February 1, 2021
President Biden has invited 10 Republican senators to the White House on Monday afternoon for what an aide describes as “a full exchange of views” about their $600 billion counterproposal to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan. Ahead of the meeting, Biden tweeted that “we need urgent action” and said that his plan would “put …
January 15, 2021
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the …
December 29, 2020
Two more Senate Republicans on Tuesday expressed support for delivering $2,000 stimulus checks to most Americans, adding to the pressure on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to hold a vote on a proposal that most other members of his party had opposed before President Trump intervened. The latest calls came from Georgia’s two embattled Republican …
December 28, 2020
WASHINGTON/PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Monday will try to push through higher pandemic relief payments of $2,000 for Americans after President Donald Trump backed down from a fight with lawmakers that could have shut down the federal government. In a sudden reversal late on Sunday, Trump signed into law …
December 17, 2020
A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO. “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes …
December 16, 2020
Senate and House leaders are closing in on a coronavirus relief deal that would include direct stimulus payments, according to sources familiar with the talks. The package is based largely on a $748 billion relief bill that a bipartisan group of Senate and House moderates unveiled Monday plus a new round of stimulus checks, although …
December 11, 2020
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday told Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to submit his resignation if the agency does not clear the nation’s first coronavirus vaccine by day’s end, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were …
December 11, 2020
The Food and Drug Administration said early Friday that it “will rapidly work toward” authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on an emergency basis, an action that would kick off an unprecedented effort to inoculate enough Americans to stop a rampaging pandemic. The FDA statement, which came hours after federal advisers endorsed the vaccine, added …
December 10, 2020
The number of new applications for unemployment insurance surged last week to 853,000, a jump of more than 100,000 from the previous week, amid record-high coronavirus cases that are slowing economic growth. In the week ending December 5, initial weekly jobless claims rose by 137,000 from a revised total of 716,000 applications. The non-seasonally adjusted …