New York City is ending its COVID-19 vaccination mandate for municipal employees including police officers, firefighters and teachers. Mayor Eric Adams says the vaccine mandate will end Friday. Adams said Monday that with more than 96% of city employees and more than 80% of city residents having received their initial vaccine shots, this is the right moment for this decision. The vaccination mandate for city employees was one of the last pandemic measures still in place in New York City. The city ended its vaccine requirement for employees of private businesses last November.

Republican Kelly Craft is facing turbulence over a recent ad about her bid to become Kentucky's next governor. The commercial aims to connect with voters by highlighting the state’s struggles with drug addiction. In it, Craft calls the fight against drug abuse personal and says she’s experienced “that empty chair" at her table. Questions soon arose about that as people sought details. Craft has since disclosed that a “close family member” of hers went to rehab and overcame addiction. That's prompting backlash from people who interpreted the “empty chair” described in the ad as referring to someone who died of addiction.

An estimated 12.4 million people watched the Grammys on Sunday either on CBS or the Paramount+ streaming service. The Nielsen company says that's a significant rebound from the COVID-19-affected events of 2021 and 2022, both of which reached slightly less than 9 million viewers. Sunday's presentation of music's biggest night featured live performances by Lizzo, Harry Styles and Bad Bunny, along with a tribute to 50 years of rap history. Viewership didn't rebound to the pre-COVID years; in 2020 Nielsen said 18.7 million people watched the show. Nielsen didn't have a breakdown of who watched on TV and who streamed it this year.

Officials say a polar bear that killed a young mother and her baby Jan. 17 in western Alaska was likely an older animal in poor physical condition. However tests have come back negative for pathogens that affect the brain and cause aggressive behavior. A state wildlife veterinarian collected and examined samples from the bear’s head a day after it was killed. The results of analysis indicate it was an adult male and in poor health. Standard tests conducted on tissues are negative for rabies, toxoplasmosis, distemper and avian influenza. State and federal wildlife officials say there is no definitive explanation as to why the bear was in poor condition.

The 65th Grammys were back in full swing Sunday. Once again, Beyoncé was in the running for the top honor, and once again, the show ended with someone else winning album of the year. This year was widely seen as a chance for the Grammys to honor the superstar with a marquee award, especially on a night where she could have (and did) become its most decorated artist. Instead, Harry Styles won, and a line from his acceptance speech sparked criticism. Styles remarked that moments like that didn't happen to people like him very often, but some viewed the comment as white privilege. Beyoncé, they noted, had lost the honor four times already to white artists.

The future of Austin’s top city executive plunged into jeopardy Monday as outrage boiled over power outages that have left thousands of people without electricity in the Texas capital for nearly a week and are likely to drag on for days longer. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson called an emergency meeting for later this week that will put City Manager Spencer Cronk’s job on the line. The move reflected the growing discontent in Austin over slow repairs to power lines following a deadly ice storm that left residents with no sense about when their electricity might finally return. The city’s utility warned Sunday in the face of growing criticism that full power restoration may not happen until Feb. 12.

Officials say a Maryland woman conspired with a neo-Nazi leader in Florida to plan an attack on Baltimore’s power grid in an effort to further their racist mission. A complaint unsealed Monday says Sarah Beth Clendaniel was working with Brandon Russell to plan a series of “sniper attacks” on Maryland electrical substations. Last week's arrests add to a growing list of similar cases as authorities warn the American electrical grid could be a target for domestic terrorists. It isn't immediately clear whether either suspect has a lawyer to speak on their behalf.

A judge has ruled he will allow jurors to hear evidence that disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was stealing money from his law firm and clients and committing other financial crimes long before his wife and son were killed in 2021. Prosecutors have said those witnesses to potential financial crimes are key to their case in Murdaugh’s double murder trial and that they show he was desperate to cover up those financial misdeeds. The defense argued prosecutors wanted to smear Murdaugh because they have lots of evidence he stole money but none in the killings. The financial crimes witnesses will likely testify before the jury for the next several days.

Bourbon tourism reached new heights last year in Kentucky. Attendance at distilleries along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail surpassed 2 million in 2022 for the first time. The Kentucky Distillers’ Association made the announcement Monday. It says visitors flocked to large and small distilleries as the attractions recovered quickly from pandemic-era restrictions. In the past decade, the “amber adventure” has soared by 370% in attendance. Gov. Andy Beshear says the Kentucky bourbon industry's success isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Spirit companies have invested in new or expanded visitor centers to play up the industry’s heritage.