THE DEADLIEST YEAR IN US HISTORY — More than 3 million people across the nation died last year in all, POLITICO’s Erin Banco reports — a 15 percent increase in fatalities compared to the prior year, according to a CDC report to be released soon. That’s the largest increase in a single year since 1918, when hundreds of thousands of people died in a flu pandemic and the U.S. was fighting in World War I.

— Covid, unsurprisingly, was a key force behind the spike. The disease trailed only heart disease and cancer as the top causes of death in 2020, replacing accidental injuries as the third-leading cause.

The CDC as part of its yet-to-be-published analysis will also detail death rates among people of different racial and ethnic groups, as the agency tries to demonstrate what it’s doing to better understand how the virus has affected communities of color.

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FIRST IN PULSE: ADVOCACY GROUPS SEEK FTC INSULIN PROBE — A coalition of advocacy organizations is petitioning the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation of insulin manufacturers, arguing that rising prices for the drug “may be largely attributable to a hyper-consolidated industry.”

In a letter, the group, Investigate Insulin Now, urged the FTC to either investigate whether the insulin industry has effectively become a cartel or conduct a study of its market structure that would be made public.

“Specifically, we hope the FTC will focus on widespread allegations of anticompetitive behavior and collusion between insulin manufacturers to maintain monopoly prices and block potential competitors,” the coalition, led by the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote.