Associated Press stories, Page 1949

WASHINGTON — Americans increased their retail purchases by 1.2% in July, with solid gains in appliances and clothing, restoring sales to their level before the viral pandemic erupted in March. Sales at retail stores and restaurants have now risen for three straight months, after enormous plunges in March and April,...

TORONTO — This is what Dougie Hamilton was hoping for while he waited out the pandemic shutdown that put the NHL season on hold, and then waited some more after injuring himself in practice when the Hurricanes returned to the ice. The Carolina defenseman scored the game-winner with 11:30 left...

EDMONTON, Alberta — Even though Reilly Smith called it a lucky bounce, a whole lot more than luck is working right now for the Vegas Golden Knights. Smith scored in overtime, Robin Lehner made 22 saves, and the Golden Knights beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 on Thursday to take a...

Wilmington, Del. — In her first two days as Joe Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris has fired off the campaign’s sharpest criticism of President Donald Trump’s shortcomings. She has vouched for Biden’s character on race and more. And the enthusiasm surrounding her historic candidacy has brought in a record $36...

TikTok and its U.S. employees are planning to take President Donald Trump’s administration to court over his sweeping order to ban the popular video app, according to a lawyer preparing one of the lawsuits. The employees’ legal challenge to Trump’s executive order will be separate from a pending lawsuit from...

Churches in California and Minnesota, backed by a conservative legal group, filed lawsuits this week against the governors of their states challenging restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus outbreak that they contend are violations of religious liberty. They’re the latest in a long series of legal challenges, many of them...

DES MOINES, Iowa — It will take five days or longer to restore power to some Iowa homes and businesses that have been without electricity since Monday’s wind storm left damage across the Midwest and killed at least four people, officials said Thursday. The straight-line winds that toppled trees and...

LOS ANGELES — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have moved into a new family home, a representative for the couple said Thursday without providing its location or other details. Real estate agents and tax records point to a seven-acre estate in Santa Barbara County, according to The Los Angeles Times....

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, the new joint-venture between the two auto companies, on Thursday announced an additional $830 million investment in its new Alabama plant. Gov. Kay Ivey said in a news release that the investment in the new auto facility is now $2.3 billion, up from the...

WILMINGTON, Del. — President Donald Trump on Thursday attacked Joe Biden for calling on governors to mandate that all Americans wear masks for the next three months, accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of politicizing an issue Trump himself has used for political gain in recent months. Trump claimed Biden has...

HARRISBURG — President Trump’s administration is undoing Obama-era rules designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas fields and pipelines, formalizing the changes Thursday in the heart of the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir and in the premier presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania. Andrew Wheeler, the Environmental...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared Thursday that he opposes additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service, acknowledging that his position would starve the agency of money Democrats say it needs to process an anticipated surge in mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump also claimed anew — falsely —...

ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday said he’s dropping a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta in a dispute over the city’s requirement to wear masks in public and other restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kemp had sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council....

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — Federal agents are taking over the investigation of a Florida man who was arrested after police found more than two dozen pipe bombs near his home, including some that contained nails, screws and metal pellets. Boynton Beach police said Thursday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,...

NEW YORK — Wall Street is drifting on Thursday, and the S&P 500 is again on the verge of erasing the very last of its pandemic losses. The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in afternoon trading at 3,383.64. Earlier in the afternoon, it briefly rose above 3,386.15, which was the...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Protesters and police clashed in downtown Portland in a demonstration that lasted into the predawn hours of Thursday, with some in the crowd setting a fire and exploding commercial grade fireworks outside a federal courthouse that’s been a target in months of conflict for Oregon’s largest city....

WASHINGTON — With talks on emergency coronavirus aid having stalled out, both sides played the blame game Thursday rather than make any serious moves to try to break their stalemate. Official Washington is emptying, national politics is consuming the airwaves and the chasm between the warring sides appears too great...

NEW YORK — AMC Theatres, the nation’s largest movie theater chain, will reopen in the U.S. on Aug. 20 with retro ticket prices of 15 cents per movie. AMC Entertainment, which owns the chain, said Thursday that it expects to open the doors to more than 100 cinemas — or...

All-Pro tight end George Kittle has agreed to a five-year extension with the San Francisco 49ers that reportedly is the richest contract ever at the position. A person familiar with the deal says the sides agreed Thursday on the deal to keep Kittle off the market next offseason. The person...

The Big Three will be represented at the U.S. Open, after all: Novak Djokovic announced Thursday he will enter the Grand Slam tournament and the hard-court tuneup preceding it in New York. Djokovic initially complained about the U.S. Tennis Association’s plans to try to protect people from the coronavirus pandemic...

A group of senators led by Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Thursday released a plan for reforming college sports with an athletes bill of rights. The legislative plan calls for college athletes to have the ability to earn money for their names, images and...

The captivation and celebration of the NFL have long stemmed from the speed, strategy, strength and teamwork that make the game go. Football is just as much a sport of pattern and detail, too, never more than at training camps around the league in the time of covid-19. Like the...

BLED, Slovenia — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Slovenia to make the case for high-speed wireless networks that bar Chinese companies like Huawei. On the second leg of a four-nation tour of central and eastern Europe, Pompeo was meeting Slovenian officials in the mountain lake town of...