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      Joe Biden announces first steps to curb ‘epidemic’ of US gun violence

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      Joe Biden, under pressure to act after a slew of mass shootings, has announced his first steps to curb the “epidemic” and “international embarrassment” of gun violence in America.The president has prioritised the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery during the first two and half months of his presidency. But a series of recent shooting tragedies in Georgia, Colorado and California led to renewed calls for urgent action on guns.Biden said he is directing the justice department to tighten regulations on sales of so-called “ghost guns”, which are untraceable firearms assembled from kits.Other executive actions include a state-level push of “red-flag laws” that allow courts and local law enforcement to remove guns from people deemed a risk to communities.On Thursday Biden was joined in the sunshine of the White House Rose Garden by Kamala Harris, the vice-president, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, as well as members of Congress steeped in the issue.“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic and it’s an international embarrassment,” said Biden, pointing out that on Wednesday five people were killed – including young children – in a shooting at a home near Rock Hill in South Carolina.About 316 people are shot every day in America and 106 of them die, he noted, “hitting Black and brown communities the hardest”. Gun violence is estimated to cost the nation $280bn a year, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. “This is an epidemic, for God’s sake, and it has to stop,” an emotional Biden said.The White House event included parents family members who have lost loved ones to the scourge. “They know what it’s like to bury a piece of their soul deep in the earth,” remarked Biden, who has endured his own measure of loss. “They understand that.”Seeking to break a Washington paralysis that confounded former president Barack Obama, even after horrific mass shootings, Biden said he was announcing immediate concrete actions that he can take now without Congress. Republicans have long resisted fundamental reform, citing the second amendment to the constitution that protects the right to bear arms.“Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the second amendment,” Biden insisted. “They’re phony arguments, suggesting that these are second amendment rights at stake, what we’re talking about. But no amendment to the constitution is absolute. You can’t shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded movie theatre and call it freedom of speech.”Biden said regulations on the purchase of “ghost guns” would be tightened. More than 30% of the illegal weapons confiscated in some areas of California are “ghost guns”, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.“You can go buy the kit,” said Biden. “They have no serial numbers so when they show up at a crime scene they can’t be traced, and the buyers aren’t required to pass background checks to buy the kit to make the gun.“Consequently, anyone from a criminal to a terrorist can buy this kit and in as little as 30 minutes put together a weapon. I want to see these kits treated as firearms under the gun control act which is going to require that the seller and manufacturers make the key parts with serial numbers and run background checks on the buyers when they walk in to buy the package.”The justice department is also publishing model legislation within 60 days that is intended to make it easier for states to adopt their own “red-flag” laws. Such laws allow for individuals to petition a court to allow police to confiscate weapons from a person deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.“Red-flag laws can stop mass shooters before they can act out their violent plan,” Biden said.The department will also issue, within 60 days, proposed rules that make clear that devices marketed as “stabilising braces”, effectively turning pistols into rifles, will be subject to the National Firearms Act, which requires the registration of firearms. Other measures include a justice department report on arms trafficking for the first time since 2000.In addition, the White House will provide more than $1bn in funding for evidence-based community intervention and prevention. And Biden nominated a gun control advocate, David Chipman, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.But many of his election campaign promises – such as banning assault weapons altogether and requiring background checks for most gun sales – require congressional action. He urged the Senate to pass bills to close loopholes that allow gun buyers to avoid background checks, and curb firearms access for people found by courts to be abusers.“They’ve offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, members of Congress, but they’ve passed not a single new federal law to reduce gun violence. Enough prayers. Time for some action.”Thursday’s executive actions were praised by gun violence prevention campaigners as a promising start. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Sense in America, told the MSNBC network: “We are thrilled about what happened today. This is a huge victory for the gun safety movement. We applaud President Biden for his strong leadership.”Brian Lemek, executive director of the Brady political action committee, which is focused on gun violence, added: “What couldn’t be more clear today is that elections matter. Joe Biden has been a gun-violence-prevention champion for decades and today he continues to be one … Now he needs a partner, and we urge Congress to come to the table and pass the bipartisan, common sense solutions that will keep our children and our families safe.”But the top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy, raised instant objections. “President Biden plans to announce his attempts to trample over our constitutional 2A rights by executive fiat,” McCarthy tweeted. “He is soft on crime, but infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens.”And the National Rifle Association vowed to fight Biden’s moves. Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman, said: “Biden has made clear his sights are set on restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners while ignoring criminals and foregoing substantive measures that will actually keep Americans safe.” More

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      Biden administration plans historic $5bn investment to combat gun violence in hard-hit areas

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      The Biden administration plans to invest $5bn toward gun violence prevention in the nation’s most hard-hit areas as part of a key infrastructure package announced this week.This investment marks an important step in acknowledging the disparate impact of gun violence and is the first time the government has set aside this much money at one time to address community violence holistically over a multi-year period.“Historically, the federal government’s approach, particularly when faced with surges in gun homicides, is to fund strategies that over-police,” said Paul Carillo, community violence initiative director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement. “The Biden administration demonstrated a commitment to addressing the root causes.”The proposal comes as America has witnessed a significant increase in gun violence during the pandemic. Los Angeles has recorded an 11-year high in homicides. Philadelphia is seeing one of the highest annual gun violence rates in half a century.Joe Biden has long been a firm advocate for gun control and has called for bans on assault weapons and universal background checks. He has reiterated his resolve after the first high-profile mass shootings of his tenure in the White House.But advocates have long called on the administration to address the less-acknowledged, but more prevalent, incidents of gun violence that plague city streets which are concentrated among Black and Latino communities.Biden’s $5bn proposal would work to create and scale up community-based violence prevention strategies. The money would be allotted over eight years and go toward employing street outreach workers, making violence prevention work sustainable, and giving organizations a steady stream of funds so they can lessen their reliance on competitive one-time grants.Funds earmarked for localities where shootings are surging are meant to help underserved communities rebound from pandemic-related losses and heal from the sustained spike in homicides. The money would also contribute to programs such as summer jobs and training opportunities for those most at risk of being affected by gun violence as a victim or would-be shooter, a White House administrator said.“It’s been a long time coming and we think this plan is a great signal that this work is finally being taken seriously,” said Dr Antonio Cediel, campaign manager for LIVE FREE, a national violence prevention organization.“This creates a whole new set of opportunities. We have to tackle gun violence where it is most concentrated,” Cediel added. “These strategies have track records and we know they work. It’s just a matter of scaling them up.”Cediel was one of 10 gun violence prevention advocates who met with Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, to call for the administration to take dramatic action and focus on the Black and Brown communities that face the highest levels of gun violence.Other advocacy groups, including March for our Lives and Amnesty International, have celebrated the announcement. A statement from Amnesty International USA read, “After years of inaction from the federal government on gun violence, President Biden’s plan to invest in our communities demonstrates hope that those most affected by this violence will receive help.” Everytown for Gun Safety applauded the plan, “This funding will save lives.”We applaud @POTUS for proposing $5B to support community violence prevention programs as part of the #AmericanJobsPlan.For decades, these Black-led organizations have reduced violence with these critically important programs—this funding will save lives. https://t.co/CcWcDMQc2T— Everytown (@Everytown) March 31, 2021
      Biden on Wednesday described his infrastructure plan as, “a once-in-a-generation investment in America”. Other proposals include expansive updates to the nation’s roads, water systems, and electrical grids, and – if it passes – could create an estimated 100,000 jobs, Biden said during the plan’s unveiling.“Our infrastructure is crumbling. These are among the highest value investments we can make. We can afford to make them. We can’t afford not to.” Biden said. More

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      NRA’s grassroots clout still formidable with Republicans despite legal setbacks

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      The once all-powerful National Rifle Association is mired in legal and financial woes but its 5 million members still exert hefty grassroots influence with most Republicans as a fresh gun control debate in Congress heats up, say gun experts and NRA veterans.The NRA’s grassroots clout – via the Internet, letters, phone and other tools – coupled with the influence wielded by millions of other gun owners, keep many Republican allies fighting almost reflexively against gun curbs, notwithstanding recent NRA problems including electoral setbacks, staff cuts, drops in member dues revenue and legal threats, according to analysts.Which means that even after two mass shootings in March in Atlanta, Georgia and Boulder, Colorado spurred the House to pass bills to ban assault weapons and require mandatory background checks on gun purchases, the outlook in the evenly divided Senate to pass these bills seems very slim – unless filibuster rules are changed, say analysts.Still, NRA and Republican sources say if a weaker background check bill than the House passed one is introduced it may have enough Republican support in the Senate to pass as a compromise measure.To be sure, the NRA’s political strength by some key measures is markedly less than in recent years.After giving Donald Trump a huge boost in 2016 with over $30m in ad spending to help him win the White House, the NRA had a much smaller presence in 2020 to Trump’s and the Republican party’s dismay. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA’s spending in 2020 fell to $29.4m from $54.4m in 2016.What’s more in 2018, gun control advocates were credited with helping the Democrats take back control of the House in 2018 as their spending for the first time edged the NRA’s spending. And in 2019, the NRA’s revenue from its members dues declined from 2018 when it was $170m to $113m.Nonetheless, the NRA’s grassroots muscle remains formidable and is working to block the House passed measures.“The NRA is in a weakened condition, and their very future is at stake,” said Robert Spitzer, a political science professor at SUNY Cortland and author of several books on guns, in an interview. “But the gun rights movement is deeply embedded in the GOP. Even though the NRA as an organization is seriously weakened, grassroots supporters are still out there, and are willing to act on the issue.”“For the GOP, support for gun rights from its gun base is pretty much on autopilot,” Spitzer added.Moreover, Spitzer noted that the Senate prospects for the two bills that passed the House seem dim. “The divisions between the two parties are sharper than in the past. Democrats are clearly behind strong gun laws, and Republicans are mostly opposed.”“The filibuster is the real stumbling block,” he added. “ We’ve seen this movie before.”Similarly, a former senior NRA official touted the group’s grassroots strength.“The grassroots of gun owners are still a political force with or without the NRA. Even though the NRA has had significant problems and continues too, they will raise more money” to fend off new gun curbs, if past experience holds.But the ex-official cautioned that “if they changed the filibuster rule, all bets are off”.Further, the NRA veteran noted that he thought a weaker background checks bill like one sponsored in previous sessions by Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Pat Toomey, a Republican, had a decent chance of getting enough Republican votes to pass the Senate if Democrats accepted it as a fallback option.Republican operative and lobbyist Charlie Black agreed that the less onerous bill like that previously backed by Manchin and Toomey has a good shot of getting through the Senate if Democratic leaders embraced it.But Black noted that the odds of the House’s mandatory checks bill passing the Senate are slim. “You’re not going to get the House bill through the Senate,” Black said in an interview.President Joe Biden has called on the Senate to pass the House measures which he called “common sense”, but at his first press conference last week gave mixed signals about how hard he will push for them.Just 10 days before the Boulder shooter killed 10 people, the NRA weighed in on Twitter and applauded a Colorado court ruling blocking a Boulder assault weapons ban enacted in 2018 which it had sought to overturn.However, the NRA and its leadership remain mired in legal and political battles to defeat the New York attorney general’s lawsuit that accused the nonprofit NRA, which has been chartered in the state for 150 years, of mismanagement and corruption.The lawsuit that attorney general Letitia James filed charges last summer that the NRA’s veteran chief executive Wayne LaPierre and a few other top NRA leaders looted the group costing it about $64m in just the three prior years.LaPierre was accused of self dealing by letting the NRA pay for millions of dollars of junkets with his wife and other family members to Europe, the Bahamas and other scenic spots.LaPierre and NRA lawyer William Brewer III have denounced the lawsuit as fueled by “political animus”, noting that James is a Democrat. And Brewer has said the NRA has taken steps to correct its financial problems including replacing some senior staffers. The NRA’s long-time top lobbyist Chris Cox, who had become a critic of LaPierre, was forced out in 2019.But the NRA’s 76 member board was mostly in the dark this January, when NRA leaders announced it was filing for bankruptcy in Texas where it hoped to incorporate, steps that two NRA veterans say were aimed at thwarting James’s probe.James has filed a motion seeking to halt the NRA’s bankruptcy move, and a bankruptcy judge in Texas is slated to hold a hearing on 5 April on the matter.On Sunday the NRA held an emergency board meeting in Dallas specifically to get the board to “retroactively” ratify the bankruptcy action before the 5 April hearing , say two NRA sources.Despite all the NRA’s legal and political maneuvering, Black sounds bullish that the House bills won’t get through the Senate.“The NRA’s grassroots is still active and powerful and influential with members of Congress,” he said. More

