Tag: United States News

What kind of chief of staff will Zients be? Look at his stint as Covid czar.

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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 )

January 23, 2023
‘Here again’: Abortion activists rally 50 years after Roe

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A dozen Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion, and several others seek to do the same. But those moves have been offset by gains on the other side.
Abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky. State courts have blocked several bans from taking effect. Myriad efforts are underway to help patients travel to states that allow abortions or use medication for self-managed abortions. And some Democratic-led states have taken steps to shield patients and providers from lawsuits originating in states where the procedure is banned.
Organizers with the Women’s March said their strategy moving forward will focus largely on measures at the state level. But freshly energized anti-abortion activists are increasingly turning their attention to Congress, with the aim of pushing for a potential national abortion restriction down the line.
Sunday’s main march was held in Wisconsin, where upcoming elections could determine the state Supreme Court’s power balance and future abortion rights. But rallies took place in dozens of cities, including Florida’s state capital of Tallahassee, where Vice President Kamala Harris gave a fiery speech before a boisterous crowd.
“Can we truly be free if families cannot make intimate decisions about the course of their own lives?” Harris said.
In Madison, thousands of abortion rights supporters donned coats and gloves to march in below-freezing temperatures through downtown to the state Capitol.
“It’s just basic human rights at this point,” said Alaina Gato, a Wisconsin resident who joined her mother, Meg Wheeler, on the Capitol steps to protest.
They said they plan to vote in the April Supreme Court election. Wheeler also said she hoped to volunteer as a poll worker and canvass for Democrats, despite identifying as an independent voter.
“This is my daughter. I want to make sure she has the right to choose whether she wants to have a child,” Wheeler said.

Buses of protesters streamed into the Wisconsin capital from Chicago and Milwaukee, armed with banners and signs calling for the Legislature to repeal the state’s ban.
Eliza Bennett, a Wisconsin OBGYN who said she had to stop offering abortion services to her patients after Roe was overturned, called on lawmakers to put the choice back in the hands of women. “They should be making decisions about what’s best for their health, not state legislatures,” she said.
Abortions are unavailable in Wisconsin due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics over whether an 1849 law banning the procedure is in effect. The law, which prohibits abortion except to save the patient’s life, is being challenged in court.
Some also carried weapons. Lilith K., who declined to provide their last name, stood on the sidewalk alongside protestors, holding an assault rifle and wearing a tactical vest with a holstered handgun.
“With everything going on with women and other people losing their rights, and with the recent shootings at Club Q and other LGBTQ night clubs, it’s just a message that we’re not going to take this sitting down,” Lilith said.
The march also drew counter-protesters. Most held signs raising religious objections to abortion rights. “I don’t really want to get involved with politics. I’m more interested in what the law of God says,” John Goeke, a Wisconsin resident, said.
In the absence of Roe v. Wade’s federal protections, abortion rights have become a state-by-state patchwork.
Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Legal challenges are pending against several of those bans. The lone clinic in North Dakota relocated across state lines to Minnesota.
Bans passed by lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming have been blocked by state courts while legal challenges are pending. And in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court on Jan. 5 struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction violates a state constitutional right to privacy.
Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court, which for decades has issued consequential rulings in favor of Republicans, will likely hear the challenge to the 1849 ban filed in June by the state’s attorney general, Josh Kaul. Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but candidates for years have aligned with either conservatives or liberals as the contests have become expensive partisan battles.
Women’s rallies were expected to be held in nearly every state on Sunday.
The eldest daughter of Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, was set to attend the rally in Long Beach, California. Melissa Mills said it was her first Women’s March.
“It’s just unbelievable that we’re here again, doing the same thing my mom did,” Mills told The Associated Press. “We’ve lost 50 years of hard work.”
The Women’s March has become a regular event — although interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic — since millions rallied in the United States and around the world the day after Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.
Trump made the appointment of conservative judges a mission of his presidency. The three conservative justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — all voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 23, 2023
Sheriff: Suspect in dance club shooting killed self in van

