Summary
- Joe Biden a little earlier signed an executive order raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour. “ I believe no one should work full time and still live in poverty,” he said.
- The president plans to nominate Ed Gonzalez – a Texas sheriff who vocally opposed Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families – to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In 2017, Gonzalez stopped allowing his personnel from participating in an Ice program that had local deputies helping identify undocumented immigrants for deportation.
- Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, has called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the police shooting of Andrew Brown. The shooting of Brown, 42, prompted days of protests and calls for accountability.
- Earlier this afternoon, Biden spoke outside the White House to hail progress towards ending the coronavirus pandemic, while warning that there was a long way to go. He said people in the US should not “let up” and should definitely get vaccinated ASAP as a patriotic duty. The speech followed new advice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that fully vaccinated people in US can go without masks outdoors except in crowded settings.
- The governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, signed a bill that criminalizes abortions based on genetic conditions and implements a raft of extreme anti-abortion measures. The bill confers civil rights to unborn children, requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried, and prevents public money from being used to support research involving abortions, among other things.
- The US Interior Department has reversed Trump-era policies governing Native American tribes’ ability to establish and consolidate land trusts. The department restored jurisdiction to the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs directors to review and approve the transfer of private land into federal trust for tribes. The Trump administration had moved the oversight of the process to the department headquarters.
– Joanna Walters and Maanvi Singh
Updated
Arizona governor signs extreme anti-abortion bill
The governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, has signed a bill that criminalizes abortions based on genetic conditions and implements a raft of anti-abortion measures opposed by medical groups and women’s health advocates.
The bill confers civil rights to unborn children, requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried, prohibits educational institutions from performing abortions unless the mother’s life is in jeopardy, forbids the mailing or delivery of abortion-inducing drugs (which doctors use to manage miscarriages as well as to induce abortion) and prevents public money from being used to support research involving abortions.
Yesterday, the Republican governors of Oklahoma and Montana signed laws severely limiting abortions.
Updated
Republicans still orbiting Trump dark star fail to derail Biden’s first 100 days
For Democrats it has been a hundred days of sweeping legislation, barrier-breaking appointments and daring to dream big. For Republicans, a hundred days in the political wilderness.
The party that just four years ago controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress now finds itself shut out of power and struggling to find its feet. As Joe Biden forges ahead with ambitions to shift the political paradigm, Republicans still have a Donald Trump problem.
The former US president remains the unofficial leader of the party and exerts a massive gravitational pull on its senators, representatives, governors and state parties. Obsessed with “culture wars” and voter fraud, the Trump distortion field has made it difficult for Republicans to move on.
“Trump is like a fire,” said Ed Rogers, a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush administrations. “Too close and you get burned. Too far away, you’re out in the cold. So the party spends a lot of time talking about the fire, managing the fire, orbiting the fire. It takes a lot of energy out of the party.”
Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was the last time Democrats swept the board of White House, House of Representatives and Senate. On that occasion conservatives exploited the financial crisis to stir resentment about government spending, giving rise to the Tea Party and winning back the House in the midterm elections.
But this time looks very different. Republicans were forced to watch from the sidelines as Biden oversaw the distribution of 200m coronavirus vaccination doses while bringing down unemployment. They failed to find a coherent line of attack on his $1.9tn Covid relief package, which opinion polls showed was popular with the public, including Republican voters.
Read more:
Senate Democrats are pushing Biden to admit more refugees into the US
Biden announced earlier this month that he would not increase refugee admissions from the record low cap of 15,000 that Donald Trump set before leaving office. After intense pushback from advocates and Democratic lawmakers, Biden said he’d increase the cap by 15 May.
But it remains unclear what the new cap will be.
In a letter from Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, 32 Democratic co-signatories asked Biden to admit up to 62,500 refugees by September, and then increase the cap to 125,000 for the next fiscal year, the Washington Post reports.
“The United States must reject the previous administration’s cruel legacy of anti-refugee policies and return to our long-standing bipartisan tradition of providing safety to the world’s most vulnerable refugees,” the senators wrote, in a copy reviewed by The Washington Post’s Seung Min Kim.
Here’s more background on the issue:
Updated
WHO blames ‘perfect storm’ of factors for India Covid crisis
On Tuesday morning, a flight from the UK carrying vital medical supplies including ventilators landed in Delhi. Six oxygen containers were flown in from Dubai and in a phone conversation between the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the US president, Joe Biden, on Monday, Biden pledged “America’s steadfast support” to India by providing oxygen-related supplies and vaccine raw materials.
“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
The crisis prompted the German army to provide a large oxygen production plant while France has said it will send supplies to India via air and sea, including eight oxygen concentrators, containers of liquid oxygen and 28 respirators.
The EU said it would send medicine and oxygen to India in the coming days. “The EU is pooling resources to respond rapidly to India’s request for assistance,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European commission, on Twitter.
Pledges of support have also come from Denmark, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Australia and Bhutan. The tiny kingdom which neighbours India, also said it would be sending “a spare few hundred litres” of oxygen as soon as its newly built oxygen plant was up and running.
In March, India gifted Bhutan over half a million Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines, which helped the country implement one of the world’s fastest vaccinations rollouts, where it vaccinated 93% of the small population in just 16 days.
Many fear that the international aid being sent to India will not be enough to fill the acute gap in supplies of oxygen, which has been affecting hospitals in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, despite the state’s chief minister insisting there was “no oxygen shortage”, and threatening private hospitals with criminal charges if they “spread rumours” about oxygen scarcity.
Read more:
Interior Department reverses Trump-era policies on tribal land
The US Interior Department has reversed Trump-era policies governing Native American tribes’ ability to establish and consolidate land trusts.
The department restored jurisdiction to the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs directors to review and approve the transfer of private land into federal trust for tribes. The Trump administration had moved the oversight of the process to the department headquarters.
“Qe have an obligation to work with Tribes to protect their lands and ensure that each Tribe has a homeland where its citizens can live together and lead safe and fulfilling lives,” said Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman to lead the department. “Our actions today will help us meet that obligation and will help empower Tribes to determine how their lands are used – from conservation to economic development projects.”
The agency also reversed several Trump admin rules that hindered or complicated the process for putting land into trust.
The AP explains:
Whether land is in trust has broad implications for whether tribal police can exercise their authority, for tribal economic development projects to attract financing and for the creation of homelands and government offices for tribes that don’t have dedicated land.
The Trump administration put 75,000 acre (30,300 hectares) into trust over four years, versus more than 560,000 acres (226,600 hectares) in the eight years of the Obama administration, Interior officials said.
The trust land system was adopted in 1934, when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act in response to more than 90 million acres (36.4 million hectares) of tribal homelands that had been converted into private land under the 1887 Allotment Act.
Approximately 56 million acres (22.7 million hectares) are currently in trust. Combined that’s an area bigger than Minnesota and makes up just over 2 percent of the U.S.
Joe Biden and Jill Biden will visit former president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter this week.
A day after the president delivers his address to Congress, the Bidens will make a trip to Georgia, where the Carters reside. The Carters, who are both in their 90s, did not attend Biden’s inauguration due to the pandemic. Now that they have both been vaccinated, they will be able to safely visit with the Bidens.
Biden will also likely hold some sort of drive-in event in Georgia to mark his 100th day in office, the White House has previously indicated.
Updated
Today so far
The blog will hand over from the US east coast to the west coast now, where our colleague Maanvi Singh is ready to take you through the next few hours of developing politics news. There’s plenty of it, so please stay tuned.
Main items so far today:
- Joe Biden a little earlier signed an executive order raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour.
- The US president plans to nominate Ed Gonzalez – a Texas sheriff who vocally opposed Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families – to become the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
- Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, has called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to handle the investigation into the police shooting of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, in the state last week.
- Earlier this afternoon, Biden spoke outside the White House to hail progress towards ending the coronavirus pandemic, while warning that there was a long way to go. He said people in the US should not “let up” and should definitely get vaccinated ASAP as a patriotic duty.
- This followed new advice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that fully vaccinated people in US can go without masks outdoors except in crowded settings.
Updated
Biden raises minimum wage for workers paid by federal contractors
Joe Biden a little earlier signed an executive order raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour.
I believe no one should work full time and still live in poverty. That’s why today, I raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour for people working on federal contracts.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 27, 2021
The tweet and the sentiment didn’t go down terribly well with everyone.
So in other words, you mean that everyone who makes minimum wage who is not a federal employee should work full time and still live in poverty.
— LADY BUNNY (@LADYBUNNY77) April 27, 2021
The $15 minimum is likely to take effect next year and increase the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers, according to a White House document.
The New York Times has a lot more on this, here, including this:
White House economists believe that the increase will not lead to significant job losses — a finding in line with recent research on the minimum wage — and that it is unlikely to cost taxpayers more money, two administration officials said in a call with reporters. They argued that the higher wage would lead to greater productivity and lower turnover.
And although the number of workers directly affected by the increase is small as a share of the economy, the administration contends that the executive order will indirectly raise wages beyond federal contractors by forcing other employers to bid up pay as they compete for workers.
Paul Light, an expert on the federal work force at New York University, recently estimated that about five million people are working on federal contracts, on which the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
Updated
When the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty a week ago today of murdering George Floyd last May, the judge in the case mentioned that sentencing was expected in eight weeks’ time.
So the sentencing hearing had been expected on 18 June, but news just emerged from a brief court filing today that it will now be scheduled for 25 June.
Chauvin is white and Floyd was Black and his murder, seen around the world on a bystander’s video as the officer kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes, fanned the largest civil rights uprising in the US since the 1960s.
The only reason cited for the later sentencing date was a scheduling conflict, the Associated Press reports.
The trial in the Hennepin county court house in downtown Minneapolis lasted three weeks before Chauvin was convicted on all three counts facing him.
Second degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 40 years. That was the most serious charge, which Chauvin had denied, along with the other two charges, of third degree murder and manslaughter.
The AP adds that the longest sentence Chauvin is expected to be given, according to experts, is 30 years, maybe less.
