As the average of new COVID-19 cases reached a record high on Tuesday, the region has now seen more than a quarter of a million total cases since the pandemic began.

On Tuesday, the seven-day average hit 2,100 per day, according to data maintained by The Star. Officials in the area — which includes Kansas City and Jackson, Platte, Clay, Wyandotte and Johnson counties — have reported 14,839 new cases within the past week, bringing the full tally to 252,126 since the start of the public health crisis.

Forty more people have also died within the past week, The Star reported. The death toll for the area currently stands at 3,429.

CHILDREN’S MERCY SEES NEW HIGH OF COVID-19 PATIENTS

Children’s Mercy reported that 27 kids were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the highest child patient load the hospital has seen since the start of the pandemic.

Cases across the area and the nation have been largely driven by the omicron variant. Dr. Angela Myers, the Infectious Diseases Division director at Children’s Mercy, said that because of how highly contagious omicron is, more people overall will become hospitalized “even if it causes less severe disease overall.”

Medical experts recommend eligible children get the vaccine to prevent getting COVID-19. Children under 12 are still ineligible for a booster shot, while those younger than 5 currently can’t get vaccinated against COVID-19 at all. For this reason, Myers recommends a variety of safety measures to keep kids from being infected.

“Encouraging your kid to wear a mask, even if it’s not required in school, I think is really critical,” she said. “[So is] washing your hands frequently, sneezing and coughing in your elbow, staying home when you’re sick, [and] getting tested if you have symptoms, even if your symptoms are mild.” (The Kansas City Star)

Werdende Mütter müssen vor Corona geschützt werden! Während man zu Beginn der Pandemie noch angenommen hatte, dass Schwangere von COVID-19 nicht schwerer betroffen sind als andere Personengruppen, sehen Ärzte dies mittlerweile anders. „Nach aktuellem Kenntnisstand sind schwere Verlaufsformen, die zu einer stationären Aufnahme oder intensivmedizinischen Versorgung führen, im Vergleich zu Nicht-Schwangeren um etwa das Zweifache erhöht. Das entspricht ungefähr den Werten, die man von der Influenza kennt“, berichtet Dr. Petra Pateisky, Fachärztin an der Abteilung für Geburtshilfe und feto-maternale Medizin an der Universitätsklinik für Frauenheilkunde, MedUni Wien, im Rahmen einer digitalen Pressekonferenz. „In der Schwangerschaft könnte die Erkrankung auch mit einer erhöhten Wahrscheinlichkeit von Präeklampsie (einer speziellen Form von Bluthochdruck, Anm.) einhergehen“, so die Gynäkologin. Laut Studien ist außerdem das Gesamtrisiko für eine Frühgeburt um das Dreifache erhöht.

Um möglichst sicher vor Corona zu sein, sollte – abseits der ansonsten geltenden Maßnahmen – auf jeden Fall das Umfeld (Partner, eventuell zukünftige Großeltern) geimpft werden, was derzeit auch durchgeführt wird. Dr. Pateisky: „Die Impfung von Schwangeren selbst ist grundsätzlich möglich, allerdings außerhalb der Zulassung aller bisher verfügbaren Impfstoffe.“ Da es bei Zulassungsstudien aber unter Probandinnen zu einigen Schwangerschaften gekommen ist, weiß man bisher von keinen negativen Auswirkungen. Registerdaten von Impfungen aus den USA mit bereits mehreren tausend “werdenden Müttern“ zeigen ebenfalls keine Sicherheitsrisiken, auch wurde bereits mit entsprechenden offiziellen Studien begonnen. Im Einzellfall muss die Impfententscheidung natürlich immer mit dem behandelnden Gynäkologen besprochen werden. (Kronen Zeitung)

As the days passed, more appeared. They were simply fishing boats, China said, though they did not appear to be fishing. Dozens even lashed themselves together in neat rows, seeking shelter, it was claimed, from storms that never came.

