President Biden has tested positive for COVID and canceled a campaign speech Wednesday evening as he headed back to Delaware to self-isolate. The White House said Biden has mild symptoms and is being treated with the antiviral drug Paxlovid. Biden was set to address the UnidosUS conference in Las Vegas to appeal to Latinx voters.

Earlier in the day, an unmasked Biden was seen greeting supporters with close physical contact. Just hours before news of the President’s COVID diagnosis went public, Biden made headlines over comments during an interview with BET journalist Ed Gordon.

Ed Gordon: “Is there anything that you would look to — you personally, not anybody else, not other pundits, not even perhaps family members — that you would look to, to say, 'If I see that, I will reevaluate'?”

President Joe Biden: “If I had some medical condition that emerged. If somebody, if the doctors came to me and said, 'You got this problem, that problem.'”

Later in the same interview, Biden appeared to forget the name of his secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, referring to him as “the Black man.”

Separately, on Wednesday, California congressmember and U.S. Senate candidate Adam Schiff publicly called on Biden to “pass the torch,” after reports he told donors privately Biden could cost Democrats the presidency and the Senate if he stays in the race. This comes amid reports that top Democrats Nancy Pelosi and party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have directly expressed concerns to President Biden over his ability to beat Trump.

President Biden has been the subject of backlash this week over comments he made in an interview with journalist Speedy Morman on Complex, where Biden claimed he was “very supportive” of Palestinians.

Speedy Morman: “Are you a Zionist?”

President Joe Biden: “Yes. Now, now, you’ll be able to make a lot out of that because people don’t know what a Zionist is. Do you know what a Zionist is?”

Speedy Morman: “I just ask questions. I don’t answer.”

President Joe Biden: “By the way, I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody. I’m the guy that opened up all the assets. I’m the guy that made sure that I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods through, medicine and food.”

Biden’s comments come as Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza has now killed nearly 39,000 Palestinians, according to official data, though the true death toll is certainly much higher.

Among those killed in Gaza was Muhammed Bhar, a 24-year-old man from Gaza City. Bhar’s mother says her son, who had Down syndrome, was separated from his family and mauled by a combat dog that Israeli soldiers unleashed on Bahr as he cried out “Khalas ya habibi,” meaning “Enough, my dear.” Muhammed Bhar’s mother says he was nonverbal and these were the only words his family had ever heard him speak. He was left to die and his family found his body after they were able to return home a week later.

The Red Cross warns hospitals in southern Gaza are at a “breaking point” due to the spike in patients as Israel intensifies its attacks across the territory. Only 10 of 26 U.N. healthcare facilities in Gaza remain operational.

Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing Palestinian statehood. It’s the first time the Knesset has passed such a resolution.

Also on Wednesday, United Nations chief António Guterres blamed a surge in illegal Israeli settlement expansions in the occupied West Bank for scuppering a future two-state system, saying, “Recent developments are driving a stake through the heart of any prospect for a two-state solution.”
Meanwhile, Palestine’s U.N. ambassador addressed a Security Council meeting in New York Wednesday, where he called for an end to the “most documented genocide in history.” This is Riyad Mansour.

Riyad Mansour: “There is a global consensus in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and a two-state solution in line with U.N. resolutions and international law. There is more convergence on the Palestine question than on any other matter on the international agenda. And there is one isolated fanatic government rejecting this international consensus and attacking every institution entrusted with upholding the international law-based order.”

Here in Milwaukee, Ohio Senator JD Vance accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination Wednesday as he took to the stage on day three of the Republican National Convention. Vance appealed to the working class and voters in the Rust Belt’s swing states. Vance touted his Appalachian roots and lashed out at President Biden over his foreign policy record, including Biden’s support of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Vance blamed for exporting thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico, as well as then-Senator Biden’s role in the Iraq War. Vance is a U.S. Marine veteran who served in Iraq. Vance also promoted tougher policies on China, which he’s described as the “biggest threat” facing the U.S., and blamed Biden for skyrocketing inflation.

Vance was introduced by his wife Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants — much of the RNC has centered on anti-immigrant hate speech and policies. Among the other speakers yesterday were Donald Trump Jr., Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was released from a Miami federal prison earlier on Wednesday before flying to Milwaukee. Navarro served four months in prison for contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

The Wall Street Journal is under fire after it dismissed Hong Kong-based reporter Selina Cheng after she was elected last month as chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Hong Kong’s largest media union. The Wall Street Journal claims her firing was due to restructuring. Selina Cheng spoke to reporters Wednesday.

Selina Cheng: “At that time, he demanded that I resign from my position on the executive committee of the journalists’ association. I told him that day that I refused, but he said the position in the journalists’ association was incompatible with my position at The Wall Street Journal. He said that employees of The Wall Street Journal should be promoting press freedom in places like Hong Kong. He said this place is not like some Western countries where press freedom has already been established.”

Colombia’s government announced it’s ending a ceasefire deal with the largest faction of dissident members of FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The long-anticipated agreement had been brokered last year by the government of leftist President Gustavo Petro. This is Colombia’s defense minister, Iván Velásquez.

