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Facebook Oversight Board upholds Trump suspension but orders company to review
CBS News – The Facebook Oversight Board on Wednesday upheld the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s account, four months after Facebook suspended him following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In response, Facebook said it was “pleased” with the decision, saying in a statement that they believe the January decision was “necessary and right.”
“We will now consider the board’s decision and determine an action that is clear and proportionate. In the meantime, Mr. Trump’s accounts remain suspended,” Facebook said in a statement.
Following its own rules
Former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is a member of the Oversight Board, said in a press conference that the decision was less a referendum on Mr. Trump than a decision on “Facebook and its users.”
“We can’t be left up to Facebook to just choose their own penalty for users — they have to follow their own rules,” Thorning-Schmidt said. “If users have to follow the community standards and values of Facebook and Instagram, Facebook has to do the same. So we’re basically saying that all users are equal and that Facebook also has obligation towards the community standards, and that is to follow their own rules.”
Michael McConnell, the co-chair of the board, said Facebook could not “keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored.”
“In the event of a violation, a user’s post may be removed or restricted with no future limitation with a limitation for a specific time bound period, or even in severe cases, permanently,” McConnell said. “But users and their audiences must not be left in a state of uncertainty as to time or reasons for restoration.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg established the oversight board in 2019. The 20-member body, which includes lawyers, professors, journalists, and human rights activists worldwide, is sometimes referred to as “Facebook’s Supreme Court” because it can overturn decisions made by company executives and its decisions are final.
However, Facebook critics have also panned the board as being too close to the company it’s supposed to regulate.
Roger McNamee, a Facebook investor turned critic, said on Wednesday that the oversight board has “failed.”
“Donald Trump has used Facebook to spread disinformation and incite hate and violence for years,” McNamee said in a statement. “Even when he posted ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts,’ Facebook failed to act. He violated their terms of service again and again and again, facing no consequences. And yet, Facebook’s Oversight Board still could not summon the courage or common sense to uphold a permanent ban.”
Mr. Trump’s case is the tenth decision the board has handed down. A five-member panel from the board was assigned to hear the case and produce a final opinion.
A riot at the Capitol
Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC put out a statement Wednesday morning from the former president trashing Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but did not mention the Facebook decision.
Mr. Trump was banned from major social media platforms in the wake of the January 6 attack, when a mob of his supporters descended on the Capitol to try to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. Lawmakers were forced to flee as rioters overtook the building for several hours. Five people died and Mr. Trump was later impeached by the House on a charge of inciting an insurrection.
During the riot, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter and Facebook for his supporters to leave, but also repeated false claims about the election.
“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt,” Mr. Trump said in the video. “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.” Later in the video, he repeated the false claim that it was a “fraudulent election.”
Facebook took down his video later that day, calling it an “emergency situation.” “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence,” posted Facebook vice president Guy Rosen.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and in the weeks leading up to and after the election, social media platforms had been flagging Mr. Trump’s posts that contained misleading information. On January 6, Facebook was the first to remove the video entirely.
After it was removed, Mr. Trump took to Twitter, writing: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Twitter removed the post and froze his accounts for 24 hours. The following day, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Trump’s account, as well as his campaign account.
On January 7, Facebook suspended Mr. Trump’s account until the inauguration, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg posting that the “risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”
After the inauguration, Facebook turned its final decision on Mr. Trump’s account over to its Oversight Committee.
The committee said in April that it was extending the public comment period before making a decision. According to Reuters, Facebook said it had received over 9,000 comments, more than any other case.
Following its own rules
Former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is a member of the Oversight Board, said in a press conference that the decision was less a referendum on Mr. Trump than a decision on “Facebook and its users.”
“We can’t be left up to Facebook to just choose their own penalty for users — they have to follow their own rules,” Thorning-Schmidt said. “If users have to follow the community standards and values of Facebook and Instagram, Facebook has to do the same. So we’re basically saying that all users are equal and that Facebook also has obligation towards the community standards, and that is to follow their own rules.”
Michael McConnell, the co-chair of the board, said Facebook could not “keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored.”
“In the event of a violation, a user’s post may be removed or restricted with no future limitation with a limitation for a specific time bound period, or even in severe cases, permanently,” McConnell said. “But users and their audiences must not be left in a state of uncertainty as to time or reasons for restoration.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg established the oversight board in 2019. The 20-member body, which includes lawyers, professors, journalists, and human rights activists worldwide, is sometimes referred to as “Facebook’s Supreme Court” because it can overturn decisions made by company executives and its decisions are final.
However, Facebook critics have also panned the board as being too close to the company it’s supposed to regulate.
Roger McNamee, a Facebook investor turned critic, said on Wednesday that the oversight board has “failed.”
“Donald Trump has used Facebook to spread disinformation and incite hate and violence for years,” McNamee said in a statement. “Even when he posted ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts,’ Facebook failed to act. He violated their terms of service again and again and again, facing no consequences. And yet, Facebook’s Oversight Board still could not summon the courage or common sense to uphold a permanent ban.”
Mr. Trump’s case is the tenth decision the board has handed down. A five-member panel from the board was assigned to hear the case and produce a final opinion.
A riot at the Capitol
Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC put out a statement Wednesday morning from the former president trashing Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but did not mention the Facebook decision.
Mr. Trump was banned from major social media platforms in the wake of the January 6 attack, when a mob of his supporters descended on the Capitol to try to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. Lawmakers were forced to flee as rioters overtook the building for several hours. Five people died and Mr. Trump was later impeached by the House on a charge of inciting an insurrection.
During the riot, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter and Facebook for his supporters to leave, but also repeated false claims about the election.
“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt,” Mr. Trump said in the video. “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.” Later in the video, he repeated the false claim that it was a “fraudulent election.”
Facebook took down his video later that day, calling it an “emergency situation.” “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence,” posted Facebook vice president Guy Rosen.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and in the weeks leading up to and after the election, social media platforms had been flagging Mr. Trump’s posts that contained misleading information. On January 6, Facebook was the first to remove the video entirely.
After it was removed, Mr. Trump took to Twitter, writing: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Twitter removed the post and froze his accounts for 24 hours. The following day, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Trump’s account, as well as his campaign account.
On January 7, Facebook suspended Mr. Trump’s account until the inauguration, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg posting that the “risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”
After the inauguration, Facebook turned its final decision on Mr. Trump’s account over to its Oversight Committee.
The committee said in April that it was extending the public comment period before making a decision. According to Reuters, Facebook said it had received over 9,000 comments, more than any other case.
In its previous decisions the Oversight Board has tended to rule in favor of “free expression.” The board has sided against the company on several high-profile cases, including a ruling to overturn Facebook’s removal of a post about the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China. The Oversight Board has also overturned decisions to remove posts relating to nudity, COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech, while upholding a decision to remove a post that contained an ethnic slur.
“Outsourcing responsibility”
Facebook’s reliance on the board to decide a small number of challenging cases has come under fire from critics who say the company needs to be doing more to reduce the spread of dangerous misinformation and disinformation on the world’s largest social network.
“It’s just outsourcing responsibility for the problems which are on its platform,” Carole Cadwalladr, an author and investigative journalist who first exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal in 2018, told CBSN on Tuesday. “It’s kind of whitewashing these decisions through this body of experts,” she said, and “deflecting attention from what are the real harms of Facebook, which is not content moderation. The real harms are really its business model, these algorithms which we know amplify polarizing and hate content and lead to some of the impacts that we’ve seen.”
Twitter has not allowed Mr. Trump back, and issued a ruling in April that it will not be archiving his tweets. But while Mr. Trump’s personal page will not be archived, Twitter has kept a record of several institutional government accounts, including those that belong to former White House press secretaries Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany.
The @POTUS45 account, which was the official government page for the president, and the official @WhiteHouse45 account are both archived on Twitter.
Twitter CFO Ned Segal said in an interview with Yahoo Finance that there are “no changes” in their thinking on Mr. Trump’s account.
“When you step back and think about our policies, we want to work hard to be consistent, to be transparent so people know exactly what to expect from us,” Segal said. “We don’t have an oversight board like that [like Facebook]. Our team is accountable for the decisions that we make. There is no changes to anything we have talked about in the past.”
Without a direct line to the millions of followers he used to reach on Twitter and Facebook, Mr. Trump has begun posting statements, sometimes several times per day, on a page of the Save America PAC website.
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Intel plans to invest $3.5 billion to modernize New Mexico plant
Santa Fe New Mexican – RIO RANCHO — How big was it?
So big that three members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation — and the governor — showed up.
So big that the money figures bandied about dwarfed Facebook’s investment in the state.
Intel Corp. on Monday announced a $3.5 billion modernization of its Rio Rancho plant to increase the manufacturing capacity for its next-generation advanced semiconductor technology research and manufacturing — a move that gives new momentum to the New Mexico production facility and provides some badly needed good news on the state’s economic front.
The investment exceeds the $1 billion-plus Facebook has invested in its Los Lunas data center since 2016, with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham calling Intel’s commitment the “single largest investment by a company in New Mexico.”
Lujan Grisham, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández attended the announcement — an indication of just how much impact an Intel plant with renewed vigor could mean for the state’s economy, which is largely dependent on the oil and gas industry.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is the largest U.S. semiconductor manufacturer and among the three largest in the world. Its Rio Rancho plant — which until the past few years had been a significant chipmaker within the company’s portfolio — has existed since 1980. Officials now describe the Rio Rancho plant’s mission as the company’s “innovation hub.”
“This is an important part of Intel’s global operations,” said Keyvan Esfarjani, Intel’s senior vice president of manufacturing and operations. “Now Rio Rancho is even more critical to Intel’s success.”
The three-year modernization converts the Intel plant from its past as a central processing unit and traditional semiconductor manufacturer to an advanced semiconductor technology manufacturer. Intel is pioneering stacking semiconductor tiles on top of each other rather than side by side. The practice saves space in components like cellphones and personal computers.
