BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic ushered in what may be the most rapid rise in homeschooling the U.S. has ever seen. Two years later, even after schools reopened and vaccines became widely available, many parents have chosen to continue directing their children’s educations themselves.

Firefighters scouted the drought-stricken mountainsides around a New Mexico village on Wednesday as they looked for opportunities to slow a wind-driven wildfire that a day earlier had burned at least 150 homes and other structures while displacing thousands of residents and forcing the evacuation of two schools.

SALADO, Texas (AP) — Nearly two dozen people were injured when tornadoes swept through central Texas as part of a storm system that was expected to spawn more twisters and damaging winds Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Last year was the deadliest in U.S. history, and new data and research are offering more insights into how it got that bad.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Two families with transgender teens and two physicians sued the state of Alabama on Monday to overturn a law that makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.

A Texas district attorney said Sunday that he will ask a judge to dismiss a murder charge against a woman over a self-induced abortion.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice and giving …

Officials in Michigan are set to break ground on one of the few state-specific World War II memorials in the country. The first phase of the memorial includes the laying of more than 1,200 donated Walk of Honor paver bricks and the installation of both a statue called “Joe,” which depicts a soldier in a foxhole reading a letter from home, and flagpoles representing all military branches. A groundbreaking was scheduled for Thursday. Future phases are to feature a Wall of Stars honoring the 15,000-plus Michigan lives lost during World War II; additional statues, including one dedicated to Rosie the Riveter; an amphitheater and a colonnade of pillars. The memorial, recognized by the Legislature as the state’s tribute to the war, is to be built in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The mass killing that left six people dead and 12 wounded outside bars just blocks from California’s Capitol last weekend was a gunfight involving at least five shooters from rival gangs, Sacramento police said Wednesday.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Mary Gray hadn't even made it all the way to the first tee at Augusta National Golf Club when the reality of the protective bubble that settles over the course during Masters' …

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Violent storms killed one person in Texas on Tuesday as hail pelted communities and high winds knocked trees into power poles elsewhere in the South. Authorities issued a flurry of tornado warnings at the start of what could be two days of violent weather in the region.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sacramento police arrested a man Monday connected to the shooting that killed six people and wounded a dozen others in the heart of California’s capital as multiple shooters fired more than 100 rapid-fire rounds and people ran for their lives.

SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) — At least two shooters opened fire before dawn Sunday in Sacramento in the city's second mass shooting in five weeks, killing six people and wounding 12 others, police said.

ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) — Attorneys for a former Kentucky clerk who wouldn't issue marriage licenses to two same-sex couples have appealed a federal court ruling that she violated the couples' constitutional rights and might have to pay damages.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — COVID-19 hospitalization numbers have plunged to their lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic, offering a much needed break to health care workers and patients alike following the omicron surge.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — As the United States prepares to accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees following Russia's invasion of their country, existing communities in cities like Sacramento and Seattle are already mobilizing to provide food, shelter and support to those fleeing the war.

Severe storms that included at least two confirmed tornadoes injured several people Wednesday, damaged homes and businesses and downed power lines in Mississippi and Tennessee after they spread damage in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas overnight before moving to the Deep South.

A NASA astronaut caught a Russian ride back to Earth on Wednesday after a U.S. record 355 days at the International Space Station, returning with two cosmonauts to a world torn apart by war.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Bird flu continues to spread across the state prompting Nebraska agriculture officials to ban all auctions and fair events involving poultry.

RZESZOW, Poland (AP) — President Joe Biden visited U.S. troops stationed near Poland’s border with Ukraine on Friday and was getting a first hand look at the growing humanitarian response to the millions of Ukrainians who are fleeing to Poland to escape Russia’s assault on their homeland.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A 14-year-old boy fell to his death late at night from a free-fall amusement park ride that is taller than the Statue of Liberty along a busy street in the heart of Orlando's tourist district.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Thursday that states must accommodate the wishes of death row inmates who want to have their pastors pray aloud and even touch them during their executions.

ARABI, La. (AP) — A tornado that menaced New Orleans flipped a schoolbus, ripped off rooftops and deposited a house with a family inside onto the middle of Prosperity Street. Two people were killed as the storm front blew across the South.

RABI, Louisiana (AP) — The tornado that ripped through a New Orleans suburb lifted one house into the air and dropped it onto the middle of a street with a family inside.