Month: August 2021

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says it will require service members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine now that the Pfizer vaccine has received full approval. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had vowed earlier this month to require the shots once the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine. Pentagon spokesman

DENVER (AP) — Denver police say a shooting on a street corner in a nightlife district just as bars closed left one man dead and five others wounded. The shooting happened at about 2 a.m. Sunday near a music hall and a nightclub in Denver’s Lower Downtown district. Police say none of the wounded suffered

By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The United States has imposed new sanctions over Ethiopia’s deadly Tigray conflict. The Treasury Department says the chief of staff of the defense forces of neighboring Eritrea is sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for leading an entity accused of “despicable acts” including

ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) — Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States, has died in Minnesota. He was 38. His family says the Ukrainian-born Vovkovinskiy died of heart disease Friday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. He came to the Mayo Clinic in 1989 as a child. His size was due to a tumor

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in July for the second month in a row, though they only increased modestly from a year ago, suggesting the red-hot housing market may be cooling off a little.  The National Association of Realtors said Monday that existing homes sales rose 2%

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s Defense Ministry says it plans to build a fence 2.5 meters (8 feet) high along its border with Belarus and deploy more soldiers there to stop migrants seeking to enter the country.  Poland and the three Baltic states  — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — accuse

LONDON (AP) — A British judge has ruled that songs by punk trailblazers the Sex Pistols can be used in a forthcoming TV series despite the opposition of former frontman John Lydon. Ex-Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook sued the singer, once known as Johnny Rotten, after he tried to block the music’s

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched the construction of new nuclear submarines and other warships, part of a sweeping military modernization effort amid tensions with the West. He gave orders for two nuclear submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles along with two diesel-powered submarines and two corvettes

By LAURAN NEERGAARD and MATTHEW PERRONE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has given full approval to the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer. The Food and Drug Administration’s decision on Monday may help lift public confidence in vaccinations as the nation battles the most contagious coronavirus mutant yet. The FDA has never before had

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — All New York City public school teachers and other staffers will have to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Officials announced the new policy Monday as the nation’s largest school system prepares for classes to start next month. The city previously said teachers, like other city employees,

BEIJING (AP) — China’s microblogging platform Sina Weibo has closed 145 accounts, some of which had defended pop star Kris Wu over his rape allegations. Weibo said Monday the accounts were closed for publishing what it called  “information harmful for maintaining social order.” Beijing police have said the Chinese-Canadian pop star was detained last month

By TRAVIS LOLLER and JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press WAVERLY, Tenn. (AP) — Search crews with dogs continued the grim work of going door-to-door and looking through debris to find the missing after floodwaters roared through rural Tennessee over the weekend, killing at least 22 people. Saturday’s flooding took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan has opened a facility in Tokyo to provide oxygen for up to 130 coronavirus patients with mild symptoms. The idea is to temporarily give supplemental oxygen to patients who develop a problem while isolating at home or waiting for hospital vacancies. There’s growing concern that people

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A lag in routine school immunizations is threatening a smooth start to the school year and risking children’s health. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified a significant lag in 2020 in the standard shot regimen required for adolescent and elementary-age children long

RISHABH R. JAIN and SHONAL GANGULY Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — Hundreds of Afghans living in India are taking to the streets to ramp up demands for refugee status. Saturday’s protests came amid growing fears in the community following the swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. Most of the Afghans said they fled

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The messy exit of Western military forces from Afghanistan and the swift takeover of the country by the Taliban has stunned officials in Britain and strained the U.K.’s “special relationship” with its most important ally, the United States. Britain is urging the United States to extend its

By COLLIN BINKLEY and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A new poll finds that a majority of Americans support mask and vaccine mandates for students and teachers in K-12 schools. The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 6 in 10 Americans say masks and vaccines should

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An online account describing itself as a group of hackers has shared footage of Iran’s notorious Evin prison with The Associated Press. The footage shows guards beating prisoners and other poor conditions at the prison known for housing political prisoners and those with ties

TOKYO (AP) — The Afghanistan flag will be displayed in Tuesday’s opening ceremony of the Paralympics even though the country’s athletes were not able to get to Tokyo to compete. The president of the International Paralympic Committee says it will done as be a “sign of solidarity.” IPC President Andrew Parsons says a representative of

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Lawyers for two U.S. Park Police officers told a judge that local prosecutors are not entitled to second-guess the split-second judgments officers made when they fatally shot an unarmed motorist after a stop-and-go chase in northern Virginia. The officers sought to persuade a judge Monday in

By KIMBERLY PALMER of NerdWallet Having a good grasp of your expenses and budget is the best preparation for a drop in income. But if that ship has sailed and there’s less money coming in, there are still ways you can rebound. Taking a minute to process your emotions is a good start. Then do

By HAU DINH Associated Press HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam’s largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City, has begun a tightened lockdown to battle the coronavirus. It comes a day ahead of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to the capital, Hanoi. In Ho Chi Minh City, police and army troops have mobilized to enforce the

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — International aid groups are warning that millions of people in Syria and Iraq are losing access to water, electricity and food. The groups say the two Arab countries are suffering a rise in temperatures, low rainfall and drought, depriving many of drinking water. The drought is also

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Officials say Egypt has closed its main border crossing point with the Gaza Strip amid tensions with the territory’s militant Hamas rulers. Monday’s closing is the first time the Rafah crossing was shuttered since early this year. Egypt had kept the crossing open during an 11-day war

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albanian police say they have arrested two people for allegedly hurling tear gas cannisters during a concert by a Bosnian Serb musician whom many in the country accuse of not condemning the war in Kosovo. A statement on Monday said a 21-year-old man was arrested after hurling a tear gas cannister

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s anti-graft court has sentenced a former Cabinet minister to 12 years in prison for bribery related to the distribution of coronavirus aid. Juliari Peter Batubara was arrested in December a day after an anticorruption commission foiled an attempt to hand over seven suitcases and backpacks