First Thing: outcry in Georgia over attack on voting access

Good morning.

Republican lawmakers advanced a bill yesterday which would significantly limit voting access in Georgia, leading to accusations of voter suppression – especially after record numbers of voters swung the state to the Democrats in last year’s presidential election. The measure would end the right to vote by mail without a state-approved excuse, and would require voters to provide ID when they apply to vote by mail and return their ballot. The bill, SB 241, passed through with the bare minimum votes required in the Republican-controlled Georgia Senate, 29-20.

Democrats have accused the lawmakers of deliberately seeking to restrict voter numbers after a surge in turnout led to Biden’s victory in the state. In recent years, there has also been a rise in the number of voters of colour voting by mail, according to Stacey Abrams, leading to widespread accusations the measures are specifically targeted at people of colour.

The coronavirus restrictions for fully-vaccinated people have been relaxed

Americans who have been fully vaccinated can now meet each other indoors without wearing masks, according to long-awaited guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Released yesterday, the guidelines also said that fully vaccinated people can gather indoors with those who haven’t been vaccinated from a single household, or with those considered low-risk for serious illness from coronavirus, without wearing a mask. In practice, this means vaccinated grandparents could visit healthy children and grandchildren, or friends who have also had all of their vaccine doses.

According to the CDC, a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving their last dose. Around 9% of the population, or 30 million people, have been fully vaccinated so far, with the rollout still progressing at pace.

• It is safe to wear a mask during intense exercise, research indicates. The trial, of six women and men on exercise bikes, found that the masks reduced the ability to engage in vigorous exercise by about 10%. If further trialled, the results could help to stop spread the virus at gyms.

The British royal family is under pressure to respond to that explosive Oprah interview

Buckingham Palace are under mounting pressure to respond to allegations of racism, following an interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Oprah Winfrey. The couple described how someone in the royal household had asked how dark the skin colour of their baby Archie would be while Meghan was pregnant, but refused to say who had made the comments. Winfrey later clarified it was neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh, but this still leaves other royals open to suspicion.

The explosive interview threatens to seriously damage the reputation of the monarchy, with Meghan also revealing she felt suicidal and that the palace had failed to support her. The palace have remained tight-lipped thus far.

• Arguably the only winner in the interview was Oprah, who has been widely praised for her handling of the interview. Her well-timed and well-formulated questions have won mass praise as a masterclass in interviewing, with one New York University journalism professor saying it was “the best interview I ever watched”.

• Are the palace deliberately shifting focus off Prince Andrew’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein? That was the suggestion of a US lawyer representing Epstein’s alleged victims, who said that Buckingham Palace’s plans to examine bullying allegations against the Duchess of Sussex are a “calculated decision” to take the focus off the prince.

The George Floyd trial was delayed over a potential new charge

The trial of the former Minneapolis police office who is charged with murdering George Floyd was delayed while an additional charge was considered. Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, but a Minnesota court of appeal ruled on Friday that a previous, and lesser, charge of third-degree murder should be reinstated. The jury selection was originally due to begin yesterday morning, but is now set to take place today.

Outside the court, which was blocked with concrete barricades and barbed wire, protests gathered for several blocks yesterday, carrying placards reading “Justice for George Floyd” and “Convict Killer Cops” and chanting, “Black lives, they matter here”.

In other news…

• Biden pledged to tackle the ‘scourge’ of sexual assault in the military in his International Women’s Day speech at the White House yesterday, also ordering a review of Trump administration rules which dealt with sexual crimes on college campuses.

• The White House is launching an emergency taskforce to address an “unusually aggressive” cyber-attack that affected hundreds of thousands of Microsoft devices globally. The attack was the second major hacking campaign to hit the US since the election.

• Anne Sacoolas is willing to do community service for her role in a road collision which killed 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn in the UK, as well as making a “contribution” in his memory and meeting his family, according to her lawyer. Sacoolas has refused to return to the UK to face trial, with the US claiming diplomatic immunity.

• Joe Biden’s dogs have reportedly bitten a White House staffer and been sent back to the family home in Delaware. Major had been repeatedly showing aggressive behaviour to staff.

Stat of the day: one in six childcare jobs have been lost during the pandemic

One in six childcare jobs in the US have been lost since the start of the pandemic, with childcare businesses suffering as attendance dropped, new safety measures were imposed, and families lost jobs. “When the economy reopens, we’re going to have lost a big chunk of our childcare supply. People are going to be trying to go back to work and there will be nowhere to put their children,” said Melissa Boteach, vice-president of income security and childcare at the National Women’s Law Center.

Don’t miss this: how undocumented migrants are struggling to rebuild after Texas storms

Undocumented immigrants have been hit hard by Texas’s weather crisis, with no access to federal aid to support themselves as they recover. With almost a third living under the poverty line, they are already more vulnerable to crises such as these, and are also predominantly uninsured, making it difficult to fix battered homes.

Last Thing: a New York woman found an apartment behind her bathroom mirror

While many New Yorkers would admit to wanting more space in their apartment, few would expect to find it like Samantha Hartsoe, who discovered an entire apartment behind her bathroom mirror. Having noticed a cold draft in her bathroom, strong enough to blow her hair, Hartsoe investigated, climbing through the hole in the wall to explore the abandoned space. The existence of the apartment remains a mystery – even to her building managers.

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