President Joe Biden has ordered the release of up 1 million barrels of oil per day from the strategic petroleum reserve for the next six months in a bid to control prices that have spiked since the US and its allies imposed strict sanctions on Russia.
The announcement comes after both the White House and the Pentagon said that they believe Vladimir Putin is being misinformed about progress in the war by his senior advisers and warned that Russian troops being pulled back from areas near Kyiv may just be being repositioned for further fighting.
Meanwhile, the president is marking the Transgender Day of Visibility, which declared in order to “celebrate the activism and determination that have fueled the fight for transgender equality” and “acknowledge the adversity and discrimination that the transgender community continues to face across our Nation and around the world” – this as various Republican-led states pass laws directly targeting non-gender-conforming people, including children.
On Wednesday, Mr Biden also gave a speech on the state of the coronavirus pandemic, announcing the launch of a central website for resources, before receiving his second booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine. The CIA director is the latest person in the administration to test positive for the virus and he met with the president a day ago - though they were distanced and masked.
