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      Biden restores $200m in US aid to Palestinians slashed by Trump

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      The US will restore more than $200m (£145m) in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty.
      “[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.
      The aid includes $75m in economic and development funds for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which will provide food and clean water to Palestinians and help small businesses. A further $150m will be provided to the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the near east (UNRWA), a UN body that supports more than 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region.
      After Donald Trump’s row with the Palestinian leadership, President Joe Biden has sought to restart Washington’s flailing efforts to push for a two-state resolution for the Israel-Palestinian crisis, and restoring the aid is part of that. In his statement, Blinken said US foreign assistance “serves important US interests and values”.
      “The United States is committed to advancing prosperity, security, and freedom for both Israelis and Palestinians in tangible ways in the immediate term, which is important in its own right, but also as a means to advance towards a negotiated two-state solution,” he said.
      Palestinian leaders and the UN welcomed the resumption of aid. Israel, however, criticised the decision to restore funds to UNRWA, a body it has long claimed is a bloated, flawed group.
      “We believe that this UN agency for so-called refugees should not exist in its current format,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan. Pro-Israel US lawmakers joined the country in opposition to the aid and said they would scrutinise it in Congress.
      From 2018, Trump gradually cut virtually all US money to Palestinian aid projects after the Palestinian leadership accused him of being biased towards Israel and refused to talk. The US president accused Palestinians of lacking “appreciation or respect”.
      The former president cancelled more than $200m in economic aid, including $25m earmarked for underfunded East Jerusalem hospitals that have suffered during the Covid-19 crisis. Trump’s cuts to UNRWA, which also serves Palestinian refugees in war-stricken Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, was described by the agency’s then head as “the biggest and most severe” funding crisis since the body was created in 1949. The US was previously UNRWA’s biggest donor.

      To outcry from aid workers, leaked emails suggested the move may have partly been a political tactic to weaken the Palestinian leadership. Those emails alleged that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had argued that “ending the assistance outright could strengthen his negotiating hand” to push Palestinians to accept their blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
      The cuts were decried as catastrophic for Palestinians’ ability to provide basic healthcare, schooling and sanitation, including by prominent Israeli establishment figures.
      Last April, as the coronavirus pandemic hit, Trump’s government announced it would send money to Palestinians. The $5m one-off donation was roughly 1% of the amount Washington provided a year before Trump began slashing aid. More

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      ‘Momentous error’: Italian businessman mistakenly blacklisted by Trump to sue

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      A small business owner in Italy is preparing to sue the US Treasury after accidentally being put on a sanctions blacklist before Donald Trump left the presidency.Alessandro Bazzoni, who owns a graphic design company in Sardinia, has been unable to trade since 19 January, when his business was slapped with sanctions as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude oil.In a case of mistaken identity, the US Treasury erroneously blacklisted Bazzoni’s graphic design company, SeriGraphicLab, along with a restaurant and pizzeria in Verona owned by another businessman called Alessandro Bazzoni. Both were removed from the blacklist on 31 March. But while the restaurant owner’s bank account has been reactivated, the blunder led to the Sardinian businessman’s account being closed.“It was a momentous error on their part, and one that is having serious implications as it is preventing me from working,” he said.Bazzoni, who works independently, was able to withdraw the money that was in his account but can no longer trade because, as per Italian law, he needs a bank account in order to receive payments from clients. The absence of a bank account also means he cannot access the financial support he is entitled to receive as part of the Italian government’s Covid-19 relief scheme.“I have to go to another bank to see if I can open an account there,” he said. “But for now, I cannot sufficiently operate my business, so much so I have started to look for other jobs.”Bazzoni claims the US Treasury did not notify him about being on the sanctions blacklist, nor did it apologise for the mistake.“The only notification I got was from my bank telling me my account was closing,” he said.He has made a legal complaint to the Italian police, with the aim of suing the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a unit of the US Treasury.In 2019, Trump’s government imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in an attempt to force the resignation of the president, Nicolás Maduro, whom the US accused of corruption, human rights violations and rigging his 2018 re-election. On his last day in office, Trump sanctioned a network of oil firms and individuals tied to PDVSA.A US Treasury official told Reuters that the department realised the companies were owned by different individuals than the Bazzoni it blacklisted in January.The Guardian has contacted the US Treasury for a response to the Sardinian businessman’s case. “First and foremost, I want an apology,” said Bazzoni. More

