1 big thing: The vaccines are amazing

Illustration of an upright vaccine syringe wearing a hero's cape

2. 10% of Americans have gotten a shot

3. Now for the bad news: Variants

4. Digital divide in school reopening

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5. Catch up quick

Illustration of a cell phone wearing a medical mask

Good morning. I'm filling in for Caitlin today.

Here's a little bonus to start your week: Try to wrap your mind around "ghoti," which is pronounced, "fish." And then try to convince me that English makes any sense.

Today's Smart Brevity count: 644 words, (all in English, for better or worse), or a 2-minute read.

Axios Vitals: Y'know what's great? These vaccines.

Vitals

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mustard

Keep up with health care politics, policy and business

Axios Vitals

Standard

1 big thing: India's growing crisis

A makeshift mass crematorium in New Delhi

2. U.S. cases are finally falling

3. CEOs now want Washington's help on health costs

Illustration of a doctor's hand and a business hand tearing a hundred dollar bill in half. 

4. Real-world data confirm vaccines' efficacy

A woman receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

5. The COVID population is getting younger

Good morning ... I'll be filling in for Caitlin for the next few days, with assists from my colleagues Marisa Fernandez and Tina Reed.

 Situational awareness: If you missed President Biden's speech last night, don't worry — it was pretty much what you'd expect: He called for expanding the Affordable Care Act, reducing the cost of prescription drugs (which, notably, isn't part of his legislative proposal) and investing in more research at the NIH.

Today's word count: 806, or a 3-minute read.

Axios Vitals: India's crisis fuels new variant fears

1 big thing: The holiday surge is here

2. Glimmers of hope on Omicron

3. CDC's vaccine totals may not be accurate

4. 1 good tweet

5. The parents who are still on the fence

Good morning ... I'm filling in for Tina today, and I have prepared for you a newsletter that's 820 words long, or a 3-minute read. Enjoy.

Situational awareness: The FDA has given emergency use authorization to AstraZeneca's COVID-19 antibody drug for people with compromised immune systems.

1 big thing: The next 100 million vaccinations

Illustration of a speedometer with a syringe in the middle

2. AstraZeneca can't catch a break

3. Hospital revenues bounce back

4. Colorado's public option goes bust

5. Monkey of the week

Good morning ... Happy Kentucky Derby weekend. Drink an extra mint julep for me, your favorite Kentuckian.

Today's newsletter is: 688 words — the most exciting 2 minutes in news.

Plus: Hospital revenues start to turn around

Axios Vitals: 100 million down, billions more to go

1 big thing: A preview of a longer pandemic

2. U.S. got 3.6 million shots Sunday

People waiting in line at a mass vaccination site

3. A reality check on vaccine passports

Illustration of a syringe checking off boxes on a list

4. Basic research pays off

Illustration of a hand in a medical glove holding a beaker full of liquid

Good morning ... I'm filling in for Caitlin today. Don't worry, she'll be back tomorrow.

Today's word count: 655, or a 2-minute read.

Axios Vitals: We can see what a longer pandemic looks like

Twin Cities

Axios Twin Cities

More than one in five people in the Twin Cities metro area who were working in 2022 did so from home, according to U.S. census data released last week. 

That's down from 26% in 2021 but above the national average of 15.2%. 

State of play: The work-from-home revolution is most entrenched in big cities with large concentrations of office buildings, and downtown economies that survived because of those office buildings being full.

Locally, Xcel Energy called workers back into the office three days a week starting in September and U.S. Bank has also been asking workers to come in more. 

Yes, but: Some of Minnesota's biggest corporations are dramatically downsizing their office footprint. Most recently it was UnitedHealth, which is departing its main Minnetonka headquarters tower and moving those employees to its Eden Prairie Optum campus. 

Wells Fargo, Prime Therapeutics, Thomson Reuters, and Target have also consolidated their office spaces. 

Twin Cities residents still working from home in high numbers

More than one if five Twin Cities workers were still working from home in 2022

Remote work

More than one in five people in the Twin Cities metro area who were working in 2022 did so from home, according to U.S. census data released last week. <ul><li>That&#x27;s down from 26% in 2021 but above the national average of 15.2%. </li></ul>

News

Axios Twin Cities, anchored by Torey Van Oot, Nick Halter and Audrey Kennedy, is here to help readers get smarter, faster on the most consequential news and developments unfolding in their own backyard

National

Data: EPA, The Data Liberation Project; Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios

Chemical accidents at facilities with a risk management plan are supposed to be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency within six months, But public records indicate that's not always happening.

Why it matters: The number of accidents per year is steadily declining. But delayed reporting can produce an inaccurate picture of how safe the U.S.' chemical-storage infrastructure truly is.

Details: Facilities that store a certain amount of certain potentially harmful chemicals must submit a risk management plan to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Those plans detail what the effects of an accident would be; what the companies are doing to prevent them; and an emergency response plan if an accident does occur. They're updated every five years.

If an accident occurs at one of those facilities, the company is supposed to notify the EPA within six months. But critics say some companies don't offer a full accounting until they update their risk management plans — meaning some accidents aren't disclosed until years after they occurred.

By the numbers: The United Auto Workers union laid out reporting issues in recent comments to the EPA.

The UAW tried to determine how many chemical accidents there were in 2013. If you checked the totals in early 2015, according to the UAW, you'd find that there were 123 accidents in 2013.

But if you checked again in 2021, you'd find 164 reported accidents in 2013. That's a 33% increase in the total number of reported accidents, 8 years after they occurred.

The UAW's analysis found similar, but smaller, discrepancies in other years.

Axios conducted a similar analysis, using the same data, and found similar results.

We looked at the total number of accidents reported between 2017 and 2021.

In February of this year, the EPA's records said there had been 566 such accidents. When a new data set was released five months later, that figure had risen by about 12%, to 636 reported accidents.

Dangerous chemicals are stored all over the U.S.

Some chemical accidents are reported too late

Some companies don't report accidents for several years.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Chemical accidents at <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="facilities with a risk management pla" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/hazardous-chemicals-US-near-you-data" data-vars-content-id="18cb94e6-831b-4e00-91de-03a0598bb876" data-vars-headline="Some chemical accidents are reported too late" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/hazardous-chemicals-US-near-you-data" target="_self">facilities with a risk management pla</a>n are supposed to be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency within six months, But public records indicate that&#x27;s not always happening.Why it matters: The number of accidents per year is steadily declining. But delayed reporting can produce an inaccurate picture of how safe the U.S.&#x27; chemical-storage infrastructure truly is.

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

The Supreme Court has teed up two big opportunities to significantly curtail the federal government's regulatory power — to weaken or even dismantle agencies that have been in conservatives' sights for years.

The big picture: The Supreme Court's new term begins Monday. Some of the first cases on the docket have the potential to advance conservatives' years-long push to rein in the federal bureaucracy — and to undercut core Democratic priorities, from regulating Wall Street to combating climate change.

Driving the news: The justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday in a suit that could gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a cornerstone of Congress' response to the 2008 financial crisis.

A group of payday lenders brought the case, which argues that the CFPB's funding mechanism is unconstitutional — and that everything it has done with that funding is therefore void.

A ruling in the lenders' favor would grind much of the agency's work to a halt. "All C.F.P.B. rules are now potentially vulnerable to constitutional attack," Boston College law professor Patricia McCoy told The New York Times last year.

Details: Critics argue it's unconstitutional that the CFPB gets part of its funding directly from the Federal Reserve, rather than an annual appropriation from Congress. The Justice Department notes that other federal programs, such as Medicare, are also funded directly.

Flashback: The court ruled in 2020 that the CFPB's leadership structure was unconstitutional, but allowed the agency to keep functioning under new rules.

The most important case on the docket so far may be Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

On its face, it's a dispute over the finer points of federal oversight of herring fishing. But the case could be a major coup for the conservative legal movement.

That's because the herring fishers are asking the justices to overturn the doctrine known as "Chevron deference," which the Supreme Court devised in the 1980s, but the current conservative court has been chipping away at for years.

Chevron states, in short, that when part of a particular statute isn't clear, the courts will generally defer to the interpretation of the agency tasked with implementing that statute, as long as its interpretation is reasonable.

Federal agencies have relied on that doctrine to defend any number of policies — from Medicare cuts to extremely granular disputes over patent law.

It's an especially big issue for the EPA, which has — mostly unsuccessfully— asked the court to defer to its understanding of major environmental laws as it has tried to defend sweeping new regulations from industry lawsuits.

Why it matters:  The court has put a stop to just about every major exercise of executive power the Biden administration has attempted. It blocked an eviction moratorium, vaccine mandates, student-loan forgiveness and limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Those rulings relied on a different doctrine, not Chevron, but it all pulls the law in the same direction: The executive branch will have a harder time doing a whole lot of things.

What's next: The court will likely take on bigger, more polarizing controversies as the term goes on.

The justices have already agreed to hear a major Second Amendment case. State laws banning gender-affirming care are on an accelerating path toward the high court, and abortion also might be back on the docket soon.

Between the lines: These may not all be blockbusters. Several of these cases could be good vehicles for the kind of incrementalism Chief Justice John Roberts favors. 

