Arturo Di Modica, sculptor of Wall Street bull, dies at 80
ROME — The artist who sculpted Charging Bull, the bronze statue in New York which became an iconic symbol of Wall Street, has died in his hometown in Sicily at age 80. Arturo Di Modica died at his home in Vittoria on Friday evening, the town said in a statement...
Moscow court rejects opposition leader Navalny’s appeal
MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Saturday rejected Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s appeal of his prison sentence, even as the country faced an order from a top European rights court to free the Kremlin’s most prominent foe. A few hours later, a judge in a separate case ordered Navalny...
Spain: Peaceful protests for jailed rapper see more looting
BARCELONA, Spain — A fifth night of peaceful protests to denounce the imprisonment of a Spanish rap artist once more devolved into clashes between police and the members of fringe groups who set up street barricades and smashed storefront windows Saturday night in downtown Barcelona. Small groups made up mostly...
The $1B plan to close the gap between growing and shrinking Pa. school districts
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 — When Pennsylvania passed a new formula to distribute money for public schools in 2016, it was hailed as a...
Pennsylvania reports 2,800 more covid cases, 90 deaths
Pennsylvania health officials on Saturday reported 2,818 new coronavirus cases, as hospitalizations and case counts continue to decrease in the Keystone State. The new data bring the total cases to 911,591. That’s a jump of almost 19,300 additional cases from this time last week. Two weeks ago, the increase was...
Pitt students, volunteers create VaccinatePA to connect residents with vaccination infoVideo
The coronavirus vaccine rollout in Pennsylvania has created frustration for state officials and residents alike, with counties creating online registries to help get constituents the information they need and hospitals struggling to minimize wasted vaccine doses. But a group of University of Pittsburgh students, with the help of a couple...
Warmer temps bring relief as cold-weary South starts cleanup
DALLAS — Warmer temperatures spread across the southern United States on Saturday, bringing some relief to a winter weary region that faces a challenging clean-up and expensive repairs from days of extreme cold and widespread power outages. In hard-hit Texas, where millions were warned to boil tap water before drinking...
Debris falls from plane during emergency landing near Denver
Debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto Denver suburbs during an emergency landing Saturday after one of its engines suffered a catastrophic failure and rained pieces of the engine casing on a neighborhood where it narrowly missed a home. The plane landed safely, and nobody aboard or on the...
Weather experts: Lack of planning caused cold catastrophe
This week’s killer freeze in the U.S. was no surprise. Government and private meteorologists saw it coming, some nearly three weeks in advance. They started sounding warnings two weeks ahead of time. They talked to officials. They issued blunt warnings through social media. And yet catastrophe happened. At least 20...
Pennsylvania State Police will escape legislative scrutiny in 2021 budget process
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 — One of the nation’s largest statewide police forces, the Pennsylvania State Police, will not be subject to annual budget...
Unchanged since 1947, Pennsylvania’s 814 area will switch over to 10-digit dialing
Most of Western Pennsylvania has had to dial 10 digits to make a phone call for quite some time now. In the greater Pittsburgh area, the 724 area code wasn’t sufficient to keep pace by 2013, and a third code, 878, was added. But for multiple generations living in the...
G-7 vows ‘equitable’ world vaccine access, but details scant
LONDON — Leaders of the Group of Seven economic powers promised Friday to immunize the world’s neediest people against the coronavirus by giving money, and precious vaccine doses, to a U.N.-backed vaccine distribution effort. But the leaders, under pressure over their vaccination campaigns at home, were unwilling to say exactly...
NASA scientist discusses search for life on Mars: ‘Who knows what we’ll find?’Video
Humans have long wondered about the existence of life on Mars. Now that NASA has landed the technologically advanced Perseverance Rover on the Red Planet, the search for life on Mars is being renewed. On Thursday, NASA performed a direct entry of the Martian atmosphere, surviving what NASA scientists call...
GOP source: Priebus mulling run for Wisconsin governor
MADISON, Wis. — Reince Priebus, a former White House chief of staff to Donald Trump, has called Republican donors and power brokers in Wisconsin to discuss a possible bid for governor or the U.S. Senate next year, according to a GOP strategist who spoke directly with Priebus about his deliberations....
Pennsylvania man charged with firing into Democratic office
NORRISTOWN — A suburban Philadelphia man who said he was stressed over losing his family, the covid-19 shutdown and the “theft of the election” acknowledged firing three shots into a local Democratic Party office last month, prosecutors said. FBI agents linked the shooting to suspect Anthony F. Nero, 48, of...
W.Va. to loosen rules after dip in covid-19 deaths, cases
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has ordered the loosening of pandemic restrictions on businesses after a decline in coronavirus deaths and cases, and he sought the return of all elementary and middle school students to in-person learning. In a flurry of announcements, the governor on Friday said...
Pa. covid hospitalizations, case averages lowest since November
Pennsylvania on Friday reported an additional 2,778 covid-19 cases and 67 deaths, according to the state Department of Health. A total of 908,773 cases and 23,480 deaths have been reported since covid cases were first reported in the state in March. In February, there have been 50,163 cases and 1,819...
Germany sees drop in virus cases flatten as variant surges
BERLIN — The head of Germany’s disease control agency warned Friday that a decline in new coronavirus infections the country saw has leveled off while the share of cases involving more contagious variants is rising. Robert Koch Institute President Lothar Wieler said Germany may be heading toward another “turning point”...
Massive breach fuels calls for U.S. action on cybersecurity
WASHINGTON — Jolted by a sweeping hack that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Russia, U.S. officials are scrambling to reinforce the nation’s cyber defenses and recognizing that an agency created two years ago to protect America’s networks and infrastructure lacks the money, tools and authority to counter...
Lights come back on in Texas as water woes rise in the South
AUSTIN, Texas — Many of the millions of Texans who lost power for days after a deadly winter blast overwhelmed the electric grid now have it back, but the crisis was far from over in parts of the South, with many people lacking safe drinking water. About 325,000 homes and...
It’s final: Harry and Meghan won’t return as working royals
LONDON — Buckingham Palace confirmed Friday that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, will not be returning to royal duties, and Harry will give up his honorary military titles — a decision that makes formal, and final, the couple’s split from the royal family. When Harry and Meghan stepped away...
NASA rover lands on Mars to look for signs of ancient life
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet Thursday, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars. Ground controllers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
Texas constituents take to the internet to take down Sen. Ted Cruz’s trip to MexicoVideo
As the state of Texas was in a deep freeze, Sen. Ted Cruz was feeling the heat. Cruz, who took his family this week to sunny Cancun, Mexico, for a vacation while citizens in the Lone Star State struggled during a deadly winter storm, was raked over the coals Thursday...
Democrats consider piecemeal approach to immigration reformVideo
WASHINGTON — After decades of failed attempts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden are signaling openness to a piece-by-piece approach. They unveiled a broad bill Thursday that would provide an eight-year pathway to citizenship for 11 million people living in the country without legal status....
Philadelphia lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta to run for U.S. SenateVideo
HARRISBURG — A Philadelphia Democrat, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, said Thursday that he is running for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat in the election next year. Kenyatta, 30, is in his second term in the state House of Representatives. Last year, he campaigned around the country for President Joe Biden...
