U.S. President Joe Biden encouraged Democratic lawmakers to “act fast” on his $1.9-trillion COVID-19 rescue plan but also signalled he’s open to changes, including limiting the proposed $1,400 direct payments to Americans with lower income levels, which could draw Republican support.
Biden told lawmakers in private comments Wednesday that he’s “not married” to an absolute number for the overall package but wants them to “go big” on pandemic relief and “restore the soul of the country.”
“Look, we got a lot of people hurting in our country today,” Biden said on a private call with House Democrats. “We need to act. We need to act fast.”
On the direct payments, Biden said he doesn’t want to budge from the $1,400 promised to Americans. But he said he is willing to “target” the aid, which would mean lowering the income threshold to qualify.
“I’m not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to the American people,” he said.
Biden spoke with House Democrats and followed with a meeting of top Senate Democrats at the White House, deepening his public engagement with lawmakers on his American Rescue Plan. Together the virus and economic aid is his first legislative priority and a test of the administration’s ability to work with Congress to deliver.
Biden’s remarks to the Democratic House caucus were relayed by two people who requested anonymity to discuss the private conference call.
While Biden is trying to build bipartisan support from Republicans, he is also prepared to rely on the Democratic majority in Congress to push the package into law. Democrats moved ahead with preliminary steps, including a House budget vote Wednesday largely along party lines, to approve it on their own over Republicans objections.
A group of 10 Republican senators offered a $618-billion alternative with slimmer $1,000 direct payments and zero aid for states and cities, but Biden panned it as insufficient, though private talks with the Republicans continue.
At the start of his meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 10 top Senate Democratic committee chairmen in the Oval Office, Biden sounded confident he could still win over Republican support.
“I think we’ll get some Republicans,” Biden said.
With a rising virus death toll and strained economy, the goal is to have COVID-19 relief approved by March, when extra unemployment assistance and other pandemic aid measures expire. Money for vaccine distributions, direct payments to households, school reopenings and business aid are at stake.
As lawmakers in Congress begin drafting the details, Biden is taking care to politically back up his allies while also ensuring that the final product fulfils his promise for bold relief to a battered nation.
Lucy Y. Powderly, right, receives a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from Sgt. Julia Benson of the Illinois Army National Guard at a vaccination centre established at the Triton College in River Grove, Ill., on Wednesday. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images)
House Democrats were told on the call with the president that they could be flexible on some numbers and programs, but should not back down on the size or scope of the aid.
“We have to go big, not small,” Biden told the Democrats. “I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine.”
As the White House reaches for a bipartisan bill, House and Senate Democrats have launched a lengthy budget process for approving Biden’s bill with or without Republican support.
“We want to do it bipartisan, but we must be strong,” Schumer said after the 90-minute session at the White House. Democrats are “working with our Republican friends, when we can.”
The swift action follows Tuesday’s outreach as Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined the Democratic senators for a private virtual meeting, both declaring the Republicans’ $618-billion offer was too small. Both Biden and Yellen recalled the lessons of the government response to the 2009 financial crisis, which some have since said was inadequate as conditions worsened.
Earlier in the week, Biden met with 10 Republican senators who were pitching their $618-billion alternative, and told them he won’t delay aid in hopes of winning GOP support even as talks continue.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell criticized the Democrats for pressing ahead largely on their own as the GOP senators try to provide bipartisan alternatives.
“They’ve chosen a totally partisan path,” McConnell said. “That’s unfortunate.”
The two sides are far apart. The cornerstone of the GOP plan is $160 billion for the health-care response — vaccine distribution, a “massive expansion” of testing, protective gear and money for rural hospitals, similar to what Biden has proposed for aid specific to the pandemic.
But from there, the two plans drastically diverge. Biden proposes $170 billion for schools, compared with $20 billion in the Republican plan. Republicans also would give nothing to states, money that Democrats argue is just as important, with $350 billion in Biden’s plan to keep police, fire and other workers on the job.
-From The Associated Press, last updated at 7 a.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
As of 2:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, Canada had reported 792,438 cases of COVID-19 — with 47,690 considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 20,487.
Health officials in British Columbia on Thursday announced new safety measures for schools. Wearing masks is now mandatory for both staff and students inside high schools and middle schools. Wearing masks indoors is still optional for the province’s elementary students.
WATCH | Manitoba may take steps to reopen:
Manitoba is proposing to loosen restrictions on many businesses and services as case numbers fall, but the province is looking for public input before it decides on changes that could come into effect as early as next week. 3:06
Manitoba is considering loosening pandemic restrictions as of Feb. 13 as its COVID-19 case count continues heading in the right direction. The province is asking for public feedback on whether to allow restaurants, tattoo parlours, gyms, nail salons and libraries to reopen with limited capacity, among other considerations. Manitoba reported 110 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths Thursday. The province’s five-day test positivity rate is at 6.7 per cent, the lowest it’s been since Oct. 23.
Ontario reported 1,563 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and 88 additional deaths. Hospitalizations stood at 1,101, with 323 COVID-19 patients in the province’s intensive care units.
Students in Ontario regions hit hard by COVID-19 will begin returning to physical classrooms next week as the province said new infections were gradually declining and additional measures had been put in place to ensure schools would be safe.
In Quebec, health officials on Thursday reported 1,093 new cases of COVID-19 and 42 additional deaths. Hospitalizations decreased again to 1,070, with 175 COVID-19 patients reported to be in the province’s intensive care units.
WATCH | COVID-19: Addressing vaccine skepticism:
An infectious disease physician and the chair of the City of Toronto’s Black Community COVID-19 Response Plan discuss tackling COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Black community and other diverse groups. 4:52
Further east, Nova Scotiaand Newfoundland, and P.E.I. each reported one new case of COVID-19 on Thursday. New Brunswick reported 16 new cases. The province’s chief medical health officer urged New Brunswickers to keep their Super Bowl Sunday celebrations low key.
“No one wants their Super Bowl party to turn into a super-spreader event,” Dr. Jennifer Russell said.
Here’s a look at what’s happening across the country:
-From The Canadian Press and CBC News, last updated at 2:20 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 104.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 58 million of those considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.2 million.
A top international Red Cross organization has announced a 100 million Swiss franc (almost $142 million Cdn) plan to help support the immunization of 500 million people worldwide against COVID-19 amid concerns about vast inequalities in the rollout of coronavirus vaccines between rich and poor countries.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, an umbrella organization of national groups, said the world’s 50 poorest countries have received only 0.1 per cent of the total vaccine doses that have been administered worldwide so far — with 70 per cent administered in the 50 richest countries.
“Without equal distribution, even those who are vaccinated will not be safe,” federation secretary-general Jagan Chapagain said in a statement.
Professor Yacouba Togola, right, who heads the pulmonology department and serves as the head of the COVID-19 unit at Point G Hospital, speaks with colleagues in Bamako, Mali. (Annie Risemberg/AFP/Getty Images)
In Africa, some 16 countries have shown interest in securing COVID-19 vaccines under an African Union (AU) initiative and the aim is to deliver allocations in the next three weeks, the head of a continental disease control body said on Thursday.
As wealthier nations push ahead with mass immunization, Africa is seeking to immunize 60 per cent of its 1.3 billion people in the next three years. Only a handful of African nations have begun giving doses.
The AU bloc initially secured 270 million doses from manufacturers for member states, then late last month said it would receive another 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
John Nkengasong, director of the AU’s Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the 16 countries had so far placed requests for the vaccines under the bloc’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), which started operation in mid-January.
French police officers in Nice enforce a nationwide pandemic curfew, from 6 p.m to 6 a.m. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)
“With respect to AVATT, 16 countries have now expressed their interest for a total 114 million doses of vaccines,” Nkengasong told a virtual news conference.
“Our hope is that in the next two to three weeks, they should be having their vaccines. But I cannot give you a specific date.”
Separately from the AU’s efforts, Africa is to receive about 600 million vaccine doses this year via the COVAX facility co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the Middle East, several nations were introducing new restrictions. In Saudi Arabia, where authorities already have banned travel to the kingdom from 20 countries, including the U.S., officials also ordered all weddings and parties suspended. It closed down all shopping malls, gyms and other locations for 10 days, as well as indoor dining. Authorities warned the new measures could be extended.
The kingdom also ordered cemeteries to ensure graveside funerals have a distance of 100 metres between them.
In Kuwait, authorities have ordered a two-week ban on foreigners arriving to the country beginning Sunday. Separately, officials have ordered most businesses closed from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. beginning Sunday for the next month. It closed health clubs, spas and gyms, as well as banned celebrations for its upcoming Feb. 25 National Day.
“Non-compliance and recklessness could take the country back to square one in its fight against the pandemic,” Kuwaiti Health Minister Dr. Basel Al Sabah said, according to the state-run KUNA news agency.
Qatar similarly announced new restrictions Wednesday on daily life, though not as severe as other countries. In Doha, the state-run Qatar News Agency quoted COVID-19 task force chairman Dr. Abdullatif al-Khal as warning that “a remarkable increase with an accelerated pace in the number of infections and the reproductive factor of the virus were recorded, which may be an early indicator of a possible second wave.”
In the Asia-Pacific region, World Health Organization investigators looking for clues into the origin of the coronavirus in Wuhan said the Chinese side has provided a high level of co-operation but cautioned against expecting immediate results.
Along with the key Wuhan Institute of Virology, the WHO team that includes experts from 10 nations has visited hospitals, research institutes and a traditional market tied to the outbreak.
The team on Thursday spent two hours meeting with managers and residents at the Jiangxinyuan community administrative centre in Wuhan’s Hanyang District. Official statistics show there were at least 16 confirmed coronavirus cases in the community last year among nearly 10,000 people living there when the virus broke out.
Zoologist and team member Peter Daszak praised Wednesday’s meetings with staff at the Wuhan institute, including with its deputy director who worked with Daszak to track down the origins of SARS that originated in China and led to the 2003 outbreak.
Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals said the Serum Institute of India has delayed the first supplies of the vaccine for private sale, instead prioritizing government immunization campaigns.
Australia’s second-most populous city reintroduced coronavirus restrictions from Thursday after an Australian Open hotel quarantine worker tested positive for COVID-19, sending more than 500 tennis players and officials into isolation.
In Europe, the new head of Portugal’s COVID-19 vaccination task force is due to start work Thursday amid scandals over vaccine queue-jumping and frustration over a sluggish rollout similar to that seen in other European Union countries. Rear Adm. Henrique Gouveia e Melo is taking charge a day after his predecessor resigned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that she wakes up at night thinking about the life-and-death decisions she faces in trying to get to grips with the coronavirus pandemic.
Merkel, a scientist known for her no-nonsense approach, has come under pressure in the last few weeks over a slow vaccination rollout in Germany and the European Union compared with countries such as Britain, the United States and Israel.
“I do wake up sometimes at night and think about things. It’s a difficult time for me. I want to have thought things through a lot before I make decisions,” Merkel told RTL/n-tv. Germany has registered more than 2.2 million cases and nearly 60,000 deaths related to the virus.
Sweden said it will develop a digital vaccination certificate this summer to allow people who have been vaccinated to travel. Digitalization Minister Anders Ygeman said three authorities in Sweden had been asked to work on producing the certificate, and the plan is to co-ordinate it with the World Health Organization and the European Union.
On Wednesday, Denmark said it was joining forces with the country’s business community to develop a digital corona passport that would be ready for use later this year.
Have questions about this story? We’re answering as many as we can in the comments.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 3:15 p.m. ET
VANCOUVER – A disciplinary investigation has found a former Vancouver police sergeant shared “disrespectful” commentary on a fellow officer’s court testimony about being sexually assaulted by a colleague.
The decision against Narinder Dosanjh, obtained by The Canadian Press, includes the running commentary on the woman’s testimony — apparently written by someone inside the courtroom — that calls her a “bad drunk” and says there was “no way” her case would be proved.
Former New Westminster police chief Dave Jansen, the external officer who rendered the decision against Dosanjh, says his assessment accounts for a culture of treating officers who testify against each other as “rats.”
Former Vancouver constable Jagraj Roger Berar was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to a year in jail for assaulting the woman, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban on her name.