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      Biden pushed on immigration in press conference but provides no clear answers – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      California expands vaccine access to everyone 16 and older starting April 15

      3.56pm EDT
      15:56

      Biden says he expects US troops to leave Afghanistan by next year

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      Biden press conference summary

      2.07pm EDT
      14:07

      Biden says he plans to run for re-election in 2024

      1.29pm EDT
      13:29

      Biden announces goal of 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days

      12.30pm EDT
      12:30

      Today so far

      Live feed

      Show

      5.44pm EDT
      17:44

      The West Virginia house passed legislation today that would ban transgender students from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, part of a wave of Republican bills across the country that target trans children.
      The bill, which heads to the state’s senate, is one of more than 80 proposed bills so far this year that seek to restrict trans rights – most that would limit youth access to sports and block trans kids’ use of gender-affirming care.
      Arkansas is close to passing legislation that would outlaw affirming-care for youth and punish doctors who treat trans kids, despite the fact that major medical associations recommend this care as the best practice. That state bill would also prohibit health insurance from covering certain care for all trans people.
      Mississippi signed a sports ban bill this month, and the legislatures in Tennessee and Arkansas both sent similar proposals to their governors earlier this week.
      More reading here on how trans children became the target in the GOP’s culture wars:

      And more reading on the proposed healthcare bans:

      Updated
      at 5.52pm EDT

      5.12pm EDT
      17:12

      Hello – Sam Levin in Los Angeles, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day. My California colleagues Abené Clayton and Lois Beckett, who have been reporting on gun violence for years, have written about all the ways our current gun debate in America is wrong:

      Lois Beckett
      (@loisbeckett)
      Between us, @abene_writes and I have been covering gun violence in America for more than a decade. We wrote about why America’s current gun debate makes us so angry–and why this debate will never make us safer. https://t.co/6bePzC2nc4 pic.twitter.com/xyQp1kq2S4

      March 25, 2021

      The “solutions” offered today would do little to stem the daily death toll. The assault rifle bans and universal background checks reflexively supported by progressives will do little to decrease the bulk of shooting incidents: suicides and community violence. Approaches that have stronger evidence of saving lives, like intensive city-level support programs for the men and boys most at risk of being shot or becoming shooters, hospital-based violence intervention programs, or even more effective policing strategies, rarely get discussed on a national level. Even Democrats seem to prefer fighting a high-profile, losing battle with Republicans over gun control laws, rather than devoting time and focus to less partisan prevention efforts.

      More here:

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Sam Levin will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Joe Biden was grilled on his immigration policies during his first presidential press conference. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border arrival numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
      Biden pledged to administer 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial pledge of 100 million doses. The Biden administration hit that initial goal on Friday, weeks ahead of schedule, and the US has administered about 2.5 million vaccine doses a day over the past week. “I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we are doing,” Biden said. “I think we can do it.”
      Biden said he expected to run for re-election in 2024. “My plan is to run for re-election,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
      The president said he expected all US troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by next year. “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.” When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”
      The Boulder shooting suspect made his first appearance in court. The attorney of Ahmad Alissa requested a mental health assessment for her client, who will be held without bail as he faces 10 counts of first-degree murder.
      The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before the House for a hearing on online disinformation. The energy and commerce committee hearing marked the first time that the CEOs – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – have testified before Congress since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

      Sam will having more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.09pm EDT

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      California expands vaccine access to everyone 16 and older starting April 15

      All Californians aged 16 and older will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine starting 15 April, the state’s governor just announced.
      “With vaccine supply increasing and by expanding eligibility to more Californians, the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter,” Democrat Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
      “We remain focused on equity as we extend vaccine eligibility to those 50 and over starting April 1, and those 16 and older starting April 15. This is possible thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration and the countless public health officials across the state who have stepped up to get shots into arms.”

