Group items tagged

When it comes to the influx of migrants at the southern U.S. border, Biden said the Pentagon is making 5,000 beds available at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, to increase capacity.

He blamed the Trump administration for decreasing capacity and said his administration is building back up the systems that, he said, should have been maintained and built upon but that the former president "dismantled."

The Biden administration has changed policy from the Trump hard-line action of refusing to admit unaccompanied minors during the pandemic. Biden defended taking that action, saying what former President Donald Trump did broke from prior practice of past presidents and was, essentially, inhumane.

He stressed that a parent's decision to send their child to the United States unaccompanied on a dangerous journey shows desperation with their circumstances. Biden has assigned Vice President Harris to head up efforts to work with Mexico and Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants.

A solution to the immigration situation at the southern border has been elusive through Congress. When asked whether he would back eliminating or weakening the filibuster to facilitate his agenda, he delivered a potential threat.

If Republicans continue to make it a requirement for 60 votes to proceed to an up or down vote, "We'll have to go beyond what we're talking about," he said obliquely. Biden has in the past signaled openness to dismantling the filibuster if Republican opposition refuses to relent.

Biden also reiterated that he is in favor of bringing back the "talking filibuster," making it necessary for senators who want to hold up legislation to hold the Senate floor and speak.

Asked about gun violence following two high-profile mass shootings in the past week, Biden pivoted and said his next push will be on infrastructure. That's something he said he will announce in more detail Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

His answer indicated that Biden, who in recent days urged lawmakers to pass firearm legislation, may not believe the political will is there now to pass substantive gun restrictions. Congress has been unable to pass strong gun legislation over the past two decades despite countless mass shootings in that time. Biden, who's 78 years old, also said he plans to run for reelection in 2024.

It's advantageous for a president to say he expects to seek reelection or he becomes a lame duck too quickly. In other words, if a president says he is not going to run for reelection, Congress begins to look past that president's authority, reducing his political capital.

Biden also touted his early successes, including work to expand the COVID-19 vaccination program and the $1.9 trillion relief package enacted by Congress.

His remarks come a little over halfway through his first 100 days in office — a typical benchmark used to measure a president's early progress. Before this news conference, Biden had taken questions intermittently from reporters, but nothing at this length.

The Supreme Court is scheduled this week to discuss adding a case to the next term's docket that could expand the scope of the Second Amendment if the court declares New York state's stringent concealed carry law a violation of an individual's right to possess a firearm.

America's broken political system prevents even basic, common-sense gun control legislation from ever seeing the light of day.

Race plays a central role in America's twisted history of gun control. When Black folk, from Malcolm X to the Black Panthers, tried to apply their Second Amendment right to bear arms in the service of defending Black lives against racial terror they were violently repudiated.

The Republican Party, beginning with Richard Nixon's 1968 "law and order" campaign and continuing through Sen. Ron Johnson's comments about Black Lives Matter in relation to the January 6 insurrection, has successfully vilified large parts of the Black community as criminal. At times this was done with an assist from Democrats, including then-Sen. Joe Biden's coauthorship of the 1994 Crime Bill, who co-signed treating many Black Americans as gun-toting "thugs."

In this sense, America's crisis of mass shootings -- ongoing before the Covid-19 pandemic and continuing amid its ravages -- is not only bound up in the operations of our political institutions but also more emotionally connected to how some White Americans understand their relationship to our national identity.

Organized racial terrorist groups, beginning in the late 19th century, reached new peaks of national respectability in the early 20th century as the reformulated Klan (rebirthed in Stone Mountain, Georgia) marched 30,000 strong at the US Capitol on August 8, 1925.

White supremacist violence infects our criminal justice system as much as it does our political institutions. Dylann Roof, the young White racist who murdered nine Black church parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, was treated with respect, even kindness, by law enforcement, who stopped by a fast-food restaurant to get him something to eat after he committed mass murder.

Perhaps what is most striking in the case of the apprehension of violent White mass shooters is that law enforcement routinely manages to arrest them unharmed. This stands out in stark contrast to oftentimes innocent Black suspects who end up dead at the hands of the police.

The deadly assault on the US Capitol cast a spotlight on how predominantly White law enforcement understood, responded to and at times sympathized with White rioters who brandished Confederate flags and anti-Semitic propaganda in the Capitol building rotunda.

We will see a sign of true equity in criminal justice when we can see Black and White shooting suspects safely apprehended at identical rates. But limiting the easy access to guns and ending racist police violence will not eradicate White rage.

Reporters have learned to spend more time focusing on victims, rather than perpetrators. It was a shift that played out vocally on social media, as readers on Twitter implored news organizations to focus more on the people who were killed in the Atlanta shootings, as well as the uptick in crimes against Asian-Americans, rather than the gunman’s supposed motive.

ournalists are usually expected to set their feelings aside as they gather disinterested facts about a tragic event. But it’s not always possible, and Mr. Holt said that it was important to “report these things as unusual, as not normal.”

“I think it’s OK to be a little pissed off,” Mr. Holt, of “NBC Nightly News,” said. “As a journalist, it’s not an editorial position to be upset or angry at mass murder, of people going about their day, shopping, getting cut down by a stranger. It’s OK to be upset about that.”

“Every journalist goes through tough stories,” he said. “We are not alone with it. It’s just unfortunate that we’ve had in Colorado, a number of these, that have given us, for lack of a better term, training in how to try to deal with these things. But it’s still going to be awful.”

Boebert filming herself carrying a concealed firearm around the Capitol Grounds, the fiery speech Brooks gave at the Trump rally on the day of the insurrection and Gosar's ties to extremist groups. The letter also makes note of Boebert's tweets regarding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location on the day of the insurrection.

"It's clear what I believe to be clear violation of our ethical standards and our responsibilities as members of Congress. That is what the House Ethics Committee can look at," Jaypal said in an interview with CNN. "But I also think that there are other pieces here that are even beyond just service in the House that are federal statutes. And so that's why we asked for the referrals to the Department of Justice."

"I still worry about my safety and my security when I'm inside Congress, not just when I leave," Jaypal said. "And that is very troubling. I've only been here for four years, but I've not felt that before. And, and I feel it from my colleagues. I don't know, who my colleagues are engaging with, I don't know what their role was. And I do think that that is part of the reason these letters are so important."

Gosar's denials have been less clear. In a tweet on that day he posted a photo of rioters scaling a wall of the Capitol "let's not get carried away."

Federal authorities have said they are investigating the possibility that some of those that participated in the riot may have been given tours ahead of time, but have stopped short of saying any lawmakers did so with the express purpose of helping the rioters prepare to attack the Capitol.

"These three members seem to be emboldened by the fact that there hasn't been really any accountability for them. There hasn't been any accountability at all," she said. "And that is unacceptable I think and that's why I'm asking for these investigations."

In a tweet on January 18, Boebert wrote "All claims of my involvement with the attacks on January 6th are categorically false. These lies are irresponsible and dangerous."

Jayapal is not the only Democrat looking into the role her colleagues may have played in the events leading up to January 6th. Rep. Zoe Lofgren recently released a 2,000-page report that outlined the social media activity of several GOP members ahead of the insurrection.

Another survey found only 14 percent of the people living with gun owners had any formal instruction.

A majority of all gun deaths are suicides. One study found that in 2018, an average of 67 Americans shot themselves to death every day.

“Who do you think you are — to disarm Americans and leave them vulnerable?” our old friend Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado asked the House, as members prepared to pass — by a narrow margin — two bills making very modest adjustments in our current, wildly inadequate, gun safety laws

We’ve had a lot of tragic gun-related headlines lately. The story of the baby’s death was overshadowed by a crisis in Minnesota, where an officer yelling “Taser! Taser!” pulled the trigger on a man she’d stopped for expired tags. And, as the whole nation now knows, the Taser was actually a loaded gun.

“Holy shit!” the officer shouted in horror after she realized what she’d done. How many Americans do you think muttered the same thing when they first heard the story? We are thinking about this tragedy in terms of race, and police relations with minority communities. As well we should.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, took in $1.5 million, and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has started an organization to lead the Republican Party away from fealty to Mr. Trump, raised more than $1.1 million.

