News category, Page 1143

LONDON — AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine provided strong protection against sickness and eliminated hospitalizations and deaths from the disease across all age groups in a late-stage study in the United States, the company announced Monday. AstraZeneca said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding...

U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican from western New York who was accused last week of rubbing a female lobbyist’s back and unhooking her bra without her consent in 2017, apologized to the woman on Sunday and announced that he will not run for reelection next year. Reed, 49, said...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Bill and Esther Ilnisky spent nearly seven decades together as Christian ministers and missionaries, working in the Caribbean and Middle East before preaching for 40 years in Florida. They complemented each other — he the bookworm, she outgoing and charismatic. One without the other seemed unthinkable....

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kent Taylor, founder and CEO of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, has died. He was 65. His family and the company say he took his own life as a result of suffering from symptoms related to covid-19, including severe tinnitus. Taylor’s family and the company on Sunday...

ATLANTA — A north Fulton County church has voted to remove accused killer Robert Aaron Long from its membership after a shooting spree that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian ancestry. Following its Sunday morning service, Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton said it “completed the process...

BATON ROUGE — Republican Julia Letlow easily won a Saturday special election for the northeast Louisiana-based U.S. House seat that her husband, Luke, couldn’t fill because of his death from complications related to covid-19. With the victory, Julia Letlow becomes the third woman ever elected to the U.S. House from...

Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S. capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said. They said communications intercepted by the National Security Agency in January showed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard discussed mounting “USS Cole-style attacks” against...

HARRISBURG — The World War I exploits of Sgt. Alvin C. York netted Gary Cooper a best actor Academy Award and Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano a degree, a book deal — and academic backlash. Mastriano had a deep interest in York long before he led anti-mask protests last year,...

Not long before the deadly Atlanta-area shootings spread fear and anger through Asian American communities nationwide, police say the attacker made a legal purchase: a 9 mm handgun. Within hours, they say, he had killed eight people, seven of them women and six of Asian descent, in a rampage targeting...

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March. Within six months, the 90-year-old Korean War...

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived Sunday in Kabul on his first trip to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, amid swirling questions about how long American troops will remain in the country. State-owned Radio and Television Afghanistan and popular TOLO Television reported Austin’s arrival in Kabul from India....

Despite the clamor to speed up the U.S. vaccination drive against covid-19 and get the country back to normal, the first three months of the rollout suggest faster is not necessarily better. A surprising new analysis found that states such as South Carolina, Florida and Missouri that raced ahead of...

State lawmakers are weighing sweeping changes to Pennsylvania’s election laws as candidates cautiously test the waters for a 2022 mid-term election that could once again put the state in the bull’s-eye of the national debate over election reform. In Pennsylvania, where unsuccessful court challenges to the 2020 presidential election continued...

MIAMI — Officials are imposing an emergency 8 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew for Miami Beach, effective immediately after hard partying Spring Breakers trashed restaurants, brawled in the streets and gathered by the thousands without masks or social distancing, according to authorities. At a news conference, officials blamed overwhelming and out-of-control spring...

WASHINGTON — At least one group in America is unlikely to get any money from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan — his own top aides. Most of Biden’s senior West Wing advisers made far more than the threshold that would qualify them for direct payments from the...

WOODBURY, N.J. — A man charged with beating to death a New Jersey resident he says sexually abused him as a child now claims he has killed a total of 16 people, including his ex-wife and three others in New Mexico, officials said. Authorities have not corroborated his claim. Sean...

A former priest and two women are facing charges for having sex on the altar of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River, La. The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate reports a passerby spotted lights on inside the church. Looking into the church’s windows and glass doors, the...

Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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 — There are many ways to measure the pain being felt by people in Cumberland County. More families in the...

LONDON — The U.K. says half of the country’s adults have received at least one dose of covid-19 vaccine. The National Health Service has put shots in the arms of 26.9 million people, or 51% of the adult population, according to the latest government statistics. The NHS passed the halfway...

PHILADELPHIA — Gunfire at an illegal large gathering in north Philadelphia killed one person and wounded five others while sending scores of people fleeing, authorities said. The gunfire erupted at about 3:45 a.m. Saturday inside and outside of a rental hall adjacent to Hot Pot Cuisine in the Nicetown neighborhood,...

BERLIN — Protesters in Germany clashed with police Saturday over coronavirus measures, with officers using water cannons, pepper spray and batons against people trying to break through police barriers, German news agency dpa reported. Protests against government measures to rein in the pandemic also were reported in several other countries...

ATHENS, Greece — The interior ministers of the five Mediterranean countries on the front line of mass migration to Europe want their EU partners to share the burden more equitably. “We can no longer be punished for our geographical position,” Malta’s Byron Camilleri said Saturday, summing up his position and...

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — The eruption of a long-dormant volcano that sent streams of lava flowing across a small valley in southwestern Iceland is easing and shouldn’t interfere with air travel, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said Saturday. The fissure eruption began at around 8:45 p.m. Friday in the Geldinga Valley, about...