Biden meets Ukraine leader in long-sought visit at White House
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden used his first meeting with a foreign leader since ending the war in Afghanistan to send the message Wednesday that the United States — unburdened of its “forever war” — is determined to become a more reliable ally to its friends, in this case Ukraine.
Biden played host to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a longsought Oval Office meeting and tried to reassure him that his administration remains squarely behind the Eastern European nation.
Biden didn’t mention Afghanistan in his brief appearance with Zelenskyy before cameras.
But he highlighted his concerns about Russian aggression in the region. Biden, in making his case to end the war in Afghanistan, repeatedly said winding down the 20-year conflict would allow the U.S. to put greater focus on combating malevolent acts from adversaries Russia and China.
“The United States remains firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression and for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” Biden said.
The Ukrainian leader, who had found himself ensnarled in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, arrived at the White House looking to Biden for increased military aid and backing for his country’s bid for NATO membership.
The meeting was postponed two days while Biden and his national security team were consumed by the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Child tax credit: The government has collaborated on a new internet site to help more Americans apply for and receive the expanded child tax credit, a monthly payment of as much as $300 per child that was part of the coronavirus relief package.
GetCTC.org was developed by Code for America in partnership with the White House and Treasury Department, according to a statement Wednesday. The goal is to provide a straight-forward, online form that can be accessible via mobile phones for people who are not legally obligated to file taxes to apply for the tax credit because they don’t earn enough money.
Parents of a child under the age of 6 can receive $3,600 annually, some of which can be paid out monthly at $300. Each child from the age of 6 to 17 qualifies for $3,000 annually, or $250 per month.
Federal body cameras:
The Justice Department has identified the first set of federal agents to wear body cameras under a new policy that reversed a yearslong ban, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.
The agents, who work for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix and Detroit, will wear the cameras for pre-planned operations like arrests and searches. It is the first step under a Justice Department policy enacted earlier this year that requires all of its federal agents to wear body cameras when executing arrest warrants or searching buildings. The program is being slowly phased in.
Last October, the Justice Department formalized a new policy to allow local officers to wear body cameras during joint operations, which had reversed a policy that had strained its relationship with some law enforcement agencies. The issue had previously hit such a boiling point that Atlanta’s police chief had withdrawn city police officers from federal task forces over the issue.
But even as the Justice Department made these major policy shifts to allow the use of a tool that has been common for years with most local police agencies, there still has been confusion about the process for local task force officers — and the length of time it will take to actually allow them to be worn in the field.
Only federal agents assigned to the two field offices have currently been assigned the cameras, though the Detroit office covers the entire state of Michigan, and the Phoenix division covers other nearby cities as well, like Albuquerque.
Other agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service are expected to begin phasing in their body-camera programs in the next few weeks, Justice Department officials said. The agency said it will “rely upon Congress” to provide funding to equip every agent in the country with a body camera.
Global disasters: Weather disasters are striking the world four to five times more often and causing seven times more damage than in the 1970s, the U.N. weather agency reports. But these disasters are killing fewer people.
In the 1970s and 1980s, they killed an average of about 170 people a day worldwide. In the 2010s, that dropped to about 40 per day, the World Meteorological Organization said in a report that looks at more than 11,000 weather disasters in the past half-century.
The report comes during a disaster-filled summer globally, including deadly floods in Germany and a heat wave in the Mediterranean, and with Hurricane Ida making landfall in Louisiana and wildfires in California.
French booster shots: France on Wednesday started administering booster shots of COVID-19 vaccine to people older than 65 and those with underlying health conditions as the delta variant spreads in the country.
France is the first big EU country to introduce widespread booster shots, and several other European countries are expected to follow suit.
Many countries are still struggling to administer first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and the World Health Organization had called for a moratorium on boosters and also urged governments to donate vaccines to needy countries.
People in France can get the shot on condition a minimum six-month period has passed since they got fully vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Those who received the singledose Johnson & Johnson jab can get a booster shot of Pfizer or Moderna at least four weeks after they first got vaccinated.
In nursing homes, a nationwide booster campaign starts Sept. 12. About 18 million people are estimated to be eligible for the booster shot, according to the Health Ministry.
Pandemic hub: The World Health Organization on Wednesday inaugurated a new “hub” in Berlin that aims to help prepare the globe better to prevent future pandemics.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and German Chancellor Angela Merkel cut the ribbon to launch the new WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. WHO says Germany is making an initial investment of $100 million in the facility.
The hub is meant to promote more effective data collection, information-sharing and analysis, leading to better and more coherent decision-making after the patchy global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be headed by Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control.