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The Biden administration has set a bold new goal for the national vaccine rollout, providing fresh hope to millions of Americans on the one-year anniversary of Shit Getting Real, and fueling questions about when the U.S. should start sharing.
- In his first primetime address on Thursday night, President Biden both commemorated the enormous losses Americans have suffered over the past year, and charted a course back to some form of normalcy in time for families to come together and ruin Ted Cruz’s 4th of July. Biden directed states to open vaccine eligibility to all adults over 16 by May 1, announced plans for a federally supported website to help people find vaccine appointments, and said the administration will make more health-care workers eligible to administer vaccines. Dentists, your image rehabilitation begins now.
- It’s not as if everyone will be able to get jabbed on May 1, but there’s good reason to think that Biden’s goal of vaccinating a huge swath of the country that month is within reach. The U.S. currently administers over two-million doses per day, and vaccine manufacturers are still on schedule to scale up production over the next few weeks. If states can keep pace with the increased supply, something like two-thirds of adults could already be vaccinated by May. Alaska has already opened up shots to all, Michigan announced that it will follow suit on April 5, and Wisconsin has committed to the May 1 deadline.
- As hopeful Americans begin googling “small talk tutorial” in incognito browser tabs, the Biden administration faces increasing pressure from global-health advocates to give the rest of the world a hand. On Friday, administration officials announced that the U.S. has partnered with India, Japan, and Australia in a pledge to jointly manufacture and distribute up to one-billion vaccine doses by the end of next year, to address shortages in Southeast Asia. The vaccine disparities pose a diplomatic problem as well as a public health one: India, China, and Russia have rushed in to fill vaccine voids around the world, potentially gaining political influence in the process.
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That deal might not be enough to ward off accusations that the U.S. belongs on A&E’s Vaccine Hoarders.
- There are currently tens of millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses sitting around in American manufacturing facilities, which won’t be usable in the U.S. until a clinical trial reports its results and the company applies to the FDA for authorization. That vaccine is already authorized in 70 other countries, which have been begging for access. AstraZeneca has asked the Biden administration to consider loaning doses to the E.U., where vaccine rollouts have faltered as coronavirus cases rise.
- Biden has denied that request for now, at least partly out of a sense of obligation to meet the U.S.’s vaccination timeline—the administration has ordered more than enough of the three authorized vaccines to jab every American, but there’s always the possibility that a production problem could delay shipments, and reserved doses are a hedge against that risk. Meanwhile, a number of European countries have paused distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine altogether, following reports that a small number of people who received it developed blood clots. The WHO is investigating those reports, but says there’s not yet any evidence of a link.
There’s no doubt the Biden administration would come under fire for sending doses overseas before all Americans have access, and the manufacturing process is delicate enough to warrant some caution. With the U.S. rollout continuing to accelerate, it’s just a question of how long that caution makes (or, made) sense.
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On this week's Rubicon, Brian Beutler talks to Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) about the passage of the American Rescue Plan, the provisions in it that address poverty and healthcare, and whether its passage will be the high-water mark of the Biden era, or just the beginning. Listen now wherever you get your pods→
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Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MI) has signed the first statewide anti-trans law of 2021, banning transgender athletes in Mississippi’s public schools and colleges from participating in women’s sports. The law addresses a problem that simply doesn’t exist: The GOP legislators pushing the bill couldn’t even provide examples of trans athletes competing in Mississippi schools or colleges. Nevertheless, similar legislation has made it to the desk of Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who said she’s “excited to sign,” and Republican lawmakers in more than 20 states have proposed restrictions on trans athletes or gender-confirming health care for minors this year. On Wednesday, more than 500 student athletes signed a letter calling on the NCAA to stop hosting championships in states that bar trans athletes from competing in college sports.
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- At least a dozen New York Democrats in Congress, including Reps. Jerry Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) to resign. On Friday, Cuomo once again refused, and blamed “cancel culture” for his current pickle.
- Anyway, here’s an essential piece from Rebecca Traister on how the sexual assault and harassment accusations against Cuomo tie into a larger toxic workplace.
- Minneapolis reached a $27 million settlement with George Floyd’s family on the fourth day of jury selection in the trial of Derek Chauvin.
- Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance won’t run for re-election. He’ll likely decide whether to bring charges against Donald Trump or drop the case before he leaves office at the end of the year.
- A grim if unsurprising new study finds that states with Republican governors have the highest rates of coronavirus infections and deaths.
- Republicans in the Oklahoma House have passed a bill that would grant immunity to drivers who hit protesters. Why take steps to address systemic racism when you can make it legal to murder anyone upset about it with your car?
- Disgraced former president Donald Trump, uh, showed off photos of naked women and hit on mourners at a shiva back in 2004. Shabbat shalom! Not to blow anybody’s mind, but seems like this guy might be a big sociopathic creep.
- A guy in a weird hat broke into the Air Force One base last month and wandered around harmlessly for a while, until his weird hat aroused suspicions. The perfect crime.
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A handful of unhinged Trump loyalists have launched a new dark-money group, for undoubtedly sane and constructive purposes. The founding members of Defending the Republic, Inc. include MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell (who says he got “too busy” and resigned), Michael Flynn’s QAnon-adherent brother Joe Flynn, and Emily Newman, who served in the Trump administration before joining pro-Trump post-election litigation efforts. They created the group the day after the voting-machine company Dominion hit Lindell with a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit, and it also has ties to Sidney Powell, who’s facing her own billion-dollar suits. The group set up a sister super PAC with the same name around the same time. In tandem, the non-profit and PAC can raise unlimited money from secret donors to fuel any political or social agenda they choose (or just pay off the MyPillow Guy’s legal fees). According to its incorporation documents, the group plans to “litigate cases of importance to the American republic,” which doesn’t sound ominous at all!
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Face recognition technology poses a profound and unprecedented threat to our core civil rights – and is particularly dangerous for communities of color and other marginalized groups. Multiple studies have demonstrated that this dangerous technology disproportionately misidentifies and misclassifies people of color, trans people, and women. It’s time to put a stop to it. Sign our petition if you agree.
If President Biden wants to uphold his commitment to racial equity and civil liberties for all, then he must take immediate action. The ACLU is demanding that Biden impose a moratorium on federal government use of face recognition technology and prevent state and local governments from using federal funds to purchase it. Add your name and tell Biden to act now.
Even if face recognition was perfectly accurate, it would still give governments, companies, and individuals the power to spy on us wherever we go – tracking our faces at protests, political rallies, places of worship, and more. We cannot allow its normalization.
Click here to sign the ACLU’s petition telling Biden to halt government use of dangerous and racist face recognition technologies now.
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The U.S. has administered 100 million vaccine shots, with over 2.9 million shots given today—a new daily record.
Novavax announced that its vaccine was found to be 96 percent effective against the OG coronavirus, and 86 percent effective against the U.K. variant. (It was 55 percent effective against the South African variant, but still fully prevented severe illness.)
The Biden administration will end a Trump-era policy that allowed DHS to deport caregivers for unaccompanied migrant children.
Maria Macario, a Guatemalan woman who’s been living in a Massachusetts church for more than three years to avoid deportation, has been granted a temporary reprieve.
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