US: White House to host health summit in September

The White House announced that it would be hosting a summit in September centered on health. This follows President Joe Biden’s comments back in May that the summit will be part of an effort by the administration to end hunger and cut down diet-related diseases by 2030.

The White House said it will be hosting a summit in Washington DC on September 28, with hunger, nutrition, and health as the main focus of the event. The conference is part of the Biden administration’s goal to end hunger in the country and reduce diet-related diseases in a majority of Americans by 2030.

This would be the second time the White House has held such an event, the first time being in 1969.

“Lack of access to healthy and affordable foods is one of the many factors impacting hunger and diet-related diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges further,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement.

Government leaders, academics, and activists are expected to be in attendance at the summit to help shape a national strategy that will identify the steps the government can take to “catalyze the public and private sectors to drive transformative change and address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health,” said Jean-Pierre.

The White House also said the summit would aim to address the ways in which the United States can reduce disparities in communities that are affected by these issues the most. The venue and the time of the event have yet to be determined.

The White House Monday also weighed in on the country’s intelligence community, which is currently conducting a review of potential national security risks among the troves of documents that former President Donald Trump took and failed to return even after his presidency ended.

The White House also said it is not involved in the probe of the documents and materials that were retrieved by the FBI from Trump’s Florida residence.

In a letter to lawmakers Friday last week, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that her office is coordinating with the Justice Department to oversee a “classification review” of documents including ones that were recovered during the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on August 8.

“It is an appropriate action for the director and the intelligence community to undertake,” National Security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.