Covid Nation: The Drug company Pfizer announced that it has an experimental pill that would reduce hospitalizations among coronavirus patients. Pfizer said its reduced the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk patients taking part in a trial by 89 percent. 

  The pill, taken with an existing antiviral drug called ritonavir, would be offered for people to people to take at home before they get sick enough to go to the hospital.

  Easing tensions with its labor force, New York City  reached an agreement with at least four unions representing 75,000 city employees to establish rules about how workers can apply for medical or religious exemptions to the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.

  Although about 92 percent of city employees are vaccinated, there’s resistance particularly among pockets of the police and firefighters.

  The unions agreed to withdraw their lawsuits and instead will have the right to appeal exemption denials to an outside arbitrator. 

  This morning 751,559 Americans are dead of the coronavirus.

US v Texas: The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the new Texas voting restrictions, claiming they harm voters with disabilities and violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

  “Our democracy depends on the right of eligible voters to cast a ballot and to have that ballot counted,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to use all the authorities at its disposal to protect this fundamental pillar of our society.”

  The law signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in September imposes new criminal penalties for violating voting laws, bans 24-hour and drive-through voting and allows more access for partisan poll watchers.

  It was a solution without a problem. Voting fraud is rare, despite what Donald Trump claims. Abbott said the legislation would “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”

Seatmates: The internet has been rife with videos of disturbances among airline passengers during the months of the pandemic. Passengers attacking each other, passengers hitting members of the flight crew. Now The Federal Aviation Administration announced it is referring 37 cases of unruly passengers to the FBI for potential criminal prosecution. 

  The FAA and Justice Department have been sharing information for quicker prosecution. “If you disrupt a flight, you risk not just fines from the FAA but federal criminal prosecution as well,” FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson said in a news release.

Under the Sea: The Navy has fired  senior officers of a nuclear-powered attack submarine that struck an undersea mountain last week in the South China Sea. 

  The USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class submarine, hit what’s called a seamount.  The Navy says there was damage to the forward ballast tanks but none to the nuclear systems on board. The collision caused a small number of injuries to the crew. 

  Fired were the captain, executive officer, and the senior enlisted man known as Chief of the Boat.

The Ball Bounces: Following a devastating report on ESPN, The NBA has launched an investigation into Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver, who was accused in the report of racist and misogynist behavior. 

  ESPN detailed several instances in which Sarver, who is white, was said to have used racially offensive language in conversations with and about Black players, coaches, and other staff. It also includes accounts of sexist and inappropriate behavior. 

   NBA Executive Vice President of Communications Mike Bass called the claims in the article “extremely serious.” 

The Spin Rack: A white male juror in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha was dismissed after making a joke  about Jacob Blake, the man whose death at the hands of the police sparked street disturbances in which Rittenhouse shot and killed two men. — More than 40 countries pledged yesterday to phase out coal as fuel to make electricity at the United Nations climate summit. Notably absent from the deal were China and India, which together burn roughly two-thirds of the world’s coal. Australia, #11 also was absent from the deal. — An analyst who was a key contributor to Democratic-funded opposition research known as the Steele Dossier involving possible links between Donald Trump and Russia was arrested yesterday and charged with lying to the FBI about his sources. The dossier was collection of unproven assertions suggesting Trump conspired with Russian intelligence officials to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. — According to Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press, the Hockey Hall of Fame has x’d out the name of former Chicago Blackhawks video coach and sexual abuser Bradley Aldrich from the 2010 Stanley Cup team engraving. 

Let them Not Eat Cake: Tastykake cakes have been pleasing kids and stoners for generations, but some of them appear to have an extra ingredient and the company has issued a recall.

  The company said some of the cakes could have tiny fragments of wire in them and you should throw them away. Their advisory includes the plain chocolate cupcakes, the creme-filled chocolate cupcake, as well as the buttercreme iced variety. Oh, no! Not the buttercremes!

Travel and Resorts: CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted, “Shoutout to the business traveler at Dulles walking through security who just realized her ticket was for a flight out of Dallas.”

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