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14:57
Alexandra Villarreal reports for the Guardian:
As a brutal winter storm pummeled much of Texas, Cecilia Corral scoured social media posts written by fellow Austinites. From single mothers and their newborns, others in her city were freezing without heat or desperately needed food.
“Yesterday, I lost count the number of times that I cried from what I was seeing,” said Corral, co-founder and vice president of product at CareMessage, a nonprofit and patient engagement platform focused on medically underserved areas.
Millions of Texans found themselves cold and in the dark on Tuesday, unleashing suffering and death in a state that produces the most electricity in the nation by far, yet somehow lost control of its own power grid amid a harsh winter. Amid the catastrophe, photos of illuminated city skylines circulated on social media, sparking outrage, and revealing how socioeconomically disadvantaged families and people of color shouldered an outsized burden from officials’ bungled management.
“It’s not just today. It’s not just this emergency. It’s every emergency,” said Natasha Harper-Madison, the mayor pro-tem of Austin. “These are the kinds of disparities that we see on a normal basis all the time. They just happen to be amplified because of the emergency.”
14:40
Donald Trump’s name is no longer part of the skyline in Atlantic City, after the implosion of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino this morning.
NBC News (@NBCNews)
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino imploded in Atlantic City, NJ.
The former president has not owned the casino since 2009, when he relinquished it amid a series of bankruptcy filings. Trump Plaza permanently closed in 2014.
Trump’s two other casinos in Atlantic City, Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Marina Hotel Casino, have also closed, meaning the president’s name is nowhere to be found in the city.
Some were present to witness the implosion, with onlookers being charged $10 to watch the building’s demise from a parking lot.
Jennifer Owen, who paid $575 for a VIP viewing of the implosion, told the New York Times, “It’s an end of a not-so-great era.”
Updated
14:28
Sam Levin
Joe Biden laid out his plans for fighting the next stage of the coronavirus pandemic in a primetime town hall on Tuesday, pledging to make 600m doses of the Covid-19 vaccine available by the end of July, saying teachers should be moved “up the hierarchy” of the vaccine queue, and predicting most elementary schools would reopen by the end of his first 100 days in office.
Seeking to move beyond his predecessor’s impeachment trial and reassure the American people that more aid was on the way, Biden addressed a small crowd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After landing on a slick, snow-covered tarmac in below-freezing weather, he took questions from a small audience of Democrats, Republicans and independents invited for a small, socially distant gathering at the historic Pabst Theater.
The event began with the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who hosted the event, asking when ordinary Americans could expect to receive the vaccine, to which Biden replied: “By the end of July we will have 600m doses, enough to vaccinate every single American.”
“Do you mean they will be available, or that people will have been able to actually get them?” Cooper asked, briefly referencing Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, who had said earlier in the day that it may “take until June, July and August to finally get everyone vaccinated”.
Biden said he meant they would “be available” by the end of July.
Asked later by Cooper when life would “get back to normal”, Biden offered a tentative but hopeful assessment. “By next Christmas, we’ll be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today.”
14:23
Biden and Harris call for teachers to be prioritized for vaccine
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris are both calling for teachers to be prioritized for the coronavirus vaccine, as the global pandemic approaches the one-year mark.
Speaking at a CNN town hall in Wisconsin last night, Biden said of vaccinating teachers, “We should move them up in the hierarchy.”
Harris echoed that message this morning, telling the “Today” show, “They should be able to teach in a safe place and expand the minds and the opportunities of our children, so teachers should be a priority along with other frontline workers.”
TODAY (@TODAYshow)
“Teachers should be a priority.” –@VP when asked if it’s safe for teachers to go back to school even if they’re not vaccinated pic.twitter.com/mdX7xaLxkr
The comments come as some teachers’ unions have clashed with their local leaders about sending educators back to the classroom before they are all vaccinated.
A number of health experts, including the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have suggested that vaccinating all teachers is not necessary to safely reopen schools, but teachers’ unions have expressed concern that their members are being put in harm’s way.
With so millions of kids still out of school and many American families stretched to the breaking point, it seems there are only imperfect solutions to this vast problem.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Hafta Ichi
Source: The Guardian
Keyword: Biden and Harris call for teachers to be vaccine priority – US politics live | US news
