Congress off the rails? Lawmakers barrel toward fall fights
Year-end pileups of crucial legislation and the brinkmanship that goes with them are normal behavior for Congress. This autumn, lawmakers are barreling toward battles that are striking for the risks they pose to both parties and their leaders. Though few doubt that Congress will again extend the government’s borrowing authority...
Bosnian makes rotating house a monument of love for his wife
SRBAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina — It’s not exactly on par with India’s Taj Mahal, but a family house in a small town in northern Bosnia is in its own way a monument to love. The house in Srbac was designed and built by 72-year-old Vojin Kusic. With a green facade and red...
U.K. police won’t act against Prince Andrew over abuse claim
LONDON — British police have announced they will not take any action against Prince Andrew after a review prompted by a Jeffrey Epstein accuser who claims that he sexually assaulted her. Virginia Giuffre claims she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew in London in 2001, when she...
Poll: Cyberattacks seriously concerning to most in U.S.
RICHMOND, Va. — Most Americans across party lines have serious concerns about cyberattacks on U.S. computer systems and view China and Russia as major threats, according to a new poll. The poll by The Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about 9 in...
Huge fire extinguished at oil facility in southern Lebanon
ZAHRANI, Lebanon — Firefighters extinguished a huge blaze that broke out in a storage tank at one of Lebanon’s main oil facilities in the country’s south Monday after it sent orange flames and a thick black column of smoke into the sky. Energy Minister Walid Fayad said the fire broke...
Tornadoes cause damage in Oklahoma; storms rock central U.S.
COWETA, Okla. — Several reported tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma late Sunday into early Monday morning, causing damage but no immediate word of deaths or injuries. The severe weather system also brought heavy rain, lightning and wind to parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, and more stormy weather is predicted...
Pittsburgh-raised researcher wins Nobel Prize in economics with 2 others
STOCKHOLM — Three U.S-based economists — including one raised in Pittsburgh — won the 2021 Nobel prize for economics on Monday for pioneering research on the labor market impacts of minimum wage, immigration and education, and for creating the scientific framework to allow conclusions to be drawn from such studies...
Merck asks FDA to authorize promising anti-covid pill
WASHINGTON — Drugmaker Merck asked U.S. regulators Monday to authorize its pill against covid-19 in what would add an entirely new and easy-to-use weapon to the world’s arsenal against the pandemic. If cleared by the Food and Drug Administration — a decision that could come in a matter of weeks...
Actor dies in accident at Bolshoi Theater
MOSCOW — Russian news reports say an actor has died in an accident during a scene change at Moscow’s Bolshoi theater. The reports cited witnesses as saying that the actor appeared to have exited the stage on the wrong side during a Saturday evening performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “Sadko”...
1 killed, 14 wounded in shooting inside St. Paul bar; 3 men arrested
MINNEAPOLIS — DJ Peter Parker knows how to read the room from a bird’s-eye view on stage to anticipate any trouble from crowds, after two decades of shows spanning Baltimore, D.C., Boston and beyond. But the former GO 95.3 radio host could have never anticipated a show in St. Paul...
Allen West, Texas GOP candidate for governor, contracts covid-19
AUSTIN — Republican gubernatorial hopeful Allen West has contracted covid-19 and suspended in-person campaign events as he recuperates. West spokesman Luke Twombly confirmed late Saturday that West, 60, tested positive for the virus. West, who hours earlier tweeted that he had not been vaccinated against coronavirus, disclosed that his wife,...
Navy nuclear engineer charged with trying to pass secrets
WASHINGTON — An engineer who worked at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin faces federal espionage-related charges for allegedly trying to sell U.S. military secrets to an undercover agent posing as a foreign government representative, the Justice Department said Sunday. In a criminal complaint detailing espionage-related charges against Jonathan...
No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise refuses to say election wasn’t stolenVideo
WASHINGTON — The House’s second-ranking Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, repeatedly refused to say on Sunday that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, standing by Donald Trump’s lie that Democrat Joe Biden won the White House because of mass voter fraud. More than 11 months after Americans picked their president and almost...
Western Pa. hospitals: We won’t deny organ transplants to patients who refuse covid-19 vaccine
Medical providers in Colorado and Washington state have begun denying organ transplants to patients who refuse to get vaccinated for covid-19. That’s not happening in Western Pennsylvania, the Tribune-Review has learned. Neither of the region’s two largest hospital systems and transplant providers are linking transplant eligibility to covid-19 vaccination status....
Tensions persist between legacy of Columbus, native people
Monday’s federal holiday dedicated to Christopher Columbus is highlighting the ongoing divide between those who view the explorer as a representative of Italian American history and others horrified by an annual tribute that ignores native people whose lives and culture were forever changed by colonialism. Spurred by national calls for...
Advocates, lawmakers push hospitals to help more with bills
Swamped with medical bills? The hospital that treated you may be able to help. Whether you learn about this before those bills wind up in debt collections is another matter. Medical bills often represent large, unexpected shocks that can crash personal budgets. Roughly 1 in 7 U.S. residents with a...
How U.S. states help rich foreigners shield assets
DOVER, Del. — A mention of “tax havens” typically conjures images of sun-soaked Caribbean escapes like the Cayman Islands or the buttoned-down banks of Switzerland. Not South Dakota. But a report detailing how world leaders and some of the planet’s wealthiest people hide their riches has drawn new scrutiny to...
Georgia police officer gunned down during 1st shift
ALAMO, Ga. — A Georgia police officer was gunned down outside a police station during his first shift with the department early Saturday, authorities said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Officer Dylan Harrison, 26, was fatally shot outside the Alamo Police Department by Damien Anthony Ferguson. Ferguson, 43, remained...
UK eyes ‘walk me home’ phone-tracker to protect lone women
A top British government official is backing a phone company’s proposal for a new tracking service to help protect women walking alone, an idea pitched amid ongoing outrage over the slayings of two young women who were targeted near their homes in London. The chief executive of Britain’s biggest phone...
Taliban say they won’t work with U.S. to contain Islamic State
The Taliban on Saturday ruled out cooperation with the United States to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan, staking out an uncompromising position on a key issue ahead of the first direct talks between the former foes since America withdrew from the country in August. Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives...
McConnell seizes on debt standoff to undermine Biden agenda
In the frantic bid to avert a default on the nation’s debt, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell held a position of unusual power — as the one who orchestrated both the problem and the solution. McConnell is no longer the majority leader, but he is exerting his minority status in...
Chopin portrait bought at flea market is from 19th century
A peeling portrait of Frederic Chopin purchased at a flea market in Poland hung modestly in a private house for almost three decades before an expert dated the painting to the 19th century, when the Polish piano composer lived. Now restored and in a gilded frame, the small painting resides...
Biden won’t invoke executive privilege on Trump Jan. 6 docs
The White House said Friday that President Joe Biden will not block the handover of documents sought by a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, setting up a showdown with former President Donald Trump, who wants to shield those White House records from investigators. The...
Alabama teen chef known for TV cooking shows dies at 17
Fuller Goldsmith knew his life’s arc well before he even began school. During hours waiting out chemotherapy treatments at Children’s of Alabama hospital, the Tuscaloosa native grew bored watching Disney Channel and cartoons, and turned instead to Food Network shows, thus setting his path. The young chef won the “Chopped...
Officials: Breakthrough covid cases increase, but vaccinations remain effective against severe illness, death
State health officials on Friday released new data that sheds some light on the frequency of covid-19 breakthrough cases as well as the related rates of hospitalization and death, though a lack of demographic data means some key questions about such cases remain unanswered. Over the past month, 135,098 people...