Campaign filings show nearly a dozen lawmakers have made payments of $20,000 or more to security companies in the past three months, including Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted to convict Mr. Trump; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who gave a harrowing account of the riot; and Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California and one of the impeachment managers against Mr. Trump.

A number of places are revving up vaccination efforts in schools. In Colorado, Denver Health will expand clinics it operates in six public schools to middle school students. For the last few weeks, it has provided 150 to 400 vaccines every Saturday and Sunday, reaching not just high school juniors and seniors but sometimes their parents and older siblings, too.

President Biden announced plans last week to ship doses of the Pfizer vaccine directly to pediatricians’ offices, and he said that about 20,000 pharmacy sites were also ready to administer the vaccine to younger adolescents.

We have to validate parental anxiety and mistrust of medicine and be very open to listening to what their experiences have been,

Staggering Covid shots around the routine vaccines required for school in September — which many children are behind on because of the pandemic — will be complicated.

My immune system is stronger than the kids’. I don’t know if they could shake off those effects as quickly as mine.

Within months, eligibility for the vaccines is expected to expand to even younger children. Pfizer expects to seek emergency authorization in September to administer its vaccine to children between the ages of 2 and 11. Moderna’s clinical trial results for its vaccine in 12- to 17-year-olds are expected in the next few weeks, and those from a trial of its vaccine in children 6 months to 12 years old in the second half of this year.

All 50 states require certain vaccines for children who attend school, but those mandates apply only to vaccines that have been fully approved by the F.D.A., a status the Covid shots have not yet achieved. And even when the F.D.A. approves the vaccines, any state-legislated mandates would most likely allow students to opt out for medical, religious and sometimes even philosophical reasons, as they do for other childhood shots.

In Nevada, water levels have dropped so drastically in Lake Mead that officials are preparing for a serious shortage that could prompt major reductions in Colorado River water deliveries next year. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has placed 41 counties under a state of emergency.

Here in Oregon, conservationists, Native American tribes, government agencies and irrigators are squaring off, and local leaders fear that generations of tensions could escalate in volatile new ways.

During a drought in 2001, the federal Bureau of Reclamation initially planned for the first time to fully cut off water for farmers over the summer. That order spurred an uprising of farmers and ranchers who used saws, torches and crowbars to breach the facilities and open the canal head gates.

Ammon Bundy, who led an armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016, said he was ready to bring in allies to help keep the gates open, saying that people need to be prepared to use force to protect their rights even if law enforcement arrives to stop them.

Some landowners have openly talked about breaching the fence surrounding the dam property and forcing open the irrigation gates. Already, they have purchased property adjacent to the head gates and staged protests there.

For the United States, the Klamath Project became a keystone for settling and developing the region. Homestead opportunities for veterans after the two world wars helped to stimulate the economy and to build a new kind of community.

The region has a deep history rooted in violence and racial division. In 1846, U.S. War Department surveyors, led by John C. Frémont and Kit Carson, slaughtered more than a dozen Native Americans on the shores of Klamath Lake.

“These are not things that are going to get better if climate change continues to give us more uncertainty and less reliable supplies of water,” said William Jaeger, an economics professor at Oregon State University who specializes in environmental, resource and agricultural policy issues.

Lake levels fell below the minimum thresholds set by federal scientists, prompting litigation and spurring fears that algae blooms this summer could devastate the imperiled fish populations above the dam

Farmers generally have been split on how aggressively to push back against this year’s water shut-off. Ms. Hill said she disliked the idea of forcing open the gates, saying that option would do little to help. Other farmers have also called for ratcheting back the threats.

But on Friday night, about 100 people gathered under a large tent next to the head gates on property bought recently by two farmers, Dan Nielsen and Grant Knoll, who say they have a legal entitlement to the water behind the gates in Upper Klamath Lake under state water law.

Facing a similar standoff two decades ago, in 2001, the federal government relented with a limited delivery of water to farmers, but there was no sign that agencies, facing an already depleted lake, would budge this time.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday that the best way for the country to avoid another Covid-19 surge -- and another shut down -- is to get vaccinated.

