It’s time to unplug the sanitizing robots and put away the bottles of Clorox that seem to line the entrances to every school, restaurant and supermarket wanting to advertise its safety protocols. While such protocols may be reassuring to an anxious populace, they are not necessary, says a revised guidance issued on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low,” the new CDC guidance says, estimating that the chance of contracting the coronavirus through surface transmission is lower than 1 in 10,000.

A worker demonstrates

When Joe Biden took office, he bet voters would judge his presidency on one thing and one thing only: how well he handled the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout.

Now, with vaccination accelerating, optimism rising and another round of relief checks arriving in the mail, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that a clear and growing majority of Americans approve of Biden’s policies and leadership, providing the president with momentum that could bolster his next major legislative push, on infrastructure and climate change — if mounting challenges at the border with Mexico don’t get in his way.

The survey of 1,556 U.S. adults, which was conducted from March 23 to

This is part of a Yahoo News series honoring some of the American lives lost to COVID-19. Their stories are told by family and friends, who were left to deal with their often sudden and painful deaths.

Nicholas Caravassi, 68, of Aubrey, Texas, formerly of Fords, N.J., died on March 28, 2020, after becoming ill with COVID-19. He’s among the more than 540,000 Americans who have lost their lives to the disease since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic early last year.

His wife, Carol Caravassi, told Yahoo News that her husband was a kind and outgoing person who made friends everywhere he went.

“Some people collect things,” Caravassi said. “I always

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to President Biden on the coronavirus pandemic, said he didn’t believe that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory for studying pathogens, appearing to contradict controversial remarks made earlier in the day by the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield.

Speaking on CNN just hours before the White House coronavirus task force was set to brief members of the press, Redfield — who served as CDC director during the Trump administration — reignited a debate that has continued more or less since the pandemic began: Where did the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 come from?

Dr. Anthony

At a moment when the United States — one of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic — is still averaging 57,000 new cases, 40,000 hospitalized patients and 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 every day, it’s hard for ordinary Americans to think about how much worse most of the rest of the world has it.

But when it comes to vaccination, Americans may soon be forced to do exactly that.

As the world’s wealthiest nation, the U.S. has made sure it will be able to return to normal a lot faster than almost any other country, for two simple reasons: (1) It is administering its current supply of vaccine doses faster than

The Telegraph

Scotland spending 30pc more per person than England thanks to Barnett formula, IFS finds

Nicola Sturgeon’s spending on Scottish public services is 30 per cent greater than the equivalent funding in England thanks to the Barnett formula, according to a study published on Wednesday. The impartial Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found a growing cross-Border spending gap, with the SNP administration in Edinburgh having more than £1.30 per person to spend on public services for every £1 in England. Almost all of this difference – 28.9p out of 30.6p – comes from the Scottish Government’s block grant from the UK Treasury, which is calculated using the controversial Barnett formula.

National Review

The Border Crisis Started in D.C. — and the Ninth Circuit

In February, Border Patrol apprehended 96,974 illegal entrants at the Southwest border — a 15-year high for the month. The migrants were very different from those in February 2006, however, as many are now coming to exploit loopholes created years ago in Washington — and the Ninth Circuit. Historical Trends Before 2011, 90 percent of illegal-migrant apprehensions were of single adults, mostly from Mexico. Last month, though, fewer than 71 percent were of single adults, while about 9.6 percent were of minors traveling without parents (known as “unaccompanied alien children” or “UACs”), and 19.5 percent were of adults