Tag Archives : Build House

Appeals court axes ruling against Biden oil leasing pause, sends back for further proceedings

An appeals court on Wednesday tossed an injunction that halted the Biden administration’s pause on new oil and gas leasing and sent the case back to a lower court for further proceedings. 

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the injunction didn’t make clear what exactly the Biden administration is and isn’t allowed to do.

The appeals court didn’t weigh in on whether the lower court was right to block the oil and gas leasing pause, saying the lower court first needed to deal with the procedural issue.

“We cannot reach the merits of the Government’s challenge when we cannot ascertain from the record what conduct—an unwritten agency policy, a written policy outside of the Executive Order, or the Executive Order itself— is enjoined,” found the three-judge panel made up of a Reagan, Clinton and Obama appointee. 

“Our review of [Administrative Procedure Act] claims must begin by determining if there was final agency action. Where, as here, it is unclear what final agency action the district court predicated its order upon, we are unable to reach the merits of the appeal,” they added. 

At the beginning of his tenure, President Biden paused new oil and gas leasing on public lands and in public waters — preventing the start of the process for new oil and gas production offshore and  on lands owned by the federal government. 

Biden’s pause did not interrupt existing drilling, and also did not prevent new drilling on private lands. 

Last year, a federal judge in Louisiana halted the moratorium while the case against it played out, arguing that there were likely to be losses to the states as a result. 

In an executive order directing the pause, Biden said it should be carried out “pending completion of a comprehensive review and reconsideration of Federal oil and gas permitting and leasing practices”

That review has been completed, and the Interior Department released a report on it in November, but the administration is still fighting for the pause in court. 

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said via email, “We’re reviewing the decision.”

The Inflation Reduction Act, the new climate, tax and health care bill that Biden signed on Tuesday requires the department to hold additional lease sales, including one that’s required by the end of this year. 

Source: TEST FEED1

US airstrike in Somalia kills 13 al-Shabab militants, Pentagon says

Defense officials on Wednesday claimed a U.S. airstrike against al-Shabab fighters in Somalia killed 13 militants, the deadliest such strike against the extremist group in months.  

The airstrike targeted the al-Qaeda-linked fighters on Sunday in a remote location near Teedaan, in Somalia’s central region, as the militants were “actively attacking Somali National Army forces,” according to a statement from U.S. Africa Command (Africom). 

The command’s initial assessment found that no civilians were injured or killed as part of the strikes, the statement claimed.  

This is the second U.S. military strike in Somalia within a week. Africom on Aug. 9 conducted three airstrikes outside Beledweyne — also in support of the Somali National Army — which killed four al-Shabab terrorists. 

“The Federal Government of Somalia and the U.S. remain committed to fighting al-Shabaab to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians,” the statement notes. “Violent extremist organizations like al-Shabaab present long-term threats to Somali, regional and U.S. interests.” 

The strikes follow President Biden’s May decision to redeploy up to 500 U.S. troops in East Africa to Somalia as the administration looks to reestablish a small presence in the country to counter al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s largest and best-financed global affiliate. 

Source: TEST FEED1

US must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late

Nearly 20 of our fellow experts and national security professionals — whose digital signatures appear at the end of this op-ed — agree: The war in Ukraine has reached a decisive moment and that vital U.S. interests are at stake.

Long before the Kremlin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, we have — from senior positions in the U.S. government and military — followed Moscow’s foreign policy and the grave dangers it presents to the United States and our allies. We have carefully watched Moscow’s major offensive since February and the response of the Biden administration and its allies and partners. We have maintained close touch with Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials. Two of us just returned from meetings with Ukraine’s defense and military leaders.

Although the Biden administration has successfully rallied U.S. allies and provided substantial military assistance, including this month, to Ukraine’s valiant armed forces, it has failed to produce a satisfactory strategic narrative which enables governments to maintain public support for the NATO engagement over the long term.

By providing aid sufficient to produce a stalemate, but not enough to roll back Russian territorial gains, the Biden administration may be unintentionally seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. Out of an over-abundance of caution about provoking Russian escalation (conventional as well as nuclear), we are in effect ceding the initiative to Russian President Vladimir Putin and reducing the pressure on Moscow to halt its aggression and get serious about negotiations.

