2020 Day 1173: Trump warned "there will be a lot of death" and this will be "toughest week"; Trump's trade adviser claimed – despite not being a medical doctor – that there was a "clear therapeutic efficacy" of hydroxychloroquine in treating the coronavirus; the Trump administration waited until mid-March to order masks and ventilators for healthcare workers; bank executives personally appealed to Ivanka Trump for higher interest rates for the Paycheck Protection Program; and Trump fired the intelligence community inspector general at the center of the Ukraine allegations that led to Trump's impeachment. Apr 6, 2020
2021 Day 77: All adults in the U.S. should be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by April 19; Texas Gov. Greg Abbott banned government agencies, private businesses, and organizations that receive state funding from creating "vaccine passports"; the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian ruled that Democrats could use budget reconciliation to advance more of Biden's agenda with a simple majority; Mitch McConnell warned businesses critical of state voting restrictions to "stay out of politics"; and carbon dioxide topped 420 parts per million in the atmosphere for the first time – the halfway point to doubling preindustrial CO2 levels. Apr 6, 2021
2022 Day 442: The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institution, its largest private lender, and Putin’s adult children; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs warned that the "potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing"; the Jan. 6 committee obtained emails belonging to Trump's lawyer; a Virginia state court has disbarred an attorney who represented several high-profile Jan. 6 defendants; the bipartisan $10 billion Covid-19 relief bill stalled in the Senate after Republicans blocked the measure from moving forward; and 37% of registered voters said Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should “definitely” recuse himself from any cases related to the 2020 presidential election. Apr 6, 2022
2023 Day 807: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted secret luxury vacations from a Republican megadonor for more than two decades without disclosing them; the Supreme Court refused to reinstate a West Virginia law barring transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams at school; the Biden administration proposed new regulations to make it illegal for schools to broadly ban transgender students from sports teams; Idaho's Republican governor signed a bill into law that makes it illegal to help a pregnant minor get an abortion in another state; Tennessee Republican lawmakers expelled the first of three Democratic legislators from the state House for leading a protest calling for gun reform; and the IMF warned that its outlook for global economic growth over the next five years is the weakest in more than three decades. Apr 6, 2023