Gasoline prices could soon see a spike, according to Reuters, which reported a 6-cent jump for a gallon of fuel over the last week.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) said the current average price of $2.967 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is just 3 cents shy of hitting the highest national average since 2014.

Some areas are already experiencing shortages after a cyber attack shuttered the largest pipeline system in the US:

The Southeast should feel the squeeze first. Areas including Mississippi, Tennessee and the East Coast from Georgia into Delaware are likely to feel pain at the pump with prices rising 3 to 7 cents this week, said AAA spokeswoman Jeanette McGee.

Parts of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee rely on the line for fuel, and some suffered acute localized shortages and spikes in prices at the pump during previous shutdowns.

The Colonial Pipeline distributes nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel and the AAA said there could be delays even after it is up and running again.

Pediatricians are expressing concerns that children may fall behind on other important vaccinations in the wake of the Covid crisis, according to CNN.

Now that the FDA has extended emergency authorization of the Pfizer Covid vaccine to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15, some doctors are hoping parents will prioritize getting their kids up to date on all shots.

“We have seen throughout the pandemic that there has been a decline in routine immunizations, and that does concern me greatly as a pediatrician because I know that many children have missed other important vaccines for diseases like measles or whooping cough — which, like Covid-19, can be deadly,” pediatrician Lisa Costello, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on State Government Affairs, told CNN.

From CNN:

Routine immunizations “fell off a cliff” at pediatrician Dr. Christoph Diasio’s practice in Southern Pines, North Carolina, as the pandemic took hold in the US. Diasio told CNN visits for checkups have gone back up at many pediatric practices in recent weeks, but things aren’t necessarily back to normal.

“The problem is that because we’re behind, you have to go to 130% of normal,” Diasio said, adding that his office needs to spread people out physically and budget more time for each visit to maintain pandemic precautions. “Those are good, solid public health measures to prevent contagion at the doctor’s office, but they also have the net effect of making it very difficult to catch up on some of these things”.

The largest US union has filed the first labor complaint against Mexico since the passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Reuters reports.

The AFL-CIO, a federation of 56 labor unions representing roughly 12.5 million people internationally, filed its petition against an auto parts plant in Matamoros, a city in Mexico near the Texas border. The union claims workers there were denied representation, a violation of the USMCA.

The agreement, which replaced NAFTA last year, granted more power to workers to organize.

From Reuters:

“This is precedent-setting,” said Cathy Feingold, director of the international department of the AFL-CIO, which lobbied for better worker-rights provisions in the USMCA. “It’s going to be a test for this new system.”

The AFL-CIO will send its petition to the U.S. Office of Trade and Labor Affairs, which has 30 days to review the claim and determine whether to bring the case to the Mexican government for further review.

Mexican labor officials would then work with U.S. counterparts to agree on terms of remediation. The entire process, including a final stage to determine potential sanctions and penalty fees, must be resolved within five months.

I’m Gabrielle Canon, here to take you through the news for the rest of the afternoon.

Alabama will soon cease advancing all added Covid-unemployment benefits, including the federally funded $300 boost, Governor Kay Ivey said today, citing concerns over worker shortages, the Associated Press reports.

“As Alabama’s economy continues its recovery, we are hearing from more and more business owners and employers that it is increasingly difficult to find workers to fill available jobs, even though job openings are abundant,” Ivey said in a statement.

Starting June 19, Alabama will stop participating in pandemic programs provided by the federal government, including emergency unemployment extensions that enabled gig workers, part-time employees, and people who have been collecting unemployment longer than what’s typically offered to receive benefits.

Mississippi governor Tate Reeves also announced that his state would opt out of federal programs on June 12 – as early as the law allows.

South Carolina, Montana, and Arkansas have also announced a departure from the programs.

Biden pushed back against claims that the Covid relief bill passed in March was to blame for lower-than-expected jobs numbers, and said he would work with states to ensure rules are tightened.

“If you’re receiving unemployment benefits and you’re offered a suitable job, you can’t refuse that job and just keep getting unemployment benefits,” Biden said.

Meanwhile, California is making moves to offer residents even more aid.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, announced the biggest economic recovery plan in the state’s history – a $100bn plan – that includes $600 in direct payments to two-thirds of California’s roughly 40 million residents.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who will likely replace Liz Cheney as House Republican conference chair, deflected a question from the Washington Examiner about whether she believes Joe Biden legitimately won the presidential election. (He did.)

“President Biden is president and the focus is on defeating his radical agenda, which I believe we will do in 2024. And we’re going to win the midterms in 2022,” Stefanik told the Examiner in an interview today.

“I have said that there are election irregularities and an unconstitutional overreach, which is why I objected to certain states,” Stefanik added. “But the irregularity, the unconstitutional overreach, the lack of valid security, those are important issues at the American people want to hear solutions from the Republicans on.”

Cheney is being pushed out of her leadership role because of her criticism of Donald Trump and his promotion of the “big lie” that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.

Although originally elected to Congress as a Republican moderate, Stefanik has embraced Trump and objected to the election results in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which Biden won.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney warned that ousting Liz Cheney as conference chair would be detrimental to the party’s midterm prospects.

“Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few,” Romney said on Twitter.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has just confirmed in a letter that members should expect a vote on removing Cheney on Wednesday.

Given the number of Republicans who have voiced support for removing Cheney, she will likely lose her leadership position.

In his letter about the Wednesday vote to remove Liz Cheney as conference chair, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy argued Republicans need to be entirely focused on taking back Congress.

“Unfortunately, each day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future,” McCarthy said. “This is no time to take our eye off the ball.”

McCarthy described the GOP as a “big tent party,” but he emphasized that Republicans “cannot afford to be distracted from the important work we were elected to do”.

“Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change,” McCarthy said. “As such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the Conference Chair this Wednesday.”

Republicans have consistently described Cheney’s criticism of Donald Trump as a “distraction,” even as they defend the former president’s comments supporting the “big lie” about widespread fraud in the presidential election.

Good news for Joe Biden – an Associated Press poll published before his remarks on the US economy just now put his approval rating at a healthy 63% overall, and 71% when it comes to how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic.

Even 47% of Republicans in the poll said they approved of the president’s work to pull the country out of the Covid-19 crisis. Fifty-four percent of respondents said the US was on the right track.

Another telling stat: “As has been the case throughout the pandemic, there is a wide partisan gap in Americans’ views of pandemic risks. Among Democrats, 69% say they remain at least somewhat worried about being infected with the virus, compared with just 33% of Republicans.”

Here’s what chief White House medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci has been saying recently about masks and vaccines. And here’s how Buffalo in New York is winning over some vaccine skeptics – with beer.

And here, for further reading, is David Smith’s interview with the presidential historian Jon Meacham, about one reason for Biden’s popularity – the way he is “like an upside down iceberg. You see most of it and that’s not spin: there’s just not a lot of mystery to Joe Biden.”

This piece is very Politico, which means that even if it’s about Iowa it’s really very about DC, and within that Capitol Hill. Nonetheless, it’s a long look at a long-serving senator, Chuck Grassley, whose decision on whether or not to retire could have serious ramifications for the balance of power in the Senate.

The Republican is 87 and has been in some form of elected office since 1959 but he isn’t committing either way to retiring at the next election.

“Listen, there’s nothing I see that’s going to keep me from serving another six years if I decide to do it,” he told Politico during what the website called “a swing through north-east Iowa as part of his annual 99 County Tour”.

“I just work from day to day. God will take care of tomorrow.”

The Senate is split 50-50, controlled by Democrats through the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris. If Grassley runs again, thereby almost certainly being re-elected and sparing Republicans the need to defend his seat, he would start a six-year term which would end past his 95th birthday.

That would of course be peanuts or possibly Iowa chickenfeed next to the example of Strom Thurmond, the South Carolina segregationist and Dixiecrat turned staunch Republican who retired at 100 in 2003 and died a few months later.

Nor is Grassley the only superannuated senator currently part of the chamber. Richard Shelby of Alabama is also 87 – he has said he will retire. Dianne Feinstein of California is 87 too. She has not yet said she’ll quit.