Not long ago, China asserted its claims on the South China Sea by building and fortifying artificial islands in waters also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Its strategy now is to reinforce those outposts by swarming the disputed waters with vessels, effectively defying the other countries to expel them.

The goal is to accomplish by overwhelming presence what it has been unable to do through diplomacy or international law. And to an extent, it appears to be working.

“Beijing pretty clearly thinks that if it uses enough coercion and pressure over a long enough period of time, it will squeeze the Southeast Asians out,” said Greg Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, which tracks developments in the South China Sea. “It’s insidious.”

China’s actions reflect the country’s growing confidence under its leader, Xi Jinping. They could test the Biden administration, as well as Beijing’s neighbors in the South China Sea, who are increasingly dependent on China’s strong economy and supply of Covid-19 vaccines.

The latest incident has unfolded in recent weeks around Whitsun Reef, a boomerang-shaped feature that emerges above water only at low tide. At one point in March, 220 Chinese ships were reported to be anchored around the reef, prompting protests from Vietnam and the Philippines, which both have claims there, and from the United States.

The Philippine defense secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, called their presence “a clear provocation.” Vietnam’s foreign ministry accused China of violating the country’s sovereignty and demanded that the ships leave.

By this past week, some had left but many remained, according to satellite photographs taken by Maxar Technologies, a company based in Colorado. Others moved to another reef only a few miles away, while a new swarm of 45 Chinese ships was spotted 100 miles northeast at another island controlled by the Philippines, Thitu, according to the satellite photos and Philippine officials.

“The Chinese ambassador has a lot of explaining to do,” Mr. Lorenzana said in a statement on Saturday.

The buildup has inflamed tensions in a region that, along with Taiwan, threatens to become another flashpoint in the intensifying confrontation between China and the United States.

Although the United States has not taken a position on disputes in the South China Sea, it has criticized China’s aggressive tactics there, including the militarization of its bases. For years, the United States has sent Navy warships on routine patrols to challenge China’s asserted right to restrict any military activity there — three times just since President Biden took office in January.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken expressed support for the Philippines over the presence of the Chinese vessels. “We will always stand by our allies and stand up for the rules-based international order,” he wrote on Twitter.

The buildup has highlighted the further erosion of the Philippines’ control of the disputed waters, which could become a problem for the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte.

The country’s defense department dispatched two aircraft and one ship to Whitsun Reef to document the buildup but did not otherwise intervene. It is not known whether Vietnamese forces responded.

Critics say China’s disregard for the Philippine claims reflects the failure of Mr. Duterte’s efforts to cozy up to the Communist Party leadership in Beijing.

“People need to hear from the commander in chief himself, a coward to China but a bully to his own people,” said Mr. Duterte’s staunchest political opponent, Senator Leila de Lima. Mr. Duterte has not publicly addressed the matter, though his spokesman suggested that quiet efforts to defuse the situation were underway.

China has brushed off the protests. A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, said that Chinese fishermen “have been fishing in the waters near the reef all along.” Officials in the Philippines and experts said there was no evidence of that.

Whitsun Reef is part of an atoll known as Union Banks, about 175 nautical miles from Palawan, a Philippine island. The Philippines, China and Vietnam each claim that the atoll lies within their country’s exclusive economic zones, but only China and Vietnam have established a regular physical presence there, giving each a secure, if not legal, advantage in asserting control.

Vietnam has occupied four islets in the atoll since the 1970s, while China has built two outposts on previously submerged reefs as part of its program, underway since 2014, to dredge up seven artificial islands. Two of the outposts — Grierson Reef, occupied by Vietnam, and Hughes Reef, occupied by China — are less than three nautical miles apart.

An international tribunal convened under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled in 2016 that China’s expansive claim to almost all of the South China Sea had no legal basis, though it stopped short of dividing the territory among its various claimants. China has based its claims on a “nine-dash line” drawn on maps before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. (The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday authorized Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, beginning the rollout of millions of doses of a third effective vaccine that could reach Americans by early next week.

The announcement arrived at a critical moment, as the steep decline in coronavirus cases seems to have plateaued and millions of Americans are on waiting lists for shots.

Johnson & Johnson has pledged to provide the United States with 100 million doses by the end of June. When combined with the 600 million doses from the two-shot vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna slated to arrive by the end of July, there will be more than enough shots to cover any American adult who wants one.

But federal and state health officials are concerned that even with strong data to support it, some people may perceive Johnson & Johnson’s shot as an inferior option.

The new vaccine’s 72 percent efficacy rate in the U.S. clinical trial site — a number scientists have celebrated — falls short of the roughly 95 percent rate found in studies testing the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Across all trial sites, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also showed 85 percent efficacy against severe forms of Covid-19 and 100 percent efficacy against hospitalization and death.

“Don’t get caught up, necessarily, on the number game, because it’s a really good vaccine, and what we need is as many good vaccines as possible,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview on Saturday. “Rather than parsing the difference between 94 and 72, accept the fact that now you have three highly effective vaccines. Period.”

If Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine would have been the first to be authorized in the United States instead of the third, “everybody would be doing handstands and backflips and high-fives,” said Dr. James T. McDeavitt, dean of clinical affairs at the Baylor College of Medicine.

On Sunday a committee of vaccine experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet to discuss whether certain population groups should be prioritized for the vaccine, guidance that state health officials have been eagerly awaiting in anticipation of the F.D.A.’s authorization.

One administration official familiar with the distribution of the vaccine said that shipments would begin on Monday and deliveries could arrive as soon as Tuesday.

Johnson & Johnson has said it will ship nearly four million doses as soon as the F.D.A. authorizes distribution and another 16 million or so doses by the end of March. That is far fewer than the 37 million doses called for in its $1 billion federal contracts, but the contract says that deliveries that are 30 days late will still be considered timely.

The federal government is paying the firm $10 a dose for a total of 100 million doses to be ready by the end of June, substantially less per dose than it agreed to pay Moderna and Pfizer, which developed its vaccine with a German partner, BioNTech.

Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine will allow states to rapidly increase the number of people who have been fully inoculated. Unlike the other two vaccines, they can be stored at standard refrigeration temperatures for at least three months.

Dr. Danny Avula, the vaccine coordinator for Virginia, said the Johnson & Johnson shipments would boost the state’s allotment of vaccine next week by nearly one-fifth.

“I’m super-pumped about this,” he said. “A hundred percent efficacy against deaths and hospitalizations? That’s all I need to hear.”

He said the state was planning mass vaccination events specifically for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, partly to quell any suspicion that it is a lesser product targeted to specific groups.

“It will be super clear that this is Johnson & Johnson, here’s what you need to know about it. If you want to do this, you’re coming in with eyes wide open,” he said. “If not, you will keep your place on the list.” (The New York Times)

Ahead of Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, McConnell’s remarks were his most severe and public rebuke of the outgoing president. The GOP leader is setting a tone as Republicans weigh whether to convict Trump on the impeachment charge that will soon be sent over from the House: “incitement of insurrection.”

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”

The Republican leader vowed a “safe and successful” inauguration of Biden on Wednesday at the Capitol, where final preparations were underway amid heavy security.

Trump’s last full day in office Tuesday was also senators’ first day back since the deadly Capitol siege and since the House voted to impeach him for his role in the riots — an unparalleled time of transition as the Senate prepares for the second impeachment trial in two years and presses ahead with the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet.

Three new Democratic senators-elect are set to be sworn into office Wednesday shortly after Biden’s inauguration, giving the Democrats the barest majority, a 50-50 Senate chamber. The new vice president, Kamala Harris, will swear them in and serve as an eventual tie-breaking vote.

The Democrats, led by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, will take charge of the Senate as they launch a trial to hold the defeated president responsible for the siege, while also quickly confirming Biden’s Cabinet and being asked to consider the passage of a sweeping new $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

“The inauguration of a new president and the start of a new administration always brings a flurry of activity to our nation’s government,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday morning. “But rarely has so much piled up for the Senate as during this particular transition.”

Making the case for Trump’s conviction, Schumer said the Senate needs to set a precedent that the “severest offense ever committed by a president would be met by the severest remedy provided by the Constitution — impeachment,” and disbarment from future office.

McConnell and Schumer conferred later Tuesday about how to organize the evenly divided chamber and how to balance the trial with other businesses. Leaving a meeting with the Republican leader, Schumer would only say the two had “discussed a whole lot of issues.”

Similarly, McConnell told reporters the two had a “good meeting” but offered no details.

Five of Biden’s nominees had committee hearings Tuesday as the Senate prepared for swift confirmation of some as soon as the president-elect takes office, as is often done particularly for the White House’s national security team. Many noted the harrowing events at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Biden’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, vowed to get to the bottom of the “horrifying” siege. The nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, testified of her own “eerie” feeling coming to the Capitol complex after “how truly disturbing it was” to see the attack on the building unfold.

The start of the new session of Congress was also forcing lawmakers to come to terms with the post-Trump era, a transfer of power that Trump’s mob of supporters tried to prevent after he urged them to storm the Capitol as Congress was tallying the Electoral College vote confirming Biden’s election.

Seven Republican senators led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tried to overturn Biden’s election during the Electoral College tally. Cruz was presiding over the Senate Tuesday while McConnell delivered his blistering remarks.

Republican senators, in particular, face a daunting choice of whether to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection, the first impeachment trial of a president no longer in office — but one who continues to hold great sway over the party’s voters.

Some Republicans want to halt the impeachment trial. Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn was among those Republicans casting doubt on the legal ability of the Senate to convict a president no longer in office, though legal scholars differ on the issue.

“It’s never happened before and maybe that’s for a good reason,” he said.

The House impeached Trump last week on the sole charge, incitement of insurrection, making him the only president to be twice impeached. A protester died during the riot and a police officer died later of injuries; three other people involved died of medical emergencies. He was first impeached in 2019 over relations with Ukraine and was acquitted in 2020 by the Senate.

The three new Democratic senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and Alex Padilla of California, are to be sworn into office Wednesday, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss planning.

Warnock and Ossoff defeated Republican incumbents in this month’s runoff elections. Georgia’s secretary of state certified the election results Tuesday. Padilla was tapped by California’s governor to fill the remainder of Harris’ Senate term.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The Department of Public Health estimates there are currently 98.317 active cases of the highly contagious virus in the commonwealth.

The 5,657 new cases reported Saturday bring the total number of confirmed cases in Massachusetts since the pandemic began to 444.028. Another 142 probable cases were reported, for a combined confirmed and probable tally of 465.726.

Another 112,120 tests were also reported Saturday, for a total of nearly 12.3 million.

The seven-day average positivity was 6.2%. With testing at higher education institutions removed, that average was 7.4%.

There are 2.197 patients currently hospitalized due to the virus, down from more than 2.200 earlier in the week and from more than 2.400 last week. As of Saturday, there were 433 patients in intensive care units and 294 who were intubated.

The 74 new fatalities bring the state’s confirmed COVID-19 toll to 13.305. With deaths linked to probable cases included, that rises to 13.583.

Long-term care facilities have now reported 7.747 deaths linked to COVID-19. There are 418 facilities that have reported at least one confirmed or probable case, and 32.661 residents and health care workers who have been sickened.

More than 2 million people have now died from COVID-19 worldwide as the U.S. approaches its own grim milestone of 400.000. There have been 94 million coronavirus cases reported worldwide, including more than 23 million in the U.S., according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. (BOSTON HERALD)

Açıklamada, Fed’in 2020’deki tahmini net karının bir önceki yıla göre 33,3 milyar dolarlık artışla 88,8 milyar dolar olduğu kaydedildi.

Söz konusu karın 88,5 milyar dolarının ABD hazinesine aktarılacağı belirtilen açıklamada, bu dönemde faiz giderlerinde düşüş kaydedildiği belirtildi.

Açıklamada, 12 Fed şubesinin işletme giderlerinin ise 2020’de 4,5 milyar dolar seviyesinde gerçekleştiği ifade edildi.

Fed’in açıklamasında, 2020 yılına ait denetlenmiş mali tabloların ise mart ayında yayımlanmasının beklendiğini belirtildi. (AA)

Sund announced his resignation, effective Jan. 16, on Thursday, hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly called on him to step down over the department’s handling of the insurrection at the Capitol. But the Capitol Police website has been updated to say that Assistant Chief Yogananda D. Pittman took control of the agency on Friday.

During the melee, Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick, a 12-year veteran, was injured while physically engaging the riotous mob. He died Thursday night. One of the people who breached the Capitol, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by a Capitol Police officer during the confrontation; three others died of medical emergencies, officials have said.

On Sunday, Capitol Police announced the death of another officer, Howard Liebengood, 51, who was off-duty when he died. Police did not release a cause or date of death of Liebengood, who had been with the department since April 2005.

But Liebengood was at the Capitol on Wednesday, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. His death was a suicide, these officials said.

Sund and his deputies did not request significant help from other law enforcement agencies in advance of the siege, which unfolded at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers attempted to certify the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Nor did the department have enough of its own officers and fortifications — or a backup plan in place — to keep the mob out of the building.

When Sund resigned, he wrote a memo to members of the Capitol Police Board, which was reported by multiple news outlets as saying, in part: “I am respectfully submitting my letter of resignation, effective Sunday, January 16, 2021.”

The Capitol Police did not respond to a question from The Washington Post about why Sund left his position early.

Pittman has worked for the Capitol Police since 2001, initially providing security for senators and dignitaries, the agency’s website says. In 2006, she was promoted to sergeant, working in the communications division; she later she became a lieutenant and worked in the House division.

In 2012, Pittman was one of the first Black female supervisors to become a captain, according to the agency’s website. In that position, she led her unit in providing security for the 2013 presidential inauguration. In 2018, she was promoted to deputy chief. (The Washington Post)

Aware of the chaos and distraction Donald Trump has proved he can muster, the president-elect and his advisers have developed a strategy they believe is the only way to neutralize the threat: ignore him.

One lesson of Biden’s winning presidential campaign, they say, is that there’s little incentive to engage with Trump and that his penchant for spectacle is wearing thin with the American people. The tension will reach a head-on Jan. 6, when Congress formally ratifies Biden’s victory as Trump’s supporters’ wage protests both on the streets of Washington, egged on by the president, and within the House and Senate.

Biden has been “adamant that we were not going to get down in the gutter with Donald Trump every day,” said adviser Kate Bedingfield. “That’s not who he is, and that’s not what the American people want to see in a president.”

But the incoming administration is going to have trouble ignoring Trump, who’s poised to remain at least an aggravation to Biden. After refusing to concede defeat and declaring the election he lost to be illegitimate, he’s made clear he doesn’t plan to quietly retire, and has told associates he’ll run for president again in 2024.

For generations, U.S. presidents leaving the office to a successor of the opposition party have yielded power gracefully — even those defeated for re-election after a single term. But Trump’s attitude has set up the most awkward transfer of power in modern history and threatens to hamstring Biden as he confronts a long list of crises.

“This is unprecedented territory,” said Steve Israel, a former eight-term Democratic congressman from New York and director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. “We’ve never had a former president who is dedicated to the proposition of the failure of his successor.”

Biden’s team regards Trump’s attempts to overturn the will of voters — including his effort to recruit Republican lawmakers to challenge the congressional certification of the election results on Wednesday — as doing more harm to the outgoing president’s legacy than to Biden.

And they believe there are already signs that Trump’s bully pulpit and ability to command public attention is eroding, including waning media coverage of his election-related antics and congressional Republicans’ willingness to buck the president in recent legislative battles, including the first override of a Trump veto.

But Biden’s strategy to deprive Trump of attention will likely face frequent and immediate tests.

The outgoing president, sensing that his remaining power lies with still-formidable base supporters, has spent recent weeks threatening Republican lawmakers who dare to cross him.

Trump has repeatedly emphasized that he captured 74 million votes, a record for a defeated presidential candidate, and asserted that his presence on the ballot helped Republicans win election and re-election to federal offices.

“Republicans in the Senate so quickly forget,” he tweeted on Dec. 22. “Right now they would be down 8 seats without my backing them in the last Election.” In the same post, Trump predicted that John Thune, the number two Senate Republican, would lose a 2022 GOP primary challenge, “political career over!!!”….. (BOSTON GLOBE)

For 2021 in New York and around the United States, it’s out with the old, in with the few.

The coronavirus pandemic has canceled, scaled down and rejiggered New Year’s celebrations across the United States, where virtually no place is safe to gather in groups. And after a bruising year that included not only a global health crisis, but a painful reckoning over racial injustice, devastating natural disasters and a polarizing presidential election, Americans are both hopeful and wary of what a new year will bring.

At the intersection of 44th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, a few hundred feet from where the ball would drop, a small crowd gathered in the early afternoon. Normally, it would be difficult to get so close.

Georgienne Millen, 65, a New York City tour guide, stopped by to snap a few photos. She hadn’t done the New Year’s Eve Times Square experience — partying amid the massive throng — since she was 16.

“It was crazy,” she said. “I was never kissed by so many people in my whole life.”

Now, the words escaped her. Millen’s older brother had recently tested positive for the coronavirus but was asymptomatic so far. “This whole year has messed with my vocabulary,” she said. “It’s so sad.”

The area where she was standing would have been impossible to do in a normal year. Space would have been a precious commodity. “This gets booked a year in advance,” she said. She was sad for those who had to cancel their plans.

Times Square on New Year’s is “something everybody should do once in their life,” Millen said. But not this year.

Now people were standing in small groups, snapping photos six feet apart. Come midnight, the only live witnesses to the ball drop will be the few hundred front-line workers invited to the square.

Indoors, New Year’s celebrations are expected to be even smaller. Restrictions on indoor dining across the United States and curfews on liquor sales in some areas are expected to dull bars and restaurants on what’s typically one of the most lucrative nights of the year.

The pandemic has been crushing for the hospitality industry and the prospect of thin winter months ahead has driven some establishments to try to salvage what they can of the usually bustling New Year’s Eve.

At the Royal D.C., a popular bar in Washington’s LeDroit Park neighborhood, customers usually flood in to watch the Times Square ball drop on a projector. This year, the D.C. government banned alcohol sales after 10 p.m., forcing bar manager Alonzo Freeman to reach for a backup plan: $90 take-home cocktail kits with four alcoholic drinks, as well as cold brew and a guava pastry for the next morning.

“If we could have people here until midnight, 1 a.m., we probably would,” Freeman said. “But since you can’t experience a countdown here, there’s really no point.”

Chicago chef Oliver Poilevey was more optimistic Thursday afternoon after capping the number of orders for a New Year’s Eve carryout menu at his French bistro, Le Bouchon.

“I think people are anxious to do something since they’re not going out,” said Poilevey. Even as he anticipates a much-needed sales bump from the New Year’s Eve orders, he’s wistful for the dinner services of New Year’s past.

“It’s not the same as being in a restaurant, everyone clinking glasses all the same time,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a reminder of the good times.” (The Washington Post)