Oct. 21, 2021, 6:12 p.m. ET

Daily Political Briefing

Biden Condemns Border Patrol Treatment of Haitian Migrants as Expulsions Continue

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Biden Condemns Border Agents Who Mistreated Haitian Migrants

President Biden vowed to hold the agents accountable who chased Haitian migrants on horseback as they tried to cross the Rio Grande into Texas from Mexico on Saturday.

Reporter: “You said on the campaign trail that you were going to restore the moral standing of the U.S., that you were going to immediately end Trump’s assault on the dignity of immigrant communities. Given what we saw at the border this week, have you failed in that promise, and this is happening under your watch, do you take responsibility for the chaos that’s unfolding?” “Of course I take responsibility. I’m president, but it was horrible what to see — as you saw — to see people treated like they did, horses nearly running them over, people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. They will be, an investigation underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment, but it’s beyond an embarrassment. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.”

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President Biden vowed to hold the agents accountable who chased Haitian migrants on horseback as they tried to cross the Rio Grande into Texas from Mexico on Saturday.CreditCredit...Brandon Bell/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Biden vowed on Friday that Border Patrol agents who rounded up Haitian migrants crossing the Rio Grande would “pay,” calling the scene at the southwestern border “horrible to see,” even as several members of his administration stressed that an investigation into what happened was still open.

“It’s outrageous,” Mr. Biden said. “I promise you, those people will pay. There will be an investigation, underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences.”

Later, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, added that the president was not “prejudging” the outcome of the investigation.

Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback waving their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande have prompted a torrent of criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups who have accused Mr. Biden of continuing some of the most aggressive approaches to immigration put in place by President Donald J. Trump.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday at the White House, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that the images “painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”

He added that the agents had been reassigned pending an investigation.

“This investigation will be based upon the facts,” he said.

He emphasized that the inquiry should maintain its integrity, in response to a question by a reporter who pointed out that a photographer on the scene had said publicly that agents had not been using their reins to whip migrants, as had been widely speculated.

In recent days, the Biden administration has moved to forcefully round up and deport more than 2,000 of the 15,000 migrants who had gathered in a makeshift camp in Del Rio, Texas. Mr. Mayorkas called the situation an “unprecedented movement of a very large number of people traveling to a single point of the border.” He also said that the camp there had been cleared.

The federal government is enforcing a Trump-era public health law known as Title 42 to expel most of the migrants, citing the pandemic to justify turning them back, and Mr. Mayorkas said on Friday that the administration would continue to use it.

Opponents to the law have appealed to Mr. Biden to lift the measure on the grounds that officials can deploy it as a blunt-force tool to expel people, including those seeking asylum, but the administration has defended its use.

The public health rule is not being applied to every migrant at the border. From February to August, officials caught people crossing the border about 1.24 million times, according to government data. The rule was used to turn them away 56 percent of the time. Others were allowed into the United States for a range of reasons, including exemptions from the public health rule.

On Friday, Mr. Mayorkas, responding to a question about whether enforcing Title 42 was immoral, said that officials were “dealing with a great number of individuals who are encountered at the border in a congregant setting.”

“That can cause the significant spread of a pandemic,” he added.

He said officials have sent some 17 flights back to Haiti carrying about 2,000 people. Thousands more migrants have been moved to other parts of the country or have been released with orders to appear in court later, and around 8,000 people had voluntarily decided to turn back to Mexico, he said.

The administration’s critics have called the Border Patrol’s tactics racist and have urged the president to stop flying the Haitians out of the country.

Activists have said that continuing the expulsion flights to Haiti would further endanger people who made the journey to the border.

“These mass deportations demonstrate that the government is not committed to upholding the rights and well-being of the asylum seekers they are sending back to danger,” Paul O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.

Some of the sharpest criticism has come from within the Biden administration: On Thursday, Daniel Foote, who was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was killed in his bedroom during a nighttime raid on his residence, resigned over what he said were “inhumane” and “counterproductive” deportations of Haitian migrants.

On Friday, administration officials, including Mr. Mayorkas and Ms. Psaki, fanned out in an effort to condemn the photos and address the criticism that was coming from all sides. In an appearance on “The View” on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris likened the pictures of agents on horseback to slavery.

Ms. Harris said the episode “evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”

But she avoided a question about whether the administration would halt all deportations of Haitians at the Texas border and allow them to apply for asylum.

“We have to do more in supporting Haitians who are returning to the island, returning to Haiti,” she said. “We have got to do more to support Haiti in terms of its needs to get back up and recover, in terms of the natural disasters.”

The episode is one in a series of crises facing the administration as Mr. Biden fights to pass a sweeping social spending plan coupled with a bipartisan infrastructure bill. The events of a chaotic summer, including a violent end to the war in Afghanistan and the resurgence of the coronavirus across the United States, have cost him politically.

A poll released by Pew Research Center on Thursday said that only 44 percent of American adults approve of how the president is handling his job, with 53 percent disapproving. (In July, by contrast, 55 percent approved of his performance and 43 percent disapproved.) Only 43 percent of those surveyed said they trusted him to make wise decisions about immigration policy.

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

A correction was made on 
Sept. 24, 2021

An earlier version of this article overstated what is known about the behavior of some Border Patrol agents on horseback. While the agents waved their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande, The Times has not seen conclusive evidence that migrants were struck with the reins.

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House approves measure to protect abortion rights amid threats from states and the courts.

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House Passes Bill to Protect Abortion Rights

The Women’s Health Protection Act, intended to enact abortion rights into federal law, came amid efforts from states to restrict abortion and growing hostility from the Supreme Court. The measure is unlikely to advance in the Senate.

On this vote, the yeas are 218, the nays are 211. The bill is passed without objection. A motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. In some ways, this is a great day for the women and indeed all of the families of America. In another way, it’s sad that it is so necessary because of actions of that Supreme Court supporting legislation that is shameful in every way to our country and what we are about. But many of us have waited a long time to be able to pass Roe v. Wade into the law of the land, as it is, has guaranteed the constitutional right of women to choose. But now it will be the law of the land codified. This is about women’s right to choose, yes, but it’s about freedom — freedom of that choice and freedom from the vigilantes, the bounty hunters that the Texas government had — Legislature — has set in motion. This has so many things going against it, you have to wonder what the Supreme Court justices were thinking or were they thinking? Or were they thinking? They certainly were not respecting women?

