Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

As COVID surges, more Florida school districts revolt against governor’s mask ban

By Saundra Amrhein and James Oliphant

TAVARES, Fla. (Reuters) – In a scene replayed across the United States, angry parents and activists streamed into a meeting of the Florida’s Lake County school board on Thursday where it considered whether to mandate mask-wearing for students and staff due to COVID.

Some opponents of the mask proposal brandished signs that read “Let Our Children Breathe.” Even with Florida seeing a record number of coronavirus cases, one attendee called the pandemic “overblown.” Another was escorted out by deputies after yelling at board members.

The proposal would require staff and students to wear masks for 14 days at schools with COVID positivity rates at or above 5%. But Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, effectively banned similar mandates in July.

Since DeSantis’ order, more than a dozen Florida counties have rebelled and voted to require masks to protect students and teachers as the Delta variant sweeps across the state. This week, the state’s Department of Education sanctioned two counties that passed school mask requirements.

The battle between DeSantis and the state’s school systems echoes larger fights across the country. Other Republican-run states such as Arizona and Texas have also banned mask mandates in schools even as COVID cases have soared in their states, as parents and voters are sharply divided over safety measures and personal freedoms.

The pushback in Florida against the Republican governor initially was led by large urban school districts run by Democrats. But this week saw more conservative counties that backed Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election also defying DeSantis and instituting their own mandates.

Earlier this week, populous Brevard County along Florida’s east coast, which went for Trump over President Joe Biden by more than 16 percentage points in November, narrowly voted to approve a 30-day school mask mandate.

A day later, Hernando County, which supported Trump over Biden by almost 30 points, also passed a mandate, but one that allows parents to opt out.

In Lake County near Orlando, which also strongly backed Trump, a school official said on Thursday that more than 1,000 students of the 36,000 in the district had tested positive for the virus.

The board listened to more than three hours of public comment on the mask proposal then postponed a decision. Some 280 people spoke or sent emails on the issue, and two-thirds of them supported the idea, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Still, proponents of a mask mandate were booed and heckled by the crowd in attendance.

“This topic has completely polarized communities,” said Andrea Messina, president of the Florida School Boards Association.

‘ABSOLUTE CRISIS’

While the conflict centers on whether state or local governments are best equipped to make decisions on health and safety, it also has become a political challenge for DeSantis, whose state has once again become a COVID-19 hotbed.

After being widely praised last year when cases declined and the state’s economy seemed revived, DeSantis has faced renewed criticism for his opposition to masks and employer vaccine mandates. Florida on Aug. 26 saw a single-day record number of new cases of the virus – almost 28,000 – since the pandemic began.

A spokesperson for DeSantis, Christina Pushaw, defended the ban on school mandates, saying the governor is “protecting the rights of families and children from all levels of government overreach.”

At the Brevard County meeting on Monday, Misty Belford, the chair of the school board who a month earlier had opposed a mask mandate, switched her vote and gave proponents a 3-2 majority.

Belford changed her mind, she told Reuters, after watching the district’s caseload spike, including a 49% increase in student cases from one week to the next. One school was closed for two days after most of its students were quarantined.

“We are at an absolute crisis point,” Belford said.

But board member Katye Campbell, who voted against the mandate, said she worries about negative effects on students from requiring masks, such as asthma flare-ups, suicidal ideation and panic attacks.

“There is nothing easy about this decision because our community is so divided,” Campbell said.

Belford said she was relying on a decision from a Florida court last week that declared the DeSantis ban illegal. DeSantis on Thursday appealed the ruling. Earlier this week, the Florida Board of Education said it would penalize two counties that voted for mask mandates without providing a parental opt-out, Alachua and Broward, by withholding funds from the districts for the board members’ salaries.

Leanetta McNealy, chair of the Alachua County school board, said her board voted for the mask mandate last month based on scientific evidence that it would help mitigate the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

“I’d rather have a decrease in my compensation than have a death under my watch,” she said.

(Reporting by Saundra Amrhein in Tavares, Florida and James Oliphant in Washington; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Cynthia Osterman)

Ho Chi Minh City could lift lockdown, end ‘zero COVID-19’ policy

HANOI (Reuters) -Vietnam’s coronavirus epicenter Ho Chi Minh City, which has kept residents confined at home under lockdown, is considering reopening economic activity from Sept. 15, shifting from a “zero COVID-19” strategy to a policy of living with the virus.

The city of 9 million people is targeting a phased reopening and the full vaccination of its citizens by the end of this year, according to the draft seen by Reuters, which has yet to be endorsed.

Ho Chi Minh City last month deployed troops to enforce its lockdown and prohibited residents from leaving their homes to slow a spiraling rate of deaths. Just 3% of Vietnam’s 98 million population has been fully vaccinated.

Vietnam’s biggest city, a business hub flanked by industrialized provinces, aims to “promote economic recovery … and move towards living with COVID-19,” the draft proposal said.

The reopening would be gradual, and low-interest loans and tax cuts would be offered to affected firms, it said.

Ho Chi Minh City alone has recorded 241,110 coronavirus infections and 9,974 deaths, representing half of the country’s cases and 80% of its fatalities.

The vast majority of those have come in recent months, ending hopes that Vietnam could continue to achieve success it showed in 2020, when aggressive contact tracing and quarantining led to one of the world’s best COVID-19 containment records.

The ministry of health on Friday reported 14,922 coronavirus infections, a record daily increase, raising its caseload to 501,649 with 12,476 deaths.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday warned Vietnam could be facing a lengthy coronavirus battle and cannot rely on lockdown and quarantines indefinitely.

During a visit to a smartphone factory of Samsung Electronics in the northern province of Thai Nguyen on Friday, Chinh urged the company to help Vietnam procure vaccines from South Korea and to maintain its long-term investment in Vietnam.

Foreign firms operating in the country, including Samsung “can put their trust in Vietnam’s efforts in tackling the pandemic,” Chinh said.

The health ministry on Friday called on recovered COVID-19 patients to help the city battle the epidemic.

In capital Hanoi, where dozens of new cases per day have been recorded in recent weeks, authorities will extend strict lockdown in most parts of the city beyond Sept. 6 and will conduct 1 million tests from now through the end of Sunday.

(Editing by Martin Petty and Peter Graff, Editing by Louise Heavens)

NY, NJ governors say aid is coming as Ida death toll rises to 46

By Maria Caspani and Julia Harte

(Reuters) – The governors of New York and New Jersey said on Friday they expected to receive significant funding and assistance from the federal government after flash flooding from Hurricane Ida left a trail of destruction, killing at least 46 in the Northeast.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced $10 million in state grants to help small businesses that suffered damage and flagged expected federal aid after U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state.

“This was a deadly and dangerous storm and we continue to face its after-effects,” Murphy told a news conference in Millburn, a suburban town west of Newark that was hit hard by flooding. “Help is coming.”

Murphy said there had been 25 fatalities in the state, up 2 from Thursday, and that at least 6 people remain missing. A total of 16 people have been confirmed dead in New York state.

Officials have also confirmed four deaths in Pennsylvania and the death of a state trooper in Connecticut.

In a separate briefing, New York Governor Kathy Hochul also said federal assistance was on the way after Biden approved her request to declare a federal emergency.

Like several other leaders in New Jersey and New York, Hochul stressed the need for better preparation for extreme weather events, which are increasing in frequency due to climate change.

Hochul said she would convene a task force that will submit an after-action report discussing shortcomings in New York’s response to Ida and suggest improvements.

“Some people have called this a 500-year event. I don’t buy it,” she said. “No longer will we say, that won’t happen again in our lifetime. This could literally happen next week.”

Biden was scheduled to travel to Louisiana on Friday to meet with Governor John Bel Edwards and survey damage wrought by Ida, which left residents there scrambling for water, food and basic services, with more than 800,000 households still without power.

