An emerging $900 billion COVID-19 aid package from a bipartisan group of lawmakers all but collapsed Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republican senators won’t support $160 billion in state and local funds as part of a potential trade-off in the deal.
The deficit—the shortfall between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends—reflected an 8.9% jump in outlays, to $886.6 billion, and a 2.9% decline in tax revenues, to $457.3 billion.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested on Thursday that discussions over emergency legislation could stretch beyond Christmas, even though multiple critical programs expire at the end of this month and there are fresh signs the economy is weakening.
Investors have poured money into industrial properties in 2020, spending more on U.S. warehouses than office buildings for the first time as social-distancing pushes even more consumers to e-commerce.
The state has reported an increase of 556 deaths due to COVID-19 over the past seven days, an average of 79.4 per day. That’s up from 454 the previous week, an average of 648.6.
The medication will be provided by the U.S. government, which paid Indianapolis-based Lilly $375 million for an initial two-month supply of 300,000 doses as part of the Operation Warp Speed program.
The latest figures coincide with a surging viral outbreak that appears to be weakening the job market and the economy and threatening to derail any recovery.
Amid the uncertainty, the House easily passed a one-week government-wide funding bill Wednesday that sets a new Dec. 18 deadline for Congress to wrap up both the COVID-19 relief measure and a $1.4 trillion catch-all spending bill that is also overdue.
Thursday’s meeting of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel is likely the last step before a U.S. decision to begin shipping millions of doses of the shot, which has shown strong protection against the coronavirus.
More than half of U.S. employees currently working from home say they’d like to keep their remote arrangements beyond the pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday.
Statewide hospitalizations due to COVID-19 slipped slightly, from 3,250 on Monday to 3,244 on Tuesday.
British regulators warned Wednesday that people who have a history of serious allergic reactions shouldn’t receive the new Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as they investigate two adverse reactions that occurred on the first day of the country’s mass vaccination program.
The $916 billion offer, the separate ongoing talks among key rank-and-file senators, and the shifting demands by the White House all add up to muddled, confusing prospects for a long-delayed COVID-19 aid package.
Large U.S. employers saw their smallest health care cost increase in more than two decades due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and workers might benefit from that next year, according to the consulting firm Mercer.
Lawmakers are struggling to figure out how to deliver long-delayed pandemic relief, including additional help for hard-hit businesses, further unemployment benefits, funding to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and funding demanded by Democrats for state and local governments.
Statewide hospitalizations due to COVID-19 rose from 3,214 on Sunday to 3,250 on Monday, the second straight day of increases after five days of declines.
Economists cautioned that the swings in productivity this year have been unusually large and are distorting the underlying trend in productivity.
New results on a possible COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca suggest it is safe and about 70% effective, but questions remain about how well it may help protect those over 55.
The positive review from the Food and Drug Administration sets the stage for a decision allowing the vaccine’s initial use in the United States within days.
Trump administration officials denied that there would be availability issues in the second quarter, citing other vaccines in the pipeline, but others said problems are possible.
