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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett, Joan E Greve and Martin Belam

Georgia Republicans advance sweeping new restrictions on voting – as it happened

Opponents of Republican backed bills accused of purporting voter suppression, hold a protest outside the Georgia state capitol building on Monday.
Opponents of Republican-backed voting bills hold a protest outside the Georgia state capitol building on Monday. Photograph: Nathan Posner/Rex/Shutterstock

Evening summary

We’re wrapping up our live US politics coverage for the day, but you can continue to cover breaking news globally with my colleague Helen on our coronavirus live blog.

A summary of today’s key news, including, one day after the anniversary of Selma’s Bloody Sunday, new efforts to restrict voting being pushed by Republicans across the country.

  • Georgia Democrats sharply criticized the state’s Republicans for advancing restrictions on voting rights, which activists have said will disproportionately impact Black voters. The state senate narrowly approved a bill today that would roll back a policy, originally enacted by Republicans, that made absentee voting easier. “This is weaponization of Trump’s lies,” the Democratic state senator Elena Parent said of the bill.
  • “Every single metric of voter access that has been a good in Georgia is now under attack,” the voting rights activist Stacey Abrams said in response to the passage of the Georgia senate bill.
  • Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, also signed significant new restrictions on voting into law today.
  • Joe Biden dodged a question from a White House reporter about whether new federal voting rights protections could be passed with the Senate filibuster in place. The Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn said last week that there’s “no way under the sun” the filibuster was going to be used to block voting rights protections in 2021, and that moderate Democrats “better figure out a way to get around the filibuster when it comes to voting and civil rights”.
  • Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark one year since the start of coronavirus lockdowns, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, announced. The speech will be Biden’s first primetime address since becoming president.
  • Biden said he would sign the $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill “as soon as I can get it”. The relief bill passed the Senate on Saturday, and the House is now expected to take up the legislation on Wednesday.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its long-awaited guidance for fully vaccinated Americans. According to the CDC guidance, those who have been fully vaccinated can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without wearing masks, as long as everyone in the household is healthy and low risk.

Updated

Biden dodges question about voting rights legislation and the filibuster

As Republicans in Georgia and Iowa advanced measures today to make it harder to vote, a White House reporter asked Joe Biden if Congress can pass voting rights legislation with the Senate filibuster in place.

Biden said he would talk to the reporter Geoff Bennett “later” about that. Bennett tweeted that he was looking forward to continuing that conversation.

Jim Clyburn, an influential Democratic congressman and civil rights movement veteran, warned in an interview with the Guardian last week that Democrats must find a way to pass major voting rights legislation or they will lose control of Congress.

“There’s no way under the sun that in 2021 that we are going to allow the filibuster to be used to deny voting rights. That just ain’t gonna happen. That would be catastrophic,” Clyburn said. “If Manchin and Sinema enjoy being in the majority, they had better figure out a way to get around the filibuster when it comes to voting and civil rights.”

Updated

Biden White House moves Clinton, Bush portraits back into prominent positions

An update on symbolic White House decor choices:

Wyoming will end mask mandate on 16 March and allow ‘normal’ operations of bars and gyms

Following Texas’ widely condemned move last week, the state of Wyoming will also end its mask mandate and allow bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms to reopen as normal on 16 March, Bloomberg reports.

Updated

Iowa Republicans approve new restrictions on voting

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, approved significant new restrictions on voting on Monday, the latest move in a series of measures across the country to curtail access to the ballot.

The Iowa measure shortens the early voting period in the state from 29 days to 20 and requires polls to close at 8pm instead of 9, according to the Des Moines Register. It also prohibits local election officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms and sets new limits on how they can set up early voting sites and drop boxes. Voters also can no longer designate anyone else to return their ballot for them - only an immediate family member, household member, or caregiver may do so, the Register reported.

The bill also makes it a felony offense for local election officials to fail to follow election laws and directives from the secretary of state.

Several provisions of the bill appear to be a reaction to the 2020 race, when the local auditor in Linn county, home of Cedar Rapids, sent out pre-filled absentee ballot requests to voters and was sued by Republicans. Iowa’s secretary of state in August also issued guidance limiting the use of ballot drop boxes.

Iowa set record turnout in 2020, and the vast majority of people voted by mail. Of the nearly 1.7 million people who voted in the state, more than 1 million did so using a mail-in ballot. Donald Trump handily won the state over Joe Biden by more than 138,000 votes.

Updated

Biden administration offers relief to Venezuelan immigrants in the US

The Biden administration said Monday it is offering temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their country’s economic collapse and will review US sanctions intended to isolate the South American nation, the Associated Press reports.

Both measures mark a shift from US policy toward Venezuela under President Donald Trump.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan economy has been in freefall, with widespread shortages of food and medicine and frequent power outages. An estimated 5 million people have fled, mostly to neighboring countries such as Colombia, but many have settled in south Florida.

President Joe Biden’s administration announced it would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans already in the United States, allowing an estimated 320,000 people to apply to legally live and work in the country for 18 months. The granting of temporary protected status for Venezuelans has bipartisan support.

Updated

Man who reportedly served as Roger Stone’s bodyguard arrested in Capitol riot case

Two men wanted in the deadly riot at the US Capitol were arrested over the weekend, including one who reportedly served as a bodyguard to Donald Trump’s longtime political confidant Roger Stone, federal authorities said Monday, according to the Associated Press.

Roberto Minuta breached the Capitol grounds and “aggressively berated and taunted US Capitol police officers” during the 6 January insurrection, the FBI said in court papers.

Minuta, 36, of Hackettstown, New Jersey, had been “equipped with military-style attire and gear, including apparel emblazoned with a crest related to the Oath Keepers,” the FBI said, referring to the far-right antigovernment militia.

The New York Times identified Minuta as one of six people who provided security to Stone in the hours before the assault on the Capitol. Stone, who was pardoned after his sentence for several felony charges was initially commuted by Trump, was in Washington the day of the assault but has denied any involvement.

Minuta owns a tattoo shop in Newburgh, New York. It was not immediately known whether he had a defense attorney.

More details on Minuta’s affiliations from Vice:

Updated

Gab, social network popular with extremists and conspiracy theorists, is down

Gab, the far-right social network best known as the platform where alleged mass shooter Robert Bowers announced his intentions before murdering 11 people at a synagogue, is currently down.

On Twitter, the company’s account said that it had taken the site down “to investigate a security breach.”

Wired reported last week that the site had been hacked, and that a large trove of user data, including private user information and direct messages, was being provided to researchers and journalists to analyze.

A disinformation reporter for Mother Jones noted this afternoon that it appeared the platform might have been hacked again:

GOP will pay Trump’s club to bring major donors to Mar-a-Lago for dinner

Donald Trump will address major Republican donors at a retreat in Florida next month, and the Republican party is paying for the privilege of bringing the donors to Mar-a-Lago, the Washington Post reports.


Stacey Abrams: ‘Every single metric of voter access that has been a good in Georgia is now under attack.’

Mother Jones has reaction from voting rights activist Stacey Abrams to the state senate’s passage of a bill that would make it more difficult for Georgia residents to vote:

“In the last two election cycles, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of voters of color who voted by mail, the number of young people who used early voting, the number of African Americans who voted on Saturday and Sunday. We saw unprecedented levels of turnout across the board. And so every single metric of voter access that has been a good in Georgia is now under attack.”

Read more reaction from Abrams here, including calling the measures “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”

More context on Georgia Republican’s attempts to limit absentee voting

As my colleague Sam Levine notes, the successful vote in Georgia today to advance a Republican measure to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting in the state is only a step towards making that policy into law, and it’s far from clear what the final legislation will look like.

But there are lots of reasons why this attempt to roll back absentee voting after Democrats won an election is prompting so much condemnation, including its likely impact on Black voters, wait times to vote, and the fact that Republicans are repealing a policy that they passed in the first place.

Democrats won an election. Georgia Republicans are pushing for new limits on voting.

The Georgia state senate approved its own version of a bill that would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting in the state, among other restrictions. The bill passed 29-20, a one vote majority.

In addition to requiring an excuse, the senate bill would require voters to show identification information when they vote by mail. The bill will now advance to the Georgia house of representatives, which approved a bill with similar restrictions, but that left no-excuse absentee voting in place. That bill included new limits on ballot drop boxes.

Top Republicans in the state have advocated keeping no excuse absentee voting in place and it’s unclear what a final version of the bill will actually look like.

Updated

Georgia Republicans advance ‘sweeping’ new restrictions on voting

Democratic state lawmakers in Georgia spent hours this morning denouncing a new bill that would institute a range of new voting restrictions, with one noting “This bill smells like voter suppression. This smells like Jim Crow laws, and it stinks like the smell of a deer carcass on I-16.”

Republican lawmakers succeeded in advancing the bill anyway, approving the bill on a 29-20 vote. My colleague Sam Levine will have more shortly.

Updated

Biden announces nomination of two female officers to 4-star command positions

This is Lois Beckett taking over our live politics coverage from our west coast bureau in California.

The president just finished speaking now about what the US can do to make sure that all women are supported in their careers within the US military, from promoting women to prestigious command positions, to making sure women’s careers do not suffer when they have children, to ensuring that the military supplies “body armor that fits women properly” and “updating requirements for their hairstyles”.

“This is going to be an all-hands on deck effort to end the scourge of sexual assault in the military,” the president pledged.

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Lois Beckett will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark one year since the start of coronavirus lockdowns, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced. The speech will be Biden’s first primetime address since becoming president.
  • Biden said he would sign the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill “as soon as I can get it”. The relief bill passed the Senate on Saturday, and the House is now expected to take up the legislation on Wednesday.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its long-awaited guidance for fully vaccinated Americans. According to the CDC guidance, those who have been fully vaccinated can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without wearing masks, as long as everyone in the household is healthy and low risk.
  • Georgia Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for proposing restrictions on voting rights, which activists have said will disproportionately impact Black voters. The state Senate is considering the Republican bill today. “This is weaponization of Trump’s lies,” Democratic state senator Elena Parent said of the bill.
  • The trial for the former police officer who killed George Floyd has been delayed. The trial of Derek Chauvin was scheduled to begin today with jury selection, but the judge overseeing the trial postponed for at least a day due to an ongoing dispute over an additional charge against the former police officer.

Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

More from the Guardian’s Sam Levine on the voting restrictions under consideration in Georgia:

The state senator Harold Jones, another Democrat, said that Republicans should pay special attention to Black lawmakers who spoke out against the bill. He predicted that many senators who spoke out against the bill would become emotional.

“It’s because that most basic right was denied to us. It’s not 1800, it’s not 1850s, it’s right here in this room. Many of the senators that sit here lived through that process,” he said. “Let me tell you, it is not theater. It is not a performance. It is real because we live with it every single day.”

The state senator Jen Jordan, also a Democrat, criticized the haphazard process Republicans used to advance legislation, noting that hearings were held at 7am and lawmakers were often scrambling to see the text of legislation they were voting on - if they got to see it at all.

“That’s sloppy y’all,” she said. “Especially when you’re talking about a bill that’s going to impact people’s lives. That’s going to impact people’s fundamental right to vote. Actually, it’s pretty shameful.”

Updated

'This is weaponization of Trump’s lies': Georgia Democrats criticize voting restrictions

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Georgia Democrats were unsparing in their attacks on a sweeping bill to restrict voting in Georgia on Monday, saying the measure was based on lies about the election and a slap in the face to Black Georgians who fought hard for the right to vote in the state.

One of the state’s top Republicans, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, also refused to preside over the senate as the chamber considered legislation that would do away with no-excuse absentee voting and require voters to show identification when they vote by mail.

Opponents of HB 531 & SB 241 hold a protest outside the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta.
Opponents of HB 531 & SB 241 hold a protest outside the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta. Photograph: Nathan Posner/REX/Shutterstock

Duncan, who supports some restrictions, does not back doing away with no-excuse absentee voting. Three other Republicans who do not support ending no-excuse absentee voting also recused themselves from the vote, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

‘This is weaponization of Trump’s lies. And it is a willingness and embrace of damage to American democracy,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, a Democrat.

