Today's politics recap
-
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, announced she would allow the state’s indoor mask requirement to lapse tomorrow. Customers at most businesses in New York had previously been required to wear masks or show proof of coronavirus vaccination. “Given the declining cases, given declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to lift this, in effect tomorrow,” Hochul said this afternoon.
- The chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm applauded Hochul’s decision, which comes days after several other Democratic governors announced plans to relax mask requirements. “It’s time to give people their lives back,” Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney said. “With science as our guide, we’re ready to start getting back to normal.”
- However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency continues to “recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission”. According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the country has decreased in the past few weeks.
- The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has issued a subpoena to Peter Navarro, who served as Donald Trump’s top trade adviser. In its subpoena letter, the committee said it was seeking records and testimony in connection to reports that Navarro worked with Steve Bannon to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
- The National Archives is asking the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s handling of White House documents, according to the Washington Post. The news follows revelations that the Archives took possession of 15 boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago that should have been turned over to the agency at the end of Trump’s term, reigniting questions about whether his administration violated the Presidential Records Act.
– Joan E Greve
US-Canada bridge blockade risks huge economic damage, governments warn
Tracey Lindeman in Ottawa:
Blockades on the busiest border bridge between Canada and the US could have a serious impact on the economies of both countries, disrupting the automotive industry, agricultural exports, and causing multimillion-dollar losses, the two countries’ governments have said.
The warnings came as business associations said that manufacturing plants at the heart of North America’s automotive industry face potential shortages, shutdowns, layoffs as “freedom convoy” protesters continue to block traffic on the Ambassador Bridge, between the car-manufacturing cities of Detroit and Windsor.
“I think it’s important for everyone in Canada and the United States to understand what the potential impact of this blockage is on workers, on the supply chain,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on Wednesday.
Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada said: “If there were to be prolonged blockages at key entry points into Canada that could start to have a measurable impact on economic activity in Canada,” he said. “We’ve already got a strained global supply chain. We don’t need this.”
Late on Wednesday, Ford announced that it had been forced to close an engine plant in Windsor, and reduce hours at a second factory because of the blockade.
David Adams, president of auto industry group Global Automakers of Canada, told the Guardian that between 5,000 and 7,000 trucks use the Ambassador Bridge daily to deliver automotive parts. The bridge is responsible for 27% of all Canada-US trade.
“It’s a pivotal border crossing,” he said.
Vehicles are Canada’s second-largest export, with the US buying more than 90% of that supply.
Business associations warned that manufacturers in the region risk losing $50m a day because of delays.
Meanwhile hundreds of protesters remain encamped in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, and others blockaded a second international bridge in Alberta also remained.
Read more:
Updated
One in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military
One in five applicants to the white supremacist group Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former ties to the US military, according to leaked documents published and reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and alternative media collective Unicorn Riot.
Some 18 out of the 87 applicants, or 21%, said they were currently or previously affiliated with the military. One applicant, who claimed to be a former Marine, also said he currently worked for the Department of Homeland Security, according to the SPLC’s Hatewatch, a blog that tracks and exposes activities of American rightwing extremists.
A white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group, Patriot Front emerged as a rebrand of the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
According to the SPLC, the Patriot Front “represents one of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country” and is led by Thomas Rousseau, a 23-year old man based in Dallas, Texas. “A nation within a nation is our goal. Our people face complete annihilation as our culture and heritage are attacked from all sides,” Rousseau once said.
In January, Unicorn Riot published over 400 gigabytes of data that included “ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages [that] reveal a campaign to organize acts of hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism),” the journalist collective said.
Group members and applicants expressed an open admiration for Nazi ideologies, with the latter expressing various motivations for joining the group.
Read more:
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few days.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
-
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, announced she would allow the state’s indoor mask requirement to lapse tomorrow. Customers at most businesses in New York had previously been required to wear masks or show proof of coronavirus vaccination. “Given the declining cases, given declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to lift this, in effect tomorrow,” Hochul said this afternoon.
- The chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm applauded Hochul’s decision, which comes days after several other Democratic governors announced plans to relax mask requirements. “It’s time to give people their lives back,” Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney said. “With science as our guide, we’re ready to start getting back to normal.”
- However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency continues to “recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission”. According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the country has decreased in the past few weeks.