Moscow’s imperialist war against the people of Ukraine is not just a moral outrage — a campaign of genocide aimed at erasing the Ukrainian nation from the map — but a clear danger to U.S. security and prosperity. 

American principles and interests demand the strongest possible response, one sufficient to force the Russians as much as possible back to pre-February lines and to impose costs heavy enough to deter Russia from invading a third time. With Russian forces struggling to regroup in the east and stave off Ukrainian efforts to retake Kherson in the south, now is the time for Ukraine’s allies to pull out all the stops by providing Ukraine the means it needs to prevail. Dragging out the conflict through so-called strategic pauses will do nothing but allow Putin to regroup, recover and inflict more damage in Ukraine and beyond.

But so far, neither the administration nor European allies have succeeded in making clear why this is important to the United States and the West. It is important because Putin is pursuing a revisionist foreign policy designed to upend the rules-based security system that has ensured American and global stability and enabled prosperity since the end of World War II. Putin’s aggressive designs do not end in Ukraine. As Russian officials have repeatedly made clear, if Russia wins in Ukraine, our Baltic NATO allies are at risk, as are other allies residing in the neighborhood.  

Prudent policy today identifies tomorrow’s risk and seeks the right place and time to deal with that risk. For the U.S. and NATO, that time is now — and the place is Ukraine, a large country whose population understands that its choice is either defeating Putin or losing their independence and even their existence as a distinct, Western-oriented nation. 

With the necessary weapons and economic aid, Ukraine can defeat Russia.

If it succeeds, our soldiers are less likely to have to risk their lives protecting U.S. treaty allies whom Russia also threatens.

What does defeat for Putin look like? The survival of Ukraine as a secure, independent, and economically viable country. That means a Ukraine with defensible borders that include Odesa and a substantial portion of the Black Sea coast, as well as a strong, well-armed military and a real end to hostilities. That should ideally include the return to Ukrainian control of all territories seized since Feb. 24 and, ultimately, the lands stolen in 2014, including Crimea. Such a peace is only possible when Putin realizes he is soundly defeated and can no longer achieve his objectives of dominating Ukraine or any other nation by force.

It would be a defeat for Ukraine (and the United States) if in haste to end the fighting, the West encouraged Ukraine to cede territory in return for a ceasefire. That would continue the pattern since at least Moscow’s aggression against Georgia in 2008 in which the West pushes for a ceasefire that effectively ratifies past Kremlin aggression and does not actually force it to stop shooting or taking more territory. (More than 10,000 Ukrainians died after the Minsk agreement ceasefires with scores and even hundreds of Russian violations daily.) A ceasefire would not end Russia’s aggression or its occupation of Ukrainian land; it would simply give Moscow a pause to consolidate its gains and then resume its offensive. Moreover, the vast majority of Ukrainians in recent surveys oppose any territorial concessions in exchange for a ceasefire with Moscow.

Such a plan would also condemn millions of Ukrainians to live under a regime that has committed numerous war crimes, whose senior officials and media have called for de-Ukrainianization of Ukraine, which is already being subjected to forced Russification, including the illegal and involuntary deportation of nearly 400,000 Ukrainian children to Russia for adoption. These measures have prompted a growing number of scholars to describe Russian policy as genocide. 

Moscow’s plan now is to make as many gains on the battlefield as possible; to conduct sham referendums in the newly occupied Ukrainian territory as a prelude to their annexation; to undermine unity in the West’s support for Ukraine by cutting off gas supplies going into the winter; and to blockade Ukrainian ports to produce destabilizing food shortages in the Global South designed to blow back on the West. For all of these purposes, Moscow needs time. Which means the United States and its allies must keep the pressure on Moscow.

The Biden administration should move more quickly and strategically, in meeting Ukrainian requests for weapons systems. And when it decides to send more advanced weapons, like HIMARS artillery, it should send them in larger quantities that maximize their impact on the battlefield. 

Ukraine needs long-range fires to disrupt the Russian offensive, including Russian resupply, fuel, and ammunition stocks. That means the U.S. should send ATACMS munitions, fired by HIMARS with the 300km range necessary to strike Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including occupied Crimea. And Ukraine needs constant resupply of ammunition and spare parts for artillery platforms supplied from various countries, some of which are not interchangeable. These systems are constantly in use, which makes maintenance and spare parts resupply critical. How and where these tasks are accomplished and the logistics infrastructure to quickly get the equipment back where it can be of greatest use can also make a huge difference.

Beyond this, Ukraine needs more short- and medium-range air defense to counter Russian air and missile attacks. An increasing problem is the need to deploy adequate countermeasures to hamper the growing prevalence of Russian-produced drones and new ones it is trying to procure from Iran.

The administration has been reluctant thus far to take such decisive steps for fear of provoking Russia, or as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently said at the Aspen Security Forum, “to avoid World War Three.” Putin and other senior Russian officials have at numerous points in the run-up to and following Moscow’s Feb. 24 offensive reminded the West of the dangers of nuclear war. But the U.S. is also a nuclear power, and it is a strategic mistake to suggest that nuclear deterrence no longer works. Nuclear deterrence still works.

It is to Putin’s advantage to threaten nuclear war, but not to initiate it. And we have seen the Kremlin make nuclear threats that proved hollow — for instance in connection with Finland and Sweden joining NATO. If we allow Putin to intimidate us from providing the weapons Ukraine needs to stop Russian revisionism, what happens when he waves his nuclear wand over the Baltic states? And why would the administration assume that Putin would not dare do that with Estonia or Poland if the tactic worked for him in Ukraine?

The stakes are clear for us, our allies, and Ukraine. We should not fool ourselves. We may think that each day we delay providing Ukraine the weapons it needs to win, we are avoiding a confrontation with the Kremlin. To the contrary, we are merely increasing the probability that we will face that danger on less favorable grounds. The smart and prudent move is to stop Putin’s aggressive designs in Ukraine, and to do so now, when it will make a difference.  

Signed,

General Philip Breedlove, USAF (ret.); 17^th Supreme Allied Commander Europe and distinguished professor, Sam Nunn School, Georgia Institute of Technology

Debra Cagan, former State and Defense Department official;distinguished energy fellow, Transatlantic Leadership Network

General (Ret.) Wesley K. Clark, 12^th Supreme Allied Commander Europe; senior fellow, UCLA Burkle Center

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, former under secretary of state for global affairs

Ambassador Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Finland and Turkey;former under secretary of defense for policy

Dr. Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia; executive director, McCain Institute

Ambassador Daniel Fried, former assistant secretary of state for Europe;Weiser Family distinguished fellow, Atlantic Council

Ambassador John Herbst, former Ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan; senior director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges, former commanding general, US Army Europe

Ambassador John Kornblum, former ambassador to Germany

David Kramer, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor

Jan Lodal, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy; distinguished fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Robert McConnell, former assistant attorney general; co-founder, US-Ukraine Foundation

Ambassador Stephen Sestanovich, former ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union; senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations;professor, Columbia University

John Sipher, former officer and chief of station, CIA Clandestine Service; nonresident senior fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council

Ambassador William Taylor, former ambassador to Ukraine

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, former NATO deputy secretary general; former assistant secretary of defense; former ambassador to Russia and NATO

Ambassador Kurt Volker, former ambassador to NATO; former special representative for Ukraine negotiations; distinguished fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine

Institutional affiliations are for purposes of identification only.

Source: TEST FEED1

Lead exposure in racially segregated housing lowers reading scores among Black children: study

The negative effects of lead exposure on human health have long been documented, but new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science show racially segregated neighborhoods play a large role in who is exposed to lead in early childhood and the detrimental cognitive outcomes associated with exposure. 

Data collected from North Carolina show lead exposure results in lower fourth-grade standardized test scores in all children, but non-Hispanic Black children are more likely to live in racially segregated neighborhoods and be exposed to lead, underscoring the long-term impacts of structural racism.

Where lead exposure is the highest is just one piece of the puzzle, explained study co-author Mercedes Bravo of the Global Health Institute at Duke University and a faculty affiliate of Notre Dame’s Childhood Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI), in a statement. 

“Black children are more likely to be exposed to lead and are also more likely to live in racially segregated, predominantly Black neighborhoods. When these two exposures co-occur, children had worse-than-expected scores,” Bravo said. “Identifying these combinations of environmental, social and economic exposures, and interactions between them, can inform the targeting and design of interventions in vulnerable communities.”

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Any home built in the United States before 1978 has an increased chance of containing lead-based paint, lead-contaminated dust and pipes and plumbing fixtures with lead, while racially segregated neighborhoods are more likely to have homes built before this cutoff.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the federal government banned consumer use of lead-based paint in 1978, although several states banned the product earlier.

There is no safe level of lead exposure, researchers stressed, and any childhood lead poisoning is preventable.

To conduct the analysis, investigators assessed geocoded birth data from over 25,000 North Carolinians, blood lead surveillance data, and fourth-grade standardized test scores.

Higher blood lead levels were linked with lower mathematics test scores among all children. Non-Hispanic Black children with higher blood lead levels and residing in racially isolated neighborhoods exhibited worse reading scores.

Researchers defined racial residential segregation as “the geographic separation of Black individuals and communities from other racial/ethnic groups into separate, unequal neighborhoods,” which “fosters environments inimical to health through disinvestment of resources and concentration of disadvantages.” 

Academic achievement in early childhood can predict educational outcomes later in life, authors explained, noting non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals tend to have lower high school and college graduation rates. The data presented indicate this so-called “achievement gap” can be attributed in part to the lasting effects of structural racism.

“In the midst of our country’s racial reckoning, we must work harder to understand and ultimately act on the deep effects that environmental justice and structural racism have on our country and our communities,” added co-author Marie Lynn Miranda, director of the CEHI and professor of applied and computational mathematics and statistics at the University of Notre Dame.

“This paper tackles both issues head on by showing that a clear issue of environmental justice (childhood lead exposure) is further compounded by the structural racism that Black families in particular face in the United States, as demonstrated through racial residential segregation.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Hageman: Cheney focused on Trump 'obsession' instead of Wyoming

Republican Wyoming congressional candidate Harriet Hageman said a large part of the reason that she defeated Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in her primary on Tuesday was due to her lack of focus on Wyoming, instead setting her eyes on “an obsession about President Trump.”

During an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham after her primary win in Wyoming, Hageman said that while she hasn’t spoken to Cheney since her defeat, she “wasn’t surprised” that Cheney vowed to keep Trump away from the White House in her concession speech, noting that’s a large part why she was defeated.

“I have not had an opportunity to even see or hear what she had to say because I’ve been kind of focused on what’s going on here,” she told Ingraham. “It doesn’t surprise me that she would revert to those same old talking points, because that’s really in large part what got her defeated.”

“She is not focusing on Wyoming,” Hageman added. “She’s not focusing on our issues. She is still focusing on an obsession about President Trump. And the citizens of Wyoming, the voters of Wyoming sent a very loud message tonight. We have spoken. And that is not what we are interested in in terms of our lone congressional representative.”

Hageman, an attorney and former Republican National Committee (RNC) member endorsed by former President Trump last year, said that Wyoming “is entitled to have a representative that represents our interests, listens to us, that addresses our issues.”

“That isn’t Liz Cheney, and the fact that that’s where she went back to with her speech tonight I think demonstrates that she really is listening to Wyoming now, she hasn’t for quite some time. And that’s why we needed to replace her,” she said. “We need to have a representative in Wyoming who listens to us.”

During Cheney’s concession speech, she vowed to do “whatever it takes” to keep the former president from office.

“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the votes. I could easily have done the same again, the path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election,” Cheney said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Europeans risk death by cold for green folly — and we could be next

Wonder what would happen if the Green New Deal took hold in the United States? A deadly winter is the result of Europe’s own energy experiment. A combination of utopian climate initiatives, inflation, a decline in American fossil fuel production, and an unwillingness to buy Russian oil or natural gas could lead to as many as several hundred thousand deaths across the continent this winter. 

