The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Dr. Rahul Gupta, will host a news conference in Houston to announce new funding to stop drug trafficking.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden weighed in on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift the mask order in Texas and open everything back to 100% next week during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday. Biden said he thinks the decisions by the governors of Texas and Mississippi to ease COVID restrictions, including eliminating mask mandates, “is a big mistake.”“I hoped that we would realize by now that masks make a difference,” Biden said. “We are on the cusp of fundamentally being able to change the nature of this disease because of the way we’ve been able to get vaccines in people’s arms ... The last thing we need is neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, ‘Everything is fine, (so) take off your mask.’ Forget it.

Dan Patrick and a slate of Republican congressional members were among the public figures who supported Brugman’s clemency, according to a statement from the White House press secretary. When Brugman later approached, he struck one of the men, Angel Jimenez-Saldana, with his foot despite Jimenez-Saldana not fighting back, moving or resisting. “I then turned to a second alien and pushed him to the ground too.”Brugman served in the Coast Guard for eight years and as a border patrol agent for four, the release from the White House said. On both the campaign trail and in the White House, Trump has touted hardline immigration policies that have drawn pushback from human rights groups. A day earlier on Tuesday, Trump pardoned Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former border patrol agents who were convicted of assault.