President Biden said during a meeting with the nation's governors and his COVID-19 response team Monday that the administration has not yet done enough to scale up the nation's COVID-19 testing capacity.
Why it matters: As the nation faces a surge in COVID cases driven by the Omicron variant, Biden conceded that the administration's efforts to scale up rapid testing were "clearly not enough."
President Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022, giving the green light to $770 billion in defense spending over the next year, the White House announced Monday.
Why it matters: The annual bill provides funding and sets policy for the Pentagon for the next fiscal year. Key provisions of this year's bill include a pay increase for military service members and civilian Pentagon staff, 12 weeks of parental leave for all service members, and reforms for how the military investigates and prosecutes sexual assault and harassment.
A recent Delta flight from Seattle to Shanghai turned back midair due to new pandemic-related cleaning rules at the Shanghai airport, Delta confirmed Monday.
Driving the news: The new cleaning requirements, which Delta said were issued on Dec. 21, "require significantly extended ground time and are not operationally viable for Delta," the airline said in an emailed statement.
Just three of 11 federal leaders were viewed positively in a Gallup poll released Monday.
The big picture: Chief Justice John Roberts received the highest approval rating, followed by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and NIAID director Anthony Fauci.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg slammed the Biden administration on climate policy in an interview with the Washington Post Monday, saying that it's "strange" to consider Biden a leader in the arena "when you see what his administration is doing."
What she's saying: "The U.S. is actually expanding fossil fuel infrastructure," Thunberg said. "Why is the U.S. doing that?"
Blake Masters, co-author of tech pioneer Peter Thiel's blockbuster "Zero to One," and now a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona, is offering NFTs with a limit of 99 copies.
Why it matters: Masters, 35, told Axios the plan is to attract support "from folks who are less conventional political donors and more founders and builders who want to see new thinking and new energy in our politics."
What they're saying: "Taking executive action will also make clear to those who hinder Build Back Better that the White House and Democrats will deliver for Americans," wrote Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a Washington Post op-ed.
Vice President Kamala Harris told CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that the U.S. standing as a global role model would be under threat if voting rights legislation failed to pass.
What she's saying: "[P]eople around the world watch what we do as America, because we have held ourselves out to be a model of the efficacy of the ability of a democracy to coexist with an economic strength and power," Harris told CBS' "Face the Nation."
Former President Donald Trump's spokesperson has sued the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection in an effort to block the panel from obtaining his financial records.
Why it matters: Taylor Budowich's lawsuit, filed in federal court on Friday, is the latest in what appears to be a new strategy by those loyal to the former president to push back against the probe into the deadly Capitol riot.
