A surprising 80 percent of teenage boys say they are using condoms the first time they have sex, a government survey found in a powerful sign that decades of efforts to change young people’s sexual behavior are taking hold.But another promising trend — a drop since the 1980s in the number ...
Topeka ? The State Board of Education voted Tuesday to apply in February for a waiver of requirements under the No Child Left Behind law.President Barack Obama opened the door for states to have more flexibility in complying with the law after Congress failed to approve a newer version of the ...
Washington ? Congress is embarking on a flurry of votes to show it is trying to do something about creating jobs. The prospects for legislative success, however, are spotty.One exception is in the area of trade. Congress is expected to approve free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia ...
New York ? Netflix generates more head-scratching plot twists than a cheap B-movie.On Monday, the company said it would reverse a previously announced decision to put its DVD-by-mail and Internet streaming services on separate websites, a plan that was widely derided by Netflix ...
New York ? As the protest on Wall Street enters its fourth week, police officers are keeping their posts around the perimeter of the park at the center of it all. And with no end in sight, the cost of constant police surveillance will continue to rise at a time when Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ...
MILFORD, N.H. — In an election that’s supposed to hinge on jobs and the economy, the Republican presidential contest in recent months has been defined by almost everything else.Immigration and children’s vaccines. Race and religion. Homosexuality and health care. The issues range far from ...
FRESNO, CALIF. — Dozens of foreign insects and plant diseases slipped undetected into the United States in the years after 9/11, when authorities were so focused on preventing another attack that they overlooked a pest explosion that threatened the quality of the nation’s food supply.At the ...
Kansas City, Kan. ? Owners of the new casino at the Kansas Speedway are looking for nearly 1,000 employees.A job fair for the Hollywood Casino is planned for this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Overland Park Convention Center.KSHB-TV reports that the casino complex will eventually ...
After two years on the unemployment rolls, Selena Forte thought she’d found a temporary job at a delivery company that matched her qualifications.But Forte, a 55-year-old from Cleveland, says a recruiter for an employment agency told her she would not be considered for the job because she had ...
The supercommittee is struggling.After weeks of secret meetings, the 12-member deficit-cutting panel established under last summer’s budget and debt deal appears no closer to a breakthrough than when talks began last month.While the panel members themselves aren’t doing much talking, other ...
Hartford, Conn. ? Connecticut officials are not giving up on requiring Internet sellers to collect state sales taxes, despite signs from online retailer Amazon.com that it has no immediate plans to abide by the state’s new Internet tax law.State officials confirmed to The Associated Press ...
NEW YORK — To veterans of past social movements, the Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York and spread nationwide have been a welcome response to corporate greed and the enfeebled economy. But whether the energy of protesters can be tapped to transform the political climate ...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is likely to get an earful when it holds public meetings on its plan for managing the Missouri River next year because many people have criticized the way the agency handled this year’s record flooding.Several hundred thousand acres of land were swamped and ...
For more Americans, being out of work has become a semi-permanent condition.Nearly one-third of the unemployed — nearly 4.5 million people — have had no job for a year or more. That’s a record high. Many are older workers who have found it especially hard to find jobs.And economists say ...
San Francisco ? In the end, Steve Jobs left the world to his own devices.As macabre as it might seem, Jobs’ death Wednesday will only add to the Apple mystique — and profit. The iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac will, no doubt, get a sales boost as consumers pay the ultimate tribute to one of ...
Atlanta ? The number of athletic children going to hospitals with concussions is up 60 percent in the past decade, a finding that is likely due to parents and coaches being more careful about treating head injuries, according to a new federal study.“It’s a good increase, if that makes any ...
Washington ? For more Americans, being out of work has become a semi-permanent condition.Nearly one-third of the unemployed — nearly 4.5 million people — have had no job for a year or more. That’s a record high. Many are older workers who have found it especially hard to find jobs.And ...
A one-sentence question was posed by Dole Institute of Politics Associate Director Barbara Ballard: Is the federal government’s 2014 insurance mandate under the new health care law constitutional?One attorney on each side tried to make it simple. But it’s complicated.“What doesn’t seem ...
Birmingham, Ala. ? At one end of the fire hose were officers deployed by Bull Connor, the notoriously racist police commissioner fond of telling his men to use sticks, dogs and whatever else was necessary to scatter peaceful black protesters.At the business end was the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, ...
The New York Police Department’s intelligence squad secretly assigned an undercover officer to monitor a prominent Muslim leader even as he decried terrorism, cooperated with the police, dined with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by The New York ...