Russian hack of U.S. agencies exposed supply chain weaknesses
The elite Russian hackers who gained access to computer systems of federal agencies last year didn’t need to painstakingly break one-by-one into the networks of each department in order to cause havoc. Instead, they got inside by sneaking malicious code into a software update pushed out to thousands of government...
Supreme Court ends Trump emoluments lawsuits
The Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to lawsuits over whether Donald Trump illegally profited off his presidency, saying the cases are moot now that Trump is no longer in office. The high court’s action was the first in an expected steady stream of orders and rulings on pending...
Dominion Voting Systems sues Giuliani for $1.3B over election claimsVideo
Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who led the former president’s efforts to question the results of the 2020 election, including in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit seeks more than $1.3 billion in damages for the voting machine company, a target for conservatives...
Biden plans to sign order for government to buy more U.S. goods
BALTIMORE — President Joe Biden plans to sign on Monday an executive order that aims to boost government purchases from U.S. manufacturers, according to administration officials. The United States has shed roughly 540,000 factory jobs since last February as the coronavirus pandemic hurled the world’s largest economy into recession. The...
Biden to drop Trump’s military transgender ban
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is set to issue an executive order to reverse a Pentagon policy that largely bars transgender individuals from joining the military, dumping a ban ordered by President Donald Trump in a tweet during his first year in office, a person briefed on the decision tells...
Biden to reinstate covid travel rules, add South Africa
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday will formally reinstate covid-19 travel restrictions on non-U.S. travelers from Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and 26 other European countries that allow travel across open borders, according to two White House officials. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss...
Ex-Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders running for Arkansas governor
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Sarah Sanders, Donald Trump’s former chief spokeswoman and one of his closest aides, announced Monday she’s running for Arkansas governor, vying for political office even as the former president’s legacy is clouded by an impeachment charge that he incited the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol....
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says he’s tested positive for covid-19
MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday he has tested positive for covid-19 and that the symptoms are mild. Mexico’s president, who has been criticized for his handling of his country’s pandemic, said on his official Twitter account that he is under medical treatment. “I regret...
Couple finds body behind house under construction in Texas
KATY, Texas — A couple found a dead man while looking at a house under construction Saturday in a Houston suburb. The man’s body was discovered in a drainage ditch in the late afternoon behind the home in Katy, Harris County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Brown told reporters. The body...
U.S. judge blocks release of Tennessee man in Capitol riot
NASHVILLE — A federal judge on Sunday blocked the release of a Tennessee man who authorities say carried flexible plastic handcuffs during the riot at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell for the District of Columbia set aside an order by a judge in...
5, including pregnant woman, fatally shot in IndianapolisVideo
INDIANAPOLIS — Five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot to death early Sunday inside an Indianapolis home in an apparent targeted attack, the city’s police chief said, decrying the “mass murder” killings as a “different kind of evil.” The fatal shootings were discovered by police who had been called...
Growing number of GOP senators oppose impeachment trialVideo
WASHINGTON — A growing number of Republican senators say they oppose holding an impeachment trial, a sign of the dimming chances that former President Donald Trump will be convicted on the charge that he incited a siege of the U.S. Capitol. House Democrats, who will walk the impeachment charge of...
Trump’s coronavirus adviser Dr. Deborah Birx says some saw pandemic as ‘hoax’Video
WASHINGTON — Dr. Deborah Birx says when she was coordinator of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, she had to grapple with covid-19 deniers in the White House and that someone gave the president “parallel” streams of data that conflicted with hers. Defending her tenure, Birx told CBS’ “Face the...
2 injured after police car drives through crowd at race in Washington stateVideo
TACOMA, Wash. — At least two people were injured when a police officer responding to a report of a street race plowed his car through a crowd of pedestrians that had gathered around him and were pounding on the car’s windows Saturday night in downtown Tacoma, officials said. The incident...
Pa. Democrats call for Rep. Scott Perry to resign after reports he urged Trump to use a lawyer against Biden win
They couldn’t beat him at the polls in November, but leaders of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party on Sunday called for Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter who represents Harrisburg, Hershey and York, to resign following news reports he urged Trump to use a lawyer from Philadelphia to...
Thousands of drug, alcohol recovery homes in Pa. still operate without state oversight
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 — In December 2017, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation to increase oversight for drug and alcohol recovery houses — a...
Ex-CIA engineer tells judge he’s incarcerated like an animal
NEW YORK — A former CIA software engineer charged with leaking government secrets to WikiLeaks says it’s cruel and unusual punishment that he’s awaiting trial in solitary confinement, housed in a vermin-infested cell of a jail unit where inmates are treated like “caged animals.” Joshua Schulte, 32, has asked a...
‘The plane is in a nosedive,’ HHS secretary nominee Xavier Becerra says of covid outbreak
The covid-19 pandemic is out of control, President Biden’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services said Sunday, echoing the commander-in-chief’s recent prediction about the months ahead. “The plane is in a nosedive, and we’ve got to pull it up and you’re not going to do that overnight,” Xavier...
John Fetterman talks marijuana, voters, style in CBS interviewVideo
In a national interview that aired Sunday morning, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman spoke about his push to legalize marijuana, getting working-class people back to the Democratic Party, his political past and future, and being named a style god. Fetterman spoke to Mark Whitaker for “CBS Sunday Morning” from his Braddock...
Police departments weigh officer discipline after rally, Capitol riot
For two Virginia police officers who posed for a photo during the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection, the reckoning has been swift and public: They were identified, charged with crimes and arrested. But for five Seattle officers the outcome is less clear. Their identities still secret, two are on leave and...
At 78 and the oldest president, Biden sees a world changed
WASHINGTON — When Joe Biden took the oath of office as the 46th president, he became not only the oldest newly inaugurated U.S. chief executive in history but also the oldest sitting president ever. Biden was born Nov. 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was 78 years, two months and...
Getting vaccinated: What you need to know
How many people
have been vaccinated? In Pennsylvania, nearly 520,000 people — mostly health care workers — had received at least one vaccine dose as of Saturday. Of those people, 106,000 are fully vaccinated, state data show. However, those figures don’t include long-term care residents and staff being vaccinated via...
History pitches challenges as experts, activists express hopes for Joe Biden’s time in White House
A new day, and a new moment for America. Time to let the healing begin. Republicans, Democrats and people across the nation echoed those themes when expressing their hopes for Joe Biden’s new administration and a future less fraught with anger and division in the United States. “There are times...
Britain’s Boris Johnson presses Biden for new trade deal
WASHINGTON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made clear to President Joe Biden on Saturday that he’s eager to forge a new U.S.-U.K. trade deal. The push for a new deal came in a broad-ranging call between the two leaders that touched on the global response to the coronavirus pandemic...
FBI: Texan charged in Capitol riot tweeted ‘Assassinate AOC’
DALLAS — A 34-year-old Texas man has been arrested for allegedly taking part in the storming of the U.S. Capitol this month and posting violent threats, including a call to assassinate Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Garret Miller, who is from the Dallas suburb of Richardson, was arrested...
