Stories by Associated Press

Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court late Monday by a deeply divided Senate, with Republicans overpowering Democrats to install President Donald Trump’s nominee days before the election.

In a surprise announcement from his studio window to faithful standing below in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said the churchmen would be elevated to a cardinal’s rank in a ceremony on Nov. 28. 

Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Sunday to advance Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett toward final confirmation despite Democratic objections, just over a week before the presidential election. 

President Donald Trump assured supporters packed shoulder to shoulder at weekend rallies that “we’re rounding the turn” on the coronavirus and mocked challenger Joe Biden for raising alarms about the pandemic.

Scientists in Washington state have discovered the first nest of so-called murder hornets in the United States and plan to wipe it out Saturday to protect native honeybees, officials said.

A suburban Chicago police officer who shot a Black couple inside a vehicle — killing a 19-year-old man and wounding his girlfriend — has been fired, the police chief announced late Friday.

The Senate is poised for a rare weekend session as Republicans race to put Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court  and cement a conservative majority before Election Day.

U.S. Postal Service records show delivery delays have persisted across the country as millions of Americans are voting by mail, raising the possibility of ballots being rejected because they arrive too late. 

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden fought over how to tame the coronavirus during the campaign's closing debate, largely shelving the rancor that overshadowed their previous face-off.

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are set to square off in their final debate Thursday, one of the last high-profile opportunities for the trailing incumbent to change the trajectory of an increasingly contentious campaign.

Democratic senators refused to show up in protest of the GOP’s rush to install Trump’s nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

The mother of a Black woman who was injured in a police shooting in suburban Chicago that left a Black man dead said the couple did nothing to provoke the officer.

Iran is responsible for emails meant to intimidate American voters and sow unrest in multiple states, U.S. officials said Wednesday night in calling out both Tehran and Russia for activities meant to interfere in the upcoming presidential election.

Purdue Pharma will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, Justice Department officials told The Associated Press.

The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising — the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft.

QAnon followers celebrated President Trump’s response to a question during a televised town hall last week. Asked if he would completely disavow QAnon and reject its followers’ baseless beliefs, he dodged.

Twitter blocked a post Sunday from an adviser to President Donald Trump who suggested that masks do not work to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

After struggling to ramp up coronavirus testing, the U.S. can now screen several million people daily, thanks to a growing supply of rapid tests. But the boom comes with a new challenge: keeping track of the results.

President Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “destroy the American way of life” in a late reelection pitch to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated promises of a vaccine before Election Day, scientists have been cautioning that it’s unlikely data showing a leading shot actually works would come until November or December. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee set Oct. 22 for its vote to recommend Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the full Senate, with a final confirmation vote expected by month’s end.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based drugstore chain said Thursday it made $373 million in the final quarter of fiscal 2020 after losing $1.7 billion the previous quarter, when millions of shoppers stayed home to avoid the rapidly spreading pandemic.

Thursday’s report from the Labor Department coincides with other recent data that have signaled a slowdown in hiring. The economy is still roughly 10.7 million jobs short of recovering all the 22 million jobs that were lost when the pandemic struck.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett faced a second day of questions Wednesday from the Senate Judiciary Committee as Democrats kept up their focus on health care three weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election. 

Earth sweltered to a record hot September last month, with U.S. climate officials saying there’s nearly a two-to-one chance that 2020 will end up as the globe’s hottest year on record.

If you plan on voting by mail, election officials say it’s best to do it as early as possible so your ballot gets to its destination well before Election Day, which is Nov. 3.