Saturday, July 29, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.
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Joe is always busy.
The largest overhaul of the Uniform Code of Military Justice since its creation in 1950 will remove commanders’ authority over cases of sexual assault and a handful of other high-profile crimes.
Under the president’s executive order, the special trial counsel office will have its authority expanded in 2025 to include cases of sexual harassment as well as sexual abuse and sexual assault.
Biden to Overhaul Military Justice Code, Seeking to Curb Sexual Assault.
President Biden is set to give final approval on Friday to the biggest reshaping in generations of the country’s Uniform Code of Military Justice, stripping commanders of their authority over cases of sexual assault, rape and murder to ensure prosecutions that are independent of the chain of command.
By placing his signature on a far-reaching executive order, Mr. Biden is set to usher in the most significant changes to the modern military legal system since it was created in 1950. The order follows two decades of pressure from lawmakers and advocates of sexual assault victims, who argued that victims in the military were too often denied justice, culminating in a bipartisan law mandating changes.
In a statement, the White House called the changes made by the executive order “a turning point for survivors of gender-based violence in the military” and said they kept promises Mr. Biden made as a candidate.
“He’s made clear that our one truly sacred obligation as a nation is to prepare and equip those we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families both while they are deployed and when they return home,” the statement said. “The reforms implemented through today’s executive order do just that.”
The changes had for years been opposed by military commanders. But they were finally embraced by the Pentagon in 2021 and mandated by a law spearheaded by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York. Mr. Biden signed the landmark legislation into law two days after Christmas that year.
The law set up a two-year process for the Defense Department to create a cadre of special prosecutors to handle sexual assault and a handful of other high-profile crimes. The Offices of Special Trial Counsel, as they will be called, will be staffed by experienced military prosecutors who will report to the civilian leaders of the military’s branches.
The final step needed to change the Uniform Code of Military Justice under the law was a presidential executive order. Lawmakers directed Mr. Biden to issue it by December 2023. White House officials said Mr. Biden would do so on Friday, more than five months ahead of the deadline.
Under the rules established by Mr. Biden’s order, commanders in the military will no longer have the authority to decide whether to pursue charges in cases of sexual abuse and a handful of other serious crimes. Instead, that decision will fall to the new, specialized lawyers, White House officials said.
The decisions by those special prosecutors will be final and binding, and cannot be overridden by military commanders.
For years, advocates of sexual assault victims in the military complained that their cases were not taken seriously and were in many cases blocked by the commanders of the service members making the accusations. Over time, complaints grew — especially among young people — about the Pentagon’s tepid response to sexual assault cases.
Members of the top military brass were for years among the chief opponents of changing the code of justice for the armed forces. But that gradually changed. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired Army general, endorsed the changes in 2021. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had long opposed them, but acknowledged that same year that younger enlisted troops no longer had confidence that sexual assault cases were being taken seriously by the military’s command.
The fading of the military resistance provided the opportunity for bipartisan negotiations, eventually leading to the law in 2021 and, on Friday, Mr. Biden’s executive order.
The move to change the military justice system was also galvanized by the 2020 case of Specialist Vanessa Guillen, whose burned and mutilated body was discovered after she had tried to report instances of sexual harassment by another soldier, who the Army said killed her and later himself.
That case and others were frequently cited by Ms. Gillibrand and other female lawmakers, including former Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, and Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who is a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel. Ms. Ernst said her own experience as a victim of sexual assault informed her views on the issue.
White House officials said that the military branches had already begun hiring for the Offices of Special Trial Counsel, which they expected to be fully operational by the end of the year. But they conceded that it would take years to measure how the changes affected the culture surrounding the prosecution of sexual assault and other serious crimes in the military.
Under the executive order, the special trial counsel offices will have their authority expanded in 2025 to include cases of sexual harassment. ( New York Times)
Biden announces an advanced cancer research initiative as part of his 'moonshot' effort.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday announced the first cancer-focused initiative under its advanced health research agency, aiming to help doctors more easily distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy tissue during surgery and improve outcomes for patients.
The administration’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, is launching a Precision Surgical Interventions program, seeking ideas from the public and private sectors to explore how to dramatically improve cancer outcomes in the coming decades by developing better surgical interventions to treat the disease.
ARPA-H is modeled after the military-focused DARPA, which spawned the internet and GPS. The administration hopes the new investment will yield tools that will help surgeons avoid healthy nerves and blood vessels, while ensuring they can remove all cancerous cells.
ARPA-H, along with the administration’s “cancer moonshot,” is a key part of Biden’s “unity agenda” announced during his 2022 State of the Union address to bring Washington together on a bipartisan basis to combat cancer, improve veterans’ health and make mental health more accessible. (Associated Press).
Biden sends Sullivan to Saudi Arabia in possible push for major Israel deal.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, two U.S. sources told Axios and the White House confirmed.
Driving the news: Sullivan's trip is aimed at continuing the talks over a possible deal on upgrading U.S.-Saudi relations that would also include a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the two sources said.
U.S. officials have previously said the administration wants to try to complete this diplomatic initiative before the presidential election campaign consumes President Biden's agenda, as Axios reported earlier this year.
Such a deal could be unpopular among Democrats and might cost Biden a lot of political capital. But a deal could be a historic breakthrough in Middle East peace, leading to a domino effect of more Arab and Muslim-majority countries normalizing relations with Israel and putting U.S.-Saudi relations back on track.
Details: Brett McGurk, the White House Middle East czar, and Amos Hochstein, Biden's senior adviser for energy and infrastructure, joined Sullivan on his trip, the sources said.
The visit was first reported by the New York Times.
Sullivan met with MBS and other senior Saudi officials "to discuss bilateral and regional matters, including initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world," the White House said in a readout of the visit.
"Sullivan also reviewed significant progress to build on the benefits of the truce in Yemen that have endured over the past 16 months and welcomed ongoing UN-led efforts to bring the war to a close," the readout added. "Both delegations agreed to maintain regular consultations and follow up on matters discussed throughout the day." (Axios).
No chance of Biden pardoning his son, White House says.
President Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter if he is convicted of the charges against him, the White House said on Thursday.
Hunter Biden has been charged with two misdemeanor tax offenses and a felony gun charge. When asked during her briefing whether there was any possibility that the president would eventually pardon his son, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday replied, “No,” and declined to comment further.
(Politico).
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Still a bit confused? Lawrence O’Donnell explains the latest crimes Trump faces in Mar-a-Largo document case.
Important to watch and understand.👇
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Well, Tim Scott, GOP African American Senator from South Carolina, seems to have “woke.”
NEWS: Even a broken clock is right twice a day. GOP presidential contender Tim Scott, struggling to leave the shadows of Donald Trump's crime train and Ron DeSantis' sputtering campaign, stepped out of the shadows to take aim at the Florida Governor's slavery stupidity.
And it has caused a HUGE uproar amongst conservatives.
Senator Scott joined Florida Rep. Byron Donalds in a very tame reprimand of DeSantis' attempt to whitewash history with his framing that some slaves developed useful skills as a result of their bondage. Scott rebuked that notion, saying "There is no silver lining in slavery." Scott added that slavery "was really about separating families, about mutilating humans."
Conservatives have lost their minds about Scott speaking his mind. Dan McLaughlin of the National Review tweeted that Scott's criticism is "Really a major unforced error by Scott here that will win him friends only with people who don't vote in the primaries."
DeSantis and his supporters have yet to weigh in on Scott's remarks, but bristled loudly when Rep. Byron Donalds offered a much softer critique. Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said “We will not back down from teaching our nation’s true history at the behest of a woke @WhiteHouse, nor at the behest of a supposedly conservative congressman.” (Source. Really American on Twitter/X).
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Be careful. It’s rough out there.
Yet another summer COVID wave may have started in the U.S., according to the CDC.
COVID infections, hospitalizations and emergency room visits appear to have ticked up for the first time in 2023.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Yet another summer wave of COVID infections may have started. That is according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But so far, COVID's toll looks nothing like the last three summers. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein joins us now to explain. Hi, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Rob, I just have to be honest with you - this is not the kind of update many people want to hear.
STEIN: No.
SUMMERS: Tell us what's going on here.
STEIN: Yeah, you know, the CDC says all the metrics suggest that the virus is still out there and just hasn't given up the fight. The amount of virus being detected in wastewater, the percentage of people testing positive and the number of people going to emergency rooms because of COVID all started creeping back up at the beginning of July. And in the past week, Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC's COVID-19 incident manager, says officials spotted a key bellwether.
BRENDAN JACKSON: After roughly six, seven months of steady declines, things are starting to tick back up again. We've seen the early indicators go up for the past several weeks. And just this week, for the first time in a long time, we've seen hospitalizations tick up as well. This could be the start of a late summer wave.
STEIN: Hospitalizations jumped 10%. Now, most of those ending up in a hospital are older, like in their 70s, 80s and 90s. And deaths from COVID are still falling. In fact, they're at the lowest they've been since the CDC started tracking them. But that could change in the coming weeks if hospitalizations keep increasing.