While European nations have mostly stopped purchasing Russian fuel this year, which supplied 15 percent of the continent’s natural gas prior to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the seeds of the continent’s current energy crisis were planted years ago. Efforts to replace traditional energy with green sources have been disastrous. Germany, for example, spent $150 billion on renewable energy sources in their own version of the Green New Deal, only to find itself with some of the highest energy prices in the world and wind power production plummeting by a quarter in early 2021. By rushing a transition away from nuclear power and fossil fuels, former Chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor, Olaf Scholz, made the country nearly dependent on a hostile Russia for years.      

At the same time, Germany’s decision to dismantle its nuclear power plants after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster led to not only a reliance on Russian fossil fuels but also extensive (often Russian) coal burning and an increase of carbon emissions. The nation is now attempting to backtrack on its earlier decision and keep its nuclear plants on while reopening coal plants.      

Meanwhile, France and Britain banned fracking within the past five years, after a Putin-funded effort, supporting green groups and cloaked in progressive buzzwords, campaigned heavily to stop the practice. The United States has been filling in a crucial gap in Europe’s natural gas for almost a decade, but declining American production means that the ability to save the day is more than limited. The head of the International Energy Agency is already predicting an energy shortage in Europe this winter.  

Slavish commitment to green politics, coupled with foolish idealism, will cost lives this winter. Britain alone suffers more than 28,000 excess winter deaths a year. About 200,000 such deaths occur in all of Europe each year, with mortality increasing by 1.5 percent for every 1-degree Celsius decrease. A bitterly cold winter and a sharp decline of constant heating could potentially trigger a six-figure increase in excess deaths continent-wide. In particular, areas with a high urban population (less able to provide wood as a backup heating source) or especially high dependence on Russian heating oil — such as France, Britain, or Germany — will be at much higher risk.      

If efforts to rush unreliable, expensive green energy sources or ban fracking are successful in the U.S., we could face comparable outcomes to our European cousins. Short of fracking, the U.S. would have faced similar shortages following the Ukraine invasion and gasoline likely more than double its current cost. The sheer fact that the Democrats couldn’t regulate the gas and oil extraction technique out of usefulness is the underpinning that is keeping our economy afloat.

We’ve seen such foolish actions lead to widespread suffering before. Sri Lanka, off the coast of India, implemented its own version of woke energy economics. Rapid money printing, debt and a government-mandated switch to organic fertilizer all combined to lead to its economy imploding this summer. Its government was toppled by protesters following more than 50 percent inflation, while 85 percent of farmers faced crop losses after the fertilizer change. Green policies crippled the nation’s crucial tea industry and forced the formerly self-sufficient country to import rice.       

First world nations are not immune to similar fates. Energy shortages are already harming the average American family; $5-a-gallon gasoline played a role in both enduring inflation and a falling GDP this year. Imagine the potential damage inflicted by a full-blown shortage crisis. Those prognosticating a swift phaseout of fossil fuels are usually too young or too poorly educated to remember the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. Green energy may get us to a utopian future one day — but not soon enough. Recall the sharp increase in wind energy production in Texas, which collapsed during a freak winter storm last year. More than 250 Texans died during the catastrophe.

Our state or federal governments have made the situation only more likely to spiral into crisis. An Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency rule banned traditional woodstoves, depended on by 12 percent of households for winter heat. President Biden famously slashed new oil exploration on federal lands shortly after his inauguration. Surcharges and mandates on electricity costs in states such as California and New York further increase consumer cost for little discernible gain.

Europe’s coming deadly winter should serve as a wake-up call for the United States. European feel-good, but ultimately fruitless, energy policies are creating what could be the largest energy crisis of our time. In service of virtue signaling, people across the continent will face shortages, and potentially many deaths, amidst frigid temperatures. 

