Stories by Associated Press

Up to 7 million immune-compromised Americans have been left behind in the nation’s wobbly efforts to get back to normal. Not only do these fragile patients remain at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19, they can harbor lengthy infections that can help spark still more variants.

The Republican’s remarks echo sentiments of conservative officials across the country who are increasingly attempting to limit the exposure of children to certain books, particularly those that touch on structural racism and LGBTQ issues.

It’s too early to know for sure, but many doctors believe it’s possible to have long-term effects from the omicron variant of the virus.

The five women and four men who call themselves the “Laquan Nine” had gone to the courthouse Thursday to deliver a letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch demanding charges against the disgraced officer who was released from prison last week after serving a little more than three years for killing Laquan McDonald.

Macron met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion. Moscow has massed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, but insists it has no plans to attack.

“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said Tuesday. 

White House officials are hosting a virtual event Tuesday to encourage people to send their tax forms to the IRS, including those whose incomes are so low that they might not have traditionally filed.

Stephen Calk was sentenced on Monday to a year in prison for his conviction in a scheme to make $16 million in loans to Paul Manafort to gain influence in the Trump administration.

The agency said it would no longer use a third-party service, called ID.me, for facial recognition. Critics of the software said the database could become a target for cyberthreats. 

A year after winning a major court battle against the opening of so-called safe injection sites — safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses — the Justice Department is signaling it might be open to allowing them.

A judge on Monday delayed for three months a hearing on former suburban Chicago police officer Drew Peterson’s request to toss out his murder conviction in the killing of his third wife after his attorney said he needed more time. 

The senior adviser to President Joe Biden offered another stark warning the day after U.S. officials confirmed that Russia has assembled at least 70% of the military firepower it likely intends to have in place by mid-month to give President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The diatribe left the clear impression that Donald Trump, who rode the politics of white grievance into the White House, thinks he can’t possibly be treated fairly by Black officials. The comments carry the echoes of racist messages that have proliferated in recent years

The 22-year-old Black man had filed paperwork to start a music business, his mother said, and had already designed a logo. Next week, he planned to move to Dallas, where he would be closer to his mom and — he hoped — build a career as a hip-hop artist, following in the musical footsteps of his father.

Here’s a look at what to watch, starting Saturday when the women go for gold, from the moment ski jumpers sit on a bar about as high as a 40-story building until they glide over machine-made snow and wait to see how far they flew and how the judges scored their performance.

As Republican officials from across the country gathered in Utah this week for the RNC’s winter meeting, party leaders devoted considerable energy to disciplining Trump’s rivals and embracing his grievances. 

GOP officials took a voice vote to approve censuring Cheney and Kinzinger at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City. On Thursday, members of an RNC subcommittee decided to advance the censure resolution against the pair instead of calling for their expulsion from the party.

New cases per day have tanked by almost a half-million nationwide since mid-January, the curve trending downward in every state but Maine. And the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 15% over that period to about 124,000.

More than a foot of snow fell in parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New England on Friday but it was freezing rain and ice, accompanied by plummeting temperatures, that threatened to cause the biggest problems for travel and electric service before the storm blows out to sea late Friday and Saturday.

The government's report Friday also drastically revised up its estimate of job gains for November and December by a combined 709,000. It also said the unemployment rate ticked up last month from 3.9% to a still-low 4%.

Lake scientists have long considered winter a season when aquatic activity slows. But researchers now think more is going on in the bitter depths than previously believed — including activity influenced by climate change. 

It was the first time the franchise’s top leaders had faced questions in public since the team published a report by an outside law firm that found the organization badly mishandled Kyle Beach’s allegations that he was assaulted by then-video coach Brad Aldrich during the team’s run to the 2010 Stanley Cup title.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics in Congress, has directed his political organization to initiate a novel campaign to convince non-Republicans to support anti-Trump Republican candidates in GOP primary contests across the country later this year. 

The nation’s 19 million children under 5 are the only group not yet eligible for vaccination against the coronavirus. Many parents have been pushing for an expansion of shots to toddlers and preschoolers, especially as the omicron wave sent record numbers of youngsters to the hospital.

Former Chicago Blackhawks forwards Eddie Olczyk, Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp have agreed to help the team in its search for a new general manager.

A letter to Garland, sent by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, comes days before former Officer Jason Van Dyke is scheduled to be released from prison Thursday after serving less than half his state prison term of six years and nine months.