New top story from Time: 100 Days, the Global Pandemic Edition

https://ift.tt/3nAQN1y

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

There are a few things that pester political pros, regardless of political party. The media’s fixation on debate performances, a function that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual job as an elected official. The expectation-setting for end-of-quarter fundraising that ignores the actual overhead needs. The obsession over how many supporters’ email addresses are in the campaign database, as though that corresponds to the clout inside a caucus.

None, however, irks insiders in a presidential operation like the 100-Day contest. FDR more or less screwed over every one of his successors when he laid down the marker in 1933, saying he’d launch a New Deal agenda to end the Great Depression in that short window. From that point forward, every President has at once tried to match the expectations of the moment when an administration hits the 100-day mark and tried to reject what is — truly — an arbitrary barometer of a Presidency.

Well, Joe Biden hit his 100 days yesterday. He used his first turn before a joint session of Congress this week to preach a sermon of accomplishment and dangle the prospects of a sequel. But when it came time to actually toast the occasion, he did what no President before him had done. He staged a drive-in rally.

That’s right. Even with the tide seeming to turn against the pandemic in the U.S., Biden doesn’t have a lot of options on how he can mix with his supporters. There are still more than 50,000 new cases every day; a mass rally without social distancing only begs trouble. So he did the next best thing. In Duluth, Ga., Biden’s supporters brought their pickups and minivans to the parking lot of an arena complex for an abbreviated version of what he told Congress.

Arbitrary or no, the split screen between Biden at 100 Days and his predecessors was telling of the fundamentally changed country we’re living in at this moment. When Donald Trump hit the marker, he was in Harrisburg, Pa., for a rally that doubled as counter-programming for the White House Correspondents Association black-tie dinner. Barack Obama scheduled a prime-time news conference — an event Biden still hasn’t attempted. George W. Bush’s 100th day fell on a Sunday, so he followed up the next day with a lunch with Congressional leaders. Bill Clinton used his to thank members of Hillary Clinton’s health care task force, which ultimately proved a failure.

Biden doesn’t have the same luxury. He’s finding himself boxed in on what he can do, much the way he found himself during a pandemic-leveled campaign. Even at the end of his rally, his instincts kicked in to connect with supporters. Try as he could to reach across the twin rows of bike racks that separated him from the crowd , he just couldn’t manage the one-on-one interactions that were a hallmark of his pre-pandemic campaign.

It’s not just Biden navigating these challenges in the pandemic’s twilight. Bon Jovi, Grace Potter and Travis Tritt are heading on tour as such this summer for at least some dates. And countless high school graduations are still being lit by the minivan’s high-beams for a second time in as many years this spring. As much as his critics mocked Biden’s choice to keep his events in parking lots for now, he might have found a format that has resonance that Washington simply doesn’t understand.

Upon finishing his 22-minute remarks in Georgia, Biden found himself in a spot familiar to most people watching: he misplaced his mask. “I’m looking for my mask. I’m in trouble,” Biden said as he poked around the podium with the help of his wife. Finding none, Biden’s personal aide Stephen Goepfert brought a spare one to the stage. That gig used to require a bag with sharpies and cough drops. The fact that it now requires carrying extra PPE for the President is yet another reminder that Biden’s first 100 days, like his next, will be like none other.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

Comments

New top story from Time: These Moms Work as Doctors and Scientists. But They’ve Also Taken On Another Job: Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation Online

https://ift.tt/3tT3UwO Last March, friends and neighbors began stopping Emily Smith in her town outside of Waco, Texas, with questions about the coronavirus. An epidemiologist at Baylor University, Smith knows all too well how viruses are transmitted. But as the wife of a pastor and as a woman of faith, she also holds a trusted position in her community, and she would speak to those who asked about why she personally thought social distancing was a moral choice. As the weeks wore on, the questions kept coming: “What does flatten the curve mean?” “Is it safe for my child to kick a soccer ball outside with a friend?” So she started a Facebook page and called herself the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist. She adopted “Love thy neighbor” as the page’s credo. Smith wrote from the perspective of a scientist but also a wife and mother. She recently explained, for example, why churches should still continue to refrain from holding in-person services even though Texas has lifted i...

Enhancing Safety on Franklin Street

Enhancing Safety on Franklin Street By Mark Dreger We're excited to share an update on the Franklin Street Quick-Build Project, an effort to enhance traffic safety on Franklin Street between Broadway and Lombard Streets. This roadway stretch was the site of 38 collisions between 2017 and 2021, including the tragic loss of a Sherman Elementary School paraeducator in November 2021. Our data-driven approach focuses on several key safety improvements, and we are ready to share the evaluation results and the next steps to bring further safety changes to Franklin Street. The project includes the implementation of a suite of safety measures focused on the intersections where neighborhood stakeholders expressed most concerns during the outreach process. Painted safety zones (PSZs) have been installed to increase pedestrian visibility at crosswalks by keeping the corners of intersections clear. Slow-turn wedges have been added to encourage drivers to turn at safer speeds...

Gene Henderson: Honoring Muni’s First Black Division Manager

Gene Henderson: Honoring Muni’s First Black Division Manager By Jeremy Menzies In recognition of Black History Month, we bring you the story of Gene Henderson, the first Black man to become the head of a Muni bus division, Muni’s Kirkland Division. Henderson’s Background Gene Henderson was born in Houston, Texas, in 1916. He married his wife Naomi in 1939 and then served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Following the war, Gene and his family moved to San Francisco where he began his career at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Early Career On February 1, 1946, Henderson was hired as a streetcar motorman out of Sutro Division, which was located on the corner of 32nd Ave. and Clement St. He was hired just five years after Muni’s first Black transit operator, Audley Cole, had successfully fought to integrate the carmen’s union in 1941. In his early days at Muni, Gene worked one of the three lines running out of Sutro Division from the Ferry Building to the Richmond District o...

New top story from Time: Watch TIME’s Exclusive Footage of NASA’s Most Powerful Rocket Ever Under Construction

https://ift.tt/3xqnVOf Rockets are built slowly—slowly and exceedingly carefully—which is in keeping with giant machines on which humans stake their lives and nations stake their prestige. In NASA’s cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, America’s next great moon rocket—the Space Launch System (SLS)—is being constructed with all that in mind. It is here too that TIME set up half a dozen cameras over the course of two months, capturing 3 million images for a time-lapse video that makes it possible to compress those months of work into just a few kinetic minutes. Under the eyes of the cameras, the rocket’s twin solid-fuel boosters came together—each of them 177 feet tall, weighing 1.6 million pounds and generating 3.6 million pounds (1.6 million kg) of thrust. Twenty-five percent taller than the solid boosters on the space shuttle, the twin engines are made of five separate segments, compared to the shuttle’s four. When they are completed, they will be attached ...

New top story from Time: The Fight for a $15 Minimum Wage Is Our Selma

https://ift.tt/37oF2Ez After the public lynching of George Floyd last summer, his cry of “I can’t breathe” galvanized a movement for Black lives that won majority support among Americans . Floyd wasn’t the only one gasping for breath. While Americans watched a police officer choke the life out of Floyd, we also witnessed Black Americans contracting a deadly respiratory disease at three times the rate of our white neighbors , according to an August report from the National Urban League. The growing public consensus that we as a nation must address systemic racism has led to serious soul-searching in families, churches, universities, corporations and political life. But just as the Selma campaign became a symbol during the civil rights movement of the need for legislation to expand voting rights, the $15 an hour minimum wage proposal in Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan represents the possibility that our government can take decisive action to make racial justice real tod...

New top story from Time: Mail Voting Boosted Turn Out for Voters With Disabilities. Will Lawmakers Let It Continue?

https://ift.tt/3k38Trq Republican state lawmakers are advancing a wave of new voting restrictions aimed at reversing the slew of pandemic-inspired election flexibilities, including expansions of mail voting, that most states adopted last year. But new evidence shows that those voting options likely led to significantly higher turnout among Americans with disabilities, a group that is equally as likely to vote Republican as Democrat. Just 11% of voters with disabilities said they experienced difficulties in voting in 2020, down from 26% in 2012, according to a study on voting accessibility published Wednesday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among disabled voters who used mail ballots, just 5% reported experiencing difficulties, while 18% of disabled voters who opted for in-person voting encountered difficulties. Those numbers mark a major change from previous election cycles, according to experts on political participation. “Anything that makes it eas...

New top story from Time: Who’s Ariarne Titmus? The Australian Swimmer’s Rivalry With Katie Ledecky Has Captivated Olympics Fans

https://ift.tt/3fdGe1v Before this week, many people knew Katie Ledecky as one of the most dominant names in swimming for the last decade. So they might have been surprised by the success of Australia’s 20-year-old Ariarne Titmus during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, who has now bested Ledecky twice to snatch gold medals. In Tokyo, Titmus’ rivalry with Ledecky has been one of the most captivating parts of the Tokyo swimming program. The rivalry between the two star swimmers dates back to the 2019 world championship, when Titmus became the first woman to beat Ledecky at the international level. They’ll have one more chance to race in Tokyo, this time in the 800-m freestyle on July 31. She isn’t the favorite this time, however. Ledecky is undefeated in the 800 m, holding the fastest 24 times in the event’s history as well as the world and Olympic records, which she set during her winning race at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics . [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Titmus, who gre...

FOX NEWS: Olympic gymnasts sound off on the evolving leotard: 'Power and prestige goes with those leos' The world may have grown accustomed to seeing Olympic gymnasts wearing leotards as they compete for the highest honor in the sport, but these garments haven’t always been the first pick for women.

Olympic gymnasts sound off on the evolving leotard: 'Power and prestige goes with those leos' The world may have grown accustomed to seeing Olympic gymnasts wearing leotards as they compete for the highest honor in the sport, but these garments haven’t always been the first pick for women. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3BQEKE3

New top story from Time: The Heartbreak and Horror of Being an EMT During the Pandemic—and Why I’m Still Working

https://ift.tt/3cC9fTO When COVID-19 erupted in New York City last spring , it forced me to make a decision as to whether or not I would work the disaster as an emergency medical technician. Unlike the thousands of New York City EMTs and paramedics who ride on ambulances for the city, private transport companies and hospitals, as a volunteer EMT I rode for free, so I had a choice about what part I would play in the pandemic. When calls for “sick-fever-cough” patients started to infiltrate the city’s 911 system last March, every first responder I know was terrified. I was, too. One night my EMT partner and I sat in my car after a tour and had a long existential conversation. Was volunteering to work as EMTs during a lethal contagion the stupidest thing we could do? Or was it the most self-sacrificing? In the end I decided to ride. I was far from the only rescuer who wanted to be of service when crisis struck. An army of almost 90,000 health care workers volunteered to ste...

New top story from Time: ‘Judge Me By My Actions.’ Trevor Lawrence Discusses the 2021 NFL Draft and Questions About His Work Ethic

https://ift.tt/3vvFjiL Trevor Lawrence, the former Clemson star quarterback and presumptive top overall selection in the 2021 NFL draft—which begins Thursday—has had one hectic month of April. He’s prepping for the most important night of his football life. He married his longtime girlfriend, Marissa Mowry. (The honeymoon will have to wait). He signed endorsement deals with Gatorade, Topps, which has offered both physical trading cards and NFTs with his likeness, and the cryptocurrency investment app Blockfolio —his signing bonus was paid in crypto. On Wednesday morning, Lawrence announced he signed an endorsement deal with Adidas. He’s also received a taste of the ridiculous headaches a franchise quarterback must endure. Quarterback, more than perhaps any position in all of pro sports, unmasks the obsessiveness of sports fans. Especially a player like Lawrence, whom ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. rates as the fourth-best quarterback draft prospect since 1979, trailin...

My precise view

Search This Blog