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.

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.”

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.