U.S. advisers endorse updated covid shots for fall boosters
U.S. health advisers on Thursday endorsed new covid-19 boosters that target today’s most common omicron strains, saying if enough people roll up their sleeves, the updated shots could blunt a winter surge. The tweaked shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna promise Americans a chance at their most up-to-date protection...
Twitter readies edit feature for premium users
Permanently misspelled tweets might soon be a thing of the past. Twitter said Thursday it will roll out an editing feature to subscribers of its premium Twitter Blue service later this month. In an update on its plans to introduce an edit button, the social media company said it has...
Gov. Wolf starts process to pardon lower-level pot convictions
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvanians with minor, nonviolent marijuana criminal convictions could be pardoned beginning Thursday in a period until the end of the month under a joint effort from Gov. Tom Wolf and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The so-called “one-time, large-scale pardon effort” will allow anyone who has been convicted of...
Poland demands $1.3 trillion war reparations from Germany
WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s top politician said Thursday that the government will seek equivalent of some $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for the Nazis’ World War II invasion and occupation of his country. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party, announced the huge claim at the release...
Biden at Independence Hall: Trump, allies threaten democracy
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Thursday night that “equality and democracy are under assault” in the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican” adherents, labeling them an extremist threat to the nation and its future. Aiming to reframe the November elections as...
Trump documents: No immediate ruling on outside legal expertVideo
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A federal judge heard arguments Thursday on whether to appoint an outside legal expert to review government records seized by the FBI last month in a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home. There was no immediate ruling, but the judge had indicated last...
California governor declares heat wave state of emergencyVideo
LOS ANGELES — California’s governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday to increase power production and he urged residents to reduce electricity use as a heat wave spread over the West and officials warned there could possible outages if conditions worsen. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s declaration followed a “Flex Alert” by...
Trump legal team says storage of government documents is no ‘cause for alarm’
WASHINGTON — The storage of sensitive government documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida “should have never been cause for alarm,” his lawyers argued in a court filing Wednesday. “The purported justification for the initiation of this criminal probe was the alleged discovery of sensitive information contained...
Sarah Palin loses Alaska House special election to Mary Peltola
JUNEAU, Alaska — Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska’s only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor. Peltola, who is Yup’ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will...
Columbus chief: Man fatally shot by police may have held vape pen
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man fatally shot by police in Ohio’s capital city appeared to be holding a vape pen in his hand, the city police chief said as an investigation was underway into the shooting. Donovan Lewis, 20, died at a hospital as a result of the shooting early...
Trump lawyer John Eastman advised to plead the Fifth in Georgia probeVideo
ATLANTA — Lawyers for John Eastman, a lead architect of some of Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election, said Wednesday they advised their client to assert attorney-client privilege and invoke his constitutional right to remain silent when testifying before a special grand jury investigating possible...
Jackson water crisis forces residents to find alternativesVideo
JACKSON, Miss. — The water pressure at James Brown’s home in Jackson was so low the faucets barely dripped. He couldn’t cook. He couldn’t bathe. But he still had to work. The 73-year-old tree-cutter hauled bags of ice into his truck at a gas station on his way to a...
Reported sexual assaults across U.S. military increase by 13%
WASHINGTON — Reports of sexual assaults across the U.S. military jumped by 13% last year, driven by significant increases in the Army and the Navy as bases began to move out of pandemic restrictions and public venues reopened, The Associated Press has learned. Mirroring the increase in those reports is...
Thousands of Pa. nursing home workers may strike despite $600M for care in state budget
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 — Months after the state approved hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to bolster caregiving in nursing homes, thousands of...
Justice Department is likely to wait past midterms to reveal any charges against Trump, sources sayVideo
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are likely to wait until after the November election to announce any charges against Donald Trump, if they determine he broke laws, according to people familiar. The unprecedented prospect of bringing charges against a former U.S. president is creating intense scrutiny of the Justice Department in...
Ex-Ohio schools chief charged with kidnapping 2 kids in West Virginia
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A former Ohio schools superintendent has been charged in West Virginia with luring two children into his vehicle with money, police said. William J. Morrison III, 59, of Huntington, was charged with two felony counts of kidnapping after his arrest last week, Huntington police said in a...
Judge nixes no-prison deal in 2018 limo crash that killed 20
SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — A judge rejected a plea agreement that would have meant no prison time for the operator of a limousine company involved in a crash that killed 20 people in upstate New York. Wednesday’s turnabout drew applause and tears from victims’ relatives and plunged limo company boss Nauman...
Box of reptiles mailed to the wrong address in New York
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. — Several live lizards were wrongly delivered to a residence in a village north of New York City. “Needless to say the addressee was quite startled when they opened the box,” Port Chester police wrote on Facebook. Police received the call about the reptiles just after noon...
Kremlin offers mixed view of Gorbachev’s historic role
MOSCOW — The Kremlin treaded carefully Wednesday while reacting to Mikhail Gorbachev’s death, praising his prominent role in reshaping 20th-century history, but noting his “romantic” view of the West. The Kremlin’s ambivalence was reflected in the uncertainty about funeral arrangements. An iconic central venue chosen for Saturday’s farewell ceremony has...
EU to tighten travel rules for Russians, but no visa ban
PRAGUE — European Union countries agreed Wednesday to make it harder for Russian citizens to enter the 27-nation bloc, but they failed to find a consensus on imposing an outright tourist ban in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. At talks in the Czech Republic, EU foreign ministers were desperate...
Updated covid boosters OK’d; shots could begin in days
WASHINGTON — The U.S. on Wednesday authorized its first update to covid-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days. The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have saved...
UN weather agency predicts rare ‘triple-dip’ La Nina in 2022
GENEVA — The U.N. weather agency is predicting that the phenomenon known as La Nina is poised to last through the end of this year, a mysterious “triple dip” — the first this century — caused by three straight years of its effect on climate patterns like drought and flooding...
High-stakes year begins for kids still learning to read
ATLANTA — Five of the 19 students in teacher Chelsea Grant’s third grade classroom are reading below grade level. When it’s time to read aloud on a recent Friday, the students show vastly different levels of skill and confidence. “Remember you read with expression, feeling and fluency,” Grant told her...
U.S. life expectancy plunged again in 2021, down nearly a year
NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday. In the first two years of the covid-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last...
Feds cite efforts to obstruct probe of docs at Trump estate
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as part of an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into the discovery of the government records. The FBI also seized boxes and containers holding more...
