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Happy Monday. Here’s a quick look at what’s happening:

President Biden is overseas. The biggest headline from comments he made early this morning via The Associated Press:

TOKYO (AP) — President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, saying the burden to protect Taiwan is “even stronger” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was one of the most forceful presidential statements in support of self-governing in decades.
Biden, at a news conference in Tokyo, said “yes” when asked if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if China invaded. “That’s the commitment we made,” he added.
The U.S. traditionally has avoided making such an explicit security guarantee to Taiwan, with which it no longer has a mutual defense treaty, instead maintaining a policy of “strategic ambiguity” about how far it would be willing to go if China invaded. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily to defend Taiwan if China invades, but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status in Taiwan by Beijing.
Biden’s comments drew a sharp response from the mainland, which has claimed Taiwan to be a rogue province.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to Biden’s comments. “China has no room for compromise or concessions on issues involving China’s core interests such as sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
He added, “China will take firm action to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests, and we will do what we say.”
A White House official said Biden’s comments did not reflect a policy shift.

More headlines from President Biden’s trip:

Financial Times: Joe Biden has launched a trade initiative with 12 Indo-Pacific countries, in his first serious effort to boost economic engagement in the region as the US seeks to counter a more assertive China.

Al Jazeera: Biden has endorsed Japan’s plan to beef up its defense capabilities as he and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida committed to working closely to counter China’s growing influence in Asia.

NBC News: Biden, in Seoul before heading to Japan as part of his first Asia trip as president, had a simple message for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un: ‘Hello... period,’ he told reporters on the last day of his visit to South Korea on Sunday.

The Hill: Biden on Monday acknowledged the United States is facing economic headwinds with high gasoline and food prices, but he rejected the idea that a recession is inevitable.

Here are the markets as we hit publish today:

CNBC: Stocks bounced on Monday as investors snapped up beaten-down stocks like banks after eight straight losing weeks for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The AP reports on the latest COVID-19 vaccine news: Pfizer says 3 COVID shots protect children under 5.

Three doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine offer strong protection for children younger than 5, the company announced Monday. Pfizer plans to give the data to U.S. regulators later this week in a step toward letting the littlest kids get the shots.
The news comes after months of anxious waiting by parents desperate to vaccinate their babies, toddlers and preschoolers, especially as COVID-19 cases once again are rising. The 18 million tots under 5 are the only group in the U.S. not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
The Food and Drug Administration has begun evaluating data from rival Moderna, which hopes to begin offering two kid-sized shots by summer.
Pfizer has had a bumpier time figuring out its approach. It aims to give tots an even lower dose — just one-tenth of the amount adults receive — but discovered during its trial that two shots didn’t seem quite strong enough for preschoolers. So researchers gave a third shot to more than 1,600 youngsters — from age 6 months to 4 years — during the winter surge of the omicron variant.

Latest CDC case numbers: The seven day average of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continues to rise, now at 105,713; deaths are steady at 284 a day.

Also from AP: A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries as ‘a random event’ that might be explained by sexual behavior at two recent raves in Europe.

Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, told The Associated Press that the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among men at raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.
“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.
That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.
AP Europe @AP_Europe
Sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves in Europe likely caused the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries, a leading adviser to the World Health Organization says. Expert: Monkeypox likely spread by sex at 2 raves in EuropeLONDON (AP) — A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that might be explained by sexual behavior at two recent raves in Europe.apne.ws
May 23rd 2022
201 Retweets269 Likes

Al Jazeera: The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS has warned that stigmatizing language used in the coverage on the monkeypox virus could jeopardize public health, citing some portrayals of Africans and LGBTI people that ‘reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes and exacerbate stigma.’

President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. has enough vaccines to deal with a possible monkeypox outbreak and said the situation does not rise ‘to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19,’ USA Today reports.

BNO News tracker: 170 confirmed cases as of Monday; three probable and 80 more suspected. No deaths have been reported:

The CDC is examining 180 reported cases of hepatitis of unknown origin in kids across 36 states and territories, including six cases that resulted in deaths, Axios reports.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention mishandled allegations of sexual abuse, intimidated victims and their advocates, and resisted attempts at reform over the course of two decades, according to an explosive report released Sunday by a third-party firm, CNN reports.

"Survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action," the report found, "even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation."
According to the report on the investigation conducted by Guidepost Solutions, survivors of abuse and other persons within the Southern Baptist community contacted the SBC Executive Committee (EC) to make them aware of child molestation and other forms of abuse committed by people employed by the church as well as those who were at the pulpit, but were met with inaction.
In a statement, the SBC said in part: "To the members of the survivor community, we are grieved by the findings of this investigation. We are committed to doing all we can to prevent future instances of sexual abuse in churches, to improve our response and our care, to remove reporting roadblocks."
CBS Mornings @CBSMornings
A new report commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention describes decades of cover-ups of abuse claims within its clergy members and leadership. “I was called mentally deranged, incompetent, an enemy of God,” says one woman who reported her alleged abuse to the SBC.
May 23rd 2022
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AP with the fallout: The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee — and thousands of its rank-and-file members — now have opportunities to address a scathing investigative report that says top SBC leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.

