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Former President Obama on Wednesday warned against politicizing the coronavirus pandemic, saying the U.S. has fallen behind the rest of the world in its handling of the virus. “The latest data offers a tragic reminder that the virus doesn’t care about spin or ideology––and that the best thing we can do for our economy is to deal with our public health crisis,” Obama tweeted, linking to a New York Times opinion piece titled “The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse. We Must Act Now.” (Budryk, 7/15)

House Democrats are asking Trump officials to explain contracts for personal protective equipment, testing supplies and other materials that they say went to companies with political ties to the administration or that were unprepared to fill the orders. “Recent reports indicate that federal agencies awarded contracts to businesses that had political connections to the Trump Administration, lacked federal contracting experience, and had been selected by the White House without competition or transparency,” Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis wrote in a letter to administration officials Wednesday. (Sullivan, 7/15)