At the time of writing, the U.S. has 6,814,696 confirmed cases, with India and Brazil having the second and third highest case numbers respectively, as shown in the below graphic. The U.S. has confirmed 199,531 deaths from the coronavirus (COVID-19), with 2,590,671 confirmed recoveries. According to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus map, New York, New Jersey and Texas have the highest numbers of deaths respectively. This graphic, produced by Statista, illustrates the number of COVID-19 cases recorded in each state....

According to the World Health Organization, there are 83,652 cases of the virus on six continents and 2,858 deaths globally. The majority of infected, as well as those who have died from COVID-19, the illness’ official name, have been in China – 78,961 people have contracted the illness in the country, while 2,791 have died from it. However, U.S. health officials on Friday warned of possible “community spread” in Washington, California and Oregon after four people tested positive for the disease....

New cases have also been recently reported in Morocco, Latvia, Saudi Arabia and Senegal, according to the latest report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday. The virus, which was first identified in Wuhan city in the Hubei province of China, has now affected at least 93,160 people. Of that figure, 80,270 are in China, including 2,871 deaths. Around the world, the death toll has reached 3,198, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University....

MORE: Tragic losses in sports this year Smith, 34, was fatally shot around 11:30 p.m. CT on Saturday in New Orleans’ Lower Garden District. “Many of these bullets perforated vital organs, including the lungs and heart,” said Rouse, whose information came as part of a preliminary autopsy after Smith’s death for which Cardell Hayes, 28, has been charged with, among other things, second-degree murder. Smith’s wife, Racquel, also was shot twice in the incident that apparently was triggered by a traffic incident in which the Mercedes-Benz Will Smith was driving reportedly initially hit Hayes’ Hummer SUV....

Many of America’s largest corporations have announced they are withholding support and employment of people and institutions that enabled former President Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine democracy. While these calls are a great start, these efforts must be ongoing to make real impact. The question for corporate leaders who have already taken steps to denounce the attacks on January 6 is simple: How serious are you about playing a part in ensuring a functioning democracy when the heat is off and the cameras are gone?...

Turhan Knight was fired this week from his position as an officer in Louisville Metro Corrections for making the video disparaging Taylor and making light of police violence, reports local media. The firing comes the same week a former police detective pleaded guilty for her role in covering up her role in the botched raid on Taylor’s apartment in 2020. In the video, obtained by NBC affiliate WAVE, Knight stands next to a police vehicle in what appears to a mock recruitment video for the Louisville Metro Police Department, saying the force needed help “trying to repair broken relationships....

Rotorua: Some call it the Las Vegas of New Zealand, although there are no casino slots–just lots of tourists. The small city, located in the central part of the north island, is famous not just for being the heart of Maori culture, but also for its thermal springs and bubbling mud. Head to Whakarewarewa (www.whakarewarewa.com), a Maori village in the midst of the thermal reserve. Locals provide tours of the village, and you’ll have the chance to watch traditional Maori dancing and singing and enjoy delicious corn boiled in the thermal waters....

Defending his calls for stricter gun control policy, Booker told McCain, “We’ve had more people die in America in my lifetime than in every single war combined.” After calling mandatory gun buybacks “a left-wing fever dream,” McCain asked Booker how he planned “to go into red states, and go to my brother’s house and get his AR-15s,” She added, “He’s not giving it back.” McCain’s remarks referenced another Democratic candidate, Beto O’Rourke, who has taken a hard line stance on gun control measures since two mass shootings rocked his home state in August....

The Blues striker has become embroiled in a heated debate regarding his future at Stamford Bridge, with the riches on offer in the Chinese Super League said to have turned his head. ‘Chelsea wouldn’t last without Costa’ He played no part in a 3-0 victory over Leicester City on Saturday, with his absence put down to a back complaint. Speculation regarding an imminent exit refuses to go away, though, with the winter transfer window open and Chelsea having already seen Oscar and John Obi Mikel leave Stamford Bridge for Asia....

Costa is the Premier League’s top scorer with 12 goals, one more than Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez, and struck the winner in the 1-0 home triumph over West Brom on Sunday. The Spain international is a key member of a Chelsea side that leads the league table after a stunning run of nine successive wins. Azpilicueta pens new Blues deal Despite Costa’s outstanding personal displays, Conte feels there is even more to come from the 28-year-old....

