Axios PM: Texas reopens at 100% capacity

Plus: 3-hour breakfast with Vernon Jordan | Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Amazon   Axios PM By Mike Allen ·Mar 02, 2021 Good afternoon: Today's PM – edited by Justin Green — is 571 words, a 2-minute read. 🚨 Situational awareness: Texas is ending its statewide mask mandate and allowing businesses to reopen at 100% capacity, Gov. Greg Abbott announced. President Biden said the U.S. will have enough doses to get 300 million vaccinated by the end of May, two months faster than expected. Go deeper.     1 big thing: COVID has us thinking about smell Chart: Axios Visuals The pandemic has thrust anosmia — or smell loss — into the international spotlight, reports Axios' Hadley Malcolm. Why it matters: Severe or complete smell loss has devastating effects, making sufferers feel ostracized, isolated in social settings, and unable to fully taste or enjoy food. Roughly 3% of the age 40+ U.S. population suffer from this affliction. Studies suggest a majority of people who get COVID-19 experience smell loss. At least 5% seem to have long-term loss. The big picture: Researchers hope smell testing becomes as standard as the annual flu shot, helping to detect early signs of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "Loss of smell is associated with so many different health conditions," olfactory researcher Pamela Dalton told Axios. "It's something we should be checking."     2. FBI considers Jan. 6 as domestic terror FBI director Christopher Wray testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images   The FBI views the Jan. 6 Capitol siege as an act of domestic terrorism, director Christopher Wray testified today. Go deeper.     A message from Amazon What $15/hr means to Amazon employees     In 2018, Amazon raised their starting wage to $15/hr for all U.S. employees. That's made a huge difference for workers like Chatonn and their families – watch her story. Passing the Raise the Wage Act would help 32 million U.S. workers. It's the right thing to do.     3. Catch up quick Merck will help Johnson & Johnson manufacture its newly authorized coronavirus vaccine to boost supply. Go deeper. Scoop: A briefing for President Biden outlines the need for 20,000 beds to shelter an expected crush of child migrants, Axios' Stef Kight reports. The Golden Globes were viewed by just 6.9 million people this year, compared to 18.3 million in 2020. Go deeper. Honeymoon's over: New data shows CO2 emissions returned to pre-pandemic levels by the end of last year and surpassed them in some major economies. Go deeper.     4. Remembering Vernon Jordan Vernon Jordan leaves his home in D.C. in 1998. Photo: Khue Bui/AP   Vernon Jordan, a civil rights champion in the segregated South who became a political and corporate power broker, has died at 85. Margaret Talev, Axios' managing editor for politics, got to know Jordan in 2015. She was the Bloomberg News reporter covering President Obama's vacation to Martha's Vineyard, where Jordan summered and played golf with Presidents Clinton and Obama. Here's her backstory about a profile she wrote on his 80th birthday, and the window she gained into an incredible American life: I started reaching out to a bunch of CEOs and two things happened: Nobody didn't return my call. And everybody had an incredible story to tell about how he plucked them out of obscurity or helped them when they really needed help or connected them to a million people. I talked to so many people that he had to talk to me. He invited me to the farm where he and his wife, Ann, stayed. He had this spread — warm biscuits and blueberry jam. We must have had a three-hour breakfast. Vernon Jordan with Margaret Talev in 2018, at his Washington home. Photo: Jon D. Garcia We stayed in touch, and if we hadn't talked in a few months, he'd call and say, in his Vernon Jordan voice of God: "Why hast thou forsaken me?" He'd invite me to breakfast and we'd almost always do it at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. He had his table in the back by the window, and there was a special menu item named for him — shrimp and grits.  In 2018, we took him a bottle of wine between Christmas and New Year's. He was working on a eulogy for somebody — he spent the last years of his life writing a lot of eulogies. Vernon set such a good example for how you can take care of people and check in on people. He would take women and people of color and elevate them, and put them on people's task forces and boards and agendas. When he got in his head that he wanted to help somebody, he was just very deliberate and relentless. Go deeper: Vernon Jordan's life.     A message from Amazon How raising the minimum wage strengthens communities     Studies show that wage increases help communities and fuel economic growth. When Amazon raised their starting wage for U.S. employees to at least $15/hour, they saw how it benefited local communities and economies. Passing the Raise the Wage Act would help 32 million U.S. workers.     Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: