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Biden: ‘So many rituals that help us cope have not been available to us.’

“To heal, you must remember,” President Joe Biden says now, in a very personal address to the nation on what it means to grieve lost family members, with half a million Americans dead from coronavirus.

Biden’s life and political career has been marked by the tragic deaths of close family members, and he has been called America’s “designated mourner,” a man whose life has been haunted by loss, and who has channeled that loss into empathy.

“We’ve seen profound courage from all of you on the front lines,” Biden says. “You give us hope. You keep us going. You remind us that we do take care of our own.”

More from Biden’s speech to Americans on grieving the pandemic dead

“I know what it’s like to not be there when it happens. I know what it’s like when you are there, holding their hands…the survivor’s remorse, the anger.”

Joe Biden is speaking about experiencing grief and loss as the United States marks 500,000 people dead.

Mayor of small New York town unveils plan to abolish the city’s police department

The mayor of Ithaca, a small college town in western New York state, is releasing a detailed plan that would replace the city’s police department with a “Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety,” journalist Wesley Lowery reports.

The new department would be staffed by “armed ‘public safety workers’ and unarmed ‘community solution workers,’” and all current police officers would have to re-apply for jobs in the new department, according to the mayor’s in-depth plan.

‘It’s bananas’: dropping San Francisco rents mean deals for some, struggle for others

The average rent in San Francisco has dropped sharply during the pandemic, the Los Angeles Times reports. For renters with a high enough income, that has meant that it’s possible to find better rental deals in San Francisco than across the Bay in Oakland.

But for some working families in San Francisco who are struggling with pandemic job losses, the drop in prices for higher-end apartments has not helped their housing crisis.

“In my situation, it’s not true that the rent is down,” one 35-year-old parent told the newspaper. “They ask you to make two or three times the rent to qualify for an apartment. And when you don’t have it, they hang up the phone.”

For some, the post-Trump era in Washington feels calmer

After four years of a 24-7 news cycle feeding off Trump’s 24-7 Twitter feed, the Biden era feels very different for some people in the nation’s capital, the New York Times reports.

But for others, there has not been the same return to normalcy, Katie Rogers reports:

Washingtonians who don’t have to hang on the president’s every word are still struggling to adjust to life in a city where the Capitol and the White House have essentially been militarized, and where daily life has been upended by both the coronavirus and civil unrest.

Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen made a podcast together

The news that a former American president and an iconic New Jersey songwriter will be launching an eight-episode podcast together has prompted delight among some and confusion among others.

The podcast will feature Obama and Springsteen talking to each other.

A preview of the first episodes features a clip of Obama and Springsteen talking about their fathers and masculinity, as well as about their relationship with each other.

Read the full story here:

Report: Texas attorney general was in Utah during state power outages

As power outages across Texas left residents struggling, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, and his wife were in Utah, the Dallas Morning News reports.

It’s the third known example of a public official leaving the state during the crisis, including the US senator Ted Cruz, who went to Mexico, and state representative Gary Gates, who took a private jet to Florida, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Democrats look for a way to keep minimum wage increase in Biden relief package

This is Lois Beckett in Los Angeles, picking up our live politics coverage as America’s official death toll from the pandemic hits 500,000 people dead.

Two centrist Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are skeptical of including a minimum wage increase as part of Biden’s pandemic relief package, which is forcing other Democrats to devise potential compromise plans, Politico reports.

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• The US coronavirus death toll will soon surpass 500,000, representing the highest death toll of any nation in the world. Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks to honor the half a million Americans who have died in the coronavirus pandemic.
• The supreme court rejected Donald Trump’s request to block New York prosecutors from gaining access to his tax returns. The court’s decision clears the way for Trump’s accounting firm to hand over eight years of his tax returns and financial documents to a grand jury examining the former president’s business dealings.
• The attorney general nominee Merrick Garland testified before the Senate judiciary committee. In his confirmation hearing, Garland pledged to protect the independence of the justice department if he is confirmed as attorney general. “I am not the president’s lawyer,” the federal judge said. “I am the United States’ lawyer.”
• The House budget committee advanced Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package. In a nearly party-line vote of 19-16, the committee approved advancing the relief package. The bill now goes to the House rules committee before the full chamber votes on it later this week.
• Biden announced changes to the Paycheck Protection Program, a small business loan program that was created by the first coronavirus relief bill. The Biden administration is establishing a two-week exclusive application period for businesses with fewer than 20 employees to help small businesses that are on the brink of closure because of the pandemic.

Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Only one Democrat on the House budget committee, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, voted against advancing Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill today.

But a spokesperson for the Democratic congressman said Doggett’s vote was an accident.

“Rep Doggett was getting off the plane to DC from Texas and joined remotely in this hearing just as a vote was about to be announced,” a spokesperson said in a statement, per CNN. “He misunderstood that vote. He supports the Covid-19 relief legislation.”

A reporter asked the White House team about the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, which has not yet been approved for distribution in the US.

Senior adviser Andy Slavitt said he would wait to weigh in on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine until later this week, when the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel meets to discuss the company’s application for emergency use authorization.

The White House coronavirus response team’s briefing has now concluded.