Heinrich could not resist describing it as “stacked enchiladas.”
“This is an opportunity for New Mexico to lead in science and technology,” Heinrich said at the announcement, conducted on the lawn in front of the Intel campus.
The state Economic Development Department is investing $5 million in Local Economic Development Act funds to the project if hiring metrics are met. Intel announced 700 jobs should be added in the next three years to the 1,800 now in place at Rio Rancho.
Sandoval County pledged $500,000 if specific job goal requirements are met, and Rio Rancho plans to add $250,000. Intel also will be allowed to keep $14 million, half the projected $28 million in gross receipts tax revenue, generated by the construction.
“This launches a new economic reality in New Mexico,” Lujan Grisham said. “We have expectations of more of this kind of work.”
Intel has been on a rebound in Rio Rancho the past two years after employment dropped from more than 5,000 in the first half of the 2000s to 1,100 in 2017 and 2018 as central processing unit manufacturing was phased out and Intel transitioned into advanced semiconductor technology.
The $3.5 billion modernization principally will enable Intel to install its Foveros 3D chip-stacking technology, introduced in 2019, and enhance technology already in place since 2017 to simplify and optimize semiconductor packaging, memory and connectivity, said Erika Edgerly, Intel’s director of public affairs for New Mexico, Texas and Massachusetts.
“Foveros plays into many of our future product lines,” Edgerly said.
The modernization will update and optimize the 350,000-square-foot Fab 11 and Fab 11X structures from the early 1990s and revive the more than 70,000-square-foot Fab 9 building that has been unused since 2008-09, Edgerly said.
“It’s about the efficiency of running the factory,” said Katie Proudy, Intel New Mexico’s site leader and vice president of manufacturing and operations. “The biggest thing is automated manufacturing and data analysis. We have a lot of capability, but this is a way to transition into a new way of doing things.”
Intel no longer produces CPUs in Rio Rancho.
“This will serve to modernize our existing facility so they can support advanced packaging,” Intel spokeswoman Linda Qian said. “It’s a new era of innovation for Intel in New Mexico. New Mexico is evolving as a hub of innovation for advanced packaging.”
Intel first built Fab 7 — the seventh company fabrication facility — on a sod farm in what had yet to become Rio Rancho in 1980. At the time, the population was 10,000; the city incorporated in 1981. With Intel as an anchor, Rio Rancho has evolved into New Mexico’s third-largest city with about 100,000 residents.
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Biden’s 1st 100 Days: A Look By The Numbers
NPR – As far as artificial milestones go, few dates seem to carry as much weight as a new president’s 100th day in office. It’s a date that former Obama adviser David Axelrod once referred to as a “Hallmark holiday.” In other words, it gets lots of attention but has no actual significance.
For better or worse, marking the first 100 days has become a time-honored tradition in Washington. For that, President Biden has Franklin D. Roosevelt to thank. Over the course of his first 100 days in office, FDR not only helped shore up a rapidly deteriorating banking system — helping to bring an end to the Great Depression — but also laid much of the groundwork for what would become the New Deal.
Presidents have been measured by the 100-day standard ever since. As Biden inches closer to crossing the milestone on Thursday, here is a look at where he stands on nine key benchmarks.
Bills signed into law: 11
When it comes to a yardstick for measuring a president’s first 100 days, political scientists will say to focus on the significance of the bills the president signs, not the number. In part, that’s because the first 100 days have become far less productive on the legislative front for modern presidents since the high-water mark of 76 laws set by FDR. Biden’s early record is a case in point for this theory. The 11 bills he has signed into law are among the fewest for any newly elected president dating back to FDR. At the same time, if there is one piece of legislation that Biden’s first 100 days will be remembered for, it will be the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed in March.
Executive orders: 42
While Biden may be lagging his predecessors on the number of bills he has signed, he’s far outpacing them on executive orders. Biden has issued 42 to date, more than any president going back to Harry Truman. He may have campaigned on bringing bipartisanship back to Washington, but much of his early focus at least has been on policies he can implement on his own, such as measures to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, requiring masks on federal property and continuing a ban on evictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump orders reversed: 62
Executive action has also been a way for Biden to make good on promises to undo some of his predecessor’s most controversial policies. He has recommitted the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement, halted the U.S. exit from the World Health Organization and paused construction of the border wall. It’s not exactly shocking that a new Democratic president is undoing the policies of his Republican predecessor — it’s what Biden campaigned on after all. What’s notable is the pace at which Biden is working. Through April 23, he had undone 62 out of 219 orders signed by former President Donald Trump, according to the American Presidency Project.
Trump, by comparison, reversed 12 of former President Barack Obama’s orders in his first 100 days but managed to roll back over a dozen more regulations in the early months of his presidency through use of the Congressional Review Act. Because of the way the law is written, Democrats have only a narrow window of time within which to use it. But even without the CRA, Biden’s use of executive action has already allowed him to undo more than twice as many orders in his first 100 days as the last three presidents combined.
Biden’s job approval rating in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey clocked in at 53% — his highest since taking office. He is already more popular than Trump was on any day of his presidency, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, but his job approval is generally below where most recent presidents have been at this point in their first term. That appears in large part to be a result of increased polarization — 93% of Democrats approve of the job Biden is doing versus only 12% of Republicans. Given that divide, the question is, how much can his numbers move in either direction? While Trump may have left office with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president, his numbers held more or less steady over his four years in office. Unless partisan tensions ease dramatically, Biden could be on course for a similar trajectory.
Unemployment: 6%
U.S. employers have added more than 1.2 million jobs since Inauguration Day, and while that is certainly welcome news inside the White House, nearly 10 million Americans are still out of work and the jobless rate is stuck about 2.5 points higher than it was before the pandemic. To be sure, most economic conditions are beyond a president’s control, so it can be tough to assign too much credit or blame to whoever’s in office, especially 100 days in. But the strength of the recovery will nonetheless continue to frame the debate around the president’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan — a plan he says is all about jobs.
COVID-19 cases: down 73%
Biden has made confronting the coronavirus his administration’s top priority, but no president in modern history has taken office amid a global health crisis on the scale of what he inherited on Jan 20. Under Biden, new daily cases have dropped from an average of more than 199,000 in the week leading up to his inauguration to about 54,400 cases today — a 73% drop. While that progress has won Biden high marks for his handling of the pandemic, cases have been slowly creeping back up as newer, more virulent strains of the virus have grown more dominant.
Americans vaccinated: 140 million
At the center of the administration’s plan to end the public health crisis is the push to get as many shots into arms as quickly as possible. And if there has been one theme on that front, it has been to underpromise and overdeliver. Biden took office promising 100 million vaccine shots by his 100th day, but after reaching that target on Day 58, he upped the goal to 200 million. He hit that figure last week. Biden similarly set May 1 as the deadline for when all adults would be eligible to receive a vaccine but then moved that target up to April 19. As of Monday, more than 230 million vaccines have been administered. More than 139 million people, or about 54% of the adult population, have received at least one dose, while more than 95 million, or about 37% of the adult population, are now fully vaccinated.
Judicial nominations: 11
Biden has made 11 nominations to the federal bench, but he has a long way to go if he hopes to match the more than 220 judges who won confirmation as part of a historic overhaul of the judiciary under Trump. Biden’s staff says filling judicial vacancies is a top priority, but his window may be a narrow one. If Republicans win back the Senate in next year’s midterm elections, Biden will in all likelihood face the same roadblocks that kept Obama from filling more seats. There are currently 77 vacancies for Biden to fill, plus another 27 judges who’ve announced they will step down or take “senior status” in the next few months.
Tweets: 589
As a candidate, Biden said the U.S. needed a president who would lower the temperature in Washington. On Twitter at least, he appears to be doing just that. Since taking office, Biden’s @POTUS account is averaging about six tweets per day. Compare that with Trump, who by one count spent more than nine full days of his presidency on Twitter. Until Trump’s account was permanently suspended in January, in fact, Trump tweeted more than 26,000 times as president, or roughly 18 times per day.
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Winners and losers from first release of 2020 census data
AP – More than a year since the 2020 census began in a remote Alaska village, the first numbers to emerge from the nation’s once-a-decade head count were released on Monday, showing how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state is getting based on its population.
Because the number of seats in the House of Representatives is set at 435, it’s a zero-sum game with one state’s gain resulting in another state’s loss — like a pie with uneven slices. As one state gets a larger slice because of population gains, that means a smaller slice for a state that lost population or didn’t grow as much.
Here’s a look at the 13 states that will gain or lose political power — and federal money — through the apportionment process because of changes in population over the past decade:
THE WINNERS
TEXAS — The Longhorn State is the big winner, adding two congressional seats courtesy of 4 million new residents. Demographers say people moving from other states like California have contributed a significant chunk of the growth. The nation’s second most populous state will now have 38 congressional representatives, behind only California.
FLORIDA — The nation’s third most populous state adds one congressional seat because of a population gain of more than 2.7 million. This boosts its House delegation to 28 and Electoral College votes to 30, furthering the Sunshine State’s importance in presidential elections.
COLORADO — Population growth around Denver helped Colorado gain an extra seat, its first new House seat in 20 years. The mostly college-educated transplants have helped Colorado go from being a solidly Republican state to a competitive swing state to, now, a solidly Democratic one — though the state’s districts will be drawn by a nonpartisan commission.
MONTANA — By gaining a congressional seat, Montana goes from having a single House representative to having two. The gain marks a rebound for Montana, which had two congressional seats for most of the 20th century but lost one after the 1990 census.
NORTH CAROLINA — Fueled by retirees and job seekers, North Carolina’s population boom is earning it an extra seat, raising its House count to 14. The gains have been concentrated in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas.
OREGON — Oregon is getting a new congressional seat for the first time in 40 years, going from five House members to six. Although Democrats control state government, they have agreed to give up their advantage in redrawing the state’s political districts for the next 10 years in exchange for a commitment from Republicans to stop blocking bills.
