Breaking news alert: An insider tells OK! Matt Lauer has been quietly waiting for the opportunity to drop a bombshell tell-all — and 2022 will be the year he finally speaks out.

Since the disgraced formerToday host was fired in 2017 after a colleague accused him of sexual assault, “Matt has kept his head down because he knew the timing wasn’t right,” dishes the insider. “Now he feels the dust has settled, and there will be more sympathy for him at long last.”

KATIE COURIC TO FACE THE MUSIC ON ‘TODAY’ AFTER BASHING FEMALE COLLEAGUES, SUPPORTING DISGRACED HOST MATT LAUER IN EXPLOSIVE TELL-ALL

Lauer, 64, who has been dating PR execShamin Abas since finalizing his divorce from longtime wife Annette Roque, “will spare no truth about the people he feels have betrayed him,” the insider shares.

While Today cohost Savannah Guthrie is too popular and powerful for him to take down, “she’ll be worth a mention at least,” predicts the insider, adding that he’ll also likely take a jab at controversial interview guests like Tom Cruise.

“He’s already plotting out the book,” continues the insider. “Matt will pick his targets carefully, but he figures he has no chance of making a TV comeback and has nothing to lose by getting his revenge.”

MATT LAUER LENDS SUPPORT TO AXED CNN HOST CHRIS CUOMO FOLLOWING SEXUAL MISCONDUCT CLAIM: HE MIGHT BE THE ONLY PERSON ‘WHO UNDERSTANDS’

AsOK! previously reported, Lauer felt so bitter about the scandal and his subsequent firing that he only talks to old friends he believes will be on his side.

“He just stays to himself, he doesn’t really reach out to people very much anymore or engage them and so he’s been losing touch with a lot of people,” an insider explained. “When he left the Today show, he didn’t get paid a penny after he got fired. NBC stuck with that. He’s presumably sitting on mountains of money but then again, he had a lot of money in real estate.”

“He only wants to talk to people who are gonna take his side,” the insider added candidly. “He still feels like he got railroaded.”

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday began hearing arguments over requests by Republican state officials and business groups to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for employers with more than 100 workers and a similar requirement for healthcare facilities at a time of surging COVID-19 cases nationwide.

The nine justices are scheduled to hear at least two hours of arguments in two cases that present a test of presidential powers to combat a public health crisis that has left more than 830,000 Americans dead.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor has chosen to participate in the arguments from her chambers, and two arguing attorneys, the solicitors general of Ohio and Louisiana, will also participate remotely by telephone, a court spokeswoman said. Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers tested positive for the coronavirus, his office said.

The justices spent most of the pandemic working remotely but returned to in-person arguments in October. All nine are fully vaccinated, the court said. The court remains closed to the public due to the pandemic.

The White House has said the two temporary mandates will save lives and strengthen the U.S. economy by increasing the number of vaccinated Americans by the millions.

The challengers have argued that the federal government exceeded its authority by imposing requirements not specifically authorized by Congress and failed to follow the proper administrative processes for issuing emergency regulations.

The court’s 6-3 conservative majority in the past has shown skepticism toward sweeping actions by federal agencies.

Under one of the policies, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) required that workers at businesses with 100 or more employees be vaccinated or tested weekly, a policy applying to more than 80 million workers nationwide.

The state of Ohio and the National Federation of Independent Business are taking the lead in seeking to block that mandate. Religious groups including the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are among those also challenging the policy in separate cases.

Under the second policy being reviewed by the Supreme Court, vaccination is required for an estimated 10.3 million workers at about 76,000 healthcare facilities, including hospitals and nursing homes, that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid government health insurance programs for elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency responsible for administering the two programs, issued the rule. The states of Missouri and Louisiana are taking the lead in the arguments before the justices seeking an order blocking it.

The Supreme Court has dealt with several pandemic-related cases already and rejected religious-based challenges to state vaccine requirements. Friday’s cases for the first time test the federal government’s authority to issue vaccine mandates.

The court in other pandemic-related cases has backed religious challenges to certain restrictions and ended the federal government’s residential eviction moratorium, originally imposed under former President Donald Trump.

As in many countries, vaccination has become a divisive issue in the United States, with some people adamantly opposed and many Republicans critical of mandates imposed by governments and businesses. The United States and countries around the world are facing an upswing in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Biden’s administration is asking the justices to lift orders by federal judges in Missouri and Louisiana blocking the healthcare worker mandate in half the 50 states while litigation on the legal merits of the policy continues.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 17 lifted an injunction issued by another court that had blocked the OSHA rule regarding large businesses, prompting challengers to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

Biden’s administration is arguing that Congress gave federal agencies broad leeway to require employers to protect workers and Medicare and Medicaid patients from health and safety hazards.

