AP National Business

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Samoa will go into lockdown from Saturday as it faces its first outbreak of COVID-19 after a woman who was about to leave the country tested positive during a routine test. Although health authorities have so far found just a single case, it is the

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Samoa will go into lockdown from Saturday as it faces its first outbreak of the coronavirus after a woman who was about to leave the country tested positive during a routine test. Samoa and several neighboring Pacific island nations were among the last places on

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Shares are mostly lower in Asia after Wall Street extended a rally into a third day on Thursday. Oil prices pushed higher, surpassing $105 per barrel. Tokyo, and Sydney advanced while Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul declined. The Bank of Japan kept its ultra-low interest rate

By DAKE KANG and HUIZHONG WU Associated Press BEIJING (AP) — Even as authorities lock down cities in China’s worst outbreak in two years, they are looking for an exit from what has been a successful but onerous COVID-19 prevention strategy. Public health experts caution that any plans to ease zero COVID measures are still

By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA and DÉBORA REY Associated Press BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s Senate has given final legislative approval for President Alberto Fernández’s administration to refinance the government’s $45 billion debt with the International Monetary Fund and avoid a default. The lawmakers voted 56 to 13, with three abstentions, on Thursday to approve the

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press FUTABA, Japan (AP) — Until recently, Futaba, home to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has been entirely empty of residents since the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. A tiny section of the town has reopened for the first time since all 7,000 residents had to flee. Only seven

By SUSAN HAIGH Associated Press Conservationists in Connecticut are hoping a last-minute deal can be reached to protect a sprawling 252-acre camp owned by a regional council of Boy Scouts. They want to prevent the picturesque property that’s been a summer destination for generations of families from being sold to a private developer. The Trust

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has added a contaminated island on the Columbia River to the Superfund list of toxic waste sites. That starts the process for eventual cleanup of the uninhabited Bradford Island. It is part of the federal Bonneville Dam complex on the

By JIM MORRIS Associated Press VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The Canadian government’s announcement it is dropping the requirement for vaccinated travelers to show a negative COVID-19 test result to enter the country was greeted with relief by tourism and business groups on both sides of the border Thursday. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said tests

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers have voted to make abortions much cheaper for people on private health insurance plans. The Assembly voted on Thursday to ban private health plans from charging things like co-pays or deductibles for abortions. The bill is headed for a Senate vote before heading to

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has added Bradford Island on the Columbia River to its Superfund list of toxic waste sites. That starts the process for eventual cleanup of the area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for years dumped toxic waste on the island

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal labor board wants to reinstate an Amazon employee who was fired from his New York City warehouse job after leading a protest in the early days of the pandemic calling for better COVID-19 protections. Gerald Bryson got into a dispute with another worker while off the job during the

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has added Bradford Island on the Columbia River to its Superfund list of toxic waste sites. That starts the process for eventual cleanup of the area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for years dumped toxic waste on the island

In a story published March 16, 2022, about the U.S. Department of Energy approving additional liquefied natural gas exports, The Associated Press erroneously reported that producer Cheniere Energy Inc. would now be allowed to export the equivalent of 0.72 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. That amount is in addition to what it

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that traded heavily or had substantial price changes Thursday: PagerDuty, Cheniere rise; SecureWorks, Bioceres fall.

By TALI ARBEL AP Business Writer As the war in Ukraine drags on, international companies still in Russia are coming under increasing pressure to leave. Some seem to be determined to stay on. Some say they are reconsidering or trying to figure out an exit. Some aren’t speaking at all, a testament to the fraught

By DAN PARKS of The Chronicle of Philanthropy Chronicle of Philanthropy Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers called Thursday for restoring the charitable deduction for donors who don’t itemize their taxes, a priority for nonprofits nationwide, but a key senator was noncommittal on the question of whether to support legislation designed to boost payout from foundations

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press ROME (AP) — Italy, where the pandemic first erupted in the West, is easing some restrictions, including workplace vaccination and mask requirements over the coming weeks. Health Minister Roberto Speranza told reporters after a Cabinet meeting Thursday that quarantine won’t be required for those coming in contact with someone testing

By LEAH WILLINGHAM Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The energy startup SPARKZ says it plans to build an electric battery factory in West Virginia in 2022 that will employ at least 350 people. The company will partner with the United Mine Workers of America to recruit and train dislocated miners to work at the

By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The first year of the pandemic saw fewer Americans smoking. U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to a new all-time low in 2020, with 1 in 8 adults saying they were current smokers. That’s according to survey data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and