(AP) — Congress has easily passed a $900 billion pandemic relief package. It promises to deliver long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and resources to vaccinate a nation confronting a frightening surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Lawmakers tacked on a $1.4 trillion catchall spending bill and thousands of pages of other end-of-session business to …
Boonville man dies in crash, other driver arrested
A Boonville man dies in a head-on crash. The Highway Patrol says a pickup crossed the center line of Highway 5 just west of Boonville near Smith Street at about 9 p.m. Monday. It hit Ryan Scott’s pickup head-on. The 29-year-old died. The driver of the other pickup, 46-year-old Richard Nichols of Boonville, was arrested …
Iowa football on hold but still preps for bowl against Mizzou
(AP) No. 17 Iowa says it’s pausing football activities because of a COVID-19 outbreak but still hopes to play in next week’s Music City Bowl. Athletic director Gary Barta said in a statement Monday that the Hawkeyes will put all football activities on hold for at least five days because of an increase in positive …
BioNTech CEO confident vaccine will work on UK variant
(AP) — The chief executive of BioNTech says the German pharmaceutical company is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the UK variant, but further studies are needed to be completely sure. Ugur Sahin said Tuesday that “we don’t know at the moment if our vaccine is also able to provide protection against this new …
Barr undercuts Trump on election and Hunter Biden inquiries
(AP) — In his final days as attorney general, William Barr has broken with President Donald Trump on several fronts. On Monday he told the last news conference of his tenure that he saw no reason to name a special counsel to look into potential election fraud. Nor does he see a basis for having …