Justices to hear GOP appeal that could limit state courts over redistricting, elections
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear an appeal from North Carolina Republicans that could drastically limit state court authority over congressional redistricting, as well as elections for Congress and the presidency. The justices will consider whether state courts, finding violations of their state constitutions, can order...
Jackson sworn in, becomes 1st Black woman on Supreme Court
WASHINGTON —Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn in to the Supreme Court, shattering a glass ceiling as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court. The 51-year-old Jackson is the court’s 116th justice and she took the place Thursday of the justice she once worked for. Justice Stephen Breyer’s...
Pennsylvania court blocks Gov. Wolf’s bridge tolling plan
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Thursday blocked plans to toll an Interstate 79 bridge in Allegheny County, a month after it put a halt to PennDOT’s $2 billion statewide bridge tolling plan. In its 36-page opinion, the court said that PennDOT and the public-private partnership created to repair or replace...
Supreme Court limits EPA in curbing power plant emissions
In a blow to the fight against climate change, the Supreme Court on Thursday limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. By a 6-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority, the court said that the Clean Air Act...
Supreme Court: Biden properly ended Trump-era asylum policy
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Biden administration properly ended a Trump-era policy forcing some U.S. asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico. The justices’ 5-4 decision for the administration came in a case about the “Remain in Mexico” policy under President Donald Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts...
Biden backs filibuster exception to protect abortion access
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would support eliminating the Senate filibuster to protect access to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. “If the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights,” Biden said during a press conference in Madrid, where he...
About half say Trump should be charged for 1/6: AP-NORC poll
WASHINGTON — About half of Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a new poll shows. The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48% of U.S. adults...
How Pennsylvania keeps its voter rolls clean and updated
This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. This article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s voter rolls have been a frequent target of conservative politicians who believe the...
Bison gores man in Yellowstone National Park, 2nd attack in a monthVideo
A 34-year-old Colorado man was gored by a charging bison this week as he was walking in Yellowstone National Park with his family, the park said in a statement. The man was in a group walking Monday along a boardwalk in the park near the Old Faithful geyser when a...
Bills limiting LGBTQ instruction, trans athletes pass Pennsylvania Senate
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled Senate approved legislation Wednesday that Republicans say will restrict sexually explicit content and classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools, mirroring partisan fights playing out in statehouses around the country. The bills passed nearly along party lines, and Democrats warned that Gov....
Ketanji Brown Jackson to be sworn in as Breyer retires from Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — Nearly three months after she won confirmation to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson is officially becoming a justice. Jackson, 51, will be sworn as the court’s 116th justice Thursday, just as the man she is replacing, Justice Stephen Breyer, retires. The judicial pas de deux is set...
Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued a subpoena Wednesday to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who has been linked to meetings in which lawyers debated strategies to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election loss. The committee said that it required Cipollone’s testimony after obtaining...
Crews battle Maryland summer camp fire, no injuries reportedVideo
THURMONT, Md. — Crews battled a fire at an overnight summer camp in western Maryland on Wednesday morning, but no injuries were reported, officials said. Firefighters were initially dispatched about 7:30 a.m. for a report of a fire in a building at Camp Airy for Boys in Thurmont, Frederick County...
1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found, family seeks arrest
JACKSON, Miss. — A team searching a Mississippi courthouse basement for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his 1955 kidnapping, and relatives of the victim want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later. A warrant...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi receives Communion in Vatican amid abortion debate
ROME — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and received Communion during a papal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, witnesses said, despite her position in support of abortion rights. Pelosi attended the morning Mass marking the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, during which...
Penn State approves sale, ground lease of Penn Stater hotel, Nittany Lion Inn
Penn State’s two hotels near University Park — including the iconic Nittany Lion Inn — are poised to be sold to a third party this fall and will remain in operation, based on a resolution passed unanimously Wednesday morning by the board of trustees. Scholar Hotel Group, which opened a...
Pa. school district fires teacher who put tape reading ‘I have nothing nice to say’ on a student’s face
PHILADELPHIA — The Coatesville Area School District has fired a middle school teacher who put a piece of tape reading “I have nothing nice to say” on a student’s face last month — an action the district described as humiliating to the child, but that the teacher defended as an...
A viral reprise: When covid-19 strikes again and again
For New York musician Erica Mancini, covid-19 made repeat performances. March 2020. Last December. And again this May. “I’m bummed to know that I might forever just get infected,” said the 31-year-old singer, who is vaccinated and boosted. “I don’t want to be getting sick every month or every two...
Researchers caution beachgoers ahead of white shark season
BOSTON — Great white shark researchers on Cape Cod are reminding visitors that warmer weather signals not just the start of the busy tourist season, but also the arrival of the region’s famous predators. July tends to be when great whites appear in earnest as the cape’s waters warm, with...
‘Woody’ Williams, last remaining WWII Medal of Honor recipient dies at 98Video
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Hershel W. “Woody” Williams, the last remaining Medal of Honor recipient from World War II, died Wednesday. He was 98. Williams’ foundation announced on Twitter and Facebook that he died at the Veterans Affairs medical center bearing his name in Huntington. “Today, America lost not just a...
WHO chief: U.S. abortion ruling ‘a setback,’ will cost lives
GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday criticized the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, saying the decision to no longer recognize a constitutional right to abortion was “a setback” that would ultimately cost lives. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a...
Giuliani associate Lev Parnas sentenced to 20 months in prison
NEW YORK — Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes. Parnas, who had helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian figures as part of...
Chief: Officer hit woman at abortion rally, should be fired
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The chief of police in Rhode Island’s capital has recommended that a city officer charged with assaulting a woman during an abortion-rights protest should lose his job. Patrolman Jeann Lugo’s “disturbing, egregious, assaultive and unprofessional behavior while off duty, has brought discredit to your name and has...
NATO calls Russia its ‘most significant and direct threat’
MADRID — NATO declared Russia the “most significant and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security on Wednesday and vowed to strengthen support for Ukraine, even as that country’s leader chided the alliance for not doing more to help it defeat Moscow. The alliance’s condemnation was not wholly surprising:...
Russians fight to encircle Ukraine’s last eastern stronghold
KREMENCHUK, Ukraine — Russian forces battled Wednesday to surround the Ukrainian military’s last stronghold in a long-contested eastern province, as shock reverberated from a Russian airstrike on a shopping mall that killed at least 18 in the center of the country two days earlier. Moscow’s battle to wrest the entire...
