Biden said at the meeting on Tuesday: ‘Americans from every walk of life are getting their vaccines, but we got more to do though.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
Biden said at the meeting on Tuesday: ‘Americans from every walk of life are getting their vaccines, but we got more to do though.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
Joe Biden said the US has “more to do” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. During a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of governors this afternoon, the president announced that the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft will be providing free rides to coronavirus vaccination centers starting 24 May.
Dr Anthony Fauci said the country will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace. The president’s chief medical adviser made the comments during a Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
Senators sparred over voting restrictions during a hearing on Democrats’ election reform bill, the For the People Act. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of pushing “anti-democratic” measures to make it harder for people to vote, while minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed Democrats were staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm discouraged Americans from “hoarding gasoline” following the ransomware attack on the Colonial pipeline. Granholm’s comments at the White House press briefing come amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states. The energy secretary said long lines were the result of a “supply crunch”, not a gasoline shortage. “Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm said.
House Democrats plan on Wednesday to unveil a $2.1bn supplemental bill to enhance security at the Capitol that will propose creating a quick reaction force to guard against future threats in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The proposed bill will also include the construction of a retractable fencing system around the Capitol, the sources said.
Rose DeLauro, chair of the House appropriations committee, is expected to unveil the proposal to House Democrats on a caucus call on Wednesday, amid growing calls urging the adoption of recommendations made by a taskforce in the wake of the 6 January insurrection in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.
No lawmakers were injured during the attack, but several, such as Senator Mitt Romney and former vice-president Mike Pence had only a narrow escape from attackers looking for them. Meanwhile, nearly 140 officers suffered injuries and one, Brian Sicknick, later died after being assaulted.
The proposed bill largely tracks recommendations made by retired Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who was appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to examine security shortcomings, as well as critical flaws identified by the US Capitol police inspector general, the sources said.
How much? Mayoral hopefuls red-faced after guessing New York housing costs
Edward Helmore
With less than six weeks to New York’s mayoral primaries, two candidates have left themselves electorally vulnerable for vastly underestimating the median cost of buying a home or apartment in Brooklyn.
“In Brooklyn, huh? I don’t know for sure. I would guess it is around $100,000,” Shaun Donovan, housing and urban development secretary under former President Obama and housing commissioner under the former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, told the New York Times.
Donovan’s press secretary said later in a statement to the Hill that Donovan “misinterpreted the question and made a mistake”.
In the same set of endorsement-seeking interviews, Ray McGuire, a wealthy former Citigroup executive, guessed that the median sales price was “somewhere in the $80,000 to $90,000 range, if not higher”.
McGuire later said: “I messed up when accounting for the cost of housing in Brooklyn. I am human.”
The tech entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang guessed correctly, while two other candidates, Maya Wiley and the former NYC financial comptroller Scott Stringer, both guessed over $1m, with Wiley suggesting $1.8m.
Brooklyn’s median sales price is $900,000.
The housing-cost guesstimate game comes as voters in the city begin to engage with the choice of who will replace Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is stepping down after serving two terms.
This week, two of New York’s media outlets offered their endorsements – the New York Times picking the former sanitation department chief Kathryn Garcia, and the New York Post picking the former police officer Eric Adams.
Donovan and McGuire’s wild underestimation of housing costs, particularly in a borough where average individual income is about $32,000 and has, in parts, seen an affordable housing crisis develop as a result of rapid gentrification, was widely mocked on social media and by progressives.
“How could people running for mayor of the city not know this? Because most people want power, but few want responsibility,” podcast host Ashley C Ford posted on Twitter.
Joe Biden’s administration has approved the construction of the US’s first large-scale offshore windfarm, with 84 turbines to be erected off the coast of Massachusetts.
The approval of the project, which will generate about 800 megawatts of energy, enough to power around 400,000 homes and businesses, is a boost to Biden’s agenda of ramping up renewable energy production across the US in order to confront the climate crisis.
The US has lagged behind other countries in offshore wind, despite its lengthy coastlines, but the Biden administration said the new Vineyard Wind project will be the first of many as it aims to generate 30 gigawatts of energy from offshore wind by 2030. Two other offshore proposals, located in New York, are also now under review.
