WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 25: Rachel Levine testifies at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Feb. 25, 2021 in Washington D.C. Tom Brenner—Getty Images
“Voting mostly along party lines, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be the nation’s assistant secretary for health. She is the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation. The final vote was 52-48.
Levine had been serving as Pennsylvania’s top health official since 2017, and emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. She is expected to oversee Health and Human Services offices and programs across the U.S.” Read more at Time
“The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to 684,000, the fewest since the pandemic erupted a year ago and a sign that the economy is improving.
Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims fell from 781,000 the week before. It is the first time that weekly applications for jobless aid have fallen below 700,000 since mid-March of last year. Before the pandemic tore through the economy, applications had never topped that level.
Still, a total of 18.9 million people are continuing to collect jobless benefits, up from 18.2 million in the previous week. Roughly one-third of those recipients are in extended federal aid programs, which means they've been unemployed for at least six months.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
“On the 65th day of his term in office, President Joe Biden will hold a news conference from the White House for the first time Thursday. While he has taken questions from reporters on other occasions, this will be an arena for members of the media to ask pressing questions on the situation at the southern border, the coronavirus pandemic, recent gun violence and more. The president also has the opportunity to strike a different tone with reporters than his predecessor, Donald Trump, who frequently sparred with the media and deemed them ‘the enemy of the people.’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden is ‘looking forward to the opportunity to engage with a free press.’” Read more at USA Today
“Some Democratic lawmakers have asked the President to issue a ‘waiver of informed consent’ to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for all US military service members. Meanwhile, 27 million vaccine doses will be distributed across the US this week, according to the White House, but advocates for the elderly are worried the administration isn’t doing enough to get vaccines to senior citizens. As of Tuesday, CDC records show more than 43% of Americans age 65 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19; that still leaves more than half the older population vulnerable. In Brazil, it's actually young people who are now getting severely ill and dying of the virus. Brazil is in its worst days of the pandemic, with hospitals near collapse and daily death tolls reaching record numbers.” Read more at CNN
“More than 40 states say they will meet President Biden’s goal of making every adult eligible for a vaccine by May 1.” Read more at New York Times
“AstraZeneca released updated information on its COVID-19 clinical trial Wednesday evening, showing an effectiveness rate of 76% instead of the 79% rate it claimed earlier in the week. The update came after an independent review committee that examined the results said the data was misleading, because it contained information only through Feb. 17.” Read more at USA Today
“A stockpile of 29 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine that were found languishing in a facility in Italy became the new flash point on Wednesday in the conflict between the pharmaceutical company and the European Union, as the bloc prepared to unveil stringent export restrictions primarily meant to stop drugmakers from sending doses abroad.
Italian authorities found the vaccines in a site visit, European Union officials said, at a factory near Rome that is contracted to fill and finish COVID-19 vaccine vials for AstraZeneca.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Biden has tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with overseeing diplomatic efforts with Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants to the US southern border. And with a steep number of unaccompanied minors in US custody, some former Border Patrol chiefs are imploring leaders in Congress for more resources and to take steps to reform the US immigration system. Not only has the Biden administration been under mounting pressure to fix the crisis, it's also been called out for not giving journalists access inside facilities housing migrant children. Legislators yesterday toured one such facility in Texas -- with a news camera finally in tow.” Read more at CNN
“Unaccompanied migrant children will be housed on military bases in Texas as waves of people from Central America continue to arrive at the Mexico border.” Read more at Bloomberg
Asylum seekers walk towards a U.S. checkpoint after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico on Tuesday.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images North America
“In the early months of the pandemic, when COVID-19 tests were scarce, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed to make the testing available to those most in need. Apparently, that included family members and other well-connected people close to his administration, according to two reports.” Read more at USA Today
“On Wednesday night, as a string quartet played while a news helicopter clattered overhead, hundreds of mourners held candles and flowers in downtown Boulder, Colorado, to pay their respects and call for a more loving and supportive world after the attack at a supermarket Monday that left 10 dead.” Read more at USA Today
“The suspect in the Boulder, Colorado, mass shooting that left 10 people dead will appear in court Thursday and face charges of first-degree murder. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, will be advised at the hearing of the charges he faces and his rights as a defendant. He won't enter a plea until later in the judicial process. Alissa's court appearance comes nearly three days after he was shot by police during the shooting and taken into custody. A police affidavit said he left a rifle and handgun in the store when he was apprehended.” Read more at USA Today
“The Biden administration is taking the unusual step of making a public accounting of the Trump administration’s political interference in science, drawing up a list of dozens of regulatory decisions that may have been warped by political interference in objective research.
The effort could buttress efforts to unwind pro-business regulations of the past four years, while uplifting science staff battered by four years of disregard. It is particularly explicit at the Environmental Protection Agency, where President Biden’s political appointees said they felt that an honest accounting of past problems was necessary to assure career scientists that their findings would no longer be buried or manipulated.
In a blunt memo this month, one senior Biden appointee said political tampering under the Trump administration had ‘compromised the integrity’ of some agency science. She cited specific examples, such as political leaders discounting studies that showed the harm of dicamba, a herbicide in popular weedkillers like Roundup that has been linked to cancer and subsequently ruling that its effectiveness outweighed its risks.
The broader list of decisions where staff say scientific integrity was violated is expected to reach about 90 items, according to one person involved in the process. It currently includes well-known controversies like the ricochet of decisions around Pebble Mine, a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, as well as rulings around relatively obscure toxic chemicals.
‘Manipulating, suppressing, or otherwise impeding science has real-world consequences for human health and the environment,’ the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, said in an agency wide email message Tuesday. ‘When politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us.’
He asked employees to bring ‘any items of concern’ to the agency’s scientific integrity officials or the independent inspector general and pledged to encourage ‘the open exchange of differing scientific and policy positions.’” Read more at Boston Globe
Professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe stood at the podium of the Brady Press Briefing Room before meeting with President Biden to raise awareness of pay disparity issues.CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY
“WASHINGTON — President Biden made the case Wednesday that the pay disparity between men and women has hurt the economy, bringing members of the US women’s national soccer team to the White House to help set new goals for equality.
Wednesday marked ‘Equal Pay Day’ — which is how far into the year women must work on average to make up the pay disparity between what men and women earned the prior year. The Census Bureau estimates that a woman working full-time would earn about 82 cents for each dollar paid to a man.
Biden and his wife, Jill, hosted a roundtable with Margaret Purce and Megan Rapinoe of the US women’s national soccer team, which most recently won the World’s Cup in 2019 and has challenged the US Soccer Federation over wage discrimination.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The Senate took its first steps on Wednesday to advance one of Democrats’ top legislative priorities, convening an opening hearing on a sweeping elections bill that would expand voting rights and blunt some Republican state legislators’ efforts to restrict access to the ballot box.
Chock-full of liberal priorities, the bill, called the For the People Act, would usher in landmark changes making it easier to vote, enact new campaign finance laws, and end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. The legislation passed the House along party lines earlier this month. It faces solid opposition from Republicans who are working to clamp down on ballot access, and who argue that the bill is a power grab by Democrats.” Read more at Boston Globe
“In several Republican-controlled states, lawmakers are moving to wrest control of elections away from secretaries of state, governors and nonpartisan boards.” Read more at New York Times
“The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled with the issue of when police can enter a home without a warrant when the intent is not to conduct a criminal investigation but to check on the occupant’s health or safety.
Some justices worried about erecting obstacles for officers who need to respond quickly to reports of worry about an elderly person’s well-being or alarmed calls that the person inside has threatened to die by suicide.
Others were concerned that exceptions for noninvestigatory intrusions for ‘community caretaking’ might breach the Constitution’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, and the traditional view that a person’s home is off-limits without a judge’s authorization to enter.” Read more at Washington Post
“Gov. Ralph Northam signed legislation Wednesday abolishing the death penalty in Virginia, which has executed more people than any other state in the nation.
Virginia is the first Southern state from the old Confederacy to end a practice that was rooted in slavery and racial lynching. The government has executed more than 1,300 people since its founding as a colony in the 1600s.” Read more at Roanoke Times
“In an interview with The Washington Post, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the previous administration’s response exacerbated disparities in the American farm economy. Black farmers received only $20.8 million of nearly $26 billion in the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
‘We saw 99 percent of the money going to White farmers and 1 percent going to socially disadvantaged farmers, and if you break that down to how much went to Black farmers, it’s 0.1 percent,’ he said. ‘Look at it another way: The top 10 percent of farmers in the country received 60 percent of the value of the covid payments. And the bottom 10 percent received 0.26 percent.’” Read more at Washington Post
“One of the most shocking claims about the conditions in Amazon warehouses is that workers are under so much pressure to perform that they feel forced to pee in plastic bottles instead of taking a bathroom break. But, in an unusually blunt response to a congressman on Twitter late Wednesday, Amazon said that the claims are all made up. In the initial tweet, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) ridiculed the company for describing itself as a ‘progressive workplace,’ with the congressman saying that cannot be true ‘when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles.’ The Amazon News account directly responded to Pocan, asking: ‘You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us.’ The claim that Amazon warehouse staff pee in bottles was first made by journalist James Bloodworth, who went undercover as an Amazon worker in Britain for a book on low-wage work. The claim has also been made by union officials representing Amazon workers.” Read more at Newsweek
“Thirty members of Congress signed a letter urging President Joe Biden’s White House to overhaul its personnel practices in light of reporting from The Daily Beast that dozens of White House staffers were suspended, forced to resign, or work remotely as a result of their prior use of marijuana. In a letter to Biden spearheaded by Reps. Earl Blumenauer, founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, Don Beyer, Jared Huffman, Mondaire Jones, and Barbara Lee, the reps wrote that they were ‘dismayed to learn’ about the action taken against staffers who had previously used marijuana and asked Biden to ‘clarify your employment suitability policies, remove past cannabis use as a potential disqualifier, and apply these policies with consistency and fairness.’
The lawmakers praised the Biden administration for its announcement that prior marijuana use would not be treated as an automatic disqualifier for White House service and evaluate usage on a case-by-case basis. But the letter says marijuana-usage policies ‘have been applied in inconsistent and unfair ways’ and noted that senior administration officials like Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg have admitted to previous marijuana use while junior staffers with similar pasts face greater hurdles in obtaining administration jobs.” Read more at The Daily Beast
“The Olympic torch relay started in Japan, though questions linger about whether the Games should go ahead.” Read more at New York Times
“$577 million — How much Maryland’s governor will pay four historically Black colleges and universities to settle a 15-year legal battle to address chronic underfunding. Gov. Larry Hogan signed the bill, marking a turning point in the suit brought by a group made up largely of alumni of the schools. The money will go toward scholarships, faculty, recruitment and the development of new courses at Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Chrissy Teigen said that she is walking away from Twitter because the constant criticism thrown her way has taken a toll on her mental health. Teigen is not alone as Pamela Anderson and Alec Baldwin are among the celebrities who have abandoned various social media platforms this year. Experts say we could all try taking a page out of their playbook.” Read more at USA Today
“Midweek March Madness! In the Mercado Region of the women's NCAA Tournament, Jordan Nixon's layup at the buzzer gave second-seeded Texas A&M a dramatic 84-82 overtime victory over No. 7 Iowa State at the Alamodome in San Antonio on Wednesday night. The Aggies will face No. 3 Arizona in the Sweet 16.” Read more at USA Today
“Lives Lived: Jessica McClintock dressed generations of women in calico, lace and beribboned pastiches known as granny dresses. Her clients included Vanna White and a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham for her 1975 wedding to Bill Clinton. McClintock died at 90.” Read more at New York Times
“Former child star Houston Tumlin, who is best known for playing Will Ferrell's son in "Talladega Nights," died by suicide at the age of 28. Tumlin played Walker Bobby, one of the trash-talking sons of Ferrell's iconic character, in the 2006 NASCAR-themed comedy.” Read more at USA Today
“J.C. Penney has delayed the closings of 15 stores that were scheduled to shutter in March and added three locations to its closure list.” Read more at USA Today
“Hosting historians around a long table in the East Room earlier this month, President Biden took notes in a black book as they discussed some of his most admired predecessors. Then he said to Doris Kearns Goodwin: ‘I'm no FDR, but …’
Why it matters: He'd like to be.
The March 2 session, which the White House kept under wraps, reflects Biden's determination to be one of the most consequential presidents.
The chatty, two-hour-plus meeting is a for-the-history-books marker of the think-big, go-big mentality that pervades his West Wing.
The big picture: Biden's presidency has already been transformative, and he has many more giant plans teed up that could make Biden's New Deal the biggest change to governance in our lifetimes.
Biden, who holds his first formal news conference today at 1:15 p.m. in the East Room, started his term with the $1.9 trillion COVID bill, with numerous measures tucked in to reduce inequality.
Vaccines are rolling out, positioning Biden to get ahead of the pandemic. Democrats in Congress are pushing the most sweeping changes in voting rights since the 1960s.
And he's preparing an infrastructure and green-energy plan that's bigger than the original tab for the Interstate highway system, to be followed by a domestic proposal (free community college, universal pre-K) that brings the pair of packages to $3 trillion, with possible pay-fors that would dramatically rebalance the tax system.
Attendees tell me that the afternoon session with historians was held in a White House that was ghostly quiet, because many fewer aides are working in Biden's COVID-era West Wing than are typical. To some of the guests, it felt like a snow day.
The session was organized by Jon Meacham, the presidential biographer and informal Biden adviser who has helped with big speeches from Nashville, and serves as POTUS' historical muse.
Besides Goodwin, participants included Michael Beschloss, author Michael Eric Dyson, Yale's Joanne Freeman, Princeton's Eddie Glaude Jr., Harvard's Annette Gordon-Reed and Walter Isaacson.
Biden made it clear to his guests that he knew the gravity of the multiple crises facing America. He knew a lot about Franklin D. Roosevelt, and peppered Goodwin with questions about the World War II leader.
Beyond the icons (Lincoln, LBJ), the conversation got as granular as the Jay Treaty of 1794.
They talked a lot about the elasticity of presidential power, and the limits of going bigger and faster than the public might anticipate or stomach.
Afterward, Biden told an aide: ‘I could have gone another two hours.’” Read more at Axios
“The flood of online misinformation about COVID and vaccines finally pushed tech companies to take strong action, Axios' Kim Hart writes.
Why it matters: Political misinformation can sway elections. COVID misinformation can kill.
The CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google will testify virtually at noon ET today on ‘Disinformation Nation’ before the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee.
Tech firms are wary of judging the veracity of users' posts. But the significant public health harm wrought by COVID-19 misinformation was a tipping point in pushing them to take stronger action.” Read more at Axios