US reaches 100m Covid vaccine milestone six weeks early as Fauci urges vigilance – live | US news

Here’s a summary of the day from Lauren Gambino and me:

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are in Atlanta meeting with Asian American leaders. Follow our coverage of their meeting here.

• “Science is back” Biden declared during a visit to the CDC in Atlanta on Friday.
• Four men linked to the far right the Proud Boys have been charged with plotting to attack the US Capitol.
• Republican congressman Tom Reed has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former lobbyist. Reed, who is considering a run for governor of New York, has denied her account.
• DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is traveling Friday to El Paso with a bipartisan group of senators amid spiraling political fallout from a spike of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.
• Mar-a-Lago Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida country club has partially closed following a Covid-19 outbreak among the staff.
• Alyssa McGrath, became the first current employee to accuse New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is offering to outfit the NCAA women’s basketball team’s weight room with truckloads of equipment. The NCAA came under fire after female athletes shared photos and videos of comparing their weight room, meals, and amenities to that of male athletes who are living in the March Madness bubble.

The NCAA admitted that they “fell short” and dropped the ball, in a statement posted to their Twitter page.

The church that the man charged with killing eight people in a recent mass shooting in Georgia attended has disavowed him, the Associated Press reports. In a statement, Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Georgia says that Robert Aaron Long attended the church since childhood, and his actions completely contradict the Christian values he espoused.

No blame can be placed upon the victims,” Crabapple First Baptist told the AP. “He alone is responsible for his evil actions and desires.”

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris gave speeches at Emory University in Atlanta, following the devastating mass shooting that left eight people, including six Asian women, dead. The pair also met with several Asian leaders in Georgia.

The vice-president – who is half-Asian – definitively called the series of shootings a hate crime, while the Biden avoided the phrase, citing the ongoing investigation.

Joe Biden is doing just fine after taking three small falls while climbing up the stairs to Air Force one earlier today. Conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr, have seized on the video Biden’s loss of balance and argued that Democrats should scrutinize Biden’s wellness with the same intensity they did Donald Trump, whose mental and physical fitness was frequently questioned.

Officials insisted there was no damage done. Karine Jean-Pierre, the deputy White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One: “It’s very windy. I almost fell coming up the steps myself. He is doing 100% fine.”

Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s club and hotel, has been partially shut down following a Covid-19 outbreak, the Associated Press reports. Since he lost his bid for a second term Trump has been living at the Palm Beach, Florida, resort where he takes regular meetings with his remaining Republican allies.

Just five days ago Sarah Huckabee, former White House press secretary and current Republican candidate for Arkansas governor, had a campaign event at Mar-a-Lago. Trump made an appearance.

Right now Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are speaking at Emory University on the wave of hate and violence facing Asian Americans. My colleague Adam Gabbatt is following the speech here:

Today, a staffer in Andrew Cuomo’s office became the first current employee to come forward with sexual harassment claims against the governor. The Guardian’s Victoria Biekiempis has an overview of the latest bombshell that was published by the New York Times:

Alyssa McGrath, 33 told the newspaper that Cuomo made suggestive statements to her and another staffer. McGrath said that this co-worker is the woman who accused Cuomo of groping.

“He has a way of making you feel very comfortable around him, almost like you’re his friend,” McGrath reportedly said. “But then you walk away from the encounter or conversation, in your head going, ‘I can’t believe I just had that interaction with the governor of New York.’”

While McGrath does not work directly for Cuomo, she claimed that she and her co-worker were frequently selected from the group of executive chamber assistants to work at the governor’s mansion on weekends.

The governor has denied wrongdoing, and said that his relationships with staffers he considered to be friends might have been misinterpreted.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, and a bipartisan cohort of Senate members just finished a trip to the El Paso border to visit facilities that have seen a surge in accompanied minors.

Earlier this week Trisha Garcia reported on the mad dash to make room for migrant children who are coming into the city for the Guardian.

Latest data revealed that more than 4,200 unaccompanied migrant children were now in US custody, but only 500 beds were available, the Associated Press said, further reporting that hundreds were packed into tents, some sleeping on the floor and waiting five days for a shower.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut accompanied Mayorkas and shared his reflections in a series of tweets:

Hello, this is Abené Clayton from the west coast bureau. I’m going to be taking over the live blog for the next few hours.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are in Atlanta meeting with Asian American leaders. Follow our coverage of their meeting here.

• “Science is back” Biden declared during a visit to the CDC in Atlanta on Friday.
• Four men linked to the far right the Proud Boys have been charged with plotting to attack the US Capitol.
• Republican congressman Tom Reed has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former lobbyist. Reed, who is considering a run for governor of New York, has denied her account.
• DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is traveling Friday to El Paso with a bipartisan group of senators amid spiraling political fallout from a spike of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.

Earlier today, the House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution condemning the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February and calling for the release of those detained.

But fourteen Republicans voted against the measure. The list includes several arch-conservatives who objected to the electoral certification of Biden’s presidential victory following the insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters loyal to Trump.

A spokesman for Pennsylvania congressman Scott Perry, who voted against certifying his state’s electors, told Forbes that the measure was an “overt attempt to trap Republicans into condemning the claims of evidence of election fraud in Burma” while “perpetuating similar claims (in the Democrat’s views) of evidence in US elections.”

Arizona congressman Andy Biggs, who objected to the certification of his state’s electoral votes, denounced the violence in a video posted to Twitter, but said he believed that the resolution was a way for the US to “put our foot in the door in Burma.”

Myanmar is also known as Burma.

We have a separate live blog following the latest developments on the spa shootings that left eight dead, including six women of Asian descent. Tune in here for our full coverage of Biden’s visit with Asian American leaders in Atlanta.

Twitter said is temporarily suspended the account of congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in error.

“We use a combination of technology and human review to enforce the Twitter Rules across the service,” a spokeswoman for the social media giant said. “In this case, our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error. This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated.”

Responding on Twitter after her account was restored, Greene cast doubt on the explanation and demanded the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, disclose the name of the employee who removed her account in error.

She wrote: “I was just told @Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in “error,” on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress. What a coincidence

Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs. @jack which employee made the ‘error?’ Reply to my email, Jack.”

Greene, a conspiracy-peddling conservative acolyte of Donald Trump, had her account locked once before in January for what Twitter said was “multiple violations of our civic integrity policy,” including false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Greene’s last tweets before her account was temporarily suspended on Thursday night angrily denounced the Democratic effort to expel her from Congress.

Biden and Harris visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, where staff discussed their concerns about coronavirus variants as well as the challenges confronting the racial and ethnic disparities exposed by the virus during a briefing on the agency’s efforts to combat the pandemic.

“Science is back, all kidding aside,” Biden declared as he praised the leadership of the agency, saying the nation owed them a “gigantic debt of gratitude and we will for a long, long, long time.”

“We can build all the walls we want, we can have the most powerful armies in the world, but we cannot stop, we cannot stop, these viruses, other than be aware of where they are, move quickly on them when we find them,” he said.

The visit comes as Biden surpassed his goal to administer 100m vaccines within the first 100 days of his presidency, six weeks ahead of schedule. Before departing for Atlanta, Biden suggested he may set a new goal: 200m vaccinations before the end of his first 100 days.