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When the coronavirus pandemic struck New York City, LaGuardia Community College professor Lucia Fuentes assigned students in her honors biology class to compile all the information they could find about COVID-19. The result was an online multilingual brochure that has become a valuable resource for immigrants. Fuentes has continued the project even after her husband died from complications related to the virus and after she herself survived a bout with the disease. In her grief, she remains committed to her students and is determined to prevent others from getting sick.

British prosecutors have accused a police officer of using unnecessary force against a Black former Premier League soccer player, who died after being kicked in the head and shot with a stun gun. Dalian Atkinson, 48, a former star of Aston Villa, went into cardiac arrest on the way to a hospital and died 90 minutes after officers used a Taser on him to subdue him in 2016.  Prosecutors allege that West Mercia Police Constable Benjamin Monk, 42, used a stun gun for 33 seconds against Atkinson _ more than six times longer than was standard. Authorities charged Monk with murder and manslaughter after a three year inquiry. He has denied the charges.

Selling vaccines during a pandemic has boosted Pfizer’s bottom line and proven that a strategy it embarked upon over a decade ago is now paying off handsomely. The New York-based pharmaceutical giant earned $4.9 billion in the first three months of the year and dramatically raised its profit forecast for all of 2021 thanks to strong demand for its COVID-19 vaccine. The company, along with its German partner BioNTech, anticipate strong revenue from the vaccine and booster shots for the next three years. Once viewed as a marketing machine for blockbuster treatments such as Viagra and Lipitor, Pfizer has transformed itself into a powerhouse for delivering drugs that treat cancer, rare diseases — and vaccines.

Donald Trump will find out whether he gets to return to Facebook on Wednesday. That's when the social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board plans to announce its ruling in the case involving the former president. The decision is likely to stir up strong feelings no matter which way it goes. If the board rules in the former president's favor, Facebook has 30 days to reinstate his account. If it upholds Facebook’s decision, Trump will remain “”indefinitely suspended." That means he’ll remain banned from the platform for as long as Facebook sees fit.  

Given that the nation remains in a pandemic, the NFL is more than satisfied with being able to attract 160,000 fans to the draft in Cleveland last week. While those numbers pale in comparison to what the three-day draft drew in previous years in Nashville and Philadelphia, they also reflect the necessary health and safety protocols the league observed. Many sports and other entertainment genres were watching the NFL to see how things went. There was a large presence of vaccinated fans on hand — a requirement near the stage — and mandatory mask wearing elsewhere.

Seven people who risked their own health and safety to help and protect others during the coronavirus pandemic will receive Profile in Courage awards next month from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. The foundation on Tuesday said the recipients include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer along with a grocery story owner, a delivery driver, a nurse and an activist. They will be honored along with U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney during a virtual ceremony later this month. The Utah Republican in March was named the recipient of the annual award created by the family of the late president for public figures who risk their careers by embracing unpopular positions for the greater good.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia's faltering COVID-19 vaccination program picked up speed Tuesday, with authorities starting to use 200,000 Sinopharm jabs bought from China. The small Balkan country has struggled with vaccine supply shortages. The vaccination program began…

Playing 50 games in a little over 100 days has made for some tired teams around the NHL. The condensed 56-game schedule has taken its toll with the playoffs approaching. The result has been plenty of mental mistakes and some wear and tear injuries. This grind of a season is even more difficult for the players who left families behind because of pandemic protocols. It helps that the playoffs are closing in.

Stocks were solidly lower in afternoon trading Tuesday, dragged down by big technology companies like Apple and Google. The declines added to the drop in tech shares that happened late Monday. Most sectors in the benchmark S&P 500 index fell as investors continue to focus on corporate earnings and gauge the economic recovery’s progress. Earnings and most economic indicators have been signaling a steady recovery, but investors remain concerned about the lingering threat from COVID-19, inflation and other factors that could crimp progress. The S&P 500 index was down 0.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 2.2%. Bond yields fell. 

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The Dutch king laid a wreath Tuesday at a monument to the country's war dead at a solemn commemoration ceremony devoid of the usual huge crowds for the second straight year because of coronavirus lockdown measures. King…

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy industrialized nations have gathered for their first face-to-face meeting in more than two years. The agenda at the two-day meeting in London includes how to respond to the military coup in Myanmar and whether to challenge or coax a surging China. Host country Britain has warned that the increasingly aggressive activities of Russia, China and Iran pose a threat to democratic societies. Top diplomats from the U.K., the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are also discussing the Tigray crisis in Ethiopia, the precarious situation in Afghanistan and the uneven global supply of coronavirus vaccines.

After a year of pandemic lockdowns, mass shootings are back — but the guns never went away. As the U.S. inches toward a post-pandemic future, guns are arguably more present in the American psyche and more deeply embedded in discourse than ever before. The past year's anxiety and loss fueled a rise in gun ownership across political and socioeconomic lines. Dozens of big and midsized cities documented steep increases in gun-related homicides as COVID-19 took its toll. For years, the debate about guns — and the violence they can cause — will hold echoes of our shared pandemic trauma.

America's normal temperature is now a degree hotter than just 20 years ago. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday released climate figures showing the nation's new normal temperature keeps getting hotter. They also show normal is wetter in the eastern and central U.S. while drier in the West. Meteorologists every decade update normal climate numbers for the United States based on 30 years of data. The figures show climate change at work. The U.S. normal annual temperature is now 53.3 degrees Fahrenheit based on data from 1991 to 2020. Normal was 52.3 degrees just 20 years earlier.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will begin shifting how it allocates COVID-19 shots to states, moving doses from states with lower demand to those with stronger interest in vaccines, an administration official said. The change away from a strict…

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been released from a federal prison on furlough, while he awaits potential placement to home confinement. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke with The Associated Press on Tuesday. Silver was serving his more than six-year sentence at a federal prison in Otisville, New York, in a corruption case. The person says he's been released on furlough while awaiting potential placement to home confinement to serve his sentence at home. The 77-year-old began serving his sentence in August after years of fending off going behind bars. He has a projected release date from federal custody in 2026.