5 years on, key #MeToo voices take stock of the movement
Once again, disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein sits in a courtroom, on trial in Los Angeles while the reckoning the accusations against him launched marks a significant milestone this month: It’s been five years since a brief hashtag — #MeToo — galvanized a broad social movement. The Associated Press went back...
Adnan Syed was exonerated in ‘Serial’ killing, but questions remain for Hae Min Lee’s family
BALTIMORE — The Baltimore murder case with international interest came to a sudden end in a Baltimore courtroom after winding its way through the legal system for more than two decades. Millions of people learned about Adnan Syed after listening to the “Serial” podcast, and hundreds gathered outside the courthouse...
Biden pushing lower prescription drug costs in midterm press
LOS ANGELES — President Joe Biden is set to highlight his administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs on Friday as part of his three-state Western tour this week, as he confronts a sobering inflation report in the waning weeks before midterm elections. Biden will head to a community college...
U.K.’s Truss drops tax cuts, axes Treasury chief amid turmoil
LONDON — Embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss sacked her Treasury chief and reversed course on a major part of her tax-cutting economic plan Friday as she struggled to hang on to her job after weeks of turmoil on financial markets. But the market response was muted and the political...
North Korea fires missile, artillery shells, inflaming tensions
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells toward the sea Friday and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North’s recent barrage of weapons tests. The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an...
Judge rules new DACA program can continue temporarily
HOUSTON — A federal judge ruled Friday that the current version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children can continue, at least temporarily. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen — who last year declared the Deferred Action for...
Japan to end restrictions on women remarrying after divorce
Japan is set to change a 19th-century law deciding the paternity of a child born after divorce, in a bid to reduce the number of babies who remain unregistered and face difficulty in accessing health care and education. The cabinet approved a bill Friday under which paternity will be awarded...
Putin: Call-up of Russian reservists to finish in 2 weeks
KYIV, UKRAINE — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects a mobilization of army reservists he ordered last month to bolster his country’s troops in Ukraine to be completed in two weeks. Putin told reporters after attending a summit in Kazakhstan that 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian...
Trump responds to Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena
WASHINGTON — The House Jan. 6 committee took the extraordinary action of subpoenaing former President Donald Trump on Thursday as it issued a stark warning in its final public hearing before the midterm election: The future of the nation’s democracy is at stake. The panel’s October hearing, just weeks ahead...
$1B judgment against Alex Jones not the final word
WATERBURY, Conn. — The nearly $1 billion judgment against Alex Jones for spreading false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre brought long-sought relief to family members and hopes the eye-popping figure would deter others from broadcasting falsehoods. But Jones has given no signs of tempering his bluster...
Police: Teen kills 2 in Raleigh neighborhood, 3 along trail
RALEIGH, N.C. — A 15-year-old boy fatally shot two people in the streets of a neighborhood in North Carolina’s capital city, then fled toward a walking trail where he opened fire, killing three more people and wounding two others, police said Friday. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the teen...
Abortion providers focus on expanding telehealth, medication access as they await outcome of Pa. governor’s race
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 — When Melissa Reed became CEO of Planned Parenthood Keystone in 2016, she had one goal: to expand access to...
Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump, shows startling new video
WASHINGTON — The House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, demanding his personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video of close aides describing his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss that led to his supporters’ fierce assault on the U.S. Capitol....
NY attorney general asks for court oversight of Trump Organization
NEW YORK — New York’s attorney general has asked a judge to bar Donald Trump’s company from selling or transferring assets without court approval, saying it had engaged in a devious attempt to duck potential penalties in her fraud lawsuit against the former president. In court papers filed Thursday, lawyers...
Police: Officers may have been ‘lured’ into deadly ambush in Connecticut
BRISTOL, Conn. — Two police officers who were shot dead in Connecticut were apparently drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about possible domestic violence, authorities said Thursday. State police said in a release that the 911 call Wednesday night about a dispute between two siblings appears to have...
Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s Kyiv and Odesa regions with Iranian-made drones and used missiles to strike other areas Thursday, Ukrainian officials said as Moscow punished the country for a fourth day after a truck bomb damaged a bridge to the annexed Crimean Peninsula. A strike carried out...
NATO chief warns Russia not to cross ‘very important line’
BRUSSELS — Russian President Vladimir Putin would be crossing a “very important line” if he were to order the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Thursday, as both the military alliance and Russia are due to hold nuclear exercises in the next few days. NATO...
With teachers in short supply, states ease job requirements
As schools across the South grapple with teacher shortages, many are turning to candidates without teaching certificates or formal training. Alabama administrators increasingly have hired educators with emergency certifications, often in low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods. Texas, meanwhile, allowed about one in five new teachers to sidestep certification last school year....
People with disabilities left out of climate planning
When the inevitable hurricanes threaten New Orleans, it’s hard for India Scott to figure where to go. In the city where she was born and raised, she’s stayed in hotels, relief shelters and, during Hurricane Katrina, in the famously overcrowded Superdome. But it is always a gamble choosing where to...
Parkland school shooter to get life sentence for killing 17
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A jury spared Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz from the death penalty Thursday for killing 17 people at a Parkland high school in 2018, sending him to prison for the remainder of his life in a decision that left many families of the victims angered, baffled...
U.S. inflation pressures further intensified in September
WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States accelerated in September, with the cost of housing and other necessities intensifying pressure on households, wiping out pay gains that many have received and ensuring that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates aggressively. Consumer prices rose 8.2% in September compared with...
Social Security recipients to receive historic hike next year
WASHINGTON — Millions of Social Security recipients will get an 8.7% boost in their benefits in 2023. That’s a historic increase and welcome news for American retirees and others — but it’s tempered by the fact that it’s fueled by record high inflation that’s raised the cost of everyday living....
Explainer: What’s next in the Parkland school shooter trial?
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The jurors who will decide whether Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole concluded their first day of deliberations Wednesday as the three-month trial nears its conclusion. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to the murders of 14 students and...
UN demands Russia reverse ‘illegal’ annexations in Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and demand its immediate reversal, a sign of strong global opposition to the seven-month war and Moscow’s attempt to grab its neighbor’s territory. The vote in the 193-member world body...
Trump angrily lashes out after his deposition is ordered
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump angrily lashed out Wednesday, calling the nation’s legal system a “broken disgrace” after a judge ruled he must answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s. He also called...
