Yusef Salaam of Central Park Five penning memoir on his wrongful imprisonment
NEW YORK — One of the five teens wrongly imprisoned for the assault on a Central Park jogger has a memoir coming out in the spring. Grand Central Publishing announced Monday that it had acquired Yusef Salaam’s “Better, Not Bitter: Living On Purpose in The Pursuit of Racial Justice.” The...
French ex-President Sarkozy’s trial for corruption suspended
PARIS — The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and influence peddling was suspended Monday less than two hours after it started, to allow a medical report on one of the defendants. Sarkozy is accused of having tried to illegally obtain information from a magistrate about an...
Third major covid-19 vaccine shown to be effective — and cheaper
LONDON — Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Monday that late-stage trials showed its coronavirus vaccine was up to 90% effective, giving public health officials hope they may soon have access to a vaccine that is cheaper and easier to distribute than some of its rivals. The results are based on interim...
Tourists few, N.Y. gift shops struggle but don’t lose (heart)
NEW YORK — In souvenir shops from Times Square to the World Trade Center, shelves full of T-shirts and trinkets still (heart) New York. But the proprietors wonder when their customers will, again. The coronavirus pandemic has taken a voracious bite out of a slice of New York life as...
Speedboat taking migrants to Greece partially sinks; 1 dead
ATHENS, Greece — A speedboat that appeared to have been smuggling migrants to the Greek island of Rhodes from nearby Turkey partially sank before reaching land, leaving one person dead, Greece’s coast guard said Monday. The coast guard said it received information about the speedboat near the northwestern coast of...
Hong Kong’s Joshua Wong to plead guilty to protest charges
HONG KONG — Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong said Monday that he plans to plead guilty to charges related to a demonstration outside police headquarters during anti-government protests last year. Ahead of a court hearing Monday, Wong said that he and fellow activist Ivan Lam would both plead...
Pat Quinn, co-founder of viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, dies at 37
YONKERS, N.Y. — A co-founder of the social media ALS ice bucket challenge, which has raised more than $200 million worldwide for Lou Gehrig’s disease research, died Sunday at the age of 37, according to the ALS Association. Pat Quinn was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic...
Biden to name longtime aide Antony Blinken as secretary of StateVideo
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden intends to name his longtime adviser Antony Blinken as secretary of State, according to three people familiar with the matter, setting out to assemble his Cabinet even before Donald Trump concedes defeat. In addition, Jake Sullivan, formerly one of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, is likely...
Trump appeals rejection of effort to block Pennsylvania vote
HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump is appealing a federal judge’s dismissal of his campaign’s effort to block the certification of votes in Pennsylvania. The president and other plaintiffs filed notice of appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday, a day after the judge issued a scathing...
Trump campaign legal team distances itself from Sidney Powell
WASHINGTON — Perhaps Sidney Powell has gone too far for even Rudy Giuliani this time. The Trump campaign’s legal team moved to distance itself Sunday from the firebrand conservative attorney after a tumultuous several days in which Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the voting process, unspooled unsupported and complex...
Texas family that got coronavirus warns public to spend holidays at home
ARLINGTON, Texas — Arlington is using one family’s brush with the coronavirus as a warning to others who might be considering big get-togethers this Thanksgiving. Alexa Aragonez told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that her family weighed the risks of catching the virus but decided to get together for a birthday...
Kelly Loeffler has negative covid-19 test 2 days after positiveVideo
ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s latest coronavirus test came back negative, but her campaign said Sunday she will continue to quarantine at least until she gets another negative result. The Georgia Republican is facing a Jan. 5 runoff in the state’s twin U.S. Senate races. Loeffler took a rapid...
Pa.’s new ‘Pennie’ health exchange in jeopardy if Trump’s ACA lawsuit prevails
Pennsylvania’s new state-run health exchange is among the many pieces of the Affordable Care Act that would be in peril if the Trump administration’s attack on it prevails in the Supreme Court, consumer advocates warn. The state’s insurance enrollment system, called Pennie, debuts this season’s open enrollment period, which runs...
In Wisconsin recount, Trump challenges pile up, slow tally
MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin recount observer Ardis Cerny stretched her neck as far as she could toward a Plexiglas divider separating her from two vote counters, eagle-eyeing them as they scrutinized ballot papers one by one. When one tabulator told the ardent supporter of President Donald Trump she was leaning too...
Texas National Guard to help El Paso morgues with coronavirus deadVideo
EL PASO, Texas — The Texas National Guard has sent a 36-member team to El Paso to assist morgues in the border region with the number of dead as a result of covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Statewide, the Texas health department on Saturday reported a one-day high...
Trump’s legal team cried vote fraud, but courts found none
PHILADELPHIA — As they frantically searched for ways to salvage President Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid, his campaign pursued a dizzying game of legal hopscotch across six states that centered on the biggest prize of all: Pennsylvania. The strategy may have played well in front of television cameras and on...
President Trump’s legal team is a ‘national embarrassment,’ Chris Christie saysVideo
As the court losses continue to mount, President Donald Trump’s ally and informal adviser Chris Christie called the commander-in-chief’s legal team a “national embarrassment.” The former New Jersey governor said it was time for the president to face reality. “If you have got the evidence of fraud, present it,” Christie...
Inequality ‘baked into’ virus testing access as cases surge
The day after Amanda Serulneck found out she might have been exposed to covid-19, she visited a rapid testing center in New Jersey but was turned away because they ran out of tests. She returned at 7 a.m. the next day. After waiting for an hour, officials said they had...
Man arrested in deadly attack at Nebraska Sonic restaurant
BELLEVUE, Neb. — Authorities arrested a 23-year-old man in an attack at a Nebraska fast food restaurant in which two people were shot and killed, two were wounded and officers responding to a report of a possible bomb inside a moving truck in the parking lot arrived to find the...
PennDOT seeks public-private partnership to address major bridgesVideo
Through a public-private partnership, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation replaced more than 550 small bridges across the state in just under three years. Now, PennDOT hopes to do the same to address major bridges statewide. “A lot of these bridges were designed in the ‘50s and built in the ‘60s,...
Biden’s 1st Cabinet picks expected Tuesday amid road blocks
WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden’s first Cabinet picks are coming Tuesday and planning is underway for a pandemic-modified inauguration in January as his team moves forward despite road blocks from the Trump administration. Ron Klain, Biden’s incoming chief of staff, offered no details Sundays about which department heads Biden...
Trump election challenges sound alarm among voters of color
DETROIT — When longtime Detroit community advocate Frank McGhee watched two Republican canvassers vote against certifying election results in the majority Black city, he was furious. McGhee, 58, has spent more than two decades working with Detroit youth and educating them on the electoral process. He said it was “outrageous”...
FDA allows emergency use of antibody drug Trump received
U.S. health officials Saturday agreed to allow emergency use of a second antibody drug to help the immune system fight covid-19, an experimental medicine President Trump was given when he was sickened last month. The Food and Drug Administration authorized use of the Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. drug to try to...
Loeffler quarantining after mixed covid test results
ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is quarantining after receiving mixed results from recent coronavirus tests. The Georgia Republican took two rapid COVID tests on Friday morning that came back negative, a spokesperson for her campaign said in a statement Saturday night. She received another test Friday evening and the...
Trump team requests recount of Georgia presidential vote
President Trump’s legal team said Saturday that his campaign has requested a recount of votes in the Georgia presidential race after results showed Democrat Joe Biden winning the state. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Friday certified the state’s election results, which had Biden beating Trump by 12,670 votes...
