Joining in the Reindeer Games

Pulled from a sunken trunk at an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina, work pants that auction officials describe as the oldest known pair of jeans in the world have sold for $114,000. The white, heavy-duty miner’s pants with a five-button-fly were among 270 Gold Rush-era artifacts that sold for a total of nearly $1 million at an auction in Reno last weekend. There’s disagreement about whether the pants have any ties to the father of modern-day blue jeans. Officials for Levi Strauss & Co. say any claims about their origin is speculation because they predate the first jeans the San Francisco-based company officially manufactured in 1873.

North Carolina drag performers and LGBTQ community members fear for their safety after an attack on the electrical grid in Moore County left tens of thousands without power for several days. Authorities have said two power substations were shot up by one or more people with apparent criminal intent Saturday evening. The attack cut power to a drag show happening simultaneously in Southern Pines that had been the target of protests. While police have not drawn a connection between the drag event and the outages, the incident intensified concerns in the local LGBTQ community.

Authorities in North Carolina are seeking search warrants related to the shooting of electric substations in Moore County that caused widespread power outages. FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch confirmed Thursday that the agency is seeking cell phone records that could indicate who was near the substations Saturday night. She said such search warrant applications “are a normal step in a law enforcement investigation.” Richard Maness, chief deputy of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office, told The News & Observer that detectives have requested court approval for several warrants. He declined to provide specifics. The shootings had cut power to 45,000 customers as well as schools and a hospital.

One of the world's most ruthless pirates hid in plain sight in the American colonies, according to new evidence. A historian and metal detectorist in Rhode Island says that he’s unearthed 26 silver coins with Arabic inscriptions that notorious English pirate Henry Every once seized from an armed Indian ship. The 1695 heist made Every the target of the first worldwide manhunt. Detectorists say that before he fled to the Bahamas and then vanished, Every first hid out in New England.

Duke Energy says it has completed repairs on substation equipment damaged in shootings over the weekend and restored power thousands of customers who lost electricity in a central North Carolina county.  All but a handful of households in Moore County had regained power as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, according to Duke Energy’s outage map. A peak of more than 45,000 customers lost power over the weekend. Authorities have said the outages began shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday night after one or more people drove up to two substations, breached the gates and opened fire on them. Police have not released a motive.

Duke Energy says it expects to be able to restore power by Wednesday night to a county where electric substations were attacked by gunfire. Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said the company expects to have power back Wednesday just before midnight in Moore County. The company had previously estimated it would be restored Thursday morning. About 35,000 Duke energy customers were still without power Tuesday, down from more than 45,000 at the height of the outage Saturday. Authorities have said the outages began shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday night after one or more people drove up to two substations, breached the gates and opened fire on them.

The former Minneapolis police officer who held down George Floyd’s back as one of his colleagues kneeled on the Black man’s neck has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison. J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty in October to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. He is already serving a federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, and the state and federal sentence will be served at the same time. Kueng appeared at his sentencing via a video feed from a federal prison in Ohio. When given the chance to address the court, he declined.

Federal data shows that a spill dumping almost enough oil to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool into a northeastern Kansas creek this week is the largest for an onshore crude pipeline in nine years. It also shows that its operator was allowed to exceed typical maximum pressure levels. The Keystone pipeline spill was in a creek running through rural pastureland in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City. U.S. Department of Transportation data shows that it was the biggest in the system’s history. Canada-based operator TC Energy said the spill was about 14,000 barrels, or 588,000 gallons. Both it and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday the spill was contained, though cleanup efforts will continue into next week.

Highlights from the 18th day of the World Cup in Qatar on Friday.

Pulled from a sunken trunk at an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina, work pants that auction officials describe as the oldest known pair of jeans in the world have sold for $114,000. The white, heavy-duty miner’s pants with a five-button-fly were among 270 Gold Rush-era artifacts that sold for a total of nearly $1 million at an auction in Reno last weekend. There’s disagreement about whether the pants have any ties to the father of modern-day blue jeans. Officials for Levi Strauss & Co. say any claims about their origin is speculation because they predate the first jeans the San Francisco-based company officially manufactured in 1873.

Stocks closed lower on Wall Street after a report showed inflation is slowing, though not by as much as hoped. The S&P 500 fell 0.7% Friday, marking its first losing week in the last three. The weakness came after the U.S. government reported that prices at the wholesale level were 7.4% higher in November than a year earlier. That’s a slowdown from October but worse than economists expected. High inflation, along with the Federal Reserve’s economy-crunching response to it, have been the main reasons for the stock market's painful tumble this year. Treasury yields rose.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.