Health workers walk in a locked-down part of Hong Kong.
“A new coronavirus variant first found in South Africa has now been detected in more than 30 countries, including the US. Another variant, first found in Brazil, has showed up in Minnesota. While all these variants aren’t necessarily surprising, a few of them have scientists worried because they seem to be more transmissible and so could tax health care systems even further. In a worst-case scenario, they could also evade the protection of vaccines. Scientists are also still trying to figure out how to treat "long Covid," a condition in which patients experience prolonged symptoms after their initial infection has passed. Meanwhile, a team of investigators from the World Health Organization is currently in China, visiting labs, hospitals and markets to look into the origins of the pandemic.” Read more at CNN
“The South African variant. A more contagious coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa—and this week detected in the United States—has fueled record cases and deaths across the continent, according to the World Health Organization. In recent weeks, infections in Africa have risen by 50 percent and the number of deaths from COVID-19 has doubled.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“U.S. States Fight: Lawmakers around the U.S. are moving to curb the authority of governors and top health officials to impose emergency restrictions such as mask rules and business shutdowns. Many of these legislators are resentful of the way governors have issued sweeping executive orders and they are pushing back in states including Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania, David A. Lieb reports. Some governors say they need authority to act quickly and decisively against the fast-changing threat.” Read more at AP
“U.S. airlines had their worst year ever. U.S. carriers lost close to $35 billion in 2020 as the pandemic wiped out travel, and a rebound remains elusive for now.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration confirmed Thursday that thousands more nursing home residents died of COVID-19 than the state’s official tallies had previously acknowledged, dealing a potential blow to his image as a pandemic hero.” Read more at AP
“Tanzania Virus Denial:The president of Tanzania says God has eliminated COVID-19 in his country. His own church now begs to differ. The local Catholic authority warned this week of a new wave of coronavirus infections, and government institutions now require staffers to take precautions. Suddenly, populist President John Magufuli is being openly questioned as the African continent sees a strong resurgence in cases. And yet he questions the vaccines that have begun arriving in Africa. One African health official warns Tanzania that ‘if we do not fight this as a collective on the continent, we will be doomed.’ Tanzania stopped updating its virus numbers in April, at 509 cases, Cara Anna reports.” Read more at AP
“The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.
General Motors said Thursday that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.
G.M.’s move is sure to roil the auto industry, which, between car and parts makers, employed about one million people in the United States in 2019, more than any other manufacturing sector by far. It will also have huge ramifications for the oil and gas sector, whose fortunes are closely tied to the internal combustion engine.
A rapid shift by the auto industry could lead to job losses and business failures in related areas. Electric cars don’t have transmissions or need oil changes, meaning conventional service stations will have to retool what they do. Electric vehicles also require fewer workers to make, putting traditional manufacturing jobs at risk. At the same time, the move to electric cars will spark a boom in areas like battery manufacturing, mining and charging stations.” Read more at New York Times
Cicely Tyson, groundbreaking award-winning actor, dead at 96
Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” won a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” has died. She was 96. A onetime model, Tyson began her screen career with bit parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when Black women were finally starting to get starring roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama ‘The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.’” Read more at AP
“The chief judge of the federal court in Washington delivered a scorching rebuke to Capitol riot suspects during a hearing, calling their actions an assault on American democracy. Chief Judge Beryl Howell also ruled that the man photographed with his feet on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office should stay in jail as he awaits trial. The enmity and violence laid bare by the Capitol riot has continued to fracture trust among federal lawmakers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of the enemy ‘within’ that is threatening security, in an apparent reference to some pro-Trump Republicans. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of ‘trying to get me killed’ with his rhetoric regarding the Capitol violence.” Read more at CNN
“Democrats have rejected a Republican pitch to split President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue plan into smaller chunks.
In power in Congress and the White House, Democrats appear more than ready to leave their Republican opponents behind and push the sweeping economic and virus aid forward on their own, Lisa Mascaro and Josh Boak report.
Despite Biden’s calls for unity, Democrats say the stubbornly high unemployment numbers and battered economy leave them unwilling to waste time courting Republican support or curbing the size of the package.
The bill would offer money for vaccines, help reopen schools and give $1,400 direct payments to most Americans. Biden has been appealing directly to Republican and Democratic lawmakers while signaling his priority to press ahead.
With the COVID-19 pandemic raging, uninsured, low-income Americans are getting a new chance to sign up for subsidized health care benefits after Biden ordered government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window.
Biden signed an executive order directing the ‘Obamacare’ HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits, something the Trump administration had refused to do, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports.
He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump administration health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid.” Read more at AP
“Executive Orders: Biden and aides are showing touches of prickliness amid growing scrutiny of the new president’s reliance on executive orders in his first days in office. In just over a week, Biden has already signed more than three dozen executive orders and directives aimed at addressing the coronavirus pandemic as well as a gamut of other issues, including environmental regulations, immigration policies and racial justice. Biden has also sought to use the orders to erase foundational policy initiatives by Donald Trump, Aamer Madhani reports.” Read more at AP
AP FACT CHECK: Biden’s fuzzy math on 1 million new auto jobs.
“Republicans: Just two weeks ago, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declared then-President Trump culpable in the insurrection at the nation’s Capitol as Washington leaders recoiled from the violence. But by Thursday, McCarthy was meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to bow to a man who remains the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, despite having left office in disgrace. Trump’s expected status as a Republican kingmaker post-presidency had seemed like an impossibility after his supporters stormed the Capitol. But following an initial wave of condemnation — and a bipartisan impeachment — the tide in the Republican Party appears to have already turned, Jill Colvin reports.” Read more at AP
“QAnon Recovery: Some followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory are turning to online support groups and even therapy to help them move on, now that it's clear Trump's presidency is over. Former adherents interviewed by the AP say the process of leaving QAnon is akin to kicking a drug habit, and urge Americans to show empathy to those who fell for the hoax, which suggested that Trump was fighting a secretive war against a sprawling conspiracy of powerful Satanic pedophiles. Yet while some QAnon supporters are leaving the movement, others are concocting ever more elaborate explanations to keep their faith alive, David Klepper reports.” Read more at AP
“Some Senate Democrats are hoping for a swift impeachment trial for former President Trump, so Congress can get on with other measures like passing a long-awaited Covid-19 relief bill. There is only one article of impeachment to discuss -- incitement of insurrection -- and since lawmakers all witnessed the related events firsthand, the proceedings could move quickly. It’s also unlikely enough GOP senators will swing in favor of conviction. And those who vote to convict could face the same fate as House Republicans who voted for impeachment and are now seeing political blowback in their home states.” Read more at CNN
“19% — The percentage of parents in Chicago, home to the nation's third-largest school district, who have opted to send their children to in-person classes. Chicago Public Schools has aimed to reopen all elementary schools on Monday for in-person learning, but a potential teachers-union strike over concerns about Covid-19 transmission could upend those plans.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Teachers in some large school districts don't want to return to the classroom without being vaccinated — which could mean several more months of virtual classes, Axios' Maria Fernandez writes.
Only 18 states have included teachers in the early priority groups that can get vaccinated now. And those teachers are competing for shots with other higher-risk populations, including the elderly.” Read more at Axios
“Faced with refereeing explosive content at scale, Big Tech companies are tossing their hardest decisions to outsiders, hoping to deflect some of the pressure, Axios' Ashley Gold writes.
The independent Facebook Oversight Board, in its first set of decisions, overturned the social network's decisions in four of its five first cases yesterday, meaning Facebook will have to restore four posts it previously took down.
“In what has become a U.S. political tradition, on Thursday President Joe Biden reversed the policy that banned federal funds from reaching organizations abroad that perform or facilitate abortions, including sharing information about the procedure. The so-called global gag rule, first enacted by the Reagan administration in 1984, has been reversed by every Democratic president since—only to then be reinstated by each Republican that enters the Oval Office.
After taking office in 2017, Donald Trump took the policy a step further than his predecessors, applying the funding block beyond just aid directed toward family planning. By 2018, the expansion had halted an estimated $12 billion in planned U.S. funding for global health in 72 countries. Such policies have in the past led to an increase in maternal deaths and unsafe abortions, in addition to countless knock-on health effects.
Biden said he had reversed the policy to ‘protect women’s health at home and abroad,’ as part of a set of health care decisions announced Thursday.
A first step. Some global health advocates have said that simply reversing the global gag rule isn’t enough. Many have called for Biden to support legislation that would prevent future presidents from reinstating the policy, as well as to call for the repeal of the 1973 Helms Amendment, which sets a precedent in preventing U.S. foreign assistance from going toward abortion ‘as a method of family planning.’
Writing in Foreign Policy earlier this month, Serra Sippel and Akila Radhakrishnan argued that if Biden expects to restore confidence in the United States as a leader in global health, he will have to go much further in actively promoting reproductive rights. ‘Rolling back Trump’s policies is just the bare minimum for gender equality worldwide,’ they wrote.
Protests swell in Poland. Elsewhere, the tide is moving in a different direction. As Biden reaffirmed U.S. support for global women’s health, protesters in Poland gathered to fight a near-total abortion ban that took effect there on Wednesday. Last October, the announcement of the ban triggered Poland’s largest protests since the fall of communism. Its sudden implementation has set off a new wave of protests that could eventually hurt the ruling Law and Justice party at the polls; a large majority of Poles oppose the ban.
Brewing fight. Biden can change some policies through executive order, but taking other steps—such as ending a provision in spending bills that bars federal funds from going toward abortions within the United States—will meet obstacles in Congress. While an increasing number of Americans support legal abortion, many conservative politicians have more in common on the issue with anti-abortion groups abroad.
