Name: Biden calls on Congress to pass assault weapons ban after Boulder shooting – as it happened
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Biden calls on Congress to pass assault weapons ban after Boulder shooting – as it happened

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This article is more than 1 year oldThis article is more than 1 year oldPresident also urges Senate to pass bills to close background checks loopholes– Joan E Greve and Maanvi SinghAmericans can now sign up for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until 15 August. The window to sign up for insurance through the program normally closes on 15 February, but the Department of Health and Human Services has initially moved the deadline to May, before extending it to the summer. The extension will give Americans who lost health coverage during the pandemic more time to sign up, and allow more Americans to take advantage of new federal subsidies to reduce insurance premiums granted via the coronavirus relief package. “The Biden Administration is giving the American people the chance they need to find an affordable health care plan that works for them,” said HHS secretary Xavier Becerra. Asked about the push from senators Tammy Duckworth and Mazie Hirono for to appoint more AAPI to his administration, and the senators’ pledge to vote against Biden nominees until the president pays heed, Biden dodged: “We have the most diverse cabinet in history. We have a lot of Asian Americans that are in the cabinet and in sub-cabinet levels,” he said, according to the White House press pool reports. Both senators said they’d oppose non-diverse nominees until Biden addresses the lack of AAPI representation in the cabinet. reports: An city has become the first in America to embark upon a reparations program for its Black residents after its local council approved the implementation of its first such initiative to tackle the legacy of slavery.Late on Monday night aldermen in Evanston – a suburban community in – voted to approve the Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program, a $400,000 housing grant programDesigned to address the inequality gap and ongoing impact of slavery on African Americans in the city, Evanston’s reparations program will be funded with sales taxes on recreational marijuana. Under this plan, up to $10m of the sales tax would go towards reparations over the next decade.Spearheaded by alderman Rue Simmons, the program was developed alongside the city’s equity and empowerment commission in 2019. It is believed to be the first reparation program with guaranteed funding.The housing grant will award eligible residents up to $25,000, which can be used for a “home down payment or closing cost assistance within the city; [to] help pay for repairs, improvements or modernizations of an Evanston property; or [to] help pay down mortgage principal, interest or late penalties on Evanston property,” according to a memo obtained by .The memo said applicants must have “origins in any of the Black racial and ethnic groups of Africa” and have been a resident or direct descendant of a resident of Evanston between 1919-1969. The newspaper notes that applicants who have experienced housing discrimination as a result of the city’s policies after 1969 are also eligible.Simmons told last year that the initiative represents the “hope that we will have a fair opportunity to live to our highest and best potential, and enjoy the same livability as the average white resident in Evanston”.“It means that there is an opportunity coming for us to bridge the gap of discrimination that has and continues to keep black residents oppressed,” she continued.Read more: reports: Following the shooting in a Boulder, , grocery store on Monday, leaving 10 dead including a police officer, the community of this liberal mountain town are in a state of shock and disbelief, experiencing the all-too-common identity crisis experienced by so many American cities in the wake of a mass shooting.“I’ve called this community home for most of my life, and I’ve shopped at that King Soopers many times,” Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, said Tuesday morning during a press conference.“Boulder is a small community, and we’re all looking at the list wondering if we know people. These were folks who started their day with a morning paper, cup of coffee, perhaps getting their kids ready, maybe making last minute spring break plans, none of them expected that this would be their last day here, on the planet. A simple run for milk and eggs led to a complete tragedy.”Both nationally and in Colorado, Boulder has a reputation for being a progressive utopia, characterized by hippie communes of the 1970s and 80s, the Allen Ginsberg-founded Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and ground-zero for the ultramarathon running world. Those who live there often speak of the “Boulder bubble”, as though it’s a world free of the social ailments that plague the rest of the nation.“Many of the shootings across the country have been in places people would like to think are safe, but when these tragedies hit close to home it threatens your feeling of safety,” said Jamie Beachy, directory of the Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy at Naropa University, in Boulder. “For some people, this will be very destabilizing for some time to come. We don’t live in a safe world when it comes to gun violence, and Boulder is not set apart from that.”Read more: Republicans have gotten increasingly irate over some Democrats’ suggestion that they eliminate the filibuster in order to get gun control measures and other progressive legislation passed. Earlier today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said the filibuster, which has a long history of being used by segregationists to block civil rights and anti-lynching legislation, had “no racial history at all. None. There’s no dispute among historians.”As my colleague and fellow live blogger Joan E Greve in a recent story: The modern-day Senate filibuster came into existence in the early 20th century, and it was later embraced by segregationists to prevent the passage of civil rights legislation.“When the founders conceived of the Senate, they did imagine for it to be different from the House. It’s not clear that they imagined for it to have a supermajority requirement,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “If they wanted it to have a supermajority requirement, they could have put one into place.”While eliminating the filibuster was previously rejected out of hand by Democratic leadership, some of the most prominent members of the party have come to champion the idea. Speaking at the funeral of the civil rights icon John Lewis last July, Barack Obama emphasized the need to strengthen voting rights, saying, “And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster, , in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.”Earlier, while he was touring the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Biden was asked if he thinks he has the political capital to get gun control measures passed through the Senate. “I hope so,” he said, his fingers crossed per the White House press pool report. Passing gun control measures had been a major campaign talking point for Biden, but until now – the administration hadn’t made it a major focus, choosing to tackle immigration and the pandemic response first. In the Senate, Republicans made clear that gun control legislation wouldn’t have their support. With the chamber divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, any measure would fail as it runs up against the 60 vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. Agreements against gun control included the following, from senator John Kennedy: It’s... pretty hard to get a driver’s license, than getting a gun. Getting vaccinated and following public health guidelines are patriotic duties, Biden said. “We need all Americans to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced, wearing their masks,” he said. “Get vaccinated, when it’s your turn. It’s a patriotic responsibility.“After a long dark year, we can show once again, that we are the United States of America, that there’s nothing we have cannot do if we do it together,” he said. The president is promoting his administration’s coronavirus rescue plan at a hospital in Columbus, on the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) being signed into law.The administration also announced today that Americans can now sign up for insurance through the ACA until 15 August. The Biden admin had already extended the enrollment period until 15 May, so that the millions of Americans who’d lost employer-provided health insurance coverage could still get coverage. The coronavirus relief package that Biden signed into law this month also expanded insurance subsidies for people who earn between 100 and 400% of the poverty level. “Millions of families will be able to sleep a little more soundly at night, because they don’t have to worry about losing everything if they get sick,” Biden said in Ohio. “A few clicks, and a short conversation that’s all it takes to start seeing these benefits, increased coverage and lower premiums.” All Georgia residents, 16 and older, will be eligible for Covid-19 vaccines starting this Thursday. The state’s governor Brian Kemp announced the news just two weeks after the state expanded vaccine eligibility to cover everyone aged 55 and older. Georgia will join only a handful of states, including Texas, Alaska and Mississippi, that have expanded vaccine access to the general adult population. About 11% of Georgia’s population has been fully vaccinated, and more than 19% have received at least one dose. In Colorado, where residents remember a long history of mass shootings, the Boulder shooting has been traumatizing, said Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser. “Columbine is still feeling the effects,” said Weiser on CNN, referring to the 1999 high school massacre that killed 15. Supervisors and family of the shooting have been “retraumatized based on what happened yesterday – because that’s how trauma works,” he added. “Colorado is suffering.” As historian Kathleen Belew noted, the suspect in the Boulder shootings was born days before Columbine. “That’s how long we’ve failed to take action,” Belew said. That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.Here’s where the day stands so far:Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

