President Joe Biden speaks at the White House Conservation in Action Summit at the Department of the Interior, Tuesday, March 21, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden is calling for more transparency in the effort to find the origins of COVID-19.
Earlier this month the House of Representatives approved the COVID-19 Origins Act in a 419-0 vote. It was signed by Biden on Monday.
"I shared the Congress' goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019," he put out in a statement. "My administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID-19's origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
Last month, a report from the Energy Department on the origins of the virus added to the split on findings between multiple agencies. It posited, with low confidence, that the outbreak likely originated from a lab in China. The Wall Street Journal was first to report.
China disagreed with the report, and the country's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, "Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China, and stop politicizing origins-tracing."
The UN, which had been coordinating a global health response to the pandemic and implementing policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and future viruses, said that its own investigation was ongoing.
And in the U.S. the FBI had for some time speculated that the outbreak started in a Wuhan lab, while the CIA had not reached a conclusion on the matter.
"We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19's origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics," Biden added in his statement.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
