United News of Bangladesh

Four people were shot and wounded early Saturday after a fight broke out outside a Los Angeles restaurant hosting a party that followed a Justin Bieber concert, police said. The gunfire erupted outside The Nice Guy restaurant, striking and injuring four men ages 60, 22, 20 and 19, LAPD Officer Lizeth Lomeli said. Their names were not released, but NBC News reported rapper Kodak Black was among the wounded. Officers who responded to the scene found two victims. Paramedics took them to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, police said in an updated statement Saturday afternoon. Two additional victims went to hospitals on their own, according to the statement. All four victims were listed in stable condition. Detectives asked witnesses to come forward to help them identify the gunman. Videos posted on TMZ.com and on social media show Black posing for photos with a group of people outside the restaurant when the brawl broke out. Black is among several people involved in the brawl when shots rang out, sending everyone at the scene running for cover. Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was among the people shot and injured. A message to his publicist at Atlantic Records has not been returned. The party followed Bieber’s private concert at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California as part of a Super Bowl-week party dubbed “Homecoming Weekend.” The guests at the star-studded event included Jeff Bezos, his girlfriend TV host Lauren Sánchez, “Hamilton” actor Anthony Ramos and NFL Hall-of-Famer Tony Gonzalez. Also read: Police: 1 dead in Washington state grocery store shooting The Hollywood Reporter reports that Bieber and his wife Hailey Baldwin, Drake, Khloe Kardashian and Tobey Maguire were also among the celebrities seen entering the afterparty.

President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said Saturday. It offered no suggestion that the hourlong call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe. Biden also said the United States and its allies would respond “decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if the Kremlin attacked its neighbor, according to the White House. The two presidents spoke a day after Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that U.S. intelligence shows a Russian invasion could begin within days and before the Winter Olympics in Beijing end on Feb. 20. Read: US: Civilian toll in Syria raid may be higher than thought Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, encircling Ukraine on three sides. U.S. officials say Russia’s buildup of firepower has reached the point where it could invade on short notice. The conversation came at a critical moment for what has become the biggest security crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. U.S. officials believe they have mere days to prevent an invasion and enormous bloodshed in Ukraine. And while the U.S. and its NATO allies have no plans to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, an invasion and resulting punishing sanctions could reverberate far beyond the former Soviet republic, affecting energy supplies, global markets and the power balance in Europe.  “President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House statement said. Also read: British envoy in Moscow to try to ease Ukraine crisis The call was “professional and substantive” but produced “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the call on condition of anonymity. The official added that it remains unclear whether Putin has made a final decision to move forward with military action. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, said that while tensions have been escalating for months, in recent days “the situation has simply been brought to the point of absurdity.” He said Biden mentioned the possible sanctions that could be imposed on Russia, but “this issue was not the focus during a fairly long conversation with the Russian leader.” Before talking to Biden, Putin had a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. A Kremlin summary of the call suggested that little progress was made toward cooling down the tensions. Putin complained in the call that the United States and NATO have not responded satisfactorily to Russian demands that Ukraine be prohibited from joining the military alliance and that NATO pull back forces from Eastern Europe. In a sign that American officials are getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evacuate most of its staff from the embassy in the Ukrainian capital. Britain joined other European nations in urging its citizens to leave Ukraine. Canada has shuttered its embassy in Kyiv and relocated its diplomatic staff to a temporary office in Lviv, located in the western part of the country, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Saturday. Lviv is home to a Ukrainian military base that has served as the main hub for Canada’s 200-soldier training mission in the former Soviet country. The timing of any possible Russian military action remained a key question. The U.S. picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a U.S. official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he told his Russian counterpart Saturday that “further Russian aggression would be met with a resolute, massive and united trans-Atlantic response.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to project calm as he observed military exercises Saturday near Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. “We are not afraid, we’re without panic, all is under control,” he said. Ukrainian armed forces chief commander Lt. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov issued a more defiant joint statement. “We are ready to meet the enemy, and not with flowers, but with Stingers, Javelins and NLAWs” — anti-tank and -aircraft weapons, they said. “Welcome to hell!” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, also held telephone discussions on Saturday. Further U.S.