Despite reopening, the US is still closed to many
NEW YORK — The U.S. says that it’s inviting the global community to visit now that the government has ended the ban on travelers from 33 countries.
In reality, however, it will still be difficult — if not impossible — for much of the globe to enter the country and experts say it will take years for travel to fully recover.
For starters, half the world isn’t vaccinated and therefore doesn’t meet the U.S. requirement for visiting foreigners. So while many Europeans may now be able to come in, people from poorer countries where vaccines are scarce remain cut off, with limited exceptions.
For some public health experts, that raises ethical questions about the policy.
“The concern is not limiting access based on vaccination status,” said Nancy Kass, deputy director of public health in the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. “It is that it’s systemically making it impossible for people, generally from poor countries, whose governments have been unable to secure anything near the supply they need, to be able to come and see their loved ones.”
Even if you’ve gotten the jab, that might not be good enough. Non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization, otherwise they, too, are prohibited from entering the U.S. That sidelines anyone who’s received Russia’s Sputnik V or the China-produced CanSino jab.
Then there are the months-long delays in some places to get a visa. The U.S. Travel Association says that, on average, there’s a sixmonth visitor visa appointment backlog as many U.S. consulates and embassies have yet to resume normal operations. Meanwhile, other countries have their own strict rules, which complicates foreign travel.
NEW YORK — At least 13 former Trump administration officials violated the law by intermingling campaigning with their official government duties, according to a new federal investigation.
The report from the Office of Special Counsel says the officials broke the law without consequence and with the administration’s approval as part of a “willfull disregard for the Hatch Act,” which prohibits government officials from using their official roles to influence elections, including supporting candidates while acting in their official capacities.
“The cumulative effect of these repeated and public violations was to undermine public confidence in the nonpartisan operation of government,” they wrote, adding that, “such flagrant and unpunished violations erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law.”
The office investigated officials’ comments in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, including the Republican National Convention, which was held at the White House in a major break from historical norms.
While the Office of Special Counsel concluded that hosting the event at the White House did not itself violate the Hatch Act, it found plenty of other instances where Trump officials did, mostly by promoting the former president’s reelection in media interviews in which they appeared in their official capacity.
Among the officials cited are former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Jared Kushner, who served as senior adviser to the president, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Kellyanne Conway, then counselor to the president, Stephen Miller, who served as Trump’s senior policy adviser, and Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser. Conway had been repeatedly cited by the office, which at one point went so far as to call for her removal.
“In each case, the subject official was identified by their official title, discussed administration policies and priorities related to their official duties, and/or spoke from the White House grounds,” the report reads.
The investigation also found that then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo changed State Department policy to allow himself to speak at Trump’s convention and then referenced official work in his speech.
And it found then-acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf violated the Hatch Act by presiding over a naturalization ceremony that was orchestrated for convention programming.
Pfizer asked U.S. regulators to allow boosters of its COVID-19 vaccine for anyone 18 or older, a step that comes amid concern about increased spread of the coronavirus with holiday travel and gatherings.
Older Americans and other groups particularly vulnerable to the virus have had access to a third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine since September.
But the Food and Drug Administration has said it would move quickly to expand boosters to younger ages if warranted.
Pfizer is submitting early results of a booster study in 10,000 people to make its case that it’s time to further expand the booster campaign.
KENOSHA, Wis. — The first man killed by Kyle Rittenhouse on the streets of Kenosha was shot at a range of just a few feet and had soot injuries that could indicate he had his hand over the barrel of Rittenhouse’s rifle, a pathologist testified.
But it was unclear from video footage whether Joseph Rosenbaum was grabbing for Rittenhouse’s gun or trying to swat it away, said the witness, Dr. Doug Kelley, with the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office.
Kelley was one of the final witnesses for the state before prosecutors rested their murder case after 5 1/2 days of testimony that were aimed at portraying Rittenhouse as the aggressor but often bolstered the young man’s claim of self-defense. His lawyers have suggested the 17-year-old was afraid his gun would be taken away and used against him.
The defense then began presenting its side, calling as its first witnesses people who were on the streets with Rittenhouse that night and described him as pale, shaking, sweating and stammering after the shootings.