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US Travel Ban
President Donald Trump is resurrecting the travel ban policy from his first term, signing a proclamation Wednesday night preventing people from a dozen countries from entering the United States. The countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In addition to the ban, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, there will be heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people, Trump said in his proclamation. The list results from a January 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to compile a report on hostile attitudes toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk. During his first term, Trump iss
The State Department has banned former Argentine President Cristina Fernndez from entering the United States, accusing her of involvement in significant corruption while in office. The State Department also banned Fernndez' planning minister Julio Miguel De Vido and their families. Kirchner and De Vido abused their positions by orchestrating and financially benefiting from multiple bribery schemes involving public works contracts, resulting in millions of dollars stolen from the Argentine government, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement released Friday. He noted that multiple courts had convicted the pair on corruption charges. Fernndez has been a dominant political leader in recent years in the South American country. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain, Rubio said. These designations reaffirm our commitment to counter global corruption, including at the highest levels of government. In Novemb
The Biden administration will end most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House has said. Vaccine requirements for federal workers, federal contractors, and foreign air travellers to the US will end May 11. The government is also beginning the process of lifting shot requirements for Head Start educators, healthcare workers, and noncitizens at US land borders, the White House said on Monday. The requirements are among the last vestiges of some of the more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccination as the deadly virus raged, and their end marks the latest display of how President Joe Biden's administration is moving to treat COVID-19 as a routine, endemic illness. While I believe that these vaccine mandates had a tremendous beneficial impact, we are now at a point where we think that it makes a lot of sense to pull these requirements down, Whi