-Russia tensions arose on Saturday when the Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy’s military attache after it said the navy detected an American submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. The submarine declined orders to leave, but departed after the navy used unspecified “appropriate means,” the ministry said. Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland to reassure allies. The U.S. has urged all American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately, and Sullivan said those who remain should not expect the U.S. military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion. The Biden administration has been warning for weeks that Russia could invade Ukraine soon, but U.S. officials had previously said the Kremlin would likely wait until after the Winter Games ended so as not to antagonize China. Sullivan told reporters on Friday that U.S. intelligence shows that Russia could take invade during the Olympics. He said military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive. “Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action,” Sullivan said, adding that “Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine.” He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital. Russia scoffed at the U.S. talk of urgency. “The hysteria of the White House is more indicative than ever,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “The Anglo-Saxons need a war. At any cost. Provocations, misinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems.” Zakharova said her country had “optimized” staffing at its own embassy in Kyiv in response to concerns about possible military actions from the Ukrainian side. In addition to the more than 100,000 ground troops that U.S. officials say Russia has assembled along Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders, the Russians have deployed missile, air, naval and special operations forces, as well as supplies to sustain a war. This week, Russia moved six amphibious assault ships into the Black Sea, augmenting its capability to land marines on the coast. Biden has bolstered the U.S. military presence in Europe as reassurance to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. The 3,000 additional soldiers ordered to Poland come on top of 1,700 who are on their way there. The U.S. Army also is shifting 1,000 soldiers from Germany to Romania, which like Poland shares a border with Ukraine. Russia is demanding that the West keep former Soviet countries out of NATO. It also wants NATO to refrain from deploying weapons near its border and to roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West. Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people. A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.  

Several thousand New York City public workers could lose their jobs Friday if they don’t show they’ve complied with the city’s mandate requiring they receive at least two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. Though they represent about 1% of the 370,000-person city workforce, including teachers, firefighters and police officers, the mass firings will mark a new line in the sand for the nation’s largest city, which has imposed some of the most sweeping vaccine mandates in the country. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, speaking about the looming firings at a news conference last week, noted that city workers largely complied with the mandate. “Living in a city as complex like this, there must be rules. We must follow them. The rule is to get vaccinated if you’re a city employee. You have to follow that,” the Democrat said. The mandate imposed last year under the former Mayor Bill de Blasio required most city workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of October or be placed on unpaid leave. New workers who started their jobs after Aug. 2 were likewise required to comply and show that they’ve received their shots. There were up to 4,000 workers who had failed to comply by of the end of January, according to City Hall, but that number has dropped as more workers have started to comply or produce their vaccine cards since they were notified last week that they would be fired. City officials said they won’t know exactly how many workers are fired until after the deadline passes. For most workers, that’s the end of their workday on Friday. A coalition of unions representing different parts of the city workforce sued to block the mass firings. But a judge late Thursday afternoon ruled in favor of the city. A group of city Department of Education employees had a request for their appeal to be considered by the Supreme Court dismissed on Friday. Some unions separately struck deals with the city to allow some workers to choose to remain on unpaid leave until this summer or fall. But not all union members took advantage of those deals. The United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City public school teachers, had negotiated with the city school district to allow members to choose to stay on unpaid leave until September 5. READ: US donates another 10mn doses of Pfizer to Bangladesh But the union said 700 of its members who have been on unpaid leave for months opted not to extend their leave or provide proof of vaccine and had been notified they’d be fired. The union joined others in fighting the mass firings, contending that workers deserved due process that involved a hearing before being dismissed. Police Benevolent Association, the city’s largest police union, said less than 50 of its members had received notices they faced termination. Across the entire city workforce, up to 3,000 employees failed to meet an end of October deadline and have been on unpaid leave for months, according to the city. There are additionally up to 1,000 new employees, who started work after Aug. 2, who face termination because they have not shown proof of having received two shots.

The United States is set to evacuate its embassy in Kyiv as Western intelligence officials warn that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is increasingly imminent. U.S. officials say the State Department plans to announce early Saturday that all American staff at the Kyiv embassy will be required to leave the country ahead of a feared Russian invasion. The State Department would not comment. The department had earlier ordered families of U.S. embassy staffers in Kyiv to leave. But it had left it to the discretion of nonessential personnel if they wanted to depart. The new move comes as Washington has ratcheted up its warnings about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said a limited number of U.S. diplomats may be relocated to Ukraine’s far west, near the border with Poland, a NATO ally, so the U.S. could retain a diplomatic presence in the country. The Pentagon announced Friday it is sending another 3,000 combat troops to Poland to join 1,700 who already are assembling there in a demonstration of American commitment to NATO allies worried at the prospect of Russia invading Ukraine. Read: US: Civilian toll in Syria raid may be higher than thought The additional soldiers will depart their post at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, over the next couple days and should be in Poland by early next week, according to a defense official, who provided the information under ground rules set by the Pentagon. They are the remaining elements of an infantry brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division. Their mission will be to train and provide deterrence but not to engage in combat in Ukraine. That announcement came shortly after Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, issued a public warning for all American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country as soon as possible. Sullivan said Russian President Vladimir Putin could give the order to launch an invasion of Ukraine any day now. In addition to the U.S. troops deploying to Poland, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers based in Germany are shifting to Romania in a similar mission of reassurance to a NATO ally. Also, 300 soldiers of an 18th Airborne Corps headquarters unit have arrived in Germany, commanded by Lt. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla. Also read: British envoy in Moscow to try to ease Ukraine crisis The American troops are to train with host-nation forces but not enter Ukraine for any purpose. The U.S. already has about 80,000 troops throughout Europe at permanent stations and on rotational deployments.

President Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order on Friday to move some $7 billion of the Afghan central bank’s assets frozen in the U.S. banking system to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision. The order will require U.S. financial institutions to facilitate access to $3.5 billion of assets for Afghan relief and basic needs. The other $3.5 billion would remain in the United States and be used to fund ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of terrorism, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced. International funding to Afghanistan was suspended and billions of dollars of the country’s assets abroad, mostly in the United States, were frozen after the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August. The country’s long-troubled economy has been in a tailspin since the Taliban takeover. Nearly 80% of Afghanistan’s previous government’s budget came from the international community. That money, now cut off, financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries. Desperation for such basic necessities has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as health care shortages, drought and malnutrition. The lack of funding has led to increased poverty, and aid groups have warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe. State employees, from doctors to teachers and administrative civil servants, haven’t been paid in months. Banks, meanwhile, have restricted how much money account holders can withdraw. The official noted that U.S. courts where 9/11 victims have filed claims against the Taliban will also have to take action for the victims to be compensated. The Justice Department had signaled several months ago that the Biden administration was poised to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims and families of victims in New York City by filing what’s known as a “statement of interest.” The deadline for that filing had been pushed back until Friday because the department said the administration needed to resolve “many complex and important” issues that required consultation with “numerous senior officials and executive agencies and components.” The executive order is expected to be signed by Biden later on Friday. The New York Times first reported on the coming order. The Taliban have called on the international community to release funds and help stave off a humanitarian disaster. Afghanistan has more than $9 billion in reserves, including just over $7 billion in reserves held in the United States. The rest is largely in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Qatar. The Taliban are certain to oppose the split. As of January the Taliban had managed to pay salaries of their ministries but were struggling to keep employees at work. They have promised to open schools for girls after the Afghan new year at the end of March, but humanitarian organizations are saying money is needed to pay teachers. Universities for women have reopened in several provinces with the Taliban saying the staggered opening will be completed by the end of February when all universities for women and men will open, a major concession to international demands.

