President Joe Biden will reportedly order all nursing homes to require their staff to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to keep receiving funds for the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Biden on Wednesday afternoon is expected to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create the new mandate, administration officials told […]
Coronavirus booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be available to all American adults beginning in September, the nation’s leading health officials have announced. The booster shots will be offered beginning the week of September 20 to Americans, eight months after their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna jab. ‘We know that […]
This is an updated version of an article first published on Nov. 13, 2020. The Delta-variant-driven wave of coronavirus infections is driving a new surge in testing — and that could mean more surprise medical bills. Congress wrote rules last spring to make most coronavirus testing free for all Americans. But patients, with or without […]
As another day of hot, dry weather began in California on Wednesday, the two largest blazes burning in the state — Dixie and McFarland — were no closer to being contained than they had been 24 hours earlier. That wasn’t the only bad news. The Caldor fire, which began on Saturday, had chewed through a […]
WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) – The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as the third week of next month, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision […]
The city of Chicago and the state of New Mexico will reimpose an indoor mask mandate for all people older than two beginning on Friday, an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus as case rates rise, officials said on Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its guidance to recommend […]
This is the Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide to the pandemic. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. One in five intensive care units in the U.S. have reached or exceeded 95 percent of capacity. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has tested positive for Covid-19. His office says he is fully vaccinated […]
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – Members of the US Congress, including many of President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, said on Tuesday (Aug 17) they were increasingly frustrated with events in Afghanistan, vowing to investigate what went wrong. “The events of recent days have been the culmination of a series of mistakes made by Republican and Democratic administrations […]
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – With more US troops on the way, up to 600 members of Afghan security forces have helped provide security at Kabul’s airport, the scene of chaotic evacuation efforts, even as Afghanistan’s military and government has collapsed, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday (Aug 17). Army Major-General William Taylor, with the US military’s Joint […]
The Dixie fire, the second-largest in California’s recorded history, was wheeling on Tuesday morning toward one of the biggest urban targets in its path: The city of Susanville, population 15,000. The former logging and mining town is the seat of Lassen County, and one of several places in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains […]