Pa. lawmakers spend millions of tax dollars on private lawyers but often don’t reveal why
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 — The Pennsylvania legislature spent nearly $10 million during the last two years on private lawyers but routinely shielded the...
French train hits and kills sleeping migrant, 2 others
PARIS — A train hit and killed three people and seriously injured another person in southwestern France on Tuesday morning. The regional prosecutor said the victims appeared to be Algerian migrants who had been expelled from nearby Spain and had been sleeping on the tracks, calling it a “terrible human...
Advice shifting on aspirin use for preventing heart attacks
Older adults without heart disease shouldn’t take daily low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke, an influential health guidelines group said in preliminary updated advice released Tuesday. Bleeding risks for adults in their 60s and up who haven’t had a heart attack or stroke outweigh any potential...
Coroner: Gabby Petito strangled, died 3-4 weeks before found
JACKSON, Wyo. — Cross-country traveler Gabby Petito was strangled to death, a Wyoming coroner announced Tuesday. Petito, 22, died three to four weeks before her body was found Sept. 19 near an undeveloped camping area along the border of Grand Teton National Park in remote northern Wyoming, Teton County Coroner...
Miami police chief being fired after 6 months on the job
MIAMI — Miami officials have decided to fire the city’s new police chief six months into his stormy tenure, after he was lambasted by city commissioners who he accused of meddling in the police department and internal affairs investigations. Miami City Manager Art Noriega said in a statement Monday that...
Bus plunge, floods leave 29 dead in northern China
BEIJING — Chinese authorities said Tuesday that 14 people died after a bus plunged into a rushing river during heavy flooding that has caused 15 other fatalities in the north. State broadcaster CCTV said another 37 people from the bus had been rescued and seven were hospitalized. The driver was...
Report says U.K.’s slow virus lockdown cost thousands of lives
LONDON — The British government failure to impose a lockdown in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic ranks among England’s worst public health blunders, lawmakers concluded Tuesday in the country’s first comprehensive report on the pandemic. The deadly delay led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and derived from the...
Magnitude 6.3 earthquake jolts Greek island of Crete
ATHENS, Greece — A strong earthquake jolted the Greek island of Crete on Tuesday, three weeks after another temblor killed a man and damaged hundreds of buildings. The Geodynamic Institute in Athens said the undersea earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 and occurred at 12:24 p.m. local time (5:24...
Supreme Court leaves in place Puerto Rico cockfighting ban
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a federal law that bars cockfighting in Puerto Rico. The high court on Tuesday turned away a challenge to the law. As is typical, the high court did not explain why it declined to take the case. Congress in 2018 changed...
At least 2 dead in California plane crash that burned homesVideo
SANTEE, Calif. — A small plane crashed Monday in a densely populated San Diego suburb, killing at least two people, including a UPS driver, and leaving a trail of destruction that sent neighbors scrambling to help neighbors. At least two others were injured. Witnesses described a retired couple being rescued...
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issues executive order banning vaccine mandates by private entities
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday issued an executive order prohibiting any entity in Texas from mandating covid-19 vaccinations for employees or consumers, an expansion of a prior order limited to government entities. Abbott also asked lawmakers to tackle the issue during the current special legislative session, ensuring that...
FBI raids home of Philly Proud Boys’ vice president to get info about Capitol attack
PHILADELPHIA — The FBI raided the home of the vice president of the Proud Boys’ Philadelphia chapter on Friday, seizing his computer, phone and other electronics to gather information on the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol, his lawyer said Monday. Aaron Whallon Wolkind, 37, woke up around 4...
California coronavirus death count tops 70,000 as cases fall
SACRAMENTO — California’s coronavirus death toll reached another once-unfathomable milestone — 70,000 people — on Monday as the state emerges from the latest infection surge with the lowest rate of new cases among all states. Last year at this time, cases in the state started ticking up and by January...
Experts: Colorado supermarket shooting suspect not competent
DENVER — State experts concluded that the man charged with killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket is not competent to stand trial but a judge granted prosecutors’ request for his mental health to be evaluated a second time, according to court filings released Monday. The initial evaluation report was...
Georgia election workers accused of shredding voter applications
ATLANTA — Officials in Georgia’s most populous county, where election operations are already under review by the state, have fired two workers accused of shredding paper voter registration applications, according to a county statement released Monday. Preliminary information indicates that the employees checked out batches of applications for processing. Instead...
GOP wants personal voter data to root out fraud, but Pa. already uses a more secure system
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 — Pennsylvania has spent nearly half a million dollars over the past six years to find and remove outdated registrations...
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson under attack over anti-LGBT viewsVideo
RALEIGH — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is facing calls to resign from elected officials and LGBTQ advocacy groups over comments he made criticizing sexual education and likening gay and transgender people to “filth.” “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality,...
Fiona Hill, a nobody to Trump and Putin, saw into them both
Vladimir Putin paid scant attention to Fiona Hill, a preeminent U.S. expert on Russia, when she was seated next to him at dinners. Putin’s people placed her there by design, choosing a “nondescript woman,” as she put it, so the Russian president would have no competition for attention. Fluent in...
Pa. attorney general Josh Shapiro jumps into ’22 governor’s race
Pennsylvania’s high-profile attorney general, Josh Shapiro, will formally announce his candidacy for governor on Wednesday, entering the 2022 race months after making his intentions known and effectively clearing the field of potential rivals for the Democratic nomination. Shapiro, a familiar presence on cable TV news who has spent nearly two...
Appellate court sets hearing in South Carolina abortion case
An appellate court is set to debate a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s abortion law about a week after the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar measure in Mississippi. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has tentatively calendared the South Carolina case for oral arguments the week of Dec. 6,...
Tropical Storm Pamela strengthens off Mexico’s Pacific coast
Tropical Storm Pamela rapidly strengthened as it moved along Mexico’s Pacific coast Monday and it was forecast to become a major hurricane before hitting shore somewhere near the port of Mazatlan at midweek. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Pamela’s center was about 455 miles south-southwest of Mazatlan Monday and...
Week in pictures: Oct. 4-Oct. 10, 2021
Here’s a selection of images that caught our eye in the past week from Tribune-Review photographers....
Russia’s new covid-19 infections, deaths near all-time highs
Russia’s daily coronavirus infections and deaths hovered near all-time highs Monday amid sluggish vaccination rates and the Kremlin’s reluctance to toughen restrictions. Russia’s state coronavirus task force reported 29,409 new confirmed cases — the highest number this year and just slightly lower than the pandemic record reached in December. After...
Israeli archaeologists discover ancient winemaking complex
YAVNE, Israel — Israeli archaeologists on Monday said they have unearthed a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years. The complex, discovered in the central town of Yavne, includes five wine presses, warehouses, kilns for producing clay storage vessels and tens of thousands of fragments and jars, they...
Gun violence claiming more lives of American teens, children
Gun violence is killing an increasing number of American children, from toddlers caught in crossfires to teenagers gunned down in turf wars, drug squabbles or for posting the wrong thing on social media. Shootings involving children and teenagers have been on the rise in recent years, and 2021 is no...
