US news

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

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Carl Gilliard, a Democrat who had long lobbied for the 1863 law’s repeal, called it “outdated and antiquated”, saying it was steeped in racism.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

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

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

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

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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Round in circles – America’s endless gun debate: inside the 2 April Guardian Weekly

A grim inevitability hangs over news of another American mass shooting. From the anguish of victims’ families to the intransigence of gun rights supporters, the sense prevails that nothing can, or will, ever change when it comes to US gun laws. It’s a reality writ large since the horrifying 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre, an event so shocking yet one that still failed to break opposition to gun law reform, despite the best efforts of the then-vice president Joe Biden.

Now Biden is in the Oval Office with a fresh mandate and a weakened pro-gun lobby before him. In the light of two recent mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado, Ed Pilkington traces the Groundhog Day nature of America’s gun reform debate. Then, Guardian US gun crime reporters Abené Clayton and Lois Beckett deliver a damning verdict on why everything about America’s national discourse on firearms reform is wrong.

In Britain, politicians of all stripes have long pressed the national flag into service to unite the nation, but its use as a stage prop or on official buildings is increasingly divisive. Tim Adams looks at the ironies of the UK government’s efforts to wrap itself in the flag at a time when Brexit has made the dissolution of the union more likely than ever.

As the Covid pandemic kicked in last year, Germany was held up as a model of civic adherence to lockdown restrictions – yet its insistence on propriety has now seen it fall behind in the mass vaccination drive. As tensions rise, Philip Oltermann reports on a moment of introspection for the EU’s powerhouse state.

While London’s centre remains becalmed by Covid restrictions, trouble is brewing in its suburbs. A radical, government-backed road closure scheme has sought to reclaim side streets for cyclists and pedestrians, shunting motor traffic back on to main arteries. With residents divided about the success of the low-traffic zones, Niamh McIntyre investigates whether they can bring about real change in urban transport habits – or if a raft of upcoming legal challenges will leave them by the wayside.

Finally, how many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a brand? In Culture, as Bob Dylan nears his 80th birthday, Neil Spencer reflects on how the pop poet from Minnesota bridged the gap between academia and pop, turning his musical career into a world-conquering industry.

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G Gordon Liddy, mastermind of Watergate burglary, dies aged 90

G Gordon Liddy, a mastermind of the Watergate burglary and a radio talkshow host after emerging from prison, died on Tuesday at age 90.

His son, Thomas Liddy, confirmed the death but did reveal the cause, other than to say it was not related to Covid-19.

Liddy, a former FBI agent and army veteran, was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping for his role in the Watergate burglary, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. He spent four years and four months in prison, including more than 100 days in solitary confinement.

“I’d do it again for my president,” he said years later.

Liddy was outspoken and controversial, both as a political operative under Nixon and as a radio personality. Liddy recommended assassinating political enemies, bombing a left-leaning thinktank and kidnapping war protesters. His White House colleagues ignored such suggestions.

One of his ventures – the break-in at Democratic headquarters at the Watergate building in June 1972 – was approved. The burglary went awry, which led to an investigation, a cover-up and Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Liddy also was convicted of conspiracy in the September 1971 burglary of the defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Ellsberg leaked the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers.

Liddy speaks at a rally for troops in Washington in 2003. Photograph: Lisa Nipp/AP

After his release, Liddy – with his piercing dark eyes, bushy moustache and shaved head – became a popular, provocative and controversial radio talkshow host. He also worked as a security consultant, writer and actor.

On air, he offered tips on how to kill federal firearms agents, rode around with car tags saying “H20GATE” (Watergate) and scorned people who cooperated with prosecutors.

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, George Gordon Battle Liddy was a frail boy who grew up in a neighborhood populated mostly by German Americans. From friends and a maid who was a German national, Liddy developed a curiosity about Adolf Hitler and was inspired by listening to Hitler’s radio speeches in the 1930s.

“If an entire nation could be changed, lifted out of weakness to extraordinary strength, so could one person,” Liddy wrote in Will, his autobiography.

Liddy decided it was critical to face his fears and overcome them. At age 11, he roasted a rat and ate it to overcome his fear of rats. “From now on, rats could fear me as they feared cats,” he wrote.

After serving a stint in the army, Liddy graduated from law school at Fordham University and then joined the FBI. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress from New York in 1968 and helped organize Nixon’s presidential campaign in the state.

When Nixon took office, Liddy was named a special assistant serving under the treasury secretary David M Kennedy. Liddy later moved to the White House, then to Nixon’s re-election campaign, where his official title was general counsel.

Liddy, right, appears on Good Morning America in 1980. Photograph: AP

Liddy was head of a team of Republican operatives known as “the plumbers”, whose mission was to find leakers of information embarrassing to the Nixon administration. Among Liddy’s specialties were gathering political intelligence and organizing activities to disrupt or discredit Nixon’s Democratic opponents.

While recruiting a woman to help carry out one of his schemes, Liddy tried to convince her that no one could force him to reveal her identity or anything else against his will. To convince her, Liddy held his hand over a flaming cigarette lighter. His hand was badly burned. The woman turned down the job.

Liddy became known for such offbeat suggestions as kidnapping war protest organizers and taking them to Mexico during the Republican national convention; assassinating the investigative journalist Jack Anderson; and firebombing the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning thinktank in Washington where classified documents leaked by Ellsberg were being stored.

Liddy and his fellow operative Howard Hunt, along with the five arrested at Watergate, were indicted on federal charges three months after the June 1972 break-in. Hunt and his recruits pleaded guilty in January 1973, and James McCord and Liddy were found guilty. Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974.

After the failed break-in attempt, Liddy recalled telling the White House counsel John Dean: “If someone wants to shoot me, just tell me what corner to stand on, and I’ll be there, OK?” Dean reportedly responded, “I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet, Gordon.”

Liddy claimed in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that Nixon was “insufficiently ruthless” and should have destroyed tape recordings of his conversations with top aides.

Liddy learned to market his reputation as a fearless, if sometimes overzealous, advocate of conservative causes. Liddy’s syndicated radio talkshow, broadcast from Virginia-based WJFK, was long one of the most popular in the country. He wrote bestselling books, acted in TV shows including Miami Vice, was a frequent guest lecturer on college campuses, started a private eye franchise and worked as a security consultant. For a time, he teamed on the lecture circuit with an unlikely partner, the 1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary.

Liddy always took pride in his role in Watergate. He once said: “I am proud of the fact that I am the guy who did not talk.”

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Teen who filmed killing tells court George Floyd was ‘begging for his life’

The woman who recorded the shocking video of Derek Floyd’s death that prompted mass protests for racial justice around the world has told the Derek Chauvin murder trial of her feelings of guilt at being unable to intervene to save his life.

Darnella Frazier, who at times sobbed as she gave evidence on the second day of Chauvin’s trial in Minneapolis, said that she still loses sleep over the killing of the 46 year-old Black man.

“I ended up apologising and apologising to George Floyd for not doing more,” she said.

But, Frazier added, it is not about what she should have done.

“It’s what he should have done,” she said in apparent reference to the Chauvin.

Frazier was 17 when she recorded the video as a bystander.

Chauvin, 45, who is white, has denied charges of second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter, over the death of Floyd last May. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge

Frazier’s more than nine-minute video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he lies prone on the ground outraged millions of people in the US and beyond in part because the now former Minneapolis police officer ignored increasingly desperate pleas from Floyd as he repeatedly said he could not breathe.

Prosecutors have presented Frazier’s video as compelling evidence of Chauvin’s guilt.

“You can believe your eyes, that it was homicide, it was murder,” one of the prosecutors, Jerry Blackwell, told the court in his opening statement on Monday.

Frazier, who is now 18, said she began recording the incident because Floyd looked “terrified and scared, begging for his life”.