The Crypto Bill at a Glance A bipartisan bill proposed in June by New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and the Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis is in part a response to the crypto crash, but also to a growing chorus of institutional market participants demanding more sensible guardrails to foster growth. Coined by the bill’s authors, “the most substantial and comprehensive bipartisan effort to provide certainty and clarity to the growing digital asset and blockchain industries....

And it’s not just that he has decent pitching numbers. He has pretty great pitching numbers. So let’s ask this question: Could Ohtani win the Cy Young, too? It’s not as crazy as you might think. He’s not the favorite at this point, but he’s within shouting distance with a little more than a month left in the season. He was the AL’s starting pitcher at the All-Star Game, remember, but that was largely a “give the fans who they want to see” decision by Rays manager Kevin Cash, skipper of the AL squad....

According to an alert notice published Saturday afternoon by the U.S. Geographical Survey, the southern edge of the Coso Volcanic Field saw the start of an earthquake swarm — the term for a localized series of tremors within a relatively short time frame — at 9:19 p.m. PT Friday. The swarm was kicked off by a 5.4-magnitude quake that was itself an aftershock of the 7.1-magnitude quake that rocked the region earlier in the evening....

That leaves another 4,000 deaths above average not linked to coronavirus. This has led to some experts, like Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, to call for an end to the lockdown. “The damaging effects now of lockdown are going to outweigh the damaging effects of coronavirus,” he has said. Heneghan argues that cases of COVID-19 reached a peak before the U.K. was placed on lockdown, with social distancing measures and advice to regularly wash hands having the telling impact without the need for a full lockdown....

The June study, published in Medical Hypotheses, suggests language may be one factor in why certain countries have higher rates of transmission than others. “Aspirated consonants are a concern because when producing them, people may put more droplets into the air compared to other sounds,” George Georgiou, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at RUDN University in Moscow and an author of the study, tells Verywell. “So if someone is infected with the virus, it would be easier to transmit it when using aspirated consonants....

New York Sen. Alfonse D’Amato bought equal time on TV to counter a “60 Minutes” report that he used his office to reward friends, relatives and big contributors. “It’s ‘60 Lies’,” fumed D’Amato, whose half-our commercial cost $100,000 and was scheduled to run on New York television Saturday night. Bashing Wallace is the easy part. D’Amato is also being investigated by a New York grand jury and the Senate Ethics Committee....

Unfortunate not to occupy the top spot on this list, the 2003 extravaganza was enjoyable from beginning to end as it contained high quality, accurate storytelling, and it featured a host of top WWE performers in the right frame of mind to go out and put on an unforgettable show. Even a botched finish from Brock Lesnar in the main event against Kurt Angle was quickly transferred into a shocking moment rather than an embarrassing one....

I was reminded of this recently, driving a lonesome highway from Oklahoma to Texas. “This is tornado season,” a friend had cautioned me as I set out, adding that she’d seen six. Thinking of the dark skies and stiff winds that had whipped across the plains the day before, I asked what I should do if one came spinning my way. “Jump out of your car and lie in a ditch,” she replied....

Alison Durkin, 61, woke up with chest pains and called 999 (UK’s Emergency Services phone number)—but waited hours outside the Royal Cornwall Hospital, located in the English county of Cornwall. The hospital has declared an internal ‘critical incident’ due to ‘acute pressure’ on beds—with patients forced to wait outside in queues of over 30 ambulances. Eventually, she was discharged but her chest pain was worse the following day. Alison and her husband Ross Durkin, 63, did some desperate research and found huge queues outside all major hospitals in England’s South West region....

The internet has backed a Redditor who is uninviting their “overbearing” parents from their wedding after they ruined their sister’s special day. In a post shared on Reddit on Tuesday, under the username u/InterestingKnee4176, the spouse-to-be wrote that their parents have “huge personalities” and “steamroll everyone who gets in their way,” and that at their sister’s wedding, they were “especially obnoxious.” The Redditor wrote: “They made terrible speeches, got the DJ to play crappy music for the ‘older folks’, tried to get the photographer to do family pictures for people not in the wedding party ‘since they [were] here anyway and everyone is dressed up’....