DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The federal government promised Friday to spend $500 million to encourage the construction of smaller meat processing plants located closer to farmers who raise chickens, pigs and cows with the goal of diversifying an industry now largely run by a small number of large ...

NEW YORK (AP) — The fast-moving storm Elsa lashed New York City and New England with heavy rain and high winds Friday, flooding streets, toppling trees and hindering some rail service. Maximum sustained winds from the storm were 50 mph (85 kph) by late afternoon as the storm moved northeast ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday targeting what he labeled anticompetitive practices in tech, health care and other parts of the economy, declaring it would fortify an American ideal "that true capitalism depends on fair and open competition." The ...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — When grieving with those who lost loved ones in a building collapse, President Joe Biden invoked the car crash that claimed members of his own family decades ago. When explaining his decision to pull troops from Afghanistan, he remembered his veteran son. When ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan will end on Aug. 31, delivering an impassioned argument for exiting the nearly 20-year war without sacrificing more American lives even as he bluntly acknowledged there will be no "mission accomplished" ...

SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — When the coronavirus ravaged Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis defiantly bucked mask mandates. He later cracked down on protesters advocating racial justice, blasted President Joe Biden on immigration, jumped into the fight over transgender athletes and signed sweeping ...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Zaila Avant-garde understood the significance of what she was doing as she stood on the Scripps National Spelling Bee stage, peppering pronouncer Jacques Bailly with questions about Greek and Latin roots. Zaila knew she would be the first African American winner ...

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma's plan to reorganize into a new entity that helps combat the U.S. opioid epidemic got a big boost as 15 states that had previously opposed the new business model now support it. The agreement from multiple state attorneys general, including those who had most ...

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Severe weather from Tropical Storm Elsa spurred tornado warnings in southern Delaware early Friday as the system moved over the mid-Atlantic states and into the northeastern United States. It was not immediately clear whether a tornado touched down. The National ...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A weakened Tropical Storm Elsa dumped rain along a long stretch of Florida's Gulf Coast early Wednesday but appears to have spared the state significant damage and power outages. Elsa wobbled through the Gulf of Mexico, briefly reaching hurricane strength, but was ...

Small-dollar, short-term lenders, unburdened by a federal maximum interest rate, can charge borrowers rates of 400% or more for their loans. But more states are bringing that number down by setting rate caps to curb high-interest lending. Currently, 18 states and Washington, D.C. , have laws ...

HELENA Mont. (AP) — A grizzly bear attacked and killed a bicyclist who was camping in a small western Montana town early Tuesday, triggering an intensive search for the bruin by wildlife officials and law enforcement officers who planned to kill the animal, authorities said. The pre-dawn ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is poised to approve reparations up to $25,000 to victims who were among the thousands of people — some as young as 13 — who decades ago were sterilized because state officials deemed them unfit to have children. The payments, part of the state's new ...

NEW YORK (AP) — An $850 million agreement by the Boy Scouts of America to compensate sex-abuse victims prompted outrage Friday from some survivors and their advocates, while others were encouraged and saw it as the best outcome that could be achieved under the circumstances. The agreement, ...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The largest Native American reservation in the U.S. includes parts of three Arizona counties, all of which had different approaches to precinct voting in the 2020 general election. Voters in Apache County had to cast ballots at the polling location they were assigned. ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Stern, soon to become the State Department's special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, sees a mix of promising news and worrisome developments almost everywhere she looks, both at home and abroad. In the United States, Stern's admiration for President Joe Biden's ...

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The city of North Miami Beach ordered the evacuation of a condominium building Friday after a review found unsafe conditions about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the site of last week's deadly collapse in South Florida. An audit prompted by the collapse of ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The seven justices who reversed Bill Cosby's conviction this week spent months debating whether he had a secret agreement with a prosecutor that tainted his 2018 criminal sexual assault conviction. In the end, Pennsylvania's highest court ruled that a district attorney ...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Hundreds of deaths in Canada, Oregon and Washington may have been caused by the historic heat wave that baked the Pacific Northwest and shattered all-time temperature records in usually temperate cities. Oregon health officials said late Wednesday more than 60 deaths have ...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The scores from the first U.S. standardized tests taken during the pandemic are offering an early glimpse of just how far students have fallen behind, with some states reporting that the turbulent year has reversed years of academic progress. Texas education officials ...