Campaigners for gun reform and advocates for the victims of gun violence have been expressing their optimism in advance of Mr Biden’s announcement today. Among them are the leaders of the Giffords group, founded after the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords in 2011; one of its senior advisers has been chosen by Mr Biden to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Also celebrating today are Kris Brown, president of the Brady organisation, and David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting who has campaigned across the US in the years since the massacre at his high school.

And for good measure, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has given her own views.

We’re getting closer to the press conference at which Joe Biden will announce the new gun control measures he’s putting into action via executive order. But besides actions on problems like ghost guns and military-style rifles, the White House has also issued a fact sheet on community violence interventions that are designed to tackle gun violence without legislating around gun possession or sales at all.

It also points out that gun violence is an enormous economic problem, quoting a study that found it costs the US around $280bn a year.

As Joe Biden prepares to announce his bold new moves on gun safety reform, high up the agenda is a particularly thorny problem: “ghost guns”, which carry no serial numbers and which are therefore extremely difficult for law enforcement to trace.

What can the federal government do to crack down on them? Maroosha Muzaffar has this explainer.

The trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd is returning to the courtroom. Follow the prosecution with video in our dedicated live blog.

Our own Richard Hall has been reflecting on the experience of getting inoculated against Covid-19 in New York, where the rollout hasn’t exactly been frictionless.

“This rollout process, designed for speed and efficiency, was exclusionary to all but the most tech savvy and time-rich adults,” he writes. “How could a single parent have found the time to go through this process? How could someone working full time, someone without reliable internet access, someone without technical skills?”

As West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin goes on the record again to oppose any attempt to adjust or abolish the Senate filibuster, his critics are out in force. Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall analyses Mr Manchin’s tactics and finds them wanting (to put it mildly)…

A 27-year-old Minnesota man and self-described “Boogaloo Boi” is facing federal charges of illegally possessing a machine gun, which a confidential source told the FBI he intended to use to kill law enforcement officers.

Michael Paul Dahlager also possessed 3D-printed and homemade firearm components, and claimed to have installed port-holes in his residence from which to make a stand against law enforcement if they came for him.

Members of the Boogaloo movement, a loose connection of people who share an anti-government and anti-law enforcement animus, have been linked to violence and homicide before, most notably in a 2020 attack in California that left two people dead.

You can read the Justice Department’s account of the case here.

Emerging figures indicate that based on last week’s numbers, new unemployment claims in the US are higher than hoped for, with a week-on-week rise of 16,000.

An explosion at a paint plant in Columbus, Ohio overnight has left eight people injured and another unaccounted for. Some are in critical condition.

Gustaf Kilander has more:

Two Ecuadorian sisters aged 3 and 5 who were dumped over the Mexico-US border by a smuggler are set to be reunited with their parents in New York. The US Customs and Border Protection agency last week released an infrared clip of the girls being dropped over the 14-foot border wall, where they were taken to hospital by border agents.

As the girls make their way to their parents, the authorities in Mexico are working to identify the person or people responsible for abandoning them.