Good morning, I'm Lena Muhammad from the Washington Post, and this is the Daily 202 for Monday,

March 15.

In today's news, President Biden's push for equity in education faces a critical test,

and where we stand on the Iran nuclear deal, now that Biden is President.

First, the big idea.

New York's vaccines are, Larry Schwartz, a longtime adviser to Governor Andrew Cuomo, called

county officials in the past two weeks in attempts to gauge their loyalty to the governor amid

an ongoing sexual harassment investigation.

The Post's Amy Brin and Josh Dossie report that one Democratic county executive was so

unsettled by the outreach from Schwartz that they filed an ethics complaint with New York's

Attorney General's office.

While Schwartz is the head of New York's vaccine rollout, the executive feared their

county's vaccine supply could suffer if Schwartz was not pleased with the executive's response

to the questions about support of the governor.

The executive said the conversation with Schwartz came in close proximity to a separate conversation

with another Cuomo administration official about vaccine distribution.

While Schwartz acknowledged making the calls, he said that he did nothing wrong.

Schwartz maintains that he made the calls only as a 30-year friend of Cuomo and did not

discuss vaccines in those conversations.

Schwartz is one of Cuomo's longtime blue tenants.

He served as secretary to the governor from 2011 until 2015.

That role is the most influential aid to the New York governor.

...