      Gavin Newsom
      (@GavinNewsom)
      NEW: CA is expanding eligibility for the #COVID19 vaccine.Beginning April 1, Californians 50+ will be able to sign up for an appointment.Beginning April 15, eligibility will be expanded to everyone 16 and older.The light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter.

      March 25, 2021

      Newsom said that he expected California to be administering more than 3 million vaccine doses a week in the second half of April.
      Newsom’s announcement comes on the heels of other states, including Georgia and North Carolina, announcing that coronavirus vaccines will soon be made available to all adult residents.
      Joe Biden said earlier this month that he expected all American adults to be eligible to receive a vaccine by 1 May. During his press conference today, the president set a goal of administering 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial promise of administering 100 million doses.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      4.24pm EDT
      16:24

      David Smith

      Has the fever in American politics finally broken? After a sickness that lasted four long years, it seems the patient is on the road to recovery.
      That was the impression of Joe Biden’s first presidential press conference on Thursday. For a start, there were no lies or insults or speculations about the medicinal benefits of bleach. Sometimes Biden was earnest, sometimes he was dull, sometimes he offered an avuncular chuckle. He was solid.
      But equally telling were the questions from 10 reporters in the White House press corps. No look-in for the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed half a million Americans. Not much about the fragile nature of democracy except for Republicans’ assault on voting rights – a phenomenon that predates Donald Trump.
      Instead the main focus at the hour-long event were hardy perennials about the US-Mexico border, the war in Afghanistan, relations with China, infrastructure, the next election and the filibuster, a Senate parliamentary procedure unlikely to excite the rest of the world.
      In short, it was another victory for Biden in his quest to snap American political life back to normal and create the perception that the Trump years were a nightmare from which America has awoken. He seeks to replace it with a group yawn. That is why cable news ratings and news site traffic have plummeted since January. That is why people in Washington speak of having weekends again instead of jumping at every presidential tweet.
      It is not that Biden has been idle. His $1.9tn coronavirus relief package was passed by Democrats in Congress without Republican support and is truly historic. But he has done without shouting from the rooftops or trying to dominate every news cycle.

      4.05pm EDT
      16:05

      The White House has formally withdrawn the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
      The White House’s statement comes three weeks after Joe Biden announced Tanden’s nomination would be withdrawn, due to bipartisan opposition in the Senate over her past controversial tweets.

      Joan Greve
      (@joanegreve)
      The White House makes it official: the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget has been withdrawn. pic.twitter.com/CjD8YExpgU

      March 25, 2021

      Biden has not yet announced whom he will nominate to lead the OMB in Tanden’s place, but many Democrats are pushing him to select Shalanda Young.
      Young was confirmed as deputy OMB director earlier this week, and she is now serving as acting director of the agency until a full-time replacement is confirmed.
      If she were nominated and confirmed, Young would be the first African American woman to serve as OMB director.

      Updated
      at 4.26pm EDT

      3.56pm EDT
      15:56

      Biden says he expects US troops to leave Afghanistan by next year

      During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden acknowledged it would be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, which was set by Donald Trump.
      “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.”
      When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”

      CNN
      (@CNN)
      President Biden says it will be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan https://t.co/uJ0J3QqO6h pic.twitter.com/Br3al3n89I

      March 25, 2021

      When Biden was vice-president, he said US troops would leave Afghanistan by 2014, as an AP reporter noted.
      Seven years later, that goal appears to finally be coming to fruition.

      James LaPorta
      (@JimLaPorta)
      President Biden as Vice President said in 2012 that we will leave Afghanistan in 2014. 7 years later, we’re still there. Maybe this is an area we should press for more answers? https://t.co/nYLdmFt9Tl pic.twitter.com/beWYO46tUM

      March 25, 2021

      3.31pm EDT
      15:31

      As Joe Biden held his first press conference as president, the House energy and commerce committee continued its hearing with the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter.
      The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

      After a number of hate crimes against Asian Americans in recent weeks, Democratic representative Doris Matsui of California has directly asked Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg what they are doing to address anti-Asian hate on platforms. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans, citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.
      ‘The issues we are discussing here are not abstract,’ she said. ‘They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.’
      She also cited a study that showed a substantial rise in hate speech the week after Donald Trump first used the term China flu in a tweet. Matsui suggested revisiting Section 230 protections.
      Dorsey said he will not ban the racist hashtags outright because ‘a lot of these hashtags contain counter speech’, or posts refuting the racism the hashtags initiated. Zuckerberg similarly said that hate speech policies at Facebook are ‘nuanced’ and that they have an obligation to protect free speech.

      For more updates and analysis from the hearing, follow Kari’s live blog:

      3.08pm EDT
      15:08

      Joe Biden sharply criticized Republican legislators attempting to pass voting restrictions after suffering losses in the November elections.
      “What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” Biden said during his press conference. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”

      CNN
      (@CNN)
      President Biden compares Republican efforts to restrict voting in many states to Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.”What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” he says. “It’s sick.” https://t.co/pMGX9DNjaT pic.twitter.com/zSjb779qZD

      March 25, 2021

      The president also made this confusing comment, comparing the Republican proposals to racial segregation laws: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”
      The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more details on Republicans’ efforts to curtail voting rights:

      Seizing on Donald Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans have launched a brazen attack on voting, part of an effort to entrench control over a rapidly changing electorate by changing the rules of democracy. As of mid-February, 253 bills were pending to restrict voting in 43 states. Many of those restrictions take direct aim at mail-in and early voting, the very policies that led to November’s record turnout.
      ‘The fragility of democracy has been exposed at levels that I think even white America was blind to,’ said [LaTosha] Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

      2.55pm EDT
      14:55

      During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden was repeatedly pressed on the situation at the border, where officials have reported an increase in the number of migrants attempting to enter the country.

