INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A 20-year-old man armed with multiple knives stabbed two Indianapolis police officers early Wednesday before they shot and wounded him, authorities said.

Wall Street has investors on another roller-coaster ride Wednesday, as an early stock market rally reversed course and left indexes with more losses.

ATLANTA (AP) — Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat and leading voting rights activist, said Wednesday that she will launch another campaign to become the nation's first Black woman governor.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant Wednesday — in a vaccinated traveler who returned to California after a trip to South Africa — as scientists around the world race to establish whether the new, mutant version of the coronavirus is more da…

CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett, who is accused of lying to police when he reported he was the victim of racist and homophobic attack in downtown Chicago, appeared troubled when he was told that a surveillance camera did not record the alleged assault, a police detective testified Wednesday.

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees precluding any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near his country's borders, a stern demand that comes amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant Wednesday — a person in California who had been to South Africa — as scientists around the world raced to establish whether the new, mutant version of the coronavirus is more dangerous than previous ones.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's new cases of COVID-19 nearly doubled in a day, authorities reported Wednesday, signaling a dramatic surge in the country where scientists detected the omicron variant last week.

The head of the women’s professional tennis tour announced Wednesday that all WTA tournaments would be suspended in China because of concerns about the safety of Peng Shuai, a Grand Slam doubles champion who accused a former high-ranking government official in that country of sexual assault.

NEW YORK (AP) — There's family, and your job as a journalist. Chris Cuomo's willingness to put the latter at risk in service to his brother has led to his suspension by CNN.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Jacqueline Avant, a Los Angeles philanthropist and the wife of music legend Clarence Avant, was fatally shot in Beverly Hills, California, early Wednesday, according to authorities and a Netflix spokeswoman.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors and attorneys for the suburban Minneapolis police officer charged in Daunte Wright's shooting death seated four more jurors for her trial Wednesday, including a woman who said she owns both a gun and a stun gun.

DRAPER, Utah (AP) — When her 10-year-old daughter tried spraying air freshener on herself before school one morning, Brittany Tichenor-Cox suspected something was wrong with the sweet little girl whose beaming smile had gone dormant after she started the fifth grade.

A pandemic-weary world faces weeks of confusing uncertainty as countries restrict travel and take other steps to halt the newest potentially risky coronavirus mutant before anyone knows just how dangerous omicron really is.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — As the U.S. Supreme Court heard a Mississippi case Wednesday that could topple abortion rights nationwide, the state’s only abortion clinic was busier than ever: Volunteers escorted patients into the bright pink building while protesters outside beseeched women not to e…

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

Tourism businesses that were just finding their footing after nearly two years of devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being rattled again as countries throw up new barriers to travel in an effort to contain the omicron variant.

LOS LLANOS DE ARIDANE, Canary Islands (AP) — A fresh river of lava from the volcano on Spain’s La Palma island threatened Wednesday to engulf a parish church that has so far survived the eruption that shows no signs of relenting after 10 weeks.

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN indefinitely suspended anchor Chris Cuomo on Tuesday after details emerged about how he helped his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to face charges of sexual harassment earlier this year.

MADRID (AP) — Juan Esteban Mariño, a healthy 29-year-old, has been part of the rare cohort in Spain who have resisted health authorities' strong recommendations to get their vaccine shots. His position only changed when he planned an end-of-the-year holiday in Portugal, where authorities are…

BERLIN (AP) — A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site next to a busy railway line in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously, German authorities said.

Employee Challenge Encourages Greater Giving

TOKYO (AP) — Japan has asked international airlines to stop taking new reservations for all flights arriving in Japan until the end of December as the country further tightens its border controls against a new coronavirus variant, the transportation ministry said Wednesday.

“Some say the world will end in fire,” wrote the poet Robert Frost -- and for much of 2021, Associated Press photographers captured scenes of a world ablaze, amid rumblings of ruin.

Backed by a private equity fund, Chicago-based home buying group purchases properties from coast to coast

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 1, 2021 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Seedling Foundation, a non-profit organization providing school-based mentoring for children who have an incarcerated parent, has selected Julie Barschow as Development Director. Ms. Barschow joins Seedling with over 20 years of nonprofit m…

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 1, 2021 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Sales Boomerang, the mortgage industry’s top-rated automated borrower intelligence and retention system, today announced that Mike Spotten, vice president of product, was named a 2021 HW Tech Trendsetter by HousingWire Magazine. Now in i…

HERAT, Afghanistan (AP) — High school girls are sitting at home almost everywhere in Afghanistan, forbidden to attend class by the Taliban rulers. But there’s one major exception.

OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three students, including a 16-year-old boy who died in a deputy’s patrol car on the way to a hospital, authorities said. Eight other people were wounded, some critically.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Biden administration revoked the terrorist designation of Colombia’s former FARC guerrilla army on Tuesday, five years after the rebel group signed a peace deal with the government. However, it imposed the same designation on two splinter groups that are still fig…

ATLANTA (AP) — City Council member Andre Dickens won a runoff election Tuesday to become Atlanta’s next mayor, riding a surge of support that powered him past the council’s current president, Felicia Moore, after finishing second to her in November.

Today in History

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — They don’t call Japanese boxer Naoya Inoue “The Monster” for nothing.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities pursued new leads Tuesday on possible sources of live ammunition involved in actor Alec Baldwin's fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of a western movie, as they searched the premises of an Albuquerque-based firearms and ammunition supplier.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduras' ruling party conceded defeat Tuesday in presidential elections held two days earlier, giving victory to leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro and easing fears of another contested vote and violent protests.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — At a playground outside a North Texas day care, giggling preschoolers chase each other into a playhouse. Toddlers scoot by on tricycles.

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Wednesday amid nervous trading due to worries over the newest coronavirus variant.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — At a playground outside a North Texas day care center, giggling preschoolers chase each other into a playhouse. Toddlers scoot by on tricycles. A boy cries as a teacher helps him negotiate over a toy.

Washington (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to toughen testing requirements for international travelers to the U.S., including both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, amid the spread of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus.

NEW YORK (AP) — The first of four women described as key accusers in the indictment against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell testified Tuesday that Maxwell was often in the room when the witness, then just 14, had sexual interactions with the financier Jeffrey Epstein.

CHICAGO (AP) — Two brothers arrested for an alleged attack on Jussie Smollett recounted for Chicago police how the ex-“Empire” actor orchestrated the hoax, telling them via text message to meet him “on the low,” paying for supplies and holding a “dry run” in downtown Chicago, a lead investig…

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — One-time entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, under questioning by prosecutors, struggled Tuesday to recall key events that led to her facing criminal fraud charges for allegedly fleecing investors and customers of her failed blood-testing startup Theranos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by two of its judges and upheld California’s ban on high-capacity magazines Tuesday in a split decision that may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot Daunte Wright will testify at her trial, her attorney said Tuesday as jury selection began with potential panelists questioned closely about their attitudes on policing, protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Brazil and Japan joined the rapidly widening circle of countries to report cases of the omicron variant Tuesday, while new findings indicate the mutant coronavirus was already in Europe close to a week before South Africa sounded the alarm.

WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, visited a children’s vaccination clinic in Washington Tuesday to encourage kids to get a COVID-19 shot.

NEW YORK (AP) — The first officially authorized safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics have been cleared to open in New York City in hopes of curbing deadly overdoses, officials said Tuesday.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA called off a spacewalk Tuesday because of menacing space junk that could puncture an astronaut's suit or damage the International Space Station.

NEW YORK (AP) — Author Alice Sebold publicly apologized Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week in the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir “Lucky" and said she was struggling with the role she played “within a system that sent an innocent man to jail.”

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge should reject a sweeping settlement to thousands of lawsuits against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, a group of states said at a hearing Tuesday, arguing that the protections it extends to members of the Sackler family who own the firm are improper.