Covid-19

COVID-19 bipartisanship vanishes as the GOP decides opposing Biden is more important than saving Americans

President’s Joe Biden’s signature Friday on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is going to be the only place on the urgently needed COVID-19 relief package with his name. Unlike his predecessor, who slapped “President Donald J. Trump” on millions of paper checks (and also put his jagged John Hancock on 90 million letters sent to mailboxes), Biden is forgoing the self-promotion. That’s an insignificant change from the earlier rounds of economic help from a united Washington to a nation suffering from COVID-inflicted massive unemployment, flat broke state and local governments, closed busine...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warns Austin to drop mask mandate by 6 p.m. or be sued

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is threatening to sue Travis County and the City of Austin if officials don't back down on local orders that continue to require masks despite Gov. Greg Abbott ending the statewide mask mandate on Wednesday.

Austin and Travis County public health leaders recently announced they would continue to require masks, even though Abbott forbade local authorities from superseding his order. Only county judges can order COVID-19 restrictions if hospitalizations from the virus rise above 15% of the bed capacity in that hospital region for seven straight days.

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LeBron James urged to rethink 'private' vaccine stance

LeBron James has been urged to reconsider his refusal to confirm whether or not he will take the Covid-19 vaccine after comments which underscored apprehension amongst NBA players over the new coronavirus drugs.

In comments ahead of the All-Star Game last weekend, Los Angeles Lakers superstar James would not say whether he planned on getting vaccinated.

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House sends 'historic' $1.9 trillion relief bill to Biden's desk after no Republican votes for crucial aid

With the backing of three-quarters of the U.S. public but not a single Republican member of Congress, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that would send direct payments to around 280 million people, extend emergency unemployment programs, slash child poverty in half with a year-long expansion of the child tax credit, and boost funding for vaccine distribution.

The legislation, dubbed the American Rescue Plan, now heads to President Joe Biden's desk. The president, who is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday, said over the weekend that eligible Americans can expect to start receiving direct relief payments later this month.Just one House Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted against the relief package.

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Texas reopens '100%' as US vaccination drive gains pace

Texas lifted its mask mandate and capacity restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Wednesday, despite experts warning the "100 percent" relaxation of coronavirus curbs will exacerbate the spread of worrying variants.

The Lone Star State became the fifth to rescind its face covering order in a sign of increasing optimism about the pandemic in the world's hardest hit country, where the infection rate has been falling since January but still remains high in absolute terms.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene furious Feds forcing Americans to get COVID vaccine, because ‘freedom’ (they’re not)

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) launched into a diatribe Wednesday, outraged that the federal government is forcing "citizens" to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite the fact that there is no law requiring anyone in the U.S. to do so. The federal government legally cannot mandate the vaccine because it was authorized by the FDA only for "emergency use." Should a law pass in the future, President Joe Biden had said last year he opposes making it mandatory.

"It should be a choice, it's freedom," the "QAnon Congresswoman" told Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, on the new far right streaming network Real America's Voice. "It's, you know, having these two classes of citizens, basically the ones that have taken the vaccine and then the supposedly 'bad people' that haven't taken the vaccine, I would be one of those people in that classification of of citizens, it's because, you know, myself, probably you and many others."

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'It pays reparations': Marjorie Taylor Greene claims COVID relief bill 'enslaved' white people

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) repeatedly claimed on Wednesday that Americans have been "enslaved" by a COVID-19 relief bill that she claims provides "reparations" for Black farmers.

After Greene made her fourth motion to adjourn Congress, she retreated to her congressional office to record a 14-minute Facebook video for her followers. In the video, she blasted Republicans who are "annoyed" with her adjournment stunts.

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Experts disturbed as pro-Trump outlet’s startlingly sloppy reporting spreads mask misinformation

For those who find that Fox News isn't right-leaning enough, One America News Network (OANN) has filled that gap. The cable show and news site, though launched three years before Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, emerged as a mainstay for pro-Trump propaganda during the course of his presidency. The network notoriously amplified Trump's meritless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Before that, it has taken Trump-friendly positions on everything from the supposed "migrant caravan" in 2018 to the claim that the novel coronavirus was developed in a Chinese bioweapons laboratory. Trump himself has praised OANN, referring to the organization as a "great network" early in his presidency and urging supporters to follow its coverage as it helped him try to overturn the 2020 election. And, like Trump and many on the right, the network has been eager to politicize the COVID-19 pandemic and public health–related measures designed to combat it. Now, a recent article from OANN features such a shocking misinterpretation of a public health study that it feels almost intentionally bad-faith.

This article was originally published at Salon

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Fox News rouses mask-free Texans at '100% capacity' diner: 'Think for yourself like Rush Limbaugh wanted'

The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends visited a Texas diner that was filled to 100% capacity on Wednesday to celebrate Gov. Greg Abbott's (R-TX) decision to lift COVID-19 safety measures.

"Right now in Texas, these businesses can save themselves," Fox News host Will Cain reported from the packed diner in McKinney, Texas. "Let me show you what 100% capacity looks like. This is freedom, right here."

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Texas sheds coronavirus mask, occupancy restrictions

By Brad Brooks LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) - Texans awoke on Wednesday with a statewide mask mandate and occupancy restrictions in businesses lifted, a move some heralded as freedom and others as foolishness. On paper, Texas' rollback of coronavirus mitigation efforts is the most sweeping seen in the United States, along with a similar measure in Mississippi. In practice, vast swaths of Texas have rarely enforced mask or occupancy mandates in the past year, anyway. Several major retailers, grocery and restaurant chains in Texas said they would still require that masks be worn in their stores, whi...

WATCH: School board meeting goes off the rails after woman tells everyone to rip off their face masks

A school board meeting in Florida went off the rails this week after an anti-mask activist took off her mask and encouraged everyone else in the room to do the same.

Local news station Fox 4 Now reports that anti-mask protesters were escorted out of the Collier County School Board meeting on Tuesday because they refused to comply with the board's face mask mandate intended to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus, which so far has killed more than 525,000 Americans in the last year.

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No drama Biden quietly triumphs in first weeks

Joe Biden hasn't done a press conference, maintains a vanilla Twitter presence, and, as detractors love to repeat, is the oldest man to become US president. Yet in under 50 days, the quiet veteran is racking up formidable victories.

This Wednesday the House of Representatives is expected to pass the American Rescue Plan, an economic stimulus package which at $1.9 trillion is the biggest in history, by far, and aims to catapult the country out of its year-long Covid slump.

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Los Angeles agrees to reopen schools in April

Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles children could return to their classrooms next month, almost a year after the coronavirus pandemic forced learning online across the United States.

The second-largest school district in the country has lagged behind others in the effort to get students back on campus, after a prolonged battle that struggled to balance safety concerns with educational needs.

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