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How mercury sneaks into the most vulnerable communities in US and Canada

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1 Dolton-Thornton, Nathaniel. “The Elem Tribe’s Last Stand.” Earth Island Journal, 2019.

2 “National Lake Fish Tissue Study – Results and Data.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 7 Nov. 2018.

3 Liu, Guangliang, et al. Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology of Mercury. Wiley, 2012.

4 Gibson, Shelby. “’My Ears Keep Ringing All the Time’: Mercury Poisoning Among Grassy Narrows First Nation.” Pulitzer Center, 29 July 2019.

5 Kirkup, Kristy. “Ottawa Pressed to Make Good on Promise to End All Long-Term Drinking-Water Advisories for First Nations.” The Globe and Mail, 1 Mar. 2021.

6 Mercury in the Environment : Pattern and Process, edited by Michael S. Bank, University of California Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central.

7 E. C. Merem, J. Wesley, P. Isokpehi, E. Nwagboso, S. Fageir, S. Nichols, M. Crisler, M. Shenge, C. Romorno, G. Hirse, The Growing Issue of Mercury Exposure and the Threats in the African American Community, Frontiers in Science, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2016, pp. 1-16. doi: 10.5923/j.fs.20160601.01.

8 United States, Congress, National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), and Peggy Shepard. Fish Consumption and Environmental Justice A Report Developed from the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council Meeting of December 3-6, 2001, EPA, 2002, p. 185.

9 Janssen, Sarah E., et al. “Examining Historical Mercury Sources in the Saint Louis River Estuary: How Legacy Contamination Influences Biological Mercury Levels in Great Lakes Coastal Regions.” Science of The Total Environment, vol. 779, 2021, p. 146284., doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146284.

10 Stefanovich, Olivia. “Indigenous Services Minister to Acknowledge Liberals Won’t Meet Promised Drinking Water Targets | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 2 Dec. 2020.

11 “Defining Waters of the United States / Clean Water Rule – Environmental & Energy Law Program.” Harvard Law School, 3 Mar. 2021.

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Key Oscars moments: from the historic to the hilarious – video

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While the scaled-back Oscars in Los Angeles on Sunday made for a more subdued and intimate affair than usual, the evening was not without its moments. 

Picking up his award for best supporting actor, the British actor Daniel Kaluuya managed to embarrass his proud mother. ‘It’s incredible. My mum met my dad, they had sex. It’s amazing, you understand. I’m here, you know what I mean?’ 

Glenn Close twerked and Frances McDormand howled like a wolf. Making history as the first Korean actor to win an Oscar, Youn Yuh-jung took a moment to appreciate Brad Pitt, who handed her the award. ‘Oh, Mr Brad Pitt, finally, nice to meet you. Where were you while we were filming, in person?’ she joked, to laughter 

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Joe Biden to hold first cabinet meeting as he pitches $2tn infrastructure plan – live

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Prosecutors at Derek Chauvin’s trial questioned Courteney Ross, the partner of George Floyd, about the couple’s struggles with opioid addiction.

Ross said she and Floyd used opioids on and off during their relationship, and she noted she suspected Floyd had started taking pills again shortly before he was killed.

Senior CNN legal analyst Laura Coates said such questioning was necessary in order to “address bad facts and then demonstrate why they’re irrelevant” to the murder charges that Chauvin faces.

Laura Coates (@thelauracoates)

While seems like prosecution’s trying to cast #GeorgeFloyd in negative light by discussing opioid addiction, being under the influence or possibility of a counterfeit bill, remember strategy is to address bad facts & then demonstrate why they’re irrelevant. #DerekChauvinTrial

April 1, 2021

Yesterday in Minneapolis, another prosecution witness, Charles MacMillian, told the court that he spoke directly to George Floyd as he lay in the street under Derek Chauvin’s knee.

“Get up and get in the (police) car. You can’t win man,” he said to Floyd.

Floyd responds that he cannot get up.

MacMillian, in highly emotional testimony, said he appealed to Floyd to cooperate with the police because he was worried about his condition as he was pleading that he could not breathe. “I was trying to help him,” he said.

MacMillian broke down and wept in court as he was shown video of his interaction with Floyd.

