Bye-bye, Bismarck. So long, Sheboygan.

SURRY, Va. (AP) — When Charlome Pierce searched where her 96-year-old father could get a COVID-19 vaccine in January, she found zero options anywhere near their home in Virginia. The lone medical clinic in Surry County had none, and the last pharmacy in an area with roughly 6,500 residents a…

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee advisory panel tasked with deciding in what order residents should receive the COVID-19 vaccine acknowledged that prison inmates in the state were high-risk, but concluded that prioritizing them for inoculation could be a “public relations nightmare.”

FEB. 27 - MARCH 5, 2021

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia has long proclaimed itself “Almost Heaven,” a nod to a song and soaring mountaintop vistas. Now some joke the state name-checked in “Take Me Home, Country Roads” could take things up a notch as Democratic U.S. Sen Joe Manchin bargains his way through Congress.

The scenes are seared in the memory of the Rev. Ammar Altony Yako: A church that for decades has been the pride of the town of Qaraqosh, a center for Christian life in Iraq, stood badly scarred.

One highlight of Pope Francis' historic visit to Iraq is his meeting Saturday with a revered religious leader for Shiite Muslims, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s public schools can tap into $6.6 billion in a plan Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Friday to try to pressure districts to reopen classrooms by the end of March. Educators, parents and lawmakers question whether it will work.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has cleared a path for fans to hit the stands at opening-day baseball games and return to Disneyland nearly a year after coronavirus restrictions shuttered major entertainment spots.

Today in History

Kansas placed coach Les Miles on administrative leave Friday night, hours after a report released by LSU revealed school officials there considered firing him in 2013 because of his behavior with female student workers.

NEW YORK (AP) — After growing cobwebs for nearly a year, movie theaters in New York City reopen Friday, returning film titles to Manhattan marquees that had for the last 12 months instead read messages like “Wear a mask” and “We’ll be back soon.”

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by three Democratic state attorneys general that had sought to force the federal government to recognize Virginia's vote last year to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and add it to the Constitution.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Friday endorsed South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster's bid for a second full term in 2022, continuing their yearslong alliance in a move to strengthen ties with the early-voting state that Trump won twice.

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration insisted Friday that a quest for scientific accuracy, not political concerns, prompted members of his COVID-19 task force to ask the state health department to delete data last summer from a report on nursing home patients killed by the coro…

MIAMI (AP) — Three Venezuelan men pleaded guilty to helping organize an ill-conceived invasion last year to remove President Nicolás Maduro.

TORONTO — The head of the vaccine program for Canada’s most populous province expects to get every adult in Ontario a first vaccine shot by June 20.

HOUSTON (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities will no longer use a small Pennsylvania detention center to hold parents and children seeking asylum, part of a broader shift by President Joe Biden's administration to reduce the use of family detention.

PROVO, Utah (AP) — Students at Brigham Young University illuminated the letter “Y” on a mountain overlooking the Provo campus on Thursday with rainbow colors in a display meant to send a message to the religious school.

It was Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy-winning performance: daily televised coronavirus briefings in which the New York governor projected competence and compassion, helping to calm a nervous nation.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — After the North Dakota House voted to expel a lawmaker accused of a long pattern of sexually harassing women at the Capitol, attention has turned to a policy that was intended to protect against harassment but may have actually made it harder to stop it.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, said Friday her husband has died, several hours after police found a dead man at the couple’s home.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A Rochester police officer has been placed on administrative duty after using pepper spray on a woman suspected of shoplifting who tried to escape with her 3-year-old child in her arms, authorities said Friday.

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. (AP) — Tiger Woods was unconscious in a mangled SUV after he crashed the vehicle in Southern California last week, according to a court document that also revealed a nearby resident and not a sheriff’s deputy was first on the scene.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — While the Wyoming National Guard was sending more than 100 troops to Washington, D.C., to help with security around President Joe Biden's inauguration in January, Gov. Mark Gordon quietly mobilized dozens of Guard troops and others in case of violence at the state Capit…

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said Friday she will issue an executive order mandating that all K-12 public schools provide universal access to in-person learning by the month’s end for students up to fifth grade and by mid-April for older students.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A member of the “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey team has died at a treatment center for mental illness.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Fewer than 5,000 water customers were still without service Friday afternoon in Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson — a development a top official called “positive progress” for the city of 160,000, where some residents have been without water for three weeks.