Some of the 15 Texas school districts that have been sued in the past week for defying Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates are pushing back against the lawsuits.

Although out-of-hospital births remain relatively rare, midwives serving Galveston County are reporting an increase since the pandemic began.

President Joe Biden’s aggressive push to require millions of U.S. workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus is running into a wall of resistance from Republican leaders threatening everything from lawsuits to civil disobedience, plunging the country deeper into culture wars that have festered since the onset of the pandemic.

New U.S. studies released Friday show the COVID-19 vaccines remain highly effective against hospitalizations and death even as the extra-contagious delta variant sweeps the country.

Kali Cook's death isn't yet among the county's official count of COVID-related fatalities. Officials say more information is needed from an autopsy before that can happen.

In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant.