WASHINGTON (AP) – America’s employers slowed the pace of their hiring in November, adding a still-solid 210,000 jobs, the fewest in nearly a year. Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate fell sharply to 4.2% from 4.6%. That is a historically low level though still above the pre-pandemic jobless rate of 3.5%. Overall, the November…
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Patients with COVID-19, most of them unvaccinated, are packing Wisconsin hospitals at levels not seen for a year, a worrying development even before the new omicron variant has been detected in the state. Amid concerns about the new and little-understood omicron variant, Wisconsin health officials on Thursday urged people to get vaccinated and take other steps…
(Court TV via AP, Pool) MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Prosecutors and attorneys for the suburban Minneapolis police officer charged in Daunte Wright’s shooting death have seated nine of the 14 jurors needed for her trial, including a woman who said she owns a stun gun. Kim Potter, who is white, is charged with manslaughter in the April 11 shooting of Wright,…
(Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP) OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan teenager has been charged with murder, terrorism, and other charges for a shooting that killed four fellow students and injured others at Michigan’s Oxford High School. Charges against 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley were announced Wednesday, a few hours after authorities reported the death of a fourth teen from…
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON (AP) — A person in California became the first in the U.S. to have an identified case of the omicron variant of COVID-19, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. It comes as scientists continue to study the risks posed by the new strain of the virus. The Biden administration moved late last month…
(Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP) OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) – Authorities say a 17-year-old boy has become the fourth student to die from a school shooting in Michigan. The Oakland County sheriff’s office identified the teen Wednesday as Justin Shilling. The shooting occurred Tuesday at Oxford High School in Oakland County. The suspect remains in custody. Seven other people…
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) WASHINGTON (AP) – Abortion rights are on the line at the Supreme Court in historic arguments over the landmark ruling nearly 50 years ago that declared a nationwide right to end a pregnancy. The justices on Wednesday are weighing whether to uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks and overrule the 1973 Roe v….
(AP Photo/Jim Mone) MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Prosecutors and defense attorneys for the suburban Minneapolis police officer charged in Daunte Wright’s death are to resume jury selection Wednesday after seating four jurors the first day. Kim Potter sat quietly in a pink sweater Tuesday as attorneys and Judge Regina Chu probed potential jurors for what they knew about the case and…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 has surged above 1,500 in Minnesota, causing further strains on those working to care for them. Monday’s 1,532 coronavirus hospitalizations included 343 people in intensive care. Hospitals are trying to reduce non-COVID-19 admissions by delaying some non-emergency surgeries, officials said. The record 1,864 coronavirus hospitalizations on Nov. 29, 2020, combined…
UPDATE: OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Authorities say eight people were wounded in an attack at a Michigan high school in which three students were killed. Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said at a news conference that two of the wounded were undergoing surgery as of 5 p.m. Tuesday and that the six others were in stable condition. He identified…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – An attorney for the suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright says the former officer will testify at her trial. Attorney Paul Engh said Tuesday that Kim Potter will speak directly to jurors about the April 11 traffic stop that ended with Potter killing the 20-year-old Black motorist. Potter has said she meant to…
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will visit a Minnesota community college Tuesday to highlight how his $1 trillion infrastructure law will create jobs and help train workers. The trip occurs at a crucial pivot point for Biden. He is facing the threat of the new omicron strain of the coronavirus and dealing with high levels of inflation even as…
(Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department via AP) WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) – Prosecutors have added a sixth homicide count against a Wisconsin man accused of driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee. Investigators allege Darrell Brooks Jr. injured dozens of people and killed six when he turned his vehicle into the parade in Waukesha on Nov. 21. He was…
Bill Cosby (Reuters) PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Prosecutors asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision that overturned Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction. In a petition filed Monday, they wrote that courts should not equate a supposed promise made by a former prosecutor to lifetime immunity. They believe the Pennsylvania Supreme Court erred when it overturned Cosby’s conviction in June…
NEW YORK (AP) – It’s an omnipresent truth: Merriam-Webster has declared vaccine its 2021 word of the year. Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for the dictionary company, tells The Associated Press that lookups for the word vaccine increased 601% over 2020. Even more telling, searches on the Merriam-Webster website increased by 1,048% over 2019, before the COVID pandemic took hold….