Chris McGreal reports:

The cashier who served George Floyd in a Minneapolis store immediately before his arrest and death last May told a court on Wednesday of the ‘disbelief and guilt’ he felt for allowing Floyd to pay with a suspected fake $20 bill when he later saw the police kneeling on him.

Testimony on the third day of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial continued in an atmosphere of tense emotions and harrowing evidence about Floyd’s death.

The cashier, Christopher Martin, 19, said Floyd appeared to be high on drugs but was not threatening and was ‘very approachable, talkative’.

https://t.co/mIpXTnLBwA

April 1, 2021

“The filibuster stands in the way of a lot of legislation and whether or not it can be either reformed and amended or eliminated is what we will find out in next weeks,” Clinton told Palmieri.

She added, “It certainly should be lifted for constitutional matters, and I would put election law matters at the top of that list.”

Many Democrats have called on Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to eliminate the filibuster, thus allowing bills to pass the upper chamber with 51 votes, rather than the 60 required with the filibuster in place.

But currently, Schumer does not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, as at least two of his caucus members — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have signaled opposition to the idea.

@SecretaryPete tells @SRuhle he’s not giving up on earning GOP support for @POTUS’s newly-unveiled $2 trillion infrastructure package.

“Bottom line is, we’ve got to get this done.”@MSNBC pic.twitter.com/1aL4tIH7tv

April 1, 2021

The former Democratic presidential candidate said he has had many meetings with lawmakers of both parties, and he noted Joe Biden has encouraged Republicans to offer ideas on the proposal.

But Buttigieg was tight-lipped when pressed on which specific members of Congress he has been talking to about the infrastructure package.

“Bottom line is, we’ve got to get this done,” Buttigieg said. “The American people can’t wait for good infrastructure.”

The transportation secretary will be attending Biden’s cabinet meeting at the White House later today.

The fourth wave of coronavirus infections may have already arrived in the US, where case numbers are climbing in half of states.

Axios reports:

On average, roughly 63,000 Americans per day were diagnosed with coronavirus infections over the past week. That’s a 17% increase from the week before, and echoes the rising caseloads of the pandemic’s second wave last summer. …

Because so many seniors have been vaccinated — 73% have gotten at least one dose — this fourth wave is likely to be a lot less deadly than the previous ones.
Many states have also prioritized vaccinating people with underlying health conditions, which will also help constrain the increase in severe illness and death.

Yes, but: More coronavirus is always a bad outcome, and this fourth wave is a foreseeable, preventable failure that risks dragging out the pandemic and leaving more people at risk in the process.

The news comes days after Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ominously warned that she had a sense of “impending doom” watching the numbers increase.

“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared.”

Joe Biden has expressed similar concerns and asked state and local leaders to maintain or reinstate mask mandates to limit the spread of the virus. But many governors have ignored those warnings, instead deciding to move forward with relaxing restrictions.

Biden administration said, citing “a stark digital divide”.

“The last year made painfully clear the cost of these disparities, particularly for students who struggled to connect while learning remotely, compounding learning loss and social isolation for those students,” the administration wrote.

Biden’s $2tn plan addresses four major categories: transportation and utility grids, broadband systems, community care for seniors, and innovation research and development. The proposal would be paid for by permanently raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, according to sources cited by Politico.

The administration seeks to bring broadband to the 35% of rural Americans who lack access to internet at minimally acceptable speeds, calling it the “electricity of the 21st century” and comparing it to the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which sought to bring electricity to every home in the US.

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Joe Biden will hold his first full cabinet meeting at the White House today, a day after introducing his $2tn trillion infrastructure plan.

Delivering a speech on the plan yesterday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the president described his infrastructure proposal as “a once-in-a generation investment in America”.

“It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges,” Biden said. “Is it big? Yes. Is it bold? Yes. And we can get it done.”

Biden announces ‘once-in-a generation’ $2tn infrastructure investment plan – video

The White House has said the infrastructure plan will be a focus of today’s cabinet meeting, as Biden’s senior advisers prepare to pitch the proposal alongside him.

But it remains unclear whether the plan can get through Congress, where Democrats hold narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.

Biden said yesterday that he hoped to work with Republicans to get the legislation passed, but many of them have already expressed opposition to the idea of rolling back Trump-era tax cuts to help pay for the plan.

