CDC Expands 'Places' COVID Tool to Target Vaccinations

The CDC hopes community leaders will use the Places tool to identify the hardest-hit areas to target vaccination efforts.

Recommended Stories

  • China's foreign minister: Uighur genocide accusations a 'complete lie'

    China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday denied allegations that his country is carrying out genocide against the Uighur population in the northwestern Xinjiang province. "The so-called 'genocide' in Xinjiang is ridiculously absurd," Wang said during his annual news conference. "It is a rumor with ulterior motives and a complete lie." Several countries, including the United States, have used the term to describe Beijing's human rights abuses against Uighurs, an ethnic minority that largely practices Islam, and Wang attempted to flip the script by focusing on past genocides and injustices in those countries. "When it comes to 'genocide,' most people think of native North Americans in the 16th century, African slaves in the 19th century, Jews in the 20th century, and the indigenous Australians who are still fighting today," he was quoted as saying. China claims that Uighurs have been placed in "re-education camps" that provide vocational training and are designed to eradicate extremism, but there is growing evidence that allegations of forced labor and sterilization and systematic rape and torture at the concentration camps are legitimate. In addition to the genocide denial, Wang defended China's plans to reform Hong Kong's electoral system, which critics believe will ensure Beijing loyalists are in charge, and he also called on the U.S. to remove "unreasonable" curbs on China to improve bilateral cooperation. Read more at BBC and Reuters. More stories from theweek.com7 spondiferously funny cartoons about the Dr. Seuss controversyWhy the Dr. Seuss 'cancellation' is chillingRon Johnson's lazy obstruction exposes the reality of the filibuster

  • A Trump appointee who was arrested after participating in the Capitol riot asked a judge if he could be transferred to a cell with no cockroaches

    Federico Klein is believed to the first Trump appointee arrested in connection with the Capitol riot.

  • China says it's ready to provide vaccines to overseas Chinese, Olympians

    China said on Sunday it has plans to set up COVID-19 vaccination stations to vaccinate Chinese citizens abroad and is also ready to work with the International Olympic Committee to help provide vaccines to Olympic athletes for upcoming events. China has developed several vaccines domestically and has begun its own vaccination drive, with plans to vaccinate 40% of its population by July. China's top government diplomat Wang Yi made the comments during his annual news conference held on Sunday.

  • Shake off your ill will, Britain tells EU over post-Brexit trade

    The European Union should shake off its ill will and build a good relationship with Britain as sovereign equals, Britain's top EU adviser David Frost said on Sunday, promising to stand up for the country's interests. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Frost again defended Britain's unilateral move to smooth post-Brexit trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, over which the EU has promised to launch legal action for breaching the terms of the Brexit deal. Since Britain left the EU last year, relations between the two have soured, with both sides accusing the other of acting in bad faith in relation to part of their trade agreement that covers goods movements to Northern Ireland.

  • Trump said he would travel the 5,000 miles from Mar-a-Lago to Alaska to bury the political career of GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in revenge for her impeachment vote

    Trump promised to back any 2022 challenger to the senator. Murkowski called on him to resign after the January 6 Capitol riot.

  • 'Lesson fully received': An 18-year-old charged in the Capitol riot says he was 'wrong' and begged a judge to release him

    A Georgia teenager who boasted on Instagram about storming the Capitol in January begged a federal judge to release him ahead of his trial.

  • Kim Kardashian will reportedly stay in family's $60 million mansion as part of divorce from Kanye West

    Kim Kardashian West will stay in the minimalist, beige-filled Hidden Hills, California, home she and Kanye West bought in 2014, TMZ reported.

  • China tells Biden to reverse 'dangerous practice' on Taiwan

    China’s foreign minister warned the Biden administration on Sunday to roll back former President Donald Trump’s “dangerous practice” of showing support for Taiwan, the island democracy claimed by Beijing as its own territory. The claim to Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949, is an “insurmountable red line,” Wang Yi said at a news conference during the annual meeting of China’s ceremonial legislature.