      Good Morning America
      (@GMA)
      .@CeciliaVega asks Pres. Biden if it’s acceptable that Donna, TX Customs and Border facility is at 1556% capacity, filled with mostly minors: “We’re going to be moving 1,000 of those kids out quickly…that is totally unacceptable.” https://t.co/SAQIOCZmGm pic.twitter.com/Pz8T6ePI6L

      March 25, 2021

      An ABC News reporter noted one customs and border patrol facility holding unaccompanied migrant children is at 1556% capacity. She asked Biden if he considered that to be acceptable.
      “That’s a serious question, right? Is it acceptable to me? Come on,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re going to be moving 1,000 of those kids out quickly.”
      The president expressed sympathy with parents who felt their best option was to send children off on the treacherous journey to the US, and he argued that trend demonstrated the need to address the underlying issues fueling this increase in migration.

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      Biden press conference summary

      Joe Biden has just wrapped up his first press conference as president. Here’s what happened:

      Biden set a new goal of administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days as president. The announcement came a week after the White House announced it had already met Biden’s initial goal of administering 100 million doses over his first 100 days.
      The president said he planned to run for reelection in 2024. “My plan is to run for reelection,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
      Biden faced a number of questions about the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. At the end of his press conference, Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
      The president delivered some of his most critical comments yet on the Senate filibuster. Biden reiterated his proposal to reform the filibuster into a “talking filibuster” to discourage its widespread use. But the president then went a step further, telling reporters, “If we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about.” Biden also said he agreed with Barack Obama’s assessment that the filibuster is a relic of the Jim Crow era.
      Reporters did not ask a single question about the coronavirus pandemic. Commentators quickly criticized reporters’ oversight, given that the pandemic has already claimed more than 500,000 American lives.

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

      2.34pm EDT
      14:34

      Joe Biden concluded his press conference after about an hour, having taken questions from 10 reporters.
      The final question the president took had to do with the situation at the southern border. A Univision reporter noted that US customs and border patrol has not been notifying migrant children’s family members about their arrival to the US in a timely manner.
      Biden acknowledged that it will take time for his administration to improve communications and processes within the immigration system.
      “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better,” Biden said.
      Asked whether he would be able to work with Republicans on immigration reform, Biden said, “They have to posture for a while. They’ve just got to get it out of their system.”

      2.26pm EDT
      14:26

      Joe Biden was asked whether he would take executive action to address gun violence, after the recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder.
      “It’s all about timing,” the president said of potential executive orders.
      Biden then quickly pivoted to discussing infrastructure, saying that would be his next primary focus after signing the coronavirus relief bill.
      The president is scheduled to deliver remarks on his “Build Back Better” agenda in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next week.

      2.21pm EDT
      14:21

      Joe Biden was asked about the US-Chinese relationship, and he noted he plans to soon invite an “alliance of democracies” to Washington to discuss matters related to China.
      Biden said that Chinese President Xi Jinping “doesn’t have a democratic — with a small ‘d’ — bone in his body, but he’s a smart, smart guy.”
      The president pledged to continue to highlight human rights abuses in China “in an unrelenting way,” as long as they continue. More

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      Biden urges gun reform after Colorado shooting: 'Don't wait another minute'

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      After recording a year with the lowest level of public mass shootings in more than a decade, the US suffered its second such incident in less than a week on Monday night with a shooting at a Colorado grocery store that killed 10, including one police officer.Joe Biden addressed the shooting on Tuesday, calling for swift legislation to be passed, and once again lowering the White House flag to half-staff after he had called for it to be lowered after last week’s mass shooting in Atlanta.The president called on Congress to close the loopholes in the background checks system and to once again ban assault weapons. He specifically urged the Senate to pass the two background checks bills that the House approved earlier this month.“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps that will save lives in the future,” Biden said. “This is not and should not be a partisan issue. It is an American issue.”It is unclear whether the bills can make it through the evenly divided Senate, given Republicans’ general opposition to gun restrictions.Asked whether Biden was considering executive action to address gun violence, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the president was considering a number of options.“There’s an ongoing process, and I think we feel we have to work on multiple channels at the same time,” Psaki said.Gun safety advocates including Barack Obama also called for immediate action by Congress to address the resurgent national epidemic as the country emerges from a year of lockdowns and social distancing sparked by the coronavirus pandemics.In remarks at the White House, Biden called for a new ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and said the Senate “should immediately pass” legislation to close loopholes in the background checks system for the purchase of guns.The Republican minority in the Senate is highly likely to block any action on gun control. Nonetheless, senators on the Democratic side echoed Biden’s call to action.This is not and should not be a partisan issue. It is an American issue“This is the moment to make our stand. NOW,” tweeted Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, where a shooter killed 26 people at an elementary school in 2012.A male suspect was arrested at the scene, a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. He was named on Tuesday, as were the 10 victims.“This is a tragedy and a nightmare for Boulder county, and in response, we have cooperation and assistance from local, state and federal authorities,” said the Boulder county district attorney, Michael Dougherty.The Colorado attack brought the week’s death toll from mass public shootings to 18, after a gunman killed eight people at three Atlanta-area spas last Tuesday. Six of those victims were women of Asian descent, and that attack produced a national demand for reckoning with discrimination and violence directed at Asian Americans.While racist scapegoating by Donald Trump and others sparked thousands of attacks against Asian Americans during America’s pandemic year, 2020 was an unusually quiet one for mass public shootings, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.There were 10 such shootings in 2018 and nine in 2019, according to the database, which tracks public incidents in which at least four people died, not including the shooter.The US suffered only two such incidents in 2020 – both at the start of the year, before the spread of the coronavirus led to local economic and school shutdowns and related restrictions.Gun sales surged during the pandemic, leading to fears of a return of mass gun violence after coronavirus restrictions eased. Those fears appear to have been fulfilled already.“We have had a horrific year as a country, as a world,” Colorado’s state senate majority leader, Stephen Fenberg, a Democrat, told MSNBC. “It had finally started to feel like things are getting back to ‘normal’. And, unfortunately, we are reminded that that includes mass shootings.”The police officer killed in the Colorado store attack, Eric Talley, 51, the father of seven children, was the first to respond to reports of shots fired at the store, authorities said.The attack came just days after a judge blocked Boulder from enforcing a two-year-old ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in the city.“The court has determined that only Colorado state (or federal) law can prohibit the possession, sale and transfer of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines,” wrote the county judge, Andrew Hartman, according to the Denver Post.While no state is untouched by mass shootings, Colorado has had an especially difficult history of such incidents, beginning with an attack on students at a high school in Columbine in 1999 that killed 13. In Aurora in 2012, a gunman fired at a crowd watching a Batman movie, killing 12 and wounding 58.As previously scheduled, the Senate judiciary committee held a hearing Tuesday on “constitutional and common sense steps to reduce gun violence”. Gun safety legislation has failed to gain traction in Congress despite wide public agreement about certain safeguards such as universal background checks.“To save lives and end these senseless killings, we need more than thoughts and prayers – we need federal action on gun safety from the Senate, and we need it now,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “That work begins with this hearing, and we cannot rest until we pass background checks into law.”Murphy, who does not sit on that committee but who mounted a nearly 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in 2016 to advance gun safety legislation after 49 people died in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida, called on colleagues to finally address gun violence.Murphy invoked Monday’s shooting in Boulder, a mass shooting at a Florida high school in 2018 that killed 17 and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.“No more Newtowns. No more Parklands. No more Boulders,” he tweeted. “Now – we make our stand.” More

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      'We're making our way': how Virginia became the most progressive of the US’s southern states

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      Having lived in Virginia most of his life, Larry Sabato can remember racially segregated schools and systematic efforts to stop Black people voting. Now 68, he observes a state that has diversified, embraced liberal values and shifted from symbol of the old south to symbol of the new.“I have to admit, as a young man I would never have believed it was possible for Virginia to move in such a strong progressive direction,” said Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “I worked for candidates back then who were progressive. I used to joke, ‘If I work for you, you’re going to lose, you have to understand that’. And they always did.“Virginia has taught the country and the world that America can change, and sometimes can change rapidly, and in a very progressive direction.”Two dramatic examples came last month when the state general assembly voted to abolish the death penalty – an extraordinary reversal for a state that has executed more people than any other – and to make Virginia the first southern state to legalise marijuana for adult recreational use.These followed a flurry of measures that put the commonwealth, as it is known, in the vanguard on racial, social and economic issues in the American south. Last year it passed some of the strictest gun laws, loosest abortion restrictions and strongest protections for LGBTQ+ people in the region, as well as its highest minimum wage.Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 10 points in Virginia in 2020. Its two US senators are Democrats, its governor is a Democrat and last year Democrats took full control of the general assembly for the first time in a quarter of a century.Such a monopoly would once have been unthinkable. Sabato reflected: “It was almost a one-party Republican state.It was Barack Obama in 2008 that finally got hundreds of thousands of young people registered and voting“Virginia had been edging a little bit closer to the Democratic party because of population growth in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and even the Richmond area. But it was Barack Obama in 2008 that finally got hundreds of thousands of, not just minorities, but also young people registered and voting and we haven’t gone back since.“The Republican party has drifted further to the right. Instead of responding to the changes and bouncing back to the middle, they’ve decided to double down. They’ve lost every single election in this state from 2010 onwards.”Sabato was speaking from his office in Charlottesville, looking out on a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the third president who, like the first, George Washington, was a Virginian. Both founding fathers owned enslaved people on sprawling estates – Monticello and Mount Vernon – that have gone far in recent years to confront that legacy for tourists, historians and children.Virginia’s long and painful history would later include Confederate generals Robert E Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson fighting to preserve slavery and destroy the union. The state capital, Richmond, was the capital of the Confederacy. The south lost the civil war but Virginia remained a bastion of Jim Crow laws that maintained racial apartheid.By the 1990s, however, Virginia had elected the first African American governor in the US and political realignment was being fuelled by growing suburbs. The expansion of Washington spilled into northern Virginia, where voters are more likely to be immigrants, college educated and liberal. Other cities have expanded and diversified. The mayors of Richmond and Charlottesville are African American.Few changes are as totemic as the demise of capital punishment. Virginia had executed nearly 1,400 people since colonial days, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 1976, when the US supreme court reinstated the death penalty, it had carried out 113 executions, second only to Texas. But in voting to abolish it last month, Virginia’s general assembly noted that it is applied disproportionately to people of colour, the poor and the mentally ill.The march of progressive values is neither uniform nor irreversible. Virginia’s reforms have provoked resentment in rural areas. Tens of thousands of gun rights activists descended on Richmond last year to protest.A white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 was a stark reminder of the potential for backlash. Four years later, the statue of Lee at the centre of the protest still stands. Despite last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, a giant Lee monument in Richmond also remains intact.Juli Briskman, a district supervisor in Loudon county, northern Virginia, said: “You don’t have to drive very far to start seeing Trump flags and Confederate flags, and often you see them together. We still have the ‘Don’t tread on me’ licence plate. I’m trying to figure out how we can take that out of the system. So Virginia still has a little ways to go but I think as a ‘southern state’ it is really leading the way right now.I’m thankful that Virginians stuck with me“We’re the first state to pass the Voting Rights Act in the south and that is sitting on the governor’s desk right now. We’ve made a lot of strides in abortion access: last year the general assembly repealed a law that would have required women to get an ultrasound and have certain types of counselling before getting abortion care. We’ve passed a number of gun sense laws in ’20 and ’21, so we’re making our way.”‘He faced the storm’Perhaps no one personifies the often uncomfortable, but seemingly inexorable, transformation of Virginia more than Ralph Northam, the 61-year-old governor. Two years ago the Democrat was engulfed in scandal over a blackface image in his 1984 medical school yearbook. In one disastrous press conference, he seemed ready to accept a reporter’s challenge to perform Michael Jackson’s “moonwalk” dance until his wife interjected that these were “inappropriate circumstances”.Northam faced demands to resign but with his potential successor facing sexual assault allegations, managed to survive. He vowed to focus on racial equality and confronting his own white privilege. He has enthusiastically signed many of the progressive bills passed by the general assembly.Briskman, a Democrat who shot to fame by giving Trump’s motorcade the middle finger while cycling near his golf course, was among those who called for Northam to quit but now believes he has redeemed himself.“If he had resigned, we might not have gotten as much done,” she said. “It goes a long way toward reconciliation when somebody like Governor Northam can say he faced the storm and decided that he was going to turn it around and do something about it.”In an interview with the Guardian on Friday, Northam acknowledged the blackface incident had been a watershed moment.“That was a difficult time for Virginia and I’m thankful that Virginians stuck with me,” he said. “We had worked on a lot of equity issues prior to February 2019 but it really allowed me to travel around: I had listening tours and meetings and I learned so much from various people across Virginia.“The more I know, the more I can do, so we’ve really been able to put a stronger focus on equity and I made it clear to our administration, to our cabinet secretaries, that whether it be agriculture or education or health or whatever, we would address the inequities that continue to exist in our society today.”Then, in 2020, came the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and a nationwide uprising against racial injustice.“That was an awakening for a lot of people that look like me that hadn’t really ever thought through it in such detail,” Northam said. “So I kind of had a head start before that tragedy but I think it was an awakening. People said this just this is not right and we need to make changes.”Northam grew up in a conservative rural area and was in sixth grade when his school became racially integrated. When he got involved in politics, around 2006-07, he recalls, Virginia was still a red state but turning purple. The “blue wave” truly began with resistance to Trump’s election in November 2016, which prompted Northam to run for governor.“It’s diversity that really makes this country and, in our case, makes Virginia who we are,” he said. “We’re becoming more diverse every day and so we need to have our lights on and our doors open and make people feel welcome.In the smaller cities and in the country, it is quite conservative“We’ve really used that theme to support our base and also to draw more people to our party and supporting common sense policies. If you compare where we are today versus back in 2016, 2017, we’re essentially a blue state now.”‘Representation matters’Northam will soon return to work as a doctor, since state rules prevent him seeking a second consecutive term. Among the Democrats vying to succeed him in November are Terry McAuliffe, governor from 2014 to 2018, and two African American women: Jennifer Carroll Foy and Jennifer McClellan. Victory for either would be another historic breakthrough.Carroll Foy, 39, who became a member of the Virginia house of delegates in 2017, said: “I can’t speak about what happened in the past but what I can say is I know the man today, and the Ralph Northam today will go down as one of the most progressive governors that Virginia has ever had, delivering on the promises of getting us to expand Medicaid to 500,000 Virginians and helping to reform our criminal justice system.“I passed a bill to prohibit the use of chokeholds by law enforcement officers. We have just done such incredible things. I carried legalisation of marijuana for several years and now it’s passed in Virginia and that is under Governor Northam leading the charge and taking seriously his commitment to racial reconciliation.”Carroll Foy was one of the first African American women to graduate from Virginia Military Institute and is aware what message electing a woman of colour as Northam’s successor would send. “It is absolutely imperative for us to make good on what we’ve been saying,” she said. “Representation matters and for millions of little girls it’s hard to be what you can’t see. We are yet to have a Black woman lead this nation and we’re yet to have a Black woman lead in a state in this country and, while people have applauded Black women for delivering the White House and helping us win Congress, it’s not enough to thank us.“You also have to support us when we’re ready to lead, and we are ready. Now is our time. You don’t just need bills and pledges for Black women; we need them written by Black women. And I’m excited that as the next governor, I will be able to continue on the legacy that Governor Northam has started in addressing the inequities throughout all of our systems so we can ensure that Virginia’s future is better than its past.”John Edwin Mason, who moved to the state in the mid-1990s and teaches history at the University of Virginia, said: “It is a remarkable change. If you had told me that Virginia was going to legalise marijuana and outlaw the death penalty, I would have been very surprised in 1995 and probably would have told you that you had been drinking a little too much to think that that would be possible.“It was not simply a largely Republican state when it came to electoral politics, but it felt very conservative and it doesn’t quite feel that way on the whole now, although of course in the smaller cities and in the country, it is quite conservative.”Mason noted that Virginia Republicans seem to be embracing Trumpism, even after the state comprehensively rejected the president in 2020. Democrats hope other southern states will do likewise.Mason added: “I think that if you are an optimistic Democratic political operative, you’re probably saying that Virginia is the harbinger of things to come.“You would point to Georgia which just elected two Democratic senators in a very similar dynamic to the way that our two Democratic senators and Democratic governor have been elected in a state that is very split along regional lines. It is a big change and, of the states of the old confederacy, Virginia is by far the bluest.” More

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      Parkland survivors call for GOP extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation

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      Survivors of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, are asking congressional Republicans to publicly censure Marjorie Taylor Greene for suggesting the school shooting was a “false flag” and for harassing a teenage survivor on Capitol Hill in 2019, as well as calling for Greene’s resignation.Greene, the newly elected Georgia congresswoman who is known for her support of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, was filmed in March 2019 as she followed 18-year-old David Hogg, one of the students who survived the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school, outside Capitol Hill.In the clip from 25 March, Greene can be heard calling Hogg a “coward”, demanding that he explain how the students were able to set up meetings with so many lawmakers, and telling him that she herself was a gun owner. Greene tells Hogg that gun control will not work, and that his classmates would not have been killed if one of the law enforcement officers assigned to guard the school had “done his job”.She later addresses her viewers, echoing false yet frequently spread conspiracy claims that mass shooting survivors and family members of victims are “crisis actors” and the attacks that killed their loved ones were staged as a plot to pass gun control laws.“She hasn’t disowned any of it,” Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among the 17 students and staff killed in the shooting, told the Guardian on Wednesday. “She hasn’t said, ‘I was wrong.’ She hasn’t said, ‘I’m sorry to the families I’ve hurt.’ She hasn’t said, ‘I accept the truth around Parkland, Sandy Hook, and 9/11.’ She has let the lie live. That makes her incapable of serving as a representative in Congress.”Guttenberg said he had told Greene publicly via Twitter that he would be “more than happy to share proof with her” that his daughter’s murder was real, but that he received no response.Guttenberg called on the top Republican in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, to take a public stand against Greene. “McCarthy loses any ability to talk about integrity, about unity, about service to the country if he refuses to deal with this,” Guttenberg said.Hogg himself wrote to McCarthy on Twitter, arguing Greene “basically has threatened to kill” gun violence survivors, “trying to trigger our PTSD”. “In that video you see a group of people most of whom are 18 or 19 acting calm, cool and collected – what you don’t see are the sleepless nights, the flashbacks, the hyper-vigilance and deep pitch-black numbness so many of us feel living in a society where we are told our friends dying doesn’t matter, “ Hogg wrote.“Take her Committee assignments away,” Hogg pleaded. Greene’s committee assignments have not yet been announced, but the congresswoman has said she will sit on the education panel.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, protested on Thursday.“Assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook, when she mocked the killing of teenagers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas – what could they be thinking?” she said, referring to the 2012 elementary school shooting in Connecticut and the school at Parkland.The committee chair, Democrat Bobby Scott, said in a strongly worded statement that House Republicans must explain why they appointed Greene to the committee, after her documented history of promoting conspiracy theories.On Wednesday, the California representative Jimmy Gomez said he would be introducing a resolution to expel Greene from Congress.Hillary Clinton said she should be “on a a watch list”, not in Congress.March for Our Lives, the youth gun violence prevention advocacy group founded by students from Parkland, is collecting signatures on a petition calling for Greene to resign, with the message: “Conspiracy theorists have no place in Congress.”Greene in recent days has faced renewed scrutiny of her past social media comments, with CNN reporting that past posts indicated support for executing Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Responding to those revelations, McCarthy has said that he “planned to have a conversation” with Greene.Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.On the day of the incident, Hogg was on Capitol Hill along with other student activists to mark the anniversary of the 2018 March for Our Lives, delivering letters from constituents pushing senators to pass a law mandating criminal background checks on every gun sale. Greene was a rightwing commentator at the time.“I’m a gun owner, I’m an American citizen and I have nothing. But this guy with his George Soros funding and his major liberal funding has got everything. I want you to think about that,” Greene told her viewers.In reality, said Eve Levenson, one of the college students who helped organize the advocacy event, the advocacy event and the meetings with senators had been organized by college kids, including herself, from the floor of her dorm room.Another student activist who was present that day said Greene’s behavior had been “scary” and had left her shaken. Linnea Stanton, a college student and March for Our Lives activist from Wisconsin, recalled that Greene had first confronted the students as they delivered letters to lawmakers inside a Senate office building.“All of a sudden, this blonde woman was yelling, and someone was recording us with an iPhone,” Stanton said.After the students started chanting to get the Capitol police to intervene, Greene left, but she waited for the group outside the building, where she continued to harass and film them once they exited, Stanton said.Stanton said she had only learned on Wednesday that the woman who had harassed her group in 2019 was now an elected member of Congress. “It’s just kind of horrifying,” she said. “It’s bizarre to me that someone who can act like that towards another human being, much less towards a teenager who survived a mass shooting, is allowed to hold power.“I would love to see some accountability, or her acknowledging what she did, but it feels like wishful thinking,” Stanton added. “The last four years have showed time and again there will be no consequences.”Additional reporting by Amanda Holpuch in New York More