Associated Press stories, Page 1791
U.S. trade deficit rises to 12-year high $679 billion
WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit rose 17.7% last year to $679 billion, highest since 2008, as the coronavirus disrupted global commerce and confounded President Donald Trump’s attempts to rebalance America’s trade with the rest of the world. The gap between the value of the goods and services the United...
Senate approves budget bill as Harris casts tie-breaker vote
WASHINGTON — The Senate early Friday approved a budget that would allow fast-track passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan without support from Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris was in the chair to cast the tie-breaking vote, her first. Democrats in the chamber applauded after Harris announced...
NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher has memoir out in June
NEW YORK — Hall of Fame coach and NFL analyst Bill Cowher has a book coming out in June that his publisher is calling “more than just a football story.” The former Pittsburgh Steelers coach, who led his team to a Super Bowl title at the end of the 2005...
Homeless woman says she was trapped in van for 5 days by plowed snow
A homeless woman was finally rescued from her van Thursday morning in Newark, N.J., after being trapped inside by snowplows for five days, she told News 12 Jersey. “When I woke up around 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock at night, I saw I was plowed in and snow everywhere,” the...
U.K. to begin hotel quarantine amid criticism of delay
LONDON — Everyone arriving in the U.K. from countries identified as coronavirus hotspots will have to spend 10 days in hotel quarantine starting Feb. 15 in a bid to stop new virus variants reaching the country, the government said Friday. But authorities are facing criticism for delays in implementing the...
This date in sports history: Feb. 5Video
1913 — The New York State Athletic Commission bans boxing matches between fighters of different races. 1919 — Charges against Cincinnati’s Hal Chase of throwing games and betting against his team are dismissed by National League president John Heydler. Two weeks later, Chase is traded to the New York Giants....
Resistance to coup grows despite Myanmar’s block of Facebook
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s new military government blocked access to Facebook as resistance to Monday’s coup surged amid calls for civil disobedience to protest the ousting of the elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Facebook is how most people access the internet in Myanmar and the company...
Voting company sues Fox, Giuliani over election fraud claims
MIAMI — A voting technology company is suing Fox News, three of its hosts and two former lawyers for former President Donald Trump — Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — for $2.7 billion, charging that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped “steal” the U.S. presidential...
New Mexico State Police say officer shot, killed on highway
DEMING, N.M. — A New Mexico State Police officer was fatally shot on a highway Thursday and authorities chased the attacker, killing him in a shootout, officials said. State Police said one of its officers was shot in Luna County between Las Cruces and Deming in a confrontation along Interstate...
Indians president said team unaware of Mickey Callaway’s behaviorVideo
CLEVELAND — Troubled by what might have happened under his watch, Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said the team was unaware of inappropriate behavior toward women by former pitching coach Mickey Callaway while he was with the club. Antonetti said he became “distraught” and “disturbed” in learning of...
Dem-led House, drawing a line, kicks Greene off committees
WASHINGTON — A fiercely divided House tossed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories. Underscoring the political vise her inflammatory commentary has clamped her party into, nearly all Republicans voted against the Democratic...
Check downs? More like checkmate as Chiefs take what’s givenVideo
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The casual football fan is likely to describe the Kansas City Chiefs offense this way: a go-for-broke, throw-it-deep highlight reel built around a quarterback with record-setting arm strength and wide receivers boasting Olympic-caliber speed. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong. They wouldn’t be entirely right, either. One...
Johnson & Johnson asks U.S. regulators to OK its one-shot covid-19 vaccine
Johnson & Johnson asked U.S. regulators Thursday to clear the world’s first single-dose covid-19 vaccine, an easier-to-use option that could boost scarce supplies. J&J’s vaccine was safe and offered strong protection against moderate to severe covid-19, according to preliminary results from a massive international study. It didn’t appear quite as...
Agents visit Mercer County home of pink hat woman pictured at Capitol riot
SANDY LAKE — Federal agents on Thursday were at the Mercer County home of a woman who told a magazine this week she was at the U.S. Capitol last month during the riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a TV station reported. WKBN-TV said investigators were conducting court-authorized activity...
Roger Goodell: Many lessons NFL learned in 2020 will carry forward
TAMPA, Fla. — The many lessons learned from 2020 will be needed as the NFL moves forward, commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday in his annual state of the league news conference ahead of the Super Bowl. Held before both in-person and virtual audiences and staged outside of the arena that...
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez seek climate emergency declaration from Biden
WASHINGTON — With Democrats in charge of Congress and the White House, progressive lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are pushing the Biden administration to act ever more aggressively on climate change. A week after President Joe Biden signed executive orders intended to combat the worst effects...
Lawmakers consider fast-track plan for abuse lawsuit window
HARRISBURG — A bid to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to give victims of child sexual abuse a new legal window to sue over otherwise time-barred allegations got new life Thursday, days after the disclosure of a paperwork error threw it into disarray. Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, told colleagues during a...
Pa. lawmakers’ spending jumps, reserves grow during pandemic as deficit ballooned
HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Legislature’s spending grew by more than 8% last year, adding some $28 million to its own reserves as the state’s deficit ballooned and many residents struggled to pay bills during the pandemic. The Legislative Audit Advisory Commission on Thursday voted without debate to approve the legislative...
NASCAR revs ahead with new teams, new tracks, new energyVideo
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Jordan took his own advice and just did it: Air Jordan formed his own NASCAR team and expects the foundation will be in place to build a stock car Dream Team centered around Bubba Wallace. Jordan has some company on the celebrity starting grid: Pitbull bought...
Facing expulsion, Trump resigns from Screen Actors Guild
NEW YORK — Donald Trump has resigned from the Screen Actors Guild after the union threatened to expel him for his role in the Capitol riot in January. In a letter dated Thursday and addressed to SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris, Trump said he was resigning from the union that he...
More GameStops possible as small investors flex muscles
LOS ANGELES — GameStop and a handful of other stocks whose meteoric rise last month shocked Wall Street began falling back to Earth this week. But the campaign that briefly pushed GameStop up by 1,600% at the expense of hedge funds that were betting it would lose value, known as...
Minus fanfare, small college football getting underway
PARKLAND, Wash. — At some point each week since athletes returned to campus, Pacific Lutheran football coach Brant McAdams has donned the full uniform of personal protective equipment — gown, gloves, mask and face shield. There was never a chapter in any of the books on becoming a small college...
Biden delays Trump rule that weakened wild bird protections
BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration said Thursday it was delaying a rule finalized in former President Donald Trump’s last days in office that would have drastically weakened the government’s power to enforce a century-old law protecting most wild birds. U.S. wildlife officials have said the rule could mean more...
Adviser: Trump won’t testify in Senate impeachment trial
WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday asked Donald Trump to testify under oath for his Senate impeachment trial, challenging the former president to respond to their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol. In a response, a Trump adviser said Trump won’t testify. The request in...
Former flight attendant lands 7-figure deal for 2 novels
A onetime flight attendant who conjured fictional nightmares during breaks on cross country red-eyes has a seven-figure deal for two novels. The Simon & Schuster imprint Avid Reader Press announced Thursday that T.J. Newman’s first book, the thriller “Falling,” comes out in July. The narrative is a horror story —...
