AP National Business

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Toyota is scaling its production back 40%, affecting 14 auto assembly plants in Japan, as the surging coronavirus pandemic in Southeast Asia crimps parts supplies. Japan’s top automaker says production will halt completely next month at some plants and partly at others, affecting a wide range

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fourth straight time to a pandemic low, the latest sign that America’s job market is rebounding from the pandemic recession as employers boost hiring to meet a surge in consumer demand. The Labor Department

By ZEN SOO Associated Press SINGAPORE (AP) — Singapore will launch its first quarantine-free travel program for vaccinated people arriving from Germany and Brunei, and ease restrictions for visitors from Hong Kong and Macao as it seeks to reopen its borders after fully vaccinating over 75% of its population. Previously, only Singapore residents and those

By ANNE D’iNNOCENZIO AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A return, at least temporarily, to near normalcy is giving a boost two of America’s largest department stores hit by the pandemic last year. Macy’s and Kohl’s raised their outlooks for 2021 Thursday after easily beating Wall Street expectations for the second quarter. Americans are

By RANDA KRISS of NerdWallet

By SUZAN FRASER and AYA BATRAWY Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President President Tayyip Erdogan has hosted a top security official from the United Arab Emirates and said the Gulf state was looking at investing in Turkey. The trip by UAE national security advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Wednesday appears

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer The nation’s two newest passenger airlines are showing signs of growth — raising money and announcing new destinations. But at the same time, they’re worried about the surge in COVID-19 cases, and hoping that the virus is only a short-term obstacle for their success. On Thursday, Avelo Airlines announced

By ANNABELLE LIANG Associated Press SINGAPORE (AP) — Asian stock markets are mostly lower as worries surrounding the spread of the delta variant again take center stage Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.7% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 1.5% on Friday. Benchmarks in Seoul and Shanghai fell, while Sydney’s inched higher. Traders

By COSTAS KANTOURIS Associated Press ALISTRATI, Greece (AP) — Persephone is not your ordinary robot. Billed as the world’s first robot used as a tour guide inside a cave, Persephone has been welcoming visitors to the Alistrati cave in northern Greece since mid-July. The multilingual robot covers the first 150 meters (500 feet) of the

By GARANCE BURKE, MARTHA MENDOZA, JULIET LINDERMAN and MICHAEL TARM Associated Press Michael Williams, a 65-year-old grandfather from Chicago, sat behind bars for nearly a year accused of murder. But the key evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or an informant; a major factor was a loud bang picked up by a network

By GARANCE BURKE, MARTHA MENDOZA, JULIET LINDERMAN and MICHAEL TARM Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Michael Williams, a 65-year-old grandfather from Chicago, sat behind bars for nearly a year accused of murder. But the key evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or an informant; prosecutors focused on a loud bang picked up by

By GARANCE BURKE, MARTHA MENDOZA, JULIET LINDERMAN and MICHAEL TARM Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Michael Williams’ wife pleaded with him to remember their fishing trips with the grandchildren, how he used to braid her hair, anything to jar him back to his world outside the concrete walls of Cook County Jail. His three daily

By BETH HARRIS AP Racing Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — The founder and chairman of Public Storage has died. B. Wayne Hughes died at home in Lexington, Kentucky, at his Spendthrift Farm. He was 87. His colt, Authentic, won the 2020 Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic. Hughes purchased the historic 700-acre farm in 2004

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Nearly three years later, former Nissan executive Greg Kelly is still wondering why the questions that led to his arrest and trial in Japan weren’t simply taken up in the automaker’s corporate boardroom. Kelly, an American lawyer who worked for three decades for Nissan, is awaiting

By MARK THIESSEN and BECKY BOHRER Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal judge in Anchorage has thrown out Trump administration approvals for a large planned oil project. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason found the federal review for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project was flawed and didn’t include mitigation measures for polar bears. The U.S.

FRANKFORT, Ind. (AP) — Authorities say two women are dead after a gunman opened fire at a central Indiana automotive plant. The Clinton County Sheriff’s Office says the shooting happened around 4:15 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of the NHK Seating of America plant near Frankfort. Authorities say both women and the alleged shooter

By JOHN RABY Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has toured an underground coal mine for the first time. Walsh joined Sen. Joe Manchin at a northern West Virginia facility on Wednesday. Walsh did his best to signal that President Joe Biden’s administration won’t be an enemy of the coal

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s district attorney says he’s suing three California companies that make and distribute “ghost guns,” the untraceable, build-it-yourself weaponry that accounted for nearly half the firearms recovered in San Francisco gun killings last year. The suit alleges the companies violated state laws that require them to apply for serial numbers

By PATTY NIEBERG Associated Press/Report for America DENVER (AP) — The FBI has joined a criminal investigation into an alleged security breach of a rural Colorado county’s voting equipment. The federal probe comes after Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold alerted federal cyber security officials of the suspected breach. Griswold accused Mesa County Clerk and

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A civilian Pentagon official has ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental assessment of a $9.4 billion Formosa Plastics complex planned in Louisiana. The Army’s acting assistant secretary for civil works ordered the review Wednesday after a virtual meeting with people who