Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. It is Friday! TGIF! We get you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver are the co-creators. Readers can find us on Twitter @asimendinger and @alweaver22. Please recommend the Morning Report to friends and let us know what you think. CLICK HERE to subscribe! Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported each morning this week: Monday, 609,021; Tuesday, 609,231; Wednesday, 609,529; Thursday, 609,862; Friday, 610,177. Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy Pelosi Democrats plow ahead with Jan. 6 probe, eyeing new GOP reinforcements GOP's Banks burnishes brand with Pelosi veto Meghan McCain on Pelosi, McCarthy fight: 'I think they're all bad' MORE (D-Calif.) and House Democrats are moving ahead with their investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and are looking into adding more GOP gravitas to their efforts after Republican … [Read more...]

BOSTON (AP) — It took most of a rainy night at Fenway Park for the Red Sox to find their offense. It took one wild inning by reliever Brooks Kriske for the Yankees to squander an opportunity to gain valuable ground on their longtime rivals. Kiké Hernández hit a two-run double that tied the game with two outs in the ninth inning, and Boston took advantage of a record four wild pitches by Kriske in the 10th to rally past New York 5-4 on Thursday. READ MORE: Boston Police Arrest Several People In Robberies Near Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall “That’s why you play until the last out is made,” Hernández said. “Pitchers did a good job of keeping us in the game.” Xander Bogaerts scored on a sacrifice fly by Hunter Renfroe in the 10th to win the opener of a four-game series. The victory was Boston’s third straight and snapped New York’s four-game winning streak. Boston also remained one game up on Tampa Bay in the AL East. The third-place Yankees, who have lost eight of 10 to the Red … [Read more...]

Welcome to the Smarter Living newsletter! Every Monday, S.L. editor Tim Herrera emails readers with tips and advice for living a better, more fulfilling life. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. Are you doing what you actually want to be doing? Maybe! Or maybe not?? Who knows! It’s one of the toughest questions we’ll grapple with in our lives. But when was the last time you were completely honest with yourself and thought about it? If you’re like most people, probably not recently. “I’m a big believer in evaluating where you think you are in your life about once a year,” said Art Markman, professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of the book “ Bring Your Brain to Work .” “It could be a birthday, could be New Year’s, it could be some other significant date for you, but one of the things I’ve found,” he said, “is the number of people who waited until some significant tragedy in their lives — they got sick, or … [Read more...]

If you’re looking for an area in which the United States is indisputably a global standout, here it is: paid sick leave. Unfortunately, not in a good way. Of United Nations member countries, 181 provide paid leave in some form. Eleven do not, including the U.S. That places America in an elite group that includes the Pacific Island nations of Tonga, Tuvalu, and Nauru, along with Somalia (which is barely a functioning nation at all). When you exempt big companies and small companies, you’re missing vast swaths of the country. Why would we possibly do that during a pandemic? Jody Heymann, UCLA Advertisement One developed country, South Korea, doesn’t provide paid sick leave as such, but does provide all workers with three weeks of paid time off that can be used as sick leave. “We are incredibly isolated,” says Jody Heymann, director of the World Policy Analysis Center at UCLA and the lead author of a newly published study by the center of sick leave policies … [Read more...]

Presented by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices via GIPHY To view past editions of The Hill's 12:30 Report, click here: http://bit.ly/1M1mIfw To receive The Hill's 12:30 Report in your inbox, please sign up here: http://bit.ly/1Tt4hqN --> A midday take on what's happening in politics and how to have a sense of humor about it.* *Ha. Haha. Hahah. Sniff. Haha. Sniff. Ha--breaks down crying hysterically. I N CONGRESS It’s getting preeeetty ugly... Via The Hill’s Mike Lillis and Scott Wong , “Smoldering tensions over the Jan. 6 Capitol attack exploded Wednesday in a partisan battle over who should sit on the special committee investigating the deadly siege — a clash of wills that spurred Republicans to end their participation in the investigation before it began.” https://bit.ly/3zqjHGg What happened yesterday : “The fight started just after noon when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she … [Read more...]

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — The rules are a bit of a buzzkill. Drug users must officially register with the government. Machines will scan buyers’ fingerprints at every purchase, and there are strict quotas to prevent overindulgence. But when Uruguay’s marijuana legalization law takes full effect on Wednesday, getting high will take a simple visit to the pharmacy. As American states legalize marijuana and governments in the hemisphere rethink the fight against drugs , Uruguay is taking a significant step further: It is the first nation in the world to fully legalize the production and sale of marijuana for recreational use. “The great responsibility we have in Uruguay is to show the world that this system of freedom with regulation works better than prohibition,” said Eduardo Blasina, the founder of the Montevideo Cannabis Museum . The final stage of Uruguay’s marijuana law comes as voters, lawmakers and courts across the Americas are increasingly leaning toward regulation … [Read more...]