“The numbers to stop this bill may not be here in this chamber today. But I assure you there are many thousands of Georgians right now whose political spirit is awakened by disgust at modern day voter suppression,” she added.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said the bill would also limit early voting and drop boxes, which it does not.

Updated

After spending the past four months lying about massive fraud among mailed ballots in the presidential election, Donald Trump is set to vote by mail -- again.

The Palm Beach Post has the story:

Former President Donald Trump is set to fulfill his civic duty as a private citizen and vote in the town of Palm Beach’s municipal election.

Despite his false claims about mail voting during the 2020 election cycle, Trump requested a mail ballot on Friday for the third time in his Palm Beach County voter history.

The request was made nearly a week after the deadline to have a ballot to be sent by mail. Mail ballots can be requested through Tuesday but must be picked up in person by the voter or a designee.

It is likely that Trump had an associate pick up the ballot in person on his behalf, as he did in the presidential primary last March and in the August primary.

Amudalat Ajasa reports for the Guardian from Minneapolis:

The judge overseeing the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd delayed the start of jury selection on Monday for at least a day while an appeal proceeds over the possible reinstatement of an additional charge.

Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the courthouse demanding racial justice and the conviction of Derek Chauvin, who is white and was fired and charged with murder after he knelt on Floyd’s neck when the Black man had been forced to the ground during an attempted arrest last May.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter but the Minnesota court of appeals ruled last Friday that a previous, lesser charge of third-degree murder should be reinstated in the trial by the judge, Peter Cahill.

Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lead lawyer, told the court on Monday morning that Chauvin would soon ask the Minnesota supreme court to overturn Friday’s order, a process that could take weeks.

Prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general’s office urged the court to delay jury selection until that issue was resolved, fearing that picking a jury when the number of charges was still unresolved could make an appeal easier.

Cahill declined. Prosecutors then said they would ask the appeals court to intervene to delay the trial. Cahill suspended the proceedings until Tuesday morning.

At least two prominent Missouri Democrats have already said they do not plan to run for Roy Blunt’s Senate seat, after the Republican lawmaker announced he would not seek reelection next year.

Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who lost her 2018 reelection race to Republican Josh Hawley, said she did not plan to run for office ever again.

And Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state who lost to Blunt by 3 points in 2016, said he would continue focusing on his work to end veteran homelessness.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has released a statement about Senator Roy Blunt’s announcement that he will not seek reelection next year.

“Senator Blunt’s announced retirement will be a loss for the Republican conference and the entire Senate. In just 10 years in this body, he’s quickly become a true leader, a policy heavyweight, and a driving force behind both key conservative victories and essential bipartisan work,” McConnell said.

“Throughout this pandemic no individual Senator has done more to drive testing efforts or advance the historic and successful sprint to vaccines. ... Sen. Blunt has tackled so much important work for Missouri and our country and has been an enormous asset to all his colleagues. I’m very sorry he’ll be stepping away but am glad the country has two more years to keep benefitting from his talent.”

Blunt announced this morning that he would not run for reelection next year, making him the fifth Senate Republican who will retire after this election cycle. The retirement of Blunt, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Republican policy committee, also creates an opening on McConnell’s leadership team.

House to take final vote on relief bill on Wednesday - report

The House now reportedly plans to take a final vote on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

CNN reports:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had initially said that the House would vote Tuesday after the legislation passed out of the Senate over the weekend, but now the vote will ‘most likely’ take place on Wednesday, a senior Democratic leadership aide told CNN.

Another senior Democratic aide told CNN that there is nothing unexpected about the delay, saying, ‘It’s just a big, detailed bill, and it’s just taking a minute to process all of it.’

Joe Biden told reporters moments ago that he intends to sign the relief bill “as soon as I can get it,” which may now be Wednesday night.

The president plans to deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark one year since coronavirus lockdowns started, and he will likely use the speech to tout the passage of the relief bill.

Biden says he will sign relief bill 'as soon as I can get it'

Joe Biden just paid a visit to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Washington, DC, where the president emphasized the importance of getting vaccinated as soon as possible.

“We’re doing pretty good across the country,” Biden told the VA employees. “We’re going to hit 100 million soon.”

The VA site has been distributing coronavirus vaccines to veterans, and the president listened as one worker explained how she mixes the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. “God love you,” Biden told the VA employee.

Biden also joked that he would love to receive another vaccine dose, but he told the workers, “I’ve had my two.”

Asked by reporters when he will sign the coronavirus relief bill that the Senate passed on Saturday, Biden replied, “As soon as I can get it.”

Updated

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Georgia lawmakers in the state senate are beginning to debate a controversial bill that would impose sweeping new restrictions on voting rights in the state, including getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting.

After some uncertainty, Republicans appear to have garnered enough support to pass the measure.

You can watch the debate here.

Security at the US Capitol badly needs a boost, a task force said today after reviewing the situation at the seat of the US Congress, in Washington, DC, in the aftermath of the deadly insurrection of January 6.

The task force recommends creating a new quick-reaction force in Washington and also said that the Capitol Police force was poorly prepared for January 6.

Reuters further reports:

The 15-page report, compiled by a group headed by retired US Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, also recommended an upgrade to Capitol Police intelligence capabilities and training.

The report was requested by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the aftermath of the rampage by a mob of former president Donald Trump’s supporters that left five people dead including a police officer.

The task force said the U.S. Capitol Police department was “understaffed, insufficiently equipped and inadequately trained to secure the Capitol and members” of Congress.

One recommendation called for eventually replacing the temporary fencing erected around the Capitol after the attack with an “integrated retractable fencing system.”

There currently is no permanent barrier around the sprawling Capitol complex. Many lawmakers, while demanding improved security, also have been hesitant to make the area inaccessible to the public.

The task force recommended the formation of a “quick-reaction force” covering the entire city of Washington under the command of the District of Columbia National Guard by using military police from across the United States on temporary rotations.

And it called for giving the commander of the D.C. National Guard emergency authority help quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances “where prior authorization by the president is impossible and local authorities are unable to control the situation.”

The report also urged rudimentary features, such as hardening windows and doors in the building, hiring hundreds more police officers and reconstituting a disbanded mounted police unit.

Congressional leaders planned to brief lawmakers on the report.

