Schools or bars? Opening classrooms may mean hard choices
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — President Donald Trump insists that schools reopen this fall. Many parents, educators, doctors and economists want the same thing. But getting children back to school safely could mean keeping high-risk spots like bars and gyms closed. A growing chorus of public health experts is urging federal, state...
Texas hits record with 98 new covid-19 deaths reportedVideo
AUSTIN — Texas reported its deadliest day of the pandemic with nearly 100 new deaths on Wednesday as newly confirmed cases continued soaring and Austin began preparations to turn the downtown convention center into a field hospital. The 98 reported deaths in Texas set a record one-day high, surpassing the...
White House expert, researcher see Arizona cases levelingVideo
GLENDALE, Ariz. — One of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots got a sliver a good news Wednesday when two health experts said an exponential rise in the percentage of people testing positive for the virus in Arizona appears to have leveled off. Dr. Joshua LaBaer of Arizona State University’s Biodesign...
Justice Department plows ahead with execution plan next week
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is plowing ahead with its plan to resume federal executions next week for the first time in more than 15 years, despite the coronavirus pandemic raging both inside and outside prisons and stagnating national support for the death penalty. Three people are scheduled to die...
$14M in relief funds find members of Congress and family
WASHINGTON — At least $13.7 million in covid-19 relief funds have gone directly to companies in which members of Congress or their families are owners or employees, according to Small Business Administration data reviewed by CQ Roll Call. These companies received funds through the Paycheck Protection Program shortly after Congress...
Delirium, inflammation, stroke, nerve damage: This is the brain on covid-19
NEW YORK — Delirium, inflammation, stroke: This is your brain on covid. Evidence is mounting that covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, can cause brain damage regardless of the severity of other symptoms such as respiratory issues. Researchers at University College London studied neurological symptoms in 43 people,...
Harvard, MIT sue to block ICE rule on international studentsVideo
BOSTON — Colleges and universities pushed back Wednesday against the Trump administration’s decision to make international students leave the country if they plan on taking classes entirely online this fall, with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filing a lawsuit to try to block it, and others promising...
Minneapolis officer to George Floyd: ‘It takes … a lot of oxygen to talk’
MINNEAPOLIS — As George Floyd told Minneapolis police officers that he couldn’t breathe more than 20 times in the moments before he died, the officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck dismissed his pleas, saying “it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,” according to transcripts...
Health official: Trump rally in Tulsa ‘likely’ source of coronavirus surge
OKLAHOMA CITY — President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa that drew thousands of people in late June, along with large protests that accompanied it, “likely contributed” to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday. Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed...
Alexander Vindman retiring from Army, lawyer blames TrumpVideo
WASHINGTON — Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a national security aide who played a central role in President Trump’s impeachment case, announced his retirement from the Army on Wednesday in a scathing statement that accused the president of running a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation.” The statement from attorney David...
Trump threatens to cut federal aid if schools don’t reopenVideo
Determined to reopen America’s schools, President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to hold back federal money if school districts don’t bring their students back in the fall despite coronavirus worries. He complained that his own public health officials’ safety guideline are impractical and too expensive. Shortly afterward, Vice President Mike...
Franklin County 13-year-old arrested in 9-year-old brother’s death
WAYNESBORO — State police say a 13-year-old will face a criminal homicide charge in the shooting death of his 9-year-old brother in a home in central Pennsylvania. State police in Franklin County said troopers were called to the Waynesboro home at about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday. The victim was taken to...
Lawsuit: Pennsylvania lifers should have chance at parole
Three women and three men serving life sentences in Pennsylvania prisons sued the state Board of Probation and Parole on Wednesday, alleging the state’s refusal to allow a chance at parole to those serving life sentences is tantamount to a death sentence. The lawsuit challenges a provision in the state’s...
‘Grasping for anything’: Desperation science slows hunt for coronavirus drugs
Desperate to solve the deadly conundrum of covid-19, the world is clamoring for fast answers and solutions from a research system not built for haste. The ironic, and perhaps tragic, result: Scientific shortcuts have slowed understanding of the disease and delayed the ability to find out which drugs help, hurt...
Firearms background checks, purchase denials on rise in Pennsylvania in 2020
Pennsylvania State Police processed about 22% more background checks for firearm purchases so far in 2020 compared to last year. The state’s instant check system also denied 41% more applicants through the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2019, according to police statistics. Gun...
Germany laments U.S. exit from WHO, says EU seeks to reform it
GENEVA — Germany’s health minister on Wednesday lamented the formal U.S. notification of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization as a “setback for international cooperation” and said Europe would work to reform the U.N. health agency. The comments from German Health Minister Jens Spahn epitomized concerns in Europe over...
Supreme Court: Some employers can refuse to offer free birth control
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Trump administration rules allowing some employers to decline to provide contraceptive coverage on religious or moral grounds, which could leave more than 70,000 women without cost-free birth control. The high court ruled 7-2 for the administration, which made a policy change to...
Mary Kay Letourneau, teacher jailed for raping student, dies
SEATTLE — Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who married her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted of raping him in a case that drew international headlines, has died. She was 58. Her lawyer David Gehrke told multiple news outlets Letourneau died Tuesday of cancer. He did not immediately return...
In risky bid, Trump stokes racial rancor to motivate voters
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump is wielding America’s racial tensions as a reelection weapon, fiercely denouncing the racial justice movement on a near-daily basis with language stoking white resentment and aiming to drive his supporters to the polls. The incendiary discourse is alarming many in his own party and...
U.S. general sees smaller but enduring troop presence in Iraq
WASHINGTON — Six months after a deadly American airstrike in Baghdad enraged Iraqis and fueled demands to send all U.S. troops home, the top U.S. general for the Middle East is talking optimistically about keeping a smaller but enduring military presence there. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S....
Trump pushes state, local leaders to reopen schools in fall
President Donald Trump launched an all-out effort pressing state and local officials to reopen schools this fall, arguing that some are keeping schools closed not because of the risks from the coronavirus pandemic but for political reasons. “They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep...
Chief Justice Roberts was hospitalized overnight after head injury in June
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized overnight last month for an injury he suffered to his forehead after falling while walking for exercise, a U.S. Supreme Court spokeswoman said. Roberts’ doctors believe the fall was because of lightheadedness caused by dehydration and have ruled out a seizure, spokeswoman...
Breonna Taylor’s family argues police had no cause for raidVideo
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville police called off a warrant search of Breonna Taylor’s apartment after a drug suspect was located elsewhere, but then went ahead with the deadly raid to look for other suspects with no connection to Taylor, her family says in a new court filing. Taylor, a emergency...
Lightning strike leaves 2 men dead, 2 people injured in Bradford County
GRANVILLE — Severe thunderstorms sparked lightning that struck four people in a northern Pennsylvania community, killing two men and injuring two other people, authorities said. The strike occurred around 2 p.m. Monday in Granville. The Bradford County Coroner’s office said all four victims were struck while they were under a...
Texas passes 10,000 confirmed new coronavirus cases in single dayVideo
AUSTIN — Texas surpassed 10,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day Tuesday for the first time, crossing a sobering milestone rarely seen since the pandemic first hit the U.S. in March. The record high of 10,028 new cases in Texas served as another alarming new measure of the swift...
