Pa. health officials request $124 million in pandemic-related emergency contracts as GOP calls for oversight
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. Wolf administration officials doubled down this week on pursuing more than $100 million in new pandemic-related emergency contracts as they faced...
Tom Barrack to be freed on $250 million bail ahead of criminal trial
Tom Barrack will be freed on $250 million bond as he awaits trial on charges he illegally lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Barrack, the founder of Colony Capital Inc. and a Trump ally, has been in a San Bernardino jail since his arrest Tuesday...
Killer says he regrets kidnapping Amish teen, fails to offer motive: ‘I knew better than this’
Justo Smoker said he drank two bottles of liquor the day before he snatched Linda Stoltzfoos in broad daylight off a road not far from her Lancaster County home. Just before the abduction, he had bought beer from Sheetz, his attorney said, who described his client as an alcoholic when...
Firefighters officially end search in Florida condo collapse
Firefighters officially ended their search for bodies in the debris of the collapsed Surfside condo building on Friday, even as police and forensic specialists continue working to identify human remains. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told The Associated Press that the fire department’s role in recovering remains at the...
Pa. Republicans criticize decision to decertify voting machines
HARRISBURG — Republican state lawmakers are criticizing the decision by Pennsylvania’s top election official to decertify the voting machines a sparsely populated county used in the 2020 presidential election. Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid decertified the machines after Fulton County disclosed it had agreed to requests by local Republican...
Confederate bust moved from Tennessee Capitol building
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The bust of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader that had been displayed prominently inside of the Tennessee Capitol for decades was removed from its pedestal on Friday. The image of Nathan Bedford Forrest has sparked protests ever since its installation in 1978. Some...
Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
BLY, Ore. — The nation’s largest wildfire raged through southern Oregon on Friday but crews were scaling back some night operations as hard work and weaker winds helped reduce the spread of flames even as wildfires continued to threaten homes in neighboring California. The Bootleg Fire, which has destroyed an...
Crafty cockatoos master dumpster diving and teach each other
WASHINGTON — A few years ago, a Sydney scientist noticed a sulfur-crested cockatoo opening his trash bin. Not every resident would be thrilled, but ornithologist Richard Major was impressed by the ingenuity. It’s quite a feat for a bird to grasp a bin lid with its beak, pry it open,...
Mississippi argues Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade
JACKSON, Miss. — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and let states decide whether to regulate abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb, the office of Mississippi’s Republican attorney general argued in papers filed Thursday with the high court. “Under...
House passes bill to authorize 8,000 more visas for Afghan allies
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to authorize an additional 8,000 special immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters, contractors and other vulnerable U.S. allies. The bill would also expand eligibility to family members of SIV applicants who have been killed, as well as Afghans who worked with certain...
DOJ won’t investigate how Pennsylvania handled nursing homes
HARRISBURG — The Justice Department told Gov. Tom Wolf’s office on Thursday that it has decided not to open an investigation into whether Pennsylvania violated federal law by ordering nursing homes to accept residents who had been treated for covid-19 in a hospital. The letter comes 11 months after the...
China rebuffs WHO’s terms for further covid-19 origins studyVideo
BEIJING — China cannot accept the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a study into the origins of covid-19, a senior Chinese health official said Thursday. Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission, said he was “rather taken aback” that the plan includes further...
Gov. Tom Wolf says his position on voter ID has not changed
LOGANVILLE — With talks on wider election-related legislation at a standstill, Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday that his position on expanding Pennsylvania’s voter identification requirements has not changed, and that he is against anything that would “suppress the vote.” An expansion of Pennsylvania’s voter ID requirements became one of the...
Pennsylvania Supreme Court says leaving scene of triple fatal is 1 charge, not 3
HARRISBURG — A truck driver who killed three people on an interstate outside Harrisburg can’t be sentenced to three consecutive prison terms for leaving the scene of the crash he caused while driving drunk, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The high court unanimously overturned a county judge’s decision to...
Senate bill would require women to register for the draft
WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee included language in its version of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to require women, for the first time, to register for the draft. Congress has debated for several years whether to require women to sign up with the Selective Service, as...
Dems renew questions about FBI background check of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are raising new concerns about the thoroughness of the FBI’s background investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after the FBI revealed that it had received thousands of tips and had provided “all relevant” ones to the White House counsel’s office. FBI Director Christopher Wray, responding...
Tennessee governor defends agency’s vaccine chief firing, outreach rollbackVideo
NASHVILLE — Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday came out in full defense of his administration’s firing of the state’s vaccination chief and rollback of outreach for childhood vaccines, both of which have sparked national scrutiny over Tennessee’s inoculation efforts against covid-19. “Government needs to provide information and education, provide...
Pennsylvania House Democrat Rep. Margo Davidson charged with theft, is resigning seat
HARRISBURG — A Democratic state representative from just outside Philadelphia issued a statement saying she’s resigning after being charged Thursday with theft and other offenses over her expense reimbursements. Delaware County state Rep. Margo Davidson, 58, was released on her own recognizance after appearing in a Harrisburg district court courtroom....
Pelosi says Jan. 6 panel to move ahead without GOP’s choices
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection “will do the job it set out to do” despite Republicans’ vow to boycott the probe. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Wednesday that Republicans won’t participate after Pelosi rejected two of the Republicans he chose...
Police: Man defrauded Chinese pop singer in sex scandal
BEIJING — A man has confessed to defrauding a Chinese-Canadian pop singer, Kris Wu, over a teenager’s accusation he had sex with her when she was drunk, Beijing police said Thursday. The announcement added a bizarre twist to a scandal that cost Wu endorsement contracts with brands including Porsche and...
Death rates soar in Southeast Asia as virus wave spreads
Indonesia has converted nearly its entire oxygen production to medical use just to meet the demand from covid-19 patients struggling to breathe. Overflowing hospitals in Malaysia had to resort to treating patients on the floor. And in Myanmar’s largest city, graveyard workers have been laboring day and night to keep...
Indictment: Ohio man who hates women planned shooting at sorority
CLEVELAND — A man who identifies with a group that despises women appeared in federal court Wednesday in Cincinnati on charges related to his plans to kill sorority members at an unidentified university in Ohio, authorities said. Tres Genco, 21, of Hillsboro, Ohio, is charged with an attempted hated crime...
Nursing homes would provide more direct care to residents under proposed Pa. rule
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — The Wolf administration on Wednesday released a long-awaited update to Pennsylvania’s decades-old nursing home regulations, acknowledging it must raise...
Cocaine disguised as cake seized from vehicle in Maine
A New York man and a Maine woman are facing charges over cocaine disguised as a cake that was seized from their vehicle, the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency said Wednesday. Acting on a tip, police stopped the car on Interstate 295 in Gardiner on Tuesday, and a drug-sniffing dog found...
Opioid settlement could funnel $1 billion to Pennsylvania drug prevention, treatment
Pennsylvania could be in line to collect up to $1 billion in two massive multi-state lawsuit settlements with four companies that distributed and/or manufactured prescription opioids. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, one of the lead negotiators in the case, said the settlements call for three of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical...
