Latest Pandemics News

The Census Bureau wants to change how it asks about disabilities. Some advocates don't like it

Dec. 08, 2023 12:31 PM EST

The U.S. Census Bureau wants to change how it asks people about disabilities, and some advocates are complaining that they were not consulted enough on what amounts to a major overhaul in how disabilities would be defined by the federal government. Disability advocates say the change...

Tony Shalhoub returns as everyone's favorite obsessive-compulsive sleuth in 'Mr. Monk's Last Case'

Dec. 08, 2023 10:47 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Fourteen years ago, Tony Shalhoub said goodbye to one of his most beloved creations — the obsessive-compulsive private detective Adrian Monk. Monk's last TV appearance in 2009 was even called "Mr. Monk and the End.” There was talk over the years of a potential...

Ex-UK leader Boris Johnson rejects notion he wanted to let COVID-19 'rip' through the population

Dec. 07, 2023 18:06 PM EST

LONDON (AP) — Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in sometimes angry testimony to Britain’s inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic, on Thursday defended himself against suggestions that his indifference and failure to heed the advice of scientists led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. ...

UN says Africa faces unprecedented food crisis, with 3 in 4 people unable to afford a healthy diet

Dec. 07, 2023 14:52 PM EST

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least three-fourths of Africans can’t afford a healthy diet, and a fifth are undernourished due to an “unprecedented food crisis,” United Nations agencies said in a report released Thursday with the African Union Commission. The continent's 1.4...

Lacking counselors, US schools turn to the booming business of online therapy

Dec. 03, 2023 00:14 AM EST

Trouble with playground bullies started for Maria Ishoo’s daughter in elementary school. Girls ganged up, calling her “fat” and “ugly.” Boys tripped and pushed her. The California mother watched her typically bubbly second-grader retreat into her bedroom and spend afternoons curled up in...

The UK's former health secretary testifies at COVID inquiry that he argued for an earlier lockdown

Nov. 30, 2023 12:13 PM EST

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.'s former health secretary told a COVID-19 inquiry Thursday that the British government would have saved many lives if it had acted sooner and imposed a national lockdown weeks earlier than it did in March 2020. Matt Hancock, who played a key role in the...

US life expectancy rose last year, but it remains below its pre-pandemic level

Nov. 29, 2023 15:59 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. life expectancy rose last year — by more than a year — but still isn't close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2022 rise was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said Wednesday. But even...

The UK took action too late during COVID-19 pandemic's first wave, its top medical officer says

Nov. 21, 2023 13:30 PM EST

LONDON (AP) — Britain's government was too late in taking action against the coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, the U.K.'s chief medical adviser said Tuesday in testimony to the independent COVID-19 inquiry. Responding to questions about the early days of...

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson 'bamboozled' by science, COVID-19 inquiry told

Nov. 20, 2023 21:16 PM EST

LONDON (AP) — Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, struggled to come to grips with much of the science during the coronavirus pandemic, his chief scientific adviser said Monday. In keenly awaited testimony to the country’s public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic,...

Jordan Fisher goes into 'Hadestown' on Broadway, 'stretching every creative muscle'

Nov. 20, 2023 10:13 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Jordan Fisher is going to hell this winter and he's very happy about it. The actor and singer star enters Broadway's “Hadestown,” the brooding 2019 Tony Award-winning musical about the underworld, which intertwines the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and...