AP National News

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s former insurance commissioner is beginning a seven-year prison sentence. Jim Beck was convicted in July on 37 counts involving a scheme to steal more than $2.5 million from an insurer he ran. Beck reported Thursday to a federal prison at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery,

By ZEKE MILLER and ALEXANDRA JAFFE Associated Press BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — With rising numbers of COVID-19 cases predicted this winter, President Joe Biden is appealing for Americans to get their boosters and get behind his plan to tackle the new omicron variant through wider availability of vaccines and shots. That plan doesn’t impose new

By AMY BETH HANSON Associated Press HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A late-season wildfire pushed by strong winds has ripped through a tiny central Montana farming town, burning two dozen homes and four grain elevators that had stood for more than a century. Fergus County officials were assessing the damage in Denton on Thursday while crews

ATLANTA (AP) — A sheriff says a 14-year-old Georgia girl was killed when her younger brother was trying to sell a homemade gun and he fired a shot at people who took the weapon without paying. The shot struck Kyra Scott on Saturday and she died as her mother was trying to take her to

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say multiple cases of the omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota.

By COREY WILLIAMS and ED WHITE Associated Press OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A prosecutor considering criminal charges against the parents of a boy accused of killing four students at a Michigan school says their actions went “far beyond negligence”. Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald says a gun “seems to have been just freely available”

By MIKE CATALINI Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Disorder and confusion erupted outside the New Jersey Assembly as Republican lawmakers defied a requirement to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test. Ten lawmakers were blocked for several minutes by state troopers from entering the chamber. Lawmakers compared the situation to something that

By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Starbucks is fighting an expanded effort to unionize its stores. The effort comes even as a union vote proceeds at three of the coffee chain’s locations in Buffalo, New York. Union organizers from three additional Buffalo-area stores appeared before the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday, asking to hold

By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Milwaukee County’s top prosecutor says a young assistant in his office sought $1,000 bail for a man accused of driving through a Christmas parade because she was overworked and never saw his risk assessment. Darrell Brooks Jr. posted bail in a domestic violence case on Nov.

By DAVID EGGERT Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A judge has ordered nine lawyers allied with former President Donald Trump to pay Detroit and Michigan a total of $175,000 in sanctions for abusing the court system with a sham lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results. The money, which must be paid within 30 days,

By STEPHEN WADE and HOWARD FENDRICH AP Sports Writers The stand the women’s professional tennis tour is taking in China over concern about Grand Slam doubles champion Peng Shuai’s well-being could cost the WTA millions of dollars. It also could end up being unique among sports bodies. The International Olympic Committee is preparing to host

By The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” has been named the best film of the year by the National Board of Review. Anderson also won best director and the film’s stars Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman picked up awards for their breakthrough performances. The board is an organization comprised

By TOM HAYS and JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A former housekeeper is testifying that two women who have accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing them as teens were repeated visitors to his Palm Beach mansion and that they were summoned by Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Juan Patricio Alessi began

By PAUL J. WEBER and MARK SHERMAN Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The state of Texas is offering a glimpse in real time of what would be a striking new national landscape if the Supreme Court drastically curtails abortion rights: GOP-led states allowing almost no access to abortion, and women traveling hundreds of miles

By KEVIN FREKING and LISA MASCARO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a bill that funds the government through Feb. 18 and avoids a short-term shutdown after midnight Friday. But quick passage of the measure in the Senate is in doubt because of a fight over President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

By MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — We’ve been here before, with the fate of abortion rights throughout the United States in doubt and awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court. Nearly 30 years ago, the court came within a vote of throwing out the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met face-to-face with his Russian counterpart to demand Russia pull back troops from the border with Ukraine. The meeting comes as tensions and suspicions grow in a confrontation over Ukraine’s increasingly close ties with NATO and the

By KEN RITTER Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — The fraternity that organized a charity boxing match where a UNLV student competitor collapsed and later died of head injuries has been suspended by the school and by its national organization. Kappa Sigma said Thursday it is looking at whether internal policies and standards, as well

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block graphics chip maker Nvidia’s $40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm. The commission says the deal would create a powerful company that could hurt the growth of new technologies. California-based Nvidia said last year that it was buying United Kingdom-based Arm

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT Associated Press PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Thursday that the administration’s goal for offshore wind and the projects being developed now represent a “gust of job growth throughout the country.” Granholm visited a new offshore wind manufacturing hub in Providence to talk about the Biden administration’s plan