Razor wire atop a supposedly-temporary fence around the US Capitol.
Razor wire atop a supposedly-temporary fence around the US Capitol. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

Supreme court rejects Trump's final case challenging election results

Donald Trump has now officially lost all of his legal challenges to November’s presidential election result that he and his team took to the supreme court.

Trump arrived last night in New York for the first time after leaving the White House. Some protesters gathered in front of Trump Tower on 5th Avenue carrying a large effigy.
Trump arrived last night in New York for the first time after leaving the White House. Protesters gathered in front of Trump Tower on 5th Avenue carrying a large effigy. Photograph: Niyi Fote/via ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

A little earlier today the court announced that the court’s bench of nine justices had refused to take up the very much former president’s final case, a challenge arising out of the Wisconsin result (Trump lost the state, after winning it in 2016).

The story has been reported by BuzzFeed, including:

Trump and his Republican allies lost more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging President Joe Biden’s wins in Wisconsin and a handful of other key states.

They petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a small number of these cases, and the justices either rejected them right away or didn’t take any action before Biden was sworn in on January 20, a clear sign that they wouldn’t interfere.

Even after leaving office, Trump continued to press a case he’d brought against state election officials in Wisconsin.

He filed a brief on February 9 that argued the fight wasn’t moot now that Biden was in the White House because the challenges he’d raised to how the state expanded absentee and mail-in voting during the pandemic could come up again in the future; a federal appeals court had tossed the case on December 24.

It found Trump’s legal arguments lacking and also concluded that he’d waited too long to file the case in the first place.

The supreme court justices didn’t address any of Trump’s arguments.

Updated

Today so far

The White House press briefing has now concluded. Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark one year since the start of coronavirus lockdowns, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced moments ago. The speech will be Biden’s first primetime address since becoming president.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its long-awaited guidance for fully vaccinated Americans. According to the CDC guidance, those who have been fully vaccinated can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without wearing masks, as long as everyone in the household is healthy and low risk.
  • The trial for the former police officer who killed George Floyd has been delayed. The trial of Derek Chauvin was scheduled to begin today with jury selection.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Senator Joe Manchin has said he is open to changing the rules around the Senate filibuster to make it more difficult to invoke.

But White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Joe Biden does not embrace that idea.

“His preference is not to make changes to the filibuster rules,” Psaki said of the president.

With the filibuster in place, Republicans can block much of Biden’s legislative agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Joe Biden and Senator Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia, “speak regularly”.

Manchin has repeatedly said he does not want to eliminate the Senate filibuster, and he has now indicated he does not want to support future bills unless they have some Republican support.

Manchin’s comments have raised many questions about whether Biden will be able to advance any of his legislative priorities with an evenly divided Senate.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Psaki sidestepped the question, emphasizing that Meghan and Harry live as “private citizens” and that the US maintains a “special relationship” with the UK.

The press secretary added that Joe Biden always commends those who bravely come forward to discuss their struggles with mental health.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said most Americans would receive their payments from the coronavirus relief bill by the end of the month.

The relief bill, which passed the Senate on Saturday, includes $1,400 checks for American adults making less than $75,000 a year. The checks phase out completely for those making more than $80,000 a year.

The original House bill phased out the checks for those making more than $100,000 a year, as the first two rounds of stimulus payments did.

The change means Joe Biden will give checks to fewer Americans than Donald Trump did, although this check amount is higher than the first stimulus payment of $1,200 and the second payment of $600.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked (once again) whether Joe Biden would support eliminating the Senate filibuster to advance his agenda.

“The president’s preference is not to get rid of the filibuster,” Psaki told reporters.

The press secretary cited the Senate’s passage of the coronavirus relief bill as evidence of what Democrats can achieve without scrapping teh filibuster.

“Look at what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last six weeks,” Psaki said.

But the relief bill passed using reconciliation, a legislative mechanism that will not be possible for most of the administration’s other proposals, and the bill did not attract any Republican support in the Senate.

With the filibuster in place, Democrats will need to convince 10 of their Republican colleagues to join them to get bills passed, a hefty task given the intense level of partisanship in Congress right now.

Biden to deliver primetime address to mark one year since coronavirus lockdowns

Joe Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark one year since the start of the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, White House press secretary Jen Psaki just announced.

The speech will be Biden’s first primetime address since becoming president, and Psaki said he will use the speech to once again pay his respects to the more than 500,000 Americans who have died of coronavirus.

Biden will also likely tout his $1.9 trillion relief bill, which the Senate passed on Saturday. The House is expected to approve the bill tomorrow, and Biden could sign it as early as tomorrow night.

Psaki described the relief package as “one of the most consequential and most progressive pieces of legislation in American history”.

Updated

White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted that she and deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre are wearing purple today, in honor of International Women’s Day.

Psaki joked that the new deputy press secretary, Chris Meagher, is also wearing a purple tie today as part of his “indoctrination” into the women-dominated team.

A reporter asked Julissa Reynoso, a co-chair of the gender policy council and chief of staff to the first lady, about her recent trip to the US-Mexican border.

Reynoso was one of several senior administration officials who recently visited the border to get a better sense of how the US is handling the recent surge in unaccompanied migrant children trying to enter the country.

Reynoso said she spoke to some of the migrant children detained near the border, and she said the Biden administration is “very mindful of the human cost here”.

She noted the officials who traveled to the border have not yet briefed Joe Biden on their trip, but they plan to do so this week.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki is now holding her daily briefing with reporters, and she kicked off the event by wishing everyone a happy International Women’s Day.

Psaki noted that Joe Biden signed two executive orders today to mark the occasion.

One of the orders will establish the White House gender policy council, and the second will direct the department of education to review its policies on protecting students from sexual violence.

Julissa Reynoso, a co-chair of the gender policy council and chief of staff to the first lady, said the panel would help to “ensure we build a more equal and just democracy”.

Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, a senior advisor to the White House coronavirus response team, noted that African Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans are still underrepresented among those who have been vaccinated.

This disparity is occurring as African Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans are dying of coronavirus at disproportionately high rates.

Nunez-Smith said the Biden administration is working to “bend the vaccination process toward justice”.

The health expert noted that the administration will be prioritizing pharmacies in its pharmacy vaccination program that do a better job addressing equity in administering vaccines.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, summarized the new guidance from her agency on best practices for Americans who have been fully vaccinated.

Walensky emphasized that “fully vaccinated” meant those who are at least two weeks out from receiving their final vaccine dose.

The CDC director reiterated that those who have been fully vaccinated can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors, without wearing masks or practicing physical distancing.

Fully vaccinated people can also visit with unvaccinated people from a single household, as long as everyone in that household is low risk and healthy.

Walensky added that those who have been fully vaccinated can refrain from quarantining after a known exposure to coronavirus, as long as they are asymptomatic.

The CDC director described the latest guidance as “an important first step” to paving a path out of this pandemic, but she emphasized there would be additional guidance as health experts gain more information about the protection that vaccines provide.

“It is not our final destination,” Walensky said of today’s guidance.

The White House coronavirus response team is now holding its briefing, to provide an update on the vaccine distribution process.

According to senior White House adviser Andy Slavitt, the US administered an average of 2.2 million vaccine doses a day over the past week.

On Saturday alone, the US administered 2.9 million vaccine doses, setting a new single-day record.

The pace of vaccinations means Joe Biden is ahead of his goal to administer 100 million doses over his first 100 days in office.

CDC says fully vaccinated people can meet indoors without masks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its long-awaited guidance on best practices for Americans who have been fully vaccinated.

According to the CDC, those who have been fully vaccinated can visit indoors with others who are fully vaccinated without wearing masks.

Additionally, those who have been fully vaccinated can safely gather indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without wearing masks, the CDC said.

That second point will likely be a huge relief for older Americans, many of whom have already been vaccinated and have gone months without visiting their children, grandchildren and other relatives because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Today I’ll be watching the Georgia legislature, where the state senate will vote on several measures on Monday that could significantly restrict voting rights.

The proposals are being considered after Georgia saw record turnout, including surging turnout among Black voters, in the 2020 elections. Many of the proposals under consideration would harm Black voters, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The most sweeping of the bills mirrors a proposal that passed the Georgia House last week. It would require voters to show identification information when they vote by mail.

But the senate is also considering even more changes. One of those would only allow voters who have a valid excuse or are 65 and older to cast an absentee ballot, eliminating the no-excuse system Georgia Republicans passed in 2005. It’s unclear, however, if Republicans have the votes to adopt that proposal and top Republicans in the state have signaled that Georgia should leave no-excuse absentee voting in place.

Another provision would eliminate a Georgia policy of automatically registering to vote anyone who interacts with the state’s motor vehicle agency, unless they opt out.

Monday is important because it is the deadline for bills to be passed out of either house in the legislature.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said the senate bill would limit weekend early voting and the use of ballot drop boxes, which it does not.

Updated

Trial delayed for former police officer who killed George Floyd

A Minneapolis judge has delayed the start of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police office who killed George Floyd.

Reuters reports:

The trial had been due to begin on Monday with selecting jurors to weigh charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter. The delay comes after the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that Judge Peter Cahill of the Hennepin County district court must now weigh again the reinstating of the third-degree murder charge for Floyd’s death during an arrest in May 2020.

Minneapolis has been on edge as it awaits the start of the trial, with many of the city’s African Americans residents dreading the prospect of justice yet again not being served.

Roy Blunt is the chairman of the Senate Republican policy committee, so his departure will leave an opening in the caucus’ leadership team.

The Missouri senator had also been viewed as a potential successor to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, raising more questions about the future of Senate Republican leadership.

Blunt’s departure, in combination with the retirements of four of his Republican colleagues, will also likely spark more questions about the direction of the party, as it remains closely tied to Donald Trump.

Republican Senator Blunt announces he will not seek re-election

Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican of Missouri, has announced that he will not run for reelection next year.

“After 14 general election victories -- three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives and four statewide elections -- I won’t be a candidate for reelection to the United States Senate next year,” Blunt said in a video announcing the decision.

Blunt offered his thanks to his family, his team and Missourians for “giving me the chance to work for you” over the past 10 years.

“Another lesson I learned here: finish strong. And I intend to,” Blunt added.

Blunt is now the fifth Senate Republican to announce he will not seek reelection in 2022 -- after Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Richard Shelby of Alabama did the same.

That number could soon increase to six, if Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is 87, chooses not to seek another term.

The retirements mean the Republican party will be defending many seats with non-incumbent candidates as they seek to flip control of the Senate next year.

Updated

Representative Ro Khanna, a deputy whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said he believed that the coronavirus relief bill has enough votes in the House to pass.

Khanna acknowledged that there has been some “frustration” among caucus members over many progressive provisions of the bill, including the $15 minimum wage proposal, being stripped out or narrowed in the Senate bill.

“But overall, no one wants to play games with people’s lives. People are suffering,” Khanna said. “So I believe it will have the votes to pass.”

The House is expected to take up the bill tomorrow, and Democrats will move toward a quick passage. If the bill passes, Joe Biden could sign the legislation as early as tomorrow night.

Joe Biden has released a statement celebrating Pope Francis’ recent trip to Iraq, which marked the first-ever papal visit to the country.

“Pope Francis’ visit was a historic and welcome first for the country. It sent an important message, as Pope Francis said himself, that ‘fraternity is more durable than fratricide, that hope is more powerful than death, that peace more powerful than war,’” Biden said.

“I congratulate the Government and people of Iraq for the care and planning that went into organizing this monumental visit, and continue to admire Pope Francis for his commitment to promoting religious tolerance, the common bonds of our humanity, and interfaith understanding.”

During the trip, the pope visited churches destroyed by the Islamic State, and he urged the region’s Christians to forgive the injustices that drove them into exile.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

The Senate passed Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package on Saturday, after a long vote-a-rama session, as Republicans attempted to derail the bill.

The bill will now go back to the House, which is expected to pass the final version of the legislation as early as tomorrow.

That means that Biden will likely sign the bill, marking his first major legislative victory as president, later this week.

The blog will have more details on that coming up, so stay tuned.

