(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: 11 things you need to know this Monday – March 14, 2022

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Earmarks Are Back, and They’re Just as Sleazy and Secretive As Ever – After a decadelong ban on the practice, members of Congress are once again loading up legislation with pork-barrel spending that the rest of us have to pay for.

The $1.5 trillion omnibus government funding bill that cleared the Senate on Thursday night (after passing the House earlier this week) marks the return of earmarks, spending that individual members of Congress can direct to their home districts. According to The Hill, citing a report being circulated among Senate Republicans, the 2,741-page bill includes more than 4,000 earmarks. – READ MORE

BIRD FLU TOLL LEAPS TO 2.8 MILLION CHICKENS AND TURKEYS – With new outbreaks in Iowa and Missouri, nearly 2.8 million birds — almost entirely chickens and turkeys — have died in one month due to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Agriculture Department said on Monday. The viral disease has been identified in 23 poultry farms and backyard flocks in a dozen states since February 8, when the first report of “high path” bird flu in a domestic flock was reported.

HPAI was confirmed over the weekend on a turkey farm with 50,000 birds in Buena Vista County in northwestern Iowa and in a backyard mixed-species flock of 43 birds in Bates County in western Missouri, about 50 miles south of Kansas City. – READ MORE

State Department official acknowledges Ukraine bio-labs – The United States continues to dismiss as “Russian propaganda” the claim that Ukraine is developing biological weapons.

However, the U.S. State Department’s top Ukraine official made a startling admission to a Senate committee in response to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s question, “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” – READ MORE

Massachusetts health department admits ‘significant overcount’ of COVID-19 deaths — and the number could still be much too high – The Massachusetts Department of Health announced this week that it would be tweaking its health tracking methodology after the approach led to a “significant overcount” in COVID-19 deaths in the state.

In a press release Thursday, the department acknowledged it would be retroactively removing 4,081 deaths from the state’s overall count while adding 400 deaths, making the net change a decrease of roughly 3,700. – READ MORE

Moderna CEO made more than $18 million in 2021, could receive golden parachute worth nearly $1 billion – Moderna is a biotechnology company that was founded in 2010 and develops medicines based on mRNA technology. Stéphane Bancel – who was previously a top executive at pharmaceutical behemoth Eli Lilly and Company and CEO of French biotech company bioMérieux – was hired as CEO of Moderna in 2011.

Moderna went public in 2018 and raised more than $600 million at its initial public offering, making it the biggest biotechnology IPO at the time. – READ MORE

Pfizer seeking emergency approval for 4th COVID shot! – Despite the mildness of the dominant omicron variant and the evidence that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine hasn’t stopped infection or transmission of SARS-CoV-2 while posing serious health risks, the company’s CEO is asking the FDA to grant emergency use authorization for a second booster, a fourth shot.

“Clearly there is a need in an environment of omicron to boost the immune response,” Albert Bourla said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” – READ MORE

California officials raided preschool, interviewed 2-year-olds over mask policies –California state regulators conducted an investigation at a San Diego preschool and privately interviewed children as young as 2 without their parents’ consent about their masking practices.

Officials with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) visited all three locations of Aspen Leaf Preschool in January after receiving a complaint that the school was not enforcing the state’s mask mandate, according to the CDSS’ response to a complaint by the preschool’s owner, Howard Wu. – READ MORE

United Airlines Will Allow Unvaccinated Employees to Return to Work After Placing Thousands on Unpaid Leave – United Airlines will allow unvaccinated staff to return to work on March 28 after placing more than 2,000 employees who received religious or medical exemptions on unpaid leave, CNBC reported Thursday.

According to the outlet, the airline cited a “steep decline” in coronavirus cases as the reason for changing its policy. The move also comes just a few weeks after Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom mobilized the workers who were placed on unpaid leave to send potentially thousands of letters to the airline’s board of directors, telling them of the many hardships they have endured as the result of CEO Scott Kirby’s vaccine mandate. – READ MORE

COVID pandemic contributed to historic number of students falling below reading benchmark – The COVID pandemic contributed to a third of young grade school students missing reading benchmarks, which is up significantly from pre-pandemic rates, according to several studies.

A recent Virginia report discussed data collected from The Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) K-2 assessment, a tool used to evaluate students’ risk for reading difficulties that spanned three fall assessment periods in 132 school divisions. The study looked at rates of “at-risk” students K-2, pre-pandemic (2019) to the fall of 2021 when students returned to in- classroom learning. – READ MORE

A Whopping 85% Of Maryland Students Are Not Proficient In Math After COVID School Closures – A full 85% of students in Maryland are not proficient in math, in large part due to the COVID-19 shutdowns of the past two years.

Fox Baltimore reported that results from recent state test scores revealed the “stunning amount of learning loss,” a prediction the outlet said experts made during the pandemic that has now come true. – READ MORE

Attorneys: FBI Sources Plied Men With Drugs, Orchestrated Alleged Whitmer Kidnapping Plot – The attorneys of four men charged with attempting to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer say that FBI agents and sources used drugs and “parlor tricks” in an illegal attempt to entrap their clients.

Federal prosecutors and the defense attorneys of Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox, and Daniel Harris delivered opening statements on Wednesday in the domestic terrorism case over a 2020 plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer over her handling of COVID-19. Two men have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the case, but attorneys for Caserta, Croft, Fox, and Harris argued in court that their clients were entangled in a case of federal entrapment. – READ MORE