While the Biden administration and progressive politicians have done their best to destroy domestic energy production, American capitalism has succeeded — at least so far. Four more years of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, however, ultimately may mean that Europe’s year of cold and death may be the prologue of one here in the not-too-distant future.

Kristin Tate is a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Voice and a libertarian writer. Her latest book is “How Do I Tax Thee? A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off.” Follow her on Twitter @KristinBTate.

Source: TEST FEED1

CDC promises to end disruption; its new guidance won’t do it

The CDC recently celebrated the release of COVID-19 guidelines that will, agency leaders claimed in a press release, help us “move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our lives.” However, the guidance itself, which pares back many public health measures, explicitly states that its recommendations are based on a singular goal of “reducing medically significant illness and reducing strain on the health care system.” While a focus on ‘flattening the curve’ made sense in 2020, we have since learned that COVID-19 “severely disrupts our lives” in many other ways beyond just causing hospitalizations and deaths. COVID-19 also leads to Long COVID for some, disproportionately puts marginalized communities at risk and causes disruptions to schools, workplaces and critical industries, such as airlines. By not addressing these other important impacts of the virus, this new strategy fails to chart a course by which the virus won’t continue to “severely (disrupt) our lives.”

We initially believed COVID-19 primarily affected older people and others with high-risk medical conditions, but we now know that even young and healthy people with mild or asymptomatic infections can develop Long COVID and, while current vaccines reduce its risk, they do not eliminate it. Recent census data shows that 7.6 percent of American adults are currently experiencing symptoms consistent with Long COVID. A large study from the Netherlands found that one in eight people infected with COVID-19 went on to have at least one symptom of Long COVID. This ‘epidemic within a pandemic’ could yield a massive long-lasting health crisis with major impacts on health systems and the economy. Katie Bach of the Brookings Institution estimates 2 to 4 million people are out of work due to Long COVID, and its economic burden may amount to $170 to $230 billion a year in lost wages.

Even as the threat of hospitalization has receded for many Americans, COVID-19 continues to disrupt their lives. Many people who are infected may not need hospitalization, but still end up being sick enough to miss work or school for days at a time; 42 percent of Americans reported missing work during the Omicron surge due to COVID-related issues. Harvard researchers estimated that Boston students lost 1.5 million school days and parents lost 1 million days due to COVID during the last school year. This type of disruption will be costly for people and the economy over the long-term, especially since it may be possible to get reinfected multiple times a year.

Protecting the vulnerable has been a popular refrain throughout the pandemic; however, the virus has continued to carve an uneven path through American communities. Black Americans, for example, were hospitalized at four times the rate of white Americans during the peak of the Omicron wave. Immunocompromised people have accounted for more than one in ten hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic and remain at elevated risk of poor outcomes. Yet, despite accounting for disproportionate hospitalizations and deaths, our goals and policies have not provided added protection to these populations.

Policies framed only to limit strains on health systems are inadequate to live with a virus that continues to drive dysfunction and add to a growing toll of disability. A broader set of policy goals are needed to guide our response and investments. 

First, guidance crafted only to keep hospital beds empty will not keep schools and workplaces full or planes in the sky. The CDC guidance only recommends masking at levels of COVID spread that threaten to limit impact on hospitals. Experts have demonstrated that it sets thresholds above the level to keep schools open stably and keep immunocompromised people safe. Unsurprisingly, many schools experienced disruption and closures from staff sicknesses well before reaching high community levels. Keeping schools open safely as well as key industries running should be an explicit goal of our policy response, with guidance designed specifically to achieve this purpose. 

Second, policy decisions on the investment and deployment of next generation tools, including better vaccines, should not only aim to reduce the risk of severe acute illness, but also better prevent disability from Long COVID and disruptions caused by people getting sick from periodic reinfections. The costs of investments in vaccines that can block infection and transmission should be set against the costs of Long COVID and societal disruption and dysfunction. 

Finally, while efforts are still needed to increase access to individual-level tools, more systemic and sustainable solutions are needed to remove the burden on individuals to navigate the pandemic on their own. Investments in ventilation and filtration to clean the air in all indoor spaces and policies to enable sick leave must become a priority and are critical to living with COVID — as well as future threats that may yield similar impacts.

