FILE - Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, speaks at the Reaching The Last Mile Forum on Nov. 19, 2019, at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.(Jonathan Gibbons/Reaching the Last Mile Forum via AP Images)
The head of the World Health Organization says he will begin an independent evaluation of the U.N. health agency’s response to the coronavirus pandemic “at the earliest appropriate moment.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the pledge Monday after an independent oversight advisory body published its first interim report about the U.N. health agency’s response to COVID-19 from January to April.
The 11-page report raised questions such as whether WHO’s warning system for alerting the world to outbreaks is adequate, and suggested member states might need to “reassess” WHO’s role in providing travel advice to countries.
The advisory body’s review and recommendations appeared unlikely to appease the United States administration, which has been scathing in its criticism of WHO — in part over President Donald Trump’s allegation that it had criticized a U.S. travel ban that he ordered on people arriving from China, where the outbreak first appeared late last year.
Trump ordered a temporary suspension of funding for WHO from the United States — the health agency’s biggest single donor — pending a review of its early response. But the review panel, echoing comments from many countries, said such a review during the “heat of the response” could hurt WHO’s ability to respond to it.
A Texas judge on Thursday granted a pregnant woman permission to obtain an abortion in an unprecedented challenge to the state’s ban that took effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.
House members voted again Thursday to punish one of their own, targeting Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman for triggering a fire alarm in one of the U.S. Capitol office buildings in September when the chamber was in session.
A Nevada grand jury indicted six Republicans who submitted certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 presidential race.
But even as he lashed Republicans for their stance, Biden stressed that he is willing to “make significant compromises on the border,” if that’s what it takes to get the package through Congress.
