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Buttigieg urges travelers to respect mask mandates on planes

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday urged travelers to respect flight attendants and other crew members who enforce federal mask mandates on planes, pledging strict federal enforcement against such abuse at a time of increasingly unruly behavior by ...

Mobile vaccination units hit tiny US towns to boost immunity

FALLON, Nev. — Pick-up truck drivers motor up to a white trailer in a parking lot on Fallon Paiute-Shoshone land in Nevada’s high desert and within a few moments they’re handed forms to sign, jabbed with coronavirus vaccine and sent on their way. The pop-up clinic 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of Reno is one of 28 locations in the state where the Federal Emergency Management Agency has dispatched mobile vaccination units to ensure people in far-flung rural areas and one stop-light towns can get inoculated. It’s one of the tactics health officials are using across the country ...

More states ease lingering virus rules as vaccine rates rise

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, more U.S. cities and states are shrugging off lingering COVID-19 restrictions as vaccination rates rise and the number of infections falls. Massachusetts lifted a mask requirement Saturday, a day after New Jersey dropped its ...

Vietnam finds new virus variant, hybrid of India, UK strains

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam has discovered a new coronavirus variant that’s a hybrid of strains first found in India and the U.K., the Vietnamese health minister said Saturday. Nguyen Thanh Long said scientists examined the genetic makeup of the virus that had infected some recent patients, and found the new version of the virus. He said lab tests suggested it might spread more easily than other versions of the virus. Viruses often develop small genetic changes as they reproduce, and new variants of the coronavirus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China in late ...

As pandemic wanes, Florida’s DeSantis seizes national stage

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis struggled to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats readied to pounce. The state’s economy was in tatters, infections and deaths were on the rise and there were doubts about the Republican’s plan to lead Florida out of crisis. Now that the pandemic appears to be waning and DeSantis is heading into his reelection campaign next year, he has emerged from the political uncertainty as one of the most prominent Republican governors and an early White House front-runner in 2024 among Donald Trump’s acolytes, if the former president ...

In visions of post-pandemic life, Roaring ‘20s beckon again

NEW YORK— History repeats itself. But do decades duplicate? As hopes rise that the pandemic is ebbing in the United States and Europe, visions of a second “Roaring Twenties” to match last century’s post-pandemic decade have proliferated. Months of lockdown and restrictions on social ...