AP National News

By LAURAN NEERGAARD and MATTHEW PERRONE Associated Press The average person doesn’t need a COVID-19 booster yet, an international group of scientists — including two top U.S. regulators — wrote Monday in a scientific journal. The experts reviewed studies of the vaccines’ performance and concluded the shots are working well despite the extra-contagious delta variant,

By CEDAR ATTANASIO Associated Press / Report for America Across the U.S., vaccine-hesitant parents are struggling with vaccine-seeking teenagers set on getting their shots. A return to in-person school this month are raising the stakes for high school students who want to be safe in packed classrooms and homecoming rallies. Coronavirus outbreaks are already forcing

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed back Monday against harsh Republican criticism of the handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the Biden administration inherited a deal with the Taliban to end the war, but no plan for carrying it out. In a sometimes contentious

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer Turns out cows can be potty trained as easily as toddlers. Maybe easier. It’s no bull. Scientists put the task to the test and 11 out of 16 cows learned to use the “MooLoo” when they had to go. Just like some parents, the researchers used a sweet treat

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — The new chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board wants governments and businesses to change the way they look at highway safety, considering the whole system rather than individual driver behavior. Jennifer Homendy, nominated by President Joe Biden earlier this year, said such an approach

By LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union auditors said Monday that the 27-nation bloc’s program for deporting migrants is not working well but they warned that any attempts to force countries to take their citizens back by coercion could be counterproductive. The EU has been deeply divided over how best to manage

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The hospitality and events industry in South Africa has received a major boost with the government easing tough COVID-19 regulations that have since June prevented it from accommodating more than 50 people in restaurants and public events. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the country would

By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The United Nations human rights chief on Monday said a highly awaited joint investigation into abuses in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict was unable to deploy to the site of one of its deadliest attacks, the alleged massacre of several hundred people in the holy city of Axum.

By JOCELYN NOVECK AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — “How do you define American fashion?” It was three years ago, and Andrew Bolton, the longtime curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, was pondering that question. He knew he was going to do a major exhibit on American fashion in 2021 to

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The long-delayed Tony Awards have landed two impressive master of ceremonies: Tony- and Grammy-winning singer and actor Leslie Odom Jr. will host a splashy TV special, and the awards will be hosted by Tony-, Grammy- and Emmy Award-winning actor and singer Audra McDonald. Producers of

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Authorities in South Carolina say a large granite monument honoring 9-11 victims was defaced by vandals who spray-painted “Taliban” on it in two places. WYFF-TV reports that the granite statue is made of two towers, each weighing 4,000 pounds with a light beam in Greenville County. Paul Nichols, founder and CEO

By HOLLY RAMER Associated Press CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A man who alleges that he was raped by multiple staffers at New Hampshire’s youth detention center in the 1990s has filed the first lawsuit against the state, the facility and former workers since a judge dismissed a class action suit in May. Four former Youth

By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press MILAN (AP) — An Israeli-French-American Holocaust survivor and historian and a U.S. scientist specializing in gut bacteria were among the recipients this year’s Balzan Prizes, recognizing scholarly and scientific achievements. The prizes were announced on Monday.  Saul Friedlander, was awarded the prize for Holocaust and Genocide Studies for his work

By RENATA BRITO Associated Press BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and create migration hot spots unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the development gap, a World Bank report has found. The second part

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest novels from Colson Whitehead and Joy Williams, and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ debut work, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” are among this year’s finalists for the Kirkus Prize, $50,000 awards presented by the trade publication. Whitehead’s crime story “Harlem Shuffle,” his first novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s new government has held its first meeting with a call by the president to resume talks with the International Monetary Fund. Michel Aoun said Monday he wants to work on getting the small nation out of one of the world’s worst economic crises in more than

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors, a study released Monday found. It’s the latest work to argue the U.S. reliance on private corporations for war-zone duties that used to be done by troops contributed to mission failure in

By SAM MEDNICK Associated Press OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Burkina Faso’s slow and insufficient humanitarian response to the country’s escalating attacks is forcing people to choose between violence or hunger, the Norwegian Refugee Council warned on Monday. Surging violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State in the war-weakened West African nation has forced

NEW YORK (AP) — The next book from Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Jhumpa Lahiri will highlight her work as a translator. Princeton University Press announced Monday that Lahiri’s “Translating Myself and Others” will come out in May. Lahiri moved to Rome a decade ago and her translation projects include “The Penguin Book of Italian Short

By NOHA ELHENNAWY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — The leaders of Egypt and Israel have met as part of the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister to Egypt in more than a decade. Rising tensions between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza were at the top of the agenda.  Gaza is sandwiched between Israel and