Trump, Biden fight for Florida, appeal for Tuesday turnout
TAMPA, Fla. — President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are chasing votes Thursday in Florida, a state all but essential to the Republican’s pathway to another term, as both nominees turn their focus to encouraging voters to turn out in person on Election Day. More than 73 million...
Trump officials end gray wolf protections across most of U.S.
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Trump administration officials on Thursday stripped Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in most of the U.S., ending longstanding federal safeguards and putting states in charge of overseeing the predators. The U.S. Department of Interior announcement just days ahead of the Nov. 3 election could lead...
Girl Scouts tweet, then delete post about Amy Coney Barrett
A tweet by the Girl Scouts congratulating new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett drew such outrage from Barrett’s critics that the youth organization swiftly deleted it — only to draw a new backlash from Barrett’s supporters. The original tweet, posted Wednesday evening, said, “Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming...
Police in Philadelphia find van with low-grade explosives
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia police and federal agents said they found a van containing low-grade explosives as the city tries to stem the widespread unrest that followed the fatal police shooting of a Black man. Spokesman Rob Cucinotta of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the explosives and...
‘So frustrating’: Grave missteps seen in U.S. virus response
NEW YORK — A president who downplayed the coronavirus threat, scorned masks and undercut scientists at every turn. Governors who resisted or rolled back containment measures amid public backlash. State lawmakers who used federal COVID-19 aid to plug budget holes instead of beefing up testing and contact tracing. As a...
Home for the holidays: Pa. health secretary urges that gatherings be limited to households
State officials are asking Pennsylvanians to limit holiday gatherings to those within their own households as the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic continues. Department of Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Thursday there is evidence locally and nationally that such gatherings, large or small, are contributing to an increase in cases...
Trump rule says health plans must disclose costs up front
WASHINGTON — Trying to pull back the veil on health care costs to encourage competition, the Trump administration on Thursday finalized a requirement for insurers to tell consumers up front the actual prices for common tests and procedures. A major health insurance industry group said the regulation would have the...
Evacuation orders lifted for many Californians who fled fire
LOS ANGELES — Thousands of Californians were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday as calmer winds helped firefighters beat back two wind-driven wildfires that had spurred widespread evacuations. Roughly 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate Monday after the wildfires broke out in brushy hills above cities in Southern California’s...
Defendant pleads guilty in Rudy Giuliani associates’ case
NEW YORK — Prosecutors secured a guilty plea Thursday from a Florida businessman who hired one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, to lend credibility to a supposedly fraud-busting company authorities say was a fraud itself. The plea by David Correia, 45, a former golf professional, came to charges...
Pennsylvania reports more than 2,200 new coronavirus cases, 44 deaths
Pennsylvania has experienced its largest spike in coronavirus cases during October. After reporting 2,202 new cases on Thursday, the state have accumulated 43,909 cases for the month with two days to go. At the start of the pandemic, cases grew quickly with 40,000 cases in April. But September recorded just...
Falwell sues Liberty, saying school damaged his reputation
RICHMOND, Va. — Jerry Falwell Jr. has sued Liberty University, alleging the evangelical school founded by his late pastor father damaged his reputation after he resigned as president and chancellor in August amid a series of scandals. The lawsuit filed in Lynchburg Circuit Court on Wednesday includes claims of defamation...
Florida, butt of election jokes, believes system is ready
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Even if the presidential election hinges on a Florida recount like 20 years ago, hanging chads and butterfly ballots won’t be around to trip up voters and officials — changes to ballots, equipment and laws have made the Bush-Gore circus a relic never to be revisited,...
Wisconsin Republican Party says hackers stole $2.3 million
MADISON, Wis. — Hackers have stolen $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party’s account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party’s chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The party noticed the suspicious activity on Oct. 22 and contacted the...
Zeta batters Southeast after swamping Gulf Coast; 6 deadVideo
NEW ORLEANS — Zeta sped across the Southeast on Thursday, leaving a trail of damage and more than 2.6 million homes and businesses without power in Atlanta and beyond after pounding New Orleans with winds and water that splintered homes and were blamed for at least six deaths. A Category...
French prosecutor: Nice killer of 3 got to France from ItalyVideo
PARIS — A man armed with a knife attacked people inside a French church and killed three Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown. The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in two months that...
Biden lead holds steady at 6 points in latest Franklin & Marshall College Poll
Former vice president Joe Biden continued to hold a six-point lead among likely voters in Pennsylvania last week as the number of undecided voters declined, a poll Franklin & Marshall College Poll found. The poll of 558 likely Pennsylvania voters, which was conducted from Oct. 19-25, contained a margin of...
Space Force’s second-in-command tests positive for covid-19
The second-highest ranking for the recently formed U.S. Space Force has tested positive for covid-19, the U.S. Air Force said late Wednesday in a statement. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the vice chief of space operations, Gen. David Thompson, took the test after learning that a family member with...
Postal Service ordered to increase late trips for election mail
WASHINGTON — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was ordered to immediately begin expanding mail delivery with extra trips and later deliveries after the U.S. Postal Service failed to improve performance less than a week before the election. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan late Tuesday in Washington granted an emergency request to...
Supreme Court leaves North Carolina absentee ballot deadline at Nov. 12
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will allow absentee ballots in North Carolina to be received and counted up to nine days after Election Day, in a win for Democrats. The justices, by a 5-3 vote Wednesday, refused to disturb a decision by the State Board of Elections to lengthen the...
Ivanka Trump near Portersville: U.S. ‘much more capable of combating this virus as we wait for the vaccine’Video
The United States and its public health leaders are “much more capable” of confronting the next waves of coronavirus cases than they were when covid-19 first struck last spring, Ivanka Trump said while stumping for her father, President Donald Trump, Wednesday on a Lawrence County farm. Ivanka Trump, 38, whose...
Hurricane Zeta hammers Gulf Coast with rain, wind, outagesVideo
NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Zeta slammed into the storm-weary Gulf Coast on Wednesday, pelting the New Orleans metro area with rain and howling winds that ripped apart buildings, knocked out power to thousands and threatened to push up to 9 feet of sea water inland in a region already pounded...
Justices deny fast, new look at Pennsylvania ballot deadline
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would not grant a quick, pre-election review to a new Republican appeal to exclude absentee ballots received after Election Day in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania, although it remained unclear whether those ballots will ultimately be counted. The court’s order...
Gang member who says he beat up R. Kelly sentenced in deaths
HAMMOND, Ind. — A convicted gang member who said he beat up jailed R&B singer R. Kelly in a Chicago cell in August has been sentenced to life in prison for a racketeering conviction that involved two 1999 murders. A federal judge in Hammond, Ind., sentenced Jeremiah Farmer, 39, on...
Florida man charged with changing governor’s voting address
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis couldn’t initially cast his ballot this week because someone illegally changed his address online, a complication that resulted in a suspect’s arrest on felony charges and raised questions about the security of the state’s online registration system. DeSantis went to an early...
Social media CEOs get earful on bias, warning of new limits
WASHINGTON — With next week’s election looming, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google received a hectoring from Republicans at a Senate hearing Wednesday for alleged anti-conservative bias in the companies’ social media platforms — and were warned of coming restrictions from Congress. Lawmakers of both parties, citing the companies’...
