Top General News
AP-NORC poll: Virus, economy swamp other priorities for US
WASHINGTON (AP) — Containing the coronavirus outbreak and repairing the economic damage it has inflicted are the top priorities for Americans as Joe Biden prepares to become the 46th president of the United States, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research....
Biden has set sky-high expectations. Can he meet them?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Back when the election was tightening and just a week away, Joe Biden went big. He flew to Warm Springs, the Georgia town whose thermal waters once brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt comfort from polio, and pledged a restitching of America's economic and policy fabric unseen since FDR's...
A new COVID-19 challenge: Mutations rise along with cases
The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge. The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and...
Panel: China, WHO should have acted quicker to stop pandemic
GENEVA (AP) — A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization has criticized China and other countries for not moving to stem the initial outbreak of the coronavirus earlier and questioned whether the U.N. health agency should have labeled it a pandemic sooner. In a report issued to the...
Joe Biden to propose 8-year citizenship path for immigrants
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on Day One of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status, a massive reversal from the Trump administration's harsh...
Biden picks transgender woman as assistant health secretary
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A pediatrician and former Pennsylvania physician...
Mets fire GM after he sent explicit texts to female reporter
NEW YORK (AP) — Mets general manager Jared Porter was fired Tuesday after sending graphic, uninvited text messages and images to a female reporter in 2016 when he was working for the Chicago Cubs in their front office. ESPN reported late Monday night that Porter sent dozens of unanswered texts to the...
Exhausted hospital chaplains bring solace to lonely, dying
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Inside hospital rooms across America, where the sick are alone without family to comfort them, the grim task of offering solace falls to overworked and emotionally drained hospital chaplains who are dealing with more death than they’ve ever seen. Last week nearly a dozen died on a...
Spain's rising cases give pandemic hospital a second chance
MADRID (AP) — As soon as the lifeless body is silently pushed away on a stretcher, a cleaning battalion moves into the intensive care box. In a matter of minutes, the bed where the 72-year-old woman fought for over two weeks for another breath gets rubbed clean, the walls of glass isolating it disinfected...
Tokyo Olympics Q&A: 6 months out and murmurs of cancellation
TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics are to open in six months on July 23 and organizers have no public program planned to mark the milestone. There is too much uncertainty for that right now. Tokyo and other parts of Japan are under an emergency order because of surging coronavirus cases with about 4,500...
Latest General News
Despite election loss, Uganda's Bobi Wine wins growing power
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan presidential challenger Bobi Wine has emerged from last week's disputed election as the country's most powerful opposition leader after his party won the most seats of any opposition group in the national assembly. It's a major achievement for a party that's barely six...
'Peanuts' pen pals find comfort in correspondence
Even before she sees the name on the return address, Nancy Sloane knows who sent the letter — the Snoopy sticker that seals the envelope is a dead giveaway. It’s from Wesley Morgan, a 32-year-old fan of the comic strip “Peanuts” who’s been sending Snoopy-themed cards and letters...
Wall Street rally gets back on track; stocks and yields rise
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are climbing on Wall Street Tuesday, recovering some of last week’s losses to pull closer to their record highs. The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in early trading and got back within 1% of its record set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 140 points,...
Massive car pileup on Japan highway kills one, injures 17
TOKYO (AP) — One person was killed and at least 17 injured Tuesday in a massive pileup of at least 134 vehicles in blizzard conditions on a highway in northern Japan, officials said. About 200 people were stranded in the pileup, which forced the closure of the Tohoku Expressway in Miyagi prefecture, the...
Dutch govt to beef up lockdown amid fears about new variants
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch government said Tuesday it needs to beef up lockdown measures “as soon as possible” to rein in the spread of the coronavirus amid fears about more transmissible variants. Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to parliament that the government...
GM teams up with Microsoft on driverless cars
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is teaming up with Microsoft to accelerate its rollout of electric, self-driving cars. In the partnership announced Tuesday, the companies said Microsoft’s Azure cloud and edge computing platform would be used to “commercialize its unique autonomous vehicle...
Panel: China, WHO should have acted quicker to stop pandemic
GENEVA (AP) — A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization has criticized China and other countries for not moving to stem the initial outbreak of the coronavirus earlier and questioned whether the U.N. health agency should have labeled it a pandemic sooner. In a report issued to the...
Earthquake injures 3 in Argentina; tremor also felt in Chile
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck in northwestern Argentina near the border with central Chile, injuring at least three people, authorities said Tuesday. Two children and an adult were hospitalized in San Juan province in Argentina after the quake hit just before midnight...
Mets fire GM after he sent explicit texts to female reporter
NEW YORK (AP) — Mets general manager Jared Porter was fired Tuesday after sending graphic, uninvited text messages and images to a female reporter in 2016 when he was working for the Chicago Cubs in their front office. ESPN reported late Monday night that Porter sent dozens of unanswered texts to the...
Cybersecurity firm: Booting hackers a complex chore
BOSTON (AP) — Efforts to assess the impact of a more than seven-month-old cyberespionage campaign blamed on Russia — and boot the intruders — remain in their early stages, says the cybersecurity firm that discovered the attack. The hack has badly shaken the U.S. government and private sector....
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