Start your day off right with five things you need to know this morning.
Five things you need to know
President Joe Biden has promised there will be enough coronavirus vaccine doses in the US for every adult by the end of May. He revealed the new timeline as he warned the crisis is "far from over," with new mutations of the virus posing a serious threat. The new president has adopted his predecessor's "America First" policy when it comes to vaccines, refusing to help other countries, including Canada, who are lagging behind the US in inoculation efforts.
US president Joe Biden promises vaccines will be available for every US adult by end of Mayhttps://t.co/xsGgSK9hlw
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 3, 2021
The largest opposition party in the German parliament is being spied on by the country's intelligence services, according to reports. In a major blow to the country's democratic system, the Alternative for Deutschland political party has been designated a suspected extremist group and is therefore open to surveillance on a federal level. A spokeswoman for the anti-EU party said it would take action against the "purely political" decision.
#BREAKING Germany places far-right AfD party under surveillance: parliamentary sources pic.twitter.com/4azW2AoMOd
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 3, 2021
Texas is set to fully reopen, Governor Gregg Abbott has announced. All businesses will be allowed to operate at full capacity and the statewide order to wear masks will be rescinded. Other states – including Louisiana, Mississippi and Michigan – have announced similar plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions.
I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) March 2, 2021
EVERYTHING.
I also ended the statewide mask mandate.
Amazon has changed its new logo – launched in January – after excitable people on the internet somehow contrived to compare it with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The latest design is almost exactly the same as the previous one, showing a brown box with an arrow resembling a smile.
Amazon changes its new smartphone app logo after shoppers say it reminds them of a smirking Adolf Hitler https://t.co/4i6980NOet
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 3, 2021
India is no longer a fully free country, according to a global report on political rights. Freedom House's new study said the South Asian democracy – the world's largest – is now only "partly free." Civil liberties have declined since the accession to power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, the report claimed.
India drops from a “free” country to a “partly free” country, in the 2021 @freedomhouse report due to Modi government’s “clampdown on critics”, “hamfisted lockdown” and “scapegoating of Muslims”, notes @freedomhouse https://t.co/zfX2YHQH86
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) March 3, 2021
