Government

Agence France-Presse reports: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday blamed his COVID-19 on a combination of negligence and bad luck, urging his compatriots to stay safe as critics called out slip-ups in his behavior to prevent infection, from a close-quarters handshake to repeated big-group meals over the past week. In what looked like a self-shot video from the presidential retreat …

Los Angeles’ ABC News affiliate reports: The ICU capacity in the 11-county Southern California region has dropped to 0% amid a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases, officials said Thursday. California hospitals are required to report the total number of all available staffed ICU beds each day. Regional ICU capacity is calculated by subtracting neonatal and pediatric intensive care beds from …

The Hill reports: Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) warned on Thursday that the government could briefly shut down over the weekend as talks over a sweeping deal to pass funding and provide coronavirus relief drag on. “I mean I’ve already — I know people who are gonna object to that, that want to keep pressure on the process until …

Reuters reports: French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for coronavirus, his office said on Thursday, sparking a track and trace effort targeting EU leaders and senior officials who met him in recent days. “The President of the Republic has been diagnosed positive for COVID-19 today,” Macron’s office said in a statement. “This diagnosis was made following a PCR test …

Gothamist reports: Mayor Bill de Blasio gave an update this afternoon on the anticipated snowbonanza, relaying the NWS forecast of 8-12 inches of snow between Wednesday and Thursday, though he stressed that that number could change in the next 24 hours. It’s expected to begin snowing around 4 p.m., but Thursday morning is when there could be dangerous “blizzard-like conditions” …

The Washington Post reports: As District leaders prepare to shell out tens of millions of dollars on the presidential inauguration, they are sounding alarm bells over the federal government’s failure to repay them for the costs of Trump’s inauguration four years ago. The federal government is supposed to cover expenses related to federal activity in the District, but Congress has …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the first over-the-counter (OTC) fully at-home diagnostic test for COVID-19. The Ellume COVID-19 Home Test is a rapid, lateral flow antigen test, a type of test that runs a liquid sample along a surface with reactive molecules. The test detects …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Moderna is “highly effective,” suggesting the vaccine could soon be added to the arsenal against the pandemic. Moderna’s documents posted by the FDA included new data suggesting that its vaccine begins to prevent asymptomatic infections after the first dose. The ability of …

Bloomberg reports: New York is headed toward a second full shutdown if Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue at their current pace, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “If we do not change the trajectory, we could very well be headed to shut down” all non-essential businesses, Cuomo said Monday at a virus briefing. The state reported 5,712 hospitalizations, an increase of more …

The Associated Press reports: The first of many freezer-packed COVID-19 vaccine vials made their way to distribution sites across the United States on Sunday, as the nation’s pandemic deaths approached the horrifying new milestone of 300,000. “This is a historic day,” said Richard W. Smith, who oversees operations in the Americas for FedEx Express, which is delivering 630-some packages of …

Reuters reports: World leaders should declare states of “climate emergency” in their countries to spur action to avoid catastrophic global warming, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks to a climate summit on Saturday. More than 70 world leaders were due to address the one-day virtual gathering aimed at building momentum for much steeper cuts in planet-warming emissions …

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization on Friday night of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has set in motion the most ambitious vaccination campaign in the nation’s history, a challenge of staggering proportions choreographed against a backdrop of soaring infection rates and deaths. This weekend, 2.9 million doses of the vaccine are …

The Washington Post reports: A few years ago, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) established unusual benchmarks for deciding whether to run for reelection in 2022, potential six-year terms that would end with Grassley in his mid-90s and Leahy in his late 80s. Today, seven senators are at least 80 years old, the second-largest number of …

CNBC reports: The Food and Drug Administration has approved Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, a monumental turning point in the once-in-a-century pandemic that has taken nearly 300,000 American lives in less than a year and wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. FDA Chief Scientist Denise Hinton told Pfizer in a letter Friday that she was authorizing the …

Gothamist reports: For the first time since launching the metrics this spring, New York City has surpassed all three infection and hospitalization thresholds meant to monitor the spread of COVID-19. Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed the troubling milestone during a press conference on Friday, while previewing the launch of a new command center that will soon help distribute a COVID …

Salon reports: After decades of calls for the creation of a National Museum of the American Latino and an American Women’s History Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution and months of bipartisan work, a lone Republican single-handedly torpedoed the measure — at least for now. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, blocked a bipartisan effort to establish national museums for Latino …

Via press release from Moderna: Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines to create a new generation of transformative medicines for patients, today announced that the U.S. government has exercised its option to purchase an additional 100 million doses of mRNA-1273, Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, bringing its confirmed order commitment to 200 million doses. Of …

NBC New York reports: Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday he is suspending indoor dining in New York City indefinitely as of Monday, a result of sustained increase in the five boroughs’ hospitalization and positivity rates. There’s no reopening timeline. The potential for harsher shutdowns looms large. Mitigating increases in the state’s hospitalization rate has become Cuomo’s top priority — and …

Forward reports: Dianne Feinstein’s short-term memory is failing, causing the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to forget briefings immediately after they take place and even failing to remember things she has just said, according to a new report in the New Yorker. Feinstein is 87 years old and successfully won reelection in 2018 with the support of former …

Politico reports: The United States could be heading for a vaccine cliff this spring, with shortages forcing hundreds of millions of Americans to wait for shots amid intense global competition for limited doses. The Trump administration has bought 100 million doses each of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, but the U.S. is unlikely to get additional doses anytime soon because …