Wife of drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty to U.S. charges
WASHINGTON — The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in the U.S. and admitted that she helped her husband run his multibillion-dollar criminal empire. Emma Coronel Aispuro, wearing a green jail uniform, appeared in federal court in Washington and pleaded guilty to...
Meat company JBS confirms it paid $11M ransom in cyberattack
The world’s largest meat processing company says it paid the equivalent of $11 million to hackers who broke into its computer system late last month. Brazil-based JBS SA said on May 31 that it was the victim of a ransomware attack, but Wednesday was the first time the company’s U.S....
Man stuck for days inside giant fan at California vineyard
Authorities rescued a man who said he had been trapped for two days inside a large fan at a Northern California vineyard. The man was discovered Tuesday by a deputy responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle parked near the winery in Santa Rosa, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office...
Mayor: Seattle 1st major city to fully vaccinate 70%
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Wednesday that 70% of city residents ages 12 and up have been fully vaccinated, which she said makes Seattle the first major U.S. city to hit the covid-19 milestone. Durkan’s office also said 78% of the Seattle population 12 and older has started the vaccination...
Keystone XL pipeline nixed after Biden stands firm on permit
The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline pulled the plug on the contentious project Wednesday after Canadian officials failed to persuade President Joe Biden to reverse his cancellation of its permit on the day he took office. Calgary-based TC Energy said it would work with government agencies “to...
Pennsylvania pension system sued over access to documents amid probe
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania state senator is suing Pennsylvania’s largest public pension system amid a federal investigation into aspects of the agency’s undertakings, saying agency officials have refused to share documents with her, even though she is a board member. The effort by state Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery, is being...
Closed cold case murder tied to ousted Tennessee governor
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A former Tennessee governor’s administration helped fund a contract murder of a key federal witness decades ago while embroiled in the state’s largest political scandal, law enforcement officials announced Wednesday. The new details revealed for the first time Wednesday have elements that ring of a movie: a...
Federal probe: Protest not broken up due to Trump photo op
An internal government investigation has determined that the decision to forcibly clear racial justice protesters from an area in front of the White House last summer was not influenced by then-President Donald Trump’s plan to stage a Bible-toting photo opportunity at that spot. The report released Wednesday by the Interior...
San Antonio base on lockdown; police searching for shooters
An Air Force base in San Antonio was on lockdown Wednesday afternoon as police and military officials searched for two people suspected of shooting toward the base from outside, Air Force officials said. Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland officials said two people reportedly fired shots toward an area where base personnel...
‘This IS INSANE’: Africa desperately short of covid vaccine
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In the global race to vaccinate people against covid-19, Africa is tragically at the back of the pack. In fact, it has barely gotten out of the starting blocks. In South Africa, which has the continent’s most robust economy and its biggest coronavirus caseload, just...
Amid covid pandemic, U.S. deaths from heart disease and diabetes spiked to highest level in 20 years
NEW YORK — The U.S. saw remarkable increases in the death rates for heart disease, diabetes and some other common killers in 2020, and experts believe a big reason may be that many people with dangerous symptoms made the lethal mistake of staying away from the hospital for fear of...
FBI: Perceived grievances drove Virginia Beach mass shooter
NORFOLK, Va. — A city engineer who fatally shot 12 people in a Virginia Beach municipal building in 2019 “was motivated by perceived workplace grievances” that “he fixated on for years,” according to findings released by the FBI on Wednesday. The investigation, conducted by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, found...
Jobless in Pa. livid over new unemployment system errors as state declares victory
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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. A long-delayed upgrade of Pennsylvania’s computer system for unemployment benefits made a glitch-filled debut Tuesday, frustrating some jobless workers and confirming...
White House drops Trump orders trying to ban TikTok, WeChat
WASHINGTON — The White House has dropped Trump-era executive orders that attempted to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and will conduct its own review aimed at identifying national security risks with software applications tied to China, officials said Wednesday. A new executive order directs the Commerce Department to...
Wedding boom is on in the U.S. as vendors scramble to keep up
NEW YORK — Couples in the U.S. are racing to the altar in a vaccination-era wedding boom that has venues and other vendors in high demand. With restrictions on large gatherings loosening, wedding planners and others who make the magic happen said they’ve started pushing their bookings into late 2022...
Pennsylvania’s new unemployment claims system goes live, glitches and all
Pennsylvania’s long-awaited overhaul of its rickety unemployment claims filing system went live on Tuesday, with some users immediately complaining about glitches and the state agency that runs the program reporting a phone outage that temporarily prevented it from making or receiving calls. More than a year after the coronavirus pandemic...
3 girls killed, 1 badly injured in California hit-and-run
LUCERNE VALLEY, Calif. — Authorities on Tuesday were looking for a hit-and-run driver who killed three young girls — two of them wheelchairs — and left a fourth with life-threatening injuries as they walked along a Southern California desert highway. Willow Sanchez, 11, Daytona Bronas, 12, and Sandra Mizer, 13,...
Pa. House votes to end Wolf’s pandemic disaster declaration
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives voted on party lines Tuesday to put an end to the governor’s pandemic disaster emergency declaration, less than a month after voters dramatically expanded lawmakers’ powers to control such declarations. The 113-90 vote sent the Republican-penned measure over to the Senate, where the GOP...
Biden gives video address to graduating Parkland students
PARKLAND, Fla. — President Joe Biden, in a surprise video address to a Tuesday commencement ceremony, said graduating seniors who were freshmen when a mass shooting left 17 people dead at their Florida high school have turned pain into purpose and darkness into light. Besides surviving the most deadly high...
Los Angeles nun to plead guilty to $835,000 school theft
LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles nun who took a vow of poverty has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges for stealing more than $800,000 to pay for a gambling habit, prosecutors announced Tuesday. Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, of Los Angeles was charged Tuesday with one count of wire...
Terry McAuliffe wins Democratic nomination for Virginia governor
RICHMOND, Va. — Terry McAuliffe, the exuberant former Virginia governor and longtime fixture of Democratic politics, won the party’s nomination Tuesday in his quest for a second term in office. McAuliffe will go on to face GOP nominee and political newcomer Glenn Youngkin in the November general election. Virginia is...
Pa. House sends local gun law pre-emption bill to state Senate
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would leave cities and towns that have tried to craft local gun control laws on the hook for all court costs associated with a successful court challenge to those ordinances. Carried by 112 of the 113 Republican votes and 12...
Pa. House advances ban on abortions over Down syndrome diagnoses
HARRISBURG — Republicans in the Pennsylvania House pushed through a bill Tuesday that would ban abortions that are prompted by a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis, although the Democratic governor has vowed to veto it. State representatives voted 120-83 for legislation that the prime sponsor, Republican Rep. Kate Klunk of York...
U.S. education secretary promotes vaccine efforts at colleges
DEARBORN, Mich. — U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited a covid-19 vaccine clinic at a suburban Detroit community college Tuesday to highlight the White House’s efforts to encourage similar efforts across the country. “We’ve been talking about how we’re going to recover as a country and all hands on deck,”...
2 face arraignment in road-rage shooting that killed boy, 6
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A Southern California couple could face a murder charge over a road rage shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy last month on a freeway, authorities said. Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24, and Wynne Lee, 23, were expected to be arraigned Tuesday in the death of Aiden Leos,...