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      Antony Blinken says the US will 'stand up for human rights everywhere'

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      The United States will speak out about human rights everywhere including in allies and at home, secretary of state Antony Blinken has vowed, turning a page from Donald Trump as he bemoaned deteriorations around the world.Presenting the state department’s first human rights report under President Joe Biden, the new top US diplomat took some of his most pointed, yet still veiled, swipes at the approach of the Trump administration.“Some have argued that it’s not worth it for the US to speak up forcefully for human rights – or that we should highlight abuse only in select countries, and only in a way that directly advances our national interests,” Blinken told reporters in clear reference to Trump’s approach.“But those people miss the point. Standing up for human rights everywhere is in America’s interests,” he said.“And the Biden-Harris administration will stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur, regardless of whether the perpetrators are adversaries or partners.”Blinken ordered the return of assessments in the annual report on countries’ records on access to reproductive health, which were removed under the staunchly anti-abortion Trump administration.Blinken also denounced a commission of his predecessor Mike Pompeo that aimed to redefine the US approach to human rights by giving preference to private property and religious freedom while downplaying reproductive and LGBTQ rights.During Pompeo’s time in office, the state department was aggressive in opposing references to reproductive and gender rights in UN and other multilateral documents.“There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said.In another shift in tone from Trump, Blinken said the United States acknowledged its own challenges, including “systemic racism.”“That’s what separates our democracy from autocracies: our ability and willingness to confront our own shortcomings out in the open, to pursue that more perfect union.”Blinken voiced alarm over abuses around the world including in China, again speaking of “genocide” being committed against the Uighur community.The report estimated that more than one million Uighurs and other members of mostly Muslim communities had been rounded up in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang and that another two million are subjected to re-education training each day.“The trend lines on human rights continue to move in the wrong direction. We see evidence of that in every region of the world,” Blinken said.He said the Biden administration was prioritising coordination with allies, pointing to recent joint efforts over Xinjiang, China’s clampdown in Hong Kong and Russia’s alleged poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny.Blinken also voiced alarm over the Myanmar military’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, attacks on civilians in Syria and a campaign in Ethiopia’s Tigray that he has previously called ethnic cleansing.The report, written in dry, factual language, did not spare longstanding US allies.It pointed to allegations of unlawful killings and torture in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, quoting human rights groups that said Egypt is holding between 20,000 and 60,000 people chiefly due to their political beliefs.Biden earlier declassified US intelligence that found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorised the gruesome killing of US-based writer Jamal Khashoggi.While the human rights report remained intact under Trump, the previous administration argued that rights were of lesser importance than other concerns with allies such as Saudi Arabia – a major oil producer and purchaser of US weapons that backed Trump’s hawkish line against Iran, whose record was also heavily scrutinized in the report.The latest report also detailed incidents in India under prime minister Narendra Modi, an increasingly close US ally.It quoted non-governmental groups as pointing to the use in India of “torture, mistreatment and arbitrary detention to obtain forced or false confessions” and quoted journalists as assessing that “press freedom declined” including through physical harassment of journalists, pressure on owners and frivolous lawsuits. More

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      Donald Trump uses new website to rewrite history of his presidency

