By Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to process the influx of Afghans rushing to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban overtakes the country. In recent days, administration officials worked overtime to pull lists of names of special immigrant visa applicants to push through systems and get security checks cleared,
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By Tami Luhby Nearly 107 million US households — about 61% — owed no federal income tax in 2020, a huge spike from pre-pandemic times. But that increase should be short-lived. The coronavirus-fueled upheaval in the economy, which cost more than 20 million jobs in April 2020, and the sweeping federal relief packages drove up the share
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By Nicquel Terry Ellis A mother’s claim that her children’s school was assigning Black students to certain classes has shaken up one Atlanta school community with some parents insisting the principal would never group students based on race. It’s also fueled a debate about whether the practice would even be considered legal or productive for the children.
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By Danielle Wiener-Bronner A group of restaurant owners and five small businesses are suing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city over its vaccine mandate in the hopes of blocking the new requirement. Earlier this month, the city announced a new rule requiring people to show proof of vaccination against Covid-19 before dining indoors, visiting a fitness
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By Fredreka Schouten and Dianne Gallagher Georgia’s state elections board on Wednesday named a three-person review panel to examine election operations in the state’s most populous county — under a provision of a new state election law that voting rights activists have warned could lead to a partisan takeover of a Democratic stronghold in this battleground state.
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By Eric Bradner Some Texas school districts and students are seeking ways around Republican Gov. Greg Abbott‘s ban on mask mandates as the state grapples with a spike of coronavirus cases. One of those cases is Abbott himself: The second-term governor, who has played to his party’s base and blocked health mandates intended to slow the pandemic’s spread
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By Athena Jones, Aaron Cooper and Keely Aouga Months after the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, Miriam Vega is still in a battle to persuade some people to get the shot. “It’s extremely challenging fighting the misinformation we’re fighting. You know, Facebook, we’re fighting Twitter,” the CEO of the Joseph P. Addabbo Family Health Center
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By Eliott C. McLaughlin It’s the third week of school in Cobb County, Georgia, and many parents are livid with what they perceive to be the district’s lax Covid-19 protocols and dangerous misinformation being disseminated by a school board member via his official email account. Some parents, including those with children suffering from asthma and one
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By Jeremy Diamond and Tami Luhby President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he is directing all nursing homes to require their staff be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to continue receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding. Biden said he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to draw up new regulations making employee vaccination a condition for nursing
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By Madeline Holcombe The pace of Covid-19 hospitalizations is surging across the US, with the rates for children and adults under 50 hitting their highest levels yet, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every age group under 50 has surpassed its previous record of hospitalizations, which was in the first half
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