The lawmakers “will also finally get answers to the Covid origins and the federal government’s … research that contributed to the pandemic,” McCarthy said in a statement announcing the appointments.
Greene, who emerged as an ally for the California Republican during his speakership fight but still holds a megaphone with the party’s right flank, is among the Republicans getting a seat on the subcommittee. It’s the latest high-profile boost for Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats and about a dozen Republicans due to her incendiary rhetoric.
But Republican leadership pledged to reinstate her to committees if they won the majority. McCarthy has handed her other plum positions, including a seat on the Oversight Committee and Homeland Security Committee. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) who is leading the Oversight Committee, which will house the select subcommittee, has also pledged to conduct investigations into the coronavirus and pandemic-era aid disbursed as part of several coronavirus relief bills that totaled trillions of dollars.
Other Republicans on the committee will include Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), John Joyce (R-Pa.) Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) and Rich McCormick (R-Ga).
Democrats still need to name their own members to the subcommittee.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
It set Zients, who won internal praise for his managerial prowess, on course for his next high-profile job as Biden’s newest chief of staff.
As Biden’s top aide, Zients will now be expected to bring his logistical and organizational expertise to a West Wing facing another inflection point. As the president prepares for a likely reelection bid, he is also under intensifying scrutiny over his handling of classified documents. Republicans in control of the House are vowing a series of investigations, while the administration is trying to navigate an increasingly delicate set of economic dilemmas.
Zients’ appointment is also likely to magnify yet another inconvenient reality: That despite his extensive work to get Covid under control, the virus continues to spread and kill thousands of Americans each week.
His critics contend that the Covid team under his leadership did too little to limit the virus’ spread, prioritizing economic concerns like quickly reopening businesses ahead of the public health steps needed to give the U.S. a shot at eradicating the disease.
“Obviously, it’s pretty disappointing,” Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project and a chief critic of Zients’ past as an investor in various health care corporations, said of his selection as chief of staff.
Detractors also charge that Zients allowed the administration to grow overconfident and complacent at critical junctures, allowing Covid to bounce back and deepening Americans’ distrust of the federal response.
But Zients also has plenty of supporters, public and private, who stress that he is a uniquely talented internal operator capable of solving the government’s toughest challenges, even if he lacks the lengthy political experience. They point to his leadership of the Covid response as evidence of it.
“Getting the right decision made and getting it made quickly, that was a hallmark,” Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser for Biden’s Covid response, said in his praise of Zients’ communication and execution skills. “It’s the unsexy stuff, but he thrives at that.”
A former Obama administration official, Zients built a reputation in Democratic circles as the go-to Mr. Fix-It after turning around the HealthCare.gov website following its botched launch in 2013. He would go on to stints running the National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget, developing a close relationship with Biden in the process.
Biden appointed him to run the Covid response shortly after winning the 2020 election, charging Zients with orchestrating a sprawling response that cut across several federal departments.
Zients led the development of a step-by-step process for tackling the pandemic, producing a nearly 100-page National Covid-19 Preparedness Plan in the administration’s first days.
The Covid team scored a string of initial successes, accelerating the manufacturing of vaccines that had only begun to roll out months earlier and securing enough shots for every American.
The resulting national vaccination campaign represented one of the largest public health mobilizations in decades — an undertaking that eventually hit its goal of vaccinating more than two-thirds of adults by that summer.
The widespread rollout won extensive praise and appeared at the time to put the U.S. on track to stamp out the virus. Instead, it set up Zients and his White House team for a setback that would dent the nation’s confidence in the Covid response.
Shortly after Biden declared the pandemic in retreat at a July Fourth celebration, the Delta variant drove a fresh outbreak of cases — catching Zients’ team off guard and prompting a scramble to reorient a response effort that officials had believed they’d soon be able to wind down.
The outbreak contributed to falling approval ratings for Biden, and ratcheted up partisan opposition to the Covid response that would prove among the biggest obstacles to managing the pandemic threat. And while administration officials praised Zients’ calm management of the response to Delta, the administration took increasing heat from outside health experts over the perception it had no immediate plan to bring the virus back under control. That criticism intensified a few months later, when another Covid wave caught the White House unprepared to manage rising demand for tests.
