Viral News: Germany, France and Italy temporarily suspended use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, joining a growing list of countries concerned that the shot might be causing blood clots. 

  Millions of people have safely received the vaccine and there’s no definitive link to clots. Germany’s national health administrator noted that there have been 11 incidents of blood clotting, including four deaths, among 1.2 million vaccine doses administered.

  French President Emanuel Macron described the suspension as “a precaution.” Indonesia and the Netherlands also suspended use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Norway reported four incidents of blood clotting.

  There have been some horror stories with Covid vaccines. A 39-year-year old Utah mother in good health died four days after getting the Moderna vaccine. The CDC has received reports of 1,637 deaths among people given a COVID-19 vaccine but says there’s no evidence any of them were the result of the vaccine.

  Mississippi has become the second state to open Covid-19 vaccinations to all adults and others are dropping the age threshold.

  The US is administering about 2.4 million doses a day, 92.6 million since the inauguration of Joe Biden.

  The administration is fighting skepticism about the vaccines, particularly among Republicans. A third of Republicans polled by CBS News said they would not be vaccinated, compared to 10 percent of Democrats, and 20 percent of the Republicans said they’re unsure.

  This could become another reason why the Republican party as we know it is dying.

The Envelope: In a year in which you didn’t have to go to a theater to see first-release movies, The Netflix flick “Mank,” a period piece about old Hollywood, has collected 10 Oscar nominations.

  Movies released by Netflix and Amazon were high on the list of nominations; “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Mank,” “One Night in Miami” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” 

  Six other movies have six nominations each, including “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Sound of Metal,” “Nomadland,” “Minari,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Father.”

  For the first time, the academy nominated two women for best director; Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland” and Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman.”

  Nine of the 20 acting nominations went to people of color. 

Knucklehead Roundup: The FBI didn’t need to plant informants among the January 6^th Capitol rioters. They provided all the evidence the feds need with their own cellphone videos. Hundreds have been arrested.

  Two more men were arrested over the weekend and charged for using bear spray on Capitol Police Off. Brian Sicknick who later died. 

  Julian Khater, 32, was recorded on video asking  George Tanios, 39, for the 

the bear spray at 2:14 that afternoon near the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol where Sicknick and other officers were standing guard. The video shows Khater minutes later spraying Sicknick and the other officers. 

  Tanios and Khater are charged with nine counts including assaulting the three officers with a deadly weapon, civil disorder, and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

Spring Spreaders: Hundreds of people, many of them college spring breakers, have been arrested in Miami Beach over the past several days. Unmasked sun lovers are crowding the beaches and some have been clumped into what the cops describe as disorderly crowds.

  Although Florida dropped its mask mandate, Miami still has an emergency order in effect through tomorrow.

  “We’ve got too many people coming, we’ve got too many people acting out and we have COVID at the same time, so it’s a triple threat,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told CBS Miami. “If you’re coming here because you think anything goes, you’re going to have a terrible time. We’re going to arrest you.” 

The Spin Rack: A monstrous dust storm described as the worst in at least 10 years shrouded Beijing in a fog of dirt, grounding flights, closing schools, and forcing people to stay inside. — The Jesuit conference of priests, a prominent order of Catholic priests, has vowed to raise $100 million to benefit the descendants of the slaves it once owned. — The Senate has confirmed Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo, as Secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American Cabinet secretary in US history. — Britain’s 99-year-old Prince Phillip is out of the hospital.

The Obit Page: Polish adventurer Aleksander Doba, who kayaked alone across the Atlantic twice in his 60s and again at age 70, died of high-altitude pulmonary edema February 22^nd on the summit of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro. 

  Before his Atlantic adventures, Doba had paddled the circumference of the Baltic Sea and the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle.

  On his last Atlantic trip, which lasted 110 days, Boba lived on jars of his wife’s plum jam, freeze-dried goulash and porridge, chocolate bars, and homemade wine. 

The Handsy Governor: Charlotte Bennett, one of the women accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of inappropriate behavior, spoke yesterday for four hours with investigators. Her lawyer, Debra Katz, said Bennett provided “120 pages of contemporaneous notes.” Katz also said, “One piece of new information that came to light today was the governor’s preoccupation with his hand size and what the large size of his hands indicated to Charlotte and other members of the staff.”

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