Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not disclose topics of the discussion.

Putin and Biden met via video link on Dec. 7 with their focus on the Ukrainian situation.

After the talks, Russia sent a draft agreement to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a draft treaty to the United States both on security guarantees in Europe for the Western countries to consider.

According to the ministry, those aged above 18 will be eligible for the second booster three months after their third jab.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Bahrain has launched financial package to offset impact on businesses and adopted several digital measures, and continues to offer different COVID-19 vaccines free of cost.

Jung Jae-hun, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University College of Medicine in South Korea, said the country's program of phased easing of pandemic curbs failed to control the rate of step-by-step recovery to normalcy.

There was also an unexpected increase in the number of new confirmed COVID cases amid a decrease in the effectiveness of the two-dose vaccine, said Jung, who is a special advisor on COVID-19 at the Prime Minister's Secretariat.

"In particular, the increase in critically ill patients was so fast that the government triggered a circuit breaker," said Jung.

South Korea reimposed strict anti-pandemic measures on Dec 18 after easing them under its phased living with COVID program in November. The about-turn came after weeks of continuous rise in the number of daily new infections and critical cases, despite having a fully-vaccinated rate of 82 percent.

The number of critically ill patients recorded a new high of 1,083 on Dec 23, breaking the earlier record of 1,063 that was reported the previous day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, or KDCA.

A total of 109 COVID-19 deaths were also reported that day, representing another record high. That raised the nation's total pandemic death toll to 5,015.

The national tally of COVID-19 cases stood at 589,978, after 6,919 more cases were added.

The occupancy rate in intensive care units for COVID-19 patients was 79.2 percent, with that of the Seoul capital area reaching 85.7 percent, according to data released by South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare on Dec 22. Both figures were above the 75 percent saturation point set by the government.

Nearly 32,000 people were undergoing home treatment while waiting to be admitted to hospitals, as of Dec 22.

South Korea has been struggling to deal with a shortage of hospital beds. The government said on Dec 22 that it will secure an extra 10,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients by mid-January, raising the total number to 25,000.

The government said on Dec 23 that it expect the figures for critical cases and deaths to decrease next week, according to Yonhap News Agency.

"We should take a much more aggressive approach to people who are being treated at home," said David Kwak, clinical assistant professor at the Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital in Seoul.

Kwak said it is important to provide the patients with much more keen and higher level of observation, monitoring and treatment, in order to prevent people with mild symptoms from becoming more severe cases.

Kwak said a key concern he has is that the country is falling behind in administering booster shots in order to overcome the potential Omicron virus variant dominance.

South Korea shortened on Dec 10 the vaccination interval for COVID-19 booster shots to three months. As of Dec 23, only about 26.7 percent of its population has received a third jab.

South Korea reported a total of 246 Omicron variant infections as of Dec 23, including 164 domestic transmissions and 82 imported cases, but Kwak said the actual number of domestically transmitted cases could possibly be on a much larger scale.

Omicron, identified as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization on Nov 26, has spread to 89 countries as of Dec 16.

Health authorities have raised the possibility that Omicron will become the dominant variant in South Korea within the next one to two months.

Though Omicron is said to pose higher reinfection risk and weaken vaccine protection, Jung from Gachon University said the severity may be, based on current studies, low in re-infected or vaccinated people.

"The rapid spread itself will be a problem in East Asian countries," said Jung, adding that slowing the transmission rate is important since it is difficult to block the influx of the new variant forever.

"The biggest problem in East Asian countries, including Korea, is that, with successful policies up to this point, the proportion of people who acquired immunity through infection other than vaccination is very small," said Jung, noting successful controls in the past may be risk factors for the future.

The escalating pandemic situation has not only created burden to the health system but also South Korea's economy due to curfews on business hours and a reduced maximum private gathering size of four.

While the actual economic cost remains unknown, Yang Jun-sok, an economics professor at The Catholic University of Korea, said the reinstated restrictions have caused quite a bit of ruckus, especially with small business owners as some may have to shut down if the social distancing rules are continued for an extended period of time.

