Biden news: Tanden drops out over Twitter row, as president says vaccines for all adults by May

The president says educational disparities are growing everyday schools remain closed.

“An entire generation of young people is on the bring of being set back a year or more in their learning,” Biden says.

“We’re already seeing rising mental health concerns due in part to isolation.”

While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have stayed silent on allegations against New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton says the women who have come forward “deserve answers”

“These stories are difficult to read, and the allegations brought forth raise serious questions that the women who have come forward and all New Yorkers deserve answers to,” she said in a statement to Fox News.

“I’m glad to see that there will be a full, independent, and thorough investigation,” she added.

The New York attorney general is investigating the allegations. The Independent’s Gino Spocchia outlines the full list of allegations against the governor.

Joe Biden just officially announced Merck and Johnson & Johnson would partner to produce the new vaccine, comparing it to a wartime effort. The partnership is an usual one for the two companies, which are normally fierce competitors.

Graig Graziosi has details of the plan.

After announcing the US would have enough vaccines for all Americans by the end of May, Joe Biden said he believes the country will return to normalcy by early 2022.

“I’ve been cautioned not to give an answer to that because we don’t know for sure, but my hope is by this time next year we will be back to normal, before that, my hope,” Biden says.

“We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May.”

Joe Biden criticised his predecessor, Donald Trump, for failing to ink contracts with vaccine suppliers for enough doses, leading to a shortage of doses. “We rectified that,” he said.

Griffin Connolly has more from today’s announcement.

Joe Biden is directing all states to prioritise the vaccination of teachers and school staff against Covid-19 by the end of March in order to expedite the reopening of schools.

The president announced that he wants every educator to receive their first dose by the end of the month.

“Let’s treat in-person learning like the essential service that it is,” Mr Biden said in remarks at the White House.

Oliver O’Connell has more on this angle from the president’s announcement.

“It’s the truth and I’m just going to say it. That I wish I never would have f***ing met Trump... I wish it never would have happened. And it’s not the attacks I’ve been through. I’m so sick of f***ing Donald Trump, man. God, I’m f***ing sick of him. And I’m not doing this because, like, I’m kissing his f***ing ass, you know. It’s, like, I’m sick of it.”

The footage comes from a propaganda documentary funded by Mr Jones called "You Can't Watch This," and was leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch by the filmmaker, Caolan Robertson.

Graig Graziosi has the full background.

The president said Vernon Jordan new the goodness and unfulfilled promise of America, and that the “work was far from over”.

“He liked to say that we had torn down what Dr King called ‘sagging walls of segregation,’ but we still had to deal with ‘the rubble’—with systemic racism, with inequity, with the injustice still faced by so many Black Americans,” Biden said in a statement.

“To honor him, and others of this Civil Rights generation, we must continue to do the same.”

While we're talking about voter suppression and long lines, I'd like to point out that there is real voter suppression that happens right here in Congress”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene made her comments while opposing HR 1, the For the People Act, which aims to make voting in federal elections easier, stop congressional gerrymandering, overhaul federal campaign finance laws and strengthen government ethics rules.

Graig Graziosi has the story.

Former classmates of Madison Cawthorn alleged the congressman would offer to take them on “fun drives” while he was a student at Virginia’s Patrick Henry College, where he would proposition them.

“His MO was to take vulnerable women out on these rides with him in the car, and to make advances,” his former classmate Caitlin Coulter told CNN.

Mr Cawthorn’s office directed The Independent to statements he made in September regarding the allegations.

“I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life,” Mr Cawthorn said at the time.

Josh Marcus has the story.