"Just four days after landmark climate talks in Scotland in which Joe Biden vowed the US will “lead by example” in tackling dangerous global heating, the president’s own administration is providing a jarring contradiction – the largest ever sale of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico."
"The rule, which would take effect in January 2022, effectively leaves patients out of the fight. Providers and insurers have to work it out among themselves, following the new policy… In releasing the rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pointed to an analysis of the Congressional Budget Office that the No Surprises Act would lower health insurance premiums by about 1% and shave $17 billion off the federal deficit… But now many doctors, their medical associations and members of Congress are crying foul, arguing the rule released by the Biden administration in September for implementing the law favors insurers and doesn't follow the spirit of the legislation." The new Surprise Medical Bill rule came as a surprise to some lawmakers.
You'll never know what you'll find in the back of the freezer. "Vials labeled as smallpox were discovered at a Pennsylvania lab, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday… The frozen vials 'were incidentally discovered by a laboratory worker while cleaning out a freezer in a facility that conducts vaccine research in Pennsylvania,' a CDC spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News."
"European researchers looked at a single embryo that was 16 to 19 days old, donated by a woman who ended her pregnancy. Until now, experts said, researchers have lacked a full understanding of this stage of development because human embryos at this stage are difficult to obtain. Most women don’t yet know they’re pregnant by this point and decades-old global guidelines have until recently prohibited growing human embryos in a lab beyond 14 days."
"A federal agency that was run by a college friend of Jared Kushner and assigned $100 million to spend on fixing the Covid supply chain crunch has so far failed to invest a single dime, according to a new government watchdog report."
"In early 2020, scientists set out to do something that had never been done before. Their mission: to develop an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year. (That's three years faster than a vaccine for a new emerging disease had ever been developed.) Now that we have a few different vaccines, it might seem inevitable that it would happen this way. But there was no guarantee that any of them would work or that they would make it to market." The Planet Money Podcast on how we got to Operation Warp Speed.
"The racially restrictive covenant that Selders uncovered can be found on the books in nearly every state in the U.S., according to an examination by NPR, KPBS, St. Louis Public Radio, WBEZ and inewsource, a nonprofit investigative journalism site. Although the Supreme Court ruled the covenants unenforceable in 1948 and although the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed them, the hurtful, offensive language still exists — an ugly reminder of the country's racist past."
"President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate if 'illegal conduct' is to blame for surging gas prices hurting Americans' pocketbooks." Ooo.
"The Texas State University student accused of setting a fire at an Austin synagogue faces federal charges of arson with intent to damage a house of worship… In court documents unsealed Monday, federal authorities allege Sechriest had planned the attack for weeks. The documents include images of a journal seized at Sechriest's house that investigators say show he intended to burn down the temple."
"Two of the three men convicted of killing the civil rights activist Malcolm X are expected to be exonerated as Manhattan's top prosecutor moves to clear their names… District Attorney Cy Vance and lawyers representing the two men announced that they 'will move to vacate the wrongful convictions' of Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam on Thursday — a move that debunks the official account about the assassination of the fiery orator who was murdered on stage in 1965 in a hail of bullets in front of hundreds or people, including his daughters and pregnant wife." Many times the arc of moral universe bends toward justice too slowly.
"Speaking from the NH 175 bridge in Woodstock, N.H., Biden talked about the importance of the legislation to American families. 'Clean water, access to the internet, rebuilding bridges — everything in this bill matters to the individual lives of real people. This is not something abstract,' Biden said as a light snow fluttered around him." Please don't suck at this.
"If Joe Biden was looking for respite from the tricky global challenges he has faced in recent months, he may not find harmony closer to home. The leaders of US, Canada and Mexico meet on Thursday in Washington, with plenty differences to resolve… Our (BBC) correspondents in Toronto, New York and Mexico City give their perspectives on the so-called Three Amigos summit."
"The House of Representatives voted to censure hardline Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and remove him from his two committee assignments… The vote was mostly along party lines, 223-207. Two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., joined all Democrats to censure Gosar, while Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voted present." I see Rep. Steve Scalise chickened out.
"Jacob Chansley, the self-styled 'QAnon shaman' who became one of the faces of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol after storming the building in a fur headdress with horns, has been sentenced to nearly three and a half years in prison for his role in the riot." The clown prince is out for another 31 months.
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