Month: December 2021

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New York City will scale back the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration as the Omicron variant spreads, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday, the same day New York state reported its highest recorded daily coronavirus case total ever.

The mayor added that officials were still monitoring the situation and could take additional precautions in the coming days, if …

The risks here for older people are frightening: A rate of 0.45 percent, for instance, translates into roughly a 1 in 220 chance of death for a vaccinated 75-year-old woman who contracts Covid. If the risks remain near these levels with Omicron, they could lead to tens of thousands of U.S. deaths, and many more hospitalizations.

Encouragingly, there are reasons to believe that Omicron’s death rate may be lower. Three new studies released yesterday suggested that Omicron causes milder illness on average than earlier versions of the virus. “I would guess that the mortality risk with Omicron is much smaller” …

Muttur Devi, a lower caste woman who works on a farm in the impoverished state of Bihar, adopted Christianity two years ago. Still, each morning, she affixes a bindi, a small circular sticker, to her forehead, and paints a vermilion stripe on her scalp. These are visible Hindu marks that she says help disguise her departure from Hinduism.

“If I take this off,” she said, touching her bindi, “the whole village will harass me.”

One cold night this past winter, Pastor Patil drove to a secret prayer session in an unmarked farmhouse. He quickly stepped inside. On a dusty carpet …

“They had a good time making fun of us,” said Mr. Pellegrino, adding that if the party had acted the same in a local trattoria, “they would have gotten a kick” in the behind.

Informed of the accusation of rudeness, Ms. DeRuiter was appalled. “The attempts by the chefs of Bros’ to blame their clientele for the quality of the service received,” she wrote in an email, “is the antithesis of what makes a good restaurant.”

Misunderstood masterpiece or lousy meal, a richly deserved excoriation or hatchet job, what is clear is that Mr. Pellegrino had unexpectedly emerged as the …

(CNN) — Road trips offer much of what the Covid-19 pandemic has stripped from us: adventure, freedom and spontaneity. Ever-changing global travel restrictions continue to impinge on our ability to explore the world freely.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t taste a bit of that road trip freedom while you wait for that next escape. The Drive & Listen web app offers quick getaways without the travel restrictions.

It may even inspire you to …

Whatever Mr. Putin’s intentions, American officials say they are rallying European allies for coordinated sanctions that would snap into place as soon as military action began. It is not clear, however, that the threat of such penalties would impress Mr. Putin, who has noted that Russia has lived with Western sanctions for years.

American and European officials are also continuing to monitor cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns that they say may be preparing the battlefield for any action. The senior administration official noted that such action has “often been done in advance these of sorts of incursions in the past.” The …