National reading and math tests long used to track what U.S. students know in those subjects are being postponed from next year to 2022 over concerns about whether testing would be feasible or produce valid results during the coronavirus pandemic, the National Center for Education Statistics announced Wednesday. The biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress evaluations used for […]
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The coronavirus is spreading so fast in Nevada that one person is diagnosed with it every minute and someone is dying from it every two hours, state health officials said Wednesday. Nearly half of the state’s 142,239 total cases since the start of the pandemic in March have occurred since September — fully one-fourth of […]
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Following Monday’s news of AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s announcement that their coronavirus vaccine was up to 90% effective in late-stage trials, top experts say the preliminary findings are good news but await further analysis. “The interim analysis supports vaccine safety with no severe reactions to the vaccine and that is good news,” Dr. Andrea Cox, immunologist and professor of medicine at […]
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While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says health care workers should ideally use new personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic, strained supplies have caused the agency to weigh safe alternatives for reuse, such as dry heat. “While [health care personnel] should continue to use a properly fitting, new, FDA-cleared or authorized respirator when available according to […]
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Some of the thousands of mink culled to minimize the risk of them re-transmitting the new coronavirus to humans have risen from their shallow graves in western Denmark after gases built up inside the bodies, Danish authorities said Thursday. “The gases cause the animals to expand and in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground,” […]
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2020 has been far from festive, but as the year comes to an end, many of Europe‘s governments are scrambling to avoid stringent lockdowns over the Christmas holidays. The push to save the celebration comes despite the fact that other religious festivals — including Christian ones — have been marked in a muted fashion in recent months. The […]
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“No New ‘Movies’ Till Influenza Ends” blared a New York Times headline on Oct. 10, 1918, while the deadly second wave of the Spanish Flu was unfolding. A century later, during another pandemic, movies — quotes no longer necessary — are again facing a critical juncture. But it’s not because new films haven’t been coming out. By […]
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Outside President Donald Trump’s bedroom window on the north side of the White House is the sound of building: hammers, drills, the beep-beep of trucks backing up and metal planks clanking into place. Construction of the parade platform for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration festivities is well underway. The viewing stand and bleachers are almost complete and each day they […]
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Almost 5 million Americans have already traveled by plane ahead of Thanksgiving — a pandemic-era high, according to the latest data. Airport security screened 4.8 million people from Friday to Tuesday, the TSA said. That’s still 59 percent less than the same period in 2019, when nearly 12 million people passed through American airports. But […]
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President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday called on Americans not to gather with extended families for Thanksgiving, saying it was a “patriotic duty” to limit the spread of COVID-19. Biden said during an at times campaign-like speech in Wilmington, Del., that he and his family were setting an example by not celebrating the holiday as a […]
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