She was so horrified by coming across the scene that she told her younger cousin to go into a food store so she would not have to see it, the court heard.

The prosecution used Frazier to reinforce the case they are building that Chauvin maliciously kept his knee on Floyd’s neck even when it was clear the detained man was not resisting arrest and was increasingly in danger.

Frazier said that despite the appeals from the crowd, Chauvin did not ease up as he pinned Floyd down.

“He had like, this cold look,” she said. “It seemed as if he didn’t care.”

At another point, Frazier said Chauvin reacted to appeals from the crowd by increasing the pressure on Floyd.

“If anything he was kneeling harder, like he was shoving his knee into his neck,” she said.

The prosecution’s questioning of witnesses through the second day sought to established that police officers did nothing to help Floyd despite his growing distress and struggle to breathe.

Prosecutors also sought to head off defence claims that Chauvin’s actions were influenced by threats to his and other officers safety from an increasingly alarmed crowd of bystanders.

Frazier denied defence claims that the police were threatened by the growing crowd. She said they wanted to intervene to help Floyd, who was in distress.

“Anytime anyone tried to get close, they [the police] were defensive,” she said.

Frazier said she felt threatened by the police officers, including Chauvin, who put their hands on the containers of mace spray that officers carry.

Genevieve Hansen, a Minneapolis firefighter with emergency medical training who was off duty and passing by, testified that the police would not let her give medical attention to Floyd.

“He wasn’t moving and he was cuffed. Three grown men putting their weight on was too much,” she said. “It didn’t take me long to realise that he had an altered state of consciousness.”

Hansen said her training told her that he needed immediate help.

“What I needed to know was whether he had a pulse anymore,” she told the court.

Hansen said she identified herself as a firefighter with medical training to one of the officers, Tou Thao, who was not restraining Floyd but was keeping onlookers at bay and in effect standing guard for Chauvin.

She said Thao responded that if she really was a firefighter she should know better than to get involved.

“I tried to be reasonable and then I tried to be assertive,” she said. “I pled and was desperate.”

Hansen said she felt helpless because there was a man being killed in front of her and she was denied the opportunity to help him.

Earlier in the day, another witness to Floyd’s death said that he called the emergency services during the incident because “I believed I witnessed a murder”.

Donald Williams, a mixed martial arts fighter, said he pleaded with Chauvin to stop what he termed a dangerous “blood choke” on Floyd.

“You could see that he was going through tremendous pain,” said Williams. “You could see his eyes go back in his head … You could see he was trying to gasp for air.”

Williams told the closely watched trial he was prevented from intervening to help Floyd by Thao who pushed him in the chest and back on to the curb.

Williams said he raised his voice in anger but did not otherwise intervene “for fear of myself and fear of people around me” from the officers.

As Floyd was taken away by ambulance, Williams called the 911 emergency number to report what he believed to be a crime – essentially calling the police on the police.

He can be heard repeatedly saying “murderers bro” on the call, audio of which was played in court.

On cross examination, defence lawyer Eric Nelson put it to Williams that he was increasingly angry and threatening as he taunted Chauvin by calling him “a bum” at least 13 times, “a bitch” and telling him that “within next two years you will shoot yourself”.

Williams denied he was letting his anger get the better of him.

Thao – and two other officers who were next to Chauvin and helping restrain Floyd – are scheduled to be tried together later this year on charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.

The trial continues.

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States lift mask mandates despite Biden’s warnings and rise in Covid cases – live

Rashida Kamal and Alvin Chang report:

The Guardian has visualized the proportion of vaccinated population in each state from data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The represented proportions reflect the overall state population. Children are not eligible to be vaccinated, though scientists believe they can spread Covid-19.

Read more:

reports:

Investigators are examining whether Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, the people said. A variety of federal statutes make it illegal to induce someone under 18 to travel over state lines to engage in sex in exchange for money or something of value. The Justice Department regularly prosecutes such cases, and offenders often receive severe sentences.