U.S. military officials say there could have been more civilian casualties than initially thought in the raid that killed the top Islamic State leader in Syria last week, but they believe any such deaths were caused by the militant’s suicide bomb and were not at the hands of American forces. Laying out a chronology of the raid by special operations forces, officials also said Thursday they cannot be certain that Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated the bomb that killed him and his family at his home in the sleepy village of Atmeh near the Turkish border. But they said it was set off by him or someone else on the third floor of the building where he lived. Previously the Pentagon and President Joe Biden had said al-Qurayshi blew up himself, his wife and two children. The military officials said Thursday they believe the upper floor was rigged to explode and that it’s most likely al-Qurayshi did it, not one of his family members. They also said it’s possible that others — perhaps additional wives he had — could have been with him and killed in that blast. They said the blast threw “multiple bodies” from the building and buried them in the rubble, and while they know al-Qurayshi and his family died, they can’t rule out the possibility that other bodies were hidden in the collapse and not seen by the troops. Speaking to a small group of reporters, two senior military officials involved in the planning or execution of the operation provided the most details to date on the Feb. 2 raid, pushing back against claims by residents and activist groups that the U.S. operation killed as many as 13 people, including civilians. They spoke on condition of anonymity as a condition for providing the briefing. Also read: IS leader blows up self, family as US attacks Syria hideout The Biden administration and the Pentagon have come under sharp criticism recently for failing to provide evidence for a number of national security claims, including proof of their efforts to avoid civilian casualties in operations such as the Syria raid and their account of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in August. Questions about the administration’s credibility are coming at a critical moment as it is revealing intelligence about Russia’s plans for Ukraine, while often not providing evidence to back up its assertions. A journalist on assignment for The Associated Press as well as several village residents said they saw body parts scattered near the site of the Syria raid, a house in the rebel-held Idlib province. The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition-run Syrian Civil Defense, first responders also known as the White Helmets, said 13 people, including children and women, were killed in the shelling and clashes that ensued after the U.S. commando raid. It’s not clear whether those included al-Qurayshi and his family. On Thursday, the military officials acknowledged they have no video of the house explosion in Syria or of the efforts to get civilians out of the house. According to the military, a family with four children on the first floor responded to calls from the troops and interpreters and got out of the house to safety. As they left the house, the explosion tore through the third floor, sending bodies to the ground. Omar Saleh, a resident of a nearby house, said his doors and windows started to rattle to the sound of low-flying aircraft at 1:10 a.m. local time. He then heard a man, speaking Arabic with an Iraqi or Saudi accent through a loudspeaker, urging women to surrender or leave the area. The U.S. military, said one official, did not see indications of other noncombatant casualties but cannot rule it out because the forces were not on the ground long enough to dig through all the rubble. Also read: Biden says IS leader killed during US raid in Syria Military officials said, for the first time, that people in the house shot at the troops before the Americans started to enter the building after the explosion. An IS member, described as a lieutenant of al-Qurayshi’s, and his wife were on the second floor, with as many as five children. Officials said U.S. forces killed the militant and his wife in a gun battle. One was barricaded in a small room and shooting from there; another fired while coming through the door. The troops safely brought four children from the second floor out of the house. But a toddler was found dead there, and the military officials said Thursday that it is not certain how the child died. They said no gunshot wounds were found and that the child was likely killed by the concussive effects of the third-floor explosion and not shot in the gunfight. According to the AP journalist who went to the site, blood could be seen on the walls and floor of the remaining structure, which contained a wrecked bedroom with a child’s wooden cribr. On one damaged wall, a blue plastic children’s swing was still hanging. The kitchen was blackened with fire damage. The officials said two al-Qaida-linked militants with automatic weapons approached the house in an effort to attack the U.S. forces and were killed. But the officials said other armed citizens in the area were not harmed because they did not pose a threat. Explaining the lack of video of the house explosion, the officials said the team was watching the building and overhead surveillance was focused on the surrounding area to detect any potential threats to the force. They said there is also no body-cam video. The officials also revealed that the U.S., which wanted to capture al-Qurayshi alive, had made plans to turn him over to another government. One official said the U.S. would have detained him temporarily, but there were no plans for a long-term U.S. detention. They declined to provide further details, saying they wanted to protect “government-to-government” discussions. Al-Qurayshi took over as head of IS in October 2019, just days after leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died during a U.S. raid. Officials said planning for the new raid began last fall when the U.S. first learned of al-Qurayshi’s presence in the building. Unlike his predecessor, al-Qurayshi was far from a household name. He was a secretive man who officials said never left the house during the months that the U.S. watched and prepared for the raid. Officials said they thought they had a good chance at taking him alive because he only had one leg, which they believed would make it difficult for him to get to a suicide vest. The blast, they said, was much larger than one from a regular suicide vest, which often holds just five or 10 pounds of explosives. They said they chose a ground raid in order to avoid innocent deaths, despite the increased risk to the forces.