“The divisions of the moment shouldn’t stop us from doing the right thing for the future,” the president said in Pittsburgh. “We’ll have a good-faith negotiation with any Republican who wants to help get this done. But we have to get it done.”

The blog will have more updates and analysis of the cabinet meeting coming up, so stay tuned.

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US Navy: for first time in history four women of color command war ships

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Four US Navy officers have made history this week – and breaking new ground in a traditionally white and male-dominated field.

For the first time in US Navy history, four women of color are now commanding war ships at the same time, NBC News has reported.

The four officers, Kimberly Jones, LaDonna Simpson, Kristel O’Cañas, and Kathryn Wijnaldum, recently said that there have been dramatic changes for women serving in the Navy over the years.

The Navy “looks different in the fact that as an ensign, I looked around and at that time, there were not many senior female officers that I could necessarily go to for gender-specific questions,” Jones, who joined the Navy more than two decades ago, remarked in an interview clip obtained by People magazine.

“I may not have felt comfortable asking my male boss,” Jones also said. “Now, to their credit, they were phenomenal leaders. However, when it came time [for] some of those more intimate conversations on how to plan your career with a family, as a mom, that did not exist.”

She added: “And I was overseas, so the population was slightly smaller. And now walking this waterfront, there are leaders, there are role models, at every rank…That is something that I hope ensigns, young sailors, gravitate towards and take advantage of.”

These four women are all based at Norfolk Naval Station, in Virginia. They are all “Nuclear Surface Warfare Officers” – a qualification which is “extremely competitive” to obtain, according to the US Navy.

All four women “have spent a considerable amount of their time serving aboard nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and in nuclear-related shore duty billets,” the Navy noted.

Simpson said that while she was never discouraged from going after her career goals, she did not have many female role models.

“The Navy has been very supportive of my journey and my professional training. There weren’t any voices in the Navy that said that I could not achieve this goal,” Simpson said. “The only limitation was the fact that women as a whole hadn’t been on board combatant vessels until, I believe, it was 1994.”

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California shooting: four killed, including child, in office building in Orange

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Four people, including a child, have been killed and a fifth person injured in a shooting at a southern California office building, with the suspected shooter wounded by police.

It happened at around 5.30pm on Wednesday at a two-storey office building in Orange, south of Los Angeles.

Police Lt Jennifer Amat said shots were being fired when officers arrived and police shot the suspect, who was taken to the hospital in unknown condition.

Amat said the victims also included one person who was wounded. Other details were unclear, including a motive for the attack.

“Officers arrived as shots were being fired and located multiple victims at the scene including fatalities. An officer-involved shooting occurred,” said the Facebook post, which was filed shortly after 7 pm. “The situation has been stabilized and there is no threat to the public.”

The Fire Department handled six patients, with two taken to a hospital, dispatch supervisor Sam Ahumada told the Orange County Register.

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Georgia overhauls ‘citizen’s arrest’ law after Ahmaud Arbery killing

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Georgia lawmakers have approved a bill that would overhaul the state’s citizen’s arrest law, rolling back a Civil War-era statute one year after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Georgia the first state to move toward repealing a citizen’s arrest statute. Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was enacted in 1863 to allow white citizens to capture slaves fleeing north, and was later used to justify hundreds of lynchings, was cited by a prosecutor last year who initially declined to arrest Arbery’s assailants.

Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was jogging when he was chased and then gunned to death by three white men. His pursuers said they suspected him of robberies.

The bill approved on Wednesday would strike citizen’s arrest from state law, but would still allow security officers, private investigators, and off-duty officers to detain someone they believe has committed a crime. Kemp called the latter provisions a “critical balance”.

“I look forward to signing it into law as we continue to send a clear message that the Peach state will not tolerate sinister acts of vigilantism in our communities,” Kemp said in a statement.

Civil rights advocates have celebrated the bill’s passage, and are pushing for similar reforms in other states. All 50 states have some form of citizen’s arrest statute.

Republicans have sided with Democrats in support of the bill, but critics say state Republicans’ support for it serves to mask lawmakers’ recent moves to heavily restrict voting access and limit Black citizens’ ability to vote.