Decisions in both cases are expected quickly, with the administration’s deadlines for compliance looming.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Tom Hals; Editing by Will Dunham)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sidney Poitier, who broke through racial barriers as the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for his role in “Lilies of the Field,” and inspired a generation during the civil rights movement, has died at age 94, an official from the Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

Eugene Torchon-Newry, acting director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed Poitier’s death.

Poitier created a distinguished film legacy in a single year with three 1967 films at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the United States.

In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” he played a Black man with a white fiancee and “In the Heat of the Night” he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation. He also played a teacher in a tough London school that year in “To Sir, With Love.”

Poitier had won his history-making best actor Oscar for “Lilies of the Field” in 1963, playing a handyman who helps German nuns build a chapel in the desert. Five years before that Poitier had been the first Black man nominated for a lead actor Oscar for his role in “The Defiant Ones.”

His Tibbs character from “In the Heat of the Night” was immortalized in two sequels – “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!” in 1970 and “The Organization” in 1971 – and became the basis of the television series “In the Heat of the Night” starring Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins.

His other classic films of that era included “A Patch of Blue” in 1965 in which his character ias befriended by a blind white girl, “The Blackboard Jungle” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” which Poitier also performed on Broadway.

Poitier was born in Miami on Feb. 20, 1927, and raised on a tomato farm in the Bahamas, and had just one year of formal schooling. He struggled against poverty, illiteracy and prejudice to become one of the first Black actors to be known and accepted in major roles by mainstream audiences.

Poitier picked his roles with care, burying the old Hollywood idea that Black actors could appear only in demeaning contexts as shoeshine boys, train conductors and maids.

“I love you, I respect you, I imitate you,” Denzel Washington, another Oscar winner, once told Poitier at a public ceremony.

As a director, Poitier worked with his friend Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby in “Uptown Saturday Night” in 1974 and Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in 1980’s “Stir Crazy.”

STARTED ON STAGE

Poitier grew up in the small Bahamian village of Cat Island and in Nassau before he moved to New York at 16, lying about his age to sign up for a short stint in the Army and then working at odd jobs, including dishwasher, while taking acting lessons.

The young actor got his first break when he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater. He was an understudy in “Days of Our Youth” and took over when the star, Belafonte, who also would become a pioneering Black actor, fell ill.

Poitier went on to success on Broadway in “Anna Lucasta” in 1948 and, two years later, got his first movie role in “No Way Out” with Richard Widmark.

In all, he acted in more than 50 films and directed nine, starting in 1972 with “Buck and the Preacher” in which he co-starred with Belafonte.

In 1992, Poitier was given the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, the most prestigious honor after the Oscar, joining recipients such as Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, James Cagney and Orson Welles.

“I must also pay thanks to an elderly Jewish waiter who took time to help a young Black dishwasher learn to read,” Poitier told the audience. “I cannot tell you his name. I never knew it. But I read pretty good now.”

In 2002, an honorary Oscar recognized “his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”

Poitier married actress Joanna Shimkus, his second wife, in the mid-1970s. He had six daughters with his two wives and wrote three books – “This Life” (1980), “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography” (2000) and “Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter” (2008).

“If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you’re not going to get very far,” he told the Washington Post. “The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.”

Poitier wrote three autobiographical books and in 2013 published “Montaro Caine,” a novel that was described as part mystery, part science fiction.

Poitier was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 and served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan and to UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency. He also sat on Walt Disney Co’s board of directors from 1994 to 2003.

In 2009, Poitier was awarded the highest U.S. civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama.

The 2014 Academy Awards ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of Poitier’s historic Oscar and he was there to present the award for best director.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Howard Goller)

By Mrinalika Roy

(Reuters) -The more infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 appears to produce less severe disease than the globally dominant Delta strain, but should not be categorised as “mild”, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Thursday.

Janet Diaz, WHO lead on clinical management, said early studies showed there was a reduced risk of hospitalisation from the variant first identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong in November compared with Delta.

There appears also to be a reduced risk of severity in both younger and older people, she told a media briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

She did not give further details about the studies or the ages of the cases analysed, but the impact on the elderly is one of the big unanswered questions about the new variant as most of the cases studied so far have been in younger people.