SUMMERS: OK. So Rob, how worried should we be about this?
STEIN: You know, for now, it's very much a kind of wait-and-see situation. Jackson stresses the numbers are still very, very low - far lower than they were the last three summers.
JACKSON: If you sort of imagine the decline in cases looking like a ski slope going down, down, down for the last six months, we're just starting to see a little bit of a - almost like a little ski jump at the bottom.
STEIN: A jump that could keep shooting up, but not necessarily. So the CDC's nowhere near ratcheting up recommendations for what people should do, like, you know, urging routine masking again. Here's how Caitlin Rivers from Johns Hopkins put it.
CAITLIN RIVERS: It's like when meteorologists are, like, watching a storm forming offshore and they're not sure if it'll pick up steam yet or if it'll even turn towards the mainland. But they see that the conditions are there and are watching closely.
STEIN: But, you know, people are probably hearing more about friends and family catching COVID again. In fact, I caught it for the first time about six weeks ago. It was pretty mild, but it still wasn't fun. And my wife caught it from me, got pretty sick and is still recovering.
SUMMERS: I hope she's feeling better soon, Rob.
STEIN: Thanks.
SUMMERS: What is the cause in the uptick in cases?
STEIN: You know, no one thinks it's some kind of new variant or anything like that. It's - there's just what people are calling a soup of omicron subvariants spreading around that don't look much different than the others that came before it. So, you know, it's probably just a repeat of the last three years. The virus has surged in the U.S. every summer and every winter since the pandemic started. So maybe that's just how it's going to be from now on.
SUMMERS: Last thing - what's the outlook looking forward for the rest of the summer and the rest of the year?
STEIN: You know, it wouldn't be surprising if the numbers keep going up for a bit and cause a true summer wave, but it's pretty unlikely to get anywhere close to being as bad as the last three summers because we have so much immunity from all the infections and vaccinations we've gotten. And many experts do think there'll be another wave this fall and winter and maybe a pretty big one. So the Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a new vaccine in September to try to blunt whatever happens during the winter.
SUMMERS: NPR health correspondent Rob Stein, thank you.
STEIN: Sure thing, Juana. (NPR).
Biden announced action on heat as nation sizzles.
President Joe Biden unveiled a series of measures Thursday designed to aid workers and residents facing severe health threats from soaring temperatures as record heat shows no signs of relenting.
Biden ticked off the devastating impacts of the recent heat waves across the country: Death, threats to vulnerable people like the elderly and unhoused, workplace safety concerns, lost economic productivity, destructive wildfires and risks to fisheries. The wide-ranging perils underscored that climate change has affected everyone in the country.
“Even those who deny that we’re in the midst of a climate crisis can’t deny the impact extreme heat is having on Americans,” Biden said during an event with administration officials and the mayors of Phoenix and San Antonio.
The push comes as scientists with the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization said July is on track to become Earth’s hottest month on record. Washington, D.C., flirted with a triple-digit heat index as the broadest swath of the continental U.S. endured the type of sweltering heat that’s affected major cities Phoenix and Miami in recent weeks.
The Biden administration said the Labor Department would increase inspections at job sites to prevent heat stress, noting heat is the top weather-related killer in the United States at more than 600 deaths annually. Biden said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration already has conducted 2,600 workplace inspections as part of a new heat safety initiative.
“We should be protecting workers from hazardous conditions – and we will. And those states where they do not, I’m going to be calling them out,” Biden said.
The White House also said it would spend $7 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to improve weather forecasting and $152 million from the bipartisan infrastructure law to expand water storage in the West.
The Labor Department’s move to issue a “heat alert” reminding workers of their rights can advance public awareness of the health dangers from high temperatures, said Micki Siegel de Hernandez, deputy director of occupational safety and health with the Communication Workers of America union.
But that step is too modest, she said. The Labor Department has not yet issued final workplace safety standards for heat, a longtime ask of public health advocates, although OSHA is working on such a rule, with a review of its potential impacts on small businesses scheduled for August.
Without a federal floor, protections are uneven across states, she said.
“Everybody is anxious for them to get something out the door,” Siegel de Hernandez said. “This is a way of showing that ‘We’re still paying attention to this.”
Workplace conditions have attracted Congress’ attention in recent weeks. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) refused water for eight hours in a Tuesday protest outside the Capitol to draw attention to the lack of federal standards. It comes after his state’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott, signed a law last month nixing water and rest breaks for construction workers.
Dozens of lawmakers sent a letter Monday to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and OSHA Assistant Secretary Douglas Parker urging them to finish that rule.
“The crisis demands immediate action if we are to accomplish our shared goals of saving lives and prioritizing worker safety and dignity,” the letter said.
The $369 billion of climate and clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act aim to address the continuing challenge of rising temperatures. Yet any positive response will take years given all the greenhouse gases the atmosphere already holds.
“We’ve got to get through this crisis in the near term and keep people safe,” Biden said. “We are making progress… but we have a lot more work to do.”
Communities are demanding immediate relief from the heat. Some lawmakers have even floated legislation, H.R. 3965 (118), to allow dangerous heatwaves to be declared federal disasters. That would unlock taxpayer dollars and resources to respond to soaring temperatures much like the Federal Emergency Management Agency does for floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other perils.
“We need a swift, immediate deployment of resources, and that requires FEMA declaring extreme heat an emergency,” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), said in a statement.
Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), a co-sponsor of the bill, told POLITICO that those funds could help pay to move power supplies around when grids are stressed by people running air conditioners on full blast, perform outreach to vulnerable people like the elderly and provide transportation to cooling centers.
“Everyday life is disrupted… Nobody said we shouldn’t do anything for tornadoes or floods,” Amodei said. “It shouldn’t just be, ‘Hey, sucks to be hot. Hope you’re doing fine. Don’t call us.’”
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told POLITICO in an interview that her office would be “happy to provide” assistance to Congress as lawmakers debate whether to roll heatwaves into covered disaster declarations.
But Criswell said the agency’s efforts remain focused on preparing people to withstand heatwaves through public awareness measures in advance of high temperatures, saying local communities are handling response operations.
“Making sure that we’re bringing again the right partners together to help protect people and educate them – the steps that they can take to protect themselves and their families as they’re facing this kind of heat,” Criswell said of her agency’s posture on heat.
Amodei said, however, that most local communities struggle to find the resources to execute their plans. That’s especially true of smaller, often rural governments. The task is overwhelming for cash-strapped towns faced with the reality that climate change will keep driving temperatures higher, he said.
“Maybe we ought to start having a little more [federal] involvement than, ‘Cross your fingers,’” he said. (Politico)
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U.S. Soccer's support for moms should be a model.
Whether the U.S. women’s national soccer team continues to dominate the sport with a third-consecutive World Cup victory this summer, it’s already distinguished by a rare phenomenon on elite sport rosters: moms.
That story serves as a valuable case study for what can happen when employers start treating moms as assets rather than annoyances.
American companies are notoriously bad at supporting working moms. For most of their history, professional sports have been a particularly hostile workplace. Not for fathers. Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods — all professionals, all dads. But their fatherhood is a footnote, if it’s mentioned at all, in discussions of their performance at work.
“I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family,” tennis legend Serena Williams wrote when she announced her retirement in 2022. “If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.”
Against that backdrop, what’s happening in soccer as the U.S. women defend their World Cup title in Australia and New Zealand looks even more remarkable. A record number of moms were in training camps this spring, with Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz making it onto the final World Cup roster, tying the record set by the 2015 World Cup team.
Crystal Dunn runs with the ball during the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 Group E match between USA and Vietnam on July 22 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Crystal Dunn waves to fans while holding her baby Marcel after a game on June 3 in Seattle, Washington.
Pregnant professional athletes pose a particularly complex challenge for their employers. A nurse or a lawyer could theoretically work until the moment her water breaks, take four weeks of postpartum leave and be considered lucky. (As it stands, 1 in 4 working moms in the United States return to work within 10 days.) At minimum, many athletes need six months away from competition, considering most doctors advise against participation in contact sports after the first trimester.
Real support that can prevent a mass loss of talent means funding a robust paid-leave policy, resources to support the return to competition and ongoing child-care benefits.
U.S. Soccer — Morgan, Ertz and Dunn’s employer — is an unexpected leader in this arena.
The historic equal-pay deal signed by U.S. Soccer and its men’s and women’s players last year expanded on a solid foundation of support the federation had developed since 1999 in response to pressure from players. Prior to that, pregnancy was treated like a career-ending injury. Today, U.S. Soccer offers six months of paid parental leave to all national team parents, including adoptive parents, and benefits such as fully funded child-care during training camps and competitions that most working parents should have but currently only dream of.
Alex Morgan reaches to control the ball during a game against Brazil on Feb. 22, in Frisco, Texas.
