Doctor says Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms now mostly ‘resolved’
WASHINGTON — During what could be President Joe Biden’s last day of isolating after his coronavirus infection, he confronted a classic work-from-home problem Americans have endured around the country since the pandemic began.
His dog interrupted a virtual meeting Tuesday.
Biden seemed to pretend not to hear the racket, which came in the middle of a conversation with South Korean business executives about investments in U.S. manufacturing. The president has a German shepherd named Commander who arrived at the White House as a puppy last year.
Under public health guidelines, Biden has needed to isolate for five days as he recovers. He plans to test for the virus on Wednesday and return to working in person if he’s negative.
“I hope I look as great as I feel here,” he said during his virtual meeting.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, wrote in a new note that Biden has improved enough that he’s able to resume his regular exercise routine.
Biden’s symptoms “have now almost completely resolved,” and all of his vital signs are good.
Biden took his fifth and final dose of Paxlovid, which is intended to prevent severe symptoms from COVID-19, on Monday night.
Pope in Canada: Pope Francis celebrated his first big Mass in Canada on Tuesday as reverberations echoed from his historic apology for the Catholic Church’s role in severing generations of Indigenous family ties by participating in Canada’s “catastrophic” residential school system.
Some 50,000 people filled
Commonwealth Stadium and a smaller nearby venue for the Mass. They cheered as Francis arrived in a popemobile and looped around the track, stopping occasionally to kiss babies as Indigenous hand drums thumped.
In his homily, Francis urged young people to appreciate the wisdom and experience of their grandparents as fundamental to their very being, and to treasure those lessons to build a better future.
But emotions were still raw a day after Francis visited a former residential school in Maskwacis to apologize for the “evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples.”
Murray Sinclair, the First Nations chairman of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, welcomed the apology but said Tuesday that it didn’t go far enough in acknowledging the papacy’s role in justifying European colonial expansion and the hierarchy’s endorsement of Canada’s assimilation policy.
More than 150,000 Native children in Canada were taken from their homes and made to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s.
Myanmar executions: International outrage over Myanmar’s execution of four political prisoners intensified Tuesday with grassroots protests and strong condemnation from world governments, as well as fears the hangings could derail nascent attempts to bring an end to the violence and unrest that has beset the Southeast Asian nation since the military seized power last year.
Myanmar’s military-led government that seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 has been accused
of thousands of extrajudicial killings since then, but the hangings announced Monday were the country’s first official executions in decades.
“We feel that this is a crime against humanity,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said from Kuala Lumpur.
He said the executions would be a focus of the upcoming meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers in Cambodia.
Lake Mead body: Another body has surfaced at Lake Mead — this time in a swimming area where water levels have dropped as the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam recedes because of drought and climate change.
The National Park Service did not say in a statement how long officials think the corpse was submerged in the Boulder Beach area before it was found Monday by people who summoned park rangers.
Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse said Tuesday it was partially encased in mud at the water line of the swimming area along the shore north of Hemenway Harbor marina.
The gender of the dead person was not immediately apparent, Rouse said, and it was too early to tell a time, cause and manner of death. Investigators will review missing persons records as part of the effort, Rouse said.
The corpse was the third found since May as the shoreline retreats at the shrinking reservoir between Nevada and Arizona east of Las Vegas. The lake surface has dropped more than 170 feet since the reservoir was full in 1983. It is now about 30% full.
California wildfires: Firefighters continue to make progress against a huge California forest fire that forced evacuations for thousands of people and destroyed 41 homes and other buildings near Yosemite National Park, officials said Tuesday.
Crews battling the Oak Fire in Mariposa County got a break from increased humidity levels as monsoonal moisture moved through the Sierra Nevada foothills, said a Tuesday morning report by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
After minimal growth Monday and overnight, the blaze had consumed more than 28 square miles of forest land, with 26% containment on Tuesday, Cal Fire said.
Rep. Greene appeal: A judge in Atlanta rejected an appeal by a group of voters and affirmed the Georgia secretary of state’s decision that U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is eligible to run for reelection.
The five voters from Greene’s district sought to have her removed from the ballot, saying that she played a significant role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted Congress’ certification of
Biden’s presidential victory. That was a violation of a rarely invoked provision in the 14th Amendment against insurrection or rebellion, they argued.
Represented by Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance reform group, the voters filed a complaint with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in March.
Greene was questioned extensively during an April hearing before Georgia Administrative Law Judge Charles Beaudrot, who ruled May 6 that Greene should not be disqualified. Raffensperger immediately affirmed the decision.
The voters appealed in Fulton County Superior Court, where Chief Judge Christopher Brasher affirmed Raffensperger’s adoption on Monday.
Free Speech for People said in a statement that Brasher ruled “with minimal legal analysis,” and that it has not decided whether to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.