Jansen says in his ruling, dated Oct. 11, that the comments in a Vancouver police group chat appear “supportive” of Berar and reflect “all-too-common myths” about women who make sexual assault allegations.
While Jansen found Dosanjh committed discreditable conduct by sharing the chats, a complaint against a more-senior Vancouver officer who was inside the courtroom, and who the victim and other officers believed wrote the commentary, were not substantiated.
The ruling says Jansen, who retired as New Westminster’s chief constable, would accept submissions before deciding how Dosanjh should be punished.
The woman who was assaulted was the complainant in the disciplinary investigation, and said in an interview she felt “vindicated” by Jansen’s decision because it “truly paints what I’ve been through,” after reporting a fellow officer for sexual assault.
She said many other women in municipal policing fear speaking out about ill-treatment at work, and some have told her about being assaulted and harassed but feared ruining their careers if they complained.
“This decision is important for those women to see,” she said. “It shows the tides are changing. Like, this is the first win I’ve had.”
A spokesman for the Surrey Police Service, where Dosanjh now works, did not immediately answer a question about how he was penalized, and said Dosanjh declined an interview request with The Canadian Press.
In his decision, Jansen said there was an “unfortunate but often pervasive” culture of treating officers who complain as “‘rats’, who betrayed their colleagues.”
“In terms of the messages themselves, Sergeant Dosanjh alleges that they are not degrading, humiliating or derogatory and do not attack the personal character of the complainant. I disagree,” Jansen wrote.
The decision includes a screenshot of the commentary about the complainant, who said the order of the messages appeared to refer to her evidence while she was being cross-examined and suggested the comments were written by someone listening to her testimony.
The commentary on a Vancouver police chat group on the Signal messaging app said the victim “wore a wire twice,” and “admitted in cross to possibly drinking way more alcohol than she originally claimed.”
“Her memory is super hazy and there’s no way you can prove beyond reasonable doubt,” the person wrote.
“And she admitted that she is really bad drunk,” they added.
Another message said it was a “nail in the coffin” of the case that video showed the complainant “cuddling, holding hands” with Berar.
The victim, who became aware of the commentary when a friend in the department showed them to her, was distressed by the messages and disputed their accuracy, said Jansen.
“The comments also appear to reflect some of the all-too-common myths around women making allegations of sexual assault. Some of these myths include the belief that because a victim socialized with the perpetrator, or engaged in some consensual activity with him, therefore she must have consented to the assault,” he wrote.
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh shared the messages with a fellow officer after getting them from a “VPD chat group that he claims he knew little about, from a co-worker he claims not to be able to identify.”
The decision said other officers believed the commentary was written bya more-senior officer in the department who had been present at the trial, but Jansen said the discreditable conduct complaint against that person was unsubstantiated.
The decision said Dosanjh claimed he was the “fall guy” and “a pawn in a broader game.”
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh was a senior officer and supervisor who was aware of the “vulnerability of victims of sexual crimes and of the myths that surround sexual assault victims.”
It said Dosanjh’s “distribution of these messages that were disrespectful of an alleged victim of sexual violence who was also a co-worker, should they become public, would likely discredit the reputation of the police force.”
The Vancouver Police Department did not immediately provide comment on Jansen’s decision.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
FREDERICTON – The offspring of beetles imported from British Columbia are ready to take up the fight against an invasive insect that is killing hemlock trees in Nova Scotia.
Last fall and spring, about 5,000 Laricobius nigrinus beetles — affectionately called Lari by scientists — made an overnight journey from the West Coast.
Lucas Roscoe, research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, says in the fight against the woolly adelgid that is destroying swaths of hemlock trees in Nova Scotia, the first step was to make sure the Lari beetle can survive a Nova Scotia winter.
The one-to-two-millimetre black flying beetles were released across six sites in Nova Scotia that had the woolly adelgids.
In one of the sites, scientists placed cages of imported beetles and about 60 per cent of them were able to survive the winter in Nova Scotia, which Roscoe says is an encouraging rate.
He says the woolly adelgid was first seen in southwestern Nova Scotia in 2017 and the peppercorn-sized insect, aided by climate change, has since spread north.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
Dozens of researchers across Canada, including renowned environmentalist David Suzuki, have joined a growing chorus of voices urging the federal government to halt the importation of an endangered monkey species for medical research in Quebec.