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      Donald Trump has launched a new website celebrating his time as US president that includes a very selective retelling of the history of his time in office.45office.com is billed as a platform for his supporters to stay in touch and a place where Trump will continue his “America first” campaign.The centrepiece of the site is an 885-word history of the Trump presidency, listing the achievements of what it describes as “the most extraordinary political movement in history”.In a hyperbolic opening paragraph, it says he dethroned political dynasties, defeated “the Washington establishment” and “overcame virtually every entrenched power structure”.The history does, however, omit several significant moments from Trump’s presidency.On the economy, the site says: “President Trump ushered in a period of unprecedented economic growth, job creation, soaring wages, and booming incomes.” Trump frequently described his administration as building “the greatest economy in the history of our country”, a claim repeatedly debunked. It also fails to note that during the pandemic last year the US economy suffered one of its worst financial crashes.The US recorded the world’s largest coronavirus death toll on Trump’s watch, but the website describes his handling of the pandemic as a success, saying: “When the coronavirus plague arrived from China, afflicting every nation around the globe, President Trump acted early and decisively.” It neglects to mention that Trump had in fact described coronavirus as a problem that’s “going to go away” five times in March 2020, even as case numbers rose.Also absent is that Trump became the first US president in history to twice face impeachment trials in Congress. And that he was the first US president in over one hundred years to lose the popular vote twice. Hillary Clinton secured 2.8m more votes than Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden’s 2020 margin of victory was even larger, at 7m votes.Nor does it mention that he became the first major world leader to be banned from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter while in office after they deemed he had used their sites to cite an insurrection. The Capitol riot, which led to the loss of five lives, also does not warrant a mention.The website’s homepage boasts that “the office of Donald J Trump is committed to preserving the magnificent legacy of the Trump administration, while at the same time advancing the America first agenda”.It also promises that “through civic engagement and public activism, the office of Donald J Trump will strive to inform, educate, and inspire Americans from all walks of life as we seek to build a truly great American future”.Trump retains significant influence over the Republican party despite his loss in the 2020 election and has hinted at a possible presidential run in 2024. He has also started actively backing Republican candidates who may be able to unseat fellow party members Trump feels were disloyal to him by failing to back his baseless claims of election fraud last year.In an interview with Fox News this month, Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign spokesperson, said that following his bans from Twitter and Facebook, Trump would launch his own social media platform in the next few months. More

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      Trump aide concealed work for PR firm and misled court to dodge child support

