JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri officials want to continue having a private company handle calls about jobless benefits in the state even though the unemployment rate has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis decried societies which rush indifferently past the poor, often judging them instead of helping them, as he celebrated Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Basilica attended by 2,000 indigent people.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan said 27 Chinese aircraft entered its air defense buffer zone on Sunday, the latest in a long series of incursions as part of Beijing's pressure on the self-ruled island.

PARIS (AP) — France is inducting Josephine Baker — Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French World War II spy and civil rights activist — into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France’s most revered luminaries.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Both sides are telling the Supreme Court there's no middle ground in Wednesday's showdown over abortion. The justices can either reaffirm the constitutional right to an abortion or wipe it away altogether.

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — University of Maine researchers are trying to produce potatoes that can better withstand warming temperatures as the climate changes.

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian authorities were unveiling Thursday a renovated ancient promenade in the city of Luxor dating back 3,000 years, the latest government project undertaken to highlight the country’s archaeological treasures.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Before English, French or any European language was spoken in the spot of the map where Missouri sits, Native American tribes brought their own dialects to the region.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century with his intelligent, intricately rhymed lyrics, his use of evocative melodies and his willingness to tackle unusual subjects, has died. He was 91.

NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, helped a Washington food kitchen prepare Thanksgiving meals for the needy before they left town — like millions of other Americans — to resume their family tradition of spending the holiday on tiny Nantucket island in Massachusetts.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — NASA launched a spacecraft Tuesday night on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.

POTOSI, Mo. (AP) — An eastern Missouri couple recently won a $3 million lottery prize — and it wasn't the first time they've claimed a big lottery win.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the first lady next month will travel to Israel and Greece for a trade mission, the governor's office announced Tuesday.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Bill Virdon, the steady centerfielder who won the 1955 National League Rookie of the Year for St. Louis and guided the Houston Astros to three straight postseason appearances as a manager, has died. He was 90.

MIAMI (AP) — An attorney for the family of Brian Laundrie said Tuesday that he fatally shot himself in the head.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Spacey and his production companies must pay the studio behind “House of Cards” more than $30 million because of losses brought on by his firing for sexual misconduct, according to an arbitration decision made final Monday.

Ten years ago, the LPGA Tour had eight players earn at least $1 million in the season. One indication of how much has changed is Nasa Hataoka.

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — For the fifth decade in a row, a federal judge will decide on how to draw County Council lines in St. Louis County after Republicans and Democrats on the redistricting commission failed to reach agreement.

ROGERSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Investigators seized 190 catalytic converters and 67 weapons when they searched a home in southwest Missouri recently, and one man was arrested after the raid.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved the nomination of Charles “Chuck” Sams III as National Park Service director, which will make him the first Native American to lead the agency.

A former police detective who repeatedly kicked a defenseless man during a 2019 arrest was sentenced Monday in Missouri to six years in federal prison.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge on Friday convicted a white Kansas City police officer of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the fatal shooting of a Black man, in a case in which prosecutors said police planted evidence.

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — The suspect in a Christmas parade crash in suburban Milwaukee that killed five people was free on $1,000 bail posted just two days before the deadly event, a fact that is leading to a review of what happened and renewed calls for giving judges more power to set higher bails.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs plan to begin discussing the future of Arrowhead Stadium within the next year after the neighboring Royals announced plans earlier this year to explore moving to a new downtown ballpark.

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million.

A Kansas City man who has been jailed for more than 40 years for three murders was wrongfully convicted in 1979 and will be released, a Missouri judge ruled Tuesday.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A judge on Monday officially exonerated four young African American men of the false accusation that they raped a white woman seven decades ago, making partial and belated amends for one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of Florida's Jim Crow era.

BUTNER, N.C. (AP) — The former Oklahoma zookeeper known as “Tiger King” Joe Exotic, a prominent figure in a Netflix documentary series, has been transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina for federal inmates after a cancer diagnosis, according to his attorney.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri man died Saturday after being shot by his 2-year-old child.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri police chiefs have called on state lawmakers to change a new law banning local police from enforcing federal gun laws, which law enforcement officials say is making it harder to fight crime.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A man was critically hurt when his wife drove over him twice as he tried to dislodge a bowling ball that had been thrown in front of their car on Saturday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted on charges stemming from killing two men and wounding another during the unrest that followed the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer, said in a wide-ranging interview that aired Monday night he's “not a racist person” and sup…

Jon Batiste might be the Grammys biggest surprise: The multi-genre performer and recent Oscar winner made such an impression on voters that he scored the most nominations with 11 on Tuesday.

LE GOSIER, Guadeloupe (AP) — Schools closed across the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on Monday and France's prime minister appealed for calm and dialogue after protests against COVID-19 rules and vaccinations descended into days of rioting and looting.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from America's strategic reserve to help bring down energy costs, in coordination with other major energy consuming nations, including China, India and the United Kingdom.