The jury only deliberated for about 10 hours, over two days, before unanimously reaching its verdict.
Do watch the Guardian’s excellent film about the trial and reverberations.
Updated
Governor calls for special prosecutor in Andrew Brown case
Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, has called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to handle the investigation into the police shooting of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, in the state last week.
Gov. Cooper issued the following statement urging a special prosecutor following the Pasquotank County shooting: pic.twitter.com/6m5UqxyZ09
— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) April 27, 2021
Cooper, a Democrat, put out a statement saying such an appointment would be “in the interest of justice and confidence in the judicial system”.
He said that: “This would help assure the community and Mr Brown’s family that a decision on pursuing criminal charges is conducted without bias.”
Demonstrators called this morning for p0lice officers to be arrested, after an independent autopsy arranged by the family concluded that Brown was killed with a bullet that entered the back of his head.
Attorneys for Brown’s family, who were shown only a 20-second clip of police body camera footage yesterday, said in a press conference in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, that the man’s hands were clearly placed on the steering wheel of his car, where police could see him, when they fired at him, and that he was driving away, presenting no threat.
The local North State Journal adds that:
Should the district attorney request a special prosecutor, the potential appointment could come from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Special Prosecution Division, the Administrative Office of the Courts, or the Conference of District Attorneys.
Cooper’s call follows the announcement of an FBI civil rights investigation into the shooting.
There will be a protest march tomorrow over the fatal shooting.
HAPPENING NOW: Church members announced they will march from Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church tomorrow at 11:30 to the location where #AndrewBrownJr was shot & killed here in #ElizabethCity. They’re calling on people of all denominations to join them @SpecNews1RDU pic.twitter.com/4x7aWhzdxJ
— Kyleigh Panetta (@KyleighPanetta) April 27, 2021
Updated
Texas sheriff who criticized Trump is nominated to head Ice
Joe Biden plans to nominate Ed Gonzalez – a Texas sheriff who vocally opposed Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families – to a key post as the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), the White House has announced.
White House nominates Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to lead ICE https://t.co/A5W3YP0SWI
— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) April 27, 2021
Gonzalez is a Houston native and a veteran law enforcement officer and Democrat who has served since 2017 as sheriff of Harris county, the most populous county in Texas, Reuters reports.
In a July 2019 Facebook post, Gonzalez said he opposed sweeping immigration raids after Republican former president Donald Trump, a month earlier tweeted hyperbolically that ICE would begin deporting “millions of illegal aliens”.
“I do not support ICE raids that threaten to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom do not represent a threat to the US,” Gonzalez wrote. “The focus should always be on clear & immediate safety threats.”
The nomination would need to be approved by the US Senate, divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties.
Biden campaigned on a pledge to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies. After Biden took office on January 20, his administration placed a 100-day pause on many deportations and greatly limited who can be arrested and deported by ICE.
Biden’s deportation moratorium drew fierce pushback from Republicans and was blocked by a federal judge in Texas days after it went into effect.
Biden announced on April 12 that he would tap Chris Magnus, an Arizona police chief, to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Magnus had criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to force so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Gonzalez similarly sought to limit ties between local police and federal immigration enforcement. In 2017, he ended Harris County’s participation in a program that increased cooperation between county law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
Wow. Thinking back to when Ed Gonzalez was the new sheriff in town, having run on a reform-minded platform, and quickly made the call to terminate Harris County's 287(g) partnership with ICE. Now the White House wants him to lead the agency, @nkhensley reports: https://t.co/B9R2YvCWvF
— Meagan Flynn (@Meagan_Flynn) April 27, 2021
Here’s another view:
Republicans will hate his nomination. That should tell you everything you need to know. Ed Gonzalez withdrew from the 287(g) collaboration program with ICE while he was sheriff of Harris County.
— Stephanie Clay 🦋🏳️🌈🐝🛳 (@_StephanieClay) April 27, 2021
Ed has fought ICE at every turn to protect Houstonians. https://t.co/RSn6kSFcOz
Updated
The White House is considering options for maximizing production and supply of Covid-19 vaccines for the world at the lowest cost, including backing a proposed waiver of intellectual property rights.
No decision has been made, press secretary Jen Psaki said a little earlier.
“There are a lot of different ways to do that. Right now, that’s one of the ways, but we have to assess what makes the most sense,” Psaki said, adding that US officials were also looking at whether it would be more effective to boost manufacturing in the United States.
It’s been incredibly difficult to cope with assessing the Oscars ceremony without the help of Donald Trump, so fortunately the former president has glided back into our lives for a moment to fill that void.
Here comes a statement from Trump’s office. It speaks for itself.
Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th president of the United States of America
What used to be called The Academy Awards, and now is called the “Oscars”—a far less important and elegant name—had the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low. If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse—if that’s possible. Go back 15 years, look at the formula they then used, change the name back to THE ACADEMY AWARDS, don’t be so politically correct and boring, and do it right. ALSO, BRING BACK A GREAT HOST. These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans. That formula certainly hasn’t worked very well for The Academy!”
So that clears that up.
Updated
Interim summary
Here is where the day stands so far in US political news. There will be a lot more coming up, so please stay tuned.
