PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Bill Griffin waited more than a year for this moment: Newly vaccinated, he embraced his 3-year-old granddaughter for the first time since the pandemic began. "She came running right over. I picked her up and gave her a hug. It was amazing," the 70-year-old said after the reunion earlier this month. [...]
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The latest federal coronavirus relief package includes $81 billion that began flowing to states last week with the goal of helping schools reopen quickly — with one problem being that many of the districts' problems can't be solved by money. Many parents want to keep their children home. Teachers have pushed [...]
Nearly half of the nation's elementary schools were open for full-time classroom learning as of last month, but the share of students learning in-person has varied greatly by region and by race, with most nonwhite students learning entirely online, according to results from a national survey conducted by the Biden administration. For the White House, [...]
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March. Within six months, the 90-year-old Korean War vet was proven right. VFW [...]
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The federal government has stopped taking immigrant teenagers to a converted camp for oil field workers in West Texas as it faces questions about the safety of emergency sites it is quickly setting up to hold children crossing the southern border. The Associated Press has learned that the converted camp has [...]
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The coughing among the western lowland gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in January was the first warning sign. Soon the fears were confirmed: A troop of gorillas became the first apes known to test positive for the coronavirus. Around the world, many scientists and veterinarians are now racing [...]
BOSTON (AP) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that say students should be kept six feet apart in schools are receiving new scrutiny from federal health experts, state governments and education officials working to return as many children as possible to the classroom. Even as more teachers receive vaccinations, the distancing guidelines have [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Pregnancy, birth and life with a newborn in the middle of a pandemic has brought on high anxiety, ever-shifting hospital protocols and intense isolation for many of the millions of women who have done it around the world. As the pandemic stretches into a second year and economic worry persists, demographers [...]
A Florida correctional officer polled his colleagues earlier this year in a private Facebook group: "Will you take the COVID-19 vaccine if offered?" The answer from more than half: "Hell no." Only 40 of the 475 respondents said yes. In Massachusetts, more than half the people employed by the Department of Correction declined to be [...]
SEATTLE (AP) — When Seattle's largest health care system got a mandate from Washington state to create a mass COVID-19 vaccination site, organizers knew that gathering enough volunteers would be almost as crucial as the vaccine itself. "We could not do this without volunteers," said Renee Rassilyer-Bomers, chief quality officer for Swedish Health Services and [...]