It was not clear how Mr. Gaetz met the girl, believed to be 17 at the time of encounters about two years ago that investigators are scrutinizing, according to two of the people.

The investigation was opened in the final months of the Trump administration under Attorney General William P. Barr, the two people said. Given Mr. Gaetz’s national profile, senior Justice Department officials in Washington — including some appointed by Mr. Trump — were notified of the investigation, the people said.

The three people said that the examination of Mr. Gaetz, 38, is part of a broader investigation into a political ally of his, a local official in Florida named Joel Greenberg, who was indicted last summer on an array of charges, including sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people in exchange for sex, at least one of whom was an underage girl.

Mr. Greenberg, who has since resigned his post as tax collector in Seminole County, north of Orlando, visited the White House with Mr. Gaetz in 2019, according to a photograph that Mr. Greenberg posted on Twitter.

No charges have been brought against Mr. Gaetz, and the extent of his criminal exposure is unclear.

Read more from the Times’ Michael S Schmidt and Katie Benner here.

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:

The trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin continued in Minneapolis. Witnesses who saw Chauvin keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes testified about the events of 25 May. Donald Williams told the court that he called 911 after seeing the violence because “I believed I witnessed a murder.”
The Republican governor of Arkansas announced he is lifting the statewide mask mandate. The announcement came a day after Joe Biden urged state and local leaders to maintain or reinstate mask orders, due to the country’s recent uptick in coronavirus cases. “I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” the president said yesterday. “Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down.”
Biden is set to outline his proposed infrastructure package in a speech in Pittsburgh tomorrow. The president is expected to call for spending more than $3 trillion to improve the nation’s infrastructure systems. Congressional committees are reportedly being briefed on the proposal today.
The US and the UK signed on to a statement criticizing the World Health Organization’s report on the origins of coronavirus. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that China had “not been transparent” with the WHO about the early days of its coronavirus outbreak. She urged the WHO to take further steps to better understand the origins of the virus.
Biden outlined a series of new actions to address the recent surge in anti-Asian violence across the US. The president said his administration will establish a coronavirus equity task force focused on ending xenophobia against Asian Americans and launch a justice department cross-agency initiative to address anti-Asian violence.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Several states are pointedly ignoring the latest coronavirus warnings and fears voiced by Joe Biden and the government’s public health experts, as they disagree with the White House and amongst themselves.

Earlier today, Arkansas announced it would lift its statewide mask mandate, which has been in place to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, despite the US president pleading with state and local leaders to maintain or reinstate mask mandates as US infections rise again.

But other moves are afoot. The Republican-controlled Arizona senate voted yesterday to rescind its mandatory mask policy, the Associated Press reported.

Alabama governor Kay Ivey intends for her state’s mask mandate to end on 9 April as planned, though she urged people to wear masks as a matter of personal responsibility.

“We have made progress, and we are moving towards personal responsibility and common sense, not endless government mandates,” said Gina Maiola, Ivey’s spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said he would appeal to his Republican counterpart in neighboring Tennessee, Governor Eric Holcomb, to reconsider his move to drop the Bluegrass state’s mask mandate.

“Kentuckians are going to be more at risk if Tennesseans are not under a mask mandate,” Beshear said.

Infections are currently rising in around 30 US states, compared with 20 states last week.

The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, announced today that he is lifting the statewide mask mandate.

Hutchinson said recent data on coronavirus case numbers in the state had led him to conclude that the mandate was no longer necessary.

“Please be respectful and mindful that while the mask mandate is lifted, many will continue to wear it and many businesses will continue to require it,” Hutchinson said at a press conference. “We need to honor those decisions.”

The Recount (@therecount)

President Biden yesterday: Masks, please.

Gov. Asa Hutchison (R-AR) today: pic.twitter.com/m20KMNVedE

March 30, 2021

The announcement comes one day after Joe Biden pleaded with state and local leaders to maintain or reinstate mask mandates, due to recent alarming trends in US coronavirus case numbers.

“I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” the president said. “Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down.”