The court could weaken Chevron deference without overturning it. It could use procedural maneuvers to duck the merits of big abortion or trans rights cases, at least for a while.

Yes, but: Roberts has often had a hard time building support for that go-slow approach on a 6-3 court.

The bottom line: If 5 justices want to keep moving quickly and decisively to the right on issues of great importance to the conservative legal movement, they'll have plenty of opportunities to do so — starting with the administrative state.

The Supreme Court's next target is the executive branch

Federal regulators are in the Supreme Court's crosshairs

The court has two big chances to rein in executive agencies.

Illustration of a gavel knocking down a line of columns

Supreme Court

Politics & Policy

San Francisco

Almost a third of San Francisco's metro-area workers were working from home as of 2022, per recent Census figures.

The big picture: Workers in America's biggest, most competitive cities aren't giving up the flexibility and savings of working from home — both in time and gas money, Axios' Sam Baker and Simran Parwani report.

Zoom out: Overall, 15% of the U.S. worked from home last year, with numbers much higher on both the East and West coasts.

San Francisco and San José both were in the top 10 cities with the number of people working from home— though their main rival for tech jobs — Austin, Texas — was even higher.

Of note: While the Southeast generally is well below the national average, every state has more remote workers now than in 2019.

What we're watching: The work-from-home revolution is most entrenched in big cities as they tend to have a concentration of office buildings.

The solution in these cities is likely to come from ambitious redevelopment projects — like converting office towers into residential buildings or central business districts into mixed-use neighborhoods.

That work is complex, difficult and extremely expensive, but it's already underway in several cities.

Nearly a third of San Francisco workers worked from home in 2022

Workers in America's biggest, most competitive cities aren't giving up the flexibility and savings of working from home.

Almost a third of San Francisco&#x27;s metro-area workers were working from home as of 2022, per recent Census figures.The big picture: Workers in America&#x27;s biggest, most competitive cities aren&#x27;t giving up the flexibility and savings of working from home — both in time and gas money, Axios&#x27; Sam Baker and Simran Parwani report.

Business

Austin

Data: Census Bureau; Chart: Axios Visuals

Remote work is holding strong here — 28% of Austin metro area workers were working from home as of 2022, compared to a peak of 32% in 2021, per newly released Census Bureau figures.

Driving the news: That's the second-highest percentage among American metro areas, the highest in Texas and well above the national average.

The big picture: Workers in America's biggest, most competitive cities aren't giving up the flexibility and savings — in both time and gas money — of working from home.

Every state has more remote workers now than it did in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Flashback: Austin saw the biggest net gain of remote workers of any major city in 2020-21, per a New York Times analysis. 

Steven Pedigo, director of the University of Texas' LBJ Urban Lab and a professor studying economic development, previously told Axios he's optimistic that remote workers will stick around because of the city's social cohesion.

Plus, he said the city remains less expensive compared to where many moved from, like California and New York.

Zoom out: Overall, 15% of the U.S. worked from home last year, versus nearly 18% in 2021 — but the numbers remain much higher on the East and West coasts and in large metro areas.

Boulder, Colorado — with just under a tenth of Austin's population — had the highest share of remote workers of any metro area last year at 32%.

San Francisco and San Jose were both in the top 10, but their main rival for tech jobs — Austin — beat them out.

Just over 25% of the Washington, D.C. metro area workforce is remote — the sixth highest rate of any city, and higher than any state.

The other side: Mississippi has the lowest share of remote workers in the U.S., at just 5.5%, and the Southeast generally is well below the national average.

And even after two years, the trend line is barely moving. Nationwide, the share of people working from home declined by less than 3 percentage points between 2021 and 2022, according to the Census Bureau figures.

What we're watching: The work-from-home revolution is most entrenched in big cities with large concentrations of office buildings, and downtown economies that survived because of those office buildings being full.

Office vacancy rates downtown remain 3% higher than the metro average, according to the Downtown Austin Alliance's latest quarterly report, signaling that remote work is still having an impact.

Tech companies like Meta have released downtown Austin office space.

The solution in these cities is more likely to come from ambitious redevelopment projects — converting office towers into residential buildings and central business districts into mixed-use neighborhoods.

The city of Austin, for example, recently acquired an office building to convert it into affordable housing, CoStar reported.

Austin is still one of the nation's top remote work hubs

It's the second-highest among American metro areas, per new Census Bureau data.

Hub Data - All

Remote work is holding strong here — 28% of Austin metro area workers were working from home as of 2022, compared to a peak of 32% in 2021, per newly released Census Bureau figures.Driving the news: That&#x27;s the second-highest percentage among American metro areas, the highest in Texas and well above the national average.

Sam Baker

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