World

Christmas unites community after fire guts historic church

NEW YORK - At Christmases past, parishioners at Middle Collegiate in New York City rejoiced over gospel hymns, carols and soul tunes played on a Steinway piano that is now only metal and ashes after t...

Dec 23, 2020

Orders for big-ticket manufactured goods up 0.9% in November

WASHINGTON - Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticketed manufactured goods rose a moderate 0.9% in November with a key category that tracks business investment plans showing a gain. The November gain i...

Dec 23, 2020

Consumer spending drops 0.4%, first decline since April

WASHINGTON - U.S. consumer spending fell 0.4% in November, the first decline since April, as Americans confronted a newly resurgent virus. The November decline followed a 0.3% gain in October and even...

Dec 23, 2020

Novelist Yu Miri: Olympics not helping Fukushima rebuilding

TOKYO - Yu Miri, who won this year's National Book Award for translated literature, says Tokyo's Ueno Park, where a homeless man kills himself in her award-winning story, looks very clean ahead of nex...

Dec 23, 2020

US layoffs remain elevated as 803,000 seek jobless aid

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell by 89,000 last week to a still-elevated 803,000, evidence that the job market remains under stress nine months after the coronav...

Dec 23, 2020

A look at pardons, clemency in waning weeks of Trump tenure

WASHINGTON - In the waning weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a slew of pardons and commutations, including former members of Congress convicted of corruption charges, two people ...

Dec 22, 2020

Trump suggests he might not sign COVID relief bill

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is blasting the bipartisan $900 billion pandemic relief package that Congress just passed and is suggesting that he may not sign it. Trump complained in a video tha...

Dec 22, 2020

In South Africa, child homicides show violence 'entrenched'

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - At night, Amanda Zitho worries her little boy is shivering and cold in his coffin and yearns to take him a blanket. She knows Wandi's dead and gone and it's senseless, but th...

Dec 22, 2020

Performing in the pandemic, by zoom, drive-in and doorstep

NEW YORK - A good way to hear what we've missed this year is to listen to Sam Cooke's landmark live album, "Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963." On a warm January night in downtown Miami, Cooke was ...

Dec 22, 2020

Trump pardons 15, including Republican allies

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned 15 people, including Republican allies, a 2016 campaign official ensnared in the Russia probe and former government contractors convicted in a 2...

Dec 22, 2020