Tag Archives: Biden Administration

ABC News reports: Women seeking an abortion pill will not be required to visit a doctor’s office or clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Tuesday in the latest reversal in an ongoing legal battle over the medication. The Food and Drug Administration announced the policy change a day earlier in a letter to the American College of …

Tampa’s Fox News affiliate reports: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is optimistic that cruises can resume by mid-summer, as operators struggle to stay afloat one year after sailing was shut down due to coronavirus concerns. “Well, the bottom line is safety… I can’t wait for us all to be on the move …

The Washington Post reports: President Biden created a bipartisan commission Friday to study structural changes to the Supreme Court, giving the group 180 days to produce a report on a range of thorny topics including court expansion and term limits. The commission, composed of 36 legal scholars, former federal judges and practicing lawyers, fulfills Biden’s campaign promise to establish such …

The Washington Post reports: President Biden will announce a top official from a leading gun-control group as his nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a key agency in combating gun violence that has gone without a permanent director for years. Two people familiar with the matter said Biden plans to nominate David Chipman, a …

The Washington Post reports: White House press secretary Jen Psaki batted down the suggestion that the Biden administration was eying a national vaccine verification card, saying unequivocally that the president would not support that. “The government is not now, nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential,” Psaki said. “There will be no federal …

CNN reports: President Joe Biden plans to announce Tuesday that he is moving up his deadline for states to make all American adults eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by almost two weeks. Biden will announce that every adult in the country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April 19, according to an administration official, instead of Biden’s original deadline …

The Washington Post reports: More than four million people in the United States received a coronavirus vaccine on Saturday — the nation’s highest one-day total since the shots began rolling out in December — amid a rising caseload and increase in hospitalizations. An average of 3.1 million shots were administered each day over the past seven days, and nearly 1 …

The Hill reports: The Department of Justice (DOJ) has told federal agencies that gay and transgender students are protected from discrimination under civil rights laws, reversing Trump administration guidance that limited the impact of a landmark Supreme Court decision last year extending employment discrimination protections to LGBT workers. In an memo to federal agencies, Pamela Karlan, the head of the …

Politico reports: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan would pay for itself while upgrading infrastructure from decades past. “Right now, we’re still coasting off of infrastructure choices that were made in the 1950s,” Buttigieg said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Now’s our chance to make infrastructure choices for the future that are going …

The Associated Press reports: In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday formally scrapped a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favored by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Blinken said a report prepared for former Secretary of …

Axios reports: President Biden on Tuesday announced plans to nominate 11 judges to the federal courts, including D.C. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace former D.C. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland, who is now U.S. attorney general. The nominees include three Black women, and could seat the first Muslim federal judge in the country’s history, the first AAPI …

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration and private companies are working to develop a standard way of handling credentials — often referred to as “vaccine passports” — that would allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as businesses try to reopen. The effort has gained momentum amid President Biden’s pledge that the nation will …

The Washington Post reports: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas fired most members of the department’s independent advisory council on Friday, a purge that included several allies of former president Donald Trump and veteran officials who served under both parties. Most members were nominated during the Trump administration, including a fire chief in northwest Arkansas, sheriffs who backed the former president’s …

The New York Times reports: Vaccine manufacturers have been steadily increasing their output, and states have snapped up new doses as quickly as the government could deliver them. But officials expect the supply of vaccines to outstrip U.S. demand by mid-May, if not sooner, and are grappling with what to do with looming surpluses when scarcity turns to glut. President …

Via press release from the Justice Department: The Department of Justice announced an update today on criminal and civil enforcement efforts to combat COVID-19 related fraud, including schemes targeting the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs. As of today, the Department of Justice has publicly charged 474 defendants with criminal offenses …

CNN reports: The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Rachel Levine as assistant secretary of health at the Department of Health and Human Services, the first out transgender federal official to be confirmed by the chamber. The vote was 52-48. Levine, a pediatrician, previously served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health and as physician general — the state’s top health official and …

Politico reports: The White House on Friday sought to downplay the number of staffers whose jobs have been derailed by their prior cannabis use. A Daily Beast article published Thursday reported that “dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program” because of admissions of prior marijuana use. Several staffers …

The Associated Press reports: Thousands of students defrauded by for-profit schools will have their federal loans fully erased, the Biden administration announced Thursday, reversing a Trump administration policy that had given them only partial relief. The change could lead to $1 billion in loans being canceled for 72,000 borrowers, all of whom attended for-profit schools, the Education Department said. “Borrowers …

The Daily Beast reports: Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the …

ABC News reports: The Senate is poised to confirm Xavier Becerra as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Thursday despite nearly unanimous opposition from Republicans, who have tried to brand him as a radical and unqualified. Becerra, currently the attorney general of California, would be the first Latino to lead the department. If he is confirmed, Becerra …