AP National Business

By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press WATFORD CITY, N.D. (AP) — The fastest-growing county in the U.S. is in the oil fields of North Dakota. That’s according to new figures from the Census Bureau. The first newcomers to arrive in McKenzie County were oil workers drawn by the drilling boom. Soon they brought families who needed

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A shortage of computer chips that sent auto prices soaring had appeared, finally, to be easing back in the spring. Some relief for consumers seemed to be in sight. That hope has now dimmed. A surge in COVID-19 cases from the delta variant in several

By ASHRAF KHALIL and LISA MASCARO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Labor Day 2021 represents a perilous crossroads for millions of Americans. Two primary anchors of the government’s COVID protection package are ending or have recently ended. The $300 weekly jobless benefit boost will stop Monday, affecting an estimated 8.9 million people. A federal eviction

LONDON (AP) — A former close aide to Prince Charles has stepped down temporarily from his role as chief executive of a royal charity amid reports that he helped secure an honor for a Saudi donor. The Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday newspapers reported that Michael Fawcett coordinated support for an honor for Saudi

By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates has announced a major plan to stimulate its economy and liberalize residency for expatriates, as the country seeks to overhaul its finances and attract foreign capital and residents. The country’s government Sunday pledged to pour some $13.6 billion into the

By MATT O’BRIEN and PAUL WISEMAN AP Business Writers The pandemic didn’t just threaten Americans’ health when it slammed the U.S. in 2020. It may also have created a long-term threat to many of their jobs. Faced with worker shortages and higher labor costs, companies are starting to automate service sector jobs that economists once

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Four companies say they’ll move ahead with a $26 billion settlement of lawsuits over the opioid crisis. An announcement from drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson came Saturday. That was the deadline for the companies to decide whether to move ahead with the proposed deal. Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times reports Facebook has apologized for putting a “primates” label on a video of Black men. The newspaper says the video was posted by a tabloid in June and showed Black men in altercations with white civilians and police officers. The Times reports that after the video ended,

By MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday that cleanup crews are responding to a sizable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Ida. The spill, which is ongoing, appears to be coming from a source underwater at an offshore drilling lease about two miles south of

FARMINGTON, Utah (AP) — A paraplegic man who was injured on a roller coaster is now suing a Utah amusement park, saying his paralyzed leg wasn’t properly secured and his foot was shredded. The Salt Lake Tribune reports Matthew Christensen filed the lawsuit against Lagoon Amusement Park on Thursday in Davis County’s 3rd District Court.

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Brexit minister has warned of a long-term chill in relations between the U.K. and the European Union if previously agreed trading arrangements governing Northern Ireland are not resolved. David Frost said in a speech at the British-Irish Association in Oxford that the Northern Ireland Protocol needed

FLAT ROCK, Mich. (AP) — Ford and Michigan environmental officials say one of the automaker’s plants is the source of benzene vapor in sewers that forced the evacuation of 10 homes and a school in the Detroit suburb of Flat Rock. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy confirmed Friday that a fuel

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press The end of the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case has left a bitter taste for those who wanted to see more accountability for members of the Sackler family. A federal judge this week gave preliminary approval to a plan that settles some 3,000 lawsuits against the maker of the painkiller OxyContin.

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Experts call it “warning fatigue,” and no one can be sure what role it might have played in a tragedy that killed at least 49 people when the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the northeast. Cellphones across New York and New Jersey pulsed with

By ROXANA HEGEMAN Associated Press BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — It’s one of the nation’s most iconic marketing slogans, but today the checkoff program that created the “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” campaign is under attack by cattle producers who fund it. The beef checkoff program forces ranchers to pay $1 per head of cattle

By JEFF AMY Associated Press The dismal state of power in Hurricane Ida’s wake is a distressingly familiar scenario for Entergy Corp. Louisiana’s largest electrical utility has grappled with other widespread outages after numerous previous hurricanes. Other Louisiana and Gulf Coast utilities have faced similar disasters, sometimes needing to rebuild entire networks. If anything, power

By The Associated Press LOGAN, W.Va. (AP) — When a mine industry conflict a hundred years ago sparked the largest armed uprising in the United States since the Civil War, The Associated Press was there, sending multiple bulletins each day with updates on each development. Thousands of coal miners had marched to unionize, fed up

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — One of the U.K.’s largest suppliers of seasonal influenza vaccines warns there could be delivery delays of up to two weeks as a result of a shortage of truck drivers. In a statement that has accentuated concerns about the potential scale of this winter’s flu outbreak, vaccine

By CLAUDIA TORRENS Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — An extraordinary number of Ecuadorians has been coming to the United States — often to New York. They surpassed El Salvadorans as the fourth-largest nationality encountered by U.S. authorities on the Mexican border, behind Mexicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. That also has led to increasing numbers of