“A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States,” said Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior. “The approval of this project is an important step toward advancing the administration’s goals to create good-paying union jobs while combatting climate change and powering our nation.”
The $2.8bn development, a joint venture between energy firms Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, will be located about 12 nautical miles from the shoreline of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The administration said the project will create 3,600 new jobs.
Jonathan Cole, the head of Iberdrola’s global offshore wind business, said the US government’s approval for Vineyard Wind was the project’s latest “watershed moment” for the US offshore wind industry.
The project surprised industry observers in 2018 by setting a record low price in a government auction to procure electricity. The lower than expected price, combined with its size, showed that offshore wind would “grow quicker than everyone thought, bigger than everyone thought, and cheaper than everyone thought”, Cole said.
New York mayor hopeful Andrew Yang said he was asked not to attend an Astoria event where he was meant to distribute groceries ahead of Eid, after his staunch pro-Israel stance amid the attacks and forced expulsions in East Jerusalem.
Yang has come under fire after tweeting yesterday: “I’m standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks, and condemn the Hamas terrorists. The people of NYC will always stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel who face down terrorism and persevere.”
But Yang failed to provide context for the Hamas attack that followed an Israeli government order that would forcibly expel six Palestinian families from generational homes. Amid escalating tension over the order, Israeli officers escalated violence, stormed a mosque, and wounded over 300 unarmed Palestinians.
When Israel and Hamas exchanged fire today, Israeli strikes killed at least 28 Palestinians including nine children in Gaza.
“Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children,” New York representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said.
Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children, especially after his silence as Al-Aqsa was attacked.
But then to try that in Astoria? During Ramadan?! They will let you know. https://t.co/r721mHyfri
Despite heavy criticism, Yang hasn’t backed off his pro-Israel statement.
.@AndrewYang is confronted in Astoria by passersby upset over his pro-Israel tweet. He calls conflict in the Middle East “heartbreaking,” but doesn’t condemn Israeli airstrikes. pic.twitter.com/L0oAja66zR
The Washington Post has a new executive editor, replacing Marty Baron: it’s Sally Buzbee, formerly in the same role at the Associated Press.
Sally Buzbee. Photograph: Chuck Zoeller/AP
Buzbee, 55, was previously the AP Washington bureau chief and before that Middle East editor, in an AP career stretching back to 1988.
The Post had been under pressure to avoid picking another white man. Cameron Barr and Steven Ginsburg, deputies to Baron, were reportedly among contenders to succeed him. Kevin Merida, an African American editor once of the Post but who moved to ESPN, was widely discussed but was named executive editor of the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
The widely revered Baron led the Post from 2013, guiding a resurgence under the ownership of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Baron retired earlier this year at age 66. He is now working on a book about Trump, Bezos and the future of journalism. The Guardian understands the price tag for Baron’s book reached $1m.
In March, Baron told the Guardian: “I don’t talk to him that much, to tell you the truth – hardly ever. It’s not like we have one-on-one conversations with any frequency whatsoever.
“He’s got a bunch of other interests. I’m sure he reads us closely but he just doesn’t get involved in the day-to-day of our newsroom. He has not questioned anything that we’ve written about Amazon or about him at all.”
On Tuesday Fred Ryan, the Post’s publisher and chief executive, said: “In an extensive search that included many of the best journalists in America, Sally stood out as the right person to lead the Post going forward. She is widely admired for her absolute integrity, boundless energy and dedication to the essential role journalism plays in safeguarding our democracy.”
In a statemen, Buzbee said she had been ‘blessed to have one of the best jobs in journalism, and I’m excited to take on a whole new challenge.
“The Post has a strong legacy, a committed staff, and is doing some of the most innovative work to engage new audiences.”
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Joe Biden said the US has “more to do” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. During a virtual meeting with a bipartisan group of governors this afternoon, the president announced that the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft will be providing free rides to coronavirus vaccination centers starting 24 May.
Dr Anthony Fauci said the country will soon “begin to return to normality” if vaccinations continue at their current pace. The president’s chief medical adviser made the comments during a Senate committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel confident that if we continue to vaccinate people at the rate that we’re doing, that we will very soon have a situation where we will have so few infections in this country, we will begin to return to normality that all of us desire so much,” Fauci said in his opening remarks.
