Biden signs infrastructure bill into law at rare bipartisan gatheringVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed his hard-fought $1 trillion infrastructure deal into law Monday before a bipartisan, celebratory crowd on the White House lawn, declaring that the new infusion of cash for roads, bridges, ports and more is going to make life “change for the better” for the American...
Philadelphia labor leader, city council member convicted in corruption trial
PHILADELPHIA — A powerful Philadelphia labor leader and a city council member were found guilty of conspiracy charges Monday in a corruption trial. Prosecutors said John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty kept Bobby Henon, a union electrician-turned-Philadelphia City Council member, on the payroll to help his union keep a tight grip on...
Infowars’ Alex Jones ordered to pay damages to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims
Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was found liable Monday for damages in lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting over Jones’ claims that the massacre was a hoax. Judge Barbara Bellis took the rare step of defaulting Jones in the defamation...
Flu rips through University of Michigan campus, bringing CDC to Ann Arbor
DETROIT — Influenza is sweeping the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, with 528 cases diagnosed at the University Health Service since Oct. 6. The outbreak is so sudden and large — 313 cases were identified the week of Nov. 8 alone and 37% of flu tests that week were...
6 teens injured in drive-by shooting near Denver area school
AURORA, Colo. — Six teenagers were shot in a drive-by shooting Monday in a park near a high school in suburban Denver, but all were expected to survive, police said. The victims, who range in age from 14 to 18, are all students at Aurora Central High School, Aurora police...
Thousands of military families struggle with food insecurity
It’s a hidden crisis that has existed for years inside one of the most well-funded institutions on the planet and has only worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. As many as 160,000 active-duty military members are having trouble feeding their families. That estimate by Feeding America, which coordinates the work of...
Space junk sends station astronauts into docked capsules
Space junk threatened the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Monday and forced them to seek shelter in their docked capsules. The U.S. Space Command said it was tracking a field of orbiting debris, the apparent result of some type of satellite break-up. The astronauts retreated into their...
U.K. raises terror threat level after Liverpool taxi blast
LONDON — British authorities raised the country’s threat level to its second-highest rung on Monday, after police said a blast in a taxi outside a Liverpool hospital that killed one man and injured another was caused by a homemade bomb. Investigators said they were treating the explosion in Liverpool as...
Prosecutor: Kyle Rittenhouse provoked the bloodshed in KenoshaVideo
KENOSHA, Wis. — Kyle Rittenhouse provoked bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked off like a “hero in a Western,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial. But Rittenhouse’s...
Foreign students returning to U.S., but below pre-covid levels
International students are returning to U.S. colleges in stronger numbers this year, but the rebound has yet to make up for last year’s historic declines as covid-19 continues to disrupt academic exchange, according to a new survey. Nationwide, American colleges and universities saw a 4% annual increase in international students...
Austria locks down the unvaccinated amid covid surge
BERLIN — Austria took what its leader called the “dramatic” step Monday of implementing a nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people who haven’t recently had covid-19, perhaps the most drastic of a string of measures being taken by European governments to get a massive regional resurgence of the virus under control....
America is about to find where its once-a-decade heart is
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday is announcing where the new population center of the U.S. is located, an event that take places every 10 years after the once-a-decade census shows where people are living. The center of the U.S. population distribution has been located in Missouri since 1980, and...
Trump ally Steve Bannon appears in court on contempt chargesVideo
WASHINGTON — Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon appeared before a judge on Monday to face criminal contempt charges for defying a subpoena from Congress’ Jan. 6 committee, then declared combatively outside court that he was “taking on the Biden regime” in fighting the charges. Bannon did not enter a plea...
Biden’s $1T infrastructure bill historic, not transformative
WASHINGTON — The $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signs into law represents a historic achievement at a time of deeply fractured politics. But the compromises needed to bridge the political divide suggest that the spending might not be as transformative as Biden has promised for the U.S....
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy won’t seek reelection
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving member of the Senate, said Monday he will not seek reelection in 2022 to the seat he has held for eight terms. Leahy, 81, said he and his wife, Marcelle, have concluded that “it is time to pass the...
Democrat Beto O’Rourke running for Texas governor in 2022
AUSTIN, Texas — Democrat Beto O’Rourke is running for governor of Texas, pursuing a blue breakthrough in America’s biggest red state after his star-making U.S. Senate campaign in 2018 put him closer than anyone else in decades. O’Rourke’s announcement Monday kicks off a third run for office in as many...
Poland arrests 3 in connection to antisemitic demonstration
WARSAW, Poland — Three people have been arrested in Poland in connection with an antisemitic demonstration last week where far-right participants shouted “Death to the Jews!,” the country’s interior minister said Monday. The demonstration took place last Thursday, on Poland’s Independence Day, in the central Polish city of Kalisz. Participants...
Baby elephant loses half its trunk to Indonesia poacher trap
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A baby elephant in Indonesia’s Sumatra island has had half of her trunk amputated after being caught in what authorities said Monday was a trap set by poachers who prey on the endangered species. The 1-year-old female is among the last of the island’s 700 wild...
EU to add airlines to Belarus sanctions as tensions mount
BRUSSELS — The European Union on Monday ratcheted up pressure on Belarus by agreeing to slap sanctions on airlines accused of helping President Alexander Lukashenko to wage a “hybrid attack” against the bloc using migrants, as tensions mounted on the Polish border. Up to 4,000 migrants are stuck in makeshift...
Father, daughter survive plane crash in Pennsylvania woods
BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP — Personal electronic devices helped lead rescuers to a father and daughter who survived a plane crash in Pennsylvania, authorities said. According to state police, the aircraft had taken off from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport on Sunday night when it went down in a wooded area of...
U.S. journalist jailed in Myanmar for nearly 6 months is freed
BANGKOK — American journalist Danny Fenster, who was recently sentenced to 11 years of hard labor after spending nearly six months in jail in military-ruled Myanmar, was freed and on his way home Monday, a former U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate the release said. Fenster, the managing editor of the...
9-year-old Dallas boy dies after Astroworld festival crush
HOUSTON — A 9-year-old Dallas boy has become the youngest person to die from injuries sustained during a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston. Ezra Blount of Dallas died Sunday at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, family attorney Ben Crump said. Ezra was placed in a medically...
Mar-a-Lago-trespasser deported to China 2 years later
PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and lying to Secret Service agents was deported over the weekend, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence. Yujing Zhang was turned over to immigration officials in December 2019 after...
Woman arrested for punching Southwest Airlines worker
DALLAS — A woman has been arrested after punching a Southwest Airlines employee in the head during boarding for a flight out of a Dallas airport, police said. Arielle Jean Jackson, 32, was arrested Saturday afternoon at Love Field, Dallas police said. Police said Jackson has been charged with aggravated...
Austria orders lockdown for unvaccinated in drastic covid step
Austria is putting unvaccinated people under lockdown starting Monday, the most drastic move by a Western European country to slow the latest wave of the coronavirus. European cases reached almost 2 million last week, the most in a single week in the region since the pandemic started. The Netherlands and...