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The Women’s Health Protection Act, intended to enact abortion rights into federal law, came amid efforts from states to restrict abortion and growing hostility from the Supreme Court. The measure is unlikely to advance in the Senate.CreditCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The House narrowly approved a measure on Friday intended to enact abortion rights into federal law, as Democrats sought to counter efforts at the state level to restrict abortions and growing hostility to abortion rights from the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Acting after the high court refused to block stringent new Texas limits on abortion, lawmakers voted 218 to 211 to send the Women’s Health Protection Act to the Senate, where it faces a Republican filibuster and is unlikely to pass.

Nonetheless, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said in a statement on Friday that he would schedule a vote on the measure, underscoring that Democrats see the struggle over abortion rights as a winning political issue even if the bill will not reach President Biden’s desk. Abortion rights are already emerging as a point of contention in some midterm election campaigns.

“We are currently seeing unprecedented and unconscionable Republican attacks on reproductive rights across the county laced with vicious vigilantism,” Mr. Schumer said in a joint statement with three Democratic leaders in the Senate: Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the bill’s author in that chamber. “Congress must assert its role to protect the constitutional right to abortion.”

Democratic authors of the measure heralded the House vote as historic, given what they described as mounting threats to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a right to abortion. They framed it as a sharp rebuke to the Supreme Court for allowing the Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks to go into effect earlier this month.

“If the justices over there in that building won’t act, this House of Representatives will act,” said Representative Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat and a longtime backer of abortion rights.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called for the measure to be considered soon after the Texas decision, lashed out at the court for failing to intercede to block the new law, arguing that it had ignored 50 years of precedent on abortion.

“When this court embraced this shameful Texas law, they brought shame to the United States Supreme Court,” she said before the vote. “What were they thinking, or were they thinking, or were they were just rubber-stamping what they were sent to the court to do?”

Republicans uniformly opposed the measure, which they called extreme and said would lead to abortions at all stages of pregnancy and overturn hundreds of state laws. They said the measure went far beyond codifying Roe and should more rightfully be called the “Abortion On Demand Until Birth Act.”

“This abortion-on-demand bill would destroy our country’s future,” said Representative Jackie Walorski, Republican of Indiana. “A child in the womb is a living person, and yet my colleagues on the other side remain obsessed with killing unborn babies in the name of female empowerment.”

“This will nullify every modest pro-life restriction ever enacted by the states,” said Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey. “This bill constitutes an existential threat to unborn babies.”

Democrats said the measure was urgently needed since the Supreme Court was set to consider a Mississippi law later this year that abortion rights activists fear could lead to further erosion of Roe v. Wade, or its outright overturning.

In the 50-50 Senate, Mr. Schumer has been reluctant to force votes on measures that lack support from at least a bare majority, since doing so would spotlight party divisions.

At least two Democrats have not endorsed the Women’s Health Protection Act, and even Republicans who have supported abortion rights in the past have said it goes well beyond the reach of Roe v. Wade.

But holding votes on the measure is a way for Democrats to demonstrate that they consider abortion rights a priority and force Republicans to go on the record against legislation that Democrats see as popular, particularly with women voters who believed that the question of abortion access had been settled with the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling.

Abortion rights supporters hailed the House action and urged the Senate to take up the measure.

“The historic House passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act is an important step in protecting the right to access an abortion in the U.S., and halting the wave of harmful and deeply unpopular abortion restrictions across the country,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Now the Senate must follow suit and immediately pass this critical legislation.”

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A week to remember, or forget, for the Biden White House.

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For the Biden administration, the last seven days of self-generated controversy, coupled with the re-emergence of chronic policy problems, have evoked uncomfortable comparisons with the upheaval of the Trump era.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden plowed into a pileup of crises on immigration, foreign affairs and federal spending over the past week — as an administration that promised steadiness and no-drama accomplishment struggled to regain lost traction and momentum.

Biden aides half-jokingly call the period that included the withdrawal from Afghanistan in August their “summer from hell.” But the fall has not brought much relief, and the last seven days of self-generated controversy, coupled with the re-emergence of chronic policy problems have evoked uncomfortable comparisons with the upheaval of the Trump era.

It is impossible to know if this just an ugly interlude before the big legislative victory Biden officials predict — or the kind of durable downturn that ultimately cost Democrats Congress and the White House.

But week’s end brought a sobering reminder of how just much ground Mr. Biden had lost, and how quickly he has lost it. A poll by the Pew Research Center released Thursday found that just 44 percent of U.S. adults now approve of how he is handling his job, with 53 percent disapproving — a flip of the 55-to-44 percent approval-disapproval rating he enjoyed back in July.

Moderates and progressives are still far apart on a deal to pass the big, bold legislative initiative upon which Mr. Biden has staked the fortunes of his presidency: a combined infrastructure and social spending plan whose scope and survival remains very much in question.

Early this week, the House passed a stopgap spending bill that would raise the expiring debt limit, but it is expected to hit a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate. So, on Thursday, President Biden’s budget office warned federal agencies to brace for the possibility of a government shutdown, a feature of almost every Trump-era budget fight.

Mr. Biden’s rough week began last Friday, when President Emmanuel Macron of France withdrew his ambassador to Washington in protest over Mr. Biden’s decision to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, depriving France of a $66 billion contract.

After a few days, the two leaders patched things up, but Mr. Biden’s aggressive action seemed to contradict his conciliatory message to European allies, and even evoked comparisons with former President Donald J. Trump.

On the same day, Pentagon officials admitted that the last U.S. drone strike before American troops withdrew from Afghanistan was a tragic mistake that killed 10 civilians, including seven children — after claiming it had successfully stopped a terrorist attack.

Then there was the latest humanitarian calamity at the nation’s southern border, which played out, hour by hour, over the past week.

About 15,000 migrants from Haiti, an impoverished country rocked by natural disasters and political violence, sought entry to the country, with many sleeping under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

The White House — under fire from conservatives and progressives — took a few days to settle on a policy as the images of the migrants, some being confronted by agents on horseback trying to corral them and force them back across the river to Mexico. In the end, the administration adopted a relatively tough line in keeping with the actions of previous administrations, deporting thousands of the refugees back to Haiti.

Republicans, led by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, seized on the crisis to slam Democrats as soft on illegal immigration. If anything, these actions pleased Democrats even less.

Representative Maxine Waters, the blunt Democrat from Los Angeles, asked “What the hell are we doing here?” after watching video of Border Patrol agents on horseback chasing down Black migrants as they gripped and waved what appeared to be reins, prompting accusations that they had been using whips against the migrants. Ms Waters likened Mr. Biden’s actions to those of Mr. Trump.

Early Thursday, a senior State Department official recently tapped as a special envoy to Haiti abruptly resigned over the administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to send migrants back home to face physical danger.

Mr. Biden vowed Friday that the Border Patrol agents involved in the confrontation “will pay” after an investigation, calling the scene at the border “horrible to see.”

“It’s an embarrassment,” he said. “But beyond an embarrassment is dangerous, it’s wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world or sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.”

Biden will not use executive privilege to keep Trump-era records from Jan. 6 committee.

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Supporters of President Donald J. Trump attacked the Capitol building on Jan. 6.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

President Biden will not use executive privilege to shield records from a congressional committee that is investigating the events of Jan. 6 and former President Donald J. Trump’s role in them, the White House confirmed on Friday.

“The president has already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “We will respond promptly to these questions as they arise and certainly as they come up from Congress.”

“Certainly we have been working closely with congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6, an incredibly dark day in our democracy,” Ms. Psaki said.

On Thursday, the select committee subpoenaed four of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, ordering them to turn over documents by Oct. 7 and submit to depositions the following week. The move significantly intensified the group’s attempts to learn more about what Mr. Trump and his advisers were doing in the days and hours before a horde of his supporters stormed the Capitol, beating police officers and delaying the counting of electoral votes to formalize Mr. Biden’s victory.

The subpoenas seek information from Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; Dan Scavino Jr., who was a deputy chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser; and Kash Patel, the former Pentagon chief of staff.

“The committee is investigating the facts, circumstances and causes of the Jan. 6 attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend corrective laws, policies, procedures, rules or regulations,” Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the group’s chairman, wrote in a lengthy statement on Thursday.

Relying on news reports and documents, the committee said that Mr. Meadows had communicated with a group of Jan. 6 rally organizers and been involved in an effort to overturn the 2020 election; that Mr. Scavino had discussed ways to stop the vote count, promoted the Jan. 6 event on Twitter, and tweeted from the White House on Jan. 6; and that Mr. Patel had been involved in discussions with Pentagon officials before the event and been in regular contact with Mr. Meadows.

Mr. Bannon was present at a meeting at the Willard Hotel the day before the violence, when plans were discussed to try to overturn the results of the election, the committee said. He was quoted as saying, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

Mr. Trump, for his part, has signaled that he will not cooperate with the investigation. On Thursday evening, he released a statement excoriating the “unselect” committee and said he would “fight the subpoenas on executive privilege.”

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Two hosts of ‘The View’ test positive for the virus minutes ahead of an interview with the vice president.

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President Biden appeared on “The View” in 2019 with, from left, Abby Huntsman, Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin.Credit...Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC

Two co-hosts of “The View,” Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin, were abruptly pulled from the set on live television on Friday morning after testing positive for the coronavirus, minutes ahead of a live in-studio interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Joy Behar, another co-host of the show, announced that they had contracted breakthrough cases despite being fully vaccinated. None of the hosts were wearing masks on set, but members of the live studio audience were all masked.

“Ana and Sunny, at the last minute, we realized they tested positive for Covid,” Ms. Behar said. Ms. Harris, who was in the building preparing to come onstage, later appeared remotely on the program from another room. But her appearance was truncated.

“I know they’re fine, but it really does speak to the fact that they’re vaccinated and vaccines really make all the difference, because otherwise we’d be concerned about hospitalization and worse,” Ms. Harris said, speaking from a remote studio with what appeared to be an iPhone headphone on her ear.

After the positive cases were announced, Ms. Behar and another co-host, Sara Haines, were the only hosts left on set (Whoopi Goldberg, another host, was off on Friday). They took questions from the audience to fill the program while the Secret Service tried to find a way for Ms. Harris to safely participate in the planned interview.

The announcement of the positive cases came minutes after the hosts had been discussing the importance of getting vaccinated and after they had promoted Ms. Harris’ appearance as her first “in-studio” interview since taking office.

Ms. Harris’ appearance on “The View” had long been planned and was one of only a handful of television interviews she has participated in since taking office. But the timing was not ideal for a vice president whose portfolio includes immigration issues, but who had hoped to use the opportunity to make an announcement about a new broadband investment set to reach more than 3 million schoolchildren.

It came as the administration’s handling of Haitian migrants at the border prompted outrage among Democrats and called into question President Biden’s decision to swiftly deport thousands who had been arriving en masse at a small Texas border town.

Critics have called the aggressive tactics of Border Patrol racist and have urged the president to stop flying the Haitians out of the country.

During her appearance on Friday, Ms. Harris acknowledged that the images of Border Patrol agents on horseback, some waving their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande, “evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”

But she avoided a question about whether the administration would halt all deportation of Haitians at the Texas border and allow them to apply for asylum.

“We have to do more in supporting Haitians who are returning to the island, returning to Haiti,” Ms. Harris said. “We have got to do more to support Haiti in terms of its needs to get back up and recover, in terms of the natural disasters.”

She also noted that the Haitian government is still in disarray and in the process of rebuilding after the president was assassinated. As a neighbor, “the U.S. has to help,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the vice president, Sabrina Singh, said in a statement that Ms. Harris had no contact with the hosts before the show and that “her schedule today will continue as planned.”

A spokeswoman for “The View” did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why the co-hosts received their test results only after appearing on set.

A correction was made on 
Sept. 24, 2021

An earlier version of this article overstated what is known about the behavior of some Border Patrol agents on horseback. While the agents waved their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande, The Times has not seen conclusive evidence that migrants were struck with the reins.

How we handle corrections

The C.I.A. recalls its station chief to Vienna amid criticism of his handling of mysterious illnesses.

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William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, has pushed out officials that have been seen as moving too slowly to address the health concerns of victims.Credit...Pool photo by Tom Williams

The C.I.A. recalled its Vienna chief of station this month, after agency leaders concluded he failed to take adequate steps to address a series of mysterious health episodes in Austria in which intelligence officers and diplomats fell ill with symptoms similar to Havana syndrome, according to current and former officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel movements. The names of agency station chiefs are highly classified.

As an increasing number of intelligence officers, military personnel and diplomats have been injured in new incidents, frustration is growing among victims’ groups and inside government. The Biden administration has so far been unable to conclude what is causing the unexplained health incidents, which were first recorded in 2016 among diplomats and C.I.A. officers serving in the American embassy in Havana.