___
THE LOSERS
CALIFORNIA — While California is still the nation’s most populous state, its stagnant growth over the past decade causes it to lose a single seat for the first time in 170 years of statehood. Its number of House members goes from 53 to 52 for a state that has been a symbol of limitless growth and endless possibilities since the Gold Rush of the 1800s.
ILLINOIS — Illinois goes from 18 to 17 House members, continuing a 40-year streak of losing congressional seats.
MICHIGAN — The number of House members representing Michigan drops from 14 to 13, particularly because of population losses in the Upper Peninsula.
NEW YORK — There was no question New York was going to lose a congressional seat, but the suspense lay in whether it would be one or two seats. The Census Bureau says New York lost its seat by a mere 89 people. The loss of one seat reduces its House delegation from 27 to 26 members.
OHIO — Sluggish population growth over the past decade causes Ohio to lose a single congressional seat, continuing its streak of losses every decade since 1960. The adjustment reduces the Buckeye State’s House seats from 16 to 15.
PENNSYLVANIA — Although Pennsylvania remains an important presidential battleground, its influence will be diminished by the loss of one Electoral College vote. Its House delegation drops from 18 to 17 members.
WEST VIRGINIA — A decadeslong exodus of residents finally causes West Virginia to lose a congressional seat, reducing its representation in the House from three to two members.
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CDC says fully vaccinated Americans can go without masks outdoors, except in crowded settings
Washington Post – Federal health officials said Tuesday that fully vaccinated Americans can go without masks outdoors when walking, jogging or biking, or dining with friends at outdoor restaurants.
The guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the latest set of recommendations for people who are two weeks past their final shot and for those who have not yet been inoculated. The guidelines address growing calls from infectious-disease and other public health experts to relax mask mandates for the outdoors because breezes disperse airborne virus particles, distancing is easier, and humidity and sunlight render the coronavirus less viable.
For that reason, the guidance also says even unvaccinated individuals may go without masks when walking, jogging or biking outdoors with household members. However, officials caution that crowded outdoor settings still pose risks and urge everyone — both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals — to wear masks when attending sporting events, live performances and parades.
The recommendations come as more than 52 percent of eligible people in the United States have gotten at least one shot, but vaccine supply has begun to outstrip demand. The guidance is aimed at helping the fully inoculated ease back into daily routines upended by the pandemic while encouraging others to get their shots to counter highly contagious new variants. States and localities across the country are opening walk-in clinics to make it easier for people to get vaccines.
“Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time telling Americans what they cannot do, what they should not do,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing. “Today, I’m going to tell you some of the things you can do if you are fully vaccinated.”
A growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have asymptomatic infections or transmit the coronavirus to others. Officials don’t know how long protection lasts and how much the vaccines protect against emerging virus variants.
But “taking steps toward relaxing certain measures for vaccinated people may help improve coronavirus vaccine acceptance and uptake,” the guidance states. “Therefore, there are several activities that fully vaccinated people can resume now, at low risk to themselves, while being mindful of the potential risk of transmitting the disease to others.”
Last month, the CDC told pandemic-weary Americans who were fully vaccinated they could gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing masks, and could visit indoors with unvaccinated people under certain conditions.
The guidance released Tuesday includes a color-coded chart that shows activities that fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people can do indoors and outdoors, and which ones can be done without masks. The safest activities, highlighted in green, are outdoors in small gatherings. Activities with the greatest risk are indoor settings that involve behaviors such as singing, shouting, heavy breathing, inability to wear a mask or inability to maintain physical distancing, such as indoor high-intensity exercise class.
The nearly 96 million Americans who are fully vaccinated can now forgo masks for many outdoor activities, including:
° Walking, running, hiking or biking outdoors alone or with members of your household.
º Attending a small outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends.
º Attending a small outdoor gathering with a mix of fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
º Dining at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households.
Officials say certain conditions increase risk: crowding, time spent, lack of ventilation and high community transmission. That’s why the CDC is recommending that it is safest for fully vaccinated people to continue to wear well-fitted masks in these settings, including:
“The examples today show that when you are fully vaccinated, you can return to many activities safely … and begin to get back to normal,” Walensky said. “And the more people who are vaccinated, the more steps we can take towards spending time with people we love, doing the things we love to enjoy. I hope this message is encouraging for you. It shows just how powerful these vaccines are.”
Monica Gandhi, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of California at San Francisco, applauded the CDC’s action after arguing that accumulating evidence shows the low risk of outdoor transmission.
“Viral particles disperse effectively in the outside air,” she said in an email, citing numerous studies, including one in Wuhan, China, that found just one of 7,324 infection events investigated was linked to outdoor transmission.
Gandhi noted that the World Health Organization says masks are not necessary outside unless physical distancing, which the agency defines as about three feet, cannot be maintained.
She and others have said it’s important for public health officials to provide incentives as “a great strategy to encourage those who are on the fence to get vaccinated.”
“Public health messaging since the time of HIV that focuses on positive, rather than negative, reinforcement has been shown to be more effective, so the CDC guidelines that vaccinated people don’t have to mask outdoors will hopefully help persuade some of the vaccine hesitant in the U.S. to get the vaccine,” Gandhi said.
The CDC guidance said there is limited data on vaccine protection in people who are immunocompromised. It urges people taking immunosuppressive medications to discuss the need for personal protective measures with their health-care providers, even if they are fully vaccinated.
Even before the CDC’s announcement, some states were already moving to ease mask mandates: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) on Monday cleared groups of fewer than 1,000 to gather outside without masks. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) on Tuesday said his state’s rule requiring masks outdoors would expire Friday, except in certain situations where social distancing is impossible.
The issue has become even more politically charged recently as conservative media figures have used their platforms online and on cable news to turn outdoor masking rules into a cause celebre. Fox News host Tucker Carlson urged viewers this week to contact child protective services to report the parents of children seen masked outdoors.
“Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart,” he said on his show, which is among the most watched on cable, regularly drawing 3 million viewers. “Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.”
His instructions were echoed Tuesday morning by Molly Hemingway, a senior editor at the Federalist, a conservative Web magazine. She tweeted: “Even if you’re an outdoor mask enthusiast at this late date, despite the complete lack of scientific support for same, I think we all can agree that masking children outdoors, at the very least, is abusive, right?”
The comments illustrate how face coverings, which were scorned by President Donald Trump, remain a marker of political identity more than a year into the pandemic.
Isaac Stanley-Becker contributed to this report.
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In California, a campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom qualifies for the ballot.
New York Times – Fueled by partisan fury and a backlash against pandemic shutdowns, a Republican-led campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has officially qualified for the ballot, setting the stage for the second recall election in the state’s history, officials said on Monday.
In a widely expected filing, the California secretary of state’s office found that recall organizers had collected 1,626,042 signatures on their petition, more than the roughly 1.5 million required to ask voters to remove Mr. Newsom from office.
The announcement sets in motion a series of procedural steps that will culminate in a special election. No election date has been scheduled, but it is expected to be sometime in November. Between now and then, the state will review the cost of the election, and voters who signed the petition will have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.
State officials say, however, that those hurdles are unlikely to prevent a vote, even though only a year or so will remain before Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018, comes up for re-election.
Several Republican candidates have already announced challenges to Mr. Newsom, including Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender activist; Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego; and John Cox, a Republican businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.
More are expected to follow, although Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, is widely expected to prevail in the deep-blue state. In recent polls, a majority of California voters have said they were disinclined to remove him from office, and his approval ratings have improved as the coronavirus crisis has waned. Mr. Newsom’s backers have characterized the recall effort as a futile bid by extremists to make Republicans relevant in the state.
Launched early in Mr. Newsom’s administration by conservative activists who took issue with his stance on immigration, the campaign gained traction late last year as the state struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
But the drive did not gather real momentum until early November, when its organizers, arguing that the pandemic had impaired their ability to circulate petitions, persuaded a judge to extend the signature-gathering deadline. That evening, Mr. Newsom attended a birthday dinner for a lobbyist friend at an exclusive wine country restaurant after exhorting Californians to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
On the night of the dinner, only 55,588 people had signed the petitions. One month later, there were nearly 500,000 signatures.
Recall attempts are common in California, but few make it onto the ballot. The last governor to face one was Gray Davis, who was ousted by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.
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DC statehood: Why it should (and should not) happen
EDITORIAL (CNN) – Democrats in the House voted on Thursday to make portions of Washington, DC, the 51st US state.
It’s important because it is an official step toward creating a new state for the first time in a lifetime, but also no big deal because the proposal is DOA in the Senate, where Republicans have enough votes to block it.
This issue is not going away, however. 2021 is the second consecutive year House Democrats have voted to make DC a state.
Why do supporters think DC should be a state?
The more than 700,000 people who live in Washington, DC, don’t have a voting member of Congress — only a delegate in the House — or representation in the Senate. Seven hundred thousand people isn’t nearly the size of most states, but it is certainly more than the populations of two, Vermont and Wyoming, and on par with Alaska, each of which has two senators and a voting member of Congress.
So DC residents have no say in the federal government?
Actually, they do — a little. The 23rd Amendment, enacted in 1961, gives District residents a say in presidential elections. The District is treated like a state for that purpose only, and it gets three Electoral College votes. But that’s only one portion of the representation a US citizen should probably get.
Are DC residents the only Americans not represented in Congress?
Far from it. DC residents have it better than Puerto Ricans. The residents of that US territory are American citizens but they don’t have voting members of Congress and don’t get to vote in presidential elections unless they’re living in a state.
Wait a minute. There are more than 3 million Americans living in Puerto Rico, but only about 700,000 living in DC. Why isn’t anyone talking about making Puerto Rico a state?
They are, but the process does not have nearly as much political momentum.
Everybody should get representation in Congress. Why NOT make DC a state?
For starters, the Constitution sort of seems to say it can’t be done. Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution says Congress should be in charge of the seat of government, which will be a “District (not exceeding ten Miles square).”
