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| Presented By Google |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Mar 12, 2021 |
| ☕ Happy Friday! Smart Brevity™ count: 980 words ... < 4 minutes. |
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| 1 big thing: Some saw it coming |
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| Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios |
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| Dan Primack discovered in a fascinating series of conversations for his "Axios Re:Cap" podcast that key American decision-makers — mostly non-politicians — sensed what was coming earlier than most. - Primack told me: These are people who've spent their lives making big decisions after analyzing all the data — whether in business or medicine or politics. And they ended up making the most consequential decisions of their lives with what they knew was imperfect information.
In interviews for this week's Re:Cap series, "The Week America Changed," leaders in the public and private sectors described their growing awareness of just how bad things could get: - Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says Mark Zuckerberg came to her in January, based on some of the health work he'd done with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and said they should prepare for the possibility of everyone working from home.
- NBA commissioner Adam Silver in January attended a Brooklyn Nets game, during which he ran into a virologist who had advised the league on HIV after Magic Johnson tested positive. The doctor told Silver his entire team was refocusing exclusively on COVID-19.
- Los Angeles schools superintendent Austin Beutner said: "We worked through the night with Apple taking inventory out of their stores ... We said, 'Tell you what, can you pull them out of all your stores?' And they did. That's how we got our computers."
Other episodes include conversations Anthony Fauci (posting this afternoon) and White House chief of staff Ron Klain (posting tomorrow). |
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| 2. Biden's deadline strategy |
| Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images President Biden continued moving his goalposts forward in his first prime-time address: - He said he'll insist every state make every adult eligible to sign up for the COVID vaccine by May 1. And he said "small groups" will be able to celebrate the Fourth of July together.
- Biden promised: "[W]e'll have enough vaccine supply for all adults in America by the end of May. That's months ahead of schedule."
Why it matters: Biden wants to give Americans hope — while giving himself deadlines he can meet or beat. - 100 days ... July 31 ... Christmas: Biden repeatedly has used specific markers to try to break through with average Americans. That allows him to rack up a series of successes on the sole task on which he'll be judged — taming the pandemic.
Biden said he remains on a "war footing" against COVID: [I]f we do our part, if we do this together, by July the 4th, there's a good chance you, your families, and friends will be able to ... have a cookout and a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day. After this long hard year, that will make this Independence Day something truly special, where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus. Go deeper: Video, details from the speech. |
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| 3. Axios interview: Web's inventor says youth will save it |
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| Photo illustration: Annelise Capossela. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images |
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| Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist who first sketched the World Wide Web in the 1980s, is celebrating his offspring's 32nd birthday by advocating for "young people who realize that the world does not have to be the way it is." - Berners-Lee, 65, is pushing to bring online access to the one-third of global youth who lack it. He told Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg that somewhere among those young people, there's likely to be someone who'll create something as world-changing as he did.
Berners-Lee and Rosemary Leith, co-founders of the World Wide Web Foundation, are spotlighting the work of nine young people who have used the web to improve the world. |
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| A message from Google |
| A path to in-demand jobs in under six months |
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| Through programs like Google Career Certificates and Google.org grantee programs, nearly 170,000 Americans have been placed into new jobs. Now, Google has launched four new Career Certificates in project management, data analytics, UX design, and Android development. Learn more. |
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| 4. Pictures of America |
| Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images In North Miami, people wait in the rain at a FEMA-run COVID-19 Community Vaccination Center, at Miami Dade College North Campus. Photo: Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP Janice Mays, at the mass vaccination site outside Four Seasons Town Centre mall in Greensboro, N.C.: "I'm so happy I got my shot!" |
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| 5. 🚨 Breaking: Cy Vance retiring |
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| Vance announces the takedown of an online crime ring in April 2019. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
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| Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. won't run for a fourth term and plans to leave office on Dec. 31, he told The New Yorker's Jane Mayer in a wide-ranging interview published this morning. - Why it matters: That leaves Vance with just nine months to make a charging decision in the biggest case of his career — a criminal investigation of Donald Trump and his business empire.
Read the article. |
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| 6. Resignation demands grow for Cuomo |
| Courtesy N.Y. Post A majority of New York legislators called for the resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, threatening his grip on power. - Democrats in the state Assembly launched an impeachment investigation and police in the state capital said they stood ready to investigate a groping allegation, AP reports.
At least 121 members of the state Assembly and Senate have publicly said Cuomo should quit, including 65 Democrats and 56 Republicans. |
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| 7. Biden uses "Quad" to counter China |
| Closing session of the Communist Party's National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday. Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images President Biden and his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia — collectively known as "the Quad" — will announce a plan today to increase vaccine supplies to countries in Asia, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and Dave Lawler report. - Why it matters: Biden's engagement shows a growing commitment to a group the U.S. sees as key to countering Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has pledged to provide vaccines to countries around the world, putting the Biden administration on the back foot.
Keep reading. |
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| 8. 💰 Stimulus payments start this weekend |
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| Graphic: CNN |
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| Direct deposits from President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus bill will start hitting Americans' bank accounts "as early as this weekend," then will continue for several weeks, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. |
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| 9. 🔮 First look ... 2024 Republicans: Rubio sides with union |
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| Sen. Marco Rubio in the Senate subway last March. Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images |
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| Escalating a push by ambitious Republicans to spotlight American workers, Sen. Marco Rubio today will side with the union in a high-stakes organizing campaign at an Amazon facility outside Birmingham, Ala. - "[T]he days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are over," Rubio writes in a USA Today op-ed posting this morning. "I stand with [workers] at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse."
Rubio writes that one of his "earliest political memories was marching the picket line with my dad in a Culinary Workers Union strike when he worked as a hotel bartender": [T]he lesson I took from it — all workers deserve respect — has stuck with me all throughout my career. Our laws should help build more productive relationships between labor and businesses, the vast majority of which treat their employees with dignity and want to work cooperatively with them. |
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| 10. ⚾ 1 fun thing: Trading-card boom |
 The trading-card boom that exploded when the pandemic began has recently reached a fever pitch, Axios' Jeff Tracy writes in a special edition of Axios Sports covering NFTs and the rise of sports fandom investing. - Amazing fact: Seven of the 10 most expensive sports cards in history were sold in the past eight months — and the all-time record has been broken twice since August.
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| A message from Google |
| Google Career Certificates scholarships for 30k job seekers |
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| Google and the National Association of Workforce Boards are providing scholarships for 30,000 people to access the Google Career Certificate program. In addition to IT support, new certificates are available in the fields of project management, data analytics, and UX design. Learn more. |
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| 📬 Thanks for starting your Friday with us. Please urge your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM. |
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