Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 65
BALTIMORE (AP) — For an American workforce under continuing threat from the coronavirus, the best protection might just be a college degree. Friday's jobs report for May delivered a major pleasant surprise, with lower unemployment and 2.5 million added jobs, instead of the darkening picture that had been widely expected. Yet the damage inflicted on the job market since February has highlighted a widening line of inequality based on education. In a nation in which a majority of workers lack a degree, college graduates are far more likely to b...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two more people have died in Oklahoma after contracting the coronavirus, bringing the state's death toll to 347, state health officials reported on Saturday. Another 56 Oklahomans have tested positive for the virus as the total number of cases reached 7,059, the State Department of Health reported. The two new deaths were a woman from Oklahoma County and a man McClain County. Both were in the 65 and older age group. One of the deaths took place within the past 24 hours while the other individual died on May 28. S...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas education officials are preparing to reopen the state's schools in the fall but acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic will force widespread changes. "We want Kansans to know that we will have school in the fall, and that we are prepared to do everything within our power to keep staff, students and families safe," Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Randy Watson said in a news release Friday. Watson assembled a task force in May to develop comprehensive guidance for safely reopening school buildings. One team is...
When a friend shared a Facebook post with Michelle Burris inviting her to protest in downtown Washington, D.C., last Saturday, she knew she had to go. So she bought a Black Lives Matter mask from a street vendor before marching the streets of the district with a "No Justice, No Peace" sign. After that march ended, she pulled up details on Instagram for a car caravan demonstration just a few blocks away. "It was extremely powerful, not only Facebook but Instagram," Burris said. "It was very easy to mobilize." Protesters are using a variety of...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Biologist Carlos Ruiz has spent a quarter-century working to save golden lion tamarins, the charismatic long-maned monkeys native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Thanks to painstaking reforestation efforts, the population of these endangered monkeys was steadily growing until an outbreak of yellow fever hit Brazil in 2018, wiping out a third of the tamarins. Undeterred, Ruiz's team devised an ambitious new experiment: This spring, they would start vaccinating many of the remaining wild monkeys. Enter the coronavirus, which is n...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A freshman Kansas congressman who has toed the conservative line and steadfastly defended President Donald Trump nevertheless is battling accusations that he's an impostor in a tough Republican primary race. Rep. Steve Watkins' voting record and statements decrying Trump's impeachment leave little enough room to attack him from the right that the campaign of his main primary challenger, State Treasurer Jake LaTurner, is scrutinizing Watkins' fundraising to question his loyalties. Watkins was a political novice when he won t...
Jobs with state and city governments are usually a source of stability in the U.S. economy, but the financial devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has forced cuts that will reduce public services — from schools to trash pickup. Even as the U.S. added some jobs in May, the number of people employed by federal, state and local governments dropped by 585,000. The overall job losses among public workers have reached more than 1.5 million since March, according to seasonally adjusted federal jobs data released Friday. The number of g...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, spoke privately with congressional leaders and many other lawmakers as Pentagon officials came under fire for the military's role in containing protests following the police killing of George Floyd. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to express her concerns on Tuesday, according to two people who were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and were granted anonymity. That was the day after a...
BOSTON (AP) — Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use the social media platform to "spread both misinformation and incendiary statements." The researchers, including 60 professors at leading U.S. research institutions, wrote the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking Zuckerberg to "consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people," especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice. The letter calls the spread of "...
LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prince William has revealed that he has been anonymously helping out on a crisis helpline during the coronavirus lockdown. The Duke of Cambridge's work with Shout 85258 — an around-the-clock text messaging helpline developed by the Royal Foundation — was made public to mark Volunteers Week. Last month, he told fellow volunteers in a video call that was shared on social media late Friday: "I'm going to share a little secret with you guys, but I'm actually on the platform volunteering." William, who is second in line...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Andrew Alexander, the CEO and co-owner of famed The Second City improv theater, said he is stepping down after a former performer leveled accusations of racism against the comedy institution. In a lengthy letter posted on the company's website, Alexander said he "failed to create an anti-racist environment wherein artists of color might thrive. I am so deeply and inexpressibly sorry," He vowed Friday that he will be replaced by a person of color. The originally Chicago- and Toronto-based Second City was an early training g...
PARIS (AP) — With discussions ongoing over whether the U.S. Open or the French Open can even take place later this year, a new digitally friendly tennis tournament starts Saturday in southern France with four Top 10-ranked players involved. Co-founder Patrick Mouratoglou hopes the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) — whose first edition features ATP Finals winner Stefanos Tsitsipas and U.S. Open semifinalist Matteo Berrettini — can change the way tennis is viewed by allowing a younger audience to access the raw feelings of players. "I would like...
CHARLOTTE, Va. (AP) — Charlotte's two professional sports franchises and two universities have canceled their partnerships with a North Carolina home security company after the firm's CEO told an activist he should focus on black-on-black crime rather than the George Floyd protests. CPI Security CEO Ken Gill issued an apology for his comments Saturday on Twitter, but it failed to stem the response from teams and athletic departments that had been sponsored by CPI. A few hours after Gill apologized, the NFL's Carolina Panthers said they were end...
As most of the nation hunkered down amid the coronavirus pandemic, visits to doctor offices and outpatient clinics plunged. That's helping cause major swings in prescription drug use. Express Scripts, a top prescription benefit manager with over 100 million customers, saw big jumps in people getting three-month refills via mail delivery, as people with chronic health problems stocked up early in the crisis. Refills jumped 18% between mid-March and mid-April. Then prescription orders started dropping, partly from all the patients who'd just...
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A 5-year-old boy drowned in a Tulsa apartment pool Sunday after apparently sneaking out with another child while their parents were sleeping, authorities said. It was at least the second child drowning in Okahoma over the weekend. A 9-year-old also died in a separate drowning Saturday night in Lake Eufaula, Tulsa television station KTUL reported. The boy, who as from Broken Arrow, was sitting on a swim platform when he stood up and fell into the water, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. The Tulsa drowning was d...
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a young woman in Texas -- as yet unaware of the horrors unfolding half a country away -- learns that she is pregnant. She emerges from her doctor's office to a shocking new reality. "What kind of world will this be for my child?" she wonders. Two days later, another woman whose husband perished when terror hit New York City's Twin Towers finds that she, too, is carrying a new life. Her son is born the following May; he screams for months. Did the death of his father affect him, she fears, even inside her belly?...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The number of Oklahoma residents who have died after contracting the coronavirus is nearly at 350 after state health officials Sunday reported another death and more than 90 new cases. At least 7,150 people in Oklahoma have now tested positive for the virus, according to the State Department of Health. At least 348 people have died. Overall, new cases had been on a downward trend the past two weeks in the state. The true numbers are likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be i...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Lansing Correctional Facility is largest single source of Kansas' 10,393 coronavirus cases, followed by a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant near Garden City, according to a report by state health officials. The Kansas City Star obtained the Kansas public health report on the outbreak from Columbia University's Brown Institute for Media Innovation, which has been gathering government documents related to the coronavirus from around the country. The confidential report from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment lists...
DURANGO, Colo. (AP) — While firefighting crews were in the throes of battling the 416 Fire as it rapidly spread through the San Juan National Forest north of Durango in June 2018, an unlikely rescue mission was being hatched. Jim White, an aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said plans had to move fast as the blaze started inching toward prime habitat for a rare lineage of cutthroat trout that lives in the remote side streams of Hermosa Creek. Colorado Parks and Wildlife knew what was at risk: the potential loss of a native f...
HOUSTON (AP) — A Republican activist in Texas under fire for posting a Martin Luther King Jr. quote next to a banana following George Floyd's death says he won't take over as the county leader of the GOP in Houston. Keith Nielsen was elected in March to take over as chairman of the Harris County Republican Party, which is the Texas GOP's largest county organization. But he faced intense pressure within the party, including from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, to resign over his social media post that evoked racist tropes about black people. N...
Criminals are seizing on a surge in job losses to steal unemployment benefits from Americans nationwide. This complicates an already tough situation for millions of financially strapped Americans and overwhelmed state unemployment offices. While there's no exact measure of how many fraudulent claims have been made, states from Washington to Maine say they've seen an increase and numerous federal agencies are working to fight it. "About 10% of (unemployment insurance) payments are improper under the best of times, and we are in the worst of time...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are proposing to overhaul legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force episodes and ban police choke holds in legislation coming Monday in response to the deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, according to a draft outline obtained by The Associated Press. "We're in a real moment in our country," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Ca., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," speaking after days of massive protests set off by the d...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling is facing hefty backlash after she posted a series of tweets about transgender people. Rowling drew outrage Saturday on Twitter when she criticized an opinion piece from Devex that used the phrase " people who menstruate." "I'm sure there used to be a word for those people," the famous British author tweeted. "Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" She continued with another thread speaking about the concept of biological sex. "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction," she...
For weeks Samantha Clarke calmly listened to the insults and threats directed daily at her and her employees by people who learned they couldn't enter the Modesto, California, store without wearing a mask and following other coronavirus-related rules. But never, says the 17-year veteran of retail sales, did she expect she'd be sucker-punched and knocked to the floor, blood gushing from her battered face. Not until it happened recently after a customer was told the last above-ground swimming pool in stock had just been sold to someone else....
LAGRANGE, Ga. (AP) — Tucked away off West Point Road in LaGrange is a certified organic farm that has donated more than 50,000 pounds of food to hungry individuals since 2016. Working through local food charities such as Feeding the Valley Food Bank and LaGrange Personal Aid, PineyWoods Farm works to ensure residents of Troup County have fresh, organic produce available to them. According to Jessica Jarvholm, the farm's general manager, the nonprofit organization works under three tenets — charity, agricultural education and sus...