Senators sparred over voting restrictions during a hearing on Democrats’ election reform bill, the For the People Act. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of pushing “anti-democratic” measures to make it harder for people to vote, while minority leader Mitch McConnell claimed Democrats were staging a partisan takeover of state election systems.
Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm discouraged Americans from “hoarding gasoline” following the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. Granholm’s comments at the White House press briefing come amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states. The energy secretary said long lines were the result of a “supply crunch”, not a gasoline shortage. “Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm said.
The White House released a statement to the press pool earlier today saying that Biden and Sinema would meet to discuss the president’s infrastructure proposal.
“The President is hosting Senator Sinema at the White House today to discuss the American Jobs Act and the ongoing negotiations in Congress about investing in our infrastructure,” the White House said.
Along with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, Sinema is viewed as one of the most crucial votes for getting an infrastructure bill through Congress. Biden also met with Manchin yesterday.
The former acting defense secretary is expected to defend the Pentagon’s response to the 6 January insurrection tomorrow, when he testifies before the House oversight committee for a hearing on the Capitol attack.
President Donald Trump’s acting defense secretary during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots plans to tell Congress that he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press.
Christopher Miller’s testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon’s response to the chaos of the day and rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to arrive even as pro-Trump rioters violently breached the building and stormed inside. He casts himself as a deliberate leader who was determined that the military have only limited involvement, a perspective he says was shaped by criticism of the aggressive response to the civil unrest that roiled American cities months earlier, as well as decades-old episodes that ended in violence. ...
He will also deny that Trump, criticized for failing to forcefully condemn the rioters, had any involvement in the Defense Department’s response and will say that Trump had even suggested that 10,000 troops might be needed for Jan. 6.
Miller is scheduled to testify tomorrow alongside former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and DC police chief Robert Contee III.
At past hearings on the insurrection, senior officials have blamed the violence at the Capitol on inadequate sharing of intelligence and delayed responses to the breaching of security barriers.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the latest voting restrictions in Arizona:
Arizona Republicans approved a closely-watched bill Tuesday that essentially ends a state practice allowing voters to permanently receive a mail-in ballot for each election if they choose to.
The new measure allows state officials to remove a voter from the list if they don’t vote by mail in two consecutive primary and general elections and respond to a mailer asking them if they want to remain on the list. State election officials estimated in February that around 200,000 voters would be affected in the state, which Joe Biden carried by around 10,000 votes in November.
The measure is the latest in a series of Republican efforts around the country to make it harder to vote, and specifically to make it more difficult to vote by mail. Those efforts come after record numbers of Americans cast mail-in ballots in 2020 and the US saw record high voter turnout. There is no evidence of voter fraud in mail-in voting or elsewhere in the US, but Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Florida, and Texas have all targeted it.
The measure, which now will head to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk for approval, comes as Arizona has become a hotbed of the fight over voting rights in the US. Republicans in the state senate are currently conducting an ongoing audit of the 2020 race that many experts say is wrought with error and will only fuel doubts about the election.
Some House Republicans are reportedly raising questions about Elise Stefanik’s potential elevation to conference chair, citing some of her past moderate positions as cause for concern.
The criticism comes one day before the House Republican caucus is scheduled to vote on removing Liz Cheney as conference chair. Stefanik has already received Donald Trump’s endorsement to replace Cheney.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, sent a memo to every Republican office in the chamber arguing that Stefanik should not be serving in leadership. But Roy hardly embraced Cheney’s continued presence atop the conference, also asserting that the Wyoming Republican no longer deserves to be conference chair.
Despite multiple Freedom Caucus members privately expressing reluctance — if not outright opposition — to Stefanik over concerns about the New Yorker’s past moderate record, Roy is one of only a few House conservatives to take his criticism public. He focused his case against Stefanik on past votes that he contended should disqualify her from leading the conference on messaging.
‘We must avoid putting in charge Republicans who campaign as Republicans but then vote for and advance the Democrats’ agenda once sworn in -- that is, that we do not make the same mistakes that we did in 2017,’ Roy wrote in his memo, which was first obtained by POLITICO.
C-Span has footage of an extraordinary exchange earlier today between White House chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, over links – or not – between US federal health authorities and the laboratory in Wuhan, China which some believe caused the coronavirus pandemic:
Paul: “For years, Dr Ralph Baric, a virologist in the US, has been collaborating with Dr Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create superviruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the [National Institutes of Health (NIH)] ... Dr Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH lab in Wuhan?”
Fauci: “With all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect. The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Paul: “Do you fund Dr Baric’s gain-of-function research?”
Fauci: “Dr Baric is not doing gain-of-function research, and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina.”
And…
Paul: “Will you categorically say that the Covid-19 could not have occurred through serial passage in a laboratory?”
Fauci: “I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I am fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again, the NIH and [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)] categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
During Jen Psaki’s press briefing, a reporter noted that House minority leader Kevin McCarthy will be coming to the White House for an infrastructure meeting shortly after his caucus votes on whether to remove Liz Cheney from her role as conference chair.
The reporter asked Psaki whether the president considered excluding McCarthy from the meeting out of concern that Cheney’s ouster is undermining his presidency.
“The focus of this meeting is not on the future of the Republican party,” the White House press secretary said, expressing hope that McCarthy and other members of his party will be able to work with the president to find common ground on infrastructure.
Residents in Gaza City reported bombings on high-rise buildings, as families spent the night cowering in basements. On Tuesday evening, a 13-storey tower housing apartments and the offices of officials from Hamas, the Islamist group that rules inside Gaza, was hit by an Israeli airstrike and collapsed.
Residents had earlier been told to evacuate. In response, Hamas’s military wing said it had fired 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv, and air raid sirens and then explosions were heard in the coastal city.
The attacks began on Monday evening, when after weeks of intense violence in Jerusalem, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets towards the holy city, believed to be the first time it had targeted Jerusalem in more than seven years.
Gaza health officials earlier said seven members of a single family, including three children, had died in an explosion. It was not clear if the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or a rocket that landed short.
Medics in Israel said more than 25 civilians were being treated following rocket fire, including those wounded from broken glass and shrapnel. Militants had fired at least 250 rockets toward Israel, many of which were intercepted but some made direct hits on apartment buildings. One hit an empty school. The national ambulance service, Magen David Adom, said rocket strikes killed two women in the southern city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon.
The White House press secretary said Joe Biden has been briefed daily on the escalating violence in Jerusalem.
Jen Psaki emphasized that the president and his administration “believe Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity”.
The press secretary added that administration officials have “spoken candidly” with Israeli officials in recent weeks about the negative impact that evictions of Palestinian families have on regional stability.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to increase the intensity of attacks on Gaza, which have already killed 30 people -- 28 Palestinians and two Israelis.
Energy secretary urges Americans against 'hoarding gasoline' after pipeline attack
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas joined Psaki in the briefing room.
The two cabinet secretaries provided updates on fallout from the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, amid reports of long lines at gas stations in some east coast states.
“Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline.”
“Much as there was no cause for, say, hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, there should be no cause for hoarding gasoline,” Granholm told reporters.
The energy secretary emphasized that there should be no serious reason for concern about a gasoline shortage, particularly given that the pipeline is expected to be “substantially operational” by the end of this week.
Granholm said the long lines are the result of a “supply crunch” rather than a shortage, and that crunch is expected to most directly impact North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and southern Virginia.
NBC reports that Donald Trump’s much-trumpeted new online platform – From the Desk of Donald J Trump, meant to fill the void left by his ejection from Twitter and Facebook but in NBC’s words “essentially a blog” – is … not exactly setting the internet alight, let alone breaking it.
The ex-president’s blog has drawn a considerably smaller audience than his once-powerful social media accounts, according to engagement data compiled with BuzzSumo, a social media analytics company. The data offers a hint that while Trump remains a political force, his online footprint is still dependent on returning to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Desk of Donald J Trump is limited – users can’t comment or engage with the actual posts beyond sharing them to other platforms, an action few people do, according to the data.
Trump’s new blog has attracted a little over 212,000 engagements, defined as backlinks and social interactions – including likes, shares and comments – across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit.
Before the ban, a single Trump tweet was typically liked and retweeted hundreds of thousands of times.
Here’s more on the subject, from David Smith in Washington and under a gloriously blunt headline from the top operatives on the Guardian US subs desk in New York:
