Becerra named health secy, Murthy is surgeon general Trump cementing death penalty legacy

Fauci Chief Medical Adviser to Prez on Covid-19, Walensky CDC Director

Washington, Dec. 7: US President-elect Joe Biden unveiled his health team on Monday, naming Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Indian-American Dr Vivek Murthy as his Surgeon General.

Dr Anthony Fauci has been named as Chief Medical Adviser to the President on Covid-19, while Dr Rochelle Walensky has been named as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marcella NunezSmith as Covid-19 Equity Task Force Chair. "This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones,” Biden said. This team of worldclass medical experts and public servants will be ready on day one to mobilise every resource of the federal government to expand testing and masking, oversee the safe, equitable, and free distribution of treatments and vaccines, reopen schools and businesses safely, lower prescription drug and other health costs and expand affordable health care to all Americans, and rally the country and restore the belief that there is nothing beyond America's capacity if we do it together, he said.

"Containing this Coronavirus pandemic and opening our economy responsibly require listening to experts and leaders like the ones we are bringing together on this health care team," Vice Presidentelect Kamala Harris said, adding that they are some of America's top physicians, public health experts, and crisis-tested public servants, and they reflect the very best of the nation.

This is the team that the American people need and deserve to make quality, affordable health care available to all and to help make sure safe and effective vaccines — as well as testing and treatment — are free and equitably distributed, Harris said.

Becerra is currently the Attorney General of California and a former member of Congress.

Chicago, Dec. 7: As Donald Trump's presidency winds down, his administration is throttling up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of Coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

If the five go off as planned, it will make 13 executions since July when the Republican administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus and will cement Trump's legacy as the most prolific execution president in over 130 years.

He'll leave office having executed about a quarter of all federal death-row prisoners, despite waning support for capital punishment among both Democrats and Republicans.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General William Barr defended the extension of executions into the post-election period, saying he'll likely schedule more before he departs the Justice Department. A Biden administration, he said, should keep it up.

“I think the way to stop the death penalty is to repeal the death penalty," Barr said. “But if you ask juries to impose and juries impose it, then it should be carried out.” The plan breaks a tradition of lameduck presidents deferring to incoming presidents on policy about which they differ so starkly, said Robert Durham, director of the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center.

Biden, a Democrat, is a death penalty foe, and his spokesman said that he'd work to end the death penalty when he is in office. “It's hard to understand why anybody at this stage of a presidency feels compelled to kill this many people,” Durham said.