Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday she supports reparations for black Americans affected by slavery, The New York Times reports.
Warren said in an interview with the Times that "we must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations." She also said that "we need systemic, structural changes to address that."
Warren did not provide any specifics about what her plan would be, but the Times notes that this is significant given that it's a policy previous Democratic presidential candidates chose not to support. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who recently announced his 2020 bid, was not in favor of reparations in 2016, saying at the time that it would not pass Congress and would be "very divisive." For that matter, neither was former President Barack Obama or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) also recently backed reparations, saying in a radio interview, "I'm serious about taking an approach that would change policies and structures and make real investments in black communities." Brendan Morrow
Former Republican senator and presidential nominee Bob Dole announced on Thursday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
In a statement, the 97-year-old said he will begin treatment on Monday. "While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own," he added.
Dole served in the Army during World War II, and was seriously wounded in battle. He nearly died from his injuries, and was left with limited mobility in his right arm. Dole represented Kansas in the Senate from 1969 to 1996, and served as both majority and minority leader. In the 1976 election, he was Gerald Ford's running mate. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2018. Catherine Garcia
The Biden administration announced on Thursday that the United States is willing to sit down with other world powers to discuss returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement the U.S. would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting with Iran, Germany, and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council "to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran's nuclear program." A State Department official told reporters that it's not yet clear if Tehran will agree to participate in the meeting.
The Iran nuclear deal, meant to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, was abandoned in 2018 during the Trump administration. Iran is threatening to stop International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear facilities next week, saying the U.S. needs to hold up some of its commitments made as part of the 2015 deal. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Thursday said if "Iran comes back into strict compliance with its commitments ... the United States will do the same." Catherine Garcia
On Friday, President Biden will announce the United States plans on giving $4 billion in contributions to Covax, the program working to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, senior administration officials told reporters on Thursday.
Biden will share the news during a Group of 7 meeting, the officials said, with the money coming in two waves — an initial $2 billion in funding will be released almost immediately, with $2 billion more distributed over the next two years.
Covax is trying to get vaccines to countries that were not able to get initial doses, but has not been able to make any deliveries yet due to a lack of funding and competition from wealthy nations, The Washington Post reports. Duke University has found that high-income countries have been able to secure 4.6 billion doses, which is much more than the lower- and middle-income countries combined. French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday suggested that to alleviate this, European countries and the U.S. donate up to five percent of the vaccine doses they have ordered. Catherine Garcia
House Democrats are trying to make sure no one remembers former President Donald Trump.
With a bill that doesn't mention Trump's name but is clearly aimed at him, a collection of Democratic House members are looking to block any "twice impeached" president from pretty much any recognition on federal land. That includes barring federal funds from going toward building a dedicated "highway, park, subway, federal building, military installation, street, or other federal property" as well as preventing that president's burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Former presidents usually get a good number of perks once they leave office, including receiving a pension and funding to pay for assistants. But this bill would strip any twice-impeached president of all of that, save for Secret Service protection. Federal funds couldn't be used to create or rededicate monuments or buildings to Trump, or go to any state that intends to use those funds to do so.
A group of Democrats introduced the bill in late January, but it hasn't made much headway since. And regardless of its chances of success in Congress, the bill likely wouldn't bother Trump much anyway: He probably has his name on more buildings than a lot of former presidents combined. Kathryn Krawczyk
Just one dose of the Moderna and Pfizer two-shot coronavirus vaccines is seemingly nearly as good two.
In a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, a pair of Canadian-based researchers suggested an amendment to the determined efficacy of the Pfizer vaccines after just one shot. While Pfizer and BioNTech reported their vaccine was just 52.4 percent effective at preventing infection after the first dose, the researchers noted that this data includes results from within the first two weeks after inoculation, "when immunity would have still been mounting." After two weeks, that efficacy mounted to 92.6 percent, matching the first-dose efficacy of 92.1 percent reported from the Moderna vaccine as well. After two doses, the Pfizer vaccine is 95 percent effective, and Moderna's is 94 percent.
The Canadian-based researchers' interpretations of the Pfizer results led them to suggest in the letter that vaccine distributors delay giving people the second dose. This would let distributors get first doses to more at-risk people instead of leaving them "completely unprotected" — something the researchers called "a matter of national security that, if ignored, will certainly result in thousands of COVID-19–related hospitalizations and deaths this winter in the United States."
Another study from January led Pfizer and BioNTech to say Wednesday that they are unsure if the vaccine will be effective at protecting against the B.1.351 variant first found in South Africa. The study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found the vaccine was still capable of neutralizing the virus within the B.1.351 strain, and that trials haven't shown the variant reduces the vaccine's protection in people. Still, the companies may end up creating a booster shot to ensure the vaccine remains effective against the highly transmissible strain. Kathryn Krawczyk