The Pa. legislature appears to have met a tax break it doesn’t like: one for teachers, nurses, and cops
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Harrisburg policymakers appear unlikely to embrace a signature selling point in Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s first budget: a tax...
Pa. breast cancer screening bill signed into law
Pennsylvania created a new law Monday that will require insurers to cover preventive breast and ovarian cancer screenings for high-risk women at no cost. In doing so, the state became the first in the nation to establish such a law. The bill was introduced by Senate President Pro Tempore Kim...
Trump accuser says many in her generation didn’t report rape
NEW YORK — A magazine columnist who says Donald Trump raped her in a department store’s dressing room two decades before he became president acknowledged Monday that she never followed her own advice to readers that they report sexual attacks to police. E. Jean Carroll told a Manhattan federal court...
U.S. says 20,000 Russians killed in Ukraine war since December
WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday it now estimates that just since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed, as Ukraine has rebuffed a heavy assault by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. In what has become a grinding war of attrition, the fiercest battles have...
Erdogan says Turkish forces killed IS chief in Syria
ANKARA, Turkey — The leader of the Islamic State group was killed in an operation by Turkish intelligence teams in northern Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced. Turkey’s state media said the IS leader blew himself up to avoid capture. Recep Tayyip Erdogan told TRT Turk television in an...
Attacks on delivery drivers add fears among gig workers
NEW YORK — A homeowner fired shots at a couple’s car when they mistakenly turned onto his property while making an Instacart delivery. A Florida man was charged with killing and dismembering an Uber Eats delivery driver who brought food to his home. A woman was kidnapped and sexually assaulted...
Food, fertilizer, fuel? Hunt is on for solutions to Caribbean’s exploding seaweed problem
Most of the troubles plaguing the subtropical waters of Florida and the Caribbean revolve around disappearing marine life: coral reefs, fish populations, sea grass beds. It’s decidedly the opposite case with sargassum, the floating brown seaweed that has exploded in record-setting mass throughout the region. Nothing can stop the stinky...
Florida Gov. DeSantis board approves suing Disney in latest tug-of-war
ORLANDO, Fla. — Days after Disney sued Florida’s governor in federal court for what it described as retaliation for opposing the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, members of Disney World’s governing board — made up of Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees — authorized a lawsuit Monday against the entertainment giant....
Political prisoners share how Jimmy Carter saved their lives
ATLANTA — Jimmy Carter tried like no president ever had to put human rights at the center of American foreign policy. It was a turnabout dictators and dissidents alike found hard to believe as he took office in 1977. The U.S. had such a long history of supporting crackdowns on...
Feds: Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law
WASHINGTON — Two hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman who was experiencing premature labor put her life in jeopardy and violated federal law, a first-of-its-kind investigation by the federal government has found. The findings, revealed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, are a...
‘Waste of time’: Community college transfers derail students
First came the good news. After taking classes at a community college, Ricki Korba was admitted to California State University, Bakersfield, as a transfer student. But when she logged on to her student account, she got a gut punch: Most of her previous classes wouldn’t count. The university rejected most...
Biden’s diverse coalition of support risks fraying in 2024
WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat-turned-Independent long known for his centrist views, voted for Joe Biden in 2020. But as Biden’s reelection campaign begins, Lieberman is preparing to recruit a third-party candidate capable of defeating the Democratic president. “Centrists and moderates feel that he’s governed more from...
Few leads, false alarm as search for Texas gunman drags onVideo
CLEVELAND, Texas — Authorities on Monday still had not captured a gunman in Texas who killed five neighbors, and as the search dragged into a third day with false alarms and few apparent leads, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott came under backlash over drawing attention to the victims’ immigration status. An...
Morning roundup: 3 injured in Ambridge house fire
Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Monday, May 1, 2023: 3 transported from Ambridge fire Multiple people were injured in a house fire Sunday night in Ambridge, according to county 911 officials. Fire crews were called to the 800 block of 11th Street around 8:30...
What GOP’s plan for Medicaid work requirements would mean
WASHINGTON — More than a half million of the poorest Americans could be left without health insurance under legislation passed by House Republicans that would require people to work in exchange for health care coverage through Medicaid. It’s one of dozens of provisions tucked into a GOP bill that would...
Takeaways about heat deaths and vulnerable older people
SUN LAKES, Arizona — Heat waves fueled by climate change are arriving earlier, growing more intense and lasting longer, creating higher risks of illness and death for older people who are especially vulnerable to hot weather. In America’s hottest big metro, older people accounted for most of the people who...
Man arrested after $3M worth of drugs shipped to Maine restaurant
AUBURN, Maine — Employees of a Maine restaurant got a surprise when they opened a large wooden crate that they thought was a shipment of mugs they had recently ordered. Instead, they found a plastic tote that contained what law enforcement suspect is 31 pounds of the powerful synthetic opioid...
Police manhunt continues for suspect in Texas mass shooting
CLEVELAND, Texas — Law enforcement officers were going door-to-door Sunday searching for clues about a gunman who fled after killing five people in a rural Texas town after his neighbors asked him to stop firing off rounds in his yard. The alleged shooter, Francisco Oropesa, 38, was considered armed and...
Quiet and parents’ touch help opioid users’ newborns: study
Babies born to opioid users had shorter hospital stays and needed less medication when their care emphasized parent involvement, skin-to-skin contact and a quiet environment, researchers reported Sunday. Newborns were ready to go home about a week earlier compared to those getting standard care. Fewer received opioid medications to reduce...
Chinese man who reported on covid to be released after 3 years
HONG KONG — Chinese authorities were preparing Sunday to release a man who disappeared three years ago after publicizing videos of overcrowded hospitals and bodies during the covid-19 outbreak, a relative and another person familiar with his case said. Fang Bin and other members of the public who were dubbed...
Relatives bury children killed in Russian missile attack
UMAN, Ukraine — Relatives and friends cried next to coffins on Sunday as they buried children and others killed in a Russian missile attack on this central Ukrainian city, while fighting claimed more lives elsewhere. Almost all of the 23 victims of the attack on Friday died when two missiles...
Eating plants and blinking: Western Pa. scientists research evolutionary path of ancient mammal ancestors
Blinking — all of us do it, all the time. But research by scientists in Western Pennsylvania is shedding new light on how something as simple as blinking helped ancient animals begin the transition from water to land, and how some of them developed into plant-eaters. At Seton Hill University,...
Frustration grows over wait on OxyContin maker’s settlement
More than a year after OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma reached a tentative settlement over the toll of opioids that was accepted nearly universally by the groups suing the company — including thousands of people injured by the drug — money is still not rolling out. Parties waiting to finalize the...
3 killed, 1 wounded in Philadelphia shooting; 2 in custody
PHILADELPHIA — Two teenagers have been charged with firearms and related offenses following the slaying of three people and the wounding of a fourth person at a northeast Philadelphia home, authorities said. Lt. John Stanford told reporters that officers called to the residence in the Lawncrest neighborhood shortly after 3:30...
Known for laughs, D.C. dinner to spotlight reporting risks
WASHINGTON — There will still be plenty of laughs, but the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner on Saturday also plans to take on the serious and solemn role of journalism in a democracy. This year’s dinner occurs as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia....