The hurricane, which made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, may ultimately claim more lives in the Northeast, where flash flooding caught residents off guard, causing some to perish in their basements and others to drown in their cars.

(reporting by Maria Caspani in New York, Julia Harte in Washington and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut)

New kidney problems linked to ‘long COVID;’ loss of smell may be followed by other smell distortions

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

‘Long COVID’ tied to higher kidney risks

COVID-19 symptoms that persist long after infection, known as “long COVID,” has been tied to a higher risk for new kidney problems, according to a new study. Analyzing data on more than 1.7 million U.S. veterans, including nearly 90,000 COVID-19 survivors with symptoms lasting at least 30 days, researchers found the “long haulers” were at higher risk for new kidney problems compared to people who had not been infected with the coronavirus. This was true even when survivors had not been hospitalized, although declines in kidney function were “more profound” with more severe infection, they reported on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Roughly 5% of the Long COVID group developed at least a 30% drop in a critical measure of kidney function known as the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Overall, people with long COVID were 25% more likely than uninfected people to develop a 30% decline in eGFR, with higher risks in survivors of more severe disease. While kidney function often declines with age, the damage in these patients “was in excess” of what happens with normal aging, study coauthor Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, of Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement. “Our findings emphasize the critical importance of paying attention to kidney function and disease in caring for patients who have had COVID-19,” he said.

Loss of smell may be followed by smell distortions

Many people who lose their sense of smell due to COVID-19 eventually regain it, but some survivors later report smell distortions and unexplained smells, a new study found. Researchers analyzed survey responses from 1,468 individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 between April and September 2020 and had suffered loss of smell and taste at the start of their illness. Early on, about 10% also reported smell distortions, or parosmia, and unexplained smells, known as phantosmia. At an average of six to seven months after becoming ill and first reporting loss of smell, roughly 60% of women and 48% of men had regained less than 80% of their pre-illness smell ability, and rates of smell distortions and imaginary smells had increased, the researchers reported on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Roughly 47% reported parosmia, saying, for example, “some things now smell like chemicals.” About 25% reported phantosmia. “Sometimes I can smell burning but no one else around me can,” one respondent reported. Persistent smell problems were seen more often in survivors with more symptoms overall, “suggesting it may be a key marker of long-COVID,” the authors said.

Vaccines induce antibodies despite cancer, immunocompromise

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines trigger protective immune responses in most cancer patients with solid tumors and in many people taking immunosuppressive medications, two small studies suggest. In Israel, researchers found that six months after the second dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, 79% of 154 patients with solid tumors had developed antibodies, as had 84% of 135 similar people without cancer, a difference that was not deemed statistically significant. Antibody levels were similar in the two groups, the researchers reported on Thursday in Cancer Discovery. Separately, U.S. researchers studied 133 adults taking immunosuppressive medications for chronic inflammatory diseases and 53 healthy volunteers. At three weeks after the second shot of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna Inc, nearly 90% of the immunosuppressed participants had developed antibodies, although many had lower responses compared to the control group, according to a report published on Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Antibody therapy cuts hospitalization rates

People with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were treated with a monoclonal antibody “cocktail” had lower hospitalization rates than similar people who did not receive the treatment, researchers reported on Monday in EClinicalMedicine. They looked at nearly 1,400 such patients, roughly half of whom had received Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc’s combination monoclonal antibody therapy. Among those who received the treatment, about 45% were older than 65, and many had high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, lung disease and other risk factors. By four weeks after the treatment, 1.6% of them had been hospitalized, compared to 4.8% of patients not treated with the monoclonal antibodies. The study was not randomized and cannot prove the treatment caused the better outcomes. However, it “suggests that when patients who are at high risk due to a range of comorbidities contract a mild or moderate case of COVID-19, this combination of monoclonal injections gives them a chance of a non-hospitalized recovery,” study leader Dr. Raymund Razonable of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in a statement.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Taliban co-founder Baradar to lead new Afghanistan govt – sources

(Reuters) – Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will lead a new Afghan government set to be announced soon, sources in the group said on Friday, as its fighters battled forces loyal to the vanquished republic in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

But the new government’s most immediate priority may be to avert the collapse of an economy grappling with drought and the ravages of a 20-year conflict that killed around 240,000 Afghans before U.S. forces completed a tumultuous pullout on Aug. 30.

At stake is whether the Taliban can govern a country facing economic meltdown, a humanitarian disaster and threats to security and stability from rival jihadist groups, including a local offshoot of Islamic State.

Baradar, who heads the Taliban’s political office, will be joined by Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of late Taliban co-founder Mullah Omar, and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, in senior positions in the government, three sources said.

“All the top leaders have arrived in Kabul, where preparations are in final stages to announce the new government,” a Taliban official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme religious leader, will focus on religious matters and governance within the framework of Islam, another Taliban source said.

The Taliban, which seized Kabul on Aug. 15 after sweeping across most of the country, have faced resistance in the Panjshir Valley, where there have been reports of heavy fighting and casualties.

Several thousand fighters of regional militias and remnants of the government’s armed forces have massed in the rugged valley under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud, the son of former Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Efforts to negotiate a settlement appear to have broken down, with each side blaming the other for the failure.

While the Taliban have spoken of their desire to form a consensus government, a source close to the Islamist militant movement said the interim government now being formed would consist solely of Taliban members.

It would comprise 25 ministries, with a consultative council, or shura, of 12 Muslim scholars, the source added.

Also being planned within six to eight months is a loya jirga, or grand assembly, bringing together elders and representatives across Afghan society to discuss a constitution and the structure of the future government, the source said.

All the sources expected the interim government’s cabinet to be finalized soon but differed over exactly when.

WOMEN STAGE RARE PROTEST IN KABUL

Western powers say they are prepared to engage with the Taliban and send humanitarian aid, but that formal recognition of the government and broader economic assistance will depend on action – not just promises – to safeguard human rights.

When previously in power from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban imposed violent punishments and barred women and girls from school and work.

This time around, the movement has tried to present a more conciliatory face to the world, promising to protect human rights and refrain from vendettas, although it has yet to explain what social rules it will enforce.

The United States, European Union and others have cast doubt on the movement’s assurances. Many Afghans, especially women and those with connections to the former government or Western coalition forces, now fear for their security and even lives.

On Friday, dozens of Afghan women protested near the presidential palace in Kabul, calling on the Taliban to respect the rights of women and their significant gains in education and the workforce over the past two decades.

“Our demonstrations are (being held) because without the presence of women, no society will prosper. The elimination of women means the elimination of human beings. If women are not present in a country, in a society, in a ministry or cabinet, that country or cabinet will not be successful,” said Fatema Etemadi, one of the protesters.

Footage of the rally obtained by Reuters showed most of the women dispersing after an armed Taliban militant intervened.

Among the Afghan women terrified of the new rulers are Afghanistan’s 250 female judges, with men they once jailed now freed by the Taliban to hunt them down.

“Four or five Taliban members came and asked people in my house: ‘Where is this woman judge?’ These were people who I had put in jail,” an Afghan woman judge who escaped to Europe told Reuters in an interview from an undisclosed location, asking not to be identified.

Meanwhile, members of Afghanistan’s renowned all-female orchestra have fled abroad or into hiding, smashing instruments and burning documents to avoid retribution by the Taliban, which banned most music during its earlier rule.

HUMANITARIAN CALAMITY

The government’s legitimacy in the eyes of international donors and investors will be crucial. Humanitarian groups have warned of impending catastrophe and the economy, reliant for years on billions of dollars of foreign aid, is near collapse.

The European Union is ready to engage with the Taliban but the Islamist group must respect human rights, including those of women, and not let Afghanistan again become a base for terrorism, the EU foreign policy chief said on Friday.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has no plans to release billions in Afghan gold, investments and foreign currency reserves parked in the United States that it froze after the Taliban’s takeover.

