AP National News

BEIJING (AP) — A third Chinese city has locked down its residents because of a COVID-19 outbreak, raising the number confined to their homes in China to about 20 million people. It wasn’t clear how long the lockdown of Anyang, home to 5.5 million people, would last. Mass testing was being enforced, standard procedure whenever

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan says it will keep its borders closed to most foreign citizens through February as it attempts to accelerate coronavirus booster shots for elderly people and expand hospital capacity to cope with the rapidly spreading omicron variant. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday said the stringent border

By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Students in the nation’s third-largest school district will resume classes this week after leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union accepted a proposal with the district over COVID-19 safety protocols. Both sides had been locked in an increasingly bitter standoff that canceled classes for five days in the

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An attorney for two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state’s three-drug lethal injection. Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle are asking a federal judge to grant them a temporary delay to

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares are sinking in cautious trading following a decline on Wall Street amid continuing worries about the omicron coronavirus variant, especially rising cases in China. Benchmarks are lower in Japan, Australia, South Korea and China. Asian markets also have their eyes on the U.S. Federal

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega has been sworn in for a fourth consecutive term following elections considered rigged and on a day marked by sanctions from the United States and European Union against members of his government. Alongside him was first lady Rosario Murillo, sworn in Monday for her second term as

By STEVE PEOPLES AP National Politics Writer Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other leading Republicans are intensifying a personal late-stage push to persuade Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to run for the Senate. Moderate Republicans including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have made personal appeals to the term-limited Maryland governor, a vocal critic of former

By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump and his associates argue that incendiary statements by Trump and others last Jan. 6 prior to the Capitol riot were protected speech and in line with their official duties. Trump’s lawyers claim he had no intention to spark violence when he

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to make California the first state to cover all low-income state residents under its Medicaid plan regardless of their immigration status. He’s also attempting to aid consumers and businesses hard hit by the pandemic and rising costs. The proposals Monday address what

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A damaged Georgia O’Keeffe painting is back on display after conservators spent 1,250 hours and $145,000 restoring the piece. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s head of conservation called the job the biggest restoration project he has ever worked on. The results will be on display at the museum through Oct. 10.

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and Japan say North Korea has fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile into its eastern sea.. The launch comes as North Korea continues to demonstrate its military might during a self-imposed pandemic lockdown and deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States.

By STEVE PEOPLES AP National Politics Writer Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other leading Republicans are intensifying a personal late-stage push to persuade Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to run for the Senate. Moderate Republicans including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have made personal appeals to the term-limited Maryland governor, a vocal critic of former

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota says he stands by his statement that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, after Trump called his fellow Republican a “jerk” for his comments. Rounds said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by Trump’s attack. The senator said his remarks Sunday

By MICHELLE LIU Associated Press/Report for America COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Lawyers for prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh say he’s so broke he can’t pay a phone bill — much less $7 million in bail. Meanwhile, a court-appointed overseer said during a virtual court hearing Monday that Murdaugh needs to use whatever money he

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Parks, who spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent and won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, has died. He was 78. His son says Parks died of kidney failure and a heart attack at a Pasadena, California hospital late Saturday.

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and Japan say North Korea has fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile into its eastern sea.. The launch comes as North Korea continues to demonstrate its military might amid a self-imposed pandemic lockdown and deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States.

HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — An 18-year-old New Mexico woman is facing charges after police say she abandoned her newborn baby in a dumpster. Authorities said during a news conference Monday that four people who were looking through a dumpster heard the baby cry and found it inside a trash bag, wrapped in a dirty towel

By SOPHIA TAREEN and KATHLEEN FOODY Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — The standoff between Chicago school leaders and the teachers’ union over COVID-19 safety protocols stretched into a second week. rhetoric between the two sides became nastier, schools began notifying families of more class cancellations and families’ frustrations grew. Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president has announced he has come down with COVID-19 a second time, as coronavirus infections spike in Mexico and virus tests become scarce. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wote Monday that he tested positive, after he sounded hoarse at a morning news briefing. Earlier in the day, the president told

By BABA AHMED Associated Press BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali’s military leader is calling on West African leaders to reconsider new economic sanctions against the country. In a speech on state television late Monday, Col. Assimi Goita called on ECOWAS heads of state to place the interests of Malians first. The new measures announced Sunday