Breaking News

COVID-19

Biden to require COVID vaccines for nursing home staff

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden today announced that his administration will require that nursing home staff be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding. Biden unveiled the new policy this afternoon in a White House address as the administration continues to look for ways to use mandates to encourage vaccine holdouts to get shots. "If you visit, live or work in a nursing home, you should not be at a high risk for contracting COVID from unvaccinated employees," Biden said. The new mandate, in ...

Big Florida school districts defy governor over mask mandate

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Students in Florida's Broward County went back to school under a mask mandate today, even as their school board faced threats of severe penalties for defying Gov. Ron DeSantis. And school officials in Hillsborough and Miami-Dade counties planned to address the public health measure later today, hoping to reduce infections in classrooms. In Miami, Florida's largest school district with 334,000 students, a task force of medical experts recommended students should be required to wear masks when they return to classrooms next week. Superintendent Alberto ...

State posting most cases in 6 months

The state is on pace to end August with the most COVID-19 cases since February. Through the first 16 days of August, there have been 32,296 COVID-19 cases reported. That’s already more cases than the entire months of June and July combined. There were 9,390 cases in June and 17,953 in July. It’s also already surpassed May, which had 29,622 cases. The daily average for the first 16 days of August is 2,018.5. That would work out to be more than 62,573 COVID-19 cases for August. It would be the most for a month since 71,630 were reported in February. It would also be the ...

Tue. 9:39 a.m.: Sources: US to recommend COVID vaccine boosters at 8 months

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health experts are expected to recommend COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the delta variant spreads across the ...

Tue. 9:29 a.m.: Americans spent less in July as COVID-19 cases surged

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans cut back on their spending last month as a surge in COVID-19 cases kept people away from stores. Retail sales fell a seasonal adjusted 1.1 percent in July from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said this morning. It was a much larger drop than the ...