Mike Allen at Axios has a write-up this morning of his own TV interview with Sen Joe Manchin, who he describes as “America’s ultimate swing voter”. Allen writes:

Manchin said he’ll push for tax hikes to pay for Biden’s upcoming infrastructure and climate proposal, and will use his Energy Committee chairmanship to force the GOP to confront climate reality.

Manchin, 73, said Biden expects, and understands, the pushback: “He’s the first president we’ve had to really, really understand the workings of the Senate since LBJ.”

Manchin said that with just a few concessions, it would have been possible to get some Republicans on the Covid relief package that passed the Senate this weekend on a party-line vote.

And he said the infrastructure bill can be big — as much as $4 trillion — as long as it’s paid for with tax increases. He said he’ll start his bargaining by requiring the package be 100% paid for.

Read more here: Axios – Manchin’s next power play

Sonia Elks reports for Reuters on International Women’s Day that 90% of Americans think the United States could have its first woman president within a decade, according to a new poll.

A Gallup poll conducted in 74 countries showed Americans were the most likely to say they thought a woman could lead their nation by 2030. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, but was denied the presidency by the Electoral College system that the US uses to choose the president.

Kamala Harris’s election as the first female vice president last year was a significant boost for efforts to boost women’s political representation and help young women see themselves in top jobs, according to campaigners.

“We all believe Harris is going to run for president again very, very soon,” said Sara Guillermo, executive director of California-based young women’s political leadership organisation IGNITE, describing Harris’s election as a “huge cultural shift”.

“That is really huge, not just for the little girls of the world but for the little boys, to be able to fully understand that both genders can serve in the highest leadership role,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video call.

Harris, 56, is seen as an obvious contender for her party’s 2024 candidacy should Biden, 78, decide not to run.

A journalist will face trial in Iowa today on charges arising from her arrest while covering a Black Lives Matter protest last year, in a case condemned by Amnesty International and news organizations across the US as an assault on press freedom.

Andrea Sahouri, a public safety reporter for the Des Moines Register, is charged with “failure to disperse and interference with official acts, misdemeanors”. If convicted, she could face a fine and 30 days in jail. She has pleaded not guilty.

Sahouri was arrested at the protest in Des Moines on 31 May, six days after the killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis, which touched off months of international protests against police brutality and for racial justice.

She says she identified herself as a member of the press several times. But police pepper-sprayed and zip-tied her and her then boyfriend. Both were taken to Polk county jail.

A Des Moines police officer, Luke Wilson, has said he believed Sahouri was a protester because she was not wearing press credentials. Because Wilson did not turn on his body camera as he was supposed to, there is no video footage of the incident. Sahouri did film herself recounting what happened, while detained in a police car.

The judge in the case, Lawrence McLellan, has declined to drop the charges but has ordered police to give body camera training materials to Sahouri’s defense team.

Sahouri was one of many journalists targeted by police amid the wave of protests that followed the killing of Floyd. The trial of the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, Derek Chauvin, is scheduled to begin on Monday.

The CNN journalist Omar Jimenez, and his crew were arrested live on camera while covering a protest in Minneapolis. The NBC journalist Ali Velshi was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet, also live on camera. Donald Trump called what happened to Velshi “the most beautiful thing”.

According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, 127 journalists were arrested or detained in 2020, compared with nine arrested or detained in 2019. Sahouri is one of 13 to face criminal charges.

Read more of Erum Salam’s report here: Case of reporter facing trial over BLM coverage seen as attack on press rights

Senator Lindsey Graham has defended his refusal to abandon Donald Trump in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the Capitol, saying that though the former president has “a dark side… what I’m trying to do is just harness the magic”.

He also said Trump’s continued grip on the Republican party could make it “bigger, he can make it stronger, he can make it more diverse. And he also could destroy it.”

The South Carolina Republican initially said the US could “count [him] out” from backing Trump after the riot but he quickly dropped any show of independence.

On Sunday he was speaking to Axios on HBO at the end of a weekend in which Trump was reported to have told the Republican party to stop fundraising off his name and was also reported to be preparing to leave Florida for the first time since leaving office, to visit New York, his home city.

Trump retains a firm grip on his party, topping polls of prospective nominees for president in 2024. He is eligible to run for office again because he was acquitted at his second impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the Capitol riot.

Five people including a police officer died as a direct result of the storming of Congress by a crowd Trump had told to “fight like hell” in support of his attempt to overturn election defeat by Joe Biden. Graham was one of 43 Republicans who voted to acquit.

“Donald Trump was my friend before the riot,” he said, of a man who attacked him viciously in the 2016 Republican primary and who he famously said would destroy the party if he became its nominee. The senator pivoted once Trump took power, to become one of his closest and most eager allies.

“I’m trying to keep a relationship with him after the riot,” he said. “I still consider him a friend. What happened was a dark day in American history. And we’re going to move forward.”

Graham said the best way for Republicans to do that was “with Trump, not without Trump.”

In the interview, Axios’ Jonathan Swan countered that Trump is “still telling everyone he won in a landslide”, a lie repeatedly thrown out of court and which has placed the former president in legal jeopardy.

Pence announces first major post-VP speech to be given in South Carolina

Former vice president Mike Pence is set to give his first speech since leaving office to a conservative Christian lobbying organisation in South Carolina.

A Pence aide told Associated Press that Pence will be the keynote speaker at a dinner hosted by the Palmetto Family Council on 29 April. The state’s contest is one of the earliest presidential primaries and therefore plays a crucial role in the Republican nomination process for 2024, making it a potentially significant choice of venue.

The Palmetto Family lobbies for what it considers to be “biblical values,” such as heterosexual marriage, and most recently helped push through a ban on most abortions in South Carolina.

Pence has long been considered a leader of the Republican Party’s religious right having long advocated for restrictions on abortion and has previously voiced support for the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Dave Wilson, president of Palmetto Family Council, told Associated Press that he considered Pence a “prime person” to address the organisation due to the “level of faith” the former vice-president embodied while in office.

South Carolina cancelled their Republican primary in 2020, in a move that organisers said was intended to save the state’s taxpayers $1.2 million running an unnecessary primary “with no legitimate primary challenger” to then incumbent President Trump.

A national survey of Republican voters conducted by veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio indicated that Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be the current favourites for the Republican nomination were Trump to decide against a run in 2024.