Speaking at the same briefing in Geneva, director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the variant should not be considered “mild” as global infections soar to records, healthcare systems are overwhelmed and governments struggle to tame the virus, which has killed more than 5.8 million people.

He repeated his call for greater equity globally in the distribution of and access to vaccines.

Based on the current rate of vaccine rollout, 109 countries will miss the WHO’s target for 70% of the world’s population to be fully vaccinated by July, Tedros added. That aim is seen as helping end the acute phase of the pandemic.

WHO adviser Bruce Aylward said 36 nations had not even reached 10 percent vaccination cover. Among severe patients worldwide, 80% were unvaccinated, he added.

Another variant – labelled as IHU and first registered in September 2021 – is among those being monitored by the WHO but is not circulating widely, said the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove.

There are two other categories of greater significance the WHO uses to track variants https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants: “variant of concern”, which includes Delta and Omicron, and “variant of interest”.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bangaluru; Writing by Josephine Mason;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden will tell Americans that his predecessor, Donald Trump, carries “singular responsibility” for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol when he marks the first anniversary of the assault on Thursday, the White House said.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both Democrats, will speak on Thursday morning at the U.S. Capitol, one year after a mob loyal to Trump raided the complex https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democracy-under-siege-an-hour-by-hour-look-assault-us-capitol-2022-01-04 in a failed attempt to stop the certification of Electoral College votes that officially delivered Biden’s election victory.

Biden and his top aides have been reluctant to talk directly about Trump since the former senator took office last January, even as the Republican former president continued to spread lies about his election loss, and Democrats, historians and civil rights activists have grown increasingly concerned about the future of the nearly 250-year-old representative democracy. Thursday’s speech comes after Biden spent months encouraging Americans to unite against the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild together after weather disasters.

On Thursday, Biden will “lay out the significance of what happened in the Capitol and the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage that we saw and he will forcibly push back on the lies spread by the former president in an attempt to mislead the American people and his own supporters as well as distract from his role in what happened,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

Trump canceled a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that had been scheduled for Thursday evening, blaming what he called the “bias and dishonesty” of the House of Representatives probe of the attacks and the news media, a favorite target.

Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, said it was “unsurprising” that Biden would spend Jan. 6th “trying to further divide our nation, adding “division is the only thing Democrats know how to do.”

Four people died on the day of the riot, and one Capitol police officer died the day after defending Congress. Dozens of police were injured during the multi-hour onslaught by Trump supporters, and four officers have since taken their own lives https://www.reuters.com/world/us/officer-who-responded-us-capitol-attack-is-third-die-by-suicide-2021-08-02.

The White House said Biden would push back against Trump’s false claims, adopted by many of his followers, that his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, and attempts to downplay the worst assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.

Biden has been “clear eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy,” Psaki said, “and how the former president constantly works to constantly undermine basic American values and rule of law.”

She added that the president sees the deadly attacks as a “tragic culmination of what those four years under President Trump did to our country.”

Harris will use her remarks to “outline that the American experiment is being tested, and that we must work to secure voting rights, ensure free and fair elections and safeguard our democracy for generations to come,” an administration official said.

(Reporting By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Additional reporting by Alexander Ulmer, Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

The Australian government has cancelled the visa of tennis star Novak Djokovic, authorities confirmed on Thursday, but the world number one remains in Melbourne as his lawyers fight his deportation.

The controversy comes with the Australian Open, the first tennis grand slam tournament of the year, beginning in Melbourne on January 17.

Defending champion Djokovic was detained at a Melbourne airport following his arrival in Australia on Wednesday after the Australian Border Force (ABF) raised concerns over his entry visa.

The Serbian had received a Covid-19 vaccination exemption from tournament organizers, allowing him to compete in the event, but that was not enough for airport officials.

“The ABF can confirm that Mr Djokovic failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the entry requirements to Australia, and his visa has been subsequently cancelled,” the ABF said in a statement.

“Non-citizens who do not hold a valid visa on entry or who have had their visa cancelled will be detained and removed from Australia.”

Djokovic, who has consistently declined to reveal his vaccination status, was told he would have to leave Australia on Thursday.

But his lawyers sought an appeal and a judge said a decision would not come before Friday, news agency AAP reported, meaning Djokovic was set to stay the night in a special hotel in Melbourne. Media reports said the case could even last until Monday.

“I need to know a little more than I presently do about the conditions of the applicant,” Judge Anthony Kelly said, according to AAP, confessing to knowing little about tennis and asking details about the Australian Open dates.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for the court to ask, as an open question, whether the particular hotel in which the applicant is staying or may be able to stay might have available to him tennis practising facilities.”

The furore seems to revolve around confusion between the state Victorian government, which issued his vaccination exemption, and the federal authorities as well as the specific documents Djokovic brought.

“Mr Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a tweet earlier on Thursday.

“Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders. No one is above these rules. Our strong border policies have been critical to Australia having one of the lowest death rates in the world from COVID, we are continuing to be vigilant.”

Earlier this week, the tournament organizers had ended weeks of uncertainty by saying the nine-times champion would take part thanks to an exemption.

“Djokovic applied for a medical exemption which was granted following a rigorous review process involving two separate independent panels of medical experts,” a statement said.

“One of those was the Independent Medical Exemption Review Panel appointed by the Victorian Department of Health. They assessed all applications to see if they met the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) guidelines.”

News of the exemption to strict vaccination rules has sparked a huge backlash in Australia.

Djokovic’s exemption had caused “anger and confusion,” broadcaster ABC said while the Herald Sun newspaper said citizens felt the ruling was a “slap in the face to everyone in Australia.”

Tournament director Craig Tiley has defended the decision and their has been an angry response in Serbia to Djokovic’s treatment.

The player’s father, Srdjan Djokovic, told the Internet portal B92 that his son had earlier been held in a guarded room and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Instagram he had spoken to Djokovic and that “the whole of Serbia” supported their hero.

Djokovic said last year he was opposed to forced vaccination.

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will urge Americans to reject lies and live by the “light of truth” in remarks on Thursday to commemorate the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Biden, a Democrat, defeated Republican Trump in the 2020 election, but the former president has falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud, and his speech two weeks before Biden’s inauguration urging supporters to fight fueled a deadly riot at the Capitol, a symbol of U.S. democracy.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are slated to speak at the Capitol on Thursday and the White House said Biden would assign “singular responsibility” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-president-biden-lay-out-trumps-singular-responsibility-jan-6-attacks-2022-01-05 to Trump for the violence a year ago.

Four people died on the day of the riot, and one Capitol police officer died the day after.

“And so at this moment we must decide what kind of nation we are going to be. Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people?” Biden will say, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the White House.

“Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies? We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it,” he will say.

Biden and his advisers have shied away from talking directly about Trump during the Democrat’s first year in office, preferring to move forward with their own agenda.

But the former president has continued to spread falsehoods about his loss and may decide to run for president again in the 2024 election.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Mary Milliken)

Sorry not sorry!

Andy Cohen has no regrets about his recent hosting gig during CNN’s New Year’s Eve special over the weekend.

After the TV personality had a little too much to drink while ringing in the new year with Anderson Cooper on CNN’s broadcast Friday night — where began slinging insults at numerous celebs — he refused to apologize for simply having a good time.

Cohen appeared on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show earlier this week, where he defended himself for going on a drunken rant during the broadcast, telling the radio show host he was just trying to have a fun night.

VICKI GUNVALSON’S FORMER ‘RHOC’ CASTMATE & ANDY COHEN REACT TO HER EX STEVE LODGE GETTING ENGAGED TO NEW GIRLFRIEND

“I will not be shamed for having fun on New Year’s Eve. That’s why I’m there.” he explained on Tuesday, January 4. “It’s a four-and-a-half-hour show. The booze started kicking in around 11:30…I kicked into high gear with 45 minutes left.”

Cohen became unhinged during his drunken rant while yelling about Mayor Bill de Blasio for doing the “crappiest job” as the mayor of New York. The Bravo host even slammed ABC’s Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, calling the performers a “group of losers.”

“I had a blast. Anderson had a blast,” Cohen continued on Tuesday. “We left, we were in the car [heading] home, and were like, ‘That was New Year’s Eve.'”

Cohen explained CNN president Jeff Zucker instructs him every year to “have fun” while hosting the special. “That is my job,” he pointed out to Stern.

He also claimed he was trying to cheer up the world in the midst of Betty White‘s death and the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers by lightening things up during the New Year’s Eve celebration, which took place just hours after news broke that the iconic Golden Girls actress had passed away.

KELLY RIPA IS UPSET PAL ANDY COHEN ATTACKED COHOST RYAN SEACREST ON TELEVISION: HE IS HER ‘WORK HUSBAND & FAMILY,’ SOURCE SAYS

Cohen then took the opportunity to reiterate his only regret from the night, which was bashing fellow TV host Seacrest.

“That is my only regret from the night,” he explained. “Because I really like Ryan Seacrest and he’s a really nice guy. I was — as they say — in my cups, and I was kind of enjoying the rant. I was like, ‘Wow, it’s really fun being on CNN just ranting like a nutty guy,'” he remembered, before revealing he, “texted Ryan the next morning.”

As reported by OK!, Cohen addressed his comments directed toward the American Idol host on his Andy Cohen Live radio show on Monday, January 3, insisting he “really regret” his unnecessary remarks. “I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it.”

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday is set to discuss the Justice Department’s investigation into the deadly Capitol attack by former President Donald Trump’s supporters a day before the one-year anniversary of the violence https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democracy-under-siege-an-hour-by-hour-look-assault-us-capitol-2022-01-04.

The department, headed by Garland, has charged https://tmsnrt.rs/3HyfyEg more than 725 people with crimes arising from the riot ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting police to conspiracy. Of those people, about 165 have pleaded guilty and at least 70 have been sentenced.

Garland, the top U.S. law enforcement official, is not expected to speak in detail about specific charges or identify new suspects during his speech, scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET (1930 GMT).

“The attorney general will also reaffirm the department’s unwavering commitment to defend Americans and American democracy from violence and threats of violence,” a department official said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to derail the formal congressional https://www.reuters.com/world/us/riot-shields-metal-detectors-are-reminder-deadly-us-capitol-assault-2022-01-05 certification of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

High-profile criminal cases brought so far include several against members or associates of far-right groups such as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.

A Democratic-led House of Representatives select committee separately is investigating the attack. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, has been charged https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-department-indicts-bannon-not-complying-with-jan-6-subpoena-2021-11-12 with contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition and refusing to produce documents sought by the House committee.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

By Alistair Smout and Maayan Lubell

LONDON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Britain and Israel are overhauling their COVID-19 testing policies as governments seek to reduce the burden on laboratories and struggle with tight supplies of kits amid soaring infection rates fuelled by the Omicron variant.

This time last year, vaccines offered hope that the pandemic could be over by now. But Omicron has brought new challenges, including overloading public health systems, even if – as many scientists say – it leads to less severe illness than the earlier Delta variant.

Demand for testing kits has squeezed supply. Last week, queues formed outside pharmacies in Spain’s capital Madrid in what has become a common scene since Omicron began driving up infections. Madrid, whose conservative government has put supporting the hospitality sector at the top of its agenda, is opting for increased testing and no restrictions on socialising.

A surge in demand for tests has led to issues in Italy and Britain. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that 100,000 more PCR booking slots per day had been made available since mid-December and that capacity had been doubled to 900,000 PCR and LFD test kits a day.

People in England https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/england-suspend-pcr-confirmation-positive-rapid-covid-test-results-2022-01-05 who test positive for COVID-19 on rapid lateral flow device (LFD) tests will not need to confirm their results with a follow-up PCR test if they are not showing symptoms, the UKHSA said on Wednesday.

A record-high one in 15 people had COVID-19 in England in the week ending Dec. 31, estimates published by the Office for National Statistics showed on Wednesday.

“While cases of COVID continue to rise, this tried-and-tested approach means that LFDs can be used confidently to indicate COVID-19 infection without the need for PCR confirmation,” said agency Chief Executive Dr Jenny Harries.

PCR tests are processed in a lab and can be used to determine which variant a person has, while a LFD can be used at home and gives an indication of infectivity within half an hour.

Virologists and experts said the move was logical given the incredibly high infection rates as long as LFD supplies were sufficient as they identify the majority of people who are at their most infectious and need to isolate.

“There is really no need to confirm (a positive LFD test) with a PCR, a step that not only wastes time but costs a lot of money and uses up laboratory resources that could be better used elsewhere,” said John Edmunds, a professor of mathematical modelling of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

But the authorities will have less data about the spread of different variants as PCR swabs are used for genotyping and sequencing.

‘SUPERSONIC’ RISE IN INFECTIONS

Israel changed its quarantine and testing policy as part of efforts to save resources and ensure continued protection for vulnerable people.

PCR tests will be earmarked for people aged 60 and over or with weak immune systems, while those at lower risk will be checked with rapid antigen tests, the health ministry said.

“This is a significant change intended to identify risk populations sooner, intervene and prevent severe disease,” ministry director-general Nachman Ash told a news conference.

Until now, those exposed to confirmed COVID-19 carriers have been required to take official tests. If found to be positive, they must submit to police-enforced quarantine rules.