Inflation soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, hammering America’s consumers, wiping out pay raises and reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s decision to begin raising borrowing rates across the economy. The Labor Department said Thursday that consumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with 12 months earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982. Shortages of supplies and workers, heavy doses of federal aid, ultra-low interest rates and robust consumer spending combined to send inflation accelerating in the past year. When measured from December to January, inflation was 0.6%, the same as the previous month and more than economists had expected. Prices had risen 0.7% from October to November and 0.9% from September to October. There are few signs that inflation will slow significantly anytime soon. Most of the factors that have forced up prices since last spring remain in place: Wages are rising at the fastest pace in at least 20 years. Ports and warehouses are overwhelmed, with hundreds of workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s busiest, out sick last month. Many products and parts remain in short supply as a result. The steady surge in prices has left many Americans less able to afford food, gas, rent, child care and other necessities. More broadly, inflation has emerged as the biggest risk factor for the economy and as a serious threat to President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats as midterm elections loom later this year. The Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, have pivoted sharply away from the ultra-low-interest rate policies that the Fed pursued since the pandemic devastated the economy in March 2020. Powell signaled two weeks ago that the central bank would likely raise its benchmark short-term rate multiple times this year, with the first hike almost surely coming in March. Investors have priced in at least five rate increases for 2022. Read: Under pressure to ease up, Biden weighs new virus response Over time, those higher rates will raise the costs for a wide range of borrowing, from mortgages and credit cards to auto loans and corporate credit. For the Fed, the risk is that in steadily tightening credit for consumers and businesses, it could trigger another recession. Many large corporations, in conference calls with investors, have said they expect supply shortages to persist until at least the second half of this year. Companies from Chipotle to Levi’s have also warned that they will likely raise prices again this year, after having already done so in 2021. Chipotle said it’s increased menu prices 10% to offset the rising costs of beef and transportation as well as higher employee wages. And the restaurant chain said it will consider further price increases if inflation keeps rising. “We keep thinking that beef is going to level up and then go down, and it just hasn’t happened yet,” said John Hartung, the company’s chief financial officer. Executives at Chipotle, as well as at Starbucks and some other consumer-facing companies, have said their customers so far don’t seem fazed by the higher prices. Levi Strauss & Co. raised prices last year by roughly 7% above 2019 levels because of rising costs, including labor, and plans to do so again this year. Even so, the San Francisco-based company has upgraded its sales forecasts for 2022. “Right now, every signal we’re seeing is positive,” CEO Chip Bergh told analysts. Many small businesses, which typically have lower profit margins than larger companies and have struggled to match their sizable pay raises, are also raising prices. The National Federation for Independent Business, a trade group, said it found in a monthly survey that 61% of small companies raised their prices in January, the largest proportion since 1974 and up from just 15% before the pandemic. “More small business owners started the new year raising prices in an attempt to pass on higher inventory, supplies and labor costs,” said Bill Dunkelberg, the NFIB’s chief economist. “In addition to inflation issues, owners are also raising compensation at record-high rates to attract qualified employees to their open positions.” Those pay gains could eventually force additional price hikes as companies seek to cover the costs of the higher wages. In the past year, sharp increases in the costs of gas, food, autos and furniture have upended many Americans’ budgets. In December, economists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School estimated that the average household had to spend $3,500 more than in 2020 to buy an identical basket of goods and services.