Joe Biden to mark International Women’s Day with executive orders on gender equality

With an eye on International Women’s Day, President Joe Biden is expected to sign two executive orders today which will set up a White House Gender Policy Council and will also attempt to address sexual violence in the education field. Jason Hoffman and Paul LeBlanc at CNN report:

“The full participation of all people, including women and girls, across all aspects of our society is essential to the economic well-being, health, and security of our country and of the world,” a senior administration official told CNN while outlining the executive orders on Sunday night.

The White House Gender Policy Council will be specifically tasked with combating systemic bias and discrimination, including sexual harassment. The council’s broad scope includes tackling a slate of challenges like the structural barriers to women’s participation in the labor force, wage and wealth gaps and the caregiving needs of American families.

Health care concerns, equal opportunity in leadership and promoting gender equality worldwide through diplomacy will also fall under the council’s purview.

The executive order will require the co-chairs of the council to submit to the President a government-wide strategy to address gender in policies, programs and budgets, and an annual report to measure progress on implementing the strategy, according to a fact sheet released by the White House. To prevent and respond to gender-based violence, there will be special assistants to the President and senior advisers on gender-based violence on the council staff.

Read more here: CNN – Biden to sign executive orders establishing Gender Policy Council and addressing sexual violence in education

21 women are being recognized today in the State department’s International Women of Courage Award, and first lady Dr. Jill Biden will be delivering remarks about them in a speech today, which the Associated Press has obtained in advance. She’s say:

Some of these women have spent their lives fighting for their cause. Others are just starting out on a journey they didn’t ask for. Some were called to service, and some couldn’t escape it. They are fighting for their own lives and for their children. They want to right the wrongs of our past, to build a brighter future for everyone. They aren’t immune to fear. No one is.

There are 14 living awardees from Belarus, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Venezuela, reports Darlene Superville. Seven women from Afghanistan are receiving posthumous honors.

In the remarks, Dr. Biden is expected to to say that the pandemic shows “how the things that connect us — our love for family and friends, our hope that we will be together soon — transcend language and distance.” She says that diplomacy, “at its best, is a recognition of this connection” and that the United States, under President Joe Biden’s leadership, will support women around the world.

“We will make the choice to lead, to be bold and to lift up the women and girls everywhere who light our way,” Biden will say. “For 15 years, we have honored women around the world who have made the extraordinary choice to fight for something bigger than themselves.”

“Today, we recommit to being worthy of that courage, to understanding that our lives are tied together in immeasurable and powerful ways and to choosing, every day, to honor that connection,” she says. “We will stand with you as we build a brighter future for us all.”

We have this today from Eli Hager for The Marshall Project, on how the racial inequality in US youth detention is wider than ever:

White youths were being released from juvenile detention centers at a far higher rate than their Black peers during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, and more people of color are now being detained for longer than they were before the crisis, according to data gathered by a leading children’s philanthropic group.

So many kids were freed from jail last year that by late summer, fewer children were incarcerated than at any point since at least the 1980s. But many youth facilities are increasingly holding almost entirely Black and Latino populations of teens, according to interviews with more than a dozen juvenile justice officials and attorneys in seven states.

Though the racial inequality in youth detention has long been stark, it’s wider than ever, they say. Experts point to several possible explanations, including bias from judges and other officials, and young people of color being detained for more serious offenses and having fewer resources and alternatives to incarceration in their communities.

“It’s fitting that in 2020, the year that juxtaposed Covid and racial justice protests, we saw this shrinking of the system – but also a resistance to doing so for young Black people,” said Patricia Soung, a juvenile attorney and former director of youth justice policy for the Children’s Defense Fund in California.

By May 2020, detention centers were releasing white youths at a 17% higher rate than Black youths, according to a monthly survey of juvenile justice agencies in more than 30 states conducted by the Annie E Casey Foundation.

And in the months since, while the number of white youths has remained historically low, the number of Black and Latino youths has risen slightly, said Tom Woods, a senior associate and juvenile justice data analyst for the Casey Foundation.

The racial gap in detention is worsening even though teens, including those of color, were arrested less often in 2020, data shows. Police have generally taken a more hands-off approach due to the virus and, because classes have gone virtual, young people have interacted less with school-based officers.

Read more of Eli Hager’s report here: Racial inequality in US youth detention wider than ever, experts say

A quick foreign snap here from Reuters. The US mission in Saudi Arabia has condemned drone and missile attacks launched by Yemen’s Houthi movement on Saudi Arabia on Sunday, including at a facility vital to petroleum exports.

The mission, in an Arabic-language post on Twitter on Monday, said “the heinous Houthi assaults on civilians and vital infrastructure” demonstrated lack of respect for human life and disregard for peace efforts.

Jury selection for Derek Chauvin trial over death of George Floyd expected to last three weeks

The process of the trial for the killing of George Floyd will start with jury selection. It could be a lengthy process, writes Amy Forliti of the Associated Press. Twelve Hennepin County residents will be picked after an extensive grilling about their views on police and the justice system.

Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death. Picking a jury is expected to take at least three weeks, as prosecutors and defense attorneys try to weed out people who may be biased against them.

“You don’t want jurors who are completely blank slates, because that would mean they’re not in tune at all with the world,” Susan Gaertner, a former prosecutor, said. “But what you want is jurors who can set aside opinions that have formed prior to walking into the courtroom and give both sides a fair hearing.”

Floyd was killed last year after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes. His death sparked Black Lives Matter protests in Minneapolis and beyond, and led to a nationwide reckoning on race. Chauvin and three other officers were fired; the others face an August trial on aiding and abetting charges.

The George Floyd Memorial is seen in September last year, outside of Cup Foods located at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis.
The George Floyd Memorial is seen in September last year, outside of Cup Foods located at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. Photograph: Amy Harris/REX/Shutterstock

Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, argued that pretrial publicity of the case and the subsequent violent unrest in Minneapolis would make it impossible to find an impartial jury in Hennepin County. But Judge Peter Cahill said last year that moving the trial probably wouldn’t cure the problem of a potentially tainted jury pool because “no corner of the State of Minnesota” has been shielded from pretrial publicity.

The potential jurors were sent questionnaires to determine how much they have heard about the case and whether they’ve formed any opinions. Besides biographical and demographic information, jurors were asked about prior contacts with police, whether they have protested against police brutality and whether they believe the justice system is fair. Some of the questions get very specific, such as how often a potential juror has watched the bystander video of Floyd’s arrest, or whether they carried a sign at a protest and what that sign said.

Unlike typical jury selection proceedings, this jury pool will be questioned one by one instead of in a group. The judge, defense attorney and prosecutors will all get to ask questions. The defense can object to up to 15 potential jurors without giving a reason; prosecutors can block up to nine with no reason given. Both sides can also argue to dismiss an unlimited number of jurors “for cause,” meaning they must provide a reason why they believe that juror shouldn’t serve.

Even if a juror says they have had a negative interaction with the police, or a negative opinion about Black Lives Matter, the key will be trying to find out whether they can put those past experiences or opinions aside and be fair.

Opening arguments are not expected until 29 March at the earliest.

Darryl Fears and Jared Goyette are covering the developments in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the Washington Post, and here’s how they reported yesterday’s silent protest in Minneapolis.

A Sunday afternoon march drew a few thousand people to the Hennepin County Government Center, which these days is encircled by concrete barriers and multiple layers of security fencing. Prince’s “Purple Rain” blared over loudspeakers there, but as the crowd began walking, they did so in silence. They carried a white wooden coffin. Helicopters buzzed overhead.

By then, National Guard vehicles were rolling into the Twin Cities area, delivering the first of more than 3,000 troops expected to be on patrol during what some are calling the biggest trial in Minnesota history.

Another crowd is anticipated outside the Government Center early Monday, when jury selection is set to start. Opening arguments aren’t expected until the end of the month.

“There’s never been a trial of this magnitude before in these parts,” columnist Rubén Rosario wrote Sunday in the St Paul Pioneer Press. “Unprecedented. Historic. Momentous. Pick an adjective.”

Flowers and a sign placed at the base of the barriers surrounding Hennepin County Government Center, Minneapolis.
Flowers and a sign placed at the base of the barriers surrounding Hennepin County Government Center, Minneapolis. Photograph: Aaron Nesheim/REX/Shutterstock

As part of the demonstration yesterday, there was a long roll-call of the dead:

Civil rights attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong read from a 45-foot scroll with more than 400 names of Minnesotans who organizers say have died at the hands of police over the past two decades.

Brandyn Tulloch was struck by how long it took to read. “You just sit and think, ‘Is it always going to be this way?’ When will the police killings end, and when will any of those families ever get justice?” he said.

He isn’t optimistic that Chauvin will be convicted, and he said he doesn’t think that would bring justice anyway. “I feel like it is all eyes on Minneapolis, all eyes on Minnesota. . . . This is because the state is on trial. The system is on trial, and it’s about time they’re held accountable.”

Read more here: Washington Post – A silent march and symbolic coffin on the eve of the trial in George Floyd’s killing

Amudalat Ajasa and Jackie Renzetti report for us from Minneapolis this morning:

Minneapolis and its adjacent “twin city” St Paul, followed by cities and towns all across the United States and overseas burst into civil rights protest last May, where millions demanded radical change after a video went viral showing a cop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds as he begged, in vain, for his life.

The since-fired officer, Derek Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second degree murder and second degree manslaughter and has been in hiding while out on bail.

Three other, also now-ex, officers charged with aiding and abetting stand trial together in August.

“I feel kind of scared that we won’t see [what] we want to see. And we’ll be in the streets, like we were the whole summer,” said Zarieah Graves, an activist in Minneapolis.

If the officers are acquitted, or convicted but lightly punished “we are going to be upset,” Graves added.

When Floyd, 46, a father from Houston who moved to Minneapolis for work, was killed his name joined that of Jamar Clark, Philando Castile and many others less well known.

More than 200 people have suffered police-involved deaths in Minnesota in the last 20 years, a database compiled by the Minneapolis Star Tribune calculated. While only 7% of Minnesotans are Black they accounted for 26% of those deaths.

“That’s what people need to know is that there are hundreds of George Floyds out there in the state of Minnesota alone, that people just don’t seem to know anything about,” Toshira Garraway told the Guardian.

Garraway started the activist group Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence when Justin Teigen, her fiancé and the father of her child, ended up suffocated in a recycling truck after he fled from a police stop in St Paul in 2009 and was pursued, with the authorities and the family disagreeing over how he came to meet his death.

But only one Minnesota police officer has been convicted of murder – Mohamed Noor, who shot dead Australian life coach Justine Damond after she called police saying she had witnessed an assault in 2017. Damond was white and Noor is Somali American.

“Why is it that only the white woman got true justice?” Garraway asked.

Read more here: George Floyd killing – Minneapolis on edge again as historic trial set to begin

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Monday. Here’s a catch-up on where we are and what we can expect from today:

  • One of the most significant police trials in US history begins today as the former officer who killed George Floyd stands trial. The since-fired officer, Derek Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second degree murder and second degree manslaughter, and has been in hiding while out on bail.
  • Yesterday members of Floyd’s family took part in a silent march through downtown Minneapolis, carrying a symbolic empty casket.
  • Andrew Cuomo suffered a major blow on Sunday in his attempt to stay as governor of New York. The majority leader of the state senate and the speaker of the assembly, two of the most powerful Democrats in New York, said it was time for Cuomo to go. He is facing accusations of sexual harassment and a scandal over Covid deaths in nursing homes.
  • President Joe Biden will be visiting the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center that is administering Covid vaccines. He’ll be accompanied by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough.
  • At least 58.9 million adults have now received at least one vaccine shot in the US.
  • Yesterday one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington – Jim Clyburn – issued a frank warning to members of his own party, saying they need to find a way to pass major voting rights legislation or they will lose control of Congress.
  • It is International Women’s Day today, and president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris will be joined by defense secretary Lloyd J Austin III at 4.20pm (2120 GMT) to make remarks marking the occasion.
  • Jen Psaki’s 11.30am press briefing will also feature the same theme, and she will be joined by co-chairs of the gender policy council Julissa Reynoso and Jennifer Klein. There’s a coronavirus press briefing at 11am as well.
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