Carl Gilliard, a Democrat who had long lobbied for the 1863 law’s repeal, called it “outdated and antiquated”, saying it was steeped in racism.

The Rev James Woodall, state president of the Georgia NAACP, called the repeal of the law “a monumental moment in Georgia history.”

The father and son who pursued Arbery – Greg and Travis McMichael – were not arrested or charged until more than two months after Arbery’s death. The McMichaels have since been charged with murder. They remain jailed without bail.

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Biden announces ‘once-in-a generation’ $2tn infrastructure investment plan – video

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Joe Biden unveiled what he called a ‘once-in-a-generation’ investment in American infrastructure, promising the nation his $2tn plan would create the ‘strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world’. Biden’s proposal to the nation still struggling to overcome the coronavirus pandemic would rebuild 20,000 miles of roads and highways and repair the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country. Biden added other projects would confront the climate crisis, curb wealth inequality and strengthen US competitiveness

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Biden to propose infrastructure plan to create jobs and combat climate change – live

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The infrastructure plan that Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday is set to crystalize the US president’s vision of how to combat the climate crisis – hefty government intervention to retool America’s creaking systems, festooned with plenty of green, preferably union, jobs.

Biden opened his White House term with a cavalcade of executive actions to begin the gargantuan task of shifting the US to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the new $2tn package, known as the American jobs plan, is the first indication of the scale of spending that will be required to reshape day-to-day life in order to avert disastrous climate change.

As well as huge investments in crumbling roads and bridges, the Biden plan takes aim at the emissions created by transport, currently the country’s largest source of planet-heating gases. There’s $80bn for Amtrak and freight rail, $85bn for public transit, $174bn to promote electric vehicles through various incentives, the electrification of school buses and 500,000 new plug-in recharging stations within the next decade. The federal government’s vehicle fleet will also be electrified.

“There’s a lot to like in this plan, it’s excellent in almost every way,” said Julio Friedmann, who was a climate and energy adviser in Barack Obama’s administration and is now an energy researcher at Columbia University.

“This is a generational commitment and it can only be applauded. The $2tn is half the price tag of World War Two, it exceeds the scale of the New Deal, it’s wildly larger than the Marshall Plan – and appropriately so. This is the hardest thing we’ve ever done. People generally don’t understand how much construction and reduction is required.”

But even the administration’s allies concede further, longer-term spurs to remodel the economy and alter behavior will be required on top of this plan.

pic.twitter.com/luBzi2Wh7N

March 31, 2021

The president boarded Air Force One in the pouring rain moments ago, and he offered a salute at the top of the steps to the plane.

Biden is traveling to Pittsburgh with several senior advisers, including national climate adviser Gina McCarthy and principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Joe Biden will convene the first cabinet meeting of his presidency tomorrow, according to multiple reports.

The meeting will be focused on promoting Biden’s infrastructure package, which he is introducing in Pittsburgh today, and it will look quite different from cabinet meetings of the past.

The AP has the details:

To begin with, the full Cabinet won’t meet in the room that bears its name, instead assembling in the more spacious East Room to allow for social distancing. All attendees, including the president, will wear masks. Also, the afternoon meeting probably will not include the over-the-top tributes to the chief executive that came to define Cabinet meetings held by President Donald Trump.

The timing of the first meeting was deliberate: a week after the full Cabinet was confirmed and a day after Biden was poised to release his infrastructure plan in Pittsburgh, which will likely to dominate Washington through the summer and shape next year’s midterm elections.

Several of the cabinet secretaries have reportedly been briefing members of Congress on the details of the infrastructure package today.

The Wisconsin state supreme court has struck down governor Tony Evers’ statewide mask mandate designed to curb the spread of coronavirus.

More than a year into the pandemic, the US has not once managed to get the virus officially under control and, with variants and vaccines in a perilous “race”, Joe Biden is urging the public to remain vigilant and his public health experts are warning of the “impending doom” of another surge of infections if restrictions are relaxed.

Nevertheless, Republican leaders at state level are rushing to lift restrictions, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee among them and now Wisconsin, over the efforts of the Democratic governor.