So you’d have to change the Constitution to make DC a state?
Maybe not. The bill passed by the House offers a sneaky and elegant solution. It simply shrinks the size of the federal district to the area just around the National Mall, the White House and Capitol Hill, where pretty much nobody but the President lives. The bill would make a state out of the bulk of the city. There would still be a district, but there would also be a new state.
Can you do that? Just change the size of the district?
It’s been done before. When it was originally conceived, Washington, DC, was formed from land ceded by both Virginia, west of the Potomac River, and Maryland, east of the Potomac. In the 1840s, the areas west of the Potomac rejoined Virginia in a process called “retrocession.”
What is today Arlington and parts of Alexandria used to be part of Washington, DC. Where today DC’s map looks like a square on two sides with a river bordering part of the rest, it used to just look like a square. This new proposal would shrink it even further.
Why was Alexandria allowed to retrocede in 1846?
The main stated reason was that the former Virginians on the west side of the Potomac felt neglected by the power base across the river, where the federal buildings were being erected. The real reason may have been that the Virginians feared slavery would be outlawed in DC and they would lose the slave market in Alexandria.
Why haven’t DC residents been given full rights before?
The short answer is equilibrium. Or Republicans’ version of it, considering there are fewer Republicans in the US than Democrats. And two senators elected from DC would almost surely be Democrats, so with the Senate currently split 50-50, expect the GOP to fight this tooth and nail.
Is there a middle ground? Why not just give most of the Maryland side of DC back to Maryland?
DC residents have their own all-or-nothing approach, choosing not to pursue retrocession of the portion of the District that was formerly part of Maryland. That would give DC residents a say in Congress without upsetting the current equilibrium.
“DC voters have already said loud and clear that we do not want retrocession, we want statehood,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in 2019. She has repeatedly rejected this idea.
What would happen to the 23rd Amendment if Congress made DC a state?
The bill before Congress says the US would start undoing the amendment. But it takes an amendment to undo an amendment. A constitutional amendment takes years of effort. While the statehood bill envisions a fast track to this process, it’d have to work flawlessly, otherwise the few people who still lived in the federally controlled district might continue to get three electoral votes. (This type of thing will be the subject of lawsuits.)
What do Americans in general say?
About two-thirds of Americans opposed making DC a state in a Gallup poll in 2019. Interestingly, polling found the reverse for Puerto Rico — two-thirds of Americans supported statehood for the territory.
What’s it take to make a new state?
Adding a state does not require a constitutional amendment. It just requires the OK of the House, the Senate and the President, although Congress can — and usually has — made it more complicated than that.
When was the last time a state was added?
1959. See that note about equilibrium above. In the late 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower was President, Alaska and Hawaii were added at roughly the same time. Since the Senate operates with a requirement for a supermajority (60 senators) to enact legislation, Republicans can effectively block any moves by Democrats to make DC or Puerto Rico a state.
This will be one of a large number of reasons a lot of Democrats are calling to end the filibuster. Republicans have already been chipping away at the filibuster, too.
Are there any other obstacles?
The plan to simply shrink the capital district is clever. But it’s not a foregone conclusion that it’s legal. The Supreme Court currently has a Republican-appointed majority, and it’s an open question how it would rule if Republicans took the case to court.
Anything else?
Yes. So much more. It’s certainly worth noting that Democrats in particular have been talking about fundamental changes to the US system of government in recent years. A lot of Democrats want to change the format of the Supreme Court, and overhaul the Electoral College, which gives so much power to states with fewer people.
There’s also the weirdness of a country where such tiny states have such power int he Senate, which can put a stop to any legislation it wants. If we’re going to add seats for DC, why not add seats by breaking up California or Texas or Florida, massive states that only get two senators.
Last thing: Where would you fit a 51st star on the American flag?
Great question. People are already thinking about that. But trust me. They’d find space.
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Governors Urge Biden To Order 100% Zero-Emission Car Sales By 2035
NPR – Governors from a dozen states are asking President Biden to ban the sale of cars and light trucks that emit greenhouse gases by 2035.
In a letter to the president, the governors of California, New York, North Carolina and nine other states — all but one a Democrat — asked for the change ahead of a White House climate summit, scheduled to begin Thursday.
“By establishing a clear regulatory path to ensuring that all vehicles sold in the United States are zero-emission, we can finally clear the air and create high-road jobs,” the governors wrote in the letter.
“Moving quickly towards a zero-emission transportation future will protect the health of all communities,” they added.
Between now and the target date, the governors called for “significant milestones along the way to monitor progress.”
The other signatories were Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, the lone Republican, and the governors of Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island and Hawaii.
The 12 governors also called on the Biden administration to set standards and adopt incentives to ensure 100% zero-emission sales of medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicles by 2045.
While the letter urges a transition to entirely zero-emission vehicles by that date, it does not specifically call for the elimination of gasoline-powered vehicles.
The 2035 goal matches one already adopted by California. The other states whose governors signed have ambitious goals to increase zero-emissions vehicles, such as electric vehicles, and/or invest heavily in such technology in the coming years.
