Jaclyn Diaz

Many state and city officials welcomed news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday that fully vaccinated people in the U.S. can forgo masks and social distancing.

But some still stopped short of immediately implementing the changes.

The CDC said vaccinated people must follow existing state, local or tribal laws and regulations on masks and social distancing, as well as policies at businesses and workplaces.

Amid dropping vaccine demand in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine announced five, weekly drawings of $1 million open to residents who've received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. A similar lottery for teenagers will provide the lucky names with a full, four-year scholarship to a public university in Ohio - room and board included.

Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn will testify before the House Judiciary Committee about his role in former special prosecutor Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, the panel announced Wednesday.

McGahn will speak only to committee members in private, under an agreement negotiated by his attorneys, the committee and the Justice Department. The interview will be conducted "as soon as possible" and a transcript will be released publicly shortly thereafter, according to the court filing.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued a coronavirus mandate Tuesday preventing schools and local governments from creating mask mandates. His order also bans the use of so-called vaccine passports in the state.

The top social media sites — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter — are all "effectively unsafe for LGBTQ users," according to a new report by GLAAD.

"Of special concern, the prevalence and intensity of hate speech and harassment stands out as the most significant problem in urgent need of improvement," the organization focused on ending discrimination against LGBTQ people said in its inaugural social media index report.

Texas legislators approved new, more restrictive state election rules after a session that lasted from Thursday night into the early hours of Friday. The GOP-backed state Senate bill passed the House at 3 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) after hours of debate over amendments proposed by Democrats.

In an emotional news conference Friday, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms explained her decision not to seek a second term, citing the challenges of her time in office and a desire to make room for a potential successor to prepare a campaign.

Twitter wants users to think twice about sending a mean or offensive tweet.

The tech company on Wednesday announced it has released a feature that detects "mean" replies on its service before a user presses send. When a not-very-nice tweet is detected, an automatic prompt reads, "Want to review this before Tweeting?" The user is presented with three choices: tweet, edit, or delete.

This feature, which launched Wednesday, will initially be enabled on accounts with English-language settings. It's unclear when other languages will be added.

Google is adopting a series of changes to give its employees greater workplace flexibility as the tech giant prepares for an updated, post-pandemic return to normalcy.

Chief Executive Sundar Pichai announced that Google will allow employees to work a hybrid workweek, which would allow some workers to spend three days in the office and two days teleworking. Google is also allowing some workers to request a change of office locations altogether.

Residents living on the West Coast don't know when the next earthquake will hit. But a new expansion of the U.S. earthquake early warning system gives 50 million people in California, Oregon — and now Washington — seconds to quickly get to safety whenever the next one hits.

An elevated train derailed in Mexico City after a concrete overpass it was crossing collapsed Monday night. At least 23 people were killed and nearly 80 were injured and transferred to nearby hospitals, according to government officials.

Photos posted online show two train cars dangling precariously from the elevated track. The yellow and orange cars were crushed together as the overpass collapsed, leaving them suspended at a V-shaped angle.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Thursday new election legislation that places restrictions on ballot drop boxes and residents' ability to vote by mail.

The governor said the changes amount to what he thinks are "the strongest election integrity measures in the country."

Alameda Police "mishandled" the arrest of 26-year-old Mario Gonzalez last week and caused his death, according to the attorney representing the man's family.

Gonzalez died April 19 after police pinned him to the ground for at least five minutes. The Alameda Police Department said Gonzalez suffered a "medical emergency" after a scuffle with officers.

Julia Sherwin, the attorney representing Gonzalez's family, said Gonzalez's actions that day didn't warrant law enforcement response from the start.

On Tuesday, the city of Alameda, Calif., released police body camera footage of an interaction with a 26-year-old man who died after police pinned him to the ground for at least five minutes.

Mario Gonzalez of Oakland died April 19 after what police previously called a "scuffle" with officers. The Alameda Police Department said Gonzalez suffered some sort of "medical emergency" after an interaction with police.

Potentially sensitive information from the Washington, D.C., police department was allegedly breached by a ransomware attack from a group seeking a payout.

A group called Babuk claimed to be behind the attack. On a post made on its website, the group threatened to release information pulled from the department's systems if they were not paid an undisclosed amount.

First-time gun owners, young and old from across the country, are helping to push record levels of gun sales for what looks like the second year in a row.

"My gun store has had a run like I've never seen before," said Todd Cotta, the owner of Kings Gun Center in Hanford, Calif., in the state's agriculturally rich Central Valley. "It was just an avalanche of new gun buyers for the first time."

The man accused of killing 10 people in a mass shooting in a Boulder, Colo., grocery store last month now faces more than 40 additional charges.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, was already facing 10 counts of murder in the first degree and one count of attempted murder over the shooting rampage at a King Soopers supermarket.

Prosecutors amended the criminal complaint against him to add 43 new felony charges, according to a motion filed Wednesday in Boulder County District Court.

Plans for a new Super League in European soccer collapsed after half of the groups' founding members said they were splitting from the project just two days after it was first announced.

The 12 founding clubs announced Sunday their plans to create a rival to the existing Champions League in European soccer.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday suspended the search for missing crewmembers of a commercial lift boat that capsized off the coast of Louisiana last week.

The Seacor Power tipped about 8 miles south of Port Fourchon, La. into the Gulf of Mexico. Rescuers saved six crewmembers from the water hours after the ship went down last Tuesday. The bodies of four other crewmembers were discovered in the days that followed.

Eight were still missing by Monday.

A wildfire that started on South Africa's Table Mountain early Sunday spread to the University of Cape Town, burning the school's historic library and forcing staff and students to evacuate.

The Rhodes Memorial Fire broke out around 9 a.m. Sunday, according to Table Mountain National Park. The fire likely started from a "vacated vagrant fire." Extreme fire danger in the area, heavy winds and high temperatures helped the fire spread quickly, park officials said.

A battle is brewing between Europe's top soccer clubs and their governing bodies--one that could cost billions of dollars in television rights payments alone.

A man identified by police as Brandon Hole, 19, opened fire outside a FedEx warehouse facility in Indianapolis late Thursday night before moving inside the facility, killing eight people and injuring several others. Hole is believed to have shot himself and is among the nine dead, according to police.

"FedEx officials have confirmed that Mr. Hole was an employee at the facility and that he was last employed in 2020," Indianapolis Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said.

It wasn't a bird or a plane that gave Floridians a shock late Monday night.

It wasn't even Superman.

A meteor shot across the sky around 10 p.m. Monday.

Residents along the state's Atlantic coast from West Palm Beach south to Miami shared videos of the surprising sight on social media.

Dashcam footage and security videos showed a still, dark night suddenly lit up by what appeared to be a large fireball streaking diagonally across the sky. In just a few seconds, it was over.

People infected with the U.K. variant of the coronavirus didn't experience more severe symptoms and weren't more likely to die from this particular strain, according to a new study of hospitalized patients published Monday.

The strain, called the B.1.1.7 variant, remains more contagious than original strains of the virus however, according to the study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

A federal grand jury in Washington indicted a Florida man for taking his skateboard to the head of a Metropolitan Police officer during the U.S. Capitol insurrection Jan. 6.

Grady Douglas Owens, 21, was initially arrested on April 1 in Florida. He faces several charges including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees; obstruction; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

A resurgence of COVID-19 cases driven by virus variants throughout Canada has forced the country's largest city to suspend in-person learning.

All elementary and secondary school students in Toronto will return to remote learning Wednesday without the chance to return before April 18, city officials announced Tuesday.

New Zealand and Australia will allow quarantine-free travel between the two countries starting April 19, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday.

Ardern called the new arrangement the Trans-Tasman bubble.

"The bubble will give our economic recovery a boost and represents a world leading arrangement of safely opening up international travel while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and keeping the virus out," Adern said at a press briefing Tuesday.