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      A top aide to Donald Trump was secretly re-engaged by a leading political strategy firm after being forced to step down after a social media scandal, the Guardian can reveal. The company, Washington-based Teneo, wanted access to top Republicans in the then president’s inner circle, and to conceal his ongoing work.Jason Miller – who remains close to Trump, and who today serves as a senior adviser to the former president – also later appears to have misled a Florida court about this employment status, asserting in a sworn statement that he could no longer comply with a court order requiring him to pay child-support payments because of an alleged “major financial setback” and was effectively out of work.Miller cited his termination as a reason he could not meet court-mandated payments – even though he had secretly agreed to a new contract with Teneo that meant doing the same work for the same fee.Miller resigned as a managing editor of Teneo, the powerhouse corporate advisory firm, on 21 June 2019, after posting a series of obscenity-laced tweets about Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.“I have parted ways with Teneo by mutual consent and look forward to … my next move,” Miller said in a statement he provided to the New York Times and other news outlets.But Miller’s departure from Teneo was a sham. Previously undisclosed confidential records from inside Teneo show that on the same day Miller signed a formal “separation agreement and general release” from Teneo, he signed a new contract with the firm, whereby Teneo agreed to secretly engage Miller as a consultant, through a hastily formed LLC, at the very same base compensation of nearly $500,000 doing the very same work.The maneuver adroitly allowed Teneo to let Miller continue working for them, during a time when the largely Democratic firm was eager to develop closer relations with the Trump White House – while also not having to pay the reputational and public relations costs of openly associating with Miller and others in the administration.Only three days after his resignation and the signing of his new employment agreement with Teneo for the same base pay, according to state court records in Miami-Dade county, Florida, Miller asked the court to “abate and modify” his support payments and swore he could no longer make his child support payments because the “petitioner’s unemployment is public knowledge”.In 2016, when Miller, who was married, was the Trump presidential campaign’s chief spokesperson, he engaged in an extramarital affair with AJ Delgado, a fellow adviser to the campaign, resulting in the two of them having a child together.The Florida court records show that Miller made other misleading or false statements under oath in the case of his faux firing in multiple instances. He not only falsely portrayed himself as unemployed, but asserted under oath that he could no longer afford to travel to Florida to attend court hearings related to the case, and asked a trial in the matter be postponed until he could find work. As evidence of his supposed “major financial setback” Miller cited newspaper articles reporting his resignation from the firm.Miller’s claims of pecuniary misfortune were effectively fiction – he had never really lost his job or any of his income. In fact, transitioning from one position to the other for Miller arguably created a financial windfall for him. Miller received $90,000 in severance pay from his first position as he transitioned to his new one, the confidential Teneo records indicate, while also not missing a single paycheck from his Teneo work because his new engagement began on the very next day.Under Miller’s new agreement, which the Guardian was able to review, Teneo agreed to pay Miller’s wholly-owned LLC close to $500,000 a year for his services, the same base salary he had been receiving as a managing partner of Teneo. To facilitate his ability to be paid, Miller, with Teneo’s approval, agreed to set up his own firm, a Delaware corporation or LLC, named SHW partners, according to Delaware state records.In fact, Delaware state records show that Miller’s new LLC was not officially formed until more than a full month after Miller signed the new contract.In a statement Miller said: “When my employee/employer relationship with Teneo was severed, I faced the loss of … income due to lost bonuses and benefits. This financial setback greatly reduced my income.”He also denied he had misled the Florida court or ever attempted to shirk his responsibilities to take care of his son: “I take my parental responsibilities seriously.” He further asserted that he had paid “over $100,000 in total temporary child support, which supports the entire household, even though I am not required to support his mother”.Teneo declined to comment when approached multiple times by the Guardian.The new disclosures arise at a time when Miller, who was a senior political strategist in Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, has come to play an increasing role in Trump’s post-presidency life, and frequently