff.” 

The flip side is the cost to the government of the extra subsidies, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cost about $70 billion for a three-year extension.  

Adding to the complexity, experts say the Affordable Care Act marketplaces need time to set up their systems before the enrollment period, meaning waiting to the last minute to extend the subsidies would pose operational difficulties.  

“Congress would ideally have to pass legislation by the end of August,” said Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Even the end of August would be pushing it.” 

Source: TEST FEED1