Health

President Joe Biden's six-day trip to South Korea and Japan aims to build rapport with the Asian nations’ leaders. Biden will also be trying to send an unmistakable message to China that Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine should give Beijing pause about its own saber-rattling in the Pacific. Biden departs Thursday and is set to meet newly elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Their talks will touch on trade, the global supply chain and North Korea’s nuclear program. Biden will also meet with leaders of the alliance known as the Quad, which includes Japan, Australia and India.

President Joe Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and has authorized flights to import supply from overseas. He is facing mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula manufacturing plant. The Defense Production Act order requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill orders from those companies before other customers. Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly formula supplies that meet federal standards from overseas to the U.S., in what the White House is calling “Operation Fly Formula.”

North Korea has reported 262,270 more suspected COVID-19 infections as its pandemic caseload nears 2 million. The new suspected cases were reported Thursday, a week after the country acknowledged its outbreak and scrambled to slow transmissions. North Korea’s outbreak could be worse than reported because the country lacks virus tests and may be trying to soften the political impact on authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un. Despite the vast numbers of sick people and the efforts to curb the outbreak, workers continue to gather at farms, mining facilities, power stations and construction sites. Experts say North Korea cannot afford a lockdown that would hinder economic production.

President Joe Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and has authorized flights to import supply from overseas. He is facing mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula manufacturing plant. The Defense Production Act order requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill orders from those companies before other customers. Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly formula supplies that meet federal standards from overseas to the U.S., in what the White House is calling “Operation Fly Formula.”

Selena Gomez joined first lady Jill Biden and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy at the White House on Wednesday for a conversation about youth mental health. The singer/actor has been public about her own struggles. In 2020, Gomez revealed that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Gomez, Biden and Murthy held a conversation with a group of young people who shared how they had improved their own mental health. The strategies they shared ranged from finding a therapist to using baking as a way to encourage conversation with others. Biden praised the courage she said it took for them to come forward.

The White House says Ashley Biden, the daughter of President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, has COVID-19 and will no longer accompany her mother to Latin America trip. Her diagnosis was announced just before the first lady flew to Ecuador, the first stop on her three-country tour. It's the second time in recent weeks that the coronavirus has caused Ashley Biden to miss out on traveling with her mother. She backed out of a trip to Eastern Europe earlier in May after learning she was a close contact of someone who later tested positive for COVID-19. The White House says the president had not seen his daughter in about a week.

The U.S. government’s road safety agency has dispatched a team to investigate the possibility that a Tesla involved in a California crash that killed three people was operating on a partially automated driving system. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday confirmed that it had sent a special crash investigation team to probe the May 12 crash on the Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach. The investigation is part of a larger inquiry by the agency into crashes involving advanced driver assistance systems such as Tesla’s Autopilot. Since 2016, the agency has sent teams to 34 crashes in which the systems were either in use or suspected of operating. According to a NHTSA document released Wednesday, of the 34, 28 involved Teslas.

President Joe Biden embarks for Asia on Thursday facing a new risk for the economy at home: a global economic slowdown caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the pandemic shutting down Chinese cities and factories. The world economy cannot any ballots in this year's elections, but it's a hidden force in the voting that will decide if Democrats retain control of the House and Senate. It’s one more challenge that highlights a steep climb for Biden, whose approval ratings have plunged as prices for everyday goods in the U.S. have soared.