Latest in United States

U.S. basketball champion Brittney Griner has been released by Russia in a prisoner swap and is now in U.S. custody. The Olympic gold medalist was arrested at Moscow Airport on February 17, after she was found to be in possession of two vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is a banned…

A new French late show, fronted by popular actor, director and writer Alain Chabat launched on France's TF1 amid much fanfare this week in the country’s latest attempt to crack the late-night talk show format. Running Monday to Friday from 10.55 pm, Le Late Avec Alain Chabat kicked off on Monday…

EXCLUSIVE: Former MGM and Sony Pictures exec Eric Paquette’s film and TV company Meridian Pictures has struck a partnership deal with Saudi Arabian production house and literary management company Hakawati Entertainment. The exclusive partnership aims to bring Hollywood talent to the Saudi…

The BA.5 Omicron variant, first identified in South Africa on February 26, now seems to have an edge in the competition for dominance across the United States. Three Covid variants are currently on the rise as the country experiences a summer surge in cases. All are members of the Omicron family. While BA.5 still only…

“My name is Trevor Noah. I'm really honored to be here, honestly,” said the Daily Show host at this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “You could've picked any comedian, you could've invited anyone but you went with the South African variant. Very on theme.” Likely even more on-theme than Noah knew. On…

Los Angeles County Public Health officials announced today that the county of 10 million people had finally begun to experience a trend that has already hit many parts of the United States: a rapid rise in the number of Covid cases attributed to the more transmissible Omicron BA.2 variant. Per L.A. County: Although…

Numbers updated this morning by the CDC indicate that the percentage of new Covid cases across the United States tied to the even more transmissible BA.2 variant has jumped from 23% in early March to 35% this week. On the positive side, that means the rate of increase has slowed from two 100% jumps over the previous…

On February 29, 2020 the United States recorded its first death connected to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. At the time, estimates of the numbers of deaths the newly-identified virus might cause were all over the map. Some said it was no worse than the seasonal flu which, from 2017-2018 had caused 51,000…

While the 7-day average of new Covid cases in the U.S. is trending down, the daily number of new cases topped 1 million for only the second time in the 733 days since the first infection was reported stateside. Monday case numbers posted today by the CDC and Johns Hopkins University came in at 1,140,580 and 1,007,511…

Just as the Omicron wave may have broken across the U.S. comes word of another version of the more transmissible variant, dubbed BA.2. It’s been nicknamed by some “stealth Omicron” because it seems to evade identification better than its predecessor. While other new variants that seemed worrisome — like Mu or Lambda…

Driven by the Omicron variant, the U.S. saw a record number of new cases, hospitalizations and hit an all-time high test positivity rate today. Johns Hopkins University reported 1,483,656 new daily cases in the country on Tuesday. That’s 300,000-plus cases above the previous high of 1,044,970 cases seen on January 3…

On Tuesday, the United States recorded 512,553 daily new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. That is, by far, the single highest daily case number recorded during the entire Covid-19 pandemic. University data indicates that the previous high was 294,015 on January 8, 2021. One mitigating factor is the…