Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan joins Kristin Myers to discuss the legalities surrounding your job requiring you to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Adherents of the QAnon extremist ideology have indicated they plan to be in Washington for Joe Biden's inauguration, according to the FBI.
President-elect Joe Biden, struggling to hold back tears, said farewell to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, before departing for Washington.
On his way out, President Donald Trump claimed credit for things he didn't do and twisted his record on jobs, taxes, the pandemic and much more. More than a dozen potential vaccines are in late stages of testing worldwide.
“It took a little bit longer than we anticipated.”
Vaccine supply issues continued to plague California on Tuesday even as other indicators about the spread of the coronavirus showed what the top health official called “rays of hope” amid the deadliest days of the pandemic. San Francisco’s public health department said its likely to run out of vaccine Thursday, in part because the state pulled back on administering a batch of Moderna shots after several health workers in San Diego had a bad reaction. The county health department received 12,000 doses last week and had expected the same amount this week, but received only 1,775.
Sen. Richard Burr said Tuesday that the Justice Department has told him it will not prosecute him over stock sales made during the coronavirus pandemic, ending an insider trading investigation that led him to at least temporarily step aside from a powerful committee chairmanship last year. Prosecutors had investigated for months whether the North Carolina Republican and former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had exploited advance information when he unloaded as much as $1.7 million in stocks in the days before the coronavirus caused markets to plummet. “The case is now closed,” Burr said in a statement.
Achieving even a fraction of Biden's plan will require the newly minted president to secure new funding streams or expand debt-fueled spending.
A Michigan nurse whose moving rendition of “Amazing Grace” spread on social media early in the COVID-19 pandemic sang the hymn again Tuesday night.
President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to be America's top diplomat vowed to reverse a slew of the Trump administration's foreign policy positions.
Incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden said he hopes the full Senate can vote on Yellen's confirmation on Thursday.
A posted photo of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thanking National Guard troops falsely claims instead that she is planning for military conflict.
A California cannabis industry group announced Tuesday that it reached an agreement with a state credit union that will provide checking, wire transfers and other banking services for more marijuana companies, helping ease what has been an obstacle for many businesses. Most Americans live in states where cannabis is legally available in some form, and broad legal marijuana sales began in California in 2018. As a result, many marijuana companies in California’s multibillion-dollar market have been left to do business largely in cash, making them appealing targets for crime.
Austin will be the first Black defense secretary if confirmed.
A series of low-key confirmation hearings may reflect a shift in Washington's political atmosphere.
Jean Francois Monier/AFP via Getty As multiple states across the country say they have run out of vaccines to administer and are left waiting on the federal government to get them additional doses, the incoming Biden team is pleading with them to hold out hope just a little longer.In public press conferences Tuesday, officials from multiple states said they could not move more quickly to scale vaccination in their states until they received additional instructions on how to go about procuring the millions of additional doses needed to match the growing demand.Officials in California, New Jersey, Kentucky and New York all told The Daily Beast that residents of their states have had their vaccination appointments canceled as a result of the low supply. Some said the breakdown in communication with the outgoing Trump administration over the last 10 days and the confusing process of navigating the transition to a new White House has forced them to consider purchasing the vaccine directly from Pfizer and Moderna. Some states have already inquired with the companies directly about the possibility of setting up future orders, according to multiple officials familiar with their state’s planning.“We don’t have enough supply,” said Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear. “Supply is going to be our major issue … and it’s why we’re going to have patience. It’s why we can’t guarantee that every pharmacy across Kentucky gets vaccine.” Beshear said he requested from Operation Warp Speed that the federal government double the amount of vaccine the state receives each week.In response to the growing concerns from states about their future vaccine supply and the ability to increase their vaccination rates more quickly, President-elect Joe Biden’s team is urging states to refrain from purchasing doses from the companies directly. According to two individuals familiar with the incoming administration’s plans, Biden’s team feels confident that the president-elect’s plan for COVID-19, laid out in a speech last week, will adequately address states’ concerns.CDC Officials Urge Biden Team to Dump Palantir’s COVID Tracker “We need to have a national approach to vaccinations, and must ensure states aren't competing against each other like they did with PPE, ventilators, and tests,” said TJ Ducklo, a spokesperson for the Biden transition. “We are taking aggressive steps like fully exercising the Defense Production Act to expand vaccine supply and clearly communicate with states on allocation and delivery."The president-elect said last week that he would significantly speed up the vaccine distribution by widening the recommendations for who should get the shot and when. And he released his $1.9 million COVID-19 plan, which calls for direct payments of $1,400 to most Americans, $350 billion in state and local aid, $50 billion toward COVID-19 testing and an additional $20 billion for a national vaccine program with state and local governments.