Michmutters

“Covid is not over. The pandemic is not over,” one senior Biden official said. “It doesn’t make sense to lift this [declaration] given what we’re seeing on the ground in terms of cases.”

An HHS spokesperson declined to comment, and the people with knowledge of the matter cautioned the situation could still change ahead of an Aug. 15 deadline for deciding whether to let the declaration continue.

The Biden administration has increasingly pointed to the availability of Covid vaccines and treatments as evidence that Americans who are vaccinated and boosted can live with the virus in relative safety. But even with that new posture, many administration health officials remain wary of the message that ending the public health emergency declaration would send at a time when caseloads are topping 100,000 a day.

“It will end whenever the emergency ends,” one senior administration official said, summing up the internal attitude toward the declaration.

The emergency designation has also provided authorities that allowed the administration to expand access to Medicaid, greenlight vaccines more quickly and offer tests and therapeutics for free. Were the emergency to be ended, those flexibilities would need to be unwound — a complex process that hospital and public health groups have warned could be disruptive to their ability to treat Covid patients.

The federal government has continuously renewed the declaration since the first Covid cases hit the US in January 2020. And while HHS has pledged to give states 60 days’ notice before allowing it to expire, the administration has refused to set out specific criteria for phasing out its emergency authorities.

The debate around continuing the declaration, however, has grown more contentious. With vaccines and treatments widely distributed and no remaining expectation the administration can eradicate Covid, health officials over the last several months have increasingly discussed when that phase-out should occur, and what it should look like.

In the most recent round of deliberations, some officials have floated allowing the declaration to expire in October, contingent on the administration successfully rolling out its next round of vaccines and averting a failing surge in cases, two people familiar with the matter said. An end of the emergency declaration this year could also provide a pre-election demonstration that the country has, indeed, entered a new phase of the pandemic fight.

But such a move would likely spark fierce pushback from the health industry and invite criticism from public health groups on the front lines of efforts to combat the virus and vaccinate more Americans.

Some health officials also feared that formally ending the public health emergency would dampen any remaining sense of urgency in Congress to allocate additional money toward the Covid response. The administration’s request for billions more dollars to bolster its stockpiles of vaccines, tests and treatments has stalled for months in the Senate, even as officials warn the funding shortage risks hampering their ability to continue the pandemic fight.

With reporting by Erin Banco.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is leaning into the culture wars as he weighs a 2024 bid.

The Florida governor and rising GOP star on Thursday suspended a Tampa-area elected state attorney who had signed a pledge not to prosecute those who seek out or provide abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the seminal case that protected the right to abortion.

It’s only the latest item on a growing list of moves designed to win over the Republican Party’s conservative base amid speculation that DeSantis could pursue a bid for the White House in the coming years.

“He is sending a message to Republican voters and to the American people that he is a leader, and he is willing to make very difficult decisions that many other elected officials aren’t, and he is willing to fire people who people think are untouchable , and that is crucial for someone that’s going to run for president in 2024,” said Terry Schilling, the president of the conservative grassroots organization, the American Principles Project.

DeSantis’s office billed the Thursday announcement suspending State Attorney Andrew Warren, a rising star in Florida Democratic circles, as official business. But for many, the episode was merely the latest effort by DeSantis to court a growing national conservative base — something he’s done with increasing vigor in recent years.

Thomas Kennedy, a Democratic National Committee member from Florida and an ardent critic of DeSantis, described the governor’s announcement as a “political stunt,” noting how his press secretary Christina Pushaw teased the announcement the night before as the “liberal media meltdown of the year .”

“The evidence is in their words. You had literally his spokesperson calling it the liberal meltdown of the year,” Kennedy said. “They were looking for a reaction, they got their reaction. Everything they do is a stunt, and it’s aimed at Republican voters in early primary states.”

It was a familiar tactic for DeSantis, whose name has shot to the top of the list of potential GOP presidential candidates over the past two years. In that time, he has defied public health officials’ advice on the COVID-19 pandemic, cracked down on public protests, banned the teaching of so-called critical race theory in public schools and picked a high-profile fight with Walt Disney World, one of the state’s biggest tourist draws.

And for many conservatives, including Schilling, that combative approach to politics and business is exactly what makes DeSantis attractive.

“In reality, we’re reaching a point in time where you can’t really separate politics from doing the right thing,” Schilling said. “Ron DeSantis took on Disney, for crying out loud. This is a guy that’s willing to take on powerful interests if it means protecting the people he’s representing.”

Even during his first bid for governor in 2018, DeSantis drew attention for his controversial, no-holds-barred campaign style. One ad at the time showed DeSantis telling his young daughter to “build the wall” as she played with toy blocks. At another point in the campaign, he has faced criticism after he warned Floridians not to “monkey this up” by voting for his Democratic rival Andrew Gillum, who is Black.

Since then, DeSantis has made a name for himself as a hard-charging culture warrior willing to push the limits of his authority to further his vision of conservatism. While that strategy has made him a much-hated villain to Democrats, it’s won him the praise of many Republicans who have begun carefully eyeing him as a successor to former President Trump.

“Ron DeSantis is a master class in how to speak to the base; how to antagonize Democrats in a way that, I think to a lot of Republicans, looks entirely reason-based,” one Republican donor said. “He’s not doing these inconsistent rants like Donald Trump did. He’s methodical, and that’s why he’s coming up as fast as he is.”

And indeed, DeSantis’s political rise appears very real. Not only has he emerged as one of — if not the most — powerful governors in recent Florida history, but he has asserted himself as one of the most influential Republicans in the country at a time when the GOP finds itself out of power in Washington.

DeSantis has raised more than $100 million for his election campaign, while meeting with influential Republican officials and donors far from his home state. Earlier this year, for instance, he met with top Trump donors in South Carolina, stoking speculation that he may be considering a bid for the White House.

He’s also among only a few prospective Republican presidential hopefuls who have declined to rule out a 2024 campaign if Trump decides to mount another bid for the White House. And in the event that Trump doesn’t run again, early polling suggests that DeSantis would be a heavy favorite to win the GOP nomination.

A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released this week found that, without Trump on the ballot, DeSantis would lead his closest rival, former Vice President Mike Pence, by a 15-point margin.

“I do think that voters are going to have a hard time choosing between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis because they are so similar in what they offer,” Schilling said. “I don’t think there is a DeSantis without Donald Trump opening that huge door for him and showing what you can actually do through the political lens and at the same time, I’m so impressed with Ron DeSantis. He’s stepped up in ways that no other governor has.”

In the meantime, however, DeSantis is waving off questions about his future political ambitions, saying only that he’s focused on winning a second term in the governor’s mansion in November. His chances, at least for now, appear solid: He’s raised far more money than either of his prospective Democratic rivals — Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) and state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried — and what little public polling there is in the race shows DeSantis with wide leads over both of his potential opponents.

Of course, things could change before Election Day. But DeSantis’s relative comfort with his reelection has given him an opportunity to lay the groundwork for his political future, Kennedy said.

“He’s making a calculation,” Kennedy said. “The Democrats are in disarray in his perspective of him and so, to him, he sees no reason to compromise.”

“He thinks he can win Florida,” Kennedy added. “And at the same time, he’s trying to position himself as the new Republican leader; the new Donald Trump.”

The New York Police Department (NYPD) said its detectives apprehended three men who fired on a party in Queens late Friday night.

In a media briefing, NYPD Chief of Patrol Jeffrey Maddrey said that at approximately 11:35 pm ET members of the violent crime squad were at the area of ​​219th Street and 130th Avenue in Springfield Gardens, Queens.

The detectives were observing a party in the area, including approximately 75 to 100 attendees.

“And, they were observing this party because they believed that there was a potential to be violence involving some of the local street crews,” he explained.

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A gun recovered at a Friday shooting in Queens, New York.
(NYPD/Twitter)

The plainclothes detectives were in an unmarked car when a group of unknown men entered the same intersection and pulled out at least three firearms.

They shot the guns into the vicinity of the party and the detectives – realizing that danger was imminent – ​​exited their vehicle.

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“Our detectives exchanged gunfire with the group of males and our detectives were able to apprehend three of the males,” Maddrey said.

All three of the men sustained gunshot wounds.

A gun from a Friday shooting in Queens, New York.
(NYPD/Twitter)

One of the shooters was transported to a local hospital in critical condition and the other two went to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

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Two of the men were known to the department with “past criminal justice encounters.”

None of the NYPD detectives were injured, but were taken to a local hospital to be checked out for tinnitus and other ailments.

A gun recovered at a Friday night shooting in Queens
(Credit: NYPD/Twitter)

Three firearms were recovered from the scene.

Maddrey told reporters that whether any of the recovered guns are “ghost guns” is “still being determined.”

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Whether any civilians were hit in the incident also remains unknown.

“At this time, we don’t know and it’s still an ongoing investigation,” he said.