In a development that will help some Afghans access money, a senior executive of Western Union Co said the remittance firm was resuming money-transfer services to Afghanistan in line with a U.S. push to keep up humanitarian work.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Mark Heinrich; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Peter Graff)

U.S. job growth takes giant step back as Delta variant hits restaurants

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August as hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector stalled amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, which weighed on demand at restaurants and hotels.

But other details of the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday were fairly strong, with the unemployment rate falling to a 17-month low of 5.2% and July job growth revised sharply higher. Wages increased a solid 0.6% and fewer people were experiencing long spells of unemployment.

This points to underlying strength in the economy even as growth appears to be slowing significantly in the third quarter because of the soaring infections, driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, and relentless shortages of raw materials, which are depressing automobile sales and restocking.

“It is important to keep the right perspective,” said Brian Bethune, professor of practice at Boston College. “Given the supply chain constraints and the ongoing battle to lasso COVID-19 to the ground, the economy is performing exceptionally well.”

The survey of establishments showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 235,000 jobs last month, the smallest gain since January. Data for July was revised up to show a whopping 1.053 million jobs created instead of the previously reported 943,000.

Hiring in June was also stronger than initially estimated, leaving average monthly job growth over the past three months at a strong 750,000. Employment is 5.3 million jobs below its peak in February 2020. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast nonfarm payrolls increasing by 728,000 jobs in August.

Though the Delta variant was the biggest drag, fading fiscal stimulus was probably another factor. The response rate to the survey is lower in August and the pandemic has made it harder to adjust education employment for seasonal fluctuations.

The initial August payrolls print has undershot expectations over the last several years, including in 2020. Payrolls have been subsequently revised higher in 11 of the last 12 years.

“The August payroll figures have historically been revised higher in the years since the Great Recession, sometimes significantly, and there’s a good chance this effect will occur again this time,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide in Ohio.

Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector was unchanged after gains averaging 377,000 per month over the prior three months. Restaurants and bars payrolls fell 42,000 and hiring at hotels and motels decreased 34,600, offsetting a 36,000 gain in arts, entertainment and recreation jobs. Retailers shed 29,000 jobs.

Construction lost 3,000 jobs. There were gains in mining, financial services, information and professional and business services as well as transportation and warehousing.

Manufacturing added 37,000 jobs, led by a 24,100 increase in the automobile industry. Factory hiring remains constrained by input shortages, especially semiconductors, which have depressed motor vehicle production and sales.

General Motors and Ford Motor Co announced production cuts this week.

Motor vehicle sales tumbled 10.7% in August.

That, together with raw materials shortages, which are making it harder for businesses to replenish inventories, prompted economists at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to slash third-quarter GDP growth estimates to as low as a 3.5% annualized rate from as high as a 8.25% pace. The economy grew at a 6.6% pace in the second quarter.

Government payrolls fell by 8,000 in August as state government education lost 21,000 jobs. August is the start of the back-to-school season, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the employment report cautioned that “pandemic-related staffing fluctuations in public and private education have distorted the normal seasonal hiring and layoff patterns.”

Stocks on Wall Street were mixed. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell.

SILVER LININGS

Details of the smaller household survey from which the unemployment rate is derived were fairly upbeat.

Household employment increased by 509,000 jobs, enough to push the unemployment rate to 5.2%, the lowest since March 2020 from 5.4% in July. The jobless rates, however, continued to be understated by people misclassifying themselves as being “employed but absent from work.” Without this problem, the jobless rate would have been 5.5%.

Even so, a broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, dropped to a 17-month low of 8.8% from 9.2% in July.

Though the participation rate was steady at 61.7%, about 190,000 people entered the labor force last month. Even more encouraging, the number of permanent job losers declined 443,000 to 2.5 million. The number of long-term unemployed dropped to 3.2 million from 3.4 million in the prior month.

They accounted for 37.4% of the 8.4 million officially unemployed people, down from 39.3% in July. The duration of unemployment fell to 14.7 weeks from 15.2 weeks in July.

Economists did not believe the pullback in hiring was enough for the Federal Reserve to back away from its “this year” signal for the announcement of the scaling back of its massive monthly bond buying program, given strong wage growth.

“For the Fed a taper announcement is still likely coming in either November or December,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York.

The 0.6% jump in average hourly earnings after a 0.4% rise in July boosted annual wage growth to 4.3% in August from 4.0% in the prior month. The increase, led by lower-paying industries, is the result of worker shortages caused by the pandemic. There were a record 10.1 million job openings at the end of June.

There is cautious optimism that the labor pool will increase because of schools reopening and government-funded benefits expiring on Monday. But the Delta variant could delay the return to the labor force by some of the unemployed in the near term.

About 41,000 women, 20 years and older, dropped out the labor force. The number of number of people saying they were unable to work because of the pandemic increased 497,000 in August, the first rise since December. There was also a slight rise in the number of people working from home.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

Analysis: U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward lurch put Roe v. Wade on the brink

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – During a 2016 presidential debate, then-candidate Donald Trump made a statement that seemed brash at the time: If he were elected and got the chance to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion would be overturned.

By this time next year, with the court having tilted further to the right thanks to Trump’s three appointments to the nation’s highest court, his prediction could come true.

The court’s decision on Wednesday night to allow Texas’ six-week abortion ban to go into effect in apparent contravention of the 1973 Roe decision suggests the court is closer than ever to overturning a ruling U.S. conservatives have long reviled.

“We don’t know how quickly or openly the court will reverse Roe, but this decision suggests that it’s only a matter of time,” said Mary Ziegler, an expert on abortion history at Florida State University College of Law.

Two generations of American women have grown up with access to abortion, although its use has declined over the past decade.

But while Roe handed liberals a victory on a crucial issue of the times, it also helped to power the religious right into a galvanizing force as it worked to get the decision overturned.

Since Congress never acted to formalize abortion rights – which shows what a hot button issue it is politically – the same court that once legalized abortion has the power to allow states to ban it.

In the coming months, the court will weigh whether to throw Roe out altogether as the justices consider whether to uphold a 15-week abortion ban in the state of Mississippi.

Unlike the Texas dispute, in which the justices did not directly address whether Roe should be reversed, they will in the Mississippi case.

A ruling is due by the end of June 2022, just months before an election that will determine whether the Democrats retain their narrow majority in both houses of Congress.

The last time the Supreme Court was this close to overturning Roe, in 1992, opponents were bitterly disappointed when the court’s moderates banded together and upheld abortion rights. Although the Supreme Court had a conservative majority, it was not deemed conservative enough.

MCCONNELL’S ROLE

The reason why the outcome could be different now is in part thanks to the decades-long efforts of conservative legal activists to re-shape the court, which bore fruit during Trump’s presidency. Trump was aided by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well as the death of liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which gave him a third vacancy to fill just before he lost the November 2020 election.

All three Trump nominees were pre-vetted by conservative lawyers associated with the Federalist Society legal group. All three — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were in the majority as the court allowed the Texas abortion law to go into effect.

The court now has a rock-solid 6-3 conservative majority, which means that even if one peels away – as Chief Justice John Roberts did on Wednesday and in another abortion case in 2020 – the conservative bloc still retains the upper hand.

Conservative Republican McConnell played a key role in the Senate, which has the job of confirming nominees to the bench.

Democrats’ hopes were raised early in 2016, when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, that what had been a 5-4 conservative majority on the high court could switch to a 5-4 liberal majority for the first time in decades. McConnell crushed those dreams, refusing to move forward with then-Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

As a result, when Trump came into office in early 2017 he was able to immediately nominate Gorsuch, who was duly confirmed by McConnell’s Republican-led Senate.

