Idaho lawmaker accused of rape was warned about his behavior
BOISE — An Idaho lawmaker facing rape allegations from a 19-year-old intern was previously warned against hitting on women who work at the Statehouse after his colleagues heard complaints from other staffers, according to documents gathered by the Legislature’s ethics committee and obtained by The Associated Press. The investigation into...
Chicago sues Indiana gun store, alleging weapons routinely wind up with gang members and felonsVideo
CHICAGO — The city of Chicago sued a northwest Indiana gun store alleging it has sold hundreds of guns to straw buyers that wound up in the hands of felons or at crime scenes in the city, some within days of purchase. The lawsuit filed in Cook County Chancery Court...
Private Florida school won’t employ vaccinated teachers, staffVideo
MIAMI — A private school founded by an anti-vaccination activist in South Florida has warned teachers and staff against taking the covid-19 vaccine, saying it will not employ anyone who has received the shot. The Centner Academy in Miami sent a notice to parents on this week informing them of...
CEO fired over remarks about male student’s prom dress
FRANKLIN, Tenn. — The CEO of a Tennessee telemedicine company has been fired after being captured on video making disparaging remarks to a male high school student in a prom dress. James Dalton Stevens told news outlets he wanted to make a statement with the dress but didn’t expect the...
Indiana governor sues Legislature over emergency powers
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s governor is asking a court to block a new law passed by state legislators giving themselves more authority to intervene when the state’s chief executive declares an emergency. Lawyers for Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a Marion County court challenging the law that...
CDC says many Americans can now go outside without a mask
NEW YORK — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased its guidelines Tuesday on the wearing of masks outdoors, saying fully vaccinated Americans don’t need to cover their faces anymore unless they are in a big crowd of strangers. And those who are unvaccinated can go outside without masks...
Iran nuclear talks resume in Vienna amid new complications
BERLIN — World powers resumed high-level talks in Vienna on Tuesday focused on bringing the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, in their first session since comments surfaced from the Iranian foreign minister alleging that Russia once tried to scupper the pact. The Russian Foreign Ministry has...
3D printing’s new challenge: Solving the U.S. housing shortageVideo
A new generation of startups wants to disrupt the way houses are built by automating production with industrial 3D printers. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, uses machines to deposit thin layers of plastic, metal, concrete and other materials atop one another, eventually producing three-dimensional objects from the bottom...
No big backlash for states passing anti-transgender laws
Five states have passed laws or implemented executive orders this year limiting the ability of transgender youths to play sports or receive certain medical treatment. There’s been a vehement outcry from supporters of transgender rights — but little in the way of tangible repercussions for those states. It’s a striking...
Greece coast guard divers seize cocaine from cargo ship
ATHENS, Greece — Greek authorities say coast guard divers have seized more than 103 pounds of cocaine found hidden behind a water intake grate in the hull of a cargo ship that arrived in Greece from Brazil. The coast guard said Tuesday it had seized the drugs the previous day...
In fight against covid, Biden looks for path back to normal
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden spent his first 100 days in office encouraging Americans to mask up and stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. His task for the next 100 days will be to lay out the path back to normal. When he entered office, Biden moved...
What’s behind the growth slump? Takeaways from census data
The first batch of once-every-decade data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a United States that is growing less quickly but still seeing its population shift to the South and the West. The data released Monday was relatively basic — containing national and state-level population figures and details of how...
German police say grenade-shaped item in forest was sex toy
BERLIN — A German police bomb squad called to investigate a suspected hand grenade in a Bavarian forest determined that the object actually was a rubber sex toy, authorities said Tuesday. A jogger reported finding a bag containing the device Monday in a forest outside the city of Passau, near...
Biden signs $15 minimum wage for federal contract workers
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Tuesday to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour for federal contractors, providing a pay bump to hundreds of thousands of workers. Biden administration officials said that the higher wages would lead to greater worker productivity, offsetting any additional costs...
Firm recounting Arizona ballots wants methods kept secret
PHOENIX — A contractor hired by Arizona’s state Senate to oversee the recount of 2.1 million ballots in the county that includes the metro Phoenix area wants a judge to keep secret its methods for ensuring ballot privacy. The request came in advance of a hearing Tuesday where a judge...
Vaccinated Americans may get clearance to skip the masks outdoorsVideo
WASHINGTON — A growing call for health officials to relax rules about outdoor mask wearing could soon lead to one of the most significant changes in virus guidelines since the U.S. first told Americans to don face coverings to curb the spread of covid-19. Outdoor mask wearing has been the...
SOS messages, panic as coronavirus breaks India’s health systemVideo
NEW DELHI — Dr. Gautam Singh dreads the daily advent of the ventilator beeps, signaling that oxygen levels are critically low, and hearing his desperately ill patients start gasping for air in the New Delhi emergency ward where he works. Like other doctors across India, which on Monday set another...
U.S. marks slowest population growth since the DepressionVideo
WASHINGTON — U.S. population growth has slowed to the lowest rate since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Monday, as Americans continued their march to the South and West and one-time engines of growth, New York and California, lost political influence. Altogether, the U.S. population rose to 331,449,281 last...
Homeland Security launches review of extremism within agency
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced an internal review to assess the threat of violent extremism from within the agency, part of a broader administration focus on domestic threats following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Senior DHS officials will immediately begin the review,...
West Virginia to give $100 savings bond for young vaccinatedVideo
CHARLESTON — West Virginia aims to entice residents aged 16 to 35 to get a coronavirus shot with the promise of a $100 savings bond. Republican Gov. Jim Justice said Monday the move was to “jump-start” immunizing the demographic that officials say are most likely to be currently spreading the...
Colorado cop accused of hurting woman’s arm: ‘Ready for the pop?’Video
DENVER — A Colorado police officer accused of dislocating the shoulder of a 73-year-old woman with dementia while arresting her apparently knew he had injured her. He told fellow officers “ready for the pop?” as he showed them his body camera footage, according to police station surveillance video with enhanced...
Rick Santorum slammed for dismissing Native American culture: ‘There was nothing here’ when colonists arrivedVideo
Rick Santorum’s recent bit of revisionist history was not received well on the internet. Santorum, a former Penn Hills resident who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for 12 years, told a student conference on Friday that “there was nothing here” when European colonizers “birthed a nation from nothing” upon...
Ex-cop who killed Tamir Rice appeals to Ohio Supreme Court
CLEVELAND — The white Cleveland police officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black child playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in November 2014, has filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court to get his job back. Attorneys for Timothy Loehmann filed the appeal last...
Pennsylvania will lose a U.S. House seat after redistricting
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. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania will lose one of its seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Census Bureau has confirmed, setting...
Pathologist: Black man killed by North Carolina deputies was shot 5 timesVideo
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man killed by deputies in North Carolina, was shot five times, including in the back of the head, according to an independent autopsy released Tuesday, hours before the FBI announced a federal civil rights investigation into last week’s shooting. The developments...