- Joe Biden warned the nation “do not let up now” in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, as he said there was a long way to go but hailed “stunning progress”
- The US president said that getting vaccinated was everyone’s “patriotic duty” and said those who have been fully vaccinated would be able to enjoy many activities outdoors safely without “masking up”
- The FBI has launched a federal civil rights investigation into the police killing of Andrew Brown in North Carolina last week.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this morning that fully vaccinated people in US can go without masks outdoors except in crowded settings.
- Lawyers representing the family of Andrew Brown, a Black man shot dead by police in North Carolina last week, said after a private autopsy that he was killed with a police gunshot to the back of his head.
'Do not let up now' - Biden
Joe Biden said that getting vaccinated is a “patriotic duty” for everyone in the US and urged people to continue efforts to bring the pandemic under control.
“Do not let up now, keep following the guidance and go get vaccinated NOW,” the US president said.
“It’s free, it’s convenient,” he said, adding that 90% of people in the US live within five miles of a site where it is possible to get vaccinated.
He dangled the lure of “going to the park for a picnic without having to mask up as long as you get vaccinated”.
More than half of US adults have had at least one shot against the coronavirus at this point. Biden said the US has made stunning progress but has a long way to go.
Biden said things had improved “dramatically” in terms of case numbers and death rates compared with when he took office in January. Two thirds of the most vulnerable population group overall, seniors, are now fully vaccinated, he added.
The president remarked on what a gorgeous spring day it was, that he wished he could stay outside but needed to head inside to get back to work, donned his trademark aviator sunglasses and turned from the podium.
He lingered to answer a few press questions, however, and remarked briefly on how the US was sending help to India, where coronavirus is raging.
And this president occasionally tweets.
Because of the extraordinary progress we’ve made in the fight against COVID-19, the CDC made a big announcement today: If you are fully vaccinated — and if you are outdoors and not in a large crowd — you no longer need to wear a mask.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 27, 2021
Updated
Biden hails 'stunning progress' in combating pandemic
Joe Biden is speaking now about the US coronavirus efforts. The US president said the US was striving towards the target of being able to “get life in America closer to normal” by the Fourth of July “and celebrate our independence from the virus,” he said.
Standing in the sunshine in Washington, DC, Biden said: “While we still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do in May and June...we have made stunning progress. Cases and deaths are down.”
Updated
Joe Biden is late. As we wait for the president to present his latest remarks on the coronavirus pandemic, here is a wrap of the morning’s news in the case of the police shooting of Andrew Brown in North Carolina.
The Reuters news agency reports:
Lawyers for the family of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man killed by law enforcement in North Carolina, said an independent autopsy showed he died from a ‘kill shot’ to the back of his head, as the FBI on Tuesday opened a civil rights investigation of the shooting.
Brown, 42, was struck with four bullets to his right arm before the fatal shot penetrated the rear of his skull as he tried to drive away, the lawyers told a news conference in Elizabeth City, a riverfront community near the Virginia border where the shooting took place last Wednesday.
An official autopsy has yet to be released, though the death certificate had indicated Brown died of a gunshot to the head.
“It was a ‘kill’ shot to the back of the head,” said attorney Ben Crump, citing the private autopsy conducted by Brent Hall, a former medical examiner in Boone, North Carolina.Shortly after the news conference, the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office announced that it has opened a federal civil rights investigation of the shooting, saying in a statement it would work with federal prosecutors in the Department of Justice to “determine whether federal laws were violated.”
Brown’s death led to six nights of protests in Elizabeth City and came one day after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd in a trial that put a renewed spotlight on police violence against Black people.
The Brown family’s lawyers have said deputies belonging to the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office continued firing their weapons after Brown drove his vehicle away from them, calling his death an “execution.”
Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten and Chief Deputy Daniel Fogg have said the deputies were trying to serve warrants on Brown stemming from a felony drug charge, and that Brown had a history of resisting arrest.
They urged the public to reserve judgment until all evidence is reviewed by the State Bureau of Investigation, which is overseeing the probe of the shooting.
“This tragic incident was quick and over in less than 30 seconds and body cameras are shaky and sometimes hard to decipher. They only tell part of the story,” Wooten said in a video posted on social media on Monday.
FBI to investigate police killing of Andrew Brown
This news is just coming through on the shooting of Brown last week in North Carolina.
“The FBI Charlotte Field Office has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the police involved shooting death of Andrew Brown Jr. Agents will work closely with the US Attorney’s Office for the eastern district of North Carolina and the civil rights division at the Department of Justice to determine whether federal laws were violated.”
That’s from the bureau.
We’ll bring you more, probably after Joe Biden’s address on coronavirus, expected shortly.
JUST IN: @FBICharlotte confirms with @SpecNews1RDU that it has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the “police involved shooting death” of #AndrewBrownJr in #ElizabethCity. See the statement below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/E8OUnY2pvU
— Kyleigh Panetta (@KyleighPanetta) April 27, 2021
Vaccination rates growing 'in an extraordinary way' - CDC
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said that signs are encouraging in US efforts to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control.
