Oregon nurse placed on leave after video flouting coronavirus protocols
SALEM, Ore. — An Oregon hospital has placed a nurse on administrative leave after she posted a video on social media in which she said she does not follow safety directives meant to prevent the spread of covid-19 when she is not at work. Salem Health said it is investigating...
Jared Kushner to lead U.S. delegation to Middle East as tensions simmer
WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, will travel to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week in a bid to ease tensions in the region, including the ongoing rift between Qatar and its neighbors. Kushner, who’s also Trump’s son-in-law, will first go to Noem, Saudi Arabia, according...
Doctor says Biden fractured foot while playing with his dog
WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden fractured his foot while playing with one of his dogs, but doctors found “no obvious fracture” while examining him Sunday, according to his doctor. Biden suffered the injury on Saturday and visited an orthopedist at Delaware Orthopaedic Specialists in Newark, Delaware, for an examination...
New York City to reopen schools, even as coronavirus spread intensifiesVideo
NEW YORK — New York City will reopen its school system to in-person learning, and increase the number of days a week many children attend class, even as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. The announcement marks a major policy reversal for the...
Source: Pennsylvania lawmaker gets a positive covid test at Trump meeting
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania state senator abruptly left a West Wing meeting with President Donald Trump after being informed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press on Sunday. Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano had gone to the White...
Biden chooses an all-female senior White House press team
WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female senior communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield. Bedingfield will serve as Biden’s White House communications director, and Jen Psaki, a longtime Democratic spokeswoman, will be his press secretary. Biden also plans to name...
U.K. stocks up on vaccines, hopes to start coronavirus shots in daysVideo
LONDON — Britain said Sunday it has secured 2 million more doses of a promising coronavirus vaccine as it gears up to launch within days the country’s most ambitious inoculation program in decades. The U.K. has had Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 58,000 confirmed virus-related deaths. It now...
Trump says it’ll be hard for election lawsuits to reach top courtVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump acknowledged that the fight to overturn his reelection defeat “probably” won’t reach the Supreme Court, which had been the goal of his legal team. “It’s very hard to get a case to the Supreme Court,” Trump said in a Fox News interview conducted by telephone...
Full beaver moon to deliver partial lunar eclipse early Monday morning
Sky-gazers could be in for a treat Sunday night into early Monday morning as the celestial bodies align just right to create the full beaver moon along with an early morning lunar eclipse. Hardcore star-gazers can set their alarms for 4:30 a.m. when the full moon, nicknamed the beaver moon,...
Trump ‘ashamed’ to have endorsed Republican Georgia Gov. Brian KempVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday he was “ashamed” for endorsing the Republican governor of Georgia after he lost in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has seethed over losing the southern state, which hadn’t voted for a Democrat for president in nearly 30 years. In January, the...
Mysterious silver monolith disappears from Utah desert
SALT LAKE CITY — A mysterious silver monolith that was placed in the Utah desert has disappeared less than 10 days after it was spotted by wildlife biologists performing a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep, federal officials and witnesses said. “We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure,...
Completed Wisconsin recount confirms Biden’s win over Trump
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin finished a recount of its presidential results on Sunday, confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in the key battleground state. Trump vowed to challenge the outcome in court even before the recount concluded. Dane County was the second and last county to finish...
Fauci: U.S. may see ‘surge upon surge’ of virus in weeks ahead
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the U.S. may see “surge upon a surge” of the coronavirus over the coming weeks, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas. “When you have the kind of inflection that we have, it...
Despite federal ban, renters still being evicted amid virus
BOSTON — A nationwide eviction ban was supposed to protect tenants like Tawanda Mormon, who was forced out of her two-bedroom apartment last month in Cleveland. The 46-year-old, who was hospitalized in August for the coronavirus and can’t work due to mental health issues, said she fell behind on her...
Pa. Supreme Court rejects Rep. Mike Kelly-led lawsuit challenging election
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s highest court on Saturday night threw out a lower court’s order preventing the state from certifying dozens of contests on its Nov. 3 election ballot in the latest lawsuit filed by Republicans attempting to thwart President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state. The state Supreme Court,...
26 state House Republicans call for withdrawing certification of presidential electors
Declaring the results of statewide electoral contests in the 2020 general election to be in dispute, a group of House Republican lawmakers have announced their intention to introduce a resolution calling for Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar to withdraw their certification of the Nov. 3 election...
Pennsylvania reaches 350,000 coronavirus cases; adds 41 deaths
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 8,053 new coronavirus cases, bumping the Keystone State’s total above 350,000 cases. The new data bring the total cases to 351,667; a 50,000-case jump from this time last week. Officials said 24,926 of total cases are considered probable. Health officials define a probable case as one...
Ethiopia’s Tigray capital reported to be ‘heavily bombarded’
NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopia’s military launched an offensive on the Tigray regional capital Saturday in a quest to arrest the region’s defiant leaders, and the city was being “heavily bombarded,” Tigray TV reported. Humanitarians confirmed the shelling in Mekele, a densely populated city of a half-million people, which immediately raised...
Pope elevating 13 new cardinals in ceremony marked by COVID
ROME — Pope Francis on Saturday was formally elevating 13 new cardinals, including the first African-American to receive the honor, in a ceremony marked in every way by the coronavirus pandemic: Two of the cardinals stayed home, the rest eschewed the usual celebrations and St. Peter’s Basilica was practically empty...
With no action by Washington, states race to offer virus aid
SANTA FE, N.M — Faulting inaction in Washington, governors and state lawmakers are racing to get pandemic relief to small-business owners, the unemployed, renters and others whose livelihoods have been upended by the widening coronavirus outbreak. In some cases, elected officials are spending the last of a federal relief package...
Biden plans swift moves to protect and advance LGBTQ rights
As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Barack Obama. Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists. Among them: Lifting...
Black firefighters in N.C. allege racism amid larger reckoning
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — They threw her new cellphone on the roof of the station house and placed nails under the wheels of her pickup truck. As she prepared to answer a call, someone poured tobacco juice in her boots. It was too much for Timika Ingram to bear. “It caused...
Bruce Boynton, who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dies at 83
SELMA, Ala. — Bruce Carver Boynton, a civil rights pioneer from Alabama who inspired the landmark “Freedom Rides” of 1961, died Monday. He was 83. Former Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, a friend of Boynton’s, on Tuesday confirmed his passing. Boynton was arrested 60 years ago for entering the white...
Iran’s supreme leader vows revenge over slain scientist
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday called for the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of a scientist linked to Tehran’s disbanded military nuclear program, a slaying the Islamic Republic has blamed on Israel. Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid tensions over...
2 shot, killed at Northern California mall on Black Friday
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Police are looking for a gunman who shot and killed two teens at a Northern California mall in the midst of Black Friday, sending shoppers running for safety, authorities said. Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento was evacuated shortly after 6 p.m. when shots were fired near one...