The report, issued Sunday, says these survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.”
The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders.
Since then, several top Executive Committee leaders have resigned, and the body — under interim leadership — will meet Tuesday to discuss the report. Three weeks later, the SBC will convene its 2022 national meeting in Anaheim, California, and the report will be discussed there as well.
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse ... and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report said.
“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” the report added.
The report asserts that an Executive Committee staffer maintained a list of Baptist ministers accused of abuse, but there is no indication anyone “took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches.”
The most recent list includes the names of hundreds of abusers thought to be affiliated at some point with the SBC. Survivors and advocates have long called for a public database of abusers.
SBC President Ed Litton, in a statement Sunday, said he is “grieved to my core” for the victims and thanked God for their work propelling the SBC to this moment. He called on Southern Baptists to lament and prepare to change the denomination’s culture and implement reforms.
“I pray Southern Baptists will begin preparing today to take deliberate action to address these failures and chart a new course when we meet together in Anaheim,” Litton said.
Among the report’s key recommendations:
— Form an independent commission and later establish a permanent administrative entity to oversee comprehensive long-term reforms concerning sexual abuse and related misconduct within the SBC.
—Create and maintain an Offender Information System to alert the community to known offenders.
— Provide a comprehensive Resource Toolbox including protocols, training, education, and practical information.
—Restrict the use of nondisclosure agreements and civil settlements which bind survivors to confidentiality in sexual abuse matters, unless requested by the survivor.
The interim leaders of the Executive Committee, Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, welcomed the recommendations, and pledged an all-out effort to eliminate sex abuse within the SBC.
“We recognize there are no shortcuts,” they said. “We must all meet this challenge through prudent and prayerful application, and we must do so with Christ-like compassion.”
Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep
Responding to an independent report on Southern Baptist leaders covering up sexual abuse, @drmoore tells @LeilaFadel: "I honestly don't know what to call this other than a criminal conspiracy." Says officials tracked allegations so they could keep them quiet. @NPR @MorningEdition
May 23rd 2022
159 Retweets579 Likes

2024 news from The New York Times: Pence, Tiptoeing Away From Trump, Lays Groundwork for ’24 Run:

AMES, Iowa — For months, former Vice President Mike Pence has been edging away from his alliance of convenience with former President Donald J. Trump.
After four years of service bordering on subservience, the increasingly emboldened Mr. Pence is seeking to reintroduce himself to Republican voters ahead of a potential presidential bid by setting himself apart from what many in the G.O.P. see as the worst impulses of Mr. Trump. He’s among a small group in his party considering a run in 2024 no matter what Mr. Trump decides.
Mr. Pence first used high-profile speeches to criticize the former president’s push to overturn the 2020 election results, stating flatly that Mr. Trump was “wrong” in his assertion that Mr. Pence could have blocked the Electoral College ratification on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Pence then unsubtly visited the Charlottesville, Va., memorial to Heather Heyer, who was killed in the 2017 white supremacist riot there that Mr. Trump sought to rationalize by faulting “both sides.”
Now, on Monday outside Atlanta, Mr. Pence is taking his boldest and most unambiguous step toward confronting his former political patron. On the eve of Georgia’s primary, the former vice president will stump with Gov. Brian Kemp, perhaps the top target of Mr. Trump’s 2022 vengeance campaign against Republicans who didn’t bow to his election lies.
Mr. Pence grew close with Mr. Kemp during the pandemic and 2020 campaign, and now he is lining up against Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidate, former Senator David Perdue. But more than that, Mr. Pence is seeking to claim a share of credit in what’s expected to be the starkest repudiation yet of Mr. Trump’s attempt to consolidate power, with Mr. Kemp widely expected to prevail.
It is an emphatic break between the onetime running mates, who have not spoken for nearly a year but have also not publicly waged a proxy war until now. Mr. Pence, his aides say, knows full well what going down to Georgia represents and the symbolism alone will stand without him targeting Mr. Trump or even Mr. Perdue in his remarks.
In a statement ahead of Mr. Pence’s visit to Georgia, Mr. Trump belittled his vice president through a spokesman.
“Mike Pence was set to lose a governor’s race in 2016 before he was plucked up and his political career was salvaged,” said Taylor Budowich, the spokesman. “Now, desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races, hoping someone is paying attention. The reality is, President Trump is already 82-3 with his endorsements, and there’s nothing stopping him from saving America in 2022 and beyond.”
In an interview before a speech last month in Iowa, Mr. Pence pointedly declined to rule out running even if Mr. Trump also enters the 2024 primary. “We’ll go where we’re called,” Mr. Pence said, explaining that he and his wife would act on prayer. “That’s the way Karen and I have always approached these things.”
Jonathan Martin @jmartNYT
NEW: 💥 The rupture is complete Pence tells me he’s open to running v Trump in ‘24 - will go “where we’re called” - and heads goes to Ga today to join ranks against Trump’s vengeance tour Trump spox says Pence is “desperate to chase his lost relevance” nytimes.com/2022/05/23/us/…Pence, Tiptoeing Away From Trump, Lays Groundwork for ’24 RunThe former vice president is part of a group of Republicans who have visited early nominating states as they weigh a challenge to their party’s most dominant force.nytimes.com
May 23rd 2022
703 Retweets1,953 Likes