WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he is “so proud” that a women's health research initiative he launched last year at his wife's urging has already invested nearly $1 billion because a healthy female population improves U.S. prosperity.
“That's a fact,” he said in closing remarks at the first White House Conference on Women's Health Research. “We haven't gotten that through to the other team yet," Biden said, referencing President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration.
Trump's three conservative nominees to the Supreme Court from his first term as president voted to overturn a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Democrats campaigned on reproductive rights and women's health issues in this year's elections.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team, said the president-elect will keep his promise to improve health in the U.S.
“President Trump campaigned on making America healthy again for ALL Americans including men, women, and children, and he will deliver on that promise," Leavitt said in an email.
Women make up half of the U.S. population, about 168 million people, but medical research into their unique health circumstances has largely been underfunded and understudied, officials have said.
Jill Biden has said she brought the idea for the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research to the president after Maria Shriver, herself a women's health advocate and member of the influential Kennedy political family, brought it to her.
The first lady told the researchers, advocates, and business and philanthropic leaders attending the conference that she will keep pressing the issue after she leaves her role.
“My work doesn't stop in January when Joe and I leave this house,” she said. “I will keep building alliances, like the ones that brought us here today, and I will keep pushing for funding for innovative research.”
The first lady said the U.S. economy loses about $1.8 billion in working time every year because of how menopause affects women. And she is interested in learning more about extreme morning sickness during pregnancy.
“I heard this a couple weeks ago and I was particularly interested because my own granddaughter was going through the same thing, because we're going to be great-grandparents,” Jill Biden said.
Granddaughter Naomi Biden Neal and her husband, Peter Neal, are expecting their first child.
Since its launch, the women's health research initiative has attracted nearly $1 billion in federal funding, including from the Defense Department and National Institutes of Health.
“In one year, everybody in this room kicked butt,” Shriver said at the conference. “Not until the Bidens did anyone ever think to make women's health and research a priority for the federal government, so let that sink in.”
President Biden closed the conference with a nod to the influence of his wife, who, after her remarks, sat in the front row beside their daughter Ashley Biden, who runs a women's shelter in Philadelphia.
‘You stepped up kid," Biden told the first lady. Then he told the audience, “In case you wonder, when she speaks, I listen.”
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive for the White House Conference on Women's Health Research event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
First lady Jill Biden speaks at the White House Conference on Women's Health Research from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden, left, with first lady Jill Biden in the audience, center, and daughter Ashley Biden, right, walks out of the East Room of the White House after speaking at the White House Conference on Women's Health Research in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House Conference on Women's Health Research from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s main international airport reopened on Wednesday to commercial flights, one month after gangs opened fire on planes. It was the second closing this year because of gang violence.
Soldiers and police, bolstered by Kenyan police leading a U.N.-backed mission to quell the violence, have boosted security in the area, and a test flight was successful, Haiti’s government said in a statement.
“The resumption of commercial flights marks a turning point for the Haitian economy,” the prime minister's office said.
However, there were no flights and no passengers Wednesday afternoon, with heavily armed police setting up checkpoints by the airport and stopping public transport. An airport parking lot normally packed with hundreds of cars had about several dozen vehicles, the majority belonging to employees.
An older Haitian man arrived at the airport late Wednesday morning, wanting to verify when he could fly out of Port-au-Prince, but there were no airline employees at any counter. He feared for his safety and declined to comment.
The Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince closed in mid-November after gangs opened fire on a Spirit Airlines flight that was preparing to land, striking a flight attendant who suffered minor injuries. Other commercial planes were hit that day, prompting Spirit, JetBlue and American Airlines to cancel their flights to Haiti. A day later, the Federal Aviation Administration banned U.S. airlines from flying to the Caribbean country for 30 days.
The airport in Port-au-Prince had closed for nearly three months earlier this year after gangs launched coordinated attacks on key government infrastructure starting in late February. Gangs now control about 85% of the capital.
It wasn’t immediately clear which flights would resume on Wednesday. The FAA’s ban is in place until Thursday.
A spokesman for Spirit told The Associated Press on Wednesday that its flights to Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien, where Haiti's other international airport is located, are suspended “until further notice.” A spokeswoman for American Airlines said they are monitoring the situation and will evaluate resuming flights to Port-au-Prince for late 2025. A spokesperson for JetBlue did not return a message seeking comment.
For the past month, the only international airport operating in Haiti was the one in the northern coastal town of Cap-Haitien, but traveling there by land is dangerous since gangs control the main roads leading out of Port-au-Prince and are known for opening fire on public transport.
The few who could afford to escape the surge of gang violence in the capital this past month paid thousands of dollars for private air transport to Cap-Haitien.
The violence, coupled with alleged threats and aggression from Haiti's National Police, had forced Doctors Without Borders to suspend activities for the first time in its history in the Caribbean country in late November. The aid group announced Wednesday that it had partially resumed activities in Port-au-Prince. However, transportation of patients has not restarted, and one of its hospitals remains closed.
Some 5,000 people have been reported killed in Haiti this year, including more than 100 in a recent massacre in a gang-controlled community in Port-au-Prince.
On Tuesday night, another gang killed more than 20 people in Petite-Rivière in Haiti's central Artibonite region, according to Radio Méga, who interviewed human rights attorney Rosy Auguste Ducéna.
Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A man rides his motorcycle past the Toussaint Louverture airport on the day it reopened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Police officers patrol near the Toussaint Louverture International Airport on the day it reopened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Pedestrians walk past the Toussaint Louverture International Airport on the day it reopened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
A Kenyan police officer, part of a U.N.-backed multinational force, crosses a street to enter the Toussaint Louverture International Airport on the day it reopened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
