News category, Page 1224

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Rebekah Jones, a fired covid-19 data manager for the state of Florida, is suing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement over a police raid on her house. Jones’ lawsuit alleges that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement violated her constitutional rights, as well as state law,...

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania man is facing charges of unlawful voting and perjury after prosecutors say he illegally voted on behalf of a long-dead family member in the General Election. Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said during a news conference Monday that Bruce Bartman, 70, of Marple, voted in...

ATLANTA — The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a Republican Party effort to reject more absentee ballots in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs by changing how election officials check absentee ballot signatures. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously on Sunday against the lawsuit brought by the political campaigns of...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Eight acrobats severely injured when the rigging suspending them by their hair plummeted to the floor during a circus performance in Rhode Island in 2014 have reached a $52.5 million settlement with the ownership and management of the arena where the circus was held, their lawyer confirmed...

Even with the arrival of vaccines, the pandemic is all but certain to continue to grip Pennsylvania when voters go to the polls for the municipal primary on May 18. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, who himself suffered from covid-19 in the spring, does not want mail-in ballots to be available...

NEWARK, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe. The president-elect took a dose of Pfizer vaccine at a hospital not far from his Delaware...

RIO LINDA, Calif. — Santa found himself a little more tied up than usual this time of year. A Northern California man impersonating Santa Claus and flying on a powered parachute was rescued Sunday after he became entangled in power lines, authorities said. The incident happened shortly after the man...

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano on the Big Island erupted and shot a steam and ash cloud into the atmosphere that lasted about an hour, an official with the National Weather Service said early Monday. The eruption began late Sunday within Kilauea’s summit crater, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The crater, named...

TORONTO — Ontario on Monday announced a province-wide shutdown because of a second wave of covid-19 in Canada’s most populous province. The lockdown will be put in place for southern Ontario from Dec. 26 until Jan. 23, but will lift for northern Ontario on Jan. 9. One top infectious disease...

Health officials said there were 15,100 new cases of coronavirus over the past two days — 19% less than this time last week. The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced 7,213 covid-19 cases on Sunday and another 7,887 cases on Monday. Of the two-day new cases, 90% (13,653) were confirmed through...

AMSTERDAM — The European Union on Monday gave official approval for the coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer to be put onto the market across the 27-nation bloc. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the commission “took the decision to make available for European citizens the first...

WASHINGTON — A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that has represented Virginia in the U.S. Capitol for 111 years has been removed. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement that workers removed the statue from the National Statuary Hall Collection early Monday morning. Northam had requested the...

WASHINGTON — Trump administration political appointees tried to block or change more than a dozen government reports that detailed scientific findings about the spread of the coronavirus, a House panel investigating the alleged interference said Monday. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said his coronavirus subcommittee investigators have found evidence of a...

ROME — An explosion in a gunpowder processing factory in a town in south-central Italy on Monday killed three people, Italian media said. The ANSA news agency quoted Casalbordino Mayor Filippo Marinucci at the scene as providing the death toll. Italian firefighters were called to help at the site of...

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr used his final public appearance to undercut President Donald Trump on multiple fronts Monday, saying he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president’s claims about the 2020 election or to name one for the tax investigation of President-elect...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday unsealed charges accusing a Libyan bomb expert in the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, an attack that killed 259 people in the air and an additional 11 on the ground. The charges were announced on the 32nd anniversary...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Monday declared that it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive covid-19 vaccines based on research that used fetal tissue from abortions. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, said it had received several requests...

LONDON — Trucks waiting to get out of Britain backed up for miles and people were left stranded at airports Monday as countries around the world slapped tough travel restrictions on the U.K. because of a new and seemingly more contagious strain of the coronavirus in England. A growing number...

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has announced that a new variant of the covid-19 virus is driving the country’s resurgence of the disease, with higher numbers of confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths. According to health officials and scientists leading the country’s virus strategy, the new variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant...

BERLIN — A German court on Monday convicted a right-wing extremist of murder and attempted murder and sentenced him to life in prison for his attack on a synagogue last year on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day. He killed two people after he failed to gain entry to the building....

HONOLULU, Hawaii — The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island has erupted, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The eruption began late Sunday within the within Halema’uma’u crater. The volcano is located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. A magnitude 4.4 earthquake hit about an hour after the volcano began erupting. The...

ROME — Pope Francis urged Vatican bureaucrats on Monday to stop their gossipy, self-absorbed conflicts, issuing another tough-love Christmas message at the end of a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic and a financial scandal at the Holy See. Francis gathered his cardinals, bishops and Vatican prelates for his annual...

WASHINGTON — After months of Washington gridlock, Congress is set to act on a $900 billion pandemic relief package, finally delivering long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and resources to vaccinate a nation confronting a frightening surge in covid-19 cases and deaths. The relief package, agreed to on Sunday and...