This article is more than 1 year oldThis article is more than 1 year oldPresident also urges Senate to pass bills to close background checks loopholes– Joan E Greve and Maanvi SinghAmericans can now sign up for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until 15 August. The window to sign up for insurance through the program normally closes on 15 February, but the Department of Health and Human Services has initially moved the deadline to May, before extending it to the summer. The extension will give Americans who lost health coverage during the pandemic more time to sign...

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Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of state marks a sharp break with the Trump administration. The former deputy secretary of state is a committed internationalist, who spent some of his childhood in Paris and is fluent in French. He views US engagement with the world, and particularly Europe, as vital. He was a member of Bill Clinton’s White House staff in the 1990s and served under President Barack Obama. In 2019 he expressed strong opinions about Brexit, saying: “This is not just the dog that caught the car, this is the dog that caught the car and the car goes into reverse and runs over the dog. It’s a total mess.”  Janet Yellen – treasury secretary  Janet Yellen Janet Yellen. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP The 74-year-old economist was the first woman to chair the US Federal Reserve, and looks set to achieve another first: becoming the country’s first female treasury secretary. Professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, a former assistant professor at Harvard and a lecturer at the London School of Economics, Yellen is an expert in labour markets and has highlighted the economic impact of uneven growth in the jobs market. Donald Trump declined to reappoint her after his election, making her the first central bank chief not to serve two terms since the Carter administration.  Alejandro Mayorkas – secretary of homeland security  Alejandro Mayorkas Alejandro Mayorkas. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters Described by the former Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro as “a historic and experienced choice to lead an agency in desperate need of reform”, the Cuban-American lawyer served as the deputy secretary of homeland security for nearly three years under Obama. Formerly Obama’s director of US citizenship and immigration services, if confirmed, the 61-year-old would be the first Latino and the first immigrant to lead the department.  Linda Thomas-Greenfield – US ambassador to the United Nations  Linda Thomas-Greenfield Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Photograph: Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA The Louisianian was formerly assistant secretary of state for African affairs under the Obama and Trump administrations. She was also the US ambassador to Liberia under George W Bush and Obama. Of her appointment, Thomas-Greenfield, 68, has said: “My mother taught me to lead with the power of kindness and compassion to make the world a better place. I’ve carried that lesson with me throughout my career in foreign service and, if confirmed, will do the same as ambassador to the United Nations.”  John Kerry – special presidential envoy for climate  John Kerry John Kerry. Photograph: Adam Berry/Getty Perhaps the best known face internationally, Kerry will take the lead on combating the climate crisis. The 76-year-old lost the 2004 US election to George W Bush, before going on to become secretary of state from 2013-17 under Obama.  Avril Haines – director of national intelligence  Avril Haines Avril Haines. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock The New York-born lawyer was previously deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the first woman to hold that position. She worked closely with Biden from 2007-08 in her role as deputy chief counsel for the Senate Democrats. Haines, 51, was also the first female deputy national security adviser and, if confirmed, will become the first woman to be the director of national intelligence.  Jake Sullivan – national security adviser  Jake Sullivan Jake Sullivan. Photograph: Washington Post/Getty Sullivan was the national security adviser to Biden when he was vice-president and served as deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state. Since 2014, Sullivan, 43, has been teaching at Yale law school.

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/martin-belam

Martin Belam

Maanvi Singh is the Guardian's West Coast political reporter, based in San Francisco.

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/maanvi-singh

Maanvi Singh

TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and Guardian Unlimited, is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

Biden calls on Congress to pass assault weapons ban after Boulder shooting – as it happened

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