Politics

Yet company executives at a meeting Biden hosted from the White House told the president that they knew the substantial impact that the shutdown of a major production plant in February would have on the U.S. supply almost immediately.

“They did, but I didn’t,” Biden told reporters later, saying he was not made aware of the severity until early April.

The delay, unexplained by Biden or White House aides, undercut the administration’s efforts to demonstrate that he has been on top of a problem that has compounded stress and economic difficulties for families with young children at a time when Americans are already struggling with Inflation.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that the administration began working to address the crisis within days of the plant’s closure, but could not explain the delay in raising the issue to Biden. She acknowledged that he is “frustrated” by the situation.

“We have been doing this whole of government approach since the recall,” she said. “We have been working on this for months, for months. We have been taking this incredibly seriously.”

“There’s nothing more stressful than feeling you can’t get what your child needs,” Biden said, adding that as a “father and a grandfather,” he understands how difficult the shortages have been for parents and their children.

Jean-Pierre said Biden was satisfied with how the Food and Drug Administration has handled the response, though the agency itself has promised to conduct and after-action review of what it described as a deficient effort.

Biden hosted the roundtable with leaders of manufacturers ByHeart, Bubs Australia, Reckitt, Perrigo Co. and Gerber. Notably absence was Abbott Nutrition, whose Michigan plant was shut down in February over safety concerns, leading to the domestic shortage. The White House did not explain why Abbott was not included.

The meeting Wednesday was a chance to provide an update on what the administration is calling “Operation Fly Formula” to import formula and to use the Korean War-era production law to require suppliers to prioritize their orders in a bid to ease bottlenecks.

The White House announced the third and fourth round of formula shipments from overseas would begin next week, from producer Kendamil in Britain and from Bubs Australia.

The shipments would bring Kendamil formula from Heathrow Airport in London to U.S. airports over a three-week period, starting June. 9. The flights will carry about 3.7 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents, shipped free of charge by United Airlines.

The first shipments will include Kendamil Classic Stage 1 and Kendamil Organic formulas, which will be available at Target stores across the United States.

And Bubs Australia will ship the equivalent of 4.6 million 8-ounce bottles of its infant formula on Defense Department-contracted commercial aircraft from its hub in Melbourne, Australia, to Pennsylvania and California on June 9 and June 11, respectively.

The Food and Drug Administration began focusing on Abbott’s plant last fall while tracking several bacterial infections in infants who had consumed formula from the facility. The four cases occurred between September and January, causing hospitalizations and two deaths.

After detecting positive samples of rare but dangerous bacteria in multiple parts of the plant, the FDA closed the facility and Abbott announced a massive recall of its formula on Feb. 17.

U.S. regulators and Abbott announced an agreement last month that would help pave the way for reopening the plant, though production has not restarted.

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By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating rose six percentage points this week to 42%, rebounding from a week earlier when it sank to the lowest level of his presidency, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Wednesday found.

The two-day national poll found that 52% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance.

Biden’s approval rating has been below 50% since August, raising alarms that his Democratic Party is on track to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm election.

Biden has been dogged this year by a surge in inflation, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helping drive fuel prices higher and global supply chains still hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The president’s popularity within his own party rose to 78% from 72% the prior week. Only 12% of Republicans approve of his performance in office.

Biden’s overall approval rating last week rivaled the lows of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose popularity bottomed out at 33% in December 2017.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English throughout the United States. The latest poll gathered responses from a total of 1,005 adults, including 435 Democrats and 371 Republicans. It has a credibility interval – a measure of precision – of four percentage points.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A group of Florida abortion providers including affiliates of Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging the state’s new Republican-backed ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying the measure violates the state’s constitution.

In a lawsuit https://tmsnrt.rs/3xafVml filed in Leon County Circuit Court, the health care providers cited a decades-old Florida Supreme Court ruling that said the broad privacy protections in the state’s constitution extend to a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

Those rights would remain in place regardless of whether the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the national right to abortion, as a leaked draft opinion suggested last month, the plaintiffs say.

They argued the measure Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law in April is a “brazen attempt to override the will of the Florida people” and must be blocked from taking effect on July 1.

“Nobody should be forced to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles for essential health care — but this abortion ban would do just that,” Alexis McGill Johnson, the head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

Republican Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is “prepared to defend the law,” her spokesperson said.

Republican-led states have been rapidly passing anti-abortion legislation in anticipation of the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court’s eventual abortion ruling in a case concerning a 15-week ban in Mississippi.

The Florida law, known as HB 5, criminalizes providing abortion care after 15 weeks and makes exceptions only in cases when the mother is at risk of death or “irreversible physical impairment,” or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

State law had previously permitted abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida is one of 11 states in which high courts have recognized that the state constitutions protect abortion rights, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and David Gregorio)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to overturn a U.S. District Court judge’s April order that declared the government mandate requiring masks on airplanes, buses and in transit hubs unlawful.

Hours after the federal judge in Florida declared the mandate unlawful, the Biden administration said it would no longer enforce it.

The Justice Department told the appeals court that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order issued in January 2021 was “within” the agency’s legal authority.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday on whether it would reinstate the requirement if the ruling was overturned.

Days before U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball’s April 18 order, the CDC had extended mask requirements through May 3. The CDC said earlier this month it still recommends travelers continue to wear masks in airplanes, trains and buses.

The Justice Department’s appeal came just hours before a appeals court filing deadline.

“None of the district court’s quarrels with the CDC order comes close to showing that the CDC has acted outside the ‘zone of reasonableness,’” the Justice Department wrote, adding that the CDC findings in early 2021 provided “ample support for the agency’s determination that there was good cause to make the order effective without delay.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said this month the rate of unruly air passenger incidents fell to its lowest level since late 2020 soon after the judge’s mask mandate ruling, which also lifted requirements for masks in taxis or ride-share vehicles.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Pullin)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to have opted against mounting an independent run for his old job — at least for now.

Cuomo, who resigned in August amid allegations he sexually harassed multiple women, had said he was open to running for governor this year, despite the scandal.

But 5 p.m. Tuesday was the deadline for candidates to collect 45,000 voter signatures if they wanted to appear as an independent candidate for governor on the November general election ballot.

That deadline passed without Cuomo’s campaign turning in the required nominating petitions, according to the state Board of Elections.

Cuomo could still get on the ballot if his campaign had collected those signatures and put his petitions in the mail. If that paperwork was to arrive by Thursday, bearing a postmark dated Tuesday or earlier, it would still count, Board of Elections spokesperson Jennifer Wilson said.

Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, did not respond to requests for comment.

The former governor has been making more public appearances in recent months and suggested in March that he might gather petition signatures to try to get on the ballot.

After giving a speech about gun violence Sunday in Brooklyn, Cuomo did not answer a question about whether he would run. Instead he said he was “speaking as a New Yorker” that day and added: “I don’t have to worry about political correctness.”

Cuomo could still try to mount a long-shot campaign as a write-in candidate in November, but he’d face a nearly impossible task of trying to get millions of people to write in his name instead of the Democratic or Republican nominee.

His former lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, took over as governor when he resigned in August, promising a clean break from Cuomo’s administration. She has scooped up donors and emerged as a front-runner in the governor’s race. Hochul’s Democratic primary opponents include U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

Cuomo stepped down in his third term, saying at the time that while he denied the allegations of wrongdoing, he was stepping aside to avoid subjecting the state to months of turmoil.

A sheriff in Albany filed criminal charges against Cuomo in connection with an aide’s groping allegations, but those charges were ultimately dropped by the county’s district attorney, who cited a lack of proof.

Cuomo had initially been considering running again for a fourth term and left office with millions in his campaign fundraising account.

Since leaving, he’s used the money partially to fund a series of political TV ads touting his record.

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This story has been corrected to show Cuomo spoke about gun violence in Brooklyn, not Buffalo.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations for African Americans will release a report Wednesday documenting in detail the harms perpetuated by the state and recommending steps to address those wrongs, including expanded voter registration, making it easier to hold violent police accountable and improving Black neighborhoods.

It also recommends the creation of a special office that would, in part, help African Americans descended from free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the 19th century document their eligibility for financial restitution.

The report, which runs 500 pages, will be the first government-commissioned study on harms against the African American community since the 1968 Kerner Commission report ordered by then-President Lyndon Johnson, task force Chair Kamilah Moore said.

“I hope that this report is used not only as an educational tool, but an organizing tool for people not only in California but across the U.S. to educate their communities,” she said, adding that the report also highlights “contributions of the African American community and how they made the United States what it is despite ongoing oppression and degradation.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating the task force in 2020, making California the only state to move ahead with a study and plan. Cities and universities are taking up the cause with the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, becoming the first U.S. city to make reparations available to Black residents last year.

The task force voted in March to limit reparations to descendants, overruling reparations advocates who want to expand compensation to all Black people in the U.S.

The report, to be released by the state Department of Justice, marks the halfway point for the two-year task force’s work. The draft report does not provide a comprehensive reparations plan, which is due to lawmakers next year.

The report is expected to lay out how California supported slavery before it was technically abolished and oppressed Black residents through discriminatory laws and practices in education, home ownership, employment and the courts.

African Americans make up nearly 6% of California’s population yet they are overrepresented in jails and prisons. They were nearly 9% of people living below the poverty level and made up 30% of people experiencing homelessness in 2019, according to state figures.

Despite it being a “free” state, an estimated 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived in California in 1852, according to the draft report. The Ku Klux Klan flourished in California with members holding positions in law enforcement and city government. African American families were forced to live in segregated neighborhoods that were more likely to be polluted.

