Good morning and welcome to your weekday morning roundup of the top stories you need to know.
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What's going on today:
- Waning influence? Trump urged GOP Senators to vote "no" on raising the debt ceiling. 11 including Mitch McConnell ignored him and voted to pave the way for passage. Some Senate Republicans broke with Trump to help Democrats clear a procedural vote paving the way for final passage.
- AOC goes for Joe's jugular. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Joe Manchin's demands to cut working family policies from final spending bill. "Ah yes, the Conservative Dem position: 'You can either feed your kid, recover from your c-section, or have childcare so you can go to work - but not all three,'" Rep. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
- GOP comes clean to Congress about Arizona. Arizona Republicans testified before Congress that Biden won "free, fair, and accurate elections" in Maricopa County. One of the GOP officials told the House that lawmakers being unwilling to accept accurate election results are a "threat to our democracy."
- A teacher is out over "field slave" comment. A North Carolina teacher resigned after word spread that she told Black students that without the Constitution, they would be her "field slaves." The Winterville Charter Academy in North Carolina has come under fire from parents and students who allege that the school permitted racist behavior.
- No more monetizing misinformation. Google and YouTube say they will cut off climate-change deniers from being able to monetize their content and display ads. The company will be using a mix of algorithms and human review to enforce its new monetization policy later this year.
- Two new studies shed light on Pfizer vax's longterm effectiveness. Pfizer's COVID-19 immunity protection diminishes after 2 months, and it can reach as low as 20% after 4 months: studies. Studies found Pfizer is much less effective at defending against COVID-19 infection after a few months, but its protection against hospitalization and death is still high.
- We regret to inform you QAnon is still at it. QAnon circles are spreading a conspiracy theory about photos of Biden's White House staging area, claiming it's proof that he's a fake president. The conspiracy theory that the White House created a fake set for President Joe Biden to get his booster shot has been debunked by Politifact.
- That's all for now. See you Monday.