Local, National, and Sports News.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants to imbue Independence Day with new meaning this year by encouraging nationwide celebrations to mark the country’s effective return to normalcy after 16 months of coronavirus pandemic disruption. The White House is expressing growing certainty that July Fourth will serve as a breakthrough moment in the nation’s recovery.…
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s attorney general has closed an open-records complaint filed against Gov. Mike Parson. Records provided to The Associated Press show Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office last week closed the complaint filed by a Missouri news outlet. A Missouri Independent reporter had asked Schmitt’s office to investigate after Parson’s office refused to…
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO is set to expand the use of its all for one, one for all, collective defense clause to include attacks in space. Article 5 of NATO’s treaty states that an attack on any one of the 30 allies will be considered an attack on them all. So far, it’s only applied…
CHICAGO (AP) — The number of COVID-19 cases in Illinois is continuing to drop with the state’s seven-day positivity rate on all tests remaining under 1%. The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 298 new and confirmed cases on Sunday, along with 11 new deaths. At the same time, more than half of the state’s…
CHICAGO (AP) — Authorities say two people were killed and at least 30 others wounded in mass shootings overnight in three states. The shootings Friday night and early Saturday further stoked concerns a spike in U.S. gun violence during the coronavirus pandemic could continue into summer amid an easing of COVID-19 restrictions. Authorities said one…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S., and nearly half still have not been caught. At some institutions, doors are left unlocked, security cameras are broken and officials sometimes don’t notice an inmate is missing for hours. At one Texas lockup, security is so…
CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois will hit a milestone Friday. That’s when the state lifts all capacity limits on bars, restaurants, businesses and other venues. It comes nearly 15 months after the first stay-at-home order during the coronavirus pandemic. The Illinois health department says more than 68% of Illinois residents who are 18 or older have…
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Health officials and experts in Asia have welcomed U.S. plans to share 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the developing world, but some say it would take more than donations alone to address huge vaccination gaps that threaten to prolong the pandemic. President Joe Biden was set…
A federal appeals court panel has blocked Missouri from enforcing a sweeping state abortion law that bans the procedures at or after eight weeks of pregnancy. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis handed down the ruling Wednesday. The panel heard arguments in September in the legal battle…
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration says it has identified more than 3,900 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under former President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal crossings. The Family Reunification Task Force report Tuesday provides one of the more detailed accounts of a chapter in U.S. immigration history that…