The ouster of the Vienna station chief came as Pamela Spratlen stepped down this week as head of the State Department’s task force studying the episodes, according to diplomats. Victims’ groups said Ms. Spratlen viewed the health incidents skeptically, moved slowly to improve health care and failed to meet regularly with injured individuals. The State Department did not make Ms. Spratlen available for comment and declined to comment on the criticism of her.

Vienna has emerged as the most recent concentration of injuries, with some American officials affected inside the embassy and some in their homes, according to former officials. The incidents in Vienna have injured well over 25 people, according to former officials. The cluster of injuries in Vienna was earlier reported by The New Yorker; the recall of the station chief was earlier reported by The Washington Post.

The mysterious incidents often involve victims hearing a strange noise, feeling unexplained heat or sensing pressure. That causes a traumatic brain injury in which victims suffer from headaches, vertigo, nausea and other symptoms that can last for years afterward.

William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, has pushed out officials who have been seen as moving too slowly to address the health concerns of victims, putting in place a new head of the Office of Medical Services. Well over 200 American officials have been injured in the health incidents since 2016, roughly half of them C.I.A. officers traveling overseas.

The rising number of episodes is increasing the pressure on the Biden administration to make conclusions about what is causing the illnesses and whether an adversarial intelligence service is responsible. Mr. Burns was angered after one of his close aides was injured and suffered Havana syndrome symptoms on a trip to India earlier this month.

The agency’s deputy director of operations makes all the assignments for the top intelligence officers in individual countries, including the removal of the Vienna station chief. Nevertheless, the move was approved by Mr. Burns, according to former officials.

At the State Department, Brian McKeon, the deputy secretary of state for management, held a town hall-style meeting this summer to discuss the health incidents with the department’s three missions in Vienna: the American delegation to the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe, U.S. Embassy staff in Austria and the diplomats assigned to other international organizations there.

With Ms. Spratlen’s departure, Mr. McKeon is now effectively leading the task force, according to a senior State Department official.

The official presented Ms. Spratlen’s departure as planned, saying she had been permitted to work only for a set period of time, and she had reached the limit of the assignment.

But victims have been criticizing the handling of the Havana syndrome episodes for months, saying that the State Department had failed to take some of the steps that the C.I.A. did early in the Biden administration to improve care.

When Ms. Spratlen did meet with injured diplomats, said one victim, she treated the calls like a “check the box exercise” and did not seem interested in ideas on how to help injured people or improve overseas protections.

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Iowa’s Grassley will seek an eighth term in the Senate.

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Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, was first elected to public office as a state legislator in 1958Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican in the Senate, announced on Friday on Twitter that he would seek an eighth term, relieving Republicans worried about a bitter primary fight that could put the seat at risk.

Mr. Grassley, who turned 88 last week and would be 95 at the end of his eighth term, sought to emphasize his fitness in disclosing his plans, which will draw additional scrutiny because of his age. The tweet showed an alarm clock turning to 4 a.m. and Mr. Grassley jogging in the early morning darkness.

“It’s 4 a.m. in Iowa so I’m running,” said Mr. Grassley, a habitual jogger. “I do that 6 days a week.”

In a separate release, Mr. Grassley, first elected to public office as a state legislator in 1958, said that Iowans had encouraged him to run for re-election as he toured the state in recent months.

“I’m working as hard as ever for the people of Iowa and there’s more work to do,” he said in a statement. “In a time of crisis and polarization, Iowa needs strong, effective leadership.”

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, had joined his colleagues in encouraging Mr. Grassley to run to head off a primary fight to replace him. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the chamber’s campaign arm, quickly put out a statement endorsing him.

“Across Iowa’s 99 counties, the name ‘Chuck Grassley’ is synonymous with hard work,” said Senator Rick Scott, the Florida Republican who chairs the committee.

A bitter Republican primary could have provided an opening for Democrats to pick up a seat in what will be an intense battle next year for the Senate majority. Former Representative Abby Finkenauer, a 32-year-old Democrat who lost her re-election bid last year, has already announced she would seek the seat held by Mr. Grassley.

Ms. Finkenauer quickly sought to use Mr. Grassley’s long history in Washington against him.

“After 47 years in Washington, D.C., Chuck Grassley has changed from an Iowa farmer to just another coastal elite,” she said in a statement. “Over his nearly five decades in Congress, Iowa has lost over 30,000 family farms, our jobs have been shipped overseas and decade after decade our rural communities have been hollowed out with our young people leaving in droves as he stood on the sideline.”

Elected to the Senate in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won the presidency, Mr. Grassley has employed his seniority to preside as chairman of both the Finance Committee and the Judiciary Committee, where he was instrumental in blocking President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court and later advancing President Donald J. Trump’s nominees to the court. He easily won re-election in 2016, even though Democrats aggressively sought to topple him because of his refusal to take up the Garland nomination.

Mr. Grassley has been known for his support of bipartisanship throughout his career but became increasingly conservative as his state also shifted ideologically to the right.

During the Obama presidency, Mr. Grassley engaged in extended negotiations with Democrats over health care legislation but pulled out under a Republican backlash to his work with Democrats. But he has been open to some bipartisan compromises. He was a leading proponent of a criminal justice overhaul crafted with Democrats and signed into law by Mr. Trump. He also supported a bipartisan infrastructure measure that is scheduled for a House vote next week.

As the senior Senate Republican, Mr. Grassley was third in the line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president and speaker of the House, when Republicans held the chamber’s majority, and could be in that position again if Republicans take back the chamber.

If he completed his eighth term at the age of 95, he would not be the oldest Republican senator ever. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was 100 when he left the Senate in 2002.

Senate Republicans are still awaiting decisions from other incumbents on whether they intend to run, including John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who would be a key target of Democrats if he does seek re-election.

Republicans would need a net gain of just one seat to take the majority, giving them much greater influence over President Biden’s agenda and his nominees.

A federal program aimed at halting evictions is showing signs of improvement.

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A rally for tenants’ rights in New York in August. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The number of low-income renters at immediate risk of losing shelter remained relatively low in the month since the Supreme Court struck down a national eviction moratorium, as a troubled $46.5 billion federal rental aid program showed signs of kicking into high gear.

The Treasury Department disbursed more than $2.3 billion in rental assistance to about 420,000 households in August, the most of any month since the cash was allocated by Congress over the past two years, according to data released Friday by the department.

That was a significant improvement over the $1.7 billion and $1.5 billion handed out in July and August through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, bringing the total paid out to around $8 billion, and the number of households helped to over a million.

