Associated Press stories, Page 1273

NEW YORK — An increase in covid-19 infections around the U.S. has sent more cities into new high-risk categories that are supposed to trigger indoor mask wearing, but much of the country is stopping short of bringing back restrictions amid deep pandemic fatigue. For weeks, much of upstate New York...

The owner of an Alabama abortion clinic was flying home from a conference with other abortion providers Monday night when a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion began ricocheting around the world. As Dalton Johnson read it, he was struck by the harshness of the language that would end the constitutional...

NEW YORK — The NFL has hired 10 new on-field officials, including the first Asian American to officiate in the league and a former player. Lo van Pham joins the NFL from the Big 12 Conference. He was born in Vietnam and after a stop in the Philippines, moved to...

ZAKHO, Iraq — Iraqis in a northern town still traumatized by memories of the Islamic State group feared more violence Tuesday after hostilities between the military and a local militia erupted, people internally displaced by the fighting said. Tensions reached a fever pitch when Iraq’s military launched an offensive in...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Capitol Police officer fired a gun inside a break room in a House office building on Tuesday and was promptly suspended — the latest stain for a police department struggling to regain the public’s trust following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection and a recent communications failure...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted a “radical” draft Supreme Court opinion that would throw out the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that has stood for a half century and warned that other rights including same-sex marriage and birth control are at risk if the court...

BUFFALO, Minn. — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has sided with a man who said he shouldn’t have been fined for flying a huge Donald Trump flag atop a crane over his business, calling it a protected expression of free speech. The Buffalo City Council had found the 30- by...

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Slovakia and Hungary said Tuesday that they will not support sanctions against Russian energy that the European Union is preparing over the war in Ukraine, saying they are too reliant on those supplies and there are no immediate alternatives. The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, has...

The annual sunflower (Helianthus annus) has a long history in North America, with evidence of its cultivation for food, ceremonial and medical use by Native Americans dating back to at least 1,000 B.C. Sunflower seeds are said to have been brought to Europe by Spanish explorers around the late 16th...

It’s 1963 in France and Anne is an ambitious, 23-year-old college student who becomes pregnant. She doesn’t want to be. She’s not ready to be a mother. But abortion isn’t legal in the country and won’t be for another 12 years. In the new film ” Happening,” Anne must find...

Covid-19 vaccine and treatment sales helped Pfizer breeze past Wall Street’s first-quarter expectations, as the drugmaker’s profit grew 61%. The coronavirus vaccine Comirnaty, which has been Pfizer’s top seller for about a year, brought in more than $13 billion in sales in the quarter. The pill treatment Paxlovid, which launched...

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant over the weekend reached relative safety in Ukrainian-held territory. Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said...

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Ukraine’s parliament that their country has achieved the “greatest feat of arms of the 21st century” by repelling Russia’s attempt to capture Kyiv. Johnson addressed lawmakers in Ukraine’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, by video link on Tuesday. He is the first...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has told an Italian newspaper that he has offered to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to try to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but that he hasn’t yet heard back. Francis said he made the offer about three weeks into Russia’s...

WASHINGTON — Employers posted a record 11.5 million job openings in March and the United States now has an unprecedented two job openings for every person who is unemployed. The latest data released Tuesday by the further reveals and extraordinarily tight labor market that has emboldened millions of Americans to...

NEW YORK — In a court appeal, a lawyer for Donald Trump said Monday it is “unconscionable and indefensible” for the ex-president to be held in contempt and fined $10,000 a day for failing to turn over documents he doesn’t possess. Attorney Alina Habba made the argument in a submission...

WASHINGTON — A draft opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report. A decision to overrule Roe would lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states and could have huge...

WASHINGTON — Three more House Republicans received requests Monday to voluntarily appear before the congressional committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection and answer questions about their involvement in the effort to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss. The committee sent letters to GOP Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs...

CLEVELAND — The NFL handed former Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson another loss. The league announced Monday that it found “no evidence” the Browns purposely lost games or incentivized personnel to do so after Jackson alleged in February the team tried to lose during the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The...

LAS VEGAS — A body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada’s Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs — and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds. “I would say...

WASHINGTON — A federal jury on Monday convicted a New York Police Department veteran of assaulting an officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, rejecting his claim that he was defending himself when he tackled the officer and grabbed his gas mask. Thomas Webster, a 20-year NYPD veteran, was the first...

ATLANTA — A special grand jury was selected Monday for the investigation into whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia. The investigation has been underway since early last year, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis took this unusual step of...