Associated Press stories, Page 1722
Blues hockey great Bob Plager dies in car accident
ST. LOUIS — Former St. Louis Blues defenseman Bob Plager was killed Wednesday in a car crash in St. Louis. He was 78. Police said Plager was alone in his vehicle when it collided with a vehicle carrying two women on Interstate 64 in St. Louis about 1:30 p.m. One...
Match Play championship brings out emotions, upsetsVideo
AUSTIN, Texas — Jon Rahm and Patrick Cantlay thrust their fists in celebration with birdies on the final hole to win, the kind of emotions typical for a final round. In the Dell Technologies Match Play, every day can feel like Sunday. The opening round of group play Wednesday featured...
Experience still matters to teams in NCAA Sweet 16Video
Michigan’s second-round game against LSU was intense from the start. Up and down the court the teams went, trading runs and momentum swings with the season on the line. One player for the Wolverines seemed calm and steady: guard Eli Brooks. “I think just all the amount of reps we...
Florida woman says she was lost in sewer for weeks; police skeptical
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — A South Florida woman was rescued from a sewer system three weeks after she was reported missing when a passerby heard her cries for help, officials said. The 43-year-old woman, who has a history of mental illness and drug abuse, told Delray Beach officers she went...
A first: U.S. Senate confirms transgender doctor, Rachel Levine, for key postVideo
Voting mostly along party lines, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be the nation’s assistant secretary of health. She is the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation. The final vote was 52-48. Levine had been serving as Pennsylvania’s top health...
Treasury Secretary Yellen sees room for U.S. to borrow, opens door to tax hikeVideo
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes the U.S. government has more room to borrow, but said higher taxes would likely be required in the long run to finance future spending increases. Yellen appeared Wednesday before the Senate Banking Committee with the Biden administration considering up to $3 trillion in...
U.S. women’s soccer stars join Biden to promote closing pay gap
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is making the case Wednesday that the pay disparity between men and women has hurt the economy, bringing members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team to the White House to help set new goals for equality. Wednesday marked “Equal Pay Day” — which is...
Ex-U.S. vaccine chief fired over sexual harassment allegations
The former chief science adviser for the U.S. effort to rapidly develop covid-19 vaccines has been fired from the board of directors of a medical research company over sexual harassment allegations, drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline said Wednesday. The company said it is firing Moncef Slaoui from his position as board chair at...
Highway construction firms oppose PennDOT’s bridge toll plan
HARRISBURG — A prominent highway construction trade association on Wednesday came out against a state plan to toll up to nine major bridges around Pennsylvania in need of repairs as lawmakers move to block the plan, although Gov. Tom Wolf’s top transportation official disputed the trade association’s criticisms. The Associated...
Syracuse stay defenders of the zone as other NCAA powers man upVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — It had been nearly a decade since West Virginia coach Bob Huggins had to draw up a game plan to beat the infuriating zone defense run by Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, going all the way back to their time together in the old Big East. The job hasn’t...
Mother of man fatally shot by Mesa police files $15M claim
MESA, Ariz. — The mother of a man fatally shot last September by Mesa police has filed a $15 million claim against the city, alleging officers killed her unarmed her son without reason and failed to provide him medical assistance after he was fatally wounded. The Police Department did not...
Lower cap leads to more cuts than usual in NFL
If it seemed as if NFL teams have been shedding contracts nearly as fast as signing them in recent weeks that’s because it’s almost true. With a shrinking salary cap in a sport with few contracts that are fully guaranteed, teams have spent the weeks leading up to free agency...
MLB steps up ball monitoring to suppress foreign substances
NEW YORK — Major League Baseball is increasing its monitoring of baseballs in an attempt to suppress any use of foreign substances by pitchers. Mike Hill, newly hired as executive vice president of baseball operations and disciplinarian, wrote in a memorandum to team officials on Tuesday that “players are subject...
West Virginia to target young people for vaccinations
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s coronavirus vaccination campaign will turn to young people to stem transmission rates after giving shots to most senior citizens. The new strategy to focus on shots for residents aged 16 to 29 comes after officials said they are seeing an increase in doses. “When you...
Betting sites offer software blocks for compulsive gamblers
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Some sports betting companies are offering tools that allow compulsive gamblers to block themselves from most online sites. Unibet last week announced it was making software from U.K.-based Gamban available to customers in the U.S. The tools allow customers to in effect ban themselves from gambling...
Kenya wants United Nations agency to shut down refugee camps
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya says it has given the United Nations 14 days to come up with a plan to close refugee camps in the country that host hundreds of thousands from war-torn neighboring nations. Internal Security Minister Fred Matiangi said there is no room for further negotiations, in a...
Ohio State player E.J. Liddell speaks out about social-media abuse
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State star E.J. Liddell says he’ll continue speaking out against social-media users who direct racist, abusive and threatening messages at him and other athletes. Liddell was rattled by a social-media rant directed at him after the Buckeyes were upset by Oral Roberts in the first round...
White House officials, lawmakers to tour border facility
WASHINGTON — A delegation of White House officials and members of Congress was traveling to the southern border on Wednesday to tour a facility being used to house migrant children as increasing numbers of unaccompanied young people cross into the United States. The visit to a facility in Carrizo Springs,...
U.S. outlook improving as covid vaccinations rise, deaths fall
More than three months into the U.S. vaccination drive, many of the numbers paint an increasingly encouraging picture, with 70% of Americans 65 and older receiving at least one dose of the vaccine and covid-19 deaths dipping below 1,000 a day on average for the first time since November. Also,...
Homeschooling doubled from pandemic’s start to last fall
ORLANDO, Fla. — The rate of households homeschooling their children doubled from the start of the pandemic last spring to the start of the new school year last September, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report released this week. Last spring, about 5.4% of all U.S. households with school-aged...
New doubts over Southern Baptists’ limits on women’s rolesVideo
Emily Snook is the daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor. She met her husband, also a pastor, while they attended a Southern Baptist university Yet the 39-year-old Oklahoma woman now finds herself wondering if it’s time to leave the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, in part because of practices and attitudes...
Analysis: More madness likely in NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16
INDIANAPOLIS — Your bracket is shot. We know it. Ours is, too. A year after the NCAA Tournament was canceled, the madness returned with an opening weekend full of upsets. No. 1 seed Illinois, gone. So is Ohio State. High seeds Texas and Virginia also are out, replaced by upstarts...
Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter receives new ban from FIFA
GENEVA — Sepp Blatter was banned for a second time by FIFA on Wednesday for financial wrongdoing, seven months before the 85-year-old former president’s first ban expires. Blatter has recently been in poor health and was put in an induced coma for one week after undergoing heart surgery in December,...
A late slide, led by Big Tech, leaves stock indexes lowerVideo
A late-afternoon burst of selling on Wall Street erased an early gain for stocks Wednesday, pulling the market further below the all-time high it reached just a week ago. The S&P 500 dropped 0.5% after having been up 0.8% in the early going. Technology and communication services companies accounted for...
Drew Timme’s time is now as key to Gonzaga’s bid for perfection
INDIANAPOLIS — He was already enjoying a terrific season, and now Drew Timme is one of the stars of March after two games of the NCAA Tournament. His game? It’s pretty good, as evidenced by what he did in Gonzaga’s second-round victory over Oklahoma, helping keep the top-seeded Bulldogs unblemished...
