By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — With fresh COVID-19 cases bubbling up in some parts of the country, health officials are setting course for a fall vaccination campaign.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended new shots for all Americans this fall.

Officials acknowledged the need for shots is not as dire as it was only a few years ago. Most Americans have some degree of immunity from being infected, from past vaccinations or both. COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last month were at about their lowest point since the pandemic first hit the United States in 2020.

But immunity wanes, new coronavirus variants keep emerging and there are still hundreds of COVID-19-associated deaths and thousands of hospitalizations reported each week.

What’s more, health officials have reported upticks this month in COVID-19-associated emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and a pronounced increase in positive test results in the southwestern U.S.

It’s not clear whether that’s a sign of a coming summer wave — which has happened before — or just a blip, said Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas, who leads a research team that tracks COVID-19.

“We’ll have to see what happens in the coming weeks,” she said.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration — following the guidance of its own panel of expert advisers — told vaccine manufacturers to target the JN.1 version of the virus. But a week later, the FDA told manufacturers that if they could still switch, a better target might be an offshoot subtype called KP.2.

At a Thursday meeting at the CDC in Atlanta, infectious disease experts unanimously recommended the updated vaccines for Americans age 6 months and older. The CDC director signed off on the recommendation later in the day. The shots are expected to become available in August and September.

Health officials have told Americans to expect a yearly update to COVID-19 vaccines, just like they are recommended to get a new shot each fall to protect against the latest flu strains.

But many Americans aren’t heeding the CDC’s advice.

As of last month, less than one-quarter of U.S. adults and 14% of children were up to date in their COVID shots. Surveys show shrinking percentages of Americans think COVID-19 is a major health threat to the U.S. population, and indicate that fewer doctors are urging patients to get updated vaccines.

CDC officials on Thursday presented recent survey information in which about 23% of respondents said they would definitely get an updated COVID-19 shot this fall, but 33% said they definitely would not.

Meanwhile, the CDC’s Bridge Access Program — which has been paying for shots for uninsured U.S. adults — is expected to shut down in August because of discontinued funding. The program paid for nearly 1.5 million doses from September to last month.

“It is a challenge with this program going away,” said the CDC’s Shannon Stokley.

About 1.2 million U.S. COVID-associated deaths have been reported since early 2020, according to the CDC. The toll was most intense in the winter of 2020-2021, when weekly deaths surpassed 20,000. About 1 out of every 100 Americans ages 75 and older were hospitalized with COVID in the last four years, CDC officials said Thursday.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Coach Cheryl Reeve reminded the Lynx before Thursday afternoon’s game that their opponent was a desperate team.

And it played like one.

Roughly 40 hours after defeating the team with the WNBA’s best record to win the Commissioner’s Cup, the Lynx started fast against the league’s last-place team but were outscored by 19 points over the final three quarters in 94-88 loss at Dallas.

“This is a job, we need to come prepared no matter what the circumstances are,” said Napheesa Collier, who led Minnesota with 29 points and 11 rebounds.

Alanna Smith had 15 points, six rebounds, four assists and three blocks. All her points came on a career-high five treys, the last coming in the opening minute of the second half.

In addition to its Commissioner’s Cup win over New York, which does not count in the season standings, Minnesota (13-4) had officially won six straight regular-season games and nine of 10.

Losers of 11 straight entering the game, Dallas (4-13) shot 48.7 percent from the field, the best by a Lynx opponent this season.

“We shot 47 percent, 42 from three, we had our usual 27 assists for 33 field goals. We scored 88 points, and that should be enough to win a game,” Reeve said.

“We were not defensively who we needed to be today, and that was our greatest disappointment. We weren’t difficult to play against. They created their own breaks, they created the pace about themselves, they created confidence to go where they wanted to go and our resistance in keeping them from getting downhill was little to none. Our effort on the glass was typical, and sometimes that’s going to bite you in the (rear), and it bit us in the (rear). You can’t give up 14 offensive rebounds and just keep letting them get multiple shots.”

The Lynx were outscored 48-30 in the paint. Dallas guards penetrated almost at will, and Teaira McCowan, a 6-foot-7 center, scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Down 71-70 after three quarters — just the third time this season the Lynx have trailed heading to the fourth quarter — and trailing by six midway through the fourth quarter, Collier hit a jumper, Bridget Carleton added her third trey and Dorka Juhász scored for an 83-82 Lynx lead.

Odyssey Sims, who finished with 18 points in her first game after signing a hardship contract Tuesday, scored on a layup with 3:10 left to put Dallas up 90-84.

A Carleton jumper got Minnesota within 91-88 with 1:02 to go, but Jacy Sheldon sank a three for the Wings 13 seconds later. Carleton, Natisha Hiedeman and Collier missed late threes. Minnesota made just one of five long-range shots in the final quarter after going 10 for 21 through three periods.

Playing a desperate Dallas squad, the Lynx started hot from deep to open a 13-point lead after one quarter. Smith had three triples and Carleton two in the period.

Smith drained her fourth three to bump the Lynx lead to 15 with 3:20 left in the second quarter, but the Wings scored the final 13 points before the break.

“Offensively, we started doing more complicated things. They started playing off either our missed shots or bad decisions, turnovers, whatever. They turned it up,” Reeve said, singling out the aggressiveness of Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale. “Her efforts defensively gave the others confidence to get up and pressure. Our response to that was not great, took bad shots, got rushed, turned it over.”

By JOE REEDY

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury in U.S. District Court ordered the NFL to pay nearly $4.8 billion in damages Thursday after ruling that the league violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service.

The jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to the residential class and $96 million in damages to the commercial class.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses who paid for the package of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit claimed the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of Sunday games at an inflated price. The subscribers also say the league restricted competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only on a satellite provider.

The NFL said it would appeal the verdict. That appeal would go to the 9th Circuit and then possibly the Supreme Court.

“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.

“We will certainly contest this decision as we believe that the class action claims in this case are baseless and without merit.”

The jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly five hours before reaching its decision.

“This case transcends football. This case matters,” plaintiffs attorney Bill Carmody said during Wednesday’s closing arguments. “It’s about justice. It’s about telling the 32 team owners who collectively own all the big TV rights, the most popular content in the history of TV — that’s what they have. It’s about telling them that even you cannot ignore the antitrust laws. Even you cannot collude to overcharge consumers. Even you can’t hide the truth and think you’re going to get away with it.”

The league maintained it has the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. The plaintiffs say that only covers over-the-air broadcasts and not pay TV.

DirecTV had “Sunday Ticket” from its inception in 1994 through 2022. The league signed a seven-year deal with Google’s YouTube TV that began with the 2023 season.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. Gutierrez ruled last year the case could proceed as a class action.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

The problem with most screenplays, line-to-line and character-to-character, is a problem of differentiation. As in, everybody sounds like the same type of person. Human or human-adjacent qualities, optional. Separate from this problem is the rarified, repeat-Oscar winner realm of screenwriting, where Quentin Tarantino holds court and the writing becomes so self-consciously embroidered that scenes have a way of slowing to a crawl while the writer dog-paddles around for a while. And then somebody shoots somebody.

But there are exceptions to these ridiculous and untenable generalizations. Some of them are even playwrights, breaking into what is, for them, a new medium.

Take Annie Baker, a terrific playwright whose Pulitzer Prize-winner, “The Flick” (2014), served up a luxuriantly naturalistic slice of life, set in a struggling art-house movie theater. Baker has now made her feature film debut as writer-director with “Janet Planet,” and there’s so much right with it, beginning and ending with how Baker listens to, and frames, what her characters say, and how. And what they don’t.

It’s set in early 1990s western Massachusetts, where Baker grew up, in the seldom-filmed Pioneer Valley region. This is a verdant patch of mostly comforting isolation, as Baker remembers it by way of the soundtrack, full of birdsong and insect buzz and the wind blowing through the back seat of an un-air-conditioned car.

At the start, Lacy, 11 years old, sneaks a late-night call home from summer camp. She wants out. Her acupuncturist mother, Janet, retrieves her from camp and gets a partial refund. “Janet Planet” chronicles the rest of their summer at home, as Janet navigates her current boyfriend, Wayne; her old and somewhat bossy actor friend, Regina, whom Janet and Lacy reconnect with at a performance of Regina’s cultlike theater troupe; and Avi, the theater director, who takes a stealthy interest in Janet because, as daughter Lacy says forthrightly, everyone’s always falling in love with her.

How does this play out? In bracingly lifelike exchanges of precise, concise small talk, polite evasions, and occasional, surprising connections, mostly between mother and daughter. They’re close, and there’s a world of love there, no doubt. But Baker isn’t interested in warming hearts the easy way, or in the usual catharsis business. “Janet Planet” is told largely from the perspective of Lacy, a loner, a dreamer, and a very, very close observer of everything to do with her mother.

“Tell me what to do,” Janet says to her, after broaching the subject of problematic boyfriend Wayne. Pause. “I think you should break up with him,” Lacy says. Clearly it’s the right call. It is also the latest of many exchanges between them that underlines a codependency Lacy appreciates, and that Janet knows isn’t necessarily for the best. If it’s about any one thing, Baker’s film is about how Lacy comes to a different place regarding her mother’s dreamy roundelay, distilled in a single image at the very end.

Often “Janet Planet” is a movie of relatively few words. Baker and her cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff allow the environments, indoor and outdoor, do much of the the communicating. A lot of the emotional information reveals itself in ultra-tight closeups of faces, an earring, a forearm, in soft, pastel light. Lacy is trying to learn what it means to be an adult, or at least what it means to be her mother. Baker teases out the everyday, ordinary sound of relationships under duress, as Janet’s house accommodates one outsider, then another, and another.

Late in the film (no spoilers here; it’s not that kind of story) Janet makes a sort of confession to her daughter. “I’ve always had this knowledge deep inside of me that I could make any man fall in love with me, if I really tried,” she tells her. “And I think maybe it’s ruined my life.” It’s a superbly phrased line, saying so much about so much. It sounds like life, not the movies, and in Julianne Nicholson (Emmy winner for “Mare of Easttown”), Baker has the best possible Janet, working with the least possible external effort. She’s a marvelous actor.

As Lacy, Zoe Ziegler matches Nicholson heartbeat for heartbeat, though she’s often filmed alone in her room, playing with her figurines, staging scenes on a miniature stage complete with curtain. The other roles are exquisitely well cast, with Sophie Okonedo (Regina, Janet’s rather needy old friend), Will Patton (Wayne, the problematic boyfriend) and Elias Koteas (as Avi, the puppet-theater guru with an extreme way of pausing before speaking). The film is a mite thin, and occasionally glib. But Baker knows where the bittersweet human comedy lies in this mother, and this daughter. Those in need of conventional uplift in their family stories, or more assertive character arcs, never have to wait very long for what they require. Meantime there’s this, for the rest of us.

“Janet Planet” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language, some drug use and thematic elements)

Running time: 1:53

How to watch: Premieres in theaters June 28

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.