A recent CNN analysis of CDC data found that the pace of newly-vaccinated adults will fall short of the Biden administration's goal of 70% of adults with one dose by July 4.

At present, 12 states have already met Biden's one-dose goal: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The push to increase vaccinations is highlighted by further evidence that the mass vaccination programs this year have contributed greatly in the fight against Covid-19.

A daily average of 49,000 new cases reported to the CDC at the start of May has fallen to less than 14,000 Thursday.

Nearly 170 million people -- just over half of the total US population -- have received at least one dose of vaccine, and about 137.5 million people -- 41.4% of the population -- are fully vaccinated.

The CDC says vaccinated people may stop wearing masks in most cases, but unvaccinated people should continue to use them.

About 1.4 million new doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered since Thursday,

In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear announced the state's new Covid-19 vaccine incentive which will give vaccinated adults "a shot at a million dollars," he said.

More than 2 million Kentuckians have already been vaccinated, but Beshear anticipates "a significant increase" following Friday's announcement, he said.

In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis presented Sally Sliger with a super-sized check for $1 million as the winner of the first drawing in the state's 'Comeback Cash' initiative.

As vaccines continue to go into the arms of eligible teens and adults, health officials remain concerned over the safety of children. Only those ages 12 years and older are currently eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine in the US.

Research showing an increase in Covid-19 hospitalization rates among adolescents in the US is a reminder that even children can suffer from the virus,

As a result, bans on school mask mandates in states like Texas are irresponsible and could result in more children getting sick, Offit said.

Hawaii, which has maintained some of the toughest travel restrictions throughout the pandemic, is beginning to loosen rules on air travel, dropping its testing and quarantine requirements for people flying between the Hawaiian islands starting June 15. All pandemic restrictions will be lifted once the full vaccination rate reaches 70%,

The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), on which Offit sits, is set to meet on June 10 to discuss what the FDA should consider in either authorizing or approving the use of coronavirus vaccines in children under 12.

Both Moderna and Pfizer are running trials for their vaccines in children ages 11 and under.

It’s very bad, both in terms of the size of the affected area and the severity. The latest map from the drought monitor shows that all or nearly all of California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and North Dakota are in drought, and in large areas of those states conditions are “severe” or “exceptional.” Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Montana, South Dakota and southwestern Texas are also affected.

It is true that much of the West is normally hotter and drier than other parts of the country. Much of the Southwest and parts of Southern California are desert. Las Vegas, for example, averages about four inches of rain a year, about a 10th of the national average. Much of the rest of California has a Mediterranean climate, which can be wet in the winter but is hot and dry in summer.

The fall and winter are usually wetter in California and the Pacific Northwest, so that may help. A pattern of summer storms known as the Southwest monsoon may help in Arizona, New Mexico and other areas. But the monsoon is unpredictable — the 2019 and 2020 monsoon seasons brought so little rain they were referred to as “nonsoons,” and are one reason the drought is so severe this year.

Talks about implementing a federal licensing system gained some traction a couple years ago when New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced the Federal Firearm Licensing Bill, which would have expanded the criteria used to screen prospective gun buyers. Under this plan, attorneys general would have more information about prospective gun owners and could deny licenses to people who violate stalking restraining orders, as well as gun traffickers and people with histories of making threats of violence. Even though the National Rifle Association might try to tell you differently, these are not controversial early steps in a massive gun grab. These are modest expansions of a failing background check system. Unfortunately, this bill died in the Senate.

one study showing a 64% increased risk of death for people infected with B.1.1.7 compared to those infected with the older

implement the public health measures that we talk about all the time

That makes it more important than ever to get people vaccinated quickly,

To get as many people vaccinated as quickly and as expeditiously as possib

But vaccines appear to protect well against B.1.1.7

That's because the vaccines cause a broad immune response so that even if it's a little weakened, it's still powerful enough to prevent serious disease and death.

"The vaccine remained effective against B.1.1.7 with a slight but significant decrease in neutralization that was more apparent in participants under 55 years of age.

