GWEN MOORE

Raising minimum Social Security benefits to help beneficiaries stay out of poverty is getting more attention.

Sen. Ron Johnson is in an uncomfortable class of his own.

Republicans are attacking the Democrats $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package as too costly, economically damaging and overtly partisan. We’re very proud of that,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters when asked if the overall House bill would include the minimum wage increase. Democratic leaders hope for House passage later this month, with Senate approval and a bill on Biden’s desk by mid-March. Republicans’ amendments spotlighted what they see as political soft spots they can exploit. And while the GOP amendments were beaten back, they forced Democrats to take positions that could tee up GOP campaign ads for the 2022 elections.

State health officials said Tuesday that the variant was found in a man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver and has no travel history. Health officials have said the vaccines being given now are thought to be effective against the variant. — A former Louisiana state lawmaker and his wife died from COVID-19 on the same day. ___OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City fire department says a firefighter, whose nephew became the first department employee to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, died of the virus after being infected while responding to a call. In the Upstate area of the state, COVID-19 infection rates continue to outpace every other part of South Carolina.

The diverse group of protesters also chanted Seven bullets, seven days! a reference to the number of times Blake was shot last Sunday as they marched toward the courthouse in Kenosha. There, Blake's father, Jacob Blake Sr., gave an impassioned call for changing a system he described as fostering police brutality and racial inequities. ... Hell yeah, Im mad," said Blake Sr. Blake Sr. told reporters on Saturday that his son is heavily sedated, but he has regained consciousness. Protesters have marched in Kenosha every night since Blake's shooting, with some protests devolving into unrest with damage to buildings and vehicles.

Wisconsin, where Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, joins newly emerging battleground Arizona as the first two states where Biden has named his campaign team. Two veterans of Sen. Tammy Baldwins successful 2018 reelection campaign will run Bidens Wisconsin operation. Shirley Ellis, a longtime adviser to U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, will join Biden team as a strategic adviser focused on Milwaukee. She will join Bidens campaign formally after the August convention, according to the campaign. The Wisconsin team, especially, is intended to show that the Biden campaigns talk of a wide map isnt at the exclusion of traditional battlegrounds.