Noting that the government has announced supportive measures, including paying 1 million won ($842) each to pandemic-hit small business owners, Yang said the subsidy, which is less than the average monthly income in South Korea, is not enough.

The shortage in ICU beds will also lead to a reduction in consumption demand for face-to-face services as people are afraid of getting infected, which may hurt small businesses even more, said Yang.

"We are perhaps depending too much on distancing and vaccination… but that's because these are the only tools that we have at the moment," said Yang.

"Because of rising prices, however, those seemingly robust wage gains amount to an increase of only 'pennies' per hour once inflation is included," CBS wrote, citing a new analysis from the Brookings Institution.

The study examined wages at 13 of the biggest and most profitable retail, grocery and fast-food companies in America, including companies such as Amazon.com, which recently boosted wages to attract new hires, CBS said.

"We're seeing headlines that, yes, wages did go up, but when you take into effect inflation, it's not up very much at all," Molly Kinder, a co-author of the study and a fellow at Brookings Metro, was quoted as saying.

Workers in these industries "started at such a low level that, even though it's still an almost 10 percent increase, it's still a very low wage," Kinder added.

Made by Trump-appointed Judge Trevor McFadden who serves in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., the ruling was a boost for the House Ways and Means Committee, whose chairman Richard Neal has been requesting the tax returns since mid-2019.

McFadden said in the 45-page opinion that Trump was "wrong on the law," and that congressional inquiries deserve "great deference." "Even the special solicitude accorded former Presidents does not alter the outcome. The Court will therefore dismiss this case."

The Treasury Department under Trump and Trump in his personal capacity both fought the Ways and Means Committee's request, arguing that it lacked legislative purpose.

Neal said the committee needed to see the tax returns because they are relevant to its oversight and legislative efforts to regulate the way the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) -- the tax-collecting body within the Treasury Department -- audits presidents.

With the change of administration following the 2020 presidential election, President Joe Biden's administration changed posture in the case, with the Justice Department saying in July that Treasury must defer to Congress.

"This ruling is no surprise, the law is clearly on the Committee's side," Neal said in a statement hailing the judge's decision. "I am pleased that we're now one step closer to being able to conduct more thorough oversight of the IRS's mandatory presidential audit program."

McFadden in his opinion expressed his reservations about making Trump's tax returns public. "It might not be right or wise to publish the returns, but it is the Chairman's right to do so," he wrote, adding "the Court will not do so here and thus must dismiss this case."

The judge paused the execution of his ruling for 14 days, during which time the parties in the case could discuss next steps. The White House is not allowed to provide Congress with the tax returns during that period.

Should the parties in the case fail to agree on next steps, Trump can seek relief from an appeals court.

• The company announced the news of the funding round in a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 14, 2021). Consequently, the new capital brings NYDIG’s valuation to $7 billion.

• According to the statement, the round was led by growth equity firm WestCap, with existing investors and partners such as Bessemer Venture Partners, FinTech Collective, Morgan Stanley, New York Life, MassMutual, Affirm, Fiserv, and FIS also participating in the billion-dollar round.

• Commenting on the latest development was NYDIG’s co-founder and CEO, Robert Gutmann, who said:

“Our roster of partnerships and strategic investors lays the foundation for NYDIG to become the leading provider of Bitcoin solutions for businesses in any industry, and this new equity capital will further accelerate progress towards making this exciting network accessible – and useful – to all.”

• The crypto custody firm said it will use the raised funds to further upgrade its institutional-grade bitcoin platform, enable support for asset tokenization, bitcoin and Lightning payments, and smart contracts.

• Furthermore, the capital should help the company to increase its workforce globally.

• Meanwhile, the funding round comes shortly after NYDIG partnered with payments giant National Cash Register (NCR) to enable 650 American banks to offer bitcoin services.

• Another partnership was recently inked with MassMutual, which sought to allow bitcoin access to select customers.

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