The Morning Dispatch: Checking in on Vaccine Mandates

Happy Thursday! For the second day in a row: Playoff baseball is electric—even when it brings the Cardinals’ magical 2021 run to a close.*

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Congress’ debt limit stalemate appears to be coming to a temporary end, with Democrats signaling last night they will accept a proposal from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier in the day whereby Republicans will not filibuster a bill raising the debt ceiling by a “fixed dollar amount” to “cover current spending levels into December.” The deal would create a similar government-funding/debt-limit cliff in two months, but will “give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation,” McConnell said.

  • The World Health Organization on Wednesday formally recommended the world’s first-ever malaria vaccine for “widespread use” among children in sub-Saharan Africa after a years-long pilot program in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. The vaccine is administered in four doses over the course of 18 months, and reduces severe cases of malaria—which kills about 400,000 people every year—by about 30 percent.

  • Average gas prices in the United States reached $3.21 per gallon on Wednesday according to GasBuddy data, the highest level since 2014. Earlier this week, a group of oil-producing nations—OPEC Plus—neglected to significantly ramp up oil production in the face of rising global demand. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said yesterday the Biden administration is considering releasing some of America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the first time since 2011 in an effort to bring prices down.

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