Policies designed only to keep us out of the hospital are not enough to stop the virus from disrupting our lives in other ways. COVID-19 will continue to manage our schools, workplaces, and essential services until our policy goals expand to managing COVID and its impacts on these other areas of life. It’s time to set policy goals for the virus living with us, and not the one we wish was in our midst.

Anne N. Sosin is a policy fellow at Dartmouth’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy. She is a public health practitioner, researcher, and educator focused on issues of health equity globally and in rural Northern New England. Her current research focuses on COVID-19 and rural health equity in Northern New England.

Ranu Dhillon is a global health physician at Harvard Medical School with a focus on epidemic response. He served as a special advisor to the president of Guinea, helping lead its national response to the West African Ebola epidemic. He has also worked on other epidemics including Zika, Lassa fever and COVID-19.

Source: TEST FEED1

WHO expert: First suspected human-to-dog monkeypox transmission 'not surprising'

Rosamund Lewis, the World Health Organization’s lead expert on the monkeypox virus, said in an interview that it’s “not surprising” that the first suspected human-to-dog transmission of the virus happened. 

In an interview with the Washington Post, Lewis said that human-to-dog monkeypox transmission has been a “theoretical risk” up until now, adding that medical experts also have been watching the prairie dog outbreak, which is a monkeypox outbreak linked to prairie dog pets in the U.S.

Lewis noted that the prairie dog outbreak did not have a human-to-animal virus transmission. 

“This has not been reported before, and it has not been reported that dogs have been infected before,” Lewis told Diamond on “Washington Post Live”. “So, on a number of levels, this is new information. It’s not surprising information, and it’s something that we’ve been on the watch out for.” 

Lewis also said that the health agency is currently partnering with several aminal health organizations to address the issue, advising that pets who are infected with the virus should isolate from their families. 

“This has been an example of precautionary approach, precautionary messaging, because we didn’t have the information that this had ever happened before. It had not been recorded before,” Lewis added.  “But it was a reasonable cautious message to give. And now we have the first incident where this has actually occurred.”  

Lewis’s remarks come after initial reports of the first suspected human-to-dog monkeypox transmission in France, as a dog living with its two male owners began showing signs of symptoms aligned to the virus 12 days after his owners were infected. 

Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a guidance warning about the possible human-to-pet transmission of the monkeypox vaccine, advising pet owners to avoid petting, cuddling, kissing, and sharing food with their infected pet. 

According to CDC data, there are 12,689 confirmed Monkeypox cases in 49 U.S. states.

Source: TEST FEED1

Despite primary ouster, expect to see Liz Cheney even more

She is the face of the January 6 committee, a staple on cable news, particularly CNN and MSNBC. And now she will be referred to as “former congresswoman Liz Cheney” after being blown out in Wyoming’s Republican primary, losing her seat as that state’s only member of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Cheney, 56, is not about to leave the national stage anytime soon, though. After all, she fits the perfect profile for what qualifies for a conservative voice on CNN, MSNBC or the big-three networks these days: Sure, you may not support abortion or raising taxes, but if you really, really loathe Donald Trump, that makes you an honorary member of the Lincoln Project and a shoe-in for a guest-hosting spot as the token conservative on “The View.”

Cheney is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January 2021. So far, seven of those lawmakers who voted along with Cheney have been successfully primaried or saw the writing on the wall and retired; her ouster makes it eight out of 10.

The vote to impeach Trump can be tied directly to her downfall: Her disapproval rating in Wyoming was just 26 percent in 2020; after the vote, her disapproval rose to 72 percent. Considering Trump won 70 percent of the vote in the Cowboy State, this all makes sense. 

“If I have to choose between maintaining a seat in the House of Representatives or protecting the constitutional republic and ensuring the American people know the truth about Donald Trump, I’m going to choose the Constitution and the truth every single day,” Cheney said recently, adding that she thinks the Republican Party is “very sick.” And before you think this is only about Cheney and Trump, Cheney apparently isn’t a fan of fellow Republican Ron DeSantis, either, calling the popular Florida governor “very dangerous.” 

