Federal government funding expires on Friday. The full-year spending package, which House Democrats plan to unveil as soon as Tuesday, could allow the waivers to continue for the 2022-23 school year.But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking the extension of the waivers, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. So the provision is not in the spending package, as of now.McConnell's office did not respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the GOP ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office also did not respond to a request for comment.Congress gave the USDA the authority to boost school meal reimbursement rates and to waive certain requirements in a coronavirus relief package approved in March 2020 and then again in a federal spending measure that fall. School districts were scrambling to provide millions of children with the meals they would have received had schools not shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic.The waivers will remain throughout this school year, but if the authority expires after that, the average school district will see a 40% reduction in reimbursements for meals, according to the USDA. The extension would cost an estimated $11 billion, per the department.Essential flexibilitiesThe USDA is using the authority to help schools cope with the higher cost of providing meals during the pandemic and the ensuing supply chain chaos and labor shortages. It is reimbursing districts at a summer rate of $4.56 per meal, on average, as opposed to the typical $2.91 per meal for the school year. It is also allowing schools to provide free meals to all students, instead of requiring them to verify families' incomes.Plus, the agency is able to provide districts with more flexibility to handle pandemic outbreaks -- such as letting students eat in their classrooms or providing grab-and-go meals for children who must quarantine at home.The USDA can also waive penalties for school districts that can't meet nutrition requirements -- including those governing whole grains, sodium and vegetables -- because of supply chain problems.Menu planning already underwaySchool districts are currently planning menus and placing orders, but it's difficult to do so when they don't know how much they'll be reimbursed or what flexibilities they'll have, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Association. Members are lobbying their representatives to provide districts and their suppliers with the assurance that the waivers will be extended beyond this school year."The need is greater now than ever," Jack Miniard, president of the Kentucky School Nutrition Association, wrote to McConnell on Sunday in a letter obtained by CNN. "While the virus is waning, the effects persist." Some 92% of school meal programs are experiencing challenges due to supply chain disruptions, according to a USDA survey released last week. Products are not available, orders are arriving with missing or substituted items, and shortages of cooks, food prep personnel, drivers and maintenance staff continue. This is forcing schools to pay more for food and for workers."They are really relying on these higher reimbursement rates to cover these new, higher costs," said Pratt-Heavner, noting that the shortages are expected to last into the next school year.Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, is providing a $3.50 an hour bonus to cafeteria staff to retain them, but it still has 90 vacant positions, rather than the typical 50 open ones, said Dan Ellnor, assistant director for school and community nutrition services. And food costs have already risen 15% and are expected to increase another 10%, or $2 million, next year.Plus, the district, which serves 90,000 meals a day, is contending with shortages in items such as cardboard lunch trays and baby carrots. The substitutions, such as kiwis for carrots, frequently cost more, Ellnor said.The end of the waivers will also have an impact on summer meal distribution. Multiple districts have said they'll have to stop serving meals or significantly cut back if they lose the flexibilities they've had during the pandemic, said Lisa Davis, senior vice president of Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign. The waivers allow districts to provide families with meals for multiple days or to drop off food for children. That helped the summer meal program to grow from 95 million meals served in 2019 to nearly 263 million in 2020 and nearly 191 million last summer."They can't afford to run it without the flexibilities," Davis said. "It's a lot more expensive to try to operate a site every day."

Wayne Perkey, for 30 years the "morning man" on WHAS radio in Louisville and a longtime host of the WHAS Crusade for Children, has died at age 84.       

The system cited a decline in cases in the area and the school system as reasons for the decision.       

Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.) Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.Protesters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York Times1. Investigators found gaps in White House logs of Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 calls.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has found few records of calls by President Donald Trump during critical hours when investigators know that he was making them.The sparse call records are the latest major obstacle to the panel’s mission: recreating what Trump was doing behind closed doors during the assault on Congress by a mob of his supporters.Call logs obtained by the committee document who was calling the White House switchboard, and any calls that were being made from the White House. Trump had a habit of circumventing that system by using his personal cellphone and those of his aides.Separately, the National Archives discovered what it believed was classified information in documents that Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office, according to a person briefed on the matter.Seasonally adjusted. Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York Times2. Prices climbed 7.5 percent in January, the fastest inflation since 1982.The underlying details of the Consumer Price Index report showed that price pressures are moving into longer-lasting categories. January’s inflation was driven by food, electricity and shelter costs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.Inflation increasingly appears to be driven less by the pandemic and more by a strong economy. The new data added to expectations that the Fed will raise interest rates by half a percentage point in March. Stocks tumbled and bond yields rose on the news.Truckers and supporters protest vaccine mandates in Ottawa today. Blair Gable/Reuters3. The Canada trucker protests have shut down car plants.Several blockades protesting vaccine mandates targeted some of the busiest routes linking Canada to the U.S., disrupting supply chains and causing production stoppages.The protests have slowed traffic on the Ambassador Bridge, which links Detroit with Windsor, Ontario. Trucks carry $300 million worth of goods across the bridge every day. G.M., Ford Motor, Toyota and Honda have suspended operations at plants in Michigan and Ontario because of the disruptions.The blockades are a spillover from demonstrations in Ottawa that began nearly two weeks ago. Our correspondent describes the scene in Ottawa, a quiet capital city that has been transformed into a nonstop tailgate party. It’s clear the truckers plan to stay put, she writes.A Covid testing site at Churchill Downs last month in Louisville, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images4. Covid infections and hospitalization are falling in the U.S., but unevenly.As the country moves toward a new, less restrictive stage of the pandemic, some areas are still tightly in the grip of the Omicron variant. A handful of states in the South, including Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia, reported their highest number of new cases in mid- to late January. Hospitalizations and deaths were also troublingly high.In New York City, up to 3,000 municipal workers are expected to be fired tomorrow for refusing to get vaccinated.Next week, scientific advisers to the F.D.A. will decide whether to endorse two doses of the Pfizer vaccine for children from 6 months to 4 years of age, before the results from trials of a three-dose regimen. The agency’s review of incomplete data as a basis for authorization has alarmed some experts.A satellite image shows troops and equipment deployments at an air base in Belarus on Thursday.Maxar Technologies/Via Reuters5. Russian forces began large-scale military exercises near Ukraine.Thousands of troops started 10 days of military exercises in Belarus and Ukraine warned of upcoming Russian naval drills so extensive they would block shipping lanes.Russia promised that its troops would leave Belarus after the exercises there conclude. But Western officials worry that the exercises could be a cover to position more forces around Ukraine.Diplomatic efforts are scheduled to continue. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was preparing written responses in its back-and-forth with the U.S. and NATO, and that he was planning on speaking with President Emmanuel Macron of France in the coming days.Holiday traffic in Denver.David Zalubowski/Associated Press6. Billions in infrastructure funding could worsen global warming.Building and expanding roads often just spurs people to drive more instead of reducing congestion, a phenomenon known as “induced traffic demand.” A new rule in Colorado, one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, marks a significant new approach.The state adopted a first-of-its-kind regulation that will redirect funding away from highway expansions and toward projects that cut vehicle pollution, such as buses and bike lanes. Colorado officials estimate the rule could reduce driving miles by 7 to 12 percent.In France, President Emmanuel Macron outlined plans to build up to 14 new-generation atomic reactors as the country seeks to slash planet-warming emissions. “The time has come for a nuclear renaissance,” he said.