But the amount is still a fraction of the total available. Biden administration officials are still struggling to speed the flow of the cash, pressuring lagging localities — like Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee — to streamline applications in order to pay landlords as quickly as possible to prevent evictions.

“We’re not satisfied yet, but there is progress,” said Noel Andrés Poyo, a Treasury Department official responsible for overseeing the program.

“Nearly 1.5 million families helped is meaningful progress, but the overall rate of spending emergency rental assistance remains too slow,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a tenant advocacy group that has worked closely with the White House to prevent evictions. “Some communities are distributing E.R.A. quickly and well, proving that it’s possible, and making those that aren’t all the more glaring and unacceptable.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on Aug. 26 to strike down the national moratorium on evictions transformed a vexing administrative problem into an acute human crisis, placing at least two million renters in immediate danger of eviction, according to one estimate.

So far, the huge tide of evictions many feared has not materialized. Filings in states and cities monitored by Eviction Lab, a nonprofit group that looks at housing court data, have risen modestly in some areas, but remained flat or even declined in others — and remain on balance lower than historical averages.

Gene Sperling, President Biden’s pandemic relief coordinator, said he was heartened — and a little surprised — by the eviction statistics. But he was skeptical of early indicators and was worried the statistics were not picking up thousands of tenants who had “self-evicted,” people who simply abandoned their apartments to avoid the indignity of being thrown out onto the street.

“I’m sure that’s probably too good to be true, but they’re finding it’s not even at half of historical averages,” he said in a conference call with reporters. “Things could get much worse. We might not be picking up a lot of things that are really going on.”

Over the past several months, the White House and Treasury Department have been racing to deal with the program’s problems, repeatedly revising guidelines to allow tenants to receive payouts with a minimum of documentation, while enlisting state judges and even law school students to help tenants delay or prevent their evictions.

Those actions, coupled with the extension of local eviction moratoriums in states like California and New York, have given roughly 50 percent of endangered tenants some kind of protection, Mr. Sperling said.

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House Democrats say they plan action next week on the infrastructure bill and their social safety net plan.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi leaving a news conference about infrastructure and budget legislation at the Capitol on Thursday.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

House Democratic leaders on Friday said they would take up both a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a far-reaching, multitrillion-dollar social safety net plan next week, as they worked feverishly to bridge deep divisions within their ranks that are holding up President Biden’s top two domestic priorities.

To placate moderates who were resisting voting for the $3.5 trillion budget plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California committed last month to hold a vote by Monday on the infrastructure package, which passed the Senate over the summer.

But progressives have said they will not support that bill until Congress acts on a $3.5 trillion plan to provide vast new investments in education, health, child care, paid leave and climate programs and raise taxes on the rich. The plan to move forward on both was a bid to head off a liberal revolt and salvage the chances for both measures.

In remarks on the House floor, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said the chamber would begin considering the infrastructure bill on Monday, and that a floor vote later in the week on the second package was possible.

In a narrowly divided Congress, Ms. Pelosi can afford to lose as few as three votes for the domestic policy plan, which Democrats are pushing through using the fast-track budget process known as reconciliation, which shields it from a Senate filibuster. House Republicans have urged their members to oppose the $1 trillion infrastructure package, so more than a few defections could sink the bill.

“We’re at a stalemate at the moment, and we’re going to have to get these two pieces of legislation passed,” Mr. Biden said in remarks at the White House. “Both need to be passed.”

The push to demonstrate progress on Mr. Biden’s agenda came as lawmakers grapple with how to structure the proposal and pacify moderates who want to see the scope of the reconciliation package narrow. Difficult decisions about what programs to keep and what to jettison have yet to be made between Democrats on both chambers.

“We’ve been waiting for weeks for people to tell us what they’re not going to vote for,” Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, told reporters on Friday.

It also sets up a frenetic stretch just days before government funding is scheduled to lapse on Oct. 1. Senate Republicans are expected to block a stopgap spending package needed to stave off a shutdown because it contains legislation that would lift the limit on the federal government’s ability to borrow, a move Congress must make in the coming weeks to avert a first-ever default on its obligations. A procedural vote set for Monday is expected to fail.

“It will be our intention to deal with whatever bill the Senate sent back to us, if in fact they do not take our bill,” Mr. Hoyer said. “We believe that it is absolutely essential not to shut down government.”

In a letter to her colleagues on Friday, Ms. Pelosi said that “as negotiations continue, there may be changes” to the reconciliation legislation. The House Budget Committee is expected to advance the $3.5 trillion package, currently a 2,465-page behemoth, in a virtual meeting on Saturday.

It was unclear whether moderates would support a vote on the reconciliation package. They are reluctant to weigh in on the measure until it is clear what can pass the Senate, while the Senate has yet to publicly release its version of the legislation. It is also unclear whether private, bicameral negotiations have produced concrete agreement on the thorniest issues.

“There would be a lot of work that would have to be done between now and then to have a reconciliation bill that meets some of the requirements that she has agreed to,” said Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida, a key moderate, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill. “But I’m sure we’re all dedicated to working really hard to see if we can make something like that happen.”

Sherwood Boehlert, a House Republican who supported climate action, dies at 84.

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Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York in 2006.Credit...Carol T. Powers for The New York Times

Sherwood L. Boehlert, a 12-term moderate Republican congressman from upstate New York who bucked his party’s right-wing shift by standing firm as an environmentalist, died on Tuesday at 84.

The cause was complications of dementia, his wife, Marianne Boehlert, said.

As a member of the House from 1983 to 2007 and chairman of the Science Committee from 2001 to 2006, Mr. Boehlert (pronounced BOE-lert) successfully championed legislation that imposed higher fuel economy standards for vehicles and legislation that, after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, empowered the federal government to investigate structural failures the way it examines aircraft accidents.

In 1990, he galvanized moderate Republicans in a bipartisan coalition that amended the Clean Air Act to reduce the pollution produced by coal-fueled power plants in the Midwest, which was contributing to acid rain that was fatal to fish in Adirondack lakes.

He later chided global warming skeptics, inviting his fellow Republicans to “open their minds.”

“Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world’s top scientific academies and scientists are wrong?” he wrote in an opinion essay for The Washington Post in 2010. “I would like to be able to chalk it up to lack of information or misinformation.”

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Ocasio-Cortez apologizes for her ‘present’ vote on Iron Dome funding.

