Minnesota loosens COVID-19 restrictions after 4 weeks
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Wednesday loosened stringent restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, following four weeks of stricter rules prompted by a spike in coronavirus cases. The new procedures, which will not reopen in-person dining, come as Walz is facing pressure from a group...
Storm blasts East Coast, dumping more snow than some saw all last winter
Large parts of the eastern United States will wake up to snow from a major winter storm that dumped more than a foot in parts of Pennsylvania, led to hundreds of car crashes and is suspected in the deaths of at least three people. More...
Optimism about a coronavirus stimulus deal
Away from the pointless hearings into voting, which seemed designed mainly to mollify the President’s insatiable desire for more investigations, congressional leaders from both parties said they were making progress in crafting a Covid stimulus package after months of a stalemate. McConnell said that leaders...
Trump feeds his election sideshow despite crises gripping America
For the first time in months there were small signs of a functioning government Wednesday as congressional leaders negotiated a Covid-19 relief package and millions of vaccine doses were shipped out under the watchful eye of officials with Operation Warp Speed while carrying out contingency...
Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai denied bail, Pompeo tweets
HONG KONG — Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old Hong Kong media tycoon and advocate for democracy, was denied bail Saturday after being charged the previous day under the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s new national security law. Lai faces a charge of collusion with foreign elements to endanger...
“Covid Hunter” US Doctor Has Not Had A Single Day Off Since March
CVD HNTR. That is the license plate on Joseph Varon’s Mercedes 550. A vanity plate can be construed as grandiosity – but in this case, it is quite literal. Varon, a 58-year-old physician and chief of staff at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, has...
Argentina’s abortion bill is backed by lower house of Congress
Argentina’s lower house of Congress has approved a landmark government-backed bill to legalize abortion Friday morning, a big step forward for the legislation that could set the tone for a wider shift in conservative Latin America. In an extraordinary session, the Chamber of Deputies of...
U.S. Army finished operational testing of a new heavy assault bridge
The U.S. Army has announced that 1st Infantry Division Soldiers here recently finished operational testing of a new heavy assault bridge designed to cross wet and dry gaps. In a release morning Friday, PEO Combat Support & Combat Service Support reported the Army’s Joint Assault...
South Korea logs record 1,030 cases amid ‘COVID-19 emergency’
South Korea reported 1,030 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, its largest single-day jump and the second daily record in a row, putting pressure on authorities to further tighten physical distancing rules. Of the new cases, 1,002 were locally transmitted, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention...
Scientists Still Have Problems With AstraZeneca and Oxford’s Vaccine Results
The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Incoming. The first peer-reviewed results describing clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine developed...
Covid: First round of US vaccinations to begin on Monday
The US public will start receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine from Monday after it was authorised for emergency use, officials say. The first three million doses of the vaccine would be shipped “across all states” this weekend, said Gen Gustave Perna, who is overseeing distribution....
4 stabbed at DC protests, while 1 person shot at clashes in Washington state
Violent clashes between pro-Donald Trump protesters and Black Lives Matter supporters on both sides of the country ended in bloodshed on Saturday. In Washington, D.C., four people were stabbed as violence escalated Saturday night following competing protests during the day. The president’s supporters, including the...
Democrats uneasy about granting rarely invoked waiver for Biden’s Pentagon pick
Senate Democrats are uneasy about granting a rarely invoked waiver that would allow President-elect Joe Biden’s pick of retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to head the Defense Department, the first nominee to encounter resistance from senators in the incoming President’s own party. A number of top...
How Operation Warp Speed plans to distribute COVID-19 vaccine
Five percent of all produced COVID-19 vaccine will be held back for emergencies and states will have the option of trading vials within the government’s ordering system to get the kind they want. Those are just a few of the details we’re learning about how...
Biden unveils COVID strategy – and it involves a mask mandate
President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a three-part plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic in the first 100 days of his administration. Biden, speaking in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., as he formally unveiled his team of top health officials, emphasized “masking, vaccinations, opening schools....
