The United States surpassed 300,000 recorded deaths from COVID-19 Monday — the same day the first American was vaccinated against the coronavirus that causes the disease. The grim number comes about two weeks after millions of Americans defied warnings to avoid travel and gathered with family members for the Thanksgiving holiday. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, by Monday afternoon 300,267 Americans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The U.S. makes up nearly 1-in-5 deaths worldwide from COVID-19. The medical staff listens during a news conference at …

Pressure is growing on the European Union to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after regulators in Britain, the United States and Canada gave the green light in recent days. Coronavirus cases are soaring across the continent, with extended lockdowns announced in Germany and the Netherlands. Henry Ridgwell reports. Camera: Henry Ridgwell    …

A narrow 96-kilometer-wide corridor from the Pacific Coast in Chile across the Andes mountain range and into Argentina in South America was treated Monday to views of the final total solar eclipse of 2020. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow that momentarily extinguishes daylight on Earth. Magdalena Nahuelpan, a Mapuche Indigenous girl, looks at a total solar eclipse using special glasses in Carahue, La Araucania, Chile, Dec. 14, 2020.Despite COVID-19 restrictions on travel and movement, thousands of tourists and residents …

The Philippines aims to finalize negotiations with Sinovac Biotech this week to acquire 25 million doses of the Chinese company’s COVID-19 vaccine for delivery by March, a coronavirus taskforce official said on Monday.President Rodrigo Duterte, who has pursued warmer ties with Beijing, wants to inoculate all his country’s 108 million people, preferably buying vaccines from Russia or China.Philippine officials had met with Sinovac representatives on Friday and there would be another meeting this week to finalize a deal, Carlito Galvez, the country’s vaccine chief, said.”We have already conveyed to them …

Daily records continue to tumble for COVID-19 cases and deaths in many parts of the world, forcing governments to impose restrictions or consider lockdowns to halt the spread of the coronavirus.    In Europe, Germany is heading for a second lockdown starting on Wednesday amid rising coronavirus infections. The government in urging citizens to avoid Christmas shopping in the two days before most stores close and social distancing rules tighten. A person wearing protective mask lights a candle on a vigil organised by activist-group #wirgebendenToteneinGesicht (We give a face to the dead) to …

Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. Stepped-up use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S. The drop-off that started in the mid-1990s has spurred a preservation campaign involving schoolchildren, homeowners and landowners, conservation groups, governments and …