“The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in children. It is the first shot federal health regulators have permitted for children, paving the way for one of the last remaining groups in the U.S. to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off on Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 shot, expected within days, children 5 years to 11 years of age can begin getting their first dose.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“President Biden and the other national leaders representing ‘Group of 20’ economies have formally endorsed a new global minimum tax designed to prevent big companies from shifting profits to low-tax countries. News of the accord came as the first in-person G-20 leaders’ summit in two years got underway in Rome.” Read more at Washington Post
“Consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 30 years in September while workers saw their biggest compensation boosts in at least 20 years, according to new government data released Friday.
Consumer spending also rose in September despite the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits, the data showed.
The reports point to a recovery caught between robust consumer demand and severe supply shortages, leading to a rapid uptick in inflation. They also put pressure on Federal Reserve officials as they prepare to meet next week.
Persistently high inflation could offset the increase in wages and make households worse off.
It could also force the central bank to raise interest rates to keep prices in check. Such a move also risks slowing the economic recovery when the unemployment rate remains higher than it was before the pandemic.
Officials say they expect the recent burst of inflation will be temporary, but they have also raised the possibility they could pull back support for the economy faster than anticipated.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“With a once-elusive legislative victory now squarely in their sights, congressional Democrats on Friday continued the arduous task of writing a $1.75 trillion bill to overhaul the nation’s health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws, hoping to hold votes on President Biden’s broader economic agenda as soon as next week.
Spanning nearly 1,700 pages — and with still more to add and revise — the legislative wrangling on Capitol Hill marked a new stage in the debate a day after Biden offered the broad outlines of a compromise to satisfy warring liberals and moderates in his own party.
In a positive sign for the president, lawmakers from both Democratic factions largely have praised the plan, which would expand Medicare, invest anew to combat global warming, offer universal prekindergarten and impose new taxes on the ultrawealthy. Biden has heralded the investments as transformational even though they are in many cases smaller than what Democrats initially envisioned.
By late Friday, lawmakers had not issued any policy ultimatums, offering an encouraging sign about the road ahead. But the flurry of activity also masked some of the still-simmering policy divisions — and the lingering feelings of distrust — that continue to plague the party’s narrow-yet-powerful congressional majority.” Read more at Washington Post
“As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss.
The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol — an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a “siege” in their email exchange.
‘The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,’ Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed.
Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, included Eastman’s emailed remarks in a draft opinion article about Trump’s outside legal team that he wrote later in January but ultimately chose not to publish. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the draft. Jacob wrote that by sending the email at that moment, Eastman ‘displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time.’
Jacob’s draft article, Eastman’s emails and accounts of other previously undisclosed actions by Eastman offer new insight into the mind-sets of figures at the center of an episode that pushed American democracy to the brink. They show that Eastman’s efforts to persuade Pence to block Trump’s defeat were more extensive than has been reported previously, and that the Pence team was subjected to what Jacob at the time called ‘a barrage of bankrupt legal theories.’
Eastman confirmed the emails in interviews with The Post but denied that he was blaming Pence for the violence. He defended his actions, saying that Trump’s team was right to exhaust ‘every legal means’ to challenge a result that it argued was plagued by widespread fraud and irregularities.” Read more at Washington Post
“The Supreme Court on Friday took up cases that could limit the Biden administration’s ambitions on climate change and immigration policy.
The court granted a request from the coal industry and Republican-led states challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit greenhouse gases from power plants, which could threaten a key plank of President Biden’s climate agenda.
And it said it would hear a case that would allow conservative states to defend a Trump-era limitation on issuing green cards to noncitizens who may rely too heavily on government aid, which the law calls ‘public charges.’
In both cases, the Biden administration’s solicitor general had asked the court not to intervene.
West Virginia and officials in 18 other states are trying to head off the sweeping type of emission plan President Barack Obama had proposed in 2016. In that case, the Supreme Court put the plan on hold and it was never implemented.” Read more at Washington Post
“A divided Supreme Court on Friday left intact a vaccine requirement for Maine health care workers, rebuffing the latest legal challenge targeting COVID-19 vaccination mandates to reach the justices.
The challengers, a group of Maine health care workers, sought to block the requirement on religious grounds.
The statewide mandate announced in August by Gov. Janet Mills (D), which applies to employees at hospitals, nursing homes and other health facilities, was set to take effect Friday.
Three of the court’s more conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito— would have ruled in favor of the challengers.
The suit was brought by a Christian group called Liberty Counsel, which said it represented some 2,000 employees who opposed the mandate on religious grounds. Although medical exceptions to Maine's vaccine requirement are recognized, religious exemptions are not.” Read more at The Hill
“ROME — Working to patch things up with an old ally, President Biden told French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday the US had been ‘clumsy’ in its handling of a secret US-British submarine deal with Australia, an arrangement that left France in the lurch and rattled Europe’s faith in American loyalty.
Biden and Macron greeted each other with handshakes and shoulder grabs before their first face-to-face meeting since the deal was publicly announced in September, marking the latest American effort to try to smooth hurt French sensibilities. Biden didn’t formally apologize to Macron, but conceded the US should not have caught its oldest ally by surprise.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The director of Oklahoma’s prison system said on Friday that he did not plan to make any changes to the agency’s lethal injection protocols, a day after a man vomited while shaking for several minutes during the state’s first execution since 2015.
The man, John Marion Grant, was the first person executed by Oklahoma since prison officials made severe mistakes in previous executions, including using the wrong drug in one instance and, in another, allowing a prisoner to regain consciousness.
Mr. Grant, 60, was convicted of stabbing a prison cafeteria worker to death in 1998.
Reporters who have witnessed executions said vomiting was extremely rare in their experience, but Scott Crow, the director of Oklahoma’s prison system, said that the doctor who had been monitoring the execution told him it was ‘not a completely uncommon occurrence’ for someone to vomit while being sedated.
Sean Murphy, an Associated Press reporter who witnessed Mr. Grant’s death, had told other reporters on Thursday night that it appeared Mr. Grant had convulsed about two dozen times after being administered a sedative, the first of three drugs used in the execution. Mr. Murphy said it was unclear whether Mr. Grant was conscious, though he was breathing. Before the other drugs were administered, the doctor entered the execution chamber to wipe vomit from the face of Mr. Grant, who was strapped to a gurney.” Read more at New York Times
“The University of Florida barred three faculty members from testifying for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging a voting-restrictions law enthusiastically embraced by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), which activists say makes it harder for racial minorities to vote, in a move that raises sharp concerns about academic freedom and free speech in the state.
The public university said the three political scientists — Daniel A. Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Wright Austin — could pose ‘a conflict of interest to the executive branch’ and harm the school’s interests if they testified against the law signed by DeSantis in May.
‘As UF is a state actor, litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests,’ school officials said, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
Lawyers attempting to reverse the Florida law, also known as Senate Bill 90, have sought to question DeSantis on whether he was involved in the decision to prevent the academics from testifying, according to the New York Times, which first reported on the university’s move.
The move to bar professors from being expert witnesses in public trials is highly unusual. In a letter to the university, lawyers representing the professors said that faculty retain their First Amendment rights to speech even if their remarks may ‘make a University’s relationship with funding sources more difficult.’
The attorneys cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings that protect the rights of individuals to disclose information acquired ‘by virtue of their public employment.’
The academics will file a legal challenge against the university if it does not change its stance, said Paul Donnelly, an attorney representing Smith, McDonald, and Austin.
