NEW YORK – Big Tech continues to steamroll through the pandemic, but much of the rest of Wall Street is struggling Friday, leaving stock indexes mixed.

The S&P 500 was up 0.4% in late trading after flipping between small gains and losses earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 61 points, or 0.2%, at 26,251, as of 3:08 p.m. Eastern time, while strength for tech stocks had the Nasdaq composite up 0.8%.

Despite the modest moves, caution was clearly present across markets as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cloud the economy’s prospects, along with gridlock in Congress that’s holding up more aid for it. The 10-year Treasury yield remains close to its lowest level since it dropped to a record low in March...

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Melissa Hickson says no one asked her husband Michael, shown here with stepdaughter Mia, if he wanted to keep getting treatment. “He would say: ‘I want to live. I love my family and my children … that’s the reason for the three years I have fought to survive,'” she says. Melissa Hickson hide caption

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Melissa Hickson

What Melissa Hickson says happened to her husband — and what the hospital says — are in conflict.

But this much is for sure: Michael Hickson, a 46-year old quadriplegic who’d contracted COVID-19, died at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas, on June 11, after the hospital ended treatment for him and moved him from the ICU to hospice care.

Melissa Hickson says her husband was denied potentially life...

WHITEHORSE—Yukon’s health minister says 13 people fatally overdosed between January and mid-July, more than double the number for all of last year.

Pauline Frost says most of the deaths are linked to opioids as street drugs become more toxic because of a disruption of the regular supply during the pandemic.

Frost says the territory will expand drug testing capacity and provide drug users with kits for crack cocaine and injection use as well as methamphetamine pipes as part of its harm-reduction approach.

She says enhanced training for use of naloxone, a medication to reverse overdoses, will begin next week in Watson Lake.

The community will proclaim August as Overdose Awareness Month in recognition of the severity of the overdose crisis.

Frost called on Yukoners to be compassionate,...

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New rules in Hong Kong require everyone to wear a mask in all outdoor places or face a $650 fine. Above: A masked woman stretches out a public park. Also: The maximum number of people allowed at a public gathering is … 2. Miguel Candela/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett hide caption

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Miguel Candela/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett

Each week, we answer “frequently asked questions” about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you’d like us to consider for a future post, email us at [email protected] with the subject line: “Weekly Coronavirus Questions.”

Hong Kong is seeing its biggest surge in coronavirus cases since the outbreak began.

After periods when the city had gotten the number of domestic cases — infec...

HALIFAX—A Nova Scotia man has been charged in the death of an 85-year-old woman who was found in her home earlier this month.

Sixty-two-year-old Richard George Willis of Truro was arrested Thursday and is to appear in provincial court in Dartmouth at a later date to face charges of first-degree murder and break-and-enter.

The charges by Halifax police are in relation to the death of Eleanor Noreen Harding, whose body was found on July 11 in her Dartmouth home on Lynwood Drive.

The medical examiner’s office completed an autopsy and her death was ruled a homicide.

Willis was arrested in Dartmouth and has remained in custody.

Investigators are seeking to identify anyone who may have picked up someone hitchhiking between Dartmouth and Truro between 2 a.m. and noon on July 10.

tinyurlis...

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People relax on the beach in Miami Beach, Fla. on Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

For the fourth day in a row, Florida set a new record for the number of COVID-19 deaths. 257 deaths were reported Friday and a total of 6,843 people in Florida have died so far from the coronavirus.

Epidemiologists say that number will keep rising following the surge in cases seen over the last six weeks. Jay Wolfson, a public health expert at the University of South Florida says, “What we’re seeing now is the result of the push to open the state. Now, we’ll have to wait to see if it will level out.”

Although Florida is behind only California in the total number...

OKLAHOMA CITY – A murder suspect escaped the Oklahoma County jail in Oklahoma City early Friday by using sheets tied together to climb down the outside of the building from a 12th floor cell, authorities said.

Pablo Robledo, 34, who was being held on a first-degree murder charge, and his cellmate escaped by breaking a window of their cell and climbing down, according to jail spokesman Mac Mullings.

Mullings said Robledo was seen on jail security video about 5:25 a.m. outside the jail. He was being sought Friday.

The cellmate, Jose Hernandez, fell or jumped from the makeshift rope at about the fourth floor and was found and arrested by Oklahoma City police.

Jail records show Robledo had been jailed since June 2019 on murder, assault and battery, domestic abuse and other charges.

Court re...

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, shown here arriving for a news conference in Hong Kong on Friday, is delaying the region’s legislative elections by a year. Kin Cheung/AP hide caption

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Kin Cheung/AP

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam is delaying the region’s legislative elections by a year, citing a resurgence in coronavirus cases.

Critics decry the decision, seen as the latest in a series of recent moves that curb Hong Kong’s limited autonomy, which was guaranteed for 50 years after the end of British rule and its handover to China in 1997.

Lam, who is backed by Beijing, invoked emergency powers — a holdover from the Chinese territory’s colonial era — to postpone the elections, scheduled for Sept. 6, until September 2021.

WASHINGTON – Once a coronavirus vaccine is approved as safe and effective, Americans should have widespread access within a reasonable time, Dr. Anthony Fauci assured lawmakers Friday.

Appearing before a House panel investigating the nation’s response to the pandemic, Fauci expressed “cautious” optimism that a vaccine would be available, particularly by next year.

“I believe, ultimately, over a period of time in 2021, that Americans will be able to get it,” Fauci said, referring to the vaccine.

There will be a priority list for who gets early vaccinations. “I don’t think we will have everybody getting it immediately,” Fauci explained.

But “ultimately, within a reasonable time, the plans allow for any American who needs the vaccine to get it,” he added.

Under direction...

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The federal government is giving out funds to develop seven new testing technologies which could increase testing capacity around the U.S. Charles Krupa/AP hide caption

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Charles Krupa/AP

Americans continue to wait in long lines to get tested for the coronavirus. Many then face frustration and anxiety waiting days — sometimes even weeks — to get their results.

Could technology finally solve the testing woes that have hobbled the nation’s ability to fight the pandemic? The National Institutes of Health hopes so.

On Friday, the NIH announced the first seven winners of a competition to produce next-generation coronavirus tests to help battle the spread of COVID-19. Together, they will receive $248...