From Krakow to Charleston. And Biden’s efforts to reaffirm U.S. leadership on women’s health could still be undercut by state legislatures. On Thursday, the day after Poland’s law took effect, South Carolina’s Republican-held Senate passed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state, after just three days of debate. It’s expected to pass in the House.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Corruption in the United States is apparently at its worst in almost a decade, according to a new report by Transparency International, which attributes the drop to declining trust in democracy and poor oversight of pandemic-related aid. The United States fell to a score of 67 (out of 100)—a new low.
The index reveals how corruption has hamstrung countries’ abilities to protect public health and their economies during the pandemic, FP’s Cailey Griffin and Amy Mackinnon report.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“U.K. launches Hong Kong visa offer. The British visa program creating a path to citizenship for certain Hong Kong residents, launched in response to China’s draconian national security laws, is set to begin on Sunday. The scheme will allow those with British National (Overseas) status—a status already specifically related to Hong Kong—to live and work in the U.K. for five years before applying for citizenship. The government estimates that the visa could bring more than 300,000 people to Britain over the next five years.
China, which threatens to apply the national security laws beyond its borders, has condemned the program as a violation of international law.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“The Kremlin has a burgeoning Alexei Navalny problem that won't go away and is gaining in momentum.
A Russian court rejected an appeal by the opposition leader for his release from jail for allegedly violating the terms of his probation while he was recuperating in Germany from a nerve-agent poisoning.
Appearing in court by video link from jail, Navalny alleged that criminal proceedings against him are part of government efforts to intimidate the opposition, Daria Litvinova.and Vladimir Isachenkov report from Moscow.
Authorities detained several of his allies and warned social media companies about promoting more pro-Navalny demonstrations after tens of thousands rallied across the country last weekend demanding his freedom.
His supporters are organizing more rallies for Sunday. The 44-year-old anti-corruption investigator is the most well-known critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government.
EXPLAINER: Behind the Kremlin's response to Navalny rallies. Russian authorities are clearly rattled by nationwide protests. They are moving rapidly to block any new demonstrations – from piling legal pressure on his allies to launching an elaborate media campaign to discredit him. A look at the unrest and the Kremlin’s strategy by Daria Litvinova.” Read more at AP
“The roller coaster week for GameStop stock continued yesterday. At one point, the stock lost more than 44% of its value after surging nearly 40%. A lot of investors are using Robinhood, a free trading app that has come under fire during this unusual episode. The company temporarily barred users from buying shares of GameStop stock, saying it wanted to protect users from market volatility. However, someone filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday against the company, saying Robinhood's actions rigged the market against its customers. Robinhood has now eased restrictions on the stock, and GameStop shares surged 100% in premarket trading this morning.” Read more at CNN
“EXPLAINER: Why GameStop’s stock surge is shaking Wall Street
What’s going on with GameStop’s stock doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. The struggling video game retailer’s stock has been making stupefying moves this month, wild enough to raise concerns from Wall Street to the White House. It’s forcing hard questions about whether the market is in a bubble and whether a new generation of traders should be allowed to take full advantage of all the tools and free trades available on their phones, regardless of how reckless they may seem to outsiders. Champions of the proletariat, meanwhile, are cheering louder from the sidelines, saying the 1% are finally getting their comeuppance.” Read more at AP
“The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business are trying to shut them up, shut them out and shut them down.
Why it matters: The post-Trump GOP, especially its most powerful media platforms, paint the new reality as an existential threat. This means political attacks are seen — or characterized — as assaults on their very being.
Fox News' Tucker Carlson told us that many in Trump's base feel that the ‘combined forces of global power have turned on them and are cracking down hard — hilariously, in the name of democracy.’
‘Not a sustainable moment,’ Carlson added. ‘Something will break.’
Ben Shapiro, a media leader on the right, told us this sentiment ‘is widespread, and it grows more dominant with every NYT columnist calling for a social media crackdown, every WaPo columnist lumping in mainstream conservatives with Capitol rioters, every corporation mirroring woke priorities.’
Shapiro created an internal and external firestorm at Politico when he guest-authored the franchise Playbook. Staff revolted, which Shapiro cites as another example of mainstream media trying to silence the right.
Conservatives were quick to try to move on from the mob storming the Capitol after incitement by Trump. Listen or watch conservative media, and claims of "silencing" are mounting by the day:
Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook, a hotbed for conservative argument and misinformation, wants to downplay politics on its platform.
Google and others shut off money for Republicans who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.
The big picture: Pay attention to this trend. The more personal and visceral politics becomes, the higher the chances for chaos and worse.
What we're watching: In a terrorism alert this week warning of continuing danger from anti-government extremists, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to ‘perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.’
Axios Sneak Peek scooped last night that House Republican leaders ignored warnings last summer that QAnon-friendly conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, would end up a flaming train wreck for the party.
Speaker Pelosi said yesterday, after warning about Greene: ‘[W]e will probably need a supplemental [funding bill] for more security for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives.’” Read more at Axios.