"had no significant effect on neutralization by serum obtained from participants who had received the mRNA-1273 vaccine in the phase 1 trial,"

if more mutations were acquired by the virus

including the B.1.351 variant first seen in South Africa and the P.1 variant that is common now in Brazil.

may much more easily evade the immune response prompted by vaccines

, it nonetheless strongly protected people against severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths in clinical trials.

that makes it even more important to get as many people vaccinated as possible before those variants can spread.

A police affidavit made public on Tuesday said that last week he bought a Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic pistol, though it is not clear that weapon was involved in the shooting on Monday.

On Tuesday he was taken to a jail in Boulder and was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. Officials gave no indication of a motive.

Court records show he was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect, giving his name as Ahmad Al Issa

The shooting came just six days after another gunman’s deadly shooting spree at massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

A video streamed live from outside of the grocery store on Monday had appeared to show a suspect — handcuffed, shirtless and with his right leg appearing to be covered in blood — being taken from the building by officers.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Alex Arellano, 35, who was working in the store’s meat department when he heard a series of gunshots and saw people running toward an exit.

The lawsuit notes that coastal states receive significant revenue from onshore and offshore oil and gas activity.

At a news conference, Landry accused the Biden administration of “effectively banning oil and gas activity that supports businesses, employees our workers and, also, as importantly, funds our coastal restoration projects.”

But a long-term halt to oil and gas sales would curb future production and could hurt states like Louisiana that are heavily dependent on the industry.

“This will not affect oil and gas production or jobs for years to come,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about the lawsuit's claims at a Wednesday briefing.

“Just as you're starting to have the communications get you to a point where you're feeling better about things and the permits are being issued probably isn't the best time to file litigation,” Edwards said.

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia are the other plaintiff states.Western Energy Alliance, an industry lobbying group based in Colorado, sued over the leasing suspension in federal court in Wyoming on the same day it was announced. The Biden administration had not responded to the complaint as of Wednesday.

“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr. Alexander said in a since-deleted video, “so that who we couldn’t rally, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

As rioters laid siege to the Capitol, Mr. Gosar posted a message of calm on Twitter, telling his followers, “Let’s not get carried away here.”

Their comments have raised questions about the degree to which Republicans may have coordinated with protest organizers.

Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, first-term lawmakers who ran as outspoken defenders of Mr. Trump, referred to the day as Republicans’ “1776 moment.”

“I make no apology for doing my absolute best to inspire patriotic Americans to not give up on our country and to fight back against anti-Christian socialists in the 2022 and 2024 elections,”

“We’re going to need to take a broader look at members of Congress who may have encouraged or even facilitated the attack on the Capitol,”

Other House Democrats were pushing to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, added after the Civil War, which disqualifies people who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from holding public office.

Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, introduced a resolution on Monday with 47 co-sponsors that would initiate investigations for “removal of the members who attempted to overturn the results of the election and incited a white supremacist attempted coup.”

“Even if it’s just a few, we have to make sure the message is clear that you cannot be a sitting Congress member and incite an insurrection and work to overturn an election,”

“This is a population of people who have been historically ignored, abused and mistreated,” said Dr. Mike Wasserman, a geriatrician and former president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine. “It is laziness on the part of anyone to force these folks to take a vaccine. I believe that we need to be putting all of our energy into respecting, honoring and valuing the work they do and educating them on the benefits to them and the folks they take care of in getting vaccinated.”

At Jackson Health System in Miami, a survey of about 5,900 employees found that only half wanted to get a vaccine immediately, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Henry Ford Health System, which runs six hospitals in Michigan, said that as of Wednesday morning, about 22 percent of its 33,000 employees had declined to be vaccinated.

At Houston Methodist, a hospital system in Texas with 26,000 employees, workers who take the vaccine will be eligible for a $500 bonus. “Vaccination is not mandatory for our employees yet (but will be eventually),” Dr. Marc Boom, the hospital’s chief executive, wrote in an email to employees last month.

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said last month that roughly 60 percent of nursing home staff members offered the vaccine in his state had declined it.

Underlying the hesitancy is a lack of trust in authorities — the federal government, politicians, even their employers — that have failed for the past year to get the virus under control.

“We are left behind in the dust — no one sticks up for us,”

Another concern about forcing workers to get vaccinated is that it could prompt hesitant employees to resign. That’s a particular worry in long-term care, where the pandemic has exacerbated a shortage of certified nursing assistants.

Both have been found to be safe and highly effective. So why are so many hospital and long-term care workers reluctant to get inoculated?

At Norton Healthcare, a health system in Louisville, Ky., workers who refuse the vaccine and then catch Covid-19 will generally no longer be able to take advantage of the paid medical leave that Norton has been offering to infected employees since early in the pandemic.

At Juniper — which has 20 senior living communities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado — officials have tried to educate workers about the safety and benefits of Covid-19 vaccines, including hosting a webinar with a registered nurse who was enrolled in a clinical trial of the Moderna vaccine. Officials told staff last month that vaccines would be mandatory.

Security experts warned this weekend that some far-right extremist groups have now started to focus attention on Inauguration Day and are already discussing an assault similar to the one on the Capitol, which led to the sacking of congressional offices and the deaths of at least five people, including a Capitol Police officer.

In a separate statement, Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, said he had spoken with military officials who were aware of “possible threats posed by would-be terrorists” in the coming days and were working with local and federal law enforcements officers to prevent them.

Armed with federal warrants, law enforcement officers spent much of the weekend cracking down on people who had stormed the National Capitol, making a series of arrests in states from Iowa to Florida, and filing new charges against some of the more than 80 people who were taken into custody last week by local officers in Washington

The F.B.I. has said that it has received more than 40,000 tips online about the Capitol mob, including photographs and video clips

the Justice Department was considering charges for “theft of national security information” after some in the mob looted laptops, documents and other items from congressional offices.

Keller, 38, was part of U.S. Olympic teams in 2000, 2004 and 2008. He is perhaps best known for holding off Australia's Ian Thorpe while swimming the anchor leg of the 4x200 freestyle at the 2004 Athens games to help his team win by 0.13 seconds.

Investigators also noted Keller's striking height. He stands at 6 feet and 6 inches.

According to court documents, he was wearing a blue jacket with "USA" on the back and a "red and white Olympic patch on the front left side."

Investigators said conservative news site Townhall Media posted a video of a crowd at the Capitol. Then, outlets such as SwimSwam, which follows competitive swimming, said it appeared Keller was in the video, according to the charging documents.

Federal authorities said they confirmed his identification by comparing screen shots of Keller with his driver's license with his image from Colorado's Department of Motor Vehicles.

USA Swimming, the U.S. governing body of competitive swimming, said in a statement to its membership Wednesday that "while we respect private individuals' and groups' rights to peacefully protest, we strongly condemned the unlawful actions taken by those at the Capitol last week."

"Mr. Keller's actions in no way represent the values or mission of USA Swimming. And while once a swimmer at the highest levels of our sport — representing the country and democracy he so willfully attacked — Mr. Keller has not been a member of this organization since 2008."

But nationwide, the federal program has had mixed feedback, with some nursing home directors and other health care providers blaming poor logistics and bureaucracy for the slow rollout.

The state also broke from federal guidance on groups prioritized to receive the vaccine first, emphasizing speed over specifics.

In anticipation of Covid-19 vaccine emergency use authorization, Monument Health in South Dakota started to build databases of individuals under their care that would be eligible to receive the vaccine and proactively reach out to them, Dr. Shankar Kurra, vice

Another defendant, 24-year-old Colorado resident Robert Gieswein, appears to be affiliated with the Three Percenters, according to another affidavit filed Saturday seeking his arrest on federal charges.

Prosecutors say Mr. Betancur scaled scaffolding on the Capitol, posed in a photo with a Confederate battle flag, and “has voiced homicidal ideations, made comments about conducting a school shooting and researched mass shootings.”

The Jan. 7 post was copied and pasted on another social-media site, where it was viewed by others at least 54,000 times, prosecutors said.