National News

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was abruptly escorted by a U.S. Secret Service agent out of the White House briefing room as he was beginning a coronavirus briefing Monday afternoon. He returned minutes later, saying there was a “shooting” outside the White House that was “under control.”...

ROME -- With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe. Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. ...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Bob Garick was looking forward to being a field supervisor during the door-knocking phase of the 2020 census, but as the number of new coronavirus cases in Florida shot up last month, he changed his mind. With widespread home visits for the 2020 census set to begin this week, the Census Bureau is losing workers such as Garick to pandemic fears. ...

FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Whether President Donald Trump has the constitutional authority to extend federal unemployment benefits by executive order remains unclear. Equally up in the air is whether states, which are necessary partners in Trump's plan to bypass Congress, will sign on...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory's elections commission to resign. The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio governor's positive, then negative, tests for COVID-19 have provided fuel for skeptics of government pandemic mandates and critics of his often-aggressive policies. "I'm sure the internet is lighting up with 'Well, you can't believe any test,'" Mike DeWine said in a WCOL radio interview Friday, after a whirlwind of events the day before when the initial positive showing forced the Republican to scrub a planned meeting with President Donald Trump. ...

Today is Monday, Aug. 10, the 223rd day of 2020. There are 143 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 10, 1944, during World War II, American forces overcame remaining Japanese resistance on Guam. On this date: In 1680, Pueblo Indians launched a successful revolt against Spanish colonists in present-day New Mexico...

Today is Sunday, Aug. 9, the 222nd day of 2020. There are 144 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Aug. 9, 2014, Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black man, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Missouri; Brown's death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, spawning a national "Black Lives Matter" movement...

Today is Saturday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2020. There are 145 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump huddled at the White House on Thursday with the Senate's top Republican, searching for a way forward on vital COVID-19 rescue money, while Trump's top bargainers returned to Capitol Hill amid increasing concern negotiations with Democrats might collapse...

An unemployed makeup artist with two toddlers and a disabled husband needs help with food and rent. A hotel manager says his unemployment has deepened his anxiety and kept him awake at night. A dental hygienist, pregnant with her third child, is struggling to afford diapers and formula...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, an early advocate among Republicans of wearing masks and other pandemic precautions, tested positive Thursday for the coronavirus just ahead of a planned meeting with President Donald Trump. The Republican governor's office said he took the test as part of standard protocol before he was to meet Trump at an airport in Cleveland. He had planned to join the president on a visit to the Whirlpool Corp. plant in northwest Ohio...

NEW YORK -- New York's attorney general sued the National Rifle Association on Thursday, seeking to put the powerful gun advocacy organization out of business over claims that top executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures...

Already smashing records, this year's hyperactive Atlantic hurricane season is about to get even nastier, forecasters predict. In the coming months, they expect to run out of traditional hurricane names and see about twice as much storm activity as a normal year...

NEW YORK -- Health experts once thought 2020 might be the worst year yet for a rare paralyzing disease that has been hitting U.S. children for the past decade. But they now say the coronavirus pandemic could disrupt the pattern for the mysterious illnesses, which spike every other year starting in late summer...

Today is Friday, Aug. 7, the 220th day of 2020. There are 146 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces...

U.S. testing for the coronavirus is dropping even as infections remain high and the death toll rises by more than 1,000 a day, a worrisome trend that officials attribute largely to Americans getting discouraged over having to wait hours to get a test and days or weeks to find out the results...

BEIRUT -- Investigators began searching through the wreckage of Beirut's port Wednesday for clues to the cause of the massive explosion that ripped across the Lebanese capital, and the government ordered port officials put under house arrest amid speculation that negligence was to blame...

Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept the Democratic presidential nomination because of concerns over the coronavirus, party officials said Wednesday, signaling a move to a convention that essentially has become entirely virtual. It is the latest example of the pandemic's sweeping effects on the 2020 presidential election and the latest blow to traditional party nominating conventions that historically have marked the start of fall general election campaigns...

Today is Thursday, Aug. 6, the 219th day of 2020. There are 147 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 6, 1945, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths. (Three days later, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki; five days after that, Imperial Japan surrendered.)...

WASHINGTON -- A key Senate Republican said Tuesday that he supports an increase in the food stamp benefit as part of a huge coronavirus relief bill, adding that an agreement on that issue could lead to further overall progress on the legislation, which remains stalled despite days of Capitol negotiations...

BOSTON -- Fourth of July gatherings, graduation parties, no-mask weddings, crowded bars -- there are reasons the U.S. has racked up more than 155,000 coronavirus deaths, by far the most of any country, and is fast approaching 5 million confirmed infections, the highest in the world...

WINDSOR, N.C. -- At least four people were killed as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain Tuesday along the U.S. East Coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, where it caused floods and fires that displaced dozens of people...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump signed legislation Tuesday that will devote nearly $3 billion a year to conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands following its overwhelming approval by both parties in Congress...

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 5, the 218th day of 2020. There are 148 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 5, 1974, the White House released transcripts of subpoenaed tape recordings showing that President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, had discussed a plan in June 1972 to use the CIA to thwart the FBI's Watergate investigation; revelation of the tape sparked Nixon's resignation...

DALLAS, Ga. -- Putting your child on the bus for the first day of school is always a leap of faith for a parent. Now, on top of the usual worries about youngsters adjusting to new teachers and classmates, there's COVID-19. Rachel Adamus was feeling those emotions Monday morning as she got 7-year-old Paul ready for his first day of second grade and prepared 5-year-old Neva for the start of kindergarten...

WASHINGTON -- Slow, grinding negotiations on a huge COVID-19 relief bill resumed Monday afternoon, but the path forward promises to be challenging, and time is already growing short. Republicans are griping that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't drop her expansive wish list even as concerns are mounting the White House needs to be more sure-footed in the negotiations...

NEW YORK -- A Manhattan prosecutor trying to get President Donald Trump's tax returns told a judge Monday he was justified in demanding them, citing public reports of "extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization." Trump's lawyers last month said the grand jury subpoena for the tax returns was issued in bad faith and amounted to harassment of the president...

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Nevada lawmakers passed a bill that would add the state to a growing list of U.S. states mailing active voters ballots ahead of the November election amid the coronavirus pandemic. The bill, which was passed Sunday, now heads to Gov. ...

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 4, the 217th day of 2020. There are 149 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 4, 1944, 15-year-old diarist Anne Frank was arrested with her sister, parents and four others by the Gestapo after hiding for two years inside a building in Amsterdam. (Anne and her sister, Margot, died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.)...

Who gets to be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine? U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it's a vexing decision. "Not everybody's going to like the answer," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of the advisory groups the government asked to help decide. "There will be many people who feel that they should have been at the top of the list."...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Two NASA astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday in a dramatic, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico to close out an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk's SpaceX company. It was the first splashdown by U.S. ...

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Bands of heavy rain from Isaias lashed Florida's east coast Sunday, with the tropical storm strengthening slightly in the evening on its way up the Eastern seaboard. Officials dealing with surging cases of the coronavirus in Florida kept a close watch on the storm that was weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Saturday afternoon, but still brought heavy rain and flooding to Florida's Atlantic coast...

NEW YORK -- Microsoft confirmed Sunday it is in talks with Chinese company ByteDance to acquire the U.S. arm of its popular video app TikTok and has discussed with President Donald Trump his concerns about security and censorship surrounding such an acquisition...

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- When the coronavirus pandemic forced the University of Vermont to close and send its students home, the alarm spread: What would happen to the cows? The university's beloved herd of about 100 dairy cows is normally tended by students taking part in the Cooperative for Real Education in Agricultural Management program, or CREAM. And without those students, the fate of the cows seemed to be in jeopardy...

Today is Monday, Aug. 3, the 216th day of 2020. There are 150 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 3, 1993, the Senate voted 96-to-three to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. On this date: In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr went on trial before a federal court in Richmond, Virginia, charged with treason. (He was acquitted less than a month later.)...

Today is Sunday, Aug. 2, the 215th day of 2020. There are 151 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 2, 1776, members of the Second Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. On this date:...

Today in History Today is Saturday, Aug. 1, the 214th day of 2020. There are 152 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 1, 1957, the United States and Canada announced they had agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)...

ATLANTA — Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of a major pizza chain who went on to become an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has died of complications from the coronavirus. He was 74. ...

ATLANTA -- Hailed as a "founding father" of a fairer, better United States, John Lewis was eulogized Thursday by three former presidents and others who urged Americans to continue the work of the civil rights icon in fighting injustice during a moment of racial reckoning...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump, lagging in the polls and grappling with deepening economic and public health crises, on Thursday floated the startling idea of delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election. The notion drew immediate pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike in a nation that has held itself up as a beacon to the world for its history of peaceful transfer of power...

WASHINGTON -- The coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter and is still inflicting damage across the country, squeezing already struggling businesses and forcing a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built -- a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers -- blasted off for the red planet Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of ancient life...

A big study to help Medicare officials decide whether to start covering brain scans to check for Alzheimer's disease missed its goals for curbing health care costs, calling into question whether the pricey tests are worth it. The results announced Thursday are from a $100 million study of more than 25,000 Medicare recipients. It's been closely watched by private insurers, too, as the elderly population grows and more develop this most common form of dementia, which currently has no cure...

Today is Friday, July 31, the 213th day of 2020. There are 153 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 31, 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures. The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.. ...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve expressed concern Wednesday that the persistent viral outbreak will act as a drag on the economy and hiring in the coming months and said it plans to keep its benchmark short-term interest rate pegged near zero to help provide support...

WASHINGTON — Fending off accusations of stifling competition, four Big Tech CEOs -- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple -- are answering for their companies' practices before Congress as a House panel caps its yearlong investigation of market dominance in the industry...

WASHINGTON — Spurred on by President Donald Trump's demand to pull troops out of Germany, the U.S. will bring about 6,400 forces home and shift about 5,600 to other countries in Europe, U.S. defense leaders said Wednesday, detailing a Pentagon plan that will cost billions of dollars and take years to complete...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- The summer's third and final mission to Mars -- featuring NASA's most elaborate life-hunting rover -- is on the verge of liftoff. The rover Perseverance will follow China's rover-orbiter combo and a United Arab Emirates orbiter, both launched last week. It will take the spacecraft seven months to reach Mars after traveling 300 million miles...