Tag Archives: Biden Administration

USA Today reports: The Biden administration on Monday announced a big push to make rapid COVID-19 home tests available with a $230 million federal contract to an Australian company. The Department of Defense’s deal will allow Ellume to open a U.S. factory and make 19 million rapid tests each month, 8.5 million of which will be provided to the federal …

The Washington Post reports: White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that those in the Biden administration don’t spend much time thinking about Trump.  “Hard to believe, we don’t spend a lot of time talking about or thinking about President Trump here. Former President Trump, to be very clear,” Psaki told reporters at a White House briefing. Her remarks …

NBC News reports: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is deploying or supporting vaccination efforts in at least 11 states after President Joe Biden ordered the government to get on a war footing in his mission to vaccinate 300 million Americans by summer’s end. The states are Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, …

The New York Times reports: The Pentagon is considering sending active-duty troops to large, federally run coronavirus vaccine centers, a major departure for the department and the first significant sign that the Biden administration is moving to take more control of a program that states are struggling to manage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is hoping to set up roughly …

CBS News reports: Federal public health experts and members of the White House COVID-19 response team are holding their inaugural briefing Wednesday on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, after President Joe Biden announced plans to ramp up the weekly supply of COVID-19 vaccines to states and territories in the coming days. The group will take questions from reporters …

The Washington Post reports: The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday morning to decide whether to give a thumbs-up to Pete Buttigieg’s nomination as President Biden’s secretary of transportation. Buttigieg sat for a friendly 2 1/2 hour hearing before the committee last week, delivering a wide-ranging performance that impressed Republicans and Democrats alike. Buttigieg, 39, stands to become …

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration said Tuesday it will seek to buy another 200 million doses of the two coronavirus vaccines that have been authorized for emergency use in the United States. The purchases would increase available supply by 50 percent, bringing the total to 600 million doses by this summer. Because both products — one developed by …

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Biden on Tuesday will sign a series of executive orders that are intended to advance racial equity, including action to phase out the federal use of private prisons. Mr. Biden is expected to sign four orders in the afternoon, administration officials said. He will also deliver remarks on the need to address inequities in …

CNN reports: The Justice Department’s internal watchdog will investigate whether any department official sought to have the department overturn President Joe Biden’s election win. The office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz is launching “an investigation into whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential …

Politico reports: The Justice Department has taken its first major step under President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration’s resistance to expansion of rights accorded to LGBTQ Americans. Greg Friel, the lawyer just named to oversee the Justice Department’s civil rights division on a temporary basis, issued a directive Friday revoking a 22-page memorandum a Trump appointee released earlier …

The Washington Post reports: President Biden’s White House has renewed subscriptions to The New York Times and The Washington Post after former President Trump canceled them out of anger over how he was portrayed. A White House source said physical copies of both papers arrived on Thursday morning, Biden’s first full day as president. Trump canceled the White House subscriptions …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: The executive order implementing the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County comes nearly six months after the Supreme Court issued the ruling, which found anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ruling has wide-ranging implications and …

PBS NewsHour reports: After Joe Biden was sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, Press Secretary Jen Psaki will hold the first White House news briefing under the new administration. With Wednesday evening’s briefing, the Biden administration will resume an activity that fell by the wayside during long stretches of former President Donald Trump’s term. Trump often eschewed traditional briefings …

NBC News reports: President Joe Biden will soon reverse the ban on transgender people serving openly in the military, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday. While the reversal was not one of the 15 actions the new administration announced it would take Wednesday, Day One of the Biden presidency, Psaki said it would be among …

USA Today reports: It’s official. Not only has Joe Biden been sworn in as America’s 46th president but his presidency has been confirmed on one of the nation‘s largest social media networks. Twitter has transferred the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts from Donald Trump to Biden. Last week, Twitter outlined in a blog post how it would transfer the accounts from …

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Joe Biden is expected to ask for the resignation of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams after being sworn in Wednesday, ousting the nation’s top doctor in a symbolic break with his predecessor’s covid-19 response, said two people with knowledge of the decision. Adams, who was nominated by President Trump, was sworn in as surgeon …

Axios reports: Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday that if the coronavirus vaccine rollout by the incoming Biden administration goes as planned, the U.S. could start to see effects of herd immunity and normalcy by early-to-mid fall. “If we [vaccinate] efficiently in April, May, June, July, August, we should have that degree of protection that could get us …

NPR reports: Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, is appearing Tuesday afternoon before a Senate panel to begin his confirmation process. He’s vowing to restore American leadership on the world stage and work for the “greater good.” “Humility and confidence should be the flip sides of America’s leadership coin,” he will tell the Senate Foreign Relations …

The Associated Press reports: President-elect Joe Biden plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on Day One of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status, a massive reversal from the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies. The legislation puts Biden on track to deliver on …

NBC News reports: President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A pediatrician and former Pennsylvania physician general, Levine was appointed to her current post by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in 2017, making her …