The tax-cut package easily surpassed the 60 votes it needed to move forward in the Senate today, and should be officially approved by the chamber tomorrow. [WP]
Romney is no fan of the effort to oust Liz Cheney from GOP leadership
The Biden administration is undoing a Trump policy that curtailed protections for gay and transgender people in health care
The U.S. will protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination in health care, the Biden administration announced Monday, reversing a Trump-era policy that sought to narrow the scope of legal rights in sensitive situations involving medical care.
The action by the Department of Health and Human Services affirms that federal laws forbidding sex discrimination in health care also protect gay and transgender people. The Trump administration had defined “sex” to mean gender assigned at birth, thereby excluding transgender people from the law’s umbrella of protection.
… [HHS Secretary Xavier] Becerra said the Biden administration policy will bring HHS into line with a landmark Supreme Court decision last year in a workplace discrimination case, which established that federal laws against sex discrimination on the job also protect gay and transgender people.
A disappointing jobs report
The American jobs engine slowed markedly last month, confounding rosy forecasts of the pace of the recovery and sharpening debates over how best to revive a labor market that was severely weakened by the coronavirus pandemic.
Employers added 266,000 jobs in April, the government reported Friday, far below the vigorous gains registered in March. The jobless rate rose slightly to 6.1 percent, as more people rejoined the labor force.
… Economists had forecast an addition of about a million jobs. The increase for March was revised down to 770,000 from 916,000.
Full approval would allow the companies to market the vaccine directly to customers, and may make it easier for employers and schools to require vaccinations
Pfizer and the German company BioNTech have become the first companies to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for full approval of their Covid-19 vaccine for use in people 16 and older. The vaccine is currently being administered to adults in America under an emergency use authorization granted in December.
The approval process is likely to take months.
The companies said in a statement on Friday that had submitted their clinical data, which includes six months of information on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, to the F.D.A. They plan to submit additional material, including information about the manufacturing of the vaccine, in the coming weeks.
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