BRUSSELS (AP) – Nations around the world sought to keep the new omicron variant at bay with travel bans and further restrictions, even as it remains unclear what it means for the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan announced Monday it would suspend entry of all foreign visitors. New cases of the variant identified days ago by researchers in South Africa appeared as…
MILWAUKEE (AP) – Children’s Wisconsin said seven patients injured in last weekend’s Christmas parade crash in suburban Milwaukee are still being treated at the hospital. The facility originally received 16 patients after the driver of a red SUV roared through the parade in Waukesha, killing six people and injuring more than 60. One Children’s Wisconsin patient was released on Sunday,…
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) – All three men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder Wednesday. The jury reached its decision after more than 10 hours of deliberations following a trial in which prosecutors argued that the defendants provoked a confrontation with Arbery and defense attorneys said their clients were acting in self-defense. Father and son Greg…
(AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn, file) EAGAN, Minn. (AP) – The Minnesota Vikings have sent psychologists to the home of defensive end Everson Griffen. They’ve been working with police on guiding Griffen through another alarming mental health situation. The 12th-year player has been refusing to come out of his house, according to police. Griffen took a leave from the team in 2018…
SAXON, Wis. – Authorities say a Minnesota man was shot and killed in an apparent hunting accident in northwestern Wisconsin. The Iron County Sheriff’s Office says dispatchers received a call around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the town of Saxon. The caller reported an accidental discharge of a firearm, which left one man with serious injuries. When responders arrived on the…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plummeted last week to the lowest level in more than half a century, another sign that the U.S. job market is rebounding rapidly from last year’s coronavirus recession. Jobless claims dropped by 71,000 to 199,000, the lowest since mid-November 1969. The drop was much bigger than economists expected. The…
MINNEAPOLIS – A former middle school principal serving a prison sentence was found dead in a Minnesota jail. Christopher Jerome Endicott had previously been sentenced to prison for identity theft, stalking, and burglary, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. Crow Wing County Sheriff Scott Goddard says that Endicott was found unresponsive at the jail in Brainerd and efforts to save…
(AP) – Prosecutors in Wisconsin have charged a man with intentional homicide in the deaths of five people who were killed when an SUV was driven into a Christmas parade. Prosecutors say a sixth person, a child, has died and additional charges are pending. Darrell Brooks Jr. was charged with five counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the crash Sunday…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – The top Republican in the Minnesota Senate says he’s willing to postpone a debate over the confirmation of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm to help break the stalemate over a special session. Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller says if Democrats agree to discuss Republican proposals on coronavirus measures, the GOP would drop threats to oust Malcolm….
(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden has ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from the strategic reserve to help bring down energy costs, in coordination with other major energy-consuming nations, including China, India, and the United Kingdom. The move is aimed at global energy markets but also aimed at voters who are coping with higher inflation…
WASHINGTON (AP) – More than 90% of federal workers have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Monday’s deadline set by President Joe Biden. Biden announced in September that all federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no test-out option, unless they secured an approved medical or religious exemption. A U.S. official said the vast majority…
(AP Photo/Jim Mone, File) MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Poet Robert Bly, who authored the men’s movement classic “Iron John,” has died. Bly spent most of his life in his native Minnesota and was an active poet for more than 50 years. “Iron John,” his meditation on modern masculinity, was released in 1990 and spent more than two years on the New…
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — The man suspected of plowing his SUV into a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing at least five people and injuring 48, had been in a domestic disturbance just minutes before, Waukesha’s police chief says. Police Chief Dan Thompson says there is no evidence the crash on Sunday was a terrorist attack. He says police are…
WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris will announce the Biden administration is investing $1.5 billion from the coronavirus aid package to address the health care worker shortage in underserved communities. The funding being announced Monday will go to the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs. They’re all federal programs that offer…
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) – A person taken into custody after an SUV plowed into a crowd of holiday parade marchers in Wisconsin, killing at least five people, has been identified as 39-year-old Darrell Brooks. Police haven’t yet identified the “person of interest” they are holding. But two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter provided the identification to The Associated…
NEW YORK (AP) – Target will no longer open its stores on Thanksgiving Day, making permanent a shift to the unofficial start of the holiday season that was suspended during the pandemic. To limit crowds in stores, retailers last year were forced to turn what had become a weekend shopping blitz into an extended event with holiday sales beginning as…
As Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted in two killings that he said were self-defense, armed civilians patrolled the streets near the Wisconsin courthouse with guns in plain view. In Georgia, testimony in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers showed that armed patrols were commonplace in the neighborhood where Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased down by three white men and shot. The…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. is opening COVID-19 vaccine boosters to all adults, and urging them for anyone 50 and older. The decision Friday seeks to simplify what has been a confusing list of who’s eligible. Now for anyone 18 or older, the only requirement is to be at least six months past their last dose of a Pfizer or…
MADISON, Wis. – A Wisconsin judge says the Department of Natural Resources violated the law by not immediately scheduling a wolf hunting season after federal protections were removed in February. In an order Thursday, Jefferson County Judge Bennett Brantmeier said the agency must hold a hunt immediately any time federal protections are lifted during the statutory hunting season, which runs…
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – The Kenosha County jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of all charges against him. Rittenhouse killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz in August 2020 during chaotic protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The jury came back with its verdict after close to 3 1/2 days of deliberation. Rittenhouse, 18, could…
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial deliberated for a fourth day Friday, as prosecutors argued against defense requests for a mistrial. The prosecutors argued there’s “no factual or legal basis” for the judge to grant the requests. The 18-year-old Rittenhouse is on trial for killing two men and wounding a third with a rifle during…
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON (AP) – A sharply divided House has approved the Democrats’ sweeping social and environment bill, a big victory for President Joe Biden. Republicans solidly opposed the measure, but Democrats prevailed after the party’s progressives and moderates ended months of disputes over its size and scope. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where moderates like…
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) WASHINGTON (AP) – The Food and Drug Administration has opened up COVID-19 booster shots to all adults, letting them choose another dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The move expands the U.S. government’s booster campaign to shore up protection and get ahead of rising coronavirus cases that may worsen with the holidays. But there’s…
(Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool) KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial has completed the third day of deliberations without reaching a verdict. Meanwhile, the judge has banned MSNBC from the courthouse after a network freelancer was accused of following the jurors’ bus. Two mistrial requests from the defense are hanging over the politically and…
(AP) – A group of state attorneys general are investigating Instagram and its effects on children and young adults, saying its parent company Facebook – recently renamed Meta Platforms – ignored research about the harms it causes to young people. The investigation is led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee,…
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) – The Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud has the largest outbreak of coronavirus cases in the state’s prison system in months. According to corrections officials, 242 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19. That’s nearly a quarter of the inmate population at the St. Cloud prison. The state Department of Corrections is working with the Department…
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – The jury in Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial was to move into the third day of deliberations Thursday, even as its request to re-watch video in the case sparked another bid from his attorneys for a mistrial. Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorneys say the defense received an inferior copy of a key video from prosecutors. Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi told…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell for the seventh straight week to a pandemic low of 268,000. U.S. jobless claims dipped by 1,000 last week from the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The applications for unemployment aid are a proxy for layoffs, and their steady decline this year – after topping 900,000…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Gov. Tim Walz says the Department of Defense will send medical teams to two major Minnesota hospitals to relieve doctors and nurses who are swamped by a growing wave of COVID-19 patients. The teams, each comprising 22 people, will arrive at Hennepin County Medical Center and St. Cloud Hospital next week and begin treating patients immediately. Walz…
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – Jurors weighing charges against Kyle Rittenhouse returned Wednesday for the second day of deliberations in his murder trial. Jurors met for a full day Tuesday with no quick verdict after two weeks of testimony in which they were given starkly different portrayals of his actions the night he shot three men on the streets of Kenosha….
NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials say an estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year. That’s a total the nation has never seen. Experts say it’s tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply. Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades. But they accelerated dramatically in the past two years…
MINNEAPOLIS – Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm says Minnesota officials are so alarmed about the continued surge in COVID-19 cases that they’re ready to start allowing vaccine booster shots for all adults by the end of the week if the federal government doesn’t approve them first. Other states are taking similar steps. Malcolm announced the plan on a day when Minnesota’s…
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin airports are returning to pre-pandemic traffic levels as the busy holiday season gets underway. Dane County Regional Airport has seen traffic increase every month this year since the COVID-19 vaccine became widely available. At Milwaukee County’s Mitchell International Airport the number of flights during Thanksgiving week is expected to be up 50% compared to last…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Hundreds of state law enforcement officers in Minnesota will soon be outfitted with new body cameras to record everything from traffic stops to civil disturbances. More than 600 Minnesota State Patrol troopers, nearly 200 Department of Natural Resources conservation officers, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents, and other state-level law enforcement officers will soon wear the 1,100…
WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans sharply boosted their spending last month, pushing up retail sales and giving the economy a lift. Much of the gain reflected the fact that shoppers are also paying higher prices. Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 1.7% in October from September, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. That’s up from 0.8% in the previous month. Solid…