Trump and McConnell then pushed through the nomination of Kavanaugh to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018 despite allegations of sexual misconduct against the nominee, which he denied. Kennedy was a conservative but had voted to uphold abortion rights in key cases, including in 1992.

Finally, in September 2020, Ginsburg died. In an unprecedented move, Trump and McConnell installed Barrett just days before Election Day on Nov. 7, leading to widespread accusations of hypocrisy but cementing the conservative majority.

Despite the favorable winds, some anti-abortion advocates are playing down the importance of the Supreme Court’s Texas ruling, and say the fate of Roe v Wade is still up in the air.

“I’ve long thought the court should overturn Roe because it is not based on what the Constitution actually says,” said John Bursch, a lawyer at conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, before adding: “This order doesn’t give a signal either way about what the majority will do in the Mississippi case.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Scott Malone and Sonya Hepinstall)

EU says Taliban must respect rights, guarantee security as conditions for help

By Sabine Siebold

BRDO, Slovenia (Reuters) -The European Union is ready to engage with the new Taliban government in Kabul but the Islamist group must respect human rights, including those of women, and not let Afghanistan become a base for terrorism, the EU foreign policy chief said on Friday.

“In order to support the Afghan population, we will have to engage with the new government in Afghanistan,” Josep Borrell said during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Slovenia.

He described an “operational engagement,” which would not by itself constitute the formal recognition of the Taliban government, and would “increase depending on the behavior of this government”.

Borrell said the new government must prevent the country from again becoming a breeding ground for militants as it was during the Taliban’s previous time in power. It must respect human rights, the rule of law and freedom of the media, and should negotiate with other political forces on a transitional government.

The Taliban have yet to name a government more than two weeks since they swept back into power. Their 1996-2001 rule was marked by violent punishments and a ban on schooling or work for women and girls, and many Afghans and foreign governments fear a return to such practices. The militants say they have changed but have yet to spell out the rules they will enforce.

Borrell said the new government in Kabul must also grant free access to humanitarian aid, respecting EU procedures and conditions for delivery.

“We will increase humanitarian aid, but we will judge them according to the access they provide,” Borrell said.

Aid agencies have said Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian catastrophe amid an economic crisis brought on by the conflict, a drought and the COVID-19 pandemic. About 18 million Afghans – roughly half the population – are already in need of humanitarian help, according to EU experts.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said it depended on the Taliban how swiftly frozen development aid – which is different from the unconditional humanitarian aid – can flow again.

“We have heard many moderate remarks in the past days, but we will measure the Taliban by their actions, not by their words,” Maas told reporters in Slovenia.

“We want to help avert a looming humanitarian crisis in the coming winter, which is why we have to act fast.”

According to Borrell, the EU aims to coordinate its contacts with the Taliban through a joint EU presence in Kabul, should security conditions make it safe to do so.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Peter Graff)

Biden to visit Louisiana to see Hurricane Ida damage, New Jersey death toll rises

By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar

WASHINGTON/NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Louisiana on Friday to get a first-hand look at the destruction wrought by Hurricane Ida, the monster storm that devastated the southern portion of the state and left 1 million people without power.

Biden is to meet Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and local officials about the hurricane, which is providing the president with a tough test just after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Hurricane Ida struck the Gulf coast last weekend and carved a northern path through the eastern United States, culminating in torrential rains and widespread flooding in New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas on Wednesday.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Friday said the state had confirmed an additional two deaths overnight, bringing its total to 25. He said at least six people were still missing, meaning the death toll would likely climb higher.

“We’re still not out of the woods,” he told NBC News’ “Today” program, adding that his biggest concern following the wreckage was grappling with remaining high waters and damage. “We’re going to clean up … but it may be a long road.”

The fifth most powerful hurricane to strike the United States came ashore in southern Louisiana on Sunday, knocking out power for more than a million customers and water for another 600,000 people, creating miserable conditions for the afflicted, who were also enduring suffocating heat and humidity.

At least nine deaths were reported in Louisiana, with at least another 46 killed in the Northeast.

