A cluster of tarp-covered tents in a grassy lot south of Seattle highlights the strain facing many communities are facing.

A zebra that has been hoofing through the foothills of western Washington for days was recaptured Friday evening nearly a week after she escaped with three other zebras from a trailer near Seattle.

Threatening letters sent to local election offices in at least five states, some including fentanyl, are the latest concern for local election workers around the country.

The county that encompasses Manhattan added more than 17,000 residents in the year ending last July.

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2020, file photo, a worker wearing gloves, and other PPE holds a tablet computer as he waits to check people at a King County coronavirus testing site in Auburn, Wash., south of Seattle. The latest surge in U.S. coronavirus cases appears to be larger and more widespread than the two previous ones, and it is all but certain to get worse. But experts say there are also reasons to think the nation is better able to deal with the virus this time around. Several states posted records Tuesday, including over 12,600 new cases in Illinois, 10,800 in Texas and 7,000 in Wisconsin. Governors made increasingly desperate pleas for people to take the fight against the virus more seriously.

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABSENTEE VOTING AND MAIL VOTING? Absentee voting, the president sometimes argues, means someone has to request a ballot as opposed to automatically getting one in the mail, which he calls mail voting. The problem is that some states call ballots that people request through the mail “mail ballots.” Others call them absentee ballots. There is one system that stands out, what is known as universal mail voting. AP’s Advance Voting guide brings you the facts about voting early, by mail or absentee from each state: https://interactives.ap.org/advance-voting-2020/

All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, and most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle. The number of cases in the U.S. overall climbed past 100 scattered across at least 14 states, with 27 in Washington. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed skepticism about U.S. health officials' claims that testing for the new virus should be widely available by the end of the week. But health officials were careful about making hard promises. In Washington state, researchers believe the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks.