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Biden's Day: President Biden addresses the nation tonight after 8 p.m. ET on the anniversary of the Covid-19 shutdown.

Jobs: Jobless claims at the beginning of March are expected to have declined slightly as the labor market offers signs of improvement following an easing of Covid-19 case numbers. Data is released at 8:30 a.m.

President Biden is expected to sign the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 reelief bill on Friday, after it pased the House Wednesday without Republican support, report Andrew Duehren and Kristina Peterson. Major expansions to several aid programs for low-income Americans will be temporary under the bill, though Democrats hope to make them permanent.

The new battle front is over how voters perceive the bill leading up to the 2022 midterms, report Ken Thomas, Catherine Lucey and Aaron Zitner. Republicans are focusing on the fact that the economy is already pulling out of the doldrums and are portraying the new law less as a relief package than an expensive embrace of longtime Democratic priorities.

• The bill contains $40 billion for higher education. Here's what that means for college students. 

• Small-business advocates are calling on the government to extend the March 31 deadline to apply for a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program.

Gary Gensler, nominee to lead the SEC, cleared a key hurdle to Senate confirmation, garnering support from two Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee in a vote Wednesday.

Here's a breakdown of what’s in the bill and why it’s significant for the Biden administration. 

Mr. Biden has directed his administration to secure an additional 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year and said he planned to share any excess vaccine supply with other nations, Sabrina Siddiqui and Andrew Restuccia report.

• The seven-day average of daily vaccine doses administered has risen to 2.2 million, according to a WSJ analysis of CDC data.

• The U.S. reported more than 58,000 new Covid-19 cases and over 1,500 deaths on Thursday. About 18.8% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

• A new report on reopening schools concludes that Covid-19 transmission is limited with precautions in place.

• The WHO-led effort to trace the origins of the pandemic is zeroing in on animals present in the Wuhan market where the first cases began.

Members of New York Gov. Cuomo’s inner circle spoke with U.S. health officials in June, worried that federal statistics on nursing-home deaths from Covid-19 would conflict with the state’s data, report Joe Palazzolo and Jimmy Vielkind. “The big issue was where the patient died.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and their Chinese counterparts are set to hold talks next week in Alaska, the first high-level in-person meeting between the two powers since Mr. Biden took office, report Alex Leary and Bob Davis.

• Topics will include the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and issues of disagreement including China’s stance on Hong Kong.

The U.S. on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two of Islamic State’s fast-growing affiliates in Central Africa for the first time, underscoring the rising threat posed by the group outside the Middle East, report Benoit Faucon and Gordon Lubold.

South Korea will pay the U.S. more than $7 billion over six years under a new agreement on how to share the cost of American troops on the Korean Peninsula, reports Michael R. Gordon. The accord will cover the period from 2020 through 2025.

In December, then-President Trump urged the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office to look for fraud during an audit of mail-in ballots in a phone call he made to her, reports Cameron McWhirter. WSJ reviewed the recording of the call. Mr. Biden won the state.

• Mr. Trump offered no explanation for his claim of fraud, and Frances Watson didn’t ask him what he meant. She told him that "we are only interested in the truth and finding the information" that is fact-based.
• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has launched a criminal investigation into alleged efforts to have officials in Georgia overturn the state’s results of November’s presidential election.

A vast network of automated license-plate scanners is feeding immense databases with details on Americans’ driving habits. The data has become a key tool for law enforcement, requiring no warrant to access, Byron Tau reports. Some see the privacy downsides as considerable. 

• The House is expected to vote today on bills that would expand background checks to nearly all gun sales and extend the window for those checks to 10 days from three days.

Facebook on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss antitrust lawsuits by the FTC and state attorneys general, arguing that government enforcers have no valid basis for alleging the social media giant is suppressing competition, reports Brent Kendall.

The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to side with college athletes challenging the NCAA’s limits on their compensation, arguing that the NCAA’s interests in amateurism didn’t exclude its rules from the antitrust scrutiny that applies to other organizations, Brent Kendall and Louise Radnofsky report. 

• Both Democrats and Republicans have talked about a need to strengthen U.S. antitrust law. This year could test whether they are serious about hammering out legislation to make it happen.

• 🎧What’s News: Reporter Ryan Tracy has more on issues and sectors lawmakers may focus on related to antitrust law. 

• After passage of the big coronavirus stimulus package, some centrists are starting to balk at more deficit spending. (Politico)
• Democrats credit President Biden's low-key personal approach for holding the party together through deliberations over the coronavirus stimulus bill. (Financial Times)
• A report compiled by a group of nonprofits cites a dire need to reopen schools. (Axios)

This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff, and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.