The United States reported nearly a million new coronavirus infections on Monday, the highest daily tally of any country in the world and nearly double the previous U.S. peak set a week earlier.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday backed its week-old guidance for people seeking to end their COVID-19 isolation at five days, adding they could take a rapid antigen test if they want to and can access one, but it is not a requirement.

The agency had been pressured by health experts to institute a test requirement after it cut in half its guidance last week for people to isolate after a COVID-19 infection to five days from 10.

Spain, Portugal and Britain have also slashed the mandatory isolation period for people who test positive for COVID-19 amid fears that lengthy quarantines could paralyse economies.

Ireland will drop its requirement for vaccinated arrivals to have proof of a negative COVID-19 test and return to seeking proof of vaccination or recent infection upon entry, Prime Minister Micheál Martin said.

Nearly 294 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and more than 5.8 million have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in central China in December 2019.

A “supersonic” rise https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/supersonic-rise-french-covid-cases-continue-coming-days-government-2022-01-05 in French COVID-19 infections is set to continue in the coming days and there are no signs of the trend reversing, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser.

Eikon users can click https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1063154666 for a case tracker.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Josephine Mason and Nick Macfie; Editing by Catherine Evans and Alexandra Hudson)

A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s federal sex trafficking trial has spoken out and is insisting the former British socialite’s guilty conviction was the right verdict because the evidence presented proved she was a “predator.”

Scotty David, one of the 12 jurors who convicted Maxwell on five out of six counts of sex trafficking in a Manhattan federal court last week, spoke to The Daily Mail regarding the 60-year-old’s guilty verdict.

“After all I’ve learned, she’s just as guilty as Epstein. I don’t want to call her a monster, but a predator is the right word,” Scotty told the outlet after emphasizing how he initially believed Maxwell to be innocent until proven guilty before he heard all the damning evidence against her.

“She knew what was happening. She knew what Epstein was doing and she allowed it to happen. She participated in getting these girls comfortable so that he could have his way with them.”

“And, to me, them returning repeatedly for the money has nothing to do with anything because these girls were minors, and it doesn’t matter what incentivized them,” he continued. “It matters what happened to them.”

Scotty also revealed how Maxwell and her team’s decision to have her not testify, even though she reportedly wanted to, may have played a part in why the jury viewed her as a predator.

“It would have shown maybe that she was a little more human,” he said, speculating a scenario in which Maxwell actually did testify on the stand.

“Maybe if she gave her version of the story, who knows, maybe if she gave us a story of how she was manipulated. I don’t know,” Scotty continued. “But then that would have been an admission I feel like of guilt.”

As Radar previously reported, Scotty David – who is using only his first and middle name – also spoke out recently to reveal that he was a victim of sexual abuse as a minor.

But while some are arguing this revelation could be grounds for a mistrial, others are arguing that this information would already be known prior to Scotty’s selection for the jury because of a 50-question survey taken asking whether a potential juror was a victim of sexual abuse.

By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Twitter Inc created a new team to review the social networking site for harmful content associated with the event, the company told Reuters on Tuesday.

Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook were accused of enabling extremists to organize the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Republican then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

Twitter said it “convened a cross-functional working group” comprised of members across its site integrity and trust and safety teams, which is specific to the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol and will watch for risks such as tweets and accounts that incite violence. The company did not say how many people were on the monitoring team.

The company said the effort expands upon its work to monitor the platform around major global events, and added it will continue to monitor trending topics and search results for harmful content.

A spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc, the company previously known as Facebook, said in a statement on Wednesday: “We’re continuing to actively monitor threats on our platform and will respond accordingly.”

A spokesperson for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said Wednesday the online video platform had removed tens of thousands of videos for violating its U.S. elections-related policies over the past year, and said it continued to closely monitor for election misinformation on the site.

In March, the chief executives of Twitter, Google and Facebook, testified in a hearing before Congress and were asked https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-tech/yes-or-no-u-s-lawmakers-fume-over-big-techs-answers-on-misinformation-idUSKBN2BH1B0 by U.S. lawmakers whether their platforms bore some responsibility for the riot.

Then-Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was the only executive who answered “yes,” but said the “broader ecosystem” had to be taken into account.

Days after the Capitol riot, Twitter announced a permanent suspension https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-twitter/twitter-permanently-suspends-trumps-account-cites-incitement-of-violence-risk-idUSKBN29D355 of Trump’s account, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

“Our approach both before and after January 6 has been to take strong enforcement action against accounts and Tweets that incite violence or have the potential to lead to offline harm,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; editing by Jonathan Oatis)