Biden announces $7.4 billion to hire more public health workers amid pandemic
WASHINGTON – The White House announced Thursday that it is investing $7.4 billion to hire more public health workers to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and future health crises. The money will come from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which Congress passed in March.
The funds could give a much-needed boost to America’s crumbling public health infrastructure. After decades of chronic underfunding, U.S. public health departments last year showed how ill-equipped they are to carry out basic functions, let alone serve as the last line of defense against the most acute threat to the nation’s health in generations.
The Biden administration said $4.4 billion will go toward boosting states’ overstretched public health departments, allowing them to hire disease specialists to do contact tracing, case management, and support outbreak investigations and school nurses to help schools reopen. Some of the money will also go to expanding the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – which plays a critical role in containing outbreaks.
The remaining $3 billion will be used to create a new grant program to train and modernize the country’s public health workforce. Applicants for those grants will be asked to prioritize recruiting staff from the communities they will serve, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.
In the years before the pandemic struck, local public health agencies had lost almost a quarter of their overall workforce since 2008 – a reduction of almost 60,000 workers, according to national associations of health officials. The agencies’ main source of federal funding – the CDC’s emergency preparedness budget – had been cut 30 percent since 2003.
A new report published this month by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health found that the underfunding of U.S. public health played an outsized role in the country’s disastrous response.
In the wake of the pandemic, America has spent trillions of dollars. Much of that could have saved if the nation had just spent a few billion more on public health in the previous years, the report found.
“Unfortunately, a pattern has emerged: the country temporarily pays attention to public health investment when there is a crisis and then moves on when the emergency passes,” the report concluded. “This boom-bust cycle has left the nation’s public health infrastructure on weak footing.”
Among the report’s recommendations is that Congress establish an annual, regularly occurring $4.5 billion infusion to public health to prepare for future crises, including the next pandemic.
A majority of America supports such funding, according to a poll released Thursday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The poll found 71% of the public favors substantially increasing federal spending on improving the nation’s public health programs. In addition, 72% said they believe the activities of public health agencies in the United States are extremely or very important to the health of the United States.
The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 3.61 million across Southeast Asia, with 16,861 new cases reported on Thursday, slightly higher than Wednesday.
Laos confirmed 55 new cases, bringing the number of its patients to 1,417. The country’s National Centre for Laboratory and Epidemiology said the transmission has become common within families, particularly after people failed to comply with regulations such as self-isolating and reducing the chances of infecting family members.
Malaysia meanwhile recorded its highest daily death toll of 39 on Wednesday, surpassing the previous high of 26 recorded on Sunday and bringing the national death toll to 1,761 as new infections rose by 4,765 cases.
As that nation entered another national lockdown, the Health Ministry warned the number of new daily infections may exceed 5,000 by the middle of this month and urged the public to adhere to strict anti-Covid measures, especially during Hari Raya festivities.
Moreover, Malaysia has confirmed that 62 domestic Covid-19 cases are of the South African B.1.351 variant while two cases are related to the Indian B.1.617.
Gold slumps after U.S. inflation comes in higher than expected
Gold fell, pressured by gains in bond yields and the dollar after consumer price data showed the U.S. experienced higher-than-expected inflation in April.
CPI data showed prices grew 0.8% from a month earlier, four times the median analyst estimate and the highest since 2009, intensifying the already-heated debate about how long inflationary pressures will last. Treasury yields and the greenback gained on the news, while U.S. equities declined. Rising yields reduce non-interest-bearing bullion’s appeal, and a stronger dollar hurts the precious metal as it’s priced in the greenback.
Markets were already concerned about rising inflation amid surging commodity prices, which sparked a sell-off in global equities on Tuesday. Higher prices could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise rates earlier than expected, hurting certain stocks as well as gold.
“Gold is approximately 50% correlated with Treasuries, so it gets hit as interest rates rise. On top of that, the dollar is rallying on higher U.S. rates,” said Jay Hatfield, president of Infrastructure Capital Management. “The stock market dipping on the inflation data showed that investors fear that the Fed may need to tighten soon.”
Policymakers at the central bank have been unified in supporting the case for low interest rates. “The outlook is bright, but risks remain, and we are far from our goals,” Governor Lael Brainard told a virtual event Tuesday. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and James Bullard of St. Louis voiced similarly dovish views.
The CPI data comes amid concerns the economic recovery may not be proceeding as hoped. Gold rose to the highest in three months earlier this week after a report Friday showed a surprise slowdown in U.S. job growth, supporting the case for continued economic stimulus.
Spot gold retreated as much as 0.9% to $1,820.86 an ounce after the news, before trading at $1,823.49 at 11:44 a.m. in New York. Prices hit $1,845.51 on Monday, the highest since Feb. 11. Silver, platinum and palladium fell. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index strengthened 0.6% though remained near the lowest since early January.
Published : May 13, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Yvonne Yue Li
Oil extends gain with U.S. crude supply falling for second week
Oil advanced as a second straight weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories bolstered the outlook that the world has drained a record supply glut built up last year.
Futures in New York rose as much as 2.1% on Wednesday, while global benchmark Brent crude neared $70 a barrel. A U.S. government report showed domestic crude inventories fell to the lowest since late February last week. Meanwhile, gasoline supplies rose by 378,000 barrels, the Energy Information Administration report showed.
Declining crude stockpiles in the U.S. support the International Energy Agency’s view that the world has largely worked off the surplus it accumulated when the pandemic devastated demand. While the agency cut its oil consumption forecasts in a monthly report, it said the glut is now just a small fraction of levels seen at the depths of the coronavirus fallout last year.
“Inventories are still trending in the right direction,” said Quinn Kiley, a portfolio manager at Tortoise, a firm that manages roughly $8 billion in energy-related assets. “The economy globally is reopening and that should continue, so we should see continuing draws.”
The weekly storage report shows domestic supply levels ahead of the cyberattack that halted the largest U.S. oil-products pipeline system. Panic-buying spurred by the ongoing outage of the Colonial Pipeline has pushed retail gasoline prices above $3 a gallon for the first time in more than six years, before the upcoming summer travel season unleashes a wave of pent-up demand from over a year of mobility restrictions.
Still, the impact of the shutdown on headline crude prices is muted for now. The market remains buoyed by prospects for recovering energy demand around the world and broader bets on global inflation. U.S. consumer prices rose by 0.8% last month, exceeding forecasts, official figures showed Wednesday.
“The outlook for demand remains fragile,” Toril Bosoni, head of the IEA’s oil markets and industry division, said in a Bloomberg television interview. But the agency is “expecting a very strong recovery in demand growth in the second half of the year.”
West Texas Intermediate for June delivery was up $1.25 at $66.53 a barrel as of 11:05 a.m. in New York. Brent for July settlement climbed $1.31 to $69.86 a barrel. The U.S. average retail gasoline price was at $3.008 a gallon, according to auto club AAA.
The EIA report showed crude exports falling by the most on record to the lowest since 2018. While the figure jumped above 4 million barrels a day the previous week, it has struggled to consistently top 3 million barrels a day for several months.
The report also points to the state of gasoline inventories on the U.S. East Coast before Colonial was idled. Stockpiles of the fuel in the Central Atlantic fell 1.15 million barrels last week, though they remained near the region’s five-year average, providing some cushion to last through the pipeline outage. But in the Lower Atlantic, which is the most reliant on the pipeline, gasoline inventories were at their lowest since 2016 for this time of year, even with a 815,000-barrel build last week.
Even if Colonial does manage to restart on Wednesday, it’ll take days to fully restore shipments, according to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. As part of the administration’s effort to ease the growing burden on consumers, regulators have taken a first step toward waiving rules that bar foreign ships from hauling products from one U.S. port to another.
Published : May 13, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Andres Guerra Luz
U.S. stocks slumped for a third day and bond yields climbed after a report showed inflation rose more than forecast, adding to concern that price pressures will stifle a recovery in the worlds biggest economy.
The technology sector continues to lead the retreat in equities, with Apple and Microsoft pacing declines in the Nasdaq 100. Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF resumed its slide, bringing this year’s loss to about 18%. After closing at a record high on Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 slumped the most since Feb. 25. Energy was the only one of the 11 industry sectors in the green. Treasury yields moved briefly off the highs of the day after a successful 10-year note auction.
“The markets have been hovering around all-time highs with a lot of the reopening trade already priced in,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade Financial. “So it’s not out of the question that the outsized inflation read could bring us back down to earth a bit.”
The debate over whether inflation will be persistent enough to force the Federal Reserve to tighten policy sooner than current guidance suggests comes as abundant stimulus has powered a rally in global equities, raising concerns valuations had become expensive. Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said he was surprised by the rise in consumer prices and “we would not hesitate to act” to bring inflation down to its goals if needed.
The consumer price index increased 0.8% from the prior month after a 0.6% gain in March. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the so-called core CPI rose 0.9% from March.
“The CPI data point feeds into a myopic narrative that the U.S. is overheating and the Fed is one step away from tightening,” said Mike Bailey, director of research at FBB Capital Partners. “Bears will feast on this tightening theme in the short term, but my sense is inflation will prove fleeting and markets will revert back to a more bullish view of moderate growth and lower risk of Fed tightening until we get to a full recovery.”
Elsewhere, the claim among advocates that Bitcoin is an inflation hedge appears to be in question after the CPI report. The digital asset slumped as much as 5.8% to around $53,600.
European stocks closed mostly higher, lifted by optimism about economic re-openings and booming commodities.
Copper and iron ore were on course for records amid a broadening commodities boom. Oil was steady above $65 per barrel. The biggest U.S. pipeline is still closed in the wake of a cyberattack, leading to acute fuel shortages in some parts of the nation.
These are some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, more than any closing loss since Feb. 25 as of 4:04 p.m.EDT
The Nasdaq 100 fell 2.6%, falling for the third straight day, the longest losing streak since May 5
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 2%, more than any closing loss since Jan. 29
The MSCI World index fell 1.7%, more than any closing loss since Jan. 29
Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.7%, more than any closing gain since April 30
The euro slipped 0.6%, more than any closing loss since April 30
The British pound slipped 0.6%, more than any closing loss since April 30
The Japanese yen slipped 0.9%, more than any closing loss since March 4
Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasurys advanced seven basis points, more than any closing gain since March 12
Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points, climbing for the sixth straight day, the longest winning streak since Feb. 8
Britain’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points, more than any closing gain since March 12
Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.8%, climbing for the fourth straight day, the longest winning streak since April 15
Gold futures fell 0.9% to $1,820 an ounce
Published : May 13, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Kamaron Leach, Vildana Hajric
U.S. agrees to remove xiaomi from blacklist after lawsuit
Xiaomi Corp. and the U.S. government have reached an agreement to set aside a Trump administration blacklisting that could have restricted American investment in the Chinese smartphone maker.
The Chinese smartphone giant had sued the government earlier this year, after the U.S. Defense Department under former President Donald Trump issued an order designating the firm as a Communist Chinese Military Company, which would have led to a de-listing from U.S. exchanges and deletion from global benchmark indexes. The U.S. Defense Department has now agreed that a final order vacating the designation “would be appropriate,” according to a filing to the U.S. courts Tuesday.
Xiaomi declined to comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing in Beijing she wasn’t aware of any deal the firm may have reached with the U.S.
“The Parties have agreed upon a path forward that would resolve this litigation without the need for contested briefing,” according to the filing, which didn’t state whether the agreement included any conditions for removal. The parties involved are negotiating over specific terms and will file a separate joint proposal before May 20.
The U.S. government remains concerned about American investments in companies linked to the Chinese military, said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.
“The Biden Administration is deeply concerned about potential U.S. investments in companies linked to the Chinese military and fully committed to keeping up pressure on such companies,” she said in a statement.
Shares of Xiaomi rallied as much as 6.7% in Hong Kong trading Wednesday, while the spread on its 2030 dollar note narrowed 10 basis points to 177, the smallest since January.
Xiaomi, which makes robot vacuum cleaners, electric bikes and wearable devices alongside smartphones, had been an unexpected target for the Trump administration. Co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Lei Jun more than 10 years ago, with U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. as one of the earliest investors, the company has insisted it is not owned or controlled by the Chinese military.
A U.S. court in March sided with Xiaomi in the lawsuit and placed a temporary halt on the ban. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said at the time Xiaomi was likely to win a full reversal of the ban as the litigation unfolds and issued an initial injunction to prevent the company from suffering “irreparable harm.”
The agreement marks a rare victory for China’s technology giants caught in the crosshairs of the U.S. government, as the two nations clashed over issues ranging from trade to human rights and Hong Kong’s rule. Trump had signed an order in November barring American investment in Chinese firms owned or controlled by the military in a bid to pressure Beijing over what the U.S. has described as abusive business practices. The order against Xiaomi, alongside a handful of other Chinese firms, was issued in the waning days of his administration.
Trump had also gone after Chinese behemoths including ByteDance Ltd., owner of the hit video app TikTok, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., which owns the WeChat super app. Huawei Technologies Co. was the hardest hit, after it was barred from buying American-made components and shut out of infrastructure projects around the world.
There are signs the Biden administration intends to keep up the pressure on China, even as the U.S. backs away from the blacklisting of Xiaomi. It this week extended a 2019 executive order barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms like Huawei that it accuses of posing a national security risk. Meanwhile, Congress is moving with increasing urgency on bipartisan legislation to confront China and bolster U.S. competitiveness in technology and critical manufacturing.
U.S. track team cancels Olympics training in Japan on virus
The U.S. national track & field team has canceled its training planned outside Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics due to safety concerns for the athletes, in another blow to the sporting event which has come under strong opposition from the Japanese public.
The U.S. team notified the decision last month to authorities in Chiba prefecture, located next to Tokyo, saying the pandemic would put athletes’ safety at risk, according to Takuya Iida, an official in charge of the training camps in the prefecture. The team had planned to train in July and August. Some other national teams have also canceled training camps for similar reasons, he said.
Earlier this week, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach postponed his trip to Japan this month after the government decided to extend the state of emergency in Tokyo and other areas due to concerns over a rise in virus cases.
Despite the infections, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, the Tokyo organizers as well as the IOC have repeatedly said the games will proceed from July 23 as planned in a safe environment. However calls from the Japanese public to cancel the event have been increasing, with nearly 60% of those surveyed voicing opposition in holding the event this summer, according to a Yomiuri poll published Monday. As of Wednesday, more than 330,000 people signed an online petition calling for the games to be called off.
Published : May 13, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Ayai Tomisawa
Amazon wins fight to throw out $303 million EU tax bill
Amazon.com won its bid to topple a 250 million-euro ($303 million) tax bill in another blow to European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestagers crackdown on preferential fiscal deals.
Regulators failed to show that the U.S. online retailer was given special treatment by Luxembourg’s tax authority in violation of state-aid rules, the EU General Court ruled on Wednesday.
Amazon’s victory follows last year’s landmark court defeat for the EU commissioner against Apple, which contested a record 13 billion-euro tax order. The tech giants were both targeted as part of Vestager’s eight-year crusade against allegedly unfair treatment doled out by EU nations such as Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands to attract some of the world’s leading firms.
The European Commission “did not prove to the requisite legal standard that there was an undue reduction of the tax burden of a European subsidiary of the Amazon group,” the Luxembourg-based EU judges said.
It was not all bad news for Vestager, as judges rejected Engie’s appeal against an order to pay back about 120 million euros to Luxembourg. They also said that the commission “cannot be accused of having exceeded its powers,” by probing tax issues. Both of Wednesday’s decisions can be appealed.
Court challenges are piling up, as companies hit with tax-repayment orders from Vestager argue that deals to reduce their fiscal liabilities were legal before the EU labeled them as unfair subsidies. Since last year’s Apple case, EU enforcement against so-called tax rulings handed out by nations to selected businesses has slowed.
The Amazon “ruling is a blow” and “shows again that case-by-case investigations do not solve large-scale tax dodging,” said Chiara Putaturo, a tax expert with Oxfam EU. It “shows the urgent need for the EU to do more to end corporate tax avoidance and bolster government coffers to help fuel the recovery.”
How big companies reduce their tax bills has become a political focus with EU regulators planning a new tax on technology firms if global tax reforms can’t be agreed.
While the amount at stake in the Amazon case is relatively tiny following a record earnings quarter for the company, tax experts see the outcome of its appeal helping to shape ongoing cases. These include probes into Dutch tax treatment of Nike Inc. and Ikea units.
Amazon said the court’s decision “is in line with our long-standing position that we followed all applicable laws” and that the company “received no special treatment,” according to an emailed statement.
“We’re committed to Europe and follow the law in every jurisdiction in which we operate,” Amazon said. “We have invested 78 billion euros since 2010 and have 60 fulfilment centers, 100 corporate offices and development centers, and employ over 135,000 people in a wide variety of well-paid roles.”
The commission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Luxembourg’s finance ministry said the ruling in Amazon confirms that its tax treatment at the time wasn’t state aid. On Engie, Luxembourg “will examine the judgment with all due diligence and reserves all its rights,” the ministry said in a statement.
Amazon is one of several tech giants under fire for tax structures that may allow it to pay less than rivals. Its tax deal with Luxembourg, the base for the retailer’s European operations, allowed the company to cut its taxable profits “to a quarter of what they were in reality,” the commission decided in 2017.
The regulator found that Amazon’s tax rulings “significantly” reduced taxable profits and “did not reflect economic reality.” The structure was in place from May 2006 to June 2014, the EU said. The company then changed to a new structure.
In Engie’s case, the EU decided Luxembourg had selectively deviated from provisions of national law to help lower the tax bill for France’s former natural-gas monopoly.
Engie declined to immediately comment.
Amazon’s European retail business paid no corporate tax in Luxembourg last year, reporting a 1.2 billion euro loss which exempted it from corporate tax on revenue of 44 billion euros, the New York Times said this month.
Amazon said in a recent blog post that “what Amazon pays in corporate tax in an entity in Luxembourg with what Amazon pays Europe-wide” are often “wrongly conflated” in media reports.
“We pay corporate tax in countries across Europe amounting to hundreds of millions of euros, and we operate in full compliance with local tax laws everywhere,” it said.
Published : May 13, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Stephanie Bodoni
JERUSALEM – The worst violence in years continued to shake Israel and the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after a long night of Israeli airstrikes that were met by rocket fire from Palestinian militants.
The death toll now includes 48 Gaza residents, including 14 children, according to Palestinian health officials. On the Israeli side, emergency response officials say that at least six people, including one teenager, are dead.
Meanwhile, Palestinian citizens of Israel poured into the streets despite the warnings of air raid sirens, burning cars and fighting with police.
The escalation follows weeks of clashes and demonstrations amid rising tensions in Jerusalem. On Monday morning, hundreds of Palestinians were injured in a police raid on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam. By the evening, militants in the Gaza Strip had fired rockets toward Jerusalem for the first time in years, and Israel responded with airstrikes.
A confluence of factors – some decades old, others more immediate – has contributed to the surging volatility and violence.
Here’s what you need to know.
– What’s behind the unrest in Jerusalem in recent days?
Monday began with more than 300 Palestinians – who had come to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City during the holy month of Ramadan – injured in clashes with Israeli forces, who fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. Confrontations between Israeli police, Palestinian protesters and far-right Jewish Israelis continued throughout the day.
The city remained tense ahead of a contentious march by nationalist Jews, which was set to pass through Palestinian neighborhoods as part of a flag-waving Israeli holiday, Jerusalem Day. The route was to include Damascus Gate, one of the few centers of Palestinian life in the contested city. In recent weeks, Israeli forces and Palestinians have clashed over Israeli restrictions on nightly gatherings there after the Ramadan fast.
Soon before the march was due to proceed, Israeli authorities ordered it rerouted. Organizers called it off in protest but said participants should still gather at the Western Wall, the holiest site in the city for Jews, situated below al-Aqsa Mosque, which Jews call the Temple Mount compound.
That was around the same time that Hamas, an extremist group that controls the Gaza Strip, announced that it would fire rockets if Israeli settlers did not withdraw from al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem where Arab families are facing evictions after years of court battles waged by Israeli settlers. The area has seen nightly confrontations between Israeli far-right nationalists and Palestinians, who have faced a heavy-handed police response.
– How did this escalate into rocket attacks and airstrikes?
On Monday evening, Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem and southern Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes that continued into Tuesday, and were met with even more fire. The Israel Defense Forces said that one rocket was being fired toward Israel every three minutes, on average.
Additional skirmishes broke out in the West Bank on Tuesday, resulting in hundreds of arrests and at least one Palestinian fatality.
The Israeli army said that of the more than 1,050 rockets and mortar shells Hamas fired at Tel Aviv since Monday – including ones that hit a bus and injured a 5-year-old child – 850 landed in Israel or were intercepted by its Iron Dome antimissile defense system.
Some 200 failed to clear the border and landed back in Gaza, the Israeli army said. Israeli residents who live near the Gaza Strip were told to stay home on Wednesday due to fears that they could be hit by rockets or targeted by snipers. Schools and businesses were closed across the area.
Officials on both sides are bracing for the conflict to grow even more deadly. By Tuesday, the focus had shifted to whether Israel and Hamas might return to war for the first time since 2014.
Israeli airstrikes also continued in Gaza. Health officials said that the strikes were adding new strain to an overwhelmed health-care system that has been grappling with a surge in coronavirus infections.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival after four recent deadlocked elections that have left Israel in political turmoil. He is at the helm of a caretaker government as he fights corruption charges, while opposition parties struggle to form a viable alternative government.
The prime minister has aligned himself with far-right politicians. Among them are Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the extremist Jewish Power party, who has been part of the confrontations in Sheikh Jarrah and around the Temple Mount.
Netanyahu’s critics say tensions have in part been permitted to escalate because he was distracted by these other affairs.
For Palestinians, several recent developments have stoked fears and frustrations over the future of their demands for sovereignty and rights in Jerusalem and an end to the Israeli occupation.
In late April, President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, which has control over some parts of the West Bank, announced he was postponing what were supposed to be the first Palestinian elections in 15 years. In theory, the elections were to take place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But Abbas is at odds with Hamas, which rules in Gaza, and Israel has barred the Palestinian Authority from operating in East Jerusalem, where most Palestinians are not Israeli citizens. Abbas, who was lagging in polls, blamed the cancellation on Israel, saying it had not agreed to a mechanism for East Jerusalemites to vote.
Against that backdrop, Israeli restrictions around access to the Damascus Gate and al-Aqsa Mosque became flash points as many Palestinians gathered there to observe Ramadan.
– What else is at play here?
Conflicts around al-Aqsa Mosque have flared up before, igniting tensions around the Middle East. But in recent days, international attention has also increased around the decades-old legal battle in Sheikh Jarrah, where a group of Israelis is trying to evict and replace mostly refugee Palestinian families from homes. Many Palestinians say the case is emblematic of their displacement from Jerusalem. Palestinians citizens of Israel, as well as Palestinians in the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries, have been holding protests in solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah.
A final ruling by the Supreme Court was originally set for Monday – but it was postponed Sunday by Israel’s attorney general in an effort to de-escalate tensions.
In the meantime, Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel, has sought to fill the political void. The militant group is also facing its own pressures in the Gaza Strip, which is beset by multiple humanitarian crises 14 years into an Israeli- and Egyptian-led siege.
Regionally, relations between neighboring Jordan, which is a custodian of the al-Aqsa Mosque, and Israel are tense. That’s in part because Israel has been growing closer with Arab gulf countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, with which it signed a normalization agreement in September. These developments have also angered Palestinians, who say these deals come at the expense of their rights.
– What could happen next?
The Israeli military has deployed 5,000 reservists and ramped up its presence at the Gaza border, and Netanyahu warned Tuesday that Israel intends to “increase both the intensity of the attacks and the rate of attacks.” Hamas has pledged to retaliate, while Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has asked the United Nations Security Council to intervene.
In the past, Arab states including Egypt and Qatar have stepped in to mediate tentative cease-fires. An Egyptian official told the Associated Press on Tuesday that Cairo is working behind the scenes to negotiate a truce but that Israel’s actions in Jerusalem had complicated those efforts.
The United States, which has condemned the violence on both sides, is also working behind the scenes to de-escalate the conflict. The Biden administration is trying to work with Egypt to negotiate a cease-fire and plans to send an envoy to Israel on Wednesday, Axios reports.
Published : May 13, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Miriam Berger, Antonia Noori Farzan
Police shootings of children spark new outcry, calls for training to deal with adolescents in crisis
Stavian Rodriguez squeezed his 15-year-old body through the drive-through window of the Okie Gas Express convenience store, poking his hands out first so police could see that they were empty. He jumped to the ground, holding his hands in the air, then lifted his shirt to reveal a gun tucked into his front waistband. Using the tips of his thumb and index finger, Rodriguez gently pinched the end of the barrel far from the trigger and dropped the weapon to the ground.
As the gun hit the pavement, Rodriguez reached for his rear pocket; a volley of bullets burst out and the teenager sank to the ground, surveillance and camera footage show. Dozens of Oklahoma City police officers had responded last November to the 911 call at the convenience store, where Rodriguez was a robbery suspect. Five of them shot 13 bullets into the teen, from his head to his feet.
He is one of 112 children who have been fatally shot and killed by police between Jan. 1, 2015, and Monday, according to a Washington Post database that tracks fatal police shootings. Over the same period of time, 6,168 adults were shot by police.
“They knew he was a child. They were joking about whether he was in there calling his mom,” said Cameo Holland, Rodriguez’s mother, referring to conversations recorded on officers’ body cameras. “No one was asking, ‘How do we tactically approach this so no one dies today?’ “
The five officers who fired shots into Holland’s child are now facing first-degree manslaughter charges. This is a rare response by prosecutors who tend to side with police investigators who routinely clear officers of wrongdoing. Prosecutors must also consider whether they can persuade jurors, who tend to trust police more than other witnesses. The department said the officers shot because they perceived a threat, and the officers’ attorneys say the shooting was justified.
The long-standing question of how fatal police shootings of children could be avoided and lives spared has engulfed the nation in recent weeks. The debate was renewed by the death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was killed by an officer on March 29 in Chicago and further fueled by another fatal police shooting of a knife-wielding 16-year-old, Ma’Khia Bryant, on April 20 in Columbus, Ohio.
Three other children were shot and killed by police during the three-week span between Toledo’s and Bryant’s deaths.
Police leaders have asked the public to withhold judgment in the Toledo and Bryant cases until the investigations into their shootings are complete. But they acknowledge that communities are less likely to listen as they become increasingly weary and distrustful of police. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in April showed that 55% of Americans said they were not confident that police are adequately trained to avoid excessive use of force – up from 52% in July and 44% in 2014.
Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he hopes the public will recognize that officers are faced with instant life-or-death decisions and that even a child can be dangerous, especially if armed.
Of Officer Nicholas Reardon, who shot Bryant, Yoes said: “I assure you he wasn’t focused on her age. He was focused on the knife. He was looking to save a life. Even children can pose a threat.”
Lawrence Miller, a clinical, forensic and police psychologist based in Palm Beach County, Fla., said there is no national standard or set of protocols regarding how officers should handle encounters with children.
