Coronavirus (COVID-19) National News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Students around the world suffered historic setbacks in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic, with declines in test scores so widespread that the United States climbed in global rankings simply by falling behind less sharpl

TORONTO — There is a lot of COVID-19 circulating in Ontario right now, and levels of both that virus and influenza are on the rise, set to peak over the holiday season, the province's top doctor said Monday.

OTTAWA — The Earth is flat. We have been secretly contacted by intelligent beings from other planets. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did not land on the moon in 1969.

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.'s former health secretary told a COVID-19 inquiry Thursday that the British government would have saved many lives if it had acted sooner and imposed a national lockdown weeks earlier than it did in March 2020.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anthony Fauci, former chief White House medical adviser, is expected to testify before Congress early next year as part of Republicans' yearslong investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and the U.S. response to the disease.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. life expectancy rose last year — by more than a year — but still isn't close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

SHENZHEN, China (AP) — In one painting, a child sits, mouth wide open, as a worker in white medical garb extends a long cotton swab toward her tonsils.

MONTREAL — An outbreak of COVID-19 aboard a Canadian warship has forced the Royal Canadian Navy to cancel the remainder of a tour of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

ROME (AP) — Rome prosecutors asked a judge Thursday to effectively close an investigation into Italian and U.N. health officials over Italy’s 2020 COVID-19 response without charges, on the grounds that no crimes were committed, a lawyer said.

VICTORIA — Thousands of people in British Columbia saw their $1,000 tax-free COVID-19 benefit unfairly clawed back by the provincial government, says an ombudsperson report. So far, 12,000 people have been told to repay their B.C.