Month: November 2021

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer In the past 10 years, charities have made splashy fundraising appeals and raked in billions in donations on GivingTuesday, which takes place the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Last year, American donors gave nearly $2.5 billion amid growing needs brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the nation’s racial reckoning.

CLAREMORE, Okla. (AP) — Authorities say a man who was asked to leave a college football watch party in Oklahoma after making unwanted sexual advances toward several woman rammed several people with his truck, killing one person and severely injuring another. Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said Monday that Clinton Cottom remained jailed on suspicion

By JIM SALTER Associated Press Finding the fossils of a large duck-billed dinosaur in southern Missouri is exciting enough, but a paleontologist who helped lead the dig believes there are many more in the same area. The latest fossils are a specimen of Parrosaurus missouriensis, first discovered at the site in Bollinger County nearly 80

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell took a sharp and unexpected turn Tuesday toward tightening credit for consumers and businesses in the face of mounting concerns about high inflation. Powell signaled that the Fed will likely act more quickly to phase out its ultra-low-interest rate policies even

By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A lawyer for an Atlanta-area sheriff argued that the sheriff’s use of a restraint chair doesn’t amount to excessive force under any clearly established law and federal charges against him should be dismissed. A federal prosecutor countered that Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill very clearly used excessive

HAYDEN, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say they have questioned a FedEx driver after hundreds of packages were recently found in a wooded area north of Birmingham, Alabama. Blount County Sheriff Mark Moon says investigators spoke with security personnel for Tennessee-based FedEx and identified a driver. The driver’s name wasn’t released, and Moon did not indicate

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case and restore his conviction. In a petition released Monday, they wrote that courts should not equate a decision announced in a press release to lifetime immunity. They believe the Pennsylvania Supreme Court erred

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys are set to begin sifting through potential jurors for the trial of a suburban Minneapolis police officer who says she meant to use her Taser instead of her gun when she killed Daunte Wright, a Black motorist. As they do, they’ll take a hard look at

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away an emergency appeal from employees at the largest hospital system in Massachusetts who object to the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds. Justice Stephen Breyer did not comment Monday in rejecting the request from employees at Mass General Brigham for a religious exemption to the system’s vaccine

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press An actor charged with storming the Capitol as a member of the Oath Keepers nearly talked his way into remaining in jail after his former attorney told a judge that the actor was challenging the court’s jurisdiction. A prosecutor said he hadn’t planned on seeking pretrial detention for James Beeks

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, will be held based on objections to the first vote that took place in April. The move is a major blow to Amazon, which had spent about a year aggressively campaigning for warehouse workers in

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaii couple accused of killing their 6-year-old adoptive daughter a month before reporting her missing has pleaded not guilty to murder. A grand jury previously indicted Isaac and Lehua Kalua on murder and other charges. During a court hearing Monday, they pleaded not guilty via

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and ROBERT BURNS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has rejected a request by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt that his state’s National Guard be exempt from a Pentagon requirement that all military members be vaccinated against COVID-19. In a letter to Stitt obtained by The Associated Press, Austin

By MARLON GONZALEZ Associated Press TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of ousted former president Mel Zelaya, has taken a commanding lead in Honduras’ elections, capping a 12-year effort. If preliminary vote tallies are confirmed, Castro de Zelaya would become the Central American country’s first female president. Her victory would also

By KELLI KENNEDY and CODY JACKSON Associated Press MIAMI BEACH (AP) — As the tourism industry bounces back from COVID-19, Miami is one of the top search destinations on several travel websites. Florida tourism has been buoyed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pro-business, anti-mask restrictions. That has allowed one of the state’s main economic engines

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am says politics don’t dictate his actions, with pressure from pro-Palestinian activists unable to deter him from performing in Israel and maintaining ties to the country’s high-tech scene. A Palestinian-led movement has for years urged artists to boycott Israel over its treatment of

PARIS (AP) — France’s interior minister says France will double the number of officers in charge of fighting smugglers after 27 people died last week trying to cross the Channel to get Britain in an overcrowded smuggling boat. Speaking Monday after a defense council meeting, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the anti-smuggling office will be

By ALBERT AJI Associated Press DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria has hosted the first international basketball tournament on its soil in at least two decades, bringing an Asia region World Cup qualifying game to a packed stadium in the capital Damascus. The game Monday with Kazakhstan, which Syria lost 81-71, saw the national team play

By ROBERT BURNS AP National Security Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say that after months of study, the Pentagon has decided no immediate major changes are needed in the global positioning of U.S. forces. It will, however, further analyze force needs in the Middle East and make refinements in Asia and the Pacific. Some infrastructure

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection will vote Wednesday to hold Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, in contempt of Congress. The panel is seeking charges against a defiant witness for a second time after holding former White House aide Steve Bannon

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Regional authorities in Portugal’s Madeira Islands have expanded a protected marine area to create what they said is the largest fully protected marine reserve in the North Atlantic. The reserve spans 12 nautical miles around the Selvagens Islands, a small archipelago located midway between the Madeira Islands and Spain’s Canary Islands,