First Thing: Trump’s Senate impeachment trial begins

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The historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will begin on Tuesday, on the same Senate floor that came under siege by rioters just over a month ago. After being impeached by the House of Representatives in January, Trump will be tried for “incitement of insurrection” in the upper chamber, over his alleged role in provoking the deadly Capitol attack.

The proceedings will begin with a debate over whether the trial is constitutional. Trump’s lawyers have dismissed it as “political theatre” and alleged it is unconstitutional to try a president for impeachment after he has left office. Democrats wholly reject this. House impeachment managers plan to open their prosecution case by recounting the Capitol attack in harrowing detail, recalling the smashing and looting of the seat of US democracy as lawmakers hid. They will present the attack as the natural culmination of Trump’s repeated attempts to overturn the result of the presidential election.

• What you need to know: How long will the trial last? What is Trump’s defence? Will he be found guilty? Martin Belam answers key questions about the impeachment trial.

• A former Trump aide can’t be prosecuted in New York due to double jeopardy, a court has ruled. Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, was convicted of tax and bank fraud charges, including allegations he misled the government, avoided paying millions in tax, and encouraged witnesses to lie. Trump pardoned him in December.

Coronavirus rates are dropping, but the new variants threaten to throw the US off course

The US appears to be climbing down from its devastating winter wave of coronavirus, which at its peak saw more than 300,000 new infections and 4,000 lives lost a day. On Sunday, fewer than 100,000 new cases were reported, with lower infection rates and fewer people admitted to hospital than at any time in November. This should lead to a decline in the number of deaths.

Despite the promising figures, scientists have warned against getting complacent. The US death toll is still expected to pass half a million by the end of the month, and new variants threaten another surge. Experts are preparing for a possible coronavirus surge in the US, as new strains of the virus sweep the country. Forecasters don’t consider this the most likely scenario, but the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation has warned that it is a “grim projection”, with concerns over the spread of new variants and people tiring of social distancing rules.

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Coronavirus variants: what you need to know – video explainer

As the new variants of coronavirus spread, attention is turning to whether vaccines will still be effective against them. Not all variants need new vaccines, because they produce a broad immune response which is likely to cover different mutations, but it is possible to tweak vaccines to protect against them. Natalie Grover explains how scientists decide if a vaccine needs to be adapted, and how they would do it.

• Texas congressman Ron Wright has died after contracting coronavirus, the first member of Congress to lose their life after testing positive. The 67-year-old Republican tested positive in late January before being admitted to hospital on Monday with his wife. He was already being treated for lung cancer.

• Facebook has implemented a ban on vaccine misinformation, after years of unfounded claims spreading online. The social media giant will remove posts with false claims about vaccines, and groups where users repeatedly share banned content will be shut down.

Ice deported 22 children and babies yesterday

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported 22 babies and children to Haiti on Monday, in an apparent breach of Joe Biden’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and dangerous felons. In total, at least 72 people were deported, one as young as two months old, despite Haiti being embroiled in serious political unrest.

Ice is being increasingly denounced as a “rogue agency” for its apparent refusal to adhere to the Biden administration’s new guidelines. Last Friday, the administration appeared to regain some control when deportation flights to Haiti were suspended, but yesterday’s developments imply the battle isn’t over yet.

In other news …

• A hacker attempted to poison Florida’s water supply, officials suspect, after remotely gaining access to a city’s water treatment plant. The unknown hacker gained access from a city near Tampa, and briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide by more than 100 times.

• Several EU countries have expelled Russian diplomats in retaliation against the expulsion of three EU officials from Moscow last week after they were accused of participating in protests against the jailing of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Nalvany. The expulsions are exposing the frangibility of relations among the former cold war foes.

• Mary Wilson, the co-founder of the Supremes, has died aged 76. According to her publicist, she died suddenly at her home in Las Vegas, and her death has led to an outpouring of tributes.

Stat of the day: coronavirus prison mortality rates are up to seven times as high as the general population

On most days during the pandemic, the largest outbreaks of coronavirus in the US have occurred in prisons, thought to be because the environment makes it impossible to social distance or control the spread of disease. In December, the National Commission on Covid-19 and Criminal Justice found that mortality rate in prisons was twice as high as the general population, rising to seven times as high in some states. The infection rate is also four times as high, but the true number of deaths in prison from coronavirus is still unclear.

Don’t miss this: could Biden bring back the 1930s climate corps?

In the 1930s, when US unemployment was at 25% and flooding and deforestation were rife, Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put 3 million Americans to work and planted more than 3bn trees. Fast forward almost a century, and Biden has announced the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative, offering well-paid conservation jobs. Could this tackle unemployment and the climate crisis in one fell swoop? Paola Rosa-Aquino learns more.

Last Thing: US ambassador makes ‘full assault on the art of rap’

The US ambassador to Vietnam has recorded an original rap video to wish everyone a happy lunar new year, styling himself as “the boy from Hanoi”. In the video, Dan Kritenbrink walks the streets with an entourage including Vietnamese rapper Wowy, using a mixture of English and Vietnamese lyrics. One Twitter user described it as a “full assault on the art of rap”, but it found better reception on Facebook, where users called it “super cute”. Our report has the link to the video, so you can decide for yourself.

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