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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, drew condemnations on social media both from supporters of Israel and from progressives and pro-Palestinian activists after her “present” vote.Credit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York and the highest-profile progressive in the House, apologized on Friday to her constituents for an abrupt decision to pull back her vote against providing $1 billion in new funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, suggesting she had done so after being subjected to “hateful targeting” for opposing it.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the liberal group known as the Squad, was one of two members who voted “present” as the measure to help Israel replace missile interceptors overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday on a vote of 420 to 9. She was seen weeping on the House floor after she switched her vote from “no” to “present.”

The episode captured the bitter divide among Democrats over Israel, which has pit a small but vocal group of progressives who have called for an end to conditions-free aid to the country against the vast majority of the party, which maintains that the United States must not waver in its backing for Israel’s right to defend itself.

In a lengthy letter on Friday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told her constituents that she opposed the funding, citing “persistent human rights abuses against the Palestinian people,” and had pleaded with top Democrats to delay the vote.

“The reckless decision by House leadership to rush this controversial vote within a matter of hours and without true consideration created a tinderbox of vitriol, disingenuous framing, deeply racist accusations and depictions,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

After the vote, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez drew condemnations on social media both from supporters of Israel, who savaged her for failing to support the funding, and from progressives and pro-Palestinian activists, who expressed outrage that she ultimately did not register her opposition to it.

“To those I have disappointed — I am deeply sorry,” she wrote to residents of New York’s 14th Congressional District, which includes parts of the Bronx and Queens. “To those who believe this reasoning is insufficient or cowardice — I understand.”

At issue was the House’s effort to provide additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome system, which was used during heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas in May. The debate on the House floor grew bitter Thursday as some progressive Democrats who were opposed called Israel an “apartheid state,” an accusation that at least one proponent of the bill called antisemitic.

Ultimately, only eight Democrats — as well as one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky — opposed the measure.

“Yes, I wept,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told her constituents on Friday. “I wept at the complete lack of care for the human beings that are impacted by these decisions, I wept at an institution choosing a path of maximum volatility and minimum consideration for its own political convenience.”

The dispute began this week, after progressives revolted at the inclusion of the Iron Dome funding in an emergency spending bill, effectively threatening to shut down the government rather than support the money. Democratic leaders were forced to strip it out of that bill, which passed the House on Tuesday, and arranged a separate vote to approve the Iron Dome money.

Some progressive lawmakers grew furious with Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, who pushed for the swift vote on Iron Dome funding. His maneuver appeared to be intended to calm Israeli officials, who had watched the dispute with alarm.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, called Mr. Hoyer and emphasized the need for the House to approve the request as soon as possible, according to an account of the call released by Mr. Lapid’s office. Mr. Hoyer assured him that the decision to drop it from the government spending measure had been no more than a “technical delay,” the account said. Hours later, Mr. Hoyer announced that the House would hold a separate vote to approve the funding later in the week.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she had personally appealed to Mr. Hoyer to delay the vote.

“Even the night before, as it became clear that the discourse around this issue was quickly devolving from substance to hateful targeting, I personally had a call with the House majority leader to request a 24-hour stay of the vote, so that we could do the work necessary to bring down the temperature and volatility, explain our positions and engage our communities,” she wrote. “That request was summarily dismissed.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Hoyer said his office does not comment on private member conversations.

The Times asked state officials how they might spend funds from the $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

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The Blatnik Bridge, which connects Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wis., is approaching the end of its usable life.Credit...Michael Spear for The New York Times

In the Pacific Northwest, the aging Interstate 5 bridge, a main artery between Oregon and Washington, is at risk of collapsing in a major earthquake. Across Appalachia, abandoned coal mines leaking toxic pollutants are a threat to public health. And along the Gulf Coast, states like Louisiana are forced to consider novel evacuation routes to ease traffic on inland highways that often become clogged before powerful hurricanes.

Proposed solutions to these challenges, and others across the country, have come into focus for state leaders and transit officials as the House is poised to take up a sprawling $1 trillion infrastructure package whose future is increasingly uncertain.

For years, officials have been forced to balance an overwhelming backlog of repairs and upgrades to highways, bridges and roads against more sweeping, longer-term projects. But an infusion of nearly $600 billion in new federal aid could change that calculus as states are freed to consider more ambitious ideas that align with President Biden’s vision for a generational overhaul of the country’s aging public works system.

Still, even as lawmakers in both parties agree that such money is gravely overdue, the measure’s fate is in limbo as the liberal and moderate flanks of the Democratic Party have clashed over whether to pass the bill before a $3.5 trillion spending plan. House Republican leaders have also urged their members to oppose the package.

Ahead of the vote, expected in the House on Monday, The New York Times asked congressional offices, governor’s offices and state transit officials across the country what projects federal funding could help accelerate. Several state officials declined to comment, citing concerns about discussing a $1 trillion infrastructure plan before the vote. Others said they hoped that an influx of federal funding could fast-track longer-term projects already underway or jump-start initiatives aimed at overhauling transit and other infrastructure.

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Senators say they pulled out of a Boston Globe conference to back a union.

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Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren were scheduled to participate in panels on Wednesday as part of a conference titled Globe Summit 2021: The Great Recovery.Credit...Winslow Townson/Associated Press

Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Democrats from Massachusetts, said Friday that they had backed out of a virtual conference hosted by The Boston Globe earlier in the week in solidarity with the journalists’ union there, which is in a yearslong dispute over a new labor contract.

Mr. Markey and Ms. Warren were scheduled to participate in panels on Wednesday as part of their home-state newspaper’s conference, titled Globe Summit 2021: The Great Recovery, according to an archived schedule.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Warren said Friday that her team had informed The Globe that she no longer wished to be in the conference, which was to have featured a discussion of corporate activism between Ms. Warren and the chief executive of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company.

“We are hopeful that a fair contract with better wages and stronger workplace protections can be reached and urge both sides to continue negotiating in good faith,” the spokeswoman, Nora Keefe, said.

In a guild news release on Friday, Mr. Markey said, “I urge The Boston Globe management to negotiate and settle a fair contract with workplace protections for these workers without further delay.” The senator, a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal legislation, was to have sat on a panel about “a greener, more equitable economy” with the Globe reporter Sabrina Shankman.

Heidi Flood, a Globe spokeswoman, declined to comment on the senators’ absence. “The Globe summit has been an incredible opportunity for us to showcase our journalism with a national audience,” she said.

The last contract between the Boston Newspaper Guild and The Globe expired at the end of 2018. A significant sticking point in negotiations over a new contract, according to the guild, is The Globe’s desire to codify its ability to outsource journalistic functions.