As Florida’s governor, DeSantis has influence over the funding of public higher-education institutions in the state. He also has the authority to name six of the 13 members on the university’s board of trustees. All appointed trustees are subject to state Senate confirmation.” Read more at Washington Post
“ATLANTA – Aledmys Díaz didn’t hit the ball hard, but it still seemed to hang in the air forever, where 80,000 or so eyes watched its rise and fall. Everyone at Truist Park knew full well that the next sentence of Atlanta Braves history would depend on where that ball landed.
When the ball landed on the soggy left field grass untouched, it ended one of the unlikeliest no-hit bids in World Series history, one that began with five no-hit innings from starter Ian Anderson. The crowd, perched in anticipation, was so loud that Dansby Swanson couldn’t hear Eddie Rosario calling for the ball.
So Friday night became the night the Braves almost no-hit the Houston Astros in the World Series. It also became the night they shut out the formidable Astros lineup, 2-0, in their first home World Series game in more than 20 years — the night the plucky Atlanta Braves took a 2-1 lead in yet another series they were not favored to win.
Because in the uncomfortable, unorthodox way modern baseball decision-making dictates, the Braves allowed just one Astros runner past second base and no runners to cross home plate. Their effort meant Austin Riley’s RBI double in the third and Travis d’Arnaud’s homer in the eighth were more than enough to give them their first home World Series win since 1995.” Read more at Washington Post
“Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-Ill.) announcement that he will retire after his current term marks the latest victory in former President Trump’s quest to purge his internal critics from the GOP and mold the Republican Party even more in his own image.
Kinzinger’s Friday announcement, along with stiff primary challenges facing other Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment earlier this year, underscores the headwinds critics of the former president face in their reelection bids – and just how Trumpian the House GOP conference is expected to be starting in 2023 in the likely absence of at least some of his detractors.
‘From a victory standpoint, yeah, it's great, because it continues to reinforce the fact that President Trump is the straw that stirs the drink,’ said one GOP strategist. ‘And that's not changing anytime soon.’
To be sure, redistricting may have played a role in Kinzinger’s decision not to run for a seventh term. New congressional maps that are awaiting Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D-Ill.) signature would have put Kinzinger and Rep. Darin LaHood (R), with whom he’s close, in the same district, raising the prospect of a nasty incumbent-on-incumbent primary.
Kinzinger in his announcement Friday also hinted that he was not done in politics as rumors swirl that he’s eyeing either a challenge to Pritzker or Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D).
However, he’d increasingly found himself on a sparsely populated island in the House over his rebukes of Trump — a truth he alluded to in his announcement without mentioning the former president by name.
Kinzinger is among the most vociferous GOP critics of Trump and one of two Republicans, along with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), sitting on the special House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and the former president’s role in inciting it.
While the 10 lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump saw their national profiles rise, leading to a surge in fundraising for some of them, their criticisms have also thrust them into political peril.
Kinzinger is the second of the 10 to announce an early retirement, following Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), who was also thought to be a rising party star. And most of the remaining eight lawmakers are facing serious primary challenges.” Read more at The Hill
“The conservative Republican Liz Cheney and the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League led condemnation of Fox News and Tucker Carlson, after the primetime host announced a series about the supposed ‘true story’ of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.
They denounced Carlson for spreading dangerous conspiracy theories in the latest scandal to engulf a man whose popularity belies his record of racist and untrue statements on issues from immigration to racial justice.” Read more at The Guardian
“Regulators plan to issue warnings to pilots and airlines over a new 5G rollout. The Federal Aviation Administration has been drafting a special bulletin and accompanying mandates that would say certain automated features used by pilots to help fly and land aircraft could be affected by wireless towers transmitting the new 5G signals, officials said. The FAA actions aren’t expected to be directed at consumers’ use of cellphones.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Lawmakers are pushing to include a Medicare drug-pricing provision in Biden’s social spending and climate package. Despite President Biden’s decision to leave the provision out of the framework, a range of lawmakers are attempting to strike a deal that would enable Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Biden administration is considering offering immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter. Several agencies are working to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting trauma. The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more. The ACLU, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance enforcement policy. Immigration agents separated thousands of children from their parents in 2018 after they had crossed illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. In some cases families were broken up with no provisions to track and later reunite them, government investigations found. The Biden administration has already begun a process of locating deported parents and reuniting them with their children in the U.S.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — You might have heard about President Joe Biden's plans for subsidized child care, universal pre-kindergarten and extended child tax credits.
