Joe Biden gave the first town hall of his presidency on CNN on Tuesday evening, taking questions from host Anderson Cooper and a socially distanced studio audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The new president’s primary concern was allaying fears about the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 488,000 Americans and devastated the country’s economy.

He also addressed concerns about Covid-19 vaccine availability, school reopenings, criminal justice, domestic terrorism and reflected on his own ascent to the White House after four tumultuous years under Donald Trump.

The former Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City was finally demolished on Wednesday morning, after the complex fell into years of disrepair.

A new development will replace the 32-story building, which formerly housed the Trump Plaza hotel and casino on Atlantic City’s famous boardwalk, and once hosted many famous faces.

Kamala Harris says teachers should be prioritised for Covid-19 vaccines.

The vice president told NBC News that teachers “are critical to our children’s development, they should be able to teach in a safe place and expand the minds and the opportunities of our children. So teachers should be a priority along with other frontline workers.”

However, Ms Harris refused to be drawn on whether the Biden administration believes vaccination should be a prerequisite for the reopening of schools.

Pressed on the issue, she told the broadcaster it was for states to decide whether they are able to put in place safety measures such as social distancing. Ms Harris also said it was important for Congress to pass the White House’s $1.9 trillion (£1.36 trillion) coronavirus recovery package.

The vice president was also grilled on whether she thought Donald Trump should face criminal charges over the Capitol riot, but refused to answer, instead turning her response back to coronavirus.

You can watch that exchange below:

Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat who lost a close Senate race to Ted Cruz in 2018, has claimed the Lone Star State is on the brink of becoming “failed” as a result of the winter storm blackouts.

Millions of homes are without power after an Arctic weather system landed in the southern US.

Mr O’Rourke told MSNBC: “So much of this was avoidable. Going back to the deregulation of our electric grid here in Texas, which has actually created an incentive to not weatherize or protect against these events.

“The energy capital of North America cannot provide enough energy to warm and power people’s homes.

“We are nearing a failed state in Texas. And it has nothing to do with God or natural disasters. It has everything to do with those in positions of public trust who have failed us.”

Joe Biden has vowed to ensure that Covid-19 vaccines will be made “available” to “every single American” who wants one across the US before the end of July.

“By the end of July this year,” he said, adding: “We came into office there was only 50 million doses available.”

“We have now, by the end of July we’ll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American,” Mr Biden said.

He clarified that he meant the doses would “be available” by the end of July and not that they would have been administered.

Several members of President Joe Biden’s former coronavirus advisory board have urged his administration to widely mandate and recommend the use of N95 masks in the US, claiming that there is a “pressing and urgent need for action”.

The advice, which was sent to President Biden’s coronavirus advisers in a memo obtained by CNN, cited the possible threat of new coronavirus variants from other countries for the need for greater action to be taken.

A dozen people, including four former members of Mr Biden’s advisory board, contributed to the memo, calling on the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create the first national consumer mask standard.

They asked the CDC to “recommend and require the use of respiratory protection, such as N95 FFRs (filtering facepiece respirators), to protect all workers at high risk of exposure and infection.”

N95 masks are used by healthcare workers because they offer more protection than a medical mask by filtering out both large and small particles when the wearer inhales.

Joe Biden described his new life living at the White House during CNN’s town hall on Tuesday evening.

“I get up in the morning and look at Jill and say: ‘Where the hell are we?’” President Biden said while smiling at the event in Milwaukee.

Although he has been living at the White House now for close to a month, Mr Biden revealed that he still feels “extremely self-conscious” when staff there wait on him and especially when they hand him his coat.

Despite having served as US vice president for eight years, Mr Biden had never set foot in a majority of the residence areas, saying: “I don’t know what I ever expected it to be.”

He added: “I feel a sense of – I must tell you, a sense of history about it.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader has demanded “action, not words” from the Biden administration if it wants to revive Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Tehran has set a deadline of next week for the new president to begin reversing sanctions imposed by his predecessor, or Iran will take its biggest step yet to violate the nuclear deal – banning short notice inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.

“We have heard many nice words and promises which in practice have been broken and opposite actions have been taken. Words and promises are no good. This time [we want] only action from the other side, and we will also act,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech.

Mr Biden has said he wants to restore the pact under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions, a major achievement of the Obama administration abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018.

But while both Tehran and Washington now say they want to see the agreement revived, they are at odds over who should make the first move. Iran says the United States must first lift Mr Trump’s sanctions, while the US says Iran must first return to compliance with the deal, which it began violating after the sanctions were reimposed.

Alongside all this, the US government takes issue with Iran’s sponsorship of violent groups in the Middle East. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in January that Mr Biden wanted to get Tehran’s nuclear programme “back in the box” through diplomacy before addressing its other activities, which Mr Trump had previously called “malign behaviour”.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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