“My message to everyone affected is: ‘We’re all in this together. The nation is here to help,'” Biden said on Thursday.

Biden will tour a neighborhood in LaPlace, a small community about 35 miles west of New Orleans that was devastated by flooding, downed trees and other storm damage, and deliver remarks about his administration’s response.

He will take an aerial tour of hard hit communities, including Laffite, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, before meeting with local leaders in Galliano, Louisiana, the White House said.

Officials who have flown over the storm damage reported astounding scenes of small towns turned into piles of matchsticks and massive vessels hurled about by the wind.

Edwards said he would present Biden with a long list of needs including fuel shipments as most of the area’s refining capacity was knocked offline and mile-long lines have formed at gas stations and emergency supply distribution centers.

At Biden’s direction, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday authorized an exchange of 1.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to Exxon Mobil to relieve fuel disruptions in the wake of the hurricane.

Several refineries remained cut off from crude and products supplies from the south via ship and barge after portions of the Mississippi River were closed by several sunken vessels.

“This is the first such exchange from the SPR in four years and demonstrates that the president will use every authority available to him to support effective response and recovery activities in the region,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late on Thursday.

Biden has also urged private insurance companies to pay homeowners who left in advance of the storm but not necessarily under a mandatory evacuation order.

“Don’t hide behind the fine print and technicality. Do your job. Keep your commitments to your communities that you insure. Do the right thing and pay your policy holders what you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need,” he said.

While Louisiana tried to recover from the storm, the New York area was still dealing with crippling floods from Ida.

People across large swaths of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut spent Thursday coping with water-logged basements, power outages, damaged roofs and calls for help from friends and relatives stranded by flooding.

At least 16 have died in the state of New York, officials said, including 13 in New York City where deaths of people trapped in flooded basements highlighted the risk of increasingly extreme weather events.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told MSNBC on Friday that there would be a need to implement travel bans and evacuations more frequently ahead of storms. He said he was putting together a new task force to tackle the issue.

“We’ve got to change the whole way of thinking” in how to prepare for storms, de Blasio said. “We’re going to need them to do things differently.”

Biden approved an emergency declaration in New Jersey and New York and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts, the White House said late on Thursday.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey, editing by Ross Colvin, Michael Perry and Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. to invest $3 billion in COVID-19 vaccine supply chain – White House official

By Carl O’Donnell and Lisa Lambert

(Reuters) -The U.S. plans to invest $3 billion in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position itself as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, a top U.S. health official said on Thursday.

The funding, which will begin to be distributed in the coming weeks, will focus on manufacturers of the inputs used in COVID-19 vaccine production as well as facilities that fill and package vaccine vials, White House COVID adviser Jeffrey Zients said during a news conference.

“The investments we are making, the $3 billion, are in U.S. companies that will expand their capacity for critical supplies,” Zients said.

He added that areas of focus will include lipids, bioreactor bags, tubing, needles, syringes, and personal protective equipment. The White House has not yet selected specific companies to receive the funds.

U.S. demand for COVID-19 vaccines remains high as the White House prepares to begin offering a third booster shot to Americans later this month, pending a regulator greenlight. The United States also plans to give hundreds of millions of shots to other countries during the remainder of the year.

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci added that he would not be surprised if a third dose became standard for COVID-19 vaccines that originally were expected to require two shots.

U.S. cases of COVID-19 have surged to a seven-day average of more than 150,000 per day, up from less than 10,000 in June, according to federal data, as the contagious new Delta variant continues to circulate.

The daily average of COVID-19 deaths has risen this week to more than 950 from around 900 last week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said.

Fauci downplayed concerns about a new COVID-19 variant known as Mu, or B.1.621, that some scientists are concerned could be resistant to vaccines.

“Even when you have variants that do diminish somewhat the efficacy of vaccines, the vaccines still are quite effective against variants of that type,” Fauci said.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York and Ahmed Aboulenein and Lisa Lambert in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Leslie Adler and Mark Porter)