The same goes for his proposed $555 billion to address climate change, $150 billion to boost affordable housing and the billions more for home caregiving.
Each is among the most expensive and most-discussed components of Biden's package of social services programs he proposed Thursday. But tucked inside the president's new scaled-back $1.85 trillion framework – the House bill is still 1,684 pages despite major cuts – are several lesser-known items. These range from significant funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and high-speed rail, to an emphasis on improved nutrition for school lunches.
What's in Biden's bill?:What's in Biden's latest budget offer: Climate programs and universal preschool, but no paid leave
Here are some other proposals in Biden's proposed package, which he is pushing for Democratic lawmakers to unite behind.
Big boost for HBCUs
Biden's revamped framework includes $10 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions – one of the few funding increases over what was proposed in the president's original $3.5 trillion reconciliation package.
The bill sets aside $3 billion for grants to support research and development infrastructure at such institutions. There's also $6 billion in Title III and Title V federal aid for HBCUs, TCUs and minority-serving institutions over the next five years, which would be five times the amount these schools currently receive from these funding streams, according to the White House.
The significant boost for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions comes as Biden faces sharp criticism from leaders of Black colleges and universities after proposing about $2 billion for HBCUs in his initial plan.
Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund,called the HBCU expansion ‘a testament’ to the advocacy, the importance of HBCU institutions and the relationships with the Biden administration and Congress.
Other HBCU funding includes $1 billion proposed for improvements of agricultural facilities at HBCUs that were established by 1890 land grants and $100 million for scholarships for students pursuing agricultural careers at these schools.
$10 billion for high-speed rail
Biden's scaled-back plan would aim to accelerate the development of high-speed rail corridors around the country by providing $10 billion in grant funding to states.
The money would have to be used on projects connecting passenger trains between cities (think Los Angeles to San Francisco or Dallas to Houston).
Former President Barack Obama made intercity, high-speed passenger rail a top priority during his administration, but the effort generally languished as states (which determine and oversee such projects) faced various obstacles such as funding shortfalls and construction delays.
Biden, who as a senator routinely rode Amtrak between his home state of Delaware and Capitol Hill, has touted the expansion of passenger rail as a way to reduce carbon emissions from cars.
School lunches and nutrition
Biden's bill would expand free meals at public schools to an additional 8.7 million low-income students during the school year under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act.
More than 30 million students currently qualify for the program.
It would also provide a benefit of $65 per child per month for low-income families to purchase meals during the summer. The White House estimated the summer benefit would apply to 29 million children.
More:The pandemic changed American education overnight. Some changes are here to stay.
The bill proposes $250 million for grants and incentives to states that improve the nutritional quality of school meals and reduce the availability of unhealthy foods during the school year. There's also $30 million for grants to support ‘scratch cooking’ in which schools prepare their own meals rather than pre-assembled or processed foods. This includes funds for training, assistance and equipment. Both pools of funds were reduced significantly from Biden's original $3.5 trillion spending plan.
Federal aid to DACA students
Biden's bill would expand eligibility of federal student aid to undocumented students who were brought to the U.S. as minors.
As part of the Biden administration's push to expand Pell grants, eligibility would extend to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Biden also wants to increase the maximum size of Pell grants, which help low-income students pay for school.
The federal DACA program, created in 2012 under Obama, allows nearly 650,000 young, undocumented children to live and work without fear of deportation. The children are often referred to as ‘Dreamers,’ based on the DREAM Act, legislation proposed but never passed in Congress.
‘The package further unlocks the door to opportunity by expanding Pell Grant eligibility to students with DACA and Temporary Protected Status,’ said Sameer Gadkaree, president and CEO of the Institute for College Access & Success.
More:Biden administration takes steps to 'preserve and fortify' DACA program
However, caving to pushback from Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Biden eliminated tuition-free community college from his bill. The president also did not include a pathway to citizen for undocumented immigrants in his framework, like many advocates wanted, instead proposing $100 billion for immigration enhancements.
Money for NASA to track climate change
The bill reaffirms NASA’s role as the nation’s lead institution tracking the effect of climate change on the planet.
The proposal includes:
$115 million to measure the planet’s warming, including $85 million for research and development of instruments and $30 million to analyze data.
$25 million to improve ways of fighting wildfires that have grown larger and more intense – especially in the West – as climate change has expanded.
$225 million in aeronautics research to develop “sustainable aviation,” which aims to reduce the carbon footprint air travel contributes to the atmosphere.
More IRS agents
One of the ways Biden wants to pay for his proposal is to beef up IRS enforcement, especially on the richest Americans. The plan would include nearly $45 billion over 10 years to hire thousands of agents to go after tax cheats, particularly wealthy ones.
By adding more agents, especially those ‘trained to pursue wealthy evaders,’ the president believes the government can recoup as much as $400 billion in unpaid taxes.
Budget cuts over the past decade has forced the IRS to cut back audits by 60% on people making more than $1 million a year, according to the White House.
More:Can the true cost of Biden's budget plan really be 'nothing'? We take a closer look.
‘The result of a gutted IRS is a two-tiered tax system, where wage earners pay all the taxes they owe, but the top 1 percent evades over $160 billion per year in taxes,’ according to a release from the White House.
Republicans, who helped winnow the agency when they ran Congress, oppose any plan that adds thousands more agents, whom they say will end up going after middle-class taxpayers.
‘Democrats want to hire 80,000 new IRS agents so they can go through all your personal financial information – what you spend your money on, and what income you take in,’ Sen. Thom Tillis R-N.C., said on the Senate floor Thursday. ‘Using that information, the IRS will then try to squeeze out any additional money they can from you.’
Stopping drilling in ANWR
Oil and gas drilling leases for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be canceled under the House bill.
The issue of drilling in the pristine reserve has been a battle line between environmentalists who view ANWR as one of the planet’s last frontiers for Polar Bears and other endangered wildlife, and energy firms who want to drill into its untapped resources. Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski had pushed for the leases which had been granted under former President Donald Trump.
ANWR spans 19.3 million acres, an area of land roughly equal in size to South Carolina, in northeast Alaska. In 1980, Congress designated more than 8 million acres within ANWR as federal wilderness while also setting aside the 1.57-million acre Coastal Plain for petroleum exploration and potential future development.
The House bill based off Biden's plan would go even further by preventing the Interior Department from issuing any oil or gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. That would reverse a Trump plan announced in 2018 to open up 90% of the areas off the U.S. coast to oil and gas exploration in what would have been the largest single expansion of off-shore drilling activity ever proposed.
Environmentalists denounced Trump’s proposal at the time, saying it would not only disturb maritime ecosystems but also increase the supply and use of fossil fuels that contribute to climate change while the president said it would help the country become energy independent.” Read more at USA Today
“A Deep Dive Into Squid Game’s World of Inequality
Squid Game may be a big win for South Korea’s entertainment industry, but it has also exposed the country’s darker side. Jiyeun Lee, Enda Curran and Jihye Lee lay out how the show reveals a deeply stratified society that has emerged after decades of super-charged growth.” Read more at Bloomberg“More than 10% of humanity lacks access to it, while 90% of natural disasters are linked to it. Wars are fought over it. Women in poor countries spend their days hauling it. Major cities — Sâo Paulo, Capetown — have nearly run out of it. Take a look at six people on the front lines of the fight to preserve the world’s water.” Read more at Bloomberg
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