Nation & World Glance
US labs buckle amid testing surge; world cases top 15M WASHINGTON – Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.
With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.
Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.
“There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’” said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.”
Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.
Tesla picks Texas for second US vehicle assembly plant Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.
The new factory will build Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV, largely for distribution to the East Coast.
Tesla will build on a 2,100acre site in Travis County near Austin and will get more than $60 million in tax breaks from the county and a local school district over the next decade.
Work on the plant, which will be over 4 million square feet, is already underway, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.
He did not put a number on how many vehicles the facility would produce. “Long term, a lot,” Musk said.
The company has pledged to invest $1.1 billion and said it will pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour to employees and provide health insurance, paid leave and other benefits.
White House, GOP agree on virus testing in new aid bill WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans and the White House reached tentative agreement for more testing funds in the next COVID-19 relief package, but deep disagreements over the scope of the $1 trillion in federal aid remain ahead of Thursday’s expected roll out.
Facing a GOP revolt, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was preparing a “handful” of separate COVID-19 aid bills, according to a top lawmaker involved in the negotiations. McConnell is set to unveil the package on Thursday, according to a Republican unauthorized to discuss the private talks and granted anonymity.
“Very productive meeting,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said while exiting a session late Wednesday at the Capitol.
A key holdup remains President Donald Trump’s push for a payroll tax cut, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. Hardly any GOP senators support the idea. Instead, McConnell and some Republicans prefer another round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans.
Mnuchin said the negotiators have agreed to an amount on direct payments, but declined to share details.
Audit: Nearly 1 in 4 VA workers report sex
harassment WASHINGTON – Nearly 1 in 4 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs say they have been subjected to unwanted sexual comments and other harassment – one of the highest levels in federal government – and an audit says the Trump administration has not been doing enough to protect them.
At a House hearing Wednesday, lawmakers heard VA express a commitment to “changing the culture” to make the department more welcoming to women, but that long-sought improvements urged by the Government Accountability Office could take until 2024 to fully implement.
Lawmakers responded that they’re not willing to wait, even if it means passing legislation to force more immediate changes.
“The VA is not the same VA as four years ago,” insisted acting VA deputy secretary Pam Powers, pointing to increased outreach to women and improved trust ratings in the VA from employees and patients alike according to internal polling.
The GAO audit said the agency has outdated training and policies, a leadership structure that creates conflicts of interest in reviewing harassment complaints, and gaps in reporting complaints to VA headquarters in Washington.
House votes to remove Confederate statues from
Capitol WASHINGTON – The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.
The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn’t be citizens.
The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honoring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honoring white supremacists – including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina – would be immediately removed.
“Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.
The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain. Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.