“We’re so grateful that our elected leaders see the importance of keeping The Boston Globe’s reporting local — and not outsourcing these jobs to faraway locations,” Scott Steeves, the president of the guild, said in a statement.

The Globe is one of the last major metropolitan dailies with independent local ownership. John W. Henry, who also owns the Boston Red Sox and the English soccer team Liverpool, bought the newspaper in 2013 from The New York Times Company as part of a $70 million deal. Last year, Mr. Henry’s wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry, a co-owner of The Globe, became chief executive of Boston Globe Media Partners, which also publishes the health news website Stat.

The Globe Summit was scheduled to conclude Friday afternoon with a panel about the newspaper’s Spotlight team, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The investigative group famously won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service for uncovering sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, an effort depicted in the 2015 film “Spotlight.”

As Biden hails Pfizer boosters, the C.D.C. director defends her move to include frontline workers.

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C.D.C. Director Defends Boosters for Frontline Workers

Despite an agency advisory panel’s refusal to endorse booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for frontline workers, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said she recommended the shots to protect communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

In an effort to protect those at greatest risk, our initial vaccine rollout prioritized these individuals, the everyday heroes of our society. Our health care systems are, once again, at maximum capacity in parts of the country. Our teachers are facing uncertainty as they walk into the classroom, and I must do what I can to preserve the health across our nation. I’m also aware of the disproportionate impact this pandemic has had on racial and ethnic minority communities. Many of our frontline workers, essential workers and those in congregate settings come from communities that have already been hardest hit. Withholding access for boosters from these people and communities would only worsen the inequities that I have committed to fight against. It was a decision about providing rather than withholding access. I, too, thought of the stressors of the current moment of this pandemic and the principles of access and equity in my decision. I want to be very clear that I did not overrule an advisory committee. This wasn’t — I listened to all of the proceedings of the F.D.A. advisory committee, and intently listened to this exceptional group of scientists that publicly and very transparently deliberated for hours over some of these very difficult questions, and where the science was. This was a scientific close call. In that situation, it was my call to make.

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Despite an agency advisory panel’s refusal to endorse booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for frontline workers, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said she recommended the shots to protect communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.CreditCredit...Rachel Woolf for The New York Times

As President Biden cheered moves by federal regulators to allow for millions of Americans to get booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defended her decision on Friday to recommend the shots for frontline workers, a highly unusual move because it overruled her agency’s scientific advisers.

“I want to be very clear that I did not overrule an advisory committee,” the director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told reporters at a White House briefing, saying she had listened to the panel’s discussion. “This was a scientific close call. In that situation, it was my call to make.”

She added, “it was a decision about providing rather than withholding access.”

Dr. Walensky’s pointed remarks underscored growing confusion around the start of the long-awaited booster rollout. Earlier on Friday, Mr. Biden appeared at the White House to hail the decision by federal regulators to clear Pfizer boosters for many Americans who had a second dose of that vaccine at least six months ago. He urged those eligible for a third shot to get one quickly to fortify their protection to the dangerous Delta variant that swept through the country this summer.

“My message today is this: If you’ve got the Pfizer vaccine, you got the Pfizer vaccine in January, February, March of this year, and you’re over 65 years of age, go get the booster,” Mr. Biden said. “Or, if you’re in a have a medical condition like diabetes, or you’re a frontline worker like a health care worker or a teacher, you can get a free booster.”

Mr. Biden, who is 78 and began his Pfizer vaccination in December, is eligible for a booster and said he would get one “as soon as I can get it done.”

On Wednesday, after weeks of internal strife, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the Pfizer booster for people who fell into three categories: those over 65 who had received their second dose of the vaccine at least six months ago; adults whose underlying conditions put them at high risk of becoming severely ill with Covid-19; frontline workers like teachers and health care workers whose jobs put them at risk.

But the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met on Thursday and departed from that recommendation. Like the F.D.A., it called for Pfizer boosters for a wide range of Americans, including tens of millions of older adults, and younger people at high risk for the disease. But the panel excluded health care workers, teachers and others whose jobs put them at risk.

Early Friday morning, Dr. Walensky stepped in and reconciled the differences by calling for frontline workers to get the shots, aligning C.D.C. policy with the F.D.A.’s endorsements over her own agency’s advisers.

In his appearance at the White House, Mr. Biden did not address the criticism that his administration gotten ahead of the regulatory process after he announced a plan for Pfizer and Moderna boosters in mid-August, nor the internal disagreement in his administration about the need for boosters.

Over the weeks, many independent scientists and regulators had emphasized that there was little research on who might benefit from the extra shots. Eventually the plan to quickly provide Moderna boosters was dropped, to give the F.D.A. more time to collect and study data. And scientific advisers to the F.D.A. and C.D.C. wrestled over the last week with who should get Pfizer boosters and why.

Those advisers, however, have been not asked to judge whether people who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines should receive any additional doses. Booster shots for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients have not been authorized by the F.D.A.

The advisers to the C.D.C. also wrestled with the practicalities of endorsing a booster shot for only Pfizer-BioNTech recipients, when close to half of vaccinated Americans have received Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Some global health experts have criticized the Biden administration for pushing booster shots when much of the world has yet to receive a first dose. But analysts noted that even if the United States distributes booster shots, there should still be considerable excess vaccine supply this year, and they urged the government to begin sending the extra doses abroad.

In his remarks, Mr. Biden complained again about the resistance to the vaccine.

“Despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 locations, we still have over 70 million Americans who fail to get a single shot,” he said. “And to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine with false information the fight against Covid-19.”

“This is totally unacceptable,” he said.

Dan Levin, Daniel E. Slotnik and Zachary Montague contributed reporting.

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The U.S. could run out of cash to pay its bills as early as Oct. 15, analysts say.

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The Treasury Department building. The federal government could run out of cash next month.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The federal government could run out of cash and start missing payments on things as diverse as Social Security and military pay sometime between Oct. 15 and Nov. 4, according to a new analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

That analysis, released on Friday as Congress is debating whether to lift America’s borrowing cap, showed a narrower window during which the United States could default on its debt if the limit on what the United States can borrow is not raised.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have shown no signs of progress at breaking a stalemate over raising or suspending the debt limit — which restricts the government’s ability to borrow money to pay its bills. The congressional dysfunction leaves the United States potentially less than a month away from what economists warn would be a catastrophic economic shock.

“New data demonstrate that Congress has only weeks to address the debt limit,” Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in a statement. “If they don’t, the U.S. government risks missing or delaying critical bills that will come due in mid-October that millions of Americans rely on, from military paychecks and retirement benefits to advanced child tax credit payments.”

The United States officially hit its statutory debt limit in late July, but the Treasury Department has been using “extraordinary measures” to curb or delay investments and stave off a default. Predicting the true deadline is harder this year because government payments related to the pandemic have reduced clarity about when certain taxes will be collected and when federal money is flowing out the door.

If Congress fails to act, the United States will be in uncharted territory.

In its analysis, the policy center said that if the true deadline for breaching the debt limit was Oct. 15, the earliest end of its projected range, the Treasury Department would be about $265 billion short of paying all its bills through mid-November. About 40 percent of the money that is owed would go unpaid.

“Realistically, on a day-to-day basis, fulfilling all payments for important and popular programs would quickly become impossible,” the report said, pointing to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and military active-duty pay.

The Treasury Department has said it has no official contingency plan if the debt limit is breached. However, in previous standoffs, Treasury officials have contemplated what they would do.

The Bipartisan Policy Center notes that the Treasury could try to prioritize payments, which essentially means paying some bills and not others. It could also choose to delay all bills and then make payments once enough revenue had been received to cover the payments due for an entire day.

However, either of these situations would present legal and logistical problems and probably shake up the markets as the Treasury Department struggled to pick winners and losers.

“The reality would inevitably be chaotic,” the report said.

Arizona 2020 election review fails to show that Trump was cheated.

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Recounting ballots in Phoenix in May.Credit...Pool photo by Matt York

PHOENIX — After months of delays and blistering criticism, a much-maligned review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county, ordered up and financed by Republicans, has failed to show that former President Donald J. Trump was cheated of victory, according to draft versions of the report.

In fact, the draft report from the company Cyber Ninjas found just the opposite: It tallied 99 additional votes for President Biden and 261 fewer votes for Mr. Trump in Maricopa County, the fast-growing region that includes Phoenix.

The full review is set to be released later on Friday, but draft versions circulating through Arizona political circles were obtained by The New York Times from a Republican and a Democrat.

Late on Thursday night, Maricopa County, whose Republican leaders have derided the review, got a jump on the official release by tweeting out its conclusions.

“The county’s canvass of the 2020 General Election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did, in fact, win,” the county said on Twitter. It then criticized the review as “littered with errors and faulty conclusions.”

Mr. Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes, making his victory of about 45,000 votes in Maricopa County crucial to his win. Under intense pressure from Trump loyalists, the Republican majority in the State Senate had ordered an autopsy of the county’s votes for president. The review was financed largely by $5.7 million in donations from far-right groups and Mr. Trump’s defenders.

The draft reports implicitly acknowledged Mr. Biden’s victory, noting that there were “no substantial differences” between the new tally of votes and the official count by Maricopa County election officials. But they also claimed that other factors — most if not all contested by reputable election experts — left the results “very close to the margin of error for the election.”

It was not possible to determine whether the conclusions in the final version of the report being released on Friday would differ from those in the drafts. Mr. White said he had been told that some Republican Senate officials were unhappy with the findings.

But if those findings stand, they would amount to a devastating disappointment for pro-Trump Republicans nationwide who have hoped the Arizona review would vindicate their belief that the presidency was stolen from him. For many loyalists, the investigation has been seen as the first in a string of state inquiries that would, domino-like, topple claims that Mr. Biden was legitimately in the White House.

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Biden gets ahead of experts with vaccine booster prediction.

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President Biden has spoken about the prospect of booster shots many times in recent weeks.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

As he announced on Friday that booster shots would be available to some Americans, President Biden made a prediction: His administration was likely to soon provide third doses of the vaccine “across the board” to anyone who wanted one.

“In the near term, we’re probably going to open this up,” he told reporters.

But that assessment — a politically popular one in a country where most vaccinated people say they are eager for a booster — was the latest example of how Mr. Biden and some of his team have been ahead of the nation’s top public health scientists, who have emphatically said there is not enough evidence to suggest that boosters are necessary for the entire American population.

In fact, two panels of scientists — one for the Food and Drug Administration and the other for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — voted in recent days against recommending boosters for everyone.

Mr. Biden has deferred far more to public health experts than did former President Donald J. Trump, who pushed F.D.A. and C.D.C. officials to act more quickly to approve vaccines and promoted unproven treatments for the coronavirus like hydroxychloroquine.

But Mr. Biden’s embrace of booster shots has rankled many in the public health sector, including those working inside the government, who say it could put undue pressure on scientists to make a recommendation they do not believe is supported by the evidence. White House officials dismissed that criticism.

The cost of insuring expensive waterfront homes is set to skyrocket as FEMA adjusts premiums.

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Waterfront homes in Anna Maria, Fla. For the first time, flood insurance rates will take into account the size of a home, so large houses by the ocean could see an especially big jump.Credit...Eve Edelheit for The New York Times

Florida’s version of the American dream, which holds that even people of relatively modest means can aspire to live near the water, depends on a few crucial components: sugar white beaches, soft ocean breezes and federal flood insurance that is heavily subsidized.

But starting Oct. 1, communities in Florida and elsewhere around the country will see those subsidies begin to disappear in a nationwide experiment in trying to adapt to climate change: Forcing Americans to pay something closer to the real cost of their flood risk, which is rising as the planet warms.

While the program also covers homes around the country, the pain will be most acutely felt in coastal communities. For the first time, the new rates will also take into account the size of a home, so that large houses by the ocean could see an especially big jump in rates.

Federal officials say the goal is fairness — and also getting homeowners to understand the extent of the risk they face, and perhaps move to safer ground, reducing the human and financial toll of disasters.

“Subsidized insurance has been critical for supporting coastal real estate markets,” said Benjamin Keys, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Removing that subsidy, he said, will most likely affect where Americans build houses and how much people will pay for them. “It’s going to require a major rethink about coastal living.”

The Biden administration’s new approach threatens home values, perhaps nowhere as intensely as Florida, a state particularly exposed to rising seas and worsening hurricanes. In some parts of the state, the cost of flood insurance will eventually increase tenfold, according to data obtained by The New York Times.

That is prompting lawmakers from both parties to line up to block the new rates, which will be phased in over several years.

“We are extremely concerned about the administration’s decision to proceed,” Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and eight other senators from both parties, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, wrote in a letter to Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, on Wednesday.

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