AP National News

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Americans have become obsessed with collectibles, bidding up prices for trading cards, video games and other mementos of their youth. These include copies of trading cards such as Pokemon’s Charizard and Magic: The Gathering’s Black Lotus as well as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. game cartridges.

By FARAI MUTSAKA and ANDREW MELDRUM Associated Press HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Young people across Africa are battling an economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey of 18 to 24-year-olds in 15 African countries found that many have lost jobs or seen their educations disrupted. Preliminary findings of the second annual Africa Youth

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Children across Europe are going back to school with hopes of a return to normality after 18 months of pandemic disruption. But in many countries, accompanying them are fears of a new surge in infections from the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus. Most European nations

By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Football Writer No team has lost its opening game and reached the Bowl Championship Series title game of the College Football Playoff. Something to keep in mind when watching No. 3 Clemson play No. 5 Georgia in the biggest game of the opening weekend of the season. Tigers-Bulldogs is

By AYA BATRAWY Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The treatment of the media and women are key clues to how the Taliban will govern Afghanistan. The group has held press briefings and allowed the media to operate, but there are reports it has targeted some local journalists. Taliban officials have also issued

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand authorities say they shot and killed an extremist after he entered a supermarket and unleashed a knife attack that wounded six shoppers. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has described Friday’s violence as a terror attack. She says the man was a Sri Lankan national

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Britain is rushing 4 million Pfizer doses to Australia, where authorities are scrambling to bolster supplies of that COVID-19 vaccine and protect the population against a rapidly spreading outbreak of the delta variant. The swap deal announced Friday follows Australian deals with Singapore and Poland to

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria says it has shot down Israeli missiles as they approached the capital Damascus, saying it had countered an “aggression” from its longtime adversary with its own air defenses. State news agency SANA said Syria shot down most of the missiles, which were launched from the area southeast of neighboring Lebanon

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Stocks closed mostly lower on Wall Street Friday following a weak jobs report, but gains for a handful of Big Tech companies allowed the Nasdaq composite to sneak in another record high. The benchmark S&P 500 ended down less than 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2% and

By HAVEN DALEY and JOCELYN GECKER Associated Press PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Twenty years later, Jack Grandcolas remembers waking up at 7:03 that morning. He didn’t know it yet, but his life had just changed. Across the country, it was 10:03 and United Flight 93 had just crashed into a Pennsylvania field after it

By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Intensive care beds are full of unvaccinated coronavirus patients at a hospital in Boise, Idaho. Doctors now are bracing to have to conserve scarce resources for those most likely to survive. At St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center, the view in every direction is heartbreaking. In one

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — An activist says former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s court appearance in a sex abuse case marks a new phase in the global struggle to hold clerics accountable. Anne Barrett Doyle is co-founder of BishopAccountability.org and said Thursday that it would have been unimaginable 20 years

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and MATT O’BRIEN AP Technology Writers Apple has recently eased some longstanding restrictions that helped make its App Store into a big moneymaker for the company. The company has long required app developers to pay high commissions on the sales of paid apps as well as purchases of subscriptions or digital items

By The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Tales of selflessness and heroism — and of deadly delays and heartbreaking missed opportunities — are emerging after the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the Northeast with record-breaking rain that flooded roads and houses, killing dozens. The deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since 2017, Ida laid

By REBECCA SANTANA, MELINDA DESLATTE and KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Power should be restored to almost all of New Orleans by the middle of next week. That’s according to the utility company Entergy, which issued a statement Friday asking for patience in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Utility executives say more

By SAM METZ and SCOTT SONNER Associated Press/Report for America STATELINE, Nev. (AP) — Some Lake Tahoe residents who fled a raging wildfire burning toward the California-Nevada border have encountered an unexpected obstacle: price gouging. Evacuees this week reported rideshare companies offering trips from area ski resorts to the Reno, Nevada, airport at eight times

By DAISY NGUYEN Associated Press SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Officials say better weather has slow the growth of the huge California wildfire that has been threatening the Lake Tahoe resort region. Fire commanders expressed cautious optimism Friday morning about their ability to prevent it from destroying homes in and around the city of

By JOSH BOAK Associated Press LAPLACE, La. (AP) — Less than a week after Hurricane Ida battered the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden walked the streets of a hardhit Louisiana neighborhood on Friday and told local residents, “I know you’re hurting, I know you’re hurting.” Biden pledged robust federal assistance to get people back on

By HALELUYA HADERO and GLENN GAMBOA AP Business Writers Following Hurricane Ida, mutual aid networks sprang into action to supplement the more established relief services from federal and local governments, and charities. The networks, where community members pool their resources and distribute donations to take care of one another, exploded in popularity during the COVID-19

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, a modest gain after two months of robust hiring at a time when the delta variant’s spread has discouraged some people from flying, shopping and eating out. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.2% from 5.4% in July. The