10 things you need to know today: April 24, 2021

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1. CDC panel recommends lifting Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause
2. Chauvin to be sentenced in June
3. India sets global 24-hour COVID-19 infection record for 3rd straight day
4. Biden's climate summit wraps up
5. Putin critic Navalny ends hunger strike after over 3 weeks
6. North Carolina sheriff's deputies placed on leave following fatal shooting
7. Indonesian Navy confirms submarine carrying 53 sank after finding debris
8. ASEAN leaders meet with Myanmar's junta chief
9. Caitlyn Jenner announces she's running for governor of California
10. Astronauts board International Space Station after another successful SpaceX flight

published 24 April 2021

1. CDC panel recommends lifting Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel voted on Friday to recommend lifting a pause on the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. The panel decided there should be an added label to note the blood clotting disorder that has emerged as a rare side effect of the vaccine. The CDC said there have been 15 confirmed reports of blood clots following Johnson & Johnson vaccinations, out of nearly 8 million doses administered in the U.S. All 15 cases were in women, mostly in their 30s, and three of the women died. After six cases were reported, the FDA and CDC called for a pause of the vaccine on April 13 "out of an abundance of caution." The panel determined the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the seemingly rare risk, and will advise the CDC on its decision accordingly.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin will be sentenced on June 16, Judge Peter Cahill determined on Friday. Chauvin was convicted Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of George Floyd, who died after Chauvin pressed his knee on his neck for nine minutes while arresting him last year. The jury found Chauvin guilty of all the counts he faced — second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Each murder charge carries a recommended 12.5-year sentence for a person with no criminal history, according to Minnesota sentencing guidelines, while the manslaughter charge would be expected to result in a four-year term. Chauvin is being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day as he awaits his sentence.

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India on Saturday recorded 346,786 new coronavirus infections in the previous 24 hours, marking the third consecutive day in which the country set a new global record for daily infections. Overall, India has reported more than 16 million infections, second only to the United States. During the same 24-hour period, a national record 2,624 fatalities were recorded, bringing India's death toll to nearly 190,000 throughout the pandemic. India's figures are believed to be an undercount. Amid the surge in infections, the government is scrambling to procure oxygen tanks and get them to hospitals, which are running low across the country. The increase is tied to the emergence of more infectious variants, including one first identified in India, as well as mass gatherings and a low vaccination rate.

The international climate summit hosted by President Biden wrapped up Friday, with the United States pledging to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels while helping other countries do the same by doubling climate finance for developing countries to $5.7 billion a year. The jury is still out on whether the summit will spark any change. On the one hand, China's President Xi Jinping attended and pledged to phase out coal projects, suggesting Beijing is willing to work with Washington on climate issues despite tensions between the two governments. But analysts were less excited about the fact that, afterwards, Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, indicated such a partnership is conditions-based. Meanwhile, Australia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Russia did not make any new promises to cut down on fossil fuels. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro promised to double funds to curb deforestation, only to approve a cut to the environment ministry a day later.

Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, will end his three-week hunger strike following recent warnings that his health is deteriorating. Navalny announced Friday he will end the strike, which he began on March 31 in protest of not being allowed to see private doctors in prison. "I do not withdraw the requirement to admit the necessary doctor to me ... but taking into account the progress and all the circumstances, I am starting to get out of the hunger strike," Navalny wrote. He said that he was able to be examined by civilian doctors, which he called "huge progress." Navalny, who has blamed his poisoning last year on Putin, was recently moved to a prison hospital. Five doctors for Navalny urged him to "immediately" end the hunger strike "to preserve his life and health."

Seven North Carolina sheriff's deputies have been placed on administrative leave after the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr., a Black man, on Wednesday morning in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The deputies were carrying out a search and arrest warrant related to "felony drug charges" when they shot and killed Brown, whom sheriff's Chief Deputy Daniel Fogg said was a convicted felon with a history of resisting arrests. Protesters have demanded the release of body-camera footage from the incident, and members of the Elizabeth City Council voted unanimously to call on officials do so, but Sheriff Tommy Wooten said the video cannot be released without a judge's order because it's being investigated by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

The Indonesian Navy on Saturday announced debris from a missing submarine has been found deep in the Bali Sea, ending hopes of finding any survivors among the 53-person crew. No bodies have been found so far. The KRI Nanggala-402 submarine lost contact Wednesday while conducting torpedo drills off Bali. The vessel was built to withstand pressure of up to 500 meters deep, but sonar indicates it sank well below that to around 850 meters, at which point even its steel hull would have likely fractured from the pressure, The New York Times reports. That theory is consistent with the fact that Admiral Yudo Margono said the condition of the debris suggests the submarine did not explode, but rather cracked. Yudo added that it's unclear what caused the submarine to sink to such depths in the first place, but naval experts believe it did so sharply and rapidly, the Times notes.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met with Myanmar General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the military coup in his home country earlier this year, in Jakarta on Saturday. The gathering was aimed at convincing Min Aung Hlaing to end the violence against Myanmar's pro-democracy protesters, who have taken to the streets across the country continuously for months. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed by security forces. After the talks, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called on Myanmar's military to restore democracy and stop committing violence against its citizens, while Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong urged the junta to release Myanmar's detained civilian leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi. ASEAN, generally, has maintained a non-confrontational approach toward Myanmar since the coup, though reportedly none of the leaders addressed Min Aung Hlaing as the head of state during the summit.

Caitlyn Jenner, the reality TV star and former athlete, on Friday announced she has filed paperwork to run for governor of California. "I have been a compassionate disrupter throughout my life, from representing the United States and winning a gold medal at the Olympics to helping advance the movement for equality," Jenner said, going on to describe herself as "a proven winner and the only outsider who can put an end to Gavin Newsom's disastrous time as governor." In her effort to oust California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in a recall election, Jenner, a Republican, is looking to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who successfully replaced California's then-governor, Gray Davis (D), in a recall election in 2003. In Jenner's announcement, she criticized the state's "over-restrictive" COVID-19 lockdown and taxes that are "too high."

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station on Saturday morning. The crew, consisting of NASA's Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the European Space Agency's Thomas Pesquet, and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan's JAXA space agency, has boarded the station, kicking off a six-month stay in space. They joined seven astronauts already on board (although four will return to Earth next week). Saturday's docking marks the third time in a year a SpaceX vessel carried astronauts to the station, as well as the first time a previously flown SpaceX spacecraft was reused.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.