It’s only four weeks since Walensky was so worried about the pace of vaccination and mitigation efforts being swamped by a fresh surge of infections that she said she was scared, threw away her prepared remarks and warned of a “recurring feeling I have of impending doom”.
While there are still huge problems, especially in states such as Michigan, which is experiencing a horrible wave of the virus, speaking nationally, Walensky described the curve of the incidences of serious illness and death was “stabilizing, it’s coming down”.
She urged everyone in the US to “roll up your sleeves!” and said that “vaccinations are growing in an extraordinary way”.
During questioning by the press, Walensky said: “We need to encourage everyone to get vaccinated. She said the acceleration in the administration of vaccinations in the US meant that “cases are staring to stabilize, plateau and come down..when vaccinations continue to soar we should be in good shape.”
Around 54% of US adults have had at least one shot now, with almost 30% of US adults fully vaccinated.
Top infectious diseases official Anthony Fauci added that if anyone is hesitant about receiving the vaccine because they think the science was rushed, they should be reassured that although the coronavirus vaccine was developed in a record 11 months it came on the back of “decades of fundamental science. This was not rushed.”
The daily average of new confirmed cases in the US is now 34,600, a 21% decline from the previous seven-day average of 54,400 cases.
Updated
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), just said at a briefing from the White House coronavirus team that people who have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus “can begin to get back to normal” and “return to many activities safely”.
“Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time telling Americans what they cannot do,” she said. “Today, I’m going to tell you some of the things you can do, if you are fully vaccinated.”
Walensky said at the briefing that the coronavirus vaccines available in the US are safe and effective.
“If you are fully vaccinated things are much safer for you than for those not yet fully vaccinated. This guidance will help you, your family and your neighbors make decisions based on the latest science and safely get back to things you love to do.
“There are many situations where people who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear a mask, particularly if they are outdoors.”
For those fully vaccinated: “If you want to attend a small outdoor gathering with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households, the science shows that if you are vaccinated you can do so safely, unmasked.”
CDC director Rochelle Walensky says fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks at small outdoor gatherings or outdoor restaurants with people from multiple households. https://t.co/OAMWGe9xa1 pic.twitter.com/x8ge3MzixP
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 27, 2021
Fully vaccinated people in US can go without masks outdoors except in crowded settings
US health officials say fully vaccinated Americans don’t need to wear masks outdoors anymore unless they are in a big crowd of strangers, and those who are unvaccinated can go without a face covering outside in some cases, too, the Associated Press reports.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the updated guidance Tuesday in yet another carefully calibrated step on the road back to normal from the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 570,000 people in U.S.
For most of the past year, the CDC had been advising Americans to wear masks outdoors if they are within 6 feet of each other.
The change comes as more than half of U.S. adults have gotten at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, and more than a third have been fully vaccinated.
“It’s the return of freedom,” said Dr. Mike Saag, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who welcomed the change. “It’s the return of us being able to do normal activities again. We’re not there yet, but we’re on the exit ramp. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
More people need to be vaccinated, and concerns persist about variants and other possible shifts in the epidemic. But Saag said the new guidance is a sensible reward following the development and distribution of effective vaccines and about 140 million Americans stepping forward to get their shots.
The CDC, which has been cautious in its guidance during the crisis, essentially endorsed what many Americans have already been doing over the past several weeks.
The CDC guidance says that fully vaccinated or not, people do not have to wear masks outdoors when they walk, bike or run alone or with members of their household. They also can go maskless in small outdoor gatherings with fully vaccinated people.
But from there, the CDC has differing guidance for people who are fully vaccinated and those who are not.
Unvaccinated people defined by the CDC as those who have yet to receive both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson formula should wear masks at outdoor gatherings that include other unvaccinated people. They also should keep using masks at outdoor restaurants.
Fully vaccinated people do not need to cover up in those situations, the CDC says.
However, everyone should keep wearing masks at crowded outdoor events such as concerts or sporting events, the CDC says.
Updated
The police department in Louisville, Kentucky, is to be the subject of a federal investigation by the Department of Justice, attorney general Merrick Garland announced yesterday.
Breonna Taylor was shot dead by police there during a botched drug raid just over a year ago.
The local Courier Journal newspaper and website has this on the news about the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD):
Louisville Metro Police has become the latest department targeted by a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into potential bias in policing patterns and practices.
The news, announced Monday by the U.S. Attorney General, follows the high-profile fatal police shooting last year of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, whose name joined George Floyd as a national rallying cry for racial justice.
But the probe is expected to extend far beyond the March 13, 2020, shooting at Taylor’s apartment, focusing as well on Louisville Metro Police’s practices around traffic stops, search warrants and use of force.
The investigation could find police in Louisville have acted unconstitutionally and violated citizens’ rights, but local officials have cast it as an opportunity to continue work around reforms.
“We all share a commitment and an urgency to this review, which is part and parcel of the work we’ve been doing to reimagine public safety and build greater trust, respect, transparency and accountability with the people of Louisville and LMPD,” said Mayor Greg Fischer....
The probe is set to examine if LMPD:
- Used unreasonable force, including during peaceful protests;
- Engaged in unconstitutional stops, searches and seizures;
- Discriminated against people based on race; and
- Failed to provide public services in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
An appeal hearing is due today in Texas in the case of the police officer who murdered Botham Jean in 2018. Jean was sitting at home eating ice cream.
The Associated Press takes up the report:
A Texas court is scheduled to hear arguments on overturning the conviction of a former Dallas police officer who was sentenced to prison for fatally shooting her neighbor in his home.
An attorney for Amber Guyger and prosecutors are set to clash before an appeals court over whether the evidence was sufficient to prove that her 2018 shooting of Botham Jean was murder.The hearing before a panel of judges will examine a Dallas County jury’s 2019 decision to sentence Guyger to 10 years in prison for murder.
It follows the recent conviction of a former Minneapolis police officer who was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, again focusing national attention on police killings and racial injustice.
More than two years before Floyd’s death set off protests across the country, Guyger’s killing of Jean drew national attention because of the strange circumstances and because it was one in a string of shootings of Black men by white police officers.
The basic facts of the case were not in dispute. Guyger, returning home from a long shift, mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was on the floor directly below his. Finding the door ajar, she entered and shot him, later testifying that she through he was a burglar.
Jean, a 26-year-old accountant, had been eating a bowl of ice cream before Guyger shot him. She was later fired from the Dallas Police Department.
The appeal from Guyger, now 32, hangs on the contention that her mistaking Jean’s apartment for her own was reasonable and, therefore, so too was the shooting. Her lawyers have asked the appeals court to acquit her of murder or to substitute in a conviction for criminally negligent homicide, which carries a lesser sentence.In court filings, Dallas County prosecutors countered that Guyger’s error doesn’t negate “her culpable mental state.” They wrote, “murder is a result-oriented offense.”
Jean’s mother, Allison Jean, told the Dallas Morning News that the appeal has delayed her family’s healing process.
“I know everyone has a right of appeal, and I believe she’s utilizing that right,” Jean said. “But on the other hand, there is one person who cannot utilize any more rights because she took him away.
“So having gotten 10 years, only 10, for killing someone who was in the prime of his life and doing no wrong in the comfort of his home, I believe that she ought to accept, take accountability for it and move on,” she said.
Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died when he was choked by police in New York in 2014 while he pleaded “I can’t breathe”, just spoke at the press conference in North Carolina called by attorneys and relatives of Andrew Brown, who was shot dead there by police last week.
“They never intended to take him alive,” she said of the way police in Elizabeth City, NC, approached Brown, 42, last week before he was shot dead.
The details known publicly of what happened in the interaction are still very limited, mostly because the authorities have released very little.
There was uproar yesterday after county authorities said they would show Brown’s family police body camera footage of the man’s killing and then, after hours of delay, showed only a selected 20-second “snippet”.
Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, one of the group of attorneys for the family, said at the time that when the short clip started, police guns - both assault rifles and pistols - appeared already to be firing. But that she could see Brown with both his hands on the steering wheel of his car and not “at any time” threatening the officers.
Carr said moments ago that she believes the group of police had “their own agenda” when they came to apprehend Brown with a drugs-related warrant last week.
“They is what they do in the Black and brown communities. They terrorize and they kill and it’s swept under the rug,” Carr said.
Andrew Brown’s son, Khalil Ferebee, just told those gathered for a press conference in North Carolina that he believed his statement yesterday that his father had been “executed” by the police was confirmed by the evidence that brown died from a shot to the back of the head.
“Violence is not the key,” he told the crowd gathered in Elizabeth City.
“But my pop,” he said, before trailing off. He talked about the independent autopsy that the family had requested as showing his father was shot three times in the arm before he was killed.
“Are three shots to the arm not enough? It’s obvious that he was trying to get away, and they are going to shoot him in the back of the head? That’s not right, something’s got to change,” Ferebee said.
The press conference is ongoing.
Five penetrating bullet wounds including a “kill shot” to the back of the head. That’s the autopsy result being read by the attorneys for Andrew Brown’s family now. They note four non-fatal bullet wounds to Brown’s right arm, followed by a fatal shot to the head.
— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) April 27, 2021
Updated
Developments in police killing of Andrew Brown
Attorneys representing the family of Andrew Brown are holding press conference right now in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
Brown, 42, was killed by police there last week and details are coming out very slowly.
Yesterday the family and attorneys accused the authorities of “hiding” video evidence of “an execution” on Monday after relatives were shown only a 20-second clip of the incident from a single officer’s body camera.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is at the conference going on now and is announcing the results of an independent autopsy that was arranged.
He is confirming a report yesterday that came from the death certificate that Brown was killed with a bullet that entered the base of the back of Brown’s head.
“It was a kill shot to the back of the head,” said Ben Crump, one of the attorneys. “It went into the base of the neck, bottom of the skull and got lost in his brain. That was the cause of death.”
A group of attorneys is presenting findings and diagrams. They report that Brown was hit by five shots.
“Arrest them right now,” people in the crowd are calling out, referring to the police.
Family attorney Harry Daniels reiterated that when Brown was shot dead in a hail of bullets after at least eight officers came to him with a drugs-related warrant last week, Brown put his hands on the wheel of his car, where they were visible.
Brown was driving away “trying to run because he was scared for his life” after being shot in the arm and then in the back of the head as he was heading away.
Updated
Police killings of Black Americans amount to crimes against humanity, international inquiry finds.
Our colleague Ed Pilkington reports exclusively today that the systematic killing and maiming of defenseless African Americans by police amount to crimes against humanity that should be investigated and prosecuted under international law.
The news comes from an inquiry into US police brutality by leading human rights lawyers from around the globe.
A week after the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, the unabated epidemic of police killings of Black men and women in the US has now attracted scorching international attention.
In a devastating report running to 188 pages, human rights experts from 11 countries hold the US accountable for what they say is a long history of violations of international law that rise in some cases to the level of crimes against humanity.
They point to what they call “police murders” as well as “severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, persecution and other inhuman acts” as systematic attacks on the Black community that meet the definition of such crimes.
They also call on the prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague to open an immediate investigation with a view to prosecutions.
“This finding of crimes against humanity was not given lightly, we included it with a very clear mind,” Hina Jilani, one of the 12 commissioners who led the inquiry, told the Guardian. “We examined all the facts and concluded that that there are situations in the US that beg the urgent scrutiny of the ICC.”
You can read Ed’s full report here.
Senate committee hears from tech policy chiefs on algorithm secrets
There’s a hearing underway at the Senate judiciary committee into the algorithms tech giants use to influence what pops up most frequently for you to look at or be directed towards on social media.
Policy chiefs from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are testifying. You can watch the hearing live, here.
The Axios political news site has a lively and reader-friendly take on all of this. Here’s a chunk:
Tech platforms have built the heart of their businesses around secretive computer algorithms, and lawmakers and regulators now want to know just what’s inside those black boxes.
Why it matters: Algorithms, formulas for computer-based decision making, are responsible for what we get shown on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — and, increasingly, for choices companies make about who gets a loan or parole or a spot at a college.
How it works: When posts “go viral,” algorithms are why. Often, they work by detecting small blips in user interest and amplifying them.
- Algorithms’ complexity and obscurity have helped tech firms make the case that they are neutral platforms. They also allow companies to stand at one remove from responsibility for decisions about promoting and demoting content.
- But users and critics, increasingly aware of the power of these systems, now want to hold companies more responsible for the outcomes their code produces.
Driving the news: At a hearing on “Algorithms and Amplification,” executives from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, along with Harvard researcher Joan Donovan and ethicist Tristan Harris, will testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s privacy, technology and law subcommittee.
- The subcommittee is led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and ranking member Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).
The big picture: Government agencies around the world are starting to take up issues related to algorithms and machine learning.
Our thought bubble: The conversation in policy circles has long concentrated on the outer limits of content decisions — decisions about what gets removed and who gets banned. Those are what software people call “edge cases.” What gets recommended, and why, is the center of the issue.
Between the lines: Platforms have long used their algorithms to boost business metrics, such at the amount of time spent on their site. Increasingly, though, they are also acknowledging and tapping the power of algorithms to limit the spread of misinformation or hate speech that doesn’t merit an outright ban.
HAPPENING NOW: A hearing on "Algorithms and Amplification," where social media executives + Harvard researcher @BostonJoan & ethicist @tristanharris will testify before Senate Judiciary Committee's privacy, technology & law subcommittee. Livestream:https://t.co/dxY9bGOTPC
— Center for Democracy & Technology (@CenDemTech) April 27, 2021
Joe Biden is expected to propose beefing up the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on wealthy individuals and corporations that evade paying federal taxes.
Reuters reports:
Joe Biden will seek an extra $80 billion to fund U.S. tax collections that would help pay for his plan to bolster childcare, universal prekindergarten education and paid leave for workers, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The Democratic president’s proposal to boost the Internal Revenue Service’s budget over 10 years would help the agency curb tax evasion through audits of high earners and large corporations and include new disclosure requirements, the Times said, citing two people familiar with the plan.
Representatives for the White House and the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, had no immediate comment.
IRS chief Charles Rettig told lawmakers earlier this month tax evasion costs the United States $1 trillion or more each year.
Biden’s American Families Plan, expected to be released before his address to Congress on Wednesday, is part of the Democratic president’s sweeping economic agenda, but details are still emerging.
It would have to pass a closely divided Congress where Democrats hold a thin majority.
House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal on Tuesday set the stage for legislative action, introducing a bill expanding workers’ paid leave, boosting state childcare efforts and expanding tax credits.
Biden’s potentially $1.5 trillion effort could reshape life for many people in the United States trying to balance work and family life, and the White House has said the wealthy and corporations can afford to pay for new programs.
It also increases taxes on the wealthiest Americans, sources said last week.
Republicans generally rejected higher taxes, and passed a sweeping tax cut in 2017 under Republican President Donald Trump.
But Biden, who is also pushing for companies to help fund his separate $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, has been adamant about targeting non-payers to re-invest in the nation.
