<div>US lifts pause on Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine – as it happened</div>

CDC advisory panel said benefits outweigh risk of rare blood clotsJoe Biden urges world leaders to invest in green energyCaitlyn Jenner announces run for California governor 12.59am BSTThat’s all for today – thanks for following along and have a nice weekend. Some key links from the day: 12.43am BSTThe CDC’s decision to lift pause on Johnson & Johnson means that the single-dose vaccine could become available again starting this weekend. In Los Angeles, the county says it is preparing to resume J&J administration as soon as possible: L.A. County prepping to resume administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine as soon as possible https://t.co/g5tTy8RU2p 12.31am BSTThe US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have formally lifted the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after an advisory panel said it should be distributed with a warning label affixed, but that the benefits of preventing Covid-19 still outweigh the risks of rare blood clots.“Safety is our top priority. This pause was an example of our extensive safety monitoring working as they were designed to work—identifying even these small number of cases. We’ve lifted the pause based on the FDA and CDC’s review of all available data and in consultation with medical experts and based on recommendations from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” said Dr Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, in a statement Friday night. Related: Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be distributed with warning, advisers to CDC say 12.23am BSTAlabama’s governor has signed into law a bill banning transgender youth from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, making it the fourth state this year to pass an anti-trans law targeting school athletics. Republican governor Kay Ivey signed the Alabama bill today, which restricts trans students from participating in K-12 sports. GOP governors in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas have signed similar measures this year, and Idaho passed the first anti-trans sports ban last year, but the law has been challenged in court. Related: How trans children became 'a political football' for the Republican party Related: Trans kids on the Republican bills targeting them: 'I'm not a problem to society' 11.29pm BSTMy colleague Jessica Glenza has more details on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisors’ recommendation that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine should be distributed with a warning label affixed:The change comes after distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was temporarily halted while scientists investigated rare but dangerous blood clots with low platelet counts linked to the shot.“This pause was essential to our ability to inform the public, inform physicians and the acquire more data for presentation and for analysis,” said Dr Jose Romero, chair of the CDC’s committee on immunization practices, which advises on how to best use vaccines. The committee vote was 10 to four in favor of recommending the vaccine for adults older than 18. There was one abstention.4. About 4M of the J&J doses used so far were given to women. The risk seemed highest among women in their 30s. (It's early days. A few additional cases in another age group could change this picture quickly.) pic.twitter.com/uXamw0EmEwSince the pause, scientists have found nine more cases of the clots. That means among the more than 7.98m doses of Johnson & Johnson distributed, vaccine safety monitoring systems found 15 total cases. Doctors on the panel said the fact researchers were able to identify the very rare associated disorder shows the strength of US vaccine safety monitoring.All confirmed cases were among women, most were middle-aged. Two were cases in women older than 50. The Johnson & Johnson clinical trial also found one case in a male and cases among men are under investigation. Related: Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be distributed with warning, advisers to CDC say 11.12pm BSTIn the San Francisco Bay Area, an officer who fatally shot two people in separate incidents is facing criminal charges. Officer Andrew Hall, a deputy with the Contra Costa county sheriff’s office, who was assigned to the Danville police department, was charged on Wednesday with manslaughter and assault in the fatal shooting of an unarmed civilian in November 2018. Hall shot Laudemer Arboleda, a 33-year-old Filipino man, nine times during a slow-moving car chase. Related: California officer charged in previous shooting kills Black man at intersection, video shows 10.39pm BSTAn unprecedented GOP effort to audit the vote in Maricopa county, Arizona got off to a rocky start today.A state judge has ordered the effort halted over concerns the auditors were not complying with state law. The audit ultimately wasn’t stopped, however, because the state Democratic party, which brought the lawsuit, declined to put up a $1m bond ordered by the judge to incur any lost funds during the pause, according to the Arizona Mirror.Doug is running this audit. He told me that his understanding was that blue ink was fine - that the ballots only read black ink.Then he came back and said actually it seems I am correct. But he still seemed unsure. He said that they would work on this.I’ve been banned from further updates until my shift is over. 10.26pm BSTHi all - Sam Levin in Los Angeles here, continuing our live coverage for the rest of the day. In California, the governor has moved today to ban new fracking permits by 2024 and halt all oil extraction by 2045. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that paves the way for the state to halt new fracking permits within the next few years, directing the state’s department of conservation to draft a mandate by 2024. His order also directs the state’s air resources board to consider how to enact a ban on all extraction over the next 25 years. Related: California takes steps to ban fracking by 2024 and will halt oil extraction by 2045 10.19pm BSTAfter that important news from the CDC advisory panel, the US east coast team will now hand the blog over to the west coast team, where Sam Levin will take readers through the next few hours.Lots more to come as the news of the J&J vaccine develops further, so do stay tuned. 10.04pm BSTMembers of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices agreed the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh the risks from extremely rare instances of blood clots linked with the vaccine.The one-shot vaccine, manufactured by J&J subsidiary Janssen, can resume in the US after a second week of being paused out of what the government called “an abundance of caution”. 9.56pm BSTThis means it’s likely that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will agree that the pause in administration of the J&J vaccine can be lifted for people in the US over the age of 18.We’ll wait for more details coming out of the CDC HQ in Atlanta and bring you that shortly. 9.52pm BSTGeorgia’s state attorney general has resigned as chairman of the national Republican Attorneys General Association.Georgia’s top prosecutor has resigned as chairman of the national Republican Attorneys General Association, saying he has had a “fundamental difference of opinion” with some of the other 24 members since the group encouraged the crowd that breached the US Capitol on January 6. His letter cited the departure of the group’s executive director, Adam Piper, who resigned shortly after it was revealed that RAGA’s policy arm paid for robocalls urging supporters of then-President Donald Trump to march on the Capitol to press for overturning the outcome the election the day of the riot.“The fundamental difference of opinion began with vastly opposite views of the significance of the events of January 6 and the resistance by some to accepting the resignation of the executive director,” Carr wrote in the April 16 letter obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 9.32pm BSTTed Cruz “maintains ties to right-wing group” despite its extremist messaging - report.Now here comes a Washington Post investigation about the polarizing Texas right-wing Senator (so illuminatingly played on Saturday Night Live by Aidy Bryant these days). On Aug. 4, 2019, the day after a gunman who had posted a hateful diatribe against Hispanics fatally shot 23 people at an El Paso Walmart, a leader of a tea party group in Texas said on Facebook: “You’re not going to demographically replace a once proud, strong people without getting blow-back.”His wife, the founder of the group, in the Fort Worth suburbs of Tarrant County, added in a comment: “I don’t condone the actions, but I certainly understand where they came from.” Related: 'It was fueled by hate and bigotry': one year on from the El Paso shooting 9.21pm BSTLawmakers urge Biden to back ‘moral’ patent waiver to speed vaccine access.US lawmakers and nonprofit groups today heaped pressure on the Biden administration to back a temporary patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines to help poor countries contain the pandemic.The groups delivered a petition signed by two million people, adding to separate letters already sent to the US president, Joe Biden, by a group of senators, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nearly 100 members of the House and 60 former heads of state and 100 Nobel Prize winners. 9.00pm BSTVaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are considering four choices for changing the agency’s recommendation on Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, including label changes or a complete end to its use.The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is holding an emergency meeting and is expected to vote later today on recommendations, CNN reports. 8.49pm BSTA US Capitol Police officer testified Friday against a New York man accused of threatening to kill members of Congress. The defendant in the case, Brendan Hunt, was not part of the siege on January 6. But prosecutors in federal court in Brooklyn sought to use the testimony of Special Agent Christopher Desrosiers to frame the episode as a further catalyst for Hunt’s alleged call to massacre members of Congress.Desrosiers, believed to be the first member of the Capitol force to testify at a criminal trial related to the insurrection, described for the jury how he was assigned to track the mob violence from nearby command center and was shocked to hear radio chatter of his colleagues “yelling for help.” 8.35pm BSTThe US Justice Department has charged a Capitol rioter who was turned in by someone he matched with on the dating app Bumble, after he bragged about his exploits on January 6. Prosecutors said the user then quickly reached out to the FBI and provided screenshots of the conversation.Investigators said in court filings that they corroborated Chapman’s claims by comparing his Bumble profile picture to body camera footage from police officers who were inside the Capitol. 8.19pm BSTJoe Biden has closed out a two-day climate summit of more than 40 world leaders by warning that the planet risks reaching the “point of no return” if more isn’t done to escalate efforts to constrain the climate crisis.Here’s a sneak preview and truncated version of Oliver Milman’s latest explainer, which will be live, in full, on the website before long. 8.00pm BSTIt has been notable this week that Russia spoke of commitments to tackling the climate crisis yet declined to put a number on it.Now our environment correspondent in London, Fiona Harvey, brings a wrap of the two day global leaders’ virtual summit, turning to China, writing thus: Related: Biden’s pledge to slash US emissions turns spotlight on China 7.31pm BSTA brief summary of where things stand so far in US politics news today. Later on, we expect the federal agency the CDC’s advisory panel to release their decision on whether the US should resume administering the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.Meanwhile: 6.55pm BSTIt’s worth noting the context in which Joe Biden referred to British prime minister Boris Johnson as “a clone” of Donald Trump.The remark came in mid-December 2019 (remember when we had no idea a coronavirus was about to unleash a pandemic upon the world?), after Johnson’s gut-wrenching (for liberals and EU-remainers) landslide general election victory. Related: Democrats pick over Labour loss in UK as Biden warns of moving 'so far' left 6.47pm BSTJoe Biden’s first overseas trip as president will be to Britain and then Belgium this June in what the White House is calling “a commitment to restoring our alliances” and “revitalizing the transatlantic relationship”, without adding “after the disruptive presidency of Donald Trump”.White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not confirm earlier today whether Biden will meet with Queen Elizabeth II, but the UK’s Sunday Times said (note: paywalled article) in January that that was the plan, when it pointed out that” The Queen will lead a post-Brexit charm offensive by hosting Joe Biden and other world leaders at Buckingham Palace before the G7 summit in Cornwall in June.She will be joined at the “soft power” reception in June by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge under plans being drawn up by royal and government officials to cement the “special relationship” between the UK and America.....the Queen has met every US president since the start of her reign in 1952 [not a typo], except Lyndon Johnson.#PresidentJoeBiden is coming to #Cornwall for #G7 and will be holding bi-laterals, including with #BorisJohnson. Then to #Belgium to talk to #NATO /#EU.So far- he only meets PM once. Anyone implying any big deal about this is vis a vis UK is spinning.pic.twitter.com/N1NPBoSTqn 6.14pm BSTDeb Haaland noted at a White House press conference earlier, in what is National Park Week, that “I always wanted to be a National Park ranger.”Deb Haaland Is Plowing Ahead With Tackling Violence Against Native Women | Via Huffpost https://t.co/5Yuhg7GXu2 5.58pm BSTWhen Joe Biden visits the UK in June in the first overseas trip of his presidency, he will not only attend the G7 meeting in Cornwall, the county in the south-west of England, but he will have a bilateral encounter with British prime minister Boris Johnson.Our David Smith, attending the briefing with White House press sec Jen Psaki, asked how that’s likely to go, given that Biden has previously described Johnson as “a physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump” and inquired whether Biden “still holds that view?”Asked if Biden will meet the Queen in the UK, Psaki replies: "Who wouldn't want to meet the Queen?"“I know he thought he invented that, but” — some Trump shade from Jen Psaki pic.twitter.com/OhVKYO2WCW 5.27pm BSTWhite House press secretary is updating the media on the forthcoming 100th day in office for Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris.Biden has been invited to give his maiden speech as president to a joint session of the US Congress, next Wednesday. Psaki: On Wednesday the president will address a joint session of Congress. "He will lay out the American Families Plan... On Thursday, the president's 100th day in office, he and the first lady will travel to Georgia."Psaki: On Wednesday the president will address a joint session of Congress. "He will lay out the American Families Plan... On Thursday, the president's 100th day in office, he and the first lady will travel to Georgia." 5.15pm BSTWhite House press secretary Jen Psaki is running through some of the main themes of the day in a media briefing.Psaki said the US-led climate summit that just wrapped shows that America is back at the table. Our colleague David Smith is at the briefing.Press secretary Jen Psaki: President Biden just concluded a historic climate summit with world leaders “to show America is back at the table”. pic.twitter.com/66JMhTvBLiPsaki: The president will travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June. 5.03pm BSTUS appeals court denies Dakota Access pipeline rehearing request; environmental review to continue. A U.S. appeals court on Friday denied Dakota Access LLC’s petition for a rehearing on a court decision to cancel a key permit for its oil pipeline, court documents show.The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia means the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) technically is still trespassing on federal land because it does not have a permit to cross under South Dakota’s Lake Oahe. The environmental review of the line is continuing, and is not expected to be completed until March 2022. Related: Celebrities call on Biden and Harris to shut down Dakota Access pipeline Related: 'No more broken treaties': indigenous leaders urge Biden to shut down Dakota Access pipeline 4.52pm BSTCornish pasty and clotted cream makers ahoy! Biden heading for Cornwall on first foreign trip as US president.Joe Biden will travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June for his first overseas trip since taking office, the White House said a little earlier.The trip aims to highlight the US president’s “commitment to restoring our alliances, revitalizing the transatlantic relationship, and working in close cooperation with our allies,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.The announcement was made as Biden concluded hosting a global climate summit that marked a renewed US engagement in climate efforts. 4.30pm BSTJennifer Granholm, US energy secretary, said at the virtual climate summit this morning that clean technology was “our generation’s moonshot”.Underscoring the role for carbon removal technologies to meet global climate goals, Granholm announced a partnership with Canada, Norway, Qatar and Saudi Arabia called the Net Zero Producers Forum.It aimed to develop “long-term strategies to reach global net-zero emissions”, she said. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm“This is our generation’s moonshot. Less than a decade after Kennedy declared our nation’s choice to go to the moon we planted an American flag on that cratered surface, and today we choose to solve the climate crisis,” 4.16pm BSTJohn Kerry’s climate warning: ‘Even If We Get To Net Zero, We Need Carbon Removal’That’s the interesting headline on the HuffPost site from yesterday, just to expand a little more on this vague but, at the simplest level, at least not discouraging US-Russia talk on cooperation over removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help reverse global heating. John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special climate envoy, warned Thursday that mounting global commitments to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of this century will not be enough to avert catastrophic warming. To preserve a safe and recognizable global climate, the world will need to start removing the carbon dioxide we’ve spewed into the atmosphere over the last 200 years, which has created an insulating layer around our planet, the former secretary of state said during the first day of the White House’s two-day climate summit. A blip of something unusual amid today's choreographed climate pageantry: John Kerry acknowledging the need for carbon removal. “Even if we get to net zero, we still need to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere." Experts say this is a new tack. https://t.co/4VGCVjGI4Mthe grass centerpiece to the climate summit is rather lush pic.twitter.com/y1b4MrgmBV 3.52pm BSTJust a reminder of what the Russian president Vladimir Putin said at the climate summit convened by Joe Biden, which began yesterday and winds up today.Putin called for international cooperation to tackle climate change but did not cite a target for Russia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Putin said: Russia is genuinely interested in galvanizing international cooperation so as to look further for effective solutions to climate change as well as to all other vital challenges.”Putin says Moscow is ready to offer a number of joint projects and consider preferences for foreign companies willing to invest in clean technologies, including those in Russia.Carbon removal is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away for decades, centuries, or millennia. This could slow, limit, or even reverse climate change — but it is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is because carbon removal is generally slow-acting and may not be able to be deployed at scales commensurate with society’s current greenhouse emissions. Carbon removal is sometimes referred to as carbon dioxide removal or CDR, and technologies for implementing carbon removal are sometimes called Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs). Some prominent ideas for carbon removal include: 3.29pm BSTShe wants your money. Here’s the tweet. Caitlyn Jenner urges California voters to join her campaign because “California is worth fighting for”. I’m in! California is worth fighting for. Visit https://t.co/a1SfOAMZQ3 to follow or donate today. #RecallNewsom pic.twitter.com/9yCck3KK4D 3.13pm BSTInterrupting leaders’ speeches on their efforts to save the planet to bring you breaking news out of the west coast. It’s official – Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete, reality TV star and transgender activist, has filed her initial paperwork to run for governor of California.In a scoopette, the Axios website brings us the news that:Jenner, a longtime Republican, is seeking to replace Democratic governor Gavin Newsom in a recall election, hoping her celebrity status and name recognition can yield an upset in the nation’s most populous state.But in deep-blue California, she’s decidedly not branding herself as a Trump Republican even as she’s counting on some of the former president’s advisers to drive her strategy. 2.56pm BSTIn a short addess, the point that jumped out was this from US president Joe Biden.“I’m very heartened by President Putin’s call yesterday for the world to collaborate and advance carbon dioxide removal, and the United States look forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise.”Biden: “I’m very heartened by President Putin's call yesterday for the world to collaborate and advance carbon dioxide removal, and the United States look forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise.”Biden, rocking a great suit, just said: "I'm very heartened by President Putin’s call yesterday for the world to collaborate on advanced carbon dioxide removal. The United States looks forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise." pic.twitter.com/hEcCxernFX 2.50pm BSTHere’s the president.Joe Biden says that the second and final day of the virtual global leaders climate summit is “not about the threat” of the climate emergency “it’s about the opportunity that addressing climate change provides” 2.35pm BSTAs commerce secretary Gina Raimondo provides the warm-up act to the president at the virtual world climate summit, an independent research organization says the American goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels puts the United States among the four most ambitious nations in curbing climate change, the Associated Press reports this morning.The AP brings us this news: The Rhodium Group said that using the US-preferred 2005 baseline, America is behind the United Kingdom but right with the European Union. It’s ahead of countries that include Canada, Japan, Iceland and Norway.Joe Biden announced the US goal at the virtual climate summit on Thursday. 2.14pm BSTJoe Biden will take the podium in the east room at the White House very shortly.The title of his address is: “The Economic Opportunities of Climate Action.” 2.02pm BSTGood morning, US politics liveblog readers, there’s a lot going on in Washington today and we’ll bring you all the developments here, so please strap in and hold tight for a lively Friday. Continue reading...