  • Top disease expert says US in the 'eye of the hurricane' as COVID cases decline amid growing concern over spread of UK variant

    Osterholm warned about the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant of the virus that was first discovered in the UK and has "wreaked havoc" in Europe.

  • Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham have been together for nearly 35 years. Here's a timeline of their relationship.

    Winfrey has said if she'd married Graham, their relationship would not have lasted.

  • B-52s again fly over Mideast in US military warning to Iran

    A pair of B-52 bombers flew over the Mideast on Sunday, the latest such mission in the region aimed at warning Iran amid tensions between Washington and Tehran. The flight by the two heavy bombers came as a pro-Iran satellite channel based in Beirut broadcast Iranian military drone footage of an Israeli ship hit by a mysterious explosion only days earlier in the Mideast. While the channel sought to say Iran wasn't involved, Israel has blamed Tehran for what it described as an attack on the vessel.

  • Lauren Boebert, who once expressed support for QAnon, accused Democrats of being 'obsessed with conspiracy theories'

    GOP Rep. Lauren Boerbert of Colorado has previously said she hopes the QAnon conspiracy theory was real but denied being a follower.

  • Kaley Cuoco says she was 'freaking out' after 'The Big Bang Theory' ended because she'll never have that salary or cast again

    The 35-year-old actress played Penny on all 12 seasons of the CBS sitcom, which wrapped in May 2019.

  • Lobbyist says Myanmar junta wants to improve relations with the West, spurn China

    An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by Myanmar's junta said on Saturday that the generals are keen to leave politics after their coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who has previously represented Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Sudan's military rulers, said Myanmar's generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations says more than 50 demonstrators have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won polls in November by a landslide.

  • NHS England invites people aged 56 to 59 to book COVID-19 vaccinations in coming week

    NHS England has invited people aged 56 to 59 to book COVID-19 vaccinations in the coming week, with letters to 850,000 people in that age bracket landing on doorsteps from Saturday and another 850,000 due to land Monday. "The latest invites have been sent after more than eight in 10 people aged 65 to 69 took up the offer of a jab", the National Health Service said in an emailed statement on Sunday. "NHS staff have vaccinated more than 18 million people across England, meaning more than one third of the adult population have already received the life-saving jab."

  • Tiger Woods reportedly told police after rollover crash that he had no recollection of driving the car

    An affidavit reported by AP said Tiger Woods told deputies he didn't remember how the rollover crash occurred last month in Los Angeles, California.

  • U.S. Senator Manchin says filibusters could be made more 'painful'

    Centrist Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a pivotal vote in the U.S. Senate, on Sunday advocated making the procedural maneuver called the filibuster more "painful" to do, with Democrats concerned about Republicans obstructing President Joe Biden's legislative agenda. Some Democrats have advocated eliminating the filibuster to prevent Republicans from blocking Biden's initiatives. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield made clear on Sunday that the president is not calling for ending the filibuster.

  • Exclusive: Georgia prosecutor probing Trump taps leading racketeering attorney

    The district attorney investigating whether former U.S. President Donald Trump illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election has hired an outside lawyer who is a national authority on racketeering, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has enlisted the help of Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, who wrote a national guide on prosecuting state racketeering cases. Floyd was hired recently to “provide help as needed” on matters involving racketeering, including the Trump investigation and other cases, said the source, who has direct knowledge of the situation.

  • Inside the $95,000 progressive Welsh school teaching royals and future leaders that's been called 'Hogwarts for hippies'

    Royals and refugees study alongside each other, teachers are called by their first name, and classes let out early for personal development.

  • Rights groups call for investigation into killings of Philippine activists

    Human rights groups called on the Philippine government to investigate what they said was the use of "lethal force" during police raids on Sunday that left at least nine activists dead. The raids in four provinces south of Manila resulted in the death of an environmental activist as well as a coordinator of left-wing group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, among others, and resulted in the arrest of four others, activist groups said. "These raids appear to be part of a coordinated plan by the authorities to raid, arrest, and even kill activists in their homes and offices," Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson said in a statement.