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“I still have questions in my mind, which is: What was the motive for this shooter? Did he have a mental illness? Was he a domestic violence abuser? How did he gets these guns and was it through legal means or not?” Congresswoman Judy Chu said.
Earlier Sunday, law enforcement officials swarmed and entered the van after surrounding it for for hours before going in. A person’s body appeared to be slumped over the wheel and was later removed from the vehicle.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna previously released photos of an Asian man who was believed to be the suspect.
The manhunt came after the gunman killed 10 people at a ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid Lunar New Years celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community of Monterey Park. He likely tried and failed to target a second dance hall, authorities said.
The van was found in Torrance, another community home to many Asian Americans, about 22 miles from that second location.
The shooting sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.
“The community was in fear thinking that they should not go to any events because there was an active shooter,” Chu said. She added that she wants residents to now feel secure. “Feel safe,” she said to residents during a press conference late Sunday. “You are no longer in danger.”
Luna said the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people. Then 20 to 30 minutes later, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra.

The suspect entered the Alhambra club with a gun, and people wrested the weapon away from him before he fled, Luna said.
Hours earlier, Luna said authorities were looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.
Members of a SWAT team entered the van a short time later and looked through its contents before walking away. It was unclear what they found.
The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month. It was also the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest. Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
Tony Lai, 35, of Monterey Park was stunned when he came out for his early morning walk to learn that the noises he heard in the night were gunshots.
“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even get a lot of fireworks here. It’s weird to see this. It’s really safe here. We’re right in the middle of the city, but it’s really safe.”
Wynn Liaw, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime would happen, especially during New Year’s celebrations.
“Chinese people, they consider Chinese New Year very, very special” — a time when “you don’t do anything that will bring bad luck the entire year,” she said.
She took a picture of the activity outside the studio to send to relatives and friends in China “to let them know how crazy the U.S. is becoming with all these mass shootings, even in the New Year.”
An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. shows that 2022 was one of the nation’s worst years with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed, not including the perpetrator.
The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the situation, aides said. Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were thinking of those killed and wounded, and he directed federal authorities to support the investigation.
The shooting occurred at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park’s main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.
The business offered dance lessons from tango to rumba to the fox trot, and rented its space for events. On Saturday, its website said, it was hosting an event called “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
UPDATE:
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — Authorities say the suspect in a California dance club shooting that left 10 dead has shot and killed himself.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday the man killed himself as police officers closed in on the van he used to flee the scene of an attempted second shooting.
Luna identified the suspect at 72-year-old Huu Can Tran.
He said no other suspects are at large.
EARLIER TEXT:
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — Law enforcement officials swarmed and entered a white van Sunday afternoon that officials suspect was driven by a gunman who opened fire on a Southern California ballroom dance studio, killing 10 people and wounding 10 more.
Police surrounded the van with tactical vehicles and bomb squad trucks for hours before going in. A person’s body appeared to be slumped over the wheel, but authorities did not immediately identify the person in the van.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna previously released photos of an Asian man who was believed to be the suspect, but he did not release the man’s name.
The manhunt came after a gunman killed 10 people at a ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid Lunar New Years celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community of Monterey Park. He likely tried and failed to target a second dance hall, authorities said.
The van was found in Torrance, another community home to many Asian Americans, about 22 miles (34.5 kilometers) from that second location.
The shooting sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.
Luna said the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people. Then 20 to 30 minutes later, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra.
Authorities believe the two events are connected. They offered no details about a possible motive.
The suspect entered the Alhambra club with a gun, and people wrested the weapon away from him before he fled, Luna said.
Hours earlier, Luna said authorities were looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.
“We believe there is a person inside of that vehicle. We don’t know their condition, but we’re going to handle that in safest manner that we possibly can and try and identify that person. Could it be our suspect? Possibly,” Luna said.
In response to a question, Luna said it was possible that the person barricaded in van was dead.
Members of a SWAT team entered the van a short time later and looked through its contents before walking away. It was unclear what they found.
Authorities said Sunday they know the suspect’s name but declined to release it because it could complicate their ability to apprehend him. But they did release a photo showing an Asian man wearing glasses and a winter hat.
The sheriff declined to say what type of gun was recovered in Alhambra. He said investigators believe the gun used in Monterey Park was not an assault rifle.
The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month. It was also the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest. Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
Tony Lai, 35, of Monterey Park was stunned when he came out for his early morning walk to learn that the noises he heard in the night were gunshots.
“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even get a lot of fireworks here. It’s weird to see this. It’s really safe here. We’re right in the middle of the city, but it’s really safe.”
Wynn Liaw, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime would happen, especially during New Year’s celebrations.
“Chinese people, they consider Chinese New Year very, very special” — a time when “you don’t do anything that will bring bad luck the entire year,” she said.
She took a picture of the activity outside the studio to send to relatives and friends in China “to let them know how crazy the U.S. is becoming with all these mass shootings, even in the New Year.”
An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. shows that 2022 was one of the nation’s worst years with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed, not including the perpetrator.
The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the situation, aides said.
The shooting occurred at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park’s main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.
The business offered dance lessons from tango to rumba to the fox trot, and rented its space for events. On Saturday, its website said, it was hosting an event called “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
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#Sheriff #Suspect #dance #club #shooting #killed #van
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 23, 2023
Jeff Zients: 5 things to know about Biden’s new chief of staff

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Zients served as the White House’s Covid-19 coordinator until he left last April. While Zients is not a scientist, he came to the task force with a range of management experience and was charged with working across government agencies to curtail the coronavirus outbreak.
Zients won internal praise for his management skills and initial success in bringing the pandemic under control.
He was the first chief performance officer in the Office of Management and Budget
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama created a position for Zients in the Office of Management and Budget called chief performance officer. The role required Zients to head an effort to streamline government and cut costs.
Zients invested in Call Your Mother bagels
Zients was known to have invested in D.C.’s popular “Jew-ish” deli Call Your Mother. Zients also acted as “adviser and mentor” for the bagel shop, where a lot of the recipe tasting took place in his home.
He unsuccessfully competed for ownership of the Washington Nationals
In 2005, Zients was part of a group of investors that included Fred Malek and Colin Powell, who tried to buy the Washington Nationals the first time around but lost out to the Lerner family.
He made Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40 list
In 2002, Zients was ranked 25th on Fortune magazine’s list of the 40 richest Americans under age 40. At the time, the magazine estimated his wealth at $149 million, leaving him one place above Julia Roberts and two behind Elon Musk.
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#Jeff #Zients #Bidens #chief #staff
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 23, 2023
JKPSC Releases Admit Card For Prosecuting Officer (Preliminary) Examination – Download Here – Kashmir News

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JKPSC Releases Admit Card For Prosecuting Officer (Preliminary) Examination – Download Here
Admit Card for Prosecuting Officer (Preliminary) Examination -2022
JKPSC has released the Admit Card 2022 for the post of Prosecuting Officer on its official website. Candidates can download the JKPSC Admit Card 2023 from the link provided below
How to download the JKPSC Admit Card?
Step 1: Candidates should go to the official website of the JKPSC jkpsc.nic.in
Step 2: Check on that Careers tab
Step 3: Search for the link related to download the JKPSC Admit Card 2023
Step 4: Enter the login credentials of the candidate like mobile number and date of birth
Step 5: Check on the login button

Note: You Can Also Download Admit Card On The Below Provided Link (www.kashmirnews.in)
What are the details provided in JKPSC Admit Card?
Name of the Candidate
CLICK ON THE BELOW LINK TO DOWNLOAD YOUR ADMIT CARD
How to get the Forgotten password?
If the candidate forgets their Password, then they have to check on ‘Forgot Password’ link on the login page and enter the following information to get Password on their registered email ID:
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#JKPSC #Releases #Admit #Card #Prosecuting #Officer #Preliminary #Examination #Download #Kashmir #News
( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

January 23, 2023
Most Popular Saudi Youtuber Aziz Al Ahmed aka Dwarf Died at the Age of 27 – Kashmir News

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Most Popular Saudi Youtuber Aziz Al Ahmed aka Dwarf Died at the Age of 27
It is very sad to share that the most popular Saudi Youtuber Aziz Al Ahmed aka Dwarf died on Thursday 19 January 2023. He was a star of social media and now his death is shocking news for his loved ones. There are so many people expressing their sorrows for his death and the news of his death is spreading like fire on the internet where various users of social media pages share their responses on his death.
He was also known by his nickname Al Qazm which means dwarf in Arabic and now he passed away at the age of 27 years. He was suffering from problems with growth as well as a genetic disease and a hormonal disorder from his birth. His family tried to make his health condition good but nothing happened and he faced too much in this treatment.
Aziz used to upload funny videos on YouTube and had millions of followers, Aziz was married and has a son.
Aziz was married and has a son.
Recently, a video of him from the hospital went viral in which he was lying on the bed, a woman was asking him what do you want to say to your fans, to which Aziz replied that ‘I want to say to all of them. I love them so much.’
His number of followers on Tik Tok was 9.4 million while on YouTube he had 8.87 thousand subscribers.
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#Popular #Saudi #Youtuber #Aziz #Ahmed #aka #Dwarf #Died #Age #Kashmir #News
( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

January 23, 2023
Harris calls out ‘extremists’ over abortion as Florida Republicans eye more restrictions

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The Biden administration has clashed repeatedly with DeSantis over the last two years, but Harris’ appearance just a mile from the state Capitol seemed to signal a higher level of engagement with the governor, who is viewed as the top challenger to former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
Before Harris took the stage at the Moon nightclub in Tallahassee, attendees in the audience chanted “Hey ho, DeSantis has to go.”
Harris, in her remarks, criticized the DeSantis administration after Florida health regulators told health care providers they could risk criminal charges if they distributed abortion pills. That warning — which went to pharmacies — was distributed after the FDA dropped long-standing restrictions that banned the abortion pill from being sold at retail pharmacies.
President Joe Biden sent out a memo on Sunday calling on federal agencies to look at barriers of patients accessing abortion pills, setting up the possibility that the administration could take action sometime in the future.
The DeSantis administration did not respond to questions about Harris’s comments. The Republican Party of Florida put out a statement that stated “Democrats are proudly cheerleading barbaric policies to allow unrestricted abortions — including infanticide. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
Democrats were able in many states to galvanize voters in the midterms over abortion, but DeSantis crushed his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, in November by nearly 20 points. Crist spent weeks highlighting abortion restrictions in the run-up to the November elections.
Florida’s Legislature last year passed a controversial ban on abortion after 15 weeks without exceptions for rape and incest. A legal challenge to it is being considered by the state Supreme Court. DeSantis supported the ban and has said he backs abortion restrictions beyond the current law, although he has stopped short of specifics.
Harris zeroed in on the laws passed in Florida and other states as “designed by extremists.” She called the Florida law a “a radical abortion ban with no exceptions, even for the survivors of crimes like rape and child molestation and human trafficking.”

But it’s not clear what GOP legislators plan to do. Florida House Speaker Paul Renner late last week was non-committal about what lawmakers would do next, saying that while there is a “pro-life majority” in the House that “we have not finalized anything in that regard.” Renner said some members were supportive of the current restrictions, while others wanted to restrict access further. Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples) previously said she supports restricting abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy but with exceptions for victims of rape and incest.
State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the House Democratic leader, “fully anticipates” legislators will tighten the state’s current ban in order to aid a DeSantis presidential run.
“DeSantis is running for president in 2024,” said Driskell shortly after Harris spoke. “He controls everything in that building.”
Harris’ speech was given inside a nightclub located a mile from the Florida Capitol due to the threat of rain and bad weather. Nikki Fried, Florida’s former agriculture commissioner who attended the event, said that both Florida State University — and Florida A&M University, a historically Black college and university — turned down requests to have Harris appear on campus.
Fried she had been working with Planned Parenthood on an event noting the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and was asked to help with logistics once the White House confirmed that Harris was coming to town.
Fried suggested that the schools turned down Harris because the institutions feared angering DeSantis, but Dennis Schnittker, assistant vice president of communications for Florida State University, said the university “was unable to accommodate the Vice President due to previously scheduled events and operations.”
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#Harris #calls #extremists #abortion #Florida #Republicans #eye #restrictions
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 23, 2023
India: Bride Calls Off Wedding as Groom Fails to Count Currency Notes – Kashmir News

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India: Bride Calls Off Wedding as Groom Fails to Count Currency Notes
It was mathematics that led to a wedding being called off in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad district. A 21-year-old bride called off her wedding when the groom failed to count currency notes.
The shocking revelation came during the marriage rituals when the priest grew ‘doubtful of the man’s behaviour’ and informed the girl’s family.
The bride immediately walked off from the dais which led to a verbal spat between the two families and the police were called.
The bride’s family claimed that until the day of the marriage, they were unaware that the 23-year-old groom was ‘mentally weak’.
According to the report published by the Times of India, the groom’s mental condition came to light the priest grew “doubtful of his behaviour” and informed the girl’s family. Following this, the bride’s family decided to conduct a test. Accordingly, they gave the groom 30 currency notes of Rs 10 to count. However, the groom failed to count the money. Enraged, the bride walked off the venue which led to a verbal spat between the two families.
Meanwhile, as the bride cancelled the wedding, a heated argument broke out between the concerned families. The police intervened, but the bride refused to marry. Hence the baraat returned. Police said that no complaint has been filed in the matter yet.
(Agencies)

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( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

January 23, 2023
Kuwait Bans Marketing or Selling Any Product Bearing the Image of the Emir, Crown Prince or state emblem – Details Here – Kashmir News

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Kuwait Bans Marketing or Selling Any Product Bearing the Image of the Emir, Crown Prince or state emblem – Details Here – Kashmir News
Jeff Zients to be Biden’s next chief of staff

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Zients has maintained close ties to departing chief of staff Ron Klain and other senior Biden aides dating back to the Obama administration, when he did stints atop the National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget.
In recent months, Klain had tasked Zients with overseeing a project to prepare for the expected staff transition that typically occurs following the midterms. The move underscored Zients’ status as an administration insider and broadened his familiarity with the staff he’ll soon lead. The president, a person familiar with the decision said, views Zients as a “master implementer.”
But what Zients has in organization acumen he lacks in extensive political experience. He will likely be relied on to manage the day-to-day workings of the White House, allowing other senior advisers to focus more on Biden’s expected reelection campaign, one person familiar with the matter said.
While he’s cultivated a wide array of relationships within Democratic circles, Zients has also been the subject of rising criticism from the party’s progressive wing over his background in management consulting and handling of the pandemic, which has persisted well beyond his exit as Covid czar.
In a statement released by the Revolving Door Project, Zients was characterized as someone who “has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in health care” companies and who embodies the “corporate misconduct” that the executive branch needs to penalize.
“We have long argued for a ‘corporate crackdown’ on behaviors that violate federal laws and harm the American people in order for corporations to become richer. Those are the practices that have made Zients rich,” the organization’s founder and director, Jeff Hauser, said in the statement. “We’re deeply worried that Zients will prevent the administration from exercising power righteously on behalf of an already cynical populace.”
But Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, gave Zients the benefit of the doubt in his ability to cultivate a constructive relationship.
“Ron Klain has been an open ear and even-handed engager of actors across the Democratic Party,” Green said in a statement. “Whomever the next chief of staff is, that will be the continued hope and expectation. There will likely be an early relationship and trust-building stage.”

Zients’ selection is also likely to disappoint some Democrats who saw Klain’s exit as a prime opportunity for Biden to appoint a woman or person of color as his top aide.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 22, 2023