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By DR. JOY MARTINEZ, Staff Writer In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced fully vaccinated people didn’t need to wear masks in most settings, whether indoors or outdoors. This week, the agency recommended that fully vaccinated people begin wearing masks indoors again in places with high COVID-19 transmission rates. Nearly two-thirds of US counties have high or substantial transmission of COVID-19, according to most recent CDC

By LARRY NEUMEISTER FILE - This April 21, 2013, file photo shows Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, aka RZA, left, and Clifford Smith, aka Method Man, of Wu-Tang Clan, right, performing at the second weekend of the 2013 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. An unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album forfeited by Martin Shkreli after his securities fraud conviction was sold Tuesday, July 27, 2021, for an undisclosed sum, though

By AARON MORRISON Alton Lucas sits on the porch of his home outside of Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, June 18, 2021. As a teenager, Alton Lucas believed basketball or music would pluck him out of North Carolina and take him around the world. In the late 1980s, he was already the right-hand man to his musically inclined best friend, Youtha Anthony Fowler, who many hip hop and R&B heads know

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina car dealership has apologized for a derogatory term posted to its social media to identify a Black woman who bought a car from the business. Lumberton Honda posted a picture Thursday on its Facebook page of Trinity Bethune standing in front of a car outside of the dealership and a comment congratulating her on buying her first car, news outlets reported. But instead

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE and AAMER MADHANI President Joe Biden expressed pointed frustration over the slowing COVID-19 vaccination rate in the U.S. and pleaded that it’s “gigantically important” for Americans to step up and get inoculated against the virus as it surges once again. Biden, speaking Wednesday night at a televised town hall in Cincinnati, said the public health crisis has turned largely into a plight of the unvaccinated as the spread of the delta

By MARCIA DUNN Oliver Daemen, from left, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin, Wally Funk and Bezos' brother Mark pose for photos in front of the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, derby, after their launch from the spaceport near Van Horn, Texas, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) Jeff Bezos blasted into space Tuesday on his rocket company’s first flight with people on board,

By MIKE STOBBE NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II, public health officials said Wednesday. The decrease for both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans was even worse: three years. The drop spelled out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic, which health officials said is

The process to draw new districts for South Carolina House and Senate seats as well as the U.S. House kicked off Tuesday with senators hopeful the whirlwind of map drawing, negotiations, public hearings and final vote will take less than four months. The Senate’s redistricting subcommittee agreed Tuesday at its first meeting to hold 10 public hearings across the state starting next week and ending before the final U.S. census

By AARON BEARD Bret Oliverio poses at his Sup Dogs restaurant in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday, July 15, 2021. Oliverio wants to pursue deals with college athletes to endorse his restaurant specializing in hot dogs and burgers along the main Franklin Street drag steps from the University of North Carolina. Like other small-business owners in college towns, he has to sort out what that entails with athletes free to profit

Leaders of the agencies that provide blood to some North Carolina hospitals say the easing of the coronavirus pandemic has created potentially dangerous shortages.  As people get out and about more, injuries from car crashes and other traumas are increasing, and the backlog of surgical procedures delayed by the pandemic have driven up demand for blood and platelets, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. Meanwhile, fewer organizations are hosting blood drives