WASHINGTON — Over the weekend, seemingly troubling news emerged from Israel, with a study suggesting that the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech was less effective against B.1.351, a variant first encountered in South Africa. One headline called the study “alarming.”

Meanwhile, two of the New York Post’s most-read stories as of Monday morning were about a 31-year-old woman in New York City who tested positive for the coronavirus three weeks after receiving the vaccine and a 52-year-old man who ended up in the hospital with COVID-19, despite having also been vaccinated.

Together, such reports in the mainstream media of “breakthrough” infections of the vaccinated can foster the inaccurate narrative

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that the Biden administration was looking for ways to conduct outreach to “white conservative communities” where coronavirus vaccine hesitancy runs high. Such outreach, Psaki said, could include partnerships with NASCAR, the car racing franchise, and CMT, the country music television station.

“We’re looking for a range of creative ways to get directly connected to white conservative communities,” Psaki said during a briefing with members of the press. She noted that cast members from “Deadliest Catch,” a reality television show about deep-sea fishing, had recently participated in a public service announcement about mask wearing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

As with masks, lockdowns and seemingly everything else about the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans and Democrats are now sharply divided over the emerging prospect of “vaccine passports” designed to provide proof of immunization against the coronavirus, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The survey of 1,649 U.S. adults, which was conducted from April 6 to April 8, found that a significant majority of Democrats (61 percent) would favor certain businesses requiring verification of vaccination from customers — while a near-identical share of Republicans (62 percent) would oppose such a requirement. (Forty-five percent of independents — a plurality — are also opposed.) As a result, Americans as a whole are evenly

WASHINGTON — American cruise ships that have been stuck in port for more than a year could be “sailing by midsummer,” provided they can meet safety guidelines by then, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Friday afternoon.

That assurance is unlikely to satisfy a $55.5 billion industry that believes it has been unfairly maligned in the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Florida is suing the federal government to allow ships to immediately set sail from the state’s ports, signaling that the issue could emerge as a political challenge for the Biden administration, much as reopening schools has.

Buttigieg was at the White House to sell the administration’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan,

Associated Press

Cyberattack on US pipeline is linked to criminal gang

The cyberextortion attempt that has forced the shutdown of a vital U.S. pipeline was carried out by a criminal gang known as DarkSide that cultivates a Robin Hood image of stealing from corporations and giving a cut to charity, two people close to the investigation said Sunday. The shutdown, meanwhile, stretched into its third day, with the Biden administration loosening regulations for the transport of petroleum products on highways as part of an “all-hands-on-deck” effort to avoid disruptions in the fuel supply. Experts said that gasoline prices are unlikely to be affected if the pipeline is back to normal in

WASHINGTON — The intelligence community has published a wide-ranging report detailing its predictions about the state of the world in the next two decades.

The National Intelligence Council, in a report released Thursday, suggested that regardless of how humanity confronts ongoing challenges, some of the biggest threats will not be caused or instigated by human perpetrators. These global challenges will likely include “climate change, disease, financial crises, and technology disruptions,” which could create “food and water insecurity,” “increase migration” and its destabilizing effects, create “new health challenges” and decimate biodiversity, the authors write.

One of the major examples of that threat is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the authors write, which they

Reaching middle age usually means a few major life adjustments — retirement, a newly empty nest, or health changes. Sometimes, it means all of the above, or a slew of different changes entirely. It can also mean becoming more familiar with the signs of a midlife crisis, either in yourself or your peers.

Though the term midlife crisis is fairly common, it’s actually only existed since the mid-1960s, according to Psychology Today. Coined by psychologist Elliot Jacques, “midlife crisis” was originally used to describe the period of life where adults tend to “reckon with their mortality,” as the same Psychology Today article explains. In other words, the phenomenon can