Justice Dept. charges bombmaker in 1988 Pan Am explosion
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: OK to get virus vaccines using abortion cell lines
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...
Britain hit with travel bans over new coronavirus strain
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...
South Africa says new strain driving resurgence
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...
German court convicts man of murder over synagogue attack
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....
Kilauea volcano erupts on Hawaii’s Big Island
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...
Pope tells Vatican bureaucrats to stop gossipy conflicts
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...
Congress seals agreement on $900 billion covid relief bill
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...
U.S. airport traffic rising despite holiday travel warnings
SAN RAMON, Calif. — More than 1 million people have passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints in each of the past two days in a sign that public health pleas to avoid holiday travel are being ignored, despite an alarming surge in covid-19 cases. It marks the first time U.S....
Russia could cut off U.S. food and water supply in next cyberattack, Mitt Romney saysVideo
Russia acted with impunity when it hacked U.S. government servers in a global cyber-espionage campaign and could do far more damage next time — like cutting off the nation’s water and electricity supply, GOP Sen. Mitt Romney said Sunday. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Utah senator said the...
Trump wants Supreme Court to overturn Pa. election results
WASHINGTON — Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court. The petition seeks to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court...
Iraqi army: 8 rockets target U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
BAGHDAD — Eight rockets targeted the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone late Sunday, Iraq’s military and Iraqi officials said, sparking fears of renewed unrest as next month’s anniversary of the U.S. slaying of an Iranian general draws near. An Iraqi military statement said an “an outlawed group”...
People over 75, essential workers next in line for covid vaccineVideo
NEW YORK — An expert committee put people 75 and older and essential workers like firefighters, teachers and grocery store workers next in line for COVID-19 shots as a second vaccine began rolling out Sunday to hospitals, a desperately needed boost as the nation works to bring the coronavirus pandemic...
Dr. Deborah Birx travels, family visits highlight pandemic safety perils
WASHINGTON — As covid-19 cases skyrocketed before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, warned Americans to “be vigilant” and limit celebrations to “your immediate household.” For many Americans that guidance has been difficult to abide, including for Birx herself. The day after...
West Virginia reports another week of record virus deaths
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia has smashed another weekly record for deaths related to the coronavirus pandemic, while the number of residents hospitalized for covid-19 has come down in recent days. According to health officials, 160 people died in the state from the virus for the week ending Sunday, breaking...
Arizona migrant border deaths on track for record amid heat
DOUGLAS, Ariz. — Heat exposure killed 19-year-old Cesar de la Cruz on an Arizona trail in July during his trek up from southern Mexico. The body of Juan Lopez Valencia, another young Mexican man, was discovered Aug. 3 along a dry wash on Native American land. After the hottest, driest...
2nd covid-19 vaccine authorized in US is shipped out
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. — Initial shipments of the second covid-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. left a distribution center Sunday, a desperately needed boost as the nation works to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control. The trucks left the Memphis-area factory with the vaccine developed by Moderna and the National...
Racism targets Asian food, business during covid-19 pandemic
As the coronavirus spread throughout the U.S., bigotry toward Asian Americans was not far behind, fueled by the news that covid-19 first appeared in China. Some initial evidence suggested the virus began in bats, which infected another animal that may have spread it to people at one of Wuhan, China’s...
Pa. misses deadline to spend $108M in rent, mortgage relief from CARES Act
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 — Pennsylvania tenants and homeowners missed out on roughly $108 million of $175 million in federal coronavirus relief because state...
As end approaches, Trump gets doses of flattery, finality
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s administration is ending how it began, with over-the-top declarations of praise for the chief executive. But now the flattery is mixed with a sense of finality as key people in the president’s orbit are beginning to turn the page and acknowledge his defeat. Trump...
Lacking legal immunity, businesses fear covid-19 lawsuits
PORTLAND, Maine — Plans for a lawsuit against a Maine venue that hosted what became a “superspreader” wedding reception underscore the liability risks to small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic and an uphill push by Republicans in Congress to give such outfits legal immunity. Behemoths like Walmart and Tyson Foods,...
Several EU nations halt UK flights, fearing virus variant
BERLIN — One by one, several European Union nations banned flights from the U.K. on Sunday and others were considering similar action in a bid to block a new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southern England from establishing a strong foothold on the continent. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and...
AP sources: Trump floats Sidney Powell as special counsel
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump floated naming lawyer Sidney Powell, who was booted from his campaign’s legal team after pushing unfounded conspiracy theories, as a special counsel investigating allegations of voter fraud. During a Friday meeting at the White House, Trump went as far as discussing getting Powell security clearance,...
Pentagon plan on cyber split draws strong Hill criticism
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is proposing to end an arrangement in which a single military officer leads two of the nation’s main cybersecurity organizations, a move that a leading Democrat said Saturday makes him “profoundly concerned” amid a large-scale hacking campaign on U.S. government computer systems. Rep. Adam Smith, chairman...
Sen. Toomey stands firm on provisions to limit Fed’s emergency lending powers
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said his demands that Congress eliminate more than $400 billion in Federal Reserve emergency lending powers approved under the CARES Act and to prohibit such programs in the future should have come as a surprise to no one. “Contrary to what Democrats suggested, this is not...
