Two new British studies provide some early hints that the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be milder than the delta version.

They both carved out sterling reputations as military and political leaders over years of public service. But both also saw their legacies tarnished by their actions in the long, bloody war in Iraq.

BEIJING (AP) — To help make China a self-reliant “technology superpower,” the ruling Communist Party is pushing the world’s biggest e-commerce company to take on the tricky, expensive business of designing its own processor chips — a business unlike anything Alibaba Group has done before.

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of flights were cancelled Wednesday as the omicron variant creates havoc both for travelers and for airlines that are having to cobble together flight crews as pilots, flight attendants and ground crews become infected or are exposed to others who have been.

Stocks edged mostly higher on Wall Street in afternoon trading Wednesday, putting the S&P 500 within striking distance of another all-time high.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An effort to reflect the rapid growth of Pennsylvania’s Hispanic population in newly drawn districts for the state’s predominantly white state Legislature is drawing criticism that it didn’t exactly accomplish that mission.

The U.S. flu season has arrived on schedule after taking a year off, with flu hospitalizations rising and two child deaths reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices surged again in October as the housing market continues to boom in the wake of last year’s coronavirus recession.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials on Monday cut isolation restrictions for Americans who catch the coronavirus from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.

Technology companies led U.S. stocks broadly higher Monday, extending the market’s recent rally and nudging the S&P 500 to another all-time high.

BANGKOK (AP) — Major world share benchmarks were mixed at the outset of the last trading week of the year as countries grappled with the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The state Supreme Court on Thursday released its rationale for why it ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration had no legal authority to require masks in Pennsylvania’s schools and child care centers, even amid a pandemic and surging cases of COVID-19.

NEW YORK (AP) — Flight cancellations that disrupted holiday travel stretched into Monday as airlines called off thousands more flights because crews were sick with COVID-19 during one of the year’s busiest travel periods, and storm fronts added to the havoc.

Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure.

Surging prices are haunting consumers and confounding economic planners in the U.S. and other countries, but not in Japan, where sparking inflation has proven an elusive goal.