Biden administration invests $1.7 billion to fight COVID-19 variants
CBSN
The U.S. is setting up a $1.7 billion national network to identify and track worrisome coronavirus mutations whose spread could trigger another pandemic wave, the Biden administration announced on Friday.
"At this critical juncture in the pandemic, these new resources will help ensure states and the CDC have the support they need to fight back against dangerous variants and slow the spread of the virus," White House COVID-19 testing coordinator Carole Johnson said in a statement. White House officials unveiled a strategy that features three components: a major funding boost for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments to ramp up coronavirus gene-mapping; the creation of six "centers of excellence" partnerships with universities to conduct research and develop technologies for gene-based surveillance of pathogens, and building a data system to better share and analyze information on emerging disease threats, so knowledge can be turned into action.
Probational federal employees who lost their jobs on Thursday as part of the Trump administration's mass firing of government workers expressed shock and anger at the terminations, which they contend will hurt the government's ability to provide services.
The U.S. Army will no longer allow transgender people to enlist and will stop providing gender-affirming care for service members, it announced on social media Friday.
Washington — A federal judge in Seattle put a pause on President Trump's directive that seeks to restrict access to gender-affirming care for young people under the age of 19, becoming the second in so many days to halt the president's efforts to target access to the treatments.
Love is in the air — but not everyone is in a pair.
The White House is barring all Associated Press journalists from accessing spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One, a top White House official announced Friday, after the White House shut the AP out of the Oval Office and a formal news conference earlier in the week.
Washington — President Trump signed an executive order Friday that prohibits schools and colleges with COVID-19 vaccine mandates from receiving federal money, though no states currently have such a requirement.
Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a high-stakes meeting at this year's Munich Security conference to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Vance said the U.S. seeks a "durable" peace, while Zelenskyy expressed the desire for extensive discussions to prepare for any end to the conflict.
The crew of the Black Hawk helicopter that collided in midair with an American Airlines jet over Washington D.C. might not have heard instructions from an air traffic controller to pass behind the plane, investigators said Friday.
Half of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — a group known as the CDC's "disease detectives" — were among the cuts made Friday by the Trump administration, multiple health officials tell CBS News.
Two sloth bear cubs born at the San Diego Zoo in late 2024 made their first public appearance on Thursday.
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Washington — The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation's largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who hadn't yet gained civil service protection - potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.
It was Labor Day weekend 2003 when Matt Scribner, a local horse farrier and trainer who also competes in long-distance horse races, was on his usual ride in a remote part of the Sierra Nevada foothills — just a few miles northeast of Auburn, California —when he noticed a freshly dug hole along the trail that piqued his curiosity.