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Germany : The country is weighing the possibility of easing its lockdown given the decline in the number of cases and the reduced pressure on hospitals. It will depend on the vaccination rate and the degree of circulation of the new virus variants. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that despite Germany going through its most difficult time in the fight against the virus, she can see a light at the end of the tunnel: "I said at the beginning of the winter that this would be the hardest time for us, and that's how it turned out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel has sent 5,000 coronavirus vaccine shots to the Palestinian Authority to inoculate medical personnel, following global pressure to ensure Palestinians are vaccinated.

President Joe Biden's nominee for education secretary is promising to help reopen schools but says much of the hardest work will come after that as schools try to address long-standing disparities worsened by the pandemic. (Feb. 3)

Makuhari (Japan) (AFP) – With less than six months to go, Japanese who hope to be involved in the Tokyo Olympics as spectators, torch bearers and volunteers are confronting the prospect of the Games being drastically scaled back or cancelled altogether.

Some retired Georgia teachers could return to work and collect both a full salary and a full pension under a measure that Gov. Brian Kemp is proposing. The Republican governor said Tuesday that the state needs to bolster its teacher workforce.

Andy Jassy will lead Amazon as CEO after founder Jeff Bezos steps down later this year. Hear what Jassy said about the idea two years earlier.

Two FBI agents were killed and three wounded in a shooting that erupted on Tuesday when they arrived to search an apartment in a child pornography case, a confrontation that marked one of the bloodiest days in FBI history. (Feb. 2)

Nanfu Wang, who directed COVID documentary "In the Same Breath," explains how she started tracking the censoring of information about the pandemic in China and reveals how its spread in the U.S. changed her film. (Feb. 3)

Serbia has made a meteoric start to its vaccination rollout – the second fastest in Europe behind the United Kingdom. Lying outside of the EU and its joint procurement programme, Belgrade has secured a million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, alongside shipments of Russia's Sputnik V and the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.

Residents of Wuhan, China, who lost loved ones to coronavirus share their desperate and tragic stories of loss and anger with CNN's David Culver, risking their personal safety and freedom to do so.

Firefighters and lifeguards in Santa Barbara County, California rescued a woman after her car was stranded on a flooded road. The torrential storms drenching California are moving into the southern part of the state. (Jan. 29)

Poland imposed a controversial near-total ban on abortions. See protesters react to the new law.