acts as spokesperson for Trump.In the midst of the 2020 presidential campaign, in late June last year, the political reporter Mike Allen of Axios described Miller as “Trump whisperer” who was adept at reading “Trump’s verbal cues, and knows how to use gossip and news to get Trump’s thinking about different issues” before translating “Trump-speak into campaign action”.While the vast majority of advisers to Trump during his presidency have moved on – some because Trump is no longer president and now has a threadbare staff, and others because they want to distance themselves from Trump after his incitement of the insurrection at the Capitol – Miller has exploited that void to position himself even closer to Trump.Miller, who is intensely loyal to Trump, has had harsh words for former colleagues who have publicly repudiated Trump after the insurrection.“They’re bottom-feeders who are showing their true colors,” Miller said. “The Democrats are still going to hate them, [and] the Trump base is going to hate them for being a rat jumping ship.”It was the same sort of loyalty to Trump that led to his faux firing from Teneo in June 2019. Mistakenly believing that Nadler had disrespected then White House communications director Hope Hicks, Miller, in a Twitter tirade, called Nadler, among other things, “fat and nasty”, “gross”, “Mr Muffin Top” and a “scumbag”. The tweets were laced with obscenities.Teneo’s senior officials thought the spat was detrimental to its public image, leading to the firm’s feigned severing ties with Miller.Teneo is best known for its ties to the Democratic establishment. It was largely the creation of Doug Band, who became a top aide to former president Bill Clinton after leaving the White House. Bill and Hillary Clinton later severed their ties with Band, alleging Band and Teneo had exploited Band’s previously close relationship with both of them for his personal gain.With the election of Trump, Teneo found itself without anyone at the firm with close ties to Trump or his administration – hence the value it put on retaining Miller’s services, including after his fight with Nadler.For Miller, his new position as a managing director for Teneo was a lucrative default: after Trump was elected president, Miller was named to be White House communications director. But after disclosures of the extramarital affair with Delgado, Miller withdrew his name to serve in the new administration.Subsequently, Miller also admitted numerous other sexual encounters with escorts and prostitutes in the course of a failed libel action against the website Gizmodo. He also admitted in that failed suit an affair with an adviser to Republican senator Ted Cruz, whose presidential campaign Miller had earlier worked on.Miller told the Guardian that he regrets such past conduct and is now working to be a better man: “Every day I work to make myself a better husband and father, and by God’s grace I have been given another opportunity to make my family proud again.But Miller’s agreement to keep his new status at Teneo hidden quickly ran into legal problems from his private life.On 27 June, only three days after Miller signed his new contract with Teneo, Miller filed a sworn statement in the court that he “has had a substantial change in financial circumstances. At the time, the petitioner (Miller) was in a much better financial position than he is today.”They’re bottom-feeders who are showing their true colorsAs a result of this, Miller sought from a court a reduction in the amount he had to pay in child support. He told the court: “Since temporary support is subject to modification … [Miller] is requesting that the child support he currently is paying be abated and the amount of his child support obligation be substantially modified.”Miller signed the statement directly below a line which read: “Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have read the foregoing verified motion to abate and modify temporary child support and the facts stated in it are true.”At the time, Miller was also scheduled to fly to Miami to give a deposition in the case that 2 July. Miller now claimed that he could not afford to do so: “Unfortunately, the petitioner has just sustained a major financial setback that has caused a major setback in his professional and personal life.”On 15 July 2019, Miller filed another motion in court, in which he asserted under oath he “does not have the financial ability to meet [his] child support”.Citing his purported unemployment, Miller also sought to have the trial scheduled to hear the case be postponed, claiming that “he does not have the financial wherewithal to proceed”.And in yet another motion filed that same day, Miller claimed he no longer had the “financial ability” to pay Delgaldo’s legal bills, as he had been required by the court to pay.To demonstrate that he was out of work, Miller cited news articles falsely reporting he had resigned from Teneo. “The petitioner’s unemployment is public knowledge,” Miller wrote in one filing. Left unsaid was that these news reports were the result of reporters having been misled by Miller. More

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      Former Covid official Deborah Birx joins company behind hazardous air-cleaners banned in California

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      The former top White House coronavirus adviser under President Donald Trump, Dr Deborah Birx, has joined an air-cleaning company that built its business, in part, on technology that is now banned in California due to health hazards.The company is one of many in a footrace to capture some of the $193bn in federal funding to schools.Birx is now chief medical and science adviser of ActivePure Technology, a company that counts 50 million customers since its 1924 start as the Electrolux vacuum company and does nearly $500m annually in sales. Its marketing includes photos of outer space, a nod to a 1990s breakthrough with technology to remove a gas from Nasa spaceships.The company’s own studies show that, in its effort to create the “healthiest indoor environments in North America”, it leveraged something less impressive: the disinfecting power of ozone – a molecule considered hazardous and linked to the onset and worsening of asthma.In an interview with KHN, CEO Joe Urso acknowledged that its air cleaners that emit ozone account for 5% of sales, even though its marketing repeatedly claims “no chemicals or ozone”.Conflicts between the science and marketing claims of an air purification company are nothing new to academic air quality experts. They warn that the industry – which sells to dental offices, businesses and gyms – is laser-focused on school officials, who are desperate to convince parents and teachers their buildings are safe. Children can be particularly susceptible to the chemical exposure some of these devices potentially create, experts say.“The concerns you have raised are legitimate” when it comes to other companies’ products, Birx said, noting that as a grandmother she shared concerns about health. But she added that she had full confidence in ActivePure after reviewing records for the Food and Drug Administration’s clearance of a company device.Schools are getting an infusion of roughly $180bn in federal money to spend on personal protective equipment, physical barriers, air-cleaning systems and other infrastructure improvements. Previously, they could have used $13bn of Cares Act funding. Democrats are pushing for $100bn more that could also be used for school improvements, including air cleaners.Putting unregulated devices in classrooms is “a giant uncontrolled experiment”, said Jeffrey Siegel, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto and a member of its Building Engineering Research Group.Researchers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say the broader industry advertises products that alter molecules in the air to kill germs, without noting that the reactions can form other harmful substances, such as the carcinogen formaldehyde.Marwa Zaatari, an indoor air quality consultant and a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ epidemic taskforce, said she has counted more than 125 schools or districts that have already bought air cleaner models the EPA has linked to “potentially harmful byproducts” such as ozone or formaldehyde. She estimated at least $60m was spent.Instead, air quality experts say, the best solutions come down to basics: adding more outdoor air, buying portable HEPA filters and installing MERV 13 filters within heating systems. But school boards are often lured by aggressive claims of 99.9% efficiency – based on a test of a filter inside a small cabinet and not a classroom. “Every dollar you use for this equipment is a dollar you remove from doing the right solution,” Zaatari said.Urso, of ActivePure Technology, said “other companies that I think are making wrongful claims” have brought scrutiny to the industry. But he said his firm’s technology has steadily improved and now emits “gaseous hydrogen peroxide” and other molecules that seek out and destroy viruses, mold and bacteria. He described the technology as active – in contrast to the more passive technology of air filters. A company website says it makes the “safest, fastest and most powerful surface and air-purification technology available”.Urso added: “I have a great technology that is truthful and it does what I say it does.”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns specifically against technologies that release hydrogen peroxide that are “being heavily marketed”. The agency says the technology is “emerging” and “consumers are encouraged to exercise caution”.During a Zoom interview, Birx deferred to ActivePure Medical’s president, Daniel Marsh, and Urso on the science. She focused instead on the need for products that will increase people’s confidence about going maskless indoors.“Imagine decreasing the number of sick days of your workforce because your air is less contaminated,” Birx said. “There are uses of this technology that transcend the current pandemic.”Birx was a controversial figure on Trump’s Covid response team. She was criticized for standing by quietly as Trump suggested that people could ingest disinfectant to rid themselves of the virus. She has recently spoken out about her discomfort with such statements – while endorsing ActivePure Technology.Birx said she was attracted to ActivePure because of its commitment to “hard science” in getting its Medical Guardian cleared by the FDA. The process required the company to prove the device was substantially equivalent to an existing device. Records the company submitted to the FDA describe the Medical Guardian as an “ion generator” and “photocatalytic oxidizer” that showed “a high efficacy against … a broad range of viable bioaerosol”.Birx said she uses a hospital-grade HEPA filter in her home but noted that was only because she wasn’t aware of the ActivePure technology when she bought it.When ActivePure Technology, formerly known as Aerus, tells its story, it’s one of seamless progress. Yet its 2009 purchase of the air cleaner company EcoQuest saddled the company with two problematic technologies: one that intentionally generated ozone to clean the air and another that did so incidentally, studies from the subsidiary company show.The ActivePure companies and subsidiaries made the best of it, though, marketing the technology’s purification powers on the basis of a Kansas State University study of how well the devices disinfected the surface of meat compared with chlorine, which is widely used by meatpackers to kill bacteria.Meanwhile, California lawmakers were outlawing consumer use of air cleaners that emit more than 50 parts per billion of ozone. They got momentum to regulate the industry with a survey that showed that a small percentage of state residents who used such devices at home had children – considered particularly sensitive to ozone. According to the California legislation, ozone can “permanently damage lung tissue and reduce a person’s breathing ability”.The CDC also reviewed the ActivePure technology in 2009. At the time, Birx, who served in the agency under three presidents, was directing its global Aids response.Agency scientists were evaluating the potential of air cleaners to help clear formaldehyde from Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) trailers deployed after Hurricane Katrina. They knew the devices could potentially swap one hazard – ozone formed by some air cleaners – for the one they were trying to eliminate. So they tested and found that a device from ActiveTek – an Aerus subsidiary – with ActivePure technology emitted 116 parts per billion of ozone. The scientists deemed that level too high for cleaning the trailers.Birx said the older ozone-emitting devices were first-generation devices. The newer ActivePure devices are third-generation and one is now validated by FDA clearance. That is not the same as FDA approval, which requires proof the device is safe and effective.Urso said the company’s devices that emit ozone are mostly for commercial use. Although marketing for ActivePure says “no chemicals or ozone”, Urso acknowledged that it still sells a Pure & Clean Plus device that emits ozone and cannot be sold in California.“It is very confusing,” Urso said, “and it’s confusing because we also match it with [the] ActivePure” logo. The company did not answer questions about five other devices listed for sale on its website, which says they can’t be sold in California.While current ActivePure marketing also says the technology produces no byproducts, Urso said that reflects results from lab studies, not studies from the environment where they might be used. That includes hundreds of schools that have trusted their technology, the company’s website says. There, experts say, chemicals that could react with air cleaner technology include car exhaust, spray cleaners, paint and glue.The company markets to preschools as well. Brent Stephens, an indoor air quality expert who leads the civil, architectural and environmental engineering department at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was asked by the director of his own children’s preschool about the Aerus Hydroxyl Blaster.Aerus had sent the director a sample to test in her home. But Stephens advised against buying one for the preschool, saying that, while the claims of similar machines may sound good, the studies to back them up often were not.“It’s wild out there,” he wrote in an email. “Consumers need to know how these things perform and if they are subject to unforeseen consequences like generating byproducts from use.”Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a non-profit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente More