Alex Morgan holds her daughter, Charlie, during an event at Audi Field in Washington, on Sept. 6, 2022
“[The women’s national team] has something that other [soccer] players just don’t,” said Becca Roux, executive director for the U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association: paid-leave and child-care benefits.
For Jessica McDonald, the only U.S. mom during the 2019 Women’s World Cup, training with the national team was the only time in her career she’d gotten that kind of support.
“That part of it was really emotional,” McDonald told me for my book.
This kind of success shouldn’t stop at sports.
“If we can demonstrate how sports can change to better support working caregivers — with the unique aspect that professional athletes use their bodies for their jobs — it is easy for a Fortune 500 company to see how they can build supportive infrastructure for caregivers,” Alysia Montaño, an Olympian and seven-time national champion runner who called outthe lack of maternity protections in sponsorship contracts in 2019, said in an email.
The United States remains one of only six countries in the world without a federal paid-leave program. But even when policies do change, it doesn’t mean the culture changes. It has been illegal in the United States to pay women less than men in the same job for 60 years, yet there’s still a gender pay gap. It has been illegal to fire a woman for becoming pregnant since the 1970s, yet women are still forced out of the workplace by a system that continues to penalize working moms, not dads, to the detriment of the entire economy. And nearly half of U.S. businesses plan to cut child-care benefits, and 28 percent planned to reduce paid-leave programs in 2023, according to a survey conducted by Care.com in December.
Vietnam's goalkeeper Thi Kim Thanh Tran, right, and United States' Julie Ertz go for the ball during the Women's World Cup Group E soccer match at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 22.
Julie Ertz is honored for her 100th international game with her husband, Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz, and their baby, Madden Matthew, during a game on April 8 in Austin.
That’s why we need to fundamentally alter perceptions about what the postpartum body is capable of and challenge the assumption that becoming a caregiver at home decreases a woman’s value at work. U.S. Soccer proves to other industries that it’s possible. But perhaps even more important than serving as a blueprint for how to support working parents, the presence of so many high-profile moms at the World Cup can remind employers why they should.
“This is for U.S. Soccer’s benefit as a program that wants to continue to be the best in the world,” Roux said. “Think of the loss of talent, among this group and for the past couple of decades, [without this support].” U.S. Soccer officials don’t have a cheat code — they simply recognize that they’re better off when they don’t count moms out.
When Morgan, Dunn and Ertz take the field, their skill will be the story. But their motherhood shouldn’t be a footnote.
“The more we can demonstrate how female athletes can thrive in both their careers and motherhood,” champion runner Montaño said, “the better we will be able to show other industries how it can be done.” (Macaela MacKenzie, The Washington Post).
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Whales at Play.
This still image from video provided by Robert Addie shows three humpback whales leaping from the water off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., on Monday, July 24, 2023.
Incredible video shows 3 humpback whales jump in unison off Cape Cod: "Once in a lifetime"
A New Hampshire man celebrating his birthday on the ocean with his three daughters captured videoof something so rare that even marine scientists are jealous — three humpback whales leaping from the water in near perfect unison.
"It was such an uplifting thing to see. Just incredible," Robert Addie said.
The Portsmouth man, now a home remodeler, spent decades on the water as a commercial fisherman in Massachusetts and Alaska. But he never witnessed anything like Monday's whale encounter on a tuna fishing trip off Cape Cod.
"I've literally seen thousands of whales," he told CBS Boston. "I haven't yet run into anyone that's seen a triple synchronized beach."
The excursion with his daughters was for his 59th birthday, as well as to celebrate his safe return from a humanitarian aid trip to Ukraine where he came under heavy artillery fire.
During the fishing trip, he was trying to film some humpback whales about 300 yards from their boat and was having no luck, until he got what he called a "whale ballet."
"A triple breach is unheard of and a synchronized triple breach is even rarer," he said. "It's once in a lifetime. Just very fortunate. I feel God shined down on me to allow me to capture that."
Afterwards, they even saw a younger whale jump into the air. Addie can't believe his luck that he was able to capture the moment on camera.
"We were all gobsmacked," he told CBS Boston. "You can tell the story and nobody's really going to believe you, but catching it on video. . . oh my."
Whale experts later told Addie that the aerial maneuvers may have been an attempt to remove parasites or aid digestion.
He has another theory: "I have a feeling that maybe they were teaching or training" the younger whale.
Those same experts also know how rare the spectacle was.
"Even some of the whale experts that have reached out to me, they're all jealous because they've never seen it," Addie said. (CBSNews).
Touch 👇 to watch the 3 whales on ABC.
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