Joe Biden has now started delivering his remarks on the US economy, which come as the president pushes Congress to pass his infrastructure plan.

Before launching into his comments about the economy, the president offered an update on the government’s response to the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

Biden described the ransomware attack as “a criminal act” and said government agencies had acted quickly to limit the impact on the US fuel supply.

Earlier today, the FBI blamed the attack on Darkside, which appears to be a group of experienced hackers.

Jen Psaki said Joe Biden is still looking to sign a policing bill into law by May 25, which is the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death.

However, it remains very unclear whether that timeline is feasible, given that the bipartisan group working on the bill has not yet reached a final compromise.

Republican Senator Tim Scott has been working Democratic Senator Cory Booker and congresswoman Karen Bass on the bill, but there have been lingering disagreements over scaling back police officers’ legal protections.

A reporter pressed Jen Psaki on disagreements between Democrats and Republicans about how to pay for an infrastructure bill.

The CNN reporter noted that Joe Biden has said he is unwilling to increase taxes on non-wealthy Americans, eliminating user fees as an option, and Republicans like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell remain adamantly opposed to rolling back the tax cuts approved by Donald Trump.

“The president’s redlines are inaction and anything that would raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year,” Psaki said. “Those are not areas where he is going to move.”

Psaki noted Biden has invited Republican members to meet with him later this week to discuss their ideas about how to pay for an infrastructure package.

The press secretary said the president is “very open to having a discussion about where we can find agreement,” adding that he is “encouraged by the spirit” in which Republicans are coming to the negotiating table.

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies, said the US is looking at potential ties between Russian nation-state actors and Darkside, which is responsible for the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

The senior national security official also dodged questions about whether Colonial had paid any of the ransom demanded by Darkside.

Neuberger acknowledged that companies targeted with ransomware attacks face a “very difficult situation” in which they must weigh the costs and benefits of paying money to the hackers.

“Colonial is a private company, and we’ll defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them,” Neuberger said.

Pressed on whether the White House had offered any advice to Darkside, she said, “Typically that is a private-sector decision, and the administration has not offered further advice at this time.”

The comments appeared to be a bit of a walk-back from the federal government’s previous warnings against paying ransomware attackers. Neuberg said the administration would be studying ransomware attacks more closely to better assess how to respond to them.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters.

Psaki was joined in the briefing room by Dr Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, homeland security adviser and deputy national security adviser, and Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies.

Addressing the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline this weekend, Sherwood-Randall said Joe Biden “continues to be regularly briefed on the incident”.

Sherwood-Randall added that there is not a supply shortage at the moment, but she said the administration is preparing for multiple contingencies.

Neuberger also said that the federal government is “aggressively investigating the incident and its culprits”. The FBI confirmed earlier today that Darkside ransomware was responsible for the attack.

Joe Biden will reportedly meet with two important Democratic senators to discuss his infrastructure plan this week, as the president urges Congress to pass his $2.3 trillion proposal.

CNN reports:

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Tom Carper of Delaware, two committee chairmen central to the infrastructure legislative process, will meet separately with Biden at the White House, according to a White House official, to discuss the issue.

‘The President is having individual meetings today with Senators Carper and Manchin concerning the American Jobs Plan and the ongoing talks in Congress about the urgent need to invest in our infrastructure,’ the official said.

The meetings with Manchin and Carper come on a crucial week for the White House, with Biden set to meet later this week with the top four congressional leaders and a group of Senate GOP senators on infrastructure.

Adam Kinzinger said he had considered having a vote of no-confidence against House minority leader Kevin McCarthy after the January 6 insurrection.

“I don’t consider him to be speaking on behalf of the Republican party anymore,” Kinzinger told a Bloomberg reporter.

The Republican congressman added, “I actually thought the person that should have their leadership challenged was Kevin McCarthy after January 6 because that’s why this all happened.”

Kinzinger said he abandoned plans to challenge McCarthy in order to keep the focus on the impeachment vote against Trump after the insurrection.

Kinzinger credited Trump’s House allies for good strategic thinking by going on the offense against Liz Cheney, who is expected to lose her leadership role this week.

