Year: 2021

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A state appeals court says Louisiana’s largest health system can’t fire or otherwise discipline employees who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 until the mandate’s legality is decided. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal ruled one day before Ochsner Health’s Friday deadline. A state district judge

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Musician Zayn Malik has pleaded no contest to charges that he harassed his girlfriend — supermodel Gigi Hadid — and her mother during a Sept. 29 argument at the family’s home outside Philadelphia. The former One Direction singer was accused of grabbing Yolanda Hadid, shoving her against a dresser and cursing

By JOHN RABY Associated Press KENOVA, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia was at the forefront of U.S. state rollouts when coronavirus vaccines became available in January. Those days are a distant memory. Only about half of West Virginia residents are fully vaccinated. According to federal health data, the number of doses administered per capita in

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and TERRY TANG Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Witches and warlocks, ghosts and ghouls can breathe a little easier this Halloween: Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are generally on the decline, and trick-or-treaters can feel safer collecting candy. And while a new poll indicates Halloween participation is rebounding but still short of

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania’s anti-crime agency said Friday that four people have been detained on suspicion of stealing 22 high-performance bicycles belonging to the Italian national cycling team, worth an estimated 600,000 euros ($697,000). The Italian cyclists’ bikes went missing on Oct. 23 from a hotel in the French city of Lille where the

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus has forced the closure of the U.S. Embassy’s Public Diplomacy and USAID offices in a move that comes amid the tensions with the U.S. and its allies over Belarusian authorities’ crackdown on protests. Samantha Power, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s administrator, said Friday that

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on a movie set has put a microscope on an often-unseen corner of the film industry where critics say the pursuit of profit can lead to unsafe working conditions. With a budget of around $7 million, the Western “Rust”

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has extended the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the disputed Western Sahara for a year, expressing concern at the breakdown of the 1991 cease-fire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front and calling for a revival of U.N.-led negotiations. The vote on

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press ROME (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is challenging  G-20 leaders to overcome “dangerous levels of mistrust” among themselves to urgently and jointly tackle climate change and vaccine inequality with the developing world. Guterres spoke to reporters in Rome on Friday on the eve of the Group of 20 summit

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — One of several legal challenges to North Carolina’s contentious voter ID law is on hold amid a dispute over whether two justices on the state Supreme Court should recuse themselves. The state NAACP’s request that Phil Berger Jr. and ex-Sen. Tamara Barringer be disqualified further