He and other police training experts said they know of no academies or programs that offer specialized training to officers in this area as they do for other segments of society, such as the mentally ill.
“They need to talk to them like they are children, not yell a bunch of commands at them,” Miller said.
Of the 112 people younger than 18 who have been fatally shot by police, according to The Post’s database, five were shot and killed by Columbus Police Department officers, the most of any single agency. Nine other departments had multiple fatal shootings of children. In the other 87 departments with such shootings since 2015, one child’s death was recorded.
The database shows that the circumstances leading to the shootings of children are varied, with about half beginning with a robbery, a traffic stop, a stolen car or a 911 call. Most of the incidents took place during daytime hours; one appears to have involved alcohol use by the child; 19 of the children were experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of the shooting.
The database shows that children are frequently armed with a gun or a knife during these fatal police encounters, but not as often as adults who die by police gunfire – 63% of the time for children vs. 76% for adults.
Sixty-six percent of the children who died in police shootings were Black, Latino, Asian or Native American compared to 44% of adults who were racial minorities.
Children also were more often shot while running from police: 50% compared to 33% of adults.
The youngest of the children who have died were 6-year-olds – Kameron Prescott in Texas and Jeremy Mardis in Louisiana. Both were killed as police fired at but missed the suspects who were their intended targets.
The renewed focus on shootings of children owes much to their visibility: Videos of the Toledo and Bryant killings went viral, prompting national protests and stinging rebukes of police from high-profile celebrities and politicians.
Public pressure prompted police officials to quickly release body-camera video of the incidents. In one, Bryant, who was Black, appears to be swinging a knife at two girls before she is shot. In another, Toledo, who was Latino, is running from police before he stops and turns, tossing an object that police say was a firearm. A split second later, after turning toward the officers with his hands raised, he is shot in the chest.
Among the 112 deaths of children in the database, five incidents have resulted in officers being criminally charged, according to a Post analysis. Four officers in three cases have been found guilty on charges that ranged from murder to aggravated assault. An officer in a fourth case faced a single homicide charge, which allowed jurors to chose between murder or manslaughter, but they ultimately acquitted him.
In the fifth case, the five officers who fired the lethal shots at Rodriguez last year were charged in March with first-degree manslaughter. They have pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.
Prosecutors dispute the police department’s and the union’s characterization of the events that led to Rodriguez’s death. The department initially said in a news release that the teen was shot because he “did not follow officers’ commands” and had been “holding a pistol” when he climbed through the window.
“Our brave officers leave their families behind and walk into dangerous situations every day to protect and serve this community,” Oklahoma City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 123 Vice President Mark Nelson said in a statement several days after the shooting. “Officers often provide commands in tense moments to ensure the safety of all individuals involved. Police training and experience tells us furtive movements and a lack of following commands present a deadly threat.”
Since then, additional videos became public – from police body cameras, news camera crews and surveillance cameras – and a more complex picture of what happened that night in November began to emerge.
Court documents say security footage from inside the store, along with a police interview with the clerk, shows that the robbery began with Rodriguez pointing a gun at the employee as he demanded money. Another teen, 17-year-old Wyatt Cheatham, loaded packs of cigarettes into a backpack. (Cheatham entered a guilty plea on April 19 on a felony charge of robbery with a firearm.)
Both youths left the store briefly, and after about two minutes, Rodriguez returned alone and demanded more money, according to court records.
The clerk escaped through a window and used a security system to lock Rodriguez inside, court records say. He called 911 and officers poured into the parking lot within minutes, several taking cover behind the gas pumps.
For more than 10 minutes, officers yelled conflicting and overlapping commands to Rodriguez as he hid inside the store, video and court documents show. In charging documents, prosecutors said there appeared to be no commanding officer organizing the response.
Police body-camera videos also captured officers joking about Rodriguez and the robbery during the standoff. “He’s probably calling his mom,” one says. Another says, “Oops,” and Officer Bethany Sears laughs and adds, “I messed up,” speculating on the teenager’s state of mind as he hides.
Minutes later, Rodriguez stuck his hands through the window and pulled himself through. On a half-dozen videos, officers can be heard simultaneously yelling different commands at him – “Hands!” “Facedown! On the ground!” “Drop it!”
A strobe light from at least one of the patrol cars – often used to disorient suspects – flashed into Rodriguez’s face.
As he dropped the gun to the ground, the teen reached for his left rear pocket.
At that moment, Officer Sarah Carli fired a 40 mm foam projectile that struck the teenager, according to prosecutors.
Almost immediately, the other officers fired at him, the video shows. “A cellphone was recovered from the left rear pocket he had his hand in at the time he was shot,” the prosecutors’ affidavit said.