- The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has issued a subpoena to Peter Navarro, who served as Donald Trump’s top trade adviser. In its subpoena letter, the committee said it was seeking records and testimony in connection to reports that Navarro worked with Steve Bannon to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
- The National Archives is asking the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s handling of White House documents, according to the Washington Post. The news follows revelations that the Archives took possession of 15 boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago that should have been turned over to the agency at the end of Trump’s term, reigniting questions about whether his administration violated the Presidential Records Act.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
In its subpoena letter to Peter Navarro, the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection accuses the Trump adviser of working with Steve Bannon to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
In his book, Navarro refers to the plan to overturn the results of the election as “Green Bay Sweep,” and the former trade adviser has claimed that more than 100 members of Congress supported the idea.
“Because you have already discussed these and other relevant issues in your recently published book, in interviews with reporters, and, among other places, on a podcast, we look forward to discussing them with you, too,” the letter says.
Capitol attack committee subpoenas Trump trade adviser Navarro
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has issued a subpoena to Peter Navarro, who served as Donald Trump’s top trade adviser.
In a statement, the committee said it was seeking records and testimony from Navarro in connection to reports that he was involved in efforts to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
The Select Committee subpoenas former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro.
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) February 9, 2022
The committee is seeking records and testimony from Navarro, who, according to reporting, interviews, and his own book, was involved in efforts to delay election certification and change the results. pic.twitter.com/cUXdvcl2hP
The committee also noted that Navarro has talked about those efforts in his own book about the final year of Trump’s presidency, entitled “In Trump Time: My Journal of America’s Plague Year”.
“Mr. Navarro appears to have information directly relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation into the causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” said committee chair Bennie Thompson.
“He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans. More than 500 witnesses have provided information in our investigation, and we expect Mr. Navarro to do so as well.”
The White House also confirmed earlier today that Joe Biden will meet with Democratic members of the Senate judiciary committee tomorrow to discuss the search for a supreme court nominee.
“The President has also continued his conversations with Republicans this week, and he’s grateful to all of the members who are working with him in good faith during this process,” a White House official told the press pool.
There’s a long list of extraordinarily qualified Black women to serve on the Supreme Court. After 232 years and 115 justices, we’re finally going to put one on the bench.
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 9, 2022
The official added, “He is considering a wealth of candidates, all of whom possess the best qualifications that any person could – first-rate legal minds, strong credentials, records, and character. They have also all lived the American dream, have compelling life stories and unique strengths. And any of them would be deserving of bipartisan support because of their deep qualifications.”
Biden has pledged to nominate a Black woman to replace Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement two weeks ago. If Biden’s nominee is confirmed, she will become the first Black woman to sit on the US supreme court.
“There’s a long list of extraordinarily qualified Black women to serve on the Supreme Court,” Biden said on Twitter today. “After 232 years and 115 justices, we’re finally going to put one on the bench.”
Russia and Belarus will begin 10 days of joint military drills on Thursday, setting in train one of the most overtly threatening elements of the Kremlin’s buildup of forces around Ukraine’s borders.
Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian general staff, arrived in Belarus on Wednesday to oversee the drills.
Russia has moved up to 30,000 troops, two battalions of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and numerous fighter jets into Belarus for joint training exercises with the Belarusian army. Satellite imagery shows much of the hardware has been moved to locations close to the border with Ukraine.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reportedly told France’s Emmanuel Macron this week that the troops would leave Belarus when the exercises ended on 20 February. Even if that does happen, the drills show that Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, is a firm ally in Putin’s Ukraine policy.
Joe Biden spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron this morning, as the US and its allies continue their diplomatic efforts to deescalate tensions along Ukraine’s borders, where Vladimir Putin has deployed more than 100,000 Russian troops.
Macron traveled to Moscow and Kyiv earlier this week to hold meetings with Putin and Ukrainian officials and continue peace talks with the two countries.
“President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Emmanuel Macron of France. They discussed President Macron’s recent meetings in Russia and Ukraine,” the White House said in its readout.
“They also talked about ongoing diplomatic and deterrence efforts, undertaken in close coordination with our Allies and partners, in response to Russia’s continued military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.”
Despite those diplomatic efforts, Russia has continued to build up its troop presence along Ukraine’s borders, intensifying fears that the window of opportunity for a peaceful resolution to the crisis may be closing.