The president echoed concerns shared by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hours earlier.

“I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” Dr Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing from the White House coronavirus response team.

“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.”

@PressSec says the @WHO COVID-19 origins report “doesn’t lead us to a closer understanding or greater knowledge than six months ago about the origins”, adding that China has “not been transparent, they have not provided underlying data” on the virus. pic.twitter.com/6KRK7112zn

March 30, 2021

She added that the WHO report “doesn’t lead us to any closer of an understanding or greater knowledge than we had six to nine months ago about the origin” of the virus.

Psaki urged the WHO to take further steps to better understand how coronavirus started spreading among humans in late 2019.

“There’s a second stage in this process that we believe should be led by international and independent experts,” Psaki said. “They should have unfettered access to data. They should be able to ask questions of people who are on the ground at this point in time, and that’s a step the WHO could take.”

The US and the UK have sharply criticised a World Health Organization report into the beginnings of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, implicitly accusing China of “withholding access to complete, original data and samples”.

The statement, also signed by 12 other countries including Australia and Canada, came hard on the heels of an admission on Tuesday by the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that the investigation was “not extensive enough” and experts had struggled to access raw information during their four-week visit to Wuhan in January.

Tedros also said there should be continued examination of the theory that the virus had escaped from a Wuhan institute of virology laboratory, even though the report deemed it “extremely unlikely” as a source of the pandemic – a theory promoted by some in the Trump administration.

The long-awaited report by experts appointed by the WHO and their Chinese counterparts said the global pandemic probably came to humans from animals.

The statement by the 14 countries, which criticised delays in the investigation, called for timely access for independent experts early in future pandemics, and once again underlined the highly contentious politics around the investigation during which WHO experts gained access to China after months of fraught negotiations.

@JoeBiden’s infrastructure bill.

From @JakeSherman and @bresreports

March 30, 2021

Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver a speech outlining his proposal tomorrow in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The White House has signaled it hopes the package will attract bipartisan support, but Democrats are also making plans to go it alone if Republicans oppose the bill, as is widely expected.

The prosecution’s questioning of witnesses through the second day of the Derek Chauvin murder trial has sought to establish several themes.

One is that police officers did nothing to help George Floyd, despite his growing distress and struggle to breathe as Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.

Prosecutors also sought to head off defence claims that Chauvin’s actions were influenced by threats to his and other officers’ safety from an increasingly alarmed crowd of bystanders.

A succession of witnesses described attempts to intervene, and admonitions from the crowd directed at Chauvin and other officers, as intended to help Floyd, not threaten the police.

The fourth witness of the day, a young woman who was identified on the public feed of the trial only by her first name, Alissa, because she was 17 at the time of Floyd’s death, told the court she started to film the incident because she was aware the situation was deteriorating.

“A lot of people looked in distress on the sidewalk. And George [Floyd] looked in distress,” she said. “He looked like he was fighting to breathe.”

Alissa said she appealed to Chauvin to stop when she saw the officer pushing his knee deeper into Floyd’s neck.

“His eyes were starting to roll to the back of his head and he had saliva coming out of his mouth,” she said.

Alissa testified about the content of the phone video she recorded as it was played back to her in bursts. At times the distress in the voice of members of the public can be heard as some demand that the police check Floyd’s pulse.

At one point in her testimony, Alissa paused because she was crying, and said it was difficult to talk about because of the emotional toll of what she witnessed.

“I felt like there wasn’t anything I could do as a bystander. I felt like I was failing him,” she said.

Senator Ben Cardin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate small business committee, applauded Joe Biden for signing the PPP Extension Act into law.

“PPP has supported millions of small businesses through the pandemic, and it is clear that the program must continue to be a lifeline for small businesses and nonprofits,” Cardin said in a statement.

“It is vital that we in Congress continue working in a bipartisan manner to fine-tune PPP in the weeks ahead to make the program more fair and equitable.”

The Paycheck Protection Program was created by the first coronavirus relief package to help small businesses that were forced to close their doors because of the pandemic.

