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On Thursday, President Joe Biden said his administration has finalized a deal for 200 million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses. Biden said the acquisition will give the United States a total of 600 million doses, enough to inoculate 300 million people by the end of July. Biden also announced that federally run community health centers will begin receiving vaccine doses.
During a visit to the National Institutes of Health Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory, Biden said, “Just this afternoon, we signed the final contracts for 100 million more Moderna and 100 million more Pfizer vaccines.” He said the two companies also reached an agreement to expedite the delivery of 100 million vaccine doses originally scheduled to arrive in June to be delivered in May.
Last week, the administration said retail pharmacies will begin receiving direct shipments from the federal government Thursday. National pharmacy chain Rite Aid announced it will begin administering vaccines on Friday in California, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania as well as Philadelphia and New York City, which are designated as separate jurisdictions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 34.72 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine to date, and 11.19 million have received two.
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U.S. House impeachment managers rested their case on Thursday in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. In their third day of presentations, the Democrats presented video clips and other evidence showing participants saying they attacked the Capitol at the behest of Trump.
The House team also relied heavily on video footage during the first half of its presentation Wednesday, which included several videos from Capitol security cameras that hadn’t been seen publicly before. In finalizing the case, Democrats called on senators to vote in favor of Trump’s guilt. Five people died as a direct result of the attack and dozens were injured. The FBI has so far made hundreds of arrests.
Trump attorneys Bruce Castor and David Schoen are expected to begin presenting their defense on Friday. After both sides are finished making their presentations, senators will be able to start asking questions. Then the Senate may have to vote on admitting witnesses or evidence, after which both sides will each have 4 hours to make their closing arguments. After that, the Senate will deliberate and render its verdict. The trial is expected to last into next week.
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is undergoing offseason knee surgery, according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, due to an injury he suffered during the season. The procedure will be a minor one (called “a clean up”) but in fact, reports state that the QB “played most of the season with some discomfort in the knee.” Brady shouldn’t be expected to miss much, if any, of the Buccaneers’ ensuing offseason program.
Despite the knee issues, Brady led the Buccaneers to an 11-5 record and won four playoff games culminating in a Super Bowl LV victory. He remains under contract with the Bucs through 2021 after inking a two-year deal with the club last offseason.
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The Toronto Raptors have announced they will finish the 2020–21 season in Tampa due to ongoing border restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S.-Canada border remains closed to nonessential travel, and the league would have otherwise needed an exemption to a requirement that anyone entering Canada for nonessential reasons must isolate for 14 days.
The Raptors have played their home games at Amalie Arena, home of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Raptors president Masai Ujiri said Thursday in a statement, “Florida has been really welcoming to us and we’re so grateful for the hospitality we’ve found in Tampa and at Amalie—we’re living in a city of champions, and we intend to carry on the tradition of winning for our new friends and fans here. But home is where the heart is, and our hearts are in Toronto. We think often of our fans, of our Scotiabank Arena family, and all those we are missing back home, and we can’t wait until we can all be together again.”
The Raptors are 12—13 and sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference. They are 6—5 at home on the year.
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is undergoing offseason knee surgery, according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, due to an injury he suffered during the season. The procedure will be a minor one (called “a clean up”) but in fact, reports state that the QB “played most of the season with some discomfort in the knee.” Brady shouldn’t be expected to miss much, if any, of the Buccaneers’ ensuing offseason program.
Despite the knee issues, Brady led the Buccaneers to an 11-5 record and won four playoff games culminating in a Super Bowl LV victory. He remains under contract with the Bucs through 2021 after inking a two-year deal with the club last offseason.
Editorial credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com
President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday he had approved an executive order for new sanctions on those responsible for the military coup in Myanmar, repeating demands for the generals to give up power and free civilian leaders. Biden said the order enables his administration “to immediately sanction the military leaders who directed the coup, their business interests as well as close family members,” adding that Washington would identify the first round of targets this week, and was taking steps to prevent the generals in Myanmar — also known as Burma — having access to $1 billion in Myanmar government funds held in the United States.
The Feb. 1 coup overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian-led government, and occurred less than two weeks after Biden took office. Biden said, “I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release the democratic political leaders and activists,. The military must relinquish power it has seized.”
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Amid continued concern over the coronavirus pandemic, the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrated their victory Wednesday with a boat parade. The team arrived by bus and boarded at least four boats, with the parade taking place on the Hillsborough River near downtown Tampa. Thousands of fans lined the river to cheer on quarterback Tom Brady, tight end Rob Gronkowski and many others.
Mayor Jane Castor again emphasized that people attending the parade must wear masks outdoors and observe social distancing rules, and there were also many fans on private boats, kayaks and other watercrafts to catch a glimpse of the team. They were directed to stay at least 50 feet (15 meters) from the boats carrying players.
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The NBA said on Wednesday that all teams will continue play the National Anthem before games, in accordance with policy. The directive came a day after the Dallas Mavericks announced they no longer would play the song. NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass said in a statement: “With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy.”
Dallas has not played the Star-Spangled Banner before any of their 13 regular or preseason games which were played this season at American Airlines Center in Dallas. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban responded after the league’s statement and said the team will play the anthem Wednesday in Dallas, saying in a statement: “We respect and always have respected the passion people have for the anthem and our country. I have always stood for the anthem with the hand over my heart — no matter where I hear it played. But we also hear the voices of those who do not feel the anthem represents them. We feel they also need to be respected and heard, because they have not been respected and heard.”
Cuban had said on Tuesday that he directed the team to stop the pregame tradition. saying he consulted NBA commissioner Adam Silver on the issue last November. NBA rules have required players to stand during the national anthem since the 1980s, but Silver has not disciplined players who have knelt in recent years in protest.
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A graphic video was shown to members of the Senate at the start of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, containing the violence and obscenities shouted by the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The Democratic House impeachment managers presented the footage as a way of walking through the events of Jan. 6.
The video showed Capitol police being overrun by the mob, people using flag staffs to break the building’s windows, a police officer screaming as he was attacked, and the gunshot that killed Ashli Babbitt, one of five who died during during the violence. It was also interspersed with clips from the speech Trump was delivering at the same time on the Ellipse outside the White House, including one in which he said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The video also contained footage of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell speaking on the chamber floor as the mob breached the Capitol. It also displays a tweet from Trump calling into question the intentions of then-Vice President Mike Pence followed by videos of Trump supporters shouting “Hang Pence.” Trump was also shown in a clip from later in the day, when he told the insurrectionists to “go home, we love you.”
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