Facing growing pressure to ease up on pandemic restrictions, the White House insisted Wednesday it is making plans for a less-disruptive phase of the national virus response. But impatient states, including Democratic New York, made clear they aren’t waiting for Washington as public frustration grows. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York will end its COVID-19 mandate requiring face coverings in most indoor public settings — but will keep it for schools. Illinois announced the same. Earlier this week, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware all disclosed plans to join states that have lifted or never had mask requirements for their schools, and Massachusetts will follow suit at the end of the month. All but Massachusetts have governors who are Democrats, like President Joe Biden. Biden, who has long promised to follow to “follow the science” in confronting the pandemic, is hemmed in, waiting for fresh guidance from federal health officials, who so far still recommend that nearly all Americans wear masks in most indoor settings. Defending Biden, press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged that while people are tired of masks and “we understand where the emotions of the country are,” the administration is following the advice of medical experts who rely on scientific evidence. “That doesn’t move at the speed of politics; it moves at the speed of data,” she said. READ: Biden threatens: No gas pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine Clearly feeling the pressure, the White House for the first time acknowledged movement in its planning, saying conversations have been under way privately to develop plans for guiding the country away from the emergency phase of the pandemic. Federal COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said officials are consulting with state and local leaders and public health officials on potential next steps. But as governors and local officials press for clearer federal guidelines for easing or ending restrictions, states, cities and school boards are adopting an awkward patchwork of policies that differ widely from one place to the next. “We are working on that guidance,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a White House teleconference Wednesday. “As we’ve been encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.” The White House offered no timetable for the review or an indication of what it will recommend. And some critics say that’s not good enough. “The tragic thing is that these are governors that would probably have followed the White House’s guidance,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner. “They wanted CDC input and asked for it, but without a clear timeline, at some point they had to decide that they couldn’t wait any more. The fault is not theirs, but the CDC’s and by extension, President Biden’s, which, with each passing day, is making itself less and less relevant.” Asked whether Biden appears to be out of touch with the country, Psaki defended his caution. “As a federal government we have the responsibility to rely on data on science, on the medical experts,” she said. Pressed on whether Americans should follow less-restrictive state or local rules or the stricter federal guidance, she repeated the White House’s daily counsel: “We would advise any American to follow the CDC guidelines.” New York’s Hochul and others aren’t waiting. They are ending or easing many broad mandates, though her state will keep masking rules in schools and health facilities. “Given the declining cases, given the declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to lift this, in effect tomorrow,” Hochul said Wednesday. READ: Top Biden aide says Ukraine invasion could come ‘any day’ Even allies of the administration have argued that Biden should at least lay out a roadmap for moving back toward normalcy. He has been hesitant, aides say, in part because of the sting of his fleeting “declaration of independence” from the virus last summer, which proved premature in the face of the delta and then omicron strains. Now, though, cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 have dropped markedly since they peaked earlier this year amid the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, and the vast majority of Americans are protected against the virus by effective vaccines and boosters. Still, more than 2,000 people infected with the virus die in the U.S. each day, and there is concern within the administration about letting up while deaths remain high. And Psaki noted that many Americans support continued mask-wearing. Some in the White House point to the consternation that was voiced in December after the CDC shortened the isolation time for Americans who test positive. While Biden and other administration officials emphasize that the threat from the virus is far diminished from a year ago, before the wide roll-out of vaccines and booster shots and the approval of rapid at-home tests and highly effective therapeutics, administration officials acknowledge that most federal guidelines have been slow to keep up. The CDC continues to recommend indoor mask wearing in places of “substantial or high transmission” of the virus, which as of Wednesday was all of the U.S. but 14 rural counties. State and local leaders, nevertheless, have announced plans to ease virus restrictions in the coming weeks as omicron cases fall, citing the protections offered by vaccines as well as the increased availability of at-home testing kits and therapeutics for those who do catch the virus. Many of the restrictions eased last year, only to be reinstated as omicron swept the country. After more than a year of a top-down federally driven response, the emerging shift marks a return to the historical norm, where states have typically had the first say in how they handle public health emergencies. The CDC can advise them and issue general guidance for the nation, but in most situations it cannot order them what to do. While the Biden administration has pushed back strongly against efforts by GOP governors to prohibit mask-wearing requirements, it is indicating that it will take a more flexible approach to jurisdictions that make their own choices. Policies lifting mask requirements “are going to have to be made at the local level” depending on case rates, Walensky said. Despite the encouraging reports in the Americas, Western Europe and some other regions, the head of the World Health Organization insisted Wednesday that “COVID isn’t finished with us.” As his agency reported that new infections fell but virus deaths rose worldwide over the past week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus launched a new $23 billion campaign to fund WHO’s efforts to lead a broad rollout of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines around the world.

Truck blockades of Canada’s capital and U.S. border crossings, including the economically vital bridge to Detroit, forced the shutdown of a Ford plant and the company warned the protests could have widespread implications for the North American auto industry. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, stood firm against an easing of Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions in the face of mounting pressure during recent weeks by protests against the restrictions and against Trudeau himself. A blockade by people mostly in pickup trucks entered its third day at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Traffic was prevented from entering Canada, while U.S.-bound traffic was still moving. The bridge carries 25% of all trade between the two countries, and Canadian authorities expressed increasing worry about the economic effects. Ford said late Wednesday that parts shortages forced it to shut down its engine plant in Windsor and to run an assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, on a reduced schedule. READ: Protest strike shuts down Haiti amid search for missionaries “This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, auto workers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border,” Ford said in a statement. “We hope this situation is resolved quickly because it could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.” Shortages due to the blockade also forced General Motors to cancel the second shift of the day at its midsize-SUV factory near Lansing, Michigan. Spokesman Dan Flores said it was expected to restart Thursday and now additional impact was expected for the time being. Later Wednesday, Toyota spokesman Scott Vazin said the company will not be able to manufacture anything at three Canadian plants for the rest of this week due to parts shortages. A company statement attributed the problem to supply chain, weather and pandemic-related challenges, but the shutdowns came just days after the blockade began Monday. “Our teams are working diligently to minimize the impact on production,” the company said, adding that it doesn’t expect any layoffs at this time. Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, reported normal operations Wednesday, although the company had to cut shifts short the previous day at its Windsor minivan plant. A growing number of Canadian provinces have moved to lift some of their precautions as the omicron surge levels off, but Trudeau defended the measures the federal government is responsible for, including the one that has angered many truck drivers: a rule that took effect Jan. 15 requiring truckers entering Canada to be fully vaccinated. “The reality is that vaccine mandates, and the fact that Canadians stepped up to get vaccinated to almost 90%, ensured that this pandemic didn’t hit as hard here in Canada as elsewhere in the world,” Trudeau said in Parliament. Protesters have also been blocking the border crossing at Coutts, Alberta, for a week and a half, with about 50 trucks remaining there Wednesday. And more than 400 trucks have paralyzed downtown Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in a protest that began late last month. While protesters have been calling for Trudeau’s removal, most of the restrictive measures around the country have been put in place by provincial governments. Those include requirements that people show proof-of-vaccination “passports” to enter restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and sporting events. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia announced plans this week to roll back some or all of their precautions. Alberta, Canada’s most conservative province, dropped its vaccine passport immediately and plans to get rid of mask requirements at the end of the month. READ: Hoax bomb call shuts down India's Taj Mahal Alberta opposition leader Rachel Notley accused the province’s premier, Jason Kenney, of allowing an “illegal blockade to dictate public health measures.” Despite Alberta’s plans to scrap its measures, the protest there continued. “We’ve got guys here — they’ve lost everything due to these mandates, and they’re not giving up, and they’re willing to stand their ground and keep going until this is done,” said protester John Vanreeuwyk, a feedlot operator from Coaldale, Alberta. “Until Trudeau moves,” he said, “we don’t move.” As for the Ambassador Bridge blockade, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said police had not removed people for fear of inflaming the situation. But he added: “We’re not going to let this happen for a prolonged period of time.” The demonstration involved 50 to 74 vehicles and about 100 protesters, police said. Some of the protesters say they are willing to die for their cause, according to the mayor. “I’ll be brutally honest: You are trying to have a rational conversation, and not everyone on the ground is a rational actor,” Dilkens said. “Police are doing what is right by taking a moderate approach, trying to sensibly work through this situation where everyone can walk away, nobody gets hurt, and the bridge can open.” To avoid the blockade and get into Canada, truckers in the Detroit area had to drive 70 miles north to Port Huron, Michigan, and cross the Blue Water Bridge, where there was a 4½-hour delay leaving the U.S. At a news conference in Ottawa that excluded mainstream news organizations, Benjamin Dichter, one of the protest organizers, said: “I think the government and the media are drastically underestimating the resolve and patience of truckers.” “Drop the mandates. Drop the passports,” he said. The “freedom truck convoy” has been promoted by Fox News personalities and attracted support from many U.S. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who called Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates.” Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. Canada’s COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the U.S. About 90% of truckers in Canada are vaccinated, and trucker associations and many big-rig operators have denounced the protests. The U.S. has the same vaccination rule for truckers entering the country, so it would make little difference if Trudeau lifted the restriction. Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen said in Parliament that countries around the world are removing restrictions and noted that Canadian provinces are, too. She accused Trudeau of wanting to live in a “permanent pandemic.” “Many of the reasons that were previously to keep Canadians under restrictions are vanishing before our eyes,” she said. “The prime minister needs to put his ego aside. He needs to do what’s right for the country. He needs to end the mandates. He needs to end the restrictions.” Ontario, Canada’s largest province with almost 40% of the country’s population, is sticking to what it calls a “very cautious” stance toward the pandemic, and the deputy premier said it has no plans to drop vaccine passports or mask requirements.

A man suspected of opening fire inside a grocery store in Washington state, killing one person and injuring another, was a suspected shoplifter who appeared to be battling mental illness, according to court documents. Aaron Christopher Kelly, 39, was arrested late Monday night in a vehicle on Interstate 90 near Spokane, and made his first court appearance on Tuesday afternoon on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder, Richland police said. Kelly, was arrested on the freeway between the town of Sprague and Spokane, which is about two hours northeast of Richland, police said. Kelly made his initial court appearance Tuesday in Benton County Superior Court, where bail was set at $1 million and he declined to enter a plea. Arraignment was set for Feb. 23. His attorney, public defender Mike Vander Sys, declined to comment on the case. Kelly was identified by police earlier Monday as the suspect in the shootings at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Richland. In court documents, Kelly’s former roommate told police Kelly “has been spiraling mentally and is very paranoid.” Kelly was also known to carry a pistol, which made the roommate and others feel “extremely unsafe” when around him, the documents said. Kelly was suspected last week of shoplifting at a different Fred Meyer store in nearby Kennewick, according to court documents. An employee — who said Kennewick store workers were familiar with Kelly as a frequent shoplifter — snapped a picture of Kelly and his car as he left the Kennewick location last Thursday, the documents said. Kelly is accused of walking into the Richland Fred Meyer about 11 a.m. Monday and shooting customer Justin Krumbah multiple times in a grocery aisle. He then shot an employee, Mark A. Hill, had “some sort of conversation” with a shopper and wandered briefly in the store before leaving about 11:07 a.m., court documents said. Krumbah, 38, died from his wounds despite efforts by the first officers on scene to save him. Hill, 56, was carried out of the store to waiting paramedics and is fighting for his life at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, according to the Tri-City Herald newspaper. The criminal case against Kelly was filed by Prosecutor Andy Miller in Benton County Superior Court just before the close of business Monday. That’s when Superior Court Judge Dave Petersen found probable cause to issue a $1 million nationwide warrant for Kelly’s arrest. The Richland Fred Meyer remained closed Tuesday. Richland is about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Seattle. It’s part of the Tri-Cities metro area, which includes Kennewick and Pasco and has a combined population of more than 280,000.