It was not exactly a snow—er, slow news week, and we send our warmest wishes to friends in Texas who are still waiting for power, water, and a break in the weather. But the most exciting news of the week was the Perseverance Mars Rover landing, 140 million miles away. The average temperature on the surface of Mars is about -80F, just for comparison.

You’d think something called “vote-a-rama” would be more fun. The Senate voted to proceed on S.Con.Res. 5, a resolution that lays out the budget framework for President Biden’s $1.9 billion COVID relief package, on Tuesday, and took its final vote on the resolution after 5:00 this morning.

We feel a baseball-sized hole in the world today. His career lasted 23 years, his record lasted 30 years, but his legend lives forever. We raise our caps to Henry Aaron, Hammerin’ Hank, who retired with 755 home runs and a lifetime batting average of .305, o never got that much attention until people realized he was within striking distance of Babe Ruth’s home-run record. His life of quiet, consistent excellence, often in the face of race-based hatred, will be a model for generations.

The relentless pace of events over the past year has made it hard to stop and note individual losses as they’ve happened. But we would be remiss if we didn’t pay our respects to our dear friend and mentor Richard Bates, Disney’s longtime man in Washington. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this office wouldn’t exist if not for Richard.

You should already have received our summary of the massive bill Congress passed on Monday night: $900 billion in COVID-19 relief, $1.4 trillion to fund government operations for FY 2021, and dozens of unrelated authorizations added to a must-pass piece of legislation.

It’s rare to find something as universally supported as the Paycheck Protection Program, created by the CARES Act earlier this year. As Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) said at a hearing yesterday, the PPP has been the single most effective part of the CARES Act, and one of the most effective federal fiscal programs in US history.

If Santa’s flying commercial this year, he’ll have to leave the reindeer at home, or else check them as cargo. This week the Department of Transportation announced a final rule that that, for the purposes of all things aircraft-related defines service animals as “a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.”

Although party control of the Senate remains undetermined, Democrats and Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill elected their respective leaders this week. We’ll see few changes.

It’s been a rough week, as Hurricane Eta hit Florida and hundreds of thousands of Americans — that’s not a typo, it’s hundreds of thousands — tested positive for COVID-19. We hope that you and yours are safe and sound.

We’re still sifting through the election results, waiting for vote counts to finish in several states — Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, specifically, though states will not certify the results of their elections until next week at the earliest, and in some cases not until December.

Some of us were still awake last night when the President announced that he and the First Lady had tested positive for COVID-19. This morning, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) announced that he had tested positive as well.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in state at the U.S. Capitol this afternoon. “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made,” she said, making it all the more appropriate that she is the first woman ever to lie in state at the Capitol. Before she became the second woman Supreme Court justice, she argued the landmark cases that established that the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” includes protection from discrimination on the basis of gender.

Appearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mark Calabria said that if necessary, he will extend the moratoria on foreclosures and evictions for homes and multifamily housing financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac past December 31.

The governors of Kansas, Guam, New Mexico, and Minnesota appeared before the House Financial Services Committee yesterday to ask for additional federal funding to support their pandemic responses. Despite federal assistance from the CARES Act and other measures, states are facing deficits from a combination of emergency-related expenses and reduced revenues.

Come on, not all the news is bad. Veterinarians at the National Zoo announced today that Mei Xiang, one of the Zoo’s two giant pandas, is showing signs of an unexpected pregnancy, confirmed by ultrasound images.

Negotiations continue among the House, Senate, and Administration on a new pandemic relief package. We expect these talks to continue over the weekend and into next week, with elements changing day to day and even hour to hour. Stay tuned.

We hope this will remain metaphorical for all of us this weekend, as Hurricane Isaias moves in on the south and east coasts of Florida. Stay safe, stay dry, and stay healthy, everybody. We’ve almost made it through July. Only five months left in 2020.