“It’s going to take time to get where we need to be. There will be stumbles, but I will always be honest with you about both the progress we’re making and what setbacks we meet,” Biden said in his speech on Jan. 14States struggling with increasing hospitalizations and COVID-19 related deaths say they don’t have the time to wait for the incoming administration to rework how the vaccines are ordered, shipped and delivered—they just got used to the new system. Most said they are waiting to get more information from the new administration, “We need these vaccines now,” one state health department official said.The Biden team has not laid out exactly how the new administration will tweak the distribution process. According to state officials, the Biden team has told them that the new administration will create a new version of the existing Operation Warp Speed structure and that the vaccine program would be run out of the White House and overseen by Dr. David Kessler, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.Part of the confusion among states is how the newest Trump administration federal guidelines on vaccine distribution have impacted the manufacturing process. The Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Centers for Disease Control, recently released a new set of recommendations that allow states to hand out the vaccine more freely—to widen the population of who can receive the shot in the first wave. The federal government also said it would start to release doses it had originally held in reserve for second shot dosing.That change came as welcome news to states struggling to find ways to more swiftly administer the vaccine to its residents. But those extra doses never showed up.Some state officials surmise that the new guidelines have increased demand for the vaccine and that the supply chain could have broken down under that pressure. In other words, the number of doses requested by states over the last two weeks could have simply overwhelmed the system. Other officials said they are not exactly sure what happened but that the vaccine doses are not arriving in full. A report by The Washington Post said the second doses the federal government promised to release to states never existed. According to the report, the Trump administration had already begun tapping into those reserves and distributing them to states in early December.Tackling the COVID-19 crisis will be an enormous task for the incoming Biden administration not only because the virus is still spreading rapidly through communities across the U.S. but because the new administration wants to approach the federal government’s response differently than President Donald Trump. The Biden COVID-19 team says it wants to re-empower the career scientists and doctors and to cut down the bureaucracy that surrounds getting states what they need. That will take time, officials working with the Biden COVID-19 task force say. And it will also take resources that aren’t yet readily available.“That’s why we’re worried things are going to get worse before they get better,” said one state health official.The recent complaints by states follows weeks of frustrations over the federal government’s rollout of the vaccine.Days after the initial doses were shipped by Pfizer in the second week of December, states reported receiving less vaccine doses than anticipated. Officials working with Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership to fast-track a vaccine, rebuffed the states’ concerns, saying a slight shift in the allocation schedule had caused a minor delay but that more vaccine doses were on the way.In the initial days of the vaccine distribution, state officials closely followed the recommendations from the CDC that detailed how officials should go about doling out doses, including who should receive the vaccine first. It wasn’t until earlier this month, after vaccine rates stalled, that the federal government began to discuss redefining the CDC’s guidelines in an effort to push states to distribute the vaccine more freely.On Jan. 12, the federal government, in tandem with the Biden COVID-19 team, told states to open up the vaccines to everyone in America older than age 65, as well as anyone younger who has a pre-existing condition that could make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus. On top of widening access, the government said it would no longer hold back doses for the second shot of the vaccine.Now, as more and more people across the U.S. are signing up to receive the vaccine ahead of when they were supposed to, states say they have none to hand out.The U.S. death toll reached 400,000 Tuesday, the eve of Biden’s inauguration.Arizona Nurse Nicole Koller’s Vaccine Was Delayed. Now She Has COVID.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
The president has spent his final weeks in office seeking to erase any vestiges of the investigation, including pardoning key figures.
In one of his final acts as majority leader, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is pressuring Democrats to keep the filibuster — the procedural tool that liberals and progressives are eager to to do away with so President-elect Joe Biden's legislative priorities can be approved more easily over GOP opposition. McConnell has told Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that retaining the legislative filibuster is important and should be part of their negotiations for a power-sharing agreement in the narrowly divided Senate.
"It's hard sometimes to remember. But that's how we heal," Biden said from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Experts weigh in on how the Trump era of American politics will shape our society
In first large-scale acknowledgment of pandemic’s sweeping toll in the US, Kamala Harris says Americans can ‘begin healing together’ Sign up for the Guardian Today US newsletter Joe Biden memorialized the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19 during a vigil in Washington DC late Tuesday afternoon, as many Americans took to social media in collective mourning. The grim milestone was passed earlier on Tuesday as the latest figures from Johns Hopkins university show that about 401,128 people have now been killed by the virus in the US amid more than 24m cases – both numbers being by far the highest in the world. “To heal, we must remember,” Biden said at the memorial. “It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation.” The memorial was hosted by Biden’s inaugural committee, which described the event as “a chance to reflect and honor those no longer with us. The committee had called for a “national moment of unity”, asking Americans to light candles in their windows. Organizers also asked for participants to ring bells for a “national moment of remembrance”. Organizers also illumined 400 lights along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, to remember those who died. Many posted messages of remembrance and photos of candles to social media. “RIP to my family and friends who I lost to Covid. Prayers up for my dad and many others who are still suffering & All those who have lost loved ones. Thank you Biden for honoring 400k lives lost,” wrote Twitter user @TamiekaChisolm. “400k . Miss you everyday Nana,” @iam_justemma tweeted. Actor Rosie Perez remarked: “In tears right now. With the death toll at 400,000, It took way too long to honor those who lost their lives due to #COVID19 but glad it’s finally happening. Thanks @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris. #COVIDMemorial.” The memorial marks the first large-scale acknowledgment of Covid-19’s massive toll on individuals, families and communities across the US. President-elect Biden’s recognition of the tragedy stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who repeatedly downplayed the dangers of coronavirus amid a botched response by his administration that frequently included peddling conspiracy theories and denialism. “We gather tonight, a nation in mourning, to pay tribute to lives we have lost, a grandmother or grandfather who is our whole world, a parent, partner, sibling or friend who we still cannot accept is no longer here, and for many months we have grieved by ourselves,” said Vice-president elect Kamala Harris at the memorial. “Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together.” Officials across the US joined Biden and Harris in the memorial. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking near the Statue of Liberty, described the vigil as a “powerful moment of unity for our city and for our country”. “All over America at this moment, people are gathered [with] a common purpose: to remember those that we lost, to feel what their families are feeling,” he said. Numerous landmarks and buildings across the US lit up for the occasion. The famed Empire State Building pulsed with its “red heartbeat lighting” in honor of those who died. Biden has promised a sweeping plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic, including vaccinating 100 million US residents in his first 100 days in office. While the top US infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said this plan is “absolutely a doable thing”, Biden will inherit a coronavirus response that has repeatedly been described as a “mess”. The federal government distributed vaccines to US states, and then left allocation protocols up to them. This scattershot approach, coupled with longstanding deficiencies in the US public health system, has stymied efforts to vaccinate Americans on a large scale. Some local officials have warned that they will soon run out of the vaccine if they don’t receive additional federal shipments. This botched vaccine rollout is all the more dangerous because a new Covid-19 variant, which is more transmissible, is poised to become far more prevalent, burdening the healthcare system even more. It’s unclear whether Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus plan will get necessary bipartisan support. Congress members in both parties have voiced concern about the cost. Members of Biden’s administration have nonetheless voiced optimism. “There’s been bipartisan support for all of these pieces,” Kate Bedingfield, the incoming White House communications director, said during a recent TV appearance. “This plan reflects the urgent needs, the things that people need right now.” “We’ve got millions of Americans unemployed. We’ve got thousands of Americans dying from the virus every day. There’s no question we are in a state of emergency here, and this plan is designed to get the relief that people need to them right away.”
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