Election Code proposals trigger debate in Harrisburg as hearings progress
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 sets earlier curfew after spring break crowds, fights
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...
Biden’s top aides unlikely to qualify for relief payments
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...
Prosecutor: Man accused of 1 murder says he really killed 16
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...
New Orleans D.A.: Priest, 2 dominatrices face vandalism charges after having sex on altar
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...
A huge spike in Medicaid enrollment in Pa. shows how devastating the coronavirus has been
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...
U.K. says half of all adults there have received 1 dose of virus vaccine
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...
Police say gunfire at illegal large gathering in Philadelphia kills 1, wounds 5
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,...
Germany: police clash with protesters against virus measures
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...
5 nations demand better EU sharing of migration load
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...
Eruption of Iceland volcano easing, not affecting flights
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...
Murrysville native recruits fellow MIT students, others to battle social isolation among seniorsVideo
Bhav Jain, 19, of Murrysville knows how he felt during the early stages of covid, forced to return home from his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to learn from home. But even now, back in Boston to finish up his sophomore year, Jain is still thinking the...
Biden, Harris offer solace, denounce racism in Atlanta visit
ATLANTA — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris offered solace to Asian Americans and denounced the scourge of racism at times hidden “in plain sight” as they visited Atlanta on Friday, just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them Asian American women. Addressing the...
2 journalists detained as Myanmar junta clamps down on press
YANGON, Myanmar — Two more journalists were detained in Myanmar on Friday, part of the junta’s intensifying efforts to choke off information about resistance to last month’s coup. Mizzima News reported that one of its former reporters, Than Htike Aung, and Aung Thura, a journalist from the BBC’s Burmese-language service,...
Attacked Georgia spas had been targeted by prostitution stings
ATLANTA — Two Atlanta area massage businesses where a gunman waged a deadly assault this week had been repeatedly targeted in police prostitution investigations over the years, raising questions about the mayor’s earlier comments that the spas operated legally. Police records show officers went to the businesses at least 21...
Mexico launches crackdown on migrant smuggling
MEXICO CITY — In a rare show of force Friday, Mexico sent hundreds of immigration agents, police and National Guard officers marching through the streets of the capital of the southern state of Chiapas to launch an operation to crack down on migrant smuggling. The parade Friday in the city...
Russian national pleads guilty in $150 million kickback plot
NEW BERN, N.C. — A Russian national living in North Carolina has pleaded guilty to bribery and other charges after prosecutors say he received more than $150 million in kickbacks from contractors seeking deals with the Russian military. Leonid Teyf, 59, of Raleigh, pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in...
No charges for Texas officer in killing of college student
DENTON, Texas — A grand jury declined to indict a North Texas police officer in the fatal shooting of a college student who had refused to drop a frying pan and a cleaver and then advanced toward police with the pan. The Denton County grand jury made the decision Thursday...
U.S., China spar in 1st face-to-face meetings under Biden
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Top U.S. and Chinese officials met again Friday after sparring over sharply different views of each other and the world in their first face-to-face talks since President Joe Biden took office. The two sides gathered for a new session a day after a contentious opening in which...
Montana lawmakers revisit dress code some call sexist
Montana lawmakers have revived a dress code that drew accusations of sexism when it was first introduced ahead of the 2015 legislative session before being tabled without ever taking effect. The dress code made a reappearance Thursday in response to a Republican lawmaker’s objection to a male Democrat’s decision not...
Vaccine withheld from hospital that gave Trump Tower shots
The city of Chicago on Thursday decided to withhold first doses of covid-19 vaccines from a hospital that improperly administered vaccinations to Trump Tower workers. The withholding of vaccines comes as the city conducts a review of actions by Loretto Hospital, whose president said in a memo to hospital staff...
4 men linked to Proud Boys charged in plot to attack Capitol
Four men described as leaders of the far-right Proud Boys have been charged in the U.S. Capitol riots, as an indictment ordered unsealed on Friday presents fresh evidence of how federal officials believe group members planned and carried out a coordinated attack to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s...
West Virginia announces 20 more unreported covid-19 deaths
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Friday that 20 coronavirus deaths went unreported, on top of the 165 deaths he announced last week that were previously not publicized. The Republican governor vowed a “complete investigation, all the way down, to pinpoint exactly where the shortcomings are.” Those...
Pa. expiration date for license to carry firearms extended again
Pennsylvania gun owners received another extension on license-to-carry permits, the sixth extension Gov. Tom Wolf has issued since the covid-19 pandemic began. The previous extension, issued late last year, was set to expire at the end of the month. Wolf has issued extensions every few months for a year now...
You’ll need more cash to play Pa. Lottery’s Cash 5
It will take double the cash to play Cash 5, the Pennsylvania Lottery’s longest-running jackpot game. The base ticket price will jump from $1 to $2, and Cash 5 will offer a revised game with a chance to win more prizes, the Pennsylvania Lottery announced. The changes will begin with...
