#1: Holiday Travel:
The number of people traveling by car and airplane for the Fourth of July holiday is reaching almost pre-pandemic levels, a challenge for US airlines that have been cancelling flights for months due to a shortage of staff. The airline industry has had to drop
15% of the flights they originally scheduled for June through August, to make the remaining flights more reliable, according to Airlines for America President Nicholas Calio. Last weekend, a non-holiday weekend but the beginning of summer vacations for many, over 18,000 flights were delayed from Friday through Sunday, according to FlightAware data.
#2: Filibuster:
In response to President Joe Biden’s proposal on Thursday that US senators temporarily remove the filibuster in order to restore abortion rights, lowering the votes needed to 51 instead of 60, aides to Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin rejected the idea and said the Senators would oppose it, as was expected.
#3: Monkeypox:
The US government has ordered 2.5 million more doses of Bavarian Nordic’s monkeypox vaccine, according to the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday. The vaccine has already been approved for both smallpox and monkeypox in the US, where it is called Jynneos. The US government is ramping up efforts to fight the outbreak of monkeypox and sending hundreds of thousands of doses to the states in the coming months to areas at high risk and with climbing numbers of cases. In NYC, at a clinic in Chelsea in Manhattan, hundreds of people lined up for the vaccine and the city quickly ran out of doses.
#4: Abortion Pills:
Women are scrambling for abortion pills, after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Demand on a Dutch website offering the pills quadrupled. The website, Aid Access, which offers remote abortion consultations, also ships abortion medication to women in the US from overseas. There were more than 4,000 requests for the pills recently, according to a physician associated with the site.
#5: Justice Department Investigates NYC Police:
The US Justice Department is looking into a division of the New York City Police Department, investigating whether it has been engaging in gender-biased policing. The probe also includes how the NYPD handles investigations of sexual assault and treatment of survivors. On Thursday, the Justice Department said in a statement that it has received information of alleged problems at the NYPD Special Victims Division that have “persisted for more than a decade.” It is alleged that police fail to conduct investigations properly, and witnesses have said that survivors have been shamed and emotionally triggered in police interviews. The probe will review the policies, procedures and training for the Division.
