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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh (now), Julia Carrie Wong and Lauren Aratani (earlier)

Biden could get vaccine next week and Pence will have his on TV, reports say – as it happened

Joe Biden announces Pete Buttigieg as his transportation secretary nominee, in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday.
Joe Biden announces Pete Buttigieg as his transportation secretary nominee, in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Summary

Here’s a recap, from me and Julia Carrie Wong:

  • Mike Pence will receive the vaccine on Friday, along with his wife. Their innoculations will be televised, per the White House.
  • Joe Biden will receive the vaccine as early as next week, per reports. The president-elect also plans to get his jab in public.
  • Congress is continuing to hash out a deal for the first coronavirus stimulus package since March. The package is expected to provide about $900bn in aid to Americans, nearly 8 million of whom have fallen into poverty since June.
  • Joe Biden announced Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary. The former small-town mayor would be the first openly LGBTQ+ cabinet member in American history to be confirmed into post by the Senate, if he is confirmed.
  • Biden’s inauguration will be drastically different than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic. The joint congressional committee on inaugural ceremonies said the audience would be limited to the size of a State of the Union address, which is usually attended by the 535 members of Congress, the nine supreme court justices, and some guests.
  • Outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
  • A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19, saying of healthy young and middle-aged people: “We want them infected”.
  • Texas announced an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its “anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentation” around advertising.
  • A major winter storm was heading for the east coast, potentially complicating efforts to deliver doses of the coronavirus vaccine around the country.

Updated

After hospitals and pharmacies noticed that some vials of the Pfizer vaccine contained extra doses, the FDA clarified that it is acceptable to use up the vials.

“At this time, given the public health emergency, FDA is advising that it is acceptable to use every full dose obtainable (the sixth, or possibly even a seventh) from each vial, pending resolution of the issue,” the agency said. “However, since the vials are preservative free, it is critical to note that any further remaining product that does not constitute a full dose should not be pooled from multiple vials to create one.”

This new guidance could help stretch available vaccine doses, even as the government moves to try and obtain more of the vaccine – after the administration turned down an earlier offer to buy up extra doses.

Updated

Twitter said it will remove misinformation about coronavirus vaccinations from its platform.

False claims that the virus is not real, misinformation about vaccine side effects and implications that the inoculation is designed to cause harm will be removed, the company said in a blog post.

The authors of tweets containing vaccine misinformation will be required to delete the offending tweets before they can resume use of their accounts. “We are focused on mitigating misleading information that presents the biggest potential harm to people’s health and wellbeing,” the company said in a statement.

Twitter has received criticism for allowing misinformation about coronavirus to spread. As my colleague Alex Hern reported in March:

One tweet wrongly claimed that antibacterial hand sanitiser is useless against the virus, arguing that such products only work against bacteria. It racked up a quarter of a million likes and almost 100,000 retweets, suggesting a reach of millions of users, before it was deleted on Wednesday afternoon. In fact, any alcohol-based sanitiser, or simple soap, can help.

The platform has also enabled a rapid spread in videos and images purporting to show the effects of the virus – such as collapsed victims or even violence from the authorities – in locked-down communities including Iran and Wuhan. Much is older imagery, repurposed and miscaptioned, according to the fact-checking service Snopes.


Updated

Biden expected to get vaccine as soon as next week

And Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein reports that Joe Biden is expected to receive the vaccine as early as next week. He’d also get the jab in public:

“I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington. “When I do it, I’ll do it publicly, so you can all witness my getting it done.”

Updated

Mike Pence to get vaccine on TV – report

Mike Pence is planning to receive a coronavirus vaccine, live on television this week, according to Jonathan Swan of Axios:

Vice President Mike Pence plans to receive his coronavirus vaccine shot on camera Friday morning at the White House to build “vaccine confidence” among the American people, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the plans.

Details are still being worked out, but Pence wants the TV networks to carry the moment live in the morning, the source said, to maximize the audience for the vaccination.

Updated

'Whose lives matter most?': California's vaccine rollout faces tough questions of equity

As the first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine arrive in California, officials are facing intense pressure to prioritize vulnerable communities and promote equity and racial justice in the state’s distribution scheme.

