Hong Kong (AP) — Hong Kong will give away air tickets and vouchers to woo tourists back to the international financial hub, racing to catch up with other popular travel destinations in a fierce regional competition.
ATLANTA (AP) — Some Georgia senators want to permanently block schools and most state and local government agencies from requiring people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
In 2022, lawmakers put a one-year ban into law, part of a broad conservative nationwide backlash against mandates meant to prevent the spread of the respiratory illness.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Wednesday began their promised aggressive oversight of the Biden administration, focusing on what watchdogs described as “indications of widespread fraud” in federal coronavirus aid programs initiated under President Donald Trump.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana governor’s proposal for a broad expansion of county-level public health programs won its first endorsement from state legislators on Wednesday.
BERLIN (AP) — German beer sales rose in 2022 after COVID-19 restrictions weighed on brewers in the previous two years, but the long-term trend remains downward and the World Cup soccer tournament in Qatar didn't get the taps flowing, according to official figures released Wednesday.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The year 2022 was good for gambling and tourism in Nevada, where winnings at casinos statewide set calendar year records and Las Vegas visitor tallies nearly reached levels before the coronavirus pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The declaration of a COVID-19 public health emergency three years ago changed the lives of millions of Americans by offering increased health care coverage, beefed-up food assistance and universal access to coronavirus vaccines and tests.
NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil posted record annual profits in 2022 as consumers globally struggled with high prices for gasoline, home heating and consumer goods.
The energy giant brought in $55.7 billion in annual profits, exceeding its previous record of $45.22 billion in 2008, when a barrel of oil soared close to $150.
Pfizer surprised Wall Street by predicting a bigger-than-expected sales drop this year for two key products: its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.
The drugmaker also released on Tuesday an earnings forecast that starts off below analyst expectations as Pfizer begins what company leaders call a transition year for sales tied to the ongoing pandemic.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Top Republican legislators in Kansas are focusing on helping conservative parents remove their children from public schools over what's taught about gender and sexuality rather than pursuing a version of what critics call Florida's “Don't Say Gay” law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The parents of Tyre Nichols, the Black man who was severely beaten by a group of Memphis, Tennessee, police officers and died days later, will attend President Joe Biden's State of the Union address next week at the U.S.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he's selected a team of lawmakers to lead the country that will focus on the everyday concerns of New Zealanders such as the rising cost of living.
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese factory activity rebounded in January from three months of contraction, adding to signs the world’s second-largest economy might be recovering from a painful slump, an official survey showed Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared.
BALTIMORE (AP) — Greeted by the cheerful blare of a train horn, President Joe Biden stood Monday before a decrepit rail tunnel that he estimated he's been through 1,000 times — fearing for decades it might collapse.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia lawmakers have shelved a pair of bills that would have given unemployment claimants half as much time to file an appeal with a state agency still struggling with pandemic-related cases.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Clinton Global Initiative University on Monday released details about its annual meeting at Vanderbilt University from March 3-5.
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton announced that they will be joined in Nashville by aspiring leaders and global experts in business, public service and social impact.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Trevor Noah feels more comfortable hosting the Grammy Awards for a third-straight year, but the former “The Daily Show” host still has some nervousness about leading the ceremony with big-time acts like Beyoncé, Adele and Harry Styles looking on.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Russia’s embassy in North Korea says the country has eased stringent epidemic controls in capital Pyongyang that were placed during the past five days to slow the spread of respiratory illnesses.
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — Captain Temba Bavuma's century set South Africa on the way to a record run chase at Bloemfontein to win the second one-day international against England and clinch the series on Sunday.
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the chairman of the governing Conservative Party on Sunday for a “serious breach” of ethics rules in failing to come clean about a tax dispute.
TOKYO (AP) — China announced it was resuming issuing visas for Japanese travelers beginning Sunday, ending its nearly three-week suspension in an apparent protest of Tokyo's tougher COVID-19 entry requirements for tourists from China.
On most weekends, Tyre Nichols would head to the city park, train his camera on the sky and wait for the sun to set.
“Photography helps me look at the world in a more creative way. It expresses me in ways I cannot write down for people,” he wrote on his website.
MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration quietly ousted its former top official in Mexico last year over improper contact with lawyers for narcotraffickers, an embarrassing end to a brief tenure marked by deteriorating cooperation between the countries and a record flow of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl across the border.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Winning matches at the Australian Open does not give Novak Djokovic all that much trouble.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The federal perjury case against Baltimore’s former top prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, who was scheduled to stand trial in March, likely faces further delays after a judge allowed her entire defense team to quit on Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Jeff Zients as his next White House chief of staff on Friday, tapping an experienced technocrat who headed his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as Biden prepares for a reelection bid while facing an onslaught of investigations from a newly empowered House Republican majority.
Between financially helping his parents and losing income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jeremy Mazza landed into serious credit card debt. Relief came from a source he wasn’t expecting: his partner, Ginna Lambert, who had come into a small inheritance.
MOSCOW (AP) — A former Russian Orthodox monk, who denied that the coronavirus existed and defied the Kremlin, was handed a seven-year prison sentence Friday.
Nikolai Romanov, 67, who was known as Father Sergiy until his excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church, urged his followers to disobey the Russian government's lockdown measures and spread conspiracy theories about a global plot to control the masses.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government said Friday it will promote civilian efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korea in hopes of softening a diplomatic freeze deepened by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s growing nuclear ambitions.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea says it will continue to restrict the entry of short-term travelers from China through the end of February over concerns that the spread of COVID-19 in that country may worsen following the Lunar New Year’s holidays.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — They held their on-ice embrace a little longer this time, kneeling in an end pose moments after a near-flawless short program.
Overwhelming favorite and reigning world champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier scored a personal-best 81.96 on Thursday for a commanding lead in the first day of the U.S.
The U.S. is poised to make COVID-19 vaccinations more like a yearly flu shot, a major shift in strategy despite a long list of questions about how to best protect against a still rapidly mutating virus.
ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans in the Georgia Senate on Thursday announced goals to further lower state income tax rates and improve reading instruction for young public school students, although tax changes are unlikely to occur before the 2024 legislative session and leaders could be find themselves short of time to build the consensus for changes in literacy instruction this year.
NEW YORK (AP) — Payment processing giant Visa Inc. said Thursday that its profits rose 6% in its latest quarter from a year earlier, helped by the continued rise of digital payments across the globe.
SAQQARA, Egypt (AP) — Egypt on Thursday unveiled dozens of new archaeological discoveries, including two ancient tombs, at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside of the capital Cairo.
The artefacts, unearthed during a year-long excavation, were found beneath an ancient stone enclosure near the Saqqara pyramids and date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, spanning from roughly 2500 B.C to 2100 B.C., the excavation team said.
For the past couple of years, hotel and airline loyalty programs have extended elite status in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But in 2023, that’s coming to an end. A tsunami of downgrades will wipe out some travelers’ elite status because pandemic-era offers are expiring and loyalty programs are upping the qualification requirements.
HONG KONG (AP) — About 20% of the Americans in Hong Kong have left for various reasons over the past two years, the U.S. consul general in the semi-autonomous Chinese city said, drawing harsh criticism from Beijing for allegedly interfering in its affairs.