“Liz is the one playing defense, for what? What’s she playing defense for? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on January 6?” Kinzinger said. “If you think about it from the forest, it’s ludicrous that she’s having to defend herself. That’s insane, but that’s where we are.”

Lafayette Square, which is directly in front of the White House, has now reopened for the first time in nearly a year.

A reporter for AFP shared a photo of the newly reopened square on Twitter:

Authorities put up fencing around the square last June, shortly after federal law enforcement officers forcibly cleared the area using tear gas during the George Floyd protests.

Leading Republicans took to the political talkshow circuit on Sunday to express support or opposition to Liz Cheney.

Critically, Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who has in the past stood up for Cheney, made their break-up official when he told Fox News that he was endorsing Cheney’s rival Elise Stefanik for the number three post.

“What we’re talking about is a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward,” McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.

Stefanik, a representative from New York who is now frontrunner to take over from Cheney, has a paradoxically much more moderate voting record than the woman she would replace. Significantly, Stefanik has been preferred because she has gone along with Donald Trump’s lies about the “stolen” election, despite officials calling it the most secure in US history.

Donald Trump once again urged House Republicans to replace Liz Cheney with Elise Stefanik as conference chair.

“The House GOP has a massive opportunity to upgrade this week from warmonger Liz Cheney to gifted communicator Elise Stefanik,” the former president said in a new statement.

“We need someone in Leadership who has experience flipping districts from Blue to Red as we approach the important 2022 midterms, and that’s Elise! She knows how to win, which is what we need!”

Trump formally endorsed Stefanik last week, after spending months criticizing Cheney for voting to impeach him after the January 6 insurrection.

Ron DeSantis was exultant. “The way Florida did it I think inspires confidence; I think that’s how elections should be run,” the state governor told reporters last November. “Rather than us be at the centre of a Bush v Gore in 2020, we’re now being looked at as the state that did it right.”

This boast of a smoothly run election just six months ago makes DeSantis’s actions last week all the more curious. The governor suddenly found it necessary to impose sweeping reforms that limit mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes – and signed the new law live on the Fox News network on Thursday with no other media allowed.

It was perhaps the most brazen example yet of a renewed assault on American democracy crafted and led by former president Donald Trump and his Republican allies, electrified by “the big lie”, the false claim of a stolen election in 2020.

Far from losing influence over the party, critics say, Trump has in fact burrowed far into its DNA so that the two are now all but inseparable. And far from treating the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol as a catharsis to break the spell, Republican-controlled state legislatures are using his false claim of election fraud to justify a sweep of anti-democratic measures across America.

On Friday the Texas house of representatives backed a bill to bar election officials from sending voters unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, while giving party-affiliated poll watchers greater access to voting sites. Restrictions on voting rights have also been signed into law in Georgia and Iowa with similar moves afoot in Ohio and Michigan. Activists warn that people of colour will be disproportionately prevented or discouraged from voting.

As rumors swirl that Fox News’s primetime show host might run to be Republican nominee in 2024, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland speaks to former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer about the danger this would pose to American democracy for our Politics Weekly podcast.

Some good news to start the week: the US recorded just 21,392 new cases of coronavirus yesterday, marking the country’s lowest daily caseload since June 15, 2020, according to data compiled by johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths have declined in the US in recent weeks, as more Americans get vaccinated against the virus.

According to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, the US has already administered 259,716,989 shots, and about 46% of Americans have received at least one dose. Roughly 34% of the country’s population is now fully vaccinated.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, celebrated the downward trend in US cases at a briefing with the White House pandemic response team last week.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but we could be very close,” the CDC director said.

In case you missed it: House minority leader Kevin McCarthy officially backed Elise Stefanik’s bid to replace Liz Cheney as conference chair.

“What we’re talking about is a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward,” McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo yesterday.

McCarthy had previously defended Cheney after she voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection, but the Republican leader had recently signaled he was willing to oust her.

House Republicans are expected to vote Wednesday on whether to remove Cheney from her leadership position, and they will likely approve her ouster.