Happy Monday! One piece of bookkeeping before we begin: Declan is on vacation this week, which means that for the time being this newsletter fully supports the St. Louis Cardinals, currently three games up on the Cubs in the NL Central.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• In the wake of updated Centers for Disease Control guidance last week that vaccinated people can safely mingle without masks, a number of states lifted or eased their public-space mask mandates, including Michigan, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. 

• Other states, including Connecticut and Delaware, plan to relax their mandates shortly, and still others, like Massachusetts, have said they will issue updated guidance soon. Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said he would lift his state’s mandate once 70 percent of Marylanders have received at least one vaccine dose. 

• Israel escalated its airstrikes over the weekend in the Gaza Strip, hitting the home of a senior Hamas leader and destroying a building that was used by the Associated Press and other journalists.