Stories by Associated Press

The government reported Thursday that retail sales rose a sharp 7.5% in June, but the positive trend was undercut by more recent data showing that credit card spending has stalled. 

The hearing is expected to end on Friday with McHenry County Judge Robert Wilbrandt sentencing 37-year-old JoAnn Cunningham. She has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the beating death of her son, Andrew “AJ” Freund.

The first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the U.S. revved up people’s immune systems just the way scientists had hoped, researchers reported Tuesday -- as the shots are poised to begin key final testing.

The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

The Washington NFL franchise announced Monday it is dropping the “Redskins” name and Indian head logo, bowing to recent pressure from sponsors and decades of criticism that they are offensive to Native Americans.

The United States was grappling with the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world on Monday. Meanwhile, two World Health Organization experts went to China for a mission to trace the origin of the pandemic.

As the Trump administration pushes full steam ahead to force schools to resume in-person education, public health experts warn that a one-size-fits-all reopening could drive infection and death rates even higher.

President Donald Trump wore a mask during a visit to a military hospital on Saturday, the first time he has been seen in public with the type of facial covering recommended by health officials during the pandemic.

President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation and that concerned the president’s own conduct.

Health experts have warned of a looming mental health crisis linked to the coronavirus outbreak, and the federal government rolled out a broad anti-suicide campaign. But doctors and researchers say the issues reverberate deeper among Black people.

The Trump administration has agreed to invest more than half a billion in tax dollars in ApiJect Systems America, but its injector is not approved by federal health authorities and the company hasn’t yet set up a factory to manufacture the devices.

Most of Wall Street is drifting higher Friday, though a rare pullback for some of the year's biggest winners in the stock market is tamping down the gains.

Federal health officials won’t revise their coronavirus guidelines for reopening schools despite criticism from President Donald Trump, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. 

In a change to its previous thinking, WHO noted on Thursday that studies evaluating COVID-19 outbreaks in restaurants, choir practices and fitness classes suggested the virus might have been spread in the air.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based drugstore chain said Thursday that the rapidly spreading coronavirus took a bite of between $700 million and $750 million from sales, with much of the damage coming from outside the United States.

Determined to reopen America’s schools despite coronavirus worries, President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to hold back federal money if school districts don’t bring their students back in the fall.

International students will be forced to leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools offer classes entirely online this fall, under new guidelines issued Monday by federal immigration authorities.

United Airlines is warning 36,000 employees — nearly half its U.S. staff — they could be furloughed in October, the clearest signal yet of how deeply the virus pandemic is hurting the airline industry.

A national coalition of labor unions, along with racial and social justice organizations, will stage a mass walkout from work this month, as part of an ongoing reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S.

A federal program designed to soften job losses from the coronavirus also benefited wealthy, well-connected companies and some celebrity owned firms. Which companies benefited in Illinois?

Activity in the U.S. services sector rebounded strongly last month, but those gains are now being threatened by the resurgence of coronavirus cases in many parts of the country. Local economists weigh in.

The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs.

From San Francisco to South Carolina, a spate of shootings claimed the lives of people celebrating or just taking a drive over the Fourth of July weekend. Chicago saw one of its bloodiest holiday weekends in memory.

One of Chicago’s bloodiest holiday weekends in memory ended with 17 people fatally shot, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, and 70 more wounded, despite a concerted effort to quell the violence with an additional 1,200 police officers on the streets.

As the pandemic explodes in diverse states like Arizona and Florida, people in communities of color who have been exposed to the virus are struggling to get tested. 

A judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down for additional environmental review more than three years after it began pumping oil — handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.