Yes, remarkable  And we’re back. Not only that, Martin Enserink points out, “It's Monday, so there’s great vaccine news: The final results from Moderna’s 30,000-participant trial. Most surprising new finding: 100% efficacy against severe disease.” He links to Jon Cohen’s story at Science magazine, ‘Absolutely remarkable’: No one who got Moderna’s vaccine in trial developed severe COVID-19.
Really good news can seem a little hard to believe, considering, well, 2020, but “Yes, remarkable is a good descriptor,” Eric J. Topol assures us. Enserink highlights “Another crucial finding: The Moderna vaccine worked well in every group. Among the 30k participants were more than 7,000 over age 65; more than 5,000 under 65 but at higher risk of severe COVID-19; and more than 11,000 from communities of color.” “But months away. So please #MaskUp,” tweets Heather Berlin.  In the meantime, Moderna is asking US and European regulators to allow emergency use of its virus shots, reports Lauran Neergaard of AP News. Dr. Tal Zaks, the company’s chief medical officer, told Neergaard that when he learned the results of the trial, “I allowed myself to cry for the first time. We have already, just in the trial, have already saved lives. Just imagine the impact then multiplied to the people who can get this vaccine.”
As Denise Grady explains at The New York Times, like Pfizer’s, Moderna’s vaccine uses a synthetic form of genetic material from the coronavirus called messenger RNA, or mRNA. “No mRNA vaccine has reached the market before, and the candidates from Pfizer and Moderna have faced considerable skepticism from scientists and a wary public,” she notes. “But the strong results from both vaccines have begun to quash the doubts.” The Biden administration Some more big news to start your week. Annie Linskey and Jeff Stein broke the story at The Washington Post that Biden has hired an all-female senior communications team. Jennifer Psaki will be Biden’s White House press secretary and Kate Bedingfield will be communications director. They point out that it’s the first time all of the top aides tasked with speaking on behalf of an administration and shaping its message will be female. Ken Thomas of The Wall Street Journal had the scoop on the economic team appointments, reporting that the President-elect’s picks include Neera Tanden to head the Office of Management and Budget and Cecilia Rouse to chair the Council of Economic Advisers. Peter Cunningham thinks it’s a “Great team coming together for @JoeBiden including @jrpsaki and @neeratanden--pros who understand the gravity of their jobs and the opportunity to do good. So reassuring after four years of incompetence, deceit, and indifference to the needs of people.” Meanwhile... A source tells Mark Scolforo of AP News that Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania abruptly left a West Wing meeting with Trump after being informed he had tested positive for the coronavirus. John Aravosis puts it this way: “The loony state Senator pushing trump’s fraudulent election claims in Pennsylvania tested positive for Covid while sitting with Trump in the Oval Office.” Would you like to guess whether he was wearing a mask during that meeting?  Christopher Woody notices “That famous Trump attention to detail: ‘All participants in Wednesday’s meeting took COVID-19 tests, but the positive results were not announced until they were in the West Wing of the White House.’” The source told Scolforo, “The president instantly called the White House doctor in and he took them back to, I guess, the medical place.”
Russ Walker thinks that story is proof “The new writers have a sense of humor.” Here’s more: Rosalind Helderman of The Washington Post reports that the Wisconsin recount confirms Biden’s win over Trump, cementing the president’s failure to change the election results. “Under Wisconsin law, Trump was required to foot the bill — meaning his campaign paid $3 million, only to see Biden widen his margin,” she writes. “In which visionary businessman @realDonaldTrump pays $3 million to lose 87 more votes to @JoeBiden,” tweets Arthur Goldstein. “Trump just lighting donor $$ on 🔥,” notes Sarah Longwell.  Now this is a real journey. Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner of The Post take us through 20 days of fantasy and failure: Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election. Bill Grueskin highlights “As perfect a nutgraf as you’ll ever read: ‘With his denial of the outcome, Trump endangered America’s democracy, threatened to undermine national security and public health, and duped millions of supporters into believing Biden was elected illegitimately.’”
Amr Khalifa thinks “#Trump should have been Article twentyfived long ago. This is the best article on his attempts to undermine American electoral democracy. A deranged president.” This Max Headroom reboot sucks In his latest New York Times column, The King of Trump TV Thinks You’re Dumb Enough to Buy It, Ben Smith writes about how Chris Ruddy, the C.E.O. of Newsmax, has found a business opportunity in feeding Trump supporters the fantasy that the president could still win the election.  “Dear God this @benyt column,” says Daniel Drezner, who highlights, “Nobody I’ve ever covered treats an audience with the blithe disdain of Mr. Ruddy. He has them watching a great story — a thriller, a whodunit — about a stolen election. He thinks they’re stupid enough to fall for it.” And Jeremy Barr quotes from the piece, “Ben Smith on Chris Ruddy: ‘His insights — 62 quotes in The New York Times in the last four years, 61 in The Washington Post and 51 appearances on CNN — deliver what journalists crave: up-close insights about the president.’”
Kara Swisher says this is a “Key line in this @benyt column on @ChrisRuddyNMX, plus that it only has a paltry $59m in revenue: ‘Newsmax now needs to raise more money, or sell fast, if it’s going to keep upgrading its talent and production quality to press its advantage with Fox News.’” The point, though, says Maura Johnston, “this MAX HEADROOM reboot sucks.” Why you can’t dismiss the myths The truth is, none of this is funny. Marshall Shepherd links to a “Great and yet sad interview” on “60 Minutes” by CBS News’ Scott Pelley with fired director of U.S. cyber agency Chris Krebs, who explained why Trump’s claims of election interference are false. And in a New York Times op-ed, Jochen Bittner writes that 1918 Germany Has a Warning for America. Ron Bousso says “It’s perhaps a horrible and scary comparison but it raises the valid point that a potent lie can grow into a deep-running scar in a society.” Adds Andrew Verity, “Excellent reminder here about why you can’t dismiss myths just because they're obviously false. If enough people go with a story - because their wish to believe it is stronger than their interest in the facts - it can still change everything.” ‘Teachers are not OK right now’ As Eliza Shapiro of The New York Times reports that New York City Will Reopen Elementary Schools and Phase Out Hybrid Learning, Natasha Singer shares, “I spent the last few weeks speaking with K-12 teachers. They are the lynchpins of public education. Yet their voices are often overlooked in the fierce national debate over school reopening. Here are some of the experiences they shared.” She links to her New York Times feature on Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable.’ In addition to interviewing dozens of educators for that piece, she reports on recent survey by the National Education Association, which found 28 percent of educators said the coronavirus had made them more likely to leave teaching or retire early. As Evin Shinn, a literacy coach at a public middle school in Seattle, told her, “Teachers are not OK right now.” More big stories “For this series, @markberman @KnowlesHannah and I collected thousands of pages of police and court records, diving deep into dozens of murders (and hundreds of arrests) -- many of which had never before seen much outside scrutiny.” Wesley Lowery links to part one of his new Washington Post series with Hannah Knowles and Mark Berman, How America’s deadliest serial killer went undetected for more than 40 years. Berman shares, “A chilling part of this: Had he dropped dead a decade ago, many of these crimes would remain unsolved. Without him voluntarily confessing to killing after killing, many of his murders would have been unsolved, victims' families still left without answers.” Next, new reporting by Ana Swanson of The New York Times reveals that Nike and Coca-Cola are among the major companies and business groups lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. Evan Siegfried offers a “Better headline: Nike, Coca-Cola and other major American companies lobby for Uyghur slave labor and concentration camps.” Or as Jonathan Sher says, “Just Do It.” To be clear, “Nike is lobbying for slavery. Not in some metaphorical sense, but actual literal slavery. I guess that social justice thing stops at the water’s edge,” tweets Matt Stoller. A big scoop from Cara Lombardo and Liz Hoffman at The Wall Street Journal, S&P Global in Advanced Talks to Buy IHS Markit for About $44 Billion. “A sign of just how hot the market is for financial data: When IHS and Markit merged in 2016, they had a combined value of $13 billion. The co is now in talks to sell itself to S&P for ~$44 billion,” tweets Hoffman. College football history was made over the weekend, and from Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, here’s why Sarah Fuller didn’t have to be perfect to get the respect she deserves. On Twitter, Auerbach shares, “That’s always the burden of those who break barriers: They must be as perfect as possible to make things easier for those who come later, so the next person doesn’t have to be *as* perfect. On Sarah Fuller, the designed squib and bad-faith actors.” Tweets Matt Brown, “This, via @NicoleAuerbach, is a good read IMO. The burdens placed on those who go ‘first’ are so impossibly high, because how they perform is a referendum on EVERYBODY. I've been thinking about this a lot.” A harshly-lit fire hazard ankle deep in biscuit crumbs Lastly today, feast your eyes, but be warned: “Oh god, they’re ALL terrible,” tweets Laura Slattery, who links to The Guardian’s feature on where the headlines are made: inside newsrooms around the world — in pictures, photographed by Noel Bowler. But Paul Wiltshire thinks “This is beautiful - if only for showing how journalists can turn any space into a chaotic dumping ground.”  Laura Ellis also thinks “This is beautiful - hat tip to @sambrook (for some reason I couldn't quote tweet). Especially love the teetering stacks of books and just know that there’ll be egregiously ignored notices on them warning of dire consequences if any are removed.” And Michael Moran confirms, “Yep. This is pretty much how I remember the office: a harshly-lit fire hazard ankle deep in biscuit crumbs.”
David Firn shares, “Sartorial standards at Southwark Bridge were lower on Saturday, due to the tropical temperature, but I don’t remember the bath robe.” All in all, “These photos really encapsulate the disappointment outsiders feel when they see what a newspaper newsroom looks like. Apart from the FT’s dressing gown,” tweets Jim Waterson. | 
On our most recent episode of #MuckRackLive! we checked in with three pros in the healthcare industry to learn about their biggest challenges over the past 10 months. Muck Rack’s CEO, 
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