Novavax's coronavirus vaccine is 90 percent effective, study finds  —  The vaccine is one of six the U.S. bet on but is likely to have its biggest impact globally  —  Novavax, a Maryland biotechnology company that endured delays in developing a coronavirus vaccine, revealed results Monday showing …

POLITICO Playbook: Manchin and Sinema still might get their way  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  President JOE BIDEN is at NATO headquarters in Brussels today explaining his decision to pull out of Afghanistan to allies who felt blindsided.  The House is back in session and will soon be debating …

Ralph Northam Reflects on His Journey Back From the Edge  —  When a racist picture was discovered on his yearbook page, the governor of Virginia refused to resign.  Now he's leaving office with a widely praised progressive record on racial justice.  —  RICHMOND, Va. — Just two years ago …

Why The New Yorker's Stars Didn't Join Its Union  —  The 96-year-old magazine, known for its revered writers and sophisticated audience, is being consumed by a labor dispute.  —  Writers for The New Yorker have been known to refer to the editor, David Remnick, as “Dad,” …

Kayleigh McEnany Claims ‘I Never Lied’ as Trump's White House Press Secretary, Cites Belief in God  —  Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany proclaimed Sunday that her faith in God prevented her from ever telling a single lie during her tenure as former President Donald Trump's chief spokesperson.

Yup, the Wuhan Institute of Virology Kept Live Bats within Its Walls  —  On the menu today: New evidence shows that despite the contentions of Peter Daszak, the Wuhan Institute of Virology did indeed have live bats within its walls; a spectacularly inaccurate op-ed attempting to dispel the lab-leak theory …

Westminster Dog Show 2021: Wasabi the Pekingese Wins Best in Show  —  Wasabi's victory capped an unusual Westminster, held at a riverside estate in Westchester County instead of its usual home at Madison Square Garden because of the coronavirus pandemic.  —  TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — Wasabi …

'I didn't take an oath to defend Donald Trump': Rep. Tom Rice tests whether Republican voters will support a conservative who crossed Trump  —  MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina has been a reliable conservative during his five terms in Congress …

Netanyahu Plots Comeback Even Before New Government Sworn In  — 'We'll be back — soon,' he said before successor was sworn in  — Coalition is shaky, but comeback threat might prop it up  —  Benjamin Netanyahu, unseated after a bruising, two-year battle to hold on to his job, is already plotting a comeback.

Exclusive: US assessing reported leak at Chinese nuclear power facility  —  (CNN)The US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an “imminent radiological threat,” …

These 25 rainbow flag-waving corporations donated more than $10 million to anti-gay politicians in the last two years  —  This month, corporations are plastering their social media avatars with rainbows, sponsoring Pride parades, and declaring their unwavering commitment to the LGBTQ community.

Biden will give Putin a list of demands.  The Russian president may ignore them.  —  But those demands raise a question that is vexing U.S. policymakers and the United States' European allies: What happens if Putin ignores the demands, as he has signaled he will do?

‘Network’ & ‘Superman’ Actor Ned Beatty Dead at 83  —  EXCLUSIVE  —  REMEMBERING NED BEATTY  —  3:28 PM PT — Ned's manager tells us ... his client died around 7:30 AM this morning of natural causes, surrounded by friends and loved ones.  —  Ned Beatty — a veteran character actor …

Exclusive: Saudi assassins picked up illicit drugs in Cairo to kill Khashoggi  —  Early on the morning of Oct. 2, 2018, a Gulfstream jet carrying a team of Saudi assassins on its way to Istanbul made a quick stopover in Cairo.  The purpose: to pick up a lethal dose of “illegal” …

What the Rich Don't Want to Admit About the Poor  —  I'm not going to pretend that I know how to interpret the jobs and inflation data of the past few months.  My view is that this is still an economy warped by the pandemic, and that the dynamics are so strange and so unstable that it will be some time before we know its true state.

In Congress, Republicans Shrug at Warnings of Democracy in Peril  —  As G.O.P. legislatures move to curtail voting rules, congressional Democrats say authoritarianism looms, but Republicans dismiss the concerns as politics as usual.  —  WASHINGTON — Senator Christopher S. Murphy concedes …

Temp checks, digital menus and ‘touchless’ mustard: The maddening persistence of ‘hygiene theater’  —  At an ice cream shop in Rockville, Md., gloved servers scoop the frozen treat into cups, but a sign taped to the front window says “No cones: Covid.”  At McDonald's outlets along I-95 in Virginia …

Anatomy of the Woke Madness  —  How did such collective madness infect a once pragmatic and commonsensical America?  —  Wokeism has become our most popular secular religion—at least for a moment dethroning climate change.  It reduces all of the past and present into puerile binaries between “whites” and “non-whites.”

This is the Republicans' back-up plan in case they can't suppress enough votes  —  Like termites, destructive but largely unseen, anti-democracy forces around the country are gnawing at the foundations of America's free and fair elections.  —  State by state, the termites are trying to change …

Collins and Menendez: We Need a Covid-19 Commission  —  Senator Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and Senator Collins, Republican of Maine, have introduced legislation proposing a commission to study the United States' Covid-19 response.  —  The devastating events of Sept. 11, 2001 …

Demonizing Critical Race Theory  —  Critical race theory is the political right's new boogeyman.  —  The theory, born in the 1970s among legal scholars, uses race as a lens through which to examine structures of power.  It was, I would argue, a relatively obscure concept — not because it lacked merit, but because it was novel.

Lobbyists for Putin's Pipeline Dodge Foreign Agent Laws  —  The State Department labels Nord Stream 2 executives as ‘foreign persons’  —  Beltway firms lobbying for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline have dodged foreign lobbying laws, even though the Biden administration has affirmed that the company behind …

Nicaragua: Five more opposition figures detained ahead of election  —  Police in Nicaragua have detained five more prominent opposition figures, in what critics say is a crackdown on opponents of the country's president.  —  Several former allies of long-time President Daniel Ortega were among those arrested on Sunday.