Iván Velásquez: “Colombia’s military forces received the order to carry out offensive operations with full capacity against these organizations, blocs and fronts that walked away from the generous offer made by the government as it seeks peace.”

A ceasefire with a smaller faction of the group will be extended for three months as peace negotiations continue.

In Texas, anger is mounting over continued power outages more than one week after Hurricane Beryl swept through the Houston area. Harris County officials say at least six heat-related deaths have been reported due to the blackouts. One woman was found dead in her home Tuesday, a day when the heat index reached 110 degrees. Some 60,000 people still did not have electricity as of Wednesday.

The Center for Energy Poverty and Climate released a report this week warning low-income households are particularly vulnerable to intensifying heat waves, as 31 states offer no protections against summer power shutoffs when people cannot afford to pay their utility bills.

Officials in Afghanistan say torrential rains in the east of the country have killed at least 47 people and injured hundreds of others in recent days. The International Rescue Committee warned the situation is only likely to get worse, and called on international donors to step up, saying, “Decades of conflict and economic crisis has meant that the country has faced setback after setback as it tries to find its feet.”

Wednesday marked the 10th anniversary of the police killing of Eric Garner, who died after an officer held him in a chokehold, which is a banned procedure. The now-ex NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo remains a free man after a jury and the Justice Department declined to charge him for killing Garner. Yesterday, community members joined ⁠Eric Garner’s mother, daughter and cousin to march to the site of Garner’s killing on a Staten Island street. Eric Garner’s pleas of “I can’t breathe,” captured on video by a witness, became a global rallying cry.

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, civil rights activist, scholar and musician who started the vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock and co-founded the Freedom Singers and the Harambee Singers, died Tuesday at the age of 81. In the early 1960s, Bernice Johnson Reagon performed with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s musical group Freedom Singers, bringing liberation songs to marches, jails and organizing meetings. She joined Democracy Now! in 2008 to celebrate the life and work of another civil rights musical icon, Odetta, and recalled her own musical trajectory.

Bernice Johnson Reagon: “Sweet Honey in the Rock, which came out of a theater workshop, was going to be a cappella, was going to do songs that came out of the struggles and the stages of life of people, on a community-based level, calling people to pay attention to issues that we needed to be addressing as responsible citizens, and that singers, that artists really had a big role to play in challenging our society and culture to transform itself and to do better. And so, absolutely, the Freedom Singers and the freedom song in the civil rights movement is formative for me, both as a singer, as a composer and as a scholar.”

Bernice Johnson Reagon’s daughter Toshi Reagon, also an acclaimed musician, shared the news on social media Wednesday and included a quote from her mother: “I was here before I came and when I die, I am not leaving…”

On Wednesday, the top U.N. aid coordinator for Palestine, Muhannad Hadi, said women and girls in Gaza are facing harrowing conditions and that “everything is a priority” and “everything is a challenge” in Gaza.

Muhannad Hadi: “The discussion that I had with the woman group there was one I have never had in my entire career in the United Nations. Women expressed to me how they go through difficulties living there as displaced, in shelters, in UNRWA schools. By the way, the number one thing women complained about was basically privacy, the lack of privacy and dignity.”

In more news from the RNC, the peace group CodePink is facing death threats after a Republican congressmember accused one of its members of “political violence” and branded the group “pro-Hamas.” CodePink says Congressmember Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin falsely accused Nour Jaghama, the group’s Palestine campaign coordinator, of assault after he shoved past her outside the RNC as people waited in line to be let into the security zone. Jaghama, who was wearing a keffiyeh at the time of the incident, was detained for 15 hours and charged with battery. Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL, has a history of aggressive behavior, including against fellow members of Congress.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced plans to move the headquarters of X and SpaceX out of California and relocate to Texas over a new California state law that protects the rights of transgender students. The law, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom this week, bans schools from forcing educators to notify parents of their child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression without the student’s consent. This includes students asking to use a different name or pronouns. Musk, who has an estranged trans daughter, said on X, “This is the final straw.”

Senior congressmembers are pressing the Labor Department for data on child labor violations in federally subsidized youth work programs. This comes after alarming reports of serious abuses nationwide. At least eight states have passed legislation to roll back child labor protections this year, including Alabama, Iowa and West Virginia. The U.S. Department of Labor has reported an increase of 88% in child labor violations between 2019 to 2023, many cases involving migrant children.

Puerto Rico has filed a lawsuit against fossil fuel giants BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and others, seeking at least $1 billion in compensation for their role in fueling the climate crisis. The corporations are charged with hiding evidence for decades that showed greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels would have catastrophic impacts on the climate. Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Justice Domingo Emanuelli Hernández said in a statement, “they did not truthfully warn Puerto Rican consumers about the consequences of using and burning fossil fuels on the island, as well as their impact on the environment. It is time for them to mitigate the damage they have caused to Puerto Rico and not let Puerto Ricans foot the bill.”