A letter signed by 80 scientists, academics, doctors and students says testing on long-tailed macaques from Cambodia should be banned due to ethical concerns and potential public-health risks.
“A decade ago, chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, ceased to be used for experimentation because using such animal ‘models’ could no longer be justified from scientific, ethical, and/or financial perspectives,” says the letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his environment minister and the premier of Quebec.
The researchers say they are also concerned about “the serious risks of transmission of zoonotic pathogens” that could be associated with transporting macaques.
Their letter urges the federal government to end charter flights that have been bringing the macaques into Canada, and to adopt regulations banning the importation of all primates for biomedical testing.
It’s the latest group to add more pressure on Ottawa to suspend the monkey imports by Charles River Laboratories, a U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant that has a sprawling facility in Montreal.
The company announced in 2023 that it was halting macaque imports into the U.S., after it was subpoenaed in a case that involved the indictment of two senior Cambodian officials over what authorities described as “multiple felonies for their role in bringing wild long-tailed macaques into the United States.”
No charges have been brought against Charles River Laboratories, or any of its officials, and the company has said it will fully co-operate with the U.S. investigation.
At around the same time, imports of monkeys from Cambodia into Canada dramatically surged, with Statistics Canada data showing a 500 per cent increase in 2023 from the year before.
Environment and Climate Change Canada, the federal department responsible for monitoring commercial trade in wildlife, confirmed to the Canadian Press that Charles River Laboratories has imported 6,769 long-tailed macaques into the country between January 2023 and August of this year. The monetary value of these imported macaques is around $120 million dollars, according to Statistics Canada.
The department previously said that officials rigorously and closely inspect imports of foreign animals, including those brought in by Charles River Laboratories, and that all macaque imports so far this year have complied with federal and international wildlife regulations.
The government and the company have both said that no Canadian laws have been broken.
Last month, the Canadian Transportation Authority issued a permit for another shipment on a cargo plane chartered by Charles River Laboratories. A flight tracker shows that a plane with the same flight number as what is shown on the permit departed Phnom Penh, Cambodia last Thursday, and arrived in Montreal on Friday.
Jesse Greener, a professor of chemistry at Laval University who signed the researchers’ letter to the government, said medical technology has developed to a point that makes it unjustifiable for the pharmaceutical industry to continue using live primates for testing.
“The government should take a leadership role and help researchers and surely the private sector to pivot from using these unethical, and I would say old and outdated and unreliable animal models, and embrace these much more efficient and ethical approaches that are … exploding right now,” said Greener, who has done research on methods to replace animals in such experiments.
“It is grotesque,” he said of the animal use. “It is time that we change the page on this chapter of terrible research and commercial activities.”
Canada banned the use of animals for cosmetic testing last year, but it is still legal to use live primates for drug testing purposes.
The federal government said a draft strategy aimed at reducing and replacing the use of animals in drug testing was published in September and open to public consultations for 60 days.
The strategy, which will be revised based on input from researchers, experts and others, is expected to be published in June 2025, it said.
“The government of Canada is committed to advancing efforts to replace, reduce, or refine the use of vertebrate animals in toxicity testing where possible,” Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement Tuesday.
Charles River Laboratories previously told The Canadian Press that while it is also committed to reducing its use of live primates, global regulatory bodies require drugs to be tested on animals before they are evaluated in humans.
The company said the use of non-human primates has been vital in developing treatments for various diseases and that the standards it applies in its facilities are exceeding global norms.
Matthew Green, a New Democrat MP who had previously called on the federal government to halt the latest shipment of macaques, said he has “great concern” about importing this exotic animal.
“Generally in Canada, Canadians like to believe that our government has higher regulations and more stringent enforcement protocols when it comes to protecting endangered species, yet this is not the case in comparison to what the United States has done,” he said.
Green and two of his NDP colleagues wrote a letter to three federal ministers last month, demanding an “immediate attention” to the issue.
The Animal Alliance of Canada also sent a letter to the environment minister in August, urging the immediate suspension of monkey importation from Cambodia.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