The Post also has additional details on the Trump White House records that were included in those 15 boxes of documents recovered by the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago:
Among the materials they recovered included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as ‘love letters,’ as well as a letter left for Trump by President Barack Obama, people familiar with the matter said. The Archives also retrieved a doctored map of Hurricane Dorian that had been altered with a black Sharpie by Trump in a failed attempt to show he hadn’t been wrong about the storm’s path, according to a person familiar with the contents of the boxes. The Archives in a statement earlier this week said that Trump representatives are ‘continuing to search’ for additional records.
Trump attracted widespread criticism in 2019, when he used a Sharpie to alter a map of Hurricane Dorian’s projected path in an effort to substantiate his incorrect claims that the storm could hit Alabama.
Archives asks Justice Department to investigate Trump's handling of records - report
The National Archives is reportedly asking the Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump’s handling of his White House records, following revelations that the former president withheld important documents from the agency.
The Washington Post reports:
The National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to examine Donald Trump’s handling of White House records, sparking discussions among federal law enforcement officials about whether they should investigate the former president for a possible crime, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The referral from the National Archives came amid recent revelations that officials recovered 15 boxes of materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence that weren’t handed back in to the government as they should have been, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up. Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified — and reached out to the Justice Department, the people familiar with the matter said.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed a wide swath of documents from the Trump White House, which has reinvigorated questions over the administration’s potential violations of the Presidential Records Act.
As of now, it is unclear whether the Department of Justice will actually launch an investigation into Trump’s handling of White House documents.
Joe Biden asked the CEOs of electric utilities about the community response as their companies come to rely more on clean-energy options, such as wind energy.
“Are you getting less resistance when you start talking about wind and windmills? I know they cause cancer,” Biden said. As some of the CEOs laughed at that comment, Biden added, “Bad joke.”
The president’s comment appeared to be a reference to Donald Trump’s bizarre and baseless claim that the noise emitted by wind turbines causes cancer, which was widely mocked.
Biden’s roundtable with the CEOs is still happening, but reporters were escorted out of the meeting after the president’s opening remarks. He did not take any questions as the reporters departed.
Updated
Biden meets with CEOs of electric utilities to discuss economic agenda
Joe Biden is now meeting with CEOs of electric utilities at the White House to discuss his economic agenda, as congressional Democrats try to pass their Build Back Better Act.
“You know, you have some of the most important jobs in America right now - keeping electricity systems running and running reliably,” the president told the CEOs.
Bide noted he has spent time in the past year touring parts of the country, particularly on the west coast, that have been devastated by wildfires, underscoring the urgent need to embrace clean energy options.
“It’s about building a clean energy future,” Biden said. “And we’re seeing incredible enthusiasm, support for the effort - not just from you all but around the country.”
Recent polling suggests voters are increasingly concerned about crime and rate Joe Biden poorly on his handling of it. Increasingly, Republicans and Democrats view the issue as a potential political liability for Biden and his party in November.
The administration has focused its efforts on combating illegal guns and prosecuting violent offenders, while the president has sought to balance support for law enforcement with his promise of police reform.
At her press conference on Wednesday, Val Demings was joined by a handful of moderate Democratic lawmakers and law enforcement officials on Wednesday to urge Congress to pass the Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods, which would establish a grant program to help police departments investigate and solve homicide and violent crime cases.
Demings said it was important to listen to the people in the communities most impacted by crime. The message she said she was hearing from them was: “We don’t want to defund the police, we want to fund the police. We don’t want to see less police, we want to see more police.”
Democrats clash on messaging over rise in violent crime
Florida congresswoman Val Demings, a Democrat and former Orlando Police Chief who is running for Senate, said the best way to combat a rise in violent crime was to fund, not “defund,” the police, distancing herself from an activist call that has divided Democrats and given political grist to Republicans.
“The number one priority has to be the reduction of violent crime,” she said at a press conference today, while adding that the country must also “get serious” about addressing the social ills that often exacerbate crime, like mental health, addiction and poverty.
Last week, Joe Biden sent a similar message during a visit to New York, which followed the murder of two NYPD officers and a spate of violent episodes across the city.
Demings’ press conference comes one day after Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush told Black journalists, according to Axios, that she would not stop calling for cities to “defund the police” by shifting funding for law enforcement toward violence prevention programs and social services.
