ruling that the covid i9 mitigation measure exceeds the authority of federal health officials. the mask mandate was recently extended by the cdc until 3 may. the justice department is reviewing the judge s decision and white house press secretaryjen psaki called the ruling disappointing, and said the administration is continuing to recommend people wear masks . 0ur north america correspondent peter bowes has the latest on the ruling. this is a mandate that has been in force sincejust afterjoe biden took office, february of last year. it has been extended several times and as you mentioned again for the next couple of weeks, that s likely because of the new variants that have emerged. there are rising numbers of infections around the united states, not huge numbers but it is on the increase and that has raised concerns.
here s white house press secretaryjen psaki: ella met the president will travel to brussels belgium to discuss deterrence and defence efforts to respond to russia s unjustified attack on ukraine. in our ironclad commitment to nato allies. within the past hour, president biden has signed a spending bill, which includes 13 point 6 billion dollars in security assistance to ukraine, on top of what the us has already contributed: we ve been providing antiarmor, taking out tanks and air capabilities directly to ukrainian forces. we are facilitating shipments of security from our allied partners to ukraine. with this new security funding and read authorities in this bill, we are moving urgently to further augment the support to the great people of
the final countdown to tokyo s delayed olympics. anticipation rises but so do the covid cases and controversies. the opening ceremony is just hours away. china deals with the devastating aftermath of catastrophic flooding. thousands are evacuated from the henan region at least 33 people are confirmed dead. china has rejected a plan by the world health organisation for a second phase of an investigation into the origins of covid 19. a senior chinese health official said the proposal to consider whether the virus could have escaped from a chinese laboratory did not respect science and disregarded common sense. well, the white house press secretaryjen psaki was asked about china s stance and gave this frank response. we are deeply disappointed. their position is irresponsible and, frankly, dangerous. alongside other member states around the world, we continue to call for china to provide the needed
holding of the games. there have been numerous calls for a partial boycott of the games, most of them over the treatment of the uighur minority. here s the white house press secretaryjen psaki explaining whyjoe biden felt the move was necessary: the biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the beijing 2022 winter olympics and paralympic games given the prc s ongoing genic genocide and crimes against humanity. and for team usa, the athletes of her full support and will be behind the miniature percentage of each of them on from home and will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games. our north america correspondent peter bowesjoins me now from los angeles, peter, always get debbie on the programme. we talked a while ago
earlier this week. the president is going to raise issues where he has concern and he s going to look for areas to work together. and his lengthy three and a half hour meeting the other night was certainly a reflection of that. both areas where we could work together and areas where we have concern were raised, as you all know from the readouts following the meeting. but there are areas that we do have concerns human rights abuses. you ve seen, notjust in words we ve used but certainly in actions we ve taken at the g7 and other sanctions, that we have serious concerns about human rights abuses we ve seen in xinjiang. and certainly there are a range of factors as we look at what our presence would be. white house press secretaryjen psaki. well for more on this our correspondent anthony zurcher has the latest from washington. it s hard to tell whetherjoe biden was talking off the cuff there or if this is something the united states is moving towards, but i think there ll be a lot of ve