Trump calls on Supreme Court to ‘have the courage’ to overturn Biden’s election victory
President Trump brought his futile bid to subvert the 2020 election to a new low Tuesday, calling on the U.S. Supreme Court and legislatures in a handful of battleground states to “have the courage” to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Speaking at a White House...
Less than 20% of NYC hospital beds empty amid second COVID-19 surge
The number of available hospital beds are dwindling as a second surge of the coronavirus grips the New York City region, new state data reveals. The percentage of beds available in both New York City and Long Island is under 20 percent, according to the...
Sanders: Bipartisan COVID-19 relief deal ‘not acceptable’
Many lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have expressed optimism and support for the emerging deal. Moderate Senators admitted the proposal outlined would upset partisans on both sides, but is a necessary compromise as the country faces rising COVID-19 case counts and economic pain....
ICE Is Trying To Force BuzzFeed News To Divulge Its Sources
Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators issued a subpoena this week demanding BuzzFeed News identify its sources — an extraordinary attempt by the government to interfere with a news outlet acting under the protections of the First Amendment, and a move that the agency’s former chief...
Biden will urge Americans to wear face coverings, take COVID vaccine, but won’t make them mandatory
“I don’t think it should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory, but I would do everything in my power — it’s like I don’t think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide,” Biden replied. And he vowed that he’d “do everything in...
Joe Biden officially secures enough electoral votes to become president as California hands him Electoral College majority
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House. Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally...
Rudy Giuliani is mocked over possible fart at hearing in Michigan
Rudy Giuliani keeps going viral for all the wrong reasons. The personal lawyer for President Trump was mocked on social media after a sound resembling flatulence squeaked in audio as he spoke at an election hearing in Michigan on Wednesday. In a video published on...
San Francisco Bay Area to begin month-long COVID-19 lockdown
Health officials in the San Francisco Bay Area have ordered lockdown for the region’s 8.5 million residents beginning Sunday night and lasting into the first week of 2021. The stay-at-home restrictions in five counties — which include San Francisco, Oakland and Silicon Valley — require...
Georgia Is Becoming Ground Zero For Election Disinformation
Amonth before Georgia voters are set to decide which party will control the U.S. Senate, online disinformation about the state’s elections is kicking into overdrive. The full force of 2020’s most effective fake news tactics is hitting the state: fears of widespread voter fraud, allegations...
Fauci, Birx voice dire post-Thanksgiving warnings on COVID surge
Top federal officials voiced dire predictions of a nationwide post-Thanksgiving surge in COVID cases on Sunday. “What we expect, unfortunately, as we go forward the next couple of weeks into December, (is) that we might see a surge superimposed upon that surge that we’re already...
US hits four million monthly Covid-19 cases as Fauci warns of holiday surge
The United States passed four million cases of the coronavirus for November on Saturday, more than double the record 1.9 million cases set in October. Now experts have warned Americans to expect that sharp rise in cases to continue, due in part to the Thanksgiving...
Not all are hailing latest NYC taxi bailout plan
A new plan to bail out New York City’s debt-ridden taxi drivers is getting support from top city and state officials — but critics say the numbers don’t add up, and claim that it threatens to wreck the market that finances yellow cabs for good....
Inside a hospital as the coronavirus surges: Where will all the patients go?
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — As the coronavirus pandemic swelled around the 160-bed Mayo Clinic hospital, the day was dawning auspiciously. Two precious beds for new patients had opened overnight. At the morning “bed meeting,” prospects for a third looked promising. Better yet, by midmorning, there...
Trump: DOJ ‘missing in action’ on alleged election fraud
President Trump told “Sunday Morning Futures” in his first interview since Election Day that the Department of Justice is “missing in action” regarding alleged election fraud. He went on to tell host Maria Bartiromo in the exclusive interview that he has “not seen anything” from...
Joe Biden Fractures Foot While Playing With Dog, Doctor Says
President-elect Joe Biden fractured several bones in his foot on Saturday and will likely require a walking boot for several weeks, his doctor announced late Sunday. Biden sustained the injury while playing with his dog Major, his office said Sunday. “Out of an abundance of...