National News

GENEVA -- U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and Moscow would "pay a heavy price" for such an action. It was the latest White House effort to clear up comments Biden made a day earlier when he suggested a "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukrainian territory could result in a more measured response by the United States and allies...

MADRID -- When the coronavirus pandemic was first declared, Spaniards were ordered to stay home for more than three months. For weeks, they were not allowed outside even for exercise. Children were banned from playgrounds, and the economy virtually stopped...

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden launched into his second year in office Thursday with a new focus on making fatigued Americans believe they're better off under his leadership as he embraces a pared-back agenda before the midterm elections. The persistence of the coronavirus, rising inflation and congressional gridlock have exacted a bitter toll on Biden's approval rating and threaten a midterm routing for his party, but the president sees no need for a major shift in direction...

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden ends his first year in the White House with a clear majority of Americans for the first time disapproving of his handling of the presidency in the face of an unrelenting pandemic and roaring inflation, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research...

WASHINGTON -- Democrats were picking up the pieces Thursday following the collapse of their top-priority voting rights legislation, with some shifting their focus to a narrower bipartisan effort to repair laws Donald Trump exploited in his bid to overturn the 2020 election...

Researchers on Thursday reported the latest in a surprising string of experiments in the quest to save human lives with organs from genetically modified pigs. This time around, surgeons in Alabama transplanted a pig's kidneys into a brain-dead man -- a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try in living patients possibly later this year...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- A Florida man was charged Thursday with human smuggling after the bodies of four people, including a baby and a teen, were found in Canada near the U.S. border in what authorities believe was a failed crossing attempt during a freezing blizzard...

BANGKOK -- As the massive undersea Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted Saturday, Tongans from around the world gazed on as their relatives livestreamed images of billowing clouds of ash, gas and steam emerging from beneath the depths. Then darkness...

WASHINGTON — For the first time, people across the U.S. can log on to a government website and order free, at-home COVID-19 tests. But the White House push may do little to ease the omicron surge, and experts say Washington will have to do a lot more to fix the country's long-troubled testing system...

AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON -- Senators faced off in emotional, raw debate Wednesday on voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital for protecting democracy but that's almost certain to be defeated without a filibuster rules change...

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden largely has rallied European allies to pledge as one that they will take tough measures against Russia if it rolls troops into Ukraine. But when it comes to what exactly the United States and Europe are willing to do, the allies haven't looked as united...

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden acknowledged Wednesday that the pandemic has left Americans exhausted and demoralized but insisted at a news conference marking his first year in office that he has "outperformed" expectations. He said he would likely have to settle for "big chunks" of his signature economic package to break an impasse in Congress...

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defied calls to resign in a feisty performance Wednesday in Parliament -- but it may be too little to prevent a push by his Conservative Party's lawmakers to oust him over a series of lockdown-flouting government parties...

DALLAS -- Some flights to and from the U.S. were canceled on Wednesday even after AT&T and Verizon scaled back the rollout of high-speed wireless service that could interfere with aircraft technology that measures altitude. Carriers that rely heavily on the wide-body Boeing 777 canceled flights or switched to different planes following warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing...

Today is Thursday, Jan. 20, the 20th day of 2022. There are 345 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 20, 1942, Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating Europe's Jews...

The fast-moving omicron variant may cause less severe disease on average, but COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are climbing and modelers forecast 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans could die by the time the wave subsides in mid-March. The seven-day rolling average for daily new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. ...

MOSCOW -- Russia is sending an unspecified number of troops from the country's far east to Belarus for major war games, officials said Tuesday, a deployment that will further beef up Russian military presence near Ukraine amid Western fears of a planned invasion...

AT&T and Verizon will delay launching new wireless service near key airports after the nation's largest airlines said the service would interfere with aircraft technology and cause widespread flight disruptions. The decision from the companies came Tuesday as the Biden administration tried to broker a settlement between the telecoms and airlines over a rollout of new 5G service...

WASHINGTON -- The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection issued subpoenas Tuesday to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Donald Trump's legal team who filed bogus legal challenges to the 2020 election that fueled the lie the race had been stolen from the former president...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico's nearly five-year bankruptcy battle is ending after a federal judge Tuesday signed a plan slashing the U.S. territory's public debt load as part of a restructuring and allows the government to start repaying creditors...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A 4 billion-year-old meteorite from Mars that caused a splash here on Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient, primitive Martian life after all, scientists reported late last week. In 1996, a NASA-led team announced organic compounds in the rock appeared to have been left by living creatures. ...

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2022. There are 346 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 19, 1981, the United States and Iran signed an accord paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months...

ATLANTA -- A day before the U.S. Senate was expected to take up significant legislation on voting rights that is looking likely to fail, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s eldest son condemned federal lawmakers over their inaction. Speaking in Washington, D.C. ...

Detroit's mayor believes tens of thousands of residents in the majority-Black city were missed in the 2020 census. Somerton, Arizona, leaders are incredulous the Census Bureau says they lost residents during a decade when the overwhelmingly Hispanic community grew enough to warrant a new high school...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- New Zealand's military on Monday morning was able to send a surveillance flight to Tonga to assess the extent of the damage from a huge undersea volcanic eruption. A towering ash cloud had prevented the military from launching any flights earlier to the Pacific island nation...

ATLANTA -- A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice was sweeping through parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze. Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. ...

Associated Press COLLEYVILLE, Texas -- A rabbi who was among four people held hostage at a Texas synagogue said Sunday that their armed captor grew "increasingly belligerent and threatening" toward the end of the 10-hour standoff, which ended with an FBI SWAT team rushing into the building and the captor's death...

NEW YORK -- Americans overlooked shortages, spiking prices and uncertainty over the omicron variant to break spending records during the critical holiday shopping season. But figures released Friday show that after spending robustly early in the holiday season, consumers sharply slowed their purchases from November to December...

MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday strongly reaffirmed its demand that NATO doesn't expand eastward despite the rejection of that by the military alliance amid a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Moscow wouldn't wait indefinitely for the Western response, saying he expects the U.S. and NATO to provide a written answer next week...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- For the first time in half a year, families on Friday are going without a monthly deposit from the child tax credit -- a program that was intended to be part of President Joe Biden's legacy but has emerged instead as a flash point over who is worthy of government support...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's Republican-drawn congressional map was rejected by the state's high court Friday, giving hope to national Democrats who had argued it unfairly delivered several potentially competitive seats in this year's critical midterm elections to Republicans...

LONDON -- Boris Johnson's office apologized to the royal family on Friday for holding staff parties in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral last year -- the latest in a string of allegedly lockdown-breaching gatherings that are threatening to topple the British prime minister...

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea on Friday fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles in its third weapons launch this month, officials in South Korea said, in an apparent reprisal for fresh sanctions imposed by the Biden administration for its continuing test launches...

Associated Press President Joe Biden on Friday tried to put behind recent setbacks on voting rights and his economic agenda by outlining progress made in implementing his $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. "When we invest in infrastructure, we're really investing in opportunity," Biden said. "These are investments that will build a better America. It sounds like hyperbole, but it's real."...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has stopped a major push by the Biden administration to boost the nation's COVID-19 vaccination rate, a requirement employees at large businesses get a vaccine or test regularly and wear a mask on the job. At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the U.S. The court's orders Thursday came during a spike in coronavirus cases caused by the omicron variant...

WASHINGTON -- Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, authorities said Thursday. Despite hundreds of charges already brought in the year since pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, these were the first seditious conspiracy charges levied in connection with the attack Jan. ...

An overturned conviction in Missouri is raising new questions about video testimony in criminal court cases nationwide, and the ruling could have ripple effects through a justice system increasingly reliant on remote technology as it struggles with a backlog of cases during the coronavirus pandemic...

MOSCOW -- Russia raised the stakes Thursday in its dispute with the West over Ukraine and NATO's expansion when a top diplomat refused to rule out a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if tensions with the United States escalate. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he could "neither confirm nor exclude" the possibility of Russia sending military assets to Latin America if the U.S. and its allies don't curtail their military activities on Russia's doorstep...

There's more evidence one of the world's most common viruses may set some people on the path to developing multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is a potentially disabling disease occuring when immune system cells mistakenly attack the protective coating on nerve fibers, gradually eroding them...

Earth simmered to the sixth hottest year on record in 2021, according to several newly released temperature measurements. And scientists say the exceptionally hot year is part of a long-term warming trend that shows hints of accelerating. Two U.S. science agencies -- NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- and a private measuring group released their calculations for last year's global temperature on Thursday, and all said it wasn't far behind ultra-hot 2016 and 2020...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has stopped the Biden administration from enforcing a requirement that employees at large businesses be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing and wear a mask on the job. At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the U.S...

WASHINGTON -- The late Sen. Harry Reid was remembered Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol as a "legendary leader," a hardscrabble Democrat who rose from poverty in a dusty Nevada mining town to deliver landmark legislation from the chamber's most powerful position...

WASHINGTON -- Inflation jumped at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years last month, a 7% spike from a year earlier that is increasing household expenses, eating into wage gains and heaping pressure on President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve to address what has become the biggest threat to the U.S. economy...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- In Democratic-led Washington state, just four lawmakers were present in the 98-member House this week as they convened a mostly remote session with an abundance of caution. Anyone working there is required to be tested for COVID-19 three days a week and show proof of vaccination -- including a booster shot -- to step onto the House floor...

Officials across the U.S. are again weighing how and whether to impose mask mandates as COVID-19 infections soar and the American public grows ever wearier of pandemic-related restrictions. Much of the debate centers around the nation's schools, some of which have closed due to infection-related staffing issues. In a variety of places, mask mandates are being lifted or voted down...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army, for the first time, is offering a maximum enlistment bonus of $50,000 to highly skilled recruits who join for six years, The Associated Press has learned, as the service struggles to lure soldiers into certain critical jobs during the continuing pandemic...

SYDNEY -- Like millions of others in the most locked-down place on the planet, Melbourne resident Rav Thomas dutifully spent 262 days confined to his home as the COVID-19 pandemic raged. He got vaccinated. And the single father of two found ways to pay the bills as Melbourne's lockdowns battered his entertainment and events company...

Scientists are seeing signals COVID-19's alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically. The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa...

Benjamin Whitely headed to a Safeway supermarket in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to grab some items for dinner. But he was disappointed to find the vegetable bins barren and a sparse selection of turkey, chicken and milk. "Seems like I missed out on everything," Whitely, 67, said. "I'm going to have to hunt around for stuff now."...

A mass of arctic air swept into the Northeast on Tuesday, bringing bone-chilling sub-zero temperatures and closing schools across the region for the second time in less than a week. High temperatures were not expected to make it out of the teens and 20s in most spots, with single digits in many areas, especially northern New England, according to the National Weather Service. But things felt even worse because of the wind, which made it feel below zero for many...