JOE BIDEN got the endorsement Monday of rival Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination (Shutterstock).

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Monday he was endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.

BERNIE SANDERS (Shutterstock).

“I am asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” he said in a virtual event.

“We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president,” Sanders said. “I will do all that I can to make that happen.”

Sanders was an early front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, but the tide turned when Biden won a landslide victory in South Carolina and went on to five wins in six primary elections.

At present, he has 1207 delegates to Sanders’ 914. Results from Alaska and Wisconsin have not been tabulated yet. Real Clear Politics average of recent public opinion polls have Biden leading 60.3 percent to 32 percent for Sanders among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

Not all the news Monday was good for Biden. Tara Reade, a former aide to Biden, told the Associated Press that he had sexually assaulted her in 1993 in the basement of an office building.

She filed a police report at the time, but did not name an assailant.

Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director Kate Bedingfield replied “What is clear about this claim: it is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”

Who will ease rules? Trump or governors?

As some signs of optimism emerge in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, the question arises over who would authorize the lifting of certain rules on social distancing and business closures, and when.

ANDREW CUOMO, NY governor.

President Donald Trump on Monday, on Twitter, said, “It is the decision of the president and for many good reasons.” He announced he was assembling a federal task force that would decide when to “open the country up.”

Some governors, mostly Democrats, have said that state executive orders would be subject to change or cancellation only by that state’s governor.

Already, state task forces are being created to coordinate economies once the COVID-19 outbreak appears to be subsiding. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and two other East Coast states are contemplating such a move, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that his state would partner with California and Oregon for a similar purpose.

Harsh weather lashes Southeast, East Coast

The Southeast and Eastern parts of the United States were hit Sunday and Monday by storms that killed 30 people and cut power to over 1,000,000 customers.

Floods, mudslides and tornadoes struck Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina.

The storms continue to strike the eastern seaboard, a region already hit hard in some areas by the coronavirus pandemic. Heavy weather was reported as far north as Maine.

Rainy and windy conditions are expected to prevail for the next two weeks, according to the National Weather Service.

Biden wins Wisconsin presidential primary

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been declared winner of the controversial Wisconsin primary held on Tuesday, April 7. The outcome – Biden defeating Bernie Sanders 549,313 votes to 273,746 – was not a surprise, but it capped a battle between the Democratic governor and the Republican legislature over whether the balloting would be done by mail or in person.

The voting was in-person.
The former vice president, who was endorsed Monday by Sanders, now has an estimated 1275 delegates to the Democratic convention to 927 to Sanders and a popular vote margin of 2.7 million.