The program has received some criticism for distributing funds to large companies, and the Biden administration has worked to get PPP money to small businesses.

Moments ago, Joe Biden signed a bill extending the deadline to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program, a small business loan program created by the first coronavirus relief package.

The bill also grants the Small Business Administration additional time to process PPP applications.

Biden signed the legislation in the Oval Office, as Vice-President Kamala Harris and SBA administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman looked on.

Joe Biden signs the PPP Extension Act of 2021 into law in the Oval Office. Photograph: Doug Mills/EPA

The president described the bill as “a bipartisan accomplishment,” noting that 90,000 businesses are waiting in line to receive PPP assistance.

He specifically thanked Senators Ben Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen, Marco Rubio and Susan Collins for championing the legislation.

The president did not answer any of the questions shouted by reporters as they were escorted out of the Oval Office.

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Antony Blinken says the US will ‘stand up for human rights everywhere’

The United States will speak out about human rights everywhere including in allies and at home, secretary of state Antony Blinken has vowed, turning a page from Donald Trump as he bemoaned deteriorations around the world.

Presenting the state department’s first human rights report under President Joe Biden, the new top US diplomat took some of his most pointed, yet still veiled, swipes at the approach of the Trump administration.

“Some have argued that it’s not worth it for the US to speak up forcefully for human rights – or that we should highlight abuse only in select countries, and only in a way that directly advances our national interests,” Blinken told reporters in clear reference to Trump’s approach.

“But those people miss the point. Standing up for human rights everywhere is in America’s interests,” he said.

“And the Biden-Harris administration will stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur, regardless of whether the perpetrators are adversaries or partners.”

Blinken ordered the return of assessments in the annual report on countries’ records on access to reproductive health, which were removed under the staunchly anti-abortion Trump administration.

Blinken also denounced a commission of his predecessor Mike Pompeo that aimed to redefine the US approach to human rights by giving preference to private property and religious freedom while downplaying reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

During Pompeo’s time in office, the state department was aggressive in opposing references to reproductive and gender rights in UN and other multilateral documents.

“There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said.

In another shift in tone from Trump, Blinken said the United States acknowledged its own challenges, including “systemic racism.”

“That’s what separates our democracy from autocracies: our ability and willingness to confront our own shortcomings out in the open, to pursue that more perfect union.”

Blinken voiced alarm over abuses around the world including in China, again speaking of “genocide” being committed against the Uighur community.

The report estimated that more than one million Uighurs and other members of mostly Muslim communities had been rounded up in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang and that another two million are subjected to re-education training each day.

“The trend lines on human rights continue to move in the wrong direction. We see evidence of that in every region of the world,” Blinken said.

He said the Biden administration was prioritising coordination with allies, pointing to recent joint efforts over Xinjiang, China’s clampdown in Hong Kong and Russia’s alleged poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny.

Blinken also voiced alarm over the Myanmar military’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, attacks on civilians in Syria and a campaign in Ethiopia’s Tigray that he has previously called ethnic cleansing.

The report, written in dry, factual language, did not spare longstanding US allies.

It pointed to allegations of unlawful killings and torture in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, quoting human rights groups that said Egypt is holding between 20,000 and 60,000 people chiefly due to their political beliefs.

Biden earlier declassified US intelligence that found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorised the gruesome killing of US-based writer Jamal Khashoggi.

While the human rights report remained intact under Trump, the previous administration argued that rights were of lesser importance than other concerns with allies such as Saudi Arabia – a major oil producer and purchaser of US weapons that backed Trump’s hawkish line against Iran, whose record was also heavily scrutinized in the report.

The latest report also detailed incidents in India under prime minister Narendra Modi, an increasingly close US ally.

It quoted non-governmental groups as pointing to the use in India of “torture, mistreatment and arbitrary detention to obtain forced or false confessions” and quoted journalists as assessing that “press freedom declined” including through physical harassment of journalists, pressure on owners and frivolous lawsuits.

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