The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week of him getting the COVID-19 vaccine. It drew more than 1,100 comments — many of them voicing admiration for the Rev. J.D. Greear, and many others assailing ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says it’s a “big lie” to call the new voting law in Georgia racist and he warned big business to “stay out of politics” after major corporations and even Major League Baseball distanced themselves from the state amid vast ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday urged the adoption of a minimum global corporate income tax, an effort to at least partially offset any disadvantages that might arise from the Biden administration’s proposed increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate. Citing ...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minneapolis police chief testified Monday that now-fired Officer Derek Chauvin violated departmental policy in pinning his knee on George Floyd’s neck and keeping him down after Floyd had stopped resisting and was in distress. Continuing to kneel on Floyd’s neck ...

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Steam and lava spurted Monday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle. The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 500 ...

LEMBATA, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment Monday after torrential rains caused multiple disasters on remote eastern Indonesian islands as well as in East Timor. At least 133 people died and dozens were missing in Indonesia, ...

BORDEAUX, France (AP) — It tastes like rose petals. It smells like a campfire. It glistens with a burnt-orange hue. What is it? A 5,000-euro bottle of Petrus Pomerol wine that spent a year in space. Researchers in Bordeaux are analyzing a dozen bottles of the precious liquid — along ...

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona State University researchers have developed a new method that could drastically improve the way we explore space, and it is all happening some 3,500 meters under the sea. Researchers Everett Shock and Vincent Milesi developed a method to interpret data received during ...

BEIJING (AP) — As their respective spacecrafts headed to Mars, China and the U.S. held consultations earlier this year in a somewhat unusual series of exchanges between the rivals. China’s National Space Agency confirmed Wednesday that it had working-level meetings and communications with ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A billionaire’s private SpaceX flight filled its two remaining seats with a scientist-teacher and a data engineer whose college friend actually won a spot but gave him the prize. The new passengers: Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, ...

PITTSBURGH — The task of naming the network of trails stretching from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., was brought up at an initial planning meeting in the mid-1990s. Ideas were thrown out. But naming something that didn’t yet exist took a backseat to the actual work, Linda McKenna Boxx ...

INDIANA, Pa. — They arrived in street clothes, ready to perform in a century-and-a-half-old hall at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, their faces covered by masks. There was brief silence as IUP Chorale members standing 6 feet apart in an otherwise empty room looked toward their ...

YORK, Pa. (AP) — A toddler died at a hospital after he was found in a storm water tunnel near his Pennsylvania home on Easter Sunday, authorities said. The York County coroner’s office identified the victim as 2-year-old Kamdyn Torres of the borough of North York. Officials said he ...

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — A New York bus driver is seeking a lighter sentence in an interstate crash in northeastern Pennsylvania that killed a woman and injured several others 2 1/2 years ago. The public defender representing 52-year-old Charles Dixon argued Monday that a Lackawanna County ...

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Students who once shopped at a downtown mall in Burlington, Vermont, are now attending high school in the former Macy’s department store, with gleaming white tile floors and escalators whisking them to and from classes. The Downtown Burlington High School opened March ...

ALLIANCE, Neb. — Joe Roberts moved to the Panhandle three and a half years ago, looking for a place to bring his saddle-making enterprise Otter Creek Leather. His wife Erin, is from the area, and the chips fell that it was a good move for both. “I married my wife and I promised her that I ...

BEIRUT (AP) — Jordan’s King Abdullah II has intervened in the case involving his outspoken half brother, who is accused of a plot to destabilize the kingdom, and the former heir to the throne has agreed to abide by the traditions of the family that rules the key Western ally, a palace ...

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s ruling junta stepped up its campaign against celebrities who support nationwide protests against its seizure of power, publishing wanted lists in the state press and warning against using their work. The move follows weeks of escalating violence by ...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumed Monday, with a key witness painting a picture of an image-obsessed Israeli leader forcing a prominent news site to flatter his family and smear his opponents. The testimony came as Netanyahu’s chances of ...

LONDON (AP) — Police and politicians in Northern Ireland appealed for calm on Monday after a third night of violence that saw Protestant youths start fires and pelt officers with bricks and gasoline bombs. The flareups come amid rising tensions over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern ...