By Tami Luhby South Carolina is joining Montana in ending federal pandemic unemployment benefits for its residents next month. The Republican governors of both states say the enhanced jobless programs are dissuading people from returning to the workforce and are creating labor shortages. They are the first two states to halt participation in the historic
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Opinion by Meenakshi Narula Ahamed This week, the Biden administration took the unprecedented step of supporting a waiver of intellectual property protections on Covid-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic. Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), said in a statement: “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19
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By Anneken Tappe The US labor market collapsed a year ago when more than 20 million jobs vanished in a single month. Now the economy is healing, but millions of Americans remain out of work. And despite months of record jobs growth last summer, and with the pace of improvement picking up again this spring,
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By Vanessa Yurkevich The Paycheck Protection Program is out of cash for most businesses weeks ahead of the program’s scheduled May 31 closure, the Small Business Administration said Tuesday. The program, a core element of the congressional response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, re-opened in January with an additional $284 billion for
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By Lisa Respers France Despite the Grammys announcing some changes, The Weeknd says he still isn’t rocking with them. After being shut out of the 63rd annual Grammy Awards nominations despite having a massively successful album, the singer accused the Recording Academy of being “corrupt” and vowed to boycott future ceremonies, including not submitting his
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By Blake Atwell, David Close and Ray Sanchez NBA player Sterling Brown’s $750,000 settlement was approved Tuesday by the City of Milwaukee Common Council following a lawsuit stemming from a 2018 altercation where he was tased, tackled, and stepped on by city police officers. The former Milwaukee Bucks player brought a civil rights lawsuit in
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By Nicole Gaouette The Black diplomat who was handed a set of keys in the State Department parking garage by a White colleague who seemed to assume he worked there, not in the offices above, and could fetch her car. The young Latina in tears after an older White diplomat counseled her on being “too
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By Deidre McPhillips, Madeline Holcombe and Jason Hanna In three states, more than 70% of adults have already received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, federal data showed Wednesday — meaning they’ve reached the Biden administration’s new vaccination goal months ahead of the July 4 target. Those three states are New Hampshire, Massachusetts and
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By Dan Berman, Katie Lobosco, Tami Luhby and Anna Bahney A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday declared that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s moratorium on eviction — a key element of the federal government’s efforts to aid those hit hardest by the Covid pandemic and its economic effects — must be
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By Madeline Holcombe Vaccinations could soon open up for children 12 to 15 years old, a development that could be key to protecting the United States against Covid-19 as overall vaccination rates slow. “High school kids, in particular, are known to be just about as susceptible and just about as good at passing along this
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