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      Ex-Trump aide tweets 'executive orders' after Google lists him as president

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      Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence turned potential Republican candidate for governor of California, gleefully seized on an error by Google on Saturday, promising “a plethora of executive orders” after the search giant listed him as “President of the United States since 2021”.The former Trump aide also took a low shot at the actual president, Joe Biden, tweeting: “I will run up the stairs without tripping.”Biden stumbled dramatically on Friday, as he climbed the stairs to Air Force One. On Saturday, before noticing his accidental promotion by Google, Grenell complained about media coverage of Biden’s fall including criticism of Donald Trump Jr’s decision to tweet a gif showing his father knocking Biden over with a golf ball.“Washington DC types are killing humour and laughter,” Grenell claimed.Few Democrats or Washington officials found much to laugh about in Grenell’s time as acting director of national intelligence.In February last year, one unnamed former official told Vanity Fair his appointment “clearly, unambiguously” represented “the politicisation of intelligence” and said the former ambassador to Germany was Trump’s “guardian against fact”.In the event, Grenell filled the role for three months before being replaced by John Ratcliffe, a former congressman many observers thought similarly unqualified and inappropriately partisan.On Saturday, Grenell’s first tweeted “executive orders” as the Google-anointed president, if not the actual one, included the demand that a liquid natural gas terminal “be built ASAP on the west coast of the United States (preferably in California)” and that “multiple desalinisation plants [and] new nuclear power plants be built in California”.“Oh,” he added, “and Eric Swalwell hereby loses his security clearance.”Swalwell, a California Democrat who briefly ran for the presidential nomination in 2020, was a House manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial. Republicans have sought unsuccessfully to remove him from the House intelligence committee, over reports of links to a suspected Chinese spy.By lunchtime on the east coast on Saturday, Google had fixed its mistake.Grenell seems more likely to run for state than national office. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, is the subject of a recall attempt. In February, Grenell was reported to have discussed a run with Trump.Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, Grenell said: “And of course, if a public official is still failing to deliver on their promises, and if you can’t limit their term or recall them in time, there’s always one other option. You can run against them yourself.” More

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      'Blindsided': Biden faces tough test in reversing Trump's cruel border legacy

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      Lauded for his human touch, Joe Biden is facing an early political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone.

      Officials say the number of people caught attempting to cross the US-Mexico border is on pace to hit its highest number for 20 years. Single adults and families are being expelled under coronavirus safety rules inherited from Donald Trump.
      But a growing number of children, some as young as six years old, from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are arriving at the southern border without parents or guardians. These minors are brought to border patrol facilities – where many languish in cramped, prison-like conditions for days on end.
      The fast-developing humanitarian emergency shows how Biden’s determination to break from Trump’s harsh, nativist crackdown in favour of a more compassionate approach has collided with the reality of finite resources and a broken system.
      “I do think that they were blindsided by this surge,” said María Teresa Kumar, founding president of the grassroots political organisation Voto Latino. “As someone that monitored this a lot, I didn’t see that coming and I don’t think the community saw that coming. It took everybody by surprise.
      “It is heart-wrenching knowing that there are children that are cold and don’t have family. It’s one of these cases where there seems to be no right answers. Knowing the people inside the administration are very much on the side of immigrants speaks to me that there are real moral dilemmas happening right now and I would not want to be in that position.”