Moore said that a state Office of African American or American Freedmen Affairs could help African American residents file claims and trace their lineage to prove eligibility for individual restitution.

The task force in its draft report also recommends compensating people who were forced out of their homes for construction projects such as parks and highways and general renewal, as happened to San Francisco’s historically Black and once-thriving Fillmore neighborhood.

“Other groups that have suffered exclusion, oppression, and downright destruction of human existence have received reparations, and we should have no less,” said the Rev. Amos Brown, the committee’s vice chair and pastor of Third Baptist Church in the Fillmore District.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the counting of some mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, an order that could affect the tight Republican Senate primary between former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz.

An order from Justice Samuel Alito paused a lower-court ruling in a lawsuit over a disputed 2021 local court election that would have allowed the counting of mail-in ballots that lacked a handwritten date.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia had ruled that the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial.”

Based on that ruling, the state had advised counties to count those ballots in the race between McCormick and Oz.

As McCormick scrounges for ballots to make up the gap with Oz, Alito’s order also could freeze a separate federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania in which McCormick is fighting to force counties to count the ballots.

The high court’s action, called an administrative stay, freezes the matter until the court can give it further consideration.

The state law requires voters to write a date on the envelope in which they mail in their ballots. However, the envelope is postmarked by the post office and timestamped by counties when they receive it.

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(Reuters) – A total of 10 bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature intended to tighten gun control, including one that would raise the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday.

State lawmakers will consider the proposals following two mass shootings in the past month: at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were slain and at school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. In both cases, the alleged gunman was 18 years old.

“Within the last month, two horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and in Texas have rattled this nation to our core and shed a new light on the urgent need for action to prevent future tragedies,” Hochul said in a statement.

The first funeral services for victims of the Uvalde shooting rampage were scheduled for Tuesday, for a pair of 10-year-old girls killed in the attack.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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HONOLULU (AP) — A U.S. judge last week sentenced a former elected Hawaii official to 20 years in prison for leading a drug-trafficking ring.

Arthur Brun said last year he sold methamphetamine to support his drug habit even while serving as a member of the county council on the island of Kauai. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, assault of a law enforcement officer, witness tampering and other charges.

Prosecutors said Brun, 50, conspired with a gang leader, requested sexual favors as payment for drugs and assaulted a law enforcement officer.

He was indicted with 11 others, who have all pleaded guilty to various charges, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson sentenced Brun last Thursday. In March, Watson rejected a deal between Brun and prosecutors for a 15-year sentence.

When Brun was arrested in 2020, he was vice chair of the council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee. His term ended later that year, while he was incarcerated without bail.

In 2019, a Kauai police officer pulled over Brun after the then-councilman received more than a pound of methamphetamine from a gang leader, prosecutors said. Brun sped off while the officer tried to remove the keys from the ignition in Brun’s car.

Brun said he threw the drugs out of the car’s window so that authorities would not find it.

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Gabriella Borter

UVALDE, Texas (Reuters) -President Joe Biden landed in the Texas town of Uvalde on Sunday to comfort families ripped apart by the worst U.S. school shooting in a decade as the public demands answers about why local police failed to act swiftly.

There was mounting anger over the decision by local law enforcement agencies in Uvalde to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children inside the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Biden will meet with victims’ families, survivors and first responders, attend a church service and visit a memorial erected at the Robb Elementary School where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

Julian Moreno, who was attending Sunday services at Primera Iglesia Bautista where he previously served as pastor, said the police had made “a huge mistake” but that he did not hold it against them.

“I feel sorry for them because they have to live with that mistake of just standing by,” Moreno, whose great-granddaughter was among those killed in Tuesday’s shooting, told Reuters.

Police say the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, entered the school with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle after earlier killing his grandmother at the house they shared.

Official accounts of how police responded to the shooting have flip-flopped wildly, with calls mounting for an independent probe.

Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major changes to America’s gun laws but has been powerless to stop mass shootings or convince Republicans that stricter controls could stem the carnage.

The Texas visit is his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a gunman killed 10 Black people in a Saturday afternoon attack at a grocery store.

The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.

“The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.

‘WEAPON OF WAR’

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on Saturday, saying that in the wake of the two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are “a weapon of war” with “no place in a civil society.”

White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals or take executive action to crack down on firearms because that could disrupt delicate negotiations in the divided Senate.

Senate Democrats have also dialed down the rhetoric as negotiations continued during the chamber’s Memorial Day holiday recess this week.

“We’ve got to be realistic about what we can achieve,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. Durbin’s fellow Democrats narrowly control the 50-50 split Senate but need 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump have rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening school security.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, were relevant to Tuesday’s bloodshed and instead also pointed to mental illness.

Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness but did post threatening messages on social media ahead of the shooting.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Gabriella Borter and Brad Brooks in Uvalde, Texas; additional reporting by Heather Timmons in Washington; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Kieran Murray and Lisa Shumaker)

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