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images7. The C.D.C. proposed new guidelines for treating pain, including with opioids.The draft proposal removes its previous recommended ceilings on doses for chronic pain patients and instead encourages doctors to use their best judgment.But the overall thrust of the guidelines was that doctors should first turn to “nonopioid therapies,” including prescription and over-the-counter medications, as well as physical therapy, massage and acupuncture. The recommendations are now open on the Federal Register for public comment for 60 days and a final version is expected by the end of 2022.In other health news, Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the virus that causes AIDS, has died. He was 89.Chloe Kim in the halfpipe on Thursday.Photographs by Jeremy White; composite image by Eleanor Lutz8. Nathan Chen and Chloe Kim won gold in Beijing.Chen, the U.S. figure skating star, won in breathtaking fashion, finishing first in the short program and again in the free skate. He made it happen with five jet-fueled quadruple jumps.Kim opened the halfpipe competition the same way she did in 2018, with a first run that no one could top. Kim knew it, too: She fell on her knees in joy and laughed, as if she had shocked even herself.Shaun White is closing out his Olympic snowboarding career with three runs tonight. And for the first time in five Games, he will be an underdog.Here are the latest updates, the medal count (plus who’s really winning) and how to watch.“The Plague of Florence, 1348,” a 19th-century etching by Luigi Sabatelli.Alamy9. Did the Black Death really kill half of Europe? New research says no.By analyzing ancient deposits of pollen as markers of agricultural activity, researchers from Germany found that the Black Death caused a patchwork of destruction. Some regions of Europe did indeed suffer devastating losses from the bubonic plague, but other regions held stable, and some even boomed.In the 14th century, most Europeans worked on farms. If half of all Europeans died between 1347 and 1352, agricultural activity would have plummeted. In Greece and central Italy, the pollen told a story of devastation. But in Ireland, central Spain and Lithuania, pollen suggested an increase in agricultural activity.The cap of Amelia Earhart that Anthony Twiggs inherited.Shelby Tauber for The New York Times10. And finally, an Amelia Earhart mystery solved (not that one).The response from the experts was always the same: So, your mom told you this aviator’s helmet belonged to Amelia Earhart?Anthony Triggs, a retired photographer, inherited the cap 20 years ago from his mother. She had told him that it was a gift from an admirer, who had found it on the ground during the Women’s National Air Derby of 1929, in which the legendary aviator finished third.To link his mother’s keepsake to Earhart, Triggs tried photo matching, comparing the headgear digitally with old photos. The results were promising, and a professional firm verified his findings. He’s happy about the windfall, but just as relieved that his mother’s story turned out to be true.Have an authentic evening.Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [email protected] are today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

.zn-body-text h3:not(.el__headline):not(.cd__headline):before {margin:30px auto 20px;} .pg.t-light .zn-body-text h3 {text-align:center; font-weight:700;} Instead, amid a highly transmissible variant still gripping large swaths of the nation, they have found their lives perpetually disrupted by the virus in recent weeks as they cared for infected family members, set out on epic scavenger hunts for tests and were consumed with worries about whether they and their friends could stay safe at a time when many employers are asking workers to return after shorter periods of quarantine. "I feel really burned out with this whole thing," said McClintock, voicing a sentiment felt by many Americans as she ran errands with fiancé Matthew LaBelle, 28, at a Louisville mall last week. Expressing dismay this is now "year three" of the pandemic, she noted she and LaBelle struggled not just to find at-home tests within an hour of their home in Bedford, Kentucky, but also masks and tools like pulse oximeters that can monitor the oxygen saturation in the blood of loved ones who are sick. "We knew what was coming and yet it doesn't feel like anybody was prepared for it," said McClintock, who works for a pool service company. "I feel like we, as a people, haven't been set up for success." As Omicron surged across the United States this winter, many Americans found their lives once again upended as the latest phase of the virus shattered the illusion that the US was approaching a return to pre-pandemic life. Though cases are down across most of the country since reaching a peak, the daily disruptions continue, from the anxiety-provoking scrambles for child care as children are forced to quarantine, to the mundane inconveniences like long lines and shuttered bank branches caused by labor shortages. In more than two dozen interviews in Kentucky, Texas and California, many who spoke to CNN described frustration, exhaustion and anxiety as they try to accept uncertainty as their new normal. In Washington, DC, White House officials are trying to strike a hopeful tone, with Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients arguing last week the US is continuing to "move toward a time when Covid won't disrupt our daily lives." But that future is still difficult for many to envision. "It's kind of like a never-ending cycle with all the variants and everything," said Gilberto Reyes-Chuela, 24, a college biology student who works at a Hispanic grocery store in Louisville owned by his parents. The mental health toll of daily life is still heavy, he said, from arguments with customers over masking to those who arrive asking for money to help bury relatives who have died. "They'll come in and bring like a little box, and they'll ask for money so they could send the body back to their home country to be buried ... Sometimes you recognize the people and -- this is more of a mental thing -- you realize that life is short," Reyes-Chuela said. "I don't know if we're turning a corner or getting out of it, but I think we're just in a rut." For some who have chosen to remain unvaccinated, there have been huge life changes. Toccarra Gartin, 39, the mother of a 17-year-old and 4-year-old from Floyd County, Indiana, said she was terminated in October after her employer, a health insurance company, did not accept her request for a religious exemption to the Covid vaccine. Gartin is Rastafarian, a religion she has practiced for more than a decade. She cashed in her 401(k) to support the family but worries about keeping up the payments for the internet -- especially if her kids are in remote learning -- as well as the mortgage and car payments. "I've been looking for employment. Unfortunately -- I think it is due to me not being vaccinated -- I submit my religious exemption whenever I do apply, but the majority of the time I get, 'Thanks for trying, but we went with someone else,'" she said. Gartin said she wears her mask faithfully and gets tested each week but has still lost friends over her vaccination status and often feels as if she is being treated as a "second-class citizen." "Mentally, that has drained me," she said. Unlike Gartin, many workers have been voluntarily leaving their jobs through the pandemic, with older Americans citing early retirement and young people looking for better pay. Omicron has become another factor in the complicated reality of the pandemic-era labor force. During the period from December 29 to January 10, a stunning 11.9 million people said they could not work because they either were sick from Covid, caring for someone with coronavirus symptoms or because they were concerned about getting or spreading the virus, according to the Census Bureau's most recent Household Pulse Survey. The fear of getting sick with Covid-19 recently led Diana Lopez, 38, to quit her job at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Houston. If she were to become severely ill, she said the virus could mean leaving her three children, ages 6, 9 and 13, as orphans in a relatively new country after relocating from El Salvador a few years ago. "I couldn't stand seeing co-workers who were in the kitchen with (Covid-19) symptoms talking about not wanting to get vaccinated or saying the virus is not real. I'm scared because they were just sent home to quarantine and return to work within days. There are no other health measures, like asking employees to get vaccinated," said Lopez as she watched her children climb and run at a playground.For the past week, she's been applying for jobs and hoping she will be hired to stock shelves at a Walmart. It's a job that would allow her to socially distance more than working at a restaurant, and those safety concerns are paramount to her right now. People are 'eager to have their freedom back' Martin Campa, a professional clown in Houston known as Tin Tin Campa, who earns his living making families laugh at parties, has watched people's attitudes about the pandemic change over the past few years from fear and resilience to indifference. "Sometimes it seems like people forgot about the pandemic. They are not wearing face masks at all. They are dancing close to each other. I've been to homes where there are zero (health) measures taken," Campa, 49, said in Spanish as he applied his clown makeup at a mall in the Houston suburb of Humble. "It's complicated. ... I entrust myself to God...and may it be what God wants," he added when asked about what he does in those circumstances. "Thankfully, I'm fully vaccinated and boosted and if there's another dose, I'll take it." The pandemic pushed Campa to find a new life. After the Circo Hermanos Vazquez, the renowned circus he was a part of, temporarily shut down due to Covid-19, Campa was left with no home, no income and a family to feed. He initially painted homes and delivered food but as Americans longed for a return to normalcy and began throwing parties, he found a way to once again entertain as a clown. "They were eager to have their freedom back, eager to laugh again. Because they can't go to the circus or go to the movies, they are bringing entertainment home," Campa said. Still, grim reminders of the pandemic persist. In May, Campa said a family canceled a party when a mother died from Covid, and days later, decided to host the festivities to help the children cope with the loss. The collective eagerness to reach a sense of normalcy has taken a heavy toll on health workers at the HOPE Clinic, a community health center for the uninsured in Houston with a focus on the city's Asian American community. "We have to operate low because we have no staff or the staff is so burnt out. You can see the unhappiness, stress and anxiety on their faces," said Shane Chen, the clinic's chief operating officer, adding the clinic recently reduced its service hours indefinitely to accommodate staffing shortages caused by Omicron infections. Staff members have been "frantically trying to get people tested and vaccinated," Chen said, while keeping themselves and their loved ones healthy for months. But at some point, after many waves of the pandemic, "the resiliency of people starts to wane," she said. With waves of school infections, the work-life juggling act returns Covid-19 cases cycling through schools have also created continual stress for parents across the country as warning notices from school officials seem to arrive each week, announcing new cases and potential exposures for close contacts. The Biden administration has insisted children can remain in school through test-to-stay procedures, but school testing and quarantine policies still vary widely, sometimes with different rules for children who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. Scattered districts across the country have returned to remote learning for stints ranging from a day to weeks, because of staff shortages or high case numbers, including some public schools in Kentucky, Texas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Michigan and Maryland. Flint Community Schools in Michigan recently announced they would extend their virtual learning period indefinitely, the worst-nightmare scenario for parents who cannot stay home. Laurel Golden is one of the Chicago Public Schools parents who sued the Chicago Teachers Union in early January to force schools to open after the union's teachers refused to show up for in-person classes because of Covid concerns. She said her nine-year-old son will only have had five days of in-person learning in January by the time he goes back, including the days lost during the weeklong standoff with the union, followed by a mandatory 10-day quarantine after her son was exposed to Covid in his classroom. Life right now, Golden said, "is a state of not knowing what the next week will bring." "I get these emails two to three times a week sometimes from their schools, and it says there's been an exposure in the school -- and if you need to take further action, you'll get a further email," said Golden, who has three sons in public school. "Then I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it's not for one of our classrooms."Though she had hoped to return to her work in customer service, Golden told CNN she put those plans on the "back burner" when the standoff began between the teachers' union and the district. "There's too much unknown," she said. (Chicago students returned to in-person instruction in mid-January after the union reached an agreement with city and district officials for upgraded safety protocols). Fatima Omar recently faced a nerve-wracking situation when she was told her 10-year-old son would have to stay home from his school in Houston for a week after a classmate tested positive for the virus. Her mother died early in the pandemic and she has made it part of her family's routine to sanitize their home and get tested often. "I was very scared. Oh my God. ... It was too much," said the 33-year-old in west Houston while waiting in the car pick up line at her son's school. "I've lost a lot of people to the virus." Shahrzad Javid, a 38-year-old single mom, turned to her "village" -- her parents, her brother and sister-in-law, and some close friends -- to help juggle her seven-year-old daughter's new schedule when Louisville's Jefferson County Public Schools returned to remote learning for a two-week period that ended earlier this month. "It feels like your life just becomes very jumbled. And then you have to just take a step back and say: 'This is the situation, so I'm going to do the best I can,'" said Javid, who works for a Louisville land development company. And for other parents, staying home with their children during remote learning and having to miss work simply isn't an option they can afford, several Louisville residents told CNN.Jefferson County parents were advised the district will make a "day-to-day" determination on whether classes will remain in-person, meaning moms and dads like Javid are living text message to text message. It's not just parents who are in a precarious position. Many told CNN remote instruction hindered their children's school progress and had a profound impact on their mental health.Steve Ullum, a real estate agent and single dad to his 11-year-old daughter, moved away from the Jefferson County school district to enroll his daughter into a private school last fall to avoid more remote instruction, after her grades plummeted and her stress "skyrocketed.""I couldn't watch my daughter sink any further," he added. For parents of young children, constant vigilance and a waiting game For families with young children under the age of 5 who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated, or parents who do not yet feel comfortable vaccinating their children, life often feels like a recurring battle to stay vigilant and keep their kids safe. Lilibeth Rivas, 20, had hoped to be working in a warehouse in Santa Ana, California, this year while finishing her GED, but it would require putting her two-year-old and three-year-old children in day care. Though she is struggling to pay for food and rent, she says she still cannot bring herself to take that step after watching the near-death experiences of so many family members who contracted Covid. "Everybody got Covid except me and my kids, the little ones," Rivas said as the family spread out on a blanket at a Santa Ana park to celebrate her mother's birthday. "Everybody almost died from that." "I haven't worked because of my kids. I don't want to expose them," Rivas said, noting the park visit was their first time leaving the house for fun in nearly a month. "Even for school, I only go like once a week, or twice, so I won't get exposed around there." It's a struggle many are living across the country.Rachel Weiss, an associate professor of medicine from Shelby County, Kentucky, who has five-year-old twins and a two-year-old daughter, said her family has "successfully navigated two-plus years now without anyone becoming sick." Their primary goal is "to keep the virus out of our family, at least until the youngest can get vaccinated." It requires constantly re-evaluating the safety of everything the family does. They still worry most about what the impact of long Covid could be on their children, symptoms Weiss says she has seen firsthand through her work. One large study last year revealed one in three Covid-19 survivors experienced symptoms months after getting infected, including breathing problems, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, pain and anxiety, among other issues. "I make my decisions for our family and for my kids based on, 'Will I be OK with that decision 10 years from now?'" Weiss said. "If one of my kids, or myself, or family member ended up with long haul (Covid), because I was tired of wearing a mask or wanted to go to something that I knew was unsafe -- but it was just easier to say yes to -- would I be OK with that decision? For me, the answer is no."

University of Louisville administrators said they wanted to "clarify" policies on "flexible scheduling" for faculty amid the COVID-19 pandemic.       

The two-week pause will began Monday, Jan. 10, but some events may still be held virtually. LFPL later extended the pause through Jan. 31.