Many frontline Democrats have blamed the “defund the police” slogan for Democratic losses in 2020, and they believe it will be a liability again in 2022.
On Wednesday, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, misleadingly, blamed the rise in violent crime on Democrats’ support for the racial justice movement.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is currently holding a briefing, and has commented on New York governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to lift the state’s indoor mask mandate despite federal public health guidance.
Asked about whether the White House is out of step in its messaging compared with the moves that Democratic governors such as Hochul have made this week, Psaki said it was clear that the US is “moving toward a time when Covid won’t disrupt our daily lives” and won’t be a “constant crisis” any more.
“We recognize people are tired of the pandemic and tired of wearing masks,” Psaki said. But she also pointed to comments made earlier today by the director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), Rochelle Wallensky, who underlined that the agency still recommends wearing masks indoors in areas of high transmission.
The CDC website states: “Everyone ages 2 years and older should properly wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public in areas of substantial or high community transmission, regardless of vaccination status.”
Psaki said nonetheless, the CDC also understands the need to be “flexible” and that its guidance was regularly reviewed.
Psaki on coronavirus: "Dr Walensky conveyed we certainly understand the need to be flexible... we recognise that people are tired of the pandemic."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) February 9, 2022
Updated
Illinois governor JB Pritzker has announced that the state will lift its indoor mask mandate by 28 February, though it will remain in place for schools for now.
The move comes shortly after New York governor Kathy Hochul made a similar announcement, days after other Democratic governors also eased mask requirements in their states.
“All of us are getting tired of wearing masks, that’s for sure,” Pritzker told reporters on Wednesday morning, the Chicago Tribune reported. “We have done such a good job, you have done such a good job of keeping each other safe.”
Though Covid-19 cases have been decreasing in the US in recent weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to recommend wearing masks in areas of “high and substantial transmission”.
Pritzker is expected to give a press conference on the matter shortly.
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
-
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, announced she would allow the state’s indoor mask requirement to lapse tomorrow. Customers at most businesses in New York had previously been required to wear masks or show proof of coronavirus vaccination. “Given the declining cases, given declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to lift this, in effect tomorrow,” Hochul said this afternoon.
- The chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm applauded Hochul’s decision, which comes days after several other Democratic governors announced plans to relax mask requirements. “It’s time to give people their lives back,” Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney said. “With science as our guide, we’re ready to start getting back to normal.”
- However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency continues to “recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission”. According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the country has decreased in the past few weeks.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Over at the White House pandemic response briefing, Dr Anthony Fauci was asked about the potential need for another round of coronavirus vaccine booster shots.
Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said that health experts would continue to track data on infections and hospitalizations of vaccinated individuals to get a better sense of if and when another booster shot is necessary.
Dr. Fauci: "There may be the need for yet again another boost, in this case a fourth dose..." pic.twitter.com/lfZqsmiEQ4
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 9, 2022
Fauci also emphasized that recommendations for more booster shots will likely be tailored to specific populations who may be at higher risk of becoming severely ill from coronavirus, such as the elderly.
“There may be the need for yet again another boost, in this case a fourth-dose boost, for an individual receiving the mRNA that could be based on age, as well as underlying conditions,” Fauci said.
“So I don’t think you’re going to be hearing, if you do, any kind of recommendations that will be across the board for everyone.”
Speaking in New York City, Governor Kathy Hochul said she was not yet relaxing the mask mandates for schools, even as she let the mask-or-vax requirement for most businesses lapse.
The Democratic governor said she would revisit the issue of mask requirements for schools next month, after students return from the winter break scheduled for late February.
“After the break, after we have kids tested, we’re going to make an assessment in the first week of March,” Hochul said.
Hochul announces New York will allow indoor mask policy to lapse
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, has officially announced that she will allow the state’s indoor mask requirement to lapse tomorrow.
Customers at indoor businesses had been required to wear masks or show proof of coronavirus vaccination, but Hochul said the time had come to lift that “emergency temporary measure”.
“At this time, we say that it is the right decision to lift this mandate for indoor businesses and let counties, cities and businesses to make their own decisions on what they want to do with respect to mask or the vaccination requirement,” Hochul said.
“Given the declining cases, given declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to lift this, in effect tomorrow.”