Historically marginalized groups that have been ravaged by the virus and their advocates are pushing for urgent vaccine access, including farm workers in the Central Valley, undocumented laborers in the meatpacking industry, incarcerated people in overcrowded prisons and indigenous communities in remote regions.

In deciding who gets access to the limited supplies of the life-saving vaccine in the coming months, the most populous and diverse state in the country will have to answer thorny questions about what work is “essential” and how the government should address the pandemic’s systemic inequalities and historical injustices amid the virus’ deadliest surge yet.

“This is a hard question, because you’re essentially asking whose lives matter the most,” said Janel Bailey, co-director of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, which has helped provide Covid testing in hard-hit Black neighborhoods.

Read more:

Senators Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, and Lamar Alexander, a Republican of Tennessee, demonstrate that bipartisanship can be achieved … in the narrow matter of jamming out some Christmas tunes in the atrium of the Senate office building.

Kaine is playing the harmonica, and Alexander is at the piano.

Updated

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – blogging from the west coast. I’ll be bringing you the latest political news for the next few hours.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, overwhelming hospitals and prompting California to purchase 5,000 bodybags and dozens of refrigerator trucks in anticipation of a surge in Covid-19 deaths, the Trump administration has been focused on … rules regulating showerheads.

The administration has finally relaxed regulations that restrict water flow from shower heads – achieving what has long been a policy goal for Donald Trump, who has complained that he prefers higher water flow to make his hair “perfect”.

A federal law had mandated – since 1992 – that showerheads shouldn’t disperse more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute.

The Obama administration added an update, stating that the rule applied to shower fixtures with multiple nozzles, as well. But no more. Now, each nozzle can emit up to 2.5 gallons per minute.

The administration also declared that manufacturers don’t need not worry about limiting energy or water use when they build new washers and dryers.

Updated

Today so far

That’s all for me today. My colleague Maanvi Singh in Oakland will be keeping you updated for the rest of the day. Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories so far:

  • Congress is continuing to hash out a deal for the first coronavirus stimulus package since March. The package is expected to provide about $900bn in aid to Americans, nearly 8m of whom have fallen into poverty since June.
  • Joe Biden announced Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary. The former small-town mayor would be the first openly LGBTQ+ cabinet member in American history to be confirmed into post by the Senate, if he is confirmed.
  • Biden’s inauguration will be drastically different than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies said the audience would be limited to the size of a State of the Union address, which is usually attended by the 535 members of Congress, the nine Supreme Court justices, and some guests.
  • Outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
  • A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19, saying of healthy young and middle-aged people: “We want them infected”.
  • Texas announced an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its “anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentation” around advertising.
  • A major winter storm was heading for the east coast, potentially complicating efforts to deliver doses of the coronavirus vaccine around the country.

Updated

The availability of intensive care unit beds in the San Francisco Bay Area fell below 15% on Tuesday, the threshold that triggers a regional stay-at-home order.

Much of the Bay Area had preemptively enacted the stay-at-home order earlier in the month, but three counties did not. They will now have to enact the stricter rules by midnight Thursday.

At 12.9%, ICU bed availability in the Bay Area is still better than in southern California (0.5%), the San Joaquin valley (0%) and greater Sacramento (14.1%). The only region that will not be under stay-at-home orders as of Friday will be rural northern California, where just 1.7% of the state’s approximately 40 million people live, according to the state’s health department.

The remaining 39.4 million Californians are barred from holding private gatherings of any size and required to wear a mask. Almost all of California is also under a curfew requiring residents to stay home between 10pm and 5am.

Updated

A major winter storm heading for the eastern seaboard could delay shipments of the coronavirus vaccine, Alexandra Villarreal reports for the Guardian US:

Treacherous weather could bury parts of the eastern US in snow, ice or flooding and cause power outages, hazardous travel conditions, or even tornadoes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, threatening all forms of transportation being used by the vaccine manufacturing facilities, centered in Michigan, as they fly and truck vials around the country.

It is set to be a record storm for December. Meanwhile the first Covid-19 vaccinations got underway at nursing homes, where the virus has killed more than 110,000 people in the US. Elderly and infirm people in long-term care have been among the most vulnerable and residents in nursing homes in Florida and Virginia have been among the first people being inoculated in the US this week.

Read the full report here:

An investigation into allegations that managers at a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, placed bets on how many of their workers would contract Covid-19 “found sufficient evidence” to fire seven managers on Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reports.

The allegations of the betting pool emerged in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in November by the family of Isidro Fernandez, a Tyson Foods employee who died in April after contracting the coronavirus.

More than 1,000 workers out of about 2,800 tested positive for Covid-19 before the plant closed down in early May to implement new safety measures. At least six employees died during the pandemic.

Tyson Foods enlisted the former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the allegations of a “cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool” among managers and supervisors.

“We can tell you that Mr Holder and his team looked specifically at the gaming allegations and found sufficient evidence for us to terminate those involved,” a company spokesman, Gary Mickelson, told the Des Moines Register.

Updated

Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, California, picking up the liveblog for the next few hours.

A bit of catharsis for the end of the year: the mayor of Atlantic City plans to auction off the chance to blow up the former Trump Plaza casino as a fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, the AP reports.

The former casino opened in 1984 and closed in 2014, one of three casinos that Donald Trump owned in the New Jersey resort town, alongside the Taj Mahal and the Trump Marina. The building has stood vacant for years and become a public safety hazard. It is slated for implosion on 29 January.

“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out,” mayor Marty Small told the AP. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”

Details of the auction will be announced at a press conference tomorrow, according to the Press of Atlantic City. If you have $1m and a burning desire to press a button and make something that used to belong to Trump go boom, you can tune in here at 11am EST Thursday.

Updated

A top Trump appointee in the health and human services department urged top health officials in July to take on a “herd immunity” approach to combating the Covid-19 pandemic, saying in emails describing young Americans: “we want them infected.

Paul Alexander, a former aide to the health department official Michael Caputo and a known “herd immunity” advocate, wrote in an email to Caputo that “there is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.”

The emails were released as part of a House investigation, led by Democratic Representative James Clyburn, into the White House’s attempts to interfere with the work of career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Infant, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions, etc have zero to little risk … so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Politico reported that Alexander had the support of the White House when making his recommendations, though Trump officials have denied that they wanted to embrace the herd immunity strategy.

Updated

Texas AG files antitrust lawsuit against Google

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just announced his office is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its “anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentation” around advertising, Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit.

“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing, engage in market collusions to rig options in a tremendous violation of justice,” he said. “These actions harm every person in America.”

Paxton said other states have joined the lawsuit, though it is unclear how many states have joined.

The Texas attorney general is just coming off of the lawsuit he filed against four states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, for allegedly mishandling the election, an 11th-hour, baseless attempt to help Donald Trump keep the White House after his loss to Joe Biden. The Supreme Court quickly threw out the lawsuit last week.

Updated

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement this afternoon affirming her support in Joe Biden selecting US Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Interior Department.

Previous reports have said Pelosi and her second-in-command, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, warned the Biden-Harris team against picking another sitting Congressional Democrat as Haaland was rumored to be Biden’s top pick for interior secretary.

“Congresswoman Deb Haaland is one of the most respected and one of the best Members of Congress I have served with,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Congresswoman Haaland knows the territory, and if she is the President-elect’s choice for Interior Secretary, then he will have made an excellent choice.

Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo people, was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, along with Sharice Davids, who was also elected in 2018. The interior department is responsible for preserving federal lands and resources and is home to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which works with the country’s recognized Native American tribes.

Updated

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to a new report by Politico today, which cited internal emails obtained by the House Oversight committee and shared with the news outlet.

Politico reports that:

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.

“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.

“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on coronavirus.

Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity — a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy — was under consideration or shaped the White House’s approach to the pandemic. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a House Oversight hearing on October 2.

In his emails, Alexander also spent months attacking government scientists and pushing to shape official statements to be more favorable to Donald Trump.

You can read more here.

Early afternoon summary

It’s been a lively morning in US political news as we await agreement on a deal for a new round of coronavirus economic relief legislation on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned!

Here’s what’s occurred so far today:

  • Joe Biden said it seems coronavirus stimulus negotiators are “very, very close” to reaching a deal and that the new coronavirus economic relief package looks “encouraging”. He added that the bill would be a “down payment” to “what’s going to have to be done” when he enters office in January.
  • Biden and his vice-president elect, Kamala Harris, presented Pete Buttigieg as the incoming administration’s nominee to become transportation secretary. Biden described Buttigieg, who ran for the party nomination eventually won by Biden, was a policy wonk with a big heart and would be the first openly-gay cabinet member in US history to be confirmed (assuming that happens) by the Senate.
  • Outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. Pompeo’s most recent test showed he was negative for Covid-19.
  • After months of roller coaster negotiations, it looks as though a new, compromise coronavirus economic relief bill is close to agreement on Capitol Hill.

Kamala Harris urges faith in coronavirus vaccine

Kamala Harris, the Democratic Senator from California and now US vice-president elect, earlier today urged Americans to wear masks and take the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available to them.

In more from her interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Harris also spoke about one of Joe Biden’s earliest statements as the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration began, that he would ask all Americans to wear a face mask for the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris White House.

“The hundred days of the mask, he is urging, like, there is no punishment, they don’t have to, but he is saying as a leader, ‘please everybody, work with me here, for the first 100 days, let’s everybody wear a mask’ and see the outcomes there,” Harris said.

She added: “Because of course the scientists and the public health officials tell us there will be really great outcomes if people wear a mask when they’re in public.”

Mask up, America!
Mask up, America! Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

“It’s about getting through the pandemic, about making sure everyone has access to the vaccine and they take it,” she said.

GMA anchor Robin Roberts pointed out, however, that there is a lot of mistrust in the coronavirus vaccines among the public, “especially in communities of color” in the US - which have consistently and disproportionately been let down by the US health care system and abused by dishonest government medical research programs in the past.

Harris said the priorities would be “listening to the people, remembering history.”

But she emphasized: “This vaccine is about one thing and one thing only, saving lives.”

And on social restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus, she added: “This is a moment for everyone to sacrifice.”

America’s top public health official, Anthony Fauci, wants Biden and Harris to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

Biden said signs of agreement on new coronavirus economic relief bill "encouraging"

Taking questions from reporters after formally announcing Pete Buttigieg as his pick for transportation secretary, Biden said it seems coronavirus stimulus negotiators are “very, very close” to reaching a deal and that the package looks “encouraging”. He added that the stimulus package would be a “down payment” to “what’s going to have to be done” when he enters office at the end of January.

Biden also said “they’re working on it” when asked when he will get the Covid-19 vaccine. “When I get it, I’ll get it publicly,” he said.

Updated

Pete Buttigieg, after his formal nomination as Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, is speaking in Wilmington, Delaware about his new role. “At its best, transportation makes the American dream possible,” he said.

Buttigieg said his hometown of South Bend, Indiana “was built by the power of American transportation” and that he has had “a personal love of transportation ever since childhood.” He noted that he proposed to his husband, Chasten, at O’Hare airport in Chicago.

The former South Bend, Indiana mayor reiterated his commitment to helping implement components of Biden’s Build Back Better plan, saying that “Americans shouldn’t settle for less than our peers in the developed world when it comes to our roads and bridges, our railways, our transit systems.”

“The US should lead the way, and I know that in this administration, we will.”

Buttigieg also noted that his nomination marks “the first time an American president has ever sent an openly LGBTQ cabinet member to the Senate for confirmation.”

Updated

Biden introduces Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary

Joe Biden is in Wilmington, Delaware formally announcing Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Democratic presidential candidate, will be the first openly LGBTQ+ cabinet member in American history to be confirmed into post by the Senate, assuming he wins confirmation.

“He’s got the vision of a next-generation leader, with the experience and temperament to lead change today,” Biden said, adding that the transportation department sits at the intersection of “some of our most ambitious plan to Build Back Better”, referencing his campaign platform.

Biden noted that at the end of his cabinet selection process, “this cabinet will be the most representative of any cabinet in American history.” All of Biden’s cabinet picks must be confirmed by the Senate in order to officially transition into their roles.

Updated

While hundreds of thousands of people pack into the National Mall in Washington D.C. for the president’s inauguration, this year will look drastically different by design. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which plans the president’s inauguration, is severely limiting the size of Joe Biden’s inauguration due to Covid-19.

The committee determined that an audience “that resembles a State of the Union” would be most appropriate in the midst of the pandemic. The committee said that they are working on enhancing opportunities to watch the ceremony online as well as the traditional television broadcast.

Typically, the committee would distribute 200,000 for the ceremonies to members of Congress, but this year, each member of Congress would be invited and allowed to bring one guest.

Updated

Harris impatient over stimulus bill - says "people are suffering"

As the American public waits impatiently for a new coronavirus economic relief bill coming out of Capitol Hill, the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, echoed the frustration of many, in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, aired in parts last night and this morning, with more teased for tomorrow.

Kamala Harris, vice president-elect (with Joe Biden, US president-elect).
Kamala Harris, vice president-elect (with Joe Biden, US president-elect). Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democrats and Republicans have been in on-off talks for months, with no agreement on a bill, although a small bipartisan group is now signaling that a deal is nigh on a slimmed down package of measures valued at just under $1 trillion.

Harris told GMA’s Robin Roberts: “I’ll tell you, I don’t understand the hesitation. The people are suffering. One in six families in America are describing their children as being hungry.”

She added: “The number of small businesses that have had to permanently close..the moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions is about to end. The people here in Washington, DC, have got to stop living in a bubble.”

“The people have a right to expect that their leaders in Congress see them and act in their best interest. I can speak for Joe and me. We were elected to do a job and we expect to bring everybody along who wants to do the job with us.”

Harris also told Roberts, of Kentucky Republican and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s delay in acknowledging her and Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election: “It would’ve been better if it were earlier, but it happened...that’s what’s most important.”

She added: “In this democracy of ours, as Americans, our democracy is stronger than any one man or woman. It’s about the people and the people spoke.”

Updated

US Senator Kelly Loeffler, one of two Republican incumbents who are fighting for their seats in the Georgia Senate run-offs, refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory when speaking to reporters in Atlanta today.

“There’ll be a time for that if that becomes true, but the president has a right to every legal recourse and we’re letting that play out right now,” she said.

Loeffler’s statement comes even after Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Joe Biden’s win yesterday and congratulated the president-elect for his win.

In a statement, Raphael Warnock, the Democratic pastor who is running against Loeffler, said her comments are “reckless and disrespectful of Georgia voters”.

Secretary of State Pompeo to isolate over contact with Covid-positive person

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is quarantining after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. The state department said Pompeo has tested negative but is being monitored by medical professionals. The department did not identify who the infected person is for privacy purposes.

The White House has come under for being unrestrained in its planning for a holiday season full of parties in the middle of the pandemic. The White House has plans for at least 25 indoor parties in December, ignoring warnings to limit gatherings indoors, where the virus is most likely to spread. The State Department held a party attended by dozens of diplomats yesterday, though only a small fraction of the 900 attendees invited showed up. Pompeo and his wife, Susan, did not appear though the secretary was scheduled to speak at the event.

Updated

US Senator Elizabeth Warren is writing a book that will be “a passionate plea for political transformation”, centering on six key experiences in her life that have shaped her policy stances.

In a statement, Warren said the book “is especially personal: I bring the pieces of who I am to the fight for real change, and I passionately believe that we are in a moment when extraordinary changes are possible”. The title is in reference to a line spoken by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about Warren: “Nevertheless, she persisted”, when rebuking the senator for giving “a lengthy speech” on the Senate floor in 2017.

The book is slated for release April 20.

Two former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staffers, both Trump political appointees, went public with allegations that the White House constantly intervened with the CDC’s guidance, trying to soften public health guidance and updates on Covid-19 the agency was publishing for the public.

Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the CDC, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, both 34, spoke with the New York Times in a harrowing interview that was published this morning. McGowan described the White House’s influence on the CDC as “a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the CDC”.

They described how documents from the agency went through multiple political appointees across Washington, many who did not have any expertise in public health. Guidances would receive edits from White House budget director Russell Vought, former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and even Ivanka Trump.

“Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won,” McGowan said.

AOC thinks the reign of Pelosi and Schumer should come to a close

Just as the top two Democratic leaders in Congress are wrapping up coronavirus stimulus negotiations with Republicans, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the Intercept that she believes it is time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to go.