      Democrats have called the situation a “challenge” and “problem” and blamed Trump’s legacy. Republicans have rushed to brand it the first “crisis” and “disaster” of Biden’s presidency. The battle is proof that border access remains one of the most complex, emotive and radioactive issues in American politics.
      Trump launched his campaign for the presidency by promising to build a wall, routinely vilified migrants and, ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, spoke often of an “invasion”. Biden stopped construction of the wall and promised to unwind Trump’s zero-tolerance policies.
      The number of “encounters” between migrants and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has increased every month since April 2020. But when 100,441 migrants were reported attempting to cross the border last month, it was the highest level since March 2019 and included a particular rise in unaccompanied children.
      Many such children head to the US to reunite with family members or escape poverty, crime and violence. Central America has been hit by hurricanes and the economic fallout of Covid-19. In an ABC interview this week, Biden denied that more migrants were coming because he is “a nice guy”, insisting: “They come because their circumstance is so bad.”
      Under Trump, unaccompanied children were sent straight back to Mexico. Biden decided they should go to a border patrol facility and, within 72 hours, be transferred to the health department with a view to being placed with a family member or sponsor.
      However, it has quickly become clear the system is not fit for purpose, leaving about 4,500 children stuck in facilities designed for adult men. Lawyers who visited one facility in Texas described seeing children sleeping on the floor or on metal benches and being allowed outside for a few minutes every few days.
      The administration is scrambling to find more capacity, opening emergency shelters and using a convention centre in Dallas to house up to 3,000 teenage boys. It also deployed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which typically responds to floods, storms and other disasters, to help shelter and transport children at least until early June.
      Republicans seized on that move as evidence a disaster is unfolding. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, led a delegation of a dozen Republicans to El Paso, Texas, and spoke of “the Biden border crisis”, adding: “It’s more than a crisis. This is human heartbreak.”
      The message has resounded through a conservative media that finds Biden an elusive target. Trump made wildly exaggerated claims in a Fox News interview: “They’re destroying our country. People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, And, frankly, our country can’t handle it. It is a crisis like we have rarely had and, certainly, we have never had on the border.”
      For Republicans, reeling from election defeat, internal divisions and failure to block Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, the border offers a political lifeline.
      Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “If the numbers go down next month this isn’t a crisis, but I think what they are expecting is that they’re not going to go down and that this is going to be something that will be an enduring and endemic problem.
      “It’s something that energises and unites the Trump voting coalition and could easily be seen as a failure on behalf of the administration by just enough of the people who voted for him but aren’t hardcore Democrats. So I think it’s a very smart move by Republicans to play this out and Biden needs to figure out how you can be compassionate while not being naively welcoming. He has not yet figured out how to do that.”

      Others, however, regard the Republican response as predictable ploy by a party obsessed with demonising migrants. Kumar said: “They’re phonies and it is coldly calculated because they know they have problems with suburban white women voters, and they are trying to make a case for it for the midterms.
      “It’s cynical and gross because when children were literally dying at the border, when they had a president that was teargassing refugees, not one of them stood up. It’s callous and cold political expediency and it’s shameful.”
      The White House has pointed out that the Trump administration forcibly separated nearly 3,000 children from parents, with no system in place to reunite them. Alejandro Mayorkas, the first migrant and first Latino in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress: “A crisis is when a nation is willing to rip a nine-year-old child out of the hands of his or her parent and separate that family to deter future migration. That, to me, is a humanitarian crisis.”
      Mayorkas argues that Trump’s decision to cut staffing, bed capacity and other resources was reckless given the likelihood that the number of migrants would rise again as the pandemic waned.
      “The system was gutted,” he said, “facilities were closed and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers. We have had to rebuild the entire system, including the policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress passed long ago.” More