SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is likely to have “guidelines and mandates" for wearing masks indoors after the state fully reopens next month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, appearing to walk back comments from the previous day that indicated masks would be gone in nearly all situations.

NEW YORK (AP) — Now that a judge has rejected the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy bid, blocking its plan to reincorporate in Texas, the gun rights group is back to fighting a lawsuit that threatens to put it out of business.

COVID-19 deaths in the United States have tumbled to an average of around 600 per day — the lowest level in 10 months — with the number of lives lost dropping to single digits in well over half the states and, on some days, hitting zero.

DOWNEY, Calif. (AP) — Hoping to grab a share of the spotlight in California's expected recall election, Republican candidate for governor Kevin Faulconer on Wednesday proposed ending the state income tax for individuals making up to $50,000 and households up to $100,000 as part of a plan to …

Ohio's solicitor general on Wednesday urged a panel of appellate judges to hold the U.S. Census Bureau's feet to the fire by issuing an order that would require the statistical agency to release data used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts by mid-August.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row inmate's attorneys on Wednesday asked a court to declare that he cannot be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

DETROIT (AP) — For the next few months, Charlie Gilchrist figures his 11 car dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will sell just about every new vehicle they can get from the factories — and at increased prices.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Sandra Kunz had been worried for her safety while working as a cashier at a Walmart in Aurora, Colorado, during the pandemic, said her sister, Paula Spellman.

WESTMORELAND, N.H. (AP) — Much like the round clock faces, gears and planets that often populate his artwork, Robert Seaman has come full circle.

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) — He scurries through his apartment, downing a quick mug of coffee, brushing his teeth, feeding his pet rabbit, Auggie, before leaving. Not so long ago, Bill Mathis would have headed to his high school classroom to discuss great literature like “To Kill a Mocking…

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) — Teaching high school was Bill Mathis’ dream job, the one he referenced in a childhood journal he still keeps: “I would love to be a teacher,” he scrawled in pencil as a third grader.

DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case Tuesday, leaving the powerful gun-rights group to face a New York state lawsuit that accuses it of financial abuses and aims to put it out of business.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — During the gloomiest stretches of the pandemic, Dr. Diona Krahn's veterinary clinic has been a puppy fest, overrun with new four-legged patients.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The number of unaccompanied children encountered on the U.S. border with Mexico in April eased from an all-time high a month earlier, while more adults were found coming without families, authorities said Tuesday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera reached a tentative agreement Tuesday on a four-year contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists, one of three major labor deals needed for the New York company to resume performances in September.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Buoyed by a large budget surplus and swimming in federal pandemic recovery money, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday proposed $12 billion to get more people experiencing homelessness off the streets and into homes of their own.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman who stabbed her estranged husband's girlfriend to death was found guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — America's commercial casinos matched their best quarter ever in the first three months of this year, as customers continued returning amid the COVID-19 pandemic and internet and sports betting money helped boost revenue numbers.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Three Georgia men pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges Tuesday in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was chased and shot after being spotted running in the white defendants' neighborhood.

NEW YORK (AP) — Reenergized under owner Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post named Associated Press veteran Sally Buzbee as its executive editor Tuesday, making her the first woman in the paper's 144-year history to lead the newsroom.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — U.S. educators are doing everything they can to track down high school students who stopped showing up to classes and to help them get the credits needed to graduate, amid an anticipated surge in the country's dropout rate during the coronavirus pandemic.

STOWE, Vt. (AP) — Eduardo Rovetto is hoping the state of Vermont's reinstated requirement that people who are collecting unemployment benefits must seek work to qualify will help him hire enough staff for his restaurant in the resort town of Stowe.

The U.S. government scientist who helped design one of the first COVID-19 vaccines and then tackled skepticism of the shots in communities of color is moving to Harvard in June.

NEW YORK (AP) — The once-deserted steps outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art are filling up with visitors again. Hotel lobbies are losing their desolate feel. Downtown, people are back to taking selfies with the Charging Bull statue near Wall Street.

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — When the coronavirus pandemic shut down the Levis Jewish Community Center last year, 98-year-old Trudy Berlin sprang into action to keep her weekly women’s group active.

A gene therapy that makes use of an unlikely helper, the AIDS virus, gave a working immune system to 48 babies and toddlers who were born without one, doctors reported Tuesday.

Volunteers at Hindu temples, Muslim groups and Sikh relief organizations across the United States are mobilizing to support India as the world's second most populous country struggles to handle a devastating surge of the coronavirus.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday expanded a drought emergency to a large swath of the nation's most populous state while seeking more than $6 billion in multiyear water spending as one of the warmest, driest springs on record threatens another severe wildfire …

For more than a year now, the state of America's live music industry has been a grim one.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Aided by an astonishing nearly $76 billion budget surplus, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday proposed tax rebates of up to $1,100 for millions of households and more than $7 billion to help people affected by the pandemic cover rent and utilities.

Tyson Foods says it’s raising wages to combat absenteeism and worker turnover at its plants as U.S. demand for chicken soars.

NEW YORK (AP) — It will come as little surprise to its legion of fans that the first professional musical to be mounted in the U.S. during the pandemic was “Godspell.”

After a painful year of joblessness, the future has finally brightened for Alycia St. Germain, a 22-year-old college senior at the University of Minnesota.

DETROIT (AP) — Detroit police Chief James Craig announced Monday that he will retire as head of the city's police force, but he did not immediately reveal his future plans, which could include a run for political office as a Republican.

WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) — After she was picked as commencement speaker for fellow 2020 graduates at Otterbein University, Katie Exline considered focusing her speech on perspective. By the time she finally got to deliver it in front of them this month, they already had some of that.

NEW YORK (AP) — It will come as little surprise to its legion of fans that the first professional musical to be mounted in the U.S. during the pandemic was “Godspell.”

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Among the moneyed du Ponts, who preferred the privacy of their elegant homes and the offices and plants of the chemical company that bore their name, Pierre S. “Pete” du Pont IV was a bit of a rebel.

Though still awaiting money from the latest federal coronavirus relief act, some governors and state lawmakers already are making plans to add the multibillion-dollar boon to their budgets.