Associated Press stories, Page 1546
Vermont governor saddened by claim troopers made fake vaccine cardsVideo
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday he was “incredibly disappointed” by the allegations that three Vermont State Police troopers who have since resigned were involved in a scheme to create fraudulent covid-19 vaccination cards. Scott said he didn’t think the resignations, which were announced late Tuesday, were...
Some rural hospitals in West Virginia hit bed capacity as covid surgesVideo
CHARLESTON — Some hospitals in rural parts of West Virginia have reached their critical bed capacities as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to surge statewide, health officials said Wednesday. Health officials are pleading with the public to avoid unnecessary emergency room visits to allow hospitals to focus their resources on...
Economic oddity: Record job openings and many unemployedVideo
WASHINGTON — The disconnect is jarring: Across the United States, employers who are desperate to fill jobs have posted a record-high number of job openings. They’re raising pay, too, and dangling bonuses to people who accept job offers or recruit their friends. And yet millions more Americans are unemployed compared...
ACC wide open after league’s disappointing opening week
The Atlantic Coast Conference crown seems up for grabs after the league’s disappointing opening week performance. Its three preseason ranked teams all lost as the league went 7-7, a dent to a conference eager to show that it’s more than just Clemson at the top. The Tigers, who started at...
Judge: Florida can’t enforce ban on school mask mandates
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Florida judge ruled Wednesday that the state cannot enforce a ban on public schools mandating the use of masks to guard against the coronavirus, while an appeals court sorts out whether the ban is ultimately legal. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper lifted an...
Amazon to open 2 cashier-less Whole Foods stores next year
There will be something missing at two Whole Foods stores opening next year: the rows of cashiers. Amazon, which owns the grocery chain, said Wednesday that it will bring its cashier-less technology to two Whole Foods stores for the first time, letting shoppers grab what they need and leave without...
Nature meets nostalgia: Treehouses return in style
Anthropologists believe our ancient human ancestors spent their time in trees, so it should be no surprise we love treehouses today. Treehouses of all kinds are experiencing a renaissance. When an acre-size slice of land in Gold Hill, Colo., came on the market earlier this year, local resident Jessica Brookhart,...
Publisher to reissue Pa. Sen. Doug Mastriano’s WWI book with corrections
HARRISBURG — The academic press that published a Pennsylvania state senator’s book about World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York has asked him to review a list of factual errors and sourcing issues in the book and the press’ director said Tuesday it plans to publish a corrected version early...
Explainer: What was, and is, al-Qaida?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Born out of the 1980s war against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan, the terror group al-Qaida under Osama bin Laden grew into a generational threat to America that culminated in its Sept. 11, 2001, attack that brought down the World Trade Center in New...
Republicans, elections experts say Wisconsin probe is flawed
MADISON, Wis. — Former Republican officeholders and elections experts said Wednesday that the GOP-ordered investigation into the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin lacks credibility, transparency and raises security risks and legal concerns. Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Kentucky’s former secretary of state, Trey Grayson, said the ongoing...
Ethel Kennedy: RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan shouldn’t be freed
BOSTON — Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late Robert F. Kennedy, says assassin Sirhan Sirhan should not be released from prison, further roiling a family divide over whether the man convicted of killing her husband in California in 1968 should be freed on parole. In a brief statement released...
Report: Solar could power 40% of U.S. electricity by 2035
WASHINGTON — Solar energy has the potential to supply up to 40% of the nation’s electricity within 15 years — a 10-fold increase over current solar output, but one that would require massive changes in U.S. policy and billions of dollars in federal investment to modernize the nation’s electric grid,...
Macy’s Thanksgiving parade returns to New York City streets
NEW YORK — The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will return to New York City’s streets this year with covid-19 protocols including a vaccination requirement for parade volunteers, Macy’s and city officials announced Wednesday. The Nov. 25 parade will be broadcast on NBC and will feature the traditional giant balloons, celebrity...
Facebook slams U.K. antitrust watchdog over call to sell Giphy
LONDON — Facebook has criticized the U.K. competition watchdog’s provisional decision ordering that it sell off Giphy because it said the acquisition of the company stifles competition for animated images. The social network’s strongly worded response to the Competition and Markets Authority sets the stage for a battle over the...
Covid surge in the U.S.: Summer of hope ends in gloom
WASHINGTON — The summer that was supposed to mark America’s independence from covid-19 is instead drawing to a close with the U.S. more firmly under the tyranny of the virus, with deaths per day back up to where they were last March. The delta variant is filling hospitals, sickening alarming...
Fires flare in Israeli prisons amid manhunt for 6 escapees
TEL AVIV, Israel — Pressure built around Israel’s prison system Wednesday after fires broke out at several facilities and the government hunted for six Palestinian escapees who have been on the run since they tunneled out two days earlier. Fires were reported at several prisons amid efforts to try to...
Steve Stricker fills out U.S. team with 4 more Ryder Cup rookies
Equipped with the most captain’s picks in Ryder Cup history, Steve Stricker added four more rookies to his American team that included a mixture of obvious choices and perhaps a surprise, but no Patrick Reed. Stricker filled out his 12-man team with Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Harris...
Fire kills 41 inmates, 80 hurt at crowded Indonesian prison
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A massive fire raged through an overcrowded prison near Indonesia’s capital early Wednesday, killing at least 41 inmates, two of them foreigners serving drug sentences, and injuring 80 others. Firefighters battled through the early morning hours to extinguish the flames as black smoke billowed from the compound...
Russia’s emergency situations minister dies in Arctic drill
MOSCOW — Russia’s emergency situations minister has died during drills, the ministry said Wednesday. Yevgeny Zinichev, 55, “tragically died in the line of duty during inter-agency exercises to protect the Arctic zone from emergency situations, while saving a person’s life,” the ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news...
Trial of 20 men accused in 2015 Paris attacks begins
PARIS — In a custom-built secure complex embedded within a 13th-century courthouse, France on Wednesday began the trial of 20 men accused in the Islamic State group’s 2015 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured. The defendants were taken one by one into a glass-enclosed box...
Officials: Ethiopia’s Tigray forces kill some 120 civilians
NAIROBI, Kenya — Local officials in Ethiopia allege that Tigray forces have killed more than 120 civilians in recent days following battlefield losses, in what would be one of the deadliest massacres of the country’s 10-month war. Sewunet Wubalem, administrator for the Dabat woreda, or district, in the Amhara region...
They were some of 9/11’s biggest names. Where are they now?
Rudolph Giuliani was a hero before he was a punchline. Lisa Beamer was a wife and mother before she became a symbol of Sept. 11 — and though her celebrity passed, her widowhood cannot. In the aftermath of the planes falling from the sky, America and the world were introduced...
In New York after Ida, Biden calls climate ‘everybody’s crisis’Video
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden declared climate change has become “everybody’s crisis” on Tuesday as he toured neighborhoods flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, warning it’s time for America to get serious about the “code red” danger or face ever worse loss of life and property. Biden spoke...
Canadian teen Leylah Fernandez reaches U.S. Open semis
NEW YORK — With no players from the United States left to pull for in the U.S. Open, the fans are adopting a neighbor from the North to treat as one of their own: Leylah Fernandez, an unseeded Canadian teenager with an exciting game and enthusiasm to match. A day...
Girl, 6, dies on mine drop ride at Colorado amusement parkVideo
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — An investigation is underway after a 6-year-old girl on vacation with her family died at an amusement park in the western Colorado town of Glenwood Springs. Few details have been released, but Suzanne Emery with the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park says “an incident” occurred Sunday evening...
