A federal appeals court has shot down claims that there's a First Amendment right not to wear face masks during the COVID-19 outbreak. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Monday in two related cases stemming from lawsuits against officials in Freehold and Cranford, New Jersey. The suits revolved around claims that school boards retaliated against the plaintiffs because they refused to wear masks during public meetings. In one of the suits, the court sent the case back to a lower court for consideration. In the other, it said the plaintiff failed to show she was retaliated against.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years disseminating false information about vaccines in a time when spreading conspiracy theories has become a powerful way to grow a constituency. The AP examined the impact of his work. A couple grieving their 12-year-old son described how a book co-published by Kennedy's group misrepresented his death. One mom delayed care for her autistic son because she believed Kennedy's vaccine falsehoods. An ex-lawmaker described being harassed by Kennedy's followers. Medical workers recounted how his work has hurt people in the U.S. and abroad. Kennedy's campaign didn't respond to requests for comment.

The once-critical white COVID-19 vaccination cards are being phased out. Vaccines are not being distributed by the federal government anymore, so the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped printing new cards. People can still get proof of vaccination from a doctor or state health department. Some states have online options that create a QR code. Health officials recommend keeping your card in a safe place if you still have one.

Republicans are responding to a late summer spike in COVID-19 by raising familiar fears that government-issued lockdowns and mask mandates are on the horizon. GOP presidential hopefuls including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former President Donald Trump have spread this narrative in the last week. And yet there is no sign that anyone in federal or state leadership is even considering widespread COVID-19 restrictions or mask requirements despite the recent rise in hospitalizations. A spokesperson for President Joe Biden's administration and spokespeople for several Democratic governors said such measures aren't being considered.

U.S. regulators have approved updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, shots aimed at revving up protection this fall and winter. The Food and Drug Administration's decision Monday is part of a shift to treat fall COVID-19 vaccine updates much like getting a yearly flu shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must sign off. Its advisers meet Tuesday to recommend how to best use this round of vaccinations. The shots could begin later this week. Both the COVID-19 and flu shot can be given at the same time.

COVID-19 has taken a toll on the nation's heart health but how profound is only starting to emerge. Heart attack deaths spiked early in the pandemic, erasing years of progress in battling cardiovascular disease. Then research showed that for up to a year after a bout of COVID-19, some people can develop problems ranging from blood clots to irregular heartbeats to a heart attack. It's not clear why and doctors still are grappling with how to help.

COVID-19 hospital admissions are inching upward in the United States since early July. It's a small-scale echo of the three previous summers. Just over 9,000 people were admitted to the hospital in the week ending July 29, which was up by about 12% from the previous week. But the number of new hospital patients is still far lower than during summer peaks in the previous three years. Deaths appear to be stable. U.S. health officials say they'll keep a close eye on wastewater levels as students go back to school. The amount of virus in wastewater across the nation has been rising since late June.

The National Institutes of Health is starting some studies to test possible treatments for long COVID. Millions of people are estimated to have the mysterious condition. The studies are small but each will tackle multiple possible therapies for things like brain fog, sleep disturbances and the theory that lingering virus may be at least partly to blame. The studies are part of the RECOVER project, which had to unravel what the most common and burdensome symptoms of long COVID are before doing studies.

A Democratic watchdog group has asked a U.S. House committee to rescind an invitation to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after the Democratic presidential candidate was filmed falsely suggesting COVID-19 could have been "ethnically targeted" to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. The Congressional Integrity Project sent a letter to the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government after the comments prompted accusations of antisemitism and racism. Kennedy said that his words were twisted and that he has never suggested COVID-19 was targeted to spare Jews. He has a history of comparing life-saving vaccines with the genocide of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, comments for which he has sometimes apologized.

More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large COVID-19 relief initiatives. That's according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs designed to help small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years. The numbers issued Tuesday by the U.S. Small Business Administration inspector general are much greater than previous projections issued by the office. They underscore how vulnerable the Paycheck Protection and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs were to fraudsters, particularly during the early stages of the pandemic. The Small Business Administration disputed the new figures, saying the report "contains serious flaws that significantly overestimate fraud."

Math and reading scores among America's 13-year-olds fell to their lowest levels in decades, with math scores plunging by the largest margin ever recorded. Those are the latest findings from the NAEP exam, known as the nation's report card. The results are the latest measure of the deep learning setbacks incurred during the pandemic. More than two years after most students returned to in-person class, officials say there's little evidence of academic recovery. In the national sample of 13-year-old students, average math scores fell by 9 points between 2020 and 2023. Reading scores fell by 4 points.

Eviction filings are far above pre-pandemic levels in many cities across the country as pandemic relief disappears and inflation causes rents to spike. According to the latest data from the Eviction Lab, filings in some cities are running as much as 50% above levels seen prior to the pandemic. Those numbers are especially stark, given that many tenants experienced a reprieve during the pandemic when eviction moratoriums were in place and billions of dollars in federal rental assistance was plentiful. Most of the moratoriums are now gone and many of the larger cities have exhausted their rental assistance.

The homicide rate for older U.S. teenagers rose to its highest point in nearly 25 years during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the suicide rate for adults in their early 20s was the worst in more than 50 years. That's according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday. Experts cited several possible reasons for the increases, including higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services and the number of guns in U.S. homes. Suicide and homicide are the No. 2 and No. 3 causes of death for 10- to 24-year-olds. The top reason is accidents, such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings and overdoses.

The COVID-19 vaccines are on track for a big recipe change this fall. Today's vaccines still contain the original coronavirus strain, the one that started the pandemic. But that strain was long ago supplanted by mutated versions as the virus rapidly evolves. Scientific advisers for the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday discussed whether the next round of shots should only include protection against the newest omicron variants that are now dominant worldwide. Regulators will be making their best guess which strain to include, just like they do every year in setting the recipe for the fall flu vaccine.

Confidence in the scientific community declined among U.S. adults in 2022, a major survey shows, driven by a a partisan divide that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest results from the General Social Survey found that 39% had a great deal of confidence in the scientific community. That's down from 48% in 2021 and 2018. In the latest poll, 53% of Democrats and 22% of Republicans reported a great deal of confidence in science. The poll also shows a loss of trust in some other institutions like education, major companies and the press

An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has disbursed in COVID relief aid. Fraudsters used Social Security numbers of dead people to get unemployment checks. Cheaters collected benefits in multiple states. And federal loan applicants weren't cross-checked against a Treasury Department database that would have raised red flags about sketchy borrowers. All of it led to the greatest grift in U.S. history.

U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation continues to see fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released provisional birth data for last year. A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before. Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s.

A U.S. study suggests 1 in 10 people are getting long COVID after an omicron infection, a lower estimate than earlier in the pandemic. The National Institutes of Health is studying nearly 10,000 U.S. adults to help better understand why some people suffer debilitating health problems that can last for months or years after even mild COVID-19. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers identified a dozen key symptoms that help distinguish long COVID. They say doctors shouldn't use the list to diagnose patients — it's only a first step — but it might help future studies.

The idea of later school start times, pushed by many over the years as a way to help adolescents get more sleep, is getting a new look as a way to address the mental health crisis affecting teens across the U.S. Nationally, at least nine states are considering legislation related to school start times, up from four the previous year, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. For some schools, the pandemic allowed experimentation to try new schedules. Large school systems including Denver, Philadelphia and Anchorage, Alaska, have been looking into later start times.