 The federal government is purchasing another 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests to be distributed to Americans and will offer free, high-quality masks in the coming weeks, President Biden announced Thursday. The at-home tests are in addition to 500 million already acquired; a website is set to launch next week for Americans to order the free tests. The administration will announce next week a plan to distribute free N95 masks. More: - Biden also announced the deployment of six federal medical teams to overwhelmed hospitals in Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Michigan, and New Mexico.
- The announcement comes as scientists believe that the U.S. is nearing a peak of omicron cases, numbers of which have already started to decline in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
- The U.S. has a stockpile of 750 million N95 masks, though officials worry that their relative discomfort compared to other masks may be a hindrance to widespread use.
- N95s, however, have been shown to be significantly more effective at preventing viral spread than cloth masks and even surgical masks.
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 The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for large businesses, but allowed a mandate for health care workers to stay in effect. The mandate would have required workers at companies with more than 100 employees to either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or to be tested weekly and wear masks on the job. All six conservative justices voted to throw out the mandate; the three liberal justices all dissented. More: - The vote to keep the vaccine requirement for health care workers was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices.
- The conservatives on the court argued last week that the Biden administration exceeded its authority by requiring more than 80 million people to be vaccinated.
- The liberal justices, in their dissent, argued that the court was ignoring the advice of health experts.
- However, the conservatives held that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does not have the power to enforce public health policy even as it regulates occupational safety.
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The House of Representatives passed a measure Thursday containing two voting rights bills, setting up a showdown in the Senate, where Republicans are united in opposition to the proposals. President Biden attended the Senate Democratic caucus lunch on Thursday to press for the changing of Senate filibuster rules to allow the package to pass with a simple majority. What the bills would do: - The Freedom to Vote Act would, among other things, make Election Day a federal holiday, allow greater access to voting-by-mail and early voting, and restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people.
- The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would undo some Supreme Court rulings that made it more difficult for the federal government to challenge states with histories of discrimination that change their election laws. It would also give stronger protections to election workers who face intimidation.
What's next? - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning to force a vote to change the Senate filibuster rules.
- However, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have long said they oppose eliminating the filibuster, and there's no indication that they've changed their minds.
- If Democrats can't successfully eliminate the filibuster, the package will fail.
- A last-ditch effort to strengthen American elections may come in a bipartisan update to the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which could clarify the role of the vice president in overseeing the counting of electoral votes, and make objections to the certification of those votes more difficult.
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GOOD NEWS: U.S. cancer death rates have dropped by 32% over the past 30 years, saving an estimated 3.5 million lives, according to data from the American Cancer Society. The widespread drop – from 215 deaths per 100,000 people in 1991 to about 146 in 2019 – is mostly attributable to early detection and treatment in lung cancer patients. More: - In 2004, only 17% of lung cancers were detected in the early, "localized" stage. Today, that number is 28%.
- More than 3 in every 10 lung cancer patients live at least three years past their diagnosis, up from 2 in 10 a few decades ago.
- Oncologists worry, however, that COVID-19 spikes have led to a drop-off in cancer screenings, which could prevent early detection in treatable cases.
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 Prince Andrew has been stripped of his military titles with the approval of Queen Elizabeth II, a day after a U.S. judge rejected his motion to toss a sexual assault case against him. The "military affiliations and royal patronages" of Andrew, the Duke of York, have been "returned to the queen" with her approval, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace. The statement confirms that Andrew will continue to not perform any public duties and will defend himself as a private citizen. More: - Earlier on Thursday, 150 military veterans wrote to the Queen asking her to remove Andrew's military affiliations.
- U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday refused to dismiss the case, arguing that Virginia Giuffre's accusations were adequately specific and that her 2009 settlement with Jeffrey Epstein did not apply to Andrew.
- Giuffre says that Andrew sexually assaulted her in multiple locations when she was 17.
- Buckingham Palace says that Andrew's roles would be redistributed to other members of the Royal Family. "For clarity, they will not return to The Duke of York," a source told CNN.
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 The Republican National Committee (RNC) may require its presidential candidates to sign a pledge to refuse to participate in any debates run by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The move stems from long-held complaints by Republicans that the nonprofit commission, established by Democrats and Republicans in 1987, is biassed against them. It's unclear, at this point, what would replace the traditional debates in 2024 should the pledge be required by the RNC. More: - RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel wrote to the commission in June demanding changes to the way the debates are managed and hosted.
- One of the primary demands was that the commission move the first general election presidential debate to before the start of early and mail-in voting, processes that tend to favor Democrats.
- The RNC also requested that the commission have nonvoting members of either the RNC or the Democratic National Committee at commission board meetings, something the group rejected.
- As a candidate and again as president, Donald Trump criticized the commission for hosting debates during NFL games, and for having Mike McCurry, a press secretary under former President Bill Clinton, as a co-chair.
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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival's 2022 lineup has been announced. Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Swedish House Mafia, and Ye (formerly Kanye West) will headline on consecutive weekends, and the festival will also feature performances from Phoebe Bridgers, Big Sean, Megan Thee Stallion, Danny Elfman, Doja Cat, Run the Jewels, and Fatboy Slim. More: - The festival will be live-streamed the weekends of April 15-17 and April 22-24 on Coachella's YouTube channel.
- Coachella was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
- The 2020 headliners were supposed to be Frank Ocean, Rage Against the Machine, and Travis Scott. Ocean is slated to headline the festival in 2023.
- Scott was reportedly dropped from the Coachella 2022 lineup following the crowd rampage at his Astroworld festival in November, where 10 people died.
- Attendees of the festival will need to show either a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the start of the event or proof of vaccination.
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- The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group, along with 10 others, has been indicted on charges of sedition conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
- The Federal Trade Commission can forge ahead with a lawsuit aiming to make Meta sell Instagram and WhatsApp, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
- Student loan processor Navient will cancel $1.7B worth of student debt for 66,000 borrowers, after finalizing a settlement with the attorneys general of 40 states.
- In an open letter, more than 260 scientists are asking Spotify to establish a misinformation policy after podcaster Joe Rogan hosted a conspiracy theorist who promoted false COVID-19 information on his Dec. 31 episode.
- Delta posted a $408M loss in Q4 2021 and said it will see a Q1 2022 loss before rebounding later this year. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said that 8,000 of its 74,000 full-time employees became infected with COVID-19 over the last four weeks.
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 |  | Jonathan Harris is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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