JUST IN: New York Gov. Hochul will lift state's mask mandate, allowing counties, cities and businesses to make their own decisions, "given the declining cases," and adds it will be effective starting tomorrow. https://t.co/K3sqpnS5y1 pic.twitter.com/JiKUjp04wG
— ABC News (@ABC) February 9, 2022
Several other Democratic governors have announced plans this week to relax mask requirements, and the governor of Illinois is expected to outline a similar policy today.
However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said moments ago that the agency continues to “recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission”.
According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the US has decreased in the past few weeks.
A reporter asked Dr Rochelle Walensky whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon offer guidance to governors about relaxing coronavirus-related restrictions.
“We are working on that guidance. We are working on following the trends for the moment,” Walensky said at the White House pandemic response briefing.
But Walensky added, “Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high, so as we work towards that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”
Several Democratic governors announced earlier this week that they would move to relax mask mandates for schools, and the governors of New York and Illinois are expected to announce similar plans today.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just said that the agency continues to recommend masking in “areas of high and substantial transmission”.
According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the US has decreased in the past few weeks.
Meanwhile, several Democratic governors are moving to relax coronavirus-related restrictions, with Kathy Hochul of New York expected to let her state’s indoor mask mandate expire tomorrow.
.@CDCDirector Walensky just now: "At this time, we continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission.”
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) February 9, 2022
Okay, well here's the current map of high and substantial spread. (Several Dem-led states are moving to relax mask mandates.) pic.twitter.com/FrtMIJnOMG
'We continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission,' CDC director says
The White House pandemic response team has been repeatedly asked about several Democratic governors moving to relax mask mandates in response to the recent decrease in coronavirus cases.
Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said the US is “moving toward a time when Covid won’t disrupt our daily lives,” and he emphasized the importance of using tools like vaccines to get to that point.
“We certainly understand the need and desire to be flexible, and we want to ensure the public health guidance that we’re providing meets the moment that we’re in,” said Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“But at this time, we continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission.”
Updated
CDC director emphasizes importance of data-driven pandemic policies
The White House pandemic response team is now holding a press briefing, and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided an update on trends in coronavirus cases and deaths.
Dr Rochelle Walensky noted that the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in the US is now about 247,000 per day, marking a 44% decrease from a week earlier.
But the CDC director added that deaths have increased slightly, by about 3%, compared to last week, and the US has now crossed the grim threshold of 900,000 total coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.
While several Democratic governors are moving to relax coronavirus-related restrictions, Walensky emphasized the importance of making data-driven decisions when it comes to pandemic response policies.
“I know there will come a time when we move from a phase of crisis to a point where Covid-19 is not disrupting our daily lives,” Walensky said.
“And as we all look forward to this next step, I want to instill in everyone that moving forward from this pandemic will be a process that’s led by our surveillance and our data. I’m confident that CDC and our public health partners are well positioned to lead the way.”
As several Democratic governors move to relax mask mandates because of the decrease in coronavirus cases, Republicans are accusing them of belatedly embracing a new approach to pandemic response.
“Keep in mind as you see blue states lift mask mandates and Democrats try to claim credit: The science on COVID hasn’t changed. The political science has,” Congressman Brad Wenstrup said on Twitter. “Remember: Republicans have fought to allow Americans to sensibly and methodically move past the pandemic. Democrats haven’t.
Wenstrup’s message was retweeted by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who has previously accused Joe Biden of failing to deliver “a realistic response to the virus”.
Of course, Republican governors have been criticized for refusing to enact policies, such as mask mandates in schools, that would have helped to limit the spread of the virus during past surges in cases.
Now that coronavirus cases are decreasing across the country, a growing number of Democratic governors seem more comfortable with relaxing some of the restrictions they put in place to respond to those surges.
The US postal service (USPS) is facing the mounting fury of the Biden administration, Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups over its plan to spend billions of dollars on a new fleet of gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks that critics say will upend a White House goal to slash planet-heating gases.
The USPS has outlined plans to spend $11.3bn on as many as 165,000 new delivery trucks over the next decade to refresh what is one of the largest civilian vehicle fleets in the world. The familiar boxy white trucks with red and blue stripes will be replaced by a new design that has been likened in appearance to a duck.
A full 90% of the fleet, however, will have traditional gas-powered engines, with just 10% being electric. While the new trucks will come with air conditioning, this means their fuel efficiency will be strikingly poor at just 8.2 miles per gallon (3.56 km per litre).
This is worse than all of the most popular gas-hungry trucks currently on sale in the US and is even less efficient than the original Hummer, a vehicle infamous for the vast amount of fuel it burned through.
“We were optimistic the postal service would listen to us about the benefits of an electric fleet, but it doubled down on its inexplicable preference for polluting trucks,” said Adrian Martinez, senior attorney at Earthjustice.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
The White House pandemic response team will soon hold a briefing, and its members will likely be asked about the push to ease mask requirements in several Democratic-led states.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden will participate in a roundtable with CEOs of electric utilities this afternoon to discuss his Build Back Better economic agenda. The secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm, is also expected to attend.
Both of those events are still coming up, so stay tuned.
'It’s time to give people their lives back,' DCCC chair says
Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm, has said it is “time to give people their lives back,” as the country’s number of coronavirus cases decreases.
“Democrats’ plan to fight COVID is working - cases are down & vaccines are widely available. Now, it’s time to give people their lives back,” the congressman said on Twitter. “With science as our guide, we’re ready to start getting back to normal.”
Democrats' plan to fight COVID is working - cases are down & vaccines are widely available. Now, it's time to give people their lives back.
— Sean Patrick Maloney (@RepSeanMaloney) February 9, 2022
With science as our guide, we're ready to start getting back to normal. https://t.co/ws1VCIIEy2
Maloney, whose district includes some of the northern suburbs of New York City, also applauded Joe Biden and New York Governor Kathy Hochul for their pandemic response policies.
“We are making tremendous progress thanks to their strong, science-based leadership,” Maloney said. “I fully support the decision to roll back mask mandates.”
Maloney’s tweet comes as Hochul is expected to let New York’s indoor mask mandate lapse tomorrow, as the state reports a sharp decrease in coronavirus cases.
Updated
The Guardian’s Peter Walker and Ian Sample report on the UK’s plans to relax coronavirus restrictions:
Boris Johnson plans to abolish the last Covid restrictions in England, including the requirement for people with the virus to self-isolate, in less than two weeks, a month earlier than initially proposed, he has announced.
In an opening statement to prime minister’s questions, Johnson said he hoped to do this as soon as the Commons returned from its upcoming recess, on 21 February.
“I can tell the house today that it is my intention to return on the first day after the half-term recess to present our strategy for living with Covid,” he said.
“Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
The plans to end all restrictions were announced by Johnson last month, when he unveiled the scrapping of so-called plan B measures such as mask use.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
While some Democratic governors push for easing coronavirus restrictions as number of coronavirus cases decreases, the Biden administration seems a bit more hesitant to do so.
Joe Biden met with a bipartisan group of governors at the White House last week, and one Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, said the president was pushed on the need to return to some sense of normal in the US.
“There’s a number of areas that we have full agreement on, and that is one: we need to move away from the pandemic,” Hutchinson said, per CNN. “And we asked the president to help give us clear guidelines on how we can return to a greater state of normality.”
But Biden sounded a more cautious note, telling the governors, “I think it’s all about making sure we have the same standards we’re applying across the board.”
It’s important to note that, while coronavirus cases have decreased in the past few weeks, the number of Americans dying from the virus remains alarmingly high.
As of Monday, the seven-day average of daily coronavirus deaths in the US was 2,404, according to the data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New York governor expected to let indoor mask mandate lapse
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, is expected to let her state’s indoor mask mandate lapse tomorrow, joining several other Democrat-led states that are easing restrictions as coronavirus cases decrease.
Earlier this week, the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon announced plans to lift mask requirements in schools, and JB Pritzker of Illinois is also expected to outline his offramp strategy for mask mandates later today.
“We are not going to manage Covid to zero,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said Monday. “We have to learn how to live with Covid as we move from a pandemic to an endemic phase of this virus.”
We are not going to manage COVID to zero. We have to learn how to live with COVID as we move from a pandemic to an endemic phase of this virus.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) February 7, 2022
The easing of restrictions comes as many states, particularly those that were hit early by the surge in cases causes by the Omicron variant, report lower numbers of infections.
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US is now averaging about 250,000 new cases a day. And while that is still high, it is a fraction compared to the 800,000 new cases a day that the country was seeing in mid-January.
Those declining numbers have given some governors, even those who may have been previously hesitant to relax restrictions, the confidence to start doing so.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