The letter follows similar appeals in March from 71 House lawmakers and 10 senators, all Democrats, urging Biden to reinstate Obama-era vehicle emissions standards through 2025 and do more to move the U.S. in the direction of electric vehicles. They urged the president “to set a date by which new sales of fossil fuel vehicles will end entirely.”
In 2020, electric vehicles made up less than 2% of the U.S. car and light-truck market, according to IHS Markit, but the research firm expects that figure to surpass 3.5% nationally in 2021.
The United Auto Workers, in a letter to the White House in March, urged caution, saying any plan to increase zero-emission vehicles should take “the present market realities into consideration,” according to Reuters.
“Neither the current trajectory of consumer adoption of EVs, nor existing levels of federal support for supply- and demand-side policies, is sufficient to meet our goal of a net-zero carbon transportation future,” it said.
Last month, Biden invited the leaders of 40 countries to participate in a virtual White House summit to “underscore the urgency — and the economic benefits — of stronger climate action.”
As part of the meeting, the administration is expected to promise to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions sharply, help poorer countries pay for the costs of climate change and encourage the rest of the world to announce new, bolder climate goals.
The summit, set to run Thursday and Friday, is part of Biden’s effort to reverse course from the Trump administration, which withdrew from the Paris climate accord and sought to weaken auto emissions standards and generally roll back environmental regulations.
Biden has pledged to restore much of what Trump undid. Among other steps since taking office, he has had the U.S. rejoin the Paris Agreement.
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Teacher raised $41,000 to help local families hurt by COVID-19. He now owes $16,000 in taxes.
CBS News – Louis Goffinet, a 27-year-old teacher in Connecticut, said he started a fundraiser a year ago to aid local families affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign was a smashing success, collecting more than $41,000 to help them pay for groceries, meals and rental assistance.
But Goffinet said he recently learned of a downside to his efforts: He now owes $16,031 in personal income tax on the funds he raised via Facebook Fundraisers.
“After consulting with several tax professionals, the unanimous consensus seems to be that I am responsible for paying income tax on the funds I was able to raise through Facebook,” Goffinet wrote in a Facebook post.
In his April 10 post, Goffinet is again turning to charity — this time to cover his own tax bill. “This is more than I can reasonably afford to pay alone, and am asking for the community’s help,” he wrote.
In an interview with CBS MoneyWatch, Goffinet said he was in “genuine shock” after getting the tax form.
“I had spent the better part of my 2020 devoting my weekends and free time to volunteering and helping the community,” he said. “It was a powerful thing to be part of it. But then to be told not just by the 1099-K, but to be told by tax professionals that I do owe taxes on funds I raised for my community, it didn’t feel right.”
Goffinet said he raised funds through two Facebook fundraisers, one to assist local families with groceries and the other aimed at providing financial help over the holidays. He didn’t create an IRS-approved charity, but instead deposited the funds in his bank account and then spent the money on whatever local families needed, he told the Hartford Courant, which earlier reported on his predicament.
Goffinet told CBS MoneyWatch that he’s concerned his experience may send the wrong message to other would-be volunteers and samaritans.
“Part of the message people are seeing now is it’s not worth it to help others because you will only set yourself up for a really tough situation,” he said. But, he added, he plans to continue his efforts in some way.
“This is probably the most rewarding thing I’ve done,” Goffinet said.
Facebook said that it’s unable to provide tax advice to people who use the platform to raise funds because individual situations can vary and the tax code can change from year to year.
Pitfalls of donating via Facebook
The 8th-grade math and science teacher said he organized two fundraisers: One at the start of the pandemic, which helped pay for groceries for community members in need, and another in November to help with holiday meals and gifts. He said he paid for 31 Thanksgiving dinners, and provided 20 gift cards for families to buy holiday gifts, on top of about 140 grocery store visits.
In early 2021, he received a 1099 form from Stripe, the payment processing company used by Facebook, stating that he would owe more than $16,000 on the fundraisers, he said.
Goffinet’s tax bill is due May 17, the date of the extended filing deadline set by the IRS. The situation highlights the pitfalls of raising funds through online services such as Facebook, rather than donating money through an IRS-qualified charity.
Facebook cautions in its terms of service for personal fundraisers that it is “solely your responsibility to assess, collect, report or remit the correct tax, if any, to the appropriate tax authority.” Donations made through personal fundraisers “generally are not tax-deductible under applicable law,” the company notes.
Goffinet said Facebook should more explicitly state that raising money for a cause on the site could cause a tax liability.
“Especially in a circumstance like this, where a fundraiser is set up for a broader community and not one individual person’s gain,” he said. “I don’t think it’s clear enough to warn people like me that even if you are going to turn around and pass on all the money you raised, that there is still an income tax burden on that.”
In the meantime, he said he has received some donations from people who want to help him pay his tax bill — including two offers from people who said they would cover the entire IRS bill once the final amount is certain.
“I would really encourage people who are considering something like this to go out and do it — and make sure you are well versed on the tax code,” Goffinet added.