From the Wire

States and businesses scrambled Wednesday to change course after the federal government issued new guidance calling for the return of mask wearing in virus hot spots amid a dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations nationwide.

St. Louis County's top elected official insisted Wednesday that a mask mandate remained in place even though the county commission voted to overturn it. Across the state, meanwhile, Kansas City issued its own order in an effort to stem a rise in COVID-19 cases that is straining hospitals, leading to an immediate threat of a lawsuit.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Garth Brooks fans will have a chance to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when the country music star performs at Arrowhead Stadium on Aug. 7.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) -- A Joplin man who wounded five people in random shootings has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- Four people killed last week in a Springfield house fire were a mother and her four children, fire officials said.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A man was killed and a 17-year-old wounded in separate shootings in St. Louis' North Pointe neighborhood, police there said.

A Springfield hospital announced Tuesday that it expanded its morgue capacity amid an increase in COVID-19 deaths, while the Kansas City mayor announced he would reinstate a mask mandate for indoor spaces.

TROY, Mo. (AP) -- An eastern Missouri woman already serving a life sentence for murder pleaded not guilty Tuesday in the stabbing death of her friend a decade ago.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A St. Louis man reached a plea deal Tuesday after a jury had been picked to hear his trial in a 2016 double murder.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- It was "completely improper" for a judge to release a southwest Missouri couple charged with abusing girls at a reform school from jail, the Missouri Attorney General's Office said in a court motion.

Kansas City Star. July 22, 2021.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- A Springfield man was convicted Tuesday of killing his pregnant girlfriend and the unborn child.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Jefferson City police officers who shot and killed a man during a traffic stop last month will not be charged with a crime, Cole County prosecutor Locke Thompson said Tuesday.

PINEVILLE, Mo. (AP) -- Three inmates who escaped from the McDonald County Sheriff's Office during the weekend have been recaptured, authorities said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The Kansas City Chiefs are retiring Warpaint the horse, president Mark Donovan said Monday at training camp.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A judge has sentenced a St. Louis man to a maximum 10 years in prison for the beating death of a homeless man last year, rejecting a plea deal with prosecutors that would have given him an eight-year sentence.

The attorney general in Missouri has sued in an effort to halt a mask mandate that took effect Monday in the St. Louis area amid a rise in COVID-19 cases that are burdening a growing number of hospitals around the state.

California and New York City announced Monday that they would require all government employees to get the coronavirus vaccine or face weekly COVID-19 testing, and the Department of Veterans Affairs became the first major federal agency to require health care workers to receive the shot.

CHAMOIS, Mo. (AP) -- Two people were found dead in front of their central Missouri home over the weekend, and another man has been arrested and charged in the deaths, authorities there said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Civil rights groups on Monday called for a federal investigation of Kansas City, Missouri, police, saying they have a pattern of using excessive force, particularly against Black men.

DENVER (AP) -- In a story published July 27, 2021, about an appeals court ruling in a discrimination case, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of a judge. She is Mary Beck Briscoe, not Mark Beck Briscoe.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the U.S. economy is strengthening and making progress on the Fed's employment and inflation goals, a small step toward dialing back its ultra-low-interest rate policies, perhaps later this year.

ATLANTA (AP) -- A woman who was walking her dog in one of Atlanta's most popular parks has been stabbed to death, authorities said.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- A judge in El Salvador ordered the pre-trial arrest of 10 former government officials, including ex-President Salvador Sanchez Cerén, on corruption charges Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal judge in New York has approved the forfeiture of a 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh that was looted from Iraq and sold for $1.6 million to Hobby Lobby for display in the Museum of the Bible, prosecutors announced.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fed notes strengthening US economy, a first small step toward dialing back its ultra-low-rate policies.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The family of a white Nebraska bar owner who killed himself after being charged in the fatal shooting of a Black man during 2020 protests over racial injustice is suing local prosecutors, alleging their comments led to his suicide.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Authorities evacuated homes in southern Turkey on Wednesday as a wildfire fanned by strong winds raged through a forest near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat.

NEW YORK (AP) -- After a rocket rise where it introduced millions of people to investing and reshaped the brokerage industry, all while racking up a long list of controversies in less than eight years, Robinhood is about to take the leap itself into the stock market.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Wisconsin judge on Wednesday found probable cause to charge a police officer in the 2016 slaying of a Black man who was sitting in a parked car, taking the rare step of overruling prosecutors years after they declined to charge the officer.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Joe Biden spoke out for embattled pro-democracy forces in Belarus on Wednesday in a White House meeting with that country's main opposition leader.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- For the second time in four years, an influential nationwide pork dealer has been sanctioned by federal regulators for illegal buying practices that cheated hog sellers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

PARIS (AP) -- France's top court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of Equatorial Guinea's vice president for money laundering and embezzling millions of dollars in public money.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senior diplomats from the United States and Russia held what the State Department described as "substantive and professional" talks on arms control and other strategic issues on Wednesday despite myriad other differences that have sent relations into a tailspin.

Deshaun Watson was on the field for the start of training camp with the Houston Texans on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Police in Russia raided the home of the chief editor of an investigative news site that was recently designated as a "foreign agent," the latest move by authorities to raise the pressure on independent media before the country's September parliamentary election.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans reached a deal with Democrats on Wednesday over major outstanding issues in a $1 trillion infrastructure package, ready to begin consideration of a key part of President Joe Biden's agenda. An evening test vote was possible.

Strong sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and other medicines helped Pfizer nearly double its second-quarter revenue and boost its profit an impressive 59%, beating Wall Street expectations and leading the drug giant to sharply hike its 2021 sales and profit forecasts.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The former employee who shot and killed eight people at an Indianapolis FedEx warehouse in April acted alone and was not racially or ethnically motivated, authorities said Wednesday.

SELMA, Ala. (AP) -- A man sought in the killing of an Alabama police officer who was gunned down in an ambush while taking a lunch break has been arrested, authorities said Wednesday.