Month: January 2022

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — U.S. new vehicle sales rebounded slightly last year from 2020′s dismal numbers, but were still about 2 million below the years before the coronavirus pandemic. The problem isn’t consumer demand. It’s low vehicle supplies caused by the global shortage of computer chips. Sales hit just over

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Republican Larry Elder is bypassing a possible rematch with California Gov. Gavin Newsom this year to raise money for House and Senate candidates. Elder emerged last year as the GOP’s star candidate in the failed recall election that sought to remove Newsom from office.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The USS Abraham Lincoln deployed this week from San Diego under the command of Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt, the first woman to lead a nuclear carrier in U.S. Navy history. Bauernschmidt had served as Abraham Lincoln’s executive officer from 2016 to 2019. She took over command from Capt. Walt Slaughter during a

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Police in Nigeria say 97 hostages, mostly women and children, have been rescued more than two months after they were abducted by armed groups in the northwest part of the country. Among the freed hostages are 19 babies, seven pregnant women and more than a dozen

ELFRIDA, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona couple has been arrested after authorities say they left their 11-year-old son home alone for two weeks. The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office arrested the couple last week after they returned to their home in Elfrida, about 100 miles southeast of Tucson. Authorities say the mother left the state before

By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. public health officials are investigating how civilians have been affected by the leakage of petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s tap water from a Navy fuel storage facility. The Hawaii Department of Health says it asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A state judge has ruled that thousands of documents related to security during the construction in North Dakota of the heavily protested Dakota Access Pipeline are public and subject to the state’s open records law. The ruling by South Central District Judge Cynthia Feland is a victory for The Intercept news

By MARK THIESSEN Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A rural Alaska man who threatened to kill Alaska’s two U.S. senators in a series of profanity-laced voice messages left at their offices in Washington has pleaded guilty to making the threats in exchange for having other charges dropped. Jay Allen Johnson entered his guilty pleas

PARIS (AP) — The French national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into a car explosion last week ahead of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia that left French driver Philippe Boutron seriously injured. The office says it will investigate an “attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise.” Boutron is recovering at a

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit of a 30-year-old man who alleged that the image of him nude as a baby on the 1991 cover of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is child pornography. Judge Fernando Olguin granted the motion by Nirvana’s attorneys to dismiss the case

KANKAKEE, Ill. (AP) — A prosecutor says a police officer fatally shot last week at a northern Illinois hotel pleaded for her life before a man allegedly shot her to death with her own gun after she was disarmed during a struggle. Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe said Monday during a bond hearing for

By DAVID EGGERT Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — About 1,000 sexual abuse victims of a University of Michigan sports doctor would get a window to sue the school for damages under pending bills in the state Legislature, as lawmakers revive efforts to ensure the athletes and others face no barriers in court. Similar legislation

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A new federal court order says a Mississippi city must allow construction of a mosque. A judge filed the order Monday, two months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city on behalf of two Muslim men. The lawsuit said

MOSCOW (AP) — Demonstrators denouncing the doubling of prices for liquefied gas have clashed with police in Kazakhstan’s largest city and held protests in about a dozen other cities in the country. Local news reports said police dispersed a demonstration of about a thousand people on Tuesday night in Almaty and that some demonstrators were

ROME (AP) — Designer Giorgio Armani is cancelling his men’s fashion shows in Milan this month and his Prive haute couture show in Paris because of soaring coronavirus cases in Europe. The decision to nix the Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani makes Armani the first major designer to pull out of the Milan men’s previews

CHICAGO (AP) — Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois has formally announced he won’t seek a 16th term in the U.S. House. The former Black Panther who first won election in 1992 said in a speech at a Chicago church Tuesday that he isn’t retiring from public service and “will remain on the front lines.”

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has aced the most complicated, critical job on its newly launched space telescope: unrolling and stretching a sunshade the size of a tennis court. Flight controllers in Maryland cheered and bumped fists Tuesday once the fifth and final layer of the ultra-thin sunshield

By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago schools have canceled classes Wednesday after the teachers union voted to switch to remote learning due to record COVID-19 levels. The move comes amid an escalating battle over safety protocols in schools. Officials in the nation’s third-largest school district say they won’t switch back to online

By JOSEPH HAMMOND Religion News Service Halal Restaurant, East London’s oldest halal eatery, opened in 1939 to serve the needs of Muslims in the maritime industry. Over the ensuing decades the restaurant has adapted alongside the rapidly shifting neighborhood. Having survived the Blitz and the labor tumult of the 1970s, Halal Restaurant nearly succumbed during

By JESSICA GRESKO and MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says all nine justices have received COVID-19 booster shots. The court’s confirmation comes with the omicron variant surging and in-person arguments over vaccines scheduled at the court Friday. The court confirmed that the justices have received boosters only after The Associated

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer A forecast of better weather means that the worst may finally be over for tens of thousands of air travelers who were grounded by flight cancellations that skyrocketed over the New Year’s Day weekend. January and February are usually slow months for travel, and that figures to be even

By ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is urging concern but not alarm as the U.S. sets new records for daily reported COVID-19 cases and his administration struggles to ease concerns about testing shortages. Biden spoke from the White House about the surging omicron variant Tuesday ahead of a meeting with

GARLAND, Texas (AP) — An attorney for a man accused of driving his son to a Dallas-area gas station store where the 14-year-old is accused of fatally shooting three teens and wounding a fourth says the father didn’t know his son had a gun. Attorney Heath Harris told The Dallas Morning News he believes evidence

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has five new members. Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday formally took up the posts they won in an election in June. Ambassadors made brief remarks and installed their countries’ flags alongside those of other members outside the council chambers. The 15-member

PARIS (AP) — France reported a record-smashing 271,686 daily COVID-19 cases Tuesday as omicron infections race across the country. The surge is burdening hospital staff and threatening to disrupt transport, schools and other services. The French government is straining to avoid a new economically damaging lockdown. Instead, it’s trying to rush a vaccine pass bill

By ALAN FRAM and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he remains opposed to President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion package of social and environmental initiatives. It was the West Virginia moderate’s first extended remarks on the bill since saying last month he was against the legislation as written.