Scoop: Inside a crowded border patrol tent in Donna, Texas  —  Exclusive photos from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas, reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government's longer-term child shelters and family detention centers fill up.

Biden Team Preparing Up to $3 Trillion in New Spending for the Economy  —  A pair of proposals would invest in infrastructure, education, work force development and fighting climate change, with the aim of making the economy more productive.  —  WASHINGTON — President Biden's economic advisers …

POLITICO Playbook: Democrats are dead serious about taking back that Iowa seat  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  Big vaccine news overnight ... CNN: “AstraZeneca vaccine is 79% effective against symptomatic Covid-19, company says”  —  Just weeks after blasting DONALD TRUMP for trying to overturn …

AZD1222 US Phase III trial met primary efficacy endpoint in preventing COVID-19 at interim analysis  —  79% vaccine efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19  —  100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalisation  —  Comparable efficacy result across ethnicity and age,

GOP hopefuls crank up the 'if-Trump-doesn't-run' primary  —  Mike Pompeo and Rick Scott are headed to Iowa this week and next, followed by Tim Scott in mid-April.  Mike Pence plans to visit the early primary state of South Carolina, while Ron DeSantis appears to be conducting a soft launch in his home state of Florida.

Krispy Kreme will you give you a free doughnut every day this year — if you've been vaccinated  —  In case you needed another reason to get your COVID-19 vaccination, Krispy Kreme is sweetening the deal — it's giving free doughnuts to anyone with proof of vaccination, all year long.

Trump: Republicans need ‘stronger’ and ‘better’ leadership than McConnell  —  Former President Trump said in a new interview that Republicans need “stronger” and “better” leadership than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  —  “I think we need better leadership than Mitch McConnell …

The Real Reason Republicans Couldn't Kill Obamacare  —  Adapted from The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, St. Martin's Press 2021.  —  The Affordable Care Act, the health-care law also known as Obamacare, turns 11 years old this week.

Trump predicted news ratings would 'tank if I'm not there.' He wasn't wrong.  —  Of all Donald Trump's prophecies and predictions — that Mexico would pay for a border wall, that coronavirus would spontaneously disappear, that he would be easily reelected — at least one wasn't entirely wrong.

Supreme Court agrees to hear death penalty case against Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev  —  WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a government appeal to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, granting review of a lower court's ruling …

Sovereign Writers and Substack  —  Manage your Stratechery subscription.  —  There has been a bit of controversy around Substack over the last week; I'm not going to get into the specifics of various accusations made about various individuals, or their responses; however …

The divine right of wingnuts  —  Harvard's Eric Nelson stokes a loopy monarchist movement in America.  —  2 hr ago  —  Holly Brewer is Burke Professor of American History at the University of Maryland and author of By Birth or Consent: Children, Law, and the Anglo-American Revolution in Authority (2005).

The filibuster is Kentucky's veto.  It stops radical ambitions like Yarmuth's  —  Congressman John Yarmuth likes to pretend he knows me.  He talks to reporters and writes in these pages as if he's some sort of “McConnell-whisperer.”  That's a full day's drive from reality.

How Biden quietly created a huge social program  —  Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) tapped out the longest text messages he'd ever written one night last January, urging Susan Rice, a top Biden aide and a friend, to include a full-scale anti-child poverty measure in the coronavirus rescue plan to be unveiled within days.

Cops' posts to private Facebook group show hostility, hate  —  PITTSBURGH (AP) — In a private Facebook group called the Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom, many current and retired officers spent the year criticizing chiefs who took a knee or officers who marched with Black Lives Matter protesters …

The rioter next door: How the Dallas suburbs spawned domestic extremists  —  FRISCO, Tex. — Sunlight gleamed off the tiled roofs of the taupe mini-mansions and walkable shopping centers as March 4 dawned in this corner of North Texas.  According to specious speculations online …

Richest 1% of Americans Hide a Fifth of Their Income From the IRS  —  A new study found that the IRS can miss earnings hidden in sophisticated ways.  It could support calls to give the agency more funding after years of budget cuts.  —  More than 20% of the wealthiest Americans' income …

Republican Dan Crenshaw goes down in flames during debate with MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan  —  MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan went after Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on Twitter this week after a Fox News appearance in which he twisted data about border crossings to score points.

Stop Fueling Panic About China  —  In The Best and The Brightest, David Halberstam tells the story of a lunch between two Kennedy administration officials and the sociologist David Riesman in 1961.  The Kennedy men boasted that their administration was both escalating and regulating the cold war.

Trump looks to take down Raffensperger in Georgia  —  Former President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed Rep. Jody Hice in a campaign to unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in next year's Republican primary, saying that “unlike” the incumbent, “Jody leads out front with integrity.”

Meet Wyoming's New Black Sheriff, the First in State History  —  The appointment is symbolic for both Wyoming and the Mountain West, which has been insulated from much of the national reckoning over race and policing.  —  LARAMIE, Wyo. — Ask Aaron Appelhans if he ever wanted to be a sheriff, and he'll say no.

Vaccine mystery: Why J&J's shots aren't reaching more arms  —  Johnson & Johnson's single-shot Covid vaccine was supposed to be the catalyst for the country's return to normal.  Instead, it's sparking confusion and finger-pointing between the states and the Biden administration over why millions of doses are sitting unused.

Canada joins international partners in imposing new sanctions in response to human rights violations in Xinjiang  —  News release  —  Today, Canada announced it is imposing new sanctions against 4 officials and 1 entity under the Special Economic Measures (People's Republic of China) …

Could an accident have caused COVID-19?  Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory shouldn't be dismissed  —  I have reported on safety lapses at elite U.S. labs.  There is no reason to believe they aren't happening at labs in other countries as well. … On a warm summer evening in July 2014 …

First North Korean National Brought to the United States to Stand Trial for Money Laundering Offenses  —  DPRK Intelligence Service Affiliated Businessman Accused of Using the U.S. Financial System and Deceiving U.S. Banks to Circumvent Sanctions Against North Korea

More Economic Impact Payments set for disbursement in coming days; taxpayers should watch mail for paper checks, debit cards  —  WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service announced today that the next batch of Economic Impact Payments will be issued to taxpayers this week, with many of these coming by paper check or prepaid debit card.

‘He cut my underwear.  Then he did what he did’  —  Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) — Sergei stood on a small sheet of ice in the Dnieper River and breathed in the icy air hard.  He had escaped, but that relief was overwhelmed by both the pain of leaving his homeland and the fear he might not survive the rest of his perilous journey.