The Associated Press reports:

The Wisconsin supreme court on has struck down governor Tony Evers’ statewide mask mandate, ruling that the Democrat exceeded his authority by unilaterally extending the mandate for months through multiple emergency orders.

The 4-3 ruling from the conservative-controlled court is the latest legal blow to attempts by Evers to control the coronavirus. It comes after Republicans in the Legislature voted to repeal the mask mandate in February, only to see Evers quickly re-issue it.

The court last May struck down Evers’ “safer at home” order, saying that his health secretary did not have the authority for such an order.

Evers’ attempts to limit capacity in bars, restaurants and other indoor places were also blocked by a state appeals court in October.

In the latest case, the court ruled that any public health emergency issued by Evers is valid for just 60 days and can’t be extended without legislative approval.

“The question in this case is not whether the governor acted wisely; it is whether he acted lawfully. We conclude he did not,” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the majority.

Evers spokeswoman Britt Cudaback didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a member of the court’s three-justice minority, lamented in a dissent that the ruling hampers the ability of governors in Wisconsin to protect lives.

“This is no run-of-the-mill case,” she wrote. “We are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that so far has claimed the lives of over a half million people in this country. And with the stakes so high, the majority not only arrives at erroneous conclusions, but it also obscures the consequence of its decision.

“Unfortunately, the ultimate consequence of the majority’s decision is that it places yet another roadblock to an effective governmental response to Covid-19.”

Here is a map from yesterday, that NBC created:

NBC News Graphics (@NBCNewsGraphics)

Several states, including Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Wyoming, and now Arkansas have dropped their mask mandates.

We’re keeping track of statewide orders: https://t.co/P5MiVG5cq0 pic.twitter.com/NdbX0oDqi6

March 31, 2021

Donald Trump just put out a statement criticizing Joe Biden’s forthcoming bold legislative plan for infrastructure redevelopment.

Not known for his subtlety or accuracy, 45’s statement continues (from previous post):

This legislation would be among the largest self-inflicted economic wounds in history.

If this monstrosity is allowed to pass, the result will be more Americans out of work, more families shattered, more factories abandoned, more industries wrecked, and more Main Streets boarded up and closed down—just like it was before I took over the presidency 4 years ago.

I then set record low unemployment, with 160 million people working.

This tax hike is a classic globalist betrayal by Joe Biden and his friends: the lobbyists will win, the special interests will win, China will win, the Washington politicians and government bureaucrats will win—but hardworking American families will lose.

Joe Biden’s cruel and heartless attack on the American Dream must never be allowed to become Federal law. Just like our southern border went from best to worst, and is now in shambles, our economy will be destroyed!

Yes, the former president finished with an exclamation point!

In yet another break with presidential tradition, and before Joe Biden has even formally presented his infrastructure plan this afternoon, the immediate past president has weighed in.

Donald Trump has put out a statement. Here is the first section of it:

Joe Biden’s radical plan to implement the largest tax hike in American history is a massive giveaway to China, and many other countries, that will send thousands of factories, millions of jobs, and trillions of dollars to these competitive Nations.

The Biden plan will crush American workers and decimate U.S. manufacturing, while giving special tax privileges to outsourcers, foreign and giant multinational corporations.

Biden promised to “build back better”—but the country he is building up, in particular, is China and other large segments of the world. Under the Biden Administration, America is once again losing the economic war with China—and Biden’s ludicrous multi-trillion dollar tax hike is a strategy for total economic surrender.

Sacrificing good paying American jobs is the last thing our citizens need as our country recovers from the effects of the Global Pandemic.

Biden’s policy would break the back of the American Worker with among the highest business tax rates in the developed world. Under Biden’s plan, if you create jobs in America, and hire American workers, you will pay MORE in taxes—but if you close down your factories in Ohio and Michigan, fire U.S. workers, and move all your production to Beijing and Shanghai, you will pay LESS. It is the exact OPPOSITE of putting America First—it is putting America LAST!