Joe Biden marks 100 days in office later this week. The coronavirus and the health and economic fallout from the pandemic was priority one upon the Democrat being inaugurated at the US Capitol on January 20, 2021.
The Associated Press has this backgrounder on Biden and the virus.
Biden spent his first 100 days in office encouraging Americans to mask up and stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. His task for the next 100 days will be to lay out the path back to normal.
When he entered office, Biden moved swiftly to overcome vaccine supply issues and more than tripled the country’s ability to administer them. But ending the coronavirus pandemic, the central challenge of his presidency, will require more than putting shots into arms — a task now growing more difficult as demand sags — but also a robust plan to help the nation emerge from a year of isolation, disruption and confusion.
If Biden launched the nation onto a war footing against a virus that infected nearly 200,000 Americans in January and killed about 3,000 of them per day, the next months will be tantamount to winning the peace. Already, deaths are down to fewer than 700 per day and average daily cases are below 60,000. U.S. officials insist there is a long way to go before the country can be fully at ease, but the progress is marked.
Going forward, success will mean finishing the nation’s herculean vaccination campaign — to date 43% of Americans have received at least one shot — overcoming lagging demand and communicating in clear terms what activities can be safely resumed by those who are vaccinated. Key milestones include Biden’s July Fourth pledge that Americans can safely gather with friends and family, and the start of the new school year, when the president hopes to have all schools open safely.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was expected to unveil new guidance on outdoor mask-wearing for unvaccinated people on Tuesday, ahead of a planned speech by Biden later in the day on the state of the pandemic response. Officials said a focus in the coming weeks will on easing guidance for vaccinated people, both in recognition of their lower risk and to provide an incentive to get shots.
“We’re excited about the progress we’ve made, and the opportunity ahead of us, and because of the vaccination program we built we’re further along than almost anyone predicted,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients in a Monday interview. “It means we’re closer to returning to normal.”
On Inauguration Day, the notion of COVID-19 vaccine supply eclipsing demand seemed fanciful, with only priority groups eligible for shots and an underground economy emerging for “extra doses” for everyone else. Now, shots are so plentiful in many places that the Biden administration is encouraging states and pharmacy partners to set up walk-in sites for doses without appointments.
This “new phase,” as Biden’s team calls it, has been the subject of intense preparation since even before the president’s inauguration. Wary of wasting a moment, Zients and other officials drafted a mountain of emails to launch the federal bureaucracy into action to be sent in the first minutes after their government email accounts were activated. Even as more Americans get vaccinated, Zients said, the White House wasn’t letting up its urgency just yet.
Updated
Joe Biden will address the nation this afternoon on latest developments in the coronavirus pandemic and is expected to announce new recommendations on mask-wearing for those who’ve been fully vaccinated in the US.
The US president sometimes runs a bit (!) behind schedule but is due to speak from the White House at 1.15pm ET/6.15pm BST (5.15pm GMT). We’re planning to run a live stream of that speech in this blog, so do stay tuned.
We don’t know exactly what Biden will say and he’s going to be channeling new recommendations from his federal agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But the main message will revolve around whether fully-vaccinated people need to wear face masks outdoors, with growing speculation that he will say they don’t. There could be more, linked to that and other activities.
The top US infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, told CNN on Sunday that the government “will be coming out with updating their guidelines of what people who are vaccinated can do and even some who are not vaccinated.”
Where is the US up to? The coronavirus pandemic has not been under control, on a national basis, at any point since Covid-19 was unleashed here about 15 months ago. The nation is in a race between how fast variants continue to spread and how fast vaccinations can be administered.
There is scope for hope. Around 140m people in the US have had at least one shot. It’s understood that less than 10% of overall new cases are spread outdoors, with very little spread among those fully immunized.
At this point, confirmed cases in the US exceed 32m people and more than 570,000 have died of coronavirus.
Biden to give mask update in remarks on coronavirus crisis
Good morning, US politics live blog readers, it’s going to be busy in Washington today and we’ll bring you all the developments so let’s get going.
- Joe Biden will deliver remarks to the public this afternoon on the latest in the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic is not yet under control in the US but there is enough progress on vaccinations and efforts to stop the spread for an announcement stemming from new CDC data that’s expected to include guidance that some mask-wearing can be relaxed for those who’ve been immunized.
- The US president is under pressure from many parts of the globe to do more on manufacturing and shipping vaccine to other countries where Covid-19 is raging and getting worse. Nations such as India, Mexico and Brazil are suffering. Biden said yesterday that the US will send 60 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the US elsewhere, but that’s just a tiny start in what’s needed.
- The White House coronavirus response team will give a briefing late morning on the latest with the disease around the country and progress on combating it.
- Biden is also expected to announce an executive order today raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour. The current minimum, established in the Obama administration, is $10.95. Hundreds of thousands of workers are expected to benefit.
- Also, the president is expected to request $80 billion from Congress to strengthen tax law enforcement, which the administration believes will raise more than $700 billion over a decade, by tougher auditing on wealthy individuals and corporations.
- Policy executives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will testify in US Senate committee hearing today on how their algorithms determine what pops up on our social media feeds.
