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CDC advisers seek more data on rare blood clots before deciding whether to resume Johnson & Johnson shots

InternationalApr 15. 2021

By Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – A federal vaccine advisory committee said Wednesday it wanted more data before deciding whether to resume use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, leaving in place a pause that federal officials had recommended because of a rare and severe type of blood clot identified so far among six of the 7.5 million people who received the shot.

The move means the single-shot Johnson & Johnson product will remain on the shelf for at least a week.

At a hastily arranged emergency meeting a day after federal officials recommended a pause in use of the vaccine, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed to reconvene within 10 days, acknowledging the urgency of making a decision about a vaccine that is a key part of the strategy to end the pandemic in the United States and globally.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices reviewed details about six cases of blood clots in women who were between the ages of 18 and 48. The women developed symptoms, most often headaches, six to 13 days after vaccination. One vaccine recipient, a Virginia woman, died in March, and another is in critical condition, health officials have said. Two have been discharged and three remain in the hospital.

Instead of voting on a recommendation about whether and how the vaccination campaign could be restarted, panel members said they wanted more information on the risks, cause and frequency of the rare brain blood clots. When the panel reconvenes, members could vote at that time to recommend the vaccine for people 18 and older, continue an overall pause or pause use for certain age groups.

“We are very fortunate, because we have multiple other alternatives in the U.S. to help stop this pandemic. We have very good, well-proven alternatives where we are not seeing safety signals,” said Helen Keipp Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and committee member. “I think that puts us in a little bit of a different position, and we can be much more cautious and thoughtful and use the old model of, ‘First, do no harm.'”

Beth Bell, a global health expert at the University of Washington who leads the panel’s coronavirus vaccine work group, said she did not want to take a vote Wednesday for fear of undermining support for the easier-to-use vaccine.

A national Economist-YouGov poll found that public confidence in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine might already be declining. The share of people who thought the vaccine was “very or somewhat unsafe” increased in a matter of days, from 26% of people during the past weekend and Monday to 39% on Tuesday after federal officials recommended a pause.

The vaccine has been viewed as a powerful tool for building immunity among vulnerable communities, such as homebound people or homeless populations who might not be able to return for a second shot. The decision will also almost certainly reverberate around the globe.

The vaccine was a large part of the U.S. vaccination strategy, and the drugmaker has delayed the rollout of its vaccine in Europe as the investigation continues. South Africa suspended use of the shot.

But some public health officials said Wednesday’s lack of a recommendation is a decision that will have consequences.

“The extension of the pause will invariably result in the fact that the most vulnerable individuals in the United States who were prime candidates for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will remain vulnerable. The most at risk will remain at risk, and those who would benefit immediately from vaccination will remain unvaccinated for an unknown period of time,” said Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “That would come at a period where the United States is still logging 5,000 deaths in the past seven days across the country.”

A CDC official and a Johnson & Johnson executive described the six cases in the greatest detail yet. All of the women were White, and only one was taking hormonal contraceptives that can cause blood clots, suggesting that was not the reason for the clots.

Tom Shimabukuro, of the vaccine safety team at the CDC, explained that the rare, severe clots were especially alarming because they were accompanied by low levels of blood cells involved in clotting – a combination virtually unheard of among healthy, young people.

“We have a picture where we have clots forming in large [blood] vessels in the presence of low platelets, so it’s kind of a paradox here,” Shimabukuro said. “This is unusual – it usually doesn’t happen.”

The combination has also been seen, rarely, among people who received vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. Four of those vaccine recipients were treated initially with heparin, an anticoagulant that is not recommended because the events closely resemble an immune-triggered reaction to the drug that could worsen the clots.

Some of the women had blood clots in other parts of their body, and Shimabukuro said the agency would cast a wider net, looking for clotting accompanied by low levels of platelets.

In a company presentation, Aran Maree, chief medical officer for Janssen, the division of Johnson & Johnson that developed the vaccine, also presented data on two cases of clots in people who received the vaccine in the clinical trial, one of whom was a 25-year-old man with a hallmark of the symptoms.

“I’d like to reiterate that, based on the current data, Johnson & Johnson believes the overall benefit-risk profile for a vaccine is positive across the population for which it is authorized,” Maree said.

The blood clots are similar to those reported by several European countries after the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, which uses a similar technology. Several experts said it is necessary to understand whether the risks of the vaccines outweigh the benefits for certain groups of people. But they also said the risk of developing a clot after receiving the vaccine appears far lower than the chance of a clotting issue caused by a severe covid-19 infection or from using hormonal birth control, such as oral contraceptives.

The immediate practical effect of the recommended pause was limited because the overwhelming majority of the 192 million shots administered in the United States have been made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna using a different technology.

Of the Johnson & Johnson doses administered to date, nearly 1.5 million have been given to women 18 to 50 years old, said Sara Oliver, a CDC medical officer and member of the committee’s covid-19 work group. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine makes up fewer than 5% of the inoculations that have been administered, Oliver said.

Food and Drug Administration and CDC officials said they decided to recommend pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine because they were worried about the possible harm if clinicians did not know how to detect, manage and treat the complication. They want to make sure medical professionals are aware that blood clots potentially associated with a vaccine should not be treated with the conventional drug heparin, which could exacerbate the clots.

Officials also want to encourage reporting from clinicians in the event there are additional cases that could help clarify the syndrome or risk factors, officials have said.

In many ways, the scenario playing out in the United States echoes what happened in Europe as rare clotting events began to be recognized in early March among younger adults, predominantly women, who had recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The rare but alarming clotting cases in Europe caused some countries to suspend vaccination altogether, and scientists began to study whether the clots were connected to vaccination. A societal debate about the risk tolerance of regulators and the possible effect of vaccination suspensions on hesitancy erupted as countries halted inoculations in the middle of a pandemic. As time went on, more cases were recognized and studied.

Out of 34 million people given vaccinations in Europe, regulators there have identified 169 cases of brain blood clots and 53 cases of abdominal clots that raised suspicion.

After weeks of scientific work and meetings, European scientists and regulators concluded that the clotting events were possibly linked to the vaccine – and determined a diagnostic test and a treatment. Many countries have restricted use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to older adults as a result.

The type of brain blood clots identified in the six U.S. cases result in a condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. The normal rate of those blood clots in the general population is 2 to 14 per million people in a year. What stood out to scientists and physicians was that these clots were accompanied by very low levels of platelets, the blood cells involved in clotting. That combination of symptoms – a risk of bleeding and clotting at the same time – sounds counterintuitive but occurs in rare immune responses, when the body creates antibodies that bind to platelets, causing them to be activated and also consumed.

A similar syndrome occurs in some patients after exposure to the anticoagulant heparin, which triggered the warnings not to use that drug when treating these patients.

Since the U.S. vaccination program began Dec. 14, safety experts from the CDC vaccine advisory committee have been monitoring data weekly.

Initial information about the six cases was detected in a vaccine-monitoring system run by the CDC and the FDA. That three-decade-old system, known as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, is an early warning platform that also collects information about possible side effects or health problems after vaccination. It monitors unusual or unexpected patterns that require a closer look. Anyone can report a reaction or injury, including health-care providers, patients and patients’ representatives, such as caregivers or attorneys.

The recommendation to pause the Johnson & Johnson rollout resulted in swift action, with the U.S. military and many states announcing they were suspending the use of the single-shot vaccine. About 7.5 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine had been administered nationwide as of Wednesday. About 16 million doses have been delivered to states and territories, and through federal channels, since the beginning of March.

– – –

The Washington Post’s Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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U.S. Capitol Police officer cleared of wrongdoing in fatal shooting of woman during Capitol attack

InternationalApr 15. 2021Pro-Trump protesters clash with police during the tally of electoral votes on Jan. 6. Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post.

By Keith L. Alexander, Justin Jouvenal, Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – A U.S. Capitol Police officer has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing for fatally shooting Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt as she attempted to breach a set of doors deep in the Capitol during the January siege, federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia announced Wednesday.

Authorities determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove Babbitt’s civil rights were violated, and that it was reasonable for the officer to believe he was firing in self-defense or in defense of members of Congress and aides who were fleeing the House chamber. Prosecutors did not identify the officer.

The killing of the 35-year-old California native became one of the defining moments of the riot, after graphic videos of her shooting spread across social media and were replayed by news outlets.

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Prosecutors notified a representative of Babbitt’s family of its findings Wednesday, the office of acting U.S. attorney Channing Phillips of the District said in a statement. The statement said the U.S. attorney’s office and the Justice Department have closed the investigation, “acknowledging the tragic loss of life and offering condolences” to Babbitt’s family.

Roger Witthoeft, Babbitt’s brother, said he was not happy that prosecutors decided not to charge the officer.

“In my eyes, everyone should stand before a jury to face justice. That decision shouldn’t be made behind the scenes. I think he should at least stand trial,” Witthoeft said.

“I love my sister and I’ll always remember her as a decent woman and patriot,” he said.

Mark Schamel, the Capitol Police officer’s attorney, credited his client with showing great restraint.

“His bravery on January 6 was nothing short of heroic,” Schamel said in a statement. “He stopped the rioters from gaining entry into the Speaker’s Lobby and saved the lives of countless members of Congress and the rioters. His heroism should be no surprise to those who know him.”

To convict law enforcement officers of civil rights violations, including shootings resulting in death, prosecutors must be able to prove that an officer used “objectively unreasonable” force and “willfully” used more force than he thought was necessary. The high bar of willfulness makes bringing charges against an officer difficult, and Wednesday’s outcome was not unexpected by legal observers under the circumstances.

Multiple cellphone videos captured the shooting as it unfolded on the afternoon of Jan. 6. Babbitt and a group of other rioters made their way inside the Capitol to barricaded doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, which is the hallway outside the House chamber where some lawmakers were sheltering during the siege.

Videos show the group pummeling the wood-and-glass doors with a helmet, feet and a flagpole. A Capitol Police officer in a suit and a surgical mask is seen standing in a doorway on the far side of the doors with his gun drawn.

The officer opened fire as Babbitt, who was wearing a Trump flag like a cape, attempted to crawl through one of the broken panes of the Speaker’s Lobby doors, video shows. Babbitt, who was hit in the shoulder, tumbled backward onto the floor.

The attorney for the officer, a lieutenant, said in a statement that the officer clearly identified himself and ordered rioters not to pass a barricade at the doors of the Speaker’s Lobby before firing. Other officers had also ordered Babbitt to stop and she broke multiple laws in attempting to enter the Speaker’s Lobby, according to the statement.

A group that included officers, rioters and a Hill staffer rushed to her aide, video shows. Two law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation have said that Babbitt was unarmed. She later died.

Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died amid the chaos of the Capitol siege, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, whose remains lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in early February.

In death, Babbitt has become a martyr to many on the far right. Some even fashioned a flag that features a silhouette of a woman in front of a Capitol that is aflame. Below, it reads “Vengeance.”

Federal prosecutors have charged at least eight people who were in the crowd around Babbitt in the moments before she was shot. They include Christopher Ray Grider, a Texas winery owner who is accused of trying to kick in the Speaker’s Lobby doors; Zachary Jordan Alam, of Pennsylvania, who is accused of smashing the glass pane Babbitt attempted to crawl through; and Chad Barrett Jones, of Kentucky, who is accused of smashing another pane with a wood stick that had a Trump flag attached.

Authorities had suggested the possibility of bringing felony murder charges against rioters if Babbitt’s death was a foreseeable consequence of felony conduct by others, according to a person familiar with the matter. But they have since ruled out that possibility, given case law that allows such charges only in instances when an accomplice is responsible for a victim’s death, not a law enforcement officer.

District police are required by law to identify officers involved in serious uses of force within five business days of an incident. They are also required to release video from body cameras of the officers directly involved. The law only applies to District police. Capitol Police are not equipped with body cameras.

The law firm said it was keeping the officer’s name confidential because he has faced death threats.

Witthoeft, Babbitt’s brother, said it was “appalling” that the officer’s name had not been released “in this age when everything is public record.”

The three-month investigation was conducted by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office’s public corruption and civil rights section. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the District police internal affairs bureau reviewed social media video footage, statements by witnesses including the shooter and other officers, physical evidence, and autopsy results, prosecutors said.

Criminal charges against police officers involved in on-duty fatalities are rare in the District. City records show that prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office have never filed criminal charges against a District police officer involved in a fatal on-duty shooting. Such historical data was not available regarding officers from other agencies.

Babbitt hailed from the San Diego area and became an ardent supporter of QAnon, an extremist ideology that the FBI has deemed a domestic terrorism threat, and a backer of President Donald Trump, her since-deleted Twitter account showed. She often echoed Trump’s baseless claims that November’s presidential election was stolen.

“Nothing will stop us . . . they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours . . . dark to light!” Babbitt tweeted the day before she died.

Babbitt spent more than a decade in the military, first in the Air Force and then in the Air National Guard, but she had discipline problems and didn’t advance far. Her ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, has said she served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After leaving the military in 2016, Babbitt started a pool business with family members that struggled financially, and her Twitter account shows she became more interested in online misinformation and conservative causes.

In one video posted to social media, Babbitt rants loudly about the effects of immigrants on the U.S. economy. In a tweet, she called for then-Vice President Mike Pence to be arrested and charged with treason, presumably for not being supportive enough of Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud.

“She was never afraid to speak her mind,” McEntee told The Washington Post in a January text message.

Babbitt seemed to derive a sense of mission from the Jan. 6 protest. In the days leading up to it, she retweeted messages from other demonstrators who were traveling to Washington.

One read: “It will be 1776 all over again . . . only bigger and better.”

– – –

The Washington Post’s Tom Jackman contributed to this report.

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John Williamson, economist who devised ‘Washington Consensus’ model of reform, dies at 83

InternationalApr 15. 2021John Williamson

By Matt Schudel
The Washington Post

John Williamson, a British-born economist for the World Bank and other institutions and think tanks, who was best known for coining the term “Washington Consensus” to describe a set of reforms aimed at reinvigorating struggling economies in Latin America and other countries, died April 11 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 83.

He had multiple system atrophy, said his daughter, Theresa Williamson.

Dr. Williamson began his career as a college professor and had stints working for the British government, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, developing policies to help bolster economies of countries around the globe.

After teaching in Brazil, he joined the Washington-based Institute for International Economics – later renamed the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)- in 1981, where he developed ideas to strengthen global economies and markets.

In 1989, after consulting economists at the IMF, World Bank, Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, Williamson suggested a list of 10 ideas to spur and safeguard economic development. His prescription became known as the Washington Consensus, which was subject to mistrust and misinterpretation from the beginning.

In its original form, the Washington Consensus presented several basic macroeconomic ideas to restore stability in countries with shaky economies. The first and perhaps most important requisite was fiscal discipline. Others included directing public expenditures toward health care, education and infrastructure; lowering tax rates; privatizing state-run businesses to improve efficiency and reduce corruption; and securing private property rights.

“The three big ideas here are macroeconomic discipline, a market economy and openness to the world,” Williamson said at the time.

The policy goals were meant to be applied to Latin America, but quickly became seen as a template for global economic reform in the wake of the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe.

“Initially there was a lot of criticism from Latin America calling it the ‘Washington Consensus,’ ” Williamson said in a 2006 oral history interview with the World Bank, “because this suggested that there were some people sitting in Washington deciding what Latin America needed to do. And the critics thought that these reforms were being imposed, which wasn’t my perception of how things were in fact happening, and certainly not how they should have happened.”

His ideas, however well-intentioned, immediately ran into the roadblocks of reality. Left-wing populists such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela centralized many aspects of the national economy, and other reforms ran aground because of labor opposition, corruption and other deep-rooted institutional problems.

“The Washington Consensus had escaped my control and it had become whatever people meant by it,” Williamson said in a 2018 interview with the Center for Financial Stability.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote in his 2002 book “Globalization and Its Discontents” that fiscal conservatism, privatization and higher interest simply weren’t effective in economically underdeveloped countries. The Washington Consensus, he concluded, had left some countries worse off than they were before, with stagnant economic growth and weakened social safety nets.

But later studies by economists Kevin Grier and Robin Grier showed that countries that had maintained their long-term policies of economic reform had increased growth, income and other economic conditions.

“There’s no question that Latin America is doing much better than East Europe,” Williamson said in 2009 during another worldwide economic downturn. “There’s been much more restraint this time around in most of the countries. That’s what Latin America is benefiting from.”

John Williamson was born June 7, 1937, in Hereford, England. His father ran a plant nursery business, and his mother was a homemaker.

Williamson graduated from the London School of Economics in 1958, served two years in the British air force, then received a doctorate in economics from Princeton University in 1963. While teaching at the University of York in England in the mid-1960s, he developed the “crawling peg” theory, an economic model to maintain currency stability by limiting volatility in exchange rates.

Williamson worked for the British treasury department in the late 1960s, taught at the University of Warwick in England and had a two-year assignment with the IMF in Washington in the early 1970s. He taught at the Pontifical Catholic University from 1978 to 1981. During the 1990s, he spent three years working for the World Bank. He published more than a dozen books and wrote scores of scholarly articles before his retirement in 2012. His most recent books, “Growth-Linked Securities,” appeared in 2017.

Survivors include his wife of 47 years, the former Denise de Souza of Chevy Chase; three children, Andre Williamson of Silver Spring, Md., Daniel Williamson of Chevy Chase and Theresa Williamson of Rio de Janeiro; two sisters; and seven grandchildren.

DWilliamson was a dedicated conservationist and birdwatcher who had sightings of more than 4,000 species of birds in the 104 countries he had visited.

Partly for environmental reasons, he believed governments should impose stiff taxes on carbon emissions. He also saw another industry that he thought should be heavily taxed for the public good: advertising.

“One could easily envisage a 20 or 30 percent tax on advertising,” he said in a PIIE publication in 2012, “which would bring in a lot of money and would have beneficial effects in limiting the extent to which we are bombarded with these unnecessary things at the present time.”

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Biden selects Asian American outreach director

InternationalApr 15. 2021Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) at one point threatened to block future Biden nominees because of the lack of Asian American representation in the administration. (Reuters)

By Tyler Pager, Seung Min Kim
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden has selected Erika Moritsugu, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, to serve as a senior adviser overseeing outreach to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, the White House announced Wednesday.

The move comes after weeks of pressure from Asian American leaders to diversify the upper ranks of the White House.

Moritsugu is expected to report to Bruce Reed, Biden’s deputy chief of staff, with the rank of deputy assistant to the president, a person familiar with the announcement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said.

Moritsugu did not respond to a request for comment. Biden is scheduled to meet with the leadership team of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus in the Oval Office on Thursday.

Moritsugu previously worked at the Anti-Defamation League and served on the staffs of Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and former Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.

She has also held various policy roles at the Democratic Policy Committee, worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration and oversaw Senate legislative affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

After the March 16 spa shootings in the Atlanta area, in which six Asian women were killed, Duckworth and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, threatened to block future Biden nominees because of the dearth of representation in the administration. They withdrew that threat after receiving assurances that Biden would appoint a senior Asian American White House official.

As Biden started to roll out his Cabinet and senior staff during the presidential transition, Asian American leaders raised concerns about the lack of representation of people of Asian descent.

Other than Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden only has one other person of Asian descent in his Cabinet, Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Biden nominated Neera Tanden to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, but she withdrew her nomination after bipartisan pushback from senators concerned about her sometimes hard-hitting Twitter feed.

Asian American leaders are now pushing Biden to nominate Nani Coloretti, a former Obama official, for the OMB spot.

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Officer who shot Daunte Wright resigns, as does Brooklyn Center police chief

InternationalApr 14. 2021Aubrey Wright, the father of Daunte Wright, is surrounded and embraced as he attends a news conference outside the Hennepin County Government Center on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Joshua Lott

By The Washington Post · Kim Bellware, Tim Craig, Jared Goyette

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – The police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Black man in a Minneapolis suburb Sunday has resigned, as has the police chief, the latest shake-up in a town reeling from the shooting.

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The resignations did little to quell the calls for justice for Daunte Wright, 20, who was shot during a traffic stop. On Tuesday, Wright’s family called for the officer who shot Wright to be charged with murder. “Prosecute them, like they would prosecute us,” Nyesha Wright, the victim’s aunt, said at a news conference. “We want the highest justice.”

Her comments came amid a chaotic 24 hours in Brooklyn Center. On Monday night, the City Council fired the city manager and transferred control of the police department to the mayor. Late Tuesday morning, Kimberly Potter, the veteran officer who fatally shot Wright, resigned.

Moments later, Mayor Mike Elliott announced that Police Chief Tim Gannon had resigned as well.

The developments come as a major police trial is playing out 10 miles from where Wright was shot. Closing arguments in the trial of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin are expected to start next week, fueling concerns from state and local officials that Wright’s shooting will add to an already tense atmosphere.

“This couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” Elliott previously said following Wright’s shooting. “We are collectively devastated.”

Outside the Hennepin County Court House in downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday, Wright’s family spoke to the media for more than an hour as the news of Potter’s resignation began to circulate. During the news conference, family members wept and hugged as Wright’s 2-year-old son cried.

Jeffrey Storms, a Wright family attorney, criticized the police’s characterization of Potter’s actions as an accident. “An accident is knocking over a glass of milk, it’s not an accident to take your gun out of your holster,” Storms said. “Don’t tell us it’s an accident because it undermines the tragic loss of life that this family has experienced.”

The family gathered with members of George Floyd’s family and with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who now represents both families.

Shortly before they appeared before the media, Courtney Ross, Floyd’s girlfriend who testified in Chauvin’s murder trial last week, walked over to console Wright’s mother, Katie.

“Say his name,” they chanted, in between tears. “Daunte Wright.”

During Tuesday’s news conference, Katie Wright recounted her final phone call with her son, in which he called to say he had been stopped by police over an air freshener in his car and was being asked about insurance.

Katie Wright instructed her son to take down the dangling air freshener and offered to speak to police to provide the insurance information. She then heard officers return and tell Daunte to get out of the car.

“Am I in trouble?” she heard her son ask. She said the officers told her they would explain when he got out of the car. “I heard him get out of the car, and I could hear the officers scruffling with him,” she said. “Then I heard the police officer ask him to hang up the phone.”

Katie Wright said she didn’t know what had happened until Daunte’s girlfriend, who had been in the car with him, told her he had been shot.

Police body camera footage released Monday showed two male officers approach either side of Wright’s Buick before he was placed against the car and searched. A third officer, later identified as Potter, approaches as one of the male officers tries to handcuff Wright as he struggles to get back into the car.

Potter is heard off camera threatening to Taser Wright twice before shouting “Taser! Taser! Taser!” and firing what was actually a gun. Potter is then heard swearing and saying, “I just shot him.” Wright, who drove several blocks before crashing, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Crump said Minneapolis-area police officers should use more discretion in enforcing traffic violations, and questioned how a veteran officer could fail to differentiate the size and weight of a her gun versus her Taser.

At least 40 people were arrested at protests over Wright’s killing on Sunday and Monday night, despite a four-county 7 p.m. curfew enacted by Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat.

After heavily armed law enforcement used aggressive crowd dispersal measures such as flash-bang grenades and chemical irritants on protesters Sunday night, the Brooklyn County City Council passed a resolution limiting the techniques their police department was authorized to use against crowds. Several businesses sustained damage both nights.

Walz declined to renew the countywide curfews, though mayors in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Maple Grove and Brooklyn Center ordered local curfews for Tuesday night.

Elliott and interim police Chief Tony Gruenig fielded heated questions over the lack of Black officers in the roughly 50-person department. They also acknowledged that none of the current officers who police the streets of Brooklyn Center live in the city itself.

Residents also raised questions about alleged ties between police unions and the Washington County Attorneys Office, which is handling charging decisions in Potter’s case, instead of the Hennepin County Attorneys Office.

The shooting took place in Hennepin County, but Mike Freeman, the county attorney there, sent the case to Washington County Attorney Pete Orput’s office under a policy initiated in the wake of Floyd’s killing meant to avoid the appearance of conflicts by having prosecutors review police shootings from other jurisdictions.

Elliott pledged to ask Walz to reassign Potter’s case to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat.

Under state law, a case can only be reassigned at request of the governor or a county attorney, said former Minnesota attorney general Lori Swanson, Ellison’s predecessor. “When communities ask, it certainly has influence, but legally, a mayor or local unit of government doesn’t have the authority to make it happen,” Swanson said.

Reassigning cases is rare and typically happens when rural counties that are unaccustomed to prosecuting murder cases require assistance, she said. The Chauvin trial, which was initiated by the Hennepin County prosecutor before moving to Ellison’s office, is a notable exception.

Orput said Tuesday that he hoped to make a charging decision and announcement in Potter’s case on Wednesday.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is also investigating the matter, though their decision will no longer impact Potter’s employment following her voluntary resignation.

In her Tuesday resignation letter, Potter wrote she had “loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability.” Her resignation, she said, was in the best interest of the community, the police department and her fellow officers.

Potter’s resignation raised concerns among residents at City Hall on Tuesday that herleaving before she could be terminated was a protective move to keep her pension and law enforcement certification, which would enable her to potentially work on a different police force.

Members of the community urged Elliott to reject Potter’s resignation to keep open the potential for her to be formally terminated. It was unclear if the mayor’s formal acceptance of an officer’s resignation impacts its ultimate efficacy.

Neither Potter nor Gannon could immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Alfreda Daniels Juasemai, a community organizer who works with a coalition of local groups in Brooklyn Center including a nonprofit was among the those who said it was critical that officers like Potter not be allowed to resign so they could rejoin a different department.

“If a police officer who worked in a department for 26 years cannot tell the difference between a Taser and a gun, and she kills somebody – and then she’s going to resign and go to another police department and work there? She’s a danger to any community she goes to,” Juasemai said.

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Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021

InternationalApr 14. 2021

By The Washington Post · Missy Ryan, Karen DeYoung

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, people familiar with the plans said, completing the military exit by or before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that first drew the United States into its longest war.

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The decision, which Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday under rules of anonymity set by the White House.

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While the Taliban has vowed to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline, they made no initial statement in response to the announcement, and it is not clear if the militants will follow through with the earlier threats given Biden’s plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September.

Officially, there are 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, although the number fluctuates and is currently about 1,000 more than that. There are also up to an additional 7,000 foreign forces in the coalition there, the majority of them NATO troops.

Biden’s decision comes after an administration review of U.S. options in Afghanistan, where U.S.-midwived peace talks have failed to advance as hoped and the Taliban remains a potent force despite two decades of effort by the United States to defeat the militants and establish stable, democratic governance. The war has cost trillions of dollars in addition to the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. service members and at least 100,000 Afghan civilians.

“This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered,” said one person familiar with the closed-door deliberations who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. “If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest.”

The goal is to move to “zero” troops by September, the senior administration official said. “This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach…is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. He has reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown, and will remove its forces from Afghanistan before September 11.”

The decision highlights the trade-offs the Biden administration is willing to make to shift the U.S. global focus away from the counterinsurgency campaigns that dominated the post-9/11 world to current priorities, including increasing military competition with China.

In addition to major domestic challenges, “the reality is that the United States has big strategic interests in the world,” the person familiar with the deliberations said, “like nonproliferation, like an increasingly aggressive and assertive Russia, like North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear programs pose a threat to the United States,” as well as China. “The main threats to the American homeland are actually from other places: from Africa, from parts of the Middle East – Syria and Yemen.”

“Afghanistan just does not rise to the level of those other threats at this point,” the person said. “That does not mean we’re turning away from Afghanistan. We are going to remain committed to the government, remain committed diplomatically. But in terms of where we will be investing force posture, our blood and treasure, we believe that other priorities merit that investment.”

Immediate reaction in Washington was divided. In a statement on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it “reckless” and “a grave mistake. It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership.”

McConnell pointed to a 2019 amendment – passed by a supermajority of senators when Trump called for full withdrawal from Syria – that requires the administration to “certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al-Qaida and [the Islamic State] before initiating any significant withdrawal of United States forces from Syria or Afghanistan.”

“Can President Biden certify that right now?” McConnell asked.

But while McConnell cited “broad political support” for an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan, other lawmakers called it the right decision. “There are no good, easy decisions here,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash. “Given the options, I think this is the best choice.”

“We cannot impose a solution on Afghanistan,” Smith said in an interview. “I don’t doubt for a second there is going to continue to be violence and turbulence,” but the main transnational terrorist threat is now elsewhere. “We can only be in so many places. We have to make choices, and those choices are not easy. It’s not as if we didn’t put in the time in Afghanistan,” he said.

Some officials have warned that a U.S. exit will lead to the collapse of the Kabul government while jeopardizing gains made over the past two decades in health, education and women’s rights.

Biden administration officials say the United States intends to remain closely involved in the peace process and will continue to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to the Afghan government and security forces, which remains almost totally dependent on foreign support.

“What we will not do is use our troops as bargaining chips,” the senior official said.

“We went to Afghanistan to deliver justice to those who attacked us on Sept. 11. … We believe we achieved that objective some years ago,” the senior official said, and now judge the threat to the United States “to be at a level that we can address it without a persistent military footprint.”

Biden, who argued unsuccessfully during the Obama administration for a small, counterterrorism-focused presence, had already hinted that the United States would remain for only a limited time beyond the May 1 deadline.

Late last month, he said he did not expect U.S. troops to be deployed there next year. “We will leave,” he said at a White House news conference. “But the question is when we leave.”

Administration officials were in the process of notifying officials in NATO nations as well as Afghan officials and the Taliban on Tuesday. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in a statement from his office, said he would have no statement until an upcoming phone call with Biden “to officially share details of the new withdrawal plan.”

The senior official also said the Taliban had been informed of the decision, reminded of its commitments under the Trump agreement, and warned against attacking departing U.S. forces. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the militants would make an official response “when the U.S. formally announces” its plans, presumably by Biden on Wednesday.

The official said that the U.S. withdrawal would be fully coordinated with NATO and other coalition partners. Citing NATO’s “in together, out together” mantra, the senior official said “we will take the time we need to execute that, and no more time than that.” The official said withdrawal would begin before May 1, and might well be completed before September.

Many NATO governments have said they have no desire or ability to remain without the logistical, security and other support the U.S. forces provide.

Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Brussels Tuesday and Wednesday informing their NATO counterparts. Germany has the second largest force in Afghanistan, numbering more than 1,000. Officials there have cautioned that they would need months to organize an orderly departure.

In early March, Blinken launched a last-ditch diplomatic effort to bring the Taliban and the Afghan government together to end the war with an interim power-sharing arrangement. He warned Ghani in a sharply-worded letter that time was growing short.

The hope was to accelerate a negotiating process begun under President Donald Trump in 2019, when White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad started talks with militant leaders in Doha, the capital of Qatar. That led to a February 2020 agreement signed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under which the United States pledged to withdraw its forces by May 1, 2021, in exchange for Taliban severance of all ties with al-Qaida, and agreement to begin negotiations with the Afghan government toward a cease-fire and peace accord.

While the inter-Afghan talks began in September, they have made little progress. At the same time, the Taliban has increased its attacks on Afghan troops and expanded its territorial control. As the new administration launched its review, the Pentagon and the United Nations reported that the militants had not complied with their commitments under the Trump agreement.

Many Afghan experts have concluded that the Taliban are moving closer to a military victory, but that they may be reluctant to take over as a pariah government, which could result in a loss of international support and aid for the country.

Biden’s choice was a stark one. With U.S. public opinion and Congress divided, staying could lead to political difficulties at home and renewed Taliban attacks on U.S. forces. At the same time, an abrupt American departure could undermine any achievements made in the past two decades, reduce the possibility of a peace deal and lead to a Taliban takeover.

John Sopko, the independent special inspector for Afghanistan reconstruction, warned Congress last month that U.S. withdrawal without a peace agreement in place would be “a disaster,” and mean government collapse. Others have warned of civil war, as regional warlords have amassed and armed their own forces.

Blinken’s warning to Ghani, along with the interim government proposal, seemed to have little effect. He called for a conference of Taliban and Afghan leaders to take place in Turkey this month, and a U.N.-convened meeting of regional governments, including Iran, along with the United States, to push diplomacy.

Although Turkey announced Tuesday the Afghan meeting would go ahead on April 24, Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban political office, said Tuesday that no decision on attendance had been made. No U.N. meeting has been confirmed. Khalilzad’s shuttle diplomacy among the Afghans and with regional leaders have yet to bring the two sides together in agreement.

The person familiar with the administration’s deliberations rejected the suggestion that these apparent failures precipitated Biden’s decision. The United States, the person said, would continue its diplomatic efforts to bring peace. But time had proven that the presence of U.S. troops, even at much higher levels, was not effective leverage at moving the parties beyond where they have been willing to go, he said.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a former CIA analyst and senior security official in administrations of both parties, said Congress would need a full accounting of plans to secure U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan and ensure that global extremists from al-Qaida and the Islamic State are unable to gain renewed strength.

The senior official said that any potential for resurgence of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, where U.S. intelligence currently assesses its presence as relatively small, “will be met with vigilance.

Drawing the “lesson from Iraq,” where the Islamic State turning into a major fighting force after the bulk of U.S. troops left, “we have to have the intelligence and military capabilities positioned in the region and the attention of our national security apparatus sufficiently focused to insure” that if al-Qaida “begins to emerge” the United States “will deal with it,” the senior official said.

While officials said Biden would end the military mission entirely, they acknowledged that a still-undetermined number of troops would remain to secure the U.S. embassy in Kabul, where diplomats would be vulnerable if security deteriorates in the Afghan capital.

In 2014, the then-commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan described a plan to use a residual force of 1,000 troops to secure the embassy as part of an earlier blueprint for pulling out American troops.

During his campaign, Biden said his preference was to leave a counterterrorism force of about 1,500 troops in Afghanistan even as other forces withdrew. That now appears to be off the table.

But it’s unclear how the administration may use civilian contractors and intelligence officials now working alongside military personnel to retain a capacity to discern and respond to extremist threats. The U.S. government has routinely assigned military personnel under CIA or other intelligence agency authority in overseas missions, allowing them to conduct certain activities without technically counting as part of a military footprint. The senior official declined to comment on the issue.

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, said the decision to leave was overdue.

“I wouldn’t say enough is enough,” said Powell, who was in charge of George W. Bush’s State Department during the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. “I’d say we’ve done all we can do … What are those troops being told they’re there for? It’s time to bring it to an end.”

The Soviet Union, which occupied Afghanistan for a decade until it abruptly withdrew in 1989, “did it the same way,” Powell said. “They got tired, and they marched out and back home. How long did anybody remember that?”

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U.S. recommends pausing J&J vaccinations on clotting concern

InternationalApr 14. 2021A healthcare worker prepares to administer Johnson & Johnson Janssen Covid-19 vaccines in San Rafael, Calif., on March 25, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · John Lauerman

U.S. health officials recommended a pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine on concerns about rare and severe blood clotting side effects.

A type of brain blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis was seen in combination with low levels of blood platelets in six women between the ages of 18 and 48, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday in a joint statement. As of April 12, more than 6.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, the agencies said.

The CDC will convene a meeting Wednesday of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to review the cases and assess their potential significance. The FDA will review the CDC assessment as it also investigates these cases, according to the statement

The recommended pause may further complicate efforts to vaccinate the world, just weeks after a vaccine relying on a similar approach and developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford raised similar concerns in Europe. It could also slow the U.S. vaccination campaign, where officials are relying on a pledged 100 million doses of J&J’s vaccine to help cover all adults by the end of May.

“We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” the CDC and the FDA said in the statement. “This is important, in part, to ensure that the health care provider community is aware of the potential for these adverse events and can plan for proper recognition and management due to the unique treatment required with this type of blood clot.”

Concerns about blood clots could discourage some people from taking the J&J shot, which has so far proved popular because it’s a single dose.

The move follows cases of similar clots that have followed the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe, particularly in younger adults. The clotting concern has prompted many countries to impose age restrictions on use of the Astra vaccine, which was co-developed with the University of Oxford.

J&J has also begun shipments to the European Union. The bloc’s drugs regulator, the European Medicines Agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The EMA has also said that it’s assessing blood clots in people who received the J&J vaccine, after four serious cases of unusual clots accompanied by low blood platelets, one of which was fatal, emerged.

J&J representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Bodies pile up at India crematoriums overwhelmed by virus surge

InternationalApr 14. 2021A health care worker administers a rapid antigen test near the Gateway of India monument in Mumbai, India, on Wednesday, March 31, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Dhiraj Singh

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Dhwani Pandya, Upmanyu Trivedi, Sudhi Ranjan Sen

India’s crematoriums and burial grounds are working overtime to cope with the surging number of deaths from the country’s escalating coronavirus outbreak.

India is now the world’s second worst-hit nation, having overtaken Brazil once again Monday with a sharp jump up in daily new infections over the last 10 days for a grand total of nearly 13.7 million cases. On Tuesday the country reported 161,736 new cases and 879 deaths — more than four times the daily average in January.

Local media has been filled with grim reports of melting furnaces at crematoriums running nonstop, bodies piling up and smoke from continuously burning flesh creating another health risk for locals. Workers at six crematoriums across the country confirmed the scenes in phone interviews, saying they’ve seen covid-19 deaths climbing.

“Earlier 15 to 20 bodies were coming in a day and now around 80 to 100 dead bodies are coming daily,” said Kamlesh Sailor, the president of a trust operating a crematorium in Surat, a city in the industry-heavy western state of Gujarat. Even after the crematorium doubled capacity when India’s first virus wave struck last year and started operating 24 hours a day, families still need to wait at least two to three hours to cremate the bodies of their relatives, he added.

“We can’t afford to have long queues of people at the crematorium, as that again increases the risk of spreading infection,” Sailor said. “The situation is likely to worsen going ahead as hospitals across the city are filled to capacity.”

The deluge of infections and deaths highlight just how unprepared Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has been to deal with the latest wave of the epidemic. In the past weeks large crowds have gathered for elections rallies in five states, festivals, and religious pilgrimages — indicating things could get even worse for the country and its crematoriums.

Even with the rise in deaths, experts say India is still underreporting fatalities. Death registration data was patchy even before the virus struck, with the vast majority — especially in rural villages — taking place at home and going undocumented. For others that get reported the cause of death listed is often anodyne — old age or heart attack. Experts believe that only between 20%-30% of all deaths in India are properly medically certified.

Media footage of queues at hospitals, critical medicine shortages, and an exodus of migrant workers heading to rural villages in fear of another lockdown has been reminiscent of the strict shutdown roughly a year ago that gave rise to one of the worst humanitarian crises the region has seen in decades.

“There was a lull period in January and February with a much lower number of covid deaths, but now in the last three weeks it is overflowing,” said Namrata Singh, chief executive officer at Antim Yatra, a private funeral service provider in Delhi and Mumbai.

In the national capital New Delhi, the largest burial ground and cremation centers reported an average of 8-9 covid deaths a day, up from one or two a month ago. They are preparing for more after the city on Monday reported a record high of over 11,000 new infections.

At Nigambodh Ghat, New Delhi’s largest cremation ground on the banks of Yamuna river, the administration has “made provision to increase the number of wood pyres and have also planned for additional manpower,” said Jai Prakash, the mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The High Court in Gujarat on Monday urged the state government to take quick measures to deal with the growing health crisis and asked for a report in two days. The state’s lawyer, Kamal Trivedi, told the court that last week the government compelled some hospitals to set aside facilities for covid treatment.

Over in Surat, which sits north of India’s financial center of Mumbai, Sailor called on the government to “give death-related information truthfully.”