The headlines for the Cheney brand over the years have gone from her father being referred to as a war criminal and “Darth Cheney” to words as glowing as anything we’ve seen since the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted down the GOP’s attempt to repeal ObamaCare in 2017. Some samples: 

The New York Times: “Liz Cheney Is Ready to Lose. But She’s Not Ready to Quit”

The Atlantic: “Liz Cheney, the Republican From the State of Reality”

The New Yorker: “Liz Cheney’s Revenge on Donald Trump — and Her Own Party”

It’s funny how none of these glowing profiles mentioned Cheney embracing the way the House select committee’s Jan. 6 hearings have proceeded in very un-American fashion, because it has been anything but an honest presentation or pursuit of the facts. We know this because any fair hearing has this thing called “cross-examination,” which has been nonexistent in these made-for-TV hearings that began months ago. When challenged on that by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Cheney responded in a defensive, condescending fashion. 

“I think what you’ve seen over the last few weeks is why Anglo-American jurisprudence going back centuries has found that adversarial inquiry, cross-examination is the best way to get at the truth,” Cotton told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “There is no one on that committee who takes a view different from (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi, or even a view that’s like, ‘We should examine the full context of all of these statements, of all of these recordings, of all of this video.’” 

Later, Cheney replied with an irrelevant point in a tweet: “Here’s a tip: actually watching [the hearings] before rendering judgment is more consistent with “Anglo-American jurisprudence.’”

Something else Cheney doesn’t talk much about in major speeches is the state of the country under President Biden. Take, for example, her speech at the famed Reagan Library earlier this summer: On major issues where Democrats and the president are polling poorly, here’s how many times she broached those topics, according to a transcript:

Inflation: once. 

Crime: zero 

Education: zero 

Ukraine: zero 

Abortion: zero 

Supreme Court: zero 

Gas: zero 

Energy: zero 

She was running to keep her House seat, correct? Or is she running for president in 2024? 

“I do think as we look towards the next presidential election, as I said, you know, I believe that our nation stands on the edge of an abyss and I do believe that we all have to really think very seriously about the dangers we face and the threats we face and we have to elect serious candidates,” Cheney said while sharing that she hadn’t made a decision on whether to run.

It is not difficult to see a scenario in which Cheney is either on cable news multiple times per day talking about the dangers of Donald Trump or running a presidential campaign, one based not on fixing the country’s multiple crises (federal overspending, urban crime, a wide-open southern border, fentanyl deaths, an education system lagging well behind other countries) but solely on Trump, which many in our media will certainly give tons of attention in amplifying. 

Both paths lead to one thing American cable-news viewers have gotten accustomed to seeing this summer: Liz Cheney. Lots of Liz Cheney. And the subject she’ll mostly be talking about: Donald Trump. Lots of Donald Trump. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.

Source: TEST FEED1

Syria denies it is holding US journalist Austin Tice

Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday denied claims that the government is holding American journalist Austin Tice, just days after the 10th anniversary of his disappearance in the country.

The ministry said statements from President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week calling on the Syrian government to release him are misleading. It said the Syrian government denies that it has kidnapped or disappeared any U.S. citizen who has entered its territory and emphasizes that it complies with international law. 

Tice was kidnapped in August 2012 while covering the Syrian Civil War as a freelance journalist. 

The foreign ministry said any dialogue or official communication with the U.S. government will be public and based on respect for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and “non-interference” in its internal affairs. 

Biden said in his statement last week that he has repeatedly called on the Syrian government to release Tice, saying that there “is no higher priority” for his administration than ensuring the safe return of every American wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad. 

Tice’s mother said following Biden’s statement that the president’s remarks show he is “ready to engage with Syria. 

Tice’s parents called on Biden to get directly involved in securing their son’s release in an open letter in October. Biden met with them in May to reassure them that his administration is working to bring him home. 

Biden has also been under pressure to achieve the freedom of WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan from Russia. Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison earlier this month.

Source: TEST FEED1