The US representative from New York said that the leadership has not done any “real grooming of a next generation of leadership.” The power of both parties have been concentrated in leadership. “An individual member has far less power than they did 30, 40, 50 years ago,” she said.

Pelosi’s role as speaker will be up for a vote in January. She’ll likely get to keep her seat, but Ocasio-Cortez’s comments allude to a continuing discontent among progressives in the Democratic party against the established, moderate leadership.

Ocasio-Cortez said that she herself would not be running for House speaker, citing her lack of experience. “The House is extraordinarily complex and I’m not ready,” she said. “It can’t be me. I know that I couldn’t do the job.”

While the representative thinks it’s time for Schumer and Pelosi to go, she noted that there is no plan to replace them and “if you create that vacuum, there are so many nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse,” she said.

Updated

Prospect of $900bn stimulus package is a lot more than Republicans wanted, a lot less than Democrats have pushed for

More about the coronavirus stimulus package is coming out this morning. Multiple reports confirm that the package will likely be around $900 billion and may include another round of stimulus checks.

The checks will likely be less than the $1,200 that was sent to Americans in April, Politico is reporting. It doesn’t seem like it includes funding for state and local governments, which Democrats were pushing for, or Mitch McConnell’s “liability shield” for businesses to protect them from Covid-related lawsuits.

Politico’s Jake Sherman said on Twitter that the package is nearly ready to go, and negotiations could wrap up as early as this morning, presumably if all goes perfectly.

The bill may receive pushback from progressive Democrats. Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal said in a statement that the caucus is “united” in the position that “any package must include direct survival checks and enhanced unemployment assistance”.

US Representative Rashida Talib, a vice chair of the caucus, tweeted this morning that she will not vote for a bill that does not have checks or unemployment insurance.

Updated

New coronavirus relief package close to being agreed on Capitol Hill

Good morning, this is Lauren Aratani.

Congress’ top leaders will continue talks over the long-anticipated second coronavirus stimulus package. After months of negotiations – interrupted by the confirmation of a new supreme court Justice and the presidential election – the top Democratic and Republican leaders indicated yesterday that they are finally on their way to agreeing on a new bill.

For months, Republicans have been gunning for a stimulus package with a much lower price tag than what Democrats want. The two sides seem to have found common ground on a $908bn relief package – over $1 trillion less than the first stimulus package.

Democrats have been voicing their frustration over the bill’s low price-point. Speaking on Good Morning America Kamala Harris, the vice-president elect, said, “I don’t understand the hesitation. The people are suffering.”

“The moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures are about to end. The extensions that people need for benefits are very real. And the people here in Washington DC have got to stop living in a bubble,” she continued.

But congressional leaders seem to be relieved that talks are at least heading somewhere. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday that the two sides are “making significant progress”.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to be able to complete an understanding sometime soon,” McConnell told reporters yesterday. “We’re not leaving here without a Covid package”.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the leaders will be resuming talks early today and “we’ll be on schedule to get the job done.”

Here’s what else is happening:

  • At a rally in Atlanta yesterday, Joe Biden slammed Georgia’s Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, for playing into Donald Trump’s election fraud narrative. Biden said the two “fully embraced nullifying nearly 5 million Georgia votes”. Early voting in Georgia began this week as all eyes are on the two races that will determine which party will control the US Senate.
  • The US saw 198,357 new Covid-19 cases yesterday and 3,019 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University, yet skepticism over public health measures like mask mandates continue to pervade communities in the country. A Republican mayor in Kansas resigned from her role after receiving intense backlash over supporting a mask mandate.

Stay tuned for more live updates.

Updated

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Primate behavior experts answered the internet’s biggest questions about Punch, from why his mother rejected him to whether he’ll ever find his place in the group.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
How Angelina Jolie’s (Allegedly) Doing Over A Year After Settling Her Divorce From Brad Pitt
Brangelina's divorce was a long time coming.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Selena Gomez emotionally reveals secret Taylor Swift song written about her
Former Disney Channel star also finally confirmed that Swift’s 2020 track ‘Dorothea’ was about her
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
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