SpaceX capsules parked side-by-side at station for 1st time
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX supply ship bearing Christmas goodies arrived at the International Space Station on Monday, parking alongside another Dragon capsule that carried up astronauts three weeks ago. It’s the first time Elon Musk’s company has two Dragons at the orbiting lab, filling both available slots. Unlike...
Michigan House cancels voting session after Giuliani test
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan House canceled its voting session scheduled for Tuesday following an announcement that President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani had tested positive for the coronavirus. Giuliani visited Lansing last Wednesday to testify for hours before a Republican-led committee investigating alleged election irregularities. Without wearing a...
Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging Biden’s win in GeorgiaVideo
ATLANTA — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Monday that relied on conspiracy theories to try to invalidate Georgia election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten dismissed the lawsuit brought by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell in an attempt to decertify...
Pennsylvania reports nearly 15,000 new covid cases, 111 deaths over 2 days
Pennsylvania added 14,960 new covid cases over the past two days, according to a report Monday from the Department of Health. Officials said there were 8,630 new cases Sunday and 6,330 cases Monday. While down nearly 40% from the previous two days (24,647), it’s more than 50% higher than last...
Chief says Erie’s new police car totaled in crash
ERIE — A Pennsylvania town’s new patrol car was totaled in a crash with a drunken driver, the police chief said. Chief Dan Spizarny told Erie News Now one of his officers was driving early Sunday when a van came speeding toward the rear of the patrol car, which had...
Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2020
In a year defined by a devastating pandemic, the world lost iconic defenders of civil rights, great athletes and entertainers who helped define their genres. Many of their names hold a prominent place in the collective consciousness — RBG, Kobe, Maradona, Eddie Van Halen, Little Richard, Sean Connery, Alex Trebek,...
Romania’s center-right prime minister resigns after election
BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s center-right prime minister resigned Monday after a general election in which voters delivered nominal victory to the left-leaning, populist opposition party. With 95% of votes counted in Sunday’s election, Ludovic Orban’s National Liberals have been defeated by the populist Social Democrat Party. However the Social Democrats...
Trudeau: Canada to get Pfizer vaccine by end of this year
TORONTO — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday Canada will get up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech before the end of December. The vaccine is expected be approved by Health Canada as soon as Thursday. Trudeau had come under criticism from...
Alabama sheriff removes ‘thugshots’ Christmas tree post
MOBILE, Ala. — An Alabama sheriff’s department has removed a photo of a Christmas tree adorned with what they called “thugshots” of people who have been arrested after criticism that it was demeaning and cruel. The Mobile County Sheriff’s Department deleted the photo from its Facebook page on Saturday, AL.com...
Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time
The deadly pandemic that tore through the nation’s heartland struck just as Aaron Crawford was in a moment of crisis. He was looking for work, his wife needed surgery, then the virus began eating away at her work hours and her paycheck. The Crawfords had no savings, mounting bills and...
NYC again reopens schools to in-person learning
NEW YORK — It’s back to school again for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising covid-19 cases. The nation’s largest public school system, which shut down in-person learning last month, on Monday brought back preschool students and children in...
Virginia Military Institute removing Confederate statue
LEXINGTON, Va. — The Virginia Military Institute began work Monday to remove a prominent statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, an effort initiated this fall after allegations of systemic racism roiled the school. A crew was inspecting the statue at the public military college in Lexington, poised to haul...
Trump cementing death penalty legacy up to Biden inaugural
CHICAGO — As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. If the five go off...
Vatican says pope will visit Iraq in March, pandemic permitting
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to Iraq in March, pandemic conditions permitting, the Vatican said Monday, in announcing what would be the pontiff’s first trip aboard in more than a year. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni on Monday said Francis will make the March 5-8 visit, with...
Romania’s opposition Social Democrats win national election
BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s opposition Social Democrats have taken a surprise lead over the governing National Liberals after a parliamentary election but appear less likely to emerge on top in what promises to be prolonged post-election wrangling to form a new coalition government. With 95% of ballots counted Monday, the...
Sinovac aims for 600 million dose capacity for covid vaccine
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chinese vaccine company Sinovac announced Monday that it is planning to complete a new facility to double its annual vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses by the end of the year, while also securing a $500 million investment in a boost to its covid-19 vaccine development...
Nobel ceremonies go low-key this year because of coronavirus
STOCKHOLM — The pomp and ceremony of the Nobel prize ceremonies have been reined in this year amid measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. There will be no glitzy banquet honoring winners in Stockholm or Oslo as the global pandemic curtails the usual celebrations. Instead, their achievements will...
Hundreds ill, 1 dead from unidentified disease in India
NEW DELHI — At least one person has died and 200 others have been hospitalized because of an unidentified illness in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, reports said Monday. The illness was detected Saturday evening in Eluru, an ancient city famous for its hand-woven products. Since then, patients...
Georgia Senate runoff: Loeffler, Warnock face off in heated debateVideo
ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and the Rev. Raphael Warnock faced off in their first, and possibly only, one-on-one debate Sunday night at the Atlanta Press Club, trading barbed attacks in their fight for the right to represent Georgia in the Senate for the next two years. Over the...
Pa. Department of Corrections reports 3 covid deaths in 2 days
Prison officials in Pennsylvania reported three inmate deaths in two days as the active covid-19 case count in state correctional facilities neared 1,800. The Department of Corrections reported two deaths Friday, at SCIs Mercer and Smithfield and one on Saturday at SCI-Pine Grove. Two of the incarcerated individuals were in...
U.S. Supreme Court moves up deadline in congressman’s bid to upend Pa. election results
PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Supreme Court moved up a key deadline Sunday for Pennsylvania officials to respond to a last-minute bid by one of Trump’s top boosters in Congress to decertify the state’s elections results. Previously, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who oversees emergency matters arising out of Pennsylvania...
Biden picks California AG Xavier Becerra to lead HHS, pandemic response
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response. If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the...
Sheriff: Defiant New York City bar owner slams deputy with his car
NEW YORK — The co-owner of a New York City bar that authorities said has been defying coronavirus restrictions was taken into custody early Sunday after running over a deputy with a car, authorities said. Danny Presti tried to drive away from his bar, Mac’s Public House, as deputies were...
Health officials warn Americans not to let their guard downVideo
With a covid-19 vaccine perhaps just days away in the U.S., most of California headed into another lockdown Sunday because of the surging outbreak and top health officials warned Americans that this is no time to let their guard down. “The vaccine’s critical,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus...
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tests positive for covidVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest in Trump’s inner circle to contract the disease that is now surging across the country. Giuliani was admitted Sunday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, according to...