On a body-camera video, Rodriguez winces in pain as officers yell at the teen to show his hands. Officer John Skuta can be heard repeatedly muttering “Damn it.”
Then officers quickly huddle, video shows, and one of them tells Officer Brad Pemberton to shut off his body-camera video. Police are only required to leave their cameras on when they are interacting with the public, according to department policy.
Pemberton, Sears, Skuta and Officers Jared Barton and Corey Adams were those charged with first-degree manslaughter, which carries a sentence of between four years and life in prison.
Attorneys representing the officers who have been charged say the shooting was legally justified because Rodriguez reached toward the back of his pants after he dropped the gun. At that moment, they say, officers thought he could have been reaching for a second weapon.
“This case is ultimately about whether each individual officer responded to a perceived threat in a way that was reasonable and in accordance with the law,” the attorneys said in a joint statement. “Five officers, with similar training, came to the same conclusion when the suspect made a sharp movement toward his waistband after being told to show officers his hands and get on the ground. While the results were tragic, the officers’ actions were reasonable and legally justified under the circumstances created by an armed robbery suspect.”
David Thomas, a forensics psychologist and former police officer, said there is a natural assumption that officers know how to respond differently in tense encounters if it becomes clear that they are dealing with a child.
“They think they will put on their father’s hat or mother’s hat and be able to sit down and talk to a child without being a macho cop,” he said. “Or have a big brother or big sister conversation. Training for this – it just doesn’t exist.”
Miller, the Florida psychologist, said that children’s responses to police commands are often found “at both ends of the spectrum.” They are either quickly compliant or, he said, become confused or defiant and attempt to run away.
“They are egocentric, impulsive, unpredictable,” Miller said of teens. “They are less likely to show the kind of restraint adults tend to, unless there is a mental illness or drugs involved.”
Thomas said it would be helpful for officers to learn more about development of the human brain, which is not complete until someone reaches their mid-20s. That can make teens more impulsive.
Miller said officers often put themselves and children at risk by underestimating them, especially if they are slight in build. He said the Rodriguez case is an example of this, as police joked about the unfolding scene, and, in some cases, stood out in the open at the window where they knew the teen would have to exit.
“It should never have never gotten to that point. Being a child, in a sense, worked against the decedent. If it was an adult, they would have taken cover,” Miller said. “They would have probably had him strip down to his skivvies so they wouldn’t have to worry about whether he had a weapon on him.”
Holland, Rodriguez’s mother, said without the video that documented how police handled the incident, prosecutors would have been left with the version of events that the police department presented after the shooting.
In 66% of the database incidents involving children, there is no video documentation. Sometimes the only witnesses who support an officers’ contention that a shooting was justified are fellow officers at the scene.
The 2016 fatal shooting of 13-year-old Tyre King falls into this category. Like Bryant, the Black teen was fatally shot by a Columbus officer.
The officer, Bryan Mason, said the teen was reaching into his shorts for a weapon – which turned out to be a BB gun – when Mason shot and killed him. A fellow officer backed up Mason’s description of the incident, court records show. However, three civilian eyewitnesses, including a nun, said they did not see this movement, instead saying the teen appeared to be trying to run away, according to court records.
It was Mason’s fourth shooting – and the first fatal one – in six years, personnel records show. City officials said the shooting was within department policy, as they determined his previous three shootings had been, and a grand jury declined to bring charges. Mason’s attorney did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment. Mason could not be reached for comment.
In all five incidents in which children were shot by police, the Columbus department determined that the shootings were justified.
“This is never an outcome Columbus police want to see. Any loss of life is tragic, even more so when it involves a juvenile,” said Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus “Each of these incidents is singular and has to be evaluated on its own merits and circumstances. Our priority every day on every call is to protect life and safety.”
Dearrea King, the teen’s grandmother, said police need to understand why children – particularly those who are racial minorities – sometimes do not comply with their commands.
“These kids are running away because they are afraid,” said King, who has a lawsuit pending against the city. “They are trying to get someplace safe because they do not trust the police.”
Like Mason, three of the Oklahoma City police officers involved in Rodriguez’s shooting had also been cleared in previous shootings. In each case involving the Oklahoma City officers, the person they shot died.
Holland said she worries that when departments justify police shootings, future shootings could be fueled.
“They are used to shooting people and they are used to not having a lot of consequences,” she said. “How do you [kill] multiple people and are somehow still fit to carry a gun? Supposedly they are traumatized from these shootings. If they are so traumatized, why don’t they do something different?”
Published : May 13, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Kimberly Kindy, Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, Ted Mellnik
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