COLU @ CONCEPTS

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s Metropolitan Opera on Sunday said it was suspending its relationship with longtime conductor James Levine pending an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him. “Mr. Levine will not be involved in any Met activities, including conducting scheduled performances at the Met this season,” the Met said in a statement. The Met also said it has appointed attorney Robert J. Cleary, a former U.S. attorney and the current head of the investigations practice at the Proskauer Rose law firm, to lead the investigation into the allegations that took place from the 1960s to 1980s. The move to suspend Levine came a day after the New York Post first reported that one of Levine’s accusers claimed he had sexual contact with Levine as a teenager. Met officials said they were launching an investigation. Then on Sunday, The New York Times reported similar accounts from two other men accusing Levine of sexual misconduct. One of Levine’s acc...

NEW YORK (AP) — Billy Bush said it was indeed Donald Trump’s voice captured on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape talking about fame enabling him to grope and try to have sex with women. “Of course he said it,” the former “Access Hollywood” and “Today” show personality said in an op-ed published Sunday in The New York Times. The video shows Trump, who was the star of “The Apprentice,” riding on an “Access Hollywood” bus with then-host Bush. At one point, Trump describes trying to have sex with a married woman. He also brags about women letting him kiss and grab them because he is famous. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.” “Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real. We now know better,” Bush said in the op-ed. The recording of the lewd conversation b...

CVS Health wants to do much more than fill your prescription or jab your arm with an annual flu shot. The second-largest U.S. drugstore chain is buying Aetna, the third-largest health insurer, in order to push much deeper into customer care. The evolution won’t happen overnight, but in time, shoppers may find more clinics in CVS stores and more services they can receive through the network of nearly 10,000 locations that the company has built. “They’ll be pretty much a soup-to-nuts health company ... except for the hospital part of it,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting and research firm. Patients also may find the CVS-Aetna combination much more involved in managing their care, especially for those with expensive chronic conditions like diabetes. The bulked-up company also may gain more negotiating leverage over prescription drug prices, but it’s far too early to say how much or whether that benefit will trickle down to custo...

TOKYO (AP) — Kim. Nuclear. War. Nothing sums up the message embedded in North Korea’s propaganda better than those three words. That’s exactly what the world hears — and what’s revealed in this word cloud, a visual display of terms used by the Korean Central News Agency’s English-language service. The Associated Press boiled down 1,542 stories filed between July 1 and Oct. 11 by the official North Korean news agency to a list of the 183 words that appear most frequently. The resulting word cloud reveals some of the key patterns Pyongyang employs in its rhetorical wars with Washington. Just as important, it reflects the way the government wants to be seen by the outside world. ___ ‘KIM’ AND ‘NUCLEAR’ “Kim” alongside the words that appear near it most. (AP Graphic/Penny Yi Wang) The first takeaway (no surprise) is that North Korean propagandists spend nearly all of their time hailing be-all-end-all leader Kim Jong Un. The appearance of his surname in KCNA reports...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Hundreds of aircraft including two dozen stealth jets began training Monday as the United States and South Korea launched a massive combined air force exercise. The war games come a week after North Korea test-fired its most powerful missile ever, an ICBM that may be able to target the eastern seaboard of the United States. The five-day drill, which is called Vigilant Ace, is meant to improve the allies’ wartime capabilities and preparedness, South Korea’s defense ministry said. The U.S. Seventh Air Force sent major strategic military assets, including an unusually large number of the latest generations of stealth fighter jets, for the annual training in the Korean Peninsula. They include six F-22 and 18 F-35 stealth fighter jets. About 12,000 U.S. military personnel are participating. In total, 230 aircraft will be flying at eight U.S. and South Korean military installations in the South. An official at the South Korean Defense Ministry, who spoke ...

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The three women tensed as their taxi approached the checkpoint manned by Islamic State group fighters. Everyone in Mosul dreaded checkpoints; you could never predict what these gunmen might do in their fanatic drive to crush the slightest hint of “sin.” One of them peered at the girl in the back seat, Ferah. The 14-year-old wore the required veil over her face, but she had forgotten to lower the flap that also hid her eyes. A fighter barked at her to close it. But Ferah was not wearing her gloves, which were also required. If she fixed her veil, they would see her bare hands, and things would only get worse. Ferah studies for an exam in Irbil, Iraq, in this photo taken Nov. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) She shrank in her seat, trying to disappear. The gunmen exploded, screaming that they would take Ferah, her mom and her sister to the Hisba, the feared religious police who punished violators of IS’s orders. They pulled the driver out and quest...