::THE SLICE REPORT WITH MONA AUSTIN

One year ago today, Pres. Joe Biden successfully capped the cost of insulin at a more affordable rate for all diabetes sufferers. He went after Big Pharma such as drug maker Eli Lilly to set $35 as the maximum out-of-pocket expense for insulin users. The cost of insulin in the United States is significantly higher than in other parts of the world, which poses challenges for those who rely on it for their health. Often, the cost burden affects families in instances where multiple people in the same household rely on insulin medication. The removal of the affordability hurdle has impacted millions. Insulin is a crucial medication for both type 1 diabetics (approximately 1.4 million people) and roughly 21% of type 2 diabetics (around 6.9 million people) who need it to regulate their blood glucose levels. Data for the National Diabetes Annual Report and the CDC indicates that approximately 8.4 million Americans rely on insulin to manage their diabetes. Among them, 2.9 million adults a...

Staff Report BACKGROUND: On March 8, 2022 a group of White House reporters had enough of their questions being ignored in press briefings. Their frustration came to a tipping point when a front row colleague signaled to the press secretary to call the session to an end. Unfamiliar with this longstanding tradition, more than half of the reporters. who did not get to ask their questions -- disapproved, wanting an explanation as to why a peer was given the time-keeping task. As their voices united to demand a more fair and equitable approach, Mona Austin a White House Correspondent for The Slice News, asked if the issue of guided press engagement was a concern for the White House Correspondent Association. President of the White House Correspondent's Association Steve Portnoy then intervened. For months correspondents in the back rows of the briefing room complained among themselves and sometimes to Press Secretary Jen Psaki as she was leaving the room that more questions sho...

  In January 2021, on my first day in office, I directed the Department of Education to pause federal student loan repayments through September of that year. At the time, our economy was barely growing. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans were fully vaccinated. Millions of Americans were struggling to stay afloat. Because of that pause in repayments, 41 million Americans were able to breathe a little easier during some of the toughest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, America is stronger than we were a year ago—and we will be stronger a year from now than we are today. Thanks to our plan to build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, the economy has created 7.9 million jobs since I took office—the greatest year of job growth on record. We’ve seen the fastest economic growth in nearly 40 years. More than 217 million Americans are now fully vaccinated, and 2 out of 3 eligible adults are boosted. We have the tools we need to move forward safely and return to more normal...

(The Slice): The White House will undergo a special deep cleaning before the incoming Biden Administration moves in. The GSA is paying contractors to sanitize the building from top-to-bottom. As the site of numerous COVID-19 cases, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will be thoroughly disinfected to remove potential viral droplets after the Trump Administration ignored social distance guidelines in its daily operations and at several large "super spreader" events. Outgoing Pres. Donald Trump announced in October that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19. The spread didn't stop with the First Family, continuing to infect a group of staffers that had been in and out of the building on the campaign trail and their co-workers. Many people deemed Trump's leadership on managing the spread of the disease as highly irresponsible since he reluctantly wore a mask after contracting the disease publicly, but did not wear masks internally or require his staff t...