The resurgence raised a fresh round of questions about Zients’ leadership, and whether he was exercising too much control over decision making that Biden had once vowed repeatedly would be guided by science and the opinions of his public health experts.
But even as he maintained influence, Zients also largely escaped the scrutiny that other top health officials like Anthony Fauci, Biden’s former chief medical adviser, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky received over their roles in the response.
Part of what helped Zients was his leadership style. He remained a low-key presence, rarely appearing on television or making himself the face of major initiatives even as he oversaw nearly every significant decision about the pandemic response. Within the White House, he also cultivated a close relationship with Biden and outgoing chief of staff Ron Klain — while also winning over staff with his ability to deftly manage the levers of government and avert internal conflicts.
By the time Zients announced his departure in March 2022, the virus was on the downswing once again. More importantly, officials said at the time, he had built out the infrastructure for an enduring response reliant on continued access to vaccines, treatments and tests.
That infrastructure is about to be put to the test, as the administration prepares to wind down its emergency response. And as Zients returns to the White House, it’s among the wide array of policy priorities and political imperatives that Biden is entrusting him with once again.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“He has never experienced what a traditional new year is like because he was too young three years ago and he had no memory of that,” said Si Jia, who brought her 7-year-old son to the Qianmen area near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to experience the festive vibe and learn about traditional Chinese culture.
Nearly 53,000 offered prayers at Beijing’s Lama Temple but the crowds appeared to be smaller compared to pre-pandemic days. The Tibetan Buddhist site allows up to 60,000 visitors a day, citing safety reasons, and requires an advance reservation.
Throngs of residents and tourists swarmed pedestrian streets in Qianmen, enjoying snacks from barbecue and New Year rice cake stands, and some children wore traditional Chinese rabbit hats. Others held blown sugar or marshmallows shaped like rabbits.
At Taoranting Park, there was no sign of the usual bustling new year food stalls despite its walkways being decorated with traditional Chinese lanterns. A popular temple fair at Badachu Park that was suspended for three years will be back this week, but similar events at Ditan Park and Longtan Lake Park have yet to return.
The mass movement of people may cause the virus to spread in certain areas, said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist at China’s Center for Disease Control. But a large-scale Covid-19 surge will be unlikely in the next two or three months because about 80% of the country’s 1.4 billion people have been infected during the recent wave, he wrote on the social media platform Weibo on Saturday.
The center reported 12,660 Covid-19-related deaths between Jan. 13 and 19, including 680 cases of respiratory failure caused by the virus and 11,980 fatalities from other ailments combined with Covid-19. These are on top of 60,000 fatalities reported last week since early December. The statement on Saturday said the deaths occurred in hospitals, which means anyone who died at home would not be included in the tally.
China has counted only deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official Covid-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to Covid-19 in much of the world.
In Hong Kong, revelers flocked to the city’s largest Taoist temple, Wong Tai Sin, to burn the first incense sticks of the year. The popular ritual was suspended the last two years due to the pandemic.
Traditionally, big crowds gather before 11 p.m. on Lunar New Year’s Eve, with everyone trying to be the first, or among the first, to put their incense sticks into the stands in front of the temple’s main hall. Worshippers believe those who are among the first to place their incense sticks will stand the best chance of having their prayers answered.
Resident Freddie Ho, who visited the temple on Saturday night, was happy that he could join the event in person.
“I hope to place the first incense stick and pray that the New Year brings world peace, that Hong Kong’s economy will prosper, and that the pandemic will go away from us and we can all live a normal life,” Ho said. “I believe this is what everyone wishes.”
Meanwhile, the crowds praying for good fortune at the historic Longshan Temple in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, were smaller than a year ago even as the pandemic has eased. That is partly because many had ventured to other parts of Taiwan or overseas on long-awaited trips.
As communities across Asia welcomed the Year of the Rabbit, the Vietnamese were celebrating the Year of the Cat instead. There’s no official answer to explain the difference. But one theory suggests cats are popular because they often help Vietnamese rice farmers to chase away rats.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has announced a proposal to permanently ban Covid mandates in the state.
In a press release issued earlier this week, DeSantis said that he has proposed legislation to “make permanent Covid freedoms in Florida”, adding that the “strong pro-freedom, anti-mandate action will permanently protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to Covid vaccine mandates, protects parents’ rights, and institutes additional protections that prevent discrimination based on Covid vaccine status”.
The proposal includes permanently banning mask requirements throughout the state, prohibiting vaccine and mask requirements in schools, prohibiting Covid passports in the state, and prohibiting employers from hiring or firing based on Covid vaccines, all in attempts to protect Floridians from the “biomedical security state”.
The proposal also claims to protect “medical freedom of speech” by promising to protect medical professionals’ freedom of speech, the right to disagree with the “preferred narrative of the medical community,” as well as the religious views of medical professionals.
“When the world lost its mind, Florida was a refuge of sanity, serving strongly as freedom’s lynchpin,” DeSantis said in the announcement of his proposal. “These measures will ensure Florida remains this way and will provide landmark protections for free speech for medical practitioners.”
The recent proposal follows DeSantis’s repeated criticisms of Covid mandates. In 2021, DeSantis signed a series of measures that sought to protect Floridians from pandemic mandates set forth by local governments, which he called “unscientific, unnecessary directives”.
Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, supported DeSantis’s proposal, saying: “As a health sciences researcher and physician, I have personally witnessed accomplished scientists receive threats due to their unorthodox positions.”
“However, many of these positions have proven to be correct, as we’ve all seen over the past few years. All medical professionals should be encouraged to engage in scientific discourse without fearing for their livelihoods or their careers,” he added.
Last year, Ladapo announced that Florida will formally recommend against Covid vaccinations for healthy children.
“We’re kind of scraping at the bottom of the barrel, particularly with healthy kids, in terms of actually being able to quantify with any accuracy and any confidence the even potential of benefit,” he said.
The announcement contradicted guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Food and Drug Administration.
Last December, DeSantis petitioned the Florida supreme court to have a grand jury investigate whether Floridians were misled by Covid vaccine manufacturers over the shots’ potential side effects.
The court granted DeSantis’s petition, and the grand jury will convene for a year before forming a decision.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
In the summer of 2020, when British society emerged from months of Covid lockdown, the UK housing market reopened and began booming, amid fierce demand for larger homes as buyers sought more space, better home working environments or a garden.
Fuelled by ultra-low interest rates and then-chancellor Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday, the numbers of homeowners moving to new properties began to rise sharply from June 2020, and by August mortgage approvals had jumped to their highest level since October 2007.
In March 2021, the number of completed loans for house purchases formovers was 142% higher than a year earlier, according to UK Finance, and by May the average UK house price had risen 10.2% in 12 months.
Fast forward to today and the situation has changed dramatically: in December the average UK house price fell for the fourth month in a row, with experts expecting a further slowdown in a struggling economy. Bank of England policymakers have raised interest rates nine times in the past year and are forecast to do so again when they next meet. Borrowers re-fixing their mortgages are among those hit hardest in the cost of living crisis.
People at an estate agent’s window in November 2020, near the start of the market’s post-lockdown boom. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock
A number of homeowners who moved to a bigger property during the pandemic have spoken to the Observer about how their largerhomes have turned into financial burdens.
Claire and her husband James, who did not want to give their full names, upsized from their three-bedroom mid-terrace former council house in central Hertfordshire to a £600,000 five-bed in a Cambridgeshire town in spring 2021, in the belief that mortgage rates would remain low. “We stretched our budget to move to our dream house. Monthly payments have just increased by £370, after we rushed to re-fix forfive years at just under 4% in November,” Claire says.
The couple, who have two children, have a household income of just over £60,000, and do not qualify for any government help apart from the £400 energy grant. They hope that meticulous budgeting will enable them to keep the house, but worry they may not succeed.
Downsizing right now would, the couple is acutely aware, come with enormous penalties and costs, such as stamp duty, but every time they talk about it “it becomes a bit less of a joke”, says James, a middle manager in a tech company who currently works mostly from home.
He also fears being asked to return full-time to the office. “If I would have to do the 80-minute one-way commute to work in Hertfordshire again, just the fuel costs would blow us financially out of the water.
“When we bought, it was inconceivable to me that interest rates would be going up this much. I’m not sure we’d be able to weather another big financial change. Retrospectively, I feel it was quite irresponsible for the bank to lend us this much, and I know they would have lent us more.”