“They should reveal both covid and suspected Covid-related deaths, but that is not happening,” he said. “The true picture can actually benefit people as they will be aware and take more precautions.”

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Egypt seizes the Ever Given, saying its owners owe nearly $1 billion for Suez Canal traffic jam

InternationalApr 14. 2021

By The Washington Post · Antonia Noori Farzan

A few weeks ago, Egypt was frantically trying to get the massive container ship Ever Given out of the Suez Canal.

Now, authorities are saying that the vessel is not allowed to leave.

In the latest complication to the ill-fated voyage, Egypt has seized the Ever Given over its owners’ “failure to pay an amount of $900 million,” the state-run news outlet Ahram Gate reported. That amount represents the total compensation that Egypt believes it is owed for the six-day blockage of the Suez Canal, including lost revenue from ships that would ordinarily have traveled through the canal during that time, as well as costs for damage to the crucial waterway and the equipment and manpower deployed in the 144-hour scramble to free the ship.

Since being dislodged from the narrow section of the canal where it ran aground in late March, blocking commerce worth billions of dollars, the Ever Given has been anchored in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake, which is located at the midpoint of the canal. Twenty-five crew members, all Indian nationals, remain stuck on board.

The ruling allowing Egypt to seize the Ever Given was issued by a court in the city of Ismailia, on the west bank of the canal, according to the Ahram Gate website. The Suez Canal Authority, which made the request, noted that Egypt’s maritime trade laws allow the “precautionary seizure” of vessels that have outstanding debts, including failure to pay the costs emanating from an accident.

“The vessel will remain here until investigations are complete and compensation is paid,” Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), told Egyptian state television last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. “The minute they agree to compensation, the vessel will be allowed to move.”

But the National Union of Seafarers in India argues that refusing to let the crew off the ship effectively amounts to holding them for ransom. “If the SCA has suffered losses, they can sort it out with those involved with the ship,” the union’s general secretary, Abdulgani Serang, told the Times of India on Sunday.

The Ever Given is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha, a Japanese holding company, but leased by Evergreen Marine Corp., a Taiwan-based conglomerate. A separate German firm, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, was responsible for hiring the crew.

Egypt has not said which company it expects to pay for the damage, but Shoei Kisen Kaisha told the Journal last week that it was “in the middle of negotiations” with Suez authorities. The company has filed a lawsuit in British court aimed at limiting its liability for the incident.

Investigations into how the Ever Given became lodged sideways in the canal are still ongoing. In a recent interview, Rabie suggested that the captain could have “made a mistake” with the boat’s steering or speed, according to Kyodo News. He emphasized that the two Suez Canal pilots who were on board the boat to offer guidance were not ultimately responsible for making decisions, and dismissed the idea that strong winds had pushed the boat off course.

Rabie did not cite any evidence or say how he arrived at that conclusion.

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China, Taiwan, S.Korea oppose Japan’s plan to release Fukushima water into ocean

InternationalApr 14. 2021An employee passes storage tanks for contaminated water at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima, Japan, on Feb. 23, 2017. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Aaron Clark

U.S. partners South Korea and Taiwan joined China in opposing Japan’s plan to release radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean starting in about two years.

The three Asian governments, all with coastlines nearby, swiftly criticized Japan’s announcement Tuesday that it would conduct controlled releases that are expected to last for several decades. South Korea said the move posed a risk to the marine environment and the safety of neighboring countries, while China said it reserved the right to take further action.

“Despite doubts and opposition from home and abroad, Japan has unilaterally decided to release the Fukushima nuclear wastewater into the sea before exhausting all safe ways of disposal and without fully consulting with neighboring countries and the international community,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing. “This is highly irresponsible.”

The U.S., on the other hand, said the approach appeared to be in line with global standards while the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the global body would help ensure the plan is carried out “without an adverse impact on human health and the environment.”

“Disposing of the treated water is an unavoidable issue for decommissioning the Fukushima nuclear power plant,” Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said.

The decision ends years of debate over how to dispose of the water, which is enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It has been leaking into the reactors that suffered core meltdowns after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

The U.S. backing comes as Suga prepares to become the first foreign leader to hold an in-person summit with President Joe Biden in Washington ahead of a climate conference, where Japan may announce new 2030 emissions reduction targets. To meet its vow to be carbon neutral by 2050, some government officials contend Japan will need to restart almost every nuclear reactor it shuttered in the aftermath of the 2011 meltdowns, and then build more.

“We thank Japan for its transparent efforts in its decision to dispose of the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi site,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter.

Discharges are common practice in the industry, and Japan has said the releases will meet global guidelines. A panel within Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recommended last year the water be released into the ocean or evaporated. The proposal stipulated that any water released into the environment must be repurified and diluted to meet standards, and that the discharges take place over decades, according to a December 2019 report from METI.

While Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. cycles in water to keep fuel and debris cool at the Fukushima site, fresh groundwater flows in daily and becomes contaminated. That water is pumped out and cleaned in a process that removes most of the radioactive elements except for tritium. Then it’s stored in one of roughly 1,000 tanks at the site, which are forecast to be full by mid-2022.

Greenpeace criticized Japan’s plan to release the treated Fukushima water into the ocean and said there are other options that should be considered.

“Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term, they have opted for the cheapest option, dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean,” the group said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report in April 2020 that METI’s recommendations were “based on a sufficiently comprehensive analysis and on a sound scientific and technical basis.”

Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council expressed regret about the decision, saying it had expressed opposition to the plan earlier. The body in Taipei said it set up 33 monitoring spots in waters nearby Taiwan to assess any impact of radioactivity.

Hu Xijin, an editor at the Communist Party-backed Global Times newspaper, said the U.S. approved of the plan “to cement Japan’s loyalty.”

“The U.S. thinks it’s far from Japan and has the least risk,” he wrote on Twitter. “But ocean currents mean it will face the same risk in future.”