Companies that send American jobs to China should not be rewarded by Joe Biden’s Tax Bill, they should be punished so that they keep those jobs right here in America, where they belong.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden will deliver a speech on his infrastructure package in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this afternoon. The president has proposed spending $2tn to improve the country’s infrastructure, which the Biden administration has said will create jobs and help combat climate change.
  • Derek Chauvin’s trial continued in Minneapolis, where the former police officer is facing murder charges over the killing of George Floyd. The cashier who sold Floyd cigarettes shortly before his death testified that the man appeared to be “high” on drugs.
  • Two US Capitol Police officers are suing Donald Trump over his role in the January 6 insurrection. The two USCP officers, James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, accused the former president of inciting the deadly insurrection, which resulted in physical and emotional injuries for the officers.

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

The cashier who served George Floyd immediately before his arrest last May has described him as appearing to be “high” on drugs in testimony on the third day of Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

Christopher Martin, 19, said he noticed Floyd because “he was a big man” and that they had a long conversation about sport. He said that the 46 year-old Black man’s speech was laboured.

“It would appear that he was high,” he said.

Martin worked at Cup Foods in south Minneapolis, where Floyd is alleged to have tried to buy cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, which led to his detention by Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer at the time.

Floyd’s official autopsy showed that he had opioids and methamphetamine in his system when he died.

Chauvin’s defence contends that the officer’s use of force was reasonable because Floyd was under the influence of drugs at the time of his detention. Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lawyer, has also told the trial that the drugs contributed to Floyd’s death.

The prosecution acknowledges the use of drugs but has said that it neither justified Chauvin continuing to press his knee into Floyd’s neck as the prone man repeatedly said he cannot breathe nor was a cause of his death.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell signaled he is not likely to support Joe Biden’s infrastructure package, due to the tax provisions the president has proposed to pay for the legislation.

Speaking in Kentucky today, the Republican leader expressed severe skepticism about a bill that included “massive tax increases and trillions more added to the national debt,” per NBC News.

Julie Tsirkin (@JulieNBCNews)

McConnell in KY says President Biden called him about his infrastructure plan yesterday.

On whether he’ll support it: “It’s like a Trojan horse called infrastructure… If it’s going to have massive tax increases and trillions more added to the national debt, it’s not likely.”

March 31, 2021

Biden has proposed rolling back some of the tax cuts signed into law by Donald Trump to help cover the cost of the $2tn infrastructure package.

It should be noted that the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the tax cuts Trumps signed into law will add $1.9tn to deficits over the next 10 years, despite Republicans’ claims that the bill would pay for itself.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Texas’ highest criminal appeals court said Wednesday it would hear an appeal from a Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for voting while inadvertently ineligible in 2016.

The case has attracted national attention because of the severity of the sentence and the woman, Crystal Mason, said she did not know she was ineligible to vote at the time.

Mason was serving on supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal felony conviction at the time, and Texas prohibits people with felony convictions from voting until they have completed their sentences entirely.

Officials overseeing Mason’s supervised release testified at her trial that they never informed her she was ineligible to vote.

An appeals court in Fort Worth upheld Mason’s conviction last year, saying “the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution”. The Texas court of criminal appeals, the highest criminal appellate court in Texas, said Wednesday it would hear the case.

A reporter asked members of the White House coronavirus response team whether the Biden administration will soon alter its vaccine distribution strategy to focus on community demand rather than state population.

Andy Slavitt, a senior White House adviser, said the administration will “continue to watch where vaccines are needed”. He noted that the US is expected to have a surplus of vaccine doses in the coming months, but the country is not yet at that point.

Slavitt said the White House is committed to “making sure that we’re putting enough vaccines in all the places that they’re needed”.

It’s important to note that vaccine eligibility currently varies wildly across the country. Here in DC, only those 65 and older, as well as essential workers and those with qualifying health conditions, are eligible to receive a vaccine. But in states like Texas and Arizona, all adults are now eligible to make a vaccination appointment.

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Matt Gaetz claims ‘extortion’ amid reported investigation into relationship with teenage girl

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The prominent Republican congressman Matt Gaetz’s reported relationship with a 17-year-old girl remained under scrutiny on Wednesday, despite his insistence in an appearance on Fox News that the allegation was “verifiably false”.

The Florida politician, a close ally of Donald Trump, claimed during the Tuesday night interview that he was the victim of an extortion plot by a former justice department official, and questioned the motivation behind Tuesday’s original reporting by the New York Times.

Gaetz, 38, claimed his lawyers had been informed that he was the subject of an FBI inquiry “regarding sexual conduct with women” and that the official was attempting to extort $25m from his family “in exchange for a commitment that he could make this investigation go away”.

On Wednesday, David McGee, the former justice department employee named by Gaetz, now a lawyer in Pensacola, Florida, told the Washington Post that the politician’s claims of an extortion plot were “completely false”.

“This is a blatant attempt to distract from the fact he’s under investigation for sex trafficking of minors,” McGee, formerly an attorney in the department’s organized crime taskforce, said.

“I have no connection with that case at all, other than one of a thousand people who have heard the rumors.”

Meanwhile, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Gaetz’s appearance on his show “was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.”

“I don’t think that clarified much,” Carlson told his viewers. “But it certainly showed this is a deeply interesting story, and we will be following it. Don’t quite understand it, but we will bring you more when we find out.”

According to the New York Times, Gaetz was under investigation by the justice department to determine whether he violated federal sex trafficking laws and had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, and whether he paid her to travel with him.

The investigation was launched in the final months of the Trump administration under attorney general William Barr, the newspaper said, and was part of a broader investigation into a Republican party official and political ally in Florida, Joel Greenberg, indicted last summer on charges of sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people in exchange for sex, including at least one underage girl.

After the Times published its story, Gaetz, who was photographed visiting the Trump White House with Greenberg in 2019, took to Twitter to maintain his innocence and accuse the justice department official of attempting to smear his name. Gaetz said his family was cooperating with federal authorities investigating his extortion claims.

Adding to the intrigue was a story reported by Axios earlier on Tuesday, just hours before the Times published its allegations, that Gaetz told associates he was considering resigning his seat in Congress to take a job with the rightwing media outlet Newsmax.

An FBI spokesperson in Jacksonville, Florida, told the Guardian in a statement Wednesday that the agency “declines to confirm nor deny the existence or status of an investigation” and referred inquiries to the justice department.

The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Nearly 46m Americans would be unable to afford quality healthcare in an emergency

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An estimated 46 million Americans said they would be unable to afford quality healthcare if they needed it today, a new Gallup survey has found. The survey also found wide racial and economic disparities in who believes they can afford healthcare.

Nearly twice as many Black Americans as white Americans said they would not be able to pay for healthcare, at 29% versus 16% respectively. More than one in three low-income Americans, or 35%, said they were unable to pay for needed healthcare in the last 12 months during the Covid-19 pandemic.

One in eight Americans (12%) said they reduced food spending to pay for healthcare. Among people who earn less than $24,000 each year, one-quarter cut back on food to afford healthcare. Also among low-income households, 21% had to reduce spending on utilities to afford care.

“Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that millions of Americans can’t afford healthcare,” said Dr Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, a thinktank whose advocacy work has examined how high prices on insulin have led to rationing and even death among diabetics. “It is, however, shocking and kind of outrageous, but not surprising.”

“Our system has been structured for many years on the basis of private health plans and very deep dysfunction politically and within the medical industry,” said Saini.

The US spends more on healthcare than any nation in the world, and more than twice as much as the average high-income country. At the same time, it has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rates among 11 developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“The US has an uninsured problem and an underinsured problem,” said Sara Collins, vice-president for healthcare coverage and access at the Commonwealth Fund. “This just leaves people, even if they have health insurance, really exposed to costs.”

“If you have an unexpected trip to the emergency room, it’s very likely you’re not going to be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 bill,” she said. “We have … healthcare prices that are a lot higher than they are in other countries.”

Surveyors said the results show, even as the $1.9tn Covid-19 stimulus bill is expected to provide relief to many, Americans will face a growing unaffordability crisis. Further, many of the provisions in the relief bill are temporary, such as increased provisions to help Americans who lost their jobs afford private health insurance.

“Americans have been facing this mammoth problem. It was there during, and looks like it’s going to be after, the pandemic,” said Saini, about the report. “But it also shows … Americans want, and need I’d say, a radically better healthcare system.”

The survey, conducted by Gallup and a group of medical institutions called West Health, highlighted the enormous disparities in race and wealth that impact the likelihood people can afford healthcare. Surveyors spoke to 3,753 adults from all 50 US states.

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