As chancellor, Rishi Sunak introduced a stamp duty holiday in 2020. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
After having a second child in 2020 and spending a lot of time together working from home and home schooling during Covid lockdowns, Barbara and her husband, John, decided that their three-bedroom house was becoming “claustrophobic”, and upsized to a period property twice the size in central Plymouth.
“It was a step up the ladder, we weren’t overstretching ourselves with our new mortgage and we had some money put aside to renovate the house,” Barbara says. “Then came the cost of living crisis, higher energy bills and our nursery fees rose to over £900 a month. We cut back on everything, but when Trussonomics tanked the pound, we knew what it meant for our mortgage renewal.
“We came to the awful conclusion that the only way to avoid financially struggling in future was to sell our home before we got into trouble.
“We both have well-paid academic jobs – 10 years ago we had a far more modest income but could still afford to travel, save money, eat out and so on. Our income is higher than ever before but our standard of living has dropped substantially. We watch every penny.”
During the Covid buying frenzy, housing price growth reached its highest rate in more than a decade, while prices of houses grew more quickly than prices of flats across all UK regions. A Bank of England report suggests homebuyers’ preference for houses over flats was associated with about 38% of the housing price increase between 2020 and 2021, and probably the most important factor in the boom.
Halifax now predicts house prices will fall by about 8% this year. The number of inquiries from potential homebuyers fell for a fifth month in a row in September, while sales dropped to the lowest level since May 2020.
Barbara and John put their home on the market last month, and have already had to reduce the price. “We are likely now to make a loss upon sale. We are so angry and upset with the government that we have ended up here.”
For others, upsizing was motivated not primarily by a quest for more space but by the idea that buying a house would be a good investment. Amy, 35, an analyst from London who lives on her own, traded her one-bedroom flat for a £475,000 three-bedroom house in January 2021.
An estate agent’s window in November 2022, by which point house prices were falling steadily. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP
Feeling that the high service charges in her previous flat were a waste of money, she made more than 20 offers on houses, but kept getting outbid by £50,000 to £75,000. “I had to go over budget to get this house, by a lot,” Amy says. “But mortgage rates were really good when I bought, I was able to borrow £285,000 at 1.2%.”
When she had to re-fix her mortgage in December last year, however, her monthly payments rose by £397, from £844 to £1,241, thanks to a new rate of 4.74%.
“I’m considering moving to a smaller property somewhere cheaper,” Amy says. “I looked at a couple of flats in Stratford [in east London], but their service charges were even higher than in my previous flat, £5,000 to £6,000 annually.
“I’m also apprehensive, as house prices have not risen as much as they could have. But if I could downsize to a property in a cost-effective way, I’d do that. I’d have to.”
Adam Fahey, an architect and father of four from Surrey, is one of a several homeowners who told the Observer their finances would not stretch far enough to comfortably absorb significantly higher mortgage rates coupled with the higher cost of living. The family is now downsizing to a property worth just over half the value of their current home.
“We have just accepted an offer on our home for £1.4m and had our offer on a new home in West Sussex accepted, for £750,000. The house we’re moving to is much smaller: we’ll have about 650 sq feet less than in our current house, which is a six-bed with four reception rooms.
“We have a £290,000 mortgage we are keen to remove, to reduce financial stress. The only way to do this is to downsize. The school run will take 30 to 40 minutes longer, but the improved standard of living will be worth it. Our mortgage and energy bills will be approximately £2,000 cheaper each month in the new house.
“We are looking forward to meals out and family holidays – our move will allow us to do such things again.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
In a significant development, India has reportedly surpassed China as the world’s most populous country. According to projections from the World Population Review (WPR), India’s population was 141.7 crore as of the end of 2022. That’s a little more than 50 lakh more than the 141.2 crore declared by China on January 17.
India’s population momentarily surpassed China’s population as China mistakenly reported right number of Covid deaths in the country. However, China regained its position after rectifying the Covid death reports.
China called WPR report misleading and claimed there are a very few deaths in China due to Covid.
Speaking to The New York Times, Elon Musk said “I assure the world that increasing population isn’t a threat as I am already building houses in Mars and exploring lives in Uranus.
[ Disclaimer: With inputs from The Fauxy, an entertainment portal. The content is purely for entertainment purpose and readers are advised not to confuse the articles as genuine and true, these Articles are Fictitious meant only for entertainment purposes. ]
