Tropical Storm Colin threatens a wet weekend for Carolinas
MIAMI — Tropical Storm Colin formed along the South Carolina coast on Saturday, bringing the threat of rain and high winds for a day or two during the holiday weekend before improving for Monday’s July Fourth celebrations. The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned of the possibility of localized flash...
Texas’ border mission grows, but crossings still high
AUSTIN, Texas — After the horror of a human-smuggling attempt that left 53 people dead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state troopers to inspect more trucks — again expanding a border security mission that has cost billions, given the National Guard arrest powers and bused migrants to Washington, D.C. What...
Parkland jurors must manage trial stress on their own
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The jurors chosen this past week to decide whether Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is executed will visit a bloodstained crime scene, view graphic photos and videos and listen to intense emotional testimony — an experience they will have to manage entirely on their own. Throughout...
Uvalde schools’ police chief resigns from City Council
UVALDE, Texas — The Uvalde school district’s police chief has stepped down from his position in the City Council just weeks after being sworn in following allegations that he erred in his response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead. Chief...
From morning to night, the fickle force of government is with you
WASHINGTON — When you groggily roll out of bed and make breakfast, the government edges up to your kitchen table, too. Unlike you, it’s perky. It’s an unseen force in your morning. The government makes sure you can see the nutrients in your cereal. It fusses over your toast, insisting...
Rescuers recover 26 dead from mudslide in India’s northeast
GAUHATI, India — Fresh rain and falling boulders on Saturday hampered rescuers who have so far pulled out 26 bodies from the debris of a mudslide that wiped out a railroad construction site in India’s northeast, officials said. Rescue work is expected to continue for a couple of days in...
Russians press assault on eastern Ukrainian city
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces are pounding the city of Lysychansk and its surroundings in an all-out attempt to seize the last stronghold of resistance in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province, the governor said Saturday. Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city and to keep it from falling...
With hospitalizations up, France weighs return to masks
NICE, France — Tourism is booming again in France — and so is covid-19. French officials have “invited” or “recommended” people to go back to using face masks but stopped short of renewing restrictions that would scare visitors away or revive antigovernment protests. From Paris commuters to tourists on the...
Woman who killed pimp pardoned by California governor
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday pardoned a former inmate who received a life sentence when she was a teenager for killing her former pimp. It’s the final step in an official redemption that has spanned more than a decade and three governors of both political parties....
Should you get a vasectomy after Roe decision? Doctors explain how it works
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Since Roe v. Wade was overturned on Friday and Missouri’s trigger ban outlawed nearly all abortion in the state, interest in vasectomies has been on the rise around Kansas City. Since the ruling dropped on Friday, The Kansas City Urology Care, which has about a dozen...
Inflation to blame for Hershey candy price hikes
Get ready to pay more for Hershey bars and other candies. The Hershey Company is raising prices to battle rising inflation and supply chain issues, according to analysts. Goldman Sachs analyst Jason English told Yahoo Money that Hershey has enacted “broad-based” price increases across its candy portfolio that “collectively amount...
Jan. 6 committee eyes pal of Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows who pressured Cassidy Hutchinson
The Jan. 6 committee apparently suspects that the Trump loyalist who sought to pressure witness Cassidy Hutchinson into keeping quiet was not only acting as an intermediary for White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The panel reportedly wants to interview the unnamed “associate” of Meadows as a “fact witness”...
Pennsylvania’s state budget is officially late. Here’s what you need to know.
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 — Despite weeks of private negotiations between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative Republicans, Pennsylvania’s budget is officially late. A...
2 police officers killed in Kentucky by suspect with rifle
ALLEN, Ky. — Two officers were killed when a man opened fire on police attempting to serve a warrant at a home in eastern Kentucky on Thursday night, authorities said. Several officers were shot at the scene in Floyd County. Police took 49-year-old Lance Storz into custody late Thursday night,...
Trump’s vulnerabilities for 2024 mount after new testimony
SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — Stunning new revelations about former President Donald Trump’s fight to overturn the 2020 election have exposed growing political vulnerabilities just as he eyes another presidential bid. A former White House aide this week described Trump as an unhinged leader with no regard for the safety of...
Chip shortage leaves 95K GM vehicles incomplete in storage
DETROIT — The global shortage of computer chips forced General Motors to build 95,000 vehicles without certain components during the second quarter. The Detroit automaker said in a regulatory filing Friday that most of the incomplete vehicles were built in June, and that it expects most of them to be...
Couples wed as Swiss same-sex marriage law takes effect
GENEVA — Lesbian and gay couples in Switzerland rejoiced as they legally tied the knot Friday when the rich Alpine nation formally joined many other western European countries in allowing same-sex marriage, with some saying better late than never. The first same-sex marriages came about nine months after 64.1% of...
Hong Kong in limbo 25 years after British handover to China
HONG KONG — When the British handed Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997, it was promised 50 years of self-government and freedoms of assembly, speech and press that are not allowed on the Communist-ruled Chinese mainland. As the city of 7.4 million people marks 25 years under Beijing’s rule on...
Covid cases up by more than 30% in Britain last week
LONDON — The number of new coronavirus cases across Britain has surged by more than 30% in the last week, new data showed Friday, with cases largely driven by the super infectious omicron variants. Data released by Britain’s Office for National Statistics showed that more than 3 million people in...
Russian missiles kill at least 21 in Ukraine’s Odesa region
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian missile attacks on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from an island in the Black Sea seemed to ease the threat to the city. Video of the...
Supreme Court to hear case on state authority over elections
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a case that could dramatically change the way elections for Congress and the presidency are conducted by handing more power to state legislatures and blocking state courts from reviewing challenges to the procedures and results. The justices will consider whether state...
California sets nation’s toughest plastics reduction rules
SACRAMENTO — Companies selling shampoo, food and other products wrapped in plastic have a decade to cut down on their use of the polluting material if they want their wares on California store shelves. Major legislation passed and signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to significantly reduce single-use plastic...
U.S. official: Migrants who died in Texas cleared inland checkpoint
SAN ANTONIO — The tractor-trailer at the center of a human-smuggling attempt that left 53 people dead had passed through an inland U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint with migrants inside the sweltering rig earlier in its journey, a U.S. official said Thursday. The truck went through the checkpoint on Interstate 35...
Texas woman accused in cyclist death arrested in Costa RicaVideo
A Texas woman suspected in the fatal shooting of professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson at an Austin home has been arrested in Costa Rica, the U.S. Marshals Service said Thursday. Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 34, was arrested Wednesday at a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, the Marshals...
Woman fatally shot while pushing stroller on Upper East SideVideo
NEW YORK — A 20-year-old woman was fatally shot Wednesday night while she pushed her infant daughter in a stroller on the Upper East Side in New York, police said. The woman was near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 95th Street around 8:30 p.m. when she was shot, police...