Scoop: Moderate Democrats buck Biden tax hikes  —  President Biden's plan to pay for his coming infrastructure package with big tax hikes already is meeting some resistance from moderate Democrats, a stumbling block for his progressive ambitions.  —  Why it matters: If this discomfort turns …

U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend.  In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church …

Massive container ship freed from Suez Canal  —  Rescuers fully dislodged the “Ever Given” from the banks of the Suez Canal on Monday, sending the skyscraper-sized container ship on its way after six days of drama that paralyzed the vital shipping route, according to canal authorities.

Remote Work Is Here to Stay.  Manhattan May Never Be the Same.  —  New York City, long buoyed by the flow of commuters into its towering office buildings, faces a cataclysmic challenge, even when the pandemic ends.  —  Spotify's headquarters in the United States fills 16 floors of 4 World Trade Center …

Trump lawyer Lin Wood to run for South Carolina GOP chair  —  Lin Wood, the defamation and personal injury lawyer who took up former President Trump's baseless accusations of election fraud, will run to lead the South Carolina Republican Party less than a month after moving to the Palmetto State from his home base in Georgia.

POLITICO Playbook: Chuck Schumer's 51-vote gambit  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  BREAKING OVERNIGHT — EVER GONE? ...  “Aided by Moon and Tide, Giant Ship Is Partially Refloated,” NYT  —  SPOTTED: MIKE and KAREN PENCE car shopping at Ourisman Honda in Tysons Corner.

Inside America's Most Interesting Magazine, and Media's Oddest Workplace  —  The publication of the “Harper's letter” attracted huge attention.  Most people had stopped reading the magazine, which is stranger and better than you might expect.  —  Last August, when the pandemic seemed endless …

The Education Department's Slow-Walk on Student Debt  —  Activists are frustrated by a lack of action, and not just on mass cancellation.  —  Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during a press briefing at the White House, March 17, 2021, in Washington.

AP Exclusive: WHO report says animals likely source of COVID  —  BEIJING (AP) — A joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” …

The State Assault on Voting Rights Hurts All of Us  —  Republicans are cynically supporting anti-voting measures that will ultimately hurt both parties—and our country.  —  When John F. Kennedy squared off against Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, 64 percent …

He said he was going to watch cartoons.  Instead, he opened his dad's gun safe. … WEST PELZER, S.C. — The boy knew where the key to the gun safe was.  He had always known.  —  It was a balmy evening in summer 2014, just five days after Tyler Paxton celebrated his 11th birthday with chicken nuggets and meatballs.

Amazon started a Twitter war because Jeff Bezos was pissed  —  Snarky tweets targeting Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren came after the CEO told execs they weren't pushing back hard enough on critics.  —  SHARE All sharing options  —  Amazon has long been at odds …

Pete Buttigieg has a bridge to sell you  —  As he took over a sprawling department with tens of thousands of workers and a $90 billion budget, Pete Buttigieg was having a fairly unusual problem: He couldn't locate the Department of Transportation's vaunted library.

Trump Crashes Mar-a-Lago Wedding to Whine About Election Loss  —  UM...WERE YOU INVITED?  —  Former President Donald Trump wandered into a wedding reception being held at Mar-a-Lago but instead of toasting the happy couple proceeded to run through a laundry list of his own personal grievances …

CDC will extend national eviction ban through June 30  — The CDC will keep its national moratorium on evictions in effect through June 30.  — The protection was slated to expire in just a few days.  —  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has extended the national ban on evictions through the end of June.

Former CDC director says Sec. Alex Azar pressured them to falsify COVID-19 data doctors needed  —  Two former officials on President Donald Trump's COVID-19 task force reported being pressured by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to change the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that doctors …

How mRNA Technology Could Change the World  —  Synthetic mRNA, the ingenious technology behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, might seem like a sudden breakthrough, or a new discovery.  One year ago, almost nobody in the world knew what an mRNA vaccine was, for the good reason …

Cruelty at the border is not the same as strength or an effective immigration strategy  —  Not only did cruelty fail as a deterrent, it was wildly unpopular and contributed to Republican defeats in 2018 and 2020.  —  Do you have to be cruel to secure the southern border?

Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online  —  Brenna Smith Jessica Guynn Will CarlessUSA TODAY  —  Defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network …

For racially biased conservative Whites, owning a gun is just part of being a good citizen  —  They see gun regulations as attacks on their patriotism and moral superiority  —  With two mass shootings in one week, in Georgia and Colorado, the United States is again discussing how to prevent gun violence.

Biden admin remakes vaccine strategy after mass vaccination sites fizzle  —  The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.

Guatemalan man dies in Border Patrol custody, marking second death under Biden  —  DALLAS, Texas — A Guatemalan man in Border Patrol custody in Arizona died Saturday, two days after he was taken into custody for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a statement from border authorities.

AP sources: SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials  —  Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration's head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department's cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats …

America's pandemic dead deserve accountability after Birx disclosure  —  (CNN)The hundreds of thousands of citizens whose deaths from Covid-19 could have been avoided are owed national and political accountability, but the polarization of America that exacerbated the pandemic threatens to deprive them of their due.

Sarah Obama, matriarch of Obama family branch in Kenya, has died.  She was at least 99  —  Nairobi, Kenya — Sarah Obama, the matriarch of former President Obama's Kenyan family has died, relatives and officials confirmed Monday.  She was at least 99 years old.

Biden Has First Shot at Judicial Vacancies  —  Judges have retired or taken senior status, opening the way for the president to put his stamp on the judiciary  —  President Biden has the first chance to put his stamp on the federal judiciary as dozens of federal judges have stepped down from active duty in recent months.

French philosopher Michel Foucault ‘abused boys in Tunisia’  —  The philosopher Michel Foucault, a beacon of today's “woke” ideology, has become the latest prominent French figure to face a retrospective reckoning for sexually abusing children.  —  A fellow intellectual, Guy Sorman …