8 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to protect workers and communities from extreme heat after a dangerously hot summer that spurred an onslaught of drought-worsened wildfires and caused hundreds of deaths from the Pacific Northwest to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana. Under a plan announced Monday, the U.S. Departments of Labor and of Health and Human Services as well as other federal agencies are launching actions intended to reduce heat-related illness and protect public health. White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy called heat stress a “silent killer” that disproportionately affects the poor, elderly and minority groups. While not as dramatic as wildfires or hurricanes, “heat stress is a significant, real threat that has deadly consequences,″ McCarthy said in an interview. “Many people don’t recognize that heat stress is a real physical problem until it’s too late for them,″ she said. The …
Biden
AP PHOTOS: Haitian migrants flock to small Texas border city
30 Thousands of Haitian migrants flocked to a small Texas border city , presenting the Biden administration with a challenge as it tries to manage large numbers of asylum-seekers. U.S. authorities have moved to expel many of the more 12,000 migrants who were camped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, after crossing from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. Officials are also trying to to block others from crossing the border from Mexico. It’s a massive show of force that signals the beginning of what could be one of America’s swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades. In recent days, many Haitians crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. Some then waded back through the river to buy supplies in Mexico before returning to the Texas encampment. Haitians carried boxes on their …
States bracing for confusion about coronavirus booster rollout
State health officials are bracing for confusion as they manage expectations about coronavirus boosters that President Joe Biden announced last month would be widely available to adults this week. The two federal agencies that determine who should get a booster - the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - are not expected to issue decisions until later this week. But in last month's announcement, Biden and his top health advisers set the week of Sept. 20 as the start for a booster rollout that would make third shots available to adults eight months after completing their original two-shot regimen. Even though federal officials emphasized that the plan required FDA and CDC approval, specifying a date has meant "the expectation has been set by the administration that we now have to manage," said Michael Fraser, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. "It puts the states in a difficult position," Fraser …
Ted Cruz, California Senator Alex Padilla have twitter feud over gun control
3 Sen. Ted Cruz seems to have a new enemy in Congress. Cruz got into a spat with new California Senator Alex Padilla on Twitter this week shortly after a hearing on gun violence held Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the hearing, Padilla, the Democrat who was appointed to fill Vice President Kamala Harris' seat, made the claim that it's easier to buy a gun than vote in many states. "In a majority of states, new voters are able to obtain a rifle quicker than they're able to cast their first ballot," he said. "It seems to me we have our priorities entirely backwards when it comes to this — when we make it easier to buy a gun than we do to cast a ballot." This is demonstrably, laughably false. https://t.co/YEVqiIbzTq — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 24, 2021 Cruz tweeted a clip of Padilla's remarks on Tuesday and called them "demonstrably, laughably false." "Find me the Dem that says 'it’s abusive to require a photo ID to buy …