Becky Sullivan

Samoa will be led by a female prime minister for the first time in its history after an appeals court ruling ended a months-long constitutional crisis in the Pacific island nation.

In a major escalation of pressure on NFL teams to vaccinate as many players as possible before the start of this fall's season, the NFL says that teams will forfeit and be slapped with a loss if a game is cancelled because of a COVID-19 outbreak among their unvaccinated players — and neither team's players will be paid.

CIA Director William Burns says he has redoubled the agency's efforts to uncover the cause of Havana syndrome — the mysterious set of ailments that has afflicted more than 200 U.S. officials and family members around the world.

There is broad agreement that the restaurant industry is rife with sexual harassment.

The University of North Carolina has become the first college athletics program to organize group licensing deals for its current student athletes, in the latest development of the sea change transforming college athletics.

The death rate from COVID-19 in the U.S. is rising steadily for the first time in months as the nation grapples with a renewed burst of cases in what's become "a pandemic of the unvaccinated," the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

The seven-day average of new cases has increased by nearly 70% to almost 30,000 per day; hospitalizations are up 36%. And deaths from the virus have risen steadily in recent days, reversing a months-long downward trend that began in mid-January.

With Euro 2020 and the Stanley Cup in the books, the NBA Finals nearing an end, baseball past the All-Star break, and the Olympics a week away — sports are running full steam ahead, even as cases of COVID-19 tick up across the U.S.

Many stadiums and arenas in the U.S. have allowed fans to return at full capacity with many dropping mask requirements following a year of pandemic restrictions that prevented spectators and travel.

Plans for the Tokyo Olympics, which bring together athletes from around the world, are going ahead as scheduled next week.

A new Minnesota executive order sets out to protect minors in the state from so-called "conversion therapy," circumventing multiple defeats of statewide proposals in the Minnesota state legislature.

The new order, signed Thursday by Gov. Tim Walz, seeks to limit minors' access to the practice, which aims to convert a person's sexual orientation or gender identity to heterosexual or cisgender. The therapy is widely discredited by medical experts.

The U.S. will begin flying Afghan nationals who supported U.S. and coalition operations in Afghanistan, according to a senior Biden administration official. Evacuation flights will begin in the last week of July.

During the 20-year war in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghan citizens served as interpreters, provided intelligence and assisted the U.S. and its coalition partners as drivers, security guards and in other roles.

With just nine days left until this year's Summer Olympics begin in Tokyo, the coronavirus pandemic has forced a change to yet another longstanding tradition of the Games.

Out is the traditional, familiar medal presentation, where athletes, standing atop a podium, dip their heads as dignitaries drape gold, silver or bronze medals over their necks.

In: a contactless medal ceremony.

In Springfield, Mo., firefighters are giving vaccine shots. Churches are scrambling to schedule vaccine clinics. Students and staff at summer school at the public schools are back to wearing masks.

Dozens of traveling nurses are due to arrive at one of the city's two biggest hospitals over the coming weeks; extra ventilators from around Missouri and Arkansas were transported to the other major hospital after it ran short over the July Fourth weekend.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince William are denouncing the racist harassment of Black players for England's national soccer team following the team's loss Sunday in the Euro 2020 championship.

England's highest-profile soccer organizations are now urging consequences for the torrent of harassment, which began almost instantly after England's loss to Italy, 3-2 on penalty kicks. The game marked England's first international finals appearance in more than 50 years.

As baseball's All-Star festivities begin Monday night in Denver, a new political attack ad is hoping to remind viewers that the game was once supposed to be held in Georgia.

Lawyers representing 10 Sandy Hook families in a lawsuit against Remington Arms Co. have accused the gun-maker of deliberately slowing the discovery process by filing tens of thousands of seemingly unrelated images and videos.

Two dramatic trends that for years have defined the shifting landscape of religion in America — a shrinking white Christian majority, alongside the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans — have stabilized, according to a new, massive survey of American religious practice.

Fourteen days after the catastrophic collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Fla., officials have called off the search for survivors, effective at midnight local time.

In the decades since the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks became the 13th and 14th teams to join the NBA back in 1968, only once has either squad managed to win a league championship.

For the Bucks, who won their first and only title in 1971, it's been 50 years since a championship trophy graced the halls of their arena. For the Suns, drought is all they've ever known.

Five days after the final U.S. troops left Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is defending itself from criticism by Afghan military officials who have accused the U.S. of secretly slipping out overnight, shutting off the electricity and prompting a security lapse that allowed looters to scavenge the facilities before Afghan troops were able to retake control.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Enormous amounts of construction materials are needed to repair and rebuild the thousands of homes and businesses that were damaged in Gaza in last month's conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But international donors, including the United States, that have pledged funds want to make sure those supplies don't end up in the hands of Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza.

Israeli and Hamas have accepted a cease-fire plan that was to take effect at 2 a.m. local time Friday after 11 days of fighting in Gaza.

The Israeli Cabinet voted to accept an Egyptian initiative for a cease-fire, according to a statement from the Cabinet. A Hamas spokesman said, "The Palestinian resistance will commit itself to this deal as long as the occupation is committed."

The city of Columbus, Ohio, has agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, a 47-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a Columbus police officer in December.

Eight members of the New York Yankees — the team's All-Star shortstop Gleyber Torres, along with seven coaches and staff members — have tested positive for the coronavirus this week, even though all of them had been vaccinated.

The outbreak of so-called breakthrough cases was first detected Sunday as the team was flying to Florida for a series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Seven more people, including Torres, tested positive over the three subsequent days.

The battle over Medicaid expansion in Missouri reached a new boiling point Thursday as Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, announced that the state will not implement expansion, in defiance of a ballot measure passed by voters last year.

The decision stems from Republican state lawmakers' refusal to appropriate funds for the expansion to the state's Medicaid program, called MO HealthNet, in the state budget bill passed last week.

Seniors at the University of South Carolina had already dealt with one disaster — the pandemic — when they took their socially distanced seats at the school's commencement ceremony last weekend.

Then came another train wreck.

A new report on racial inequity in college athletics urges the NCAA and its member schools to take measures to improve the academic performance and career prospects of Black athletes, who graduate and get sports-related jobs at lower rates than their white peers.

The report, titled Achieving Racial Equity In College Sports, was released Wednesday by the Knight Commission, an independent board of university administrators and former athletes that has long pushed the NCAA on issues of academic achievement.

Medina Spirit, the thoroughbred colt whose 2021 Kentucky Derby win is in peril due to a failed drug test, will be allowed to run in this Saturday's Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown.

The colt's participation in Saturday's race had been in question since a post-race drug test after the Kentucky Derby earlier this month discovered the presence of betamethasone, a corticosteroid commonly used to treat pain and inflammation in horses but is illegal in any amount on race day in Kentucky.

Israel warned that airstrikes on Gaza would continue over the coming days as at least 30 Palestinians and three Israelis were reported killed amid rising cross-border violence sparked by clashes in Jerusalem.

Gay and transgender people will be protected from discrimination in health care, the Biden administration announced Monday, effectively reversing a Trump-era rule that went into effect last year.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the top respiratory disease official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was among the first to warn the American public about how much the pandemic would change everyday life, is stepping down from the agency.