Biden lifts Don’s transgender military ban
Move part of new Prez’s policy to address equity issues in US
Washington, Jan. 25: US President Joe Biden was set to issue an executive order late on Monday to reverse a Pentagon policy that largely bars transgender individuals from joining the military, dumping a ban ordered by President Donald Trump in a tweet during his first year in office, a person briefed on the decision tells the Associated Press.
Mr Biden has been widely expected to overturn the Trump policy in his early days in office.
The White House could announce the move as early as Monday, according
to the person briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the
order.
The move to reverse the policy has the support of Mr Biden's newly confirmed defense secretary, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who spoke of the need to overturn it during his Senate confirmation hearing last week.
I support the President's plan or plan to overturn the ban, Austin said.
If you're fit and you're qualified to serve and you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve.
The decision comes as Biden plans to turn his attention to equity issues that he believes continue to shadow nearly all aspects of American life. Ahead of his inauguration, Biden's transition team circulated a memo from Ron Klain, now the White House chief of staff, that sketched out Biden's plan to use his first full week as president to advance equity and support communities of color and other underserved communities."
The move to overturn the transgender ban is also the latest example of Biden using executive authority in his first days as president to dismantle Mr Trump's legacy.
His early actions include orders to overturn a Trump administration ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, stop construction of the wall at the USMexico border, and launch an initiative to advance racial equity.
Washington, Jan. 25: US President Joe Biden will re-impose a Covid-19 travel ban on most non-US citizens who have been in Britain, Brazil, Ireland and much of Europe, a White House official said Sunday, as the new administration ramps up its pandemic response.
Biden will also on Monday extend the ban to travelers who have recently been to South Africa amid warnings that new, more transmissible coronavirus variants are already establishing themselves in the United States, the official said, confirming US media reports.
The new president last week tightened mask wearing rules and ordered quarantine for people flying into the United States, as he seeks to tackle the country's worsening coronavirus crisis.
Biden has said that the Covid-19 death toll would likely rise from 420,000 to half a million next month -- and that drastic action was needed.
“We're in a national emergency. It's time we treated it like one,” he said on Thursday.
In his last days in office, Donald Trump announced that a Covid-19 ban on travelers arriving from much of Europe and Brazil would be lifted -- but the Biden administration immediately said it would reverse the order due to come into effect on January 26.
Trump had announced an initial ban on January 31, 2020 on non-American travelers entering from China to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The ban was extended to European countries on March 14 as the pandemic entered full force.
More than 25 million Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the US since the pandemic began, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally on Sunday.
The milestone was reached only five days after the US, the world's wealthiest and hardest-hit nation, recorded 400,000 deaths from the disease.
Biden has made fighting the coronavirus a priority and is pushing for Congress to approve a $1.9-trillion relief package that would include billions of dollars to boost vaccination rates. The president, who was inaugurated on January 20, has said he wants 100 million people vaccinated within his first 100 days in office, and he has called for Americans to wear masks for 100 days.